"Desperation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not one of those people—I won't mention names!—whose own emptiness forces them to take an intense interest in the doings of others, and who, the moment they are alone with their thoughts, are bored to desperation, just as there are people who have no talent for making a home home-like, and are only happy when they ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... appearance of the precious documents, we started the baggage also, under the charge of a surroudjee, and remained alone. Another hour passed by, and yet another, and the Bey was still occupied in sleeping off his hunger. Mr. Harrison, in desperation, went to the office, and after some delay, received the passports with a vise, but not, as we ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... other room came a shout and a rush of feet. In desperation Jack stepped back, and with a run fairly dove at the opening. His head and shoulders passed through, then he stuck. Behind him the door flew open. With a desperate wriggle he struggled through, and fell in a heap to the ground just as the negro reached the window and made a wild ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... "You are certainly the shrewd man they describe you as. Now continue to be frank long enough to answer this one question: Did you figure this out as the last card to throw at me, knowing that the very desperation of the case might warm me up and tempt me to tackle it for the sake of the fight ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... OHIO: ...."The position in which my regiment found itself was immediately in front of a battery, which belched forth a stream of canister upon us with terrible rapidity. In addition to this, the enemy, whenever driven from other points, rallied around this battery, and defended it with desperation. It cost a struggle to take it; but we finally succeeded, and the colors of the Sixty-fifth Ohio were the first planted upon the yet smoking guns. Captain Smith, of my regiment, was placed in charge of the captured ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... boys came up, another blow from a stick fell on his head; and this served to rouse him to desperation, for he turned round, with one blow knocked down the fellow who had struck him, and then commenced a furious attack upon his persecutors. For a moment they drew back, and then closed upon him again. Blows from sticks and hands rained upon him, but ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... consideration of his costume. Never before had he murmured at his wardrobe; now everything seemed unworthy of the magnitude of the occasion. Finally, after many doubts and inward struggles, and much bewilderment and desperation, the thing was done. He issued forth in a blaze of splendor, preceded by two servants bearing rare and costly presents. His raiment was a masterpiece of artistic effect. He wore furs from Russia, and cotton from Bombay; his breast sparkled with various orders of nobility; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... help hiding behind the corner of the passage and listening—(she was humiliated to the very depths of her being at having to stoop to such means: but fear mastered her).—She heard a dry chuckle of laughter. Then whispering, so low that she could not make out what was said. But in her desperation Anna thought she heard: her terror breathed into her ears the words she was afraid of hearing: she imagined that they were speaking of the coming masquerades and a charivari. There was no doubt: they would try ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... cried the manager, in desperation. "We open with New York at St. Louis next week for four games. I'll let Matson see what he can do, though I reckon I'll be roasted and laughed at for ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... adjustment of the tariff, on imports alone, perhaps we should be justified in saying one million and a half, or not far short of two millions sterling, import and export duties combined, would go far to remedy the desperation of Spanish financial embarrassments—the perfect solution and clearance of which, however, must be, under the most favourable circumstances, an affair of many years. It is not readily or speedily that the prodigalities of Toreno, or the unscrupulous, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... which roam among the rugged crags, are exceedingly difficult to catch. One of the sheep darted into a cleft. With a quick movement born of desperation Torrence rushed before the opening, but scarcely had he reached the spot before the frightened sheep, in attempting to ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... has any thing to do with my affairs," said the poor lad; and folding his arms on the table, he laid his head upon them, with the sullen dejection of the overburdened lama, when it throws itself down to die in desperation. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... did not seek this discussion! He challenged me... and he shall hear the truth! For all these months the thing that has been driving me to desperation has been the knowledge that my father was the business associate and ally of a master of infamy like ...
— The Machine • Upton Sinclair
... further confirmed. They began to yield to despondency, and had the gloomy prospect of certain death before them. Thirst then became intolerable; and in spite of being warned against it by instances of the terrific effects ensuing, some in desperation resorted to salt water. Their companions had soon the grief of learning what they would experience by following their example; in a few hours raging madness followed, and nature ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... half-hour's time we arrived at the station in London, and when Budd was lifted out onto the platform, he showed his still impenitent desperation by actually trying to escape a third time, handcuffed and with his ankles tied as he was, by hopping ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... seek succor at the fort. They chose the latter course, and bore away for the St. John's. A few casks of Spanish wine yet remained, and nobles and soldiers, fraternizing in the common peril of a halter, joined in a last carouse. As the wine mounted to their heads, in the mirth of drink and desperation, they enacted their own trial. One personated the judge, another the commandant; witnesses were called, with arguments and speeches ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... fixedly at him I said to him, "What would you do if some one told you Sophy were dead?" He uttered a loud cry, got up and struck his hands together, and without saying a single word, he looked at me with eyes of desperation. "Answer me," I continued with the same calmness. Vexed at my composure, he then approached me with eyes blazing with anger; and checking himself in an almost threatening attitude, "What would I do? I know not; but this I do know, I would never set eyes ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... then, urged to desperation by her own cowardice, she raised them and looked in his face to answer. And as she looked, she saw for the first time how changed it was. Its bloom was gone, the lines were set and hard: Ted looked years older than ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... population to arms. Men with wives and families and properties, however inconsiderable in value such properties may be, are unwilling to risk their all, at the tap of the drum, until wrought up to it by desperation. There is a feeling of respect for authority, a regard for that which is believed to be law, a peculiar sense of duty towards the State in most men, which prevents them from assuming a position even of firmness in the assertion of their rights. In a colony there are thousands who bring with ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... servants were all out; for, of course, Arthur, browsing about in his brown dressing-gown in a brown study, would not hear or answer a bell. Thus there was no one to help me in the house, except my brother, whose help must be my ruin. In desperation I thrust two shillings into the horrid thing's hand, and told him to call again in a few days, when I had thought it out. He went off sulking, but more sheepishly than I had expected—perhaps he had been shaken by his fall—and I watched the star of sand splashed on his ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... comprehended the presence of the masses of men she had seen as she left the town, the meeting of the leaders at d'Orgemont's house, and all the other events of the night, wondering how she herself had escaped so many dangers. The attack, prompted by desperation, interested her so keenly that she stood motionless, watching the living pictures as they presented themselves to her sight. Presently the struggle at the foot of the mountain had a deeper interest for her. Seeing the Blues ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... sheer desperation he turned nurse to Squawk and ran errands for its mother, wondering the while how it was that some ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... prisoner who is thinking of escape. She knew what time the night trains left the station, and, abandoning her trunk and everything else that she had with her, she furtively—but ready, if need were, to fight for her liberty with the strength of desperation—slipped down the broad stairs over their thick carpet and pushed open a little glass door. Thank heaven! people came in and went out of that house as if it had been a mill. No one discovered her flight till the next morning, when she was far on her way to Paris in an ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... when the bulls came rushing by us but again stopped, and others joining them, the whole began to fight with the greatest desperation. The only chance we had of getting out of our disagreeable position was to kill the bulls and make our way through them. We fired and loaded as fast as we could, and seven lay stretched ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... This time they are not hung quite perpendicularly, are shorter, and some lean, a little, which affords rest; others have one side higher than the other: to these my already aching palms cling with desperation. So have I seen insects adhere, through sheer force of fear, to a shaken stem, or a perilous branch ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... party, and it was snowing hard. The girls had returned wet and cold from school and decided upon spending the rest of the day indoors. Janet, as usual, had found a book to read, but Phyllis, after playing with Galahad and Boru, had insisted upon interrupting, until in sheer desperation she had given it up and they ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... than had ever before been achieved in this almost perpetual war for independence. The troops, perfectly enthusiastic, replied with a shout that they were ready to live or die with their chieftain, and eagerly demanded to be led upon the foe. Whether from hope or from desperation they were confident and cheerful. Some doubt was felt as to the Walloons, who had so lately transferred themselves from the archduke's army, but their commander, Marquette, made them all lift up their hands, and swear solemnly to live or die that day at the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... understand it.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} That it is possible to draw yet other lessons from the works above mentioned,—I am much more ready to prove than to dispute. That one may be driven by a Wagnerian ballet to desperation—and to virtue! (once again the case in "Tannhauser"). That not going to bed at the right time may be followed by the worst consequences (once again the case of "Lohengrin").—That one can never be too sure of the spouse one actually marries (for the ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... down behind him, and the chance of coming off honourably without killing or being killed, (the hope of which issue has cheered the sinking heart of many a duellist,) seemed now altogether to be removed. Yet the very desperation of his situation gave him, on an instant's reflection, both firmness and courage, and presented to him one sole alternative, conquest, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... liked me, I would think, 'He doesn't like me! He hates, he despises me. He does, he does, he does!' And I would go on that way, with my teeth shut, and my breath held, I don't know how long." Bartley broke out into a broad laugh at this image of desperation, but she added, tenderly, "I hope I never made you ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... not light the gas, but took off in the dark her "good" hat and her "best" gloves and her long black cloth coat of an ugly "store-bought" cut, which was her best and worst. Then, in an abandon of grief which bespoke real desperation in a careful girl like Mary Alice, she threw herself on her bed—without taking off her "good" dress—and buried her head in a ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... to wrestle with my lot? Have I not suffered things to be forgiven? Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven, Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, Life's life lied away? And only not to desperation driven, Because not altogether of such clay As rots into the souls ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... should overlook the possibility that his very successor may undermine the whole superstructure which he has been rearing, and become in every respect as great a monster as the wretch who before drove the colonists to desperation and rebellion. Experience is the beacon of past times set up for the guidance of future; and those who shape their course by it, shall avoid striking on the rocks to which it forbids approach. Woe to the pilot who disregards this friendly admonition, and runs on incredulous of ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... remained motionless until roused by a short roar of agony. They then plunged into the jungle with their drawn weapons, where they speedily found Sadhu Sing holding in his arms the lifeless corpse of his bride, where a little farther lay the body of the tiger, slain by such a blow over the neck as desperation itself could alone have discharged.—The brideless bridegroom would permit none to interfere with his sorrow. He dug a grave for his Mora, and erected over it the rude tomb they saw, and never afterwards left ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... ultimate emancipation, have given many signs of willingness to employ even it, if needs must be, as a means of effectually achieving their 'independence.' They have baited their hooks with it to fish for European aid—they have threatened it armed, as a last resort of desperation, if conquered by the North. Knowing as well as we that the days of slavery are numbered, they have used it as a pretense for separation, they would just as willingly destroy it to maintain that separation. ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... condition; the idea that any one could have believed that such a man as the Cardinal possessed her full confidence; that she should have employed him to deal with a tradesman without the King's knowledge, for a thing which she had refused to accept from the King himself, drove her to desperation. She sent first for the Abbe de Vermond, and then for the Baron de Breteuil. Their hatred and contempt for the Cardinal made them too easily forget that the lowest faults do not prevent the higher orders of the empire from being defended by those to whom they have the honour to belong; ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... strongly inclined just then to jump up and rush out of the room, so trying was this mad conversation to my nerves; but I thought of his daughter Demetria's white, pathetic face, and restrained the impulse. Then in sheer desperation I began to talk madly as himself. I thought I would make him sick of warlike subjects. Everywhere, I cried, we had defeated, slaughtered, scattered to the four winds of heaven, the infamous Colorados. From the sea to the Brazilian frontier we have been victorious. With sword, ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... looked around in desperation. "What can we do now? He won't come close enough for us to even ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... "struck" too late. I reeled in my line, and after a few minutes began once more to cast. Now, however, try as I might, I could not get the line out to the distance required; it would not fall straight and true. In desperation I endeavoured to overcome the difficulty by sheer strength. I swung my arms aloft; my old hickory rod creaked and groaned with the increasing strain, then snapped immediately the tension was released with the return of the line; and, a second afterwards, the grilse took ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... last expression, which had the angry snap of an enraged woman. Some high natures might have answered back her scorn; a lower one might have complained; and still another would have left her in the woods. Barton said nothing, but, with a cold, stony face, walked on by her side. If, in his desperation, he wanted this killing thrust, which must ever rankle and never heal, to enable him to overcome and subdue his great passion, he had got it. That little hand, that emphasized her words with a gesture of superb disdain, would never have to repeat the blow. It raised about ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... turned to wring it dry with her red and blistered hands, a look that was perilously near disgust was on her face—for though she had done her duty heroically and meant to do it until the end, there were brief moments when it sickened her to desperation. She was the kind of woman whose hands perform the more thoroughly because the heart ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... the Tiber, and end a life which was worse than useless. "No, no," said his friend, "don't do that. If your affairs are so desperate, retire into a convent, become a Capuchin." "Ah, non!" was the indignant answer; "I am desperate; but I have not yet arrived at such a pitch of desperation." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... In desperation (and from the curious way the base of upper petals are soldered at basal edges) I fancied the real form of upper sepal, upper petal and lower sepal might be as represented by red lines, and that there had ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... muttered Rachel, lashed up to desperation; "please not out here, before the servants ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nightfall, limiting myself to holding the ground conquered. In spite of that, the combat continued late into the night. On the 1st of April, in the earliest morning light, the tocsin was heard ringing with more fury than ever, and the insurgents reopened fire with an entirely new desperation. Considering the gravity of our losses, as well as the obstinacy and fury of the enemy, it was necessary to adopt a most rigorous measure. I ordered that no prisoners should be taken, but that every person seized with arms in his hand should be immediately put to death, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the pair left behind to await a realization of all that the loss meant to them. One running swiftly as a fine young creature can run when spurred by desperation, and the other, lamely but doggedly, as an old determined man, rushed down the rough side of the slope, leaped into the roadway and ran irrationally after the fugitive mounted upon a camel, fleeter than ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... o'ercome my hesitation, And gone within the cavern's vault profound, When I heard wails of hopeless lamentation, Despairing shrieks that shook the walls around, Curses, and blasphemy, and desperation, Dark crimes avowed that would even hell astound, Which heaven, I think, in order not to hear, Had hid within ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... his seat with the strength of desperation. He must! The money must go to Republic that night—to Barbara! Barbara! Barbara! The horse's feet seemed to have beaten out the word for ages. For ages he had been riding—riding—riding towards some point out there ahead in ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... When in desperation we finally made up our minds, we began picking our dubious way up among a mass of rocks that threatened to become a stone avalanche at any moment. None of us liked it, but none of us knew how little the others liked it till that evening. In the expansion of ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... CAROLINE did make the splice late that night, we could neither test nor speak. Reuter was at Norderney, and I had to do the best I could, which was not much, and went to bed early; I thought I should never sleep again, but in sheer desperation got up in the middle of the night and gulped a lot of raw whiskey and slept at last. But not long. A Mr. F- washed my face and hands and dressed me: and we hauled the cable out of the sea, and got it joined to the telegraph station, ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mysterious certainties of thought. The mind lives in a universe of type. There is no other art in which so desperate adventures are made. Indeed, the normal mental state of the abundant writer is a marvellous phenomenon. The literary faculty is born of the marriage of chronic desperation with chronic trust. This may account in part for that peculiar condition of mind which is both engendered and required by abundant writing. A bold abandon, a desperate guidance, a thoughtless ratiocination, a mechanical swaying of rhetoric, are the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... publication of this "Advice." John Child, a Baptist minister, one of Bunyan's friends, to escape persecution, conformed, and became terrified with awful compunction of conscience. His cries were fearful: "I shall go to hell"; "I am broken in judgment"; "I am as it were in a flame." In a fit of desperation he destroyed himself ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the head and back. It is a thick heavy covering, and in the first onset the tiger tore the blanket from the man's body, which was probably the means of saving his life. The man turned round, terribly scared, as may be imagined. In desperation he struck at the tiger with his sickle, and according to his own account, he succeeded in putting out one of its eyes. He said it was a young tiger, and his bleeding wounds, and the persistency with which he stuck ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... mode of thought was another American visiting London for the first time. Goaded to desperation by the incessant necessity for tips, he finally entered the washroom of his hotel, only to be faced with a large sign which read: "Please tip the basin after using." "I'm hanged if I will!" said the Yankee, turning on his heel, "I'll ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... victory, it seems more like a piece of good fortune than the result of their fighting. When they see a conflict coming, they shrink from it and look for some way to evade it. They are filled with fear of the outcome. Sometimes they fight in desperation and win; and when they see that they have won, they are surprized. They were almost sure that they would lose the battle; they were almost certain of defeat, but in some way they won. That victory, however, does not give them much ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... of this industrial warfare are replete with lesser battles where thuggery joined hands with desperation in the struggle for wages. Evidence is not wanting that local leaders have frequently incited their men to commit acts of violence in order to impress the public with their earnestness. It is not an inviting picture, this matching of the ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... knew the utter desperation of Hal Dozier. For the man had fired while Andrew's back was turned. The bullet had followed the warning cry as swiftly as the strike of a snake follows its rattle. Luck and his sudden leap forward had unbalanced the nice aim of Dozier, and perhaps his mental agitation had contributed ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... my bay oss Desperation in the park. There was me, Lord George Ringwood (Lord Cinqbar's son), Lord Ballybunnion, Honorable Capting Trap, & sevral hother young swells. Sir John's carridge there in coarse. Miss Hemly lets fall ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... town in New England, the body of a beautiful girl was drawn from the river in which she had drowned herself,—a young girl only fifteen, who came to the city, far from home and parents, and fell a victim to the temptation which brought her to shame and desperation. Many thus fall every year who are never counted. They fall into the ranks of those whom the world abandons ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... indifference. Then when, for a moment, he imagined himself free from observation, his expression abruptly changed. His hands clenched tense between his buckskin knees, his eyes glanced here and there restlessly, and an indefinable shadow of something which Virginia felt herself obtuse in labelling desperation, and yet to which she discovered it impossible to fit a name, descended on his features, darkening them. Twice he glanced away to the south. Twice he ran his eye over the vociferating ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the latter nodded for him to go ahead. In another minute then, a match, the closeness and desperation of which delighted the savages beyond measure, ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... like your symptoms, Morgan. If I diagnose correctly, they mean nascent 'desperation.' Now, so long as I am in the world, you ought ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... For the Palestinian Jews, on the other hand, the breach between Judaism and the rest of the world was deepened. By this destruction of its symbol their national religious exclusiveness was heightened to desperation. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... windows, which overlooked a paved court, he threw himself into a chair, and strained his gaze in search of the wrecked pleasure-craft, to which one other figure clung with the might of desperation. ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... others). This comes of their desperation. We First ruin them out and out, d'ye see; Which tempts them to steal, as ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of being bored to this point of desperation, and his mother and elder sister saved themselves from any danger of this kind by voluntarily living the lives of recluses. ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... had taken. Early in February a small party of them hovered about the fortified house of Joseph Bradley at Haverhill, till, seeing the gate open and nobody on the watch, they rushed in. The woman of the house was boiling soap, and in her desperation she snatched up the kettle and threw the contents over them with such effect that one of them, it is said, was scalded to death. The man who should have been on the watch was killed, and several persons were captured, including the woman. It was the second time that she ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... to hear or care. In our desperation we slapped him and dragged him along between us. Finally his legs moved a little, and he began ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... described the same mistake on the part of some of his bees. At the base of this cell, was an extraordinary quantity of the peculiar jelly or paste, which is fed to the young that are to be transformed into queens. The poor bees in their desperation, appear to have dosed the unfortunate drone to death: as though they expected by such liberal feeding, to produce some hopeful change in ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... desperation I laid my own tablecloth—not a very good one—and arranged as best I could the plates and dishes. Time was getting short, and it was no use wasting time on my crabby landlady. Yet what could I do without her? Who was to lend me a kettle, or a saucepan for the eggs, or a toasting-fork, or, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... forward from her posture of anxiety and terror, grasps a powder horn from over the mantel piece, jerks out the stopple with her teeth, and holding it over the fire, cries, with desperation: ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... damped the powder. Before Ignacio could draw his other pistol, the Carlist grappled him fiercely, and a terrible struggle commenced. Their feet soon slipped upon the wet rock, and they fell, still grasping each other's throats, foaming with rage, and hate, and desperation. The fire, now nearly out, afforded little light for the contest; but as they rolled over the smouldering embers, clouds of sparks arose, their clothes and hair were burned, and their faces scorched by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... be mentioned for the liberty of multitudes of Britons, now languishing in the prisons of Spain, or obliged by hardships and desperation to assist the enemies of their country? What have the Spaniards suffered that can be opposed to the detriment which the commerce of this nation feels from the detention of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... certain road may be the shortest way for him, but if he knows that it abounds in natural obstacles, or that the enemy has laid an ambush on it, he will not follow that road. A hostile force may be open to attack, but if he knows that it is hard-pressed and likely to fight with desperation, he will refrain from ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... the sight of fine forest trees, however, and detested Brighthelmstone Downs, "because it was a country so truly desolate," he said, "that if one had a mind to hang one's self for desperation at being obliged to live there, it would be difficult to find a tree on which to fasten the rope." Walking in a wood when it rained was, I think, the only rural image he pleased his fancy with; "for," says he, "after ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... gold, and establishes his empire, which lasts exactly three days. At his final overthrow the crystal wall of Heaven rolls back, disclosing a gap into the abyss; the rebels, tortured with plagues and thunder, fling themselves in desperation over the verge. They fall for nine days, through Chaos. Chaos is the realm of a king of the same name, who reigns over it with his consort Night. It is of immeasurable extent, quite dark, and turbulent with the raw material of ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... desperation were in his heart, he pushed them back with a strong hand. He desired only to live in the present. He would not look beyond. So long as he could keep his Court about him, he would live after this fashion; and when the English ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... in the hands of fate is in some sort conducive to courage. Doubtless many an act of valor which has won the world's applause was precipitated in a degree by desperation and the lack of an alternative. The appearance of stolidity with which the cluster of witnesses—those whose testimony was yet to be given as well as those who had told the little they knew—noted the uncontrolled agitation, the wild eyes, the hysteric sobs, ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... of their marriage, in desperation, the Reverend Raphael advertised his ability and readiness to 'prepare young men for college.' He obtained but one pupil one Alfred Whyte, the son of a retired brewer. You perceive that he had the same ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... monstrous; still more monstrous, the coldness, egoism, and cruelty that had required and thus requited them. The pen which he had taken shook in his hand. He was amazed to find his resignation fled, but it was gone beyond his recall. In a few white-hot words, he bade adieu, dubbing desperation by the name of love, and calling his wrath forgiveness; then he cast but one look of leave-taking on the place that had been his for so long and was now to be his no longer; and hurried forth - love's prisoner - ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bade Davis do, and to think what might happen because of it. I, Roscoe Paine, no longer even a country banker, was at the helm of "Big Jim" Colton's bark in the maelstrom of the stock market. It would have been funny if it had not been so desperate. And desperate it was, sheer reckless desperation and nothing else. I must have been crazier than ever, more wildly insane than I had been for the past month, to even think of such a thing. It was not too late ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... like Runkle, if he keeps to his present promise, should go as high in the Navy as it is possible for an enlisted man to go," declared the Admiral. "But, Captain, the organization and desperation of our country's enemies worry me. It is plain that some very desperate scheme is afoot for making trouble between England and our country. That would drag us in against all of the Entente Allies if the success of the plot should ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... In extremes of desperation one clutches at the semblance of a straw. A last, wild hope had flashed to Kano's mind. "Come nearer, Tatsu San," he whispered, forcing his face into the distortion of a smile. "Lean nearer. The real motive of my summons has not ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... tolerably expert in both. Swords were chosen. We were placed on the ground, and the conflict began. My antagonist was evidently a master of his art; but there is no weapon whose use depends so much upon the mind of the moment as the sword. He was evidently resolved to kill or be killed; and the desperation with which he rushed on me exposed him to my very inferior skill. At the third pass I ran him through the sword arm. He staggered back with the twinge; but at the instant when he was about to bound on me, and perhaps take his revenge, a scream stopped us all; a female, wrapped in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... be so doubtful? You said you'd make me love you, and you've done it. Will you believe me now?" And, with a sort of desperation, she threw herself into his arms, clinging there in eloquent silence while he held her close; feeling, with a thrill of tender triumph, that this was no longer little Rose, but a loving woman, ready to ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... ground forward, when, from the after part of the vessel, a determined band, led by the captain, pressed us hard. Twice we were driven back almost to our own ship, many of our men losing the number of their mess, but, finally, determined courage got the better of desperation. Inch by inch we drove the pirates aft—the chief of them, to do him justice, keeping always in the front rank, and I believe he killed, with his own hand, more of our people than did all his crew together, though he himself did not receive a scratch. ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... only," continued Honora, in desperation, "it was only to leave Mr. Grainger and Mrs. Kame there to spend the night. They all said we had plenty of time to go and get back to Quicksands by six o'clock. But coming back the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... impatiently, and rose, glancing at the clock. It was nearly nine. A feeling of desperation ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... devotion worthy of a better object, rallying round him, kept them at bay. At last the voice which had been heard so loud was silent, and though fire-arms flashed on each side, his figure was not to be seen. Yet the pirates did not give way, they even seemed to fight with more desperation than before, as if to make amends for his absence, or to revenge his loss. Nothing, however, could withstand the determined courage of the English; though, had not the pirates incautiously lost the post which Zappa had so ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... In desperation he finally went to Murphy begging quick promotion to a traveling position, but the Sales Manager told him there was no chance before the first of the year, then asked him why he had lost his ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... and I was anxious. Why haven't you written a line to us? You could do that without trouble, surely. Don't you ever think of us at all any more? (He waits for an answer, but Eileen remains silent with her eyes closed. Carmody starts to walk up and down, talking with an air of desperation.) You're not asking a bit of news from home. I'm thinkin' the people out here have taken all the thought of us out of your head. We're all well, thank God. I've another good job on the streets from Murphy and one that'll last a long time, praise be! I'm needin' it surely, ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... panel, then another, and I could see through the gaps a medley of tossing weapons and wild faces without. Short shrift for me if they came through, so in the obstinacy of desperation I set to work to pile old furniture and dry goods against the barricade. And as they yelled and hammered outside I screamed back defiance from within, sweating, tugging, and hauling with the strength of ten men, piling up the old Martian lumber against the opening till, ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... had remained at Westminster nearly a week after the massacre, attending the public meetings, which, as we have before intimated, followed that event; when he returned to Guilford, and, with feelings bordering on desperation, learned the extent of his misfortunes. But the bitterness of his feelings, as great as it was, at being stripped of all his property through such a series of wrongs, soon became wholly merged in anxiety and grief for his sick and sorrow-stricken parent, and in the exasperating thought that her ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... fury of the yelling crowd were irresistible. Seizing the weapons of their dead and wounded assailants, they fought with the blind energy of desperation. ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... more successful couplet brought a still more tempestuous response, and the invocation of the baggage-carrier was unheard and unheeded. Driven to desperation, and forgetful in the emergency of every sense of propriety, Cuff, in ludicrous undress as he was, started from his place, rushed upon the stage, and, laying his hand upon the performer's shoulder, called out excitedly: "Massa Rice, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... over. "Well, you ARE sick!" he exclaimed presently. "All I can say is that if you're working out a plan for cold poison, or for any other act of desperation, you had better give it right up. You can't get a dose of the commonest kind of cold poison for nothing, you know. Look here, Searle"—and the worthy man made what struck me as a very decent appeal. "If you'll consent to return home with me by the steamer ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... Fear gave him the necessary agility to climb over several low walls, and afterwards he blundered into the overgrown cloisters of the ruined Franciscan convent in one of the by-streets. He forced himself into the midst of matted bushes with the recklessness of desperation, and this accounted for his scratched body and his torn clothing. He lay hidden there all day, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth with all the intensity of thirst engendered by heat and fear. Three times different bands of men invaded the place with shouts and imprecations, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... young man who was slain by Cole-be was to be revenged, and a body of the southern or Tag-a-ry natives gave battle to those of Sydney for that purpose several days after. The contest was carried on with much desperation on both sides; three natives were killed, and several others wounded, among whom was Bennillong, who, having perfectly recovered of his late dangerous wound, appeared and fought on this occasion as the friend ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... called her into the room after recovering outwardly from her hour of desperation, she saw that the woman was already aware of the blow that had fallen upon the household. What they said to each other need not be recorded here, but there was more in the conversation than the mere words uttered, and it was one of several talks ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... went by Dan became more hungry, and with this empty feeling came one of desperation. He must escape, be ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... Greek, compared with—Goethe, let us say? Not for a moment. It was in the desperation of his attempt to be so, that he seized upon Greek tragedy and made it dance to Christian cymbals! This is, let it be clearly understood, the hidden secret of his mania for Dionysus—Dionysus gave him ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... desperation Jerry wheeled around, and saw the ugly head almost within reach of his arms. Terror prompted him to try a last device. He lifted the lantern and let it drive with ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... not a different question. The real suit," exclaimed the engineer, unable to control his anger, "will be the one that I will bring against that rabble who no doubt propose to themselves to tire me out and drive me to desperation—so that I may abandon every thing and let them continue in possession of what they have stolen. We shall see if there are lawyers and judges who will uphold the infamous conduct of those village ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... gravely. "I gave no thought to her until I came home and saw her. And it was not for love of her that I should have married her, Nell, but in sheer desperation. You see, it did not matter to me whom I married if I could not ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... had Madame des Ursins shown more activity than during the six months which intervened between the return of the Court to Madrid and the battle of Almanza. Her position was as delicate as it was perilous. It was necessary to stigmatise flagrant defections, but without driving anyone altogether to desperation. She profited by the confidence she had won to bring about happily an important reform. Spain, composed of divers kingdoms successively annexed, had not yet attained unity. More than ever, after the experiences of 1706, was seen the necessity of a centralisation ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... cold, and exhausted, Tara of Helium clung to the tree in growing desperation, for once she had dozed and almost fallen. Hope was low in her brave little heart. How much more could she endure? She asked herself the question and then, with a brave shake of her head, she squared her shoulders. "I ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... exemplary man. According to the metaphysics of hypocrisy it is held that he is doing a work of public utility. And this man who has ruined hundreds, thousands of men, who curse him and are driven to desperation by his action, goes to mass, a smile of shining benevolence on his smooth face, in perfect faith in good and in God, listens to the Gospel, caresses his children, preaches moral principles to them, and is ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... for their guineas. After trying two pastrycooks in vain, they became so hungry, perhaps from the smell of the cake in the shops, as Cyril suggested, that they formed a plan of campaign in whispers and carried it out in desperation. They marched into a third pastrycook's - Beale his name was - and before the people behind the counter could interfere each child had seized three new penny buns, clapped the three together between its dirty hands, ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... of fear, but fear crystallising more and more into desperation. Anything was better than further suspense. Night came again. Again the dinner bell sounded. Choosing my opportunity I strolled across the quadrangle and secreted myself in one of the offices. Through a chink I watched the sentries. For half an hour they remained stolid and obstructive. ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the party early on the morrow. The order reached him late in the evening, and before breakfast-time on the following day he was directed to start with his party for town, thence by rail to his distant post. That night, in desperation, he made his plan. Twice before he had strolled down to the post and with yearning eyes had studied every feature of the colonel's house. He dared ask no questions of servants or of the men in garrison, but he learned ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... these produce the first two in a seemingly hopeless way; poverty appears to be incurable above the rest. It is poverty that prevents fortifying the will by increasing physical stamina and moral courage, it is poverty that drives a man; to drink or desperation, and it is poverty that prescribes the unfavorable surroundings that do so much to keep a man down. Poverty is a danger flag that indicates the probability of deeper degradation and calls for the individual or group that is better off ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... we were liberally supplied with means of defence. Lupite was faithful, and I could rely on my other fighting neches. So Marcel and Cy set out, and—well, there's nothing more to tell," she said wearily. "They've both disappeared, vanished. And they should have been back more than a year ago. In desperation I sent the message by Lupite. He's not returned either, and, one by one, all our own Indians have deserted me. Oh," she went on passionately, "it's no accident that's happened. Marcel has been killed, murdered by ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... in from the sea like a visible reverie, and blurred the whole valley with its whiteness. I find that particularly good to look at from the trolley-car which visits and revisits the river before finally leaving it, with a sort of desperation, and hiding its passion with a sudden plunge into ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... amiable Prefect found. Having himself plenty of scruples, plenty of humanity, and a horror of civil war, he found a colleague with none of these difficult to manage. Nothing, for instance, was further from the Prefect's wish than to spy upon his Royalist neighbours and to drive them to desperation. The very word Chouan represented to General Ratoneau a wild beast to be ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... developed muscular system, a large heart and lungs, are accessory conditions. We do not associate corpulence or surplus of vitality with a long, slender neck. The character of cerebral manifestations is represented by the baser faculties of mind, such as Combativeness, Destructiveness, Desperation, Turbulence, Hatred, and Revenge. If unrestrained, these culminate in violent and criminal acts; if regulated, they are employed in personal defense. When unduly excited, they lead to dissipation, obscenity, swearing, rowdyism, and licentiousness; when perverted, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... men among the slain to wonder whence the swift smiters had come and whither they were gone. He himself had wounds not healed, and he told how, day by day, the mad bravery of the Germans, and the fury of his Black Forest men-at-arms, had risen again and again to very desperation, to sink before evening in a new defeat; until, at last, as the Seljuk swords still killed and killed, a terror had fallen upon the host in the passes, and men had thrown away their armour and fled like rats from a burning granary, so that their leaders could not hold them. ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... it!" exclaimed he, excitedly, the fever of joy in his eyes. "He killed her when he found that she had been to you. Perhaps, goaded to desperation, she confessed to him. Imagine the devilish delight he took in sniffing out her life after that! We have him now! Dorothy, you know as well as I that he and he alone had an object in killing her. You have only to tell the story of her visit ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... unpleasantly crammed; and Mrs. Tynn, who was a staid, old-fashioned housekeeper, accustomed to nothing beyond the regular, quiet household maintained by the late Mr. Verner, was driven to the verge of desperation. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the road. Once, looking at the girl, she thought with a half smile how oddly clean she was. The flannel skirt she arranged so complacently had been washed until the colors had run madly into each other in sheer desperation; her hair was knotted with a relentless tightness into a comb such as old women wear. The very cart, patched as it was, had a snug, cozy look; the masses of vegetables, green and crimson and scarlet, were heaped with a certain ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... striking with such headlong impetus that I went backward as if shot, crashing against the table, then to the floor, dropping my weapon as I fell. There was no noise, no sound, while for an instant, with strength of sheer desperation, I held back the snapping jaws that breathed hot fire into my very face. With a bound backward of its great body the beast jerked free from my grip, and the next instant had sunk its dripping fangs, deep and hard, into the flesh of my shoulder. As the ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... Tromp fought with courage and desperation, endeavouring while retreating to protect the merchantmen. Already in the distance we could see the frigates playing havoc among the traders, which were thrown into the wildest confusion, numbers running against each other, some hauling down their ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... of their classmates. During the rest of the year they seconded Mary's efforts warmly, and the whole house got interested and plied Mary with questions about the work of the society, until, in sheer desperation, she admitted that she knew very little about it, and set herself to get some definite information. The head of the committee, pleased with Mary's sudden enthusiasm, sent her to one of the faculty trustees, and for a few days Mary, who was entirely a creature ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... has caught up the speaker with a decisive rally. Her natural strength is returning, prompted by something akin to desperation. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... entered the forest at a run, no longer looking at or listening to anything. She only paused in her course when her breath failed her; but she did not halt in her advance. She went straight before her in desperation. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... solemnity. "Div ye think, Cosmo, whaur heid or hert or fit or han' cud du onything to waur aff want or tribble frae you or the laird,'at Grizzie or mysel' wad be wantin' that day? I beg o' yer grace ye winna lay to oor chairge what we war driven til. As Grizzie says, we war jist at ane mair wi' desperation." ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... woman should look at her, and then he would have her all to himself." It was with some purpose of this kind, Mrs. Dyson suggested, that Peace stole a photograph of herself out of a locket, intending to make some improper use of it. At last, in desperation, the Dysons moved to Banner Cross. From the day of their arrival there until the murder, Mrs. Dyson never saw Peace. She denied altogether having been in his company the night before the murder. The letters were "bare ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... spend another night in the bed led her to active measures of reform. With disgustful desperation, she emptied the room and swept it as with fire and sword. Her change of mind, from the passive to the active state, relieved and stimulated her, and she hurried from one needed reform to another. She drew others into ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... was going to the Brazils to give the Portuguese physic (of which they are fond to desperation) with the Danish consul. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... first time that it was impossible to consider putting into any port of the Republic of Mexico, since to do so would cause international complications and compel the revocation of the captain's license. In desperation the Hummel interests offered the captain five thousand dollars in cash to disregard his instructions and put into Tampico, but the worthy sea-dog was adamant. It was probably worth five thousand dollars to him to see three gentry of this pattern ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... nearer still. "Naturally it will be supposed by all who are watching us that I am goading you to desperation. Act, then, your part. Up, and attempt to strike me. Then when I return the blow—and I shall strike heavily that no make-believe may be suspected—collapse on your oar pretending to swoon. Leave the rest to me. Now," he added sharply, and on the word rose with a final laugh of ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... perhaps go and throw herself into the Seine. In New York, such suicides are not common; but there is a moral suicide, which is common. Thousands on thousands of poor girls have thrown themselves into this stream, in the last agony of desperation; sinking down in the dark current of sin, to ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... on the subject of his beard render such a supposition far from probable. In any case, it is a difficult subject to discuss. The unhappy husband underwent the cruellest sufferings. In order to forget them, he hunted with desperation, exhausting horses, hounds, and huntsmen. But when he returned home, foundered and overtired, the mere sight of Mademoiselle de Pontalcin was enough to revive his energies and his torments. Finally, unable to endure the situation any longer, he applied ...
— The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard - 1920 • Anatole France
... desperation, Mountjoy resolved to inform Lord Harry that his union with Miss Henley would be followed by the utter ruin of her expectations from her father. Whether the wild lord only considered his own interests, or whether he was loyally devoted ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... British and this, together with the beheading of the king (an impious act in the eyes of Negroes), induced Toussaint to join the Spaniards. In 1793 British troops were landed and the French commissioners in desperation declared the slaves emancipated. This at once won back Toussaint from the Spaniards. He became supreme in the north, while Rigaud, leader of the mulattoes, held the south and the west. By 1798 the British, having lost most of their forces by yellow fever, surrendered ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... rather widely apart they managed to fill it; they always looked alike. To-night they so exactly resembled peas in a pod that one had a sense of ache and almost fatigue in watching them. This fatigue and irritation rose to desperation when they spoke. The Bells were poor, and their dresses bore decided signs of stint and poverty. They wore white muslin jackets, and pale green skirts of a shining substance known as mohair. Their mother fondly imagined that the shine and glitter of this fabric could not be ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... same pretty development of the shoulder through that troublesome scarf—the same hasty confusion in drawing it on again, and referring to the watch to see what time it is—displays the mind ever intent on the great object of their career. But they seldom marry (unless, in desperation, their cousins), for they despise the rank which they affect to have quitted—and no man of sense ever loved a Tiptoe. So they continue at home until the house is broken up; and then they retire in a galaxy to some provincial ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... leant back in his chair. Both the matter and the manner of his narration had, as time went on, impressed me favourably. He was an old duffer and pedant, but behind these things he was a country-bred man and gentleman, and had showed courage and a sporting instinct in the hour of desperation. He had told his story with many quaint formalities of diction, but also with ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... have always had the most implicit faith in his honesty, and would have unhesitatingly confided my fortune to his keeping. Almost on my knees have I besought and implored him to confess that in a moment of desperation he had taken the money, promising him pardon and forgetfulness; but I could not move him. I have loved him; and even now, in spite of the trouble and humiliation that he is bringing upon me, I cannot bring myself ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... and although she was secretly blaming her husband for having fallen into such drear despair, and denying that he had any excuse for his last rash act, she was inveterate in her abuse of all who could by any possibility be supposed to have driven him to such desperation. The masters—Mr. Thornton in particular, whose mill had been attacked by Boucher, and who, after the warrant had been issued for his apprehension on the charge of rioting, had caused it to be withdrawn,—the Union, of which Higgins ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in Ruhleben camp was terrible. It was every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost. If one, in desperation, approached the authorities for a word of suggestion to improve this or that, officialdom merely shrugged its shoulders and candidly admitted impotence to recommend a remedy. So we had to depend essentially upon our own exertions ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... there, another search for a home, another set of explanations, pretences, fears, lies,—things of which he was so weary. But there was something else, something worse than any of these things, that made Fritzing mop his forehead with so extreme a desperation: Annalise had demanded the money due to her, and Fritzing ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... and, riding along the wheeling ranks, marshalled them in order, arose the acclamation of female voices; and the warriors, who looked back at the sound, saw that their women—their wives and daughters, their mothers and their beloved (released from their seclusion, by a policy which bespoke the desperation of the cause)—were gazing at them, with outstretched arms, from the battlements and towers. The Moors knew that they were now to fight for their hearths and altars in the presence of those who, if they failed, became slaves ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the very point of the war that ought to make any neutral take sides. If the Belgians had not received bread from the outside world, then Germany would either have had to spare enough to keep them from starving or faced the desperation of a people who would fight for food with such weapons as they had. This must have brought a holocaust of reprisals that would have made the orgy of Louvain comparatively insignificant. However much the Germans hampered the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... In desperation she worked her way to the steps and peered down upon the deck. She heard nothing but the wind and the waves. And then with her hair streaming wild, with lips bloodless, she stood upright and rushed to the deck. The wind tore ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... cold, and his illness had been so sharp that Elizabeth in desperation had summoned his sister; but even then David had absolutely refused any further medical advice, and had also resisted all his friends' entreaties that he would be moved to the vicarage or the Wood House to be properly nursed. "His old diggings were good ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... lame horse, of his effort to hire another team, and finally how in desperation he had engaged Ves Young as a last resort. The captain's face was serious but there was the twinkle under his heavy brows. He ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... half standing in their birch canoe, paddling with the desperation of men facing doom, one with his sound paddle, the other with his broken one, were the Indians that Manikawan had ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... In a sort of desperation she drew a chair underneath the chandelier, and armed with a handful of matches proceeded to the unheard-of extravagance of lighting it, not here and there, but throughout as high as she could reach, standing perilously on ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... In desperation he slanted down steeply toward an open space, and the open space immediately showed a full border of lights, revealing itself a landing field such as he had read of and dreamed of but had never before ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... the stopper with a reckless desperation, saturated his handkerchief, and worked at his breast as if he were driving ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Dey of Algiers had foreseen danger in the youth, who was forced to fly to Egypt in fear of his life. When he returned, a young man of twenty-four, he found his country in the hands of the French, and his people driven to desperation. His former fame and his father's name were talismans to draw the impetuous tribes towards him; and he soon had so large a following that the French deemed it prudent for the moment to recognize him (1834) as Em[i]r of Maskara, his native ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... would pass here with their teams and horses, the Indians lay in ambush and, pouring in a destructive fire, rushed furiously to a close engagement. The English ranks were broken, and the scattered troops were everywhere attacked. Seeking the cover of trees, the English fought with desperation. The combat now became a trial of skill in sharp-shooting, on the issue of which life or death was suspended. The overwhelming superiority of the Indians, as to numbers, left little room for hope on the part of the English. Every instant they were shot down behind their ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... in wonder, and almost in affright as he clutched at his blazing head in the very desperation of his feelings, and she could not account for the difference in his demeanor. Mike was usually such a merry good companion. Perhaps it was herself that scattered her sadness and dullness all about her; or was Mike sick? She ventured ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith |
