"Desperation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I said, in a sort of desperation. "But I have the most curious feeling that she is depending on me. The way she spoke the day I saw her, and her eyes and everything; I know you think ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... clutch at the paddle, missed it, and disappeared once more from sight. The shark rushed to the spot and turned in dismay, and driven to desperation, Tom hit the monster over the head with the paddle. Then ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... so enlisted the moral nature of Elizabeth that the Holy Ghost had written convicting impressions upon the inner tablet of her heart. She did not long resist this new "conscience of sins." She clearly saw and deeply felt that she was a sinner, and on the way to ruin. In more of desperation than hope she set out to "flee ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... his paternal grandfather, Robert Scott, who rented the farm of Sandyknowe, in the vicinity of Smailholm Tower, in Roxburghshire. Shortly after his arrival at Sandyknowe, he narrowly escaped destruction through the frantic desperation of a maniac attendant; but he had afterwards to congratulate himself on being enabled to form an early acquaintance with rural scenes. No advantage accruing to his lameness, he was, in his fourth year, removed to Bath, where he remained twelve months, without experiencing benefit ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Poppy's sake more than my own, and I want you to go up and see her every trip, and let me know how she is. She mightn't care what happened to her if she thinks I'm gone, and she might marry somebody else in desperation." ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... answered. "Friendship is the 'nine notch' in which a lover makes 'no count' in the game of hearts. But steer bravely past these dark gulfs of despair. Have you ever had recourse to jealousy in your desperation?" I queried. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... mother behind, when she follows her husband. So it is with the youth; no more he knows mother and father. When he beholds the maiden, the only beloved one, approaching. Therefore let me go hence, to where desperation may lead me, For my father already has spoken in words of decision, And his house no longer is mine, if he shuts out the maiden Whom alone I would fain take home as my bride ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... south of the Loire; but one of their greatest battles was fought near Laval, in 1793. They conducted themselves with fearful desperation, and after the republicans had sent word, as the battle waned, to the Convention at Paris, that La Vendee was no more, the wounded leader of the insurgents was carried through their ranks, and they rallied, gaining the day in a decisive victory, by which ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... puritanic traditions to her account. Moreover she was young and warm and enthusiastic. Sometimes the spell of Miss Terry's sombre house threatened her to the point of desperation. It was so this Christmas Eve; but she made her request ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... had in his mind; and before Dorothea happened to arrive he had been trying to imagine how, with his shyness and unready tongue, he could ever manage to introduce his communication. Her unexpected presence brought him to utter hopelessness in his own power of saying anything unpleasant; but desperation suggested a resource; he sent the groom on an unsaddled horse across the park with a pencilled note to Mrs. Cadwallader, who already knew the gossip, and would think it no compromise of herself to repeat it ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... found myself at precisely the same spot again! So much time had been lost, that I now could hear the bloodhounds once more. I was perplexed beyond measure. A few steps further brought me to the same river I had crossed hours before. In sheer desperation I took the first road I came to, and followed it a long time, almost regardless of where it should lead, or whom ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... violins proclaim Their jealous pangs and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains, and height of passion, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... position of the men imploring help; she was coming up at full speed. Langlade was the first to recognise her; she was a Government felucca plying between Toulon and Bastia. Langlade was a friend of the captain, and he called his name with the penetrating voice of desperation, and he was heard. It was high time: the water kept on rising, and the king and his companions were already up to their knees; the boat groaned in its death-struggle; it stood still, and began ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... The ghosts of dead hours came trooping and eddying round him, like the autumn leaves that had begun to strew the Paris streets—all the scenes of that first ghastly week when he had hunted in desperation for his lost wife and child. His joyous return from Chelsea, on the evening of his good-fortune—Mrs. Gibbs's half-sulky message on the door-step that 'Mrs. Fenwick' was in the studio—his wild rush upstairs—the empty room, the letter, the ring:—his hurried ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to induce me to consent to an exchange; at one time coming out with a fishing-rod, at another with a fiddle, at another with a cocked hat, at another with a flute. But I resisted all these overtures, and sat there in desperation; each time asking him, with tears in my eyes, for my money or my jacket. At last he began to pay me in halfpence at a time; and was full two hours getting by ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... surmounted this apparently insuperable difficulty is one of the most striking and characteristic events in the pre-Revolutionary history of the Old Southwest. It exhibits the indomitable will and fertile resource of the American character at the margin of desperation. The momentous influence of the Watauga settlers, inadequately reckoned hitherto by historians, was soon to make itself powerfully felt in the first epochal ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... on deck, Vaughan looked down from a hogshead, on which he had mounted in desperation, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... highway and the house-grove. The evening General Austin sent me to Wiggins it was at this gap that I saw old Dismukes sitting cross-legged on the ground, playing poker; and here, now, I summoned the desperation to speak directly ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... sounds shortly died away, and the battle for this day was over. Night fell and spread its funereal pall over a field on which, almost without cessation since the dawn of daylight, had raged a conflict which, for its desperation and carnage, had yet had no ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in desperation, as he strove to master an almost overwhelming impulse to turn and fly from the spot. "Crazy as a loon," thought the boy, with a shudder, "and I've got to take him clear to Fort Norman, alone!" "I'm a stump, I'm a stump," chanted the man, shrilly, and the boy saw that ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... fail to admire their truth to domestic ties, their power of generous bounty, and more generous gratitude, their indefatigable good-humor (for ages of wrong which have driven them to so many acts of desperation, could never sour their blood at its source), their ready wit, their elasticity of nature? They are fundamentally one of the best nations of the world. Would they were welcomed here, not to work merely, but to intelligent sympathy, and ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... different from Eugene Pearson, who had no cares and no temptations to commit crimes, and who had practiced a scheme of vile deception and ingratitude for years, Thomas Duncan had been found in a moment of weakness and desperation, and under the influence of wily tempters, had yielded himself up to their blandishments, and had done that which had made him a felon. As to Eugene Pearson, the trusted, honored and respected official of the bank, who had deliberately planned and assisted ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... he had had a visit in the afternoon from Monsieur Due, the Swedish secretary, who had been on the verge of desperation on account of his not having been able to secure a suitable box for King Charles XIV. of Sweden, who arrived last night to spend a few days here. He wished to see Schneider in "La Belle Helene." Monsieur Due had gone to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and suggested that ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... might so manage as to inflict almost unheard of cruelties upon individuals without driving a population to arms. Men with wives and families and properties, however inconsiderable in value such properties may be, are unwilling to risk their all, at the tap of the drum, until wrought up to it by desperation. There is a feeling of respect for authority, a regard for that which is believed to be law, a peculiar sense of duty towards the State in most men, which prevents them from assuming a position even of firmness in the assertion of their rights. In a colony there are ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... General's death. This event, which should have caused Madame de la Roche-Jugan to reproach herself, had simply exasperated her. Her bad action had recoiled upon herself. The death of M. Campvallon had finally destroyed her last hopes, which she had believed she could have founded on the anger and desperation of the old man. Since that time she was animated against her nephew and the Marquise with the rage of one of the Furies. She learned through Vautrot that M. de Camors had been in the chamber of Madame de Campvallon the night of the General's death. On this foundation of truth she did ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... desperation I went to the Ministry of the Interior and sought an interview with the Baron, who, when I told him of the disaster, appeared greatly concerned, and went at once to the Police Department to make inquiry. Next day, however, he came to me with the news that the charge against ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... awful in this weather! I should send for both in desperation!" and she laughed and began to take an interest in the furnishings of my flat. She looked over it, and Burton pointed out all its merits to her (My crutch hurts my shoulder so much to-day I did not want to move out of my chair). I could hear Burton's ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... was sign of her bravado, and her shots were the indication of her desperation. The memory of the wan face of Prebol brought down by her bullet was now ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... content with introducing pagan worship into the holy city, had even issued an edict forbidding the practice of circumcision. These imprudent measures produced a revolt among the Jews, who, under their leader Barcochab, fought with their usual courage and desperation. The war continued for several years, during which more than half a million of Jews are said to have perished. At length Julius Severus came from Britain to lead the Roman armies, and the rebellion was suppressed. The Jews were now forbidden to ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... sure, were made with all the tact and consideration of natural delicacy and unselfish affection, generally by laughing at the poor poet, which was the most effectual way of restoring his courage and good-humor. One morning he emerged from his seclusion, and with vindictive desperation threw before his brother a quantity of manuscripts, saying, "You would have prose: there it is for you." It was the introduction to a sort of romance called Le Poete dechu, a wretched story of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... quickly. At such times, one moment of time lost may involve thousands of pounds—ay, and many human lives! This is well known to those whose profession it is to fight the flames. Hence the union of apparent mad desperation, with cool, quiet self-possession in their proceedings. When firemen can work in silence they do so. No unnecessary word is uttered, no voice is needlessly raised. Like the movements of some beautiful steam-engine, which, with oiled pistons, cranks, and levers, does its unobtrusive ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... disdain all the minor chances of present security and future prosperity which his unbounded power and wealth might have procured for him, even in a famine-stricken city, and rising suddenly to the sublime of criminal desperation, in the resolution to abandon life as worthless the moment it had ceased to run in the easy current of all former years? Yet to this determination had he now arrived; and, still more extraordinary, in this determination had he found others, of his own patrician ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... made that his nerves were unequal to the task, and for some time persuasion, cajolery, entreaties, and threats proved equally unavailing to tempt him to the enterprise. At length, however, in a fit of desperation he essayed the task, hurried over it, missed his hold, and went whirling outward from the face of the cliff. In another instant he would have been over the precipice, and plunging headlong downward to the death which awaited him thousands of feet ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... ways that he had been impelled to ask her father what he thought L—— was doing with so much money. Fettered thus, with the torments both of Prometheus and Tantalus—the vulture gnawing at her vitals, and the lost joys mocking her out of reach—she had at last in sheer desperation been driven to request her father to procure her the assistance of a ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... brought back all the folk to Ethelred. It was no hard task, for the poor people thought that Cnut had deceived them by his flight; and they were ground down by the heavy payments the Danes had levied on them. Only at Canterbury, inside whose walls the Danish thingmen gathered in desperation, had we any trouble, and we must needs lay siege to the place. But in the end Olaf and I knelt in the ancient church of St. Martin and gave thanks for victory. We had avenged the death of the ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... My will fluttered from side to side, now turning its ear to my conscience, now turning away and hearkening to my impulse. At last, weary of the strife, I determined to settle it by a just contempt of trifles—and, half in desperation, bit into the ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... like to refuse outright, so we left it to Mr. Stewart. His "Ye're nae gang" sounded powerful final, so the ladies departed in awed silence and I assumed a martyr-like air and acted like a very much abused woman, although he did only what I wanted him to do. At last, in sheer desperation he told me the "bairn canna stand the treep," and that was why he was so determined. I knew why, of course, but I continued to look abused lest he gets it into his head that he can boss me. After he had been reduced to the proper plane of humility and had ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... secretly blaming her husband for having fallen into such drear despair, and denying that he had any excuse for his last rash act, she was inveterate in her abuse of all who could by any possibility be supposed to have driven him to such desperation. The masters—Mr. Thornton in particular, whose mill had been attacked by Boucher, and who, after the warrant had been issued for his apprehension on the charge of rioting, had caused it to be withdrawn,—the Union, of which Higgins was the representative to the poor woman,—the children ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... once as I should have done because I hoped he would get tired of calling me and would tackle "OG," and give him the order. But he didn't. He just kept on calling me, increasing his speed all the time. In sheer desperation, I went out on the platform for five minutes and stamped around to keep warm, hoping all the time he would stop when he found I did not answer. But when I returned instead of calling me on one wire, he had his operator calling ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... refused this, Frau Weber sent word that if she did not return immediately, the law would be sent for her. This threat drove Mozart to desperation, and the marriage degenerated into a race between the priest and the policeman. Fortunately the priest won. The baroness wrote in person to the father for his consent, advancing Mozart 1,000 gulden to cover the 500 gulden which Constanze would have as a marriage portion; and ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... two parties in subsequent years. This mode of warfare was first instituted against the Loyalists, who acted on the defensive, and who have been loudly complained of by American historians for having afterwards, and on some occasions cruelly retaliated upon those who had driven them to desperation. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... The only thing which puzzled the philosophical navigator was his inability to detect what useful end could be attained by his death. At length, remembering that fish must be fed, his theory and his desperation were at the same ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... fallen on hard times when in an exceptionally severe winter season he with others had been thrown out of employment at the farm where he worked; then with a wife and three small children to keep he had in his desperation procured food for them one dark night in an adjacent field. But alas! one of the little ones playing in the road with some of her companions, who were all very hungry, let it out that she wasn't hungry, that for ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... convinced that he may be a most exemplary man. According to the metaphysics of hypocrisy it is held that he is doing a work of public utility. And this man who has ruined hundreds, thousands of men, who curse him and are driven to desperation by his action, goes to mass, a smile of shining benevolence on his smooth face, in perfect faith in good and in God, listens to the Gospel, caresses his children, preaches moral principles to them, and ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... a shriek of terror, and then with that unaccountable courage of desperation, she aimed one of the pistols at the Wallachian's breast, who instantly fell backwards on one of his comrades, who followed close behind. The other pistol she discharged into her ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... day of fear, but fear crystallising more and more into desperation. Anything was better than further suspense. Night came again. Again the dinner bell sounded. Choosing my opportunity I strolled across the quadrangle and secreted myself in one of the offices. Through a chink I watched the sentries. For half an hour they remained stolid and ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... her and adore. At this the shadow wept, melting away. The Latmian started up: "Bright goddess, stay! Search my most hidden breast! By truth's own tongue, I have no daedale heart: why is it wrung 461 To desperation? Is there nought for me, Upon the bourne of bliss, ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... was no appearance of the precious documents, we started the baggage also, under the charge of a surroudjee, and remained alone. Another hour passed by, and yet another, and the Bey was still occupied in sleeping off his hunger. Mr. Harrison, in desperation, went to the office, and after some delay, received the passports with a vise, but not, as we afterwards discovered, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... Intimidation is their deadliest method. The horrible picture of a starving family is held up before the wage-earner, and he is asked if he will vote to put his wife and children on the street. He is told that if he will accept starvation wages, the Trust will let him make such wages. In desperation he accepts ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... beautiful 8-inch rifles astern. They shivered in unison with the quivering hulk as shot after shot struck home. They screamed at their crews and stamped and fumed. At the guns their crews worked with drunken desperation, but down in the stoke-hole the firemen plied their shovels with a will and a skill that formed the most surprising feature of the Spanish side of the battle. Because of them this was a race worthy of the American mettle, for it put to the full test the powers of the ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... launch the cutter were at first paralyzed by this tragedy, but there was no time to lose. Death threatened them behind as well as before; behind, death was certain; before, there was still a chance. They launched the cutter in desperation. The six men succeeded in getting into her, and in rowing out at some distance. As wave after wave rose and fell she disappeared from view, and then reappeared, till at last Brandon thought that ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... will require the practical extinction of their supreme power. This, I conceive, is the really great danger that yet awaits the world—if the Allies hold together till defeat and famine drive the Germans to the utmost desperation. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... at him in desperation—a desperation half exasperation and half enchantment. If only Matthew would sometimes appear serious—there is something so restful about appearances. Instead of which he always remained superlatively unsatisfactory ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... Union leaders, Christian Care Committees—gaily they trip along and take charge of the hapless workers, until the poor fellows or girls are hustled this way and that, driven, coerced, commanded, and counter-commanded till, in desperation, they take refuge, one and all, in the nearest bar. Then the Fabians, the Social Democrats, the Clarionettes, the Syndicalists, the Extremists, the Arbitrators, and the Union leaders return to Blackheath and Sidcup and Bedford Park, crying that it is useless ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... said Hayden with the calmness of desperation, "will you not kindly tell me just what you mean? I am utterly ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Lorna' s sake, I was vexed at the bold escape of Carver. Not that I sought for Carver's life, any more than I did for the Counsellor's; but that for us it was no light thing, to have a man of such power, and resource, and desperation, left at large and furious, like a famished wolf round the sheepfold. Yet greatly as I blamed the yeomen, who were posted on their horses, just out of shot from the Doone-gate, for the very purpose of intercepting those who escaped the miners, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... bent for gossip, are promoted with all might; of course her latent intellectual qualities strain after activity and exercise;—whereupon the husband, often involved thereby in trouble, and driven to desperation, utters imprecations upon qualities that he, the "chief of creation," has mainly upon his ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... all my hair in desperation at hearing such men as you claim to admire and respect and wish to advance the American woman. You don't give enough thought to her—real thought—from one year's end to another to know whether you think she has an immortal soul ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... In a fit of desperation he procured a large and fast sailing brigantine mounting sixteen guns and having selected a crew of one hundred and sixty men he started without any commission as a regular pirate determined to rob all nations ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... penetrate the cause of this at first; for he had no intention of utilizing his papers, save to dream over them. The blood of his great forebear refused to let him bow under this unjust stroke. He sought a craft, an interesting one. The net again closed in on him. He began to grow desperate, and desperation was what Germany desired. Desperation would make a tool of the young fellow. But our young Napoleon was not without wit. He plotted, but so cleverly and secretly that never a hand could reach out to stay him. Germany finally offered him an immense bribe. He threw it back, ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... at the beginning of June, and I also began to feel in great need of a change, I started with my wife, towards the end of the month, for a short holiday. The visit was spoilt in the most dismal fashion by continuous rain; and on the 1st of July, as we were starting in desperation on our homeward journey to Zurich with our lady friends, magnificent summer weather set in, which lasted a considerable time. With affectionate enthusiasm we at once attributed this change to Liszt, as he arrived in Switzerland in the best of spirits immediately after we had returned ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... regarding the sin against nature, in which many had been included. The father had given them two months in which to seek absolution. To this was joined their understanding that the governor would make an examination of those who should be absolved, from which arose their desperation. He also said that, both on this account and because the Dutch had a galleon of great strength in Malayo and were awaiting other galleons from Chacatra, it was advisable that the usual reenforcements come, and be well ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... it in ourselves—that it has ever happened;—you dear Louise, who deserve so much better! And one asks—Oh, why are we not left in peace! And do look at the objects it makes of us!' Mademoiselle: could see, that the girl's desperation had got hold of her humour for a life-buoy. 'It is really worse to have it unknown—when you are compelled to be his partner in sharing the secret, and feel as if it were a dreadful doll you conceal for fear that everybody will ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... O-mei Shan. In a fierce battle the chief and his followers met defeat; raging with anger at being beaten by a woman, he rushed up the mountain-side; the Queen pursued him with her army, and overtook him at the summit; finding no place to hide himself, he attempted in desperation both to wreak vengeance upon his enemies and to end his own life by beating his head violently against the cane of the Heavenly Bamboo which grew there. By his mad battering he at last succeeded in knocking down ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... one form of prudence. In a besieged city prudence will reduce the rations, providence will strain every nerve to introduce supplies and to raise the siege. Foresight merely sees the future, and may even lead to the recklessness and desperation to which prudence and providence are so strongly opposed. Forethought is thinking in accordance with wise views of the future, and is nearly equivalent to providence, but it is a more popular and less comprehensive term; we speak of man's forethought, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... rage and passion, she tried to plunge her dagger into the monk's heart, but it fell shattered in pieces at her feet. In her desperation she determined to pull down the church, and thus to destroy her two victims for ever. She stamped three times on the ground, and the earth trembled, and both the church and the monk began to shake. As soon as the Fairy saw this ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... here is pressing, the harvest will be good, if present indications continue. Rye is the principal crop and this is harvested about July 12th. I think, however, Germany can last, and in very desperation may try a great offensive which may break the French lines and change the whole position. The people here, although tired of war, are well disciplined and will see this ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... take it now then— (Draws, and Stukely retires.) Alas! I pity thee. Yet that a wretch like this should overcome a Beverley! it fills me with astonishment! A wretch, so mean of soul, that even desperation cannot animate him to look upon an enemy. You should not thus have soared, Sir, unless, like others of your black profession, you had a sword to keep the fools in ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... Lady Suffolk, thinking it not safe to carry it home at night. He was watched, and his intimacy with the mistress of George II. thereupon inferred. Thenceforth he could obtain no court influence; and, in desperation, he went ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... thing which had broken Peter's faith mended it again. Fear sunk him by making him falter in his confidence; and, as he was sinking, the very desperation of his terror drove him back to his faith, and he 'cried' with a shrill, loud voice, heard above the roar of the boisterous wind, 'Lord, save me.' So difficulties and dangers, when they begin to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... one has heart to probe the next decade, to ask, "Where shall we be in ten years,—in fifty years?" The outlook is bounded by the next Sunday in the park or the theatre. The people throw themselves into the pleasures of the moment with the desperation of doomed men who hear the ring of the hammer on the scaffold. Ibsen, applying an old sailor's superstition to the European ship of state, tells how one night he stood on the deck and looked down on the throng of passengers, each the victim of some form of brooding ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... of past misdeeds, hence he was probably resolved to stop here, and, judging by his record, he was a man of settled convictions. Continued persecution is wont to stir certain natures to such reckless desperation that interference is dangerous, and Gale, recalling his sullen look and ill-concealed contempt for the soldiers, put the stranger down as a man of this type. Furthermore, he had been impressed by the ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... from a separate market. The cooks stole the beef and ignored the recipe; and day after day the same bottle-full of greasy liquid came upstairs, which Amy would not touch, and which would have done her no good had she swallowed it all. At last, driven to desperation, Katy procured a couple of stout bottles, and every morning slowly and carefully cut up two pounds of meat into small pieces, sealed the bottle with her own seal ring, and sent it down to be boiled for a specified time. This answered better, for the thieving cook dared not tamper with her seal; ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... firing to cease for a moment, in the hope that now the danger had become so imminent the leaders would accept the conditions which they had refused one hour before; and not desiring to drive them to desperation, the commissioners advanced again down College Street, preceded by a bugler, and the captains were once more summoned to a parley. Froment and Descombiez came out to meet them, and seeing the condition of the tower, they agreed to lay down their arms and send them for the palace, ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he observed that the light of the lantern was growing dim and came near to being exhausted; darkness was about to add to the terrors of the place. Nerved to desperation, though faint and sick with the awful stench of that death vault, he searched about for some weapon with which to end his miserable existence. While thus engaged, he stumbled over a heavy iron crowbar which lay in one corner and seizing it with a cry of ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... and desperation—my anger at being entrapped in a false position involving the loss in your ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... there is no predicating the content of music except in a general way; the mood key may be struck, but in Chopin's case this is by no means infallible. If I write with confidence it is that begot of desperation, for I know full well that my version of the story will not be yours. The A minor Mazurka for me is full of hectic despair, whatever that may mean, and its serpentining chromatics and apparently suspended close—on the chord of the sixth—gives an impression ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... half circle which he faced well-nigh all were old soldiers and servants of the colony, gentlemen none of whom had come in later than Dale,—Rolfe, West, Wynne, and others. We were swordsmen all. When in his desperation he would have thrown himself upon us, we contented ourselves with keeping him at sword's length, and at last West sent the knife in the dark hand whirling over the palisade. Some one had shouted to the musketeers to ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... box, with a blood-marked knife flashing in his right hand, caught his foot in the flags and fell to his knees on the stage, many thought it a part of the programme, and a boy, leaning over the gallery rail, giggled. When Booth turned his face of statuesque beauty lit by eyes flashing with insane desperation and cried, "Sic semper tyrannis," they were only confirmed ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... soldier camp; and through his blabbing, the plan by which I had hoped to lull resentment and forestall suspicion was nipped in the bud. I saw the far-reaching consequences, and was made to know how a trapped rat will turn and fight in sheer desperation whilst the terrier is shaking ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... make you see that now. Some time later, perhaps, you will understand better. For one thing, I honestly could not imagine that words, names, meant so much to you." Fred was talking with the desperation of a man who has put himself in the wrong and who yet feels that there was an idea of truth in his conduct. "Suppose that you had married your brakeman and lived with him year after year, caring for him even less than you do for your doctor, or for Harsanyi. I suppose ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... darkness. I stopped, and there suddenly rang out, apparently from close at hand, a loud, clear, most appallingly clear, blood-curdling cry, which, beginning in a low key, ended in a shriek so horrid, harsh, and piercing, that I felt my heart shrivel up within me, and in sheer desperation I buried my fingers in my ears ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... his greeting sent a chill to his already benumbed heart and increased his desperation. He was nervous, excited, depressed, and feeling the need of something to distract his thought from his troubles, he sat down and began to play; but from the first deal he lost—lost steadily ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... Vereenigte Provintien with the Provintie van Utrecht in its wake drew up to the St Antonio de Padua, the ship of Vice-Admiral Francisco de Vallecilla. For six hours the duel between the Prins Willem and the St Jago went on with fierce desperation, the captain of the Walcheren gallantly holding at bay the galleons who attempted to come to the rescue of Oquendo. At 4 p.m. the St Jago was a floating wreck with only a remnant of her crew surviving, when suddenly a fire broke ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... in desperation, he wandered off into descriptions of America, finding to his relief, that he had struck the right note at last. They were glad to hear about the States, and Lady Sherwood inquired politely if the Indians still gave them much ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... you will only hurry," cried Mollie in desperation, and jumping from her chair she propelled her friend in most undignified haste up the broad ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... homes and crops, yet every mail tells us of tremendous suicidal sacrifices of this description. The ruin and misery which the South is preparing for itself in every way is incalculable and incredible, and yet there is no diminution of desperation. The prosperity which made a mock of honest poverty is now, as by the retributive judgment of God, sinking itself into penury, and the planter who spoke of the Northern serf as a creature just one remove above the brute, is himself ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... I saw a man with a very red face approaching on the opposite side of the street, and from his general appearance I guessed him to be a sailor; so, driven almost to desperation, I crossed over to him, looking, I am sure, the very picture of despair, and I thus accosted him: 'If you please, sir, can you tell me where I can go ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... of that. The boldest fellows in that exploit were the liberated felons: they fought with desperation, for they had left ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... interesting, and he tells them as well as he writes. When he was quite a young man he went to India as private secretary for an Englishman of importance who died over there and left him stranded. Having failed to obtain employment and having reached the bottom of his purse, he decided in desperation to enlist as a private soldier in the army, and was looking through the papers for the location of the recruiting office when his eye was attracted by an advertisement from the Allahabad Pioneer, which wanted a reporter. Although he had never done ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... a woman! He may have caused your daughter's death, but he did not do it intentionally, but you—you would murder him in cold blood if you could. You have come all the way over here to drive him to desperation. You—you are a bad woman. ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... recollection of having deserted the friend who had shown them so much homely kindness, without a word of justification, would have filled her with sorrow and regret. But now, all other considerations were lost in the new uncertainties and anxieties, and in the desperation ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... me with the tavern-haunters and town-paupers,—with the drunken poet, who hawked his own Fourth of July odes, and the broken soldier who had been good for nothing since the last war. The consequence of all this was a piece of light-hearted desperation." ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... door, and knocked on it. There was no answer. I knocked again and again, but he did not respond. At last, in desperation, I rang for the elevator, and asked the attendant where my friend was. The boy did not know, but thought that the gentleman must ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... yourself to listen to me, I'd rather talk now," Sara answered with a kind of suppressed desperation. "But you do look tired. You're thinner and paler than at Santa Barbara! Yet I've been screwing my courage up to this for so long I can hardly bear ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... so. You speak as all were lost. Things are not thus! Such desperation has unreason in it, And bleeds the hearts that ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... officers, shut himself up in Buda, after which he returned to Constantinople and abandoned himself for a time to a voluptuous ease, inconsistent with the Ottoman projects of conquering the world. The Turks, less prone to desperation than the Christians, had been utterly overthrown in the early part of the action, but when the victors were, as usual, greedily bent upon plunder before the victory had been fairly secured, the tide of battle was turned by the famous ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the order, and those who did would not obey. The Mexican soldiers, who stood at about three paces from us, levelled their muskets at our breasts. Even then we could hardly believe that they meant to shoot us; for if we had, we should assuredly have rushed forward in our desperation, and, weaponless though we were, some of our murderers would have met their death at our hands. Only one of our number was well acquainted with Spanish, and even he seemed as if he could not comprehend the order that had been given. He stared at the commanding-officer as if ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... roused by a short roar of agony. They then plunged into the jungle with their drawn weapons, where they speedily found Sadhu Sing holding in his arms the lifeless corpse of his bride, where a little farther lay the body of the tiger, slain by such a blow over the neck as desperation itself could alone have discharged.—The brideless bridegroom would permit none to interfere with his sorrow. He dug a grave for his Mora, and erected over it the rude tomb they saw, and never afterwards left the spot. ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... was impossible to guess her thoughts, to know her feelings, to understand her grief or her joy. But she knew all that was at the bottom of his heart. He had told her himself, impelled by a sudden thought, going to her in darkness, in desperation, in absurd hope, in incredible trust. He had told her what he had told no one on earth, except perhaps, at times, himself, but without words—less clearly. He had told her and she had listened in silence. She ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... desperation, Daughtry hit upon an idea with which to get another schooner of steam beer. He did not like steam beer, but ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... asked Ida to imagine what must be the anguish of such a lover on finding that she did not know him—that he was nothing more than a stranger to her. She told her how, in his desperation, he had appealed to her to plead his case and to relate his story, that his mistress might at least know his love, though she might not be ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... not to be mentioned. Moreover, the peasantry, who have been repeatedly plundered by these fellows, and who have had their horses and cattle taken from them by the Carlists, being reduced with their families to nakedness and the extreme of hunger, seize in rage and desperation upon every booty which comes within their reach, a circumstance which can awaken ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... time her eyes glow, burn, almost blaze, with a wild unnatural light—an expression telling of jealousy roused, rekindled, in a last spurt of desperation. Among the marriage notices she expects to see that of Charles Clancy with a Creole girl, whose name is unknown to her. It will be the latest chapter, climax and culminating point, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... discouraging; the isolation techniques they had tried to institute did not seem to be working, and the spread of the plague was accelerating. The communiques from the Bruckians were taking on a note of desperation. ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... word for it. If it were not so, do you imagine she would have been in such desperation? Would she have fainted at my threat to tell you that I had claims on her as well as you? To get married! Why, that is the goal of all such creatures, and there is not one of them who can understand why a man of honour should ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... return of the Court to Madrid and the battle of Almanza. Her position was as delicate as it was perilous. It was necessary to stigmatise flagrant defections, but without driving anyone altogether to desperation. She profited by the confidence she had won to bring about happily an important reform. Spain, composed of divers kingdoms successively annexed, had not yet attained unity. More than ever, after ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... depth, and the younger clearness. One good thing they both have—that is, hatred of mediocrity; but they have also both a great jealousy of the highest excellence; and, therefore, where they can neither be great themselves nor deny greatness in others, they, out of sheer desperation, fall into an outrageous strain of eulogizing. Thus they have bepraised Goethe, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... this industrial warfare are replete with lesser battles where thuggery joined hands with desperation in the struggle for wages. Evidence is not wanting that local leaders have frequently incited their men to commit acts of violence in order to impress the public with their earnestness. It is not ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... show that with all these qualifications they have been pre-eminent in energy and dignity, let us instance the 'Air Demons' of Orcagna, where there is a woman borne through the air by an Evil Spirit. Her expression is the most terrible imaginable; she grasps her bearer with desperation, looking out around her into space, agonized with terror. There are other figures in the same picture of men who have been cast down, and are falling through the air: one descends with his hands tied, his chin up, and long hair hanging from his head in a mass. One of ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... soldier when at war; the painter who is the fashion is crushed with work, the painter with no occupation, if he feels himself to be a man of genius, gnaws his entrails. Competition, rivalry, calumny assail talent. Some, in desperation, plunge into the abyss of vice, others die young and unknown because they have discounted their future too soon. Few of these figures, originally sublime, remain beautiful. On the other hand, the flagrant beauty of their heads is not understood. An artist's ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... their pig-tails, generally giving them a probe in the back before they applied the final stroke. The whole ground for some distance was strewn with the dead, while under the walls they lay still more thickly, proving the desperation with which they fought, and the hot fire poured down upon them. Captain Rogers with his men remained on shore until it was ascertained that the rebels had retreated to Pow-shun, twenty miles off, and there appeared no probability of their ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... the idea in desperation. But to his horror, once the part was achieved, the slippery and sticky effect of the flattened hair ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... was now virtually at an end. Still there were many broken bands of Indians wandering through the wilderness in a state of utter desperation; they knew that to surrender doomed them to death or to hopeless slavery. Though they were unable to wage any effective warfare, they could desolate the settlements with ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... parrot went off well, but very soon seemed to regret his rashness and, despite all Jim's endeavours, returned with solemnity to the start, where he paused and talked fluently in the mixed language that was all his own. In desperation Jim tried to pull him along, but Fudge simply walked round and round him, until he had exhausted his driver's patience, ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... of it. The overcrowded churches, the terrific increase in drugging and drinking, the sex orgies which have been taking place practically in the open in Baltimore and Philadelphia and Boston are stigmata of desperation. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... tried to buy a pair of mukluks a native woman had on, as I saw they were about the size I needed. She refused to sell, though I offered her three times their value. There was no time to argue, nor persuade, so finally in desperation her Eskimo husband and I took them off her feet, though she kicked vigorously. It saved the day for me, but it seemed ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... doing to help their function in life?' 'Are we really of any assistance to them after all?' 'Is it worth their while to come to our school?' My sympathy for the pupils was constantly growing, and I went at last in desperation to the superintendent with a plan for a revolution in the organization of my school, a revolution that I was sure would meet the needs of the community and one upon which I was willing to stake my reputation ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... increase the anger and mortification of the tyrant it was these signs of failing allegiance. What! was he to lose his hold over these boys, and that because he was unable to cope with a boy much smaller and younger than himself? Perish the thought! It nerved him to desperation, and he prepared for a still more ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... appealing to Mark for help. That—that wouldn't do, and Colonel Faversham insisted I should tell him when I would be his wife—he talked of our being married within a week or ten days. Oh dear! how hard I tried to make him understand; but I couldn't succeed, and at last in desperation a fresh idea occurred to me: I would run away! I told him to come for his answer the next morning—oh, I know ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... word that Sancho uttered, the duchess was as much delighted as Don Quixote was driven to desperation. He bade him hold his tongue, and the Distressed One went on to say: "At length, after much questioning and answering, as the princess held to her story, without changing or varying her previous declaration, the Vicar gave his decision in favour ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... him for it. Armenia rose in arms on learning the foul deed wrought upon its king; the bridges and the few practicable outlets by which the capital could be quitted were occupied by armed men; and the murderers, driven to desperation, lost their lives in an attempt to make their escape by swimming the river Araxes. Thus Artaxerxes obtained his object without having to pay the price that he had agreed upon; his dreaded rival was removed; Armenia lay at his mercy; and he had not to weaken his power ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... when Westby and the other fellows went for me after that race," confessed Irving. "If I stiffened up, I guess it was just the courage of desperation. And I don't think that amounts to much. But I've cheered up for ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... unlucky determination for the Spaniards to reach, for instead of paralyzing the pirates with fear, as he expected it would do, it simply turned their mad courage into as mad desperation. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... them in order, arose the acclamation of female voices; and the warriors, who looked back at the sound, saw that their women—their wives and daughters, their mothers and their beloved (released from their seclusion, by a policy which bespoke the desperation of the cause)—were gazing at them, with outstretched arms, from the battlements and towers. The Moors knew that they were now to fight for their hearths and altars in the presence of those who, if they failed, became slaves and harlots; and each Moslem felt his heart harden like ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of Jesse, consulting witches in his desperation, and fighting the Philistines in bloody conflicts, near Mount Gilboa, defeated and wounded, he committed suicide by falling on his sword. Thus ended the career of the first king of the ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... worse than any outcome could be, and Hervey, in another impulse of desperation, took a step to the right, then quickly another to the left. This ruse brought the two face to face. And in a flash Hervey realized that he had little to fear from one who had tried so desperately to ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... tough; the venison had not been hung long enough, and Minnie had forgotten the currant-jelly. The blanc-mange and the ices had somehow been placed near the kitchen fire; and, to crown all, Lady Angora declared that the only dish she cared for was fricasseed mice. Mrs. Tabitha, excited to desperation, jumped up from her seat with an expression of horror, as though she had been dining with a cannibal; but the effort was too much for her, for she immediately fell back in a swoon. Minnie flew to her mamma's assistance, Katty rushed ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... was dead or dying. Perhaps it was a man—at the thought the girl rose unsteadily to her feet. She could not stay alone another moment in this horrible place; she would go and find Scott, if she had to brave Angel Gonzales to do it. With a recklessness born of desperation she slid and scuffled down the side of the cliff and ran ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... couriers—but there are. My only revenge is (as Merton) to carefully pick out the unsigned canvases and ask BOSCH who painted them; whereupon, BOSCH endeavours furtively to make out the label on the frames, and then informs me in desperation, "it was 'School.'—yass, he baint him!" BOSCH kindly explains the subject of every picture in detail. He tells me a DROOCHSLOOT represents a "balsham pedder." I suppose I look bewildered, for he adds—"oppen air tance mit a village." "Hier dey vas haf a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various
... attractions of Moscow one is apt to recall a page from history and remember the heroic, self-sacrificing means which the people of this Asiatic city adopted to repel the invading and victorious enemy. It was an act of sublime desperation to place the torch within the sanctuary of Russia and destroy all, sacred and profane, so that the enemy should also be destroyed. It was the grandest sacrifice ever made to national honor by any people. "Who would have thought ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... a swelling heart. Supposing Ruth should be sent for, and hear the whole story? Miss Elton was at the door; she ran up to her in desperation. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... features of the incident, but the above outline is more than adequate to suggest the barbarism of a lot of men bent on lawlessness and revenge. Drunk with their own success, the gang now went about with even greater desperation. Everybody stood in terror of them; Custom officers were so frightened that they hardly dared to perform their duties, and the magistrates themselves were equally frightened to convict smugglers. Consequently the contraband gangs automatically ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... Tommy," said Barney angrily, for the chance of his being forced to take his brother's place, which all along had seemed to be extremely remote, had come appreciably nearer. With the energy of desperation he spent the hours of the afternoon visiting, explaining, urging, cajoling, threatening anyone of the members or adherents of the congregation at Bull Crossing in whom might be supposed to dwell the faintest echo of the spirit of the preacher. One after another, however, those ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... and generous hospitality they welcomed the first white men to their land; and were ever faithful in their friendship, till years of wrong and robbery, and want and insult, drove them to desperation and to war. They were barbarians, and their warfare was barbarous, but not more barbarous than the warfare of our Saxon and Celtic ancestors. They were ignorant and superstitious, but their condition closely resembled the condition of our British forefathers at the beginning of the Christian ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... turn, and look round, lest the slightest movement of my body so near his arm might disturb him; but poor Sir Samuel, driven to desperation by his wife's hysterical cries, pushed down the ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... To return was to run the risk of falling into the hands of the convicts, and the chance of finding the stream the others had taken was exceedingly small. There might be a dozen tributaries between him and the convicts' point, and how was he to tell which was the right one? In desperation he crawled forward to his unconscious companion and sprinkled his face again and again with ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... vanquished. He bid forty thousand. The dealer stopped; the other laughed a low laugh of insolent triumph, and a murmur of admiration was heard in the crowd. It was too much for the dealer; he felt his peace was at stake. "Fifty thousand!" exclaimed he in desperation. It was the tall man's turn to hesitate. Again the whole crowd were breathless. At length, tossing his arms in defiance, he shouted "One hundred thousand!" The crestfallen picture dealer withdrew; the tall man victoriously bore ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... a moment's thought. "You get an idea. It haunts you. It seems to clamor for expression. It begins to obsess you. At last in desperation you embody it in a poem, an essay, a story. There! it is disposed of. You are at rest. It troubles you no more. Yes; if I were a millionaire I should write, if it were only to ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... pall had fallen. It would be very natural if she should refuse even to see her—and, indeed, Ester almost hoped she would. It seemed to her that this was a woe too deep to be spoken of or endured, only she said with a kind of desperation, "Things must be endured;" and there was a wild thought in her heart, that if she could but have the ordering of events, all this bitter sorrow should never be. There came a low, tremulous knock as an interruption to her thoughts, and Maggie's ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... absolute authority of the monarch, and the exclusive worship of the Roman Church were preserved intact, the King professed himself desirous of "extinguishing the fires of rebellion, and of saving the people from the last desperation." With these slight exceptions, Philip was willing to be very benignant. "More than this," said he, "cannot and ought not be conceded." To these brief but pregnant instructions was added a morsel of advice, personal in its nature, but very characteristic of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... grows in the newly-projected squares, and all is in a state of confusion and litter. It seems as if the task of regenerating Saintes, rebuilding it from the ground, in fact, had been undertaken in a moment of desperation, and the project had been abandoned as ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... gravely also in that book, debate of the rise of these temptations, namely, blasphemy, desperation, and the like; showing that the law of Moses, as well as the devil, death, and hell, hath a very great hand therein: the which, at first, was very strange to me; but considering and watching, I found it so indeed. But of particulars here, I intend nothing; ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... fair Estelle had before concealed beneath her coquetry. While the tears of joy were bedewing her cheeks, on finding her lover safe, he like a skillful tactician pursued the advantage, and in a mock attitude of desperation threatened to rush out and cast himself amid the turbid waters of the lake, unless she at once promised to terminate his suspense by fixing the day of their marriage. The fair girl consented to throw around him, merely as she said for his preservation, the gentle authority ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... not confident of a speedy termination of the war. These people are in the wrong, but have been made to believe they are in the right—that we are the invaders of their hearthstones, come to conquer and destroy. That they will fight with desperation, I have no doubt. Nature has fortified the country for them. He is foolishly oversanguine who predicts an easy victory over such a people, intrenched amidst mountains and hills. I believe the war will run into a war of emancipation, and ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... delivered up their charge, returned with the same stolid indifference. In vain Philammon, returning, knocked at the gate. Curses and threats from the negro were all the answer which he received; and at last, wearied into desperation, he wandered away, up one street and down another, struggling in vain to form some plan of action for himself, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... that I am not able to perform it. Unless, therefore, God be favorable and merciful unto me for Christ's sake, I shall not be able, with all my vows and all my good deeds, to stand before him.' This (of Staupitz's) was not only a true, but also a godly and a holy desperation; and this must they all confess, both with mouth and heart, who will be saved. For the godly trust not to their own righteousness. They look unto Christ their reconciler who gave his life for their sins. Moreover, they know that the remnant of ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... repeated, this time a hint of desperation in his voice. "If it's a win, it's thirty quid—an' I can pay all that's owin', with a lump o' money left over. If it's a lose, I get naught—not even a penny for me to ride home on the tram. The secretary's give all that's comin' from a loser's end. Good-bye, ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... said I, "beware how you tread me down. Beware how you drive me to desperation. Cruel, heartless man! What have I done that you should follow me with this relentless spite? Can you sleep? Can you walk and live without the fear of a punishment adequate to your offence? Let me go. Be satisfied that I possess the power of exposing unheard-of turpitude ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... knows how terrible those "riots" were; when the people rose in desperation, not from some delusion of crazy, blood-thirsty "patriotism," but to get food for themselves, their wives, and children. God only knows what madness was in each individual heart of that concourse of poor wretches, styled "the mob," when every man took up arms, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... bleeding and stumbling as they ran, the blood of battle, the excitement of the chase, was hot within them. Half-wolf, half-dog, their white fangs snarling as stronger whiffs of the man-smell came to them, they were filled with the savage desperation of the youth who urged them on. The keen instinct of the wild pointed out their road to them, and they needed no guiding hand. Faithful until the last they dragged on their burden, their tongues lolling farther from their jaws, their hearts growing weaker, ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... tugged at this larger log. Under ordinary circumstances he might not have been able to have more than moved the heavy tree trunk; but keyed up to a pitch of desperation by the conditions that confronted him, he bent himself to the task with a strength equal to ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... an irony in these words of atonement and Catholic belief spoken by voices that were still hoarse with the cries of pagan desperation. ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... of desperation). It is the truth you speak; I hear it, but who taught you to speak ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... of language is possible only to the drivelling desperation of venomous or fangless duncery: it is in higher and graver matters, of wider bearing and of deeper import, that we find it necessary to dispute the apparently serious propositions or assertions of Mr. Whistler. How far the witty tongue may be thrust into the smiling ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... on in the island, and variously explained by opium and Christianity. To my eyes, there seemed no change at all, rather an extreme consistency. Mr. Corpse was afraid of his brother: King Tebureimoa is afraid of the Old Men. Terror of the first nerved him for deeds of desperation; fear of the second disables him for the least act of government. He played his part of bravo in the past, following the line of least resistance, butchering others in his own defence: to-day, grown elderly and heavy, a convert, a reader of the Bible, perhaps a penitent, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but I forbid you to hold a pen for literary composition; and once back home, you must renounce railway travelling as long as it produces uncomfortable sensations." All this was said imperatively, and although it drove my husband almost to desperation, I thanked Mr. Haden in my heart for his courageous and timely interference, and Gilbert did the same after ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al |
