"Despair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this moment, when the world melted away all around him, when he stood alone like a star in the sky, out of this moment of a cold and despair, Siddhartha emerged, more a self than before, more firmly concentrated. He felt: This had been the last tremor of the awakening, the last struggle of this birth. And it was not long until he walked again in long strides, started to proceed ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... good plowmen know that a moldboard has to have a form as exact in its way as the back of a violin, otherwise it simply pushes its way through the ground, gathering soil and rubbish in front of it, until horses, lines, lash and cuss words drop in despair, and give it up. The desirable and necessary thing was to preserve the exact and delicate shape of the moldboard so that it would scour as bright as a new silver dollar in any soil, rolling and tossing ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... of her blouse, which had held the pebble, the teacher took a folded paper, closely covered with her neatest script, and read therefrom paragraphs which alternately plunged her pupil into despair or exalted him to extravagant delight. And the fortunate result of this first lesson was that when it was ended Montgomery had repeated an entire sentence with reasonable smoothness. But he had accomplished this without the pebble and with almost ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... leisurely dragging me down! This very thought caused me a fresh thrill of horror, and I called aloud for help. To whom? There was no one within miles of me—no living thing. Yes! the neigh of my horse answered me from the hill, mocking my despair. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... proposed any conspicuous recompense to the heroes who fall in the service of their country. But the example of their prince, and the confinement of a siege, had armed these warriors with the courage of despair, and the pathetic scene is described by the feelings of the historian Phranza, who was himself present at this mournful assembly. They wept, they embraced; regardless of their families and fortunes, they devoted their lives; and each commander, departing to his ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... masters of the town, and share its spoils; but its wealth has much decreased since these events took place. In eighteen months it has paid upwards of six hundred purses; and on the day before our arrival a new contribution of two hundred had spread despair among the inhabitants. A Kadhi is sent here early from Constantinople. Sermein bears from hence S.E. by E. There are no dependent villages in the ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... so near the grave, My thoughts are tempted to despair; But graves can never praise the Lord, For all is dust ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... held the household of the offender equally responsible with him for the offence, independently of the facts in the case. However, it was certainly also common enough for a bereaved wife to perform suicide, not through despair, but through the wish to follow her [289] husband into the other world, and there to wait upon him as in life. Instances of female suicide, representing the old ideal of duty to a dead husband, have occurred in recent times. Such suicides are usually performed according to the feudal rules,—the ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... earnestly repeat that marriage is the common and acceptable destiny of both boys and girls; but I must complain because girls do not regard it sufficiently before they enter into it. In the distress which follows their hastiness, in the despair which sometimes hardens their hearts, women call marriage a lottery, and ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... the distance to the helpless lad with a practised eye, and groaned in despair. "They'll fall short by a dozen feet," he murmured hopelessly. "God forgive me, for bringing him to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... be purged and defecated from its evils and its self-regard, and its eyes opened and couched and strengthened to behold undazzled the eternal light of God. The word of my text, standing alone, ministers despair. Regarded where Christ set it, as one of the series of characteristics which He has been describing, it kindles ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... do as I bid you.' And neither day nor night did her son cease tormenting her, till, in despair, she put on her best clothes, and wrapped her veil about her, and went over ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... to be refined and melancholy, the victim of a hopeless passion; to love in the old, stilted way, with impossible Adoration and Despair under ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... to measure the meaning of the possession of five thousand dollars which did not have to be spent for bed, board and clothing. At last he gave it up in despair. ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... in some aspects of the matter, be the best thing possible; but Mrs. Brownlow would have many conscientious scruples about the property, and Allen would be in utter despair." ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in order to avoid misunderstanding, it is proper to say that I have the firmest belief in the ultimate development of all mankind into a higher plane than it occupies now. I should otherwise be in despair. This faith will never desist in the effort to bring ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... despair of Helene's tragic mask relaxed. She dropped her face into her hands and began to sob. Then Ruyler was himself again. He picked her up in his arms and settled comfortably into the ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... and threats expressed in certain chapters, produced among the crowd the same effect of nervous terror as had once before been called forth by the precepts and maledictions of Deuteronomy. The people burst into tears, and so vehement were their manifestations of despair, that all the efforts of Ezra and his colleagues were needed to calm them. Ezra took advantage of this state of fervour to demand the immediate application of the divine ordinances. And first of all, it ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... centuries. Behind the rock stands a small monument, erected in memory of a young Portuguese lady, who, having seen her lover's ship leave the harbour and disappear below the horizon, threw herself in despair from ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... in a fiery flurry, till the hills and the plain and the river were all flooded with flushed light, gleaming and glowing, it would have but dimly symbolised the transfiguration of her world. In the twinkling of an eye her stark despair was changed into rapturous relief, a miracle which just at first made the marvellous cloak seem almost a matter of course. Any good thing might naturally be expected to befall her since Thady was not estranged and lost to her after all. "Whethen now, and is it yourself come streelin' along?" ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... tone of despair, "have I not explained to you time and time again that Members of Congress are the Representatives from the several States who are sent to Washington? How could the Governor, who is a State officer, or the Mayor, who ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... partial, local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a by-word down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest. I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... lateral tube 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, which I distributed circularly round the flame; but the flame is so exceedingly rare, that it is blown out by the gentlest possible stream of air, so that I have not hitherto succeeded in burning ether. I do not, however, despair of being able to accomplish it by means of some changes I am about to have made ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... to afford it, have oft times produced the noblest effects, have carried on the generous impulse that works within us, and prompted us manfully to proceed, when the weakness of our nature was ready to give in from despair. ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... his despair; they promised to mark the spot. The child resigned himself to fate and departed. I will let him speak ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... honour, and am carried away with a hot flame of resentment so that I, too, would cry for war, I seem to see that dying boy's eyes, looking through the mists that are vengeance and hatred and affronted pride, to war as it is—the end of hope, the gate of despair ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the woods, half-expecting they might find his body on the ground, or hanging from a tree; while others inquired in every direction, with increasing anxiety, till the evening. Then, as we were returning home in despair and disappointment, whom should we see in the green lane between the vicarage and the church, but our friend. He was looking into the shrubs as if watching something; and when we came up to him, he turned to us with a radiant smile, and said, ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... singing, down the side of Nebo Mountain—"Old Nebo"—mounted on an ox. Sun-kissed and rich her coloring; her flowing hair was like spun light; her arms, bare to the elbows and above, might have been the models to drive a sculptor to despair, as their muscles played like pulsing liquid beneath the tinted, velvet skin of wrists and forearms; her short skirt bared her shapely legs above the ankles half-way to the knees; her feet, never pinched by shoes and now quite bare, slender, graceful, patrician in their modelling, in strong ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... to be married. Kunjavati accordingly sent an invitation to Jhajhar Singh, requesting him to attend the wedding. He refused, and mockingly replied that she had better invite her favourite brother Hardaul. Thereupon she went in despair to his tomb and lamented aloud. Hardaul from below answered her cries, and said that he would come to the wedding and make all arrangements. The ghost kept his promise, and arranged the nuptials as befitted the honour of his house. Subsequently, he visited at night the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... assail the pirates all at once or individually, because the latter gave mutual assistance and it was impracticable to drive them back everywhere at once, the people fell into a dilemma and into great despair of making any successful stroke. In the end one Aulus Gabinius, a tribune, set forth his plan: he was either prompted by Pompey or wished to do him some favor; certainly he was not impelled by any love of the common welfare, ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... little peasant girl in a red jacket, who raised a pair of astonished eyes to the heavens, as if sure that the gift must have fallen straight from thence. Katy bent forward to watch its fate, and went through a little pantomime of regret and despair for the benefit of the opposite lady, who only laughed, and taking another from her servant flung with better aim, so that it fell exactly at Katy's feet. This was a gilded box in the shape of a mandolin, with sugar-plums tucked cunningly ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... what horrors hast thou not seen! If thou couldst speak, if that tongue of thine could be loosed, what would it say of those who, forgetful of their souls, sink lower than the soulless brutes! Better it is thou canst not speak; the anguish in thine eyes, the despair in thy honest heart, the fear, the awful fear in thy mother breast,—what ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... appearance; the reality of the thing remains independent and alien. So that what the man has found, in so far as he has found Good, is after all only a form of himself; and one can conceive him feeling a kind of despair, like that of Wotan in the Walkuere, when in his quest for a free, substantial, self-subsistent Good he finds after all, for ever, nothing but ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... the unfortunate Mangku Nagara declined. Mangku Bumi made common cause with the Dutch and the susunan against him, and the desertion of several of his adherents, who now joined his relentless enemies, left him no rest. He was hunted from place to place like a wild beast, until he resolved, in his despair, to fall upon his numerous foes, in the persuasion that he should perish in the strife. Forty of his bravest friends joined in this resolution; their example encouraged the few troops who remained with him; they attacked their enemies with desperate courage, ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... story of a blind boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of despair into a final victory gained by dedicating his life to the service of ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... distich about 'Love can hope when reason would despair;' there are Aaron Hill's famous lines on 'modest ease in beauty,' which, though it 'means no mischief, does it all.' There are Sir William Jones's 'To an Infant Newly Born;' Wolcot's 'To Sleep;' Luttrell's 'On Death;' and ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... determination of the probable error, he is hopelessly confused, and when he learns that time may be sidereal, mean solar, local, Greenwich, or Washington, and he is referred to an ephemeris and table of logarithms for data, he becomes lost in "confusion worse confounded," and gives up in despair, settling down to the conviction that the simple method of compass surveying is the best after all, even ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... started. He stared round apprehensively. Then, as though drawn by a magnet, his eyes came back to the letter in his hand, and once more fixed themselves upon the bold handwriting. But this time there was intelligence in his gaze. There was intelligence, fear, despair, horror; every painful emotion was struggling for uppermost place in mind and heart. He read again carefully, slowly, as though trying to discover some loophole from the horror of what was written there. The note was short—so short—there was not one spark of hope in it for the man who was reading ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... same author that a German horse-dealer, of Augsburg, once lost a horse, and being poor, wandered in despair to an inn. There some men gave him a mandrake, and on his return home he found a bag of ducats on the table. His wife, however, did not like the business, and persuaded the man to return to give back the root to those from whom he got it. But he could not find the men again, and ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... ready to despair when a possible means of checkmate flashed into my mind. Vetch was within a yard of the gate; his two men were at the horses' heads, to hold them when the report of the pistol came; their eyes were fixed on their master. As lightly as I could (my boots being heavy, as the long service required ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... from Mr. Connor toward the long building. A young man was sprinting across the stretch of green—a clean-cut young man in gray flannels. At the first sight of him, Katrina caught her breath sharply and blushed. It was Katrina's despair that she blushed so easily. As the young man neared them the spectators achieved the effect of obliterating themselves from the landscape. They melted into space. There remained the young man, Mr. Connor, ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... numbers of houses, on hackney-coaches—was superstitious comme toutes les rimes poetiques. She commonly brought a beautiful agate bonbonniere full of gold pieces, when she played. It was wonderful to see her grimaces: to watch her behaviour: her appeals to heaven, her delight and despair. Madame la Baronne de la Cruchecassee played on one side of her, Madame la Comtesse de Schlanigenbad on the other. When she had lost all her money her Majesty would condescend to borrow—not from those ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Critic in the autumn of 1844. A number of able Cambridge men had thrown their knowledge and thoroughness of work into the Ecclesiologist. There were newspapers—the English Churchman, and, starting in 1846 from small and difficult beginnings, in the face of long discouragement and at times despair, the Guardian. One mind of great and rare power, though only recognised for what he was much later in his life, one undaunted heart, undismayed, almost undepressed, so that those who knew not its inner fires thought him cold and stoical, had lifted itself above ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... falling of the sword that severed her last hope a new self-possession came to her—the quiet of despair. Her brain cleared, her fevered pulse became normal, the weariness that had racked her frame passed from her. She only asked to be alone for a little—alone with her love and her memories. She quarreled no ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... full of a gray melancholy light, yet the waters of the river boiled angrily as if touched by a raging tempest. The billows rose foaming above its surface, all white with the whiteness of fear. When they sank back again, they were black—black as despair ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... not—I could not move a limb. Noiselessly gliding towards me, the apparition approached. I could not retreat. It stood obstinately beside me. I became as one half-dead. The phantom shook its head with the deepest despair; and as the word 'Return!' sounded hollowly in my ears, it gradually melted from my view. I cannot tell how I recovered from the swoon into which I fell, but daybreak saw me on my way to England. I am here. On that night—at that same hour, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... it seemed as if God's Spirit had withdrawn from me. Fear took hold of me. For a week I was on the border of despair" (16). ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... despair, DEVENISH drops down L. of the chair, droops his head, raises his arms and lets them ...
— Belinda • A. A. Milne
... before, in reprobating any such alliance for him, as most unequal and degrading. Her way was clear, though not quite smooth.—She spoke then, on being so entreated.—What did she say?—Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does.—She said enough to shew there need not be despair—and to invite him to say more himself. He had despaired at one period; he had received such an injunction to caution and silence, as for the time crushed every hope;—she had begun by refusing to hear him.—The change ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... designating those of the French who were to be put to death, as well as those by whom the severe orders of the Imperial Government had been mitigated, and who were only to be banished. In fact, revolt was as natural to the Italians as submission to the Germans, and as the fury of despair to the Spanish nation. On this subject I may cite an observation contained in one of the works of Alfieri, published fifteen years before the Spanish war. Taking a cursory view of the different European nations he regarded—the Spaniards as the only people possessed ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... confided to Jean his disgust with the arrangements of the universe. Ellen Berstoun was to have paid them another visit, but for some reason she put it off; and at this decision he was plunged for forty-eight consecutive hours into a frenzy, alternately of relief and despair, which left him at last more lackadaisical than ever. A few days after his father's momentous interview with Andrew, he was roused to fresh anguish by the junior partner's departure to spend a week-end at Berstoun Castle, and his state of mind ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... all these efforts, they were being overhauled slowly, but Seymour still held on and did not despair. There was one chance of escape. Right before them, not a half league away, lay a long shoal known as George's Shoal, extending several leagues across the path of the two ships; through the middle of this dangerous shoal there existed a channel, narrow ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... to God. To us, who are guilty and erring, it is no small privilege that we can come by Jesus Christ. The hope of acceptance is necessary to sustain the heart of the worshipper, which without it would soon sink into despair. The apostle, you perceive, places the ground of the acceptance of our services upon our union with ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... Captain Langrishe's last night in England and that he would not return for five years? Five years spread out an eternity to Nelly's youthful gaze. She might be dead before five years were over. This afternoon she had felt no great desire to live, but that despair, of course, was wrong. She had not remembered at the moment how dear she and her father were to each other. As long as they were together there must be compensations ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... the tea-pot and cup! Melissa and Sacharissa are talking love-secrets over it. Poor Polly has it and her lover's letters upon the table; his letters who was her lover yesterday, and when it was with pleasure, not despair, she wept over them. Mary tripping noiselessly comes into her mother's bedroom, bearing a cup of the consoler to the widow who will take no other food, Ruth is busy concocting it for her husband, who is coming home from the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on the morrow Concobar's host was scattered as autumn leaves, and the House of the Red Branch perished, and ere long Concobar died in a madness of despair, and throughout the Green Isle was ...
— Celtic Tales - Told to the Children • Louey Chisholm
... of the race that followed? Why paint the despair of a brave little heart in sight of the home he had craved in vain? in a minute all was over. The Peregrines screeched in their triumph. Screeching and sailing, they swung to their eyrie, and the prey in their claws was the body, ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... find the bird flown. She had come down in the morning, white and tear-stained, and had told Stella that she could stay no longer, kissed her, and was gone out of the house before even Charles could be called. Stella's anxiety, almost despair, had however been relieved just before her brother's arrival by an electric message from Vale Leston with the ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... convent, you remember how angry you were with me?" A tear trembled in the eye of the invalid. "Well," continued Valentine, "the reason of my proposing it was that I might escape this hateful marriage, which drives me to despair." Noirtier's breathing came thick and short. "Then the idea of this marriage really grieves you too? Ah, if you could but help me—if we could both together defeat their plan! But you are unable to oppose them,—you, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 4.—BOGY, with bad boys in the bag on his back. Outlined from Christian bending under his burden, in my mother's old copy of the Pilgrim's Progress. The face from Giant Despair. ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... is sprung aleak; the sailor works at the pumps till, faint and weary, is heard from below, six feet of water in the hold; the boats are got ready, but, before they are into them, the vessel is dashed against a reef of rocks; some, in despair, throw themselves into the sea; others get on the rocks without any clothes or provisions, and linger a few days, perhaps weeks or months, living on shell fish, or perhaps taken up by some ship; ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... was in despair as to the outcome of my mission, nor did I accept the proffered hand of the prisoner. Here was a totally different order of man from what had ever come my way before, nor did I know how best to meet him. How much of his vain and reckless ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... she spoke, leaving me in astonishment at the mingled character of shrewdness, audacity, and frankness, which her conversation displayed. I despair conveying to you the least idea of her manner, although I have, as nearly as I can remember, imitated her language. In fact, there was a mixture of untaught simplicity, as well as native shrewdness and haughty boldness, in her manner, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the cause of religion and civil liberty received a check at one place or another, during those long years when he stood aside from the turmoil of life, a mere looker-on, he did not despair; he continued to hope undaunted. Under his picture he wrote sententiously: "Thought is strong enough to vanquish arrogance and injustice without recourse to arrogance ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... including longer compositions, but still embodying only isolated observations of life. In Ecclesiastes we find a connected series of writings, in which attempt is made to solve the mystery of the universe: but the attempt breaks down in despair. The Wisdom of Solomon renews the attempt in the light of an immortal life beyond the grave, and despair yields to serenity of spirit. The four books thus reflect a philosophical advance. In The Book of Job—one of the world's literary marvels—men's ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... shielded you so strangely once, will still guard you. Do not grieve because I go away with pain in my heart. It's a better kind of suffering than that with which I came, and lasting good may come out of it, for my old reckless despair is gone. If I ever do become a good man—a Christian —I shall have you to thank; and even heaven would be happier if you were the means of ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... tumult and stir of embarking. Busily plied the freighted boats; and in the confusion Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, too late, saw their children Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest entreaties. So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried, While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with her father. Half the task was not done when the sun went down, and the twilight Deepened and darkened around; and in haste the refluent ocean Fled away from the shore, and left ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... slighted Fancy with a mother's care Wept o'er his works, and felt the last despair: Torn from her head, she saw the roses fall, By all deserted, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... the hand of Fate. No boat could live in that fearful turmoil of water. Adam had said it, and she knew that what he said was true, knew by the utter dejection of his attitude, the completeness of his despair. She had never seen Adam in despair before; probably no one had ever seen him as he was now. He was a man to strain every nerve while the faintest ray of hope remained. He had faced many a furious storm, saved many a life that had been given up for lost by other men. But now ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... he was in despair, there was the sharp ping-wing of a mosquito, and he babbled out something incoherently, made a restless movement, and slapped his face quickly twice, as he had often done before in an attempt to slay one of ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... journal as frosty but fine, many as mild, and some even are described as warm: there were few, indeed, during which exercise on horseback might not have been pleasantly taken. When February set in, and no snow had yet fallen, I heard much despair evinced on the diminished chances of a good sleighing-time; and, although an enemy to severe cold, I confess I had my own regrets at not being permitted to assist at a sleighing frolic, of which I received on all hands such ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... it right. Now I admit it seems to me They show great inconsistency. But they imply I am to blame; Of course that makes my anger flame, And in a fiery fit of pique I stay at ninety for a week. Or sometimes in a dull despair, I give them just a frigid stare; And as upon their taunts I think My spirits down to zero sink. Mine is indeed a hopeless case; To strive ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... despair, my son," replied the canon; "and when I see you again in the morning I trust to find you in a ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sensible as to unpack, Dorothea sank into a chair, and in an attitude of great languor and despair confided her love affairs to the sympathetic and interested servant, who swore fealty and offered all possible assistance. Her kind intentions were put at once to the test, for immediately another violent knocking was heard, she flung open the door, and ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... battles in this prolonged war, in which the military talents of Frederick were so strikingly shown, it is possible to refer only to a few of the most important. He was defeated by the united Austrians and Russians at Kunersdorf; and so completely that he was for the moment thrown into despair, and wrote to his minister Finkenstein, "All is lost." In 1760 Berlin was held for a few days by the Russians, but Frederick soon defeated the Austrians once more at Torgau. In 1761, however, his situation was in the highest degree perilous. His resources ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... meantime, Emily and I are sufficiently busy, as you may suppose: I manage the ironing, and keep the rooms clean; Emily does the baking, and attends to the kitchen. We are such odd animals, that we prefer this mode of contrivance to having a new face amongst us. Besides, we do not despair of Tabby's return, and she shall not be supplanted by a stranger in her absence. I excited aunt's wrath very much by burning the clothes, the first time I attempted to iron; but I do better now. Human feelings are queer things; I am much happier black-leading the stoves, making the beds, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... course she had had every opportunity of being so, sent from place to place, from one indignant Hausfrau to another, ever since she left school. But Anna, persuaded that she had rescued her from depths of unspeakable despair, was overjoyed by this speech. "Don't talk about deserving," she said tenderly. "You have had such a life that if you were to be happy now without stopping once for the next fifty years it would only be ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... 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, and particularly of ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... 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 to the commander. But this ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... the Low Countries know well enough it would be madness to contend against the power of the greatest country in Europe, and to this day they have borne, and are bearing, the cruelty to which they are exposed in quiet despair, and without a thought of resistance to save their lives. There may have been tumults in some of the towns, as in Antwerp, where the lowest part of the mob went into the cathedrals and churches and destroyed the shrines ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... Alaska mothers and knew the delays of the frontier. None the less, Mr. Hazlett had borne in upon him all the time the feeling that he himself had been responsible for this disaster. Even as he set to work to organize search-parties he felt despair. ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... flow of tears that he quite wetted the sheet with wiping his cheeks. Gervaise had recommenced sobbing, deeply affected by her husband's grief, and the best of friends with him again. Yes, he was better at heart than she thought he was. Coupeau's despair mingled with a violent pain in his head. He passed his fingers through his hair. His mouth was dry, like on the morrow of a booze, and he was still a little drunk in spite of his ten hours of sleep. And, clenching his fist, he complained aloud. Mon Dieu! she was ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... slip of humanity taking root on earth and come to that May day which is the first to rise distinctly on my inward vision when I turn to retrospect. Even now I mark it as a day of great adventure. Since then I have battled with salmon in northern waters, I have felt my line strain under the tarpon's despair, I have heard my reel sing with the rushes of the bass, yet I do not believe that a whale with my harpoon in his side, as he thrashes the sea, would give me the same exulting thrill that came with a tiny trout's first tug ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... with a heavy iron belaying-pin? The man had attacked him with murderous intent. In defending himself, Heatherbloom believed he had killed the fellow. The chance blow he had delivered with the formidable weapon had been one of desperation and despair. It had been more than a question of his life or the other's. Her fate had been involved in that critical moment. He had dragged the unconscious figure to the shadows behind a life-boat. They would not be likely to stumble across the incriminating evidence ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... but the rest of us, not having yet dared to lift up our eyes towards the heavens, threw ourselves prostrate on the ground. At length the day appeared—a day how like to night! The cries of the people began to cease in the upper part of the city, but were redoubled from the sea-shore. Despair inspired us with courage. We mounted our horses and arrived at the port. What a scene was there! the vessels had suffered shipwreck in the very harbour; the shore was covered with dead bodies, which were tossed about and dashed against ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... directly before him. He found that the squirrel had gnawed through the board so as to get his nose out, but he could not gnaw any more, now that the box was all the time in motion. So he gave it up in despair, and remained crouched down in a corner of the trap during the remainder of the ride, wondering all the time what the people outside were doing ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... are victorious, the general who commands them and restores the military prestige of France will be the master of the government and of the country. If the French armies are defeated, the Government will disappear in a whirlwind of national rage and despair. 'In that event,' said a Republican Senator to me, 'in that event—which I will not contemplate—the princes of the House of France would be recalled instantly and by acclamation; we should have nothing left but that ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... your future intentions. He sees only the swarming millions at the North ostensibly sworn to restore him to his master, if he escape a little way. Perchance it is your false oath, which you don't mean to keep, that makes him turn from the attempt in despair. He knows you only—the world knows only by your actions, not your intentions, and those side with his master. The prayer which he lifts to Heaven, in his despair, numbers you rightly among ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... was not exaggerating. She was only a year older than the wilful lad, who must at times have driven her to despair. Yet she had never faltered in her efforts to restrain and control him; and had made a greater sacrifice for his sake than Lisle suspected, though in the light of a subsequent revelation of Gladwyne's character ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... lying in careless attitudes, but with fierce countenances, around a youthful prisoner, who forms the foreground figure, and is seated on a rock, with his languid limbs hanging over the precipice, which may be supposed to yawn beneath. It is impossible to describe the despair depicted in this figure: it is marked in his position, in the drooping of his head, which his nerveless arms seem with difficulty to support, and the little that may be seen of his face, over which, from his recumbent attitude, his ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... admiration. His curiosity to know what mistake he had made—for he knew it must have been some frightful blunder—was all the more keen, as he had no chance to rectify it. What a brute she must have thought him—or DID she really think him a brute even then?—for her look was one more of despair and pity! Yet she would remember him only by that last word, and never know that he had risked insult and ejection from her friends to carry her to her place of safety. He could not bear to go across the seas carrying the pale, unsatisfied face of that gentle girl ever before his ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... in the deep waters of despair—save me once more, save me!" Thus speaking she tottered into the office, and sank all limp and powerless into a chair, unable to move or speak, but still not insensible, and soon her brow sank ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... descend from this high plane of public history into the private homes of the world, in which sex, think you, should we there find the purest spirit of heroism? Who suffers sorrow and pain with the most heroism of heart? Who, in the midst of poverty, neglect and crushing despair, holds on most bravely through the terrible struggle, and never yields even to the fearful demands of necessity until death wrests the last weapon of defence from her hands? Ah, if all this unwritten heroism of woman could be brought to the light, even man himself ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... say things with which you will very much disagree; I must ask you therefore from the outset to believe that whatever I may blame or whatever I may praise, I neither, when I think of what history has been, am inclined to lament the past, to despise the present, or despair of the future; that I believe all the change and stir about us is a sign of the world's life, and that it will lead—by ways, indeed, of which we have no guess—to ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... me. It swung around the room once or twice, and that was enough. I knew in the flood of sudden illumination that the girl had planned this thing in advance, with the daring of despair—and a wife's despair, a very young wife's despair, is a more desperate thing than the anger of any other woman. Natica had planned it all in advance; had figured it, and the chances of it. And in the balance she had confidently thrown the asset ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... most desire to please. Had I been merry, I might have been censured as vastly low; and had I been sorrowful, I might have been left to mourn in solitude and silence; in short, whichever way I turned, nothing presented but prospects of terror, despair, ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... demonstrations against Leicester's enemies he considered himself entitled to the Earl's eternal gratitude, and was deeply disgusted at his apparent coldness. The governor was driven almost to despair by these quarrels. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... many individuals in the country who do not attend conventions? But no: I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reasons to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... legs. I tried with desperate struggles to get up, but could not lift myself from the ground. All the horror of my condition crowded into my mind. To be killed and scalped was the best fate I could expect. Just as I was about to give way to despair, I thought I would make an attempt to save my life. From my companions I could expect no help, for even if they succeeded in preserving their own lives they would scarcely be in a condition to come back and rescue me. Poor Obed I felt pretty sure must have been killed. A small stream ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... she wrung her hands and turned her tear-stained flower-crowned face to Heaven, looking so lovely in her despair—for she was indeed a beautiful woman—that assuredly the sight of her would have melted the hearts of any less cruel than were the three fiends before us. Prince Arthur's appeal to the ruffians who came to blind him was not more touching than ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... his legs!" he commanded and Tom with a flash of comprehension obeyed unquestioningly. His weight on Jack's feet enabled the captain to lean far over the rail and grasp the wrists of a clinging figure gripping with the tenacity of despair the links of the cable that still hung from the ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... maiden, and sought for her for a long time in vain. When he abandoned the search, he did not venture to return to the island, but after crying out a few words of unavailing regret swam again towards Finland. The father's cry of despair fully roused the mother, who sprang up, and ran down to the shore, only to learn that her daughter ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... bloodshed. On both sides the fight was waged with inexcusable savagery. The National Guard, with a few exceptions, fought side by side with the regular troops. The workmen, threatened with the loss of their subsistence, fought with the courage of despair. At the point of the bayonet they were at last driven into the northeastern quarter of the city. There, plied with grape and canister from every direction, they were brought to ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... situation seemed hopeless she did not cease to hope, for was she not the daughter of John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom, whose famous challenge to Fate, "I still live!" remained the one irreducible defense against despair? At thought of her noble sire the patrician chin of Tara of Helium rose a shade higher. Ah! if he but knew where she was there were little to fear then. The hosts of Helium would batter at the gates ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... bounty fed, Haunted by busy memory's bitter tale! Beasts of the forest have their savage homes, But He, who should imperial purple wear, Owns not the lap of earth where rests his royal head! His wretched refuge, dark despair, While ravening wrongs and woes pursue, And distant far the faithful few Who would his ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... projecting rock towards which he was hurried. Down he came upon it with such speed that he felt no power of man could resist. But there was a small eddy just below it, into which he was whirled as he stretched forth his hands and clutched the rock with the energy of despair. He was instantly torn away. But another small point projected two feet below it. This he seized. The water swung his feet to and fro as it gushed into the vortex, but the eddy saved him. In a moment his breast was on ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... third day the Indians, seeming to despair of destroying the beleaguered party before succor might arrive, began to draw off, and on the fourth wholly disappeared. The men were by this time nearly famished for food. Even now there was nothing to be had except horse-meat from the carcasses of the animals killed ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... piteously across her eyes as though to shut out the crowds, the station, and the urgency of this personality beside her. Despair was in her heart. How to ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... shoulders in comic despair. His speech was finally delivered from the perilous eminence of a booking-clerk's stool, an elevation which Jan so gravely mistrusted that he felt impelled to rise erect on his hind feet, placing both fore paws beside his lord's raised heels, and thereby providing ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... of a softly knowing laugh nearly drove him to despair. He swore violently under his breath. The fool would keep him awake all night now for certain. He cursed his luck. He wanted to forget his maddening troubles in sleep sometimes. He could detect no movements. Without apparently making the slightest ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... must do, Roberta, to disguise your roundness of a young woman? All is lost!" I said to myself in despair. Then a thought came to me. I had never been habited in a corset in my life on account of a prejudice entertained to that garment by my Nannette, but I bethought me to remove that shirt and also the silk one ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the tree, and you are right," said Dick. "This is too bad! And when we are in such a hurry, too!" His voice had a note of despair ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... on struggling. For ten years she was proudly able to say that during all that time no Catholic had suffered for his belief either in purse or person. The advanced section of the Catholic clergy was in despair. They saw the consciences of their flocks benumbed and their faith growing lukewarm. They stirred up the rebellion of the North. They persuaded Pius V. to force them to a sense of their duties by declaring Elizabeth excommunicated. They sent their missionaries ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... his face blackened beyond recognition, glares out at them with the courage of despair. On one side of him is Lady Stafford, on the other Miss Massereene; from behind each of their waists protrudes a huge and sooty hand. That hand belongs ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... if taken alone, kindle despair. 'Wash you, make you clean'—easy to say, plainly necessary, and as plainly hopelessly above my reach. If that is all that a prophet has to say to me, he may as well say nothing. For what is the use of saying 'Arise and walk' to the man who has been lame from ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... complicated then," Sir Richmond mused. "Our muddles were unconscious. We drifted from mood to mood and forgot. There was more sunshine then, more laughter perhaps, and blacker despair. Despair like the despair of children that can weep itself to sleep.... It's over.... Was it battle and massacre that ended that long afternoon here? Or did the woods catch fire some exceptionally dry summer, leaving black hills and famine? Or did strange men bring a sickness—measles, perhaps, ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... rash lover, wandering, self-tortured, about the world. I picture his gradual descent, and, finally, his complete despair when he realises that he has lost the most precious gift life had to offer him. Then his withdrawal from the world of sorrow and the subsequent derangement ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... "Despair lies down and grovels, grapples not With evil, casts the burden of its lot. This Age climbs earth. —To challenge heaven. —Not less The lower deeps. It laughs at Happiness." ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... terrestrial history since being first began upon our planet,—it presents to the student a theme so vast and multifarious, that it might seem but the result, on his part, of a proper modesty, conscious of the limited range of his powers, and of the brief and fleeting term of his life, were he to despair of being ever able effectually to grapple with it. "But," to borrow from one of the most ingenious of our Scottish metaphysicians, "in this, as in other instances in which nature has given us difficulties ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... austerely. He had begun to despair of ever making Steve show him that deference and respect which he considered due to the son of the house. The more frigid he was, the more genial and friendly did Steve become. The ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... could to prevent it!" cried Mary, in despair. "All is over, I am afraid. I was sitting on the doorstep, preparing some arrowroot, when I saw Aunt Lizzy go out the gate. I thought it strange at the time of day, but never suspected the truth. Presently I saw her coming back with ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... already tasted the bitterness of despair I should have tasted it as I saw these men. Something told me that they were my father and brother. My very soul sickened at the sight—the memory of Despard's words came back—and if it had been possible to have felt any ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... forms. So far from that, in every case where the old spelling or form seemed essential to metre, to rhyme, or meaning, no change has been attempted. But, wherever its preservation was not essential, the spelling of the monkish transcribers — for the most ardent purist must now despair of getting at the spelling of Chaucer himself — has been discarded for that of the reader's own day. It is a poor compliment to the Father of English Poetry, to say that by such treatment the bouquet and individuality ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... their teachers with the necessary pictures, leaflets, and outline drawings of birds for colouring, over thirty-one million pages of printed information have been distributed. Pupils have taken hold of this bird study with great zest. Many a dull or inattentive boy, who had been a despair to his teacher and parents, responded to this real nature teaching which took him from his ordinarily uninteresting studies into the wide out of doors. Thousands of teachers have written letters filled with ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... of those miserable discussions between the husband and wife that Blair had gone out of the hotel with violent words of despair. He never knew just where he spent that day—certainly not in the office at the Works; but wherever it was, it brought him face to face with his opportunity. Should he accept it? Should he refuse it? He ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... circumstances, Cardatas did not despair of overhauling the Miranda. He was sure she would make for the Straits, and he did not in the least doubt that, with good winds, he could overtake her before she reached them, and even if she did get out of them, he could still follow her. His belief that the Arato could sail two miles ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... her feet and stared at him, with infinite yearning in her eyes, gave a faint cry, half anguish, half despair, and threw herself into his arms, holding him with passionate violence while she smothered his lips ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... I seized him in my arms, for despair had deprived him of reason. His eyes flashed fire, big drops of sweat hung upon his face, his knees trembled, and I felt his heart beat violently ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... candidate for the crown, and to take up arms against his father. The young prince was seduced by the offers made him, and Egypt became plunged in a civil war. But for the courage and conduct of Agesilaues, which were conspicuously displayed, Tacho would have yielded to despair and have given up the contest. In two decisive battles the Spartan general completely defeated the army of the rebels, which far outnumbered that of Tacho, and replaced the king on ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... from the depths of despair to the heights of hope. The capture of such wealthy places dispelled all their doubt and discouragement. They were able to repay themselves for the losses and hardships they had undergone, and the prize they had thus secured ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... his lordship. 'Oh, ye barber's apprentice! Oh, ye draper's assistant! Oh ye unmitigated Mahomedon! Sing out, Jack! sing out! For Heaven's sake, sing out!' added he, throwing out his arms in perfect despair. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... and all life had given her was hideous poverty, going errands in shabby hats, and her stepmother's rubbers, through rain and mud, and being waited upon by such men as Sam Doolittle. She looked with eyes full of passionate despair ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... not see much ground for hope," he replied. "But, on the other hand, there are no positive grounds for despair. So long as these grounds are not furnished, I say keep it from Mr. and Mrs. Channing. Answer me one thing: What good end would it serve to ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... that temple," Pei Ming explained, "really faces south, and is all in a tumble-down condition. I searched and searched till I was driven to utter despair. As soon, however, as I caught sight of it, 'that's right,' I shouted, and promptly walked in. But I at once discovered a clay figure, which gave me such a fearful start, that I scampered out again; for it looked as much alive as if it were a real ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... thought of him with a most pitiful tenderness. "Oh," she said, "we must all be good to him: he does not look so ill to me as he looks tired. We must keep up his spirits and his hope for himself. I see no cause for despair." ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... recalling all her crimes to her memory; she was asking pardon for her sins; perhaps she was even writing a letter imploring forgiveness from her virtuous husband—a forgiveness she was purchasing with her death! Villefort again groaned with anguish and despair. "Ah," he exclaimed, "that woman became criminal only from associating with me! I carried the infection of crime with me, and she has caught it as she would the typhus fever, the cholera, the plague! And yet I have punished ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... for despair as regards bad butter is, that at the tables where it is used it stands sentinel at the door to bar your way to every other kind of food. You turn from your dreadful half-slice of bread, which fills your mouth with bitterness, to-your beef-steak, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... you—my life—my very soul," replied Moore, fervently. "By Heaven! I'll be the man I might have been. I'll rise out of despair. I'll even reconcile myself to being ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... riband, take and keep it, (I have loosed it from my hair)[1] Feeling, while you overweep it, Not alone in your despair, Since with saintly Watch unfaintly Out of heaven shall o'er you lean "Sweetest ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... clouds that had been the despair of Judy and Pierce all day as they had vainly tried to put them on canvas, came together and managed to make a very large black cloud which finally filled the whole heavens; and a ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... I forget the sound which rose at that sight; it was not a cry of woe, neither was it the howl of despair, nor the sob of sorrow, nor the gurl of wrath, nor the moan of anguish, but a deep and dreadful rustling of hearts and spirits, as if the angel of desolation, in passing by, had shaken all ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... of reason might well be tempted to ignore the subsequent attitudes into which moral life fell in the West, since they all embodied a more or less complete despair, and, having abandoned the effort to express the will honestly and dialectically, they could support no moral science. The point was merely to console or deceive the soul with some substitute for happiness. Life is older and more ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... history. It consists in a simple but inspiring record of regeneration springing from disaster. It is the story of Chicago, of San Francisco, of Galveston, of Dayton, and of many a smaller town: a cataclysm, a few days of despair, a return of ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... teocalli. There was, as you remember, a tradition that if part of the wall was removed the god would send a flood to overwhelm his enemies. Now the Cholulans strove with might and main, and at last succeeded in wrenching away a few stones, but dust, not water, followed. In despair they crowded into the wooden turrets which surmounted the temple, and poured down stones, javelins, and burning arrows upon the Spaniards as they came swarming up the steps. But the fiery shower fell harmlessly upon the steel head-pieces of the soldiers, and they used the blazing shafts to ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... and she shook so, she could not lift heavy pieces of furniture quickly and sharply; and in the middle the clock struck the hour for her brothers' return, when all ought to have been tidy and ready for tea. She gave it up in despair, and ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... through, considerately. "But I wonder to how many other women you have talked such nonsense about beauty and despair and eternity," said Freydis, "and they very probably liking to hear it, the poor fools! And I wonder how you can expect me to believe you, when you pretend to think me all these fine things, and still keep me penned in this enclosure like an ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... get out the drawing the latter boy had made from the lines on the ring, and they would study over it a long time, but they always found it baffling, and they finally gave up in despair. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... artery of the enemy's communication which Nashville does not; and, secondly, because it is in the midst of loyal people, who would rally around it, while Nashville is not.... But my distress is that our friends in East Tennessee are being hanged and driven to despair, and even now, I fear, are thinking of taking rebel arms for the sake of personal protection. In this we lose the most valuable stake we ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... seating herself by the youth, pushed aside the heavy hair from his brow and quietly fanned him, while she tried to draw his thoughts away from himself, and fix them upon something pleasing and instructive; but the mood was perverse, and she was about to despair when two little feet came patting through the hall, and Kittie Fay ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith |
