"Despair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... resolved in carrying them into execution. These qualities rendered him the animating spirit of the expedition: in every situation he stood unrivalled and alone; on him all eyes were turned; he was our leading star, which, at its setting, left us involved in darkness and despair. ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... slender vases burning, Breathed all upon the air,— The passion and the tenderness and yearning, The waiting and the doubting and despair. ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... despatched Prince Apiche and the General Ssetienche against him. Litan, after some partial success, was beaten and driven into T'si-nan, which the Mongols immediately invested. After a blockade of four months, the garrison was reduced to extremities. Litan, in despair, put his women to death and threw himself into a lake adjoining the city; but he was taken out alive and executed. T'sing-chau then surrendered. (Gaubil, 139-140; De Mailla, IX. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... arriving at a climax of suspense, and seeing the Doctor still engaged in the perusal of the letter, she came down flat upon the soles of her feet again, and cast her apron, as a veil, over her head, in a mute despair, and inability ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... protection, testifying to the need of increased watchfulness. The cave-houses and cliff-fortresses, cunningly hidden away to escape detection, or so placed as to defy the assault of their enemies, show to what desperate straits they were driven; and imagination only can picture the despair that must have filled their hearts when the hour of final defeat came, and they must have realized that even these shifts would not allow them to stay in the ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... to despair of his appearing at all, when a cab rattled up to the door. Sloper and Dodge rushed unanimously to the window. A young man, very badly dressed, stepped out of the cab, holding over his shoulder what looked like the upper half of a man's body. In his disengaged ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... who was also bent on her son becoming a jurist, became his guardian. It was a severe battle between taste and duty, but love for his widowed mother conquered, and young Robert Schumann entered the University of Leipzig as a law student. It was with a feeling almost of despair that he wrote at this time, "I have decided upon law as my profession, and will work at it industriously, however cold and dry the beginning may be." Previously, however, he had spent a year in the household of Frederick Wieck, the distinguished teacher of music. ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... his account of the battle with the brig! Nothing on the coast could outsail the sloop, he was sure. Indeed, it was with some regret that he admitted a hope of her being overtaken by the Delaware boy's friends, and he was divided between pride and despair as the day went on and no sail appeared to the north. By noon his new acquaintance was ravenously hungry, as was to be expected, and over their pannikins of soup the last reserve between them ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... once a strange spirit, as of new life, came suddenly over my father. I cannot think of it without awe. He went to work like a young man, shook off his despair, financiered with marvellous ability, borrowed money, collected old and long-despaired of debts, tore down the old hotel and the other buildings, planned and bargained with architects—it was then that I designed the facade before described—and built six stores, two of them very handsome ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... seemed to leap from its socket, men remembered the groan of despair that rose from ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... barren tears shall flow before 4695 Yon smoke has faded from the firmament Even for this cause, that ye who must lament The death of those that made this world so fair, Cannot recall them now; but there is lent To man the wisdom of a high despair, 4700 When such can die, and he live on ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... all the magician's piping!" He rested his forehead upon his clasped hands. "Fair, Fair, she was my Destiny! Why did he come like a shape of night, with the power of night? And now he draws her, too, into the shadow. He's treading a road beset—and they are one flesh; she travels with him. Oh, despair!" ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... where you will be, and will be with you till you drive me away,' he answered with despair and pressed close to him the hands of his sovereign. She freed her hands, laid them on his head, and clutched at his hair with her fingers. She slowly turned over and twisted the unresisting hair, drew herself up, her lips curled with triumph, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... poems, or pastorals, or novels, it was his dramatic ambition that engrossed his thoughts. The same indomitable spirit that kept him from despair in the bagnios of Algiers, and prompted him to attempt the escape of himself and his comrades again and again, made him persevere in spite of failure and discouragement in his efforts to win the ear of the public ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... distance to the helpless lad with a practised eye, and groaned in despair. "They'll fall short by a dozen feet," he murmured hopelessly. "God forgive me, for bringing him to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... before Mrs Gildea received an answer to her letter. She had begun to despair of ever getting another line from Colin McKeith, when at last he wrote from Moongarr, ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... the other's lingering manoeuvres, and actually once saying to the courtly Spaniard that he "was so (p. 115) wearied out with the discussion that it had become nauseous;" and, again, that he "really could discuss no longer, and had given it up in despair." Yet all the while he was never wholly free from anxiety concerning the accuracy of his calculations as to how soon the Don might on his side also come to a final stand. Many a tedious and alarming pause there was, but after each halt progress was in time renewed. At last the ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... in his service and was gradually drawn into the further region of magic. According to Huysmans, Gilles de Rais had remained until this moment a Christian mystic under the influence of Jeanne d'Arc, but after her death—possibly in despair—he offered himself to the powers of darkness. Evokers of Satan now flocked to him from every side, amongst them Prelati, an Italian, by no means the old and wrinkled sorcerer of tradition, but a young and attractive man of charming manners. For it was from Italy that came ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... of the exclusiveness of my literary tastes. That might have enabled you to divine what kind of a person I am in the matter of love. I grow so hard to please as a literary artist, that I am driven to despair. I shall end by not writing ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... sir—now-a-days. I had a heavy loss by 'Manuel,'— Too lucky if it prove not annual,— And S * *, with his 'Orestes,' (Which, by the by, the author's best is,) Has lain so very long on hand That I despair of all demand. I've advertised, but see my books, Or only watch my shopman's looks;— Still Ivan, Ina, and such lumber, My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber. "There's Byron too, who once did better, Has sent me, folded in a letter, A sort of—it's ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... deluged the suburbs. But though the number of those who perished by the sword was so great, as many killed themselves for sorrow and regret at the overthrow of their native city. For all the most honest citizens were driven to despair, expecting in Sulla neither humanity nor moderation. But, however, when Meidias and Kalliphon, who were exiles, fell down at his knees with entreaties, and the Senators who were in his army urged him to save the city, being now sated with vengeance and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... should be that telepathic for your exams. Why didn't you read my thoughts when I beat my brains out trying to explain that thrust problem the other night?" He turned to Tom, shrugging his shoulders in mock despair. "Honestly, Tom, if I didn't know that he was the best power jockey in the Academy, I'd say he was the dumbest thing to leave Venus, including the dinosaurs in ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... face of the administration of unjust laws and in the face of disfranchisement and barbarous lynchings, such as no other men ever had to face. In fact we are prospering under conditions which would not only fill other business men with hopelessness and despair, but would surely drive ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... death. I set out immediately with the strongest hope, which I preserved in spite of all the circumstances which ought to have extinguished it. When the real truth became known to me at Weimar, I was seized with a mingled sensation of inexpressible terror and despair. I saw myself without support in the world, and compelled to rely entirely on myself for sustaining my soul against misfortune. Many objects of attachment still remained to me, but the sentiment of affectionate admiration which I felt for my father, exercised a sway over me with ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... gloomily thought. "No, no—I've had my calmness: the calmness of deep despair. I've seemed ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... extradition of Tiridates and a certain Antiochus with him. Antiochus was a Cilician and pretended at first to be a philosopher of the cynic school. In this way he was of very great assistance to the soldiers in warfare. He strengthened them against the despair caused by the excessive cold, for he threw himself into the snow and rolled in it; and as a result he obtained money and honors from Severus himself and from Antoninus. Elated at this, he attached himself to Tiridates ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... library with the old General, telling him in detail the result of the specialist's examination, but I took care to put Dennis's point of view to him at the outset. I was glad I had done so, for he seized on the faint hope it offered, and clung to it in despair. ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... reputation in the continental army, seemed now totally bereft of his faculties. He lay upon his back in the bottom of the boat, with hands uplifted, and a countenance in which terror was personified, exclaiming in a tone of despair, "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" A Dutchman, whose weight might amount at about three hundred pounds, was busily engaged in endeavoring to find shelter for his bulky person, which, from the lowness of the ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... Jurisdiction over slaves and the manner of its exercise were the grounds of most frequent complaint. On the score of authority, for example, a Virginia overseer in the employ of Robert Carter wrote him in 1787 in despair at the conduct of a woman named Suckey: "I sent for hir to Come in the morning to help Secoure the foder, but She Sent me word that She would not come to worke that Day, and that you had ordered her to wash hir Cloaiths and goo to ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... all was! The miry cow yard, with the hollow trampled out around the horse trough, the disconsolate hens standing under the wagons and sheds, a pig wallowing across its sty, and for atmosphere the desolate, falling rain. It was so familiar he felt a pang of the old rebellious despair which seized him on such ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Ruthven interrupted him: "Despair not, my lord! Whatever be the fate of this embassy, let us remember that it is our steadiest friend who decides, and that his arm is still with us to repel ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... starved, oppressed, or humiliated from the cradle, have never found life good. Yes, our children can make all the difference between a life full of hope for the future of the race and one of pessimism and despair. It is this sense of children as carrying something of ourselves, our tempers, our hopes, into the future which is at the bottom of what we call the eugenic urge—the desire, that is, to beget good stock and pass on only the best ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... that my wife would put herself on my side, and would say that we had enough of this sort of thing; but female curiosity is an unknown quantity, and she unhesitatingly replied that she would like to hear the young man's story. I sat down in despair. It was useless to endeavour to withstand this yearning for personal information,—one of the curses, I may say, of our present civilization. The young man gave no time for change of opinion, but immediately began. His voice was rich and rather ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... greeted her as she neared Avice's room, and she entered, to find that damsel plunged in despair over a ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... that period to be imprisoned by the enmity of the king. Louvieres sprang forward to snatch his sword, which stood against a chair in a corner of the room; but a glance from the worthy Broussel, who in the midst of it all did not lose his presence of mind, checked this foolhardy action of despair. Madame Broussel, separated by the width of the table from her husband, burst into tears, and the young girls clung to their ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to plant in Guadaloupe do not thrive—we have taken half the island, and despair of the other half which we are gone to take. General Hobson is dead, and many of our men-it seems all climates are not equally good for conquest-Alexander and Caesar would have looked wretchedly after a yellow fever! A hero ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... an eager voice in French at his ear, and when he turned and found the gunner captain and explained to him, the captain made a gesture of despair. "Perhaps it is that they cannot move him," he said. "Or would they, do you think, return for more help? I should go myself but that I may be needed to talk with the battery. Perhaps one of ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... gaze at her fixedly as if totally unable to comprehend what she would have him know. Then it was plain to be seen that, for the moment at least, blank despair took hold upon him. Up and down the length of the cave he strode like some imprisoned wild thing. At length, standing quite still with folded arms, he seemed to ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... to the window. True enough, there he was, tearing down the street, hatless, and gesticulating as he went. I turned to Mary with a gesture of despair. ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... tells us how Browning wished his metrical movement to be judged. This is the exordium, and it is already full of his theory of life—the soul forced from within to aspire to the perfect whole, the necessary failure, the despair, the new impulse to love arising out of the despair; failure making fresh growth, fresh uncontentment. God has sent a new impulse from ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... re-read the prescription. The observations of the formulary frightened her. Perhaps the apothecary had made some mistake. Her powerlessness filled her with despair. M. Colot's ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... time of despair, it occurred to the fourth mate to send a man to the foremast, hoping, but scarce daring to think it probable, that some friendly sail might be in sight. The man at the fore-top looked around him; it was a moment of intense anxiety; then ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... that the passenger, moreover, was Sir Francis Levison, he refused the job. His fly was fresh lined with red velvet, and he "weren't a going to have it spoilt," he called out, as he whipped his horse and drove away, leaving the three in wrathful despair. Sir Francis wanted another conveyance procured; his friends urged that if he waited for that he might catch his death, and that the shortest way would be to hasten to the inn on foot. He objected. But his jaws were chattering, his limbs were quaking, so they seized him between them, and made ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... cushions and hangings, take your lovely old tapestry away. Speaking of tapestries, do not imagine that they can never be used in small rooms and narrow halls. Plate XIV shows an illustration of a hall in an old-fashioned country house, that was so narrow that it aroused despair. We call attention to the fact that it gains greatly in width from the perspective shown in the tapestry, one of the rare, old, painted kind, which depicts distance, wide vistas and a scene flooded with light. (An architectural picture can often be used with equally good results.) To ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... me, Despair is my lot, And the law does pursue me For the many I've shot; To save me, poor brute, Thou hast done thy best, Thou art worn out and ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... and recesses. We changed servants, and it was no better. The new set ran away, and a third set came, and it was no better. At last, our comfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and wretched, that I one night dejectedly said to my sister: "Patty, I begin to despair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think we must ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... that of the choristers in the legend of the Witch of Berkley, died away in a quaver of consternation; and, like a flock of chickens disturbed by the presence of the kite, they at first made a movement to disperse and fly in different directions, and then, with despair, rather than hope, huddled themselves around their new Abbot; who, retaining the lofty and undismayed look which had dignified him through the whole ceremony, stood on the higher step of the altar, as if desirous to be the most conspicuous mark on which danger might discharge itself, and to ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... and joys denied Do echoes reach up there? Do seraphs know—God does—how wide And deep is sorrow's bitter tide Of dolor and despair, And darkness everywhere? ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... their effect upon all classes of people. There were many good-natured laughs at young Forbes's expense. All this was soon realized at Elmhurst, and had the effect of plunging the youthful aspirant for political honors into the depths of despair. The campaign was hot against him, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... hands in a gesture of despair. "What is the use talking foreign politics to a feller which thinks that Italy's claims to the Dalmatian territory means she wants the exclusive right to make New York, Cleveland, Chicago, and St. Louis with a line of spotted dogs ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... "L'Allegro" could never be written by an Australian. It is too airy, too sweet, too freshly happy. The Australian mountain forests are funereal, secret, stern. Their solitude is desolation. They seem to stifle, in their black gorges, a story of sullen despair. No tender sentiment is nourished in their shade. In other lands the dying year is mourned, the falling leaves drop lightly on his bier. In the Australian forests no leaves fall. The savage winds shout among the rock clefts. From the melancholy gums strips of white ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... A black despair settled for a moment upon Katharine, but the King was standing before her. He had walked with inaudible swiftness up from the other end of ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... morn, such morn as mocks despair; And she that bare the promise of the world Within her sides, now hopeless, helmless, bare, At random o'er the wildering waters hurled; 10 The reek of battle drifting slow ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... the pleadings, the reproaches, the seesaw of hope and despair, need not here be dwelt upon. They would make an old story, and some of the details might be shocking to the young person. They reached a culmination one day ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... course, naturally very anxious to learn the extent of the damage, and how far it was likely to interfere with his execution of the duty confided to him by his superiors; and the poor fellow wrung his hands in despair when Macintyre presently came on deck with a big bolt smashed in two in his hand and, with a great show of indignation, informed the Spaniard in broad Scotch—of which, of course, the poor fellow did not understand ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... of the victims had made much of an outcry. They had been given water by the airship police. No food for boys and girls already dead. Days and nights had passed, and now she was here, faint from exhaustion, and wondering at the despair shown by those others. What difference would it make in half an hour? Besides, that Government pamphlet had insisted that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... have long planned a splendid connection for me, to which though my invariable repugnance has stopt any advances, their wishes and their views immovably adhere. I am but too certain they will now listen to no other. I dread, therefore, to make a trial where I despair of success, I know not how to risk a prayer with those who may silence ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... was saying only the other day," replied Nellie. "I'm sure I don't know what we 're coming to nowadays. Girls had some modesty when I was young," and she shook her head with its rows of white curls with an air of mingled reprobation and despair. ...
— The Old Folks' Party - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... Mr. Herman Uhler; he had, so far as his wife was concerned, committed the unpardonable sin; and the consequences visited upon his transgression were so overwhelming that he gave up the struggle in despair. Contention with such an antagonist, he saw, from the instinct of self-preservation, would be utterly disastrous. While little was to be gained, everything was in ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... fences of the law and climb the barbed wire of morality with equal impunity, and the utmost rigor of punishment had little terror for those whose hardships could scarcely be artificially worsened. The stagger of despair, the stricken, helpless aspect of such people, their gaunt faces and blurred eyes might conceivably be their stock-in-trade, the keys wherewith they unlocked hearts and purses and area-doors. It must be so when ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... Anton, pertinaciously; "the merchant has just as poetical experiences as any pirate or Arab. There was a bankruptcy lately. Could you have witnessed the gloomy lull before the storm broke, the fearful despair of the husband, the high spirit of his wife, who insisted upon throwing in her own fortune to the last dollar to save his honor, you would not say that our calling is ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... for somebody; trouble of strictly personal, as well as of a physical character. There was no reply for a moment, and then Billy, the reprobate, grinning again at Jack, and giving to his voice a tone intended to be a compound of profound respect and something like unlimited despair, bawled out: ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... stairs, but as they entered the room they paused terror-stricken, for across the floor, making, as it passed, a wild gesture of despair, swept ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... to follow! Still there's MORE to follow. All Praise to Him who died to have it so for us poor lost sinners, whose lot should have been, as it is the lot of all who reject this marvellous grace—always more to follow—in eternal darkness and despair. ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... follow are to win their treasure by long-protracted and painful exertion. - Broken in spirit and in fortune, many returned in disgust to their native shores, while others remained where they were, to die in despair. They thought to dig for gold; but ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... howsoever their sins may be. This is an article of faith, and without holding it you could not die a good Catholic. Some doctors, it is true, have before now maintained the contrary, but they have been condemned as heretics. Only despair and final impenitence are unpardonable, and they are not sins of our life but in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... had been gazing in despair at the two huge, misshapen packages which Emma had placed upon the table to be put into ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... in this grim Doubting Castle of despair the priest came. He was a good man and a true, this low-voiced missioner to the savages, and he would be a curster man than I who failed to give him his due meed of praise and love. For in this dismal interval of waiting, with death so sure and near that all ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... into one of the corridors of the Catacombs: an alley filled with reeking bones of dead men; while from the cross-arches, waiting for the poor man's coming on, ghastly shapes look out:—sickness and want and sin and grim despair and red-eyed suicide. ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... belonged to the Municipality, had enough to do at the Hotel de Ville. Others were employed either in learning the use of arms, or in keeping their daily and nightly guards. These circumstances made me almost despair of doing any thing for the cause at Paris, at least in any reasonable time. But a new circumstance occurred, which distressed me greatly; for I discovered, in the most satisfactory manner, that two out of ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... time before, and it was obvious that she was very much taken with the young fellow; there used to be nods and becks and takings of wine between them at table, and they would go off by themselves for strolls in the wood. At last love and despair inspired Cinyras with the idea of an elopement. Helen consented, and they were to fly to one of the neighbouring islands, Cork or Cheese Island. They had taken three of the boldest of my crew into ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... that of the Lycosa dragging her treasure after her, never leaving it, day or night, sleeping or waking, and defending it with a courage that strikes the beholder with awe. If I try to take the bag from her, she presses it to her breast in despair, hangs on to my pincers, bites them with her poison-fangs. I can hear the daggers grating on the steel. No, she would not allow herself to be robbed of the wallet with impunity, if my fingers were ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... this period of my story, uneventful as it is just yet, and circumscribed as I am in space; but, as the boldest rider draws rein with a beating heart beside the dark abyss over which he must fling his horse, or perish, so I pause here, on the threshold of despair, and take breath for a flying leap—for I shall ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... returned to Quebec in the autumn of 1689, just after the Iroquois massacred the people of Lachine and just before they descended upon those of La Chesnaye. The universal mood was one of terror and despair. If ever Canada needed a Moses ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... corpse. We saw a woman struggling with two men at the top of the tower. The woman was flung over. We rushed forward. At my feet, in the death-agony, lay my beloved Zeenab. I hung over her in the deepest despair; my feelings could not be concealed from ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... in which to answer it at once, though it will not leave here until Saturday. I had previously heard of the play, and had The Times. It was a great relief and delight to me, for I had no confidence in its success; being reduced to the confines of despair by its length. If I could have rehearsed it, I should have taken the best part of an hour out of it. Fechter must be very fine, and I should greatly like to ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... like wild horses. He was a cautious, conservative Scotchman, fully aware what a foetid gas-bag much of modern radicalism is; but then his great heart demanded reform, demanded change—often terribly at odds with his scornful brain. No author ever put so much wailing and despair into his books, sometimes palpable, oftener latent. He reminds me of that passage in Young's poems where as death presses closer and closer for his prey, the soul rushes hither and thither, appealing, shrieking, berating, to escape ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the saloon is now, in consequence of events, but a collection of fortuitous atoms; but that, my dear Nanda, will become none the less, to your clearer sense, but a pious echo of her momentary modesty or—call it at the worst—her momentary despair. The generations will come and go, and the PERSONNEL, as the newspapers say, of the saloon will shift and change, but the institution itself, as resting on a deep human need, has a long course yet to run and a good work yet to do. WE shan't last, but your mother will, and as Aggie is ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... together, we yelled down at the planks:—"Stand from under! Get forward," and listened. We only heard the deep hum and moan of the wind above us, the mingled roar and hiss of the seas. The ship, as if overcome with despair, wallowed lifelessly, and our heads swam with that unnatural motion. Belfast clamoured:—"For the love of God, Jimmy, where are ye?... Knock! Jimmy darlint!... Knock! You bloody black beast! Knock!" He was as quiet as a dead man inside a grave; and, like men standing ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... her delicate eyebrows, humming a light tune, and her husband turned from her in despair. Was it nothing at all to her that this child had saved the ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... of rarest virtue, Blisters on the tongue would hurt you; 'Twas but in a sort I blamed thee, None e'er prosper'd who defamed thee: Irony all, and feign'd abuse, Such as perplext Lovers use At a need, when in despair To paint forth their fairest fair, Or in part but to express That exceeding comeliness Which their fancies does so strike, They borrow language of Dislike, And instead of Dearest Miss, Honey, Jewel, Sweetheart, Bliss, And, those forms of old admiring, Call her Cockatrice and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... touching scenes in the Pilgrim's Progress beautifully illustrates this fact. When Christian led Hopeful into Bye-path Meadow, so that they fell into the hands of Giant Despair, Hopeful says, 'I wold have spoke plainer, but that you are older than I.' That whole scene manifests the most delicate sensibility and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... O too much lov'd, since lov'd in vain! What dismal fortune does for me remain! Night and despair my fatal footsteps guide; That chance may give the death which ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... have said, is the true happiness of man; and any one, as he proclaimed, may, if he choose with understanding, have a good lot, even though he come last. 'Let not the first be careless in his choice, nor the last despair.' He spoke; and when he had spoken, he who had drawn the first lot chose a tyranny: he did not see that he was fated to devour his own children—and when he discovered his mistake, he wept and beat his breast, blaming chance and the Gods and anybody rather than ...
— The Republic • Plato
... reverse. On it I modelled Peace, giving her the form of a woman with a torch in her hand, setting fire to a trophy of arms; I portrayed her in an attitude of gladness, with very thin drapery, and below her feet lay Fury in despair, downcast and sad, and loaded with chains. I devoted much study and attention to this work, and it won me the greatest honour. The Duke was never tired of expressing his satisfaction, and gave me ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... condition the Chinese coolies and the negroes were at times so affected by a spirit of superstition as to cause them to commit suicide, the latter actuated, as it seemed, by a feeling of despair, the former through a vindictive spirit towards their masters. Both were also moved by a superstitious conviction that their spirits would at once be returned to their native land, to inhabit a sort of spirit paradise or intermediate state ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... without being roundly paid for them. When argument with him proved fruitless, it is said that General Washington, realizing the gravity of the situation, rode up several times from Mount Vernon to discuss the situation with "stubborn Mr. Burns." At length, in despair, he remarked: "Had not the Federal City been laid out here, you would have died a poor planter." "Ay, mon," was Burns's ready response, "and had you no married the widder Custis wi' a' her nagres ye'd ha'e been a land surveyor the noo', an' a mighty poor ane at that!" ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... matter. Her father was too vague a dreamer to guide her, or so much as to realise that she stood in need of guidance. And Dot had gone her own independent way all her life. Her healthy young mind was not accustomed to grapple with problems, but she did not despair on that account. She only resolutely set herself to cope with this one as best she might, erecting out of her multifarious duties a barrier calculated to dishearten the most ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... There were people all around, with those hideous things that they call comic valentines open in their hands. And they actually seemed to think them funny! She had a reply. It did not take her long to find her room and to open it. There was another picture of a boat, but the name on its side read 'DESPAIR.' And these words were added: 'Your boat is the pleasantest, but understanding that there was no vacant place upon it, I have been obliged to take passage on this.' Slowly the meaning forced itself upon her. Henry ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... talk like that!" he said sharply. "We're going to beat this thing! We've got to! And being desperate helps, but being in despair doesn't ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... I was beginning to despair when I saw Cook's man, who was, as usual, hovering about to assist travellers in trouble, and I beckoned ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... to understand it, or to recognise her, save as the giver of the food he loved and longed for. He had been ten years in these cages, and had passed through the entire range of feeling, of which a captive in a Malay prison is capable. From acute misery to despair, from despair to stupid indifference, he had at length reached the stage which the Malays call kaleh. It means insensibility, such as few can imagine or understand, and which is so bestial, that ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... judge of the painful surprise, disappointment, and even despair which seized upon him, when he noticed that by means of an imperceptible movement in the ice, the Forward lost in the night of the 18th all that had been gained by such toilsome efforts; on Saturday morning he was opposite ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... she would never know what to say. She was about to tell him in despair that she must have the rest of the day to make up her mind, but before she could speak Parker knocked at ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... glory of his life, that which linked him most immediately to the God from whom he sprang. It would be as if in the storm the ship should cast over its engine in order to save its own life. The ship might be saved a little while from going down in the depths of despair, but it never would reach the port to which it had been bound; it never would accomplish the purpose of the voyage upon which it had set forth. Let us put absolutely away from, us all such thoughts. Let us come under the inspiration of Jesus Christ Himself, ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... into partnership with that man alone," said Mr. Brown, turning to his young friend almost in despair, "I may prepare for the Gazette at once.—And for my grave!" he ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... me—given it up for a man who now looked at me coldly and spoke of marrying another. Can you wonder that I went in the evening to his rooms—went to plead with him—to beg, almost on my knees? It was no use. He was done with me—he said that over and over. Overwhelmed with blind rage and despair, I snatched up that knife from the table and plunged it into his heart. At once I ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... direction of the desert, and ate up every leaf and blade of grass that the scorching sun had left green, so that the plain over which it had passed was as black and barren as a lava stream. The farmers were impoverished, and the poorer people made beggars. Even this last disaster they charged in their despair to Israel, for Allah was now cursing them for Israel's sake. They were the same people that had thrust their presents upon him when he was ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... did he try, but all in vain. His temper was too gentle to struggle with their obstinacy, and he commenced to despair of ever accomplishing his dearest wish. He began now to hate the little people of whom he had before been so fond. He kept away from their banquets and dances, and associated with none but Elizabeth, and ate and drank quite solitary in his chamber. In short, he became almost a hermit, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Agnes Grey' were accepted on terms somewhat impoverishing to the two authors; Currer Bell's book found acceptance nowhere, nor any acknowledgment of merit, so that something like the chill of despair began to invade her heart. As a forlorn hope, she tried one publishing house more—Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. Ere long, in a much shorter space than that on which experience had taught her to calculate—there came a letter, which she opened in the dreary expectation ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte
... that he would find a way to make good, if not his own losses, at least those of his clients. He tried various expedients, with a clumsy haste which would have removed any chance of succeeding that he might have had. He tried to borrow, but was everywhere refused. In his despair, he staked the little he had left on wildly speculative ventures, and lost it all. From that moment there was a complete change in his character. He relapsed into an alarming state of terror: still he ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... strain to Phoebe's heartfelt relief, the miller neither assumed an attitude of great indignation at Will's action nor affected despair of his future. He was much ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... national mind. Charles Eliot Norton once said to me, with his dry humor, that there was an infallible test of the American authorship of any anonymous article or essay: "Does it contain the phrase 'After all, we need not despair'? If it does, it was written by an American." In spite of all that is said about the practicality of the American, his love of gain and his absorption in material interests, those who really know him are aware how habitually he confronts his ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... fixed hours for anything; to Mary Ann he was hopeless. At any given moment he might be playing on the piano, or writing on the curiously ruled paper, or stamping about the room, or sitting limp with despair in the one easy-chair, or drinking whisky and water, or smoking a black meerschaum, or reading a book, or lying in bed, or driving away in a hansom, or walking about Heaven alone knew where or why. Even Mrs. Leadbatter, whose experience of life ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... the harvest, whole crops rotted in the fields. Many a manor had lost a third of its inhabitants, and it was difficult, under the fixed services of land tenure, to see what remedy could be applied. In despair the feudal system was set aside, and lord competed with lord to obtain landless labourers, or to entice within their jurisdiction those whose own masters ill-treated them in any way. The villeins themselves sought to procure enfranchisement, ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... effort at escape. As it was, no living soul appeared within sight of me. I must have sat at the foot of a tree for full half an hour, with the doctor's useless bills and letters before me, with my head in my hands, and with all my energies of body and mind utterly crushed by despair. ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... cloth itself slantwise; consequently, I find myself with my back to one corner of the room and my face to another, and cannot get rid of the feeling that everything on the table is slightly the worse for liquor. And the Butler is in despair. What on earth, he thinks, can be wrong now? He evidently gives it up, and ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... Real poets, it was said, are unhappy, and this was one exceptionally real. How unhappy must he, then, certainly have been! And the blessed Blake himself was incidentally cited as one of the company of depression and despair! It is, perhaps, a liking for symmetry that prompts these futile syllogisms; perhaps, also, it is the fear of human mystery. The biographer used to see "the finger of God" pat in the history of a man; he ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... waited, and waited for three whole days and three whole nights; but froggie never came up again, and they had just given him up in despair when his nose showed ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... Canaanites, with their sensual agricultural gods, demoralized the Israelites.[1184] The prophets were always calling them back to the sterner code of morals and the purer faith of their days of wandering. Jeremiah in despair holds up to them as a standard of life the national injunction of the pastoral Rechabites, "Neither shall ye build house nor sow corn nor plant vineyard, but all your days ye shall dwell in tents."[1185] The ascent ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... barbarism. They have lost the power to rise again, and have made no inventions. Where life has been so easy and ample that it cost no effort, few improvements have been made. It is in the middle range, with enough social pressure to make energy needful, and not enough social pressure to produce despair, that the most ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... feet below the level of this ruined bridge a regular cataract is flowing. Across the frail scaffolding—you can call it no more—that spans the torrent, it is clearly Dandy Jack's intention to hurl the coach, trusting to the impetus to get it over. We shut our eyes in utter despair of a safe issue, and hold on to our seats with the clutch of drowning men. It is all ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... distress, affliction, woe, bitterness, heartache; carking cares; heavy heart, aching heart, bleeding heart, broken heart; heavy affliction, gnawing grief. unhappiness, infelicity, misery, tribulation, wretchedness, desolation; despair &c. 859; extremity, prostration, depth of misery. nightmare, ephialtes[obs3], incubus. pang, anguish, agony; torture, torment; purgatory &c. (hell) 982. hell upon earth; iron age, reign of terror; slough of despond &c. (adversity) 735; peck of troubles; "ills ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... a distance a sweet-voiced woman crying. And he thought: "Who is this who laments so piteously, as if in deep despair? In my kingdom there is no violence, no poor man and none distressed. Who can she be?" And being merciful, he called to Hero, who stood below: "Listen, Hero. A woman is weeping at some distance. Go and learn why she weeps and who she is." And Hero said "Certainly," ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... I could not refuse. The farmer, as may be well imagined, could be trusted to say nothing of our adventure; but it was impossible to hide Richard's nose. He was far too honest a fellow to tell a lie about it, and the whole story came out. His father was dreadfully shocked at it, and Lady Jane in despair: the one about his gambling propensities, and the other about his nose; she thought, if the injury did not prove fatal, he would be ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... his body and limbs a remarkable itching, a terrible irritation that prevented sleep. When daylight came, he perceived that he had sprouted all over with duck-feathers. This was an unlooked-for judgment, and the man gave himself up to despair,—when he was informed by an emanation of the divine Buddha that the feathers would fall from him the moment he received a reproof and admonition from the man whose duck he had stolen. This only increased his despair, for he knew his neighbor to be one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... cargoes of convicts to Australia, it never entered into the ideas of that enlightened power that such an attendant as a minister of religion might be wanted, and, as Mr. Marshall says in his book on "Christian Missions:" "The first ship which bore away its freight of despair, of bruised hearts, and woful memories, and fearful expectations, would have left the shores of England without even a solitary minister of religion, but for the timely remonstrance of a private individual. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... restoration of a state of peace. There can be no doubt that peace at the earliest possible moment was the supreme need of the world. The political and social chaos in the Central Empires, due to the overthrow of their strong autocratic governments and the prevailing want, suffering, and despair, in which the war had left their peoples, offered a fertile field for the pernicious doctrines of Bolshevism to take root and thrive. A proletarian revolution seemed imminent. The Spartacists in Germany, the Radical Socialists ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... despair over the frailties of human emotion and the unbecomingness of worldly conduct, which their brilliant minds enabled them to recognize clearly but which they found themselves powerless to subdue, endowed the gods, whom ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... in despair. I am for the whole, but perfectly tranquil. We have acted with honour, and have nothing to reproach ourselves with. We cannot combat fate. We shall be left almost alone; but I think you will no more go with the torrent than I will. Could I have foreseen this tide of ill ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... how many great wits and ingenious persons, who have leisure and faculty, are in pain for improvements of their heaths and barren Hills, cold and starving places, which causes them to be neglected and despair'd of; whilst they flatter their hopes and vain expectations with fructifying liquors, chymical menstruums, and such vast conceptions; in the mean time that one may shew them as heathy and hopeless grounds, and barren hills as any in England, that do now bear, or lately ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... back-tracked to a large lake in the sand hills. On resuming their scout in the morning, sand dunes were scaled, admitting of an immense survey of country, but not until evening was water in any quantity encountered. The scouts were beginning to despair of finding water for the night, when an immense herd of antelope was sighted, crossing the plain at an easy gallop and disappearing among the dunes. Following up the game trail, a perfect chain of lakes, a mile in length, was found at sunset. A venison was shot ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... thy pity share, Whom love has taught to stray; Who seeks for rest, but finds despair Companion of ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... in the dressing-room one night, after one of these rehearsals, that she caught a different view of the situation. She sat down on a bench to unlace her shoes and looked straight into Olga Larson's face—a face sunken with a despair that turned Rose cold all over. The tearless tragic eyes were staring, without recognition, straight into Rose's own. It must be with faces like this that people mounted the rails on the high bridge in Lincoln Park, intent on ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... entire caravan, disorganized, broken, and overthrown, was disappearing beneath an avalanche of sand. The camels, flung pell-mell together, were uttering dull and pitiful groans; cries and howls of despair were heard issuing from that dusty and stifling cloud, and, from time to time, a parti-colored garment cut the chaos of the scene with its vivid hues, and the moaning and shrieking sounded over all, a terrible accompaniment to this spectacle ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... connected with her that he had suffered himself to form, or had entertained unconsciously, seemed to fall at his feet, withered and dead. Every charm with which his memory or imagination had surrounded her, presented itself before him, only to heighten his anguish and add new bitterness to his despair. Every feeling of sympathy for her forlorn condition, and of admiration for her heroism and fortitude, aggravated the indignation which shook him in every limb, and swelled his heart ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... something of an irresponsive mistress since, though I've served her better than I served Marion. But at the time Science, with her order, her inhuman distance, yet steely certainties, saved me from despair. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... "Brother Hal is sitting out there in chains, looking longingly year after year for the help that does not come, and eating his poor heart out with despair because those to whom he should look for ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... thee, love, the while my tears pour down; * Nor cease they ever pouring thick and fleet: Yet I despair not of my God, whose grace * Haply some day will grant ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... once more hastened to town, having hired another horse, and directed his boat's crew not to go away from the quay. Having secured his horses at a certain place near the zig-zag descent towards the harbor already mentioned, he passed into the plaza, and was struck with consternation and despair, at seeing assembled before Don Gaspar's door, horses and mules in abundance, caparisoned for a journey. In fact, there was indisputable proof that the family were, in ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... away from school and the bellows rope to spend the whole day running through the valley or the village, a piece of charcoal in his hand, covering the rocks of the mountain and the house walls with black lines, to the despair of the neighbors. In the tavern in the Plaza Mayor he had traced the heads of the most constant customers, and the innkeeper pointed them out proudly, forbidding anyone to touch the wall for fear the sketches would disappear. This work was a source of vanity to the blacksmith ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez |
