"Despond" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being ended, the other would not deny but that it did in some degree affect him. He hoped he was not without proper feeling for the unfortunate man. But he begged to know in what spirit he bore his alleged calamities. Did he despond ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... impression here [Oxford]; and, I say what of course I would only say to such as yourself, it made me for a while very uncomfortable in my own mind. The great speciousness of his argument is one of the things which have made me despond so much," that is, as ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... as ended, gloriously for us." They had been sufficiently confident even before their victory; and the bearer of a flag of truce told the English officers that he had never imagined they were such fools as to attack Quebec with so small a force. Wolfe, on the other hand, had every reason to despond. At the outset, before he had seen Quebec and learned the nature of the ground, he had meant to begin the campaign by taking post on the Plains of Abraham, and thence laying siege to the town; but he soon discovered that the Plains of Abraham were hardly more within ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Amboyna, we accordingly shaped our course in that direction. Some months had now passed away since Prior had been my companion. His presence supported me much; and whenever I began to despond, he raised my spirits and encouraged me to persevere. He reminded me that often when, from want of trust in Providence, we fancy ourselves furthest from the consummation of our just hopes, God has arranged, by some inscrutable means, to ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... Frank was praised, as a quiet, gentleman-like, interesting lad—but he was also reported to be rather slow at acquiring the rudiments of engineering science. Other letters, later in date, described him as a little too ready to despond about himself; as having been sent away, on that account, to some new railway works, to see if change of scene would rouse him; and as having benefited in every respect by the experiment—except perhaps in regard to his professional ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... better, and He is on our side, no matter what the Kaiser says about it.' I would have gone crazy many a day lately, Miss Oliver, dear, if I had not sat tight and repeated that to myself. My cousin Sophia is, like you, somewhat inclined to despond. 'Oh, dear me, what will we do if the Germans ever get here,' she wailed to me yesterday. 'Bury them,' said I, just as off-hand as that. 'There is plenty of room for the graves.' Cousin Sophia said that I was flippant but I was not flippant, ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... prayer is to get through with the business in hand. I have been in a Slough of Despond for some days past, having written so fiercely that I came to a stand-still. There are points where a writer gets bewildered and cannot form any judgment of what he has done, or tell what to do next. In these cases it is ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... be said, that when the tea was finally announced, our young lady came downstairs a great deal more cheerful; that she did not despond, or deplore her fate, or think about George's coldness, or Rebecca's eyes, as she had been wont to do of late. She went downstairs, and kissed her father and mother, and talked to the old gentleman, and made him more ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gate, just as he left her—his forever, but not here below. Yes; my belief in woman paints that picture in my mind. Parted forever on earth, but waiting! She in anticipation of a meeting in Elysium; he in the Slough of Despond." ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... of all the earth, Chequered with all complexions of mankind, And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see Much that I love, and more that I admire, And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair That pleases and yet shocks me, I can laugh And I can weep, can hope, and can despond, Feel wrath and pity when I think on thee! Ten righteous would have saved a city once, And thou hast many righteous.—Well for thee— That salt preserves thee; more corrupted else, And therefore more obnoxious at this hour Than Sodom in her day ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... they quitted the shores which had been to them such scenes of peril was clear; but, not long after they had embarked, the sea became rough, and the weather stormy. Prince Charles resolved never to despond, sang songs to prevent the spirits of the company from flagging, and talked gaily and hopefully of the future. Exhausted by her previous exertions, Flora sank into a sleep; and Charles carefully watched her slumbers, being afraid lest the voices of the boatmen ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... ever more firmly planted in the human heart, than that of discovering some short cut to the high road of mental acquirement. The toilsome learner's "Progress" through the barren outset of the alphabet; the slough of despond of seven syllables, endangered as they both are by the frequent appearance of the compulsive birch of the Mr. Worldly-wisemen who teach the young idea how to shoot, must ever be looked upon as a probation, the power of avoiding which is "a consummation devoutly to be wished." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... raised their heads in clusters — and ever in the most rugged and barren spots the gayest flowers are found to bloom. How grateful do we feel to Nature for bestowing such charms upon the wild desert! cheering our spirits with a sense of the beautiful, that else would droop and despond as we journeyed through the lone and ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... her superstition; how can she help it? But she's a good girl, and has wit enough if she might use it. Oh, if some generous, large-brained man would drag her out of that slough of despond!—What a marriage that was! Powers of darkness, what ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... swamps, by his timid companions, He prayed to the Virgin on high, and she led him forth from the forest; For angels she sent him as men— in the forms of the tawny Dakotas, And they led his feet from the fen, from the slough of despond and the desert, Half dead in a dismal morass, as they followed the red-deer they found him, In the midst of the mire and the grass, and mumbling "Te Deum laudamus." "Unktomee[72]—Ho!" muttered the braves, for they deemed him the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... critical period in the affairs of America. Washington was satisfied that some decisive blow must be struck; for our finances were low: and many began to despond as to the result of the contest. The British were very powerful and resolute. The plan of Washington finally was to make it appear to the enemy that an attack was intended against New-York; and at the same time ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... benefits they carried were not embalmed in Latin grammars and the orations of Cicero, but were embodied in the knowledge of agriculture and the arts which, adopted by the people, made possible later the German civilization. The old rescue mission sought to yank the sinner out of the slough of despond, the social settlement seeks to help him who has fallen in the contest of life or him to whom the opportunity has not been offered, to climb, recognizing that morality and religion attend, not recede progress. The old charity gave alms and the country was overrun with ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... interest of Lord Moira, the post of Barrack-Master in Dublin, and thus became independent. In 1815, "Retrenchment" deprived him of this office, and he was placed on half-pay. The family had to seek aid from the son, who entreated them not to despond, but rather to thank Providence for having permitted them to enjoy the fruits of office so long, till he (the son) was "in a situation to keep them in comfort without it." "Thank Heaven," he writes afterwards of his father, "I have been able to make his latter days tranquil and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... that hideous night when in paralyzed silence she watched Garrison away. The greatest sorrow is stagnant, not active. The heart becomes like a frozen morass. Sometimes memory slips through the crust, only to sink in the grim "slough of despond." ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... quenched. If the lamp was fed with oil, it would burn, and there would be a Temple for it to stand in. If we try to imagine the feebleness of the handful of discouraged men, and the ring of enemies round them, we may feel the sweetness of the promise which bade them not despond because they had little of what ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... of one's Time"! O those dismal Phantoms, conjured up by the blatant Book-taster and the Indolent Reviewer! How many a poor Soul, that would fain have been honest, have they bewildered into the Slough of Despond and the Bog of ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... done some good-natured things for him in a small five-pound way; he had promised him that loan, too, which would have lifted him out of his Slough of Despond, and he clung with an affectionate gratitude to these exhibitions of brotherly love. Besides, he had accustomed himself—the organ of veneration standing prominent on the top of the vicar's head—to regard ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... but knew what balm, for all Despond, lies in an angel's glance, Your looks would on my window ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... in my dream, that just as they had ended their talk, they drew nigh to a very miry slough, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond."—BUNYAN. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... of strenuous labour will live, or how far Gladstone will prove to have read aright the signs of the times, the tendencies of human thought, and the political forces of the world. But we, who were his followers and disciples, know perfectly well what we owe to him. If ever we should be tempted to despond about the possibilities of human nature and human life, we shall think of him and take courage. If ever our religious faith ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... dropt the 'London'. It was indeed a dead weight. It was Job in the Slough of Despond. I shuffle off my part of the pack, and stand like Christian with light and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... if virtue conquer ill, If fortune bind both lovers in one bond, If either at the other's grief despond, If both be governed by one life, one will; If in two bodies one soul triumph still, Raising the twain from earth to heaven beyond, If Love with one blow and one golden wand Have power both smitten ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... time will you help me pull him out of his slough of despond?" she asked, smiling with the old, frank, ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... that our life is not and cannot be a solitary thing, seeing that the pulsations of each individual's life are creating other pulsations which answer them back in other lives, we know not where or how many, whenever we thus shrink away from our duty, when we turn our back upon it, or despond about it, when we become deaf to the higher calls, we are, in fact, crying to God to be relieved of our service to Him and to our fellows. And it is a happy thing for our life if He does not answer us according to our cry, and let us go into the wilderness, ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... this mainland do so; but those who did stand against us paid the penalty. If therefore thou thinkest this good to do, let us forthwith attempt the Peloponnese, or if thou thinkest good to hold back, we may do that. Do not despond however, for there is no way of escape for the Hellenes to avoid being thy slaves, after they have first given an account of that which they did to thee both now and at former times. Thus it were ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... millionaire, we need not despond over ways and means. The beauty-spots of Great Britain are engaged just now in a fierce rivalry of advertisement. Why should not this rivalry be pressed into the service of beautifying the railway lines along which the tourist must travel to reach them? Why should ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of dashing across a sea of mud worse than the Slough of Despond, of methodically advanced barrage fire, of quick work in trench fight, sufficed for the Canadians to take Regina trench—one of the smoothest bits of trench-taking that has been witnessed in the Somme drive. I saw the Canadians, muddy to the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... toils of our enemies, with whom, from the beginning of the Revolution in France, they have ever moved in strict concert and cooeperation. If, with the report of your Finance Committee in their hands, they can still affect to despond, and can still succeed, as they do, in spreading the contagion of their pretended fears among well-disposed, though weak men, there is no way of counteracting them, but by fixing them down to particulars. Nor must we forget that they are unwearied agitators, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it! For a mountain's sure to fall and bury Bedford Town, 'Destruction'—that's the name, and fire shall burn it down! O 'scape the wrath in time! Time's now, if not too late. How can I pilgrimage up to the wicket-gate? Next comes Despond the slough: not that I fear to pull Through mud, and dry my clothes at brave House Beautiful— But it's late in the day, I reckon: had I left years ago Town, wife, and children dear.... Well, Christmas did, you know!— Soon I had met in the valley and tried my cudgel's strength On the enemy horned ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... deteriorated, pursued still by perverse ill-luck. The weather was terribly inclement, alternating between extremes. Heavy snowstorms and hard frosts were followed by thaws and drenching rains. The difficulties of transport continued supreme. Roads, mere spongy sloughs of despond, were nearly impassable, and the waste of baggage-animals was so great that soon ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... position of women in this country is to be likened to their position in China, where the contempt of men denied them souls, or to that among savage tribes, where they are treated as beasts of burden. But because we are not wallowing in the Slough of Despond, it does not follow that we are sitting in the House Beautiful. The traveller who has climbed to the mer de glace at Chamouni, and sees the valley wide outstretched far below him, sees also far above him the ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... with whom already a warm friendship had been formed that lasted for life, and who has pleasantly sketched what happened. Mr. Felton saw Irving constantly in the interval of preparation, and could not but despond at his daily iterated foreboding of I shall certainly break down; though besides the real dread there was a sly humor which heightened its whimsical horror with an irresistible drollery. But the professor plucked up hope a little when the night came and he saw that Irving ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... he goes on his journey Mr. Worldly Wiseman meets him and urges him to return; but he hastens on, only to plunge into the Slough of Despond. His companion Pliable is here discouraged and turns back. Christian struggles on through the mud and reaches the Wicket Gate, where Interpreter shows him the way to the Celestial City. As he passes a cross beside the path, the heavy burden which he carries (his load ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... bonnie Mary—his betrothed wife—had been chosen to inherit those very millions which had formerly stood between him and what he had then imagined to be his happiness. And listening to the strange story, he had sunk deeper and deeper into the Slough of Despond, and now sat rigidly silent, with all the light gone out of his features, and all the ardour quenched in his eyes. Mary looking at him, and reading every expression in that dark beloved face, felt the tears rising thickly in her throat, but bravely ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... hearse and dump your wealth on a lazy world merely causes the growler to circulate rapidly. And so we sympathize with Andrew Carnegie in his endeavor to live up to his dictum to die poor, and yet not pauperize the world by his wealth. But let us not despond. The man is only seventy-eight. His eyes are bright; his teeth are firm; his form is erect; his limbs are agile; and his brain is at its best. Most hopeful sign of all, he can laugh. He can even laugh at himself. If this ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... been in, after the Crucifixion, when they said—'It is all up! we trusted that this had been He,' but the force of circumstances has shivered the confidence into fragments, and there is no such hope left for us any longer. What brought them out of that Slough of Despond? ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... these details, and I hasten over the ground. One entire hour passed away, and no jailer appeared. We began to despond heavily; and Agnes, poor thing! was now the most agitated of us all. At length eleven struck in the harsh tones of the prison-clock. A few minutes after, we heard the sound of bolts drawing, and bars unfastening. The jailer entered—drunk, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... been induced by the look of the house. Still, when I do look around and see the rich carpets gone, the pictures, statues, all the thousand beautiful things we used to take pleasure in, I say to myself, 'This just man will have his reward.' Don't despond, Jack: I tell you, things ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... was the fault of her nature to go to the other extreme, and despond when she could not see the path beyond marked out distinctly, and illumined by the star ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the major, calling at Captain Dade's, was concerned to hear that Mrs. Dade was not at home. "Gone over to the hospital with Mrs. Blake and the doctor," was the explanation, and these gentle-hearted women, it seems, were striving to do something to rouse the lad from the slough of despond which had engulfed him. That night "Pink" Marble, Hay's faithful book-keeper and clerk for many a year, a one-armed veteran of the civil war, calling, as was his invariable custom when the trader was absent, to leave the keys of the safe and desks with Mrs. Hay, was surprised ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... poor fellow with many a hopeful message from the gospel of mercy and soon drew him out of the Slough of Despond; but he drew him out with so eager an arm that up went this impressionable personage from despond to the fifth heaven. He was penitent, forgiven, justified, sanctified, all in three weeks. Moreover, he now fell into a certain foul habit. Of course Scripture formed a portion of his daily ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... was not brightened by the prospect before him. In casting his eyes around, no cheering object presented itself. No confidence could be placed on receiving reinforcements from any quarter. But, in no situation could Washington despond. His exertions to collect an army, and to impede the progress of his enemy, were perseveringly continued. Understanding that Sir Guy Carleton no longer threatened Ticonderoga, he directed General Schuyler to hasten the troops of Pennsylvania and Jersey to his assistance, and ordered[49] General ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... trusted would be found but temporary. If they should be so happy as but to succeed in discovering new sources of employment to supply the place of those channels which had been suddenly shut up, he should indeed despond if we did not soon restore the country to that same flourishing condition which had long made her the envy of the world. The royal Duke then moved the first resolution, as follows:—"That the transition from a state of extensive warfare to a system of peace ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... been sacrificed, the three arrows already mentioned are shot from the bow, one to the north, another to the south, and the third to the east. These arrows are called ki'nam tympem. It is, perhaps, significant that the arrows which are shot at death despond in numbers with those which are used at the time of the birth ceremony. When the fire has blazed up, another goat, "u'lang dholia," is sacrificed. In some cases all the clothes of the deceased are burnt ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... an occasional visitor in Hertford Street. Mrs. Carbuncle was as anxious as ever that the marriage should be celebrated on the appointed day, and though there had been repeated quarrels, nothing had as yet taken place to make her despond. Sir Griffin would make some offensive speech; Lucinda would tell him that she had no desire ever to see him again; and then the baronet, usually under the instigation of Lord George, would make some awkward apology. Mrs. Carbuncle,—whose life at this period was not a pleasant one,—would ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... realm of literature. There is a sunrise and sunset. There is a transition from the light of the sun to the gentler light of the moon. There is a rest in nature which seems necessary in all her great operations. And so with all the great operations of the human mind. But do not let us despond if we seem to see a diminished efficacy in the production of what is essentially and immortally great. Our sun if hidden is hidden only for a moment. He is like the day star ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... interest for the welfare of the church, and a larger liberality in the support of her institutions. Are we not commanded to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good; and to be always ready to give to him that asked us a reason for the hope that is in us? But let us not despond; God will overrule even these controversies to the good of his church. Forsan et ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... sinking deeper and deeper in the Slough of Despond, the firing of a musket, and the shriek of the man who was struck, attracted my attention. Looking towards the opposite end of the pen I saw a guard bringing his still smoking musket to a "recover arms," and, not fifteen feet ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... foolish — hot and fond, That chuckles through his deepest ire, That gilds the slough of his despond But dims ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... encouraged with the hope of interpreting the enigmas presented to him in the earth's structure—instead of being prompted to undertake laborious enquiries into the natural history of the organic world, and the complicated effects of the igneous and aqueous causes now in operation—was taught to despond from the first. Geology, it was affirmed, could never rise to the rank of an exact science; the greater number of phenomena must for ever remain inexplicable, or only be partially elucidated by ingenious conjectures. Even the mystery which invested the subject was said to constitute one of its ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... and the hogs showed no disposition to depart, Hal began to despond, declaring that no help would reach them before they should starve. Ned, however, kept up heart, until the infuriated creatures began to devour the dead body of ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... not help him out of his present slough of despond. He thought of how lonesome he should be after Harrington went away the next day. He could have Scott or Charlie Minturn up to see him, to be sure, but somehow, since he had known Harrington, these old friends had not seemed so entertaining ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... sat down, the goddess and Ulysses, at the foot of a wild olive- tree, consulting how they might with safety bring about his restoration. And when Ulysses revolved in his mind how that his enemies were a multitude, and he single, he began to despond, and he said, "I shall die an ill death like Agamemnon; in the threshold of my own house I shall perish, like that unfortunate monarch, slain by some one of my wife's suitors." But then again calling to mind his ancient courage, he secretly wished that Minerva ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... in the metropolis, he sought a situation, but in vain, and he was beginning to despond, when he obtained work with one John Morgan, an instrument-maker, in Finch Lane, Cornhill. Here he gradually became proficient in making quadrants, parallel rulers, compasses, theodolites, etc., until, at the end of a year's practice, he ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... here, Mrs. Trapes! In fact, Arthur broke into my—er—life just when things were at their darkest generally. Arthur found me very depressed and gloomy. Arthur taught me that life might yet have its uses. Arthur lifted me out of the Slough of Despond. Arthur brought me—to you! And behold! life is good and perchance shall be even better if—ah yes, if! So you see, my dear Mrs. Trapes, Arthur has done much for me, consequently I have much to thank Arthur for. Indeed, I ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... since that I have Love's true colours donned, I in his service will not now despond, For in extremes Love yet can all restore: So till her beauty walks the world no more All day remembered in my hope shall be The lady who is queen and love ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... she replies, though she trembles with fear, For she lives all alone and no neighbours are near; But she says to herself, when she's like to despond, That the boys are at work in the ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... judge, seems best, and be careless about the whimsies of such a half-baked notionist as I am. We are here in a most pleasant country, full of walks, and idle to our hearts desire. Taylor has dropt the London. It was indeed a dead weight. It has got in the Slough of Despond. I shuffle off my part of the pack, and stand like Xtian with light and merry shoulders. It had got silly, indecorous, pert, and every thing that is bad. Both our kind remembrances to Mrs. K. and yourself, and stranger's-greeting to Lucy—is it Lucy or Ruth?—that ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... three to five to one. Ah, but why should we despond on that account?" And his voice vibrated with renewed confidence. "The country is a difficult one, easy to defend, and Lord Wellington's genius will have made the best of it. There are, for example, ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... exclaimed again, knowing that if he could only start her to talking she would soon drag herself out of her slough of despond. ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... gravely, putting his hand upon her arm to prevent her flying under the wheels of a carriage which in her absorption she had not noticed. "Look here, Helen; it wouldn't be any better if Arthur wanted to marry you. You are too melancholy alone without having him to push you deeper into the slough of despond." ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... his sleepless nights having begun to tell even upon his powerful constitution. The rest of that afternoon and all of a night without sleep in the Pullman he was in a depth of despond. He had been in the habit of getting much comfort out of an observation his father had made to him just before he died: "Remember that ninety per cent of these fourteen hundred million human beings are uncertain where to-morrow's food ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... down in the slough of its eternal despond, a few lorn and desolate-looking men stood on the platform. There they were once more, as if it were but yesterday, with their hands deep down in their pockets; the wistful, curious glance in their eyes, and the melancholy slouch in their shoulders. They tried to raise a cheer, but ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... south, the early American road was a veritable Slough of Despond. Watery pits were to be encountered wherein horses were drowned and loads sank from sight. Frequently traffic was stopped for hours by wagons which had broken down and blocked the way. Thirteen wagons at one time were stalled on Logan's Hill on the York Road. ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... Faithful, and a score of others, who are not at all the bloodless creatures of the Romance of the Rose, but men real enough to stop you on the road and to hold your attention. Scene after scene follows, in which are pictured many of our own spiritual experiences. There is the Slough of Despond, into which we all have fallen, out of which Pliable scrambles on the hither side and goes back grumbling, but through which Christian struggles mightily till Helpful stretches him a hand and drags him out on solid ground and bids him go on his way. Then come Interpreter's house, the Palace ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... gladsome morn and the fair, fresh world about me, conscious but of my own most miserable estate; insomuch that I presently sank down on the grass by the road and, with heavy head bowed between my hands, gave myself up to black despond. ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... myself can be of no use to him; he has not the same friendly feeling for me as he used to have. But it is very certain that those of his friends who have the power should exert themselves to raise him out of this fearful slough of despond. If he isn't effectually helped, there's no saying what may happen. One thing is certain, I think: he is past helping himself. Sane literary work cannot be expected from him. It seems a monstrous thing that so good a ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... a clever woman, Peter," was all he said to me in reference to the matter, "and I shall miss her." Then he clapped me on the shoulder, and bade me not despond. "We still have the rubies," he reminded me, "which, properly invested, will more than pay ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... meeting took place, Valentine Jernam's murder was a mystery rather more than five years old, and Mr. Andrew Larkspur had made no progress towards its solution. He had been obliged to acknowledge to Joyce Harker that he had not struck the right trail, and to confess that he had begun to despond. The disappearance of Black Milsom from among the congenial society of thieves and ruffians which he frequented was, of course, easily accounted for by Mr. Larkspur, and the absence of any, even the slightest, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... entered on an auspicious period in the history of the mission. Geog Tapa became the radiant centre of spiritual life. The preceding year had been one of apprehension, but the brethren now learned not to despond every time the heavens gathered blackness, for in the darkest hour the sun may break forth and change the whole scene. We have come to the beginning of that series of revivals, with which the mission was so ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... only a Christian, like Dr. Grey! His faith, like strong wings, bears him high above all sloughs of despond, all morasses of moodiness. People cannot successfully or profitably serve two masters. That is eminently true; not because it is scriptural, but vice versa; because it is so obviously true it could not escape a place in the Bible. Half work pays poor wages, and it is not surprising that neither ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... disappointments had been petty, yet sore grievances to the Squire, and had made him to despond about success. He has lately, however, been made happy by the receipt of a fine Welsh falcon, which Master Simon terms a stately high-flyer. It is a present from the Squire's friend, Sir Watkyn Williams Wynne; and is, no doubt, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... source of income. From the results of my mavericking and my trading operations I had been enabled to send two thousand young steers up the trail the spring before, and the proceeds from their sale had lifted me from the slough of despond and set me on a financial rock. Therefore my regard for the ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... have always referred with satisfaction to the effect of the tariff of 1842 as an explicit and undeniable proof of the value of protection. It raised the country from a slough of despond to happiness, cheerfulness, confidence. It imparted to all sections a degree of prosperity which they had not known since the repeal of the tariff of 1828. The most suggestive proof of its strength and popularity was found in the contest of 1844 between Mr. Polk and Mr. Clay, where ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... disqualified for their duties: but, although the world may applaud this acute sensibility, religion condemns it. As the effect of mere passion, it has nothing in it which can secure the approbation of God; on the contrary, it is offensive to him, who, while he permits us to weep, does not allow us to despond, and who often sees it best to humble a refractory spirit by a ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... travelled warily, with their feet dragging to save themselves from falling. Everything was splashed with filth and corruption; one marvelled at the cleanness of the sky. Trees were blasted, and seemed to be sinking out of sight in this war-created Slough of Despond. We came to the brow of a hill; in the valley was something that I recognised. The last time I had seen it was in an etching in a shop window in Newark, New Jersey. It was a town, from the midst of whose battered ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... learned, for the first time, their real strength; they found that bounties, and the draft, and the freedmen, and importations from the recruiting markets of the whole world, would keep their armies full, and nothing could have made them despond again. The war then became merely a comparison of national resources. Something was undoubtedly gained by the march into Kentucky, but how little in comparison with the golden opportunity which was thrown away. Had the combatants been equally matched, the result of this campaign ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... because of anything he's done or has, it's just because it's HIM, I suppose, but I know my chance is gone for good! THAT leaves me free to act for her; no one can accuse me of doing it for myself. And I swear she sha'n't go through that slough of despond again while I have breath ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... another gentleman shook his head in the same way. He held a pleasant position, but he found that promotion was very slow, and he began to despond and to think the times sadly demoralized, and his party—at least he feared it—fatally mercenary. It was evidently indifferent to reform, and seemed to care little for the wishes of the people or the character of the country. He, too, shook his head with profound distrust of ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... achieved sufficient strength to stamp, and because of this—which is the explanation of the outward phenomena whose significance, on the spiritual side, is all condensed in prayer—one need never despond or despair. At any instant he can so unite his own will with the divine will that new combinations of event and circumstance will appear in his life. A writer on this line of ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... you. As a man of the world, my dear Sir, you know as well as I do, that young ladies don't give very straightforward answers on the subject of their prepossessions in favour of young gentlemen. But I got enough out of her to show me that you had made pretty good use of your time—no occasion to despond, you know—I leave you to make her speak plain; it's more in your line than mine, more a good deal. And now let us come to the business part of the transaction. All I have to say is this:—if you agree to my proposals, then I agree to yours. ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... right; for Man, to man so oft unjust, Is always so to Women: one sole bond Awaits them—treachery is all their trust; Taught to conceal their bursting hearts despond Over their idol, till some wealthier lust Buys them in marriage—and what rests beyond? A thankless husband—next, a faithless lover— Then dressing, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... must get him somehow back into his slough of despond. His freedom paralyzed her. And he returned with a pathetic ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... one knew that this was impossible, he would narrate these visions with the faith of an old Bible seer, and declare that they must come true, and that it was a sin to despond. But as year after year he journeyed up and down the country, seeing, at Mission after Mission, the buildings crumbling into ruin, the lands all taken, sold, resold, and settled by greedy speculators; ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... course of the dull world; he is not quite a man, as the world goes, and not at all an angel, as the celestials see. He must be his own motive, path, and guide, his own priest, king, and law. The world may be his footstool, and may be his slough of despond, but is never his final end. His aims are transcendental, his realm is art, his interests ideal, his life divine, his destiny immortal. All the old theories of saintship are revived in him. He is in the world, but not of it. Shadows of infinitude are his realities. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... life was spent for others. Some one suggested a strip of blue illusion,—and that could be got; but, alas! Kitty had no money, for the gloves were already bought. Pris heard the lamentations, and giving up fresh ribbons for herself, pulled her sister out of a slough of despond with two yards of ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... hundred yards on the other side of the parapet) walked on dry earth for at least ten paces. The officer's laughter was loud at the corner of the next traverse, when there was an abrupt descent into a slough of despond. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... waiting and anxiety. Nor do I yet see the end of this worse than tedious uncertainty." Mary was to see Shelley's younger brother, who was just married, but she had small hope of reaping any good from his visit. She adds, "Adieu, my ever dear friend; while hearts such as yours beat, I will not wholly despond." Mary refers with great kindness to Hunt, and is most anxious as to his future. She also notices with high satisfaction that the Whigs with Canning are in the ascendant, and that they may be favourable to Greece. ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... take them away from the South, as he might have done, or to provide for them handsomely, as he perhaps meant to do,—I violated the traditions of my class and stepped from the beaten path to help the misbegotten son of my old friend out of the slough of despond, in which he had learned, in some strange way, that he was floundering. Ten years later, the ghost of my good deed returns to haunt me, and makes me doubt whether I have wrought more evil than good. I wonder," he mused, "if he ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the Government scowled at it, and at last passed a law preventing the Protestant boys dressing up the figure on the first of July, and walking round it. That was the death-blow of the Orange party, your hanner; they never recovered it, but began to despond and dwindle, and I with them, for there was scarcely any demand for Orange tunes. Then Dan O'Connell arose with his emancipation and repale cries, and then instead of Orange processions and walkings, there were Papist processions and mobs, which ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... all felt the weight of his words, but our collapse was pitiful. Lured by a treacherous hope into the belief that we were saved, we were fallen into a deeper Slough of Despond than before. Jill was hard put to ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... her to become an actress, and she went diligently to work, not allowing herself to despond over that first great disappointment. For the next seven years, she worked faithfully learning the new profession from the very bottom. "I became aware," she said, "that one could never sail a ship by entering ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... elders and gazed with wide-open eyes at the execrable plates in the imported editions illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and sword of the Martyrs, the Pilgrim's difficulties in the Slough of Despond, or with the Giant Despair, afforded pleasurable reading; while Mr. Great Heart's courageous cheerfulness brought practically a new ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... think of it, the rather am I of opinion that there is something generous, rather than derogatory, in giving to the poor exile, whose thoughts are so high and noble, those privileges of a man of rank, which some who were born in such lofty station are too cowardly to avail themselves of. Yet despond not, noble Princess; the challenge is not yet accepted of, and if it was, the issue is in the hand of God. As for me, whose trade is war, the sense that I have something so serious to transact with this resolute ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... province are at a standstill," he repeated, "while all my energies are bent upon this quest. Should we fail to have news of his capture in Dauphiny, we need not, nevertheless, despond. I have sent men after him along the three roads that lead to Paris. They are to spare neither money nor horses in picking up his trail and effecting his capture. After all, I ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... helpless mourner, bent By sorrow, Rama made lament; And with wise counsel Lakshman tried To soothe his care, and thus replied: "O best of men, thy grief oppose, Nor sink beneath thy weight of woes. Not thus despond the great and pure And brave like thee, but still endure. Reflect what anguish wrings the heart When loving souls are forced to part; And, mindful of the coming pain, Thy love within thy breast restrain. For ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... somewhat on Philadelphia principles, in blocks, and, like Philadelphia, gridironed all over with tramway lines. It is a good thing one is able to get off the marble pavements into the cars without having far to go, for the streets are at times mere sloughs of despond. It is the same in ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... where Rush taught for many years, he took charge of the football team, and although coaching mere boys, his results were marvelous, and in 1915, when the Princeton coaching system was in a slough of despond, it was decided to give Rush an opportunity to show what ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... They who despond, as the tidings of woe come borne to us on almost every breeze which sweeps across the ocean, have lost sight of Him who holds in his hand the issues of life and the awful realities of death. These have ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... you may readily conceive, was sunk in the Slough of Despond deeper than ever plummet sounded. Margaret thought this very nice of him; it was a delicate tribute to her that he ate nothing; and the fact that Hugh Van Orden and Petheridge Jukesbury—as she believed—acted in precisely the same way for precisely the same reason, merely demonstrated, of course, ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... one present gurled and growled; but the soldiers laughed at seeing the sergeant on horseback. Mr Swinton, however, calmly advised us to make no obstacle: "Good," said he, "will come of this, and though for a season we are ordained to tribulation, and to toil through the slough of despond, yet a firm footing and a fair and green path lies in a peaceful ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... "is the famous Slough of Despond—a disgrace to all the neighborhood; and the greater that it might so easily be converted into ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... this Slough of Despond, he was called to Washington by his patent lawyer. Not having enough money to pay the cost of such a journey, he borrowed the price of a return ticket from Sanders and arranged to stay with a friend ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... is not like you to repine in this way; you who have suffered and endured so much must not despond when, after a long, starless night, the day ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Old Manse, Vol. II.] where Hawthorne has preserved Shelley's skylark and the steed Rosinante, with Hebe's cup and many another impalpable marvel, in the warden-ship of the Wandering Jew. So, too, when we read Great-Heart's analysis of Mr. Fearing, this expression, "He had, I think, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough that he carried everywhere with him," we can detect the root of symbolical conceptions like that of "The Bosom Serpent." [Footnote: Mosses from an Old Manse, Vol. II.] I cannot refrain from copying here some passages from this same portion which recall ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... transient gleam from Hampton Roads and Kernstown; plunging the public mind into a slough of despond, in which it was to be sunk deeper and deeper ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... happy as an end-man. And by the way, you're all chirked up yourself. Who's been helping you to the elixir of life. When we parted last night, you were forty fathoms deep in the slough of despond." ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... to rouse her mother from her slough of despond, as she had often done in the old days. So she said: "Mother, you don't want to spoil this moment for me, do you? Why, I'm back with you again! Come, now, and we'll take in my boxes and unpack them. I've brought provisions along. We'll have ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... opposed this. Then Zwingli spoke one more, begging all to hold firm to the Gospel, and never to despond as long as they leaned upon it. "What is done from the best motives will be misrepresented by falsehood and slander. Thus it had been said here and there yesterday evening that we would now degrade the body and blood ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... Christian, whom he accompanied as far as the "Slough of Despond," when he turned back.—Bunyan, Pilgrim's ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... his timid companions, He prayed to the Virgin on high, and she led him forth from the forest; For angels she sent him as men —in the forms of the tawny Dakotas, And they led his feet from the fen, —from the slough of despond and the desert. Half-dead in a dismal morass, as they followed the red-deer they found him, In the midst of the mire and the grass, and mumbling "Te Deum laudamus." "Unktmee [72]—Ho!" muttered the braves, for they deemed him the black Spider-Spirit That dwells in the drearisome caves, and walks ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... under such an accumulation of injustice and obloquy? Where shall any mass of men be found with power of character and mind sufficient to bear up against such a weight of prejudice? Why, if one individual rarely gifted by heaven were to raise himself out of such a slough of despond, he would be a miracle; and what would be his reward? Would he be admitted to an equal share in your political rights?—would he ever be allowed to cross the threshold of your doors?—would any of you give your daughter to his ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... arises, and it is gone. Lower down the stream, I can see over a knoll the green and damp turf roofs of four or five hovels, built at the edge of a morass, which is trodden by the cattle into a black Slough of Despond at their doors, and traversed by a few ill-set stepping stones, with here and there a flat slab on the tops, where they have sunk out of sight;—and at the turn of the brook I see a man fishing, with a ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... water and food. Grey and I agreed that, though it was a very honourable thing to command a ship, we should be very glad to be relieved of the honour. Since we captured the vessel we had not had a moment to take any food. Hunger made us rather inclined to despond. We, however, found out what was the matter with us, and sent Billy Wise down into the cabin to forage. He soon returned with some biscuit and white cheese, and dried plums and raisins, and a few bottles of claret, but there was no ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... faint at first setting out, when thou wast almost choked in the Gulf of Despond; thou didst attempt wrong ways to be rid of thy burden, whereas thou shouldst have stayed till thy Prince had taken it off; thou didst sinfully sleep and lose thy choice thing; thou wast also almost persuaded to go back at the sight of the lions; and when thou talkest ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Irad. Despond not: wherefore wilt thou wander thus To add thy silence to the silent night, And lift thy tearful eye unto the stars? They cannot ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... own vitality had been fatally impaired. "What exceeding folly," he wrote to a friend, "was it that tempted me to cross the sea in search of what I do not seem able to find here—a righteous stomach? I have been wallowing in the slough of despond for a week and my digestive apparatus has gone wrong again. I have suffered tortures that would have done credit to the inventive genius of a Dante, and the natural consequence is that I am as ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... minister saw nothing. He was tired, and absorbed in his new possessions. It was good to sit down in his study, and spread his treasures out on the broad table, and gloat over them. A clump of damp moss rested quietly on his new sermon, "The Slough of Despond," but he took no note. He was looking for a place to put this curious little lizard in, and after anxious thought selected the gilt celluloid box, lined with pink satin, which the Mission Circle had given him on Christmas for his collars and cuffs. He felt, vaguely, that it was not the right place ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... dreary prairies, these five Eldorado seekers proved to be jovial fellows, and there was about them an elasticity of temper which did not allow them to despond. The divine had made up his mind to go to Rome, and convert the Pope, who, after all, was a clever old bon vivant; the doctor would go to Edinburgh, and get selected, from his superior skill, as president of the Surgical College; one of the lawyers determined he would ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... appeared here earlier—it had finished its course, and achieved its work much sooner than with us. Probably the last summer had found no human being alive, in all the track included between the shores of Calabria and the northern Alps. My search was utterly vain, yet I did not despond. Reason methought was on my side; and the chances were by no means contemptible, that there should exist in some part of Italy a survivor like myself—of a wasted, depopulate land. As therefore I rambled through ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... meant that the great numerical majority of the inhabitants bear this character, he spoke truly, inasmuch as the great numerical majority of the inhabitants are negroes, among the most depraved in the island. Kingston is like the slough of Despond, a place whither all the scum and filth of the negro population in the east end of the island do continually run, and make it a very sink of wickedness. But are the white families and the large number of thoroughly respectable colored families to be confounded with this mass ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a wide board, by means of a carpenter's pencil and an overturned milk-pan, cart-wheels for the box of the little red wagon, or in playing "Pilgrim's Progress," seated on an empty grain-sack which Bruno, snarling with delight, dragged by his teeth along the reservation road from the Slough of Despond to the gates of the Celestial City. She also helped her mother prepare for the coming Fourth of July ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... 'Despond not, Britain! Should this sacred hold Of freedom, still inviolate, be assailed, The high, unblenching spirit which prevailed In ancient days, is neither dead nor cold. Men are still in thee of heroic mould— Men whom thy ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... of him last year to me, he seemed a bit of a coxcomb, personally. Poor fellow! to be sure, he had had a long seasoning of adversity, which is not so hard to bear as t'other thing. I hope that this won't throw him back into the 'slough of Despond.' ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... was beginning to rise, phoenixlike, from the ashes of his despond, the Patriot reprinted the full details of Nellie's complaint as they appeared in a New York daily. For a brief spell he shrivelled up with shame and horror; he could not look any one in the face. Nellie's lawyers had made the astounding, outrageous ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... enough, as signs of continued remorse, lifted her out of this supposed slough of despond with affectionate peremptoriness. "Don't feel so badly about it, darling. We won't have any more talk for the present about differing judgments, or of going away, or of anything uncomfortable"; and ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... saving grace lay in her sense of humor. It had saved her from many dangers, from none more insidious than that lurking in five years' experience as a successful author. It had rescued her from the slough of despond when unappreciative publishers rejected her most ambitious attempts; it had come to her aid also when a southern admirer whose intentions were better than his rhetoric, sent her a manuscript ode constructed in her honor. ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... cousin, you despond too soon. The good king has unhappily gone from us, but we still have our dear queen. We have also, by the kindness of ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... quite a family man all at once,' thought Tom. 'If I can only get something to do, how comfortable Ruth and I may be! Ah, that if! But it's of no use to despond. I can but do that, when I have tried everything and failed; and even then it won't serve me much. Upon my word,' thought Tom, quickening his pace, 'I don't know what John will think has become of me. He'll begin to be afraid I have strayed ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... confided to his friend Bob Wilson one evening as during his transit through a particularly dismal slough of despond they in company were busily engaged in blazing the trail with empty bottles; "One such as I, a man of thirty and of good health, without a dollar or the prospect of a dollar, an income or the prospect of an income, a home or the prospect of a home, following a cold scent like ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... who, in many ways, did not do himself justice. As a young man, his was a severe and unhopeful mind, and the tendency to despond was increased by circumstances. There was something in the quality of his unquestionable ability which kept him for long out of the ordinary prizes of an Oxford career; in the class list, in the higher competition for Fellowships, he was not successful. There are those who ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... 3 Despond then no longer, The Lord will provide; And this be the token— No word he hath spoken, Was ever yet broken, ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... people who study to be pessimistic. They are the "self-appointed inspectors of warts and carbuncles, the self-elected supervisors of sewers and street gutters." They pride themselves on being guides to the Slough of Despond and on holding a pass key to the ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... Christ for salvation that she could give no account of any 'law work.' And as one of the old examiners, who thought there could be no genuine conversion without a period of deep conviction, asked her, "But, my dear, how about the Slough of Despond?" she dropped a courtesy and said, "Please, sir, I didn't come ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... into which you have ventured for the love of the country, form a sad quagmire. They are like John Bunyan's Slough of Despond, into which, as he observes, millions of cart-loads of good resolutions have been thrown, without perceptibly mending the way. From what you say, and from what I have heard from others, there is a very natural desire to trust to one or two empirical remedies, such ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... connected by tolerably well-flagged side-walks; and certainly in no other place is such accommodation more absolutely required, the middle space or street, so called, being, after rain, a slough, to which that of Despond, as described by Bunyan, was a bagatelle; and floundering through, or pounded in which, are lines of hundreds of light drays, each drawn by three or four fine mules, and laden ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... and thought myself extreamly happy, tho' thrown on an unknown Coast, and destitute of every thing necessary to sustain me: But I trusted in that Goodness which had preserved, and which I hoped would provide for me. To despond, I thought, would be mistrusting the Bounty of our Creator, and might be the ready way to plunge me into the Miseries Men naturally apprehend in my Circumstances. I therefore heartily recommended ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... what is before us. It is a fearful prospect; but men like those who compose the band of Seguin do not despond while the shadow of a hope remains. It is a barren spot indeed, ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... standing, close behind the mansion, by the burnside in the glen, where there was abundance of water and secure privacy. Watt's extreme diffidence was often the subject of remark at Dr. Roebuck's fireside. To the Doctor his anxiety seemed quite painful, and he was very much disposed to despond under apparently trivial difficulties. Roebuck's hopeful nature was his mainstay throughout. Watt himself was ready enough to admit this; for, writing to his friend Dr. Small, he once said, "I have met with many disappointments; and I must have sunk under the burthen of ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... under his eyes, he could not bring himself to the point of proposing marriage. He dreaded to take up the position of husband a second time, discerning a trap in every petticoat, and a Slough of Despond in possible heirs. 'What has happened once, when all seemed so fair, may happen again,' he said to himself. 'I'll risk my name no more.' So he abstained from marriage, and overcame his wish for a lineal descendant to follow him ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... repeated the Doctor; "it won't do. You think too much of the past, and despond too much in the present. That won't do either. ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... write about myself. What can I say on that precious topic? My health is pretty good. My spirits are not always alike. Nothing happens to me. I hope and expect little in this world, and am thankful that I do not despond and suffer more. Thank you for inquiring after our old servant; she is pretty well; the little shawl, etc., pleased her much. Papa likewise, I am glad to say, is pretty well; with his and my kindest regards to you and Mr. Gaskell—Believe ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Pilgrim's Progress performed by rail. Instead of the slow, solitary, pensive pilgrimage which John Bunyan describes, we travel in fashionable company, and in the most agreeable manner. A certain Mr Smooth-it-away has eclipsed the triumphs of Brunel. He has thrown a viaduct over the Slough of Despond; he has tunnelled the hill Difficulty, and raised an admirable causeway across the valley of Humiliation. The wicket gate, so inconveniently narrow, has been converted into a commodious station-house; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... imaginative. And I can even imagine that little thing finding Tom just the least bit slow, at times, if it were not for his goodness. Tom is so kind that I'm convinced he sometimes feels your joke in his heart when his head isn't quite clear about it. Well, we will not despond, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... kindness in writing to me at such a time, and that I would fain assure you of my heart-felt sympathy, however unavailing it may be. To you who have a steadfast anchor for your hopes, I ought not, perhaps, to say, "Do not despond." Yet, dearest H——, do not despond: is there any occasion when despair is justified? I know how lightly all soothing counsel must be held, in a case of such sorrow as yours, but among fellow-Christians ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... approaching sail. Ships, indeed, had ranged the coast to seek them, but with no friendly intent. Their thoughts dwelt, with unspeakable yearning, on the France they had left behind; and which, to their longing fancy, was pictured as an unattainable Eden. Well might they despond; for of a hundred and eighty colonists, besides the crew of the "Belle," less than forty-five remained. The weary precincts of Fort St. Louis, with its fence of rigid palisades, its area of trampled earth, its buildings of weather-stained ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... not a respectable village on its shores from Fortress Monroe to Richmond,—here, in a houseless and desolate land which can be reached only by roads which are intersected by gullies, which plunge into sloughs of despond, which lose themselves in the ridges of what were once cornfields, or meander amid stumps of what so lately stood a forest,—that here you have every comfort for the sick: all needed articles of clothing, the shirts and drawers, the socks and slippers; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... cash, they sallied forth to carry devastation and affright throughout the camps of innocent and unsuspecting blacklegs. As might be expected, it took about as many minutes as they had pounds to effect the ruin of the adventurers. Did they despond? Not they; a flaw existed in their calculations. They looked for it with care, and were torn from their employment only by the exigencies of the time, and the pressing demands of nature for immediate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... love, simple faith, and a desire for knowledge. It had given freely to the brethren in Redwan, and paid the entire salary of its own pastor. "Indeed," says the missionary, "but for this church in Sert, we should almost despond for the Arabic-speaking portion of our field. In Mardin, it is true, we have a flourishing church and community, but not so refreshing in its simplicity and strength of faith and love. The pastor of the ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... room in every business for an honest, hard-worker. It will not do to presume otherwise; nor should one sit down to grumble or concoct mischief. The most perilous hour of one's life is when he is tempted to despond. He who loses, his courage loses all. There are men in the world who would rather work than be idle at the same price. Imitate them. Success is not far off. An honorable and happy life is before you. Lay ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... pain no one by quoting Janet's common sense. For that I should be sorry. I remember her words because so often, when sinking in sloughs of childish despond, they afforded me firm foothold. More often than I can tell, when compelled to listen to the sententious voice of immeasurable Folly glibly explaining the eternal mysteries, has it comforted me to whisper to myself: "I don't believe it of Him. He's ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... the startling suddenness which is peculiar to the Adriatic. The heavens opened, and to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning the rain descended in torrents, flooding the tents, quenching the illuminations, and reducing the whole ground to a Slough of Despond. The guests naturally rushed for shelter to the little inn, which was much too small to accommodate them. The police made for the barrels of beer, and were soon incapable of keeping order, and a mob of villagers who had assembled ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... somewhat drowsy. Last night I was afraid Dr. Johnson was beginning to faint in his resolution; for he said, 'If we must ride much, we shall not go; and there's an end on't.' To-day, when he talked of Sky with spirit, I said, 'Why, Sir, you seemed to me to despond yesterday. You are a delicate Londoner;—you are a maccaroni[263]; you can't ride.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I shall ride better than you. I was only afraid I should not find a horse able to carry me.' I hoped then there would be no fear of getting through ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... moderately starlight these aids to finding one's way about are prudently dispensed with. There is not a single handsome and hardly a decent building in the whole place. The streets, as I saw them after rain, are veritable sloughs of despond, but they are capable of being changed by dry weather into deserts of dust. It is true, I have only been as yet twice down to the town, but on both visits it reminded me more of the sleepy villages in Washington Irving's stories than of a smart, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... gift—its most valued treasure, its purest, sweetest, and proudest trophies—why, when these are the stake which is to reward thy courage, thy adherence, to compensate thee for trial, to console thee for loss and outrage—why is it that thou art so ready to despond of the cause so dear to thee, and forfeit the conquest by which alone thy whole existence is made sweet. This is the very suicide of self. Fearful of loss, we forsake the prize, which we have won; and hearkening to the counsel of a natural enemy, eat ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... various pulpits by American Missionary Association speakers, this glorious fact met with cordial applause. All the more did it seem incumbent upon the churches to take hold of the American Missionary Association, still burdened with its debt, and lift it out of the slough of financial despond. This, however, is only the reflection of the feeling among the churches throughout the land. The determination to lift the debt of the American Missionary Association, and to make it possible to continue at least its depleted work, is ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 05, May, 1896 • Various
... we wished to do better for the time to come. I'm an older man than you, and I bid you take comfort, and trust to God for better things, and better things will come, too. You are not so badly off now as you were this time twelvemonth. And you know I'll never leave you. Don't despond—don't give away. It's unnatural for a man to do it, and he's lost if he does. Oh, bless you, this is a life of suffering and sorrow, and well it is; for who wouldn't go mad to think of leaving all his young 'uns behind him, and every ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... night, blowing a very hard gale, and exceedingly dark, we struck upon the island. Nothing could equal the distraction, the shrieks, and despair of the whole crew, until I, knowing there was not a moment to be lost, cheered up their spirits, and bade them not despond, but do as I should request them. In a few minutes the vessel was half full of water, and the enormous castle of ice that seemed to hem us in on every side, in some places falling in hideous fragments upon the deck, killed one half of the crew; upon which, getting upon ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... must now return to the weary chapter of European diplomacy, to trace the tortuous course of popes and princes, duping one another with false hopes; saying what they did not mean, and meaning what they did not say. It is a very Slough of Despond, through which we must plunge desperately as we may; and we can cheer ourselves in this dismal region only by the knowledge that, although we are now approaching the spot where the mire is deepest, the hard ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... their loads of grain carried over this dreadful place for three or four cents a bushel was to the farmers of the Rock River and Fox River valleys—who, having hauled their wheat from forty to eighty miles to this Slough of Despond, frequently could get it no farther—a privilege which they soon began to appreciate. The road had all it could do, at once. It was a success. There was now no difficulty in getting the stock taken up, and before long it was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various |
