"Despondent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pattern, but seems restless,—a hard girl to look after. Has a romance in her pocket, which she means to read in school-time.—Charlotte Ann Wood. Fifteen. The poetess before mentioned. Long, light ringlets, pallid complexion, blue eyes. Delicate child, half unfolded. Gentle, but languid and despondent. Does not go much with the other girls, but reads a good deal, especially poetry, underscoring favorite passages. Writes a great many verses, very fast, not very correctly; full of the usual human sentiments, expressed in the accustomed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... wrong, Mary. I am sure I should be your best friend. I feel much indebted to you for the attention and the affection you have shown me, and I am grieved to see you so despondent. Make a friend of me. There—think it over, and ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... sorrow is made darker by the hopelessness with which it is endured. Every care is magnified, and the sweetness of every pleasure is lessened, by this pessimistic tendency. The beauty of the world loses half its charm in the eyes which see all things in the hue of despondent feeling. Slightest fears become terrors, and smallest trials grow into great misfortunes. Our heart makes our world for us; and if the heart be without hope and cheer, the world is always dark. We find in life just what we ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... utmost repugnance that Goldsmith entered college in this capacity. His shy and sensitive nature was affected by the inferior station he was doomed to hold among his gay and opulent fellow-students, and he became, at times, moody and despondent. A recollection of these early mortifications induced him, in after years, most strongly to dissuade his brother Henry, the clergyman, from sending a son to college on a like footing. "If he has ambition, strong passions, and an exquisite sensibility of ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... present time; Lord Iddlesleigh raised the question last November, by his admirable discourse on Desultory Reading, delivered at Edinburgh. Sir John Lubbock was not slow to follow the lead, in his lecture at the Working Men's College; and lastly, we have Mr. Goschen's more abstract and despondent remarks on Hearing, Reading, and Thinking. The discussion has been carried forward from Newspaper to Journal, and from Journal to Magazine, and has attracted representatives of the most heterogeneous elements into the ever widening circle. Sir John Lubbock wound ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... he was sunk in a large armchair by the fire, his sitting-room door opened, and the cure entered, who was surprised by his despondent, sad, and pale appearance. "What is the matter?" he inquired, "Have you had an extra ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... desolate track, By dark rains havocked and drenched black. A fog about the coppice drifts, Or slowly thickens up and lifts Into the moist, despondent air. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... intense that her eyes filled with tears, awakening the tortures of jealousy in her lover. After these interviews, Desnoyers was more ill-tempered and despondent ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... from it, with a speed as little complimentary to the charms of its shadow, are, apparently, the two great and exclusive objects of the thousands swarming down and up the narrow street all through a day. Some twenty odd boot-shops, all next-door-but-one to each other, startlingly alike in their despondent outer appearances, and uniformly conducted by embittered elderly men of savage aspect—seem to sue in vain from year to year for at least one customer; and as many other melancholy dens for the sale of exactly the things no ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... religious peace and trust, which had upborne him hitherto, should give way to tossings of soul and despondent darkness? The gloomiest problem of this mysterious life was constantly before his eyes,—souls crushed and ruined, evil triumphant, and God silent. It was weeks and months that Tom wrestled, in his own soul, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a voice which moved him so deeply he could not reply. "I've wanted to see you. I believed in you, and it made my heart ache to hear your despondent words yesterday. Life is a battle at best. You can't afford to surrender so early. The way of the thinker is always hard. Take up your sword again. Oh, it's glorious to be in such a revolution! I never was so happy in my life. Happy and sad too! I never was so sad. Now that's ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... crags with their patient feet. Can I hope to succeed when so many with prayers so much more holy have failed? Even as I write, its unmoved face is mocking the fire of heaven. I dream of the mountain; night and day it has come to fill my life with dark terror. I am not by nature timid or despondent, but it is hard to have to wait here day after day and watch this goal of my hopes—so near, yet seemingly so forbidding ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sought, and yet leave to them the allegiance and the government which, in their hearts, they preferred. The annexationist clamour fell and rose, mounting highest in Montreal, and reaching a crisis in the year of the Rebellion Losses disturbance; but Elgin, while sometimes he grew despondent, always kept his head, and never ceased to hope for the reciprocity which would at once bring back prosperity and still the disloyal murmurs. Once or twice, when the annexationists were at their worst, and when his Tory opponents chose support of that disloyal movement as the means of insulting ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... lady, and at Mr. Fish, and at Trotty, one after another, twice all round. He then made a despondent gesture with both hands at once, as if he gave the ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... would cast a contemptuous look over the menu offered by the deferential Henri, then turn wearily away, esteeming that no item on its length merited even her most perfunctory consideration. But after one or two despondent glances, Yvette ever made the best of a bad bargain, and ordered quite a comprehensive little dinner, which she ate with the same air of utter disdain. She always concluded by eating an orange dipped in sugar. Even had a special table not been reserved for her, one could have told ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... by Elfrida's influence. She noted bitterly that his old evenness of temper, the gay placidity that made so delightful a basis for their joint happiness, had absolutely disappeared. Instead, she found her father either irritable or despondent, or inspired by a gaiety which she had no hand in producing, and which took no account of her. That was the real pain. Janet was keenly distressed at the little drama of suffering that unfolded itself daily before her, but her disapproval of its cause very much blunted her sense of ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... your smile there is nothing else in all the world, perhaps, that will prove so life-giving. Many a despondent one has been thrilled with vital power, lifted, and ennobled by the knowledge that another heart beats with ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... to be despondent. I told him that I had heard by chance of his being in difficulty and had come to consult with him what could ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... their mood became serious once more and tender, as it had been when they met. Cairy, lighting cigarette after cigarette, talked on, about himself. He was very despondent. He had made a hard fight for recognition; he thought he had won. And then had come discouragement after discouragement. It looked as if he should be obliged to accept an offer from a new magazine that was advertising its way into notice ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... despondent articles, that the English tradition, to forgive and forget, is going to wreck the peace; and students of psychology fear that within us lie ineradicable qualities that will save the situation for Germany ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... week before school and had selected a quiet place about three miles from the college—out beyond the cemetery in a nice lonely neighborhood, where there was just about enough company to keep the telephone poles from getting despondent. Moreover, he hadn't given Keg ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... she explained, "says: 'that he has not felt quite well for several days, that as the meeting with Miss Lin will affect both her as well as himself, he does not for the present feel equal to seeing each other, that he advises Miss Lin not to feel despondent or homesick; that she ought to feel quite at home with her venerable ladyship, (her grandmother,) as well as her maternal aunts; that her cousins are, it is true, blunt, but that if all the young ladies associated together ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... very uneasy when he saw no canoes from the island coming off, and no symptoms of lowering a boat to land him. His invitation to the shore and pantomime of killing a pig were repeated time after time, and he became very despondent. Two canoes from the mainland came alongside, and he got into one which shoved off, but quickly returned and put him on board, as they were not going to the island. The poor fellow at last appeared so miserable, ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... a grim story of the unpicturesque and horribly anxious lives of working-folk, specifically of the house-painter and his mates working on a job, elated and satisfied at the beginning, depressed and despondent as the work nears completion with the uncertainty as to how long it will be before another job comes along. Nobody who hadn't lived exclusively in this hard environment could have written with such candour and intensity. Mr. Tressall has avoided altogether ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... rather faint cheering. Troubled eyes questioned despondent eyes; what were they to do with winter coming on? First it was the bank, now the mills, and what ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... and the police," said Bill, in a despondent tone. "And Kate, too. I don't know. Say, Hel, what's—what's going to happen? Fyles is hot after Charlie. Charlie don't care a curse. But there's something scaring him that bad he's nearly crazy. Then there's Kate. He saw Kate talking to Fyles, and he got madder than—hell. And now he's ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... fighting the Russians had made no headway. But although twice repulsed they had inflicted terrible losses on our people. They had still in hand substantial supports untouched; they had brought up more and more guns; they were as yet far from despondent, and their generals might still count upon making an impression by sheer ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... and to explain to them why we, however unsatisfactory the Peace Proposal was, had felt bound to accept it, and then to leave each commando before the men handed over their arms to General Elliott. Everywhere I found the men utterly despondent and dissatisfied. ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... building-lots. Mud is muddier now than heretofore; and ruts are ruttier. And what friendless old beast comes limping down the dreary lane? He seems sorely shrunk and shoulder-shotten; but by the something of divinity in his look, still more than by the wings despondent along his mighty sides, 'tis ever the old Pegasus — not yet the knacker's own. "Hard times I've been having,'' he murmurs, as you rub his nose. "These fellows have really no seat except for a park ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... blown out of the trench and lost for several hours. Captain Farmer was perhaps the quietest, certainly the bravest, officer of his time, for he feared nothing, and nothing could shake his calm, while it was said of him that he was never angry and never despondent. When he was killed, "C" Company lost their leader, and every man his best friend, while the mess lost one who was the most cheerful comrade of ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... sandy beach, where they had great difficulty in preventing the horses from drinking the sea-water, which would certainly have made them mad. As it was, two of them lay down to die, and part of the provisions had to be abandoned. Baxter now grew despondent, and wished to return; but Eyre was determined not yet to give up. Onward they toiled through the dreary wilderness, and two more horses fell exhausted; 126 miles from the last halting-place, and still ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... as if I were glad of a chance to take advantage of his being alone and despondent! A strange face may seem unpleasant or painful to him at this moment of sorrow; besides, what can I say to him now, when my heart fails me and my mouth feels dry at the mere sight of him?" Not one of the innumerable speeches ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... baby. If she had appeared well, this would not have worried Kate; but she looked even sicker than she seemed to feel. She was thin while her hands were hot and tremulous. As the afternoon went on and time to go came nearer, she grew more and more despondent, until Kate proposed watching when the Peters family came home, calling them up, and telling them that Polly was there, would remain all night, and that Henry should ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... away, melancholy, and almost despondent: for this was the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who might have fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Meantime, the cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past him, with the vociferous crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle down, ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to hurt, and probably succeeded, but Watts was too despondent, and Hozier and De Sylva too self-controlled, to say aught that would add to their difficulties. Nevertheless, he was answered, from a quarter whence ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Gurin paused, his left hand extended palm upward in a tremulous gesture. Suddenly it dropped on his knee with a despondent smack. ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... be pursuit. And all the time they felt that without effort on their part they were being borne rapidly along as fast as any one could chase them; but they were in a boat familiar to them, and furnished with oars and sails if they could only reach the open water. Then a despondent feeling came over them as they realised that they were surrounded by towering rocks, and as they crouched lower they fully expected from moment to moment to hear a grinding sound, and feel a sharp check as a plank was ripped out by some sharp granite fang, and then hear ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... great, and the feeling of the distance between her and Pitt grew with every letter. It was not the fault of the letters or of the writer in any way, nor was it the effect the latter were intended to produce; but Esther grew more and more despondent about him. And then, after a few months, the letters became short and rare. Pitt had gone to Oxford; and, from the time of his entering the University, plunged head and ears into business, so eagerly that time and disposition failed for writing home. Letters did come, from time to time, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... unlocked a dungeon door, and through the holes of his mask Gabriel had a glimpse of the despondent figure of the burly physician crouching in a cell nigh too narrow ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... conduct of the British naval commanders, i. 322; eloquence of, in opposition to the stamp-act, i. 334; extract from a speech of, on American taxation (note), i. 342; conciliatory resolutions presented by, in Parliament, i. 498; despondent view taken by, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... fruit and blossom good and bad He rambled on unchecked, Until his conversation had Such curative effect That in the end it drove away My weak despondent mood. I clasped his hand and blessed the day He ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... battle-cry. The hymn on which she was exercising her limited gifts was not one of the happy tunes of Methodism, which early settlers on the Columbia loved to sing. It was a very censorious rhyme and took a very despondent view of ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... Salii is this. In the eighth year of the reign of Numa, a terrible pestilence, which traversed all Italy, ravaged likewise the city of Rome; and the citizens being in distress and despondent, a brazen target, they say, fell from heaven into the hands of Numa who gave them this marvelous account of it: that Egeria and the Muses had assured him it was sent from heaven for the cure and safety of the city, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... him; next minute he picked it up again, and began surreptitiously to put it into first one pocket and then another. It was rather a tight fit, and in his efforts to do it unobtrusively, he made some disturbance, but no one remarked on it; Captain Polkington because he was too despondent, Julia because it did not seem worth while. Conversation languished; Julia did what she could, but her father answered in monosyllables, and Mr. Gillat said, "Very true," or "Ah, yes, yes," eating slice after slice of thick bread and butter, ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... now offered the Spaniards, but these they declined, as they did not wish to dismount. Yet they did not refuse to quaff the sparkling drink offered them in golden vases of great size brought by beautiful maidens. Then they rode slowly back, despondent at what they had seen,—the haughty dignity of the Inca and the strength ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... directions. On the one hand, we see and hear of the mighty power for good that mental influence is exerting over the race today, raising up the sick, strengthening the weak, putting courage into the despondent, and transforming failures into successes. But, on the other hand, the hateful selfishness and greed of unprincipled persons is taking advantage of this mighty force of nature, and prostituting it to the hateful ends of ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... sitting down opposite her, fixed a long, melancholy look upon her. "When I led you to the altar five years ago to-day," he said, feelingly, "you were, perhaps, less beautiful than now, less brilliant, less majestic; but you were in better and less despondent spirits, although you were about to marry a man who ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... lady who had formerly been insane, and now felt the approach of a new fit of madness. She had been out to ride, had exerted herself much, and had been very vivacious. On her return, she sat down in a thoughtful and despondent attitude, looking very sad, but one of the loveliest objects that ever were seen. The family spoke to her, but she made no answer, nor took the least notice; but still sat like a statue in her chair,—a statue of melancholy and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... it was all very well to practice his magic there alone, but he had not yet tried it on anybody except the janitor; and when he had begun by discovering several red-eyed rabbits in the janitor's pockets that intemperate functionary fled with a despondent yell that brought a policeman to the area gate with a threat to ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... faithful—if sometimes despondent—suffragists in widely scattered centres; she despised the difficulties of travel in the north, and over moor, mountain, and sea she went, till she had planted the Suffrage flag in far-off Shetland. In her many journeys all over Scotland, speaking for the Suffrage ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... not, please the Lord!" I answered, but in a despondent tone. "Yet there he DOES come, I believe, all ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... by making a long divergence they eventually got around to the other side of the newly formed chasm. A little later on, in a narrow copse crowning a miniature, insulated peak, they fell in with a man. He was resting himself against a tree, and looked tired, overheated, and despondent. He was young. His beardless expression bore an expression of unusual sincerity, and in other respects he seemed a hardy, hardworking youth, of an intellectual type. His hair was thick, short, and flaxen. He possessed neither a sorb nor a third arm—so presumably he ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... patience, and protested indignantly at the withdrawal of its customary stimulus; and it acted with more consistency, though no less ugliness, than the human mind does when under excitement and destitute of control. The captain grew terribly despondent, and Fred found ample use for all the good stories he knew. Some of these amused the captain greatly, but after one ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... places where Barberin had lived before. I went first to one place, then to another. At one lodging house they told me that he had lived there four years ago but that he had not been there since. The landlord told me that he'd like to catch the rogue, for he owed him one week's rent. I grew very despondent. There was only one place left for me to inquire; that was at a restaurant. The man who kept the place said that he had not seen him for a very long time, but one of the customers sitting eating at a table called out that he had been living at the ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... full of vitality. He is advising all his customers to feed their babies on bananas. Bones does not care much what happens to the greengrocer's baby, but he says if it lasts much longer he will have to put his shutters up. He is growing very despondent, and I noticed the other day that he had given up chewing suet—a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... particularly scary spot, which was every minute or so, she would stop dead still. I concurred in that part of it heartily. But then she would face outward and crane her neck over the fathomless void of that bottomless pit, and for a space of moments would gaze steadily downward, with a despondent droop of her fiddle-shaped head and a suicidal gleam in her mournful eyes. It worried me no little; and if I had known, at the time, that she had a German name it would have worried me even more, I guess. But either the time was not ripe for the ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... seen the strange sight of a diffident, peace-loving King accompanying the army and sharing in all the deliberations; while these were nominally presided over by a despondent old man who still intrigued to preserve peace, and shifted on to the King the responsibility of every important act. And yet there were able generals who could have acted with effect, even if they fell short of the opinion hopefully bruited by General Ruechel, that "several ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... sorts of experiences and bits of life. Happiness and sunshine, birds and trees alternated with the direst poverty in the slums, people on sick beds and death beds, in hospitals and in funeral processions; life pictures of successes and failures, of the discouraged, the despondent, the cheerful, the optimist and the pessimist, passed in quick succession and stamped themselves on the brains of his ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... we moderns find this strange. We, whose conceptions of these beautiful creatures are mostly derived from a broken-down cab-horse, or a melancholy milk-rummaged cow in a sooty field, or a diseased and despondent lion or eagle at the Zoo, have never even seen or loved them and have only wondered with our true commercial instinct what profit we could extract from them. But they, the primitives, loved and admired the animals; they domesticated many of them by the force of a natural ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... would especially call forth at the same time their confidence and affection towards His Majesty's person and his Government, and that proper feeling of self-respect without which they cannot be expected to rise from their present condition of despondent degradation. ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... Apostles preach, for both have spoken largely of the suffering and of the glory of Christ, as well as of those things that relate to faith. As when David speaks of Christ (Ps. xxi.), "I am a worm and no man," whereby he shows how deeply he is cast down and despondent in his suffering. Likewise, also, he writes of his people and of the affliction of Christians, in Psalm xlv.: "We are despised, and accounted as ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... cravings that made me fully sensible of my blighted existence. I had gone the length of my tether and overdone myself; I missed London life and Clarence; and the more I blamed myself, and tried to rouse myself, the more despondent and ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her head, as she sat looking despondent and thoroughly miserable. Mrs. Norton's malice affected her little, but her undoubted loveliness had made her despair. How could an insignificant little person like herself, she thought, hope to win affection from any man whom this radiant beauty deigned ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... at any moment now, and had without a doubt already evolved a plan of escape for her, more daring and ingenious than any which he had conceived hitherto; therefore, she must be ready, and prepared for any eventuality, she must be strong and eager, in no way despondent, for if he were here, would he not chide her for her ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Discouraged, but not despondent, he turned in the direction of his apartments. He was beset by a thousand anxieties. What had taken place during the nine days that he had been cut off from all intercourse with his friends? No news of them had reached him. He had heard no more of what ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... it impossible to obtain whisky with the gold he had stolen he felt very despondent. His craving became intolerable. He felt that he had been decidedly ill used. What was the use of money unless it could be converted into what his soul desired? But there was no way of changing the coin except at the store of ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... fact, was not discouraged. She resolutely and unweariedly prosecuted her efforts to find Almo. Nor was she despondent. She scouted the suggestion that he might be dead. She kept up her spirits, did not mope or brood and never lost her hearty appetite. She was the life of the dinners she attended nd as ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... said in a humorously despondent tone; "and so I see nothing for people who think as I do, but Australia ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... these. She persisted in taking a despondent view of everything around her—her past, her future, her position, her prospects; nay, even the circumstances and surroundings of her friends and few intimates came to be regarded in the same unsatisfactory light. She was unacquainted with the healthy tone of wisdom ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... was as much interested as the young folks, for he had entertained a sincere liking for the despondent young Frenchman. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... This visitor of his, this friend of his gallant youth, had moved with the times, and the times had carried him to an infinite distance, beyond all understanding. Thus, as he moved on from battery to battery, at times our Commandant talked earnestly, wistfully, and at times fell to a despondent silence; and still between his eagerness and his despondency the personal question awoke—"He is kind, but he is here to pass judgment on me. What can the sentence be but disgrace?" Arrived at the Keg of Butter Battery, Sir Ommaney seated himself ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... departure. When he had gone a few steps, despondent, he suddenly turned, and ran ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... days these men went about with their lives literally in their hands, tending the sick, cheering the despondent, frightening the cowards into some semblance of self-respect and dignity. And during these three days, wherein they never took an organised meal or three consecutive hours of rest, Joseph, Meredith, and Oscard rose together ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... which she never left again. Despite their colossal efforts, it soon became apparent that yet another winter would have to be passed in the frozen seas. The entries in Ross's journal become shorter and more despondent day by day. "The sight of ice to us is a plague, a vexation, a torment, an evil, a matter of despair. Could we have skated, it would not have been an amusement; we had exercise enough and, worst of all, the ice which surrounds us obstructed us, imprisoned us, annoyed us in every possible ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... despondent at the thought. "They're fools enough for anything," he said. I tried to cheer him up on the law of averages, as Goggle-Eye was sent off with instructions to travel "quick-fellow, quick-fellow, big mob quick-fellow," and many promises of reward ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... in his endeavor to cheer up the despondent woman he had aroused hopes that might not materialize. The plight of Mrs. Thomas had stirred him deeply. His pulses had raced with anger at her persecutors—whoever they were. His Southern chivalry, backed up by his own code—the code ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... There were the lank form, the long pale fingers, the very white pearly teeth, the thin, fine, soft hair, the undue brightness of the eyes, the excitable and even irritable disposition, the capricious appetite, and the alternately jubilant and despondent tone of mind which too frequently indicate that "the abhorred fury with the shears" is waiting too near at hand to "slit the thin-spun life." His hair was very light-colored, and not naturally curly. He used to joke in his lecture about what it cost him to keep ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... all the people seem! How like a swarm of gregarious insects, in their unity of purpose and of aspect! Above all, how homeless! Cast your eye around the tables of a casino's gambling-room. What an uniform and abject herd, huddled together with one despondent impulse! Here and there, maybe, a person whom we know to be vastly rich; yet we cannot conceive his calm as not the calm of inward desperation; cannot conceive that he has anything to bless himself with except ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... lost to me, but his voice sounded despondent. Evidently they had mislaid something of importance and had small hope of finding it again. I could not help being curious, as well as sorry for Maxine that a further misfortune should have befallen her at such a time. But ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... read to the others when no one else could; it was Bridget who remembered some wonderful story to tell on those days when Sandy's back was particularly bad or the Apostles grew over-despondent; and it was Bridget who laughed and sang on the gray days when the sun refused to be cheery. Undoubtedly it was because of all these things that her cot was in the center of ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... be asleep, and Ella sneaks off for some milk or something. Florence gets up, sad and despondent. Slowly ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... despondent that, grateful as I felt, I could scarcely take his mood at its value. I resented it, resented ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... gloomy ruins, is the only known cause of the soldier's act. He had been somewhat blue for a day, but there seemed to be no special weight upon his mind. His brother-in-law, private Stimmler, of the same company, said that he was always despondent when ill, but had never threatened or attempted his life. He was a farmhand, and leaves a wife ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... blue eyes, usually so brimming with sparkling gayety but which were now serious and despondent, brought a transformation to the grim face of the older man, making him look ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... needle. The dress was trimmed with some handsome old lace that had been in the mother's family for years. Mrs. Trigillgus pronounced the dress very handsome as she spread it on the bed and stepped off to survey it, and even the despondent Mary took heart, and as she surveyed her image in the mirror at the conclusion of her toilet for the important evening, she felt a degree of complacency toward herself—a feeling of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... companion. At first the Spaniard was moody and inclined to be spiteful: he could not forget that his neighbours were English; but Johnnie's repeated acts of courtesy and kindness, and his cheeriness at times when the three sailors from the Golden Boar got dangerously despondent, broke down the barrier of race and creed and speech. Hernando began to talk of himself. He had been a gentleman adventurer aboard a Spanish ship; was hot-tempered and impatient of official control. On several ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... came into his eyes, but it died away in an instant, and she watched his despondent back as he went ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... "I've written quite a lot of that novel I told you about!" but Marsh, intent on something else, had answered vaguely, "Oh, yes!" and had changed the conversation, leaving Henry to imagine that he had little faith in his power to write. He had been so despondent after that, that he had gone back to College and, having re-read what he had written, had torn the manuscript in pieces and thrown it into the grate because it seemed so dull and tasteless. He had ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... "Genera." I can well believe what an awful job the palms must be. Even their size must be very inconvenient. You and Bentham must hate the monocotyledons, for what work the Orchideae must have been, and Gramineae and Cyperaceae will be. I am rather despondent about myself, and my troubles are of an exactly opposite nature to yours, for idleness is downright misery to me, as I find here, as I cannot forget my discomfort for an hour. I have not the heart or strength at my age to begin any investigation lasting years, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... began to reflect that a man of his distrustful and despondent temperament would, unless the whole truth were revealed to him, be forevermore tormented by morbid and injurious misgivings. She knew he loved her, and she wished him to love her in entire faith and security. She recalled the last injunctions she had ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... destroy that kind of interest in his own moral condition which alone will allure him to virtuous conduct. To expose children to public ridicule or contempt tends either to make them sullen and despondent, or else to arouse their resentment and to make them reckless and desperate. Most persons remember through life some instances in their early childhood in which they were disgraced or ridiculed at school, and the permanence of the recollection is ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... periods of flagging impulse when he asked himself indifferently if a life of the emotions brought as its Nemesis an essential incapacity for love? If Laura had only kept up the pursuit a little longer, he complained once in a despondent mood, if she had only fluttered her tinted veil as skilfully as a woman of the world might have done. "Yet was it not for this unworldliness—for this lack of artifice in her—that I first loved her?" he demanded, indignant with her, with nature, ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... myself home from work, I encountered a young fellow, who, I flattered myself, resembled me only in age. Soft as a cabbage in every way, he was footsore and weary, as well as homesick and despondent to the verge of tears. In one hand he carried a carpet bag, and in the other a large bundle, tied up in a coloured handkerchief. In his conversation he employed the Armagh accent with such slavish fidelity as to make it evident that he regarded any other form of speech as showing ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... looked long upon life knows that of all the maladies, mental or physical, that afflict human nature, "nothing" is the most common, the most dangerous, and the most incurable! When you see a person preoccupied, downcast, despondent, and ask him, "What is the matter?" and he answers, "Nothing," be sure that it is something great, unutterable, or fatal! Hannah Worth knew this by ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Key was shot, he said to a young lady, whom he joined on her way home from church: "I am despondent about my health, and very desperate. Indeed, I have half a mind to go out on the prairies and try buffalo hunting. The excursion would either cure me or kill me, and, really, I don't care much which." Soon afterward, he saw, from the windows of his club-house, a signal displayed at the window ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... between them. Frank Lamotte sits staring straight before him; sudden conviction seems to have overtaken his panic-stricken senses. Jasper Lamotte drums upon the table impatiently, looking moody and despondent. ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... General's strongest characteristics is his firm faith, his ardent hopefulness. Never have I known him despondent as to the final result of this war. He believes it to be a struggle for principle and right, and therefore his confidence in the ultimate success of our arms never falters. Frequently disheartened myself at our apparent ill-fortune, I have listened ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... {3} "Despondent and weary with vain attempts to struggle against an unsympathetic world, two old men were brought before Police Judge McHugh this afternoon to see whether some means could not be provided for their support, at ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... said she had found it quite easy, and answered most of the questions. We compared notes, and I saw that if she was right I must be wrong, and as she was quite sure she was right I went home very despondent indeed, but determined to work my way up from ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... impregnable resolution, Fran could be despondent to the bluest degree; and though competent at the clash, she often found herself purpling on the eve of the crisis. The moment had come to test her fighting qualities, yet ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... At Molteno we picked up a hundred volunteers—fine-looking fellows all eager to encounter the enemy, but much surprised at the turn events had taken. They, too, were ordered to fall back. The Boers were advancing, and to despondent minds even the rattle of the train seemed ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... that encircled it. They were not attracted by the warmth, but the stove formed a social pivot for gossip, and suggested that mystic circle dear to the gregarious instinct. Yet they were decidedly a despondent group. For some moments the silence was only broken by a gasp, a sigh, a muttered oath, or an impatient change of position. There was nothing in the fortunes of the settlement, nor in their own individual affairs to suggest this ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... word. "It shocked me greatly," she said; "but perhaps the old man is happier in a world far from strife and care. When we realize all the misery there is in this world we often wonder why we should care to live." Her tone was despondent, her face was drawn and blanched, and her eyes gave evidence ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... on a chair, and looked at Mont Blanc, exquisite in its fairy splendor against the far, pale sky. It brought him no consolation. On the contrary it reminded him of Hannibal and other conquerors leading their footsore armies over the Alps. When he allowed a despondent fancy to wander uncontrolled, he saw great multitudes of men staggering shoeless along with feet and ankles inflamed to the color of tomatoes. Then he pulled himself together and set his teeth. Dennymede came to visit him and heard with dismay the ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... go no further, and were dying of thirst. I threw off their light loads, and they stood with drooping heads and ears, the picture of dejection. A mouthful of water was all I dare drink, and there remained less than a pint in the water-skin. Almost stupefied, exhausted, and despondent, I lay down beside a tiny bush, at whose dry twigs the famished horses were now trying to nibble, and sank into a state of ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... disputed Watt's unerring register of fuel consumption (another of his most ingenious inventions now in general use for many purposes), a more heinous offense in his eyes than that of non-payment. "The rascality of man," he writes, "is almost beyond belief." He never was more despondent or more irritable than now. No one was better aware of his weakness than himself. In short, his heartaches and nervousness unfitted him for business. As usual, he attributed his discouragement chiefly to his financial obligations. The firm was as hard pressed as ever. Indeed ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... Dernburg and Bernstorff have seduced us—without our knowing it, to be sure; but their confidence in our judgment will be gone. God knows I have tried to keep this confidence intact and our good friendship secure. But I have begun to get despondent over the outlook since the President telegraphed me that Lansing's proposal would settle the matter. I still believe he did not understand it—he couldn't have done so. Else he could not have approved it. But that tied my hands. If Lansing again brings ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... Listless and despondent, feeling that he hated everything in life, Hamilton walked slowly down the street. The air was heavy, and the sun beat down furiously on the yellow cotton awnings stretched over his head. Clouds of dust rose in the roadway as the white bullocks shuffled along, drawing their creaking wooden ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... still laborin' under great cerebral excitation,' says the Doc, which was likewise on the wagon. 'I ought to have had a year on him,' says he, despondent like. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... good friends came was in May, 1862. A large body of them on horseback camped on the little knoll across from our house where the dead tree now is. They were sullen and despondent. Well do I remember the dramatic gestures of their chief as he eloquently related their grievances. My mother followed every word he said for she knew how differently they were situated from their ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... to the shed, while the others found business to do about the blighted plantations, but working in a dull, despondent fashion, for the recollection of their previous day's consultation about giving up was still strong in ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... this tendency to take a despondent view concerning her own work, and to distrust of the leadings of her own genius, was her habit of never reading the criticisms made on her books. She adopted this rule, she tells one correspondent, "as a necessary preservative ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... keep in mind how important sentiment is to a happy and useful career, whatever position in life we may happen to occupy. Noble sentiments are the richest possession we can have. They cheer us when we are despondent, they sing to us when we are lonesome, and they help to keep us young. They are like brilliant poets and divine musicians; by whom the true, the good, and the beautiful are kept constantly before ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... which had been ordered at his request a month before, and which he found was available for service on the Natal side, was on the point of landing in South Africa; the VIth Division was embarking at home; the components of a VIIth Division were being assembled, and he became less despondent. ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... deep insight into the nature of things: "The law of correspondences between spiritual and material things is wonderfully exact in its workings. People ruled by the mood of gloom attract to them gloomy things. People always discouraged and despondent do not succeed in anything, and live only by burdening some one else. The hopeful, confident, and cheerful attract the elements of success. A man's front or back yard will advertise that man's ruling mood in the way it is kept. A woman at home shows her state of mind in her dress. ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... must be reduced to the vanishing point. She hid her eyes with a shudder, beholding herself at the entrance of that ever-narrowing perspective down which she had seen Miss Silverton's dowdy figure take its despondent way. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... up sinking. 'This must not be so,' said Krishna, the grinder of hostile hosts. The Pandavas, O king, saw Yudhishthira, the son of Dharma, troubled and lying on the ground, and also sighing again and again. And seeing the king despondent and feeble, the Pandavas, overwhelmed with grief, sat down, surrounding him. And endowed with high intelligence and having the sight of wisdom, king Dhritarashtra, exceedingly afflicted with grief for his sons, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Silesia when we do arrive. And there is one complicacy more which he does not yet know of; that of Loudon waiting ahead to welcome him, on crossing the Frontier, and increase his escort thenceforth!—Or rather, let us say, Friedrich, thanks to the despondent Henri and others, has escaped a great Silesian Calamity;—of which he will hear, with mixed emotions, on arriving at Bunzlau on the Silesian Frontier, six days after setting out. Since the loss of Glatz (July 26th), Friedrich has no news of Loudon; supposes him to be trying something upon ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to fulfil his threat, however, Bajazet turned back to capture Constantinople, which he believed in the present despondent state of its inhabitants would make little or no resistance. Now it happened that just at this time Tamerlane was leading the Mongols on their career of conquest. He directed them against the Turks in Asia Minor, and Bajazet was forced to raise the siege of Constantinople, and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... assaults for six hours, and losing in killed and wounded fully one third of their number. General Lyon received two wounds, one in the leg and one in the head, about the middle of the engagement; he then became more despondent than before, apparently from the effects of his wounds, for there appeared nothing in the state of the battle to dishearten a man of such unbounded courage as he undoubtedly possessed. A portion of our troops had given away in some disorder. Lyon said: "Major, I am afraid the day ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... back from the table, and without saying a word more, went up to his shop in the garret, and sat down to work. There was a troubled and despondent feeling about his heart. He did not light his pipe as usual, for he had smoked up the last of his tobacco on the evening before. But he had a penny left, and with that, as soon as he had finished mending a pair of boots and taken them home, he meant to get a ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... further on, Mr Marshall was coming home down the same road, in a more despondent mood than was usual with him. Things were going badly for the Puritans abroad, and for the Marshalls at home. An ejected minister was at all times an unfashionable person, and usually a very poor man. His income was small, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... cloudless blue sky to windward, as it met their gaze morning after morning when they came on deck, to shrugs of the shoulders whenever the subject happened to be mentioned, and to scornful, sarcastic, or despondent allusions to the proverbial longevity and obstinacy of easterly winds in general. Except Mr Forester Dale, and he, I regret to say, made himself a perfect nuisance to everybody on board by his snappishness and irascibility. The weather was "beastly," the ship ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... her remark had only an aesthetic value. He was not prepared to take it to his heart. All the afternoon he rested—worried, but not exactly despondent. The thing would jog out somehow. Probably Miss Abbott was right. The baby had better stop where it was loved. And that, probably, was what the fates had decreed. He felt little interest in the matter, and he was sure that he ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... word, but left his audience unconvinced. They began on him a full hour before his guests were due. He was brushed and scrubbed and scoured and cleaned. He was compressed into an Eton suit and patent leather pumps and finally deposited in the drawing-room, cowed and despondent, his ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... she was sometimes despondent and often cross, was gifted with perseverance. A picnic party up the river from Maidenhead to Cookham was got up for the 30th of May, and Ralph Newton of course was there. Just at that time the Neefit persecution was at its worst. Letters directed by various hands came to him ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... of the cold and moist vegetable Prince were not very comforting, and as he spoke them he turned away and left the enclosure. The children, feeling sad and despondent, were about to follow him when the Wizard touched Dorothy ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... doctor sitting in a despondent attitude, almost where he had left him, holding in his hand a ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... bent. His eyes blinked wearily and there was something slack and helpless about him. He looked like a man who had tried to carry a burden too heavy for him, or to solve a problem too difficult for him, who had become broken and despondent ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... to digest this advice, Janice lapsed into a despondent attitude, while remarking: "'T is horrible, and never could I bring myself to it. Starvation would be easier." She sat a little time pondering; then, getting her cloak, calash, and pattens, she set forth, the look of thought ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... prey to despondent idleness which kept her at home, in a dirty petticoat, with hair uncombed, and face and hands unwashed. She neglected everything ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... John Brown after his superior's departure. There was work enough to be done, but he did not feel like doing it. He wandered around the house and lights, gloomy, restless and despondent. Occasionally he glanced ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... he was, for good and all—a pauper and an outcast. Moment after moment passed—the moments built themselves into minutes—still the boy struggled silently on, and gave no sign. But at last he heaved a sigh, shook his head slowly, and said, with a trembling lip and in a despondent voice— ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mid-day; that he drooped when he came into dinner; that he seemed to descry Capital in the distance, rather clearly, after dinner; that he all but realized Capital towards midnight; and that at about two o'clock in the morning, he became so deeply despondent again as to talk of buying a rifle and going to America, with a general purpose of compelling buffaloes to make ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... such as these that Derek began to perceive what she had become to him. As long as she was near him he could keep his feelings within the limitations he had set for them; but in her absence he was restless and despondent till she returned. The brutality of life, which made him master of the beauty of the country and the coolness of the hills, while it drove her to stifle in the town, stirred him with alternate waves of indignation ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... with more kindness and showing them that there is some hope for Negro citizenship in that State. The Negroes know that white men have been known to rape colored girls, but that never has there been a suggestion of lynching or burning for that, and they feel despondent, for they know the courts are useless in such cases, and this jug-handle enforcement of lynch law is breeding its own bad fruits on the Negro race as well as making more brutal the whites. My advice, then, to our white friends is to try kindness as a remedy for rape in the South, ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... Merriwell, Hodge would have been very despondent, especially as the long hours of the afternoon began to wear on and no boat came near them, and their frequent cries seemed to remain unheard; but Frank's hopefulness and cheerful optimism were not without good effect on the mind of his friend, and they were even able at ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... once. No doubt that local simpleton is making a mess of your case. Perhaps while he is dabbing with lint and lotions the real remedy is the knife. I am sure amputation would be less melancholy than the despondent state of feeling which you are now suffering. If any limb of mine went wrong, I should say to the surgeon, "Cut it off, and patch up the stump in your best style; I give you a fortnight, and at the end of that time I ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... for his master, he has had good reason to laugh," remarked Jean Jacques, who had come at last to take a despondent ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 4726, cipher. Private and personal. You need not be despondent at anything in the situation. Remember that you asked me to answer on the assumption that you had adequate forces at your disposal, ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... came near losing my hold on the tree in which I was hidden. By chance I happened to look around at my nearest neighbor in distress. His expression was sufficient to quell any enthusiasm I might have had, and I, too, became despondent. In a very few minutes our suspense was over. The dogs came within not less than three hundred yards of us, and we could even see one of them, God in Heaven can only imagine what great joy was then, brought to our aching hearts, for almost instantly upon coming into sight, the hounds struck ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... despondent face, as she came in day after day from her unsuccessful quest, told its own story, though she uttered no complaint, and these friendly souls laid their heads together, eager to help her in ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... towns, fighting with mean cares and petty jealousies, dissatisfied, despondent, careless as to the future, how could this message reach her to fill her heart with the singing of a bird? He dared not send it, at all events. But he wrote to her. And the bitter travail of the writing of that letter he long remembered. He was bound ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... as one dependent upon the bounty of friends, had hitherto oppressed Tegner, and at times made him moody and despondent. He had felt impelled, in justice to himself and to satisfy the expectations of his patrons, to apply himself to his studies with a perseverance and industry which came near undermining his health. He looked during his student days overworked, and if nature had endowed him with ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... away, leaving the Mexican and Henry to await his return. As the twilight deepened into darkness the boy's thoughts grew more and more despondent. He now fully and sadly realized that his disobedience of orders had brought disgrace upon himself, and ruined every chance of recovering the ponies, for once the thieves got well away ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... unfamiliar, aspect had blinded and bewildered them, and with its onerous conditions of labour quenched their last spark of courage; as I had talked to these poor people I had seen them glancing about with dull, troubled, despondent eyes, and heard them say to one another softly, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... and as you depart from this boasted 'land of liberty and equal rights,' and go among strangers, that you may, indeed, enjoy liberty, be not despondent, but cheerful, ever remembering the message ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... were not disposed to give back unless they agreed to retire from their territory. The terms were gladly accepted by the Lacedaemonians, who at once picked up the corpses of the slain, and prepared to quit the territory of Boeotia. The preliminaries were transacted, and the retreat commenced. Despondent indeed was the demeanour of the Lacedaemonians, in contrast with the insolent bearing of the Thebans, who visited the slightest attempt to trespass on their private estates with blows and chased the offenders back on to the high roads unflinchingly. ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... of the cocktails was as canonical a rite as the mixing. The company waited, uneasily, hopefully, agreeing in a strained manner that the weather had been rather warm and slightly cold, but still Babbitt said nothing about drinks. They became despondent. But when the late couple (the Swansons) had arrived, Babbitt hinted, "Well, folks, do you think you could stand breaking the ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis |
