"Dispiriting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to twitch and shudder as with a convulsion, nor could he at such times at all control their trembling. At last, however, with a huge sigh, he aroused himself to some perception of his surroundings, which he acknowledged were of as dispiriting a sort as he could well have conceived of. His recovering senses were distracted by a ceaseless watery din, for the breaking waves, rushing with a prodigious swiftness from the harbor to the shore before the driving wind, fell with uproarious crashing into white foam among the rocks. Above ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... that she lives in terror of shocking their feelings. One day the butler found her kissing Geoffrey, believing they were alone, and she waited for him to say, 'Allow me, madam!' as he always does if she ventures to do a hand's turn for herself. She's says it's dispiriting to think you can't even quarrel in peace for fear of interruption, and it takes a good deal to interrupt Esmeralda when ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Oeil-de-Boeuf. Complaints abound; scarcity, anxiety: it is a changed Oeil-de-Boeuf. Besenval says, already in these years (1781) there was such a melancholy (such a tristesse) about Court, compared with former days, as made it quite dispiriting to look upon. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... at noon, to be anchored in the Roads by nightfall—we had it all planned out, even to the man who was to stand the first anchor-watch—and now, before the friendly gleam of the Lizard Lights had reached us, was fog—damp, chilling, dispiriting, a pall of white, clammy vapour that no cunning of ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... frontier, they heard that a wanderer going southward in the desert and guiding his course by the stars would, according to tradition, arrive at length at a wonderfully fertile oasis, the abode of a divinely beautiful enchantress, yet everything appeared highly uncertain and dispiriting, and was rendered still more so by the avalanches of ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... sad as these rooms were, they were yet scrupulously clean. I had nothing to complain of; but the effect was rather dispiriting. Having given some directions about supper—a pleasant incident to look forward to—and made a rapid toilet, I called on my friend with the gaiters and red nose (Tom Wyndsour), whose occupation was that of a "bailiff," or under-steward, ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... this last year had wrought extraordinary changes, quickening their mental processes, forcing them to think and act for themselves; but their hearts might have turned to water during those last dispiriting hours ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... It was a dispiriting thought that there under his eyes, so close that the babble of the children occasionally reached him across the intervening tables, was the family of ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... merchants failed to make the customary display within and without their establishments; if our streets were not strung with signs of gorgeous hues and thronged with hurrying purchasers, we would quickly discover how firmly the chill hand of winter lays upon the heart; how dispiriting are the days during which the sun withholds a portion of our allowance of light and warmth. We are more dependent upon these things than is often thought. We are insects produced by heat, and ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... place was bleak and dreary in the daytime, what words will describe its dispiriting influence at night? There is a silence that is soothing and restful, which imbues one with a sense of comfort and a pleasant desire for sleep. Then there is another sort of silence; one that magnifies every trifling ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... rush of joy when he became completely absorbed in watching a man who was fishing for pickerel. Have you ever fished for pickerel through a hole in the ice? If so you will recall that it is chilly and rather dispiriting work, especially if the fish are shy. They certainly were shy that afternoon, for the individual in question had angled long and bagged nothing, as I gleaned from the answers to the direct interrogatories put by my urchin during the few minutes I stood paternally by and ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... gradually to, and had a turn on the verandah before 5.55, when "the child" (an enormous Wallis Islander) brings me an orange; at 6, breakfast; 6.10, to work; which lasts till, at 10.30, Austin comes for his history lecture; this is rather dispiriting, but education must be gone about in faith—and charity, both of which pretty nigh failed me to-day about (of all things) Carthage; 11, luncheon; after luncheon in my mother's room, I read Chapter XXIII. of The Wrecker, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bewildered and repelled her: why, some one might just as well write a book about Mother or Sarah! Her young, romantic soul rose in arms against this, its first bluff contact with realism, against such a dispiriting sobriety of outlook. Something within her wanted to cry out in protest as she read—for read she did, on three successive days, with an interest she could not explain. And that was not all. It was worse that the people in this book—the extraordinary person who ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... the moment and the manner in which the first notions of religion are communicated to children: if these ideas be connected with terror, and produced when the mind is sullen or in a state of dejection, the future religious feelings are sometimes of a gloomy, dispiriting sort; but if the first impression be made when the heart is expanded by hope or touched by affection, these emotions are happily and permanently associated with religion. This should be particularly ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... work at machines which require practically no skill to operate, and dispiriting home surroundings have brought millions of men to a mental and physical condition which makes them little better ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... back windows of most city houses is not calculated to arouse enthusiasm at the best of times, and the day was singularly dispiriting: a sky of lead and a drizzling rain, which emphasized the squalor of the back yards in view. It was all very depressing. Jeffrey's talk, though inconclusive, had stirred in John's mind an uneasiness which was near to apprehension. ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... be had some ten minutes' walk from where we were, at a place called Pont. We stowed the canoes in a granary, and asked among the children for a guide. The circle at once widened round us, and our offers of reward were received in dispiriting silence. We were plainly a pair of Bluebeards to the children; they might speak to us in public places, and where they had the advantage of numbers; but it was another thing to venture off alone with two uncouth and legendary characters, who had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which followed was distinguished by several vicissitudes, but the general result was the weakening and dispiriting of the American forces. Brigadier General Ashe was surprised in his camp and utterly defeated, and the British army not only penetrated into Georgia, but made its appearance at Beaufort in South Carolina. ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... This is both supererogation and imbecility—supererogation because he already knows that it is dangerous, and imbecility because it is quite impossible to kill a passion by arguing against it. The way to kill it is to give it rein under unfavourable and dispiriting conditions—to bring it down, by slow stages, to the estate of an absurdity and a horror. How much more, then, could be accomplished if the wild young man were forbidden polygamy, before marriage, but permitted monogamy! The prohibition in this case would be relatively ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... not calculated to encourage superstitious fancies, it may be, but still not likely to enliven any man's spirits—a quiet, dull, gray, listless, dispiriting morning, and, being ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... singly and in loose groups, among the men, coming and going with apparent aimlessness and commanding attention from nobody but one another. Here and there a dead man, his clothing defiled with earth, his face covered with a blanket or showing yellow and claylike in the rain, added his dispiriting influence to that of the other dismal features of the scene and augmented the general discomfort with a particular dejection. Very repulsive these wrecks looked—not at all heroic, and nobody was accessible to the infection ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... springs on its prey. Now it changes to the terrible and deep-toned growlings of the wild beast as he is pressed on all sides by his foes, and now it seems like his last dying moan beneath a mortal wound. Nothing can be more dismal or dispiriting than the fearful uproar. Hour after hour it goes on during the night, increasing as the dawn approaches. Now the howls come from one direction, now from another, and in far-off parts of the forest. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... to keep true to high laws and pure instincts in modern society than it was in days of martyrdom. There is nothing in the whole range of life so dispiriting and so unnerving as a monotony of indifference. Active persecution and fierce chastisement are tonics to the nerves; but the mere weary conviction that no one cares, that no one notices, that there is no humanity that honours, and no deity that pities, is more destructive of ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... which always swept over Wingdam at night-time, puffed through the apartment from different apertures. The window was too small for the hole in the side of the house where it hung, and rattled noisily. Everything looked cheerless and dispiriting. Before Ingomar left me, he brought that "bar-skin," and throwing it over the solemn bier which stood in one corner, told me he reckoned that would keep me warm, and then bade me good night. I undressed myself, the light blowing out in the middle of that ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... on the works of the enemy, a rod in advance of any officer or man in the regiment. The effect of the colors being thus in advance of the line, so as to be seen by all, was truly inspiring to our men, and to a corresponding degree dispiriting to the enemy. We pushed on two and a half miles further, till we came in full view of the main defences of Petersburg. We formed line at about two o'clock P.M., reconnoitred and skirmished the whole afternoon, and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... effected, the consequences would be finally fatal. Nor was this their only trial, for in the midst of this appalling visitation, the gaunt spectre famine reared its ghastly head, and threatened them with new terrors. In circumstances so dispiriting, where despair seemed about to crash the weakened energies of the labourers, and where nothing but activity could preserve them from the loss of life; it was perhaps more honourable to Dr. Ayres' ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... towards the end of July, but on the 26th of July, being then, as we esteemed, about three hundred leagues distant from the Ladrones, we met with a westerly wind, which did not come about again to the eastward in four days' time. This was a most dispiriting incident, as it at once damped all our hopes of speedy relief, especially, too, as it was attended with a vexatious accident to the Gloucester, for in one part of those four days the wind flattened to a calm, and the ships rolled very deep, by which means the Gloucester's ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... subject. In Calcutta (where I felt so self-righteous) nothing would have prevented me—but now I haven't the spirit. Mark, please, how the whirligig of Time brings its revenges! In Calcutta I thought myself a saint, in Takai I am regarded as a Brand Unplucked. It is rather dispiriting. I am beginning to wonder if I really am as nice as I ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... it was too small to invest, and hear from day to day fresh tidings of disaster and revolt on every hand,—tidings of evil which there could scarcely be any hope of checking, until this central point of the mutiny had fallen before the British arms. A position more dispiriting can scarcely be imagined; and to all these causes for despondency were added the incompetency and fatuity of the Indian government, and the procrastination of the home government in the forwarding of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... to the dispiriting truth which closed that thought, but springing forward, dashed through fern and brake, and halted not till he stood in the centre of his companions, who, scattered in various attitudes on the grass, were giving ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... much as it might others. Shandy Hall, as he christened his pretty parsonage at Coxwold, and as the house, still standing, is called to this day, soon became irksome to him. The very reaction begotten of unwonted quietude acted on his temperament with a dispiriting rather than a soothing effect. The change from his full and stimulating life in London to the dull round of clerical duties in a Yorkshire village might well have been depressing to a mind better balanced and ballasted than his. To him, with his light, pleasure-loving ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... repetition of the first, and became a painful increment to his load of misery and unrest. The very world in which he lived seemed to have undergone a transformation. The sunlight had lost its glory, the flowers had become pale and odorless, the songs of the birds dull and dispiriting. ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... embroidery on the dress of the idea to divert us from the idea itself—the idea is as nearly nude as our limited senses and our modern respectability permit. And the idea being what it is, it follows that the play, after the drama once commences, is not only immoral, but also dispiriting and boring, and, to my thinking, inconsequential and pointless. The first act, the exposition, is from beginning to end magnificent: never were the lines on which a drama was to develop more gorgeously, or in more masterly fashion, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... published in the notes to his translation of the Odes and elsewhere, constitute perhaps the whole recent stock of which a new translator may be expected to take account. In one sense this is encouraging: in another dispiriting. The field is not pre-occupied: but the reason is, that general opinion has pronounced its cultivation ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... only too ready to regret. Like many another whose self-reliance is largely on the surface, an achievement of the will and not the gift of a temperament, she usually paid for a display of spirit with the most dispiriting reaction; and this was precisely the case in point. Rachel was ashamed alike of her rudeness and her vanity; the latter she traced to its source. It was inspired by vague memories of other women who had been ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... with him. Those who have been soldiers, and especially cavalrymen, know to the full how dispiriting is the sound of those few ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... aware that inactivity is, of all things, the most dangerous and dispiriting to the soldier, who, used to the bustle and array of camps, doth fear nothing so much as a ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... dispiriting utterances, Punin sighed expressively, assented, shook his head up and down, and from side to side; Musa maintained a stubborn silence.... She was obviously fretted by the doubt, what I was, whether I was a discreet person or a gossip. And if I were discreet, whether it was not with some ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... at some length with these dispiriting particulars. Nor would his cheery companion wholly deny that there might be a point of view from which such a case of extreme want of confidence might, to the humane mind, present features not altogether ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... sovereign of the provinces under the protection of France and England. William, however, was found wholly immovable on this point, declaring that he would rather retire to his lands in Germany, and spend his life in hunting, than sell his country and liberty to France. Nor were the dispiriting representations made by the English ambassadors, that Holland was utterly lost unless he consented to the terms proposed, at all more influential; "I have thought of a means," he replied, "to avoid beholding the ruin of my country—to die in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... at his office window now, staring out disconsolately over the sloping lawns of the capitol grounds, mottled with thin patches of snow, which had contrived to withstand the recent thaw, and he was telling himself, for the thousandth time, the dispiriting fact that, as a force for good or evil in the destiny of his state, he was no more significant than his stenographer's Remington or his secretary's roll-top desk. With all his ideals, with all those pledges which are infinitely ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... they and their predecessors have hitherto made no advance towards what they and, as they also believe, all men sought and still seek. To them the history of Philosophy for say the last two thousand years is not the dreary and dispiriting narrative of repeated error and defeat, but the record of a slow but secure and steady advance in which, as nowhere else, the mind of Man celebrates and enjoys triumphs over the mightiest obstacles, kindling itself ...
— Progress and History • Various
... much to life's hardness. Every burden is heavier because of the sad heart that beats under it. Every pain is keener because of the dispiriting which it brings with it. Every 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 ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... too large an area of conflict, and his perhaps undue trust in doubtful allies. But, even so, as I have shown, a careful examination of all the available evidence generally reveals the reasons for his confidence; and failures due to this cause are far less disastrous, because less dispiriting to the nation, than those which are the outcome of sluggishness or cowardice. Of those unpardonable sins Pitt has never been accused even by his severest critics. After the repulse of his pacific overtures by the French Directory in September 1797 his ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the right, upon what was called Lone Pine Plateau, was a dispiriting failure on the opening day. The dismounted troops of the Third Australian Light Horse, a magnificent body of men, were sent forward to storm the elaborate trenches of the enemy. The attack was made in three lines. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... not worry me much, for I attributed the delay to the bad weather, and supposed Colonel Crawford had wisely laid up during the worst storms. Further, waiting, however, would give the Indians a chance to recover from the recent dispiriting defeat, so I sent out scouting parties to look Crawford up and hurry him along. After a great deal of searching, a small detachment of the regiment was found about fifty miles below us on the North Canadian, seeking our camp. This detachment was in a pretty bad plight, ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... contribute both to amusement and information, and may clear up some points that might otherwise appear obscure in the following voyage. It is worth observing, that the Dutch West India Company had been long in a declining condition; which, instead of dispiriting the Directors, engaged them to turn their thoughts to every method that could be devised for recovering their affairs. There is so wide a difference between our English great chartered companies and those [formerly] in Holland, that it may not be amiss to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... rising into the sky quite near at hand showed her that some church or other stood within a few steps of the hotel archway, and saying nothing to Mrs. Goodman, she quietly cloaked herself, and went out towards it, apparently with the view of disposing of a portion of a dull dispiriting evening. The church was open, and on entering she found that it was only lighted by seven candles burning before the altar of a chapel on the south side, the mass of the building being in deep shade. Motionless outlines, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... all the natural—as opposed to supernatural—miseries incidental to our state. Dispiriting reports ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and descended from the upper rooms. There was no rolling-pin, there was no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don't know what it is), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was broken, the ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... on guard were to be relieved every two hours. As soon as the men were bestowed in their quarters, the major went off to discover, if possible, what had been the result of the fighting on the other side of the loop. It was two hours before he returned, and the news he brought was dispiriting. ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... "the fellow's name alone seemed to affect you. Is it possible that, full of triumph and delight as you were just now, the sight merely of that man is capable of dispiriting you? Tell me, have you faith ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... these winter days very long had it not been for baby Jessie, for father was busily hauling wood from the Cedar River some six or seven miles away, and the almost incessant, mournful piping of the wind in the chimney was dispiriting. Occasionally Mrs. Button, Mrs. Gammons or some other of the neighbors would drop in for a visit, but generally mother and Jessie were alone till Harriet and Frank and I came home ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... same dispiriting result to Gilbert Fenton. There was a letter from his sister, it is true; but that was written from Switzerland, where she was travelling with her husband, and brought him no tidings of Marian. He tried to convince himself that if there had been bad news, it must needs ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... wanted, they were supple enough and loud to laud the good gentleman who was conveying them to comfort. But with the break in our luck their praises and their patience went in a whiff, and they showed themselves to be such a parcel of wrong-headed, grumbling, disheartened and dispiriting knaves as ever helped to shake a good man's courage. They were as ready to imprecate Captain Amber now as they had been to load him with praises before, and in this they were supported by all the worser sort—and these were the greater part—among ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... left but retreat. For some twenty-six days the besieging army had been at work before the fort, and in three days more all their arrangements would have been completed and the post have fallen into their hands. It was therefore deeply mortifying and dispiriting to be forced to retire, just as success was about crowning their efforts. But far-seeing, prudent, and looking more to future results than present triumphs, General Greene, on the 19th, commenced retreating toward the Saluda, which river he passed in safety, and moved forward ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... clan gathering in the camps of the Philistines, one always found her in excellent spirits, and quite undamped in her enjoyment of the frequently ponderous rejoicings. In the Bilberry school-room, among dog-eared French grammars and lead-pencilled music, education did not appear actually dispiriting; and now, as she sat by the fire, with the bright, sharp little scissors in lier hand, and the pile of white merino on her knees and trailing on the hearth-rug at her feet, Griffith found her simply irresistible. Ah! the bliss that revealed ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... story as told by contemporaries and repeated from that day to this. It is hardly necessary to say that Barneveld calmly denied having conceived or even heard of the scheme. That men could go about looking each other in the face and rehearsing such gibberish would seem sufficiently dispiriting did we not know to what depths of credulity men in all ages can sink when possessed by the demon of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... advanced to the front of the building, we also observed that, lofty as were its walls, it was scaffolded to the very attics, and some part of the roof of the right wing was already removed. Altogether, a more comfortless, a more dispiriting view could hardly have been presented; and its disconsolateness was much increased by the dim and fitful light that a young moon gave at intervals, upon gables, casements, and clumps of ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... I rose early and gazed across the cold misty Thames to the great factories and wharves upon the opposite bank. The outlook was indeed dull and dispiriting, I stood recalling how Moroni had walked with the beautiful girl in the streets of Florence, unwillingly it seemed, for he certainly feared lest his companion be recognized. I also recollected the strange conversation ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... dressing- gown and slippers before a blazing grate of coals I was even more uncomfortable. I no longer shivered but shuddered—there is a difference. The dread of some impending calamity was so strong and dispiriting that I tried to drive it away by inviting a real sorrow— tried to dispel the conception of a terrible future by substituting the memory of a painful past. I recalled the death of my parents and endeavored to fix my mind upon the last sad scenes at their bedsides and their graves. It all seemed vague ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... extravagant opinion that it is better to give than to receive, to serve than to use our companions; and above all, where there is no question of service upon either side, that it is good to enjoy their company like a natural man. It is curious and in some ways dispiriting that a writer may be always best corrected out of his own mouth; and so, to conclude, here is another passage from Thoreau which seems aimed directly at himself: "Do not be too moral; you may cheat yourself out of much life so. . . . ALL FABLES, INDEED, HAVE THEIR MORALS; ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... instead of dispiriting his followers, roused them to fury! No one asked or gave quarter; it was a fight to the death, and when finally we succeeded in breaking through the royalist horse, half of our number lay lifeless on the plain. Some ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... stable, roofed and buttressed with corn-fodder, leaned against the hill. I drew rein in front of the building, and was about to hail its inmates, when I observed the figure of a man issue from the stable. Even in the gloom, there was something forlorn and dispiriting in his walk. He approached with a slow, dragging step, apparently unaware ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... according to the report of the regent, diminished the population of the provinces by the loss of one hundred thousand citizens, and this general flight still continued. But the arrival of the Spanish general could not be more hateful to the people of the Netherlands than it was distressing and dispiriting to the regent. At last, after so many years of anxiety, she had begun to taste the sweets of repose, and that absolute-authority, which had been the long-cherished object of eight years of a troubled and difficult administration. This late fruit of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Returned to where I left the others, followed our tracks back, and at eleven miles camped. Horses nearly done up with heavy travelling and the heat of the sun, which is excessive. It is very vexing and dispiriting to be forced back with only a little more than one hundred miles between Mr. Gregory's last camp on the Camfield and me. If I could have found water near the end of this journey, I think I could have forced the rest. It is very galling to be turned back after trying so many times. ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... passed in the swamp, a wretched, dispiriting, drizzling rain, falling from morn till night, bringing the temperature down to zero. They recommenced their journey at dark despite the weather; preferring to push ahead rather than seek shelter again, with their friends, and so delay ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... experienced, but more noble and distinguished in appearance than they were themselves. What if the assertive attitude of the modern woman, her easy arrogance, and the confidence she places in her own untried powers, may be accounted for by the dispiriting clothes which men have determined to wear, and the wearing of which may have cost them no small portion ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... in review the points of my interview, on which I was always constantly resolved so long as my adversary was absent from the scene, and again they struck me as inadequate. From this dispiriting exercise I turned to the native amusements of the inn coffee-room, and studied for some time the mezzotints that frowned upon the wall. The railway guide, after showing me how soon I could leave Stallbridge and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was not to be his name any longer, stood alone near the peak of a divide, and the mists of early morning lay thick below him. They obliterated, under their dispiriting gray, the valleys and lower forest-reaches, and his face, which was young and resolutely featured, held a kindred mood of shadowing depression. Beneath that miasma cloak of morning fog twisted a river from which the sun would strike darts of laughing light—when the sun had routed ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... rebellion, he seemed utterly borne down by the greatness of the enterprise. He was wholly unable to infuse anything like spirit or hope into his followers. On the contrary, his appearance among them, when he did show {127} himself, had a dispiriting and a depressing effect on almost every mind. Those who remember the manner and demeanor of the late Louis Napoleon, Emperor of the French, the silent shyness, the appearance of almost constant depression, which were characteristic of that sovereign, will, we think, be easily able to form ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... thing. With one fixed idea in the mind—to wait, to watch for some careless head over the mounded earth, and then to kill—war is drearier than slave labor, more nagging than an imperfect marriage, more dispiriting than unsuccessful sin. The pretty brass utensils of the dwellings had been pillaged. Canvas, which had once contained bright faces, was in shreds. The figures of Christ and his friends that had stood high in the niches of the church, had fallen forward on their faces. All ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... on its left bank. He reached Abbeville on Sunday the 13th of October; but, to his sad (p. 160) disappointment, he found all the bridges broken down, and the enemy stationed on the opposite bank to resist his passage. At this time Henry's situation was most perilous and dispiriting. His provisions were nearly exhausted,—the enemy had laid waste their own country to deprive his army of all sustenance; and no prospect was before them but famine at once, and annihilation from the overwhelming forces of the French. ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... mainland and the island. The hot rays of the noonday sun did a great deal toward raising my spirits, and dispelling the mental gloom in which I had been shrouded almost continually since entering the Land of Awful Shadow. There is nothing more dispiriting to me ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... intelligence had been originally bad, or that Pembroke's proceedings at Froome had intimidated them, no symptom of such an intention could be discovered. A desertion took place in his army, which the exaggerated accounts in the Gazette made to amount to near two thousand men. These dispiriting circumstances, added to the complete disappointment of the hopes entertained from the assumption of the royal title, produced in him a state of mind but little short of despondency. He complained that all people had deserted him, and is said to have been so dejected, as hardly to have ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... had been warmer towards his dead son George than to any one else in the world. George had been as fair of face and hair as Andrew was dark; as cheerful and amusing as Andrew was gloomy and dispiriting; as agile and dexterous of mind and body as his brother was slow and angular; as emotional and warm-hearted as the other was phlegmatic and sour—or so it seemed to the father and to nearly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... journey to Devonshire was a dispiriting one despite the fineness of the day. T. X. had an uncomfortable sense that something distressing had happened. The run across the moor in the fresh spring air revived ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... hut it squatted upon its haunches and began to lick its wounded foot. And every now and then it would cease its healing operation to throw up its long muzzle and emit one of those drawn-out howls, so dismal and dispiriting, in which dogs are able to express their ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... truant daughter so whimsically circumstanced as I am? I have sent my intended husband to look after my lover—the man of my father's choice is gone to bring me the man of my own: but how dispiriting is this interval ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... and dispiriting in the extreme, for, nothing was to be seen in the immediate foreground but the bare black basaltic cliffs, against whose base the angry billows broke in endless repetition, throwing up clouds of spray and ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... of the fagged-out Union troops become filled with the dispiriting idea that the exhausting fight which they have made all day long, has been simply with Beauregard's Army of the Potomac, and that these fresh Rebel troops, on the Union right and rear, are the vanguard of Johnston's Army of the Shenandoah! After all the hard marching and fighting they ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... explain to each other carefully and in detail how it was impossible for Bruce with the kind of a "rig" he was putting in, to handle enough dirt to wash out a breast-pin. Yet they toiled none the less faithfully for these dispiriting conversations, doing the work of horses, often to the point ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... leaving, perhaps, as many more on the field; their loss was variously reported from 700 to 1,000, and even 1,500. The opposite force returned less than 100 killed, including Captain Knox, and about as many wounded. The repulse was even more than that at Ross, dispiriting to the rebels, who, as a last resort, now decided to concentrate all their strength on the favourite position at ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Dispiriting item, that on resuming his seat the chastised one is a hero to his fellows for the rest of the day. Item, that Master John James Rattray knows she hurts her own hand more than his. Item, that John James promised to be good ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... had tried their fate in vain together, at length they were sent forth separately, and for many months with still- continued ill success. I have mentioned this here, because, among the dispiriting circumstances connected with her anxious visit to Manchester, Charlotte told me that her tale came back upon her hands, curtly rejected by some publisher, on the very day when her father was to submit to his operation. ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that there was a great deal more than a "bit of a blow" at the time, but he said nothing. The worst of it was the way the rain came pelting down, for it was as thick as a fog, and dispiriting. It was a cold rain, too, and although it was September, the northeast gale was chill. Colin shivered in his oilskins. The pursing in done, the seine-master waved a torch, but it could not be ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... is nothing there but the sun, an occasional sail, and quiet, petrified Capri, three miles distant across the strait. It is an excellent place for a misanthrope to spend a week, and get cured. There must be a very dispiriting influence prevailing here; the keeper refused to take any money, the solitary Italian we ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... time of our stay on the cape was drawing to a close. Only three days more remained, and they were to be occupied in collecting our books, packing trunks, and all the unpleasant little duties that become so tedious and dispiriting when, like a drop curtain, they announce the end ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... it out and carried it to the window, to examine it in the failing light. Too hopeless had I gradually grown, in my dispiriting search, to expect very much; and yet at a glance I saw that my basket of glass lay in fragments at my feet. No ingots or dollars were here, to crown me the little Monte Cristo of a week. Outside, the distant horn had ceased its gnat-song, the gold was paling to ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... to stop drinking of the fountain before actually being reduced to boy's estate, and passing once more through the tumultuous experiences of that period. And of these, not having enough to eat is by no means the least common. The evidence as to execrable dinners is rather dispiriting, and one may end by saying that if there is a worse fellow than a bully, it is a master who does not see that his boys are supplied with plenty of wholesome food. He, at least, could not venture, like a distinguished headmaster, to preach and publish sermons on "Boys' Life: its Fulness." ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... goods were thoroughly soaked by the streams of water which trickled through between the planks. In the morning all was quiet, but an opaque, leaden mass of clouds overspread the sky, throwing a gloom over the wild landscape that had a most dispiriting effect. These squalls from the west are always expected about the time of the breaking up of the dry season in these central parts of the Lower Amazons. They generally take place about the beginning of February, so that this year ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... treated his Devonshire farmers with less consideration than the Irish kerns, and although it is certain that of all the 'undertakers' Raleigh was the one who, after his lights, tried to do the best for his land, his experience as an Irish colonist was on the whole dispiriting. By far the richest part of his property was the 'haven royal' of Youghal, with the thickly-wooded lands on either side of the river Blackwater. He is scarcely to be forgiven for what appears to ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... It was somewhat dispiriting, to see this ancient archiepiscopal city now sadly deserted[198]. We saw in one of its streets a remarkable proof of liberal toleration; a nonjuring clergyman, strutting about in his canonicals, with a jolly countenance and a round belly, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... natural inducements to sloth are not greater in the Mogul's country than in Ireland, and yet whether, in that suffocating and dispiriting climate, the Banyans are not all, men, women, and children, ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... For hours she went on—Jock, her Aberdeen terrier, toddling at her side, in her hand a stout ash-stick—regardless of the muddy roads or the wet weather. It was grey, damp, and dismal, one of those days which in the Highlands are often so very cheerless and dispiriting. Yet on, and still on, she went, her mind full of the events of the previous night; full, also, of the dread secret which prevented her from exposing her father's false friend. In order to save her father, should she sacrifice herself—sacrifice her own life? ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... to traditions, to sentiments which had passed away, to glories which could not possibly return; and they spoke in vain. All they could do was to utter their manly and noble protests, and die, with the dispiriting and hopeless feeling that the seeds of ruin, planted in a soil of corruption, would soon bear their wretched fruits,—even violence ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... on fire, Hawkins saw that flight was their only chance, and, gathering his men together in two small tenders, he 'crawled out under the fire of the mole and gained the open sea.' The position of affairs was dispiriting in the extreme. Many men and three good ships were lost, besides treasure worth more than a million pounds, that had been won, by running innumerable dangers, during the past year. His ships were overcrowded, the store of food and water was scanty, and no harbour west of the Atlantic was open ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... as I am to the doctrines of Schopenhauer and Leopardi, I will admit that the shores of the Caspian did seem rather gloomy and dispiriting. There seemed to be nothing alive on the coast; no vegetation, no birds. There was nothing to make you think you were on a great sea. True, the Caspian is only a lake about eighty feet below the level of the Mediterranean, but this lake is often troubled by violent storms. A ship cannot "get ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... advanced post of the British on Lynch's Creek, a few miles from Camden. The motives assigned by himself for passing through this barren country were, the necessity of uniting with Caswell, who had evaded the orders repeatedly given him to join the army, the danger of dispiriting the troops, and intimidating the people of the country, by pursuing a route not leading directly towards the enemy, and the assurances he had received that supplies would overtake him, and would be prepared for him on ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... this morning I have sent into her room several pressing and impertinent letters from her tradespeople, and I put some accounts of the most dispiriting character before her last night. She is ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... stranger. They hurried to and fro, talking Welsh to one another very fast; and Helen felt as if she were in a foreign land, and in a dream. The end of the matter was, that she had a low fever which lasted long. It was more dispiriting than dangerous—more tedious than alarming. Her illness continued for many weeks, during which time she was attended most carefully by her two new friends—by Miss Clarendon with the utmost zeal and activity—by Mrs. Pennant with the greatest ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... fortunate that their discovery about the oil was not delayed any longer, but nevertheless it came at a time when the outlook was dreary and dispiriting enough without additional discomforts. On the 6th Spud gnawed through his trace, and when Scott went outside before breakfast, one glance at the dog's balloon-like appearance was enough to show how he had spent his hours of freedom. He had, ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley |
