"Despondency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him, set in motion by his very artistic truthfulness and objectiveness, became so loud and unanimous, that he contemplated giving up literature altogether. He could not possibly have held to this resolution. But it is surely an open question whether, sensitive and modest as he was, and prone to despondency and diffidence, he would have done so much for the literature of his country without the enthusiastic encouragement of various great foreign novelists, who were his friends and admirers: George Sand, Gustave Flaubert, in France; ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... his face; his hair is thin and gray, his shoulders stoop, his legs are shrunken and slightly bent. There seems a sort of weight in his whole being. His very features have an expression of sorrow and despondency. He answers my questions by monosyllables, and like a man who wishes to avoid conversation. Whence comes this dejection, when one would think he had all he could wish for? ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... instrumental in securing Claudius' election. A very few weeks after the death of King Hamlet, Claudius married Gertrude. Prince Hamlet, recalled to Denmark by the news of his father's death, was plunged into a state of wretched despondency by the shock of that terrible grief and by his mother's indecently hasty marriage to a ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... confidence in your love that brings me here," she replied; "and indeed, Charles, it is more than that—I know your health is, at the best, easily affected, and your spirits naturally prone to despondency; and I feared," said the artless girl, "that—that—indeed I feared you might suffer pain, and that pain might ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... create an appetite, and remove the horrible depression and despondency which result from Indigestion, there is nothing so effective as Ayer's Pills. These Pills contain no calomel or other poisonous drug, act directly on the digestive and assimilative organs, and restore health and strength to the entire ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 02, February, 1885 • Various
... winter, with its fierce winds and its penetrating frosts and deep banks of snow, was upon them. Little occupation could be furnished for the twenty-eight men that composed the colony. Their idleness soon brought a despondency that hung like a pall upon their spirits. In February, disease made its approach. It had not been expected. Every defence within their knowledge had been provided against it. Their houses were closely sealed and warm; their clothing was abundant; their food nutritious ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... apparently commissioned to vex my eyes and plague my heart, through the next succession of two or three years: a worm was at the roots of life. Yet, in this, perhaps, there lurked a harsh beneficence. If, because the great vision of love had vanished, idiocy and the torpor of despondency were really creeping stealthily over my faculties, and strangling their energies, what better change for me than the necessity (else how miserable!) of fighting, wrangling, struggling, without pause, or promise of pause, from day to day, or even from year ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... reader and show him what I could do in the way of pathos if I cared to try; but in the main a thing of sunshine and laughter. But now great slabs of gloom began to work themselves into the scheme of it. A magnificent despondency became its keynote. It would not do. I felt that I must make a resolute effort to shake off my depression. More than ever the need of conciliating the professor was borne in upon me. Day and night I spurred my brain to think of some suitable ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... soon persuaded to deliver him to the governor, as was the governor to hand him over to the cardinal, though he finally protested against his being tried or condemned by the churchmen in his own absence. A full account of his labours during these days of despondency has been given by Knox, who got from him, it is said, the first rudiments of Greek, and who—having rendered his first service to the cause of the Reformation by bearing the two-handed sword for his protection—was dismissed on the night of his betrayal with the significant ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... Alas! he never wrote again! Time flew on; the journals announced the fall of the Trocadero; the surrender of Cadiz, and the restoration of Ferdinand; yet there came no news from Henri! Then did the gentle girl sink into all the despondency of disappointment; and as day after day passed and brought no tidings of her lover, her beauty and her health suffered alike, she languished and pined till she scarce retained the semblance ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... the month may bring to Oxford, it never brings gloom or despondency to Oxford men. They are a happily constituted set of beings, and can always create their own amusements; they crown ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Herbert Randolph was especially fortunate in meeting Bob Hunter, whose friendship proved as true as steel. What would have become of him while in the hands of old Gunwagner, but for Bob's effort to rescue him? And, again, how could he have fought away despondency during his enforced idleness had he lived by himself in a cold and cheerless room? Brave and manly as he was, he owed much to his warm hearted companion, whose presence and sympathy revived his ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... better than adaptations of the system to the will and gratification of the more fortunate divisions of the species. And it has shown itself in a very different character from that of a mere pining despondency, or the impotent resentment excited sometimes in timidity itself by severe grievance, but quelled by alarm at its own rashness. The element and the temperament of its nature, and the force of its action, have been displayed ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... of radiant happiness and trustingness was gone. Her spirits were not altogether depressed, but rather subject to pitiful variations; and at times the hectic excitement of her manner was even more distressing than her fits of despondency. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... turned away in great despondency, firmly fixed, apparently, in his determination to remain and share the fate of the city. AEneas and Creusa his wife joined their entreaties in urging him to go away. But he would not be persuaded. AEneas then declared that he would not go and ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... remaining hours of our vigil. We sat around poor Miguel's corpse with unutterable feelings, recalling all the tragical events of the voyage, until we reached the nadir of despondency. With the rosy light of morning came more cheerful feelings, heightened by the close proximity of the ship, from which it is probable we had never been more than ten miles distant during the whole ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... the schemes of the political managers of the mother country, that even many of those who fought for the independence of America, actually doubted of the propriety of their acts, as Luther is known to have had fits of despondency concerning the justness of the reformation he was producing; while, latterly, the leaning towards England is less the result of a simple mental dependence,—though of that there still remains a disgraceful amount—than ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... Margaret declared that any failure of spirits in Edward was such a new idea, that she must consider before she gave an answer. She thought that he had been too busy to draw so many caricatures as usual lately; but she had observed no deeper signs of despondency ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... assured with triumphant and invincible despondency that population has decreased alarmingly. The movements of population since the time of the Union have been, it may be admitted, very remarkable, but the figures are double-edged and require a more careful handling than they ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... and wont healing their broken lives. No wonder, then, that such thankful praise should break from the leader's lips! No wonder that he should regard this abode in a fortified city as the result of a miracle of Divine mercy! He describes the tremulous despondency which had preceded this marvel of loving-kindness in language which at once recalls the wave of hopelessness which swept across his soul after his final interview with Saul, and which led to his flight into Philistine territory, "And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... so many emotions, he again suffered the torments of hunger. All day long he had eaten nothing but the crust of bread found in the kitchen by the Warden's wife. The rest he had left for her and her daughter. A distress as harrowing to him as his hunger was the sight of poor Georgette's shocked despondency. She was always trying to escape from his presence ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... but was injured and a prisoner. As Captain Warley and his ensign went into the Ark they passed him, seated in dignified silence in one end of the scow, his head and leg bound, but betraying no visible sign of despondency or despair. That he mourned the loss of his tribe is certain; still he did it in a manner that best became a warrior and ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... also from the first to discover the best means of restarting the Mongol Mission. The very full diary which he kept lies before us as we write, and enables us to understand the varying progress and hindrance, encouragement and despondency of this time. ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... singed off him in such wide and well defined tracts that he looks like a map of the new Territories. They are the sorriest beasts that breathe—the most abject—the most pitiful. In their faces is a settled expression of melancholy, an air of hopeless despondency. The hairless patches on a scalded dog are preferred by the fleas of Constantinople to a wider range on a healthier dog; and the exposed places suit the fleas exactly. I saw a dog of this kind start to nibble at a flea—a fly attracted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... frame unable to meet its savage or insidious attacks. This weakness was aggravated by the excitement produced by the singular experience I had passed through. My nerves had undergone a strain quite unusual, and the interior sense of elation, reacting its fits of extreme mental despondency dislocated my system, and accelerated the gliding virus of disease inundating the capillaries of circulation and breaking down the tissues with fever ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... demanded alterations in the project which they themselves had brought forward. A compromise was ultimately effected; but the action of the Court of Prussia and the conduct of its Ministers throughout the Erfurt debates struck with deep despondency those who had believed that Frederick William might still effect the work in which the Assembly of Frankfort had failed. The trust in the King's sincerity or consistence of purpose sank low. The sympathy of the national Liberal party throughout Germany was to a great extent alienated ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... find him," the old Squire remarked with a kind of sad certainty; and he did not join the searchers himself or encourage us boys to do so. I think that both he and grandmother Ruth partly feared that, as the old lady quaintly expressed it, "Jonathan had been left to take his own life," in a fit of despondency. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... replied Leather, in a tone of despondency, 'it would be quite unpossible. Consider wot a day the last one was; why, he didn't get to rest till three ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... did but suggest, my lord; I am sensible of the wound such a proceeding must inflict on a parent's heart, for am I not myself a father?" And he hung his head, as if in hopeless despondency. ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... The bitterness, the despondency, and desperation which seized on the Irish leaders in France, and on the rank and file of the United Irishmen at home, on receiving this intelligence are sufficiently illustrated in the subsequent attempts under Humbert and Bompart, and the partial, ineffectual risings in Leinster, Ulster, and Connaught, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... lioness would turn to bay; if, indeed, such were not her attitude already. I bowed, and not very well knowing what else to do, was about to withdraw. But, glancing again towards Priscilla, who had retreated into a corner, there fell upon my heart an intolerable burden of despondency, the purport of which I could not tell, but only felt it to bear reference to her. I approached and held out my hand; a gesture, however, to which she made no response. It was always one of her peculiarities that she seemed ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Boston was then covered with wild woods, and had fewer inhabitants even than Salem. During her husband's absence, poor Lady Arbella felt herself growing ill, and was hardly able to stir from the great chair. Whenever John Endicott noticed her despondency, he doubtless addressed her with words of comfort. "Cheer up, my good lady!" he would say. "In a little time, you will love this rude life of the wilderness as I do." But Endicott's heart was as bold and resolute as iron, and he could not understand why a woman's heart should not be ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I may never spend such another evening! The O'Gradys DID come, but their high and noisy spirits, so far from relieving me, did but give additional gloom to the despondency, I might say the despair, which filled my heart with misery—the terrible forebodings which I could not for an instant silence, turned their laughter into discord, and seemed to mock the smiles and jests of the unconscious party. When I turned my eyes upon the ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... where the Charioteer and Arjuna were not there Bhishma had his way. The hearts of the Pandavas sank low within them, and at last one night under their tents, resting ere the next day's struggle, the bitter despondency of King Yudhishthira broke out in words, and he declared that until Bhishma was slain nothing could be done. Then came the test from the lips of the searcher of hearts. "Behold, I will go forth and slay him on the morrow." Would Yudhishthira consent? ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... concerns should command me a moment; but business of importance, and some embarrassments too serious to be laughed out of the way, will, I fear, detain me this month. But the month is already gone before you can receive this. I hope your philosophy will not have forsaken you. Far from you be gloom and despondency. Attune your organs to the genuine ha! ha! 'Tis to me the music of the spheres; the sovereign specific that shall disgrace the physician's art, and baffle the virulence of malady. Hold yourself aloof ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... men's faces everywhere look coldly, to whom ears close and hearts are shut, cease your complaints! You alone can know the infinitude of joy held in that moment when one heart opens to you, one ear listens, one look answers yours. A single day effaces all past evil. Sorrow, despondency, despair, and melancholy, passed but not forgotten, are links by which the soul then fastens to its mate. Woman falls heir to all our past, our sighs, our lost illusions, and gives them back to us ennobled; she explains those former griefs ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... of the miserable end of Judge Hales, he called the profession of the gospel a doctrine of desperation; but he forgot that the judge's despondency arose after he had consented to the papistry. But with more reason may this be said of the catholic tenets, if we consider the miserable end of Dr. Pendleton, Gardiner, and most of the leading persecutors. Gardiner, upon his death bed, was reminded ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... she was in very depths of despondency, when she had turned from the gods of her people, when it was feared that her sorrow, near to madness, she would take the little round ball of sleep— opium— that was brought rest to so many despairing women in China, her servants brought her the Gospel ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... understand what it was that made it so unpleasant for the inspector, but to-day he noticed on the inspector's face an expression of despondency and hopelessness which was pitiful ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... The sight of their somewhat bovine contentment took her thoughts away from her own cares and losses; and presently, when the banquet was concluded—a conclusion only arrived at by the total consumption of everything provided, whereby the hungry-eyed gipsy attendants sunk into despondency—Vixen constituted herself Lord of Misrule, and led off a noisy procession in the time-honoured game of Oranges and Lemons, which entertainment continued till the school-children were in a high fever. After this they had Kiss in the Ring; Vixen only stipulating, before she began, ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... This was the third time the same game had been played, and it might again succeed. I did not perceive the public spirit; the apparent inconstancy of the impressions of the Russians prevented me from observing it. Despondency had frozen all minds, and I was ignorant, that with these men of vehement impressions, this despondency is the forerunner of a dreadful awakening. In the same way, you remark in the common people, an inconceivable idleness up to the very moment ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... the imposing force at his command, a valiant prince whom he had always regarded as one of the strongest bulwarks of the Ottoman Empire. This information produced a different effect upon Ali to that intended by the Seraskier. Passing suddenly from the depth of despondency to the height of pride, he imagined that these overtures of reconciliation were only a proof of the inability of his foes to subdue him, and he sent the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the kitchen," the parson impatiently repeated. "There is no time now for these worldly arrangements. No, no!" said he. "There is no time. The woman must be convicted!" He was changed: despondency had vanished—humility gone with it. In the eye of the man—the gesture—the risen voice—appeared some high authority to overawe us. He had the habit of authority, as have all parsons; but there was now some compelling, supernatural addition to weaken us. We ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... that, on one occasion, while he was waiting, apparently in vain, for the chance of professional employment, and not long before the occurrence of that moment of despondency already mentioned, when he contemplated quitting the profession, he and I were walking in the Temple Gardens, and he said, "Now, if I were to choose my future life at the bar, I should, of all things, like ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... of this year Irving, alarmed by his friend's despondency, sent him a most generous and delicately-worded invitation to spend some months under his roof; but Carlyle declined, and in a letter of March 1821 he writes to his brother John: "Edinburgh, with all its drawbacks, is the only scene ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... sister returned sorrowfully to the village. Damie had been seized with a fit of his old despondency, because a thing had now to be carried out which he himself had wished. And Barefoot herself felt deeply grieved at the thought that her brother was, in a way, to be expelled from his native land. At the boundary-line Damie ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... punished is that known to the Middle Ages as acedia, or accidie,—slackness in good works, and spiritual gloom and despondency. In the Parson's Tale Chaucer says: "Envie and ire maken bitternesse in heart, which bitternesse is mother ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... and other diseases, when the skin, mouth, and throat are dry from a suppression of the secretions, let the mind of the patient be changed from despondency to hope, and the skin and the membrane that lines the mouth and throat will exhibit a more moist condition, together with a general improvement of the vital organs of the system. Consequently, all just ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... says, caused him great agony by these suggestions. He fell into deep fits of doubt and humiliation and despondency. And wherever these thoughts came from, we can only say that they were very natural thoughts—natural and right. He called them temptations; yet these were temptations which would not have occurred to any but a ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... night as the missel-thrush by day, but Kapchack, in the deepest despondency, could not reply to his remarks. Twice the owl came back, hoping to find his master somewhat more open to consolation, and twice had to depart unsuccessful. At last, about midnight, the king, worn out with ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... independence of the Colonies to persistent action. Among these was Hannah Arnett, of Elizabethtown, whose story was first made public one hundred years after the date of its occurrence.[77] The latter part of the year 1776 was a period of doubt and despondency to the patriot troops. Although the Colonies had declared their independence several months before, the American forces had since suffered many severe defeats, and it seemed not unlikely that Great Britain would be victorious in her struggle with the new-born republic. On ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... that would give me the least pleasure, unless you could tell me that I was going to leave this place," cried Lady Juliana in a voice of deep despondency. ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... asked myself what I was going to do. I walked up and down my room for some time, feeling tired without any reason for it, unable to work, and even without energy to read. A fine rain was falling, and I felt unhappy, a prey to one of those fits of despondency, without any apparent cause, which make us feel inclined to cry, or to talk, no matter to whom, so as to shake off ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... would lose all his money, marry a girl of sixteen, and live happily on a crust. Sholte, the fat Russian boy, who lived for his stomach, was to be disappointed in love, grow thin, and shoot himself from despondency. Amedee was to have twenty children, and nineteen of them were to be girls. Amedee slapped Frank on the back and asked him why he didn't see what the fortune-teller would promise him. But Frank shook off his friendly hand and grunted, "She ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... vision of despondency, had faded away into the distance, making his chestnut pony pay for the disappointment of his long ride back to the homestead for the missing mare. Norah and her father had "cleaned up house," as Norah put it, and again they were sitting on the old ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... uncanny and the supernatural. It was after all the better for his songs that it was so, else they might not have been filled with that cheery optimism which praised the happiness of sunlight and warmth, and sought to lift humanity from the darkness of despondency. ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy streets, in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look at them out of windows, in dire despondency. In every thoroughfare, up almost every alley, and down almost every turning, some doleful bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling, as if the Plague were in the city and the dead-carts were going round. Everything was bolted and barred that could by possibility furnish relief ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... instructions and Pastoral in this district, to write him a letter respectfully and yet firmly declining to do so. But when I saw the storm gathering in every quarter, I could only exclaim in the despondency of my soul:—When will our brethren cease to destroy us, and when will the Church again have rest from internal commotion and strife! And just at this crisis (a memorable crisis to thousands of our Canadian friends) your excellent rejoinder to Mr. Harvard's ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... bank, heedless of their clothing or bruised hands, they clambered over the broken pieces of wall, and looked upward through the great hole and into the daylight beyond. The blow was too great to permit of mere anger. It was disaster supreme, and they could find no words in that time of despondency. ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... is not like you to give way to despondency. What are we going to do? We can't stay here even if that fellow with the white mustache has given orders that we are not to ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... that, I managed to meet her at a local school, one Saturday afternoon when it was empty; some friendly teacher let her in, and she let me in. We fucked on a hard form, in a nearly dark room, about the most difficult poke I ever had, it was a ridiculous posture. But our meeting was full of tears, despondency, and dread of being with child. She told me I had ruined her, even fucking did not cheer her. A week or so afterwards, having no money, I walked all the way to try to see her, and failed. Afterwards in her letters, she begged me ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... after a year of alternate hope and despondency, the Spaniards saw two vessels approaching the harbour. One had been fitted out by Diego Mendez, and the other was sent by Ovando, placed under the command of Salcedo, the Admiral's agent at ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... choice. It is idle crying "peace, peace," when there is no peace. If the Inspiration of Holy Scripture be a deceit, and the Divine meaning of Holy Scripture a superstition,—then, farewell to all our hopes in Life and in Death; farewell to peace in days of despondency and gloom. Our faith is gone, and our teaching becomes a hollow heartless thing. Since, under the name of freedom of discussion, unbounded licentiousness of speculation is openly the fashion of the age, we are constrained to give a ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... attachment, but who was soon obliged to accompany her husband to Switzerland. Alfieri, whose feelings were of the most impetuous description, was in despair at this separation, and returned to his own country in the utmost anguish and despondency of mind. While under this depression of spirits he was induced to seek alleviation from works of literature; and the perusal of Plutarch's Lives, which he read with profound emotion, inspired him with an enthusiastic passion for freedom and independence. Under the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... silence. The men looked at each other, and at the fire. Even with the appetizing banquet before them, it seemed as if they might again fall into the despondency of Thompson's grocery, when the voice of the Old Man, incautiously lifted, came ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... people in a state of either deep despondency or intense exasperation. It seemed to them that they had been basely deserted and betrayed by their countrymen, who should have been prompt to send to their defence; and although the arrival of the Rangers, and the news they brought of future help, ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... world young. They have said fine things on every phase of human experience. The air is full of their voices. Their books are the world's holiday and playground, and into these neither care, nor the dun, nor despondency can follow the enfranchised man. Men of letters forerun science as the morning star the dawn. Nothing has been invented, nothing has been achieved, but has gleamed a bright-coloured Utopia in the eyes of one or the other of these ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... which she did not share; to-day the satisfaction of knowing that she purchased his contentment with her tears was hers no longer. She was alone in the world, nothing was left to her now but a choice of evils. In the calm stillness of the night her despondency drained her of all her strength. She rose from her sofa beside the dying fire, and stood in the lamplight gazing, dry-eyed, at her child, when M. d'Aiglemont came in. He was in high spirits. Julie called to him to admire Helene as she lay asleep, but he ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... enemy of the family,) who, like an accusing fiend, was continually at his post, and unceasingly reiterating his accusations. This Ussaun Sing was, as Mr. Markham tells you, one of the causes of the Rajah's continued dejection and despondency. But it does not appear that any of these circumstances were ever laid before the Council; the whole passed between ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... depression, to the extreme of enthusiasm. I already knew that even in the ordinary condition of mind enthusiasm is a potent element with soldiers, but what I saw that day convinced me that if it can be excited from a state of despondency its power is almost irresistible. I said nothing except to remark as I rode among those on the road: "If I had been, with you this morning this disaster would not have happened. We must face the other way; we will go back and recover ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... summit of glorious ambition he was thrown, several months later, into the depths of grief and despondency. The White Plague had come to the home in Edinburgh and taken away his two brothers. More, it had put its mark upon the young inventor himself. Nothing but a change of climate, said his doctor, would put him out of danger. And so, to save his life, he and his father and mother ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... the country; the Camisards, by way of reprisal, burned the Catholic villages; everywhere the war was becoming horrible. The peaceable inhabitants, Catholic or Protestant, were incessantly changing from wrath to terror. Cavalier, naturally sensible and humane, sometimes sank into despondency. He would fling himself on his knees, crying, Lord, turn aside the king from following the counsels of the wicked!" and then he would set off again upon a new expedition. The struggle had been going on for two years, and Languedoc ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... conversed and inspected their labours. Some I found tranquil and determined to persevere, provided encouragement should be given. Others were in a state of despondency, and predicted that they should starve unless the period of eighteen months during which they are to be clothed and fed, should be extended to three years. Their cultivation is yet in its infancy, and therefore opinions should not be hastily formed of what it may arrive at, with moderate skill ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... on Etna and Other Poems. Empedocles on Etna. The River. Excuse. Indifference. Too Late. On the Rhine. Longing. The Lake. Parting. Absence. Destiny. (Not reprinted.) To Marguerite. Human Life. Despondency. Youth's Agitations—A Sonnet. Self-Deception. Lines written by a Death-bed. (Afterward, Youth and Calm.) Tristram and Iseult. Memorial Verses. (Previously published in Fraser's Magazine.) Courage. (Not reprinted.) Self-Dependence. A Summer ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... was staring about him with huge interest, every now and then nudging his young master, calling his attention now to this and now to that, until at last the lad began to awaken somewhat from his despondency to the things around. Besides those servants and others who came and went, and a knot of six or eight men-at-arms with bills and pole-axes, who stood at the farther door-way talking together in low tones, now and then broken by a stifled laugh, was a group of four young ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... the beauty and comeliness of it, yet finding withal how infinitely short they come, and how oft their purposes are broken and disappointed, and themselves plunged in the mire of their own filthiness, this doth discourage them, and drives them to such a despondency and dejection of spirit, that they are like to give over the way of holiness as desperate. Now, my beloved, for you who look upon the gospel by a parcel,(243) and such a parcel as enjoins much upon you, I would earnestly beseech you to open and enlarge your hearts to receive the full ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... difference in character of this world from Brahman must be understood to be due to its impurity and its want of intelligence. It is impure because being itself made up of pleasure, pain, and dulness, it is the cause of delight, grief, despondency, &c., and because it comprises in itself abodes of various character such as heaven, hell, and so on. It is devoid of intelligence because it is observed to stand to the intelligent principle in the relation of subserviency, being the instrument ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... been only fair wraiths of dreams that were dead. There was a sense of something missing in her life—a blank, dull calm, which was at first very painful. But for Charlotte's sake she was careful to hide all outward token of despondency, and the foolish grief, put down by so strong a hand, was ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... of especial anxiety and despondency when he reviewed the situation, darkly hinted that the grand jury ought to look into the thing. The Consolidated had done about everything up to date except assassinate and abduct, he averred, and everybody knew Colonel Dodd's ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... purpose and the tendency of a salutary fear of the Divine wrath on account of sin, to make the believer flee directly to the promises, and advance on them to Christ-(Cheever). [16] Signifying that there is nothing but despondency and despair in the fallen nature of sinful man: the best that we can do, leaves us in the Slough of Despond, as to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... despondency came over the boy now, and he shrank away from the edge and threw himself down on ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... what Polly had said and I added my own interpretation. The effect was electrical. He straightened his shoulders with an air of trying to throw off his despondency. ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... husband to his evil-smelling quarters below. Matters were not improved for him by his treatment of the crew, who, resenting his rough treatment of them, were doing their best to starve him into civility. Most of the time he kept in his bunk—or rather Jemmy's bunk—a prey to despondency and hunger of an acute type, venturing on deck only at night to prowl uneasily about and bemoan ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... could distinguish one in ten. He stopped at last, and sat him on the sand, And, grasping wearily his bread-winner, Stared dim towards the blue immensity, Then leaned his head upon his poor old hand. He may have slept: he did not speak nor stir: His gesture spoke a vast despondency. ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... reinstate and maintain it, that confidence would have become a positive conviction could you have seen and heard all that was done and said upon the occasion. Every heart was evidently full of joy; every eye beamed with patriotic animation; despondency gave place to the assurance that, our late dreadful civil strife ended, the blissful reign of peace, under the protection, not of arms, but of the Constitution and laws, would have sway, and be in every part of our land cheerfully acknowledged and in perfect good faith obeyed. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... dignified despondency which pervades this remarkable preface tells us much. That the republican historian was no timid or time-serving flatterer of prince or public is more than clear, while his unerring judgment of the future should bring much of respect for his judgment ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... since the organization of the government had just been won, after a very bitter struggle, by the Republicans or Democrats, as they were then indifferently called, whose exuberant delight found its full counterpart in the angry despondency of the Federalists. That irascible old gentleman, the elder Adams, having experienced a (p. 026) very Waterloo defeat in the contest for the Presidency, had ridden away from the capital, actually in a wild rage, on the night of the 3d of March, 1801, to avoid the ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... Jackson, at Woolwich. She, as Elizabeth Terrot, had been a beauty, and was to the last a fine, happy, spirited, contented and joking old lady, very fond of my father, to whom she left all she had. She was bright, unselfish and amusing, even on her deathbed incapable of despondency or gloom. ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... hand quietly, with a little show of despondency that was hardly quite genuine, for his eyes had already told him better. 'Then you can't love me, Miss Oswald,' he said, looking at her closely. 'I'm sorry for it, very sorry for it; but I'm grieved if I have seemed presumptuous ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... to arrest the irresistible growth of modern society in the republic. Every year has been a period of great success, though our peaceful population, unacquainted with war, and often ignorant of the vast issues of this conflict, have often inclined to despondency. Of course the aristocracy fought best, at first, as every aristocracy in the world has done. With half our number of better disciplined troops, better commanded and man[oe]uvred, and the great advantage of interior ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... about this time that I began to experience certain moments of despondency, and occasionally let a whole day slip by without endeavouring to be of use to The Cause—moments when, instead of asking myself, "What have I done for my country?" I asked, "What has my country done for me?"—moments ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... regard to his father's fate, and join in the laugh, and jest, and game as heartily as any one on board, there were times when his heart failed him, and he almost despaired of ever seeing his father again, and these feelings of despondency had been more frequent since the day on which he witnessed the sudden and utter destruction of the ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... dressed slowly. Bruce had known fatigue, the weakness of hunger, but never anything like the leaden, heavy-footed depression which comes from intense despondency ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... the Savings Bank. These three latter calamities have come in such rapid succession, that before men's minds recovered from the stunning effect of one shock, they were astounded by the sudden burst of another; and we are convinced that at the present moment there is a deeper despondency and a more harrowing anticipation of ruin to the colony than ever existed before since the landing of Governor Philip, in 1788."—The run upon the Savings Bank at Sydney originated, it is said, from ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... night was sitting in the snug, old-fashioned room, with the good old rector. She was no better; still in doctors' hands and weak, but always happy with him, and he more than ever gentle and tender with her; for though he never would give place to despondency, and was naturally of a trusting, cheery spirit, he could not but remember his young wife, lost so early; and once or twice there was a look—an outline—a light—something, in little Lily's fair, girlish face, that, with a strange momentary agony, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Rome, among his various villas—at Tusculanum, at Antium, and at Formiae. The purport of all his letters at this period is the same—to complain of the condition of the Republic, and especially of the treachery of his friend Pompey. Though there be much of despondency in his tone, there is enough also of high spirit to make us feel that his literary aspirations are not out of place, though mingled with his political wailing. The time will soon come when his trust even in literature will fail ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... near—but always out of Bardo's hearing. For Bardo nursed a vague belief, which they dared not disturb, that his property, apart from the library, was adequate to meet all demands. He would not even, except under a momentary pressure of angry despondency, admit to himself that the will by which he had disinherited Dino would leave Romola the heir of nothing but debts; or that he needed anything from patronage beyond the security that a separate locality should be assigned to his ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... too brilliant, the pressure was too high, to be maintained by me, a mere woman, in every-day domestic life. I well remember Mama's clasping her hands, and exclaiming, 'This will end in a little man!'" (Here Mr. Sampson glanced at his host and shook his head with despondency.) "She afterward went so far as to predict that it would end in a little man whose mind would be below the average, but that was in what I may denominate a paroxysm of maternal disappointment. Within a month," said Mrs. Wilfer, deepening her voice, as ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... refrained from debate. He only looked more grim and determined. When the house was cleared, he took the floor again fiercely restless as before. Later on Uel came in, tired, spirit-worn, and apparently in the last stage of despondency. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... who went to him in those days found him changed, and in a sense glorified. He had always been considerate and kind; but the weakness, the folly, and the wickedness of poor human nature, which were often laid bare to his searching scrutiny, had frequently plunged him into a welter of despondency and shame, out of which he would cry, "Alas for God's image! Alas for the temple of the Holy Ghost!" But in those days it seemed as if disease and death appeared to him mere trivial accidents ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... half-profits. The bailiff listened attentively, and obviously made an effort to approve of his employer's projects. But still he had that look Levin knew so well that always irritated him, a look of hopelessness and despondency. That look said: "That's all very well, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the first thoughts of Francisco; but he soon recovered from his despondency. He was young, courageous, and buoyant with hope; and there is a feeling of pride—of trust in our own resources and exertions, which increases and stimulates us in proportion to our danger and difficulty; it is the daring of the soul proving its ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... was in connection with his Gissing volume, for which I possessed some material he needed, that I first made his acquaintance. He has had something of Gissing's restricted and grey experiences, but he has nothing of Gissing's almost perverse gloom and despondency. Indeed he is as gay a companion as he is fragile. He is a twinkling addition to any Christmas party, and the twinkle is here in the style. And having sported with him "in his times of happy infancy," I add an intimate and personal satisfaction to my pleasant ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... agreed with him. He was a slayer of men, but McGurk was a devil incarnate. His father had died at the hand of this lone rider; it was fitting, it was fate that he himself should die in the same way. The girl looked from face to face, and sensed their despondency. It seemed that their fear gave her the greater courage. Her face flushed as ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... pawn your bands, your cassock, anything you please. Your enthusiasm does you credit," said my lord; and resumed the reading of his paper, whilst, in the deepest despondency, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... years older only, in fact, but ten years older, at least, in feeling, did notice a great change in Albert, mental as well as physical. The younger boy ceased to have periods of despondency. While he could not do the things that Dick did, he was improving, and he never lamented his lack of strength. It seemed to him a matter of course, so far as Dick could judge, that in due time he should be the equal of the older and bigger ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... a youth of resolution and energy. He entertained the same opinion as Fritz; and instead of wasting his time in idle despondency, got together some articles of merchandise, and sailed for the Indian Archipelago, promising his friends that he would return to his native land ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... time, I did not do the deed. She burst out into frantic exclamations, accusing me of being not only his murderer but the murderer of her husband. I tried all I could do to appease her, but in vain. For many weeks she was in a state of melancholy and despondency, that made me fear for her life; but she had you still to bestow her affections upon, and for your sake she lived. I soon made this discovery. She was now wholly in my power, but I was awed by her looks even, for a time. At last I became bolder, and spoke to her ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is very much the same in both. The First was perhaps spoken when the Olynthians first appealed to Athens in that year, before the mission of Chares; the Second, to counteract the effect of something which had caused despondency in Athens (possibly the conduct of the Athenian generals, or the account given by other orators of Philip's power). In both Demosthenes urges the importance of resisting Philip while he is still far away, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... things, the spirit of Britain rose in full proportion to the occasion; and her colonies, instead of yielding to despondency, resumed fresh courage, and cheerfully made the preparations for the coming campaign. Mr. Pitt had, the last autumn, been placed at the head of a new Administration, which conciliated the contending interests in Parliament; ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... chances," she went on. "If the first fails you, you have no reason for despondency, for a better one is sure to come. We poor women find our golden opportunity but once. Do not call me mercenary or false. I was neither. I had been talked into a belief that I ought to marry Jack, but when the trial came all the potential ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... not in a very happy frame of mind. Naturally cheerful and hopeful, it was not often that he gave way to fits of despondency, or repining at his humble lot, so different from that of the boys of his own age, with whom he came in daily contact, both at school and in ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... prematurely aged look peculiar to women who have the burdens of life too soon and too heavily laid upon them. Her black hair was even streaked here and there with gray. But with all this there was not the least trace of impatience or despondency in that all-enduring face. When grave, its expression was that of resignation; when gay—and even she could be gay at times—its smile was as sunny as Leonora's own. Hannah had a lover as patient as Job, or as herself, a poor fellow who had been constant to her for twelve years, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... for and against the existence of matter. Ma lasciamo queste dispute ai oziosi. But let us leave these disputes to the idle. Io tengo sempre fermo un gran pensiero. I hold always firm one great object. I never feel a moment of despondency.' Boswell's Corsica, ed. 1879, p. 193. See ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... that you would come," she answered, and the flush died away slowly as she turned back to the fire. In the moment of recognition all the despondency had vanished so utterly that it had not left even a memory. He had brought not only peace, but youth and happiness back to ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... however rough, however wild. In ordinary circumstances Jane could not deny to herself that this course would be the right course for a daughter; that such an one would do well to succor a father's failings, to add hope to his despondency and love to the mitigation of his trials. But Mr. Keene was not despondent, nor were his trials of a sort which might not easily be tempered by something like industry on his own part. He was frankly idle. He loved better than simple work the ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... last we come to calculate the forces that decided the destiny of nations, it will be found that the mightiest and grandest influence came from home, where the wife cheered up despondency and fatigue and sorrow by her own sympathy, and the mother trained her child for heaven, starting the little feet on the path to the celestial city; and the sisters by their gentleness refined the manners of ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... tongue. When such crimes are perpetrated the public mind is apt to fall into gloom and perplexity, for it is ignorant alike of the causes and the consequences of such deeds. But it is one of our duties to reassure them under unreasoning panic and despondency. Assassination has never changed the history of the world. I will not refer to the remote past, though an accident has made the most memorable instance of antiquity at this moment fresh in the minds and memory of all around me. But even the costly sacrifice of a Caesar did not propitiate the inexorable ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... brain. She would send him to the piano, and the exalted sorrow in the music, which she could but faintly remember, would raise her above sorrow, would bear her out of and above the circle of personal despondency. Ulick might help her; she could not help herself. She was incapable of going to the piano, though she was fully conscious that her mood would pass away in music. She walked across the room, her eyes contracted with ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... nothing else, I shall have a head, and hands, and industry still left me, which alone have been able to raise sufficient fortunes. Pray, sir, therefore, make your life as comfortable and lasting as you can; let not any consideration of us cast you into the least despondency. If I have any reflections on, or desires of free and competent subsistence, it is more in reference to another (whom you may guess) to whom I am very much obliged, than for myself: but no thoughts, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... nervous misery which embarrasses my efforts in a mode and in a degree inexpressible by words. Such, indeed, is the distress produced by this malady, that, if the present act of republication had in any respect worn the character of an experiment, I should have shrunk from it in despondency. But the experiment, so far as there was any, had been already tried for me vicariously amongst the Americans; a people so nearly repeating our own in style of intellect, and in the composition of their reading class, that a success amongst them counts for a success amongst ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... acquittal of Hastings, Burke wrote several letters to Addington as Speaker, which have a tone of the deepest despondency. He writes in the impassioned anguish of a man to whom the earth exhibited but one aspect of despair. They were letters such as Priam might have indited on the night when his Troy was in a blaze. It was evident that the powerful genius of Burke was partially bewildered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... many of the slaves, who had loads upon their heads, were very much fatigued: and some of them snapt their fingers, which among the Negroes is a sure sign of desperation. The Slatees immediately put them all in irons; and such of them as had evinced signs of great despondency were kept apart from the rest, and had their hands tied. In the morning they were found ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... answer one day in the course of one of their quarrels about the opera. He had unguardedly given expression to his growing despondency ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... that though he was determined not to go to Mrs. Mulready's, the affair could not rest there. He felt himself to be, in some horrible manner, in the power of Brady and Joe Reynolds—as though he could not escape from them. A general despondency respecting all his prospects weighed him down, and when he reached Ballycloran, he was nearly as unhappy as he had been ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... floating and lost in the warm flood of which they had been but another form. She was humiliated to find herself a mere victim of feeling, as if she could know nothing except through that medium: all her strength was scattered in fits of agitation, of struggle, of despondency, and then again in visions of more complete renunciation, transforming all hard conditions into duty. Poor Dorothea! she was certainly troublesome—to herself chiefly; but this morning for the first time she had been ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... any of the original parts are out of tune, its whole work is confused, as appears in idiots and mad men; though, in some of them, the soul, by a vigorous exertion of its power, recovers its innate strength and they become right after a long despondency in mind, but in others it is not recovered again in this life. For, as fire under ashes, or the sun obscured from our sight by thick clouds, afford not their native lustre, so the soul, overwhelmed in moist or morbid matter, is darkened ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... Still there was something unusually impressive in observing the poor widow of O'Rafferty, seated at the feet of her deceased lord with an infant in her arms, and all the appearance of a heart heavily charged with despondency and grief. An old Irishwoman, seated at the side of the bed, was making the most violent gesticulations, and audibly calling upon the spirit of the departed "to see how they onor'd his mimory," raising the cross before her, while ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... a recurrence of the sticky feeling in his mouth, he stripped off his pajamas, went into the bath-room, and shivered and grunted under an icy shower for five minutes, by which time some of the despondency which last night's affair had brought over him was shaken, his headache was loosened a bit, his wits were more clearly in hand, and the warm blood was ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... endeavor which he inspired in his fellowmen, to the marvellous magnetism of his playing which seemed for the moment to restore to a soul-weary world its illusions, and to strike off the fetters of despondency which bind ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... a little confusion or mistake, it probably would," replied Miss Berwick, with a touch of despondency in her manner. "But there's dishonesty involved. I know there is, but I don't see how I'm going ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... world! A living master? why, there he comes! thou hast had him long, he has long guided thy young hand towards the excellence which is yet far from thee, but which thou canst attain if thou shouldst persist and wrestle, even as he has done, 'midst gloom and despondency—ay, and even contempt; he who now comes up the creaking stair to thy little studio in the second floor to inspect thy last effort before thou departest, the little stout man whose face is very dark, and whose eye is vivacious; that ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... on, and he dragged on through them; hot fits of conceit alternating in him with cold fits of despondency and mawkishness and discontent with everything and everybody, which were all the more intolerable from their entire strangeness. Instead of seeing the bright side of all things, he seemed to be looking at creation through yellow spectacles, and saw faults and blemishes in all his acquaintance, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... and the nature of their occupations; I then began to whistle and hum some lively air, at the same time twirling my glove with affected unconcern; but nothing would do; every exertion I made to appear cheerful, not only found no answering sympathy from within, but even exaggerated by constrast my despondency. In this condition I reached Saint Giles's Church. A crowd was assembled at the gate opposite its entrance, and presently the long surly toll of the death-bell—that solemn and oracular memento—announced that a funeral was on the eve of taking place. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... occasion, the Hares being scared in the woods by a great noise, cried out, that, on account of their continued alarms, they would end their lives. So they repaired to a certain pond, into which, in their despondency, they were going to throw themselves. Alarmed at their approach, some Frogs fled distractedly into the green sedge. "Oh!" says one {of the hares}, "there are others too whom fear of misfortune torments. Endure existence ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... some other gentlemen of General Washington's family, in a confidential way, that at some period in seventy-six, I think after the American army crossed the Delaware in its retreat, Mr. Reed had spoken to you in terms of great despondency respecting American affairs, and had intimated, that he thought it time for gentlemen to take care of themselves, and that it was unwise any longer to follow the fortunes of a ruined cause, or something of a similar ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... warn, to threaten, and to promise. Finding themselves too late to save, and only, like Cassandra, despised and disregarded, their voices rise up singing the swan song of a dying people, now falling away in the wild wailing of despondency over the shameful and desperate present, now swelling in triumphant hope that God will not leave them forever, and in his own time will take his chosen to himself again. But such a period is an ill-occasion for searching into the broad problems of human destiny; the present is all-important ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... fraction) that she still possessed a home for herself and children. My mother possessed much energy of mind, as well as a cheerful, hopeful disposition, and, although she sorrowed deeply for her sad loss, she did not yield to despondency; but endeavored to discharge faithfully her duty to her children, and to this end she sought employment, and toiled early and late that she might provide for our wants, and so far did Providence smile ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... himself from his despondency, drank off a glass of water, and, turning towards Francis, said in his most ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... man proceeded to inform me how he got on with the study of Chinese, enumerated all the difficulties he had had to encounter; dilating upon his frequent despondency of mind, and occasionally his utter despair of ever mastering Chinese. He told me that more than once he had determined upon giving up the study, but when the misery in his head forthwith returned, to escape from which he had as often resumed it. It appeared, however, that ten years ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... alteration of color or countenance when the verdict of the jury was communicated to him; he merely slightly bowed and resumed his seat. With De Soto the case was different. He is much altered; has become thinner, and his countenance this morning was expressive of the deepest despondency. When informed of the contents of the paper read by the foreman of the jury, he appeared much affected, and while being removed from the Court, covered his face ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... a poor man, with a family depending on his daily labor, this irritability and despondency would be natural enough. But in a young fellow of twenty-four, with plenty of money and seemingly not a care in the world, the thing is monstrous. If he continues to give way to his vagaries in this manner, he ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... body was almost gone, the soul was as active and busy as ever within its failing tenement. She watched every thing—noticed every thing, growing more and more jealous and irritable just in proportion as her situation became helpless and forlorn. Every thing seemed to conspire to deepen the despondency and gloom which ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... if they had been emblems of the penitentiary. He began to resent it keenly. Even Doret and the trader seemed to share the general feeling, hence the thought of the long, lonesome winter approaching reduced the Lieutenant to a state of black despondency, deepened by the knowledge that he now had an open enemy in camp in the person of Runnion. Then, too, he had taken a morbid dislike to the new man, Stark. So that, all in all, the youth felt he had good reason to be in the dumps this afternoon. There was nothing desirable in this place—everything ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... were leaving the primaries in twos and threes, tired but excitedly discussing the situation. Between hope and despondency the comment varied on the streets, at the supper-tables, and in the eager, waiting groups of girls on tenement ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... Courtney exchequer and ancestral roof-tree, may have experienced a pardonable dejection. But why should Faraday, who assured himself a dozen times a day that he merely admired Miss. Genevieve, as any man might admire a charming and handsome girl, feel so desperate a despondency? ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... instance when he was called upon to consider a political question of great magnitude, his clearness of vision and grasp of mind. In what he wrote there is no trace of the ambitious schemer, no threatening nor blustering, no undue despondency nor excited hopes. But there is a calm understanding of all the conditions, an entire freedom from self-deception, and the power of seeing facts exactly as they were, which were all characteristic of his intellectual strength, and ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... his defeat, that things were not as they seemed, that there was no joy for him in the coming of spring, that he had been blind in his free, sensorial, Indian relation to existence, he fell into an inexplicably strange state, a despondency, a gloom as deep as the silence of his home. Dale reflected that the stronger an animal, the keener its nerves, the higher its intelligence, the greater must be its suffering under restraint or injury. He thought of himself as a high ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... one answered, for nobody believed they would. A feeling of despondency was making itself too plainly felt, and when broad daylight did at last come all that could be seen was sand and soda everywhere, not so much as a shrub or scrap of grass, only scattered stones here and there, and the party ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... vain did his mother and near friends seek to rally him out of the despondency that was settling down upon him. They said, "You are only a little over forty, and many a good man has never been recognized at all until after ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... Timrod's genius never wavered, and but for his early assistance, sympathy, and encouragement, much of the fruit of that genius would have been lost or wasted. He helped him in adversity, cheered him in his hours of anxiety and despondency, and from first to last, throughout the literary and spiritual history of the poet, he did more than any other friend to keep alive in his heart the steadfast flame of faith in his poetic destiny; Judge Bryan's name must always be inseparably connected with Henry Timrod's ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod |
