"Despondency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pilot's boat, which he had kindly sent to take her ashore, alone, a stranger in a foreign land, uncertain of the character of the place in which she was obliged to seek shelter, and not knowing what might occur to prevent her husband rejoining her. Instead of weakly yielding to despondency, she promptly engaged a boat to go out after the vessel, to bring their effects ashore. Then, though impenetrable darkness so shrouded their future that she could not see how the next step was to be taken, she looked for light upon their pathway, and deliverance ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... profusion. Still there was something unusually impressive in observing the poor widow of O'Rafferty, seated at the feet of her deceased lord with an infant in her arms, and all the appearance of a heart heavily charged with despondency and grief. An old Irishwoman, seated at the side of the bed, was making the most violent gesticulations, and audibly calling upon the spirit of the departed "to see how they onor'd his mimory," raising the cross before her, while two or three others came ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... master? why, there he comes! thou hast had him long, he has long guided thy young hand towards the excellence which is yet far from thee, but which thou canst attain if thou shouldst persist and wrestle, even as he has done, 'midst gloom and despondency—ay, and even contempt; he who now comes up the creaking stair to thy little studio in the second floor to inspect thy last effort before thou departest, the little stout man whose face is very dark, and whose eye is vivacious; ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... there is no longer any knowledge he can trust. What the world is he knows not at all. He knows not at all what he himself is. Of what he is here for, of what it is all about, he is in the profoundest doubt, despondency and darkness. Politically, religiously and philosophically thus empty and alone, it is only of himself that the individual can think; it is only for himself that the individual must care. There is not a single need left him now—he has not a single thought ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... mechanically without thinking of her. He heard her without comprehending clearly what she said. And yet, somehow, he seemed to lean upon her as something tangible, something to keep his mind from sinking into its recent despondency. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... despondency, this disposition to admire what has been done, and to expect that nothing more will be done, is strongly characteristic of all the schools which preceded the school of Fruit and Progress. Widely as the Epicurean and the Stoic differed on most points, they seem to have ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to have created a nervousness, a sense of dread, before which I was absolutely helpless. I cannot tell you how hopelessly or fearfully I suffered, or what depths of despondency and despair and blackness I was cast into. I cannot understand how a creature could so manufacture torments for itself. But this is not all, just for once have mercy—and yet even now I ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... dictum of Sir John Seeley has rendered famous, took possession of some of the maritime provinces of Burma, and in doing so lost three thousand one hundred and fifteen men, of whom only a hundred and fifty were killed in action. Then the customary fit of doubt and despondency supervened. It was not until four years after the conclusion of peace that a British Resident was sent to the Court of Ava in the vain hope that he would be able to negotiate the retrocession of the province of Tenasserim, as "the Directors of the East India Company looked upon this territory ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... expression of woe is more manly and intense; in the group as we know it, the head of the principal figure has always seemed to me to be a grimace of grief, as are the two accompanying young gentlemen with their pretty attitudes, and their little silly, open-mouthed despondency. It has always had upon me the effect of a trick, that statue, and not of a piece of true art. It would look well in the vista of a garden; it is not august enough for a temple, with all its jerks and twirls, and polite convulsions. ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... looked at each other with deep despondency expressed in their countenances. They were haggard and worn from exposure, anxiety, and want of rest; and as they stood there in their wet, torn garments, they looked the very picture ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... should be restored to liberty, and that he had an important secret, which he would one day communicate. I should have been more tantalized with the expectations that these remarks were calculated to raise, had I not suspected them to be a good-natured artifice, to save me from despondency, as they were never made except when he saw me looking serious ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... he did not join the searchers himself or encourage us boys to do so. I think that both he and grandmother Ruth partly feared that, as the old lady quaintly expressed it, "Jonathan had been left to take his own life," in a fit of despondency. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... no time for repining; still less for any yielding on my part to a feeling of despondency. I therefore called the hands under the lee of the long-boat, and in a few brief words stated to them our position, exhorted them with all the earnestness of which I was master to be cool and self-possessed at the critical moment, and to put their trust in the mercy of God; impressing upon them ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... however, no runaway horse to-day; but suddenly a great silence came over the people, and a sullen gloom that made a great despondency in my mind without my knowing why. Public solemnity affects even the youngest of us. At ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Despondency is largely a matter of physical condition, and I was still sufficiently fagged to be in the depths, when the door opened suddenly, and an ordinary army ration was placed within. The soldier who brought it did not speak, nor did I attempt to address him; but after he retired, the ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... all that it contains will pass away. The fondest ties will be broken; the brightest hopes will fade; all its joys are transient; its interests meteoric, and the fireside of cheerfulness will ere long become the scene of despondency. Every swing of the pendulum of the clock tells that the time of its probation is becoming shorter and shorter, and that its members are approaching nearer and nearer the period of ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... eventually to fretful but frightful sleep. Always I awoke panting with thirst, stiff and strained, and with unmanly cries of fear and pain on my lips, while the chaste stars danced across the narrow slit as I strove to stem the turbid stream of despondency. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... take place the following night; far from that, we enjoyed a degree of satisfaction, so fully were we persuaded that the boats would come to our relief. The day was fine, and the most perfect tranquillity prevailed on our raft. The evening came, and the boats did not appear. Despondency began again to seize all our people, and a mutinous spirit manifested itself by cries of fury; the voice of the officers was wholly disregarded. When the night came, the sky was covered with thick clouds; the ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... last, Mozart's health caused me much anxiety, on account of his increasing nervousness and despondency. Although he was now and then in unnaturally high spirits when in company, yet at home he was generally silent and depressed, or sighing and ailing. The physician recommended dieting and exercise in the country. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the prince answered him has been preserved, and well illustrates the lofty tones of his communications in this crisis of the fate of Holland. He reprimanded with gentle but earnest eloquence the despondency and want of faith of his lieutenant and other adherents. He had not expected, he said, that they would have so soon forgotten their manly courage. They seemed to consider the whole fate of the country attached to the city of Haarlem. ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... moment of her stepping forward in the octagon room to speak to him, the moment of Mr. Elliot's appearing and tearing her away, and one or two subsequent moments, marked by returning hope or increasing despondency, ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... this last assertion most positively.—Mrs. Wharton understood this; and her attitude of despondency was the most ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... married lady, who returned his attachment, but who was soon obliged to accompany her husband to Switzerland. Alfieri, whose feelings were of the most impetuous description, was in despair at this separation, and returned to his own country in the utmost anguish and despondency of mind. While under this depression of spirits he was induced to seek alleviation from works of literature; and the perusal of Plutarch's Lives, which he read with profound emotion, inspired him with an enthusiastic passion for freedom and independence. Under the influence of this rage ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... which she now looked upon as inevitable.——A man, who sat upon the boot of the carriage, was suddenly struck with the fervency of her devotion, and turning round, said, He had as much authority as any other man there, and that the lady should do as she pleased. Elevated a little from her despondency by this expression, Mrs. Tyrrell gave him her gold watch, promising him any further reward he would demand, if he would procure her liberty.——At this time a person in the garb of an officer, and whose countance beamed with the rays of humanity, rode ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... fortunes, and has proved herself worthy of every confidence that has been reposed in her. She is my inseparable companion in the tent, in the field, and on the road, by night and by day. Give not way to despondency, dear Julia. Fortune, which has so long smiled upon me, is not now about to forsake me. There is no day so long and bright that clouds do not sail by and cast their little shadows. But the sun is behind them. Our army is still great and in good heart. The soldiers receive me, whenever ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... she bore the reverse of fortune with that equanimity which seems to be peculiar to the French, and which only lofty characters, or people of considerable mental resources, are able to assume or feel. Most rich men, when they lose their money, give way to despondency and grief, conscious that they have nothing to fall back upon; that without money they are nothing. Madame Recamier at once sold her jewels and plate, and her fine hotel was offered for sale. Neither she nor her husband sought to retain anything amid the wreck, and they ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... and pungency of the Boston air, which is as delicious in summer as it is terrible in winter; and the faces that showed themselves were sodden from the yesterday's heat and perspiration. A corner-grocer, seated in a sort of fierce despondency upon a keg near his shop door, had lightly equipped himself for the struggle of the day in the battered armor of the day before, and in a pair of roomy pantaloons, and a baggy shirt of neutral tint—perhaps he had made a vow not to change it whilst the siege of the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... perplexed, feeling that something ought to be done to stem the torrent, and at the same time were astonished and troubled to find that perhaps a next-door neighbor sympathized with the rebellion and predicted its entire success. The social atmosphere was thick with doubt, heavy with despondency, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... conversation, feeling that every word must have its weight not only upon things of this world, but of the next. As to the cardinal, at that moment he had but one thought—his donation. It was not physical pain which gave him that air of despondency, and that lugubrious look; it was the expectation of the thanks that were about to issue from the king's mouth, and cut off all hope of restitution. Mazarin was the first to break the silence. "Is your majesty come to make any stay at Vincennes?" ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... women who have the burdens of life too soon and too heavily laid upon them. Her black hair was even streaked here and there with gray. But with all this there was not the least trace of impatience or despondency in that all-enduring face. When grave, its expression was that of resignation; when gay—and even she could be gay at times—its smile was as sunny as Leonora's own. Hannah had a lover as patient as Job, or as herself, a poor fellow who had been constant to her for twelve ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... not of a disposition to give way to despondency, but sombre thoughts would intrude. I began to fear that I might not be able to rejoin my friends; that they, unable to find me, would suppose that I had met with some accident, and would at length ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... given to Toby to suggest, though, alas! when too late, the only sensible line of action. For some time, indeed ever since they left Caen, the dog had walked on a little ahead of his party, with his tail drooping, his whole attitude one of utter despondency. ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... they were from victory, in their arms, flocked round the corpse, piling up near it, as a trophy, the arms of their slain enemies. They cut off the manes of their horses, and their own hair, and many went off to their tents, lit no fire, and ate no supper, but there was such silence and despondency in the whole camp as would have befitted men who had been defeated and enslaved by the tyrant, not who had just won a great and glorious victory ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... end of you!" she exclaimed the evening before Eleanor was to sail. "This is the end of your life and expectations! To look at you and think of it!" Despondency could ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... In their despondency there is an element of dread. The fear of ghosts and of the dark is very deeply written in the mind of the Polynesian; not least of the Marquesan. Poor Taipi, the chief of Anaho, was condemned to ride to Hatiheu ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... though Sarah refused to acknowledge the force of all she said, it had its effect, and she gradually lost her hold on her new belief. But losing that, she lost all hope. "Wormwood and gall" were her portion, and, while she fulfilled the outward duties of religion, dreariness and settled despondency took possession of her mind. ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... gradually changed. The burdens of absolute government, disappointments, the alienation of friends, and the bitter experiences which all sovereigns must learn soured his temper, which was naturally amiable, and made him a prey to terror and despondency. No longer was he the frank, generous, chivalrous, and magnanimous prince who had called out general admiration, but a disappointed, suspicious, terrified, and prematurely old man, flying from one part of his dominions to another, as if to avoid the assassin's ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... at Kyak there had been a period of fierce rejoicing, which had ended abruptly with the receipt of O'Neil's curt cablegram announcing the attitude of the Trust. Gloom had succeeded the first surprise, deepening to hopeless despondency through the days that followed. Oddly enough, Slater had been the only one to bear up; under adversity he blossomed into a peculiar and almost offensive cheerfulness. It was characteristic of his crooked temperament that misfortune awoke in him ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... fold his hands in resignation rather than open them in hope. He alone of all the great poets of his day remained undazzled by the glitter of the Caesarian usurpation, and pined away in unavailing despondency, in beholding the ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... true, been suggested as a possibility, but through an outside source which Mr. Wintermuth felt sure was most unlikely to have been stimulated to the suggestion by the person most interested. The President was in a mood of despondency, incidental to the painful discovery of how frail a tissue of truth most of the recommendations of his applicants' supporters usually possessed. He had spent four days investigating the records of men whose names, ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... boat and the persons it contained: the rest of creation had become a blank. The fog wetted like rain, and was more penetrating, and the constant efforts she made to see through it, made her eyes and head ache, and cast a damp upon her spirits which almost amounted to despondency. ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... snug, old-fashioned room, with the good old rector. She was no better; still in doctors' hands and weak, but always happy with him, and he more than ever gentle and tender with her; for though he never would give place to despondency, and was naturally of a trusting, cheery spirit, he could not but remember his young wife, lost so early; and once or twice there was a look—an outline—a light—something, in little Lily's fair, girlish face, that, with a strange ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... was the cause of thy strangerhood and thy separation from me." Then he complained to her of his case, saying, "O my mother, go to her and speak with her; haply she will vouchsafe me her sight to see and dispel from me this despondency." Replied his mother, "Idle desires abase men's necks; so put away from thee this thought that can only vex; for I will not wend to her nor go in to her with such message.' Now when he heard his mother's ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... three. In my practice I have become convinced that every impairment of the voice is due to outraged nature, resulting in a physiological condition of the vocal organs that should not exist, and, in turn, inducing a psychological condition, such as worry and despondency, which also should not exist. By discovering with the aid of the laryngoscope the physiological defect and removing it, body, and, with it, mind and voice are restored to their proper condition. But if the singer goes back to a teacher ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... life means pain, May feel again what I have felt before; Who has beheld his bliss above him soar And, when he sought it, fly away again; Who in a labyrinth has tried in vain, When he has lost his way, to find a door; Whom love has singled out for nothing more Than with despondency his soul to bane; Who begs each lightning for a deadly stroke, Each stream to drown the heart that cannot heal From all the cruel stabs by which it broke; Who does begrudge the dead their beds like steel Where they are safe from love's beguiling yoke— He ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... presumption of conspiracy, and moreover that, as a leading fact or clue, it might serve to guide us in detecting others. Hannah was sanguine in this expectation; and for a moment her hopes were contagiously exciting to mine. But the hideous despondency which in my mind had settled upon the whole affair from the very first, the superstitious presentiment I had of a total blight brooding over the entire harvest of my life and its promises, (tracing itself originally, I am almost ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... a light comedy effort. Here and there a page or two to steady the reader and show him what I could do in the way of pathos if I cared to try; but in the main a thing of sunshine and laughter. But now great slabs of gloom began to work themselves into the scheme of it. A magnificent despondency became its keynote. It would not do. I felt that I must make a resolute effort to shake off my depression. More than ever the need of conciliating the professor was borne in upon me. Day and night I spurred my brain to think of some suitable means ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... despondency returned. His hand sought in his pocket for the little volume of Leopardi which he had taken out with him. On that king of pessimists, that prince of all despairs, he had just spent half an hour among the olives. Could renunciation of life ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that things were not as they seemed, that there was no joy for him in the coming of spring, that he had been blind in his free, sensorial, Indian relation to existence, he fell into an inexplicably strange state, a despondency, a gloom as deep as the silence of his home. Dale reflected that the stronger an animal, the keener its nerves, the higher its intelligence, the greater must be its suffering under restraint or injury. He thought of himself as a high order ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... beautiful—never, in fact, truly beautiful till now. The dying down of the brilliance and energy of the strongly marked character, which had made her the life of the Bruton Street salon, into this mildness, this despondency, this hidden weariness, had left her infinitely more lovely in his eyes. But how to restrain himself much longer from taking the sad, gracious woman in his arms and coercing her into ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... like an automaton. Pale, sorrow-stricken, and patient, she moved about, the ghost of herself; and lay down a little, and then tried to work a little, and then to read a little; and could settle to nothing but sorrow and deep despondency. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... passionate and implacable dejection, which marks him as different in kind from the race of the great prosaic pessimists whose scorn and hatred of mankind found expression in the contemptuous and rancorous despondency of Swift or of Carlyle. The obsession of evil, the sensible prevalence of wickedness and falsehood, self-interest and stupidity, pressed heavily on his fierce and indignant imagination; yet not so heavily that mankind came to seem to him the "damned race," the hopeless horde of millions ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... those words the last heaviness of despondency left her face for that day. And we plunged into the delicious adventure of exploring a new city, staring into windows as only strangers can, revelling in print-shops as only they do, really seeing the fine buildings as residents always forget to do, ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... niece's cheerful society tended also to depress his spirits; and in order to dispel this despondency, which often crept upon his mind after his daily employment was over, he was wont frequently to prevail upon Schalken to accompany him home, and by his presence to dispel, in some degree, the gloom ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... feeling herself to be suffering, and condemned by her sufferings to frequent retirement, she was distressed at the idea that the greater part of her future days and evenings would pass away solitary, useless, and in despondency. She recalled with terror the isolation in which Cardinal Richelieu had formerly left her, those dreaded and insupportable evenings during which, however, she had her youth and beauty, which are always accompanied by hope, to ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... vaguely suspected in Ladysmith, where the silence of Sunday sounded ominous. The spirits of the now famishing garrison sank accordingly. One among them writes: "The ending has been strange. On Monday, February 26, the garrison was sunk in a slough of despondency. On the previous Thursday General Buller had signalled from below in such confident language that the force had been placed upon full rations. Then, day by day, we had watched for some sign of the promised ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... own belief that there was no cause for despondency in the aspect of the affair that Matt was looking at. But he could not offer to share his security with Matt, who continued to look serious, and said, presently, "I suppose my father might think it complicated his relation to the Northwicks' ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... remained. Thus the entire charge of the invalid devolved on the tireless friends who had watched over him in the hour of peril. Beulah had endeavored to banish the sorrow that pressed so heavily on her heart, and to dispel the gloom and despondency which seemed to have taken possession of the deserted husband. She read, talked, sang to him, and constantly strove to cheer him by painting a future in which the past was to be effectually canceled. Though well-nigh exhausted by incessant care and loss of sleep, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... buffalo robe spread out before the fire, and the dogs watching the feast with perspective ideas of bones and pan-licking, then the balance would veer back again to the side of enjoyment; and I could look forward to twice 600 miles of ice and snow without one feeling of despondency. These icy nights, too, were often filled with the strange meteors of the north. Hour by hour have I watched the many-hued shafts of the aurora trembling from their northern home across the starlight of the zenith, till their lustre lighted up the silent landscape ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... proportionate success; that no bread cast upon the waters can be wholly lost; that no seed planted in the ground can fail to quicken in due time and measure; and that, however we may, in moments of despondency, be apt to doubt, not only whether our cause will triumph, but whether, if it does, we shall have contributed to its triumph,—there is One, Who has not only seen every exertion we have made, but Who can assign the exact degree in which ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... way on more sides than one, so insulted nature dealt with Josephine. Not only did her body pine, but her nerves were exasperated. Sudden twitches came over her, that almost made her scream. Her permanent state was utter despondency, but across it came fitful flashes of irritation; and then she was ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... of despondency, at length agreed; but on reaching a saw-mill that had been established by a couple of adventurous Yankees, in a region that seemed to be the out-skirts of creation, Paddy repented, and vowed he'd go no ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... of being expended upon his property as capital, and being permitted to lay the foundation of hope and prosperity, is drawn from him, at next term, and the poor, struggling tenant is thrown back into as much distress, embarrassment, and despondency as ever. There are, I believe, few tenants in Ireland of the class I allude to, who are not from one gale to three in arrear. Now, how can it be expected that such men will labor with spirit and earnestness to raise crops which they may never reap? crops which the landlord may seize upon ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... They were very active at the Vicarage making expeditions, fishing, playing lawn-tennis, and once or twice pressed him to join them. But he excused himself on the ground that he must work at his book; he could not bear to carry his despondency and his dolorous air into so blithe a company; and he was, moreover, consumed by a jealousy which humiliated him. If Guthrie was destined to win Maud's love he should have a fair field; and yet Howard's imagination played him many fevered tricks in those days, and the thought of what ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... him these words: 'O child, never again do such a rash act. O Bharata, a rash wight never cometh by happiness. O son of the Kuru race, pleased be thou with all thy brothers. Go back to thy capital as pleaseth thee, without yielding thyself to despondency or cheerlessness!'" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... "don't put me into a frame of mind in which successful comedies are not written." He scribbled away; but his wife's despondency told upon the man of disappointments. Then he stuck fast; then ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... her linger. Reasons for altering her plans chased each other through her brain. The poor fellow would be so disappointed if he did not see her. How long would he wait? How wretched his garret would appear when he returned disconsolate! His despondency might drive him to break his promise to her. Where was the harm in keeping her appointment instead of going to Hampstead? No harm at all save that she would be behaving ungratefully to Hannah. But Hannah would understand. Hannah was never without a ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... town; I don't know where he came from. I had only heard that he had written some sort of article in a progressive Petersburg magazine. Virginsky had introduced me casually to him in the street. I had never in my life seen in a man's face so much despondency, gloom, and moroseness. He looked as though he were expecting the destruction of the world, and not at some indefinite time in accordance with prophecies, which might never be fulfilled, but quite definitely, as ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... path with all the fearlessness of youth. In spite of the motives to despondency and apprehension incident to my state, my heels were light and my heart joyous. "Now," said I, "I am mounted into man. I must build a name and a fortune for myself. Strange if this intellect and these hands will not supply me with an honest livelihood. I will try the city in the first ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... my love and with it a deep reverence for her innate and virginal purity. It touched me deeply to note with what painful care she set herself to correct the grammatical errors and roughness of her speech; often she would fall to a sighful despondency because of her ignorance and at such times it was, I think, that I loved her best, vowing I would not change her for any proud lady that was or ever had been; whereof ensued such conversations ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me to negligence; some faults will at last appear to be the effects of anxious diligence and persevering activity. The nice and subtle ramifications of meaning were not easily avoided by a mind intent upon accuracy, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... in his hair, Queed stared long at this wreckage with a sense of foreboding and utter despondency. Doubtless Mr. Pat, who was at that moment peacefully pulling a pipe over his last galleys at the Post office, would have been astonished to learn what havoc his accursed fleas had wrought with the just expectations ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Albany. But in this scene at any rate the Ff., which give the speech to Edgar, have the better text (though Ff. 2, 3, 4, make Kent die after his two lines!); Kent has answered Albany, but Edgar has not; and the lines seem to be rather more appropriate to Edgar. For the 'gentle reproof' of Kent's despondency (if this phrase of Halliwell's is right) is like Edgar; and, although we have no reason to suppose that Albany was not young, there is ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... shook off the despondency, and fought back the idea that his companions might have been overcome by the escaping gases, and forced himself to believe that if they were not somewhere on his side hidden from him by the trees, they had safely made their way back to the side ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... the threshold of the inner door, and holding the whole squad of police agents in check by the intense fury of his attitude. Now, on the contrary, he seemed, as it were, the personification of weakness and despondency. He was seated on a bench opposite the grating in the door, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin upon his hand, his under lip hanging low and his eyes fixed ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... forward, and less anxiously around him, and on all sides, and behind,—had he been more confident in himself and in his army, and impressed with less respect for the French Generals, he would have been more equal to the difficulties of his situation. Despondency was the radical weakness of his mind. Personally he was as brave a man as ever met death in the field; but he wanted faith in British courage: and it is faith by which miracles are wrought in war ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... have food in any case, and as the official hesitated to supply us we helped ourselves from the Government Stores, and proceeded to the capital. The roads to Pretoria were crowded with men, guns, and vehicles of every description, and despondency and despair were plainly visible on ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... thereby confining her husband to his evil-smelling quarters below. Matters were not improved for him by his treatment of the crew, who, resenting his rough treatment of them, were doing their best to starve him into civility. Most of the time he kept in his bunk—or rather Jemmy's bunk—a prey to despondency and hunger of an acute type, venturing on deck only at night to prowl uneasily about and ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... absently, "it was whiskey. Slavic and I drank it." With an effort he strove to arouse himself out of the despondency that ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... on each arm a female. The lady on his right arm was apparently of about five-and-twenty years of age. She was of majestic stature; her complexion of untinged purity. Her features were like those conceptions of Grecian sculptors which, in moments of despondency, we sometimes believe to be ideal. Her full eyes were of the same deep blue as the mountain lake, and gleamed from under their long lashes as that purest of waters beneath its fringing sedge. Her brown light hair was braided from her high forehead, and hung in long full curls over ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... which so grinds the human soul, and produces such an insupportable burden of wretchedness and despondency, as pecuniary pressure. Nothing more frequently drives men to suicide; and there is, perhaps, no danger to which men in an active and enterprising community are more exposed. Almost all are eagerly reaching forward to a station in life a little above what they can well ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... letter several times, and sat at home through the morning in despondency. It had got to the pass that he could not marry Emma; for all his suffering he no longer gave a glance in that direction. Not even if Adela Waltham refused him; to have a 'lady' for his wife was now an essential ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... of her children, in whom her own youth lived again, even attempted to scoff at her a little, declaring that she was fishing for compliments ... but she quite seriously begged him to leave off, and for the first time he realised that for such a sorrow, the despondency of old age, there is no comfort or cure; one has to wait till it passes off of itself. He proposed a game of tresette, and he could have thought of nothing better. She agreed at once and seemed to ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... the costume; for the contrast would render the variety in all the other departments even the more insupportable. Gay, tinselled, spangled draperies suit best to the opera; and hence many things which have been censured as unnatural, such as exhibiting heroes warbling and trilling in the excess of despondency, are perfectly justifiable. This fairy world is not peopled by real men, but by a singular kind of singing creatures. Neither is it any disadvantage that the opera is brought before us in a language which we do not generally understand; the words are altogether lost in ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... at this time was admirably summed up in a letter written by Quartermaster Nichol. "Alas! we are no longer commanded by Isaac Brock.... Confidence seems to have vanished from the land, and gloomy despondency in those who are at our head has taken its place." Brock's courage, judgment, military skill and personal magnetism were never ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... spoken from the time they first reached the shore. The fate of their shipmates had depressed them profoundly, and as yet they could scarcely feel grateful for their own escape. Jack was the first to rouse himself from this state of despondency. ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... miles. In that distance, there were but few families, who had not a husband, father, brother or son in the garrison; and these listened to the sound, with the deepest anxiety, and, as was natural, with no little despondency. ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... his natural expression of the weariness of seven weeks' sickness and sorrow, felt above all the want of his mother's ever-ready sympathy and soothing, and as if the whole world, here, there, and everywhere, would be an equally dreary waste. His moment of bright anticipation passed into heavy despondency, and turning his head from the light, he dropped asleep with a tear on ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... passionate and sentimental cast were quickly made religious by suitable words. Thus the same melody will depict equally well the rage of a baffled conspirator, the jealousy of an injured husband, the grief of lovers about to part, the despondency of a man bent on suicide, the devotion of the nun, or the rapt adoration of worship. A different text and a slight change in time effect the marvel, and hardly a composer has disdained to borrow from one work to enrich another. His only opera composed in Paris, ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... this you would gather that we were as happy as civilised beings could possibly be under the circumstances. Nevertheless—and my heart aches as I recall those times—we had periodical fits of despondency, which filled us with ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... and listless; and we talk of illness, and call in science to name the disease, which is nothing but sorrow. There are, without doubt, solitary hours in human experience which do the work of years, forcing suspicion to dawn, and tempting despondency to deepen. Life should be measured by such hours, and they who feel most keenly are the ones ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... but few pictures, and these met with small success. He looked thin and haggard, talked incoherently, gave way to bitter repinings and despondency. He resented and misinterpreted, as has been shown, Lawrence's inquiries as to his health. Certainly there is every appearance of feeling in Lawrence's letter, where he writes to a friend, 'You will be sorry to hear it. My most powerful competitor, he whom only to my friends I ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... the verse composed during those days of prosperous tranquillity, when youth seemed comic rather than tragic, we find that half the poets spent their time in lamentation, and the other half in first aid. An enormous number of lyrics speak as though despondency were the normal condition of men and women; are we really all sad when alone, engaged in reading or writing? "Every man is grave alone," said Emerson. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... stimulates the nervous system and acts upon the heart as the centre of all organic functions. A healthy natural excitement will cause the heart to vibrate more firmly and evenly; but an unhealthy excitement, like fear or anger, will cause it to beat in a rapid and uneven manner. Contrarily, despondency, or a lethargic state of mind, causes the movement of the blood to slacken. The happiness of love is thus the best of all stimulants and correctives for a torpid circulation, and it expands the whole being of a woman like the blossoming of a flower in the sunshine. From the time ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... 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 on the low wall, hard by the spot where Vashti had dug at the stones ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... pre-occupied to think of bushels of seed. He was as uneasy as Mr. May had been on the previous night, and in some respects even more unhappy; for he had no resource except a sort of dumb faith in his principle, a feeling that he must be able to find out some way of escape—chequered by clouds of despondency, sometimes approaching despair. For Cotsdean, too, felt vaguely that things were approaching a crisis—that a great many resources had been exhausted—that the pitcher which had gone so often to the well must, at last, be broken, and that ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... not want anything was true; but when in his sorrow and despondency he saw the captain, who had always been so good to him, passing the window to and fro, he ventured to approach him on the chance of meeting ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... a time of sore trial, but it brought out in strong relief the beauty and nobility of character in both Violet and her mother. They proved themselves the most devoted of nurses, patient, cheerful, hopeful, never giving way to despondency, or wearying in efforts to relieve the little sufferers or wile them ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... and loss, or crime and shame in the past, and on others, of eager ambitions and bright hopes for the future. There were men with gray hair and bowed forms, whose dull eyes and listless step told of hopeless, irretrievable loss; men of intelligence and ability whose recklessness or whose despondency told of some living sorrow, worse than death; there were some whose stealthy, shrinking gait and watchful, suspicious glance bespoke some crime, unknown to their fellows, but which to themselves seemed ever present, suspended, like the sword ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... had quite set in. I did not cry, for I am not given to overmuch weeping, and my heart was too sore to be healed by tears; neither did I tremble, for I held out my hand and arm to make sure they were steady; but still I felt as if I were sinking down—down into an awful, profound despondency, from which I should never rally; it was all over with me. I had nothing before me but to give up, and own myself overmatched and conquered. I have a half-remembrance that as I crouched there in the darkness I sobbed once, and cried under my ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... prince whom he had always regarded as one of the strongest bulwarks of the Ottoman Empire. This information produced a different effect upon Ali to that intended by the Seraskier. Passing suddenly from the depth of despondency to the height of pride, he imagined that these overtures of reconciliation were only a proof of the inability of his foes to subdue him, and he sent the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... to put this enormous outburst into a rhythm that, otherwise used, would be irresistibly jolly. The last movement, too, verges on the hysterical throughout. It is full of the blackest melancholy and despondency, with occasional relapses into a tranquillity even more tragic; and the trombone passage near the end, introduced by a startling stroke on the gong, inevitably reminds one of the spirit ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... "Shake off this despondency!" exclaimed Victor, "it is unmanly. If we are to die, let it be in a struggle against death. We have now only to avoid being crushed between the fields of ice. Oh! that unfortunate lantern! if we had only retained it—but no matter, we will escape yet; aye, and have another dance among ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... not to lose heart; but it was impossible to keep away a certain amount of despondency as we realised that all our pulling was in vain, and as we grew wearied out Bigley said that it was of no use to row. All we were to do was to keep the boat's head well ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... on as he could desire. Meanwhile he was supported chiefly by the contributions of the officers of the garrison, themselves not well able to spare much. While leading this lonely life he seems gradually to have given way to gloomy despondency. I recollect one passage in his diary (which I once saw for an hour) where he expresses himself thus: "Another year has gone by, and with it all signs of the promised vessel. Oh! God, even hope seems to have deserted me." At length a vessel from Sydney ...
— 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 |
