"Hopeless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... folly's circle which she draws With magic wand. So potent is the spell, That none decoyed into that fatal ring, Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape. There we grow early gray, but never wise; There form connections, and acquire no friend; Solicit pleasure hopeless of success; Waste youth in occupations only fit For second childhood, and devote old age To sports which only childhood could excuse. There they are happiest who dissemble best Their weariness; and they the most polite, Who squander time and treasure with a smile, Though at their own destruction. ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... he drew near the gates, a monstrous dog came out and barked furiously, but Odin rode a little eastward of the shadowy gates to the grave of a wonderful prophetess. It was a cold, gloomy place, and the soul of the great god was pierced with a feeling of hopeless sorrow as he dismounted from Sleipner, and bending over the grave began to chant weird songs, and weave magical charms over it. When he had spoken those wonderful words which could waken the dead from their sleep, there was an awful silence for a moment, and then ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... Yet hopeless of the land I'd save, Nay, spurned by those for whom I'd die, Unknown where your fond welcome gave, There's still a throb of ecstasy. Even though the latest I may feel on earth. In lingering o'er the scene ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... no hopeless effort to save him. It was uncanny that Black Morgan Gandil, after all of his battles, should die without a struggle in this way. And it had been no cowardly attack from the rear. Both wounds were in the front. A hope came to them when his color increased ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... be——" said the young man, and then paused, feeling how utterly hopeless it was to find a word expressive of his feelings. In all the years of their life-long comradeship he had never known Charles Stuart to behave in such a manner. "He's gone batty!" he said at last to the closed door, and ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... unconsciously in most cases, defrauding. Nay! they even struggle to wring from them the largest possible amount of work for the smallest possible pay! Day by day they grow more exacting as they grow wealthier; day by day the laboring orders sink into more harassing and hopeless conditions. Had the functions of Government in our own country and in England been those only of protection to persons and property; had not the general and local authorities in some degree assisted the oppressed toilers; had not the Church by her admonitions and pleadings ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... remote, I fear, as things look at present; but if I thought the case absolutely hopeless I should advise you to stand aside and let events take ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... something glorious in that charge. It was a soldier going into battle against hopeless odds. And it was more. The army of human civilisation at that moment consisted of one buck private, pitting everything he had against something that even science could ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... which convinced some of the most devoted friends of the exiled family that he was meditating a second perfidy, surpassing even the feat which he had performed at Salisbury. They were afraid that if, at that moment, they succeeded in getting rid of William, the situation of James would be more hopeless than ever. So fully were they persuaded of the duplicity of their accomplice, that they not only refused to proceed further in the execution of the plan which he had formed, but disclosed his whole ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the speaker and saw that it was a soldier who was trying to find some relief after what had been done, but was not able to do so. Without finishing what he had begun to say he made a hopeless movement with his arm ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... such loans I can prove to you at the present moment, in one instance at least, for it was through me the affair was negotiated. I think he fully realized his enormous error, but refused to admit it even to himself, and strove by sheer force of will-power to carry a hopeless scheme ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... and stood weeping as one that is hopeless and weary. But of a sudden she screamed and pointed at Black ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... Government I am now little better than an outlaw here. Two courses remain open to me—to go back in disgrace and live obscurely for the remainder of my life, or to risk my life by hanging on desperately here with an almost hopeless possibility before me of accomplishing something to serve ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... from the temper of Congress, meant war—a prospect which excited all the European powers. The Pope took an active interest in the crisis. France and Germany, foreseeing from long experience in world politics an increase of American power and prestige through war, sought to prevent it. Spain, hopeless and conscious of her weakness, at last dispatched to the President a note promising to suspend hostilities, to call a Cuban parliament, and to grant all the autonomy that could be ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... actors weighed so upon me, if the sight of Maubant, coming out one afternoon from the Theatre-Francais, had plunged me in the throes and sufferings of hopeless love, how much more did the name of a 'star,' blazing outside the doors of a theatre, how much more, seen through the window of a brougham which passed me in the street, the hair over her forehead abloom with roses, did ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... had gilded the voluntary exile of Collingwood was perforce absent from the imprisonment of John Stanhope. No glory of martyrdom dignified his forcible detention; he was merely the victim of mischance. And the outlook was singularly hopeless. "The negotiation for the exchange of prisoners has totally failed," he writes. "The hope of the conclusion of the war appears to be more distant than ever. Whilst the Emperor lives, peace seems to be impossible, and he may live twenty ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... the disease, the Atheist, if forced to relinquish one theory, will only betake himself to another, and after having gone the round of them all, will rather throw himself into the vortex of utter and hopeless skepticism, than acknowledge a God whom he cannot love, a Judge whom he cannot but dread. Christianity alone can supply an effectual remedy, and it is such a remedy as is fitted to cure alike the habitual ungodliness, the abject superstition, ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... collapse and lies quiet, indifferent to everything, the pulse sinking, or he is pulseless, Carbo Veg. will sometimes arouse and restore him, hopeless as the case appears. It should be given once in half an hour until the pulse begins to rise. If, however, instead of being quiet he is restless and thirsty, give Arsenicum in alternation with Carbo Veg., repeating the dose as above ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... treasury services. In this capacity, as sole minister and representative of the sovereign, Perennis had enriched himself by taking bribes from all from whom he could extort bribes. By his venality he had gone far towards ruining the navy and army, which were by now more than half officered by hopeless incompetents who had bought their appointments. As a result the legionaries garrisoning the lines along the Euphrates, the Carpathians, the Danube, the Rhine and the Wall, since they were badly led, had suffered undeserved mishandling from the barbarians attacking them; and even the ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... the powerful sympathy that unites us, that I fear, that virtue, that strong sense of honor and fame, so powerful in minds most turned to tenderness, would only have served to make more poignant the pangs of hopeless, despairing love. ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... they came on the track of some vessel; a ship outward or homeward bound, and told their story; shouting it out, in brief business-like words—how horrible they sounded! And the ship's people would be seen to come to her side, stand a while looking at the melancholy little steamer on its hopeless search—then pass on. All the world seemed passing on slowly, slowly—leaving them to that blank sea and sky, and to ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... letter plunged Louis into a hopeless stupor. The ingenuity of the style, the correctness of details, the emphasis on the date, all convinced him that the lines must have been dictated by Mariette. Having vainly tried to understand the ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... the usual devices had failed; every kind of sudden surprise to startle him into articulation had been attempted; electricity had been passed through the muscles of the tongue and larynx; doctors had discussed him with a volubility only equalled by his own silence. But he remained dumb. It seemed hopeless. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... chamber. She took her in her arms, exclaiming, 'Catherine, we are women, but we must act like men.' A flood of mingled tears relieved the dreadful emotions which agitated the wretched pair. One moment's consideration showed them the worst—a future of hopeless despair. Hardman's love was, then, a mere fitful passion, lit up by Catherine's former ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... hopes, and are yet without capability of persevering exertion to emerge from their obscurity. Seebright was now become an inefficient being, whom no one could assist to any good purpose. Alfred, after a long, mazy, fruitless conversation, was convinced that the case was hopeless, and, sincerely pitying him, gave it up as irremediable. Just as he had come to this conclusion, and had sunk into silence, a relation of his, whom he had not seen for a considerable time, entered the room, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... fall of the barometer meant nothing more than a variation in the strength of the polar current. Growth was nearly arrested, although one morning I found three primroses in a sheltered hollow. Never had the weather seemed more hopeless than towards the close of March. On the last evening of the month the sky was curiously perplexed and agitated notwithstanding there was little movement in the air above or below. Next morning the change had come. The wind had ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... gunboat, and it was he who, with his own and another gunboat (Palmetto State), crossed the bar last February, and raised the blockade for a few hours. He told me that several Yankee blockaders surrendered, but could not be taken possession of, and the others bolted at such a pace as to render pursuit hopeless, for these little gunboats are very slow. They made the attack at daylight, and though much fired at were never struck. They seem to have taken the Yankees by surprise, and to have created great alarm; but ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... he jerked. "First time there has been a wreck hereabouts. It's hopeless trying to launch ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... concerts with a success equal, if not superior, to any which had hitherto attended his exertions. His performance excited the admiration and astonishment of all the most distinguished professors and connoisseurs of this critical city. With any of the former all idea of competition was hopeless; and their greatest violinist, Mayseder, as soon as he had heard him, with an ingenuousness which did him honour, as we ourselves have reason to know, wrote to a friend in London, that he might now lock up his violin whenever ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... are swiftly withdrawn from the warm radiance of earthly love. They are stricken, but before passion blinds them are rapt into a high solitude, whence, if they truly love, an infinite prospect is unrolled before them. They know desire; but as their passion was hopeless in this world, their steps were mercifully set upon a new path, whereby the bodily semblance of the beloved became the symbol of spiritual comeliness, alluring the beholder into the peace of a serene and unworldly mood. A ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... reading it about a year's time, I suddenly became almost blind. I knew no Scientist to go to, so went to physicians; they told me that my case was hopeless, that it was certain my sight never could be restored, and the probabilities were that I would ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... cannot so fitly express, as in the apostle's words, (Eph. ii. 12,)—"Without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." A deplorable estate indeed, hopeless and helpless! No hope in it, that is the extremity of misery, the refuse of all conditions. "Without Christ, and without God." Oh! these are words of infinite weight: without those, without whom it is simply impossible to be happy, and without whom it is not possible but ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... said Frank, in a hopeless tone of voice, and sauntered to the pier-end, down the steps, and along the lower pier-way, burdened with many thoughts. He came up to the knot of chatting sailors. Not one of them touched his cap, or moved out of the way for him. The boat lay almost across the whole pier-way; and he stopped, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... our Era, the fifty-third of Mohammed's life. He was now becoming an old man; his friends sinking round him one by one; his path desolate, encompassed with danger: unless he could find hope in his own heart, the outward face of things was but hopeless for him. It is so with all men in the like case. Hitherto Mohammed had professed to publish his Religion by the way of preaching and persuasion alone. But now, driven foully out of his native country, since unjust men had not only given no ear to ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... dwell with the least alloy on the period after the death of Laura, when he contemplated her as beyond the reach of human ties, affections, or jealousies, and sought only to rescue from oblivion the virtues and purity which had strengthened and refined his passion, while they rendered it hopeless. There is a beautiful passage in Campbell which appears exactly written to express his state of mind at this time, and the retrospective glance which he must have often ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... of Commerce paid special and high tribute to King Edward's diplomacy and, after dealing with the French entente cordiale went on as follows: "Even more marvelous than the closing of the secular feud with France was the termination of that with Russia, which seemed more bitter and more hopeless of adjustment. The seemingly impossible was, nevertheless, accomplished, and the power which but a few short years before had been the chief menace to the safety of British India became one of the guarantors of its immunity from attack. ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... possible be accomplished without the effusion of blood. This could only be effected by sending a military force into the Territory sufficiently strong to convince the people that resistance would be hopeless, and at the same time to offer them a pardon for past offenses on condition of immediate submission to the Government. This policy was pursued with eminent success, and the only cause for regret is the heavy expenditure required to march a large detachment of the Army to that remote region ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... alleged that the abandonment of these claims against France was in consideration of great benefits to the Government, it is as confidently alleged that they were in point of fact abandoned because their enforcement was hopeless and that even if any benefit really accrued to us by insistence upon their settlement in the course of diplomatic negotiation such result gave no pretext for taxing the Government ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... truly glad I am that I was never induced to marry an American! I would rather have my neat, precise little house and a small income than go about like a figure of fun. That poor child will never be made English; it is a hopeless task. The sooner she goes back to America ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... came to Tyre, who might possibly have a vacant place in his company; but he had tried many in vain. While one or two were unable to see him at all, most of them treated him with a kindness remarkable in men daily besieged by the innumerable hopeless. They gave him good advice; they wished him well; but already they had long lists of experienced applicants waiting their turn for the coveted vacancy. At last, however, there came to Tyre a famous romantic actor who was said to be more sympathetic ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... strain of music!" he blundered on, feeling how hopeless, how distinctly absurd was all his speech. "I surely must always have known you, somewhere!" His voice took on a plaintive assertiveness which in another he would have derided and have recognised as an admission ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... at right angles from the road and went across the common; the others continued the pursuit, but going not a whit faster than they were before. No amount of spurring served to lengthen the stride of their horses. To follow seemed hopeless, was hopeless unless the ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... he answered; "I don't take that wide range; I confine myself to the special case. Observe me well, my Christopher! Hopeless of getting rid, through any effort of my own, of any of the manuscripts among my Luggage,—all of which, send them where I would, were always coming back to me,—it is now some seven years since I left that Luggage here, on the desperate chance, either that the too, too faithful manuscripts ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... spite of his resolution to the contrary, could not help thinking of Edda Armytage, and the possibility of yet winning her; still, again and again he tried to overcome aspirations which appeared so utterly hopeless. Indeed, why should he ever wish to make her his? Had she ever attempted to assure him that she did not share her father's feelings? Had she not, from what he had heard, been willingly receiving the attentions of Alfonse ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... him. "The fault is with me. Where women are concerned I am utterly hopeless. I fly from a pretty woman as you ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... historical research has proved adequate to expound. Comparative study of folk-lore has placed in our hands a key which ingenious theorists, proceeding with that imperfect knowledge of antiquity which can be gathered from books, have lacked, and for the want of which they have wandered in hopeless error. ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... was all embarrassment. I have never been a ladies' man; at Leland-Stanford I was the butt of the class because of my hopeless imbecility in the presence of a pretty girl; but the men liked me, nevertheless. I was rubbing one of her hands when she opened her eyes, and I dropped it as though it were a red-hot rivet. Those eyes took me in slowly from head to foot; ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... portion of my later life, a sufferer, sorely afflicted with bodily pains, languors, and bodily infirmities; and, for the last three or four years, have, with few and brief intervals, been confined to a sick-room, and at this moment, in great weakness and heaviness, write from a sick-bed, hopeless of a recovery, yet without prospect of a speedy recovery; and I, thus on the very brink of the grave, solemnly bear witness to you that the Almighty Redeemer, most gracious in His promises to them that truly seek Him, is faithful to ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... impossible, "the narrative descending to such familiar images and expressions as would by no means suit the genius of our language and poetry."[448] The task of translating Ariosto, though not so hopeless, is still arduous on this account. "There is a certain easy negligence in his muse that often assumes a playful mode of expression incompatible with the nature of our present poetry.... An English translator will have frequent reason to regret the more rigid genius of the language, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... stagnant pool of sensuous sin, but clean, respectable church-and-chapel-going, sermon-hearing, doctrine-criticising Pharisees. The man or woman who is led away by the passions that are lodged in his or her members is not so hopeless as the man into whose spiritual nature there has come the demon of self-complacent righteousness, or who, as is the case with many a man and woman sitting in these pews now, has listened to, or at all events, has heard, men preaching, as I am trying to preach, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... could detach one man to his side all would be well. Two against three would be a simple thing, as long as he was one of the two. But four against one—and such a four as these—was hopeless odds. There seemed little chance of getting Joe Clune. There remained only Jeff Rankin as his possibly ally, and already he had stepped on Jeff's toes sorely, by making the tired giant stand guard. He thought of all these things, ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... workhouse master that all serviceable trained men were to be sent back on the morrow to their mobilisation centres. The country was on the eve of war. He was to go back through London to Surrey. His first feeling, he records, was one of extreme relief that his days of 'hopeless battering at the underside of civilisation' were at an end. Here was something definite to do, something definitely provided for. But his relief was greatly modified when he found that the mobilisation arrangements had been made so ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... his religious successes, Philip the Fair attacked the mighty knights of the Temple, the most powerful of the religious orders of knighthood which had fought the Saracens in Jerusalem. The Templars, having found their warfare hopeless, had abandoned the Holy Land and had dwelt for a generation inglorious in the West. Philip suddenly seized the leading members of the order, accused it of hideous crimes, and confiscated all its vast wealth and hundreds of strong castles throughout ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... twilight, and the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters; like a veil, Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown[bf] Of one whose hate is masked but to assail. Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown, And grimly darkled o'er the faces pale, And the dim desolate deep: twelve days had Fear[bg] Been their familiar, and now ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... therefore be understood of what nature would be the traffic in these warrants. The owner of a single warrant might find it of no value to him. To go back utterly into the woods, away from river or road, and there to commence with 160 acres of forest, or even of prairie, would be a hopeless task even to an American settler. Some mode of transport for his produce must be found before his produce would be of value—before, indeed, he could find the means of living. But a company buying up a large aggregate of such warrants ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... sleep. But this very longing created the resistance to it in the depths of her soul. 'There was a light as of reviving life, or of pain comforted, when it was she who was sitting by Merthyr's side, and when at times she saw the hopeless effort of his hand to reach to hers, or during the long still hours she laid her head on his pillow, and knew that he breathed gratefully. The sweetness of helping him, and of making his breathing pleasant to him, closed much of the world which lay beyond her windows ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his fellows, he was bidden to go and cut the kirn. His groping about and making wild strokes in the air with his sickle excited much hilarity. When he had tired himself out in vain and given up the task as hopeless, another reaper was blindfolded and pursued the quest, and so on, one after the other, till at last the kirn was cut. The successful reaper was tossed up in the air with three cheers by his brother harvesters. To decorate the room in which the kirn-supper was ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the Confederates, after an unsuccessful attempt to cut their way through the investing army, hopeless of a successful resistance, surrendered at discretion to General Grant. The capture of this post left the way open to Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, and the flag-officer was anxious to press on with fresh ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... them, and the consequent necessity and expense of change, so that we need not wonder that the opposition which was called forth when first the evils of the workhouse system were exposed was tremendous, and that the task of awakening real interest seemed well nigh hopeless. ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... for services to the queen as one of her "domicellae" or "damoiselles," and it seems probable that at this date Chaucer was already married and this Philippa his wife, a conclusion which used to be resisted on the ground of allusions in his early poems to a hopeless love-affair, now reckoned part of his poetical outfit. Philippa is usually said to have been one of two daughters of a Sir Payne Roet, the other being Katherine, who after the death of her first husband, Sir Hugh de Swynford, in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... is no man in an official position like mine who cannot look back over his ministry and remember, some of them dozens, some of them scores, some of them hundreds, of cases in which the change was made on the most hopeless people, by the simple acceptance of the simple gospel, 'Christ died for me, and Christ lives in me.' I know that I can recall such, and I am sure that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... was evidently hopeless, or only to provoke massacre; but I had already dispatched an express to the officer in command at the Tuileries, to come and save the arms and ammunition deposited at the Hotel de Ville; and we ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... Mochuelo cheeringly, and cordially pressing Herrera's hand. "The horses we saw pass must be wearied by their mid-day march. Unsuspicious of danger, Baltasar will probably remain a while at the convent. The case is by no means so hopeless as you imagine. At any rate we will risk sending a scout to keep an eye upon their movements. For that service Paco is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... effort he waited listening, listening, only to receive the mocking reply of the howling storm. But he persisted. He persisted for the simple human reason that his desire outran his power to serve. And in the end exhaustion forced him to abandon his hopeless task. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... been sufficiently discussed we may take up others as important. Reflecting upon his power of following me to the remotest regions and into the deepest privacy, I will compare the attempt to escape him to the hopeless race that men sometimes run with memory, or their own hearts, or their moral selves, which, though burdened with cares enough to crush an elephant, will never be one step behind. I will be self-contemplative, ...
— Monsieur du Miroir (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... nothing, gathered her damp shawl around her, and turned to go. Just a moment they stood, looking at each other. If the dark square figure standing there had been an iron fate trampling her young life down into hopeless wretchedness, she forgot it now. Women like Margaret are apt to forget. His eye never abated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... after three weeks in Bombay Jan felt that she had never known any other life, that she never would know any other life than this curious dream-like existence, this silent, hopeless waiting for something as afflicting as it ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... Palestine, Phoenicia, etc., it is necessary to go in large companies, and in some places it even becomes advisable to have an escort. The stranger should further be provided with cooking utensils, provisions, tents, and servants. To provide all these things would have been a hopeless task for me; I had therefore resolved to return from Jerusalem as I had come, namely, via Joppa, and so to proceed to Alexandria or Beyrout, when, luckily for me, the gentlemen whom I have already mentioned arrived at Jerusalem. They intended making ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... the 'Republic one and indivisible'? Formula for Formula (to speak after the manner of Mr. Carlyle), is not the Republican Formula of the two the more demoralizing, dismal, degraded, and altogether hopeless? What is called 'le high-life' of Paris is neither Royalist nor Republican. It is merely shallow and vulgar, like the 'high-life' of sundry other places ruled by governments of divers forms. But when young men born to names which in the popular mind represent the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... entrance. To our extreme regret, however, we soon found our course impeded by the huge trunks of mighty pine trees lying in a perfect pell-mell above and on both sides of us. A glance up the hillside showed scores more of these slain giants. To proceed was almost hopeless, and we were forced to rest upon some timber and mark our future course between piles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... when he came near her, scarcely ventured to express his love, but followed her like a shadow, and gave utterance to his hopeless desire by distracted looks, and the assiduity of his attentions to her, and she made him a kind of slave who followed her steps, and whom she treated as if ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the drowning man's face slightly above the water had a bad effect for Harry Paul, inasmuch as it made him he was trying to succour struggle and endeavour to clutch at the arms that held him. Once he could do this, Harry knew that his case would be hopeless, for from that death-grapple there could be no escape. He held the man then firmly and swam on, feeling himself moment by moment grow more weary, for he was swimming in his clinging clothes, and unless help soon came he knew that he must loosen ...
— A Terrible Coward • George Manville Fenn
... rather low state of mind. He knew that Juliet, whatever happened, would remain true to him, and had quite hoped to bribe Mrs. Octagon into consenting by means of the inherited money. But now things seemed more hopeless than ever. Juliet, although not very fond of her mother, was a devoted daughter from a sense of duty, and it would be difficult to bring her to consent to a match against which the elder woman so ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... other, a great part of the time. It is much better to begin with a few rules, and be steady and persevering with these, till a habit is formed, and then take a few more, thus making the process easy and gradual. Otherwise, the temper of children will be injured; or, hopeless of fulfilling so many requisitions, they will become ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... first glimpse of the white face. It seemed a desecration to look at a face that had suffered as that one had. Yet the expression upon it now was more as if it had been set for a certain purpose for this day, and did not mean to change whatever came. A hopeless, sad, persist look, yet strong withal and with a hint of something fine and ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... concerned Roosevelt, the chance was hopeless. To them at sixty-three, Roosevelt at forty-three could not be taken seriously in his old character, and could not be recovered in his new one. Power when wielded by abnormal energy is the most serious of facts, and all Roosevelt's friends know that his restless and combative energy was more ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... to stop countless millions of murders—a hopeless task. But the watchbirds didn't hope. Without consciousness, they experienced no sense of accomplishment, no fear of failure. Patiently they went about their jobs, obeying each stimulus ...
— Watchbird • Robert Sheckley
... science. One statement more to clear the ground. You will not understand me at all to say that religion has done nothing for science. It has done much for it. The work of Christianity has been mighty indeed. Through these 2,000 years it has undermined servitude, mitigated tyranny, given hope to the hopeless, comfort to the afflicted, light to the blind, bread to the starving, life to the dying, and all this work continues. And its work for science, too, has been great. It has fostered science often and developed it. It has given great minds to it, and but for the fears of the timid its ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... struggled through a lesson, whether it were the kings and queens of England, or the multiplication table, that he would remember it if she asked him a question weeks afterwards. But then it was a long time before he knew it—so long that it often seemed a hopeless task. Nevertheless, if David was slow he was certainly sure, and people had a habit of depending upon him in various matters. For instance, when Nurse wanted to intrust the baby for a few moments to any of the children during her absence from the nursery, ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... crimson sofa, and busied herself over them, with the little eager face creeping close to hers, and the little fat arm steadying itself round her neck, her wet eyes soon grew dry and bright, and her heart less sore, less hopeless. The small, necessities of the present, which make children's company so soothing, quieted her now; and by the time she had watched the little fellow run away, dragging his cart and horse down the oak floor, shouting "Gee- ho!" and turning round often ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Lionel," cried Marian, eagerly, "are you sure that be said for certain that it was hopeless? for it seems so odd that he should have told you one thing, ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... sending of a small, ill-equipped fleet, which, after much delay in Sicilian ports, sailed for Neapolis, only to be surprised by a storm, and utterly wrecked on the shores of the great bay. Not long after the news of this disaster, it was reported in Rome that Neapolis, hopeless of relief, had opened her gates, and presently the report had strange confirmation. There arrived by the Appian Way officers of the garrison which had surrendered; not as harassed fugitives, but travelling with all convenience and security, the Gothic king himself having ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... says that, he means damn near hopeless. Is this being recorded?" When M'zangwe nodded, he continued: "All right. Use the recording for your authority and take charge. I'm declaring martial rule at Konkrook, as of now, 2253. Tell Eric Blount what's happened, and what you've done, as soon as ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... society, if we except the misanthrope or man-hater, who is a moral monster. He has unfortunately developed in his bosom some of the worst passions of our fallen nature, and they have built an element of hell in his heart. For in that godless and hopeless region there is no love either for God or neighbor, and, therefore, social joys can have no existence therein. With the exception of a few persons of this kind, all men love society. Even the lonely hermit loves it. But he sees in it dangers to ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... vainly endeavoured to establish a revolutionary character for themselves upon the system of Gironde; two of whose proscribed deputies tried to draw them over to their unpopular and hopeless cause: and they inconsistently sought protection by affecting a republican zeal, even while resisting the decrees, and defeating the troops of the Jacobins. There were undoubtedly many of royalist principles among the insurgents, and some of their leaders ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... conditions, there is a considerable element of the Southern blacks whose condition is most pitiable. Such especially are many of the peasants of the Black Belt; barely able to support themselves, often plundered with more or less of legality by landlord and storekeeper, shut up to heavy, dull, almost hopeless lives. Inheritance weighs on them as well as environment; when these plantations were recruited from Virginia, it was only the worst of the slaves whom their masters would sell, and the bad elements propagated their like. The case of these people to-day presents one of the open ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... such a dream, for instance, as that which Armadale, the doctor, and Midwinter, in 'Armadale,' endeavour to connect with preceding events. But Swedenborg's visions of the behaviour and appearance of the inhabitants of other earths have little interest, because it is hopeless to attempt to account for even their leading features. For instance, what can we make of such a passage as the following, relating to the spirits who came from Mercury?—'Some of them are desirous to appear, not like the spirits ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... permitting him, if required, to continue it for one or two hours. When it is known that a person has been under water for but a few minutes continue the artificial respiration for at least one and a half to two hours before considering the case hopeless. Once the patient has begun to breathe watch carefully to see that he does not stop again. Should the breathing be very faint, or should he stop breathing, assist him again with artificial respiration. After he starts breathing do not lift him nor permit him to stand until the ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... possibility is passing away. There is need, and a general demand, for franchise reform in Prussia, and a change in the spirit of Prussian bureaucratic administration would be acceptable, though it is, perhaps, hopeless to expect it. The opposition in Germany between the monarchic and the democratic principle, if not more marked than it was twenty or thirty years ago, is manifesting itself over a wider and perhaps ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... pillage, and the treasures which he coveted would have become the prey of the soldiery. The Hatreni, he thought, would make their submission, if he only gave them a little time, now that they must see further resistance to be hopeless. He waited therefore a day, expecting an offer of surrender. But the Hatreni made no sign, and in the night restored their wall where it had ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... just power has by armed force, or the threat of armed force, put a stop to disorder. In a very interesting French book the other day I was reading how the Mediterranean was freed from pirates only by the "pax Britannica," established by England's naval force. The hopeless and hideous bloodshed and wickedness of Algiers and Turkestan was stopped, and could only be stopped, when civilized nations in the shape of Russia and France took possession of them. The same was true of Burma and the Malay States, as well as Egypt, with regard to England. Peace has come ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Flemish fleets, and the army settled down to abject misery, despair, and death, as they heard that Swerro, King of Denmark, with his promised bride and fifteen hundred warriors, had been slain by the Turks while marching to join the main army. Almost for the first time soldiers began to desert, hopeless of capturing Antioch or of reaching ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... destruction of any important organ I cannot effect a cure; but when destruction of the organ has not been complete, I am frequently able to effect a cure in cases which the regular faculty have given up as utterly hopeless." ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various
... thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes and empty glasses, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... admiration. And Paul, though he did not probably analyse very carefully the character of his beloved, still felt instinctively that, having so far prevailed with such a girl, his prospects could not be altogether hopeless. And yet how should he continue the struggle? With what weapons should he carry on the fight? The writing of letters is but a one-sided, troublesome proceeding, when the person to whom they are ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... the Hanoverian King. But death seemed no great matter. He was not a romantic hero, he had no faith, no cause to die for, and he saw the last scene as a mere horror of pain and shame. Only it must be some relief to come to the end. For he was beset by a hopeless, reckless distrust of himself. Everything that he did must needs go awry. He was born for failure and ignominy. Memories of his wild delight in Alison came stabbing at his heart, and he fought against them, and again they opened ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... Pope Silverius, though he had sworn under duresse an oath of fealty to King Witigis, sent messengers offering to surrender the Eternal City, and the four thousand Goths, learning what negotiations were going forward, came to the conclusion that it was hopeless for them to attempt to defend the City against such a general as Belisarius and against the declared wish of the citizens. They accordingly marched out of Rome by a northern gate as Belisarius entered ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... afternoon Banghurst behaved as he held a man should behave in the presence of hopeless disaster, and his guests for the most part succeeded in not insisting upon the fact—though to conceal their perception of it altogether was impossible—that Banghurst had been pretty elaborately and completely swindled by the deceased. The public in the enclosure, Hicks told me, dispersed ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... which it is written, is a fiction to which all the parts must conform? Surely, Greek manners in English should be a still grosser improbability than a Greek name transferred to English manners. Ben's personae are too often not characters, but derangements;—the hopeless patients of a mad-doctor rather,—exhibitions of folly betraying itself in spite of exciting reason and prudence. He not poetically, but painfully exaggerates every trait; that is, not by the drollery of the circumstance, but by the excess ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... made for an isolated rock on the southern hillside, and having reached it, opened fire upon the scouts at point blank range. The situation of the defenders was now almost hopeless; but the brave never despair. They, calmly watched the movements of the warriors and calculated the few chances of escape which remained. McClelland saw a tall, swarthy figure preparing to spring from cover to a point from which their position ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... men might possibly have cut their way through the cavalry; but even then they would be so hotly pursued that the most of them would assuredly be hunted down. But encumbered by the women such an enterprise seemed utterly hopeless, and the whole of the ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... also in criticism. It has aided powerfully to educate the people in habits of gentleness and courtesy, but instead of aspiration and expectancy of improvement, it has given to them that spirit of hopeless resignation which is so characteristic of the Japanese masses. Buddhism has so dominated common popular literature, daily life and speech, that all their mental procedure and their utterance is cast in the moulds of Buddhist doctrine. The fatalism of the Moslem world ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... pause. The guards shuffled their feet restlessly. Barrent, who considered his situation hopeless, ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... in the most rudimentary degree, a beginning is made with us that is designed to carry us far, if we but follow the leading of our hearts. There is an ideal toward which all our experience points. If it were not so, life would be a hopeless enigma, and the world a meaningless farce. There must be a spiritual function intended, a design to build up strong and true moral character, to develop sweet and holy life, otherwise history is a despair, and experience a hopeless riddle. All truly great human ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... and to my words give heed. Since naught avails this discord to allay, And peace is hopeless, let the war proceed. Trojans, Rutulians—each alike this day Must carve his hopes and fortune as he may. Fate, blindness, crooked counsels—whatso'er Holds Troy in leaguer, equally I weigh The chance of all, nor would Rutulians spare. For each must ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Not a bit! But the queer thing was that he did have a passion in those days—a blind, hopeless passion for Mrs. Lanfear! Yes: I know what I'm saying. I mean Mrs. Lanfear, the Professor's wife, poor Mrs. Lanfear, with her tight hair and her loose figure, her blameless brow and earnest eye-glasses, and ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... nobody waiting; and having got some bread and milk for breakfast, threw up the window and looked down into the street, expecting to see the whole party busily astir, and great preparations going on below. But as everything was very quiet, and the street presented that hopeless aspect with which five o'clock in the morning is familiar elsewhere, I deemed it as well to go to bed ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... had, of course, not been of such a hopeless character as might be supposed, for in every Moslem village there is a rest-house with free food for poor travellers; but even so, Michael knew that the distances between the desert villages are often enormous, and that they only supplied the food for the period ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... was no way out of it, so with a heavy heart and many sighs he took the key from the big bunch. When he had opened the door he stepped in first, and thought to cover the likeness so that the King might not perceive it; but it was hopeless: the King stood on tiptoe and looked over his shoulder. And when he saw the picture of the maid, so beautiful and glittering with gold and precious stones, he fell swooning to the ground. Trusty John ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... crowded, however, because there was a ton of collapsium shielding, in four sections, and the generator and power unit, piled in the middle. Abdullah and Tom and Hans Cronje were looking at the converters, which to my not very knowing eye seemed to be in a hopeless mess. ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... cousin, Allie," she said. "I know he's going to be great fun, only I'm afraid he'll think we are hopeless tomboys. Probably he's been used to girls that sit in the parlor and sew embroidery, instead of skating and riding bronchos bareback, and playing hare and ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... man he had ever known in the H. of C.; that no one had ever fallen so fast and so far. That the political difficulties of England might be susceptible of cure, and were not appalling; but that the state of Ireland was to all appearance hopeless. That there the great difficulty lay in procuring the ordinary administration of justice; that the very institution of juries supposed a common interest of the juror and the state, a condition not fulfilled in the present ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... enter his mind any more than a bird's. And since it is not pleasant to dwell on the wreck of a fine understanding, I will only say that they landed him at Cape Town, out of bodily danger, but weak, and his mind, to all appearance, a hopeless blank. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... called in derision here a "donkey," but an ass, in a more generous time, when one of his race and size bore upon his back into the Holy City the world's Saviour and Re-Creator. Poor, libelled, hopeless beast! I pity you from my heart's heart. How I wish for Sterne's pen to do you some measure of justice or condolence under this heavy load of opprobrium that bends your back and makes your life so sunless and bitter! Come here, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... son," she ejaculated, with a hopeless sigh, "if we could but find the lost clue to Richard Saint Leger's buried treasure, all might yet be ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... Mrs. Boppert ourselves, but she had seemed a very hopeless job, and I do not yet see how you got any water out of that ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... would have surrendered his life to have rung out an alarm, the signal of danger, treachery, and hopeless disaster rang out in the form of a shot from the battlements overhead, and this was followed by another and another. But as the prisoner was hurried into the open air, armed men seemed to be gliding out of the darkness on all sides, their source, as far as he could make out in those agitated ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... from the coldness of the water, in which they were necessarily immersed up to the waists, in their endeavours to aid Belanger and Benoit; and having witnessed repeated failures, they began to consider the scheme as hopeless. At this time Dr. Richardson, prompted by a desire of relieving his suffering companions, proposed to swim across the stream with a line, and to haul the raft over. He launched into the stream with the line round his middle, but ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... choice of positions is of the highest. In nothing do they seem to have shown more skill than in the preparation of traps, {p.296} whereby success, won with just sufficient difficulty to seem plausibly brilliant, turns at the very moment of apparent victory into hopeless disaster, entailing ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... the window for the fourteenth time; "it's perfectly hopeless to think of starting. And it's after four now, and it's blowing great guns and snowing like all possessed! Mrs. Fay, we'll simply have to accept your hospitality for the night. Now I think I'll ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... must leave it to themselves. I don't think you and I need trouble our heads about it. When Percivale considers himself prepared to marry, and Wynnie thinks he is right, you may be sure they see their way to a livelihood without running in hopeless debt ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... in an undertone, something that made her glance up swiftly and at me before she answered, and there I was with my head side by side with those quivering dyed curls, that flighty black bonnet, that remorseless observant lorgnette. I could have sworn aloud at the hopeless indignity of my pose. ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... the side of a hill, across which a low wind, the long death-moan of autumn, blew with a hopeless, undulant, but not intermittent wail among the heather, Kirsty broke into a passionate fit of weeping, but ere she reached home all traces of ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... of Beethoven (Op. 27). The one, dedicated to Giulietta Guicciardi, expressed a hopeless renunciation, told of an awakening after a dream that had lasted too long. The other, from the first bars of the Andante, described by its full smooth rhythm the calm that comes after the storm; then, passing ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... it would produce, would provide for many of their friends.' This expression was reported by the mediators to Dr. Franklin, and indicated so cool and calculated a purpose in the Ministry, as to render compromise hopeless, and the negotiation was discontinued. If this is not among the papers published, we ask, what has become of it? I delivered it with my own hands, into those of Temple Franklin. It certainly established views so atrocious in the British government, that ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... going on. They were watchful, vivid, fierce as those of a wild cat brought to bay, seeking in its desperate quickened brain for some mode of escape not yet visible, and in all probability never to become visible to the hopeless creature in ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... leader of the state but he was opposed by Isagoras, the leader of the party of the nobles. By the Solonian constitution, the whole political power was vested in the hands of the nobles; and Clisthenes soon found that it was hopeless to contend against his rival under the existing order of things. For this reason he resolved to introduce an important change in the constitution, and to give to the people an ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... expected of the most provident of people that anything could be laid by for old age or a rainy day; indeed, there seemed so many rainy days in the present that it was not easy to give much thought to those in the future. Of course too the local provident club had come to utter and hopeless grief. Is there any country place where this has not been the case? Gray had paid into it regularly for years and had gone every Whitmonday to its dinner, his one voluntary holiday during the year, on ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... well-grown and well set-up corps are seated at a corner of the dresser, deeply engrossed in the intricacies of the mysterious game of forty-five, before which the mind of the dull Saxon remains bewildered in hopeless incapacity. Presently the well-thumbed pack is laid aside, and one of the constables addresses himself to the task of closing and barring up the shutters, thus shutting out all chance of any present being picked off by a ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... getting drunk, or the blue and gold which is only accorded to persons who have prevented fights in the street. We belong to quite as many regiments as the German Kaiser. Our regiments are regiments that are embattled everywhere; they fight an unending fight against all that is hopeless and rapacious and of evil report. The only difference is that we have the regiments, ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... and the tissues and the comparative anatomy of Institutions, and to go through all the drudgery which sluggards loathe and fools deride, the light of truth will be dim for us all; our Ethical, equally with our political Philosophy must remain in a condition of hopeless sterility. Nevertheless History too has her mission, though her time has not yet come. It will not always be that the past will be to us "as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith I cannot, ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... king. Every search had been made to recover this inestimable jewel, but to no purpose; and as the jeweller knew he could no longer conceal its loss from the king, he looked forward to death as inevitable. In this hopeless state, while wandering about the town, he reached the crowd around Ahmed, and asked what was the matter. "Don't you know Ahmed the Cobbler?" said one of the bystanders, laughing. "He has been inspired and is become an astrologer." A drowning man will catch at a broken reed: the jeweller ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... would be balm to Caroline's wounded soul, and if a real ceremony is absolutely refused by Charles—moreover is hardly practicable in the difficulty of getting a special licence, if he were agreed? My father does not know, or will not believe, that Caroline's attachment has been the cause of her hopeless condition. But that it is so, and that the form of words would give her inexpressible happiness, I know well; for I whispered tentatively in her ear on such marriages, and the effect was great. Henceforth my father cannot be taken into confidence ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... our friend had not met with any accident, I regretted that he had not returned, as I feared that he contemplated engaging in some hopeless enterprise, which could not benefit the Indians, while he himself would be exposed ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... trouble from monsieur de Coigney; his father, in order to make him forget a hopeless passion, had found an employment for him which obliged him to go many leagues from Paris; and once the conversation already mentioned at the baron's, his sister and mademoiselle Charlotta, by command of their respective parents, as well as their own inclinations, broke off all correspondence, nor ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... slayers, in long, graceful circles, away from the wrath to come. And, while the unconscious courier still rode, steadily loping toward the desired refuge, away for the breaks and ravines of the Sleeping Bear lashed the thwarted Sioux,—away in hopeless stern chase spurred the pursuers, and while women sobbed and laughed and screamed, and men danced and shouted and swore with delight, one dark face, livid, fearsome, turned back from the bluff, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... Morgan told Amelie, the nature of the present intentions of the Companions of Jehu. The news brought from Mittau and from Brittany had put them at ease. Each man felt that he was free, and, knowing that the struggle had been a hopeless one, he rejoiced ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... was deceiving her. A hopeless, desperate feeling of being in the dark rushed over her. What was friendship without sincerity? Nothing—less than nothing. She felt as if her whole body stiffened with a proud reserve to meet the ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... back against the counter. When his eyes were upon the ground and his face not animated by talking, there became lamentably insistent his pallor, the deep shadows under his eyes, and infinite sadness in the droop of his features, as if he were preoccupied by an all-pervading and hopeless grief. When he looked at me, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... be of no use," she answered, in a hopeless tone, "the instant I see it, I long for it; and I cannot resist the longing. I've vowed on my knees not to take any for a day only; and the moment I have sat down to dinner, I could hardly bear to wait till Brown comes around. If I wake in the night—and I wake ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... me strength all faithfully to toil, Converting barren earth to fruitful soil. I long to be an instrument of thine For gathering worshipers into thy shrine: To be the means one human soul to save From the dark terrors of a hopeless grave. ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... God to bless us with children, she might entirely recover her usual serenity; and we might then be happy. But the reconciliation her heart was so much set upon, is now, as I hinted before, entirely hopeless—made so, by this rash step of her's, and by the rash temper she is in; since (as you will believe) her brother and sister, when they come to know it, will make a fine handle of it against us both;—affecting, as they do ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... carried these tidings was Pascal, prepared to give a different version of the late transactions, and revolving, with Afra, the means by which he might best employ such influence as he had on behalf of his friend. Theirs was a nearly hopeless errand, they well knew; but the less hopeful, the more anxious were they to do what ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... twinkling your eyes," Eleanore commanded. "Your mother knew you very well. You might have done that—and settled down—with some nice quiet college girl—if you had done it years ago. As it is, of course you're hopeless." ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... them no purpose beyond it. Marner wanted the heaps of ten to grow into a square, and then into a larger square; and every added guinea, while it was itself a satisfaction, bred a new desire. In this strange world, made a hopeless riddle to him, he might, if he had had a less intense nature, have sat weaving, weaving—looking towards the end of his pattern, or towards the end of his web, till he forgot the riddle, and everything else but his immediate sensations; but the ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... called. The night was dark, and returning, abstracted in thought, he almost fell over what he first took to be a log lying in the street. It was a man, who, on a cursory examination, proved to be suffering under no less a disorder than that of hopeless intoxication. It was a dangerous bed. Maurice made one or two unsuccessful attempts to arouse the fellow, but in vain. Retracing his steps a few rods to the nearest hut, he summoned assistance, and with the aid of Pat sober, got Pat drunk upon his feet. But he was quite too drunk to help himself, ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... took her place at his heels, dejectedly, like a whipped dog. Grom, from within his thicket, ground his teeth, and with difficulty held himself in leash. Surrounded as A-ya was, at that moment, by the hordes of her captors, any attempt at her rescue would have been hopeless folly. ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... But for the disastrous destruction of the French fleet the plans of Napoleon, in reference to the East, would probably have been triumphantly successful. At least it can not be doubted that a vast change would have been effected throughout the Eastern world. Those plans were now hopeless. The army was isolated, and cut off from all reinforcements and all supplies. the best thing which Napoleon could do for his troops in Egypt was to return to France, and exert his personal influence in sending them succor. His return involved the ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... peculiarly its victims. In some of the great cities of England more than one-third of all the deaths among children under ten years of age arose from small-pox. Two-thirds of all the applicants for relief at the Hospital for the Indigent Blind had lost their sight by small-pox. The number of hopeless deafened ears, crippled joints, and broken-down constitutions from the same cause cannot be accurately computed, but was certainly very large. Vaccination is all that now stands between us and all these ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... with a certain quietness of deportment, appeared to most of the people around to indicate pride, had for these few minutes, at any rate, been lifted. She had come down from the clouds, and spoken to me as any other woman to any other man. And now she had wound up by throwing me into a state of hopeless bewilderment. ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... another day was spent in getting her off. Two or three times more she was gotten clear and made a few more miles down the river by dint of extreme effort; but at last, on the 26th, she grounded on some logs fifty miles below the scene of the accident, in a position evidently hopeless. ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... timepiece moved slowly on, and hope was departing. It struck eleven, and nothing appeared. The last minutes of the last hour vanished—still nothing appeared; the first stroke—the last stroke of twelve sounded. I sank hopeless on my couch in ceaseless tears. To-morrow—shadowless for ever!—to-morrow I should solicit the hand of my beloved. Towards morning a heavy sleep ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... is the old story of a young maiden whose love looked much higher than her station. She obtains her lover in marriage from the hand of the King as a reward for curing him of a hopeless and lingering disease, by means of a hereditary arcanum of her father, who had been in his lifetime a celebrated physician. The young man despises her virtue and beauty; concludes the marriage only in appearance, and seeks in the dangers ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... nature of the struggle she witnessed, induced her to send for the chaplain of the Poughkeepsie. This divine prayed with the dying man; but even he, in the last moments of the sufferer, was little more than a passive but shocked witness of remorse, suspended over the abyss of eternity in hopeless dread. We shall not enter into the details of the revolting scene, but simply add that curses, blasphemy, tremulous cries for mercy, agonized entreaties to be advised, and sullen defiance, were all strangely and fearfully blended. In the midst of one of these revolting paroxysms Spike ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various |
