"Hopeless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... befallen you, where you have been, and how you fared, and by what miraculous chance you escaped the tempest. All our eyes were fixed on the boat when you laboured to reach the shore, and had you heard the groans we uttered when we saw you give up the effort as hopeless and fly away to sea before the wind you would have known how truly all your comrades love you. We gave you up as assuredly lost, for the islanders here agreed that you had no chance of weathering the gale, and that the boat would, ere ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... Farmer Jocelyn's sudden death was as though a cloud- burst had broken over the village, dealing utter and hopeless destruction. To the little community of simple workaday folk living round Briar Farm it was a greater catastrophe than the death of any king. Nothing else was talked of. Nothing was done. Men stood idly about, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... support his position that "no man is sensible to beauty in those objects with regard to which he has not previous ideas," by the remark that "the beauty of a theory, or of a relic of antiquity, is unintelligible to a peasant," we see at once that it is hopeless to argue with a man who, under his general term beauty, may, for anything we know, be sometimes speaking of mathematical demonstrability and sometimes of historical interest; while even if we could succeed in limiting the term to the sense ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... amount to?" he asked. "An overgrown schoolgirl, who did not half learn her lessons. Read that MSS. she left here, and get disillusionized in short order. Why, she doesn't even know how to spell, and her periods and commas are in a hopeless tangle." ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... about the coast of Cornwall during the pilchard season, roll their bodies round so as to twine the line about them in its whole length, and often in such a way that Mr Yarrell has known a fisherman give up as hopeless ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... derive henceforward from the paternal roof-tree. His mother was apparently indifferent to his weal or woe, to his wants or to his warfare. His father's brow got blacker and blacker from day to day, as the old man looked at his hopeless son. And as for Madeline—poor Madeline, whom of all of them he liked the best,—she had enough to do to shift for herself. No; come what might, he must cling to his sister and obey her behests, let them be ever so stern; or at the very least be seen to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... a sigh of hopeless perplexity. "What do you propose to do, then? You can't remain here without means. Do you expect to sell your poetry?" he asked, goaded to the question by a conscience peculiarly ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... houses were in flames. A sortie had been attempted and had failed. British reenforcements had not come. Supplies were giving out. The outlook seemed hopeless. The men fought without spirit. An attempt was made to escape by sea. It also failed. A violent storm drove the boats back to shore. The idea of ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... ego in the universe—in fact, composed the universe? He wished to be informed whether he could possibly be nothing but an impression or somebody else's ego; and said finally, in a despondent tone, that it was hopeless to regard this mundane scheme as anything but a subjective phenomenon, mere Schein or maya, and that he gave ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... I will tell to thee, that of life now hopeless is thy bright consort. Thy vessel will not be always afloat, though I shall ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... certain point of view it amounted nearly to the same thing. He remembered Schomberg's story. He felt that running away with somebody only to get clear of that beastly, tame, hotel-keeper's attention was no proof of hopeless infatuation. She could be got in ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... abandoned all hope of life. This Suyodhana had broken and fled. All his troops had been killed. He had entered the depths of a lake. He had been defeated and, therefore, he had desired to retire into the woods, having become hopeless of retaining his kingdom. What man is there, possessed of any wisdom, that would challenge such a person to a single combat? I do not know whether Duryodhana may not succeed in snatching the kingdom that had already become ours! For full thirteen years he practised with the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... back on her heels, looking at the hopeless piece of linen. She was flushed, and tired, and angry; but she only sat there looking at ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... drown my giant in the Mediterranean; to bury it forever beneath the green waters of Lago Maggiore; to hurl it from solemn, icy, Alpine heights; to dodge it in museums of art; but, as Emerson says, it clung to me with unerring allegiance, and I came home. And now, daily and yearly, I repeat the hopeless experiment, in my round of professional duties. Yes, May and Pauline are going away, but I shall have Beulah to look after, and I fancy time will not drag its wheels through coming years. How soon do ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... Ottawa to meet you. The knowledge was born in me as I saw you stepping from the car. The one woman—my heart whispered it in that moment, and has shouted it ever since. Helen, I did not mean to speak yet, but—well, you see how it is with me! Tell me it is not altogether hopeless! You know what my position is; you ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... hopeless, he turned about then hurried away, his big red face distorted by many contending emotions. Nor did he stop until he reached one of the fatal "gin-mills," where he soon drowned memory and trouble in huge potations of the fiery element that was destroying ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... was at his headquarters in the Archiepiscopal palace of Tacubaya, on the suburbs, or in the full sight of the city of the Montezumas, awaiting the issue of the conference between the commissioners of the hostile governments, met to arrange the terms of a treaty of peace—that every day grew more hopeless. ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Saxons, they have been beaten these two hours; that is to say, hopeless these two hours, and getting beaten worse and worse. The Saxons cannot stand, but neither generally will they run; they dispute every ditch, morass and tuft of wood, especially every village. Wrecks of the muddy desperate business last, hour after hour. "I gave my men a little rest ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... you are my wife." He had recovered his normal shy humor. "I can prove it. You are the irreproachable mother of our unsurpassed children. You have a hopeless vision—like this Simon's—of seeing me polished and decently pressed; and I insist on your continuing with the ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... hopeless, at all," he assured her. "It really is not. If he'll rest, live an outdoor life for the next year or two, he has a good chance to become a well man again. It's probable that he will,—practically so. But if he attempts to take up his practise ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... actual dissatisfaction, but more perhaps than he suspects, out of a fear of being thought weak and sensitive—which is a blind that the best men very commonly practise. Mr. Campbell professes to be hopeless and sarcastic, and takes pains all the while to set up ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829. • Various
... deaths of the martyrs, in the splendid story of the Church of Christ. Think what it means to-day in the lives of millions of the faithful; in all the deeds of charity which are brightening homes, cheering hearts, giving hope to the hopeless, healing to the sick, and soundness to the maimed: think of all it means in rest and refreshment to the souls in Paradise; think of all it still will mean in the growth of the Church of Christ up to ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... as he was able. The carriage and buggy had been drawn out, the curtains and cushions cut and smeared thoroughly with molasses and lard. Breakfast-time arrived, but no Ruthy came up from the quarter; no smoke curled upward from the kitchen-chimney; a more hopeless, dismal party could not well be imagined than the three women who walked from room to room among the debris, neither noticing or caring for the losses, only intensely anxious regarding the helpless prisoner, who was surely suffering, but whom they could not hope ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... nothing. Endeavour is paralyzed in him. "Work for posterity," says he of the skyless philosophy; answers the man, "How can I work without hope? Little heart have I to labour, where labour is so little help. What can I do for my children that would render their life less hopeless than my own! Give me all you would secure for them, and my life would be to me but the worse mockery. The true end of labour would be, to lessen the number doomed to breathe the breath ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... of the sultan did not refrain from comforting the unfortunate princess, at the same time representing the hopeless condition of her father, till at length she consented to the marriage. This joyful intelligence speedily revived the love-lorn sultan, and the nuptials were celebrated with the utmost joy ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... had faith in God's protection, and confidence in the holiness of their cause; and it seemed to them that while the struggle was well-nigh hopeless, the blessed martyrs—George, Demetrius, and Theodore, came to aid them, ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... the dashing rain on the windows and with the low continual growl of Solway surf in our ears, we bent ourselves to fill a gap in a hopeless day by the ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... female is easily captured by approaching very stealthily and covering the entrance to the nest. The bird seldom makes any effort to escape, seeing how hopeless the case is, and keeps her place on the nest till she feels your hand closing around her. I have looked down into the cavity and seen the poor thing palpitating with fear and looking up with distended eyes, but never moving till I had withdrawn a few paces; then she rushes out ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... came the unruffled response. "Why should I lie? There is no need for it. You sent Caillette; he is on his way now, for all of me. For"—leading to the thread of what he sought—"why should I have stopped him? He embarked on a hopeless chase. How can he reach Austria and the emperor in ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... in us to attempt following him, even from afar, in this extraordinary world-pilgrimage of his; the simplest record of which, were clear record possible, would fill volumes. Hopeless is the obscurity, unspeakable the confusion. He glides from country to country, from condition to condition; vanishing and reappearing, no man can calculate how or where. Through all quarters of the world he wanders, and apparently ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Behring reached his goal, Ostrog, a village near the sea, inhabited by a handful of Cossacks. From this point, on the bleak shores of the Arctic sea, the exploring party were ordered to start. It had taken over three years to reach this starting-point, and even now a seemingly hopeless task ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... measures of wider application must be adopted if the Negro is to bear his proper part in the progress of the country; that owing to the great race differences the whites must take an active interest in the blacks; that in spite of the many handicaps under which the Negro struggles the outlook is not hopeless if his willingness to work can so be directed that a surplus will result. To my mind the Negro must work out his salvation, economic and social. It cannot be given without destroying the very thing we seek to strengthen—character. ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... betray'd, His manhood's vigorous noon consumed Ere Power bestow'd its niggard aid; That morn of summer, dawning grey,{B} When, from Huelva's humble bay, He full of hope, before the gale Turn'd on the hopeless World his sail, And steer'd for seas untrack'd, unknown, And westward still sail'd on—sail'd on— Sail'd on till Ocean seem'd to be All shoreless as Eternity, Till, from its long-loved Star estranged, At last the constant Needle changed,{C} And fierce amid his murmuring crew Prone terror into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... the river and two tiny figures staggering hour after hour over the hopeless, impossible chasms and buttes; Harden going to ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the obstructing policemen on one side with a sort of little kick of his spur, came up all amazement and salutes to inquire of his most gracious cousin what in the world she was doing in a taxi. He said it was hopeless to try to get to the Schlossplatz in it, but if we would allow him to escort us on foot he would be proud—the gracious cousin would permit him to offer her his arm, and the young ladies would ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... Of the hopeless banality of the critics during this period there are plenty of examples to be found without looking very far. Several of the most amusing have been embodied in a little volume of "Whistler Stories," lately ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... endeavored to prepare their minds for the revolution which he contemplated by representing to them that neither of the princes who had been proclaimed were fit to reign. John, he said, was almost an imbecile, on account of the numerous and hopeless bodily infirmities to which he was subject. Peter was yet a mere boy; and then, besides, even when he should become a man, he would very likely be subject to the same diseases with his brother. These men would never have either the intelligence to appreciate or the power to reward such services ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... her high spirit, and calmly replied, "You misunderstood my mother's words. As the mother of the late heir, she justly considers herself entitled to a pittance from your estate, and she claimed from your humanity, what she was hopeless of obtaining from your sense of justice. For myself, I hoped for nothing from either, but I acquiesced in her application. I am sorry that you have founded on it ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... Peshtigo entirely off the map," he said. "The people were hemmed in, ringed by fire on every side, and out of a population of two thousand, scarcely five hundred escaped. Flight was hopeless and ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... it was empty. That at least gave him a pretext to slip away from the room for the purpose of refilling it; he would spare himself the drawn-out torture of watching that hopeless game played out to the bitter end. He backed away from the circle of absorbed watchers and made his way up a short stairway to a long, silent corridor of bedrooms, each with a guests' name written in a little square on the door. In the hush that reigned ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... through which the youth passes. George Eliot has pointed out a striking peculiarity of childish grief in the statement that the child has no background of other griefs against which the magnitude of its present sorrow may be measured. While that sorrow lasts it is complete, absolute, and hopeless, because the child has no memory of other trials endured, of other sorrows survived. In this fact about the earliest griefs lies the source also of the pains of youth. The young man is an undeveloped power; he is largely ignorant of his own capacity, often without inward guidance towards ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... moved nearer the boy, and would perhaps have laid his hand caressingly upon him, but even in his manifest affection there was a singular element of awed restraint and even fear,—a suggestion of something withheld even his fullest confidences, a hopeless perception of some vague barrier that never could be surmounted. He may have been at times dimly conscious that, in the eyes which Tommy raised to his, there was thorough intellectual appreciation, critical good-humor, even feminine softness, but nothing more. His nervousness somewhat heightened ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... be a little sorry if she could know that another woman was paying so heavily for the wrong which she had done. And then a dreary smile crossed her face. It wouldn't make any difference if that other woman did know. There was nothing she could do to repair the harm she had worked. It was all hopeless—wheel within wheel, link added ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... been forced to serve out of Egypt by extreme poverty, others were drawn to the Soudan by the hopes of gratifying peculiar tastes. The majority had harems of the women of the country, which were limited only by the amount of money they could lay their hands on by any method. Many were hopeless and habitual drunkards. Nearly all were dishonest. All were ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... the place where the town of Becordel had once been I found there were about five hundred thousand troops camped about the area, and in the dark to find the whereabout of my own unit of five thousand was about as hopeless a task as I have ever attempted. I inquired of more than a score, but no one had seen anything of the Australians. I wandered about for hours and was hungry and thirsty and half dead when I stumbled on a Y. M. C. A. hut. They could not ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... instead of being sent to him to sacrifice if he saw fit. To this the cacique answered that the words were wise, but that she should have spoken them before, for now the priests had got hold of me, and it was hopeless to save ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... the whole governing body is diseased. The honest men who may find themselves involved in any inferior part of the administration will either fall into discouraged acquiescence, or break their hearts and ruin their fortunes in hopeless revolt. Nothing but long years of untiring effort and inflexible will on the part of the ruler, with power to change his agents at his discretion, can restore order ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... strike patois before. There had been a French steward on the steamer coming over, and the man from Kansas, after a couple of attempts, had said it was no use talking French to that man. He spoke a hopeless patois. There were half a dozen cabin passengers, too, returning to their homes in France. But we soon found from listening to their conversation on deck that what they were speaking was not French but ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... people of Albano came to the funeral and there was not a dry eye as the cortege passed from our chapel to the grave. Everybody knew the story of my sister's hopeless love, but only two in the world knew the secret of her tragic death—her young lover, who was sobbing aloud as he staggered along with her body on his shoulder, and her old father, who was walking bareheaded and in silence, ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... mind was apparently clear. He met Billie's anxious look with a faint, white-lipped smile. To his friend the young fellow had the signs of a very sick man. It was a debatable question whether to risk moving him now or take the almost hopeless chance of escaping detection where ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... he had met you, sword to sword; That of all things upon the earth he hated Your person most; that he would pawn his fortunes To hopeless restitution, so he might Be call'd ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... religious successes, Philip the Fair attacked the mighty knights of the Temple, the most powerful of the religious orders of knighthood which had fought the Saracens in Jerusalem. The Templars, having found their warfare hopeless, had abandoned the Holy Land and had dwelt for a generation inglorious in the West. Philip suddenly seized the leading members of the order, accused it of hideous crimes, and confiscated all its vast wealth and hundreds of strong castles throughout France. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... most powerful model of reasoned denunciation and brilliant eloquence; it had a wide influence and restored Burke to harmony with the great majority of his countrymen. His remaining years, however, were increasingly gloomy. His attitude caused a hopeless break with the liberal Whigs, including Fox; he gave up his seat in Parliament to his only son, whose death soon followed to prostrate him; and the successes of the French plunged him into feverish anxiety. After again ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... the poor weak believer needeth not to be so far discouraged as to despair and give over the matter as hopeless and lost; let him hang on, depend and wait. A weak faith to-day may become stronger within a short time. He that laid the foundation can and will finish the building, for all his works are perfect. And ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... for by that name we must still call her, and her children, were settled in a small lodging in a humble suburb; situated on the high road between Fernside and the metropolis. She saved from her hopeless law-suit, after the sale of her jewels and ornaments, a sufficient sum to enable her, with economy, to live respectably for a year or two at least, during which time she might arrange her plans for the future. ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... good Pierre," said he, with a sigh, when quiet was restored, "you taught me how to use my sword only too well. My unfortunate victory has been my ruin, and has sent me back, hopeless and bereaved, to this poor old crumbling chateau of mine, where I am doomed to drag out the weary remainder of my days in sorrow and misery. I am peculiarly unhappy, in that my very triumphs have only made matters worse for me—it would have been better far for me, and for all, if I ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... very far, and begged for his assistance. He promised to be on the look-out, but advised her to go on a short distance to the police-station and leave a description of the missing woman. She did so; then, finding the search hopeless in this quarter, turned homewards. Mutimer was still absent, but he appeared in five minutes; as unsuccessful as herself. She told him of her visit ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... that any fundamental difference between the two can be found. Very characteristic of him is the following passage: "In what manner the mental powers were first developed in the lowest organisms, is as hopeless an enquiry as how life itself first originated. These are problems for the distant future, if they are ever to be solved by man." (Ibid. ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... sight of Messala had set Ben-Hur to thinking. It seemed scarce an hour ago that the strong hands had torn him from his mother, scarce an hour ago that the Roman had put seal upon the gates of his father's house. He recounted how, in the hopeless misery of the life—if such it might be called—in the galleys, he had had little else to do, aside from labor, than dream dreams of vengeance, in all of which Messala was the principal. There might be, he used to say to himself, escape for Gratus, but for Messala—never! ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... strange production, almost illegible, was sent to the unfortunate printers; with infinite difficulty a proof-sheet was obtained, which, being sent to the author, was presently returned in almost as hopeless a chaos of corrections as the manuscript first submitted. Whole sentences were erased, others transposed, everything modified. A second and a third followed, alike torn to pieces by the ravenous pen of Balzac. The despairing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... of the weather; but when by a more serious question he sought to penetrate below this fluency of words, he was repelled again by the impression of a mere hollow amiability in her manner. After a few casual remarks he left her with the most hopeless feeling he had known for months, and when, as the days went on, he endeavored fruitlessly to arouse in her a single sincere interest in human affairs, he found himself wondering if it were possible for any creature ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... of the way, he would have an open path through the mountains to Sacramento. If the lameness of Nellie's pony continued, her saddle could be transferred to one of the other horses, and, leading or driving the remainder of the animals, the four men would soon find their task a hopeless one. ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... required pumping every hour; the decks became so leaky that the commander was obliged to allot the great cabin to those who had wet berths, to hang their hammocks in. Finding they were losing ground every day, and that it was hopeless to persist in attempting a passage by this route, at this season of the year, to the Society Islands, and after struggling for thirty days in this tempestuous ocean, it was determined to bear away for the Cape of Good Hope. The helm was accordingly put a-weather, to the ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... the boat stops suddenly. Life-preservers are thrown overboard, and lights gleam along the side of the boat. There is no sign of the unfortunate girl who has so rashly sought peace, and the waters will hold her in their cold embrace till the sea gives up its dead. All search is hopeless, and the boat speeds on, a dumb ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... hours that day, and he had postponed until his evening round of visits a number of calls that were not pressing. When he came out to his buggy, Harry Aldis stood at the horse's head, at the carriage steps beside the driveway, his chin sunk on his breast, in an attitude of hopeless misery. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... but his voice did not carry far above the wind. He began to have a hopeless feeling, as if he was doomed to drown there all alone on the vast ocean. A nameless terror seized him. Then, to his joy, his fingers touched something. It was the floating cork life-preserver, and he knew he could keep himself up with ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... of her peculiar and distressing situation, and of the young man's hopeless love for her. She was the general theme of their discourse, for Richard's sole comfort was in pouring forth his griefs into his sister's willing ear; but new causes of anxiety had been given them by Nicholas, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... each other; as if similar circumstances had squeezed them into the same likeness. There was no spring to their steps and no laughter in their eyes; all were spare of frame and stolid or hungry-looking. The faces of the middle-aged men were haggard and wore a hopeless expression. Many of them scowled at us, with a look of hatred, as we passed by them in our carriage. A more joyless, sullen crowd I never beheld. Street after street they unrolled before us; there seemed to be millions of them. They were all poorly clad, ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... they turned to face each other. The situation seemed hopeless. They dared not shout or try to detain the boat. That surely would betray to the Hoffs that they were being followed. Despondently Dean clambered off the motorcycle and crossed to read ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... not any longer endure the torments of hopeless love, and, standing before her doors, he spake these last words: 'Anaxarete, you have conquered, and shall no longer have to bear my importunities. Enjoy your triumph! Sing songs of joy, and bind your forehead with laurel,—you have conquered! I die; stony heart, rejoice! This at ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... so many "shares" to be provided for, shares of divers proportions, and Jim's arithmetic was of such a very elementary nature, that he soon found himself lost in a hopeless labyrinth of calculations. With peanuts at so much by the wholesale, and so much at retail, running-expenses, and so forth, on the one hand; what would be the various amounts to be allowed from the proceeds, on the other, for a "share" for ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... interrupted by the fainting and the loud weeping of ancient senators who could not bear the thought of surviving the freedom and glory of their native land, that William had been called to the head of affairs. For a time it seemed to him that resistance was hopeless. He looked round for succour, and looked in vain. Spain was unnerved, Germany distracted, England corrupted. Nothing seemed left to the young Stadtholder but to perish sword in hand, or to be the Aeneas of a great emigration, and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the little girl had been deepened by the unforeseen manner in which her fate had been entrusted to him. The thought of Bessy, softened to compunction by the discovery that her love had persisted under their apparently hopeless estrangement—this feeling, intensified to the verge of morbidness by the circumstances attending her death, now sought expression in a passionate devotion to her child. Accident had, in short, created between Bessy and himself ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... tracing resemblances to ferns and other growths on a frosted pane. No one would deny that resemblances are there; it is to distinguish them and estimate their significance without yielding to fancifulness, which is the well-nigh hopeless task. It is often forgotten that similar circumstances produce similar effects, and that coincidences from this cause are very rife. Then, too, it is forgotten that the influence that produces rivalry is stronger, more important, and less easily estimated, than that which is expressed ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... a beautiful sick animal, the painful expression of an unintelligent suffering which the creature cannot understand. Regina, roused to act and face to face with danger, was brave, clever, and quick, but under the mysterious oppression of her forebodings she was the Roman hill woman, apathetic, hopeless, unconsciously ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... voice within her, bade her "Tarry yet a little, stay till the sun was set," for far out in the country, and many miles away, a train was thundering on. It would reach the city at nightfall, and among its jaded passengers was a worn and weary man. Hopeless, almost aimless now, he would come, and why he came he scarcely knew. "She would not be there, so far from home," he felt sure, but he was coming for the sake of what he hoped and feared when last he trod those streets. ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... that she was a woman with whom it was very necessary to be cautious. She was apt, I thought, to make convictions of her presumptions. If she presumed that my love for Sylvia was an utterly hopeless affection, to be given up and forgotten, I did not like it. It might be that it was hopeless, but I did not care to have any one else settle the matter for me in that ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... years, it seemed to her, had elapsed, so that she could now see things in their due proportions and with a clear sight. The rising? It stood on a sudden very distant, very dim, a thing of the past, an enterprise lofty and romantic, but hopeless. She supposed that he had seen it in that light all through, and that for acting on what he saw she had hated him. The contemptuous words in which he had denounced it rang again in her ears, but they no longer kindled her resentment; they convinced. As one recovering from sickness ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... carried all round the mound, forming a square of about twenty-seven feet in height, surmounted by a platform. He immediately rode to the excavation, examined the spot, where he found the workmen quite discouraged and hopeless, having laboured long and found nothing. He was now, however, well aware of these facts, and at once pointed out the spot, near the corner, where the bricks should be removed. In half an hour a small hollow was found, from which he immediately directed the head workman to 'bring ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... in some places the width narrows to less than 3 feet. They also have an inward slope at the bottom, so the cave is either shallow or else so narrow at no great depth as to be uninhabitable. This fact, and the character of the material deposited by the ancient drainage stream, make it hopeless to expect result ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... will come in the course of events. She was at the doubtful hour of her life, a warm-hearted woman, known to be so by few, generally consigned by devout-visaged Scandal (for who save the devout will dare to sit in the chair of judgement?) as a hopeless rebel against conventional laws; and worse than that, far ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... make-up of the material universe deepened and widened wondrously. I sat often among the crowd of students in Kirchoff's lecture-room, watching the play of his delicate features as he unravelled mysteries which till he showed the way were a mere hopeless knot. Near him as he spoke, on a table were the wand, the rings, the vials, above all a spectroscope with its prisms, the apparatus with which the magician solved the universe. Once, as I stood near him, he indicated in a polite sentence, with a gesture toward the table, that I was ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... have a right to ask Owen to send away Miss Loder?" Toni was always direct in her statements. "I suppose I have—if I wanted to—but I don't. It isn't Miss Loder who makes me miserable. It's the whole hopeless situation." ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... who know Germany and Germans best, that the highest duty of intelligent German professors like yourself is not to attempt the hopeless task of converting the rest of the world to an approval of the methods of the German Government, but rather to use your whole influence to establish a German Government which shall have a decent respect for the opinions of the rest of the world, and shall restore Germany ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson
... faculty of moral discrimination was highly developed in certain directions. In what land have the ideal and practice of loyalty been higher? The heroes most lauded by the Japanese to-day are those who have proved their loyalty by the sacrifice of their lives. When Masashige Kusunoki waged a hopeless war on behalf of one branch of the then divided dynasty, and finally preferred to die by his own hand rather than endure the sight of a victorious rebel, he is considered to have exhibited the highest possible evidence of devoted loyalty. One often hears his name in the sermons of Christian ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... Ribas would often say; "he diffuses happiness everywhere around him, while he himself has it not! He makes glad and cheerful faces wherever he appears, and his own is the only serious and sad brow. Mankind have made him hopeless, and for himself he ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... the father and son. The young man was intentionally kept in the dark about the greatest danger which threatened the business. To him the situation of the house must have appeared critical, but by no means hopeless. But for the Siebenburgs and the other bandits, who transformed the last important and promising venture of the firm into a great loss, and with the sale of the landed property, it might perhaps have speedily risen, and under prudent and skilful management regained its former prosperity. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... competitors for the throne, each urging claims compounded of rights of conquest and of inheritance, so complicated and so involved, one with the other, as to render all attempts at a peaceable adjudication of them absolutely hopeless. There could be no possible way of determining who was best entitled to the throne in such a case. The only question, therefore, that remained was, who was best able to take and ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... presentiment that he would never return from his expedition. Father Xavier was his confidant as well as confessor, but he seems not to have been able to disperse the gloom which settled over the leader's mind. Perhaps he did not endeavor to do so. Hopeless but still true to his trust, La Salle constructed near Peoria a fort which he named Crevecoeur, in token of his despondency and disappointment. Leaving Tontz Main de Fer in command here with the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery and causes a woeful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we see. Much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly direction. We reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to the King's Arms Hotel. In the intervals of showers I took peeps at the town, which appeared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices; altho there are likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-looking houses in the by-streets, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... your firmness, I would have prepared you by degrees; but you are a man, and can hear the worst at once. The Duke of Cumberland is dead. I have heard it but this instant. The Duke of Newcastle was come to breakfast with me, and pulled out a letter from Lord Frederick, with a hopeless account of the poor Duke of Devonshire. Ere I could read it, Colonel Schutz called at the door and told my servant this fatal news! I know no more—it must be at Newmarket, and very sudden; for the Duke of Newcastle had a letter ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... am I to hear of Lady Augusta Stanley's hopeless illness, and happy am I to observe the Dean's perpetual vigour. Long may he continue to illume the realm of mist in that Temple of Reconciliation where his light shines in so brilliant a lustre. In what a remarkable period do ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... me and trusted me to make myself a musician, I'd do it somehow—and I've about as much music in me as a snail!" she cried passionately. "You know I trusted you! It seems to me that if you can't remember for ten minutes, and try to be kind the very hour we're married, the whole thing is hopeless—" ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... probe and dress the wound, and remove any irritating splinters of bone that might be the cause of the continuous leakage from the lungs. But when he had finished his delicate and strenuous task he turned to the nurse at his side and gave a hopeless shake of his head and shrug of ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... Pete was a diamond in the raw. He had the kindly, gentle instincts that go to the making of a good man. So far as could be he made a hopeless and impossible situation comfortable. His judgment told him that they were caught in a trap from which there was no escape, but for the sake of the women he put a cheerful face ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... diabetis, and lung fever combined, with sciatic rheumatism, and brain fever, and if I lived till morning the horse doctor could take it out of his wages. The horse doctor admitted that my case had a hopeless look, but he once had a patient, a bay horse, sixteen hands high, and as fine a saddle horse as a man ever threw a leg over, that was troubled exactly the same as I was. He blistered his chest, gave him a table-spoonful of condition powders three times a day in a bran mash, took off his shoes ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... doubts of everything in heaven and earth, and not merely of Christ and of his godlike, or divine goodness—for what difference was there to her apprehension in the meaning of the two words which set man to hunt and persecute man? In the distress and hopeless dilemma in which she found herself, she shed no tears; she simply stood rooted to the spot where she had heard ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... naval forces at this place, information was received that a fleet had lately arrived from France, and that Louisbourg was so powerfully defended as to render any attempt upon it hopeless. In consequence of this intelligence the enterprise was deferred until the next year; the general and admiral returned to New York in August; ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... sources, it usually turned out that some ranchero with a black horse had been taken for him; and thus the troopers were led from place to place, and misled by false reports, until both horses and men were nearly worn out in the hopeless pursuit. This, however, had become the sole duty on which the soldiers were employed—as the Comandante had no idea of giving up the chase so long as there was a trooper left to take ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... it would have been hopeless to try and get into the room of the murder itself, even if I could have borne it, saying that the door, and window too, had been sealed by the police, who were also guarding the house from curiosity seekers; but he added that I could see the shut ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... brought under notice of House. Ross, Q.C., was returned at General Election, in place of CHARLES LEWIS—a character useful as a study for young Members, showing how a man of considerable ability, and distinct Parliamentary aptitude, may prove a hopeless failure. Ross born and brought up in Derry; accustomed to controversial practices. Familiar from boyhood with the concrete form dialectics are apt to take when indulged in beyond space of half an hour. "If they mean business," Ross said confidentially to Honest JOHN BURNS, "they'll find the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... easy matter, even with the combined force of the two men, to conduct Tom Gray out of the valley in which he had spent so many weary, hopeless weeks. His left leg, which had been broken above the knee, was far from strong. It was only within the past week that he had been able to limp painfully about the narrow confines of his jail. Once outdoors, the darkness of the night ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... examination of more than two hundred "white slaves" by the office of the United States district attorney at Chicago has brought to light the fact that literally thousands of innocent girls from the country districts are every year entrapped into a life of hopeless slavery and degradation because parents in the country do not understand conditions as they exist and how to protect their daughters from the "white slave" traders who have reduced the art of ruining young ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... then you are loyal to Rome. Did I believe a Leonidas could now arise, an Harmodius, a Miltiades, a Themistocles, a Pericles, an Epaminondas, I should be as ready to take the sword as another; but it is hopeless. Greece, then, makes no claim on you just now. Nor will I believe, though you were to tell me so yourself, that you are leagued with any obscure, fanatic sect who desire Rome's downfall. Consider what Rome is;" and now he had got into ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... again, and caught up a lantern. Foot by foot he examined the packed tunnel. It was solid—not a crevice or a break through which might have travelled the sound of his voice or the explosion of a gun. He did not shout. He knew that it would be hopeless, and that his voice would be terrifying in that sepulchral tomb. Was it possible that there might be some other opening—a possible exit—in that mountain wall? With the lantern in his hand he searched. There was no break. He came back to Joanne. She was standing where he had left her. And suddenly, ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... the parasite that may be seen taking place on the slide under the microscope, normally takes place in the stomach of some insect that sucks man's blood. Ross was greatly impressed with the theory and began his long and apparently hopeless task of finding these parasites in the stomach of some insect. When we remember that they are so minute that they can only be seen by the use of the highest power of the microscope we can realize something of the magnitude of the task. Ross, ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... right hand firmly grasping the pony's bit, and continually urging his own mount to faster pace. The one thought dominating his mind was the urgent necessity for haste—a savage determination to intercept that early train eastward. Beyond this single idea his brain seemed in hopeless turmoil, seemed failing him. Any delay meant danger, discovery, the placing of her very life in peril. He could grasp that; he could plan, guide, act in every way the part of a man under its inspiration, but all else appeared chaos. The future?—there was ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... said. "Since I've been here, had time to think, I've realized it more and more. This dreadful fight for front places, for prosperity—this rooted, individual selfishness—the hopeless materialism of it all—the ultimate ruin—." She broke off. "You'll take me for a street ranter if I go on. But it's rather piteous to see people straining and agonizing after what, after all, can ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... armed, it was very nearly so. Even Theodore only took possession of it because the Galla garrison, through fear, evacuated the place during the night. He had pitched his camp at the foot of the Amba, and attempted an assault; but soon retired from his hopeless task before the shower of missiles thrown from above. It was not until several days after the Gallas had retired, that one of the chiefs, suspecting the place to be empty, cautiously ventured to ascertain the fact, and returned to inform Theodore that he ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... Jims, had been trying her best to look rapt and romantic, as beseemed a war bridesmaid, gave up the hopeless attempt, and devoted her energies to choking down untimely merriment. She dared not look at anybody in the room, especially Mrs. Dead Angus, for fear all her suppressed mirth should suddenly explode in a most un-young-ladylike yell ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... going on perpetually from age to age, waves rolling for ever, and winds moaning for ever, and faithful hearts trusting and sickening for ever, and brave lives dashed away about the rattling beach like weeds for ever; and still at the helm of every lonely boat, through starless night and hopeless dawn, His hand, who spread the fisher's net over the dust of the Sidonian palaces, and gave into the fisher's hand the keys of the ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... hopeless look at the pavement behind her before she allowed herself to realize the situation. Then she faced it, addressing a dainty French oath to the necessity. "Come," she said to herself, "now it begins to be really amusing—la vraie ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... scene. On a mat, covered with irons, lies the forlorn Conrad. The flitting flame of a solitary lamp hardly reveals the heavy bars of the huge grate that forms the entrance to its cell. For some minutes nothing stirs. The mind of the spectator is allowed to become fully aware of the hopeless misery of the hero. His career is ended, secure is his dungeon, trusty his guards, overpowering his chains. To-morrow he wakes to be impaled. A gentle noise, so gentle that the spectator almost deems it unintentional, is now heard. A white figure appears behind the dusky gate; is ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the frozen fields and through the naked woods of Bacchus Island. The short day was nearing a dismal close. Harman Blennerhassett paced uneasily to and fro within the narrow confines of his study. His face was haggard, his general aspect that of a man harassed and hopeless. Yet he seemed idle and without sense of responsibility for the future. His air indicated irresolution, ennui, mild disgust of the world and of himself. He took down Homer, brushed the dust from the covers, and then replaced the volume ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... visions of hermits or nuns. But let us never forget that this visionary religion is, in one sense, necessarily more wholesome than our modern and reasonable morality. It is more wholesome for this reason, that it can contemplate the idea of success or triumph in the hopeless fight towards the ethical ideal, in what Stevenson called, with his usual startling felicity, "the lost fight of virtue." A modern morality, on the other hand, can only point with absolute conviction to the horrors that follow breaches of law; its only certainty is a certainty of ill. It can only ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... eternal sorrow! Behind roars the bottomless abyss, black with the gloomy mists rising from the woes of the Past: Before lies the far-off Heaven, burning and blazing with flames red as of blood: Around struggle the swimmers, in surges so cold, hopeless, and murky, That from each as he floats onward is forced the cry; 'WOE! THE ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... stood up and played with no fine frenzy, no rolling eyes, no swaying form; for such are the signs of a hopeless effort, hung out by the man who has heard the story and tries in ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... which the leaf would already have been removed. He might, perhaps, find traces of the removal—a torn edge of a fly-leaf probably—and who could disprove, what Eldred was certain to say, that he too had noticed and regretted the mutilation? Altogether the chase seemed very hopeless. The one chance was this. The book had left the library at 10.30: it might not have been put into the first possible train, at 11.20. Granted that, then he might be lucky enough to arrive simultaneously with it and patch ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... "Be not grieved nor hopeless," answered the Spirit; "the impediments can be removed. I am the genius that presides over the fishes, and was invested at the beginning with power to procure for them all the enjoyments they are susceptible of tasting. I cannot transform a trout into a man—that must be effected by ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of reality to Von Barwig. Indeed it was real, as real as reality itself, until the wild applause of an enthusiastic audience awoke him alike to the consciousness of the success of his work and the hopeless misery of his present position; his success in his music only accentuating the failure his ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... showing this law of upward development, a few may be taken as typical. The Slavs, who sank so low under the pressure of stronger races that they gave the modern world a new word to express the most hopeless servitude, have developed powerful civilizations peculiar to themselves; the barbarian tribes who ages ago took refuge amid the sand-banks and morasses of Holland, have developed one of the world's leading centres of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... they want?" he exclaimed, not quite meaning it as a question; rather as expressing the opinion that the subject was a hopeless one. ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... strongly censured the negligence of farmers; but this was rather to arouse them, than to decide finally the fact, or culpability of their inaction. In truth, the pursuit of a party of aborigines, was a very hopeless affair: it required a minute preparation; and to a well fleshed, and not perhaps youthful yeoman, was attended with vast fatigue, and almost certain failure. An organised enemy may be found: not so, naked ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... they were prepared to abandon him and go over to the enemy on the very field of battle, unless he could gain advantages so decisive at the very commencement of the conflict as to show that the cause of Richmond was hopeless. Although Richard was morally convinced that this was the state of things, he had no sufficient evidence of it to justify his taking any action against the men that he suspected. He did not even dare to express ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... was aware that Mr. Crabshaw knew the history well, and that the thought of an alliance with the house of Crabshaw would be folly. It was at that time that my mother's belief in her grandfather's innocence became more strongly impressed upon me, and I formed the purpose, almost hopeless though it seemed, of establishing the truth of this belief. The idea grew upon me. I found myself getting nervous, and for the sake of my health I came here two years ago to find relaxation in trout fishing ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... feelings and see the working of their minds, we might catch a faint conception of the affection which they must have felt for brothers waging the deadly fight against the same enemies, and contending in a seemingly endless and hopeless struggle against the same terrible odds. Union, affection, devotedness, are words ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... her journey than Edinburgh. When she called, a day or two after her arrival there, on the Bishop, Dr. Gillis, he said to himself, 'Ah! you have been travelling by express train!' Very soon after this, bronchitis set in, and rapidly became acute, and the case was pronounced hopeless. To herself, indeed, it was perhaps more or less sudden, though she had virtually made a retreat of preparation during the preceding six months, and left everything in the most perfect order at Abbotsford. She had said to 'Cousin Kate' (Miss Lockhart) that God ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... revelation to the king. Not that he was unwilling to sacrifice a subject, but that he was hopeless of finding a man willing to sacrifice himself. No time could be lost, however; for the princess was lying motionless on her bed, and taking no nourishment but lake-water, which was now none of the best. Therefore the king caused the contents of the wonderful plate ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... thought of actors weighed so upon me, if the sight of Maubant, coming out one afternoon from the Theatre-Francais, had plunged me in the throes and sufferings of hopeless love, how much more did the name of a 'star,' blazing outside the doors of a theatre, how much more, seen through the window of a brougham which passed me in the street, the hair over her forehead abloom with roses, did the face of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... of my father's funeral again, and the dismal windy hillside, until the day had come. I found sleeping was hopeless, and, locking my door after me, wandered out into ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... him as a question to be tested, there were no available meteorological records, and he could find but four or five short series of observations, widely separated in time. To an ordinary thinker the task would have seemed hopeless until more data had been collected. But HERSCHEL'S fertile mind, though it could not recall lost opportunities for solar observations, did find a substitute for meteorological records in the statistics of the prices of grain during ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... as well as body. Man is an intelligence sustained and preserved by bodily organs, and their active exercise is necessary to the enjoyment of health. It is not work, but overwork, that is hurtful; and it is not hard work that is injurious so much as monotonous work, fagging work, hopeless work. All hopeful work is healthful; and to be usefully and hopefully employed is one of the great secrets of happiness. Brain-work, in moderation, is no more wearing than any other kind of work. Duly regulated, it is as promotive of health as bodily exercise; ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... "surrounded" was given. The guns of the enemy and the report of being surrounded, brought officers and men completely under control. At first some of the officers seemed to think that to be surrounded was to be placed in a hopeless position, where there was nothing to do but surrender. But when I announced that we had cut our way in and could cut our way out just as well, it seemed a new revelation to officers and soldiers. They formed line rapidly and we started ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... Indeed it may be broadly stated that, with the single exception of gold-fish, of all animals kept for the recreation of mankind the horse is alone capable of exciting a passion that shall be absolutely hopeless. I deem these general remarks necessary to prove that my unreciprocated affection for Chu Chu was not purely individual or singular. And I may add that to these general characteristics she brought the ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... recent visit to Pretoria I did not visit the President, as I considered it hopeless to think of making any impression on him; but I saw Reitz, Smuts, and Schalk Burger, who, I thought, would be amenable to argument: but I fear that either my advice had no effect on them, or else their opinion had ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... minimise it, till, with a crash that broke two of the uprights and threw me so hard that I skinned my elbow and hurt my head, we were once more overturned. Never since I reached manhood, I think, did I feel so much like sitting down and crying. It seemed hopeless to think about getting down that creek until the wind stopped, and one doubts if the wind ever does stop in that country. But there was no good sitting there like a shipwrecked mariner, nursing sores and misfortunes; presently one would begin to feel sorry for oneself—that last resort of incompetence. ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... touched at last. Well! and then the book was finished, the absorbing task was done, I awoke as one who had been dreaming in a noon-day sun; With a fever on my forehead, and a throbbing in my brain, In my soul delirious wishes, in my heart a lasting pain; Yet so hopeless, yet so cureless—as in every great despair— I was very calm and silent, and I never stooped to prayer, Like a sick man unattended, reckless of the coming death, Only for he knows it certain, and he feels no ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... was in the feeling of conservatism into the hands of the Puritan, for it was the Puritan who seemed to be defending the old character of the Church of England against its Primate's attacks. But backed as Laud was by the power of the Crown, the struggle became more hopeless every day. While the Catholics owned that they had never enjoyed a like tranquillity, while the fines for recusancy were reduced and their worship suffered to go on in private houses, the Puritan saw his ministers ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... rapid work, but no hurry; busy and varied action, but no confusion; a hum of mingled voice and footfall, but no unnecessary noise. It was a splendid example of the power of orderly and united action. To Miss Lillycrop it conveyed the idea of hopeless and irretrievable confusion! ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... pleased with the kindly disposition of Herr von Erfft, could not make him any definite promise, for he felt bound to the helpless, if not hopeless, opera company now in his care. Herr von Erfft inquired more closely into the grounds of his doubt as to his ability to have his orchestra undertake the special engagement, and then asked him whether he would accept his help. "Gladly," replied ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann |
