"Despond" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the nation was again directed to Egypt the scene was transformed. It was as though at the touch of an angel the dark morasses of the Slough of Despond had been changed to the breezy slopes of the Delectable Mountains. The Khedive and his Ministers lay quiet and docile in the firm grasp of the Consul-General. The bankrupt State was spending surpluses upon internal improvement. The disturbed Irrigation Department was vivifying the land. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the dogeless city's vanished sway; Ours is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away - The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, For us repeopled ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... days "unwept, unhonored, and unsung." We have a picture of this middle-aged man, clerking for his younger brothers in a country store, at eight hundred dollars a year, and day by day sinking further into the slough of despond. ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... Christian, whom he accompanied as far as the "Slough of Despond," when he turned back.—Bunyan, Pilgrim's ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... first day of summer; the oak leaves expand, the roses blow, butterflies are about, and I have spirits enough to write to you. We have had clouded skies this fortnight past, and roads like the Slough of Despond. Last Wednesday we were benighted on a dismal plain, apparently boundless. The moon cast a sickly gleam, and now and then a blue meteor glided along the morass ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... author's own country. The children undoubtedly listened to the talk of their elders and gazed with wide-open eyes at the execrable plates in the imported editions illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and sword of the Martyrs, the Pilgrim's difficulties in the Slough of Despond, or with the Giant Despair, afforded pleasurable reading; while Mr. Great Heart's courageous cheerfulness brought practically a ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... knew that this was impossible, he would narrate these visions with the faith of an old Bible seer, and declare that they must come true, and that it was a sin to despond. But as year after year he journeyed up and down the country, seeing, at Mission after Mission, the buildings crumbling into ruin, the lands all taken, sold, resold, and settled by greedy speculators; the Indian converts disappearing, ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... may be said, that when the tea was finally announced, our young lady came downstairs a great deal more cheerful; that she did not despond, or deplore her fate, or think about George's coldness, or Rebecca's eyes, as she had been wont to do of late. She went downstairs, and kissed her father and mother, and talked to the old gentleman, and made him more merry than he had been for many a day. She sate down at the piano which ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mission it is to unfold qualities which are your inheritances from your Parent. Do not make the great mistake of confounding the Relative with the Absolute. Avoid this pitfall into which so many have fallen. Do not allow yourself to fall into the "Slough of Despond," and wallow in the mud of "nothingness," and to see no reality except in the person of some forceful teacher who takes the place of the Absolute in your mind. But raise your head and assert your Divine Parentage, and your Heritage from the Absolute, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... of view had come a corresponding change in the life. The men of his class had marked it, and there were helping hands held out, as there always are when one struggles toward the forward margin of any Slough of Despond. He had even gone to church at long intervals, having there the good hap to fall under the influence of a man whose faults were neither of ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... would seem as precious to me when I had got them as they do now. Once I did not know what it was to despond, but I lost my pupils last winter, and everything seemed hopeless. I am not vain or egotistic; I do not pine for applause and wealth, but I should like to sing.... I've heard so much about my voice that I'm curious to know what people ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... spoke, she glanced about the room, hoping to see some blue blossoms awaiting her. But none appeared; and she was about to despond again, when ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... the metropolis, he sought a situation, but in vain, and he was beginning to despond, when he obtained work with one John Morgan, an instrument-maker, in Finch Lane, Cornhill. Here he gradually became proficient in making quadrants, parallel rulers, compasses, theodolites, etc., until, at the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... is something generous, rather than derogatory, in giving to the poor exile, whose thoughts are so high and noble, those privileges of a man of rank, which some who were born in such lofty station are too cowardly to avail themselves of. Yet despond not, noble Princess; the challenge is not yet accepted of, and if it was, the issue is in the hand of God. As for me, whose trade is war, the sense that I have something so serious to transact with this resolute ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... from three to five to one. Ah, but why should we despond on that account?" And his voice vibrated with renewed confidence. "The country is a difficult one, easy to defend, and Lord Wellington's genius will have made the best of it. There are, for example, the fortifications at ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... to your happy memory. 'He was a man that had the root of the matter in him, but at the same time he was the most troublesome pilgrim that ever I met with in all my days. He lay roaring at the Slough of Despond for above a month together. He would not go back neither. The Celestial City, he said he should die if he came not to it, and yet was dejected at every difficulty and stumbled at every straw. He had, I think, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough that he carried ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... he meant that the great numerical majority of the inhabitants bear this character, he spoke truly, inasmuch as the great numerical majority of the inhabitants are negroes, among the most depraved in the island. Kingston is like the slough of Despond, a place whither all the scum and filth of the negro population in the east end of the island do continually run, and make it a very sink of wickedness. But are the white families and the large number of thoroughly respectable colored families to be ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... only the blessings which He has, and build on that foundation which no creature can overthrow; so that no one should trust in his own righteousness, but on Christ's righteousness, and on all that Christ has. But what is it to rest upon His righteousness? Nothing else but that I should despond in regard to myself, and think with myself,—my righteousness, my truth, must go to pieces, and what is built thereon; while His righteousness, His truth, His life, and all the blessings which He has, are eternal. There lies the foundation on which I stand; whatever stands not ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... have no relation, then we and the time are changeable too, then without money is impossible to perform any matter, if I had at present in my grieved desperate position L4 for my restaurant, then I were rescued. I do not earn anything, and I must despond at last, I perish here, in Russia I was ruined, please to aid me in Your merciful humanity by something, if I had L15 I could start off from here to go somewhere to look for my daily bread, and if I had L30 so I shall go to Jerusalem because I am convinced by my bitter and sour troubles ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... province are at a standstill," he repeated, "while all my energies are bent upon this quest. Should we fail to have news of his capture in Dauphiny, we need not, nevertheless, despond. I have sent men after him along the three roads that lead to Paris. They are to spare neither money nor horses in picking up his trail and effecting his capture. After all, I ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... London at this time was Prentice Mulford, of California. In later years Mulford acquired a wide reputation for his optimistic and practical psychologies. Through them he lifted himself out of the slough of despond, and he sought to extend a helping hand to others. His "White Cross Library" had a wide reading and a wide influence; perhaps has to this day. But in 1873 Mulford had not found the tangibility of thought, the secret of strength; ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... father received, through the interest of Lord Moira, the post of Barrack-Master in Dublin, and thus became independent. In 1815, "Retrenchment" deprived him of this office, and he was placed on half-pay. The family had to seek aid from the son, who entreated them not to despond, but rather to thank Providence for having permitted them to enjoy the fruits of office so long, till he (the son) was "in a situation to keep them in comfort without it." "Thank Heaven," he writes afterwards of his father, "I have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... London has its nerves affected by what happens beyond the Atlantic? What has become of all your reading? There is nothing so unnatural as the feelings of a million of persons who live together in one city. They have not one conception like those in villages and in the country. They presume or despond from quite different motives. They have both more sense and less, than those who are not in contact with a multitude. Wisdom forms empires, but folly dissolves them; and a great capital, which dictates to the rest of the community, is always ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... unmeaning censure or yield to groundless fears that truth and duty will be abandoned, because men in a public assembly are still men, and feel that esprit du corps which is one of the laws of their nature? Still less should we despond or complain, if we reflect that this very spirit is a guardian instinct that watches over the life of this assembly. It cherishes the principle of self-preservation, and without its existence, and its existence with all ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... I thought of the task that lay before me, if he recovered, the more I felt inclined to despond. The oftener the English physician who attended on him said to me, "He may get the better of the fever, but he has a fixed idea, which never leaves him night or day, which has unsettled his reason, and which will end in killing him, unless you ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the actual folk we know, but also with a world for those friends to live in, more real and far more enjoyable than the world in which we ourselves sojourn. And this is well seen of Christian. The Slough of Despond and the terrible overhanging hill; the gateway and the Interpreter's House and the House Beautiful; the ups and downs of the road, and the arbours and the giants' dens: Beulah and the Delectable Mountains:—one knows them as one knows the country that one has ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... yards on the other side of the parapet) walked on dry earth for at least ten paces. The officer's laughter was loud at the corner of the next traverse, when there was an abrupt descent into a slough of despond. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... so coolly. Perhaps it might be partly owing to his enfeebled state, but he certainly did not seem to trouble himself much about the future. "I feel as if I should pull through now," he said, once. "I only wanted a helping hand to lift me out of the slough of despond. When I am a bit stronger, doctor, I must paint a pot-boiler or two," and Marcus had quietly assented ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... except by voluntary catastrophe. Another junction flashes into sight, and again your choice is made; negligently enough, perhaps, but still with a view to what you consider the greatest good, present or prospective. One line may lead through the Slough of Despond, and the other across the Delectable Mountains, but you don't know whether the section will prove rough or smooth, or whether it ends in a junction or a terminus, till the cloven mists of the Future melt into a manifest ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Christians as I have mentioned, who had settled round us, had been brought out of heathenism, while the larger number of the population appeared even more hostile to the new faith than at first. Still my father would often say, when he felt himself inclined to despond, "Let us recollect the value of one immortal soul, and all our toils and troubles will appear as nothing." Such was the state of things at the mission ...
— Mary Liddiard - The Missionary's Daughter • W.H.G. Kingston
... orations of Cicero, but were embodied in the knowledge of agriculture and the arts which, adopted by the people, made possible later the German civilization. The old rescue mission sought to yank the sinner out of the slough of despond, the social settlement seeks to help him who has fallen in the contest of life or him to whom the opportunity has not been offered, to climb, recognizing that morality and religion attend, not recede progress. ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... in a zigzag way, he by and by reached the base of the mountain at a point where there was a break in the forest. A patch of dreary-looking swamp was before him, covered with clumps of alder-bushes—a true Slough of Despond. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... up a treatise of consolation for himself."—Life of Cicero. "Then there can be no other Doubt remain of the Truth."—Brightland's Gram., p. 245. "I have observed some satirists use the term."—Bullions's Prin. of E. Gram., p. 79. "Such men are ready to despond, or commence enemies."—Webster's Essays, p. 83. "Common nouns express names common to many things."—Infant School Gram., p. 18. "To make ourselves be heard by one to whom we address ourselves."—Blair's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... situation. That land is not Belgian, and it is not international—except in a strictly legal sense. It is difficult to say what it is if it be not the private domain of King Leopold and of several monopolist-controlling trusts. Probably the only way out of the present slough of despond is the definite assumption of sole responsibility by the Belgian people; for it should be remembered that a very large number of patriotic Belgians urgently long to redress evils for which they feel themselves to be indirectly, and to a limited extent, chargeable. At present, those ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... degradation. However bad she might be, the blame certainly rested with him as the stronger. If it was impossible to live with her now, he might, at any rate, have stretched out his hand long ago, and rescued her from the slough of despond into which she ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... hear that Mrs. Dade was not at home. "Gone over to the hospital with Mrs. Blake and the doctor," was the explanation, and these gentle-hearted women, it seems, were striving to do something to rouse the lad from the slough of despond which had engulfed him. That night "Pink" Marble, Hay's faithful book-keeper and clerk for many a year, a one-armed veteran of the civil war, calling, as was his invariable custom when the trader was absent, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... in the world's gift—its most valued treasure, its purest, sweetest, and proudest trophies—why, when these are the stake which is to reward thy courage, thy adherence, to compensate thee for trial, to console thee for loss and outrage—why is it that thou art so ready to despond of the cause so dear to thee, and forfeit the conquest by which alone thy whole existence is made sweet. This is the very suicide of self. Fearful of loss, we forsake the prize, which we have won; and hearkening ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... answer. "My dreariness has not been induced by the look of the house. Still, when I do look around and see the rich carpets gone, the pictures, statues, all the thousand beautiful things we used to take pleasure in, I say to myself, 'This just man will have his reward.' Don't despond, Jack: I tell you, things will ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... gave all she had to God, begging Him to purify the gift and supply her mind with the dispositions to render the offering acceptable. She had learned that most difficult lesson even to the holy—to hope rather than despond in the conviction of unworthiness. There was one other victory which the Lady Margaret had gained over herself: she had suppressed an inclination to return the attachment of Gilbert de Hers, which she clearly saw could only lead to unfortunate results. It was the remembrance ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... he has lost all of his friends," said Kirk. "He needs to be assured that such is not the case—that his friends and acquaintances have no desire to cut him. I think if that could be done he would come out of the slough of despond and be worth something. We may need him this summer; or a man who has his pitching ability ought to develop ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... brief ills appall the brave? Shall manly hearts despond? Up, faint heart, up! The blackest cloud ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... Government scowled at it, and at last passed a law preventing the Protestant boys dressing up the figure on the first of July, and walking round it. That was the death-blow of the Orange party, your hanner; they never recovered it, but began to despond and dwindle, and I with them, for there was scarcely any demand for Orange tunes. Then Dan O'Connell arose with his emancipation and repale cries, and then instead of Orange processions and walkings, there ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... philosopher declared that if he had a standing-place he could move the earth. Give to capital the ground of perpetuity of tenure, whereon to plant its machinery, and it will soon lift this island from the slough of despond. Then may it be said more truly than Grattan said it in 1782, that Ireland had ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... overshadowed the transient gleam from Hampton Roads and Kernstown; plunging the public mind into a slough of despond, in which it was to be sunk deeper and deeper with each ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... food. Grey and I agreed that, though it was a very honourable thing to command a ship, we should be very glad to be relieved of the honour. Since we captured the vessel we had not had a moment to take any food. Hunger made us rather inclined to despond. We, however, found out what was the matter with us, and sent Billy Wise down into the cabin to forage. He soon returned with some biscuit and white cheese, and dried plums and raisins, and a few bottles of claret, but there was no ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... "It must be a sad ride for him! Much honor, much hardship! You've no reason to despond, for your husband will return tomorrow or the day after; while I—look at me, Maria! I go through life stiff and straight, do my duty cheerfully; my cheeks are rosy, my food has a relish, yet I've been obliged to resign what was dearest to me. I have endured my widowhood ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a grant of land, which took their name, and became the Manor of Despond; there's where Spoon Hall is now. Sir Thomas Desponder was one of those who demanded the Charter, though his name wasn't always given because he wasn't a baron. Perhaps Miss Palliser does not ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages." The astonishing thing is, that Browning emerged from the slough of despond at just the time when most young men are entering it. He not only climbed out, but set his face ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... the hopes of discovering a store of farina or rice, but nothing could they find but the rotting tobacco and the monkey-skins, and, starving as they were, they could not manage to eat them. Even when reduced to this extremity the young officers themselves did not despond, nor did their men, who looked to them for example, do so either. Murray calculated that if they could but get a breeze, they might reach the port for which they were steering in less than twenty-four hours. It was very tantalising ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Well, don't despond," said the Bloater, laying his hand on Jim's shoulder. "I have reason to know that the obstacles in your way shall soon be removed, because that ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... Range southeast of it. There was hope, activity, animation, among the little camps and garrisons toward the broad valley of the Gila as the early days of November wore away. Only here at Sandy was there suspense as well as deep despond. ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... Dean was a right plucky little fellow, I can tell you; and so full of hope and ambition was he, that nothing could keep him down very long; and nothing, I believe, could ever make him despond for a single minute but thinking of his mother, sick and far away, without friends or money, lying on a narrow bed, all through the weary, dreary days and nights, in the dreary ward of a crowded hospital. Poor Dean! he ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... felt the weight of his words, but our collapse was pitiful. Lured by a treacherous hope into the belief that we were saved, we were fallen into a deeper Slough of Despond than before. Jill was hard put to ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... insensible degrees, overdone with work, bereft of conjugal consolations, and weary of a world in which he wandered alone, by the time he was two-and-thirty had sunk into the Slough of Despond. He hated life. Having too lofty a notion of the responsibilities imposed on him by his position to set the example of a dissipated life, he tried to deaden feeling by hard study, and began a great book ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... burn, and there would be a Temple for it to stand in. If we try to imagine the feebleness of the handful of discouraged men, and the ring of enemies round them, we may feel the sweetness of the promise which bade them not despond because they had little of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... "is the famous Slough of Despond—a disgrace to all the neighborhood; and the greater that it might so easily ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... then, would it have been possible to carry on any business with continual loss? The starting of Hope Mills had inspired other disheartened firms, and given an impetus to Yerbury industries that might have lain much longer in the Slough of Despond. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... hemmed handkerchiefs for Mat, marked towels; and one noble being actually took off his coat and packed the trunks in layers of mosaic-work wonderful to behold. A supper celebrated the last evening; and even the doleful Lavinia, touched by such kindness, emerged from her slough of despond and electrified the ball by dancing a jig with ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... son, and her welcome was kindly given. But she was anxious and preoccupied, having but risen from the perusal of the despatches Paul had brought; and although her natural courage and hopefulness would not permit her to despond, she could not but admit that danger menaced the cause of the Red Rose, whilst she realized, as her young son could not do at his age, how utterly disastrous would be a single victory of the enemy at ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... like you to repine in this way; you who have suffered and endured so much must not despond when, after a long, starless night, the day ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... heretofore, broke up with the startling suddenness which is peculiar to the Adriatic. The heavens opened, and to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning the rain descended in torrents, flooding the tents, quenching the illuminations, and reducing the whole ground to a Slough of Despond. The guests naturally rushed for shelter to the little inn, which was much too small to accommodate them. The police made for the barrels of beer, and were soon incapable of keeping order, and a mob of villagers who had assembled to witness ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... 3 Despond then no longer, The Lord will provide; And this be the token— No word he hath spoken, Was ever yet broken, The Lord ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... the dark impeded rather than helped the stranger on his way towards them. The feet of thousands of people, who had visited the spot since the news of the accident was made known, had worn away the last blade of grass from the slippery fields and had left a very Slough of Despond behind them. I was down half a dozen times, and when I reached the hovel where the rescue-party had gathered I was as much like a mud statue as a man. Everything was in readiness, and the descent ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... do not think that Sir Charles Dilke owed a great deal to the Liberal party, but we certainly think that the Liberal party owed a very great deal to Sir Charles Dilke. In the dark days of 1874, when the party was deeper in the slough of despond than it has ever been before or since in our time, it was from the initiative and courage of Sir Charles Dilke that salvation came. His work in organizing the Liberal forces, especially in the Metropolis, has never ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... the rice fields or feed the salt pans. When out in quest of snipe I have sometimes had to choose between crossing by one of those bridges, innocent of even a handrail, and wading through the black slough of despond which it spanned. Choosing neither, I went home, but the "Kolee" and the "Agree" trip over them like birds, balancing household chattels ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... effects of want now attacked poor Kit. He could obtain no employment. His expectations in this respect, as well as his earnest efforts, received so little encouragement that he began, finally, to despond. Extreme poverty is a wet damper on the fires of the best genius; but, as was the case with Kit, it does not effectually put it out. Kit saw with sorrow that he must retrace his steps. To obtain means to carry out his ardent desires, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... a great impression here [Oxford]; and, I say what of course I would only say to such as yourself, it made me for a while very uncomfortable in my own mind. The great speciousness of his argument is one of the things which have made me despond so much," that is, as to its effect ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... his shoulder, and smiled cheerfully. 'Now, father, don't despond. All will be well, and we shall see no such misfortune as that for many a year. Leave all to me. I am a rare ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... like a helpless mourner, bent By sorrow, Rama made lament; And with wise counsel Lakshman tried To soothe his care, and thus replied: "O best of men, thy grief oppose, Nor sink beneath thy weight of woes. Not thus despond the great and pure And brave like thee, but still endure. Reflect what anguish wrings the heart When loving souls are forced to part; And, mindful of the coming pain, Thy love within thy breast restrain. For earth, though cooled by wandering streams, Lies scorched beneath the midday beams. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... structure—instead of being prompted to undertake laborious enquiries into the natural history of the organic world, and the complicated effects of the igneous and aqueous causes now in operation—was taught to despond from the first. Geology, it was affirmed, could never rise to the rank of an exact science; the greater number of phenomena must for ever remain inexplicable, or only be partially elucidated by ingenious conjectures. ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... done or has, it's just because it's HIM, I suppose, but I know my chance is gone for good! THAT leaves me free to act for her; no one can accuse me of doing it for myself. And I swear she sha'n't go through that slough of despond again while I have ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... Trouble, believe me, Madam; (return'd Gracelove) and then began to inform Fairlaw in every Point of her unhappy Circumstances. The good old Gentleman heard 'em with Amazement and Horror; but told her, however, that she need not despond, for he would take Care to right her against her Brother; and, that in the mean Time she should be as welcome to him as any of his nearest Kindred, except his Wife and Daughter. Philadelphia would have knelt to thank him; but he ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... failure make you despond. Ours is a calling of ups and downs; it is an advantage of its uncertainty that you never know what may happen next; the darkest hour may he very near the dawn. This is where Bohemianism, in the best sense of the term, will serve the actor. I do not ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... Virginian mud, which is quite as villainous as that of Balaclava. The day before had been mild and wet, and my journey was made in a drenching shower, which soon cleared away the white mantle of snow. You cannot imagine the slough of despond I had to pass through. Wet to the skin, I stumbled through mud, I waded through creeks, I passed through pine-woods, and at last got into camp about two o'clock. I then made my way to a small house occupied by the general as ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... indicates cessation of progress if not retrogression. This period of no progress is regarded as a characteristic of the learning curve and is a time of great discouragement to the conscientious student, so distressing that we may designate it "the plateau of despond." Most people describe it as a time when they feel unable to learn more about a subject; the mind seems to be sated; new ideas cannot be assimilated, and old ones seem to be forgotten. The plateau may extend for a long ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... clever woman, Peter," was all he said to me in reference to the matter, "and I shall miss her." Then he clapped me on the shoulder, and bade me not despond. "We still have the rubies," he reminded me, "which, properly invested, will more than pay for all ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... swamps, by his timid companions, He prayed to the Virgin on high, and she led him forth from the forest; For angels she sent him as men— in the forms of the tawny Dakotas, And they led his feet from the fen, from the slough of despond and the desert, Half dead in a dismal morass, as they followed the red-deer they found him, In the midst of the mire and the grass, and mumbling "Te Deum laudamus." "Unktomee[72]—Ho!" muttered the braves, for they deemed him ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... required all Giles's skill as a chauffeur. Another time, trying a short cut across some fields, the car ran into soft earth and refused to stir. Her occupants got down and tried with their united efforts to push her out of her "slough of despond", but with no effect. Giles kept starting the engine, but the wheels, instead of gripping, simply turned round and round, and sank deeper into the soil. They were obliged to go to a farm for help, and have planks fixed under the wheels before the heavy car could move ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination—her soft, bright foe, our sweet Help, our divine Hope. We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... was ever more firmly planted in the human heart, than that of discovering some short cut to the high road of mental acquirement. The toilsome learner's "Progress" through the barren outset of the alphabet; the slough of despond of seven syllables, endangered as they both are by the frequent appearance of the compulsive birch of the Mr. Worldly-wisemen who teach the young idea how to shoot, must ever be looked upon as a probation, the power ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... an auspicious period in the history of the mission. Geog Tapa became the radiant centre of spiritual life. The preceding year had been one of apprehension, but the brethren now learned not to despond every time the heavens gathered blackness, for in the darkest hour the sun may break forth and change the whole scene. We have come to the beginning of that series of revivals, with which the mission was ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... and south, the early American road was a veritable Slough of Despond. Watery pits were to be encountered wherein horses were drowned and loads sank from sight. Frequently traffic was stopped for hours by wagons which had broken down and blocked the way. Thirteen wagons ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... reconcile him to his destiny, and to inspire him with delight in the beautiful Scenery by which he was surrounded; insinuating, that should Augustus banish him, which was no improbable event, he ought not to despond, but to form his conduct upon the spirited example of Teucer; who, together with his Friends and Followers, was banished from his native City, Salamis, by his Father, because he had not revenged upon the Greeks the death of his Brother Ajax.—The disinterested ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... pursued still by perverse ill-luck. The weather was terribly inclement, alternating between extremes. Heavy snowstorms and hard frosts were followed by thaws and drenching rains. The difficulties of transport continued supreme. Roads, mere spongy sloughs of despond, were nearly impassable, and the waste of baggage-animals was so great that soon few ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... achieved its work much sooner than with us. Probably the last summer had found no human being alive, in all the track included between the shores of Calabria and the northern Alps. My search was utterly vain, yet I did not despond. Reason methought was on my side; and the chances were by no means contemptible, that there should exist in some part of Italy a survivor like myself—of a wasted, depopulate land. As therefore I rambled through the empty town, I formed my ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... about myself. What can I say on that precious topic? My health is pretty good. My spirits are not always alike. Nothing happens to me. I hope and expect little in this world, and am thankful that I do not despond and suffer more. Thank you for inquiring after our old servant; she is pretty well; the little shawl, etc., pleased her much. Papa likewise, I am glad to say, is pretty well; with his and my kindest regards to you and Mr. Gaskell—Believe me sincerely ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... chiefly wanted, I wrote to a woman of high rank, who, though young herself, had known me from a child, and had latterly treated me with great distinction, requesting that she would "lend" me five guineas. For upward of a week no answer came, and I was beginning to despond, when at length a servant put into my hands a double letter, with a coronet on the seal. The letter was kind and obliging; the fair writer was on the sea-coast, and in that way the delay had arisen; she inclosed double of what I had asked, and good-naturedly hinted that if I should never ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... greater than my recent misery was the ecstasy which succeeded my liberation. The happy sense of relief imparted to me such a feeling of buoyancy that I was enabled to extricate myself from this 'slough of despond,' and I soon reached the swift current, when a few strokes landed me in security on ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... she observes it too much. I could talk till to-morrow upon these things, but they make me melancholy. I could not but observe that lately, after much conversation with Mr. Harley, though he is the most fearless man alive, and the least apt to despond, he confessed to me that uttering his mind ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... only a Christian, like Dr. Grey! His faith, like strong wings, bears him high above all sloughs of despond, all morasses of moodiness. People cannot successfully or profitably serve two masters. That is eminently true; not because it is scriptural, but vice versa; because it is so obviously true it could not escape a place in the Bible. Half work pays poor wages, and it is not surprising ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... he is not quite a man, as the world goes, and not at all an angel, as the celestials see. He must be his own motive, path, and guide, his own priest, king, and law. The world may be his footstool, and may be his slough of despond, but is never his final end. His aims are transcendental, his realm is art, his interests ideal, his life divine, his destiny immortal. All the old theories of saintship are revived in him. He is in the world, but not of it. Shadows of infinitude are his realities. He sees only the starry ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... rest of those babies have returned to their duty," continued Monroe, who was always the first to despond. ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... of water and secure privacy. Watt's extreme diffidence was often the subject of remark at Dr. Roebuck's fireside. To the Doctor his anxiety seemed quite painful, and he was very much disposed to despond under apparently trivial difficulties. Roebuck's hopeful nature was his mainstay throughout. Watt himself was ready enough to admit this; for, writing to his friend Dr. Small, he once said, "I have met with many disappointments; and I must have sunk under the ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... one, at another of the other. They are the people who complain of the cyclic quality of their moods and purposes. Their mood will be a heaven of exaltation and exhilaration, and then descend into a slough of despond from which they feel themselves inextricable. They are always talking about the ups and downs of their mental states. Headache and languor and fatigability, dry skin and lack of appetite for food or exertion on one day or for one week, give way on the next ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... Without them Chicago would have been a desert. Henry Fuller's gay spirit, Lorado's swift wit and the good fraternal companionship of Charles Francis Browne were of daily comfort; but above all others I depended upon my wife whose serenely optimistic spirit carried me over many a deep slough of despond. How I leaned upon her! Her patience with ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... enough, her thoughts were wandering, so that she uttered absolute nonsense at times—insomuch that I would have laughed had I not been jealous of what I deemed the mutual love of Ada and thee. No, Erling, thy suit will prosper, depend on't. It is I who have reason to despond, ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... and Mr. Munster began to talk volubly, with wandering eyes, repeating words he was in danger of forgetting. No remarks were required from me. At the proper moment he asked me to make the tour of the rooms, and offered his arm. As we were crossing the hall, I saw Despond, hat in hand, and in faultless evening dress, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... at Richmond Hill, having safely passed the Slough of Despond, which the vaunted Yonge Street mud road presents, between the celebrated hamlet of St. Alban's and the aforesaid hill, one of the greatest curiosities of which road, near St. Alban's, is the vicinity of a sort of Mormon establishment, where a fellow of the name of David Wilson, commonly called ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... offhand manner. "Such an array of reasons cannot be gainsaid; and, indeed, I shouldn't feel comfortable in leaving you down here with no champion but little Spira, so let us be off at once. Head the van, you see, by crossing this Slough of Despond on friend Basil's back!" ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... was beginning to rise, phoenixlike, from the ashes of his despond, the Patriot reprinted the full details of Nellie's complaint as they appeared in a New York daily. For a brief spell he shrivelled up with shame and horror; he could not look any one in the face. Nellie's lawyers had made the astounding, ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... of being anything but a teacher all my life. To have had so much almost in my grasp, and then to have had it snatched away, was rather hard luck," she ended gloomily. "However, I simply would not let myself despond. For one thing, I hadn't time; I was being worked to death. One or two of the governesses were down with influenza, including the music mistress, and I took her singing class, and, I promise you, I made them sit up. I told them I had never yet heard them sing five ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... right; for Man, to man so oft unjust, Is always so to Women: one sole bond Awaits them—treachery is all their trust; Taught to conceal their bursting hearts despond Over their idol, till some wealthier lust Buys them in marriage—and what rests beyond? A thankless husband—next, a faithless lover— Then dressing, nursing, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... to make a road clear through it, that shall not be immediately choked up by the ooze of the morass and the luxuriant parasitical growth of the forest—who dare hope for that? At present, alas, it would seem as though no one dares even to hope! It is the great Slough of Despond of our time. ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... into and floundered in that slough of despond, the lower stratum of the Irish kitchen element, which if one once meddles with, it is almost hopeless to get out of; and one very soon finds that to get out of it is the only hope, forlorn ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... [28] "The slough of despond which we call the eighteenth century" ("Hopes and Fears for Art," p. 211). "The English language, which under the hands of sycophantic verse-makers had been reduced to a miserable jargon . . . flowed clear, pure, and simple along with the music of Blake and Coleridge. Take those names, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... reviving. We have escaped the peril of fire; the fear of explosion is past and gone: and oblivious of the fact that the ship with a hold full of water is only too likely to founder when she puts out to sea, we feel a confidence in the future that for- bids us to despond. ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... we conceived ourselves in the high road to La Palud, and likely to be soon indemnified by dinner and rest, for the joltings of the day; but our driver, instead of taking the proper direction, lost himself in a series of inextricable cross roads, which terminated in a quagmire. In this slough of despond the unfortunate patache, from which we had descended, might have stuck for ever, but for the assistance of two shepherds, as wild in their attire, and as civil, as Don Quixote's friendly goatherds. By dint of their exertions and those of the floundering and groaning ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... him was a kindly: "My poor fellow soul, you have indeed fought a hard fight; but there IS a God above us who will recompense you at His own time, take the word for it of one who has also been through the Slough of Despond." And then just these ... these hobbies of his, of which he had made so much. Now that he was alone with himself he saw them in a very different light. Lepidoptera collected years since were still unregistered, plants and stones unclassified; his poor efforts at ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... opposed this. Then Zwingli spoke one more, begging all to hold firm to the Gospel, and never to despond as long as they leaned upon it. "What is done from the best motives will be misrepresented by falsehood and slander. Thus it had been said here and there yesterday evening that we would now degrade the body and blood of Christ into sleeping-cups. No!"—cried he—"no one certainly wishes to ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... soul looks ever unto the hills whence cometh its help. In the morning, at noon, and at night, man longs for a deliverer. God is the pledge of the soul's victory over the body. For men floundering in the slough of sin and despond these words, "Ye may, ye must be born again," are sweeter than angel songs falling from the ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... and kept in vilest durance and imminent danger of being put to death till October 8th, when, after the capture of the Summer Palace, both the prisoners were released.] is safe. We have been very uneasy about him, and not without cause. The China war is a slough of despond: the further we advance the more we shall flounder, until we are half ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... room in every business for an honest, hard-worker. It will not do to presume otherwise; nor should one sit down to grumble or concoct mischief. The most perilous hour of one's life is when he is tempted to despond. He who loses, his courage loses all. There are men in the world who would rather work than be idle at the same price. Imitate them. Success is not far off. An honorable and happy life is before you. Lay ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... words have become his own. He has lived among its visions and voices of heaven till all sense of possible unreality has died away. He tells his tale with such a perfect naturalness that allegories become living things, that the Slough of Despond and Doubting Castle are as real to us as places we see every day, that we know Mr. Legality and Mr. Worldly Wiseman as if we had met them in the street. It is in this amazing reality of impersonation that Bunyan's ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... Miserable, utterly miserable. We have camped in the 'Slough of Despond.' The tempest rages with unabated violence. The temperature has gone to 33 deg.; everything in the tent is soaking. People returning from the outside look exactly as though they had been in a heavy shower of rain. They drip pools on the floorcloth. The snow is steadily climbing ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... not think I have ever known what it is to despair, or even to despond (if such were my inclination, I have had some opportunities recently), and it was not long before I began to find out the bright side of Cruces life, and enter into schemes for staying there. But it would be a week or so before the advent of another crowd would wake Cruces to life ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... you must admit that if there must be a pope, he must in these days be a reformer, or—give up his temporal power. Not that I look on Pio Nono as more than a precursor; he may break ground, and point the way, but he is not the man to lead Europe out of its present slough of despond, and under the headship of the Church found a new and lasting republic. We want a Hildebrand, one who will be to the nineteenth century as Gregory ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Where shall any mass of men be found with power of character and mind sufficient to bear up against such a weight of prejudice? Why, if one individual rarely gifted by heaven were to raise himself out of such a slough of despond, he would be a miracle; and what would be his reward? Would he be admitted to an equal share in your political rights?—would he ever be allowed to cross the threshold of your doors?—would any of you give your daughter to his son, or your son to his daughter?—would ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... Alida's room to help her sort and address them. "You certainly have your share this year," she said, laughing. "Do you remember what a slough of despond you were in a ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... surmise much, of course, regarding William's experience in Canada. His letters were all of his inner life. He said much regarding his spiritual condition, of his grievous lapses of faith, of his days on the Delectable Mountains and of his descents into the Slough of Despond, but very little of the hills and valleys of his adopted country. Once, shortly after his arrival, he had stated that he was living in a shanty where the bush came right up to the door. Margaret had had some misgivings, ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... Manse, Vol. II.] where Hawthorne has preserved Shelley's skylark and the steed Rosinante, with Hebe's cup and many another impalpable marvel, in the warden-ship of the Wandering Jew. So, too, when we read Great-Heart's analysis of Mr. Fearing, this expression, "He had, I think, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough that he carried everywhere with him," we can detect the root of symbolical conceptions like that of "The Bosom Serpent." [Footnote: Mosses from an Old Manse, Vol. II.] I cannot ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... without the imaginary monsters and legions of phantoms that peopled it, I cannot say. Nor can I conjecture how far I strayed north or south from my course. I only know that marshes that were like Sloughs of Despond, and barren and wet savannahs, were crossed; and forests that seemed infinite in extent and never to be got through; and scores of rivers that boiled round the sharp rocks, threatening to submerge or dash in pieces the frail bark canoe—black and frightful to look on as rivers in hell; ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... several specimens of high attractiveness came under his eyes, he could not bring himself to the point of proposing marriage. He dreaded to take up the position of husband a second time, discerning a trap in every petticoat, and a Slough of Despond in possible heirs. 'What has happened once, when all seemed so fair, may happen again,' he said to himself. 'I'll risk my name no more.' So he abstained from marriage, and overcame his wish for a lineal descendant to follow him in the ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... as we passed, until the last of the column was reached and the frieze of ghostly figures was swallowed up into the night. We drew a long breath, for we knew now from the colonel of the battalion whose men had delivered us from that Slough of Despond that we had been within 150 yards of the German lines. We had mistaken Richebourg l'Avoue ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... but with no friendly intent. Their thoughts dwelt, with unspeakable yearning, on the France they had left behind; and which, to their longing fancy, was pictured as an unattainable Eden. Well might they despond; for of a hundred and eighty colonists, besides the crew of the "Belle," less than forty-five remained. The weary precincts of Fort St. Louis, with its fence of rigid palisades, its area of trampled earth, its buildings of weather-stained timber, and its ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... to have their loads of grain carried over this dreadful place for three or four cents a bushel was to the farmers of the Rock River and Fox River valleys—who, having hauled their wheat from forty to eighty miles to this Slough of Despond, frequently could get it no farther—a privilege which they soon began to appreciate. The road had all it could do, at once. It was a success. There was now no difficulty in getting the stock taken up, and before long it was finished to Fox River. It paid from fifteen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... I strove to do so. I was outcast and forgotten! I had gone through the "vale of misery;" but I could not "use it as a well;" for my pools were empty! Instead of my Creator directing my "going in the way," He had left me to stumble forward blindly, until I had fallen into the Slough of Despond,—the sink of unbelief! ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... more frequent than that, after the first dawnings of a Christian life in a heart, there should come a period of overclouding; or that, as John Bunyan has taught us, when Christian has gone through the wicket-gate, he should fall very soon into the Slough of Despond. One looks round, and sees how many professing Christians there are who, perhaps, were nearer Jesus Christ on the day of their conversion than they have ever been since, and how many cases of arrested development there are amongst professing and real Christians; so that when for the 'time ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... second hour, however, your mind should begin to clear, and if you are at all possessed of the qualifications for future ballroom leadership, you should gradually throw off the slough of despond and determine to make a fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And when the music has once more ceased, you should ask your partner if she would not care to take a jaunt in the ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... to become an actress, and she went diligently to work, not allowing herself to despond over that first great disappointment. For the next seven years, she worked faithfully learning the new profession from the very bottom. "I became aware," she said, "that one could never sail a ship by entering at the cabin windows; he must serve ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... letter, Domitius, concealing the truth, gave out in council that Pompey would speedily come to their assistance; and encouraged them not to despond, but to provide everything necessary for the defence of the town. He held private conferences with a few of his most intimate friends, and determined on the design of fleeing. As Domitius's countenance did not agree with his words, and he did everything with more confusion and ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... exceed five hundred men, less than half of the force which he had so recently mustered in the capital. To such humble circumstances was the man now reduced, who had so lately lorded it over the land with unlimited sway! Still the chief did not despond. He had gathered new spirit from the excitement of his march and his distance from Lima; and he seemed to recover his former confidence, as he exclaimed, - "It is misfortune that teaches us who are our friends. If but ten only remain ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... deeply your kindness in writing to me at such a time, and that I would fain assure you of my heart-felt sympathy, however unavailing it may be. To you who have a steadfast anchor for your hopes, I ought not, perhaps, to say, "Do not despond." Yet, dearest H——, do not despond: is there any occasion when despair is justified? I know how lightly all soothing counsel must be held, in a case of such sorrow as yours, but among fellow-Christians such words still have some significance; for the most unworthy ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... themselves, I must now return to the weary chapter of European diplomacy, to trace the tortuous course of popes and princes, duping one another with false hopes; saying what they did not mean, and meaning what they did not say. It is a very Slough of Despond, through which we must plunge desperately as we may; and we can cheer ourselves in this dismal region only by the knowledge that, although we are now approaching the spot where the mire is deepest, the ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... melancholy enough, but it is just the one which should test your manhood. It is not for one who has been all his life buffeting with the world and ill-fortune, to despond at every mischance or misdeed. Proceed with your narrative; and, in providing for the future, you will be able to forget not a ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... realized. In the "Pilgrim's Progress," strange and unreal regions become well-known places, and moral qualities distinct human beings. Evangelist, who puts Christian on the way to the Wicked Gate; Pliable, who deserts him at the first difficulty; Help, who pulls him out of the Slough of Despond; Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who shows him an easy way to be rid of his burden, are all life-like individuals. Timorous, Talkative, Vain Confidence, Giant Despair, are not mere personifications, but distinct human ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... Assyrians, having entered Egypt with a numerous army, the Egyptian officers and soldiers refused to march against him. The high priest of Vulcan, being thus reduced to the greatest extremity, had recourse to his god, who bid him not despond, but march courageously against the enemy with the few soldiers he could raise. Sethon obeyed. A small number of merchants, artificers, and others who were the dregs of the populace, joined him; and with this handful of men, he marched to Pelusium, where Sanacharib had pitched his camp. The night ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... is slender indeed: yet to us now living it seems as if man had not yet lost all that part of his soul which longs for beauty: nay we cannot but hope that it is not yet dying. If we are not deceived in that hope, if the art of to-day has really come alive out of the slough of despond which we call the eighteenth century, it will surely grow and gather strength and draw to it other forms of intellect and hope that now scarcely know it; and then, whatever changes it may go through, it ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... than you, and I bid you take comfort, and trust to God for better things, and better things will come, too. You are not so badly off now as you were this time twelvemonth. And you know I'll never leave you. Don't despond—don't give away. It's unnatural for a man to do it, and he's lost if he does. Oh, bless you, this is a life of suffering and sorrow, and well it is; for who wouldn't go mad to think of leaving all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... and the appearance of a herpetic eruption near the mouth is regarded as an evidence that no internal organ is in danger. There is a good deal in not "giving in" to this disease. He who is low-spirited, and apt to despond at every attack, will die sooner than the man who is not of such ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Pliable walked on together, without looking whither they were going, and in the midst of the plain they fell into a very miry slough, which was called the Slough of Despond. Here they wallowed for a time, and Christian, because of the burden that was on his back, began to ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... pleasant indeed to hear how ill you had been—and yet to be lifted into the hope, or rather certainty, of seeing you next week pleased us extremely of course, and the more that your note through Lady Lyell had thrown us backward into a slough of despond and made me sceptical as to ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... his life was blighted, Mr. Gammon sang and whistled with more than usual vivacity as he dressed each morning. It was not in his nature to despond; he had received many a knock-down blow, and always came up fresher after it. Mrs. Clover's veto upon his tender hopes with regard to Minnie had not only distressed, but greatly surprised him; for during the last few months ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... send the chicken! We didn't have anything for supper but coffee and rolls and eggs. He's certainly bringing good things in his wake. How delicious that chicken does smell! Let's take it as a good omen, Alec, a forerunner of better days. He'll surely get you out of your slough of despond." ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... preceding pages I have described my Pilgrim's Progress from the Slough of Despond, commonly known as Section Sanitaire Vingt-et-Un (then located at Germaine) through the mysteries of Noyon, Gre and Paris to the Porte de Triage de La Ferte Mace, Orne. With the end of my first day as a certified inhabitant of the latter institution a definite progression ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... not that much has happened since your departure that can engage your curiosity. Of all publick transactions the whole world is now informed by the newspapers. Opposition seems to despond; and the dissenters, though they have taken advantage of unsettled times, and a government much enfeebled, seem not likely to gain ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... impression he was making on Cardigan. Again his faith in the psychology of the mind found its absolute verification. Cardigan, lifted unexpectedly out of the slough of despond by the very man whom he expected to condemn him, became from that moment, in the face of the mental reaction, almost hypersympathetic. When finally he left the room, Kent was inwardly rejoicing. For Cardigan had told him it would be some ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... Heavy, coming out of her momentary slough of despond. "But we all have our little troubles, ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... and cheered the poor fellow with many a hopeful message from the gospel of mercy and soon drew him out of the Slough of Despond; but he drew him out with so eager an arm that up went this impressionable personage from despond to the fifth heaven. He was penitent, forgiven, justified, sanctified, all in three weeks. Moreover, he now fell into a certain foul habit. Of course Scripture formed a portion ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... he had her. Heaven knows why it is; it isn't because of anything he's done or has, it's just because it's HIM, I suppose, but I know my chance is gone for good! THAT leaves me free to act for her; no one can accuse me of doing it for myself. And I swear she sha'n't go through that slough of despond again while I have breath ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... mean time will you help me pull him out of his slough of despond?" she asked, smiling with ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... imagine that little thing finding Tom just the least bit slow, at times, if it were not for his goodness. Tom is so kind that I'm convinced he sometimes feels your joke in his heart when his head isn't quite clear about it. Well, we will not despond, my dear." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... longer in her hands, even tender as are his years. I shall take steps for having him removed. What further I shall do to vindicate myself, and extricate myself as far as may be possible from the slough of despond in which I have been submerged, she and you ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope |
