"Desperation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... writing in 1856, gives, in his "Life in the Forests of the Far East," several instances of the grievous oppression practiced on the Limbang people. Amongst others he mentions how a native, in a fit of desperation, had killed an extortionate tax-gatherer. Instead of having the offender arrested and punished, the Sultan ordered his village to be attacked, when fifty persons were killed and an equal number of women and children were made prisoners and kept as slaves by His Highness. The ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... cattle behind it, flourished as it were rather conspicuously, fugitive riders dashed back and forth with curses and yells across the narrow valley. If it had been Whispering Smith's intention to raise a large-sized row it was apparent that he had been successful. Rebstock, driven to desperation, held council after council to determine what to do. Sorties were discussed, ambushes considered, and a pitched battle was planned. But, while ideas were plentiful, no one aspired to lead an attack ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... much too small for the purpose required of it. To boil a lobster of that size in a kettle of that size would necessitate boiling one end at a time, and that, both for the victim and himself, would be troublesome and agonizing. He hunted about for a larger kettle and, finding none, seized in desperation upon the wash boiler, filled it, and lifted it to the top of the stove above the ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... gallant lieutenant, with only ten of his people, found himself opposed to the eighty miscreants who formed the slaver's crew, several of whom were either Englishmen or Americans, who, consequently, fought with the greatest desperation. In spite of the gallantry of the British, they ran a great risk of being overpowered, but, happily, a midshipman, Mr Hinds, then scarcely fifteen years old, had the presence of mind to order the crew to get out their sweeps, and, succeeding in again getting alongside the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... desperation. Their mad haste was infectious. Men literally tumbled over each other on the trail in their eagerness to put the Passes behind them. Every man carried strapped upon his back as much of a load as it was possible for him to carry, and often times more, with the not infrequent result that they ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... persons should be stripped of all they possessed, and cast out to the mercy of the wilderness. The atrocity of the plan is matched by its folly. The King gave explicit orders, but he gave neither ships nor men enough to accomplish them; and the Dutch farmers, goaded to desperation, would have cut his sixteen hundred soldiers to ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... Hull's surrender; and, like him, I saw the place very soon afterward. It is quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break; but I bent a musket pretty badly on one occasion. If Cass broke his sword, the idea is he broke it in desperation; I bent the musket by accident. If General Cass went in advance of me in picking huckleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did; but I had a good many bloody struggles ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... as if it ranked me with the tavern-haunters and town-paupers,—with the drunken poet, who hawked his own Fourth of July odes, and the broken soldier who had been good for nothing since the last war. The consequence of all this was a piece of light-hearted desperation." ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... virtually at an end. Still there were many broken bands of Indians wandering through the wilderness in a state of utter desperation; they knew that to surrender doomed them to death or to hopeless slavery. Though they were unable to wage any effective warfare, they could desolate the settlements with ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... before some of his intimate companions. At the words, which Franz von Moor addresses to Moser: Ha, what! thou knowest none greater? Think again! Death, heaven, eternity, damnation, hovers in the sound of thy voice! Not one greater?—the door opened, and the master saw Schiller stamping in desperation up and down the room. "For shame," said he, "for shame to get into such a passion, and curse so!" The other scholars tittered covertly at the worthy inspector; and Schiller called after him with a bitter smile, "A noodle" (ein ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... to inflict almost unheard of cruelties upon individuals without driving a population to arms. Men with wives and families and properties, however inconsiderable in value such properties may be, are unwilling to risk their all, at the tap of the drum, until wrought up to it by desperation. There is a feeling of respect for authority, a regard for that which is believed to be law, a peculiar sense of duty towards the State in most men, which prevents them from assuming a position even of firmness in the assertion ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... only words which she now cast aside with contempt. Faith and hope had left her; and as to love, she knew that she loved one man only, and loved him to desperation. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... without should learn of it, they might send armies in haste to undefended Rome. The people left in the city feared the Patricians, and the Patricians feared them. All was doubt and anxiety. At length the senate, driven to desperation, sent an embassy to the rebels to treat for peace, being in deadly fear that some enemy might assail and capture the city in the absence of the ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... breath. "Well," he said, with a sort of desperation, "then I don't see why we don't ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... To return was to run the risk of falling into the hands of the convicts, and the chance of finding the stream the others had taken was exceedingly small. There might be a dozen tributaries between him and the convicts' point, and how was he to tell which was the right one? In desperation he crawled forward to his unconscious companion and sprinkled his face again and again with water from ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... ownership of Hammersley Lake by the family of that name is an example. The exercise of authority by these monopolists of natural opportunities drove the actual tillers of the soil, who had given it its value, to desperation. I have shown that in 1740 no land owners were enrolled on Quaker Hill, and that the list of its most representative citizens in 1755 contained few landowners.[20] A further cause of this conflict ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... animate a man who, already once condemned, finds himself subjected to a second trial? The torture scarcely ended begins again, and Hope, though reduced to a shadow, regains her sway over his imagination, which clings to her skirts, as it were, with desperation. The exhausting efforts must be recommenced; it is the last struggle—a struggle which is more desperate in proportion as there is less strength to maintain it. In this case the defendant was not one of those ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... to ice his sledge-runners, which was as often as three times an hour, he coolly capsized the pavoska, propped it up with his spiked stick, and I stood on my head while he rubbed the runners down with water and a piece of deerskin. This finally drove me to desperation, and I succeeded, after a prolonged struggle, in getting out of my coffin-shaped box, and seated myself with indignant feelings and murderous inclinations by the side of my imperturbable driver. Here my unprotected nose began to freeze again, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... it Bayder, had at that moment arrived in answer to a telegram from the governor, who the night before, in a moment of desperation, had telegraphed the proprietor of his hotel in Paris, "Send me a courier at once who knows Normandy and speaks English." The bare-headed man who, hat in hand, was at this moment bowing so obsequiously to the governor, ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... beyond mere compliance with Storri's wishes, might avert those calamities that seemed swinging in the air above him? He considered everything, and devised nothing; he was like a man without eyes or as one shut in by night. In his desperation, a flighty thought of taking Storri's life appealed to him for one murderous moment. It was only for a moment, and then he thrust it aside with a shudder; not from any morality, but his instant common sense showed how insane it ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... above his ear; twice the Seneschal swung at it, and to his amazement missed; a third time he swung at it, and almost knocked out a window. At last the fly, bewildered by such an uproar, seeing on the threshold two people that barred his retreat, threw itself in desperation between their faces. Even there the right hand of the Seneschal darted in pursuit of it; the blow was so violent that the two heads sprang apart like the two halves of a tree torn asunder by a thunderbolt; both bumped against the doorposts so violently that they got black ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... upon unrestricted submarine warfare, a last resort of desperation. Ten ships were reported sunk and eight lives lost that day. Neutral vessels and belligerents were destroyed without discrimination, and in the first six days the tonnage of the vessels sunk by German U-boats was ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... dost not avail thee quickly Of the power which thou possessest—Friedland! Duke! Tell me where lives that thing so meek and tame, That doth not all his living faculties Put forth in preservation of his life? What deed so daring, which necessity And desperation will ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... one effort to redeem him out of bondage?—to go back to your palaces, and your pleasures, and your luxuries, and your flatteries, and be happy, while this man is left on bearing his yoke here?—and it is a yoke that galls, that kills!—bearing it until, in some day of desperation, a naked blade cuts its way to his heart, and makes its pulse cease forever? If you do, you patricians are worse still than I ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... the phrase so pretty that she could hardly find courage to put her question. She blushed and stammered, and then, rushing at it with desperation, she said: ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... it made the eyes shine and the blood leap, and the spirit rise up and clamour within the body, clamour for utter liberty, for action, for wide fields in which to roam, for long days and nights of glory and of love, for intense hours of emotion and of life lived with exultant desperation. It was a melody that seemed to set the soul of Creation dancing before an ark. The tomtoms accompanied it with an irregular but rhythmical roar which Domini thought was like the deep-voiced shouting of squadrons ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... James Conway's house," said the girl, with the tragic air and tone of one driven to desperation and an impatient gesture of her hand toward the yellow nightmare ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... for you some other time," Evelyn wheedled, and Jessie added, sagely, "We're only losing him this way, you know;" then added, in desperation, "If you don't explain right away, you'll have a ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... such nights are there in prospect? In the calm of this fairylike dawn, slowly rising, the crying of the child strikes a note of discord, infinitely sad. But the crying of the child—does it not find an echo among the millions whom this terrible war has driven to desperation? ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... with the light of desperation in her eyes. Aggie hates woods and gnats, has no eye for Nature, and for almost half a century has pampered her body in a featherbed poultice, with the windows closed, until the first of June each year. Yet ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... then they will be lost," I cried out in desperation. For Mary was shrieking that she would not go, and I knew that Humphrey did not know the way, and could not find it and launch the boat in time with that struggling maid to encumber him, for already the door trembled ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... never been heard of, will inherit at his death. He can bequeath his widow nothing. Oh, to know where that girl is! If she is alive, my work is useless, my time is wasted. I think the old chap must have driven her to desperation, for he raved in his delirium of her and her words at parting. They must ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... deed that would make me solid with the boys, and when the captain called for volunteers, I swallowed a large lump in my throat, and said, "Captain, here is your mule. I will go!" Whether it was that confounded meat I had eaten that had put a seeming bravery into me, or desperation at the hunger of the past few days, I do not know, but I volunteered for a perilous mission. A little Irishman named McCarty spoke up, and said, "Captain, I will go anywhere that red ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... of them little knew. "Adieu a demain!"—the morrow was come, and the soul of the poor suicide was now in the presence of God. I dare not think of his fate; for, except in the fact of his poverty and desperation, was he worse than any of us, his companions, who had shared his debauches, and marched with him up to the very brink ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... punishments to which slaves are subjected, for trifling offences, or none at all, their continued liability to all kinds of ill usage, without a chance of redress, and the agonizing feelings they endure at being separated from the dearest connections, drive many of them to desperation, and they abscond. They hide themselves in the woods, where they remain for months, and, in some cases, for years. When caught, they are flogged with extreme severity, their backs are pickled, and the flogging repeated as before described: after months of this torture, ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy
... knights. Ah! how they need the blessing that thou bringest. For since that morning when thou first wert here, The sorrow and the anguish that thou heard'st Have grown until the woe has covered all. And King Amfortas, soul and body wracked, Did crave in desperation only death, And so refused to show the Holy Grail. No prayer, no sorrow of his brother-knights Could move him to fulfil his sacred trust. Close in its shrouded shrine the Cup remained. For King Amfortas hopes ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... berth's side, and let the tears run wild. The nurse and the still handsome Phyllis appeared promptly, together. But they found her full of sparkle; so full that Phyllis saw under the mask; a mask she herself had worn so often in her youth under a like desperation. ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... a decree that no edict of the king should have any binding force unless confirmed by the Swedish Diet, and driven to desperation by the tyranny and oppression of the regent, some of Sigismund's followers raised the standard on behalf of their king, and Sigismund returned to Sweden with an army of five thousand men. He found himself opposed by the ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... a sleepy, lonely, neglected little boy, to her room, put me to bed, and been driven from the fearful place in which she lived, because of it. I have finally thought of the word to describe what I felt in both these cases—desperation; desperation, and the feeling of pursuit and flight. I did not even feel all this as I stood looking at Rowena, sitting on her horse so prettily that summer day at my farm; I only felt puzzled and a little pitiful for her—all the more, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... Leoline; and springing instantly from the rock, he precipitated himself down the fearful abyss, and plunged into the foaming whirlpool below. Bewildered and aghast at this sudden act of desperation, Guinessa, uttering a scream of agonized terror, would have thrown herself after him, had she not been restrained by Gryffhod; but she still bent over the precipice, her long golden hair, as it streamed upon the wind, together with her white robes and arms, and her fair features, all shown ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... forward shouting abuse at the "lubberly Dago," and it looked as though I were abandoned to my fate. The ship forged ahead in the light air; I failed in my grab at her fore chains, and my boat slipped astern, bumping against the side. I missed the main chain, too, and yelled all the time with desperation, "For God's sake! Ship ahoy! For God's sake throw me a rope, some-, body, before ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... all. There was one more—Lawyer Ed's. Like Old Angus, he was making an attempt at cheerfulness that was heartbreaking. He tramped about, singing loudly, scolding every one who came near him, and proclaiming his joy over the Lad's going in a manner that drove poor Roderick's sore heart to desperation. He drove with him to the station, carried his bag on board, loaded him with books and magazines and bade him a joyful farewell, with not a word of regret. But he gave way as the train moved out and Roderick saw him hastily ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... idea of appealing to Mark for help. That—that wouldn't do, and Colonel Faversham insisted I should tell him when I would be his wife—he talked of our being married within a week or ten days. Oh dear! how hard I tried to make him understand; but I couldn't succeed, and at last in desperation a fresh idea occurred to me: I would run away! I told him to come for his answer the next morning—oh, I know I ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... had commenced a retreat.( 9) General James B. McPherson arrived, October 4th, from Jackson with five regiments, but too late for the battle. The engagement was a severe one; both armies fought with desperation and skill; the Union troops, being outnumbered, made up the disparity by ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... days, without the least encouragement to hope for life, and on the last died with great resignation, receiving his death as a punishment justly due to his want of submission in the divine will, and that forward petulance which drove him to desperation in not succeeding to his wishes just at the time that to his impetuous passions, and short-sighted reason, ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... her bravado, and her shots were the indication of her desperation. The memory of the wan face of Prebol brought down by her bullet was now an ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... said Bones at last in desperation, "go to the storeman, and let him bring all the paints he has so that I may show Bosambo ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... to recollections like these, and then you will cease to complain that the Indian refuses to be civilized. But, until then, surely it is nothing wonderful that a nation, even yet bleeding afresh from the memory of ancient wrongs, perpetually agonized by new outrages, and goaded into desperation and madness at the prospect of the certain ruin which awaits their descendants, should hate the authors of their miseries, of their desolation, their destruction; should hate their manners, hate their color, hate their language, hate their name, hate everything that belongs to ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... he thought it would be the least use he would have made some attempt to get Sally out of the room, but he was unpleasantly sure that unless she was fully satisfied first it would only result in failure. Driven to desperation, as he was, he had a half-conscious feeling that she might provide him with some means of escape. Sally had certainly saved him once, and, humiliating as the thought was, he had an idea that she did not expect too much from him. She might be very angry, but Sally's anger ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... there is not much to tell. The man, I believe, was an inhuman scoundrel, and the woman first killed him in desperation, and afterwards herself in despair. The only detail connected with the actual crime of which I have ever heard, was the gale that was blowing that night—the fiercest known to this countryside in that generation; and it ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... God's sake, stop reading, your Excellency. Couldn't you find something else to read about?" cried the other Official in sheer desperation. He snatched the paper from his colleague's hands, and started to read ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... represented so much of that daily shortening distance which lay between me and the end. I felt the price I was paying for the privilege of labour, and for its remuneration. But I thought, ever, of my wife and little babies, and the thought roused me to a kind of desperation, and made me feel for the time as if I could trample weakness under foot, and tear out, break in pieces, and cast away those miserable, oversensitive organs, which chained, cramped, and hindered me. I like work, too. And I had a sort of shame of confessing myself incapable. ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... same manner as described by Mr. Farrer, in the case of Coronilla ('Nature' 1874 July 2 page 169). I must, however, except one occasion, when an adjoining field of sainfoin (Hedysarum onobrychis) had just been cut down, and when the bees seemed driven to desperation. On this occasion most of the flowers of the clover were somewhat withered, and contained an extraordinary quantity of nectar, which the bees were able to suck. An experienced apiarian, Mr. Miner, says that in the United States hive-bees never suck the red clover; and Mr. R. ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... perilous to both. Then he was one of the most accomplished of students in history and general letters; and to his studies he could even devote himself after irretrievable losses at play. Topham Beauclerk, after having passed the whole night with Fox at faro, saw him leave the club in desperation. He had lost enormously. Fearful of the consequences, Beauclerk followed him to his lodgings. Fox was in the drawing-room, intently engaged over a Greek "Herodotus." Beauclerk expressed his surprise. "What would you have me do? I have lost my last shilling," was the ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... gate is attached, I joined them at the top by nailing a board across. The hen that taught me the lesson must be both ambitious and athletic, for time after time have I found her outside the chicken-yard. I searched diligently for the place of exit, but could not find it. So, in desperation, I determined one morning to discover how that hen gained her freedom if it took all day. So I found a comfortable seat and waited. In an hour or so the hen came out into the open and took a survey of the situation. Then, presently, with skill born of experience, ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... some reason," replied Don John in a tone of assent, "for the men who kindled them are mercenaries of the King, formerly our own troops, who have been driven to desperation." Then he continued passionately: "And Philip sends me—me, a man of the sword—to these provinces. What is the warrior to do here? This blade is too good to deal the death-blow to the body which is already bleeding from a thousand wounds. If, nevertheless, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... unpleasant business must be. Evidently Mills had given him away. For what reason he had done so he could not guess; after his experience of yesterday it might have been from pure devilry, or again he might have feared that in desperation, Taynton would take that extreme step of prosecuting him for blackmail. But, for that moment Taynton believed that Morris's agitation must be caused by this, and it says much for the iron of his nerve that he did not ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... called upon her, and all the hope she had cherished in that direction, and all the weary waiting, seemed in vain. When the colonel's week was nearly out she heard that Henry was to leave in two days. In a sort of desperation she determined to accept Colonel Pearson without waiting for the time appointed for her answer. But that gentleman spoiled it all by his ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... only he were empowered to imprison them without trial, outrages would cease. But either he did not lay hold of the right men, or else imprisonment had no terrors; for all through the autumn and winter of 1881 agrarian crimes increased with terrible rapidity. In a fit of desperation, Forster cast Parnell into prison, and Gladstone announced the feat amid the tumultuous applause of the Guildhall. But things only went from bad to worse, and soon there were forty agrarian murders unpunished. Having imprisoned Parnell without trial, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... commonest article you could pick up had a life and warmth which gave it individual interest, now everything is turned out to such a perfection of deadness that one is driven to pick up and collect, in sheer desperation, the commonest rubbish still surviving from the ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... her exciting day. So she lay still. She began to get drowsy presently, but she could not go to sleep with that irritating light in her eyes. She threw a counterpane over the foot-board, but it was too low to shield her. Finally in desperation she slipped out of bed and got her umbrella. Then opening it over her she thrust its handle under the pillow to hold it in place, and lay back under its sheltering canopy with ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... no holster to his belt, seemingly no gun. His clean shaven jaws were clamped tight so that the muscles lumped here and there, and he fronted the unsympathetic crowd and the jeering bully with a courage that was partly born of desperation. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... end a life which was worse than useless. "No, no," said his friend, "don't do that. If your affairs are so desperate, retire into a convent, become a Capuchin." "Ah, non!" was the indignant answer; "I am desperate; but I have not yet arrived at such a pitch of desperation." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... she replied in desperation "You don't understand. I should have to stay, to live in this terrible place for weeks, months at a time. I couldn't endure it. That dreadful mountain there at the gap would forever be ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... my hopeless state; for just as I was going, in a fit of desperation, to throw myself into the sea, I perceived a ship in the distance. I called as loud as I could, and, unfolding the linen of my turban, displayed it that they might observe me. This had the desired effect; the crew perceived me, and the captain sent his boat for me. As soon ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... John's voice rose with every fresh threat until at last it almost broke in a sob. He was almost beside himself, and Will Phelps, though he shared in the anger of his classmate, was rejoiced that he was helpless and could not do what his desperation prompted. ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... be added to his cup of bitterness. He was an opium smoker, and his hoarded store of the precious drug began to run very low. At last the day came on which it was exhausted, and Wan Bong was driven to desperation. For some twenty-four hours he strove against the overpowering longing for that subtle drug that leads the strongest will captive, but the struggle was all in vain. When, at length, the physical pain had become so intense that ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... on which we were cast was at the foot of a mountain which it was impossible to climb, so that I shortly beheld my companions die one after another. There was a frightful cavern in the rock, through which flowed a river. To this, in a fit of desperation, I resolved to trust myself. I went to work and made a long raft. I loaded it with bales of rich stuffs, and large pieces of rock crystal, of which the mountain was in a great measure formed. I went on board the raft, and ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... universality of my gesture that my rejection was a rejection of cigars in general, not of that particular article. He mistook this for the ordinary impatience of common men, and rushed forward, his hands filled with miscellaneous cigars, pressing them upon me. In desperation I tried other kinds of pantomime, but the more cigars I refused the more and more rare and precious cigars were brought out of the deeps and recesses of the establishment. I tried in vain to think ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... if that hand had picked it! Then the flower raised itself, following the curve which a hand would have described in carrying it toward a mouth, and it remained suspended in the transparent air, all alone and motionless, a terrible red spot, three yards from my eyes. In desperation I rushed at it to take it! I found nothing; it had disappeared. Then I was seized with furious rage against myself, for it is not allowable for a reasonable and serious man ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... the rudder, which, through the ship's lying over on her side, had been partly raised out of the water, and whirled round the wheel with such force that the man who was steering was lifted off his feet, and as he grasped the spokes with desperation, was dashed down on the deck with an awful impetus, which knocked him insensible. Dave, followed by Johnny, immediately rushed aft, and took the helmsman's place, although it required all the strength ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... my bay oss Desperation in the park. There was me, Lord George Ringwood (Lord Cinqbar's son), Lord Ballybunnion, Honorable Capting Trap, & sevral hother young swells. Sir John's carridge there in coarse. Miss Hemly lets ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... But felt a Feauer of the madde, and plaid Some tricks of desperation; all but Mariners Plung'd in the foaming bryne, and quit the vessell; Then all a fire with me the Kings sonne Ferdinand With haire vp-staring (then like reeds, not haire) Was the first man that leapt; cride hell is empty, And all the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... doing with so much money. Fettered thus, with the torments both of Prometheus and Tantalus—the vulture gnawing at her vitals, and the lost joys mocking her out of reach—she had at last in sheer desperation been driven to request her father to procure her the ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... I ask nothing better," said I with great heartiness; but neither her eyes nor her thoughts were for me. Would the eyes looking so intently at the sinking sun, I wondered, condescend to look at a spot against the sun. In desperation I meditated standing up. 'Tis all very well to talk of storming the citadel of a closed heart, but unless telepathic implements of war are perfected to the same extent as modern armaments, permitting attack at long range, one must first get within shooting distance. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... in a short time discovered that she would soon become a mother. Almost crazed at this discovery she knew not what to do or which way to turn. It was the first blot that had ever come on the name of a member of the proud Bryan family. In her desperation she confided her condition to her cousin, Will Wood. As Wood claimed, no one else in Greencastle knew or even suspected anything of the true condition of affairs between Pearl Bryan and Scott Jackson. They had been keeping company with each other whenever ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... tramps of miles into the country, sails on the lovely Ujina Bay and climbs over the mountains. In the afternoon the boy is so in evidence, we almost fall over him if we step. Yesterday in desperation I tied an apron on him and let him help me make a cake. Even at that, with a dab of chocolate on his cheek and flour on his nose, his summer sky eyes were weepy whenever he spoke of his "Mutter." I have done everything for him except lend him my shoulder to weep on. It may come to that. There is ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... redoubt forced the last issue, that the defenders poured forth one more destructive volley. A single cannon cartridge was distributed for the final effort, and then, with clubbed guns and the nerve of desperation, the slow retreat began, contesting, man to man and inch by inch. Warren fell, shot through the head, in the mouth ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... espoused the imperialist cause and aided Ferdinand's generals in expelling the Danish king from German soil. Only the lack of naval control of the Baltic and North seas prevented the victors from seizing Denmark. The desperation of Christian and the growingly suspicious activity of Sweden resulted in the peace of Lubeck (1629), by which the king of Denmark was left in possession of Jutland, Schleswig, and Holstein, but deprived of the German bishoprics which various members of his family ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... working up to a burnous and painted legs for me again, my dear chap, it's no good," Stephen returned with the calmness of desperation. "I've done with that sort of nonsense; but I won't trust myself out of the train till I see the Arab's back. Then I'll make a bolt for it and dodge him, till the new train's run along the platform and ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... place. Lucius Camillus was named dictator, as the Gauls were overrunning the environs of Rome. He proceeded against the barbarians with the intention of using up time and not risking the issue in conflict with men animated by desperation: he expected to exhaust them more easily and securely by the failure of provisions. And a Gaul challenged the Romans to furnish a champion for a duel. His opponent, accordingly, was Marcus Valerius, a military tribune, a grandson of the famous Maximus. The course of ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... Arthur, browsing about in his brown dressing-gown in a brown study, would not hear or answer a bell. Thus there was no one to help me in the house, except my brother, whose help must be my ruin. In desperation I thrust two shillings into the horrid thing's hand, and told him to call again in a few days, when I had thought it out. He went off sulking, but more sheepishly than I had expected—perhaps he had ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... moment, of the mother that bore him; then he called upon the sages Lirgandeo and Alquife to come to his aid; then he invoked his good friend Urganda to succour him; and then, at last, morning found him in such a state of desperation and perplexity that he was bellowing like a bull, for he had no hope that day would bring any relief to his suffering, which he believed would last for ever, inasmuch as he was enchanted; and of this he was convinced by seeing that Rocinante never stirred, much or little, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... in desperation. She might be dead. He stooped and dragged the body up on the sand. He was afraid to find out if she were dead or alive, and sat beside her, timidly ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... the town in a state of desperation, and went at once to the Courts of Justice to denounce the two knaves who had robbed him ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... had lost their way . . . another that it was a shame to bring in horses so utterly exhausted . . . another that they must have stumbled on the Court by accident . . . another that there was powder on De Lacy's sleeve. . . And so it went; until Beatrix, in sheer desperation, gathered her skirts about her ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... the car and settle himself, with an audible sigh of satisfaction, on top of the load. He had one wild, wicked impulse to lengthen the hole and make it serve as a grave for more than bootleg whisky; but it was an impulse born of desperation, and it died ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... failed in all you have attempted, and the figure you have raised on your father's tomb is merely a sensitive and sensuous art-cultured being who lives in a dirty lodging and plays in desperate desperation his last card. You are now writing a novel. The hero is a wretched creature, something like yourself. Do you think there is a public in England for that ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... any," replied Alice, "is not mine. I was coming like a butterfly, but my aunt Helen, who is making us a visit, objected so strongly that I took off my party dress and head-dress, made for the occasion, and, in a fit of half-don't-care desperation, got myself up after this modest fashion that you are pleased to call ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... imagined him capable of rejecting in disdain all the minor chances of present security and future prosperity which his unbounded power and wealth might have procured for him, even in a famine-stricken city, and rising suddenly to the sublime of criminal desperation, in the resolution to abandon life as worthless the moment it had ceased to run in the easy current of all former years? Yet to this determination had he now arrived; and, still more extraordinary, in this determination had he found ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... weak limbs and a tendency to fall into a desponding state of mind, who lived about three miles from Mr Stanley's farm. This young man's feelings had been so often lacerated by hopes and fears in reference to the fair Edith, that he mounted his pony one evening in desperation, and galloped away in hot haste to declare his passion, and realise or blast his hopes for ever. As he approached the villa, however, he experienced a sensation of emptiness about the region of the stomach, and regretted that he had not taken more food at dinner. Having passed ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... Scourge of the Border. Trials of Washington. Misery of the Settlers. Horror of their Situation. Philadelphia and the Quakers. Disputes with the Penns. Democracy and Feudalism. Pennsylvanian Population. Appeals from the Frontier. Quarrel of Governor and Assembly. Help refused. Desperation of the Borderers. Fire and Slaughter. The Assembly alarmed. They pass a mock Militia Law. They are ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... and womanhood itself degrading and loathsome. No terms can sufficiently characterize the cruelty, meanness and disgusting selfishness of your conduct when you impose on them a maternity so detested as to drive them to the desperation of killing their unborn children and ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... (Harold Browne on the Thirty-nine Articles.) This, in effect, is the teaching of St. Augustine, that the sin against the Holy Ghost is a final and obdurate continuance in wickedness, despite the calls of God to repentance, joined with a desperation of the mercy of God. In Matt. xii. 31, 32, it would seem that the unpardonable sin was committed by those who ascribed our Lord's miracles to ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... try and catch a speckled gray lizard when we are in Italy, love, and you see his tail hang out of the chink of a wall, his winter-house—because the strange tail will snap off, drop from him and stay in your fingers—and though you afterwards learn that there is more desperation in it and glorious determination to be free, than positive pain (so people say who have no tails to be twisted off)—and though, moreover, the tail grows again after a sort—yet ... don't do it, for it will give you a thrill! What a fine fellow our English ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... just then without words. At this instant Joel rushed in with his bloody nose, and a torn sleeve where Jenk in his desperation had gripped ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... understand the desperate position of the men imploring help; she was coming up at full speed. Langlade was the first to recognise her; she was a Government felucca plying between Toulon and Bastia. Langlade was a friend of the captain, and he called his name with the penetrating voice of desperation, and he was heard. It was high time: the water kept on rising, and the king and his companions were already up to their knees; the boat groaned in its death-struggle; it stood still, and began ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... The scenes of desperation and distress which gambling yearly gave rise to in this place amongst a people whose temperament is peculiarly excitable, coupled with a recent and terrible exposee, have at length roused the legislature of Louisiana to release themselves ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... "Ooo-ooo-ooo!" like a bear—almost. Bud rescued the bear a scant two feet from the flames, and carried fur, baby and all, to the bunk. "My good lord, what's a fellow going to do with yuh?" he groaned in desperation. "Burn yourself up, you would! I can see now why folks keep their kids corralled in high chairs and gocarts all the time. They got to, or they ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... the faces clustered around us—blackened, savage faces, still marked by the fierce animalism of battle—feeling to the full the desperation of our position. ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... came up, another blow from a stick fell on his head; and this served to rouse him to desperation, for he turned round, with one blow knocked down the fellow who had struck him, and then commenced a furious attack upon his persecutors. For a moment they drew back, and then closed upon him again. Blows from sticks and hands rained upon him, but he struggled desperately. ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... Stampa's delight, and still less to understand why he should want to thank her with such exuberance. She imagined he was overjoyed at having gone back to his beloved profession, and it was only by dint of questioning that she discovered the truth. Then it dawned on her that the man had been goaded to desperation by the curt message from St. Moritz,—that he was sorely tempted to abandon the struggle, and follow into the darkness the daughter taken from him so many years ago,—and the remembrance of her suspicion when they were about to part at the cemetery ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... Extremists, Arbitrators, Union leaders, Christian Care Committees—gaily they trip along and take charge of the hapless workers, until the poor fellows or girls are hustled this way and that, driven, coerced, commanded, and counter-commanded till, in desperation, they take refuge, one and all, in the nearest bar. Then the Fabians, the Social Democrats, the Clarionettes, the Syndicalists, the Extremists, the Arbitrators, and the Union leaders return to Blackheath ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... Betty in sheer desperation. "We can't any more than get drenched, and our rain coats will be some protection. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... such titled acquaintances as they had in common, all of whom seemed to be perfectly charming. But these heraldic conversations bored Mary even more intensely than the squabbles. There came a time when desperation got the upper hand of that prudence so earnestly recommended by Lord Dauntrey. She could not endure the long evenings in the villa, and felt that she must again tempt fortune ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... flew open at the first touch of the chill stream; he gasped for breath and drew into his lungs a strangling flood. The blood rushed to his brain in a wild explosion of terror. He struck out madly with his long arms and legs, fighting with desperation for breath and drinking in only the agony and fear of death. His mother's voice came low and faint and far away in some other ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... I implore, you to forgive me. I am, indeed, a brute!" And as she continued to sob drearily, I was beside myself. What could I do? She looked so like a little child, and I was so big, to have hurt her seemed cruel and shameful. I was in a state of desperation. I begged her and implored her not to weep; but it seemed to me she only sobbed the harder. What did one do, I wondered, with a weeping maiden? Had it only been a child I would have known, for I had ever a way with children; but before a ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... shouted. 'If that had happened to me it would have driven me to desperation! In fact I really believe that I should have been frantic enough to cut ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... sake more than my own, and I want you to go up and see her every trip, and let me know how she is. She mightn't care what happened to her if she thinks I'm gone, and she might marry somebody else in desperation." ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... that was dragging me into the gutter—this was not life! Life was a glorious, beautiful thing, and I would have it yet. I laid my plans, feverishly, and waited. He did not come back that night, or the next, or the next, or the next. In desperation I went to see the men at the office. No, they had not seen him. Was there anything that they could do? they asked. I smiled, and thanked them, and said, oh, Peter was so absent-minded! No doubt he had misdirected his letters, or something of the sort. And then I went back to the ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... explode at any second now!" cried poor Bumpus; after which, in sheer desperation he jumped deliberately overboard, clinging to the side of the swaying craft, and in momentary expectation of hearing a fearful crash, as the gasoline ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... I'll do it!" cried the manager, in desperation. "We open with New York at St. Louis next week for four games. I'll let Matson see what he can do, though I reckon I'll be roasted and laughed at for taking such ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... council-fire is sufficient for the discussion and arrangement of a plan of hostilities. Here all the fighting-men and sages assemble. Eloquence and superstition combine to inflame the minds of the warriors. The orator awakens their martial ardor, and they are wrought up to a kind of religious desperation by the visions of ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... reminded me. My will fluttered from side to side, now turning its ear to my conscience, now turning away and hearkening to my impulse. At last, weary of the strife, I determined to settle it by a just contempt of trifles—and, half in desperation, bit into ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... With something like desperation in his manner, as if he scrupled to commit himself too far, yet had the will to contribute considerably to the object, the ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... rested in their places, scarcely venturing to stir a limb, their roving, wolfish eyes the only visible evidence of remaining life, every hope vanished, yet each man clinging to his assigned post of duty in desperation. There was but little firing—the defenders nursing their slender stock, the savages biding their time. When night shut down the latter became bolder, and taunted cruelly those destined to become so soon their hapless victims. Twice the maddened men fired recklessly at those ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... in piteous condition, Black desperation painted in their faces, While the full flood descends in very ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... looked for escape this way and that, saw that he was too far from the bank for a flying leap, and sullenly resigned himself to his fate. "If it comes to that," he thought in desperation, "I suppose any fool ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... copecks. And as the prince sat dreaming in the Summer Garden under a lime-tree, a wicked demon had come and whispered in his car: "Rogojin has been spying upon you and watching you all the morning in a frenzy of desperation. When he finds you have not gone to Pavlofsk—a terrible discovery for him—he will surely go at once to that house in Petersburg Side, and watch for you there, although only this morning you gave your ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Leaves her father and mother behind, when she follows her husband. So it is with the youth; no more he knows mother and father. When he beholds the maiden, the only beloved one, approaching. Therefore let me go hence, to where desperation may lead me, For my father already has spoken in words of decision, And his house no longer is mine, if he shuts out the maiden Whom alone I would fain take home as my ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... the desperation of his circumstances, Stanley bent more and more to the west of south, even though in doing so he seemed to be getting into a more hopeless country. The veteran campaigner eyed Bucks's horse carefully as he turned in his saddle, but Scott's wiry beast appeared quite fresh, and Stanley, ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... waited to launch the cutter were at first paralyzed by this tragedy, but there was no time to lose. Death threatened them behind as well as before; behind, death was certain; before, there was still a chance. They launched the cutter in desperation. The six men succeeded in getting into her, and in rowing out at some distance. As wave after wave rose and fell she disappeared from view, and then reappeared, till at last Brandon thought that ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... was so great that he could no longer endure it; and, in desperation, he had made his escape, as we have narrated. His case was a hopeful one, and his father cheerfully remitted to Mr. Walker the amount contained in the lost purse, with the mortifying confession ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... is both departure and arrival. There is not a pin-point of space, not the millionth part of a second of time, intervening between the two. There is no long journey to be taken. A man in straits, and all but desperation, is recorded in the old Book to have said: 'There is but a step between me and death.' Ah, there is but a step between death and the Kingdom; and he that passes out at the same moment ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... one fleshless arm in a sort of frenzy of desperation, and swung her into the library. Then he turned to his audience of two ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... his feet, and went quickly to her. In all his life he had never seen on a woman's face such desperation and remorse. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... did not seek this discussion! He challenged me... and he shall hear the truth! For all these months the thing that has been driving me to desperation has been the knowledge that my father was the business associate and ally of a master of ...
— The Machine • Upton Sinclair
... they had in their hands, and remained petrified with dropping jaws. He was a flying terror. He says he noticed the little children trying to run for life, falling on their little stomachs and kicking. He swerved between two houses up a slope, clambered in desperation over a barricade of felled trees (there wasn't a week without some fight in Patusan at that time), burst through a fence into a maize-patch, where a scared boy flung a stick at him, blundered upon a path, and ran all at once ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the king, than the hart again appeared bounding up the hill. Anne Boleyn, who had turned her horse's head to obtain a better view of the hunt, alarmed by the animal's menacing appearance, tried to get out of his way. But it was too late. Hemmed in on all sides, and driven to desperation by the cries of hounds and huntsmen in front, the hart lowered his horns, and made ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... no answer, and soon afterwards she got up and walked about the room. Her figure was elegant, and she walked well; but Darcy, at whom it was all aimed, was still inflexibly studious. In the desperation of her feelings, she resolved on one effort more, and, turning ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... saying that we would have to get up early to get ahead of him. While I was digging up the money they made side remarks to each other on the lateness of the hour, the length of the stairs, and the heaviness of the pieces still to come. I gave them each a liberal tip in sheer desperation. ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... diplomacy which does not now commend itself to civilized people, managed to jockey everybody with whom he had any dealings. He is much in the position of a certain financier who, after a vain effort to justify his proceedings, turned at last in desperation upon his critics and said: 'Well, I don't care what view you hold of it. You can have the morality, but I've got ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... some attempt. Madame Maintenon, not half so unpopular, mentions in one of her letters her unwillingness to trust her niece Mademoiselle Aumale on the road, for fear of some such accident. You will smile perhaps at all this reasoning and pedantry; but it tends to this—if desperation should send the French somewhere, and the wind should force them to your coast, which I do not suppose their object, and you should be out of the way, you know what your enemies would say; and strange as it is, even ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... of desperation Gen. A. P Hill came up with a few regiments he had managed to rally, but the enemy was continually pressing nearer and nearer! Louder and louder their shouts and the watchword, "On to Richmond!" could ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... yet one thing, and one thing only, to be tried, and it was truly the refuge of desperation. Kenrick was an excellent swimmer; many a time in bathing at Saint Winifred's, even when he was a little boy, he had struck out boldly far into the bay, even as far as the huge tumbling red buoy, that spent its restless life in "ever climbing with the climbing ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... despite these flooding fears, she clung with a dizzy desperation to hope, and to the determination to fight on to the last second ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... which his great strength but sufficed to prolong. His wild, hoarse cries of rage and desperation seemed to beat against the sky; back and forth the dark riparian forests repeated them with the effect of varying distance in the echoes, till all the sombre woods seemed full of mad, frantic creatures, shrieking out their helpless ...
— The Crucial Moment - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... to cost me, no man knows. It was my precious charge through a long tour, and, for hundreds of miles, I never had it off my mind by day or by night. Over bad roads—and they were many—I clung to it with affectionate desperation. Up mountains, I looked in at it and saw it helplessly tilting over on its back, with terror. At innumerable inn doors when the weather was bad, I was obliged to be put into my vehicle before the Bottle could be got in, and was obliged ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... wait for some movement on the part of the enemy, or to allow them to get accustomed to the situation. He had fought guerillas before; and it was not wise, in his judgment, to force them suddenly into desperation, for they became reckless when pressed ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... remote valleys untouched by the breath of progress. No one has heart to probe the next decade, to ask, "Where shall we be in ten years,—in fifty years?" The outlook is bounded by the next Sunday in the park or the theatre. The people throw themselves into the pleasures of the moment with the desperation of doomed men who hear the ring of the hammer on the scaffold. Ibsen, applying an old sailor's superstition to the European ship of state, tells how one night he stood on the deck and looked down on the throng of passengers, each the victim of some form ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... found, when they came to arms, to be but an empty name, and insufficient to defend them against so many. On the other hand, they reminded the people that it is not prudent to wish always to have the last blow; that it is an injudicious step to drive men to desperation, for he who is without hope is also without fear; that they ought not to forget that in the wars the nobility had always done honor to the country, and therefore it was neither wise nor just to pursue them with so much bitterness; and that although ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... That young man is wise—he has no such vast belief in yonder expedition. He is going in desperation, to escape a memory! Is it not true? Tell me—and believe that I am not blind—is not Captain Lewis going into the Missouri country in order to forget a certain woman? And do we not know, my daughter, who that ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... north and northeast their attacks were not at first pressed so hard as on the south of the Menin road, where the fighting was especially fierce. In the latter direction masses of infantry were hurled on with absolute desperation and were ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... to think that Bouchalka's wildness had been the desperation which the tamest animals exhibit when they are tortured or terrorized. Naturally luxurious, he had suffered more than most men under the pinch of penury. Those first beautiful compositions, full of the folk-music of his own country, had been wrung out of him by home-sickness and heart-ache. ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... most important service. Their conduct was highly commended by General Porter. Speaking of those under his command, General Porter says: "The great body of warriors as well as volunteers, engaged in the opening attack, fought with boldness, not to say desperation, unsurpassed by any other troops, until they were placed in a situation where it would have been madness ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... seeking her again; but he knew too well the weakness of his generous resolution; and, though infirm of thought, was yet virtuous enough in act not to hazard it to certain defeat. At length in a momentary desperation, and muttering reproaches on Lucilla for her fickleness and inability to appreciate the magnanimity of his conduct, he threw himself into his carriage, and bade ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mankind, however they may want to be reminded, can never need information on this head. A hint, therefore, to awaken your sense of this matter, shall suffice; for I would inspire you with repentance, and not drive you to desperation. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... stand. When Borrow was proposing a short visit to Norwich his friend wrote to John Thomas Borrow, suggesting that he should keep his brother there for a time, or else return with him, for this reason. Borrow had "repeatedly" threatened suicide, and unable to endure his fits of desperation Kerrison had gone into separate lodgings: if his friend were to return in this state and find himself alone he would "again make some attempt to destroy himself." Nothing was done, so far as is known, and he did not commit suicide. It is a curious ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... exploits and boasted of the scalps he had taken. From eight in the morning till two hours after midnight the din of drums, songs, harangues, and dances continued without relenting, with a prospect of twelve hours more; and La Harpe, in desperation, withdrew to rest himself on a buffalo-robe, begging another Frenchman to take his place. His hosts left him in peace for a while; then the chiefs came to find him, painted his face blue, as a tribute of respect, put a ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... horrid murder-shout, In dreadfu' desperation! An' young an' auld cam rinnin' out, An' hear the sad narration; He swoor 'twas hilchin Jean M'Craw, Or crouchie Merran Humphie, 'Till, stop! she trotted thro' them a'; An' wha was it but Grumphie Asteer ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham |
