"Desperately" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... adapted to shattering the nerves of a man like Van Twiller. He would imagine himself seated at the theatre (with all the members of Our Club in the parquette), watching Mademoiselle Olympe as usual, when suddenly that young lady would launch herself desperately from the trapeze, and come flying through the air like a firebrand hurled at his private box. Then the unfortunate man would wake up with cold ...
— Mademoiselle Olympe Zabriski • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... minutes of halting meditation, where men in Basque caps of a temperament other than his, surrounded him to congratulate him, he made no reply, he did not listen, he felt only the ephemeral plenitude of his own vigor, of his youth, of his will, and he said to himself that he wished to use harshly and desperately all things, to try anything, without the obstacle of vain fears, of vain church scruples, in order to take back the young girl whom his soul and his flesh desired, who was the unique ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... use, Bruce?" said Mac desperately. "I know it was wrong, but it was the only way I saw. Look here. When I got back home, with all these letters after my name and that traveling scholarship to my credit, I found sister as I told you she was—you'll ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... the Duke of Wuerttemberg and of the crown prince may be considered together, for they were combined in an effort to pierce the French line near the angle at Bar-le-Duc. General Langle held on desperately against the repeated attacks of the Duke of Wuerttemberg. Ground was lost and recovered, lost again and recovered, and every trifling vantage point of ground was fought for with a bitter intensity. Though ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Charlie's sentiments. What is so desperately trying about the Army system is that mere efflux of time puts a man who may be, and generally is, grossly stupid, in command of much more intelligent people, whose lives are at his bungling mercy. If Napoleon, who won his Italian campaign at 27, had been in the British ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... said Dr. O'Grady. "He swallowed what I said far too easily. The situation, owing to Thady Gallagher's want of presence of mind, was complex, desperately complex. I got out of it as well as any man could, but I don't deny that the explanation I gave—particularly that part about Mary Ellen being engaged to young Kerrigan, was a bit strained. I expected ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... satisfaction to a young man who has a grain of sense, and who feels that he is falling inevitably and desperately in love, to see that all the lady's family, as well as the object of his passion, are exactly the people whom he should wish of all others to make his friends for life. Here was every thing that could be desired, suitability ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... went off in the fall—then we grappled. After wrestling for a minute or two on the narrow path, we lost our footing and rolled down the rocks; neither quitted his hold, but I fell uppermost and kept him down. He struggled desperately at first; but when he found that I was much the stronger, he lay quite still, looking up into my face. I said, 'It's my turn at last. Do you ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... was glad that Miss Vivian was going to take her home. She even smiled her little pinched smile and pressed Rhoda's hand as she said, "A friend in need is a friend indeed." Rhoda would have given anything to be able to return the pressure and the sentiment, but Rhoda was too desperately sincere. She was sorry for Miss Quincey; but all her youth, unfettered and unfeeling, revolted from the bond of friendship. So she only stooped and laced up the shabby boots, and fastened the thin cape by ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... about a quarter of an hour, but in a condition too dreadful for description, quite speechless, and, by all that could be judged, out of his senses; yet so distorted with pain, and wounded so desperately beyond any power of relief, that the surgeon, who every instant expected his death, said it would not be merely useless but inhuman, to remove him till he had breathed his last. He died, therefore, in the arms of this gentleman and ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... in a frenzy of indignation. "He is not a boy, he is a girl." She still clung desperately to Josephine's hair, who in her ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... it perfectly dreadful of those men!" Helen Thurwell exclaimed suddenly. "They're more than an hour late, and I'm desperately hungry!" ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... doors and windows impatiently, then swept on again, singing through the big spaces. Each gust, as it bore down, rattled the panes, and swelled off like the others. They made me think of defeated armies, retreating; or of ghosts who were trying desperately to get in for shelter, and then went moaning on. Presently, in one of those sobbing intervals between the blasts, the coyotes tuned up with their whining howl; one, two, three, then all together—to tell us that winter was coming. This sound brought an answer from the bed—a ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... Colonel?" Doyle asked desperately. "I don't know how to do anything but farm. I can't go into the fields and work with slaves as a field hand. And I couldn't get such work to do if I'd do it. I'll die before I'll come down to it. I might rent a little farm alongside of a free nigger. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... seen to sink beneath the brave Jackson's strong arm and whirling blade. Here also fell Captains Cookson and Meade, and Lieutenant Wood, nobly cheering on their men to the attack, while Tew had died at his post at the entrance of the shikargah. Many more were desperately wounded: Colonel Pennefather and Major Wylie; Captains Tucker, Smith, Conway; Lieutenants Plowden, Harding, Thayre, Bourdillon; Ensigns ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... Fates deal more specially with kings than with common men? One is apt to imagine so, in considering the history of that royal race, in whose behalf so much fidelity, so much valour, so much blood were desperately and bootlessly expended. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... another, or restrained within doors, but went anywhere and everywhere, and began to converse. One would say to another, "I do not ask you how you are, or say how I am. It is certain we shall all go: so 'tis no matter who is sick or who is sound." And so they ran desperately into ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless, of what's past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality and desperately mortal. ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... seem, is inevitably the parent of a moral vagueness and shallowness, which may leave our age as it left the later Greeks, without an absolute standard of right or of truth, till it tries to escape from its own scepticism, as the later Neoplatonists did, by plunging desperately into any fetish-worshipping superstition which holds out to its wearied and yet impatient intellect, the bait of decisions already made for it, of objects of admiration already formed ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... stopped, the cook opened her eyes, gave one sounding screech and shut them again, and Anthea took the opportunity to get the desperately howling ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... wounding the dogs. The scene was fearful beyond description. Black night surrounded us; the fitful blaze of the fire shed a strange, unnatural light on the prostrate body of the huge dead lion, and on the wounded lioness, who fought desperately against the attack of the four gallant dogs; while the cries, roars, and groans of anguish and fury uttered by all the animals were enough to try ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... "About that business—" he began desperately; but the poet's soft, heavy hand hovered in mid-air, and Wayne sat down so suddenly that when his eyes recovered their ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... Therese ran away. I went downstairs still laughing and found her in the hall with her face to the wall and her fingers in her ears kneeling in a corner. I had to pull her out by the shoulders from there. I don't think she was frightened; she was only shocked. But I don't suppose her heart is desperately bad, because when I dropped into a chair feeling very tired she came and knelt in front of me and put her arms round my waist and entreated me to cast off from me my evil ways with the help of saints and priests. Quite a little ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... all you base your loyalty on," smiled Hygeia, and embracing Gabrielle, she kissed her desperately. "Indeed, no harm shall visit either of you," Hygeia ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... that? And I do thank you—from my heart!" And with a swift, impulsive gesture, she stretched out her hands to me. For a brief moment I hesitated, then seized them, and, drew her close. But, even as I stooped above her, she repulsed me desperately; her loosened hair brushed my eyes and lips—blinded, maddened me; my hat fell off, and all ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... offerings of flowers and fruit, rare gifts, and tender verses written on perfumed, rose-colored silk; but her favors were not to be purchased till she met Orion. Would you believe it: from the first time she saw him in Justinus' villa she fell desperately in love with him; it was all over with her; she was his as completely as the ring on my finger ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... scarce a heaven-taught soul, who has made any advances in the spiritual warfare, but could sympathize with you from experience. What have you experienced more than the Scriptures tell us: that 'the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked?' Only the Lord can search it, only he can cleanse it. He takes the prerogative to himself, and he calls it his covenant that he will make with sinners in gospel times. You may strive and fight, and resolve and vow—all will not do: you lie at his mercy for holiness as well ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... so enriched her life, was almost over; and she knew that Sylvia Gray talked of leaving Spencervale at the end of October. The Old Lady's heart felt like very lead within her at the thought, and she almost welcomed the advent of the minister's wife as a distraction, although she was desperately afraid that the minister's wife had called to ask for a subscription for the new vestry carpet, and the Old Lady simply could not afford to give ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... The color which had left his fresh cheek returned to it quickly, and he turned his eyes away. Yet he had seen nothing in his companions' eyes but affection—with even a certain kind of tender commiseration that deepened his uneasiness. "I suppose," he said desperately, after a pause, "I ought to go over to Boomville and make ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... I cannot guess—I would not if I could," answered the young girl desperately. "Hush, Alexander! Do not talk in that way. You must not. ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... tell you," Anne owned, "he had beset me, and talked so desperately that I was afraid of what he might do in that lonely place and at such an hour in the morning. I hoped he had ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for himself an enviable position as a New York architect, one who was able to strike out boldly in new lines while maintaining a reasonable respect for venerable traditions. He had served gallantly in the war and he was now, for quite understandable reasons, desperately in love ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... new fear sprang up in Henry's heart. Suppose the motor-cycle wouldn't go. Suppose he should be so slow as to miss the ferry-boat. Desperately he flung open the door and trundled his motor-cycle out to the street. The roadster was only a block ahead of him. Speedily Henry pushed the cycle along the road. The motor began to bark and Henry leaped to the saddle. In another instant he was speeding ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... pressure; it was quite stiff. I put the cup to his lips; the poor little fellow gulped down three or four mouthfuls in a convulsive manner that was terrible to see, and the water made a strange sound in his throat. He clung to me desperately, and I saw his eyes roll, as though some hidden force within were pulling at them, till only the whites were visible; his limbs were turning rigid. I screamed ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... more adequately) amongst Romans of high rank, both men and women. And for that there was high reason. In the advance of civilization, and in the corresponding decay of idolatrous religions, there was fast arising a new growth of cravings amongst men. Mythological and desperately immoral religions, that spoke only to the blind sense of power, had been giving way through the three previous centuries to a fearful extent. They had receded from the higher natures of both Greece and Rome as the sea has locally receded from many shores ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... correspondence of dialogue, situation and dramatic machinery. We are bewildered by the innumerable asides of hidden eavesdroppers, the inevitable recurrence of soliloquy and speech familiarly directed at the audience, while every once in so often a slave, desperately bent on finding someone actually under his nose, careens wildly cross the stage or rouses the echoes by unmerciful battering of doors, meanwhile unburdening himself of lengthy solo tirades with great gusto;[2] and all this dished ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... Barny was what is commonly called a leading man. Now your leading man is always jealous in an inverse ratio to the sphere of his influence, and the leader of a nation is less incensed at a rival's triumph than the great man of a village. If we pursue this descending scale, what a desperately jealous person the oracle of oyster-dredges and cockle-women must be! Such ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... There is a world of thought and feeling hidden away somewhere, and unrevealed. Who has the key? He is seeking for it everywhere, and cannot find it. Now, you know, he is a transcendentalist, so I don't mind these vagaries; yet he is desperately in earnest. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... the perversity of tradesmen and servants, or make an estimate of what was being stolen from him each month, each week, every day, every minute; Madame Fromont might enumerate her grievances against the mice, the maggots, dust and dampness, all desperately bent upon destroying her property, and engaged in a conspiracy against her wardrobes; not a word of their foolish talk remained in Claire's mind. A run around the lawn, an hour's reading on the river-bank, restored the tranquillity of that noble and ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... fatal day was drawing on when they saw before them a lone cottage by the seaside. Both their horses were knocked up, and they themselves were much fatigued and desperately hungry. Still Stephen was unwilling to approach the cottage without first ascertaining ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... good manners!' I found Federico, by this time, linked in bands of steel with a junto of desperadoes, whose calling was any thing but equivocal; and implacable to a degree, that, knowing him as I had known him, I had believed impossible. But, alas, the human heart is indeed desperately wicked. I struggled long with the excellent Father Carera to bring about a reconciliation, and thought we had succeeded, as Federico was induced to return to his father's house once more, and for many days and weeks we ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... was wading through such mammoth works as Sears's History of the World, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and the Dictionary of Sciences (and had begun to wrestle desperately with Newton's Principia!) he was showing a rare passion for chemistry. He 'annexed' the cellar for a laboratory. His mother said she counted, at one time, no less than two hundred bottles of chemicals, all shrewdly ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... comin' here to look for you, I s'pose. [He returns to the bar, whistling. Left alone with MARTHY, who stares at him with a twinkle of malicious humor in her eyes, CHRIS suddenly becomes desperately ill-at-ease. He fidgets, then ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... and I felt that when we looked at each other the whole absurdity would strike us, and I should never be able to face these lovers again without a furious blush. As the day crept on, I stole a glance at Tubal Cain. He was scraping away desperately—with his eyes shut. For us the dance had become weariness, but we went on and on. We were afraid ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... himself of this, he plunged desperately into a forlorn attempt to make head or tail of Belgian railway schedule, complicated as these of necessity are by the alternation from normal time notation to the abnormal system sanctioned by the government, and vice-versa, with every train that crosses a boundary ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... the candle behind them guttered and blew in the window cracks, and the cluster of stars, still caught in the dirty roofs and chimneys of Bucket Lane, twinkled, desperately—in vain. ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... definite classes in the old scheme of functional precedence have melted and mingled,[25] and in the molten mass there has appeared a vast intricate confusion of different sorts of people, some sailing about upon floating masses of irresponsible property, some buoyed by smaller fragments, some clinging desperately enough to insignificant atoms, a great and varied multitude swimming successfully without aid, or with an amount of aid that is negligible in relation to their own efforts, and an equally varied multitude of less capable ones clinging ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... said desperately, "if I have to listen to about two more awfully noble lectures, I'm going to get drunk. I have a hunch that college isn't anything like what these old birds say it is. ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... announced my godmother had come in hot haste from her cousin's dying bed, which now she hardly left, to remonstrate with my grandfather and grandmother. She had urged and pleaded with them, had done all she could, seeing that she was, as she said to me, desperately sorry for them, and had finally left them ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... thought it desperately wild, and Mrs. Dodd preferred employing a respectable attorney to try and obtain justice in the regular way. Sampson laughed at her; what was the use of attacking in the regular way an irregular genius like old Hardie? ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... negative conclusion would, I believe, be desperately hasty, a sort of pouring out of the child with the bath. Logically it is possible to believe in superhuman beings without identifying them with the absolute at all. The treaty of offensive and defensive ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... The Spanish landed at night, and on the morning found a great multitude of savages opposed to them, and fought for life, but were overwhelmed by thousands of warriors. The Admiral was in white armor, and fighting desperately, was at last wounded in his sword arm, and then in the face, and leg. He was deserted by his men, who sought to save themselves in the water, and killed many of his enemies, but his helmet and skull were crushed at one blow by a frantic savage with a huge club. There were thirty-two ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... friends. I knew it would distress you. I—wanted to spare you that! You were a good comrade to me; we were like chums. Yes, we were chums. No friend could have been dearer to me than you, Miss Moore. I never had a sister, you know. I—I thought of you that way, and I—" He was struggling desperately to save the girl, but his incoherent words died on his lips when he felt her come close and lay her ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... Mr. Gibson collected his poems in one thick volume of some five hundred and fifty pages. This is convenient for reference, but desperately hard to read, on account of the soggy weight of the book. Here we have, however, everything that he has thus far written which he thinks worth preserving. The first piece, Akra the Slave (1904), is a romantic monologue in free verse. Although rather short, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... bawling ribald songs, others moaning with fever. The strongest kept the window-ledges near light and air by sheer main force, and were dicing on the dirty sill. The turnkey pushed and banged his way through them, Nick clinging desperately ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... before the Normans had fought their way in, and on each of these occasions the duke warmly expressed his admiration for the courage of his English allies. At last there remained but one formidable stronghold to be captured, and so strong was this by nature, and so desperately defended, that for some time the efforts of the besiegers ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... the coach at eight o'clock in the morning at Brighton took his seat perhaps opposite a young lady whom he thought pretty and interesting. When he arrived at Cuckfield he began to be in love; at Crawley he was desperately smitten; at Reigate his passion became irretrievable, and when he gave her an arm to ascend the steep ridges of Reigate Hill—a just emblem, by the way, of human life—he declared his passion, and they were married soon after. Nothing of this sort ever occurs on railroads. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... slaughtered a cow—that sole unforgivable sin—to save one of her eyelashes: the absolute king would not drink a cup of water without her permission; the staid philosopher, the sober quietist, to win from her the shadow of a smile, would have danced before her like a singing-girl. So desperately enamoured became ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... into the school," she said. "I hope to do wonders there. I mean to take every scrap of good the place opens out to me. I mean to work as hard as ever I can. You shall be desperately proud of me; and so shall granny, although she doesn't hold with ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... pause—"Will you burn the village for vengeance?" asked the Malay with a quick glance down at the dead Lascar who, on his face and with stretched arms, seemed to cling desperately to that earth of which ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... was the answer, spoken with a hint of bitterness in the tone. "That is, I'm seriously bored—desperately bored, for the matter of that. I tell you, Aunt Emma, a married woman must have something to do. As for me, why, I have absolutely nothing to do. Those other women, too, or at least most of them, have nothing to do, and ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... that he is what he is not and what nobody else is. If we take any prominent politician of the day—such, for example, as Sir William Harcourt—we shall find that this is the point in which all party invective fails. The Tory satire at the expense of Sir William Harcourt is always desperately endeavouring to represent that he is inept, that he makes a fool of himself, that he is disagreeable and disgraceful and untrustworthy. The defect of all this is that we all know that it is untrue. Everyone knows that Sir William ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... was expected; promptly assembled his forces; marched against the army of the King of Spain; engaged it, and obliged it, all astonished, to retire under Saragossa. This ill-success fell entirely on Villadarias, who was accused of imprudence and negligence. The King of Spain was desperately in want of generals, and M. de Vendome, knowing this, and sick to death of banishment, had asked some little time before to be allowed to offer his services. At first he was snubbed. But the King of Spain, who eagerly wished for M. de Vendome, despatched ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... remain at home. He had chosen Friday as his day, and Mme. Walter never invited anyone else on that evening; it belonged to Bel-Ami. Often in a dark corner or behind a tree in the conservatory, Mme. Walter embraced the young man and whispered in his ear: "I love you, I love you! I love you desperately!" ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... before the foe was upon him, he drew off his soldiers to the second wall, a quarter of a mile or more away, and here the fight began again. And so it went on for hour after hour, as one by one the fortifications were carried by the weight of numbers, for the attackers fought desperately under the eye of their prince, caring nothing for the terrible loss they suffered in men. Twice the force of the defenders was changed by order of Nodwengo, fresh men being sent from the companies held in reserve to take the places of those who had borne ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... with—the dread, the awful days! I am not going to be hysterical any more, and you—you are just going to remember that we have everything we want in the world. Sit down opposite to me, if you please, and fill my glass. I have only one emotion left. I am hungry—desperately hungry. Move your chair nearer so that I can reach your hand. There! Now you and I will ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... apprehension of financial disaster, frustrate the bodily functions, disconcert the organic processes, and lead to mental aberration as well as physical degeneracy. Melancholy is chronic, while despair is acute mania, whose impulses drive the victim desperately toward self-destruction. The chronic derangement of these organs exerts with less force the same morbid tendency. Hence the necessity for exercising those hygienic and countervailing influences born of resolution, assurance, and confident ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... volatile and capricious to pay his devotions at any particular shrine for more than a week together. It was this cold neglect of the honourable's that has, perhaps, secured him from mention in her Memoirs; since Harriette never speaks of her beaux without giving the reader to suppose they were desperately in love with herself: then there was more of the dignified in an affair with an earl, and Madame Harriette has a great notion of preserving her consequence, although, it must be confessed, she has latterly ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... papal favour by persecuting his own protestant subjects, and to encourage the protestant subjects of the Emperor, according as one course or the other seemed more likely to embarrass Charles. Finally the Pope, while set upon the suppression of the Lutheran heretics, was desperately afraid of the accession of strength to Charles which would result from their complete disappearance as a political factor: and he was almost equally afraid that if a Council could not be carried through, Charles would call a national Synod of the Empire to settle ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... overview: Since independence from Ethiopia in 1993, Eritrea has faced the economic problems of a small, desperately poor country. Like the economies of many African nations, the economy is largely based on subsistence agriculture, with 80% of the population involved in farming and herding. The Ethiopian-Eritrea war in 1998-2000 severely ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... his best and flung himself desperately into the thick of every scrimmage. The whole team did its best, but Harvard would not be denied. By short rushes they fought their way down, down, and at last across the goal line—and the game was won. There were only three minutes left to play, ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... Her wishes take flight with the feathered songsters, but Tonio brings her rudely to earth. He pleads for a return of the love which he says he bears her, but she bids him postpone his protestations till he can make them in the play. He grows desperately urgent and attempts to rape a kiss. She cuts him across the face with a donkey whip, and he goes away blaspheming and ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... The newcomers threw themselves into the fight with great gallantry, and maintained their ground until almost annihilated by the fire of the enemy, who outnumbered them by five to one. As, fighting desperately, they fell back before Hunter's division, the Federals who had crossed at Red House Ford suddenly poured down ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... them. It is said that the younger ruffian, Charlioch, might have escaped, being remarkably swift of foot. But his crime became his punishment, for the female whom he had outraged had defended herself desperately, and had stabbed him with his own dirk in the thigh. He was lame from the wound, and was the more easily overtaken ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... I should fall desperately in love with this simple shepherdess—I who have resisted the sea-green glances and smiles of the sirens that dwell in the Parisian ocean? Have I escaped from the Marquise's Israelite turbans only to become a slave to a straw bonnet? I have passed safe and ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... must indeed be some misdeed in her to evoke so impassioned a storm. She had a curious and disconcerting sense of responsibility for his dancing exasperation, she felt she was to blame for it, just as years ago she had felt she was to blame for his tears when he had urged her so desperately to marry him. Some irrational instinct made her want to allay him. It is the supreme feminine weakness, that wish to allay. But she was also clinging desperately to her resolution to proclaim her other forthcoming engagements. Her will hung on to that as a man hangs on ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... of brick heated pretty well when Doris went to bed. For it was desperately cold. But the soft feathers came up all around one, and in a little while she was as warm as toast. She did not even wake when Martha came to bed. Sometimes Betty cuddled the dear little human ball, and only half awake Doris would return the ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Smoke strove desperately to pass during the exchange of sleds. Lifting his dogs to the effort, he ate up the intervening fifty feet. With urging and pouring of leather, he went to the side and on until his lead-dog was jumping ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... Alpes-Maritimes, near Mentone. All the young people of the place being assembled in a dancing-room, one of the young men was seen to fall suddenly to the ground, whilst a young woman, his partner, brandished a poniard, and was preparing to inflict a second blow on him, having already desperately wounded him in the stomach. The author of the crime was at once arrested. She declared her name to be Marie P——, twenty-one years of age, and added that she had acted from a motive of revenge, the young man having led her astray formerly with a promise of marriage, ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... move. First, when he discovered that the long trail he followed was definitely fruitless, he was filled with a great desire to cut himself away from his past and make a new start. Secondly, when he learned that Rusty Dick had been killed by Joe, he wanted desperately to get the throttle of the latter under his thumb. If ever a man risked his life to avoid a sin, it was Donnegan jumping from the train to keep ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... largest warriors marched in a ring round the tents and booty, singing, with the deepest and most solemn tones, the song of thanksgiving. At a little distance the grey uncertain light disclosed four or five men, lying desperately hurt, whilst their kinsmen kneaded their limbs, poured water upon their wounds, and placed lumps of dates in their stiffening hands. [11] As day broke, the division of plunder caused angry passions to rise. The dead and dying were abandoned. ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... here. These blood spots have been put here to deceive. Besides, would not the murderer have carried off these things? For what else would he have murdered her? But, oh! foolish despair! What speak I of? For, wicked as the world is—ay! desperately wicked—there is not, on all the surface of the wide earth, a hand that would murder our child! Is it not plain as the sun in the heaven, that Lucy has been stolen by some ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... always saying: 'Kitty dear, beauty is only skin deep, and don't be set up by it, child. Handsome is that handsome does, Kitty.' Oh, how she would deave me with that old proverb. But here they seem to think beauty is a talent, and I ought to be desperately proud of it. Oh, faith, but why do I think of these things when my precious duck of a Laurie is in the mess he has got into. He go to England to break his heart, the darling! Not a bit of it; not while his Kitty has her wits ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... extraordinary rapidity, passed Daun, hastened into Silesia, raised the siege of Neisse, and drove Harsch into Bohemia. Daun availed himself of the King's absence to attack Dresden. The Prussians defended it desperately. The inhabitants of that wealthy and polished capital begged in vain for mercy from the garrison within, and from the besiegers without. The beautiful suburbs were burned to the ground. It was clear that the town, if won at all, would be won street by street by ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... remembered. One of those fitful flaws of wind to which the lake is so liable struck the sail suddenly, and over went my boat. My feet got tangled in the sheet somehow, and I could not get free. I had hard work to keep my head above water, and I struggled desperately to escape from my toils; for if the boat were to go down I should be dragged down with her. I thought of a good many things in the course of some four or five minutes, I can tell you, and I got ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... said to Marietta. "You've proved it to the hilt. I 've seen the person, and the object is more desperately lost than ever." ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... ended, Thea's hands and feet were cold as ice. She was too much excited to know anything except that she wanted something desperately, and when the English horns gave out the theme of the Largo, she knew that what she wanted was exactly that. Here were the sand hills, the grasshoppers and locusts, all the things that wakened and chirped in the ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... of Aquila, ever foremost, fought desperately on. Not only with his sword fought he, but with his horse as well. Rearing the beast on its hind legs, he would swing it round and let it descend where least it was expected, laying about him with his sword at the same time. In vain ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... isn't as innocent as a new-born babe. He's a good rider and a good herder, and we've never had any fault to find with the way he does his work. But you know as well as I do that we didn't know a thing about him when he came riding along looking for a job. We were short-handed then and needed men desperately, and so we hired him, but I made up my mind that as soon as things got slack, and we had to lay some of the men off, he'd be the first to go. There may be good Indians and good Mexicans, and it may be my misfortune that I never met them. But Pedro is a half-breed—half Mexican ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... of the old, square style, and her long main boom and immense spread of jib gave her a tremendous sail area for her tonnage. The breeze had held steadily since sundown and was, if anything, rising a little. Short seas slapped and gurgled at the forefoot with a pleasant sound. Jeremy, desperately tired, had dropped by the mast, scarcely caring what happened to him. The sloop slid out past the dark headlands, and heeled to leeward with a satisfied grunt of her cordage that came gently to the boy's ears. His head sank to the deck and he ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... is too desperately cold I retire into the parlour, but there really is hardly a day in the whole year that I do not spend some hours here. But ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... fault," she whispered desperately. "Perhaps I have asked too much, and waited too long. Perhaps they see—what I do not—and women lie—and I only think I feel! Perhaps I am weathered and inflexible, and hard and old and cold, and they know, and ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... I can, Mhtoon Pah," said Hartley, desperately. "I can't go and arrest Leh Shin on suspicion, because there isn't a vestige of suspicion ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... that it would turn up anything, but it was a chance. And Malone hoped desperately for it, because he was beginning to be sure that the field agents were never going to turn ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... Miranda, pallid, scared, but desperately resolved, had gone, Rilla flew to the telephone and put in a long-distance call for Charlottetown. She got through with such surprising quickness that she was convinced Providence approved of her undertaking, but it was a good hour before she could get in touch with Joe Milgrave at his camp. ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... her to see that if Anne's mother would be always Anne's mother, his wife would be always his wife. Was he desperately faithful, too? Always? ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... outrun his imagination; that poets and painters are too puny to grapple with the world as it is. Certainly a visitor from another sphere, looking on our fantastic and exciting civilization, would find little reflection of it in the Christmas card. He would find us clinging desperately to what we have been taught to believe was picturesque and jolly, and afraid to assert that the things of to-day are comely too. Even on the basis of discomfort (an acknowledged criterion of picturesqueness) ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... freight traffic. They were competing with the facilities and rates offered by the boats on lake and canal and by the pipe-lines. All these means of transporting oil cut into the business of the railroads, and they were desperately anxious to successfully meet this competition. As I have stated we provided means for loading and unloading cars expeditiously, agreed to furnish a regular fixed number of car-loads to transport each day, and arranged with them for all the other things that I have mentioned, the final ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... He was waiting to help me, and looked as fresh as if he hadn't spent eighteen hours in the train. He said I looked fresh, too; but if I did it must have been excitement, as I'd written half the night and dreamed desperately the other half, about Potter Parker—dressed like one of those Red Indians they have for cigar signs in New York—pursuing me with a ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... leaving his wife with an only daughter. Pavenham retired from business in South America, and came back with his son to his native village, where he meant to spend the rest of his days. Tom and Margaret were at once desperately smitten with one another. The father and mother have kept their own flame alive, and I believe it is as bright as it ever was. It is delightful to see them together. They called on me with the children after ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... the extreme left of the enemy's position. The 72nd Highlanders, the 5th Ghurkas, and the 29th Native Infantry were told off for the service, and started after nightfall. At daybreak they came upon the enemy's pickets, and a fierce fight took place, the Afghans defending themselves desperately. Captain Kelso brought up his battery of mountain guns, and did good service in aiding the infantry, who were all fiercely engaged. He himself, however, ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... is, faith, quite a comedy. But the result has been that I have had my meals alone, which is not so gay. Sophia is in bed, it turns out; Rupert out a-riding, on important business, of course! all he does is desperately important. And there you are—alone in your room, moping. God, child, how pale you are! ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... physician. Jason of Pheres being given over by the physicians, by reason of an imposthume in his breast, having a mind to rid himself of his pain, by death at least, threw himself in a battle desperately into the thickest of the enemy, where he was so fortunately wounded quite through the body, that the imposthume broke, and he was perfectly cured. Did she not also excel the painter Protogenes in his art? who having finished ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... had been badly gassed had jumpy hearts. But how was he ever going to get any better lying there on his back? What he needed was exercise and decent food and something cheerful to think about. He wanted desperately to get away from his memories, to forget the horrors, the sickening sights and smells, the turmoil and confusion of the past two years. In spite of his most heroic efforts, he kept living over past events. This time last year he had been up in the Toul sector, where half the men he knew had ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... announced ['Lord of the Isles'], and I am cut out. I wish I had been in Scotland six weeks ago, and I might have come in for a share. Should I apply for one to him, it would oblige me to be a partner with Constable, who is desperately in want of money. He has applied to Cadell & Davies (the latter told me in confidence) ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... desperately each man was needed, and how little was his desire to withdraw, as the fact that the wounded lay where they fell until the hospital stewards found them. Their comrades did not use them as an excuse to go to leave the ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... I ought to have married you,' she said firmly. 'It was my only safe defence. I see more things now than I did yesterday. My only remaining chance is not to be discovered; and that we must fight for most desperately.' ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... chair, struck many matches, pulled desperately at his pipe, stared at Ronder with a curious mixture of shyness and eagerness that betrayed his youth and his sense of Ronder's importance. Ronder began by talking easily about nothing at all, a diversion for which he had an especial talent. Falk ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... towards the promenade. "Of course, I can't prevent you walking with me if you will," she answered. But it was because she felt that her curiosity might betray her that she desperately slammed the door of opportunity in his face by adding: "I suppose you know you are safe here to worry me as much as you like. You won't come across Uncle ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... Rodolph now? In the midst of the fray, fighting desperately and successfully. The moment he saw the battle raging in open field, and beheld the blood flowing from the wounds of his countrymen, he forgot all else except that his strong right arm wielded a trusty blade; and its skilful stroke soon brought another of the red warriors to the ground, and ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... ladies of the Duchy, of whatsoever station, calling, age, appearance, wit, or character, conceiving each of them that she, and no other, should become the Duchess, sturdily refused all offers of marriage (although they were many of them as desperately enamored as virtuous ladies may be), and did nought else than walk, drive, ride, and display their charms in the park before the windows of the ducal palace. And thus it fell out that when a week ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... return to the show with which he used to perform, and desperately in need of money. Have you thought that Gregg might have had a hand in this affair? Dunn said he had, although he was not present at ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... out as hard as they could for the shore, trying to keep abreast of the waves that threatened to overpower them. The next moment there was a chorus of wild, agonized shrieks, and the little cockle-shell of a boat whirled rapidly past, upside down, the young man and one girl clinging desperately to it, with white, terror-stricken faces. The other girl was nowhere to be seen. She rose in a few seconds, however, struggling violently, and sank again; then, when she came up for the second time, she had drifted a good distance farther ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... cat!" she repeated. It almost seemed as if her love for Aunt Blin let loose more desperately her denunciations. There is something in human nature which turns most passionately,—if it does turn,—upon ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... already ridden through them and had now raised their rifles to decimate them. The British threw down their arms and the Indians, with the exception of Tecumseh and a chosen few fled, yelling, through the woods. Tecumseh fought desperately, even with the mounted rifles. He sprang upon their leader, Colonel Johnson, wounded him and pulled him to the earth. But, at this moment, Johnson's faithful dragoons spurred to his rescue. Tecumseh was surrounded and pierced with bullets. Raising his hands aloft, to ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... miserable, and had a strange poetic or tragic relation to his entrance. My father was out of town; I was away in England. Whether it was that the absence of my father had relaxed his power of moral restraint, or whether through neglect of the servant he had been desperately hungry, or most likely both being true, Toby was discovered with the remains of a cold leg of mutton, on which he had made an ample meal;[5] this he was in vain endeavoring to plant as of old, in the hope of its remaining undiscovered till to-morrow's hunger returned, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... elephant, having just heard his name (for the first time) and not altogether liking it, is turning towards Adam in surprised remonstrance. The second procession is of reptiles, led by the snail; the third, the smaller quadrupeds, led by four rats, followed desperately close (but of course under the white flag) by two cats; while the fourth—all sorts and conditions of birds—streams through the air. The others in this series are all delightful, not the least being that in which God, having finished His work, takes Adam's ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... after lights. With a dread of being alone he attached a few friends, but since they were not among the elite of the school, he used them simply as mirrors of himself, audiences before which he might do that posing absolutely essential to him. He was unbearably lonely, desperately unhappy. ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... November 2, 1862. Bragg fell back to Murfreesboro', in Tennessee, and the city of Nashville, now in Federal possession, became the gage of battle. On December 26 Rosecrans moved out from that city towards Murfreesboro', and on January 2, 1863, the battle of Stone's River took place. It was desperately contested, and the losses were heavy. At the close of the day the advantage rested with the Confederates; but it was inconsiderable, and both sides considered the battle only begun. On the next day, however, Bragg found such dangerous demoralization among his troops ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... come into his heritage of legitimate fame. Now that a full century has elapsed since his tragic death, his place is well assured among the greatest dramatic and narrative authors of Germany. A brave man struggling desperately against hopeless odds, a patriot expending his genius with lavish unselfishness for the service of his country in her darkest days, he has been found worthy by posterity to stand as the most famous son of a faithful ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... lurched on through the storm, a mere semblance of the gallant craft she had appeared to be on leaving port. And those aboard labored desperately to keep ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... the group, Bertha Levy, a Jewess too, spoke out, "think how stupid I am. Mamma has promised me a small tea-party to-morrow night, and this wretched rain had well-nigh caused me to forget it; but, thank fortune, it's giving way a little, and maybe we shall all get home after awhile. I'm desperately hungry! Of course, you will all promise me to come, and I shall expect you." Then, turning to Helen, ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... was, he settled desperately upon the one site that common sense should have made him avoid. Nor was it until the foundations of the house had been laid, and the walls were already half their full height, that he realized, from the desolation of refuse and garbage ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... sad procession came in. Here a van with four or five desperately wounded stretched on its floor; now a buggy with a faint and bandaged form resting on the driver; again the jolting coal cart with the still, stiff figure, covered by the blanket and not needing the rigid upturned feet to tell the story. The hospitals were ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... telling them to keep watch for serpents.) The nearer the cutlassers approach the end of their task, the greater the danger: for the reptiles, retreating before them to the last clump of cane, become massed there, and will fight desperately. Regularly as the ripening-time, Death gathers his toll of human lives from among the workers. But when one falls, another steps into the vacant place,—perhaps the Commandeur himself: these dark swordsmen never retreat; all the blades swing swiftly as before; ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... granted. Then there was the six months waiting for the decree to be made absolute. The King's Proctor made inquiries, it was found that the wife also desired her freedom; the divorce was refused on the ground of collusion. Four people were rendered desperately unhappy, compelled either to part or to live together without marriage. This, as was to be expected, they did, and children were ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... in Savannah, Georgia. The Editor who states the fact, adds, with as much coolness as though there was no barbarity in the matter, that he did not surrender until he was considerably maimed by the dogs[A] that had been set on him,—desperately fighting them, one of which he cut badly ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... turn about and escape from that spot of death, the cannon crashed together. There was not room for all the men and horses and guns. Most of them were compelled to plunge into the undergrowth and struggle desperately ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... inveighed bitterly, as he had wont to do, against dry-fisted patrons, accusing them of his untimely death, because if they had given his Muse that cherishment which she most worthily deserved, he had fed to his dying day on fat capons, burnt sack and sugar, and not so desperately have ventured his life and shortened his days by keeping company ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... that the water was still sufficiently deep around them to prevent the waves from breaking. Breakers there were, however, in thousands, on every side; and the seamen understood that their situation was almost desperately perilous, without shipwreck coming to ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... he said desperately, "do you think there'd be any chance of my getting an introduction to the ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... moving and manuring and fretting and fuming and rushing desperately up and down turnpikes with bundles and baskets, and have arrived at the end of the week barely in order. Yesterday, in the midst, while I was escorting a huge wagon of that invaluable farming wealth, I encountered Mrs. Pratt and family making their reappearance ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... Jim was clutching desperately to the saddle-horn. The fever was gaining on him and the delirium worse. He talked incessantly, sometimes incoherently. From one subject to another he went, but always he came back to Dave Roush and his brother. ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... soldiers, I suppose; and the dogs were howling, and the moon shining, and the mosquitoes singing. They got their fill last night—came through a hole in the mosquito curtains, and our raid on them in the morning ended eight of their lives; but we were desperately wounded! G. got eight bites on one hand, which is serious, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... heart the errors under which "the Army of the Potomac was here beaten without ever being fought," as well as boast with equal pride, not only of the abundant courage displayed by either side, but of the calm skill with which Gen. Lee wrested victory from a situation desperately compromised, and of the genius of that greatest of his lieutenants, Thomas J. Jackson, who here sealed with his blood his fidelity to the cause he loved ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... asked. He was desperately in earnest, and that which made him a good sportsman—an unmatched big-game hunter, calm and self-possessed in any strait—gave him a strange deliberation now, which Millicent Chyne could ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... splendid eyes strangely wide open and shining. I don't know what I said or did; I tried to get her away, but it was too late. The others had heard us, and appeared at the open window. Jack came forward at once, speaking rapidly, fiercely; telling her to leave the house at once; promising desperately that he would see her in his own rooms on the morrow. Well I remember how ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... mane and hung on desperately until he finally succeeded in righting himself, all the while kicking the pony's sides with his bare feet to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin |
