"Desperate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lamentations, vii. 3—months in which the brooding mind of the sufferer has had time to pass from resignation to perplexity, and almost to despair. Again, the words of Job are not to be taken too seriously; they are, as he says himself, the words of a desperate man, vi. 26, and the commendation in the epilogue may be taken to apply rather to his general attitude than to his particular utterances. Some kind of introduction there must undoubtedly have been; otherwise the speeches, ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... not what to do, father; I find myself in a most desperate condition; and so is the colonel, for ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... deft-fingered man with a beard, twirled the waxen-faced figure to show the "semi-princesse back" and the "near-Empire front." Corn-blue chiffon and panne velvet are not much worn in Fourteenth Street. The auctioneer grew desperate. "Twenty-five dollars," he repeated with such scorn that the timid woman who had made the bid wished herself at home ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... the Spanish sharpshooters shot our mules as soon as they came anywhere near the lines, and it was impossible to move supplies. Very soon after the firing began our Colonel was killed, and the most of our other officers were killed or wounded, so that the greater part of that desperate battle was fought by some of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry without officers; or, at least, if there were any officers around, we neither saw them nor heard their commands. The last command I heard our Captain ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... days, just before formality had become unbearable, and the reaction of simplicity had set in; and Estelle had undone two desperate knots in the green and yellow silks before the preliminary compliments were over, and Lady ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have drawn any one of us from our places that hour. We watched, holding our breaths. The mate paused in her search; we could hear the wash beating along her sides; reared her neck as high as she could reach, blind and lonely in all that loneliness of the sea, and sent one desperate bellow booming across the swells as an oyster-shell skips across a pond. Then she made off to the westward, the sun shining on the white head and the wake behind it, till nothing was left to see but a little pin point of silver on the horizon. We stood on our course again; and the Rathmines, ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... hour of this, Schott gets desperate. "Yes, sir," says he, shoutin' above Dowd's monologue, "but what about this ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... desperate fight the Scudamores had been fully engaged in conveying orders from one part of the field to another. Shot and shell flew around them in all directions, and yet when they met at the end of the action they found that they had escaped without a scratch. The day following the battle the pursuit ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... vandalism. It being one of my principal duties, as Constitutional Emperor and Defender of this vast Empire, to adopt all measures to render effective the security of the country, and its defence efficient against further and desperate attempts which its enemies may adopt; and also to deprive, as far as possible, the inhabitants of that kingdom from continuing to act hostilely against Brazil—tyrannizing over my good and honourable subjects— deem it well to order that there ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... side, which effectually awakened me; and then I saw, or rather heard, that a perfect deluge of rain was descending upon our luckless heads, and that I had been reposing in the centre of a large puddle. This state of things was desperate; and as the poor Indians seemed to be as thoroughly uncomfortable as they possibly could be, I proposed to start again—which we did, and before daylight were many a mile from our wretched encampment. As the sun rose the weather cleared up, and soon after we came to the end of Knee ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... thundered the other, who was himself quite nonplussed over the situation, and felt Titus's bold chatter would goad him into something desperate. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... in a leisurely manner to my side and looked out. As he did so I felt his hand tighten on my shoulder with a desperate grip. Down the wall of red which surrounded us was coming an object of some kind. The thing was fully seventy-five yards long and half as wide at its main portion, while long irregular streams extended for a hundred ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... hear you, desperate brother, in your might Whistle and howl; I shall not tarry long, And though the day be blind and fierce, the night Be dense and wild, I still am glad and strong To meet you face to face; through all your gust and drifting With brow held high, my joyous hands ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... quick ears detected the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He drew both his pistols, and prepared for a desperate encounter. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... not guess, while Felix carried a similar article in reserve, as it were. The little man's earnestness was so convincing that the King could not choose but believe that some scheme that offered salvation was in train. But it might fail! The door might be forced before his own desperate alternative could be adopted, and the consequences to Joan of failure were too horrible to be risked. A panel shivered into splinters and the muzzles of two revolvers frowned ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... her, especially as Father Roche and Mr. M'Cabe, his curate, were obliged to give her up, and forbid her the parish; but Funny Eye only winks and laughs at them and the world. She's the last, sir—but I'll be on the look out, God willin', for a few more desperate cases to crown our victory over the dev—ahem! over Satan ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... a Deputy Sheriff of Arizona, a member of the Northwest Mounted Police, and a desperate ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... secretary" had probably not been unrewarded for his share in her escape. The conditions from which she had fled were intolerable, past speaking of, past believing: she was young, she was frightened, she was desperate—what more natural than that she should be grateful to her rescuer? The pity was that her gratitude put her, in the law's eyes and the world's, on a par with her abominable husband. Archer had made her understand this, as he was bound to do; he had also made her understand that ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... Oneida was launched the gallant young officers resolved to celebrate the event by giving a ball. "This was an enterprise of a desperate character;—building a brig hundreds of miles from a ship-yard was a trifle to giving a ball in the wilderness. True, one fiddle and half a dozen officers were something; refreshments and a military ball-room might be hoped for; but where, pray, were the ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... like a fat cat, and made a desperate search for the path, and this time he actually succeeded in finding it. He chuckled to himself as he plunged into the passage and began to climb. He had gone about a third of the way up, when he reached the narrowest ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... never think hardly of her, for she had been brought up in that atmosphere of almost desperate pride which is too frequently the curse of the poverty-stricken aristocrat. She made a ghastly mistake, and paid for it afterwards every day of her life. And she was urged into it by her father, who declined to recognize me in any way, and by her mother, who made her life at home ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... fires she had wilfully hidden, even from herself. For four years she had lived a life of desperate calculation against all those things she most dreaded, till she felt she had converted herself into a machine free from all trammeling emotions, equipped solely to execute the purpose she ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... And ruddy cherries eaten, and the dogs Mumbling the bones, this elder brother of mine— This man, that never felt an ache or pain In his broad, well-knit frame, and never knew The trouble of an unforgiven grudge, The sting of a regretted meanness, nor The desperate struggle of the unendowed For place and for possession—he began To sing a rhyme that he himself had wrought; Sending it out with cogitative pause, As if the scene where he had shaped it first Had rolled it back ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... it is anything but complimentary to the lady it mentions," I remarked. "He must have had, or imagined he had, some desperate grievance, to provoke him to the use of such plain language in regard to one he can still characterize as ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... twenty minutes the serio-comic game went forward merrily: the women playing in desperate earnest; the men making broad farce out of ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... out a decided individuality, to the good points of which we could not lay claim, and into the faults of which we could not but be afraid of falling. For him who felt any thing productive in himself it was a desperate condition. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... fainted. He felt as if he were losing his reason, and he longed to die. His brain refused to recognize what had happened. He kept thinking that there was a mistake, some misunderstanding, and that his plight was not as desperate and deplorable as he imagined. Yet the actual fact remained, and ever darker ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... almost indispensable possession both by Royalists and Parliamentarians. Its vigorous resistance to the King is one of the outstanding incidents of the war; Blake, afterwards Admiral, conducting the marine defence. The beseiged were successful after two months of the most desperate fighting, and the women of Lyme proved Amazonian in the help they gave their menfolk. In 1672 the Dutch gave the English fleet a trouncing within sight ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... multiplied and tenacious threads of his web, but still more redoubtable to himself than to his enemies, soon caught in his own meshes,[4138] believing that France and the universe conspire against him, deducing with wonderful subtlety the proofs of this chimerical conspiracy, made desperate, at last, by his over-plausible romance, and strangling in the cunning toils which, by dint of his own logic and imagination, he has ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... knights, who had ever lived in the realms of romance. Maria addressed the Hungarian barons in an impressive speech in Latin, the language then in use in the diets of Hungary, faithfully describing the desperate state of her affairs. She committed herself and her children to their protection, and urged them to drive the invaders from the land or to perish in the attempt. It was just the appeal to rouse such hearts to a phrensy of enthusiasm. The youth, the beauty, the calamities of ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... back just as they had thought to start for Behring's Strait. On the 12th August the ice broke up, and Parry wanted to send his men to Europe, and himself complete by land the exploration of the districts he had discovered, but Captain Lyon dissuaded him from a plan so desperate. The vessels therefore returned to England with all hands after an absence of twenty-seven months, having lost but five men, although two consecutive winters had been ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Ephesus who had become a Christian, and of whom St. John was very fond, got into trouble while St. John was away, and had to flee for his life into the mountains. There he joined a band of robbers, and was so daring and desperate that they soon chose him as their captain. St. John came back, and found the poor lad gone. St. John had stood at the foot of the cross years before, and heard his Lord pardon the penitent thief; and he knew how to deal with such wild souls. And what did he do? Give him up for ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... Union army. Their commanders always pushed them forward and always fresh men were coming. Skilled cannoneers sent grape shot, shell and round shot whistling through the Southern ranks. The Northern cavalry whipped around the Southern flanks and despite the desperate efforts of Ashby, Sherburne, and the others, began to clip off ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... infantry, and Kitchener's Horse to stave off the Boers, who were already descending by the same steep kloof up which the yeomen had climbed, the General bent all his efforts to getting the big naval gun out of danger. Only six oxen were left out of a team of forty, and so desperate did the situation appear that twice dynamite was placed beneath the gun to destroy it. Each time, however, the General intervened, and at last, under a stimulating rain of pom-pom shells, the great cannon lurched ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the time we write, Florence had passed through her ages of primitive religions and republican simplicity, and was fast hastening to her downfall. The genius, energy, and prophetic enthusiasm of Savonarola had made, it is true, a desperate rally on the verge of the precipice; but no one man has ever power to turn back the downward slide of a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... moment a mist floated before my eyes—I endeavoured to shout—but although I used the utmost exertion, I could not produce a sound—I felt as if palsied and enchained—my situation was desperate—what species of civility could I expect from the spirits, (for that they were supernatural beings I could no longer doubt) of those chairmen who during their mortal career are so noted for their brutality? ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... smashed the bones; further, he generally broke both its legs in order to prevent it from wandering of nights; and as if that were not enough, he bored holes in the stomach, the shoulders, and the lungs, and filled the holes with stones, so that even if the poor ghost should succeed by a desperate effort in dragging his mangled body out of the grave, he would be so weighed down by this ballast of stones that he could not get very far. However, after roaming up and down in this pitiable condition for a time in their old ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... conclusions about Esme," advised his friend. "Most men think her a desperate flirt. She does like attention and admiration. What woman doesn't? And Esme is ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and wanted to have "a healthy dash" of some kind. A class of Irish exquisites, they appeared to be,—good for a fight, a card-party, or a hurdle jumping,—but entirely too Quixotic for the sober requirements of Yankee warfare. When anything absurd, forlorn, or desperate was to be attempted, the Irish brigade was called upon. But, ordinarily, they were regarded, as a party of mad fellows, more ornamental than useful, and entirely too clannish and factious to be entrusted with power. Meagher himself seemed to be less erratic ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Korea, one of the world's most centrally planned and isolated economies, faces desperate economic conditions. Industrial capital stock is nearly beyond repair as a result of years of underinvestment and spare parts shortages. Industrial and power output have declined in parallel. The nation has suffered its tenth year of ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... of rodent animals, basking upon some sunny bank, raising their great rabbit-like heads, and gazing curiously at the passing periagua. Perhaps before the travellers had lost sight of them, the whole gang would be seen suddenly starting from their attitudes of repose, and in desperate rush making for the water. Behind them would appear the yellow-spotted body of the jaguar—the true tyrant of the Amazonian forest, who, with a single blow of his powerful paw would stretch a chiguire ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... a young man is as bad as the man who slays the innocence of a young girl. And that's what she did. Finally, when this had lasted for a year and a half, and Harfleur had gone back to England, one day, when I was perfectly desperate and could have killed her, Milly, as she lay at full length on her damned sofa—pardon, my dear, no, don't kiss my hand, child, don't—dressed in some rose-colored stuff all trailing about her and her hands clasped ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... such desperate efforts to learn all about poetry that her system got quite out of order. But although she did not in the course of the day hit upon anything, she quite casually succeeded in her dreams in devising eight lines; so concluding her toilette and her ablutions, she hastily jotted ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the Indian a jug of whiskey, or a small bag of silver, for the fraud, and so become lords of the soil. Great dissatisfaction arose, and lives were lost. An anonymous letter opened the eyes of government. The white speculators were so desperate and dangerous that any other mode of information was unsafe. Investigators were appointed to examine into the validity of Creek sales, and the examiners met at the time I went to witness a great Indian religious ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... whose sickness being desperate, did kill her poor father; and he being dead for sorrow, she could not recover, nor desire to live, but from that time do languish more and more, and so ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... all, has my beloved to act. If she forgive me easily, I resume perhaps my projects:—if she carry her rejection into violence, that violence may make me desperate, and occasion fresh violence. She ought, since she thinks she has found the women out, to consider ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... against the strength and ferocity of savage animals were peculiarly distinguished by the name of bestiarii. In general these unhappy persons were slaves or condemned criminals, who, by adopting this profession, purchased an uncertain prolongation of existence, but freemen sometimes gained a desperate subsistence by thus hazarding their lives; and in the decline of Rome, knights, senators, and even the emperors sometimes appeared in the arena, at the instigation of a vulgar and degrading thirst for ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... that the colonel was a cool and desperate man, who was absolutely determined that nothing should stand in the way of his little game, like those out-and-out pirates who will leave no survivor from a captured ship. Well, every moment now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall go down to ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... she could do to force the words from her dry throat. With a desperate effort she pulled herself together and tried to talk ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... even when we meditate a sacrifice. We are easily led at such times to make a compromise of the question; and this was my present resource. I resolved that very night to ride to Versailles; if I found affairs less desperate than I now deemed them, I would return without delay to my troop; I had a vague idea that my arrival at that town, would occasion some sensation more or less strong, of which we might profit, for the purpose of leading forward ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Wolfe, disabled by fever, began to sink under the fearful strain. He laid before his chief officers three desperate methods of attacking Montcalm, all of which they opposed, but proposed to convey five thousand men above the town, and thus draw Montcalm from his intrenchments. General Wolfe acquiesced and prepared to ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... I will goe seeke the King, [Sidenote: Come, goe] This is the very extasie of Loue, Whose violent property foredoes[4] it selfe, And leads the will to desperate Vndertakings, As oft as any passion vnder Heauen, [Sidenote: passions] That does afflict our Natures. I am sorrie, What haue you giuen him any ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... him, I'd have deceived God Himself—I was so desperate. You've never been right down in the mud. You can't understand ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... stratagem. Application was made to Eusebius, whose ambassadorial character would protect him from an outbreak, and he was requested to let Perozes know how he was situated, and exhort him to endeavor to extricate himself by counsel rather than by a desperate act. Eusebius upon this employed the Oriental method of apologue, relating to Perozes how a lion in pursuit of a goat got himself into difficulties, from which all his strength could not enable him to make his escape. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... much!' he groaned, in the silence of his chamber. 'She's doing it with malice. I'll not be trifled with. I—I'll do something desperate. I'll pretend to faint, and she'll have to get down and bandage ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... of the colonists, the problem of fighting the full power of England was apparently a desperate one. The militia, with superior numbers, had chased the British from Concord, and had made a stubborn defence at Bunker Hill; but the British were about to move with overwhelming strength. To raise, equip, clothe, and feed ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... horse-hirer to let us have the horses a few hours earlier. In spending time in long conversations mixed with civilities and bows the Japanese are masters. Of this bad habit, which still often makes the European desperate, it will not perhaps be long necessary to complain, for everything indicates that the Japanese too will soon be carried along at the endlessly roaring speed of ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... too much broken to resent this laugh as furiously as he might, had he been a degree less desperate. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... slipped through his horse's bridle; with the other he flicked the pebbles in the road with the tip of his riding-whip. Cannon-balls were plowing the earth about him. He seemed indifferent to this great drama on which hung all his hopes. Never had he played so desperate a game—six years of victory against the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Philadelphia. Whatever difficulties they, or their ancestors, struggled formerly with, are now over; their lands are cleared, and in the bosom of a fine country, with a sure market for every article of produce they can possibly raise, and entirely out of the reach of the most desperate predatory ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... Sophy; the delightful image of her ideal is too deeply graven in her heart. She can love no other; she can make no one happy but him, and she cannot be happy without him. She would rather consume herself in ceaseless conflicts, she would rather die free and wretched, than driven desperate by the company of a man she did not love, a man she would make as unhappy as herself; she would rather die than live ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... 1811.—"I have hardly patience to take up my pen But I shall do something desperate, if I don't relieve my ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... was praying in the chapel and I began to think seriously of all my troubles, how dark and gloomy they looked and how weak and cowardly I seemed! Suddenly a little voice within me began to ask: 'Why don't you make some desperate effort to save those whose misfortunes are making you so miserable? Why would you not try some daring sacrifice for instance, so that your brother be set free and the ultimate recovery and conversion of his wife be obtained?' I hesitated ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... accompany the doing of a desperate deed, there comes in the minds of men a dead calm. The still small voice of Wisdom, unheard while Passion's tempest was raging, whispers grave counsel or mild reproof; and Folly, who, seen athwart the storm-cloud, sublime in the glare ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... eyes. He had the letter now, and a gleam of joy danced in his eyes as he tore it open. A hasty glance showed him what his prize was; then, coolly and deliberately he settled himself to read, regarding neither Rischenheim's nervous hurry nor my desperate, angry glance that glared up at him. He read leisurely, as though he had been in an armchair in his own house; the lips smiled and curled as he read the last words that the queen had written to her lover. He had indeed come on more than ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... sought to force the division of our fleet among our ports. That the Spanish Government was thus goaded and taunted, at the critical period when Cervera was lying in Santiago, is certain. To that, most probably, judging from the words used in the Cortes, we owe the desperate sortie which delivered him into our hands and reduced Spain to inevitable submission. "The continuance of Cervera's division in Santiago, and its apparent inactivity," stated a leading naval periodical in Madrid, issued two days before the destruction of the squadron, "is causing ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... Tom discovered it was no other than Van Butchell,{1} whom he observed to Bob, there was little doubt had been summoned on some desperate case, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... After desperate charging with horse and man, much blood was shed; and our noble Guy laid about him like a lion, among the princes; here lay one headless, another without a leg or an arm, and there a horse. Guy still, like Hercules, charged desperately, and killed a German Prince and his horse under ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... so close to me in his desperate efforts, that I could have touched his horns with the muzzle of my gun; and I had prepared to give him a blow whenever I could get a good chance. I never saw a creature behave so fiercely. The fact was, that ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... Why do you stay so long, my lords of France? Yon island carrions,[15] desperate of their bones, Ill-favour'dly become the morning field: Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,[16] And our air shakes them passing scornfully: Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host, And their executors, the knavish crows, Fly o'er them, all impatient ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... the Crown-Prince, he has not fallen desperate; no; but appears to have strange schemes in him, deep under cover. "He has said to a confidant [Wilhelmina, it is probable], 'As to his ill-treatment, he well knew how to free himself of that [will fly to foreign parts, your Highness?], ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Every commander fought his own part of the battle to the best of his ability, and I think the feeling of all was that unless they won they would have to go to Richmond, as the enemy was in the rear, which fact made us desperate in meeting and defeating the continued attacks of the enemy. I sent for reinforcements once when the enemy was clear around my right flank and in my rear, and they sent me a part of the Eighth Indiana, two companies of the Third Illinois Cavalry, and a section of a battery. The battery ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... Desperate was the defence in the Serpent, and there was the heaviest destruction of men done by the forecastle crew, and those of the forehold, for in both places the men were chosen men, and the ship was highest, but in the middle of the ship the people were thinned. Now when Earl Eirik saw there were but ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... matter to me, knowing as I did from past experience that I cannot sleep on the ground long without growing very tired, when I lose my nerve and am afraid to do anything. I did not like to think of the possibility of either growing desperate and wanting to turn back or breaking down under the strain of going on. Some one would have to go back for the tube, and time was precious now. It would be trying to lose a day. While I sat rather disconsolate ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... impossible positions. The idea of a profile view seemed particularly strange to them, and they always presented either their back or their front view. The poor things got more and more nervous, the men roared, I was desperate,—altogether it ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... fire and by the light of a bright pinon blaze I began to read Great Expectations, a paper edition with the last leaves gone having gotten into camp. As I read Pip's interview in the twilight with the convict on the dreary marshes I was in deep sympathy with the desperate hunger of the terrible man, and when Mrs. Joe buttered the end of the loaf and carved off the slices I myself was hungry enough to cook supper over again. Butter had now been absent from my bill of fare, with a few exceptions, for nearly two years. I was careful to place my ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... shields with a clashing noise, while the ranks behind shot a shower of arrows among the Saxons. These at once replied. The combat was not continued long at a distance, for the Danes with a mighty shout rushed upon the Saxons. These stood their ground firmly and a desperate conflict ensued. The Saxon chiefs vied with each other in acts of bravery, and singling out the leaders of the Danes engaged with them in ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... Isegrim both mad and desperate, so that he knew not how to express his fury; his wounds bled, his eyes smarted, and his whole body was oppressed. So that in the height of his fury he lifted up his foot and struck the fox so great a blow that he felled him to ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... also, but Mr. Kendal stopped them, and lingered a moment or two, making an excuse of looking for a needless umbrella, but in fact to avoid the general gaze. As if making a desperate plunge, however, and looking up and down the broad street, so as to be secure that no acquaintance was near, he emerged with Albinia from the gate, and crossed the road as the ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to time his old self rose against this new self that was the slave of comfort. It made desperate efforts to shake off the strangling lethargy. When he went about saying that he was getting rusty, that he ought never to have left Leeds, and that it would do him all the good in the world to go back there, he was saying what ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... community. But Montague was at an important crisis in a suit which he had taken up against the Tobacco Trust; and he had no idea that he was in any way concerned in what was taking place. The newspapers were all making desperate efforts to allay the anxiety—they said that all the trouble was over, that Dan Waterman had come to the rescue of the imperilled institutions. And Montague believed what he read, and ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... Margaret beckoned me, and I went out with her to bring in Silvio. He came to her purring. She took him up and handed him to me; and then did a thing which moved me strangely and brought home to me keenly the desperate nature of the enterprise on which we were embarked. One by one, she blew out the candles carefully and placed them back in their usual places. When she had finished she ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... Baba too, a Turkish cawass, is awfully bilious; he says he is 'sick from beating men, and it's no use, you can't coin money on their backs and feet when they haven't a para in the world.' Altogether everyone is gloomy, and many desperate. I never saw the aspect of ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... this, at the sack of Troy, he had shown a want of self-control, and yielded to a mad passion of desperate fighting that is not to be found in the Aeneas of the last ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... gave way. Its unseasoned troops fled into Brooklyn. There was the end of the island. They could go no farther without swimming. With a British fleet in the harbor under Admiral Lord Howe, the situation was desperate. Sir Henry had only to follow and pen them in and unlimber his guns. The surrender of more than half of Washington's army would have to follow. At headquarters, the most discerning minds saw that only a ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... same time the little principality of Amorbach was devastated by the French, Russian, and Austrian armies, marching and counter-marching across it. For years there was hardly a cow in the country, nor enough grass to feed a flock of geese. Such was the desperate plight of the family which, a generation later, was to have gained a foothold in half the reigning Houses of Europe. The Napoleonic harrow had indeed done its work, the seed was planted; and the crop would have surprised Napoleon. Prince Leopold, thrown upon his own resources at fifteen, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... and, second, for the arrival of this precious 'Merode' with the remaining half of the document. I've sent Dollops there to carry out his part of the programme, and when once I get the password Margot requires before she will hand over the paper, the game will be in my hands entirely. They are desperate to-night, Miss Lorne, and will stop at nothing—not even murder. There! the rug's replaced. Quick! lead me to the baron's room, there's not a minute ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Italy likewise the peoples that had come into collision and conflict gradually settled on a permanent footing and within more defined limits. The migrations over the Alps ceased, partly perhaps in consequence of the desperate defence which the Etruscans made in their more restricted home, and of the serious resistance of the powerful Romans, partly perhaps also in consequence of changes unknown to us on the north of the Alps. Between the Alps and the Apennines, as far south as the Abruzzi, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of the Venganza, as is often the case with cowards when driven to desperation, had become perfectly frantic, and also mutinous. With furious execrations, they compelled Captain Pinto to make a desperate attempt to board the American ship, and decide the action. For this purpose the helm of the guarda-costa was put hard down, and she immediately ran on board the Albatross, her bowsprit passing over that ship's larboard gangway, and coming in contact with the fore part ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... who was in that war, told me the following story. The Japanese troops were attacking one of the forts near Port Arthur with their usual desperate valour. They cut zig-zag trenches up the hillside, and finally stormed and took a Russian trench close under the guns of the fort. The Russians fled, leaving their dead and wounded behind. After the melee, when night fell, five Japanese found themselves in that particular trench with seven ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... great Lady, Why will you flatter thus a desperate Man That is quite cast away? O had you not Procur'd the Senates Warrant to enforce My stay, I had not heard of these sad News. What ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... With a last desperate effort to free herself, which was futile, and with the dark face drawing with mocking slowness toward her own, she realized her utter helplessness and ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... not tell me that it was an accident," Mr. Quivey was saying, very decidedly. "She is just the sort of woman for desperate remedies; and she is tired of living, with that vampire friend of hers draining ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... with the Army of the Potomac on Malvern Hill (July 1, 1862) was a desperate position to attack in front, but it could have been turned on the right. The hill dominated the ground to the north, and also the road on which Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was approaching, and was ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... of the desperate battle for the defense of the mine, and the sound that had reached the two in ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... better known under the name of Milord Marshal, was the eldest son of William Keith, Earl Marshal of Scotland. He was an avowed partisan of the Stuarts, and did not lay down the arms he had taken up in their cause until it became utterly desperate, and drew upon its defenders useless dangers. When they were driven from their country, he renounced it, and took up his residence successively in France, Prussia, Spain, and Italy. The delicious country and climate of Valencia he ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... hapless M—— M——," said I to myself, "must have left her convent, desperate—nay, mad; for why does she still wear the habit of her order? Perhaps, though, she has got a dispensation to come here for the waters; that must be the reason why she has a nun with her, and why she has not left off her habit. At all events the journey must ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... might have thought that all trails led to the Star Circle Ranch, that gloomy night, for from every point of the compass came riders, alone, by twos, and by threes. Desperate, hard men, who had used their bodily strength to conquer the elements and to build up their herds, as mine-owners use machinery to crush the gold out of the ore. For this war of the sheep against the cattle was ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... and over frozen mountains, until they reached Quebec. On the last day of December, with the ground frozen and covered with snow, the two American armies made a combined attack on the city; but Quebec did not surrender, though the patriots fought with desperate courage and daring. The gallant Montgomery led his men up the heights, dashing forward with the cry, "Push on, my brave boys! Quebec is ours!" A volley from a cannon killed him and scattered his men. The Americans suffered terrible losses. In the death of General ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay
... strong current to endeavour to pass ahead of us and cut off our retreat; but in the eagerness of their pursuit they seemed to lose sight of this advantage, for they continued to head straight for us, while we, impelled by the full strength of our thirty paddles, now plied with desperate energy by our freely perspiring crew, gradually drew out and threw our pursuers still further on our quarter. Yet they were steadily nearing us, and I did not see how we could scrape clear without something in the ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... moment after, left the office. Those who were present thought they saw in the stern, determined expression of his countenance grounds for apprehension and alarm; having the most extravagant opinion of the desperate and daring courage of the Americans, they looked to see the ensuing night signalized by some desperate attempt on the part of the seaman, to release his companions from imprisonment. Their apprehensions were confirmed in a space ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... be founded on some reasonable process, but it is not a process which we can follow or comprehend. And moreover the dictation is not continuous, or not continuous except in very lively and well-living natures; and betweenwhiles we must brush along without it. Practice is a more intricate and desperate business than the toughest theorising; life is an affair of cavalry, where rapid judgment and prompt action are alone possible and right. As a matter of fact, there is no one so upright but he is influenced by the world's chatter; and no one so headlong ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a matter of fact, I'm a bit suspicious," I declared, still speaking in French. "Of late there was a desperate attempt ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... Wilkinson were directed against the Miamis and Shawnees, and served only to exasperate them. The burning of their towns, the destruction of their corn, and the captivity of their women and children, only aroused them to more desperate efforts to defend their country, and to harass their invaders." The review of Secretary of War Knox, communicated to President Washington on the twenty-sixth of December, 1791, however, contains the following: ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... doorways. Advertisement bills in blue and red were displayed on the lintels and doorposts, while fierce door-gods guarded against the admission of evil spirits. Brave indeed must be the spirits who venture within reach of such fierce bearded monsters, armed with such desperate weapons, as were here represented. I stood on the edge of the town overlooking the valley while my mule was being saddled. Patches of wheat and beans were scattered among fields of white-flowered poppy. Coolies carrying double buckets of water were winding up the sinuous ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... fight against your enemies." His twelve sons then took up their stand in twelve different places, leaving considerable intervals between one and another, and Jacob, a sword in his right hand and a bow in his left, advanced to the combat. It was a desperate encounter for him. He had to ward off the enemy to the right and the left. Nevertheless he inflicted a severe blow, and when a band of two thousand men beset him, he leapt up in the air and over them and vanished from their sight. Twenty-two myriads he slew on this day, and when evening came ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... softly to herself, and, with a great lump in her throat, sped swiftly through the village and up to the "Great House." The result of her interview with Miss Campion we have seen. Father Letheby has scored again. There were heavy bets of fifteen to one in half-gallons of porter, laid by desperate gamblers, that Father Letheby would make Mrs. Darcy wash her face. It was supposed to be a wild plunge in a hopeless speculation. I am told now, that the betting has gone up at the forge, and is now fifty to one that, before a month, she'll have a lace cap and "sthramers" like the maids ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... barbarism rather than a loss of personal freedom. In 1524 Cortex sent an officer "to reduce the people of Chiapas, who had revolted, which that commander effectually performed, for, when they could resist no longer, these desperate wretches cast themselves with their wives and children headlong from precipices, so that not above two thousand of them remained, whose offspring inhabit that province at this time." The inhabitants ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... found out what had become of her daughter, but was not a whit happier than before. Her case, on the contrary, looked more desperate than ever. As long as Proserpina was above ground there might have been hopes of regaining her. But now, that the poor child was shut up within the iron gates of the king of the mines, at the threshold of which lay the three-headed ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... Themistocles the patriots in convention at Corinth determined upon desperate resistance to the Barbarians. It was at first decided to concentrate a strong force in the Vale of Tempe, and at that point to dispute the advance of the enemy; but this being found impracticable, it was resolved that the first stand against the invaders should ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... Cellini, and to conclude. On laying down his 'Memoirs,' let us be careful to recall our banished moral sense, and make peace with her, by passing a final judgment on this desperate sinner, which perhaps, after all, we cannot do better than by employing language of his own concerning a monk, a fellow-prisoner of his, who never, so far as appears, murdered anybody, but of whom Cellini none the less felt ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... there were others who had wandered in from the Koyukuk with the first frosts, foot-sore and dragging, the legs of their skin boots eaten to the ankle, and the taste of dog meat still in their mouths. Broken and dispirited, these had fared as well through that desperate winter as their brothers from up-river, and received pound for pound of musty flour, strip for strip of rusty bacon, lump for lump of precious sugar. Moreover, the price of no single thing had risen throughout ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... thus strongly and beautifully. It seemed to him, as if the river had something special to tell him, something he did not know yet, which was still awaiting him. In this river, Siddhartha had intended to drown himself, in it the old, tired, desperate Siddhartha had drowned today. But the new Siddhartha felt a deep love for this rushing water, and decided for himself, not to leave ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... sector collapse, which helped precipitate an unprecedented default on external loans later that year. Continued economic instability drove a 70% depreciation of the currency throughout 1999, which eventually forced a desperate government to "dollarize" the currency regime in 2000. The move stabilized the currency, but did not stave off the ouster of the government. The new president, Gustavo NOBOA has yet to complete negotiations for a long sought IMF accord. He will find it difficult to push ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... situation desperate Col'o Magaw dispatched a flag to Gen. Howe who Commanded in person, proposing to surrender on certain conditions, which not being agreed to, other terms were proposed and accepted. The garrison, consisting of 2673 privates, & 210 officers, ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... which had been so desperate for the national administration, changed rapidly for the better with the victory at Gettysburg, which forced General Lee out of Pennsylvania and back into Virginia, and also by General Grant's wonderful series of victories at Vicksburg ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... and they made a rush past him for the open air. Taken by surprise, Sam was almost upset, and they took full advantage of the chance. A howl of pain showed that Tige had nipped the taller one, but he shook the dog off and ran after his companion, who was making a desperate effort to ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... fall into the weakness of their brethren. They turn over the opposing seat, elevate their nobler shins, and droop languid heads over the ticklish plush chair-back. Strange aliens lie spread over the seats. Nowhere will you see so many faces of curious foreign carving. It seems as though many desperate exiles, who never travel by day, use the Owl for moving obscurely from city to city. This particular train is bound south to Washington, and at least half its tenants are citizens of colour. Even the endless gayety of our dusky brother is not proof against ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... snapped the stranger, stamping his foot, "I am a swashing, ruffling, desperate Dick, and not to be made a common jest for Stratford dolts to giggle at What! These legs, that have put on the very gentleman in proud Verona's streets, laid in Stratford's common stocks, like a silly apprentice's slouching heels? Nay, nay; some one should taste old Bless-his-heart here first!" ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... shattered homes and ruins be She fights through dark and desperate days; Beside the watchers on the sea She ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... timid mind, the very function of the Creator, looked absurd and futile—hateful even. For these things, bearing, as it was possible, after all, no relation to actual life, had she spent her days in desperate service. Then, suddenly, it swept over her, like a blasting wave of ignited gas, that she never had had the pure scientific flame! She had not worked for Truth, but that David might reap great rewards. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... friends, they were hurrying along, when the Indians opened a fire upon them. The horsemen galloped off in a cloud of dust, and reached the station in safety. The soldiers on foot, in their effort to escape, plunged into the cornfields on either side of the road, only to meet the enemy. A desperate fight commenced on both sides: two soldiers were killed; the rest—four of them having dangerous wounds—reached the pickets. The exasperated Indians, disappointed at the escape of this party, now wreaked their vengeance by killing all ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... Demons), landed his indiscreet relative, gave her four arquebuses for defence, and with an old woman nurse who had pandered to the lovers, left her to her fate. Her gallant threw himself into the surf, and by desperate effort gained the shore, with two more guns and a supply of ammunition. The ship weighed anchor, receded, vanished; they were left alone. Yet not so, for the demon-lords of the island beset them day and night, raging round their hut with a confused and ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the business of the community. The persecutions that our people had borne had schooled them to co-operation. They were ready, helping one another, to advance together to a common prosperity. They were under the leadership chiefly of the man who had guided them out of a most desperate condition of oppression toward the freedom of sovereign self-government. In that progress he had saved everything that was worthy in the Mormon communism; he had discarded much that was a curse. I knew that he ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... of life; comfortable life being altogether out of the question. The course of the administration of the civilized states, and the recent dire combustion into which they have almost unanimously rushed, as in emulation which of them should with the least reserve, and with the most desperate rapidity, annihilate the resources that should have been for the subsistence and competence of their people, have resulted in such destitution and misery in this country as were never known before, except ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... year of his residence in Virginia that the rebellion in Ireland broke out, and foremost among the patriots was young Robert Dulan, a brother of the doctor. All know how that desperate and fatal effort terminated. Soon after the martyrdom of the noble Emmet, young Dulan was arrested, tried, condemned, and followed his admired leader to the scaffold, leaving his heart-broken young wife and infant boy in extreme penury and destitution. As soon as she recovered from the first stunning ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... into a free-fall in 1999. The beginning of 1999 saw the banking sector collapse, which helped precipitate an unprecedented default on external loans later that year. Continued economic instability drove a 70% depreciation of the currency throughout 1999, which eventually forced a desperate government to dollarize the currency regime in 2000. The move stabilized the currency, but did not stave off the ouster of the government. The new president, Gustavo NOBOA has yet to complete negotiations for a long sought ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... once when his injured leg trailed in the snow. Still, with the most strenuous effort she had ever made she moved him a yard or so, and then staggering fell with her side against the sleigh. She felt faint with the pain of it, but with another desperate lift she drew him into the sleigh, and let him sink down gently upon the bag that still lay there. His eyes had shut again, and ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... much suffering and bloodshed—was again to be repeated. This attack has demanded thus far, as it will demand until the end, the united efforts of practically all the people of the earth in order to defeat this the most desperate attempt at conquest, undertaken under the most favorable conditions, and after the most perfect preparation known to history. If hesitation or treachery had arisen at any important point the well-laid plot would ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... whose growing power has at last obtained the name of enemies; the people with whom they have engaged this country in war, and against whom they now command our implicit support in every measure of desperate hostility—this people, despised as rebels, or acknowledged as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied with every military store, their interests consulted, and their ambassadors entertained, by your inveterate enemy! and our ministers dare not interpose with dignity or effect. Is this the honor ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... humans. They knew of the defeat and forced emigration of their fellow-Huks in other solar systems. They'd hidden from humans—and it must have outraged their pride. So they must be ready to put up a desperate and fanatical fight if they were ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins |
