"Despairing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... toil, possesses an endurance which in the end must prevail over the paroxysmal rage of John Kurt. When the combatants part there is not a whole piece of furniture in the room. John Kurt retires a conquered man. But with cowardly viciousness he locks the door and leaves his wife for hours despairing, while he himself goes to a dinner-party. There he is ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... rote; on the other hand, he never permitted voice, look, gesture, to pass the limits of discretion, even at moments the most impassioned; as, for example, where Nancy, in the famous murder-scene, shrieked forth her last gasping and despairing appeals to her brutal paramour. The same thing may be remarked again in regard to all the more tenderly pathetic of his delineations. His tones then were often subdued almost to a whisper, every syllable, nevertheless, being so distinctly articulated ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... inquiries, or the name of the vessel in which she had been a passenger was not known to them. The child had been weaned, and removed to the cottage, where it occupied much of the attention of the old housekeeper and Forster, who, despairing of its ever being reclaimed, determined to bring it up ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and reaching of high plains, the immeasurable yearning of all flat lands. There was home in it, too; first memories, first mornings long ago; the amazement of a new soul in a new world; a soul new and yet old, that had dreamed something despairing, something glorious, in the dark before it was born; a soul obsessed by what it did not know, under the cloud of a ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... which he suffered in June, and which for a few hours deprived him totally of sight, though neither his mind, speech, nor even his powers of motion were in the least affected. I can hardly tell you how thankful I was, when, after that dreary and almost despairing interval of utter darkness, some gleam of daylight became visible to him once more. I had feared that paralysis had seized the optic nerve. A sort of mist remained for a long time; and, indeed, his vision is ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... pull the hand back, but could not; he tried to twist his body free, but the weight of his foe held him tightly against the floor. A great roaring filled his ears; the hallway began fading from his sight. With a last despairing breath, he gave ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... awaken at dawn when the covered wagons passed through the streets below, and the cry of "Wa-ter-mil-lion! Wa-ter-mil-lion!" rang in the silence. Then the sun would rise slowly, the day begin, and Mrs. Chitling's cheerful bustle would start anew. Tired, sleepless, despairing, I would set off to work at last, while the Great South Midland Railroad receded farther and farther into the dim province of ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... vain her glowing tongue would vie, To tell her frightful agony. Despairing shame her accents clip;— They freeze upon her snowy lip. No tears did flow; such pain oft dries The blessed current of the eyes: Fell vengeance from her black orbs glanced, While like ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... sometimes the devotion, and sometimes the entertainment of the first generations of mankind. Theocritus united elegance with simplicity; and taught his shepherds to sing with so much ease and harmony, that his countrymen, despairing to excel, forbore to imitate him; and the Greeks, however vain or ambitious, left him in quiet possession of the garlands which the wood-nymphs had bestowed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... head. At the same time she flung out a despairing hand for hope, but he did not notice it. She was softening to him—if she had ever steeled herself against him—and a single summons to her faith would have vanquished the feeble resistance. But he did not make ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... first of friends! (Pelides thus replied) Still at my heart, and ever at my side! The time is come, when yon despairing host Shall learn the value of the man they lost: Now at my knees the Greeks shall pour their moan, And proud Atrides tremble on his throne. Go now to Nestor, and from him be taught What wounded warrior late his chariot brought: For, seen at distance, and but seen behind, His form ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... did not hear them, but because he wanted to think what his mother and "little sister" would say, but his misery was as nothing to that of the two who sat up there amid the ranks of the blue and white, holding each other's hands with a despairing grip. To Bud all of the rest of the contest was a horrid nightmare; he hardly knew when the three companies were marched back to receive the judges' decision. The applause that greeted company "B" when the blue ribbons were pinned on the members' coats meant nothing to his ears. ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... said, hurrying her words: "Felix, do not put yourself in bonds that might prove an obstacle to our happiness. I should die of grief for having caused a suicide like that. Child, do you think despairing love a life's vocation? Wait for life's trials before you judge of life; I command it. Marry neither the Church nor a woman; marry not at all,—I forbid it. Remain free. You are twenty-one years old—My God! can I have mistaken ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... her in his arms and held her in spite of her struggles. "I have you!" He forced her head down upon his breast and kissed her mouth. She thought the hateful pressure of his lips, the hateful fire of his eyes would kill her, and when, at last, she wrenched herself away she screamed with the despairing violence ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... temptation which they feel to be hurtful and intolerable—to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. Be that as it may, I have now to tell you that feeling this question to be paramount, yet despairing of dealing with it in the few years that old age has left to me, I have concluded to resign my office. It is for some younger statesman to fight this battle of the separation between the spiritual and the temporal in the interests of true religion and true civilization. God grant ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... declares, 'Not every man that shall say unto Me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven.' And of a certainty, the will of the Father is that the lost should be found, the perishing saved, the despairing comforted,—and all these things Aubrey Leigh has done, and is yet doing. But I do not work with him—I am here to look on—and looking on, to regret ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... pedagogue fumed. The disaffection of the occasion, mild and respectful as it was, disarmed him. He regarded Andy with a despairing look. Then he straightened up ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... sped, the Twelve became concerned and advized that the multitude be dismissed. The Master's reply to the apostles was: "They need not depart; give ye them to eat." In amazed wonder they replied: "We have here but five loaves and two fishes;" and Andrew's despairing comment is implied again—What ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... thereafter for some hours the Invisible Man passed out of human perceptions. No one knows where he went nor what he did. But one can imagine him hurrying through the hot June forenoon, up the hill and on to the open downland behind Port Burdock, raging and despairing at his intolerable fate, and sheltering at last, heated and weary, amid the thickets of Hintondean, to piece together again his shattered schemes against his species. That seems to most probable refuge for him, for there it was he re-asserted ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... after mastering a somewhat natural repugnance, I made with my hands a mortar or paste of thick clay, in which I encased the black woodcock. Try as I might, though, I could not give to the object thus treated a graceful or finished appearance. Finally, despairing of producing in it an outward semblance of tidiness, I returned to the camp fire, placed the completed product in the heart of the flames, and retired a few feet ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... despairing gesture. "Ah, it's easy for you to talk. You have years and years to spend with it; I am an old man, and ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... the way in which the tiny spot of light which records the pulses in the plant, travels in ever weaker and weaker curves, when the plant is under the influence of poison, then falls into a final despairing straight line, and—stops. One feels as though a murder has been committed—as ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... singing and leaping, and so past the day in such like. They offered mee meate; but such victuals I reguarded it litle, but could drinke for thirst. My sperit was troubled with infinite deale of thoughts, but all to no purpose for the ease of my sicknesse; sometimes despairing, now againe in some hopes. I allwayes indeavoured to comfort myselfe, though half dead. My resolution was so mastered with feare, that at every stroake of the oares of these inhumans I thought it to be ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... no reply. Suddenly the world had altered for him; he had passed out of the light into an impenetrable blackness. He sat with his head bent down, changed in a moment from a light-hearted boy to a despairing man. ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... head was white with years of wisdom and experience, spoke to the despairing assemblage of creatures. From his lofty perch above the world the Eagle had looked down upon centuries of change and decay. He knew every force of nature and all the strange things of life. The hoary-headed sage said ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... Mainwaring saw the shine of a long, keen knife that he had drawn from somewhere about his person. The lieutenant caught him by the wrist, but the other's muscles were as though made of steel. They both fought in despairing silence, the one to carry out his frustrated purposes to kill, the other to save his life. Again and again Mainwaring felt that the knife had been thrust against him, piercing once his arm, once his shoulder, and ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... Lord! we have searched the world around, From centre to the utmost bound, But no such mortal can be found; Despairing, back we come. ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the sides of the sarcophagus; but often, too, the allusion to death, if it exists at all, is very remote. The old Romans, like ourselves, had individual ways of regarding the great change; according to their mood and faith, they were hopeful or despairing. But death is death, think ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... engagement with Margaret of Austria, set forth upon his war-like wooing. She, poor girl, would probably have preferred any one of her suitors to the boy of nineteen or twenty, misshapen and ignorant, says a chronicler of the time, and so feeble in body that his father, despairing of his holding the throne, had arranged a marriage between the next heir, this same Duke of Orleans, and his daughter, Jeanne of France. The young Duchess, an heiress in her own right, and possessed ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... him seem frivolous and prompted one friend to seek to subdue him by means of church forms, which he had severed on coming to Leipzig. By degrees he felt an epoch approaching when all respect for authority was to vanish, and he became suspicious and even despairing with regard to the best individuals he had known before and grew chummy with a young tutor whose jokes and fooleries were incessant. His disposition fluctuated between gaiety and melancholy, and Rousseau attracted him. Meanwhile ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... altogether. This is the significance of the servant-girl question. This is the root of the alarming conviction that Phillis is changing into Biddy, whose fit epithet is not neat-handed. This is the meaning of the cry for bread—light, sweet, well-baked bread; not the clammy dough which is served to a despairing land. This is the reason of the wondering question, What has become of roast meat? and of the melancholy conviction that henceforth baked beef is to replace the juicy sirloin of tradition, history, ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... place says, 'Perhaps there are few more exciting spectacles than a vessel stranded on a lee-shore, and especially such a shore, which is fringed with reefs extending far out and offering no spot for shelter. The hapless ship lies dismasted, bilged, and beat about by the waves, with the despairing crew clinging to the wreck, or to the shrouds, and uttering cries totally inaudible in the roar of the sea; while at each successive dash of the breakers the number of the survivors is thinned, till at length they all disappear. The gallant bark then goes to ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... than she herself was aware of noble action, but capable also of sudden, irrational cruelty. Just now her soul was at war with itself, embittered by rage, by what she had done, by what she had left undone, by her helplessness, by what she desired to do. Finally, despairing of any weariness bringing sleep—she had tried that the night before and failed—she put by her work and went up to her room, undressed and lay ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... dreadful books!" she said, pushing away the notebooks lying before her on the table. "Why did you give them me? No, it was better anyway," she added, touched by his despairing ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... husband," Mrs. Morris whispered, breathlessly. Next moment she was locked in his arms. Nancy gazed furtively about, peering at the faces, and hoping that one might be her son. After a long scrutiny, she turned a despairing, helpless face to her late travelling companion. Mrs. Morris understood, and came to her ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... this business," said George, in a despairing tone. "We have traveled far enough to get back to the team twice over. Let's try another shot." It was answered by a shout from the Professor, close by, to their left, and when they appeared in sight he was seated on the log leisurely driving the yaks, laughing in a quiet way, and apparently ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... pelt!" growled Hiram at the despairing morning conference under the poplars. "She must be livin' in a hole round here, or else come in a balloon. I tell you, Cap'n Sproul, it's got to be stopped some way or the two families will be in the lunatic ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... to wear a wistful, dejected look. There was a feeling of departure everywhere, a sense that the year's excitements were over. The procession had gone by, and there was an empty, purposeless air of waiting-about upon things, a sort of despairing longing for something else to happen—and a sure sense that nothing more could happen till next year. Every event in the floral calendar had taken place with immemorial punctuality and tragic rapidity. All the full-blooded flowers of Summer had long since come and gone, with their magic faces ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... from her frame, and stood before them in a despairing attitude, with one hand upon her brow. For a single moment her impulse was to fly from the apartment, so ashamed was she of having listened, and of meeting her rival in this way; but she conquered this feeling, and, as soon as she saw Mrs. Vane too had recovered ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... with the conviction that everything would be all right, but in his heart he was despairing; if he found Esther and brought her back she would hate him for the rest ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... Aunt Kittredge's peculiar views of the rights of boys interfered with his accumulation of the necessary capital. All these troubles Jason bore bravely. It must be some great misfortune that caused him to look so utterly despairing, and to accuse her of such dreadful ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... dearly-bought victory for England, for Nelson, her greatest naval hero, had paid for his immortal triumph with his life. The French admiral, Villeneuve, who was defeated at Trafalgar, had not even been lucky and wise enough to expiate his ignominy by his death; he had fallen, a despairing prisoner, into the hands of the English, and served as a living trophy to the triumphant conqueror's. [Footnote: Admiral Villeneuve was released by the English government. Napoleon banished him to Rennes, where he committed suicide on the 26th of ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... were mild, but very small in proportion to the other features of his face. His voice was exceedingly low, and still more musical and sweet than low; in fact it was such a voice as, one would imagine, ought to have seldom been otherwise employed than in breathing hope and, consolation to despairing sinners on their bed of death. Yet he had nothing of either the parson or the preacher in his appearance. So far from that he was seldom known to wear a black coat, unless when dressed for dinner, and not very frequently even then, for ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... sure of one thing—that it was far below him, and that for the present it did not seem to come much nearer. The cry for help that kept rising to his lips he suppressed, for it would only have served to guide his pursuer; and, moreover, a cry—a little thin, despairing cry—was instantly lost in these great heavens. It was less than a drop in ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... same thing day after day without relief." She watched the man as he poured the contents of the saucepan into the bottle, and her eyes were hot with the state of hysterical anger she had worked herself into. "Oh," she cried with a helpless, despairing gesture, as Steve returned the saucepan to the table. "I'm sick of it all. I hate it all, when I think of what life could be. The thought of it drives me mad. I hate everything. ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... presents on the branches. So I don't see," she continued, impatiently, "as that's any good. We can't do anything, Ben Pepper, so there! there isn't anything to do anything with," and with a flounce Polly sat down on the old wooden stool, and folding her hands looked at Ben in a most despairing way. ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... and many other hymns, the words seem to have but little meaning; but the tones,—a whole lifetime of despairing sadness is concentrated in them. They sing, also, "Jehovyah, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... the bed. Every minute that elapsed seemed an hour. Alone with the unconscious organism in the silence of the great stately chamber, under the cold yellow glare of the electric lights, Aribert became a prey to the most despairing thoughts. The tragedy of his nephew's career forced itself upon him, and it occurred to him that an early and shameful death had all along been inevitable for this good-natured, weak-purposed, unhappy child of a historic throne. A little ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... should protect the land newly conquered (from acts of aggression). He should not cause his troops to pursue too much the routed foe. The onset is irresistible of persons that rally after the rout and that, despairing of safety, assail their pursuers. For this reason, O king, thou shouldst not cause thy troops to pursue too much the routed foe. Warriors of courage do not wish to strike them that run away with speed. That is another reason why the routed foe should not ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... there was the shop of a jeweller she sometimes went to with Mrs. Fowler in that lady's despairing quest for suitable wedding presents at moderate prices; and something in the kindly, sympathetic face of the clerk who waited on them made Gabriella decide suddenly to trust him. As she unwrapped the tissue paper rather nervously, and keeping back the necklace, laid the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... is, in most things. Thank you—not that; those coloured frocks now—there! that bundle with the pink and the blue. One would suppose that even a man might know coloured frocks when he saw them," said Nettie, with despairing resignation, springing up from her knees to seize what she wanted. "Thank you—I think, perhaps, if you would just go and make yourself comfortable, and read your paper, I should get on better. I am not used to having anybody to help me. I got on quite ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... struggle hard to maintain his ground. "Oh, how did Satan now lay about him for to bring me down again. But he could by no means do it, for this sentence stood like a millpost at my back." But after two days the old despairing thoughts returned, "nor could his faith retain the word." A few hours, however, saw the return of his hopes. As he was on his knees before going to bed, "seeking the Lord with strong cries," a voice echoed his prayer, "I have loved Thee with an everlasting love." ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... tells a characteristic story (226-27) of an Indian girl whom he found one day lying on a grave singing a song "so despairing that it seemed to well out from a broken heart." A half-breed friend, who thoroughly understood the native customs, marred his illusion by informing him that he had heard the girl say to her mother that as she ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... her hands in his, but she took them away again. For one brief second her eyes had met his, and there was a sort of wistful and despairing kindliness in them: then she stood before him, with her face turned away from him, and her voice low and tremulous. "I did wish to see you—for once, for the last time," she said. "If you had gone away, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... began furbishing his armour—but gave it over to the page, and staggered across to the barracks, which were in the next street. The sentry took him for a ghost or worse, ran into the guardroom, bolted the door, and stopped his ears. The poor colonel, who was yet hardly able to stand, crawled back despairing. ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... absence and ill treatment of Octavio, had but served to raise her flame to a much greater degree, had no sooner read this letter, but she suffered herself to be distracted with all the different passions that possess despairing lovers; sometimes raving, and sometimes sighing and weeping: it was a good while she continued in these disorders, still thinking on what she had to do next that might redeem all: being a little come to herself, she thought good to consult ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... The despairing tone, the emphatic utterance, at once aroused my sympathies and caused me to be deeply interested in this wounded boy, so helpless, not knowing the hour when, according to the prevailing custom, he might be put to death. The heartless reasoning of these Indians ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... gave my word that all expenses should be paid. She lodged in Mill-street, and was a widow, thirty seven years of age, and had two children. I went to see her next morning, but she had gone, so I had all expenses to pay. I have always thought this woman was one of those poor, unfortunate, and despairing ones, ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... Duke of York themselves in my absence did call for some of the Commissioners of the Treasury and give them directions about the business of the certificates; which I, despairing to do any thing on a Sunday, and not thinking that they would think of it themselves, did rest satisfied with, and stayed at home all yesterday, leaving it to do something in this day: but I find that the King and Duke of York had been so pressing ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... cases that are ten thousand thousand times worse than insanity. I don't think from what I hear, that her father has ever given up hoping that she will outgrow her peculiarities. Oh, these peculiar children for whom parents go on hoping every morning and despairing every night! If I could tell you half that mothers have told me, you would feel that the worst of all diseases of the moral sense and the will are those which all the Bedlams turn away from their doors as not ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... bringing about marriages!" she cried, tearfully, to her husband, when that worthy gentleman showed her a despatch in the evening paper to the effect that Mr. and Mrs. Jack had invoked the Western courts to free them from a contract which had grown irksome to both. "I shall not even help the most despairing lover over a misunderstanding which may result in two broken hearts. I'm through. The very idea of Marie Willoughby and Johnny Hearst not being able to get along together is preposterous. Why, they were made for ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... Fred said they would, and more. For the honour of the "frat," they coached the desperate Ramsey in the technic of Lumen debate, told him many more things to say than could be said in six minutes, and produced him, despairing, ghastly, and bedewed, in the large hall of the Lumen Society at ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... O soul! How you cling to this battered carcase! O little gleam on the surface of the eye! Twenty times I saw it die down and kindle again. And it seemed too suffering, too weak, too despairing ever to reflect anything again save suffering, weakness, ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... "There is nothing in my thoughts that you cannot read—so—" He lifted the eyes in question, half-despairing despite the smile he had schooled into them. "Why rehearse ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... that cry!—I was stunned and drowning, a chaos of wreck was beneath me, and around me, and above me, and blue agonized gasping faces, and struggling arms, and colourless clutching hands, and despairing yells for help, where help was impossible; when I felt a sharp bite on the neck, and breathed again. My Newfoundland dog, Sneezer, had snatched at me, and dragged me out of the eddy of the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... I returned answer, the sick for that time would recover, but by means of a surfeit would dangerously relapse within one month; which he did, by eating of trouts at Mr. Sand's house, near Leatherhead in Surrey. Then I went daily to visit him, Dr. Prideau despairing of his life; but I said there was no danger thereof, and that he would be sufficiently well in five or six ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... dry road. But while I looked upon the sad and solemn scene before me, these sounds were interrupted by one which startled, and, indeed, for a moment, froze me with horror. The sound was a cry, or rather a howl of despairing terror, such as I have never heard before or since uttered by human voice. It broke from the stillness of the church-yard; but I saw no figure from which it proceeded—though this circumstance, indeed, was scarcely wonderful, as the broken ground, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... mother, who had been the most despairing of women, and seemed to regard David as dead even before he started, now discovered a genius for hopefulness. She had heard of a case from a neighbouring village of a man who had been reported dead, and who afterwards wrote from a prison camp in Germany, and she clung ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... uncertain fate: The myrtle, ensign of supreme command, Consign'd by Venus to Melissa's hand; Not less capricious than a reigning fair, Now grants, and now rejects a lover's prayer. In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain, In myrtle shades despairing ghosts complain; The myrtle crowns the happy lovers' heads, The unhappy lovers' grave the myrtle spreads: O then the meaning of thy gift impart, And ease the throbbings of an anxious heart! Soon must this bough, as you shall ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... of the day after the tender, despairing, farewell kiss of Lady Constantine, when he was a little less weak than during her visit, he lay with his face to the window. He lay alone, quiet and resigned. He had been thinking, sometimes of her and other friends, but ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... crone mother, whether with blood reasons or not none knew. And at bottom, much of Sancho's rebellion had come of anger at the treatment meted out to her. And it was Sancho's despairing cry, when Milo cast him out into the Grove, that brought the old woman from her concealment in the forest. The awful plight of the unlucky wretch had aroused in the woman's withered breast a demon of revenge that knew no limits; and the departing schooner, then barely visible ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... at staid Boston that Anne Hutchinson marshalled her forces; it was at peace-loving Salem that the Devil marshalled his witches in a last despairing onslaught against the saints. To many readers there may seem to be little or no connection between witchcraft and religion; but an examination of the facts leading to the execution of the various martyrs to superstition at Salem will ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... Then a despairing cry burst from the wretched man's lips, he threw up his hands as if he had been shot through the heart, ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... about their marriages, for they often consulted me, and took my counsel as lovers are wont to do,—that is, when it pleased their fancy. Sometimes they would consult their captains first, and then come to me in despairing appeal. "Cap'n Scroby [Trowbridge] he acvise me not for marry dis lady, 'cause she hab seben chil'en. What for use? Cap'n Scroby can't lub for me. I mus' lub for myself, and I lub he." I remember that on this occasion "he" stood by, a most unattractive woman, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... view'd the storms from land, Now find myself to the same fate exposed, Toss'd to and fro upon a sea of troubles! My boldness has been vanquish'd in a moment, And humbled is the pride wherein I boasted. For nearly six months past, ashamed, despairing, Bearing where'er I go the shaft that rends My heart, I struggle vainly to be free From you and from myself; I shun you, present; Absent, I find you near; I see your form In the dark forest depths; the shades of night, Nor less broad daylight, bring back to my view The ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... Without despairing, however, I undertook the siege of a less implacable heart. The fates were again propitious for a brief period, but again a trivial incident interfered. Meeting my betrothed in an avenue thronged with the elite of the city, I was hastening to greet her with one of my best considered bows, when ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... retired, the mother played the little comedy of flinging herself with tears into the arms of her son-in-law. It was the only provincial thing that Madame Evangelista allowed herself, but she had her reasons for it. Amid tears and speeches, apparently half wild and despairing, she obtained of Paul those concessions ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... finger found Crimson'd with many a tiny wound; And to her eyes, suffus'd with watery woe, Her flower-embroider'd web danc'd dim, I wist, Like blossom'd shrubs in a quick-moving mist: 45 Till vanquish'd the despairing ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the battle on the 21st had not been large on either side, and the Black Hawk band pursued their journey to the Mississippi without guides, through a rugged, trackless wilderness, sorrowing, suffering and despairing. The whites continued down the Wisconsin to Helena, where General Atkinson took command. Helena was a deserted village which had been built to carry on shot-making. The soldiers tore down the log houses and made rafts of the logs ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of his comrades, who thought themselves heroes when playing a game of corks. The official placards, the trash in the journals, inspired him with immense disgust, for they had never lied so boldly or flattered the people with so much low meanness. It was with a despairing heart and the certitude of final disaster that Amedee, needing a little sleep after the fatigue, wandered through Paris's obscure streets, barely lighted here and there by petroleum lamps, under the dark, opaque winter sky, where the echoes of the distant ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... ground, Vexing heaven's concave, and filled all the plain, Rending the locks of all the orchard groves, Till the great sky was choked withal. We closed Our lips and eyes, and bore the God-sent evil. When after a long while this ceased, the maid Was seen, and wailed in high and bitter key, Like some despairing bird that hath espied Her nest all desolate, the nestlings gone. So, when she saw the body bare, she mourned Loudly, and cursed the authors of this deed. Then nimbly with her hands she brought dry dust, And holding high a shapely brazen cruse, Poured three libations, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... No—not for thee, too good, too kind! May'st thou Live long to be a mother to those children Thy fond fidelity for a time deprives Of such support! But for myself alone, May all the winds of Heaven howl down the Gulf, 140 And tear the vessel, till the mariners, Appalled, turn their despairing eyes on me, As the Phenicians did on Jonah, then Cast me out from amongst them, as an offering To appease the waves. The billow which destroys me Will be more merciful than man, and bear me Dead, but still bear me to a native grave, From fishers' hands, upon ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... with his entrails torn with slugs. At any rate this was a life for a life. . . . And all this was said with the weariness, with the recklessness of a man spurred on and on by ill-luck till he cares not where he runs. When he asked Jim, with a sort of brusque despairing frankness, whether he himself—straight now—didn't understand that when "it came to saving one's life in the dark, one didn't care who else went—three, thirty, three hundred people"—it was as if a demon ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... fruitless. The utmost that Bismarck would do was not to insist upon securing the still unconquered Belfort. Despairing of moving him further, Thiers and Favre gave way on the 24th of February, and signed the preliminaries of peace. They were, first, the transfer to Germany of the northeast portion of Lorraine, with Metz ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... tigress in her defense. But where was Neale? The habits of life were all powerful; and all her habits had been formed under Durade's magnetic eye. Neale retreated and so did spirit, courage, hope. Love remained, despairing, yet unquenchable. ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... rallied swiftly, agilely, and again the head and neck bended back to the double curve, and the steaming, wide-open mouth made its desperate effort to reach its enemy. This attack, it could be seen, was despairing, but it was nevertheless impetuous, gallant, ferocious, of the same quality as the charge of the lone chief when the walls of white faces close upon him in the mountains. The stick swung unerringly again, and the snake, mutilated, torn, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... briskly to the youthful attendant. Once he turned and regarded with a quick stare of insolent annoyance the despairing countenance of the German whose eyes had never left him. When the elevator arrived at the ground floor, Coleman departed with the outraged air of a man who for a time had been compelled to occupy a cell in company ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... had as suddenly been reined in. The driver, an Irish trooper, crossed himself, for, on the hush of the breathless winter night, there rose and fell—shrill, quavering, now high, now low, in mournful minor, a weird, desolate, despairing chant, the voice of a heart-broken woman, and one and all they knew at once it was Nanette, after the manner of her mother's people, alone on the lofty height, alone in the wintry wilderness, sobbing out her grief song to the sleeping ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... a few moments to regain their breath, there was the mournful, despairing Ahoy! again, but though they answered several times over, there was no response till they had tramped on amidst increasing difficulties for quite a quarter of an hour—that which had been comparatively easy in broad ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... is some excuse for a young man's endeavour to forget himself in folly or even in dissipation when his secret thoughts are so despairing as these. ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... mother to him, and the other dearest of all on earth, he could have lived there forever. But now the old prison feeling was coming back. He was tired of the view and of the mean little room. He felt lonely and deserted and despairing. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... came round, and found me so engrossed in putting the finishing touches to my excursus of Mr Mellish's character, that I stayed on in the form-room till ten past. Two other members of the form stayed too, writing with the despairing energy of those who had five minutes to say what they would like to spread over five hours. At last Mellish collected the papers. He seemed a trifle surprised when I gave up my modest three sheets. Brown and Morrison, who had their eye on the form prize, each gave ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... relief. She was afraid to trust herself. She was afraid to accept her own suggestions of comfort, if ever a ray of it came to her, lest it should be but another form of self-deception, another proof of moral instability. In her eternal tossing to and fro, in mental anguish, the despairing idea often assailed her: that after all, it did not matter what she did or thought. She was but an atom of the vast whole, a drop in the ocean ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... places—in and out, in and out, in the triumphant serpentine. Finally they paused, took off their hats, cheered first their own team, then the Sanford team, and then sang their hymn while the Sanford men respectfully uncovered, silent and despairing. ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... vengeful spirit of their "High Mightinesses" in Batavia, was glutted to the throat. Butchery could not do her work more thoroughly. Not a drop of blood was left in Chinese veins to circulate disaffection, or boil in the agony of despairing hate. Extermination smiled in the gloom of Death,—merciful in this at least, that she suffered not a heart to remain to curse her triumph. See Modern Universal History, vol. xiv. ch. 7. Our limits will not ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... of their manners as yet to disturb the colloquy with open interruption; but with every other sort of interruption they did disturb it, explaining by despairing gestures and direful shakings of the head that, should Caius go with this gentleman, he would be driving into the ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... perplexities of mission work in India is how best to gradually transfer European responsibility and control to the people of the country. Some of the attempts in this direction not having been altogether a success, there have been missionaries who, despairing of any other arrangement, went into the opposite extreme and endeavoured to keep everything in their own hands. Their attitude also towards their native workers, and even towards their brother priests, was ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... greedy hand grubs after precious things, And leaps for joy when some poor worm he fingers! That such a human voice should dare intrude, Where all was full of ghostly tones and features! Yet ah! this once, my gratitude Is due to thee, most wretched of earth's creatures. Thou snatchedst me from the despairing state In which my senses, well nigh crazed, were sunken. The apparition was so giant-great, That to a very dwarf my soul had shrunken. I, godlike, who in fancy saw but now Eternal truth's fair glass in wondrous nearness, Rejoiced in heavenly radiance and clearness, Leaving the ...
— Faust • Goethe
... different versions of the Jingles, as there are of any truly "popular" form of literature. Of not many Jingles can it be said that any version is the oldest, the authoritative, the real version. The editor, therefore, despairing of finding the most accurate version, has endeavored to find the best. In many instances the best seemed the one he had heard in childhood rather than the one printed in any of the collections. The collection found most useful is Lang's The Nursery Rhyme Book (Frederick Warne & Co., London, 1897). ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... closely about her shivering form a thin cashmere scarf that kind Sairy Ann Peters had pressed on her to protect her, in her light summer dress, from the cold autumn winds. Thus panting, trembling, starting, and alternately hoping and despairing, she came close enough at last to gaze at the upper windows of the handsome suite of apartments that ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... her from where I was standing, she shook so. 'Say! is it so?' she cried. On the weak, white lips of her master Died a sickly smile, and he said, 'Louise, I have sold you.' God is my judge! May I never see such a look of despairing, Desolate anguish, as that which the woman cast on her master, Griping her breast with her little hands, as if he had stabbed her, Standing in silence a space, as fixed as the Indian woman Carved out of wood, ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... the significance of the declaration of war by Turkey against Russia, France, and England. Why these despairing gasps of the dying? they ask. What possible chance has this weak, moribund state to survive a clash of arms with the Triple Entente? Has not the Turk, in fact, dug his own grave and committed suicide? In all probability the Turk is in considerable danger, but the danger does not arise ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... O'Hagi Dono. Nearly a month has passed since he has deigned a visit. Surely her ladyship is not so exacting. Give fair answer. Is will or power lacking?" She waited the reply, eyes cast down on the tatami, for she at least had some remains of modesty. Thus the almost despairing gesture of Shintaro[u] escaped her. He spoke in low voice, with emphasis, to this fairest of his bevy of fair ones—"As for the okugata, O'Han knows her almost as well as this Shintaro[u]. What would be the fate of both if their treachery were suspected? Deign to be patient. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... them determined, desperate, despairing, half rebellious, half subdued; resigned with the resignation of sheer helplessness, which I take it is a different thing from the resignation of sheer hopelessness. It is no very pleasant sight to see a country flayed and quartered like a bloody carcass in a meat ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... eyes filling with tears, but endeavouring at the same time to conceal her emotion under an affectation of anger, "your opinion of me is not very flattering; and it is not in very good taste, methinks, to play the despairing lover, especially after the conversation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Casting one despairing look about him, and seeing not a possible chance of escape, even if he were not bound to the spot by the presence of Rudolph and Kitty, poor Tom entered upon the dread ordeal. His weariness was forgotten ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... a moment's gesture that reminded him of the despairing way in which she had flung herself down in the chair, that long ago ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... going to beseech Serge and ask him what sum he would take in exchange for Micheline's liberty; but the haughty and sarcastic face of the Prince forcibly putting the bank-notes in her hands, passed before her, and she guessed that she would not obtain anything. Cast down and despairing, she entered her office ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... the latter. Mr. GALSWORTHY has less than most men the kind of mind that can put off the burden of the suffering of war or submit easily to the difficult need for us all to think one way in a time of national crisis. But "Cafard," study of a poilu in the despairing depression that comes of the fatigue and horror of long fighting, who is lifted back to courage by a little frightened beaten mongrel whose confidence he wins, so forgetting his own trouble, was written, one can feel, because the author wanted to write it, not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... almost the first time I had been able to get a view of his face. And oh! how changed it was. Not merely that it looked pale and worn, with bloodshot eyes and hectic cheeks, but there was a scared despairing look there which fairly shocked me. Dissipation, and shame, and want, had all set their mark there. Alas! how soon may the likeness of God be degraded and defaced! He continued to walk to and fro as Jim sat down and began to read, but I could see he more than once ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... said Fraulein Rottenmeier with a despairing gesture, "what use are books to her? She has not been able to learn her A B C even, all the long time she has been here; it is quite impossible to get the least idea of it into her head, and that the tutor himself will tell you; if he had not the patience of an angel ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... beginning to fall), M. l'Abbe Coignard came very near being dragged in too. I was losing my foothold myself. But as luck would have it, my feet lighted on a root which held me up as I crouched there with my arms round the best of masters and this despairing young thing. Presently, coming to the end of her strength and courage, she fell back on M. l'Abbe Coignard's breast, and we managed all three to scramble to the top of the bank again. He helped ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... boy-brother glimmered up through it, like that of Dives in hell-fire to his guardian-angel as he hung lax-winged and faint in the ascending smoke. The mist thinned, and at length she caught a glimmer of his pleading, despairing, self-horrified eyes: all the mother in her nature rushed to the aid of her struggling will; her heart gave a great heave; the blood ascended to her white brain, and flushed it with rosy life; her body was once more reconciled and obedient; ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... too, the quick attack had been almost instantly successful. The first great volume of mad shrieks had quickly died low as if the victims were being smothered; and now could be heard only the single scream of some woman caught in flight,—short, despairing screams, and others that seemed to be cut short—strangled at ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... just as Mrs. Hastings was about despairing of being heard, and was beginning to think that possibly her husband might be right and Eugenia in the suds after all, a chubby, brown-faced girl appeared, and after giving her a searching, curious glance, shewed ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... I felt faint, and then quite wild with despair and horror. I called to the driver, and got out, and sat down at the road-side, and prayed to God silently for mercy. A despairing resignation supervened. My companion was with me as I re-entered the vicarage. The same persecution followed. After a short struggle I submitted, and ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the mental stomachs of his offspring—all this would have deterred a less obstinate man. But Madigan, who had become a bully through weakness (forced to domineer unsuccessfully in his home by the conquering softness of his sister's disposition), had the bully's despairing consciousness of being in the wrong at the very moment of superficial victory; of being powerless in the very act of imposing himself upon his poor little women-folk; of recognizing the fact that, although he might lead them to the fountain of knowledge, he was unable to make them ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... despairing that one of our company would escape to tell the tale of our disasters, a ship hove in sight, took us on board, and brought us hither. Thus ends our voyage, and all the bright anticipations of wealth enjoyed so long by Golding and our old captain—not a log of sandal-wood, not a string of pearls ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... reader were hero, she—Damaris—became heroine. Marshall Wace seemed to read not to, but definitely at her; so that during more than one ardent passage, she felt herself go hot all over, as though alone with him, an acknowledged object of his adoring, despairing declarations. This she shrank from, yet—it must be owned—found stirring, strangely and not altogether unpleasantly agitating. For was not this protege of Henrietta's—whom the latter implored her to ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... life. Slender, swarthy, melancholy eyed, and darkly bearded; with feminine features, mellow voice and, alternately languid or vivacious manners. A child of the South in nature as in aspect, ardent, impressible, and proud; fitfully aspiring and despairing; without the native energy which moulds character and ennobles life. Months of discipline and devotion had done much for him, and some deep experience was fast ripening the youth into ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... Despairing of discovering the thief, Francisco and Carlo left the market. As they were returning home, they were met by the English servant Arthur, who asked Francisco where he had been, and where ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... vengeance to the blood of my poor boy! I will forgive you all the rest—all the distress you have wrought—all the yet greater misery with which you threaten us; but do not be extreme with one who never can have offended you! Believe, that if your ears are shut against the cry of a despairing mother, those which are open to the complaint of all who sorrow, will hear my ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Past the despairing wail— And the bright banquets of the Elysian Vale Melt every care away! Delight, that breathes and moves forever, Glides through sweet fields like some sweet river! Elysian life survey! There, fresh with youth, o'er jocund meads, His merry west-winds blithely ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... humanity, whose condition can neither be described nor conceived. Without air, without light, without room to move, without hope; with insufferable stench, with hunger and thirst, with heat unbearable, with agony of body and soul, with dread anticipations of the future, and despairing memories of the past, they sat for days and nights together—fed with just enough of uncooked rice and water to keep ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... as though a stream of longing and love, of despairing, impotent, all-yielding, all forgetting passion were flowing from him ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... end of the avenue of guests, mocked at her. Did they not mock at the essential conditions of their own lives too? Katherine feared, consciously or unconsciously they did that. Her weariness dragged upon her with almost despairing weight. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... suffering was altered; it became less womanly, it defied weakness and grew to a fever of fierce, unscrupulous rebellion. Whenever she thought of Sidney Kirkwood, the injury he was inflicting upon her pride rankled into bitter resentment, unsoftened by the despairing thought of self-subdual which had at times visited her sick weariness. She bore her degradations with the sullen indifference of one who is supported by the hope of a future revenge. The disease inherent in her being, that deadly outcome of social tyranny which ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... then, where we stood this morning, crowded the whole population of the district—men, women, and children. Here they would make their last despairing stand. The attack would come from the north-east, consequently this bay would be in rear; and in it the canoes were drawn up for flight, if ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... bottom immediately, so that they were forced to get on shore again quite drenched in the sea. During the whole of the preceding long night, the boat had been beating against the rock, which had loosened its planks and opened all the seams. Despairing now of any relief, as they were utterly destitute of any means to repair their boat, they constructed two small tents of their oars and sails, to shelter themselves from the weather, and hewed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... She sprang up in despairing, breaking spirit, and encircled his neck with her arms, and held him in an embrace that he strove vainly to loosen. "Lassiter, would you kill me? I'm fighting my last fight for the principles of my youth—love ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... despairing eyes up the ascent, as sheer and as smooth as a wall, without a crevice which might afford a foothold, or a shrub to which he might cling. His strong head was whirling as he again glanced downward to the unmeasured [v]abyss beneath. He softly let himself sink into a sitting posture, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... he led the way over a wall to the sacred soil of an Englishman's stately home. Bones wanted the wood, because one of his scenes was laid on the edge of a wood. It was the scene where the bad girl, despairing of convincing anybody as to her inherent goodness, was taking a final farewell of the world before "leaving a life which had held nothing but sadness and misunderstanding," to quote the title which was to introduce ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... voice Dunke had extinguished the candle and vanished in the darkness with Struve, the latter holding him by the arm in a despairing grip. Neill shouted again and again, as he relighted his candle, but there came ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... sects, the Peunbo (Bonpo) think only of shaking off the yoke, and getting deliverance from the vexations which the smallness of their number forces them to endure." In June, 1863, apparently from such despairing motives, the Lamas of Tsodam, a Bonpo convent in the vicinity of the mission settlement of Bonga in E. Tibet, invited the Rev. Gabriel Durand to come and instruct them. "In this temple," he writes, "are the monstrous idols of the sect of Peunbo; horrid figures, whose features only Satan ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa |
