|
|
|
More "Despondency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... despondency, this disposition to admire what has been done, and to expect that nothing more will be done, is strongly characteristic of all the schools which preceded the school of Fruit and Progress. Widely as the Epicurean and the Stoic differed on most points, they seem to have ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to have created a nervousness, a sense of dread, before which I was absolutely helpless. I cannot tell you how hopelessly or fearfully I suffered, or what depths of despondency and despair and blackness I was cast into. I cannot understand how a creature could so manufacture torments for itself. But this is not all, just for once have mercy—and yet even now I ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... dictum of Sir John Seeley has rendered famous, took possession of some of the maritime provinces of Burma, and in doing so lost three thousand one hundred and fifteen men, of whom only a hundred and fifty were killed in action. Then the customary fit of doubt and despondency supervened. It was not until four years after the conclusion of peace that a British Resident was sent to the Court of Ava in the vain hope that he would be able to negotiate the retrocession of the province of Tenasserim, as "the Directors of the East India Company looked upon this territory ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... expression of woe is more manly and intense; in the group as we know it, the head of the principal figure has always seemed to me to be a grimace of grief, as are the two accompanying young gentlemen with their pretty attitudes, and their little silly, open-mouthed despondency. It has always had upon me the effect of a trick, that statue, and not of a piece of true art. It would look well in the vista of a garden; it is not august enough for a temple, with all its jerks and twirls, and polite convulsions. ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... looked at each other with deep despondency expressed in their countenances. They were haggard and worn from exposure, anxiety, and want of rest; and as they stood there in their wet, torn garments, they looked the very picture ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... should be restored to liberty, and that he had an important secret, which he would one day communicate. I should have been more tantalized with the expectations that these remarks were calculated to raise, had I not suspected them to be a good-natured artifice, to save me from despondency, as they were never made except when he saw me looking serious ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... he did not join the searchers himself or encourage us boys to do so. I think that both he and grandmother Ruth partly feared that, as the old lady quaintly expressed it, "Jonathan had been left to take his own life," in a fit of despondency. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... no time for repining; still less for any yielding on my part to a feeling of despondency. I therefore called the hands under the lee of the long-boat, and in a few brief words stated to them our position, exhorted them with all the earnestness of which I was master to be cool and self-possessed at the critical moment, and to put their trust in the mercy of God; impressing upon them ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... however, no runaway horse to-day; but suddenly a great silence came over the people, and a sullen gloom that made a great despondency in my mind without my knowing why. Public solemnity affects even the youngest of us. At ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Despondency is largely a matter of physical condition, and I was still sufficiently fagged to be in the depths, when the door opened suddenly, and an ordinary army ration was placed within. The soldier who brought it did not speak, nor did I attempt to address him; but after he retired, the ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... all that it contains will pass away. The fondest ties will be broken; the brightest hopes will fade; all its joys are transient; its interests meteoric, and the fireside of cheerfulness will ere long become the scene of despondency. Every swing of the pendulum of the clock tells that the time of its probation is becoming shorter and shorter, and that its members are approaching nearer and nearer the period of ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... eventually to fretful but frightful sleep. Always I awoke panting with thirst, stiff and strained, and with unmanly cries of fear and pain on my lips, while the chaste stars danced across the narrow slit as I strove to stem the turbid stream of despondency. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... take place the following night; far from that, we enjoyed a degree of satisfaction, so fully were we persuaded that the boats would come to our relief. The day was fine, and the most perfect tranquillity prevailed on our raft. The evening came, and the boats did not appear. Despondency began again to seize all our people, and a mutinous spirit manifested itself by cries of fury; the voice of the officers was wholly disregarded. When the night came, the sky was covered with thick clouds; the ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... last, Mozart's health caused me much anxiety, on account of his increasing nervousness and despondency. Although he was now and then in unnaturally high spirits when in company, yet at home he was generally silent and depressed, or sighing and ailing. The physician recommended dieting and exercise in the country. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the prince answered him has been preserved, and well illustrates the lofty tones of his communications in this crisis of the fate of Holland. He reprimanded with gentle but earnest eloquence the despondency and want of faith of his lieutenant and other adherents. He had not expected, he said, that they would have so soon forgotten their manly courage. They seemed to consider the whole fate of the country attached to the city of Haarlem. ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... moment of her stepping forward in the octagon room to speak to him, the moment of Mr. Elliot's appearing and tearing her away, and one or two subsequent moments, marked by returning hope or increasing despondency, ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... this last assertion most positively.—Mrs. Wharton understood this; and her attitude of despondency was the most ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... married lady, who returned his attachment, but who was soon obliged to accompany her husband to Switzerland. Alfieri, whose feelings were of the most impetuous description, was in despair at this separation, and returned to his own country in the utmost anguish and despondency of mind. While under this depression of spirits he was induced to seek alleviation from works of literature; and the perusal of Plutarch's Lives, which he read with profound emotion, inspired him with an enthusiastic passion for freedom and independence. Under the influence of this rage ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... which she now looked upon as inevitable.——A man, who sat upon the boot of the carriage, was suddenly struck with the fervency of her devotion, and turning round, said, He had as much authority as any other man there, and that the lady should do as she pleased. Elevated a little from her despondency by this expression, Mrs. Tyrrell gave him her gold watch, promising him any further reward he would demand, if he would procure her liberty.——At this time a person in the garb of an officer, and whose countance beamed with the rays of humanity, rode ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... fortunes, and has proved herself worthy of every confidence that has been reposed in her. She is my inseparable companion in the tent, in the field, and on the road, by night and by day. Give not way to despondency, dear Julia. Fortune, which has so long smiled upon me, is not now about to forsake me. There is no day so long and bright that clouds do not sail by and cast their little shadows. But the sun is behind them. Our army is still great and in good heart. The soldiers receive me, whenever ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... she bore the reverse of fortune with that equanimity which seems to be peculiar to the French, and which only lofty characters, or people of considerable mental resources, are able to assume or feel. Most rich men, when they lose their money, give way to despondency and grief, conscious that they have nothing to fall back upon; that without money they are nothing. Madame Recamier at once sold her jewels and plate, and her fine hotel was offered for sale. Neither she nor her husband sought to retain anything amid the wreck, and they ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... and pungency of the Boston air, which is as delicious in summer as it is terrible in winter; and the faces that showed themselves were sodden from the yesterday's heat and perspiration. A corner-grocer, seated in a sort of fierce despondency upon a keg near his shop door, had lightly equipped himself for the struggle of the day in the battered armor of the day before, and in a pair of roomy pantaloons, and a baggy shirt of neutral tint—perhaps he had made a vow not to change it whilst the siege of the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... perplexed, feeling that something ought to be done to stem the torrent, and at the same time were astonished and troubled to find that perhaps a next-door neighbor sympathized with the rebellion and predicted its entire success. The social atmosphere was thick with doubt, heavy with despondency, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... conversation, feeling that every word must have its weight not only upon things of this world, but of the next. As to the cardinal, at that moment he had but one thought—his donation. It was not physical pain which gave him that air of despondency, and that lugubrious look; it was the expectation of the thanks that were about to issue from the king's mouth, and cut off all hope of restitution. Mazarin was the first to break the silence. "Is your majesty come to make any stay at Vincennes?" ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... women who have the burdens of life too soon and too heavily laid upon them. Her black hair was even streaked here and there with gray. But with all this there was not the least trace of impatience or despondency in that all-enduring face. When grave, its expression was that of resignation; when gay—and even she could be gay at times—its smile was as sunny as Leonora's own. Hannah had a lover as patient as Job, or as herself, a poor fellow who had been constant to her for twelve ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... not of a disposition to give way to despondency, but sombre thoughts would intrude. I began to fear that I might not be able to rejoin my friends; that they, unable to find me, would suppose that I had met with some accident, and would at length ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... given to Toby to suggest, though, alas! when too late, the only sensible line of action. For some time, indeed ever since they left Caen, the dog had walked on a little ahead of his party, with his tail drooping, his whole attitude one of utter despondency. ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... they were from victory, in their arms, flocked round the corpse, piling up near it, as a trophy, the arms of their slain enemies. They cut off the manes of their horses, and their own hair, and many went off to their tents, lit no fire, and ate no supper, but there was such silence and despondency in the whole camp as would have befitted men who had been defeated and enslaved by the tyrant, not who had just won a great and glorious victory ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... end of you!" she exclaimed the evening before Eleanor was to sail. "This is the end of your life and expectations! To look at you and think of it!" Despondency could ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... In their despondency there is an element of dread. The fear of ghosts and of the dark is very deeply written in the mind of the Polynesian; not least of the Marquesan. Poor Taipi, the chief of Anaho, was condemned to ride to Hatiheu ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... though Sarah refused to acknowledge the force of all she said, it had its effect, and she gradually lost her hold on her new belief. But losing that, she lost all hope. "Wormwood and gall" were her portion, and, while she fulfilled the outward duties of religion, dreariness and settled despondency took possession of her mind. ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... gradually changed. The burdens of absolute government, disappointments, the alienation of friends, and the bitter experiences which all sovereigns must learn soured his temper, which was naturally amiable, and made him a prey to terror and despondency. No longer was he the frank, generous, chivalrous, and magnanimous prince who had called out general admiration, but a disappointed, suspicious, terrified, and prematurely old man, flying from one part of his dominions to another, as if to avoid the assassin's ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... at Kyak there had been a period of fierce rejoicing, which had ended abruptly with the receipt of O'Neil's curt cablegram announcing the attitude of the Trust. Gloom had succeeded the first surprise, deepening to hopeless despondency through the days that followed. Oddly enough, Slater had been the only one to bear up; under adversity he blossomed into a peculiar and almost offensive cheerfulness. It was characteristic of his crooked temperament that misfortune awoke in him ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... fold his hands in resignation rather than open them in hope. He alone of all the great poets of his day remained undazzled by the glitter of the Caesarian usurpation, and pined away in unavailing despondency, in beholding the ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... true, been suggested as a possibility, but through an outside source which Mr. Wintermuth felt sure was most unlikely to have been stimulated to the suggestion by the person most interested. The President was in a mood of despondency, incidental to the painful discovery of how frail a tissue of truth most of the recommendations of his applicants' supporters usually possessed. He had spent four days investigating the records of men whose names, ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... boat and the persons it contained: the rest of creation had become a blank. The fog wetted like rain, and was more penetrating, and the constant efforts she made to see through it, made her eyes and head ache, and cast a damp upon her spirits which almost amounted to despondency. ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... snug, old-fashioned room, with the good old rector. She was no better; still in doctors' hands and weak, but always happy with him, and he more than ever gentle and tender with her; for though he never would give place to despondency, and was naturally of a trusting, cheery spirit, he could not but remember his young wife, lost so early; and once or twice there was a look—an outline—a light—something, in little Lily's fair, girlish face, that, with a strange ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... was the cause of thy strangerhood and thy separation from me." Then he complained to her of his case, saying, "O my mother, go to her and speak with her; haply she will vouchsafe me her sight to see and dispel from me this despondency." Replied his mother, "Idle desires abase men's necks; so put away from thee this thought that can only vex; for I will not wend to her nor go in to her with such message.' Now when he heard his mother's ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... three. In my practice I have become convinced that every impairment of the voice is due to outraged nature, resulting in a physiological condition of the vocal organs that should not exist, and, in turn, inducing a psychological condition, such as worry and despondency, which also should not exist. By discovering with the aid of the laryngoscope the physiological defect and removing it, body, and, with it, mind and voice are restored to their proper condition. But if the singer goes back to a teacher ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... life means pain, May feel again what I have felt before; Who has beheld his bliss above him soar And, when he sought it, fly away again; Who in a labyrinth has tried in vain, When he has lost his way, to find a door; Whom love has singled out for nothing more Than with despondency his soul to bane; Who begs each lightning for a deadly stroke, Each stream to drown the heart that cannot heal From all the cruel stabs by which it broke; Who does begrudge the dead their beds like steel Where they are safe from love's beguiling yoke— He ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... presumption of conspiracy, and moreover that, as a leading fact or clue, it might serve to guide us in detecting others. Hannah was sanguine in this expectation; and for a moment her hopes were contagiously exciting to mine. But the hideous despondency which in my mind had settled upon the whole affair from the very first, the superstitious presentiment I had of a total blight brooding over the entire harvest of my life and its promises, (tracing itself originally, I am almost ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... a light comedy effort. Here and there a page or two to steady the reader and show him what I could do in the way of pathos if I cared to try; but in the main a thing of sunshine and laughter. But now great slabs of gloom began to work themselves into the scheme of it. A magnificent despondency became its keynote. It would not do. I felt that I must make a resolute effort to shake off my depression. More than ever the need of conciliating the professor was borne in upon me. Day and night I spurred my brain to think of some suitable means ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... that things were not as they seemed, that there was no joy for him in the coming of spring, that he had been blind in his free, sensorial, Indian relation to existence, he fell into an inexplicably strange state, a despondency, a gloom as deep as the silence of his home. Dale reflected that the stronger an animal, the keener its nerves, the higher its intelligence, the greater must be its suffering under restraint or injury. He thought of himself as a high order ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... beautiful—never, in fact, truly beautiful till now. The dying down of the brilliance and energy of the strongly marked character, which had made her the life of the Bruton Street salon, into this mildness, this despondency, this hidden weariness, had left her infinitely more lovely in his eyes. But how to restrain himself much longer from taking the sad, gracious woman in his arms and coercing her into ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... like an automaton. Pale, sorrow-stricken, and patient, she moved about, the ghost of herself; and lay down a little, and then tried to work a little, and then to read a little; and could settle to nothing but sorrow and deep despondency. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... passionate and implacable dejection, which marks him as different in kind from the race of the great prosaic pessimists whose scorn and hatred of mankind found expression in the contemptuous and rancorous despondency of Swift or of Carlyle. The obsession of evil, the sensible prevalence of wickedness and falsehood, self-interest and stupidity, pressed heavily on his fierce and indignant imagination; yet not so heavily that mankind came to seem to him the "damned race," the hopeless horde of millions ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... those words the last heaviness of despondency left her face for that day. And we plunged into the delicious adventure of exploring a new city, staring into windows as only strangers can, revelling in print-shops as only they do, really seeing the fine buildings as residents always forget to do, ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... niece's cheerful society tended also to depress his spirits; and in order to dispel this despondency, which often crept upon his mind after his daily employment was over, he was wont frequently to prevail upon Schalken to accompany him home, and by his presence to dispel, in some degree, the gloom ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... feeling herself to be suffering, and condemned by her sufferings to frequent retirement, she was distressed at the idea that the greater part of her future days and evenings would pass away solitary, useless, and in despondency. She recalled with terror the isolation in which Cardinal Richelieu had formerly left her, those dreaded and insupportable evenings during which, however, she had her youth and beauty, which are always accompanied by hope, to ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... vaguely suspected in Ladysmith, where the silence of Sunday sounded ominous. The spirits of the now famishing garrison sank accordingly. One among them writes: "The ending has been strange. On Monday, February 26, the garrison was sunk in a slough of despondency. On the previous Thursday General Buller had signalled from below in such confident language that the force had been placed upon full rations. Then, day by day, we had watched for some sign of the promised ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... own belief that there was no cause for despondency in the aspect of the affair that Matt was looking at. But he could not offer to share his security with Matt, who continued to look serious, and said, presently, "I suppose my father might think it complicated his relation to the Northwicks' ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... remained. Thus the entire charge of the invalid devolved on the tireless friends who had watched over him in the hour of peril. Beulah had endeavored to banish the sorrow that pressed so heavily on her heart, and to dispel the gloom and despondency which seemed to have taken possession of the deserted husband. She read, talked, sang to him, and constantly strove to cheer him by painting a future in which the past was to be effectually canceled. Though well-nigh exhausted by incessant care and loss of sleep, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... buffalo robe spread out before the fire, and the dogs watching the feast with perspective ideas of bones and pan-licking, then the balance would veer back again to the side of enjoyment; and I could look forward to twice 600 miles of ice and snow without one feeling of despondency. These icy nights, too, were often filled with the strange meteors of the north. Hour by hour have I watched the many-hued shafts of the aurora trembling from their northern home across the starlight of the zenith, till their lustre lighted up the silent landscape ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... proportionate success; that no bread cast upon the waters can be wholly lost; that no seed planted in the ground can fail to quicken in due time and measure; and that, however we may, in moments of despondency, be apt to doubt, not only whether our cause will triumph, but whether, if it does, we shall have contributed to its triumph,—there is One, Who has not only seen every exertion we have made, but Who can assign the exact degree in which ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... way on more sides than one, so insulted nature dealt with Josephine. Not only did her body pine, but her nerves were exasperated. Sudden twitches came over her, that almost made her scream. Her permanent state was utter despondency, but across it came fitful flashes of irritation; and then she was ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... of despondency, at length agreed; but on reaching a saw-mill that had been established by a couple of adventurous Yankees, in a region that seemed to be the out-skirts of creation, Paddy repented, and vowed he'd go no ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... of being expended upon his property as capital, and being permitted to lay the foundation of hope and prosperity, is drawn from him, at next term, and the poor, struggling tenant is thrown back into as much distress, embarrassment, and despondency as ever. There are, I believe, few tenants in Ireland of the class I allude to, who are not from one gale to three in arrear. Now, how can it be expected that such men will labor with spirit and earnestness to raise crops which they may never reap? crops which the landlord may seize upon ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... They were very active at the Vicarage making expeditions, fishing, playing lawn-tennis, and once or twice pressed him to join them. But he excused himself on the ground that he must work at his book; he could not bear to carry his despondency and his dolorous air into so blithe a company; and he was, moreover, consumed by a jealousy which humiliated him. If Guthrie was destined to win Maud's love he should have a fair field; and yet Howard's imagination played him many fevered tricks in those days, and the thought of what ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... him these words: 'O child, never again do such a rash act. O Bharata, a rash wight never cometh by happiness. O son of the Kuru race, pleased be thou with all thy brothers. Go back to thy capital as pleaseth thee, without yielding thyself to despondency or cheerlessness!'" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... "don't put me into a frame of mind in which successful comedies are not written." He scribbled away; but his wife's despondency told upon the man of disappointments. Then he stuck fast; then ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... her linger. Reasons for altering her plans chased each other through her brain. The poor fellow would be so disappointed if he did not see her. How long would he wait? How wretched his garret would appear when he returned disconsolate! His despondency might drive him to break his promise to her. Where was the harm in keeping her appointment instead of going to Hampstead? No harm at all save that she would be behaving ungratefully to Hannah. But Hannah would understand. Hannah was never without a ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... town; I don't know where he came from. I had only heard that he had written some sort of article in a progressive Petersburg magazine. Virginsky had introduced me casually to him in the street. I had never in my life seen in a man's face so much despondency, gloom, and moroseness. He looked as though he were expecting the destruction of the world, and not at some indefinite time in accordance with prophecies, which might never be fulfilled, but quite definitely, as ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... path with all the fearlessness of youth. In spite of the motives to despondency and apprehension incident to my state, my heels were light and my heart joyous. "Now," said I, "I am mounted into man. I must build a name and a fortune for myself. Strange if this intellect and these hands will not supply me with an honest livelihood. I will try the city in the first ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... my love and with it a deep reverence for her innate and virginal purity. It touched me deeply to note with what painful care she set herself to correct the grammatical errors and roughness of her speech; often she would fall to a sighful despondency because of her ignorance and at such times it was, I think, that I loved her best, vowing I would not change her for any proud lady that was or ever had been; whereof ensued such conversations ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... in his hair, Queed stared long at this wreckage with a sense of foreboding and utter despondency. Doubtless Mr. Pat, who was at that moment peacefully pulling a pipe over his last galleys at the Post office, would have been astonished to learn what havoc his accursed fleas had wrought with the just expectations ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Albany. But in this scene at any rate the Ff., which give the speech to Edgar, have the better text (though Ff. 2, 3, 4, make Kent die after his two lines!); Kent has answered Albany, but Edgar has not; and the lines seem to be rather more appropriate to Edgar. For the 'gentle reproof' of Kent's despondency (if this phrase of Halliwell's is right) is like Edgar; and, although we have no reason to suppose that Albany was not young, there is ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... shook off the despondency, and fought back the idea that his companions might have been overcome by the escaping gases, and forced himself to believe that if they were not somewhere on his side hidden from him by the trees, they had safely made their way back to the side ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... the threshold of the inner door, and holding the whole squad of police agents in check by the intense fury of his attitude. Now, on the contrary, he seemed, as it were, the personification of weakness and despondency. He was seated on a bench opposite the grating in the door, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin upon his hand, his under lip hanging low and his eyes fixed ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... forward, and less anxiously around him, and on all sides, and behind,—had he been more confident in himself and in his army, and impressed with less respect for the French Generals, he would have been more equal to the difficulties of his situation. Despondency was the radical weakness of his mind. Personally he was as brave a man as ever met death in the field; but he wanted faith in British courage: and it is faith by which miracles are wrought in war ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... have food in any case, and as the official hesitated to supply us we helped ourselves from the Government Stores, and proceeded to the capital. The roads to Pretoria were crowded with men, guns, and vehicles of every description, and despondency and despair were plainly visible on ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... thereby confining her husband to his evil-smelling quarters below. Matters were not improved for him by his treatment of the crew, who, resenting his rough treatment of them, were doing their best to starve him into civility. Most of the time he kept in his bunk—or rather Jemmy's bunk—a prey to despondency and hunger of an acute type, venturing on deck only at night to prowl uneasily about and ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... absently, "it was whiskey. Slavic and I drank it." With an effort he strove to arouse himself out of the despondency that ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... on each arm a female. The lady on his right arm was apparently of about five-and-twenty years of age. She was of majestic stature; her complexion of untinged purity. Her features were like those conceptions of Grecian sculptors which, in moments of despondency, we sometimes believe to be ideal. Her full eyes were of the same deep blue as the mountain lake, and gleamed from under their long lashes as that purest of waters beneath its fringing sedge. Her brown light hair was braided from her high forehead, and hung in long full curls over ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... which so grinds the human soul, and produces such an insupportable burden of wretchedness and despondency, as pecuniary pressure. Nothing more frequently drives men to suicide; and there is, perhaps, no danger to which men in an active and enterprising community are more exposed. Almost all are eagerly reaching forward to a station in life a little above what they can well ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... letter several times, and sat at home through the morning in despondency. It had got to the pass that he could not marry Emma; for all his suffering he no longer gave a glance in that direction. Not even if Adela Waltham refused him; to have a 'lady' for his wife was now an essential ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... of her children, in whom her own youth lived again, even attempted to scoff at her a little, declaring that she was fishing for compliments ... but she quite seriously begged him to leave off, and for the first time he realised that for such a sorrow, the despondency of old age, there is no comfort or cure; one has to wait till it passes off of itself. He proposed a game of tresette, and he could have thought of nothing better. She agreed at once and seemed to ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... the costume; for the contrast would render the variety in all the other departments even the more insupportable. Gay, tinselled, spangled draperies suit best to the opera; and hence many things which have been censured as unnatural, such as exhibiting heroes warbling and trilling in the excess of despondency, are perfectly justifiable. This fairy world is not peopled by real men, but by a singular kind of singing creatures. Neither is it any disadvantage that the opera is brought before us in a language which we do not generally understand; the words are altogether lost in ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... at this time was admirably summed up in a letter written by Quartermaster Nichol. "Alas! we are no longer commanded by Isaac Brock.... Confidence seems to have vanished from the land, and gloomy despondency in those who are at our head has taken its place." Brock's courage, judgment, military skill and personal magnetism were never ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... spoken from the time they first reached the shore. The fate of their shipmates had depressed them profoundly, and as yet they could scarcely feel grateful for their own escape. Jack was the first to rouse himself from this state of despondency. ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... miles. In that distance, there were but few families, who had not a husband, father, brother or son in the garrison; and these listened to the sound, with the deepest anxiety, and, as was natural, with no little despondency. ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... his natural expression of the weariness of seven weeks' sickness and sorrow, felt above all the want of his mother's ever-ready sympathy and soothing, and as if the whole world, here, there, and everywhere, would be an equally dreary waste. His moment of bright anticipation passed into heavy despondency, and turning his head from the light, he dropped asleep with a tear on ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... passionate and sentimental cast were quickly made religious by suitable words. Thus the same melody will depict equally well the rage of a baffled conspirator, the jealousy of an injured husband, the grief of lovers about to part, the despondency of a man bent on suicide, the devotion of the nun, or the rapt adoration of worship. A different text and a slight change in time effect the marvel, and hardly a composer has disdained to borrow from one work to enrich another. His only opera composed in Paris, ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... this you would gather that we were as happy as civilised beings could possibly be under the circumstances. Nevertheless—and my heart aches as I recall those times—we had periodical fits of despondency, which filled us with ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... and listless; and we talk of illness, and call in science to name the disease, which is nothing but sorrow. There are, without doubt, solitary hours in human experience which do the work of years, forcing suspicion to dawn, and tempting despondency to deepen. Life should be measured by such hours, and they who feel most keenly are the ones ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... but few pictures, and these met with small success. He looked thin and haggard, talked incoherently, gave way to bitter repinings and despondency. He resented and misinterpreted, as has been shown, Lawrence's inquiries as to his health. Certainly there is every appearance of feeling in Lawrence's letter, where he writes to a friend, 'You will be sorry to hear it. My most powerful competitor, he whom only to my friends I ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... the verse composed during those days of prosperous tranquillity, when youth seemed comic rather than tragic, we find that half the poets spent their time in lamentation, and the other half in first aid. An enormous number of lyrics speak as though despondency were the normal condition of men and women; are we really all sad when alone, engaged in reading or writing? "Every man is grave alone," said Emerson. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... stimulates the nervous system and acts upon the heart as the centre of all organic functions. A healthy natural excitement will cause the heart to vibrate more firmly and evenly; but an unhealthy excitement, like fear or anger, will cause it to beat in a rapid and uneven manner. Contrarily, despondency, or a lethargic state of mind, causes the movement of the blood to slacken. The happiness of love is thus the best of all stimulants and correctives for a torpid circulation, and it expands the whole being of a woman like the blossoming of a flower in the sunshine. From the time ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... him to an infinite distance, beyond all understanding. Thus, as he moved on from battery to battery, at times our Commandant talked earnestly, wistfully, and at times fell to a despondent silence; and still between his eagerness and his despondency the personal question awoke—"He is kind, but he is here to pass judgment on me. What can the sentence be but disgrace?" Arrived at the Keg of Butter Battery, Sir Ommaney seated himself on the low wall, hard by the spot where Vashti had dug at the stones ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... pre-occupied to think of bushels of seed. He was as uneasy as Mr. May had been on the previous night, and in some respects even more unhappy; for he had no resource except a sort of dumb faith in his principle, a feeling that he must be able to find out some way of escape—chequered by clouds of despondency, sometimes approaching despair. For Cotsdean, too, felt vaguely that things were approaching a crisis—that a great many resources had been exhausted—that the pitcher which had gone so often to the well must, at last, be broken, and that ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... not want anything was true; but when in his sorrow and despondency he saw the captain, who had always been so good to him, passing the window to and fro, he ventured to approach him on the chance of meeting ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... a time of sore trial, but it brought out in strong relief the beauty and nobility of character in both Violet and her mother. They proved themselves the most devoted of nurses, patient, cheerful, hopeful, never giving way to despondency, or wearying in efforts to relieve the little sufferers or wile them ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... and loss, or crime and shame in the past, and on others, of eager ambitions and bright hopes for the future. There were men with gray hair and bowed forms, whose dull eyes and listless step told of hopeless, irretrievable loss; men of intelligence and ability whose recklessness or whose despondency told of some living sorrow, worse than death; there were some whose stealthy, shrinking gait and watchful, suspicious glance bespoke some crime, unknown to their fellows, but which to themselves seemed ever present, suspended, like the sword ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... had quite set in. I did not cry, for I am not given to overmuch weeping, and my heart was too sore to be healed by tears; neither did I tremble, for I held out my hand and arm to make sure they were steady; but still I felt as if I were sinking down—down into an awful, profound despondency, from which I should never rally; it was all over with me. I had nothing before me but to give up, and own myself overmatched and conquered. I have a half-remembrance that as I crouched there in the darkness I sobbed once, and cried under my ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... prince whom he had always regarded as one of the strongest bulwarks of the Ottoman Empire. This information produced a different effect upon Ali to that intended by the Seraskier. Passing suddenly from the depth of despondency to the height of pride, he imagined that these overtures of reconciliation were only a proof of the inability of his foes to subdue him, and he sent the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... to put this enormous outburst into a rhythm that, otherwise used, would be irresistibly jolly. The last movement, too, verges on the hysterical throughout. It is full of the blackest melancholy and despondency, with occasional relapses into a tranquillity even more tragic; and the trombone passage near the end, introduced by a startling stroke on the gong, inevitably reminds one of the spirit ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... "Shake off this despondency!" exclaimed Victor, "it is unmanly. If we are to die, let it be in a struggle against death. We have now only to avoid being crushed between the fields of ice. Oh! that unfortunate lantern! if we had only retained it—but no matter, we will escape yet; aye, and have another dance among ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... not to lose heart; but it was impossible to keep away a certain amount of despondency as we realised that all our pulling was in vain, and as we grew wearied out Bigley said that it was of no use to row. All we were to do was to keep the boat's head well ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... on as he could desire. Meanwhile he was supported chiefly by the contributions of the officers of the garrison, themselves not well able to spare much. While leading this lonely life he seems gradually to have given way to gloomy despondency. I recollect one passage in his diary (which I once saw for an hour) where he expresses himself thus: "Another year has gone by, and with it all signs of the promised vessel. Oh! God, even hope seems to have deserted me." At length a vessel from Sydney ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... the gentlemen were down in the yard to see a young horse of blood which had just arrived from the stud. We suddenly heard a noise of distress; I hastened downstairs, and found the horse so unruly that nobody durst approach or mount him. The most resolute horsemen stood dismayed and aghast; despondency was expressed in every countenance, when, in one leap, I was on his back, took him by surprise, and worked him quite into gentleness and obedience, with the best display of horsemanship I was master of. Fully to show this to the ladies, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... hundred yards that they have heard about they can drive at the first attempt or two. Then comes the inevitable disappointment, the despair, the inclination to give it up, and finally the utter abject despondency which represents the most miserable state on earth of the golfer, in which he must be closely watched lest he should commit murder upon the beautiful set of clubs of which at the beginning he was so proud, and which he spent his evenings in brightening to the degree that they ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... device of Satan," he said, "to drive us to despondency, so as to choke out the God-spark in us. Your sin is great, but your Father in Heaven awaits you, and will rejoice as a King rejoices over a princess redeemed from captivity. Every soul is a whole Bible in itself. Yours contains Sarah and Ruth as well as Jezebel and Michal. Hitherto you ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... here, and our hearts bled for you. But all will yet be well. The terrible shock you have sustained will be a death blow to the passion that has caused you so much misery. Forgive me, if I make painful allusions; but I cannot suffer you to sink into the gloom of despondency." ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... burning enemy, but a friend, illuminating all the open space, and warming the mellow soil. And the pruning and clearing away of rubbish, and the fertilizing, go on with something of the hilarity of a wake, rather than the despondency of other funerals. When the wind begins to come out of the northwest of set purpose, and to sweep the ground with low and searching fierceness, very different from the roistering, jolly bluster of early fall, I have put the strawberries under their coverlet of leaves, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... backward—nothing but fear in looking forward. He was helpless and hopeless. Why had Stephen Grattan troubled himself to save him from deeper sin and longer misery? There was no help for him, he thought, in his utter despondency. ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... Eighteen months of woe inconsolable; six months of grief assuaged. Nor are all recreations debarred the widow, as formerly; she may go to concerts, small entertainments, even to matinees, after some months have elapsed. This is as it should be. Many women have settled into gloom and despondency which have darkened their homes because there has been nothing to lift them out of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... with which the captain greeted Mr. Dinsmore's entrance into the room where he lay in pain and despondency was a ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... confident that I would not endeavour any act without his consent; but I shared his certainty that Fanny would not. And so, in despondency, I took the ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of the workings of Providence. His grumbles were loud and long, and the directions which he sent from his sick bed were tinged with irritability. For at last the other side had come to its senses; Sir Winterton was affable again, Lady Mildmay was canvassing, and Mr. Smiley had high hopes. Despondency would have fallen on Foster's spirit but for the report of Quisante's exploits, performed in the teeth of the orders of that same Dr. Tillman who had given Sir Winterton such excellent unprofessional advice touching the affair of Tom Sinnett. He gave Quisante just as good counsel, and with just ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... and windows, and why shouldn't this flourish with me? But certainly—there is no shutting my eyes to the fact that it does droop a little. Papa prophesies hard things against it every morning, 'Why, Ba, it looks worse and worse,' and everybody preaches despondency. I, however, persist in being sanguine, looking out for new shoots, and making a sure pleasure in the meanwhile by listening to the sound of the leaves against the pane, as the wind lifts them and lets them fall. Well, what do you think of my ivy? Ask ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... there was nothing dangerous here, either. The heath glittered in the sun, the withered hawkweed crackled at his feet, a warm wind blew softly towards him. He tried to whistle, but still he had to draw in the air to produce any sound. At that he was ashamed, and a feeling of despondency seized him. Then came a swampy moor that again belonged to his father. Of this the latter often spoke; he meditated the idea of cutting peat there, but he only wanted to begin on a large scale, ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... barren, except on top of the graves, signifies much sorrow and despondency for a time, but greater benefits and pleasure await you if you ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... evident from an entry in Anne Bradstreet's diary after reaching New England that even the excitement of change and the hope common to all of a happy future, was not strong enough to keep down the despondency which came in part undoubtedly from her weak health. The diary is not her own thoughts or impressions of the new life, but simply bits of religious experience; an autobiography of the phase with which we could most easily dispense. "After a short time I changed my condition and was married, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... what is now about to be Will all HAVE BEEN in O, so short a space! I read beyond it my despondency When more dividing months shall take its place, Thereby denying to this hour of grace A full-up measure ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... sea-gulls on a gloomy day is a joyous sound; and the sight of those theatrical angels, with their shameless, unfinished backs, flying off the top of the rococo facade of the church of the Jesuits, has always been a spectacle to fill me with despondency and foreboding. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... gained a decisive victory at sea, where until now they had feared the reinforcement brought by Demosthenes, and deep, in consequence, was the despondency of the Athenians, and great their disappointment, and greater still their regret for having come on the expedition. These were the only cities that they had yet encountered, similar to their own in character, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... to the two men meeting. It was now December. Whatever Mr. Carlyle's step might indicate to the inner eye it betokened to the casual observer the manner of a crisp, alert, self-possessed man of business. Carlyle, in truth, betrayed nothing of the pessimism and despondency that had marked him on the ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... such contrast, the news filled all men with a strange mixture of emotions. "The incidents of Dramatic Fiction," says one who was sharer in it, "could not have been conducted with more address to lead an audience from despondency to sudden exultation, than Accident had here prepared to excite the passions of a whole People. They despaired; they triumphed; and they wept,—for Wolfe had fallen in the hour of victory! Joy, grief, curiosity, astonishment, were painted in every countenance: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Queed stared long at this wreckage with a sense of foreboding and utter despondency. Doubtless Mr. Pat, who was at that moment peacefully pulling a pipe over his last galleys at the Post office, would have been astonished to learn what havoc his accursed fleas had wrought with the just ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... this period suffer largely from despondency, insomnia, and a feeling of martyrdom. Like the Positive type of the same Mount, they are also much inclined towards rheumatism and disorders ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... thoughts, bred late at night in the sullen despondency and gloom of his retirement, and pride easily found its reassurance in many testimonies to the truth, as unimpeachable and precious as the Major's. Mr Dombey, in his friendlessness, inclined to the Major. It cannot be said that he warmed towards ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... morning, so as to leave the girls at liberty, but when afternoon came he drove them out willy-nilly, and organised one excursion after another with the double intention of amusing his visitors and preventing melancholy regrets. Norah was in the depths of despondency; but her repinings were all for her beloved companion, and not for any disappointment of her own. Now that she had the interest of her music lessons, and the friendship of Rex and Edna, she was unwilling to leave home even for the delights of London and the College ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... me. I feel as if I could go forth to battle cheerfully." For the moment, Johnson's old pomposity had returned to him, but in the next, a wave of despondency bore it down. "But that's just it; a body feels as if he could fight if he only had something to fight. But here you strike out and hit—nothing. It's only a contest with time. ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... mere woman, in every-day domestic life. I well remember mamma's clasping her hands, and exclaiming "This will end in a little man!"' (Here Mr Sampson glanced at his host and shook his head with despondency.) 'She afterwards went so far as to predict that it would end in a little man whose mind would be below the average, but that was in what I may denominate a paroxysm of maternal disappointment. Within a month,' said Mrs Wilfer, deepening her voice, as if she were ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... if to-morrow even, she were to depart? "Her very ease in talking with me, a stranger, may quite well have been due to the fact that she knew she would never see me again," he argued. ... So he was working himself into a fine state of despondency, and the world was rapidly being resolved into dust and ashes, when Heaven sent him a diversion. Nay, indeed, Heaven sent him ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... changes, did mind, but not nearly as much as her daughter pretended, and only for the minute. It was really a ruse of Lucy's to justify her despondency—a ruse of which she was not herself conscious, for she was marching ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... anguish of that bereaved parent? Statuelike she sat, nursing a sorrow too deep for tears. Hours passed, and the first faint streak of dawn found her still sitting, with her eyes intently fixed on vacancy. Her husband's voice was the first thing that roused her from the state of despondency into which she had sunk. He spoke with difficulty, and his voice was feeble as a child's. "Bessy," he gasped, "tha munnot leave me ony moor. It's drawin varry near. Awr little Tom an' Susy have been here wol tha's been off; aw heeard 'em calling for me, but aw could'nt ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... told his father that he was sick, and kept indoors as much as he could, reading all the papers to see if he had been found out. To his great surprise and relief, a theory gained ground that Ida was subject to spells of ill-health, to long fits of despondency, and that her suicide had occurred during one of these. If Ida's family knew anything of the truth, it was apparent that they were doing their best to cover up their disgrace. Vandover was too thoroughly terrified for his own safety to feel humiliated at this ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... models shall be as follows: If when a sacrifice is going on, and the victims are being burnt according to law—if, I say, any one who may be a son or brother, standing by another at the altar and over the victims, horribly blasphemes, will not his words inspire despondency and evil omens and forebodings in the mind of his father and ...
— Laws • Plato
... and the girls were leaving the primaries in twos and threes, tired but excitedly discussing the situation. Between hope and despondency the comment varied on the streets, at the supper-tables, and in the eager, waiting groups of girls on tenement ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... too. The force and searching energy and fire in it stole through his veins, and drove from him the sense of futility and despondency which had so deeply added to his trouble. There was something for him, too, in that which held infatuated the minds of so ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... war, his country will not take him. It was in connection with his Gissing volume, for which I possessed some material he needed, that I first made his acquaintance. He has had something of Gissing's restricted and grey experiences, but he has nothing of Gissing's almost perverse gloom and despondency. Indeed he is as gay a companion as he is fragile. He is a twinkling addition to any Christmas party, and the twinkle is here in the style. And having sported with him "in his times of happy infancy," I add an intimate and personal satisfaction to my pleasant ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... your ear has heard, your eye has seen, that makes your heart so sad." The woman spoke softly, entreatingly, as if she was soothing a sick child. But the object of her sympathy sighed, and continued, in the same tone of utter despondency,— ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... and despondency; flight to London; enlistment in the Dragoons; residence in Bristol; Republican lectures; scheme, along with Southey, for founding a new community in America; its abandonment; his marriage; life at Nether ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... tranquilly without the bridegroom offering any explanation of his presence. At the end of that time, thoughts of the past visited him and he "sighed." Princess Rich Gem took note of this despondency and reported it to her father, who now, for the first time, inquired the cause of Hohodemi's coming. Thereafter all the fishes of the sea, great and small, were summoned, and being questioned about the lost hook, declared that the tai* had recently complained of something ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... them were united in this, that the one, from a sudden wave of cowardice which swept him away from his deepest convictions and made him for an hour untrue to his warmest love, and the other, from giving way to his constitutional tendency to despondency, and to taking the blackest possible view of everything—they had both of them failed in their faith, the one turning out a denier and the other turning out a doubter. And yet here they are, foremost upon the list of those who saw ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... and the labor of his manhood have deeply marked his face; his hair is thin and gray, his shoulders stoop, his legs are shrunken and slightly bent. There seems a sort of weight in his whole being. His very features have an expression of sorrow and despondency. He answers my questions by monosyllables, and like a man who wishes to avoid conversation. Whence comes this dejection, when one would think he had all he could wish for? ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... though an address to his own countrymen, is a message of hope to the whole world which sank with despondency at the sight of Republican America behaving like a cruel, tyrannical and rapacious Empire in the Philippines and particularly to the broken-hearted people of Asia who are beginning to lose all confidence in the humanity of ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... her omnibus, and stood on the pavement looking wistfully at the lumbering vehicle as it dwindled in the distance. At last, with a sigh of deepest despondency, I turned my face homeward, and, walking like one in a dream, retraced the route over which I had journeyed so often of late ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... dragged down with Fenianism; his great enemy stronger, more glorious, and more pitiless than when he had first raised his hand against her injustice; now the night had closed in upon Ledwith, not merely the bitter night of sickness and death and failure, but that more savage night of despondency, which steeps all human sorrow in the black, polluted atmosphere of hell. For such a sufferer the heart of Arthur Dillon opened as wide as the gates of heaven. Oh, had he not known what it is ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... her lap. Recovering slowly from the paralysis resulting from diphtheria, she had followed Beryl into the chapel, and listened to the hymns the latter had played and sung. The glossy black head was bent in abject despondency upon her breast, and tears dripped over the smooth olive cheeks, but no sound escaped the trembling mouth, once so red and riotous, now drawn into curves of passionate sorrow; and the topaz gleams that formerly flickered in her sullen hazel eyes were drowned in the gloom of ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... fine preparations will lead to nothing," rejoined Maria, with self-assumed despondency. "While you are awake in one place they are asleep in another; in one spot the flames are bursting forth, in another they are being extinguished. Why, they ought to have flashed forth everywhere at once. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... document, which was written in English and in Mahratti, for none of the general's staff understood the Jat language. Harry saw, at once, that the terms were far less onerous than the rajah had expected; for his face brightened, and the air of despondency that it had for some days expressed ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... mortal combat with the rival, and nearly loses his life. The fair lady nurses him with care, but as he gradually sinks she loses hope and pines away. A holy monk lived in the castle, and, noticing her despondency, offers to effect a cure. He prescribes: "To-morrow, at the midnight hour, go to the cross alone: for Edward's rash and hasty deed perhaps thou mayst atone." She goes there, walks around the cross, and Edward is cured. Then all rejoice, and a festival ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... opportunity to prove his ability as a soldier. The timid handling of that army by Halleck and its subsequent dispersion by his orders, and the general operations of both the armies in the west and in Virginia, created a feeling of despondency in the loyal states which was manifested in the election in the fall of 1862. The military operations in the early part of 1863 did not tend ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... sat and waited, growing more and more down-hearted, with that peculiar despondency which accompanies enforced ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... without detection and put the college flag at half-mast. The smile on Reddy's face was conspicuous by its absence and Hendricks chewed furiously at his cigar instead of smoking it. But when it came to the daily talk in the training quarters, he was careful not to betray any despondency. There was enough of that abroad anyway without his adding to it. Like the thoroughbred he was, he faced the situation calmly, and sought to repair the breaches made in ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... succeeded by a feeling of sickness. The thirty hours' fatigue and fasting I had endured were beginning to tell upon my naturally strong nerves: I felt my reasoning powers growing weaker, and my presence of mind leaving me. A feeling of despondency came over me—a thousand wild fancies passed through my bewildered brain; while at times my head grew dizzy, and I reeled in my saddle like a drunken man. These weak fits, as I may call them, did ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... KATHARINE,—The prisoner reserved his defence. He has been seedy, however; principally sick of the family evil, despondency; the sun is gone out utterly; and the breath of the people of this city lies about as a sort of damp, unwholesome fog, in which we go walking with bowed hearts. If I understand what is a contrite spirit, I have one; it is to feel that you are a small jar, or rather, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sometimes the absolute futility of so much striving, so much hardship, so much peril, all for the sake of the crust of bread that represents mere existence, sent him down to black depths of rayless despondency, when he asked himself, was life worth while? But he never let go his grip, his sense of resistance, his impulse to fight the worst, the unshunnable obligation of being alive and going on with the game, succeed or fail. Such fits of despair might end in wild carousals, ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... the torrent, and at the same time were astonished and troubled to find that perhaps a next-door neighbor sympathized with the rebellion and predicted its entire success. The social atmosphere was thick with doubt, heavy with despondency, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... Littlefaith, as "white as a clout," neither able to fight nor fly when the thieves from Dead Man's Lane were on him; of Ready-to-halt, at first coming along on his crutches, and then when Giant Despair had been slain and Doubting Castle demolished, taking Despondency's daughter Much-afraid by the hand and dancing with her in the road? "True, he could not dance without one crutch in his hand, but I promise you he footed it well. Also the girl was to be commanded, for she answered the ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... Sir Walter was a partner. The liabilities amounted to the vast sum of L102,000, for which Sir Walter was individually responsible. To a mind less balanced by native intrepidity and fortified by principle, the apparent wreck of his worldly hopes would have produced irretrievable despondency; but Scott bore his misfortune with magnanimity and manly resignation. He had been largely indebted to both the establishments which had unfortunately involved him in their fall, in the elegant production of his works, as well as ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... his despondency. He never went out, saw no one, refused even to visit his patients. Then they said "he shut ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... assistance of time and absence, would effect a cure: I was, indeed, most unwilling to destroy your illusion, while I dared hope it might itself contribute to the restoration of your tranquillity; since your ignorance of the danger, and force of your attachment, might possibly prevent that despondency with which young people, in similar circumstances, are apt to persuade themselves, that what is only difficult, is ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... by a weight of woe, and even Lorischen lost that customary cheeriness with which she usually performed her daily duties in her endeavours to console her mistress. Mouser, too, went miaow-wowing about the house at nights, as if he likewise shared in the family despondency—not once being caught in the act of stealing the breakfast cream, a predilection for which had hitherto been an abnormal failing on his part. So changed, indeed, became the old cat that he did not ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... point of view. The adult laughs or smiles in remembering the punishments and other things which caused him in his childhood anxious days or nights, which produced the silent torture of the child's heart, infinite despondency, burning indignation, lonely fears, outraged sense of justice, the terrible creations of his imagination, his absurd shame, his unsatisfied thirst for joy, freedom, and tenderness. Lacking these beneficent memories, adults constantly repeat the crime of destroying the childhood ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... silence. The men looked at each other, and at the fire. Even with the appetizing banquet before them, it seemed as if they might again fall into the despondency of Thompson's grocery, when the voice of the Old Man, incautiously lifted, came ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of this gloom and despondency, with usurpation successful in the only province where even a semblance of patriotism survived, and a foreign enemy universally dominant throughout the rest of Ceylon, there suddenly arose a dynasty which delivered the island from the sway of the Malabars, brought back its ancient ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... Triplet, "don't put me into a frame of mind in which successful comedies are not written." He scribbled away; but his wife's despondency told upon the man of disappointments. Then he stuck ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... attended with a retinue, and after a brief and formal interview, he retired as ceremoniously as he came,—thus giving to his visit the character simply of a duty of state etiquette. In a word, Agrippina found herself forsaken and friendless, and her mind gradually sank into a condition of hopeless despondency, ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the Brasidas,[327] the Dion,[328] the Epaminondas,[329] the Scipio[330] of old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient writers. Each of his "Lives" is a refutation to the despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A wild courage, a Stoicism[331] not of the schools, but of the blood, shines in every anecdote, and has given that ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... satisfaction, so well were we persuaded that the boats would return to our assistance. The day was fine, and the most perfect tranquillity reigned all the while on our raft. The evening came, and no boats appeared. Despondency began again to seize our men, and then a spirit of insubordination manifested itself in cries of rage. The voice of the officers was entirely disregarded. Night fell rapidly in, the sky was obscured by dark clouds; the wind which, during the whole of the day, had ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... felt that she could not hope to be respected, loved, married. She must work out her destiny along other lines. She understood it all, more clearly than would have been expected of her. And it is important to note that she faced her future without repining or self-pity, without either joy or despondency. She would go on; she would do as best she could. And nothing that might befall could equal what she had suffered in the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... discharge his arrows and still fail to reach a vital part of the terror below. She fairly bristled with the shafts. It was inevitable that she must die, but when the last shot had sped she was still infuriate and, apparently, as strong as ever. The archer looked down upon her with some measure of despondency in his face, but by no means with despair. He and his bride must wait. That was all, and this he told to Lightfoot. That intelligent and reliable young helpmate of a few hours, who had looked upon what had occurred with an awed admiration, ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... look between remonstrance and reproach, and cast her eves down without saying a word, swallowing a whole heartful of thoughts and feelings. Fleda stooped forward till her own forehead softly touched Mrs. Rossitur's, as gentle a chiding of despondency as a very ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... wore on, his despondency became deeper and, one evening, while sitting with the Lakhimpur bailiff, he asked whether there was any remedy which would restore his peace of mind. The cunning rascal said nothing at the time; but at a late hour on the morrow he came to Nagendra ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... had now sat seven months before the Capitol. There was, therefore, a great destruction among them, and the number of the dead grew so great, that the living gave up burying them. Neither, indeed, were things on that account any better with the besieged, for famine increased upon them, and despondency with not hearing any thing of Camillus, it being impossible to send any one to him, the city was so guarded by the barbarians. Things being in this sad condition on both sides, a motion of treaty was made at first by some of the outposts, as they happened to speak with one another; which ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... situation in the Transvaal, among the Dutch was a fixed determination not to allow the Transvaal to be interfered with. And there was something else that Lord Milner would have observed during his travels throughout the Colony. It was the utter despondency of the British population, and the condition of abasement to which they had been reduced. Nor can he have failed to observe that everywhere among the British there was a constant apology for the Raid; while, on the part of the Dutch, there was no recognition of all that the British had done to ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... fixed, his elbow resting on a desk, his head supported by his hand. Nothing could be finer than the sight. Oh! I would have given much for the ability to convey to paper a lasting copy of that countenance—a memorial for my life, to cling to in my hours of weakness and despondency, and to take strength and consolation from the spectacle of that intelligence, that meekness and chastity of soul, thus allied ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... forgot all his despondency, while Mr. Surplice, who was getting a little prosy as a preacher, was as full of fire as in his younger days. Mr. Capias was so eloquent that the people stamped till the house fairly shook with applause. He ended with resolutions, pledging the support of the people of New Hope to the government,—their ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... had been stored in his father's cottage to be used if the Lords threw out the Bill. They had passed it, and the arms were not required; but no one that he knew of had ever been a ha'porth the better for it; and he had never since meddled with politics, and never would again. In this case the despondency of old age was added to the despondency of disappointment; but among younger men hope was beginning to dawn again, and the Mirage beckoned with its treacherous gleam. The Agricultural Labourers' Union, starting on its pilgrimage from the very heart of England, ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... he attains, where there is a great and brilliant efflorescence of all the intellectual, mental, and material part of his nature. The climax of sensuous perfection is reached, and then his hold weakens, his power grows less, and he falls back, through despondency and satiety, to barbarism. Why does he not stay on this hill-top he has reached, and look away to the mountains beyond, and resolve to scale those greater heights? Because he is ignorant, and seeing a great glittering in the distance, drops ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... Carroll! The modesty of true greatness of soul had left unconsidered the genuine nobility of the man. He thought not of the name he had won on the field of battle,—of the honorable wounds he bore as testimonials of his devotion to his country. He was poor, and, in the despondency which his position induced, he attributed to wealth a value which to the truly good it ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... not speak as though we were not equal,' she said, in her desire to comfort him and raise him up from his despondency; 'it is not that. What does one's poverty or ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... landscape, embracing the extensive area from Trichomo and Famagousta to Larnaca, Lefkosia, and Morphu, is most demoralising, and few Europeans would be able to resist the deleterious climate of summer, and the general heart-sinking that results in a nervous despondency when the dreary and treeless plain is ever present to the view. There is no reason why officials should be condemned to the purgatory of such a station when Cyprus possesses superior positions where the great business of the future will be conducted. The new road already completed ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... far deeper concern took possession of me on account of his health, and, finding that moderate expostulations did not better things, I determined to make an effort by trying a wife's skill in arousing him from this state of despondency, which threatened such serious consequences; for I might well feel that fortune would be nothing to me without my husband—my husband as he ever had been. And "if the worst came to the worst," if he only had sufficient means to pay his debts, ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... this explanation. But Socrates has no sooner found the new solution than he sinks into a fit of despondency. For an objection occurs to him:—May there not be errors where there is no confusion of mind and sense? e.g. in numbers. No one can confuse the man whom he has in his thoughts with the horse which he has in his thoughts, but he may err ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... compelled to leave her children, not knowing whether during her absence they would fall victims to fire, or be carried off by the master. But she possessed a well tried faith, which in her flight kept her from despondency. Under her former lot she scarcely murmured, but declared that she had never been at ease in Slavery a day after the birth of her first-born. The desire to go to some part of the world where she could have the control and comfort of her children, had always been a prevailing idea with her. "It ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Castlereagh's days might have been one of peace. His countrymen would have recognised that, if blind to the rights of nations, Castlereagh had set to foreign rulers the example of truth and good faith. But the burden of his life was too heavy to bear. Mists of despondency obscured the outlines of the real world, and struck chill into his heart. Death, self-invoked, brought relief to the over-wrought brain, and laid Castlereagh, with all his cares, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... us like music, Some voices arouse to action and ambition. Some voices fill you with despondency. Some voices irritate like a buzz-saw. Some voices snap like turtles, and some hiss ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... mind so much for myself; women, in all ways of life, and especially in my dressmaking way, learn, I think, to be more patient than men. What I dread is Robert's despondency, and the hard struggle he will have in this cruel city to get his bread, let alone making money enough to marry me. So little as poor people want to set up in housekeeping and be happy together, it seems hard that they can't get it when they are honest and hearty, and willing to work. ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... when planning vague enterprises in New York or Boston satisfied her, and other moods when she determined to change her name, and join a theatrical troupe. From these some slight accident might dash her to the bitterest depths of despondency. She would have a sudden, sick memory of Stephen's clear voice, of the touch of his hand, she would be back at the Browning dance again, or sitting between him and Billy at that memorable ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... courage and your faith in women and in the old flag. I came across it the first time after I arrived, in a moment of extreme despondency. It did me a world of good... In three weeks, if all goes well, I shall see you. We sail for New York on the 12th of ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... state of deep and querulous despondency, he gradually recovered composure; then his mood grew sterner and sterner; until his compressed lips and flashing eye showed that he had passed from one extreme to ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... was right or not? for she was the only cultivated dog there was. By and by, when I was older, she brought home the word Unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty hard all the week at different gatherings, making much unhappiness and despondency; and it was at this time that I noticed that during that week she was asked for the meaning at eight different assemblages, and flashed out a fresh definition every time, which showed me that she had more presence of mind than culture, though I said nothing, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... upon my house, would I not do my best to fight, altho opprest in spirits; and shall a similar despondency prevent me from mental exertion? It shall not, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... Stuart, the Chevalier has the strong lines and fatality of air peculiar to them all." The words "fatality of air" describe very expressively that look of melancholy which all the Stuart features wore when in repose. The melancholy look represented an underlying habitual mood of melancholy, or even despondency, which a close observer may read in the character of the "merry monarch" himself, for all his mirth and his dissipation, just as well as in that of Charles the First or of James the Second. The profligacy ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... enjoyed by one who does not understand the hearts of girls becomes nervous, uneasy, and dejected, and suddenly begins to hate the man who has taken advantage of her; and then, when her love is not understood or returned, she sinks into despondency, and becomes either a hater of mankind altogether, or, hating her own man, she has recourse ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... they had no monopoly of gloom. I felt almost as sad myself. Long before sunset the flush of triumph, the heat of battle, which had warmed my heart at noon, were gone, giving place to a chill dissatisfaction, a nausea, a despondency such as I have known follow a long night at the tables. Hitherto there had been difficulties to be overcome, risks to be run, doubts about the end. Now the end was certain and very near; so near that it filled all the prospect. One hour of triumph I might ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... world? That is what people said; it needed that she should die to prove that she had good reason for not going out and for being melancholy. Her reins and her heart were all gone—was not that enough to cause those fits of despondency of which she complained? And so, during her life she showed reason, and after death she showed reason, and never was she without that divine reason which ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... had said and I added my own interpretation. The effect was electrical. He straightened his shoulders with an air of trying to throw off his despondency. ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... music, would literally put him out of the house to get a breath of air, he would wander like a phantom through the Gallery, distantly greeted by former friends, who avoided closer contact with that black despondency and feared the explosions of rage with which he received news of his ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... amongst the homilies of St Chrysostom a certain Stagyra who was possessed by a demon. To be possessed by a demon is certainly not a malady of our times; but yet we do not wander from our theme. For the demon of Stagyra—it is melancholy, despondency, or, in the much more powerful expression of the Greek, it is athumia—exhaustion of all energy, all vitality of the soul. This is the demon of Stagyra. He is one of those sick and agitated souls who think they belong to the selected portion of mankind, because they want the energy of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... understandings of men, and that, taking all together, a very small portion of them does supply any real benefit to mankind, otherwise than by being an innocent diversion and amusement—I say the consideration of all this is apt to throw them into a despondency and perfect contempt of all study. But this may perhaps cease upon a view of the false principles that have obtained in the world, amongst all which there is none, methinks, has a more wide and extended sway over the thoughts ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... fact in a condition of irritated despondency, sick of persecution, sick of disaster, disheartened by epidemics and bad harvests; without the spirit or the material means to attempt a whole- hearted prosecution of the war, yet too sore to be willing to make peace till Calais should be ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... the midst of her despondency, a spark of her former fire, and grew eloquent in his endeavors to persuade her that she was unjust to herself, and that there was but a wider sphere of life needed to develop all the latent powers of ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... rejoice that it yet stands firm and strong, while we congratulate one another that we live under its benign influence, and cherish hopes of its long duration, we cannot forget who they were that, in the day of our national infancy, in the times of despondency and despair, mainly assisted to work out our deliverance. I should feel that I was unfaithful to the strong recollections which the occasion presses upon us, that I was not true to gratitude, not true to patriotism, not true to the living ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... transferred to the king's household as a slave, and his value as an artisan—for medical practice was, in those days, simply an art—were once known. He made no effort, therefore, to bring his true character to light, but pined silently in his dungeon, in rags and wretchedness, and in a mental despondency which was ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... fruit and flowers and all delightful things; that in a moment, as by a miracle, it had turned to a waste of black ashes still hot and smoking from the desolating flames that had passed over it. But she was not one to give herself over to despondency so long as there was anything to be done. Very quickly she roused herself to action, and despatched messengers to all those powerful friends who shared her hatred of the great archbishop, and would be glad of the opportunity now offered of wresting the rule from his hands. Until now he had triumphed ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... to be angry, on account of their private and public affairs. 3. In my own case, jurors, having never pleaded either my own cause or that of others, I now have been compelled by what has taken place, to accuse this man, so that I often have felt the greatest despondency, lest, on account of my inexperience, I should make the accusation, for my brother and myself, unworthily and unskillfully; still, I will endeavor to run over the facts ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... sustain a solid and honorable reputation; they not only can rise, but have risen, and may soar still higher, to responsible stations and affluent circumstances; no calamity afflicts, no burden depresses, no reproach excludes, no despondency enfeebles them; and they love the spot of their nativity almost to idolatry. The air of heaven is not freer or more buoyant than they. Theirs is a spirit of curiosity and adventurous enterprise, impelled by no malignant influences, but by the spontaneous promptings of the mind. Far different ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... left home "under great exercise of mind," and was detained at Albany for a time, being, as he says, taken with an ague-fit and a quinsy; but at length he reached the camp at Fort Edward, where deep despondency fell upon him. "Labor under great discouragements," says the Diary, under date of July twenty-eighth; "for find my business but mean in the esteem of many, and think there's not much for a chaplain to do." Again, Tuesday, August seventeenth: "Breakfasted this morning with the General. But a ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... an ex-mayor of Chicago was introduced to the General at the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York. It was just at a time when our cause looked very gloomy. The Mayor was evidently much depressed by the indications of national misfortune, and in a tone of great despondency asked the General,— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to the last fraction) that she still possessed a home for herself and children. My mother possessed much energy of mind, as well as a cheerful, hopeful disposition, and, although she sorrowed deeply for her sad loss, she did not yield to despondency; but endeavored to discharge faithfully her duty to her children, and to this end she sought employment, and toiled early and late that she might provide for our wants, and so far did Providence smile upon her efforts that we were enabled to live ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... of steps, because he remembers that this manoeuvre preceded both the attacks on Solferino and on Custozza by the Austrians. To the officer, however, it means nothing else than a fixed desire not to face the Italian army any more, and so it is to him a source of disappointment and despondency. He cannot bear to think that another battle is improbable, and may be excused if he is not in the best of humour when on this subject. This is the case not only with the officers but with the volunteers, who have left their homes and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... consciousness of itself. The witchery of space was there always, and seemed to draw from the soul the clinging mists of her indifference. It was there that I saw nature in all her moods, and felt that to each my own moods responded; there that despondency, imagining her monotony of woe, was confuted by the saving changefulness of created things. I remember one day, when a summer storm was spending its fury, I stood upon this ridge and looked across the low lands that stretched away beneath me. ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... promises shine, and to make the soul lay hold upon them, and that is the purpose and the tendency of a salutary fear of the Divine wrath on account of sin, to make the believer flee directly to the promises, and advance on them to Christ-(Cheever). [16] Signifying that there is nothing but despondency and despair in the fallen nature of sinful man: the best that we can do, leaves us in the Slough of Despond, as to any hope ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... who had produced this effect. Perhaps the touch of indigestion he had felt after dinner had not entirely disappeared. Perhaps it meant that he was "getting on"—sixty-five his last birthday. Perhaps—but already the March wind, fresh and bud-scented, was blowing away his despondency. Already he was beginning to feel again that fortifying conviction that whatever was unpleasant ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... practice I have become convinced that every impairment of the voice is due to outraged nature, resulting in a physiological condition of the vocal organs that should not exist, and, in turn, inducing a psychological condition, such as worry and despondency, which also should not exist. By discovering with the aid of the laryngoscope the physiological defect and removing it, body, and, with it, mind and voice are restored to their proper condition. But if the singer goes back to a teacher whose ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... had been too much spoiled by life, to regard more plainly the first drop of poison from the cup which was just started, and he passed all the time of the journey without sleep, pondering over the old man's words and fondling his grudge. This grudge, however, did not awaken in him despondency and sorrow, but rather a feeling of ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
