"Despair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attention towards the enemy. Notwithstanding his former failure, he still did not altogether despair of effecting something by negotiation, and he sent another embassy, having the bishop of Lima at its head, to Gonzalo Pizarro's camp, with promises of a general amnesty, and some proposals of a more tempting character ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... while the two men were led away, and a ray of hope began to shed light through the darkness of despair in the young men's brains, as they read in all this a strange desire on the part of their amateur judge to do ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... settlers themselves, in order to permit the water to flow down to St. Joseph, where there was priority of appropriation. At several times, the Church organization helped in the repair or building of the many dams, after the settlers had spent everything they had and had reached the point of despair. At suggestion of Jesse N. Smith in 1884, all the brethren in the Stake were called upon to donate one day each of labor on the Woodruff dam. Up to 1890, the dam had been washed out seven times and even now there is trouble in ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... an hour later, her brother was sitting with his head bowed in his hands. The room was quite dark; the fire had died down. The fire of passion had died down, too, leaving only shame and misery and despair. His eyes, hidden in his bent arms, were wet; he was shaken to the depths of his being. For the first time in his life he had come against a thwarted desire. The education that should have been spread over his whole twenty-five years, an education that would ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... sent both flies and a lump of line tumbling on to the pool, and would have driven the boldest of salmon out of its wits. The second pretty nearly took a piece out of Ingram's ear, and made him shift his quarters with rapidity. Duncan gave him up in despair. The third cast dropped both flies with the lightness of a feather in the running waters of the other side of the pool; and the next second there was a slight wave along the surface, a dexterous jerk ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... is said to live in pairs during the spring; "and if one is caught, the other falls from the tree to the ground, and allows itself to be captured with impunity"—I presume from despair. (68. Mr. Swinhoe, 'Proc. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... herself at the piano and her slim, nervous hands wandered soundlessly a moment above the keys. Then a wailing minor melody grew beneath them—unsatisfied, asking, with now and then an ecstasy of joyous chords that only died again into the querying despair of the original theme. She broke off abruptly, humming ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the centre of a great sea of ice; that they had, when their opportunity came, broken it around me, and left me alone and helpless to struggle against inevitable doom. Three of the six long weary months during which I waited for trial were thus passed in a state of agony bordering on the madness of despair. The hours seemed magnified into days, and the weeks into years; and, as they dragged their slow length along, my mental anguish received a new and terrible ally. Although I was as yet in the eye of the law an innocent man, the miserable allowance of ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... her, like far-off subterranean streams. The essential part of her remained as it had been. Only a little outside bit of a framework had been twisted awry. Could that matter very much? Had she not perhaps been morbid in her despair? ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... Men of the greatest Abilities are most fired with Ambition: And that on the contrary, mean and narrow Minds are the least actuated by it: whether it be that [a Man's Sense of his own [2]] Incapacities makes [him [3]] despair of coming at Fame, or that [he has [4]] not enough range of Thought to look out for any Good which does not more immediately relate to [his [5]] Interest or Convenience, or that Providence, in the very Frame of [his Soul [6]], would not subject ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... intolerance, open as it is to criticism from the philosophic standpoint, represents in the life of a people the most necessary of virtues. It was to found or uphold general beliefs that so many victims were sent to the stake in the Middle Ages and that so many inventors and innovators have died in despair even if they have escaped martyrdom. It is in defence, too, of such beliefs that the world has been so often the scene of the direst disorder, and that so many millions of men have died on the battlefield, ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... might have expected it!" Eisernstein threw up his hands in a gesture of contempt rather than despair. "Nobody cares what happens to Jews. Nobody cares for our sleepless agony of mind. Nobody cares how or what we suffer until afterward, when there will be polite expressions of regret, which the survivors ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... and intellectual forces have been blunted and wasted by political disillusionment. He tells us that the 'man' whom he loved in 1792, when the French Revolution was still at its dawn, was seen in 1798 to be merely 'the composition of the brain.' After agonies of despair and baffled affection, he saw 'the individual man ... the man whom we behold with our own eyes.'[45] But in that change from a false simplification of the whole to the mere contemplation of the individual, Wordsworth's power of ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... have been ludicrous had it not been a matter of life and horrid death. Through it all Roldan was vaguely conscious of approaching hoofbeats, but there was no room in his consciousness for hope or despair. He was not even aware that he was panting as if his lungs and throat were bursting, nor even that his vision was a trifle blurred from constant and rapid change of focus and surcharged veins. But he executed his dance of life as unerringly ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... very large cigar. Though he puffed at it painstakingly, blowing the smoke far out of the window so as to escape detection, the result was not encouraging. The exquisite mauve-grey ash was indeed less than a quarter of an inch long when his sense of wrong and injustice deepened to an overwhelming despair. It was not only that even Christine had failed him—everything was failing him. The shabby plot of rising ground opposite, which justified Dr. Stonehouse's contention that he looked out over open country, had become immersed in a loathsome mist, greenish in hue, in which it heaved and rolled ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... was a report like a pistol-shot, and all my beautiful yeast flew up to the ceiling of the kitchen, descending in a shower on my head; and F—— turned the bottle upside down over the flour, emptying the dregs of the hops and potatoes into my unfortunate bread. However, I did not despair, but mixed it up according to the directions given, and placed it on the stove; but, as it turned out, in too warm a situation, for when I went early the next morning to look at it, I found a very dry and crusty ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... despair seized him. "Oh, Julie," he cried, "what can I say or what can I do? You're cruel, Julie; you're killing me! You must say 'Yes' before I go. We'll meet in Havre, I know; but that will be so different. I must have my answer now. Oh, my darling, please, please, speak! You love ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... distance roars the fall; Through the fir trees howls the wind! 'Tis a sound implacable And as fatal as despair. ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... lightly dissipate, But which, full surely, down the echoing vale, Shall roll with sounding current, swift and loud, My slighted message likewise shall prevail, Entering the heart of many a mourner, bowed Beneath despair, and with inspiring voice Calling to hope to cleave her midnight cloud, And bidding grief, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... the familiar homestead, with every corner rich in gentle memories, that the spirit of terror turned the bitter stream of anguish, as from the vent of some thunderous cloud, upon the sad head of Job. We may turn a corner in life, and be confronted perhaps with an uncertain shape of grief and despair, whom we would fain banish from our shuddering sight, perhaps with some solemn form of heavenly radiance, whom we may feel reluctant in our unworthiness to entertain. But in either case, such times as those, when we wrestle ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... preceding them opened the timid cities to their entrance, and brought them abundant supplies. Brought into despair by the apparent death of Raymond of Toulouse and the serious wounding of Godfrey by a bear, they rejoiced in the recovery of both as a miracle in ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... once more; and this time there was resignation, and despair so plainly marked that her companion flung her arms about her ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... the order, the pirates, who stood ready in the main and fore-rigging of their ship, leaped down on the deck of the Ouzel Galley, when, with a feeling almost of despair, Owen saw Routh and several of his crew join them. Still, rallying his men round him, he resolved, if possible, to drive back the pirates in spite of their numbers. Firing his pistols, he gallantly attacked them, cutlass in hand, seconded by his mates and several of his men, Dan and ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... when ugliness begins Debts, but all anxiety concerning them is left to the creditors Despair and extravagant gayety ruled her nature by turns Repos ailleurs The best enjoyment in creating is had in anticipation To whom the emotion of ...
— Quotations From Georg Ebers • David Widger
... of every uneasiness is the same, though they may appear under different names. For envy is an uneasiness; so are emulation, detraction, anguish, sorrow, sadness, tribulation, lamentation, vexation, grief, trouble, affliction, and despair. The Stoics define all these different feelings, and all those words which I have mentioned belong to different things, and do not, as they seem, express the same ideas; but they are to a certain extent distinct, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... irremediable confusion, and, abandoning their camp, artillery, and baggage, fled in wild confusion on the road to Hungary. By 6 P.M. the Polish King reached the tent of the vizir; but Kara-Mustapha had not awaited the arrival of the victor. In an agony of despair at the mighty ruin which he now saw to be inevitable, he gave the barbarous order (which was but partially executed) for the massacre of the women of his harem, to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy; and, seizing the Sandjak-shereef,[H] mounted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... with a bunch of at least a hundred skeleton-keys of all possible shapes to attack the refractory key-hole. After trying nearly all the keys, and disburdening himself of whole volumes of impulsive French ejaculations, this man likewise gives it up in despair; but, now everything else has been tried and failed, the countenance of la portier suddenly lights up, and he slips quietly around to an adjoining room, and enters mine inside of two minutes by simply lifting a small hook out of a staple with his knife-blade. There appears to be a slight coolness, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the afreets of the mirage, led them on, and the lake glistening in the sunshine tempted them to bathe in its cool waters, close to their eyes, but never at their lips. At length the delusion vanished—the fatal lake had turned to burning sand! Raging thirst and horrible despair! the pathless desert and the murdered guide! lost! lost! all lost! Not a man ever left the desert, but they were subsequently discovered, parched and withered corpses, by the Arabs sent upon ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... his chest. He did not know what time it was when he awoke. He was aware only of a suffocating sensation as if some ghostly aura were within the room, filling it, pressing down upon him. A wailing of agony and despair seemed to scratch at his senses although he was certain there was no audible sound. And a depression clutched at his soul as if death itself had suddenly walked unseen ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... developments, but if they rely on this alone, they are greatly mistaken. I admit the superiority of the moderns, but not on this account. In the first place, many arts and products of head and hands have been lost, but even those that remain are the envy and despair of modern competitors. Besides, every age must be judged by comparison with its contemporaries. Yet they have fallen; and antiquarian travellers search in vain for the ruins of the proudest and greatest cities of the past. The nation and people—the most gallant and accomplished of all ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... the discontent she knew he had so long endured was coming to a point, or feared lest what she had told him might drive him to some ill-considered act, she begged him with all the power of her love to do nothing hasty, or in despair, nothing that would separate them. He threw his arms around her, he pressed her closely to him, he trembled with the passion and the struggle ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... misanthrope gloating over the trickery and meanness of mankind. It is well to remember how many are the scenes of tenderness and pathos in Vanity Fair, how powerfully told, how deeply they haunt the memory and sink into the heart. The school life of Dobbin, the ruin of old Sedley and the despair of Amelia, the last parting of Amelia and George, Osborne revoking his will, Sedley broken down, Rawdon in the sponging-house, the birth and boyhood of Georgy Osborne, the end of old Sedley, the end of old Osborne, are ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... of 1879 thousands of colored people, unable longer to endure the intolerable hardships, injustice, and suffering inflicted upon them by a class of Democrats in the South, had, in utter despair, fled panic-stricken from their homes and sought protection among strangers in a strange land. Homeless, penniless, and in rags, these poor people were thronging the wharves of Saint Louis, crowding the steamers on the Mississippi River, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... Britain would have been lost. The fortune of a single battle, however, reduced it to its former subjection; though many still remained in arms, whom the consciousness of revolt, and particular dread of the governor, had driven to despair. Paullinus, although otherwise exemplary in his administration, having treated those who surrendered with severity, and having pursued too rigorous measures, as one who was revenging his own personal injury also, Petronius Turpilianus [75] was sent in his stead, as a person ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... submissive demeanour towards his wealthy neighbours shows that they treat him roughly and with suspicion; hence he fears and hates them, but he never will injure them by force. He is depraved through and through, too far gone to possess even the strength of despair. His wretched existence is brief, rheumatism and asthma bring him to the workhouse, where he will draw his last breath without a single pleasant recollection, and will make room for another luckless wretch to live and die as he ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... have undergone them would willingly have missed the experience. I venture even to think that the recollection is one of unmixed pain only in those cases in which the sufferer has a half-consciousness that he has not escaped by legitimate means. If in his despair he has clutched at a lie in order to extricate himself as quickly as possible and at any price, it is no wonder that he looks back with a shudder. When the disease has been driven inward by throwing in abundant doses of Paley, ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... into their towns. Nor do these only serve the public, but they serve even private men, more than the slaves themselves do; for if there is anywhere a rough, hard, and sordid piece of work to be done, from which many are frightened by the labour and loathsomeness of it, if not the despair of accomplishing it, they cheerfully, and of their own accord, take that to their share; and by that means, as they ease others very much, so they afflict themselves, and spend their whole life in hard labour; and yet they do not value themselves upon this, nor lessen other people's ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... on land, a surly inhabitant spits into it. If you address him he snorts at you unintelligibly. If you turn your back to the sea you are met by a prospect of unimagined despair. There are no trees. The country is flat and barren. A dismal creek runs miles inland—an estuary fed by the River Murgle. A few battered cottages, a general shop, a couple of low public-houses, and three perky red-brick villas all in a row form the city, or town, or village, ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... appeared not winds, nor whirlwinds, but legions of emancipated demons shrieking horribly, and flapping their wide wings; a flock of night-birds flying from the dawn; and all else was darkness, confusion, rolling and rocking about, the screams of women, the shouts of men, curses and prayers, agony, despair, and—peace, deep peace. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... hard on them that their niece should turn out a little wild harum-scarum creature, such as they had never dreamt of— really unable to move without noises that startled Lady Jane's nerves, and threw Lady Barbara into despair at the harm they would do—a child whose untutored movements were a constant eye-sore and distress to them; and though she could sometimes be bright and fairy- like if unconstrained, always grew abrupt and uncouth when under restraint—a child very far ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... instrument, and Sara listened with delight, recognizing some of the haunting melodies of the wild Russian music which he was playing—music that even in its moments of delirious joy seemed to hold always an underlying bourdon of tragedy and despair. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... summoned me into his closet, and as soon as he saw me, he came to meet me with a frightful epileptic 'laugh. 'Oh, my God!' he said, raising his eyes to heaven, and walking two or three times up and down the room. This appearance of despair was however very short. He soon recovered his coolness, and asked me what was going forward in the Chamber of Representatives. I could not attempt to hide that party spirit was there carried to a high pitch, and that the majority ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... my Lord, to me, and therefore still less inconceivable to my Master. Nay, I despair not that, even here, in this region of Three Dimensions, your Lordship's art may make the Fourth Dimension visible to me; just as in the Land of Two Dimensions my Teacher's skill would fain have opened the eyes of his blind servant to the invisible presence ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... economic hemming-in of Germany. They discuss the possibility of Germany finding herself after the war with "empty hands and pockets turned inside out." There is no longer any question of imposing the conqueror's law upon adversaries at his mercy, but of fighting with the energy of despair to secure an honorable peace. An officer of the General Staff who was made prisoner on Jan. 18 said: "Perhaps this struggle ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... if I shall have the brutality to finish out my idea. She is to have lying on the sand by her a case of Higginson's Hair-wash, stranded from a wreck, and a bottle of it in her hand. See the notion? Her despair consoled by discovery ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... for this reason I do not despair. Hope lives, although the heart is full of anxiety.... The worst is, that Jurand himself, when his daughter's name is mentioned, immediately points with his finger toward heaven as though he already ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... proper prudence to become nothing both in its own eyes and in the sight of others! Men say that their one object in life is to glorify God, while it is really their own glorification. But to be willing to be nothing in the sight of God, to live in an entire abandonment, in utter self-despair, to give themselves to Him when they are the most discouraged, to leave themselves in His hands, and not to look at self when they are on the very edge of the abyss; it is this that is so rare, and it is this which constitutes ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... fox for all his wit, could not utter a word but crouched down and shook with fright. Mrs Fox however was not at all inclined to give way to despair. She saluted the tiger and said "Ah, uncle, do not eat us up just now; I and my husband have a dispute and we want you to settle it for us." The tiger was mollified by being addressed by so respectful a name as uncle, and answered ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... hopeful for a month or two; then got impatient, and finally got angry, but it ended in despair. A year passed away before I commenced to hunt, instead of waiting to be hunted; but after another year I gave it up, and came to the belief that Rachel was dead or married to another. But the very minute that such a treasonable thought flashed through my mind, my heart held up ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... intervention, and of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, its denial of design and claim to explain everything by natural law, are also points of resemblance. Finally, the lesson he draws from this comfortless creed, not to sit with folded hands in silent despair, nor to "eat and drink for to-morrow we die," but to labour steadily for our greater good and to cultivate virtue in accordance with reason, equally free from ambition and sloth, is strikingly like the teaching of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... mighty capital at their disposal, just how and when particular stocks will rise or fall. Spreading abroad deceitful rumors through their little subservient throngs of henchmen brokers, they create untold ravage and despair. Fearful cruelty is shown by them then. The law cannot reach it, though years of imprisonment would be far too good for it. Families are plunged into penury by their subtly circulated frauds; forgery and embezzlement in hundreds of individual cases result; ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... him. He is sensitive to every trifle, and yesterday, for instance, your cattle were in our vegetable garden, and one of your people broke down the fence to the bee-hives, and such an attitude to us drives my husband to despair. I beg you," she went on in an imploring voice, and she clasped her hands on her bosom—"I beg you to treat us as good neighbours; let us live in peace! There is a saying, you know, that even a bad peace is better than a good quarrel, and, 'Don't buy property, ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... slightest sound he rose and hastened to the door, convinced they were about to liberate him, but the sound died away, and Dantes sank again into his seat. At last, about ten o'clock, and just as Dantes began to despair, steps were heard in the corridor, a key turned in the lock, the bolts creaked, the massy oaken door flew open, and a flood of light from two torches pervaded the apartment. By the torchlight Dantes saw the glittering sabres and carbines of four gendarmes. He had advanced ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... prisoners, and that Arundel, Comyn, Brus, Hamond l'Estrange, Roger Leybourne, and many considerable barons of his party were in the hands of the victorious enemy. Earl Warrenne, Hugh Bigod, and William de Valence, struck with despair at this event, immediately took to flight, hurried to Pevencey, and made their escape beyond sea:[***] but the prince, intrepid amidst the greatest disasters, exhorted his troops to revenge the death of their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... victim to the habit, much to my chagrin, and became hopeless of ever retracing my steps toward my ideal of virtue. For some days I lost energy, spirit, and hope; my nervous system appeared to be ruined, but I did not really despair of victory in the end. I thought of all the drunkards chained by their intemperate habits, of inveterate smokers who could not exist without tobacco, and of all the various methods by which men were slaves, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... We despair of saving the Colony from those evils which threaten it by the turbulent and dishonest conduct of vagrants who are allowed to infest the country in every part; nor do we see any prospect of peace or happiness for our children in a ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... passed the sweet, sad summers; the dark and humid park; the pond where slept the green water; the marble nymphs under the chestnut-trees, and the bench on which she had wept and desired death. To-day she still ignored the cause of her youthful despair, when the ardent awakening of her imagination threw her into a troubled maze of desires and of fears. When she was a child, life frightened her. And now she knew that life is not worth so much anxiety nor so much hope; that it is ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... any other woman he ever came across. It was natural that she should be interested in this bright creature, fallen as from another world into their dingy, squabbling family. If it was inevitable that her interest, touched with pity (for he was in despair over the collapse of his life with Harriet), should quickly warm to love, we must insist that the rapture with which he leaped to meet her had some foundation in reality. That she was gifted is manifest in her writings—chiefly, ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... party appeared in sight: and I saw no place where an ambush could be lying. I remembered that no tidings of our present plight or of what had happened could have reached the Vicomte. The hope faded out of life as soon as despair had given it birth. We must fend for ourselves and ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... especial value for the study of the conditions under which it exists. They are the pathological experiences which reveal the strength and the weaknesses of the normal functions. We strive and hope for a more lasting state of general health, and do not despair of the patient even in this grave attack. He has survived even more serious illness. For though the present war is the most gigantic that the world has ever seen, its very greatness is the result of some of those modern developments—scientific skill, improved communications, ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... Madame Pratolungo—I assure you, I despair—of conveying any idea of how I feel under this most melancholy state of things. You have been very good; you have shown the sympathy of a true friend. But you cannot possibly understand how this blow ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... sever! Ae farewell, and then forever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee; Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. Who shall say that Fortune grieves him While the star of hope she leaves him? Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me, Dark despair ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... and Patty assumed a doleful expression, drew down the corners of her mouth, and wrung her hands in mock despair. ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... wicked," Jer. xvii. 9. In a word, man is become the most lamentable spectacle in the world, a compend of all wickedness and misery enclosed within the walls of inability and impossibility to help himself, shut up within a prison of despair, a linking, loathsome, and irksome dungeon. It is like the miry pit that Jeremiah was cast into, that there was no out-coming, and no ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... finish the sentence, but I know what he meant to say; and in despair I swam to the shallows, waded out, and stood shading my eyes and watching Esau, who was still afloat, but rapidly ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... make him consent to such sacrifice? It must be that he feels forced; he cannot do it willingly. Would it not be preferable to give up the contest—to yield everything, rather than plunge the people of two nations into despair and horror over so many wasted lives? For so many stricken homes? For widows, orphans, poverty, ruin? What is it that sustains General Lee? It is, it must be, that he is a mere soldier and simply obeys orders. Orders from whom? President Davis. Then ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... halted, glancing back with frightened eyes. Then, with a brief cry of despair, the girl swerved aside and dived in swiftly among the shadows of ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... would despair," says Lyttleton. "O love, the beautiful, the brief!" exclaims Schiller. "Love at two-and-twenty is a terribly intoxicating draught," says Ruffini. "At lovers' perjuries they say Jove laughs," smiles Shakspeare. "Where love and wisdom drink out of the same cup, in this ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... he, "art young and all unlearned as yet—heed not my gibes and quirks, 'tis ever so my custom when steel is ringing, and mark me, I do think it a good custom, as apt to put a man off his ward and flurry him in his stroke. Never despair, youth, for I tell thee, north and south, and east and west my name is known, nor shall you find in any duchy, kingdom or county, a sworder such as I. For, mark me now! your knight and man-at-arms, trusting to his armour, doth use his sword but to thrust ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... the presence of their dwellings, and tired of the chase, the Hurons now made a stand, and fought around their council-lodge with the fury of despair. The onset and the issue were like the passage and destruction of a whirlwind. The tomahawk of Uncas, the blows of Hawkeye, and even the still nervous arm of Munro were all busy for that passing ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... That Buonaparte was unmolested appears to prove how cleverly he had concealed his connection with them. The story that in these days he proposed for the hand of Mme. Permon, though without any corroborative evidence, has an air of probability, partly in the consideration of a despair which might lead him to seek any support, even that of a wife as old as his mother, partly from the existence of a letter to the lady which, though enigmatical, displays an interesting mixture of wounded pride and real or pretended jealousy. The epistle is dated June ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... from point to point, till the death of his brother Charles, now Duc de Guienne, in 1472, broke up the formidable combination. Charles the Bold at once broke truce and made war on the King, marching into northern France, sacking towns and ravaging the country, till he reached Beauvais. There the despair of the citizens and the bravery of the women saved the town. Charles raised the siege and marched on Rouen, hoping to meet the Duke of Brittany; but that Prince had his hands full, for Louis had overrun his territories, and had reduced him to terms. The Duke of Burgundy saw that the coalition ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... feet sheer and bare above the plain. No friendly gorge or gully or canon invited such an effort as I could make to scale this rocky barrier. Oh, for the faith that could remove mountains! How soon should this colossal fabric open at my approach! What a feeling of helpless despair came over me with the conviction that the journey of the last two days had been in vain! I seated myself on a rock, upon the summit of a commanding hill, and cast my eyes along the only route which now seemed tenable—down the Yellowstone. ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... again into the mud. Each successive struggle only sank him deeper. As the thick adhesive semi-liquid clung to his lower limbs and rose slowly on his chest, the wretched man uttered a loud cry of despair. He felt that he was brought suddenly face to face with death in its most awful form. The mud was soon up to his arm-pits. As the hopelessness of his condition forced itself upon him, he began to shout for help until the dark woods resounded with his cries; but no ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... there some years passed happily enough, a son named Jacques Louis being born in 1860. But Claude gradually became discontented, and the family returned to Paris, where there began a long struggle against poverty, a struggle beginning in high anticipation and ending in despair. After a long search for a subject for a picture which was to be his masterpiece, Claude selected a stretch of the river near Notre Dame, and into this he intended to put all those new theories of art with which he hoped to revolutionize the world. Everything was ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... him the account of the Reform Bill having been thrown out at its second reading by the Lords—majority, 41. Mr Montefiore, on hearing that Lord-Chancellor Brougham had spoken in a very illiberal spirit of the Jews, observed, "So much for Whig friends." Still he did not despair, and entertained the belief that their just cause would ultimately meet ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... They beguile Siegfried to them, give him a magic draught which makes him forget Brunhild and fall in love with Gutrune. Under this same spell, he offers to bring Brunhild for wife to Gunther. Now is Valhalla full of sorrow and despair. The gods fear the end. Wotan murmurs, "O that she would give back the ring to the Rhine." But Brunhild will not give it up,—it is now her pledge of love. Siegfried comes, takes the ring, and Brunhild is now brought to the Rhine castle of the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... idea of going up to the great king's palace (2), expressed their approval; and more than two thousand men deserted Xenias and Pasion, and took their arms and baggage-train, and came and encamped with Clearchus. But Cyrus, in despair and vexation at this turn of affairs, sent for Clearchus. He refused to come; but, without the knowledge of the soldiers, sent a message to Cyrus, bidding him keep a good heart, for that all would arrange itself in the right way; and bade him keep on sending ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... this, she felt inclined to sit down in a stupor of despair. The heavy smoky air hung about her bedroom, which occupied the long narrow projection at the back of the house. The window, placed at the side of the oblong, looked to the blank wall of a similar projection, not above ten feet distant. It loomed through the fog like a ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Dale rested for a few moments to peer into one of these, he raised his eyes to look back hopelessly at Saxe, who could only shake his head in his utter despair, knowing only too well that ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... announcement over, and the appropriate ejaculation, the correct look of amazement and despair given. Miss Rabbit warmed to her task, and became voluble; at each new paragraph of her discourse she exacted a fresh guarantee that the information would go no further, that the bond of absolute secrecy should be respected. Once, she felt it necessary to say that if the other communicated a single ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... pain upon him solely as a punishment, and his heart rebels against what he feels to be oppression. On the more enlightened, the effect is equally unfavorable, for he contrasts the practice of his persecutors with their profession, and is perhaps conducted thereby to infidelity and despair. One of the prisoners at Sing Sing, while contrasting the former with the present management, said, "We used to hear the gospel preached to us on the Sabbath, but see its doctrines trampled upon in all the conduct pursued towards us the whole week besides." ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... 'No rational man can die without uneasy apprehension.' MRS. KNOWLES. 'The Scriptures tell us, "The righteous shall have hope in his death[865]."' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Madam; that is, he shall not have despair[866]. But, consider, his hope of salvation must be founded on the terms on which it is promised that the mediation of our SAVIOUR shall be applied to us,—namely, obedience; and where obedience has failed, then, as suppletory to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... shepherd Claius, upon whom she bestowed her hand. Moved by his son's grief, Pilumnus entreated Ceres' revenge on the faithless nymph, and Lalage died in giving birth to the twins Amyntas and Amarillis. This but added to Philaebus' despair, so that he died upon her tomb, and the bereft father having once more sought the aid of the goddess, the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... father never comes back, and then the wilderness carries in its heart the secret of his end. Then, oh, those hours of happy expectancy that become days of grave anxiety and finally weeks of black despair! Such a case happened once when I was in Labrador. Later they found the young trapper's body where the man had perished, seventy miles from ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... cautiously, on discovering how small was their party, looked up at them, making threatening gestures, and uttering loud shouts and cries. The poor slaves, apparently, could not understand the matter, and marched on with their heads cast down, many of them pictures of wretchedness and despair. There were women, some with infants in their arms, others leading little children by the hand; a large number appeared to be girls of all ages, who walked together, with scanty garments, but unencumbered by the loads which were carried by most of the rest. Then came a gang ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the point of stupefaction at the corruption those communications betrayed, the shameless and sordid disregard of law and decency, the brutal and cynical indifference to public welfare. At sight of some of the signatures my head swam—I felt saddened, disillusioned, almost in despair for humanity. I suppose Inglesby had thought it wiser to preserve these letters—possibly for his own safety; but no wonder he had locked them up! I looked at the ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... his arm from under that drooping head, and, stealing soft-footed to the river's marge, stood there staring down at the rippling waters, and his heart was rent with conflicting passions—amazement, fear, anger, joy, and a black despair. And of a sudden Beltane fell upon his knees and bowed him low and lower until his burning brow was hid in the cool, sweet grass—for of these passions, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... wasteth at noonday," swiftly pursued by "the pestilence which walketh in darkness." The leaping terror of the flames climaxes the terror of the harrowing day and the helpless, hopeless night of agony and sorrow and despair. ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... as living water. I serve by using my two talents of mercy and love, but God will some day give you ten and you will have to return an hundred fold. He has given the ten to Gregory Goodloe, and now is the night of his despair, but his morning will dawn. You can't dance down and drink down and gamble down and lust down a man like that. He can bide his time until his sheep come to the fold to be fed and ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... brother to her room, while, mortified and angry with her, with myself, I escaped from the house, jumped into my skiff, and hardly stopped to breathe till I had reached my own little garret. I flung myself on my bed, and burst into bitter tears of resentment and despair. So, after all my pains, after my endeavors to improve myself, after all I had done, I was not worth the notice of a real lady. I supposed I was an uncouth, awkward girl, disagreeable enough to her; she would not want to see me near her. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... whose death she had been the unwitting cause of by giving him the poisoned robe which NESSUS (q. v.) had sent her as potent to preserve her husband's love; on hearing the fatal result she killed herself in remorse and despair. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... he realized that he was lost. He called loudly for help, but as there was no one to hear his cries, he had at last thrown himself down on the ground in despair ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... both silent for a moment. The crisis of our fortunes had come, and, for the first time, I saw Guest falter. He removed his spectacles for a moment, and there was despair in his eyes. ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... went to Philadelphia to begin our representations. My old acquaintances were in despair. To those who had sought to discourage me by their letters others on the spot joined their influence, and tried everything to overthrow my courage. I must admit that the nearer came the hour of the great experiment, ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... tell you a little bit about it? Yet, mark you, only "a little bit." You can never tell another one what it means to see Him. When once the sight has come, every word you utter about it, or Him, seems so lame and weak that you despair of ever being able to let out at your lips what has gotten into you. But let me try, even if lamely, in the eager yearning that it may help you know if, thus far, you have missed seeing Him, and maybe—so much better—help you ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... on to the commission of the crime, from fear of a violent death if he refused it, was tried, found guilty, and executed, leaving his childless father and mother, whose affections were centred in him, in a state of the most indescribable despair and misery. By the intercession and influence of friends, his body was restored to them, and interred in the churchyard, from which the procession just mentioned had issued. The heart, however—or to come nearer the truth—the reason of ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... several weeks, and about that time the carnival season began. Masked balls were given in the palace, and while the horns and violins were sounding in the ballroom Princess A. lay on her knees in the throes of dreadful despair, tearing her hair in furious longing for that lost paradise. She at last succeeded in bribing a chambermaid to secretly procure her a fancy dress. If it was to cost her immortal soul, once she would dance and be young and happy! The plot was betrayed, ...
— The Gray Nun • Nataly Von Eschstruth
... He was half-frantic with despair. What were they to do? In the morning they would be discovered and killed. For all his inherited size and strength he was, after all, only a little boy—a frightened, homesick little boy—reasoning faultily from the ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... when young Wilkinson received at Oxford a letter desiring his instant presence at home. His father had been stricken by paralysis, and the house was in despair. He rushed off, of course, and arrived only in time to see his father alive. Within twenty-four hours after his return he found himself the head of a wailing family, of whom it would be difficult to say whether ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... incapable of associating costliness with comfort. Had the counterpane of the bed been her own, she would have unhesitatingly converted it into a ball-dress. There were toilet appliances of which she had never felt the need, and could only guess the use. She looked with despair into the two large closets, thinking how poor a show her three dresses, her ulster, and her few old jackets would make there. There was also a dressing-room with a marble bath that made cleanliness a luxury instead of one of the ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... and contained two cots, one against each wall. She was left disconsolately alone, numb, in despair, and moving about in ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... Comrade seeing this Disaster, threw out all his small sails, and endeavour'd to get off, but the Victoire wrong'd her, and oblig'd her to renew the Fight, which she did with great Obstinacy, and made Monsieur Fourbin despair of carrying her if he did not board; he made Preparations accordingly. Signior Caraccioli and Misson were the two first on board when the Command was given; but they and their Followers were beat back by the Despair of the Sally Men; the former received ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... surrender. My boy"—and in his voice there echoed the aspiration and the despair of the true scholar, who abhors imperfection and incompleteness in a world where nothing is either perfect or complete; "it is different with you. I borrowed you, so to say, for the time. Without you I must ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... remained of high-born and high-bred chivalry was here; all that was loyal and patriotic was roused to activity by the common danger; and Granada, that had so long been lulled into inaction by vain hopes of security, now assumed a formidable aspect in the hour of its despair. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... ordered to drive through to the expected water ahead, while the saddle horses were held available as on the day before for frequent changing of mounts. The day turned out to be one of torrid heat, and before the middle of the forenoon, the cattle lolled their tongues in despair, while their sullen lowing surged through from rear to lead and back again in piteous yet ominous appeal. The only relief we could offer was to travel them slowly, as they spurned every opportunity offered them either to ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... his shoulder, and found him not half the weight of the parcel of linen. Tommy would have bitten like a weasel, but he feared Clare's terrible hands. He was on the back of Giant Despair, in the form of one of the best boys in the world. Clare took him round the wall, and over the fence into the blacksmith's yard. The ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... because they had no soul, and were not in danger of being lost forever. Again he says, that many times before he was ten years old, he "would have overturned God's government and dethroned the gracious Author of my being." He enumerates his early vices and lashes his soul in despair. Such religious sentiments in one so young seem to mark him as one who had in his soul the elements of a monk, and we should not have been surprised had he become a zealous disciple of Saint ...
— William Black - The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada • John Maclean
... which I was constrained to follow, that is of writing words to suit existing music, has its advantages. In some cases, as will be seen in the notes to the hymns, the musician, out of despair or even contempt for the doggrel offered to him, has composed a fine tune quite independent of the words to which it was dedicated[22], and such tunes have been silent ever since they were composed: ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... coward, but when she heard that Remond intended to come to London in connection with this business, she was at first in despair However, she summoned her courage to aid, and asked Lady Mar to tell him that if he was spoiling for a fight she would do ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... ocean with his struggling prey. Downward he pounces with rapid flight. The fish-hawk sees his enemy approaching, and attempts to escape; but, laden with the fish he has just captured, in spite of the various evolutions he performs, he is soon overtaken by the savage freebooter. With a scream of despair he drops ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... renewed interest in Sylvia Garrison all day and his dull ignorance was the last straw upon nerves screwed to the breaking-point. She sat up in bed and drew her dressing-gown about her as though it were the vesture of despair. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... quite contrary to the fire of hell. This is that gentle heat that brooded on the waters, and in six days hatched the world; this is that irradiation that dispels the mists of hell, the clouds of horror, fear, sorrow, despair; and preserves the region of the mind in serenity. Whatsoever feels not the warm gale and gentle ventilation of this spirit (though I feel his pulse), I dare not say he lives; for truly without this, to me there is no heat under the tropic; ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... of mercy. I have suffered—I have sinned—I have repented. And, though neither peace nor innocence can be restored to my bosom; though tears cannot blot out my offences, nor sorrow drown my shame; yet, knowing that my penitence is sincere, I do not despair that my transgressions may ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... on her knees and clasps her hands, praying. Her lips move. LARRY stands motionless, with arms crossed, and on his face are yearning and mockery, love and despair. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to play the soft, sleepy role behind which she hid her fierce nature, would stick at nothing to get rid of Christine and set the whole world against her. Though the girl's resolution held firm, a dull despair filled her. How vile and cruel life could be! Friendship was a mockery; love, disillusion and ashes; nothing held sweet and true but the hearts of little children. An arid conclusion for a girl from whom the gods had not withdrawn those two surpassing and swiftly passing gifts—youth ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... trembling hands and get another good look at the herd of hitherto believed extinct monsters, which were quietly feeding at a distance of about two miles away. At length he, with a comical gesture of despair, restored the borrowed binocular to Mildmay, and, turning to his companions, exclaimed in a ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... it had been decided that he might go safely between the showers, he never came to Tremblam at all, and Mr. Salsted sent a note to Mr. Kendal to let him know that his son had been at the races—village races, managed by the sporting farmers of the neighbourhood. There was a sense of despair, and again a talk, bringing at once those ever-ready tears and protestations, sorrow genuine, but fruitless. 'It was all Archie's fault, he had overtaken him, persuaded him that Mr. Salsted would not expect him, promised him that he ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... when the coffin which contains the dust of the President sets forward on its long march through mourning States, on its way to his home in Illinois, we might well be silent and suffer the awful voices of the time to thunder to us. Yes, but that first despair was brief: the man was not so to be mourned. He was the most active and hopeful of men; and his work has not perished: but acclamations of praise for the task he has accomplished burst out into a song of triumph, which even tears for his death ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... house at Bennington. Molly might have spared herself the many assurances that she gave concerning the universal esteem in which her cow-puncher was held, and the fair prospects which were his. So, in the first throes of her despair, Mrs. Wood wrote those eight not maturely considered pages to ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... the darkness, the blackness, the fearfulness and the horrors of her life now. Her only hope was the words of William Scott. She knew that he meant every word he said, and would rescue her if possible. How could he find her, was the question she would ask herself in her despair. Yet she hoped against hope that in some way or other he would ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... an uprising such as had not yet been seen of all that was outcast and lawless in the great town; with them consorted the discontented and the envious, the giddy and the frivolous, the curious and the fickle, all the unstable elements of society. This time the King was unnerved; in despair he fled for asylum to the chamber of the Assembly. That body, unsympathetic for him, but sensitive to the ragings of the mob without, found the fugitive unworthy of his office. Before night the kingship was abolished, and the royal family were imprisoned ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... from Heron's fist that brought him at last to his knees, and even then his hands did not relax their hold; they gripped the ornamental scroll of the gate, shook the gate itself in its rusty hinges, pushed and pulled with the unreasoning strength of despair. He had a sabre cut across his brow, and the blood flowed in a warm, trickling stream down his face. But of this he was unconscious; all that he wanted, all that he was striving for with agonising heart-beats and cracking sinews, was to get to his friend, ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... rulers, in their despair, said, "Let us go up to the house where Coriolanus used to live when he was one of us. His mother and his wife are still there. They are noble women, and they love Rome. Let us ask them to go out and beg our enemy to have mercy upon us. His heart ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... influence. For these and other reasons, such as the distrust of strangers and the difficulty of language, which often interposes a formidable barrier between savage man and the civilised enquirer, the domain of primitive beliefs is beset by so many snares and pitfalls that we might almost despair of arriving at the truth, were it not that we possess a clue to guide us on the dark and slippery way. That clue is action. While it is generally very difficult to ascertain what any man thinks, it is comparatively easy to ascertain what he does; and what a man does, not what he says, is the surest ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... words, the despair in her face was no stage-play. The Duke knew sincerity when it cried aloud. Still grasping her hands, he stood at arm's length, staring in ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... in the Pilgrim, at the Interpreter's house, by the representation of a man in an iron cage, who says, 'I cannot get out, O now I cannot!' The awful account of Spira's despair must have made a strong impression upon Bunyan's mind. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Into what sins will the forgetfulness of God's mercy lead us? A. The forgetfulness of God's mercy will lead us into sins of despair. ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... better of their prejudices, and either acquired or affected a truer taste. A few others stood aloof, merely because they had long before fixed the articles of their poetical creed, and resigned themselves to an absolute despair of ever seeing anything new and original. These were somewhat mortified to find their notions disturbed by the appearance of a poet, who seemed to owe nothing but to nature and his own genius. But, in a short time, the applause became unanimous, every one wondering how so many ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... not altogether despair of success. When I consider what strong, what irresistible reasons we have to urge, I can hardly think it possible that the mandate of the most powerful administration can prevail against them. Nay, I should consider victory, not merely ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... their sins may be. This is an article of faith, and without holding it you could not die a good Catholic. Some doctors, it is true, have before now maintained the contrary, but they have been condemned as heretics. Only despair and final impenitence are unpardonable, and they are not sins of our life ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... remained in her muscles, any vital warmth in her heart. Onward went that little child, painfully, but still steadily onward; she struggled against the drowsiness that attacked her, but at last she began to feel that she could do no more. But yield not yet to despair, thou gentle and brave orphan! One stronger than thou has come to thy assistance. For hearest thou not the subdued sound of horses' hoofs scattering the snow? thou ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... time of the Conquest. The Soma Cypress of Lombardy, which is 120 feet high and 23 in circumference, is calculated to go back to forty years before the birth of Christ. Francis the First is said to have driven his sword into it in despair after the battle of Padua, and Napoleon altered his road over the Simplon ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... tonics, and my hearing by oil of almonds; but alas! these did me no good whatever; my hearing became worse, and my digestion continued in its former plight. This went on till the autumn of last year, when I was often reduced to utter despair. Then some medical asinus recommended me cold baths, but a more judicious doctor the tepid ones of the Danube, which did wonders for me; my digestion improved, but my hearing remained the same, or in fact rather ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... the naked sands, ... but Eve throwing herself into his arms, besought him not to despair; ... 'let us rather pray to the Author of all things ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... comprehensive groups is only to burden the mind with disconnected facts, and more may be learned by a faithful and careful comparison of a few Species than by a more cursory examination of a greater number. When one considers the immense number of Species already known, naturalists might well despair of becoming acquainted with them all, were they not constructed on a few fundamental patterns, so that the study of one Species teaches us a great deal for all the rest. De Candolle, who was at the same time a great botanist and a great teacher, told me once that he could undertake to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... the great march, already vaguely talked of when they joined. But it had not been a march for marching's sake: its real purpose was more grave. A band of Arab thieves and murderers on the border of the M'zab country had to be caught and punished. No recruits were taken: disappointment for Max and despair for Valdez. He had hoped everything from that chance, and, in his rage at losing it, made a dash for liberty from Sidi-bel-Abbes. He got no farther than the outskirts, the forbidden Village Negre, where he risked a night visit in search of the man bribed to hide a ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... antique citadels, altogether neglected by the Greek and Roman authors. Their form and construction serve him, with the aid of ingenious reasoning, to prove that Greece was civilised a long time before the arrival of the Egyptian colonies. He does not despair of tracing back the descent of the Greeks to the Hyperborean nations, always by the analogy of their structures, which, by a singular identity, are found also among the Phoenicians. The Institute have pronounced the following judgment upon his theory:—'If the developments ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... kinsman that urged him to tell.— "'Tis Iddo's bright daughter!"—The words were scarce said— At the feet of his brother young Simeon lay dead.— It was but one blow on those temples so fair, One fierce cry of anger and jealous despair; And shuddering with horror his stern rival stood, And gazed on those features disfigured ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... unfortunate figure Quadratilla saw her chance to annoy him by belittling the conversation. To everyone's despair, she intruded maliciously: "To my thinking, the finding of my emerald would show to advantage the cut of our aristocratic wits." Cornelia had just whispered to Rufus, "I wish we could lose her as adequately out of our setting," when Lucius came ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... intervals, and men Cried; and the boys were restless as themselves, Till by degrees their stockings were devour'd; E'en pipes were dropp'd despairing—all, save one, One man was faithful to his pipe, and kept Despair and deeper misery at bay, By seeking ever for a "topper," dropped From some spurned pipe, but that he could not find; So, with a piteous and perpetual glare, And a quick dissolute word, sucking the ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... fire, the under half of which had burnt itself away unstirred into black dingy caverns. Before it, with breakfast untasted, sat Josiah Jessop—his feet on the fender, his elbows on his knees, the picture of despair. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Philip, "I'll soon find some more;" and he directly set to work, pulling up tufts of grass and kicking down pieces of the bank wherever it looked at all damp; but all in vain, not a worm could he find; and he was just about giving up his task in despair, when a shout ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... Ireland only by many of the public utterances made in her name, then, indeed might we despair of a people who having suffered so much and so valiantly resisted for so many centuries were now to be won to their oppressor's side, by, perhaps, the most barefaced act of bribery ever attempted by a Government against ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... favouritism had no place in Martial Law; but we were not all Medes and Persians in Kimberley. The rush for meat between six and eight o'clock in the morning was one of the sights of the siege: It sometimes happened that people, after a long wait, would throw up the sponge in despair and go home meatless; the odds were that they had not missed much, but their grievance was not the less real, nor their "language" the more correct, on that account. There were persons who never tried to get meat; and they were probably the wisest—'the world knows nothing of its ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... "Do not despair, dear child," said he, tenderly; "perhaps all is not lost, and I may be able to assist you. I can comprehend the nature of your sorrow, for I have suffered the same bitter disappointment. If, instead ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... watched his face, it changed first from despair to wonder, and finally it seemed to light up with the most remarkable look of relief and ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... rain spattered on to Elsie's forehead—another, and another—and then, down it came in torrents. To Elsie's despair, the horse slackened his already slow pace, and finally stood still, trembling and snorting. They were on an open road, with not even a ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... implicitly as I believe the fifth proposition of Euclid's first book. I believe in a future life with the like strength. It is behind these truths, Cleoras, that I entrench myself at this hour; these make the shield which defends me from the assaults of fear and despair, that would otherwise, I am ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... saved the child if it had done this or that, and its grief, founded in its physical being, lasts but a very short time. It is only a condition, and not that sorrow which becomes exaggerated to the point of despair, thanks to idleness and satiety. The cow has not that reasoning faculty which would enable it to ask the why. Why endure all these tortures? What was the use of so much love, if the little ones were to die? The cow has no logic ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... courting," he sighed, "your lady-love's sentiments are outraged if you don't spend the day with her and your own family are perfectly furious if you don't spend the day with them!... And after you're married?" With a gesture of ultimate despair he sank back into his cushions. "N—o, no one, I suppose, in the whole world, has ever spent Christmas just exactly the ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... cause thereof can be given. Why is it that Hindu doctrine has never set? Why this incongruity between doctrine and domestic practice? Why this double-mindedness in the same educated individual? Much might be said in the endeavour to account for these characteristic features of India, the despair of the Christian missionary. I confine myself to the bearing of the question upon the influence of Christian ideas, ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison |
