"Despairing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a substitute for theatre-going. But one day, a week after the irretrievable disappearance of Fifi and Mimi, she went so far as to admit a note of unconscious confession into her protest that she was getting pretty tired of being mistaken for a three-ring circus! Such was her despairing expression, and the confession lies in her use ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... to give. In vain for him to open wide the supply valve. Vain to adjust the carburetor. Even as he made a despairing, instinctive motion to perform these useless acts—while Beatrice, deathly pale and shaking with terror, clutched at him—the engine spat forth a last, convulsive bark, and ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... liberty, the evil spirit of the rebellion, in the fury of despair, nerved and directed the hand of an assassin to strike down the chief character in both. It was no one man who killed Abraham Lincoln; it was the embodied spirit of treason and slavery, inspired with fearful and despairing hate, that struck him down in the moment of the ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... paddle. In about half an hour, when we had gained probably five or six miles to the southward, a large fleet of the flat-bottomed canoes or rafts were seen to emerge from the bay evidently with the design of pursuit. Presently they put back, despairing ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... delighted at showing off the one Italian tag he had picked up from his reading. And filled with one of the purest joys of the young literary life and therefore untouched by pessimistic counsel, he left the despairing actor. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... be accounted for but by a miracle. It was asserted and believed that the Holy Virgin, touched with his great desire to become learned and famous, took pity upon his incapacity, and appeared to him in the cloister where he sat, almost despairing, and asked him whether he wished to excel in philosophy or divinity. He chose philosophy, to the chagrin of the Virgin, who reproached him in mild and sorrowful accents that he had not made a better choice. She, however, granted his request that ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... strait Of you and me more intimate, Some unguess'd opportunity Of nuptials in a new degree. But, oh, with what a novel force Your best-conn'd beauties, by remorse Of absence, touch; and, in my heart, How bleeds afresh the youthful smart Of passion fond, despairing still To utter infinite goodwill By worthy service! Yet I know That love is all that love can owe, And this to offer is no less Of worth, in kind speech or caress, Than if my life-blood I should give. For good is God's prerogative, And Love's deed is but to prepare The ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... the white stone font of St. Asaph's in his long white surplice holding a white-robed infant, worth half a million dollars, looking as beautifully innocent as the child itself, and drawing from every matron of the congregation with unmarried daughters the despairing cry, "What a pity that he has ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... abandoned all thoughts of the enterprise, and joined the camp of Lewis, who, during the absence of the king, had made an irruption into Normandy, and had laid siege to Rouen [k]. The place was defended with great vigour by the inhabitants [l]; and Lewis, despairing of success by open force, tried to gain the town by a stratagem, which, in that superstitious age, was deemed not very honourable. He proclaimed in his own camp a cessation of arms, on pretence of celebrating the festival of St. Laurence; and when ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Here it behooved him to go cautiously. Inwardly he cursed the reticence of Judge Enderby with a fervor which would have caused that aged jurist the keenest delight. Then he made one more despairing call upon the reserve forces of memory. In vain. Still, he mustn't let her see that. Play up and trust to ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the name of common sense," said he, excitedly, "couldn't the general have known whether canal-boats would go through that lock before he spent a million dollars getting them there? I am almost despairing at these results. Everything seems to fail. The impression is daily gaining ground that the general does not intend to do anything. By a failure like this we lose all the prestige gained by the ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... on us even like his brother Death— We know not when it comes—we know it must come— We may affect to scorn and to contemn it, For 'tis the highest pride of human misery To say it knows not of an opiate; Yet the reft parent, the despairing lover, Even the poor wretch who waits for execution, Feels this oblivion, against which he thought His woes had arm'd his senses, steal upon him, And through the fenceless citadel—the body— Surprise that haughty garrison—the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... look out for employment and an asylum for her—indeed, that he has already heard of a charming situation in the depths of Ireland—all with a brutal jocoseness which most women of spirit, unless grievously despairing of any other lover, would have resented, and any woman of sense would have seen through. But Jane, that profound reader of the human heart, and especially of Mr. Rochester's, does neither. She meekly hopes she ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... it may be useful yet. I have no fears. Ever since we prayed I have felt as if our guardian angels had their wings round us." She was like a guardian angel herself as she turned to the shrinking Sadie, and coaxed some little hope back into her despairing heart. ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dumb. I knew not what to say or ask or think. The happenings of this terrible day, which had wrought the defeat of the Union army, had been too much for me. Vanquished, exhausted, despairing, heart-sore from enforced desertion of my wounded friend, still far from safety myself, with no physical desire remaining except the wish to lie down and be at rest forever, and with no moral feeling in my consciousness ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... sunk to that pitch of cowardice—" He stopped, unable to complete the sentence. He clasped and unclasped his hands convulsively, he moistened his dry lips with his tongue, and looked about him with a weak, almost despairing laugh. Then he began in another way. "The Christian was a Portuguee from Marmora. He was set in the wall with his arms outstretched on either side—the attitude of a man crucified. I built in his arms—his right arm first—and mortised the stones, then his left arm in the same way. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... could yeild. For solitude somtimes is best societie, And short retirement urges sweet returne. 250 But other doubt possesses me, least harm Befall thee sever'd from me; for thou knowst What hath bin warn'd us, what malicious Foe Envying our happiness, and of his own Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame By sly assault; and somwhere nigh at hand Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find His wish and best advantage, us asunder, Hopeless to circumvent us joynd, where each To other ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... the Fourierists think of leaving France and going to the new world to found a phalanstery. When a house threatens to fall, the rats scamper away; that is because they are rats. Men do better; they rebuild it. Not long since, the St. Simonians, despairing of their country which paid no heed to them, proudly shook the dust from their feet, and started for the Orient to fight the battle of free woman. Pride, wilfulness, mad selfishness! True charity, like true faith, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... of King Crisnarao from his disease as has been before recounted, being sick and already despairing of his life, he made a will, saying that of his three brothers whom, at the time when they raised him to be King, he had sent to be confined in the fortress of Chamdegary[589] with his nephew, son of the King Busbalrao,[590] they should make King his brother Achetarao[591] ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... shout of joy sounded up and down all Italy when the news of his return was heard. Many zealous brethren were already despairing, for persecutions had begun in many provinces; so when they learned that their spiritual father was alive and coming again to visit them their joy was unbounded. From Venice Francis went to Bologna. The journey was marked by an incident which once more shows his acute and wise goodness. Worn out ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... through the crowd. Men drew in their breath hard, and women shrieked, unable to turn away their eyes, fastened by a terrible fascination on the peril. Horrid apprehensions invaded the mind of many a parent. The doomed boy might be his own son. Despairing glances were cast around in every direction for help. In vain: none could be given. There was time for nothing: with every second the child was swept ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Clara in his, and utter the words that bound him to her forever, without a visit from the one whose heart he had broken years before. She came to him in the dark and silent midnight, as he tossed sleeplessly upon his bed, and stood and looked at him with her pale face and despairing eyes, until he was driven almost to madness. She was with him when the light of morning dawned; she moved by his side as he went forth to meet and claim his betrothed; and was near him, invisible to all eyes but his own, when he stood at the altar ready to give utterance to the solemn words ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... beat off the natives; inflicting some loss upon them. These took to the woods, in which they could not be followed; and Captain Francis, mourning for the loss of his three adventurers, and of the gunner killed by his side; and despairing of ever recovering the bodies of those who were, as he believed, cut off and murdered; embarked on board ship, and sailed down the coast. A few days later he put in to another bay, and ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... lose itself in a chaos of calamity, bent and swayed by wailing minor cadences through whose torrent of hurrying sound it could be heard vainly and fitfully trying to assert itself again, only to be at last weighed down, crushed out, by a cataclysm of despairing chords. Then, after a long, pregnant pause—the culminating silence of defeat—the original melody stole out once more, repeated in a ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... little time the fortifications were ruined, and the works advanced at the foot of the walls, in which the besiegers had made several large breaches. The duke of Gordon, finding his ammunition expended, his defences destroyed, his intelligence entirely cut off, and despairing of relief from the adherents of his master, desired to capitulate, and obtained very favourable terms for his garrison; but he would not stipulate any conditions for himself, declaring that he had so much respect for all the princes descended from king James VI. that he would not affront ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... saw them determined, desperate, despairing, half rebellious, half subdued; resigned with the resignation of sheer helplessness, which I take it is a different thing from the resignation of sheer hopelessness. It is no very pleasant sight to see a country flayed and quartered ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... think otherwise; it was that I felt like this and could not feel otherwise; and I should have appeared to myself as wicked, weak, and base had I ever even desired to think or feel otherwise, however personally despairing of this life—a traitor to what I jealously guarded as ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... through all the seams, and the boat went to the bottom immediately, so that they were forced to get on shore again quite drenched in the sea. During the whole of the preceding long night, the boat had been beating against the rock, which had loosened its planks and opened all the seams. Despairing now of any relief, as they were utterly destitute of any means to repair their boat, they constructed two small tents of their oars and sails, to shelter themselves from the weather, and hewed the materials of their boat in pieces to make a fire to warm themselves. The only food ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... left their ship for the shore. Black Paul tried to restrain them, for he feared to leave the Revenge too weakly manned, she having such a valuable cargo; but his orders and shouts were of no avail, and despairing of stopping them the sailing-master went with them; and as they pulled wildly towards the town the men of one boat shouted to another, and that one to another, "Hurrah for our captain, the brave ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... sing, but with no great success; the parrot-kind have many modulations of voice, as appears by their aptitude to learn human sounds; doves coo in an amorous and mournful manner, and are emblems of despairing lovers; the woodpecker sets up a sort of loud and hearty laugh; the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, from the dusk till daybreak, serenades his mate with the clattering of castanets. All the tuneful passeres express their complacency by sweet modulations and ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... struck out, struggling bravely for life. His feet touched the hard sand, and the next instant he was thrown high upon the beach. He staggered forward, and before the following sea had reached him he had escaped from its clutches. The despairing shrieks of his crew reached his ears. In vain he endeavoured to render them assistance. He rescued two, however, at the risk of being himself thrown back into the foaming surges. Three others had been thrown as he ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... up picnics. She stayed home while Jo took the three about. When she was present she tried to look as plain and obscure as possible, so that the sisters should show up to advantage. She schemed, and planned, and contrived, and hoped; and smiled into Jo's despairing eyes. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... nettled when she found how completely Katherine had effaced herself from De Burgh's fickle mind. She had been highly pleased with the idea of having her husband's distinguished relative for a virtuous and despairing adorer, and his ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... our speed was most remarkable, inasmuch as the distance between us did not vary a hundred yards in an hour. All night we were watching, measuring distances with nautical instruments, &c., hoping at moments that we were nearer, despairing at others that she was gaining from us. We threw overboard fifty or sixty tons of coal, to no avail; we could not get within shot of the 'Livadia,' to capture which I would have given all I possessed. As day broke we saw the crew of the 'Livadia' busily employed ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... longer governor, being superseded by Major Gordon. I met him walking the streets as a common citizen. He seem'd a little asham'd at seeing me, but pass'd without saying anything. I should have been as much asham'd at seeing Miss Read, had not her friends, despairing with reason of my return after the receipt of my letter, persuaded her to marry another, one Rogers, a potter, which was done in my absence. With him, however, she was never happy, and soon parted from him, refusing to cohabit with him or bear his name, it being now said that he had another ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... must wake up, as the Duke of Devonshire said the other day; wasn't it? Oh, well, it was someone else. Not that I ever indulge in despair about the Future; there always have been men who have gone about despairing of the Future, and when the Future arrives it says nice, superior things about their having acted according to their lights. It is dreadful to think that other people's grandchildren may one day rise up and call ...
— Reginald • Saki
... a curiously jerky movement, as if she wrenched herself free from some constricting hold. She went to the bowed, despairing figure. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... often beholds with a despairing eye his own ships sunk in the ocean; his debtors fail; his goods unsold, his business cramped; and himself, his family and his hopes ruined; while a less skilful but more successful neighbor sees wealth blown to him by every wind, ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... was relieved from a most embarrassing situation by old Wardlaw; he cried out on this monopoly, and Helen instantly darted out of her chair, and went to him, and put up her cheek to him, which he kissed; and then she thanked him warmly for his courage in not despairing of her life, and his goodness in sending out a ship ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... patriots; poor, enslaved Italy; Holland, ruthlessly annexed to France; in short, all the states that are groaning under the tyrant's yoke; yea, France herself!—all are crying for deliverance from slavery. But whence is help to come when every one shuts his eyes against the despairing wail of Europe; when every one idly folds his hands and waits for some one else to be bold enough to call upon the people to take up arms? Every individual must be animated with this courage; must regard himself as chosen by Providence to commence the task of liberation. Each ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... recognized them, she made despairing signs to them, then, speaking aloud, she said: "Mercy! How do you mean!... Look there! What ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... will assuage Grief, sickness, poverty, and age; And strongly shoot a radiant dart To shine through life's declining part. Say, Stella, feel you no content, Reflecting on a life well spent? Your skilful hand employ'd to save Despairing wretches from the grave; And then supporting with your store Those whom you dragg'd from death before? So Providence on mortals waits, Preserving what it first creates. Your generous boldness to defend An innocent and absent friend; That courage which ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... saddle, rose with him, and Silvermane leaped through the corral gate, and out upon the stretch, lengthening out with every stride, and settling into a wild, despairing burst of speed. The white mane waved in the wind; the half-naked Navajo swayed to the motion. Horse and rider disappeared ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... care. Since that time she has almost always continued to live in the house from the roof of which she heard her sister's cry; and though apparently rational in every thing else, never fails to go up each evening and sing the song she used to sing of old, though in a more plaintive and despairing tone. If asked wherefore she acts in this wise, her reply is, that she is seeking for her sister Zoe, and nobody attempts to contradict the harmless delusion. Several years have now passed away since this event, and the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the shore. Wallace raised what was left of his voice in a despairing shout. The scaler mockingly waved his hat, then turned and ran swiftly and easily toward the shelter of the woods. At their border he paused again to bow in derision. Carpenter's cry brought men to the boarding-house door. From the shadows of the forest two vivid ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... seeing the young Englishman who had dropped from the skies to pervade and beautify her dreams. Though nothing spurs on a young girl's infant passion so effectually as an obstacle, there was a time when Mademoiselle de Fontaine was on the point of giving up her strange and secret search, almost despairing of the success of an enterprise whose singularity may give some idea of the boldness of her temper. In point of fact, she might have wandered long about the village of Chatenay without meeting her Unknown. ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... rallied swiftly, agilely, and again the head and neck bended back to the double curve, and the steaming, wide-open mouth made its desperate effort to reach its enemy. This attack, it could be seen, was despairing, but it was nevertheless impetuous, gallant, ferocious, of the same quality as the charge of the lone chief when the walls of white faces close upon him in the mountains. The stick swung unerringly again, and the snake, mutilated, torn, whirled ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... products, regular galley-slave pot-boilers, which, to be sure, give him a lively living, but in themselves are worthless and have no future. With talents misused and now impotent, he has in his mind, as he has on his face, that everlasting and despairing grin which human thought instinctively attributes to fallen angels. Just as the Spirit of darkness attacks, in preference, great saints because they recall to him most bitterly the angelic nature from which he has fallen, so Monsieur Bixiou delights ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... series of faults or misfortunes, has himself become a centre of harrowing emotion. Two young ladies, to each of whom he has been betrothed, are weeping out their eyes for him, or are kneeling to heaven with despairing cries, or are hardening their hearts to marry men for whom they "do not care a bawbee." The hero's aunt has committed a crime; everybody, in fact, is in despair, when an idea occurs to the hero. Indifferent to the sorrows of his nearest and dearest, he sits down with his ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... immature to follow the thread of that lofty spiritual logic in the light of which such doubts melt away like mists of the night. Thus, uneasy because undeveloped, erring because I had never known the necessary guidance, seeking, but almost despairing of enlightenment, I was a fit subject for any spiritual epidemic which seemed to offer me a cure for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... wrong!' he muttered at length. 'Nothing can excuse it; nothing can atone for it,—for nothing can recall those years of cursed credulity; nothing obliterate them!—nothing, nothing!' he repeated in a whisper, whose despairing bitterness ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... was so deficiently supplied with ammunition, as to be unable to complete the destruction of the invaders. But enough was done to ensure it. Many of the largest Spanish ships were sunk or captured in the action of this day. And at length the Spanish admiral, despairing of success, fled northward with a southerly wind, in the hope of rounding Scotland, and so returning to Spain without a farther encounter with the English fleet. Lord Effingham left a squadron to continue the blockade of the ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... have you?" he asked, in a despairing haste, as if he were seeking about for ways to ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... live;" and still does He say, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." Up-reared by the side of his own cross there was a monumental column for all Time, only second to itself in wonder. Over the head of the dying felon is the superscription written for despairing guilt and trembling penitence, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." "He never yet," says Charnock, "put out a dim candle that was ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... tide had still about an hour to flow. The river was dull and leaden, save where, near Chiswick Eyot, the wind meeting the tide lashed the surface of it into mimic waves, the crests of which, flung upward, showed against the gloomy stretch of water beyond, like pale hands raised heavenward in despairing protest. Steam-tugs, taking advantage of the tide, laboured up-stream in the teeth of the wind, towing processions of dark floats and barges. Long banners of smoke, ragged and fleeting, swept wildly away from the mouths of the tall chimneys of Thorneycroft's Works, which ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... stone dead," said he in despairing tones; "his ears are cold, and there is no pulsation in ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... as of the pained heart of the wood, The long, despairing moan of solitude And darkness and the absence ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... threw his head back with a despairing toss, his chin dropped on his breast, his hands clasped between his knees, and his pipe, laid beside him on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... these rejoicings, the Vice-king of Italy, Eugene de Beauharnais, arrived, and learned from the lips of the Empress herself the terrible measure which circumstances were about to render necessary. This news overcame him: agitated and despairing, he sought his Majesty; and, as if he could not believe what he had just heard asked the Emperor if it was true that a divorce was about to take place. The Emperor made a sign in the affirmative, and, with deep grief depicted on his ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... form, no one who knows what mythology is will deny; but even mythology is not made out of nothing, and in this chapter every atom is 'stuff o' the conscience.' What we see in it is conscience, projecting as it were in a picture on a screen its own invincible, dear-bought, despairing conviction that sin and death are indissolubly united—that from death the sinful race can never get away—that it is part of the indivisible reality of sin that the shadow of death darkens the path of the sinner, and at last swallows him up. It is this also which is in the mind of St. ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... stand and wait,' but not if in their waiting their eyes are straying everywhere but to their Master's pointing hand or directing eye. The world is full of voices calling Christ's folk to help; but what a host of so-called Christians fail to hear these piteous and despairing cries, because the noise of their own whims, fancies, and self-centred desires keeps buzzing in their ears. A constant accompaniment of deafness is constant noises in the head; and the Christians who ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... it is not every grievous wrong—which can justify a resort to such a fearful alternative. This ought to be the last desperate remedy of a despairing people, after every other constitutional means of conciliation had been exhausted. We should reflect that under this free Government there is an incessant ebb and flow in public opinion. The slavery question, like everything ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Man's Land came the sobbing call of wounded for succour. Far, far across the void sounded those despairing frenzied shrieks. Hoarse, appealing, incessant, until they weakened and nothing reached the ear but the smothered sobs of men whose life's sands were running out for want of that aid, so near, but which they were unable ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... place the sparking ceased altogether. The whole country was rugged; below, almost wholly forest land as far as the eye could reach; above, bare rocks or scrub, and at the greatest altitude, snow. The aeroplane flew on for a little by its own momentum, and Smith wasted a few painful seconds before, despairing of finding level ground, he began to ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... they had not forgotten the prediction. This then was the way in which judgment was going to be executed: a second flood was about to sweep them from the earth. So, although all stared at the minister as if they drank in every word of his representation of Noah's flood, with its despairing cries, floating carcases, and lingering deaths on the mountain-tops as the water crept slowly up from peak to peak, yet they were much too frightened at the little flood in the valley of two rivers, to care for the terrors of the great deluge of the world, in which, according ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... long, long cry against oppression and evil done by man to man, against the political, moral, or priestly tyrant, which rings louder and louder through Burns, Coleridge, Shelley, and Byron, ever impassioned, ever longing, ever prophetic—never, in the darkest time, quite despairing. {47} ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... at this sally, and Mara was so cheered, her nerves all tingling with excitement, that she could scarcely believe herself to be the half-despairing girl of a few hours before. "Now come," resumed Mrs. Bodine, "let us all be girls together and have a good talk. At this rate I'll soon be younger than either of you. I haven't had my share yet. Do you believe it, Ella? Mara has been ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... With a despairing glance from the window and a groan of anguish, he released his hold upon the straps, seized her hands again, and locked ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... mind as to what method would be best to employ in getting up the smooth, yellow, sandy-clay, incurved walls, when he arrived with it, and I was out in a twinkling, and very much ashamed of myself, until Silence, who was then leading, disappeared through the path before us with a despairing yell. Each man then pulled the skin cover off his gun lock, carefully looked to see if things there were all right and ready loosened his knife in its snake-skin sheath; and then we set about hauling poor Silence out, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the poor despairing Chinamen, clinging to their little craft with some chance of escape, would be quietly murdered ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... rain on the roof accorded with my feeling of desolation, and I lay awake until almost daylight, listening, wretched, dismal, and utterly despairing. ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... of an axe fell upon our ears. This noise told of the presence of wood-cutters, who were certain to be provided with maize-cakes and beans; so we resolved to make our way up to them, and thus economize our own resources. After an hour's difficult ascent, just as we were despairing of reaching the Indian, whose axe had ceased to sound, Lucien ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... the listeners, far from relieving my excruciation by rising with yells of fury and hurling their programs and opera glasses at the miscreant, behaved just as they do when Richter conducts it. The mass of imposture that thrives on this combination of ignorance with despairing endurance is incalculable. Given a public trained from childhood to stand anything tedious, and so saturated with school discipline that even with the doors open and no schoolmasters to stop them they will sit there helplessly until ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... Jack! with the breaking up of those sealed fountains came her speech also, at first disconnected and incoherent, and then despairing and passionate. No! she had no longer friends or home! She had lost and disgraced them! She had disgraced HERSELF! There was no home for her but the grave. Why had Jack snatched her from it? Then, bit by bit, she yielded up her story,—a ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... had lost the northern state on which he had founded his hopes of success, and despairing of making inroads upon Crawford's southern forces after the congressional caucus, sought his political fortunes in an alliance with his rival. [Footnote: Clay, Private Corresp., 87.] The result was that, in a state nominating convention held at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (March 4, 1824), Jackson ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... almost night when George arrived, and his father was dying. His mother met him at the door, with emotion too deep for utterance. Her tears and despairing look told the story more plainly than words to George. He knew that there ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... only an idea of the letters that spell the word,—or, at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of a man with a stick and bundle, with 'Ran away from the subscriber' under it. The magic of the real presence of distress,—the imploring human eye, the frail, trembling human hand, the despairing appeal of helpless agony,—these he had never tried. He had never thought that a fugitive might be a hapless mother, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... a warfare, thou a soldier art; Satan's thy foeman, and a faithful heart Thy two-edged weapon; patience is thy shield, Heaven is thy chieftain, and the world thy field. To be afraid to die, or wish for death, Are words and passions of despairing breath. Who doth the first the day doth faintly yield; And who the second basely ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... priceless treasure to Johnson. When it was not returned—as of course it was not—he wrote an urgent letter, and heard to his dismay that Johnson was not only unable to find the book, but that he could not remember having ever received it. The despairing Cradock applied to all his friends for help; and George Steevens, who had a useful habit of looking about him, suggested that a sealed packet, which he had several times observed lying under Johnson's ponderous inkstand, might possibly contain the lost manuscript. Even with ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... great Eagle, whose head was white with years of wisdom and experience, spoke to the despairing assemblage of creatures. From his lofty perch above the world the Eagle had looked down upon centuries of change and decay. He knew every force of nature and all the strange things of life. The hoary-headed sage said that the Good Hunter could not be restored ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... time to tell Dromo, my faithful valet, to inform Agathemer. I knew he, in turn, would inform Tanno and Vedia. I was certain that they would do all that they could. But I dreaded that they could do nothing. I was despondent, despairing. Actually, Dromo must have been clever, prompt and judicious, and Agathemer equally quick and resourceful, with the fullest possible help from Tanno and Vedia, and they must have taxed to the utmost their influence and ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Despairing of the promised trip through the villages, we issued orders for our animals to be ready early one morning. Only after vigorous complaints and threats were they actually ready. The owner of the beast which I, myself, mounted went with us on foot, and ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... Not till the month of May did the ice begin to melt and the men could fish. The first day this was possible they caught "five hundred fish as big as good herrings and some trout," which revived their hopes and their health. Hudson made a last despairing effort to find a westward passage. But now the men rose in mutiny. "We would rather be hanged at home than ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... encouraging his companions, defended himself against numbers with his sword; but afterward, being unsupported by the Allobroges, he began earnestly to beg Pomtinus, to whom he was known, to save his life, and at last, terrified and despairing of safety, he surrendered himself to the praetors as unconditionally as to ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... she worked at her machine in the office of the furniture company, keeping strictly to herself, doing her work impassively, efficiently, betraying no sign of the feelings that sometimes rose up, the despairing protest and angry rebellion against the dubious position she was in through no fault of her own. She swore she would not leave Granville, and it galled her to stay. It was a losing fight, and she knew it even if she did not admit the fact. If she could have poured the whole ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... one another a last look. For all they knew, neither would gaze upon the other again. Next moment, with Cunora's despairing cry ringing in her ears, Holla began to ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... waves against the side of the sloop or about the piling supporting the wharf to which we were moored. The others must have fallen asleep immediately, but my own mind remained far too active to enable me to lose consciousness. At last, despairing of slumber, and perchance urged by some indistinct premonition of danger, I sat up once more and gazed about. The three men were lying not far apart, close in to the galley wall, merely dark, shapeless shadows, ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... The Spirit in the breast Begetteth it whenever Within us He doth rest; The worthy, noble Guest Preserves us from despairing, And nerves for burden-bearing ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... mountain appeared, which made them think several times of giving over their enterprise. When the one was weary, the other stopped, and they took breath together; sometimes they were both so tired, that they wanted strength to proceed: then despairing of being able to reach the top they thought they must lie down and die of fatigue and weariness. A few minutes after, when they found they recovered strength, they animated ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... they must go back to their masters to be sent to the market on another day, for the sun is below the horizon, the market almost empty, and the guards will be gathering at the city gates. Two dilals make a last despairing promenade, while their companions are busy recording prices and other details in connection with the afternoon's business. The purchased slaves, the auctioneer's gaudy clothing changed for their own, are being taken to ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... could not escape. She was getting up when the door opened. Christophe saw her, glared at her furiously, and then without a word, brushed her aside, walked angrily downstairs, and went out. He did not return until dinner time, paid no heed to the despairing looks with which she asked his pardon, ignored her existence, and for several weeks he never played at all. Rosa secretly shed many tears; no one noticed it, no one paid any attention to her. Ardently she prayed to God ... ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... of events that, at the very moment he uttered some of the calls, the despairing kid was doing the same thing, and, although each strained his ears to the utmost, ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... long rout of the Grand Army. I have seen it stream on, like the doomed flight of haggard, spectral sinners across the innermost frozen circle of Dante's Inferno, ever widening before their despairing eyes. ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... to the folding chairs at the end of the room and after some chattering were quiet. A couple of men left, and several tiptoed in and sat in the front row. Andrews sank into a chair with a despairing sort of resignation, and burying his face in his hands stared at ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... was upon the point of fainting—a clay tint darkened the white of his face; and, seeming to forget my presence, he sat down, looking with a despairing scowl on his ashy old hand, as it lay upon ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Outstretched and pale he lies, Untimely cropped in early bloom; The heavy night of death has sealed his eyes;— In this glad hour of nuptial joy, Snatched by relentless doom, He sleeps—while echoing to the sky, Of sorrow bursts the loud, despairing cry! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... state of settled gloom, I then became acutely anxious as to my soul's salvation, and feverishly pursued every ism and ology that caught my roving eye's attention, until in one short month I had become, in despairing rotation, an incipient agnostic, atheist, pantheist, and monist. Meanwhile I read Ibsen, and wisely discussed the ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... souls; sweet and fragrant retreats whence the noise of strife and toil died into a faint murmur, or was lost in some vast silence. At Milan, Prospero found the cares of state so irksome, the joy of "secret studies" so alluring, that, despairing of harmonising things so alien, he took refuge with his books, and found his "library was dukedom large enough." But the problem was not solved by this surrender; out of the library, as out of the dukedom, he was ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Anglo-Spanish scene had changed again. The Spaniards had been so harassed by the English sea-dogs between the Netherlands and Spain that Philip listened to his great admiral, Menendez, who, despairing of direct attack on England, proposed to seize the Scilly Isles and from that naval base clear out a way through all the pirates of the English Channel. War seemed certain. But a terrible epidemic broke out in the Spanish fleet. Menendez died. ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... Progress was slow, not only because of the difficulties of the passage, but equally on account of the obstinacy of the mule. Indeed, it required no small diplomacy on the part of the negro to induce the animal to proceed at all, and finally, despairing of the efficiency of words, he drew a club, evidently reserved for such emergencies, from the interior of the cart, and gave utterance to an ultimatum. Following this display of force our advance became ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... expression a despairing yet calm detachment and resolve which forced Mrs. Pendleton in spite of herself to yield to her wish with a meekness which ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... every town till he shall have set her back in hell, there whence envy first sent her forth. Wherefore I think and deem it for thy best that thou follow me, and I will be thy guide, and will lead thee hence through the eternal place where thou shalt hear the despairing shrieks, shalt see the ancient spirits woeful who each proclaim the second death. And then thou shalt see those who are contented in the fire, because they hope to come, whenever it may be, to ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... rose from the cramped position it entailed and swore he would do no more. The men whose turn it was to follow refused to get out of bed, and Joe and I, who, having worked our spell were fast asleep, knew nothing of the mutiny until the morning. Then, though I was nigh despairing, I affected cheerfulness, said that we had all been working too hard, and declared for a couple of ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... anguish, every word spoken, every feeling endured, rushed back upon her with such overwhelming force as for the moment to deprive her of the little strength she had regained. Why could she not die? was the despairing thought that followed. What had she to live for, when it was her ill fate to wreck the happiness of all who loved her? and yet in that moment of agony she never seemed to have loved her husband more. It was of him she thought far more ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... despairing, And the weary weeks of Lent; And the ice-bound rivers melted, And the tomb of Faith was rent. O, the rising of the People Came with springing of the grass, They rebounded from dejection And Easter came to pass. And the young were all elation ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... shield lifted up to them as a signal of treason, made straight with their fleet for Athens, in hope to surprise it, and having at leisure doubled the point of Sunium, were discovered above the port Phalerum, so that the chief and most illustrious men, despairing to save the city would have betrayed it. For a little after, acquitting the Alcmaeonidae, he charges others with the treason. "For the shield indeed was shown, nor can it be denied," says he, as if he had seen it himself. But this could no way be, since the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... was seriously alarmed. Possibly the other members of the family did not share her misgivings; so, despairing of grown-up sympathy, she sought my boyish support. "Won't you write to your father about ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... despairing now. When the Captain heard about my machine idea, he wanted to know more about it at once. He saw at the first glance that my drawings were far from perfect, being made on small pieces of paper, and without so much as a pair of dividers ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... all with the same appetite. Bareilles, silent, despairing, a prey to the bitterest remorse, sat low in his chair, and, if I read his face aright, had no thought but of vengeance. But, assured that by forcing him to that which must for ever render him odious—and particularly ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... accomplice, the Viscount de Coralth, with those fatal cards? And apart from this there was something extremely appalling in the position of this ruined millionaire, who was contending desperately against his creditors for the vain appearance of splendor, with the despairing energy of a ship-wrecked mariner struggling for the possession of a floating spar. Had he not confessed to M. Fortunat that he had suffered the tortures of the damned in his struggle to maintain a show of wealth, while he was often without a penny in his ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... of forty devils, and in a moment or two Mainwaring saw the shine of a long, keen knife that he had drawn from somewhere about his person. The lieutenant caught him by the wrist, but the other's muscles were as though made of steel. They both fought in despairing silence, the one to carry out his frustrated purposes to kill, the other to save his life. Again and again Mainwaring felt that the knife had been thrust against him, piercing once his arm, once his shoulder, and again his neck. He felt the warm blood streaming ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... years that he had spent in gloomy sorrow, amongst wild scenes, on land or by sea, his life in frequent peril of a bloody end, had gone by with her like sunny days; all the more sunny because he was not there. So bitterly thought the poor disabled marine, as, weary and despairing, he stood in the cold shadow and looked upon the home that should have been his haven, the wife that should have welcomed him, the child that should have been his comfort. He had banished himself ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... running against my father's murderer. If I met him in the street, and he recognised me and spoke to me, what on earth could I do? My head was all in a whirl, indeed, as to what he might intend or expect: for I felt sure he expected me. I made one last despairing effort. ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... I wandered, finding a few of the berries here and there, often half maddened and stupefied by them, my head awhirl too with fever, alternately hoping and despairing, my sense of direction almost gone, striving, whenever possible, to work north in my lucid moments, but finding often by crossing my own spoor that I had been wandering in ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... combat and the brief conversation which ensued, Cedric, at the head of a body of men, had pushed across the bridge as soon as they saw the postern open, and drove back the dispirited and despairing followers of De Bracy, of whom some asked quarter, some offered vain resistance, and the greater part fled toward ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... crown. What, fear you not the fury of your king?— But, hapless Edward, thou art fondly led; They pass not for thy frowns as late they did, But seek to make a new-elected king; Which fills my mind with strange despairing thoughts, Which thoughts are martyred with endless torments; And in this torment comfort find I none, But that I feel the crown upon my head; And therefore let me wear it yet a while. Trus. My, lord, the parliament must have ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... pastry-cook plant cherry-brandy will grant - apple puffs, and three-corners, and banberries - The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by ROTHSCHILD and BARING, And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake with a shudder despairing - You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor, and you've needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg's asleep, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... in assisting our enemies; and with timid and vacillating friends to help meet this determined and unprincipled opposition, I must confess I am somewhat troubled. But the thought of such men as Ashton, Morris, and Dr. Dalton, with their stricken and despairing families and friends, nerves me for the conflict, and makes me resolve that, trusting in God, I will fight it as long as He gives me strength to do so; and, when I die, God will raise up those who will take my place and the place of those with whom I am associated. I am certain, in the end, our ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... displeasure. Nevertheless, sailing along by the coast to see if I could find any gulf that turned, I found the land still continent to the 56th degree under our Pole. And seeing that there the coast turned toward the east, despairing to find the passage, I turned back again and sailed down by the coast of that land toward the equinoctial (ever with intent to find the said passage to India) and came to that part of this firm land which is now called Florida; where, my victuals failing, I departed from thence and ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... masters taught the early arts, Suiting their years. Their unsuspecting minds Were both by love thus touch'd, in both was fix'd An equal wound: but far unlike their hopes. Iaenthe, for a spouse impatient looks, With nuptial torches. Whom a man she thinks, That spouse she hopes will be. Iphis too loves, Despairing what she loves e'er to enjoy: This still the more her love augments, and burns A virgin for a virgin. Scarce from tears Refraining;—"What,"—she cries,—"for me remains? "What will the issue be? What cure for this ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Past the despairing wail— And the bright banquets of the Elysian Vale Melt every care away! Delight, that breathes and moves for ever, Glides through sweet fields like some sweet river! Elysian life survey! There, fresh with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... Without despairing, however, I undertook the siege of a less implacable heart. The fates were again propitious for a brief period, but again a trivial incident interfered. Meeting my betrothed in an avenue thronged ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... Republican had not lived to see this return of public feeling to the cause of his heart. Bradshaw had died on the 22nd of November, all but despairing of the Republic. His will was proved on the 16th of December. It consisted of an original will, dated March 22, 1653, and two codicils, the second dated September 10, 1655. His wife having predeceased him, leaving no issue, the bulk of his extensive property went to his nephew, Henry ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... replied Khlobuev with a despairing gesture. "What I might get for the property would have to go towards discharging my debts, and I should find myself left with less than a thousand ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... than ten years. It was his birthplace, and there he had spent his boyhood. Sometimes, in heated rooms, when the candles in the sconces were guttering down, and the dawn looked palely in upon gaming tables and heaped gold, and seamed faces, haggardly triumphant, haggardly despairing, determinedly indifferent, there had come to him visions of cool dawns upon the river, wide, misty expanses of marsh and forest, indistinct and cold and pure. The lonely "great house," too,—the house which his father had built with ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... provisions. This multitude created a famine wherever it went, and suffered a famine itself. The first unsuccessful enterprize produced discouragement, and necessarily the desertion of the army: it diminished two-thirds when it was repulsed at Angers; and when the chiefs, despairing (after the battle of Mans) of not being able to recross the Loire at Ancenis, led back the wrecks of the army to Savenay, it consisted only of fifteen thousand men, half dead with hunger and misery: the major part of these were exterminated by the republicans; the rest dispersed ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... dexterously over his tail, and told the men on deck to haul it taut. He was thus partly secured, but the difficulty was to make his head fast, for I had no fancy to get within the power of his jaws. I should observe that he was the largest shark I ever saw. I was almost despairing of securing him, when one of the men, Bill Jones, I remember, was his name, made fast a big hook with a lump of pork to the topgallant halyards, and hove it before him. The shark grabbed it in a moment, and we had him fast. Those on deck ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... I could not stay away any longer; it was killing me," said the old man, in a despairing voice, as he embraced her fondly. "May, darling, tell your old dad your troubles, and let him help you ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... facing to the south, and the open fire-place with its soothing and cheerful glow, is conducive to the developing of a red-tape reform that must be an inspiring subject for discussion at an afternoon tea. Because they are well fed is the reason why they can play a waiting game, but the despairing and maddened people, for whose benefit this single tax contract, with its long deferred payment, is being drawn up, will have as little use for it as they will have for the plate-glass window when their ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... into my spirit That my quick heart is doomed to death in life; Or that these pangs must pierce and never sear it, I am abandoned to despairing strife. ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... had fallen, and, turned red in the gleam of the lightning, it was more terrifying than it had been in the mere black of the night. The wind, too, was now blowing, and the forest gave forth what Dick's ears turned into a long despairing wail. ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... soul! How you cling to this battered carcase! O little gleam on the surface of the eye! Twenty times I saw it die down and kindle again. And it seemed too suffering, too weak, too despairing ever to reflect anything again save suffering, ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... school and the Northern college continued to be the great fountain of North-American intellect, and the Southerner found himself year by year falling behind-hand intellectually and socially as well as numerically. As a last resort, despairing of victory in the real, he plunged after the wild chivalric dream of independence; of Mexican and Cuban conquest; of an endless realm and a reopened slave-trade—or at least of holding the cotton mart of the world. It is all in vain. We of the same continent recognize no right in a very ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... This despairing condition of Giddings's was a sort of continuing sensation with us at that time. We discussed it quite freely in all its aspects, humorous and tragic. It was so unexpected a development in the young man's character, and, with all due respect to the discretion ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... and noble; but the bulk of the songs are very defective. Most of those hitherto in use were composed during the last century, and therefore their structure is irregular, their grief slavish and despairing, their joy reckless and bombastic, their religion bitter and sectarian, their politics Jacobite and concealed by extravagant and tiresome allegory. Ignorance, disorder, and every kind of oppression weakened and darkened the lyric genius of Ireland. ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... despairing, Cupid stirred up the little ant, a native of the fields, to take compassion on her. The leader of the ant hill, followed by whole hosts of his six-legged subjects, approached the heap, and with the utmost diligence, taking grain by grain, they separated the pile, sorting ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... absolutely true nor entirely false. Conjecture becomes error only when, forgetting the inadequacy of human knowledge, we rest content with it as a final solution; the Socratic maxim, "I know that I am ignorant," should not lead to despairing resignation but to courageous further inquiry. The duty of speculation is to penetrate deeper and deeper into the secrets of the divine, even though the ultimate revelation will not be given us until the hereafter. The fittest ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... loves you, and feels she cannot resist any longer." Ah me! and these thoughts sprung up, but they did not find any congenial soil and perished like the seed sown on a rock; they only roused a bitter, despairing irony. "Yes," something said within me, "hers is a love resembling the compassion which makes people remove the pillow from under the dying man's head, to shorten his agony. I shall not suffer much longer, and Kromitzki will be ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... feeling so restless and despairing that she threw extra venom into her narratives, making the ghosts worse than any ghosts that were ever heard of before, and the bogies and witches more subtle and more vicious. Meg did not dare to come near, but she looked with contempt ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... by turns, and none the rest outgoe So farre, but that the best are measuring casts, Their emulation and their pastime lasts; But if some Brawny yeoman, of the guard Step in and tosse the Axeltree a yard Or more beyond the farthest Marke, the rest Despairing stand, their sport is at ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... exchange of civilities, I arch my eyebrows at an intelligent -looking madaine, and inquire, " Comprendre Anglais." "Non," replies the lady, looking puzzled, while I proceed to ventilate my pantomimic powers to try and make my wants understood. After fifteen minutes of despairing effort, mademoiselle, the daughter, is despatched to the other side of the town, and presently returns with a be whiskered Frenchman, who, in very much broken English, accompanying his words with wondrous gesticulations, gives me to understand that he is the only person in all Elbeuf capable ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... as to defy calculations and defeat caution. In the present instance, the Montauk would seem to fly through the water, so swift was her progress; and then, as a furious surge overtook her in the chase, she settled heavily into the element, like a wounded animal, that, despairing of escape, sinks helplessly in the grass, resigned to fate. At such times the crests of the waves swept past her, like vapour in the atmosphere, and one unpractised would be apt to think the ship stationary, though in truth whirling ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... the field fatally wounded, while most of the men are captured and bound. After they gag the Indians they force them toward the water's edge where a boat is waiting. As the group disappears, or is seen as a band of faint shadows, the despairing figure of Tisquantum, bound and struggling, is ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... that multitude of sadnesses I felt that mine was the worst. My loneliness, my fear, my foolish youth, my inability to cope with circumstance, my appalling ignorance of the very things which I ought to know! It was awful. And yet even then, in that despairing certainty of disaster, I was conscious of the beauty of life, the beauty of life's exceeding sorrow, and I hugged it to me, like a ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... diminish'd; all the prickly points Quivered to death, and soon it all was gone. The lips of men by the expiring stuff Drew in and out, and all the world had fits. The cinders fell upon them; some sprang up, And blew their noses loud, and some did stand Upon their heads, and sway'd despairing feet; And others madly up and down the world With "two-pence" hurried, shouting out for "Shag;" And wink'd and blink'd at th' unclouded sky, The "Anti's" smokeless banner—then again Flung all their halfpence down into the dust, And chewed their tainted ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... sometimes I must be going mad, or at all events growing into an idiot, and you can't think how wretched and despairing it makes me. Do you think medicine—tonic or anything of that ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... night. Morning came, and Madame de la Fontaine, accompanied by Nancy, left the Inn at the Red Oak for Coventry. There remained to Dan of his brief and tragic passion but one letter, which Tom handed to him that morning, and which, with despairing heart, he read ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... said Mrs. Montague, in a despairing voice. "I can't help feeling it. Tell me something I can do to help ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... despairing lad paddled steadily on, praying for the day to break. At last it came with a blaze of glory in the east. When it grew light enough to see, he rose cautiously ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... hours of fruitless search after the lost one, when the Candidate had again joined the despairing mother, that at the very same moment their glances both fell suddenly on the same object—it was Petrea! She lay in a thicket at the foot of the hill; drops of blood were visible on her face and dress, and a horrible necklace—a yellow spangled snake!—glittered in the sun around her ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... latter's embrace and the noble entertainment following at the house of Sir Christopher Hare, near the port, whither Sir Lewis conducted him, set this doubt at rest and relighted the lamp of hope in the despairing soul of our adventurer. In Sir Lewis he saw only his kinsman—his very good friend and kinsman, to insist upon Stukeley's own description of himself—at a time when of all others in his crowded life he needed the support of a kinsman and the ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini |
