"Desperate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... again I found a fine saddle horse purchased for my special use, besides a horse and buggy that I could drive—but I was not in a physical condition to enjoy myself quite as well as on the former occasion. For six months before graduation I had had a desperate cough ("Tyler's grip" it was called), and I was very much reduced, weighing but one hundred and seventeen pounds, just my weight at entrance, though I had grown six inches in stature in the mean time. ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... at four o'clock in the morning, Arsene Lupin, surprised in the middle of one of his most daring burglaries, runs away by the path leading to the ruins and drops down shot. He drags himself painfully along, falls again and picks himself up in the desperate hope of reaching the chapel. The chapel contains a crypt, the existence of which he has discovered by accident. If he can burrow there, he may be saved. By dint of an effort, he approaches it, he is but a few yards away, when a sound of footsteps approaches. ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... felt sure of himself when she began, but the tenderness, the passion, the yearning appeal of her voice were more than he could resist. A wave of desperate longing convulsed his being. He seized her hand with ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... go against Germany, and in their desperate desire to escape the inevitable ultimate defeat, those who are in authority in Germany are using every possible instrumentality, are making use even of the influence of groups and parties among their own subjects to whom they have never been just ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... fulfilled. But even this brought no satisfaction to the gloomy prophet, for it was presently known that he had abandoned his terror-stricken flock to take the circuit as revivalist preacher and camp-meeting exhorter, in the rudest and most lawless of gatherings. Desperate ruffians writhed at his feet in impotent terror or more impotent rage; murderers and thieves listened to him with blanched faces and set teeth, restrained only by a more awful fear. Over and over again he took his life with his Bible into his own hands ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... moment she was desperate in her wondering how to tell it. And then it happened that from her frenzied wondering what to say of it she sank into the deeper wondering what it was. What it was—what in truth it had been all the ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... does not appear to be known, and of this I witnessed some very singular proofs. Though it is a curious fact, I was universally told that the character of the convict population is one of arrant cowardice: not unfrequently some become desperate, and quite indifferent as to life, yet a plan requiring cool or continued courage is seldom put into execution. The worst feature in the whole case is, that although there exists what may be called a legal reform, and comparatively ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... creation, that her voice had a strangely far off sound, as though it came from a distance. "I wish I could help you, dear Susan. If you ever want me, day or night, you know you have only to send for me. I'd let nothing except desperate illness stand in ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... the siege of Keiserswaert, which was invested in the month of April by the prince of Nassau-Saarburgh, mareschal-du-camp to the emperor: under this officer the Dutch troops served as auxiliaries, because war had not yet been declared by the states-general. The French garrison made a desperate defence. They worsted the besiegers in divers sallies, and maintained the place until it was reduced to a heap of ashes. At length the allies made a general attack upon the counterscarp and ravelin, which they carried after a very obstinate engagement, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... issue. The great guns roared, the bullets rattled, and presently there came an uproar which showed that the assailants had gained the fort, and the shriek and cries of the combatants, and other sounds of a desperate struggle, approached their prison. Just at that juncture the warwhoops of apparently a fresh party burst forth within the fort. The count recognised the cry as that of the Tamoyos. On they came from the opposite side of the fort, ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... Before that time I had comparative peace. Now I am desperate, like a captive and tormented cat. It will end badly with me, father, that is certain. I foresee it, and can do nothing to prevent it. I can put out my eyes and chop off my hands, but I cannot control ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... and walks straight on; the figure quits the mouth of the passage, and follows with a long and noiseless stride. It has nearly gained Darrell. With what intent? A fierce one, perhaps,—for the man's face is sinister, and his state evidently desperate,—when there emerges unexpectedly from an ugly looking court or cul-de-sac, just between Darrell and his pursuer, a slim, long-backed, buttoned-up, weazel-faced policeman. The policeman eyes the tatterdemalion ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... held this paper in his hand and knew himself committed irrevocably to the greatest game of all, he felt a queer, inner glow, a quiet satisfaction such as must come to a man who succeeds in some high enterprise. Thompson felt this in spite of desperate facts. He had no illusions as to what he had set about. He knew very well that in the R.F.C. it was a short life and not always a merry one. Of course a man might be lucky. He might survive by superior skill. In any case it ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... was being sacked, and atrocities of every kind perpetrated but, upon the other hand, I dared not undertake the responsibility of attempting to clear the streets. Such an attempt would probably end in desperate fighting. It might have resulted in heavy loss on both sides, and have caused such ill feeling between the British and Portuguese troops as to seriously interfere with the general dispositions for ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... columns were not far behind, he had reached Heilsberg. During the day the Russian rear-guard was driven in, and Bennigsen, marching all night, found himself next morning before the town of Eylau, or, more precisely, Preussisch-Eylau, the spot he had selected for a desperate stand in defense of Koenigsberg. The Russian rear-guard was again overtaken, this time at Landsberg, where Murat arrived with his cavalry on the morning of the seventh. All day the Russians slowly resisted him, fighting bravely under Prince Bagration, and receding steadily as far ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... stole up after his guide, and was presently locked in with the savage and desperate smuggler. At first Hatteraick would neither speak to Glossin nor listen to a ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... an hour. The waiting was agony for the girl, and she was at once relieved and desperate when at length she was summoned down to the study. Mrs. Middleton beckoned her to a place beside her on the couch, and Elsie dropped gratefully into it. She could not raise her eyes; she sat with her hands clasped tightly, very pale, yet aware somehow, at the ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... desperate effort. She wrung her handkerchief hard in her lap, and let off the name as if she had been letting off a loaded ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... quite at liberty to take them home. You are married. Your wife keeps an account-book. She knows to a penny what you can and what you cannot afford. She has no "speculation" in her eyes. Plain figures make desperate work with airy "somehows." It is a matter of no small skill and experience to get your books home, and into their proper places, undiscovered. Perhaps the blundering express brings them to the door just at evening. "What is it, my dear?" ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... brows, and desperate scratchings, and such silence that Mr. Geoffrey and Uncle Titus stopped short on the Alabama question, and looked round to ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... sounds like a collar. I'm sick and tired of movin' pictures and that big salary stuff is as much bunk as the rest of it. I ain't goin' around rescuin' nutty dames, beatin' up supes which is supposed to be the desperate smugglers and divin' off bridges no more! I'm goin' to make a honest livin' and I've bought out the truckin' business I was workin' for when you come along and made a movie star and a simp outa me. I'll be takin' in money there long ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... late, for scarcely had he passed the threshold, and hardly had his niece had time to utter the startling exclamation, when the door which divided the two rooms closed violently after him, as if swung by a strong blast of wind. Schalken and he both rushed to the door, but their united and desperate efforts could not avail so much as to shake it. Shriek after shriek burst from the inner chamber, with all the piercing loudness of despairing terror. Schalken and Douw applied every nerve to force open the door; but all in vain. There was ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... your face, meet him in her stead. You may go privately by the back stairs, and, unperceived, there you may propose to reinstate him in his uncle's favour, if he'll comply with your desires—his case is desperate, and I believe he'll yield to any conditions. If not here, take this; you may employ it better than in the heart of one who is nothing when not ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... the reason which led him to such an act, or, if he was employed by others, to reveal their names; but he would reveal nothing. He was executed for his crime, leaving mankind to conjecture that his motive, or that of the persons who instigated him to the deed, was a desperate determination to save Scotland, at all hazards, from falling under the ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... youths Encountered, and amidst the rapid sphere Of fire their whirling weapons clashing wove Their persons vanished from the anxious eye. Still more and more incensed their combat grew, And life hung doubtful on the desperate conflict; With awe the crowd beheld the fierce encounter And amidst hope and fear suspended tossed, Like ocean ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... suffered to remain quiet. Ferguson employed all his powers of temptation. Grey, who knew not where to turn for a pistole, and was ready for any undertaking, however desperate, lent his aid. No art was spared which could draw Monmouth from retreat. To the first invitations which he received from his old associates he returned unfavourable answers. He pronounced the difficulties of a descent on England ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... part of his own creating. He knew that he was far from faultless. That poaching business—a very venial offence in a labourer's eyes—he knew had been a serious one, a matter of some two-score pheasants and a desperate fight with a gang. Looking at it as property, the squire had been merciful, pleading with the magistrates for a mitigated penalty. The drunkenness was habitual. In short, they were a bad lot—there was a name attached to the whole family for thieving, poaching, ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... Jamie had ceased to listen, for the negro was now in front of him, and there, among the rough band of slave-catchers, his desperate appearance hid by no uniform, a rough felt hat upon his dissolute face, a bowie-knife slung by his waist, there, doing this work in the world, old Jamie saw and recognized the husband of ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... there being no other name suggested. The legislature was required to meet an unexampled fraud at the recent election, practiced in Hamilton county, where, four Republican senators and eleven Republican members had been chosen. A lawless and desperate band of men got possession of the ballot boxes in two or three wards of the city of Cincinnati, broke open the boxes and changed the ballots and returns so as to reverse the result of the election of members of the legislature. These facts were ascertained ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... nose had ceased to bleed, the signal was given for the gates to be thrown open; and out rushed Proctor, Marshal, Bull-dogs, and undergraduates. The Town was in great force, and the fight became desperate. To the credit of the Town, be it said, they discarded bludgeons and stones, and fought, in John Bull fashion, with their fists. Scarcely a stick was to be seen. Singling out his man, Mr. Tozer made ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... province Artayctes was despot, as governor under Xerxes, a Persian, but a man of desperate and reckless character, who also had practised deception upon the king on his march against Athens, in taking away from Elaius the things belonging to Protesilaos the son of Iphiclos. For at Elaius in the Chersonese there is the tomb ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... director, Damrosch, had arranged a concert for me. I had made his acquaintance on my last visit to Weimar, and had also heard of him through Liszt. Unfortunately the conditions here struck me as extraordinarily dismal and desperate. The whole affair had been planned on the meanest scale, as indeed I might have expected. A perfectly horrible concert-room, which usually served as a beer- restaurant, had been engaged. At the rear of this, and separated from it by ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... an unfortunate feature of European settlement in America, that the border population, those most in contact with the natives, have been visually men of wild and desperate character, the tainted foam of the advancing tide of civilization. Those reckless adventurers were little scrupulous in their dealings with the simple savage; they utterly disregarded those rights which his weakness could not defend, and by intolerable provocation excited him to ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... them by daylight," he said when talking over the matter with Captain Crosbie and Stephen, "it would be altogether too desperate. Were this ship manned with English sailors I would do it without hesitation, and even with Chilians a good deal might be effected; but although the crew have gained greatly in discipline since we got rid of the ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... it, Mrs. Crashaw. When I reflect that there are two thousand elevators in Boston, and that the inspectors have just pronounced a hundred and seventy of them unsafe, I'm so desperate when I get into one that ...
— The Elevator • William D. Howells
... at present begins to grow steady enough for a letter, so the properest use I can put it to is to thank ye honest gentleman that set it a shaking. I have had this morning a desperate design in my head to attack you in verse, which I should certainly have done could I have found out a rhyme to rummer. But though you have escaped for ye present, you are not yet out of danger, if I can a little recover my talent at Crambo. I am sure, in whatever way I write to you, it will be impossible ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the bear's form stole over him, and he went forth a bear. She followed him, and saw that a great body of hunters had come over the mountain ridges, and had a number of dogs with them. The bear rushed away from the cavern, but the dogs and the king's men came upon him, and there was a desperate struggle. He wearied many men before he was brought to bay, and had slain all the dogs. But now they made a ring about him, and he ranged around it., but could see no means of escape, so he turned to ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... in the parts I have named is worse than that of any people in the world, let alone Europe. I believe that these people are made as we are, that they are patient beyond belief, loyal, but, at the same time, broken-spirited and desperate, living on the verge of starvation in places in which we ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... these two traits I should not know what to think of this young man, who speaks of God and the world in the most ruthless manner. Curiously enough, your reproach hit him in this particular point, and when he showed me your letter there was a peculiar desperate question in his glance. With such experiences the boy will become quickly, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... once more to his rooms, he made a desperate effort to recover his senses. Taking out a picture of Tatyana, he placed it in front of him, and stared at it long and eagerly. Suddenly he pushed it gently away, and clutched his head in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the tent, and, as I did so, a man wiggled out like a snake from under the bottom of the canvas, scrambled to his feet, and ran into me like a locoed bronco. I gathered him by the neck and investigated him by the light of the stars. It is Professor Eduardo Collieri, in human habiliments, with a desperate look in one eye and impatience ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... of cards which had been so carefully erected. But the intrigue had gone so far, and the prizes to be won by the monarchical supporters were so great that nothing could induce them to retrace their footsteps. For a week and more a desperate struggle went on behind the scenes in the Presidential Palace, since Yuan Shih-kai was too astute a man not to understand that a most perilous situation was being rapidly created and that if things went wrong he would ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... "young Ryce," or Richard ap Griffyth, is one of the most obscure passages in the history of this reign. It was a Welsh plot, conducted at Islington. [Act of Attainder of Richard ap Griffyth, 23 Hen. VIII. cap. 24.] The particulars of it I am unable to discover further, than that it was a desperate undertaking, encouraged by the uncertainty of the succession, and by a faith in prophecies (Confession of Sir William Neville: Rolls House MS.), to murder the king. Ryce was tried in Michaelmas term, 1531, and ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... the records of the Treasury I have been forcibly struck with the large amount of public money which appears to be outstanding. Of the sum thus due from individuals to the Government a considerable portion is undoubtedly desperate, and in many instances has probably been rendered so by remissness in the agents charged with its collection. By proper exertions a great part, however, may yet be recovered; and what ever may be the portions respectively belonging to these ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... we were all prepared for some sort of gun-play, for the crooks were desperate characters, and I myself was surprised to encounter nothing but physical ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... African veld, just soaking into it like water into dry ground. She had a vision of the wide rolling plain, black from sky's rim to sky's rim, and the moonlight pouring a futile splendour into its lap. She moved with a quick and almost desperate run to the door, opened it, and leaned over the balustrade of the staircase. The hall was empty and no sound of voices came from the library. She stepped cautiously down the stairs; as she reached the last step the door of the library opened and ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... also family troubles at this period. His sister Emilia had conceived a desperate passion for Don Emmanuel, the pauper son of the forlorn pretender to Portugal, Don Antonio, who had at last departed this life. Maurice was indignant that a Catholic, an outcast, and, as it was supposed, a bastard, should dare to mate with the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... with fighting, the first legion was relieved by the third, and the right wing of allied infantry by the left; while on the part of the enemy fresh troops took up the battle in place of those who were tired. A new and desperate conflict suddenly arose, instead of that which was so feebly maintained, their minds and bodies being unimpaired by fatigue; but night separated the combatants while the victory was undecided. The following day the Romans stood drawn up for battle from sun-rise till late in the day; ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... cat. 'I'll take my oath before any justice of the peace, that you have my two puppies.' Thereupon there was a desperate combat, which ended in the defeat of the spaniel; and then the cat walked off proudly with one of the puppies, which she took to ...
— Minnie's Pet Cat • Madeline Leslie
... sudden desperate sinking, and he could not answer for a moment. The magistrate passed his shaking hand over his mouth and beard once or twice; but the thrust had gone home, and there was no parry or riposte. He followed ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the most violent and far-fetched theory of the mystery. Nothing but our desperate need of an elucidation could excuse its being put forward," said Captain Pendleton, drily. Then he spoke more earnestly: "Berners, whatever may be the true explanation of all that we have experienced here, one thing seems certain: that your retreat here is known to at least ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... frightening Olivier, her threat only helped to make up his mind to side with her. Christophe had no small difficulty in making the crazy pair have a little patience: before taking such desperate measures they might as well try others: let Jacqueline go home, and he would go and see M. Langeais and ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... huddle here, and under the arches, children skulk away like young rats, feeding on offal, lying close in dark corners for warmth, and hunted about also like rats. It is a poverty desperate and horrible beyond that that any other civilized city can show; and who shall say who is responsible, or what the ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... Breed of Insects well Known by the Name of Musketoes. These Creatures are well disciplined for they do Not Scout in private Places nor in Small Companies as tho Affraid to attack but Joining in as many Different Colloums as there are Openings to Your Dwellings they make a Desperate push and Seldom fail to Annoy their Enemy in Such a Manner that they leave their Adversary in a Scratching humor the Next Morning thro^o Vexation. It would be endless to mention the advantages & Disadvantages of the Place but this I ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman
... to be perfectly frank, I do—though I was in as desperate straits as a man could be, I lay before the hearth that Christmas Eve filled with gratitude to heaven—God knows such a gift must have come from heaven!—for the love with which I ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... municipal authorities by the known favor of the Queen and the frequent interference of the Privy Council. This state of affairs was not, of course, comfortable for the actors; but it was by no means desperate, and for several years after the passage of the ordinance of 1574 they continued without serious interruption to occupy ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... far into the stirrups and were cut, or they were jerked out; every corner was a new terror, for at each I was nearly pitched off on one side, and when at last Upa stopped, and my beast stopped without consulting my wishes, only a desperate grasp of mane and tethering rope saved me from going over his head. At this ridiculous moment we came upon a bevy of brown maidens swimming in a lakelet by the roadside, who increased my confusion by a chorus of laughter. How ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... doubted whether these merits were equally conspicuous during his second expedition. The parts of his conduct which have given occasion to this remark, are, his setting out from the Gambia almost at the eve of the rainy season, and his voyage down the Niger under circumstances so apparently desperate. On the motives by which he may have been influenced as to the former of these measures, something has been said in the course of the foregoing narrative. [Footnote: See p. lxvi.] With regard to his determination in the latter instance, justice must ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... twelve or thirteen these yearnings can no longer be suppressed; and, banded together, the youths of from twelve to sixteen years roam over the country; and some of the most cold-blooded atrocities, daring attacks, and desperate combats have been made by these children in pursuit ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... others to remember when it seemed too late. By fear and favour he had scraped together near upon a dozen men, principally tenants' sons; they were all pretty full when they set forth, and rode up the hill by the old abbey, roaring and singing, the white cockade in every hat. It was a desperate venture for so small a company to cross the most of Scotland unsupported; and (what made folk think so the more) even as that poor dozen was clattering up the hill, a great ship of the King's navy, that could have brought ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... summit of the mountain, she came even immediately below me and conversed on the most fastidious topics with the gardener; but to the top of that wall she would not dedicate a glance! At last she began to retrace her steps in the direction of the cottage; whereupon, becoming quite desperate, I broke off a piece of plaster, took a happy aim, and hit her with it in the nape of the neck. She clapped her hand to the place, turned about, looked on all sides for an explanation, and spying me (as indeed I was parting ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... confident. After all, in the hands of a conductor less honourable than himself, of a common conductor, the purse might not have been so "all right" as all that! He would have preferred to witness the change on Mrs Vernon's features from desperate anxiety to glad relief. After all, L50, 10s. was ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... applied to the friendly friar, always her counsellor in distress, and he asking her if she had resolution to undertake a desperate remedy, and she answering that she would go into the grave alive rather than marry Paris, her own dear husband living; he directed her to go home, and appear merry, and give her consent to marry Paris, according to her father's desire, and on the next night, which was ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... aft and making fast the sheet of a mainsail or foresail. What ho! no nearer! is What ho! no higher now. But old salts remember no nearer! and it may be still extant. Seasickness seems to have been the same as ever—so was the desperate effort to pretend one was not really ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... roared Bull to Tom, "you're next!" The big man stuck out his hand. Tom gulped. For one desperate second he thought ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... situation was desperate. Their retreat was discovered. They could not oppose any obstacle to these missiles, nor protect the stone, which flew in splinters around them. There was nothing to be done but to take refuge in the upper passage ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... race, and keeping a fair place in it, too, with their legs tied together. All they do, they do at a disadvantage. It is as when a noble race-horse is beaten by a sorry hack; because the race-horse, as you might see, if you look at the list, is carrying twelve pounds additional. But such men, by a desperate effort, often made silently and sorrowfully, may (so to speak) run in the race, and do well in it, though you little think with how heavy a foot and how heavy a heart. There are others who have no chance at all. They are like a horse set to run a race, tied by a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... young robber in the life of the blessed Apostle St. John. A young man at Ephesus who had become a Christian, and of whom St. John was very fond, got into trouble while St. John was away, and had to flee for his life into the mountains. There he joined a band of robbers, and was so daring and desperate that they soon chose him as their captain. St. John came back, and found the poor lad gone. St. John had stood at the foot of the cross years before, and heard his Lord pardon the penitent thief; and he knew ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... in the grip of a powerful man, but he was a giant himself, and desperate. He flung himself with all his force upon his adversary, and both went to the floor together; Jones' hand on ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... weight of rigging and wreck which hung to them, and which, like a powerful lever, pressed the labouring ship down on her side. To disengage this enormous top hamper, was to us an object more to be desired than expected. Yet the case was desperate, and a desperate effort was to be made, or in half an hour we should have been past praying for, except by a Roman Catholic priest. The danger of sending a man aloft was so imminent, that the captain would not order one on this ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... don't want no more loose shooting here!" and, by way of assisting his remark, he took down his double-barrelled shot-gun and jumped upon the counter. The fellow was well known for a desperate though not quarrelsome character, and his action had the effect of somewhat ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... strong-minded woman, the Baroness de Thaller. She had had so many adventures in her life, she had walked on the very edge of so many precipices, concealed so many anxieties, that danger was, as it were, her element, and that, at the decisive moment of an almost desperate game, she could remain smiling like those old gamblers whose face never betrays their terrible emotion at the moment when they risk their last stake. Not a muscle of her face moved; and it was with the most imperturbable ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... there happened a most desperate mutiny among the men, upon account of some deficiency in their allowance, which came to that height that they threatened the captain to set him on shore, and go back with the ship to Goa. I wished they would with all my heart, for I ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... through the group; and then, towering above them, and steadying himself by the hand-rail in a desperate effort at erectness, Mr. Royall stepped stiffly ashore. Like the young men of the party, he wore a secret society emblem in the buttonhole of his black frock-coat. His head was covered by a new Panama hat, and his narrow black tie, half undone, dangled down on his rumpled shirt-front. His face, a ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... hand to touch the trigger, when he heard a voice call his name. It was a quick, desperate cry, and a figure tall and slender, enveloped in a dark storm cloak, rushed before him. The gun fell from his hands as he looked up to see Adelheid's face, white and despairing, looking into ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... tell you all I have suffered since September. Why didn't I die from it? That is what surprises me! No one was more desperate than I was. Why? I have had bad moments in my life, I have gone through great losses. I have wept a great deal. I have undergone much anguish. Well! all these pangs accumulated together, are nothing in comparison to ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... constant forms have perished, so that the lines of demarcation between allied species have grown more and more distinct, and it is usually only by going back to fossil ages that we can supply the missing links of continuity. In the desperate struggle for existence no peculiarity, physical or psychical, however slight, has been too insignificant for natural selection to seize and enhance; and the myriad fantastic forms and hues of animal and vegetal life illustrate the seeming capriciousness of its workings. Psychical variations have ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... restrained or urged on at the will of their driver, but this is a pure fallacy, for a sled-dog's gallop is like a donkey's, short and sweet. The average gait is a shuffling trot, covering from five to seven miles an hour over easy ground; and even then desperate fights frequently necessitate a stoppage and readjustment of the traces. There are no reins, the dogs being fastened two abreast on either side of a long rope. To start off you seize the sled with both hands, give it a violent wrench to one side, and cry "Petak!" when the team ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... endless rest. True to my oath, which time can never change, On thee, proud King! I hurl my just revenge. The blood of Zind inspires my burning hate, And dire resentment hurries on thy fate; Whom canst thou send to try the desperate strife? What valiant Chief, regardless of his life? Where now can Friburz, Tus, Giw, Gudarz, be, And the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... was long and desperate, but Wallace killed Fenwick with his own hand, and after losing nigh a hundred of their number the English fled in confusion. The whole convoy fell into the hands of the victors, who became possessed of several wagons, 200 ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... the dark'ning heath, More desperate grew the strife of death, The English shafts in volleys hail'd, In headlong charge their horse assail'd; 1025 Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep To break the Scottish circle deep, That fought around their King. But yet, though ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... till she suddenly flung away the rope, cried out, and ran backwards, perfectly scared by a big grey snake, with red spots, much embarrassed by a large frog which he would not let go, though, like most of his kind, he was alarmed by human approach, and made desperate efforts to swallow his victim and wriggle into the bushes. After crawling for three hours we dismounted at the mountain farm of Kohiaku, on the edge of a rice valley, and the woman counted her packages to see that they were all right, and without waiting for a gratuity ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... twenty-four thousand men and ordered a navy to be built. Washington redoubled his efforts, confident that Boston was substantially at his mercy; but seeing as clearly that the capture or the evacuation of the city would introduce a more general and desperate struggle, and one that would try ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... disappeared rapidly, thanks to the impetuosity of the dragoons; but suddenly, when within thirty paces of the enemy, the royals found themselves on the edge of a deep ravine which separated them from the enemy like a moat. Some were able to check their horses in time, but others, despite desperate efforts, pressed upon by those behind, were pushed into the ravine, and rolled helplessly to the bottom. At the same moment the order to fire was given in a sonorous voice, there was a rattle of musketry, and several dragoons near M. ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... near, the savage cat of a tenor springs at it, misses its hold, and then takes after it with terrible earnestness. But the tenor has miscalculated the agility of the theme. All that it could do, with the most desperate effort, was to keep the theme from running back into its hole again; and so they ran up and down, around and around, dodging, eluding, whipping in and out of every corner and nook, till the whole organ was aroused, and the bass began to take ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... their service. Among the rest, Mamercus, the tyrant of Catana, an experienced warrior and a wealthy prince, made proposals of alliance with him, and, what was of greater importance still, Dionysius himself being now grown desperate, and wellnigh forced to surrender, despising Hicetes who had been thus shamefully baffled, and admiring the valor of Timoleon, found means to advertise him and his Corinthians that he should be content ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... and inseparable, that it should endure now and forever, but the endorsement was written with the sword's point, and in letters of blood. The conflict raged, therefore, for thirty-five years, and some of the most desperate battles were fought not with guns and cannon, but with arguments, in the presence of assembled thousands, who listened to the intellectual attack and defense. In their famous debate, Lincoln and Douglas were over against one another like ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... the splashing as of men in desperate struggle at the water's edge, the hoarse words of command, the scurrying lanterns, the gleam of a hundred tossing sabres—all these told their own tale to Gunner Sobey. He arose and ran again; nor ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... this time the negroes belonging to a neighboring estate came flocking to our assistance, making together about one hundred in number, with the Spaniards. We then hauled on both ropes nearly all day before the fish became exhausted. On endeavoring to raise the monster it became most desperate, sweeping with its saw from side to side, so that we were compelled to get strong ropes to prevent it from cutting us to pieces. After that one of the Spaniards got on its back, and at great risk cut through the joint of the tail, when the great ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... for the possession of a bone drawn from the slush of the kennel. I have seen boys fight and bruise each other for a crust of bread dropped upon the pavement, and covered with wet mud, or even unsightlier filth. I have entered the abode of this desperate poverty, led thither by children, who have clamored at my side for alms, and found such misery as I am incompetent to express in words. I have seen the living unable to rise from sickness, in the same bed with the dying and the dead. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... were the deeds of desperate men, who had been made desperate by cruel oppression, and insensible to cruelty by cruel wrongs, is evident from the dying declaration of five Whiteboys, who were executed, in 1762, at Waterford and who publicly ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... the fields that evening instead of through the town. He was not quite up to any of his roles—editor, promoter, or reformer. In fact, he felt a desperate need of a brief respite from all histrionic duties. A reaction had set in from the excitement of the past week, and the complication involved in Mrs. Gusty's condition puzzled and distressed him. ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... out of the difficulty. If there is a God, the source of all truth and goodness, how else can we account for this desperate condition of his highest creation, except we admit man's fallen condition? It is thus that the doctrine of original sin is as clear to me as is the ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... made a desperate effort to move, and taking his cane in his left hand, passed his right hand slowly down it, from the golden head that adorned it to the other extremity. 'Look you,' said he, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... people; and we may be sure that, though some may be against us, many will be for us. If we succeed in sweeping them all away, or absorbing them, we shall be at the mercy of our native army, and they will see it; and accidents may possibly occur to unite them, or a great portion of them, in some desperate act. The thing is possible, though improbable; and the best provision against it seems to me to be the maintenance of native rulers, whose confidence and affection can be engaged, and administrations ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... stood arrested and spell-bound, his hand on his bridle, his foot on his stirrup. A moment more and Darvil had clashed his antagonist on the ground; he stood at a little distance, his face reddened by the glare of the lanthorn and fronting his assailants—that fiercest of all beasts, a desperate man at bay! He had already succeeded in drawing forth his pistols, and he held one in each hand—his eyes flashing from beneath his bent brows and turning quickly from foe to foe! At last those terrible eyes rested on the late ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... then cried out, "Loose me, and I will confess whatsoe'er you will." Hereat Dom. Consul so greatly rejoiced, that while the constable unbound her, he fell on his knees, and thanked God for having spared him this anguish. But no sooner was my poor desperate child unbound, and had laid aside her crown of thorns (I mean my silken neckerchief), than she jumped off the ladder, and flung herself upon me, who lay for dead in the corner in a ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... retorted, growing desperate lest his mother, hearing their voices, should suddenly come out on to the verandah and learn what they were talking about before he had time to put his side of the story to her. "If you had you would have known I tried and tried to get Nellie ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... the office: whence Lord Brouncker, J. Minnes, and W. Pen, and I went to examine some men that are put in there for rescuing of men that were pressed into the service: and we do plainly see that the desperate condition that we put men into for want of their pay makes them mad, they being as good men as over were in the world, and would as readily serve the King again, were they but paid. Two men leapt overboard, among others, into the Thames ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... lawlessness for years. Some of the Union men and Union sympathizers, in the majority in the county during hostilities, assumed to the full the new power that came to them by the war's outcome. Conservative civic leaders sought to reestablish a condition of peace, but the lawless and desperate element prepared personally to profit ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... desperate. We retreated across the central passage, fearing lest the blazing rafters should fall upon our natives, who were losing heart and would no longer stay beneath them. But the Quabies, more bold, clambered in ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... married in haste. I was then a headstrong, hot-tempered, unreasonable youth; she—well, she was Spanish, and with a temper and disposition that matched mine. After many quarrels, we parted in anger. I went my way, a wild, desperate way; needless to tell you whither such a way leads. Wrecked in character and prospects, I decided to be quit of the world. I had thought of suicide—but God held my hand. Suffice it that I disappeared, that I concocted a false report of my death, and so made room for my younger brother, Talbot, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... a native of Britain, but bred in the Irish Brigade. He was a man of the most dauntless courage, which he displayed in some uncommonly desperate adventures during the first years of the French Revolution, being repeatedly employed by the royal family in very dangerous commissions. After the King's death he came over to England, and it was then the following circumstance ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... main part of the mill, with their nerves all on edge, and their muscles set in readiness for a struggle. Whether they would meet the three tramps who were creating no end of excitement around the vicinity by their bold robbery of hen-roosts, and even houses; or some desperate boys ready to fight when caught in a trap, none of ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... objective, he felt sure that the members of the syndicate were desperate men. They were evidently too far committed to hesitate over fresh crime to keep their secret. If he wished to pursue his investigations, it was up to him to do so ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... hospital. It would make them sick to eat it, wouldn't it?" That there was no shadow of a smile on Marie's face showed how desperate, indeed, was her state of mind. "I only meant that I didn't want them myself, nor the shower bouquet, nor the rooms darkened, nor little Kate as the flower girl—and would you mind very much if I asked you not to ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... indulged in any hope. The poor fellow was beside himself to get her a bouquet of camellias. Countess Sotski and Sophia Bespalova, as everyone knew, were coming with white camellia bouquets. Anfisa wished for red ones, for effect. Well, her husband Platon was driven desperate to find some. And the day before the ball, Anfisa's rival snapped up the only red camellias to be had in the place, from under Platon's nose, and Platon—wretched man—was done for. Now if Peter had only been able to step in at this moment with a red bouquet, his ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the railing, waving to and fro, but holding on with a desperate grasp. She seemed struggling to lift herself to an upright position, but without sufficient strength. Chester advanced a step to help her, but drew back, for, without perceiving him, she was creeping feebly up the steps, with her face shrouded in darkness again. She reached the bell with difficulty, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... at first stupefied with astonishment and terror. Then, actuated by a sudden, desperate impulse, she ran to the door, and had got it partly open, when the nurse sprang forward, and seizing her by the ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... of these favourite positions, of which it is surely not the smallest excellence, that they are of unbounded application, comprehending within their capacious limits, all the errors which have been believed, and many of the most desperate crimes which have been perpetrated among men. The former of them is founded altogether on that grossly fallacious assumption, that a man's opinions will not influence his practice. The latter proceeds on this groundless ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... fire was terrific between 4 and 5 when I woke up and came to the top of the ridge to see what was doing. Plainly something unusually desperate was on the move. "Asiatic Annie" was also busy and several shells came this way, one falling in the C.C.S. where no harm was done. Luckily it had chosen a clear spot in front of the store tent to pitch into. I had gone down to ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... up the bundle which the fugitive had deserted. "Something incriminating when Ali of Cairo dared not stay to face it out! He would never have deserted this place in the ordinary way. That fellow who was such a bad shot was left behind, when the news of our approach reached here, to make a desperate attempt to remove some piece of evidence! I'll swear to it. But we ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... the same failures; that six succeeding generations should have rushed headlong down the precipice that was open before them; and that men of every condition should have staked their public and private fortunes on the desperate adventure of possessing or recovering a tombstone two thousand miles from their country. In a period of two centuries after the council of Clermont, each spring and summer produced a new emigration of pilgrim warriors for the defence of the Holy Land; but ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... not lose his head, and he did not waste his strength in desperate efforts to overtake the vessel. He calmly laid-to, kept his head above water, and waited for the helmsman to bring ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... over six feet in height. The rifle barrel was thrust down the bear's throat after the stock had been torn away, and upon the steel still are shown the marks of the brute's teeth. The same teeth were knocked out by the flailing blows of the desperate pioneer, who finally escaped when Bruin tired of the fight. Then Hamblin discovered himself badly hurt, one hand, especially, chewed by the bear. The animal later was killed by a neighbor and was identified by broken ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... occasioned, by the cowardice of Magny. He found means to communicate with her from his prison, and her Highness, who was not in open disgrace yet (for the Duke, out of regard to the family, persisted in charging Magny with only robbery), made the most desperate efforts to relieve him, and to bribe the gaolers to effect his escape. She was so wild that she lost all patience and prudence in the conduct of any schemes she may have had for Magny's liberation; ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... comes before us, externally, as the most desperate of bookselling speculations. The publisher, far from drinking his wine out of the skull of his author, is in danger of having neither wine nor ordinary cup, and is forced into the most reckless charlatanerie to save himself from utter ruin and complete loss of the generous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Government buildings on the Marina.' Let us remember that, when it was enclosed within the walls that are now no more, it was the home of Mohammedan potentates—sometimes a scene of gorgeous festivity—sometimes a scene of desperate intrigue. In imagination we may people the front garden with the gaily-uniformed Body-Guard of the Carnatic sovereign, mounted on gaily-bridled steeds; and we may see the Nawab himself coming magnificently ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... feet the rocks were so glacially polished and water-worn that it seemed impossible to get any farther. To our right was a crack penetrating the rock perhaps a foot deep, widening at the surface to three or four inches, which proved to be the only possible ladder. As the chances seemed rather desperate, we concluded to tie ourselves together, in order to share a common fate; and with a slack of thirty feet between us, and our knapsacks upon our backs, we climbed into the crevice, and began descending with our faces to the cliff. This had to be done with unusual caution, for the foothold was about ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... a foot and a half long, through the hole of which a red ribbon is passed. The small canes are not carried in the hand, but stuck in the girdle on the left side. Nobody summoned before the judges by a messenger carrying a staff of red Brazil wood dares to disobey the command. The most desperate criminal meekly goes to his doom, following often a mere boy, if the latter has only a toy vara stuck in his belt with the red ribbons hanging down. It is the vara the Indians respect, not the man who ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... such desperate efforts to learn all about poetry that her system got quite out of order. But although she did not in the course of the day hit upon anything, she quite casually succeeded in her dreams in devising eight lines; so concluding her toilette and her ablutions, she hastily ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... cremation) were originally attempts to get rid of their dangerous qualities; later other motives came in. The body of a suicide was especially feared, and was staked down on a public way to prevent its reappearance; it was perhaps the abnormal and desperate character of the death that produced this special fear. The dread of a corpse is, however, not universal among savages—in many cases it is eaten, simply as food or to acquire the qualities of the deceased, or for other reasons. It is feared as having hurtful power, it is ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... from desertion and disease. The war with the natives was ignominiously ended by Charles V. in 1533, who found that the colony was growing too poor to pay for it. He despatched a letter to the cacique who had organized this desperate and prolonged resistance, flattered him by the designation of Dom Henri[19] and profuse expressions of admiration, sent a Spanish general to treat with him, and to assign him a district to inhabit with his followers. Dom Henri thankfully accepted this pacification, and soon after received ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... of Summit we have not such a man, but we can and will have one if you will appoint the one whose name I now present and for whom I ask your favorable consideration. We had, as you know, a bitter and desperate struggle. It was the very time that we stood sadly in need of every man and of every vote. We lost the county that Summit is in by a small majority. If an active and aggressive man, such as the one whose name I now place before you, had been postmaster at Summit, the result ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... women, and children—there came scarcely a sound, save raucous whispers, a moan or a sigh quickly suppressed. A grim silence reigned in this thickly-peopled camp; only the crackling of the torches broke that silence now and then, or the flapping of canvas in the wintry gale. They worked on sullen, desperate, and starving, with no hope of payment save the miserable rations wrung from poor tradespeople or miserable farmers, as wretched, as oppressed as themselves; no hope of payment, only fear of punishment, for that ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... (Vol. vii., p. 617.).—This phrase is only some ten or twelve years old. Its origin was this:—Some desperate witty fellows, by way of giving a comic turn to the phrase "C'est une autre chose," used to translate it, "That is another cheese;" and after awhile these words became "household words," and when anything positive or specific was intended to be pointed out, "That's the cheese" became adopted, which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... is no work in Berlin, and Hans must pursue his journey. He waits for hours at the police-office, as play-goers wait at the door of a London theatre. By and by, he gets into the small bureau with a desperate rush. That business is settled, and he is off again. Time runs on; and, after a further tramp of good two hundred miles, Hans gets settled at last in ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... hundred had just been massacred in cold blood, and in defiance of every law of warfare and humanity; and between the Anglo-Americans and a brutal, slaughtering army there was only Houston and a few hundred desperate men. The New Orleans Greys and a company of young Southern gentlemen from Mobile had just sailed. Every man's heart was on fire for this young republic of Texas. Her shield was scarcely one month old, and yet it had been bathed ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... with a choking sensation in his throat, and rushing madly out Phillip Lawson caught the peculiar glance in his eye which he many a time called to mind years afterwards when he could interpret it with all clearness—the look which seemed to plead for forgiveness—which seemed to say, "I was desperate and the devil tempted me, I was indeed brought up by a ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... 'One more desperate attempt, however, he made. After a silence of considerable duration, during which he struggled to be calm, and I to be grave—for I felt a strong propensity to laugh—which would have ruined all—he said, with the ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... in despair at their ruin and their annihilation breathed again and leaped for joy; and the Parliament and the robe destroyed by edicts and by revolutions, flattered themselves the first that they should figure, the other that they should find themselves free. The people ruined, overwhelmed, desperate, gave thanks to God, with a scandalous eclat, for a deliverance, their most ardent desires ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... as favorably as possible for the negroes, while at the same time he seems to have suspected that the reader would be a good deal impressed by the darker shades of his sketch, and the conclusion of the whole is: There is ground for hope, but the case is a pretty desperate one. A conclusion to which, I confess, my own observation and studies lead me, ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... paid for it. After all, it was but a small price to pay for comparative security and the silence of a tongue which could work such ill. Accustomed to deal with men of all natures, honest and simple, clever and foolish, secretive and loquacious, there ran in his mind the desperate idea that he would temporize with Paul Boriskoff and ultimately destroy him. Let the Russian Government be informed of the activity of this Pole and of his intention to visit the Continent of Europe again, and what were Boriskoff's chances? Such were the treacherous ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... was joined, that is to say, there was a desperate combat, which ended in the defeat of the spaniel, and the cat walking proudly off with one of the puppies, which she took to her own bed. Having deposited this one, she returned, fought again, gained another victory, and redeemed another puppy. Now it is very singular that ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... stood her ground. She was desperate. Death was staring her in the face, and she was staring ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... pronounced their intention of taking the field for the overthrow of tyrants and impostors. But their success was short-lived. Conrad, bishop and prince of Munster, raised an army, laid siege to the city which he captured after a desperate struggle, and put to death the fanatical leaders who had deceived the people (1535-6). Other writers and preachers questioned the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation, and advocated many heresies condemned by the early Church, some of them going ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... most desirable method of procuring ushers is by advertisements. None will apply who are not in desperate circumstances, and these are your men. If they know little it is no great matter; they will be the more diligent: and should the children detect their ignorance, or the parents complain, you may easily dismiss them; others ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... then to go away. He is really in rather a dangerous position here. Jimmy Post has sworn that he will not be taken back to New York, and there are one or two others—a pretty desperate crew. We tried last ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... educated, instructed, and at length baptized him; but then remitting of his care, the young man thereupon got into ill company, and began by degrees first to revel and grow vitious, then to abuse and spoil those he met in the night; and at last grew so desperate, that his companions turning a band of high-way men, made him their Captain: and, saith [5] Chrysostom, he continued their Captain a long time. At length John returning to that city, and hearing what was done, rode to the thief; and, when he out of reverence ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... encroaching in Asia, and, after defeating the shah of Persia, their advance upon Syria and Egypt was only a matter of time. The victory was made easier by jealousies and treachery among the Mamluks. Kansuh fell at the head of his gallant troops in a battle near Aleppo in August 1516; a last desperate stand of the Mamluks under the Mukattam Hill at Cairo in January 1517, was overcome, and Sultan Selim made Egypt a province of the Turkish empire. Such it ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the column was pressed may be shown from one incident. While he was preparing to evacuate Abu Klea, Buller received information to the effect that the enemy was advancing upon him with a force of eight thousand men. He determined upon a desperate measure. He left standing the forts which he had intended to demolish and filled up the ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... of the Sun (Bright cynosure of every darkling sign, Wherein all numbers consummate in One,) Poised on the bolt of an Un-finite line, As one whose spirit's state, Is unafraid but desperate, Through far unfathomed fears, Through Time to timeless years, I soar, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... night, and at last makes a clean breast. It would have been a bad business for him at any other time, but now he is a revealing angel, for he noted this and that in the course of his own little game, and gives justice the thread which leads to a wonderful romance, and brings home desperate crime to that quarter where, from rank, education, and profession, it was least likely to be found. Then comes the trial and the execution; and so, at a sitting, has been swallowed all that excitement which, at some time long ago, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... is no one there now, except Abby, and she is lame and very old. Father is not in town. He will not be back until night, and I can perfectly well go home alone!" I was beginning to feel desperate, as I thought I never should get out ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... noticeable for his long coal-black hair, lead a headlong and successful charge, which carried the Union troops higher up the hill. But another general was driven back, losing cannon, although he retook them in a second and desperate charge. Still no news from McClernand and his fifteen thousand! There was silence where his guns ought to have been thundering, and Grant burned ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of a fiction, which I then intimated would probably be my last; but bad habits are stronger than good intentions. When Fabricio, in his hospital, resolved upon abjuring the vocation of the Poet, he was, in truth, recommencing his desperate career by a Farewell to the Muses,—I need ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... talker, Matthews by name, who grew very restive under the process. The great man had selected Dorchester as his theme, because he had unhappily discovered that I had recently visited it. My friend Matthews, who had been included in the audience, made desperate attempts to escape; and once, seeing that I was fairly grappled, began a conversation with his next neighbour. But the antiquary was not to be put off. He stopped, and looked at Matthews with a relentless eye. "Matthews," he said, "MATTHEWS!" raising his voice. Matthews ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a clear sacrifice of the western, to the maritime States, will with difficulty be obliterated. The proposition of my going to Madrid, to try to recover there the ground which has been lost at New York, by the concession of the vote of seven States, I should think desperate. With respect to myself, weighing the pleasure of the journey and bare possibility of success, in one scale, and the strong probability of failure and the public disappointment directed on me, in the other, the latter preponderates. Add to this, that jealousy might be excited ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... awake all Saturday night and all Sunday night, until four o'clock on Monday morning; always reviewing the situation, always going over the same patch of ground in the desperate hope of finding some place where her self-respect could rest, and discovering nothing but the traces of her guilty feet. A subtler woman would have flourished lightly over the territory, till she had ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... way to stumble on it if a mis-step chanced, his heart sprang to his throat. What if the dire explosive he had planned to use upon his enemies should prove to be the death of the one being whom he loved? He sprang toward her with the mighty impulse of desperate muscles spurred by a panic-stricken mind and caught her, roughly, just before her foot would have touched ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... fellow in Hartlepool. He used to do it with handbags he stole at railway stations, but he's in a monastery now. Oh, one gets to know, you know," he added, rubbing his head again with the same sort of desperate apology. "We can't help being priests. People come and tell us ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... of passion and mortification passed, too, leaving him standing there, dumb, desperate, staring at the letter crushed in his ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... was" said he, "when this had been the very pastime I desired." The murderous animal attacked him with such impetuosity that his well-tried skill failed him, and he was the next moment thrown under its feet. The struggle now became desperate, for the animal had no common foe to contend with. Before it could wound him with its tusks, which seemed of unusual size, it required not an instant's thought in Rudolf to draw his dagger from his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... charge on the line of guards, snatch they guns away from them, and force our way through the gate The shouts were taken up by others, and, as if in obedience to the suggestion, we instinctively formed in line-of-battle facing the guards. A glance down the line showed me an array of desperate, tensely drawn faces, such as one sees who looks a men when they are summoning up all their resolution for some deed of great peril. The Rebel officers hastily retreated behind the line of guards, whose faces blanched, but ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... there is a measure of rugged consideration even among profligates and drunkards. But a storm had been brewing, and it fell at last when Ned Brierley had been gone from Langhurst about a month. A desperate effort was made to get Johnson back to join his old companions at the "George," and when this utterly failed, every spiteful thing that malice could suggest and ingenuity effect was practised on the ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... Kingdom, and were convened together for the sole special Purpose of creating and granting to themselves and their Heirs, the Estates and Inheritances of this your Kingdom of Ireland, upon a scandalous, false Hypothesis, imputing the traitorous Design of some desperate, indigent Persons to seize your Majesty's Castle of Dublin, on the 23rd of October, 1641, to an universal Conspiracy of your Catholick Subjects, and applying the Estates and Persons thereby presumed to have forfeited, to the Use and Benefit ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... combined, and the rout was complete. It was the moment of Canada's last efforts, and the echo of that glorious death-rattle reached even to Versailles. The Duke of Choiseul had, on the 19th of February, replied to a desperate appeal from Montcalm, "I am very sorry to have to send you word that you must not expect any re-enforcements. To say nothing of their increasing the dearth of provisions of which you have had only too much experience hitherto, there would be great ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... almost a law. There is nothing worse in the world than playing yourself out. Experienced people say it deprives a man even of his last shirt. It drives a man to desperate acts. And one cannot hope to rise at the Resurrection after that. So people say. And so it happened with our young man. He worked so long, shaking his cap, "odd or even," taking from one pocket and putting ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... looking at the ceiling. "They have taken fright for some reason. They may have an inkling of the awful truth. She is nineteen. Next year she will be twenty—the year after that twenty-one. Then it would be too late. A desperate experiment is better than inaction. I have much to gain and nothing to lose. I must exhibit Kalora. I shall bring the young men to her. Some of them may take a fancy to her. I have seen people eat sugar on tomatoes and pepper on ice-cream. ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... she exclaimed. "Besides, it isn't so desperate as all that. You certainly are not obliged to rent the house unless you ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... with a great soul; or Pauline become a countess, and twice a millionaire, as Foedora had been. When he reached the worn threshold, and stood upon the broken step at the door, where in the old days he had had so many desperate thoughts, an old woman came out of the room within and spoke ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... and flattened beds of flowers, and the breath of them in her face was like the rankest sweetness of love, when its delicacy, even for itself, is all gone. The pungent odor of box was like a shameless call from the street. Lucina went into the summer-house and sat down. It was stifling, and the desperate sweetnesses of the garden seemed to have collected there, as in ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and I hope I should not ask him for it, or think he was faithless to me. And I believe he has that trust in me also. I don't know. If he demands to know what it all means I shall tell him, because if you are asked anything in the name of love it is not possible to refuse. Heaven knows, this is a desperate measure! But show me any other that has a chance of success and will still keep Diana's secret. This may fail; one cannot be sure of any plan going right. But show me any other plan at all, and from the bottom of my heart I ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson |
