"Hopelessness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when they heard the final verdict, and called the undertaking hopeless and sentimental. The hopelessness remained to be proved; and, as to the sentimental part of the business, some one averred that sentiment lay at the bottom of most things. It might be unpractical from a philosophic point of view, as well as often fitting matter for a jibe; but sentiment, all the ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... shame," Martha admitted to me with a great hopelessness in her black eyes. "And nothing ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... wrote to the king promising that if the Bill were withdrawn, the Church in Piedmont would make up the sum of 92,841,230 frs., which the Government expected to gain by the suppressions. The king was delighted with the proposal, not perceiving the hopelessness of getting it approved by the Chamber of Deputies, which had already passed the measure, and the impossibility of settling the matter "out of court" without parliamentary sanction. He invited Cavour to accede, and on his refusal, he accepted the resignation ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... resolution. When Tiburcio was reclining by the well of La Poza, his sweet dream hindered him from thinking of these obstacles; but now that the journey was nearly ended, and he drew near to the grand hacienda, his spirits fell, and a feeling of hopelessness took possession of his soul. Hence it was that he formed the resolution to put an end to the painful suspense which he had now a long time endured; and that very night, if possible, he intended to ascertain his ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... was no hope of proceeding against me by force, some of the more noted of their number were sent to me, and begged me at least to show respect to your person and to vindicate in a humble letter both your innocence and my own. They said that the affair was not as yet in a position of extreme hopelessness, if Leo X., in his inborn kindliness, would put his hand to it. On this I, who have always offered and wished for peace, in order that I might devote myself to calmer and more useful pursuits, and who for ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... iron entered into his soul. This hopelessness, helplessness, embittered every moment. His love increasing with the passage of time rendered his position hateful in the extreme. The feeling within that he had talent which only required opportunity stung him like a scorpion. ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... drawn away by a lank-haired young man who had likewise been waiting for an opening. He represented the Uplift Film Association of Chicago, and was wishful to know if Miss Tolley would consent to altering the last chapter and so providing "Running Waters" with a happy ending. He pointed out the hopelessness of it in its present form, ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... afternoon, and after a little firing, the British, setting up a shout which was accompanied by the war-whoop of the Indians, advanced at the double quick or running pace, when the Americans, perceiving the hopelessness of resistance, fled down the hill after a feeble contest. The slaughter was unhappily protracted, because the Indians could not at first be restrained. The Americans, who attempted to escape into the woods, were quickly driven back by the Indians; and many, cut ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... the immense advantage Germany uniquely derived by completely organizing and keeping at work that vast majority of incurable mediocrities—mere plodders—who are found in every race and who often weigh down its destiny to the point of sinking hopelessness. ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... night, or at the summons of a signal gun—the great capital, almost as populous as Naples or Vienna, and far more dangerous in its excitement, found itself under military possession by a little army—so perfect in its appointments as to make resistance hopeless, and by that very hopelessness (as reconciling the most insubordinate to a necessity) making irritation impossible. Last month we warned Mr O'Connell of "the uplifted thunderbolt" suspended in the Jovian hands of the Wellesley, but ready to descend when the "dignus vindice nodus" should announce ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... utter idiotic hopelessness of saying anything to him which finished her. You might as well talk to a front door or a street lamp. Any silly thing you might try wouldn't even reach his ears. He had no ears for you. ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... coat. Soo-hoo! the wind was here and the cloud—soo-hoo! drawing out longer and more plaintive in the thin mouthpiece of the chink. The cloud had no more rain in it, but it shut out the sun; and all that afternoon and all that night the low plaint of the wind continued in sorrowful hopelessness, and little sounds ran about the floors ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... bell upon the church near by had made many strokes the last time it had been heard; many heavy strokes which throbbed sullenly, mournfully on the air. The presence of passing Time was at hand. The year soon would join the years gone by. Regret, remorse, despair, abandonment, the hopelessness of humanity—was it the breath of these which arose and burdened heavily the note of the chronicling bell? Where were the chimes ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... superficial evil as does the tremendous torrent of Niagara to the fleckings of foam upon its surface. So while he sympathizes deeply with all who suffer, he yet realizes what will be the end of that suffering, and so for him despair or hopelessness is impossible. He applies this consideration to his own sorrows and troubles, as well as to those of the world, and therefore one great result of his Theosophy is a perfect serenity—even more than that, ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... with her. He was alive. He was thinking of her at that very moment. He would expect her to overcome self and accident and calamity. He spoke to her out of the distance and his voice had the old power, stronger than fear, exhaustion, hopelessness, insanity. He could call her back ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... road, and saw that the driver's seat was vacant, the man evidently having been thrown some distance back. The horses—a young pair he had never seen before—held the bits in their mouths; and it was with a hopelessness of checking their terrible speed that he stepped out of the road to give them room. The next instant he saw that they were making straight for the declivity from which the road shot back, seeing in the same breath ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... almost unendurable even here in the wooded shelter. Outside, where the storm raged unrestrainedly over its fierce playground, only blind hopelessness prevailed. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... such thoughts were passing through their minds, and despite the hopelessness of the effort, he discharged his rifle toward them; and when it is stated that it was discharged "toward them," no more can be said. There is no reason to believe that he came within twenty feet of hitting any one ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... gathering for another simultaneous rush. The purpose of these dashes was twofold: While one or two men might be killed in the advance, the whole party was nearer the object of attack at the finish, and the defenders were demoralized by the hopelessness of all resistance. For the silent rising of naked, paint-daubed Indians from out of the ground, the quick closing in of the cordon, similar to the turn of a lariat around a snubbing-post when a pony weakens for a moment, ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... Christ; and that, 'even as a father pitieth his own children, so is the Lord merciful to them that fear him?' Had they, by faith, taken this blessed truth to their souls, they might and would, not in hopelessness and dread, but in trust and penitential love, make their wants known as a child to its parent; they would arise, and in humble compunctions, and not desponding trust, say, 'Father, I have sinned.' They would carry each trouble ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... cleanness, its people living gracious and worth-while lives, was not for her; she was chained to a scrub-pail in a coal-camp. Things had got so much worse since the death of her mother, she said. Her voice had become dull and hard—Hal thought that he had never heard a young voice express such hopelessness. ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... of new courts, like "Boys' Courts," "Juvenile Courts," "Courts of Domestic Relations," "Moral Courts," with their array of "Social Workers," "Parole Agents," "Watchers," et cetera, shows the growth of crime and likewise the hopelessness of present methods to deal effectively with a great social question. Numbers of people in our big cities are making their living from the abnormal lives of children. Whether they are doing good or not, or whether ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... Sam continued, with a laugh, the hopelessness of the purchase making him the more insistent. "Hang it under the lamp, old man—I'll pay for ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... asked permission to return to his work, she received his excuses with the same cheerful acquiescence with which she accepted the decrees of Providence. It is doubtful, indeed, if her serenity, which was rooted in an heroic hopelessness, could have been shaken either by the apologies of a boarder or by the appearance of an earthquake. Her happiness was of that invulnerable sort which builds its nest not in the luxuriant gardens of the emotions, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... the police force in conversation with Mrs. Reed in front of the tent as they drew near, and hastened forward in the hope that he had brought news of the missing man. Mrs. Reed received them with shocked expression, and a gesture of the hands denoting hopelessness for the salvation ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... answer. The absolute hopelessness of the situation was beginning to force itself upon his understanding. Whether or not he gave the letter of introduction, the light keeper would go to Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot—oh, how on earth did he ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... excitement, too, was of a most dangerous kind. It broke not forth in noise and imprecations, but was seen only in the dark looks and the strained nerves that showed a deep determination. The officer expostulated. He reminded them of the hopelessness of escape; that the town was alarmed, and that the government of the prison would submit to nothing but unconditional surrender. He said that all those who would go quietly away should be forgiven for this offense; ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... accompany them in the career of sensuality. They are unknown alike to each other, and to any persons of respectability or property in their vicinity. Philanthropy seeks in vain for virtue amidst thousands and tens of thousands of unknown names; charity itself is repelled by the hopelessness of all attempts to relieve the stupendous mass of destitution which follows in the train of such enormous accumulation of numbers. Every individual or voluntary effort is overlooked amidst the prodigious multitude, as it was in the Moscow ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... could not, of course, know that this apparently indifferent young gentleman was wiser, far wiser, than the rest of his kind. He saw the folly of a rash, hasty leap in the dark, and bided his time like the cunning general who from afar sees the hopelessness of an attack against a strong and watchful adversary, and waits for the inevitable hour ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... altogether out of the way, the old local cults with their narrow and limited civic force: it glorified the idea of law and order in an age when the Roman world seemed to be forgetting what these sacred words meant; but a real active enthusiasm of humanity was wanting in it. Hence there is a certain hopelessness about Stoicism, which increased rather than diminished as the world went on, and such as is seen in a kind of sad grandeur in Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor. Of him it may be said, both as emperor and philosopher, as has been said of the Stoic in general, that ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... a necessity? If a nation's existence depends on it?" she asked. "Oh, Michael, I don't know! I don't know! For a little I am entirely English, and then something calls to me from beyond the Rhine! There's the hopelessness of it for me and such as me. You are English; there's no question about it for you. But for us! I love England: I needn't tell you that. But can one ever forget the land of one's birth? Can I help feeling the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... and highly amused at anybody thinking of going up to Gondokoro with the hope of doing anything." Gordon was full of hope, and very sanguine of success; but from the day when he reached Cairo, croakers all along the route had been whispering in his ear the hopelessness of his mission, and how utterly impossible it was to reform anything connected with such a corrupt administration as that of Egypt. Fortunately, though he used at times to have terrible fits of depression, he possessed ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... say, I grew early into sympathy and friendship with Venice, and being newly from a land where every thing, morally and materially, was in good repair, I rioted sentimentally on the picturesque ruin, the pleasant discomfort and hopelessness of every thing about me here. It was not yet the season to behold all the delight of the lazy, out-door life of the place; but nevertheless I could not help seeing that great part of the people, both rich and poor, seemed to have nothing to do, and that nobody seemed ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... was not there. A terrible storm came over her, as if she were drowning. She was possessed by a devastating hopelessness. And she approached mechanically to the altar. Never had she known such a pang of utter and final hopelessness. It was beyond ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... could see nothing, yet ever and anon the whistling wings of ducks became audible, as they passed in flocks overhead. So often did they pass in this way, that at last I was tempted to try to get a shot at them, notwithstanding the apparent hopelessness of such an attempt. Seizing my gun, and leaving strict injunctions with Crusty to attend to the roasting of my widgeon, I sallied forth, and, after getting beyond the light of the fire, endeavoured ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... seem to be listening. She was looking over his head up the river, in the direction from whence the message had come, and there was a singular hopelessness in her eyes. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... and trembled, as well he might; and then as the whole hopelessness of the case rushed upon him, he thought that he would tell his darling that he had been mad—dishonorable, but that he would give her up; that he loved her better than himself, and that for her own sweet sake he must ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... withdrawal inspired the Confederates, who forthwith began to press Crook, their line of battle advancing with confidence till it reached the crest whence I had reconnoitred them. From this ground they could see Ord's men emerging from the woods, and the hopelessness of a further attack being plain, the gray lines instinctively halted, and then began to retire toward a ridge immediately fronting Appomattox Court House, while Ord, joined on his right by the Fifth Corps, advanced on them over the ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... figure, crouching on his chairs, elbows on knees, head bowed on the supporting hands, and face hidden, and, listening to the meek, affectionate hopelessness of the tone, he understood the fond love and compassion that had often surprised him in his sister, but he longed to read whether this were penitence towards God, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hopelessness of their situation inspired in Peggy a far different feeling to the terror that had clutched at her heart a moment before. She was conscious of a swift tide of anger. In one of the figures she had recognized ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... inconclusiveness in all mediaeval things, till the moment comes when they cease to be mediaeval; this richness in germs and poverty in mature fruit, cannot be without its reason. And this reason, to my mind, lies in one word, the most terrible word of any, since it means suffering and hopelessness; a word which has haunted my mind ever since I have looked into mediaeval things: the word Wastefulness. Wastefulness; the frightful characteristic of times at once so rich and so poor, the explanation of the long starvation and sickness that mankind, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... drew together some of the driftwood that lay on the shore, but when we tried it in the water it would hardly float its own weight. I felt the hopelessness of this plan, but Ted worked on like a beaver, and I tried to believe he had more hope than I had. But suddenly he looked at me, as he stopped, and I felt that our last ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... odd is that I myself was waked out of my sleep that night by the most oppressive sense of misery and hopelessness I have ever experienced," Mr. Johnson said seriously. "It was so overpowering that it made me think of Saint Theresa's description of her torment in that oven in the wall of hell which had by kindly forethought on the part of the devil been arranged for her permanent ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... nearly every face. Tired faces, tired bodies from a hard day's work, mouth corners drooped. Hopelessness stamped on ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... the Emperor whether an end could not be made to the organized pillage of the churches, and had told him that the movement in Spain was as irrepressible as that of the French Revolution, emphasizing his hopelessness by the suggestion that if France had raised a million soldiers, Spain could probably raise at least half as many. He said, too, that men talked openly of assassinating him; that he had no friends but ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... she floated on the Detroit river in a little canoe made of a hollow tree, and saw on one side "a city with its towers, and spires, and animated population," and on the other "a little straggling hamlet with all the symptoms of apathy, indolence, mistrust, hopelessness," she could not help wondering at this "incredible difference between the two shores," and hoping that some of the colonial officials across the Atlantic would be soon sent "to behold ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... taught the old man's truly excellent and exemplary son the utter hopelessness of his disease, had also familiarized him with these nightly interruptions to his slumbers. A light was speedily seen to flash across the chamber in which he slept, and presently the principal door of the lower building was unbarred, and unmurmuring, and uncomplaining, the half ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... on, turning the tremendous problem in his brain, striving in vain for some solution, some grasp at effective opposition. And, as he thought, a kind of dumb hopelessness settled down about him, tangible almost as a ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... possible, and that we were not instantly buried is a miracle. My companion spoke of the lightness of our cargo, and reminded me of the excellent qualities of our ship; but I could not help feeling the utter hopelessness of hope itself, and prepared myself gloomily for that death which I thought nothing could defer beyond an hour, as, with every knot of way the ship made, the swelling of the black stupendous seas became more dismally appalling. At times we ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... day; fair over-head and glowing over all the earth; if atmosphere and colouring could have put a blessing upon misery the houses of Mill Hollow would have owned the blessing. But the clear golden light shewed the bare walls, the barren ground, the dingy, forlorn hopelessness of everything, in the full blank nakedness ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... even a slight degree of loveliness. But to Meriem, Geeka was all that was sweet and adorable. She carried to the deaf ears of the battered ivory head all her sorrows all her hopes and all her ambitions, for even in the face of hopelessness, in the clutches of the dread authority from which there was no escape, little Meriem yet cherished hopes and ambitions. It is true that her ambitions were rather nebulous in form, consisting chiefly of a desire to escape with Geeka to some remote and unknown spot where ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... you knew in Copenhagen, has during the last months haunted the region hereabouts. He looks just as he used to, he is the same pale knight of the melancholy mien. He is the most ridiculous mixture of forced gayety and silent hopelessness, he is affected—ruthless and brutal toward himself and others. He is taciturn and a man of few words, and doesn't seem to be enjoying himself at all, though he does nothing but drink and lead a riotous life. ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... his only weapon, and he hurled it with all his strength; but the moment he had done so, he realized the hopelessness of the venture. Monck made a single, swift movement, and in a moment the moonlight glinted upon the polished muzzle of a Service revolver. He spoke, briefly, with ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... such characters and such transactions; he might not have received her hurried appeal in time to act upon it, even if the desire of her soul were practicable. A thousand difficulties, a thousand obstacles now occurred to her; and she felt her hopelessness. ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... consciousness came, with all the suffering of his hurts, as well as the dreadful anxiety about Elinor and Rika and the seeming hopelessness of escape. ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... soon overwhelm all who are concerned with the running of trains unless they disappear very nimbly. One of the Chinese railway managers, an educated man in the Western sense who can quote Shakespeare, has been all over Legation Street yesterday and to-day, pointing out the hopelessness of the general position and almost openly urging the Legations to call on Europe to take steps. General Nieh, an intelligent general, with foreign-drilled troops, has indeed been fitfully ordered by Imperial Edict to "protect the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... there seemed to be a feeling of hopelessness and pain. The earth, like a ruined woman sitting alone in a dark room and trying not to think of the past, was brooding over memories of spring and summer and apathetically waiting for the inevitable winter. Wherever one looked, on all sides, nature seemed like a ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... end of the tale we are no longer in the realm of normal psychology. A season of dreamy happiness, as she moves about in a world unrealized; then a terrible shock, and after that, remorse, renunciation, hopelessness, the will to die. Such is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Guiche, at the present moment. With highly cultivated minds and liberal opinions, possessing a knowledge of the world, and of the actual state of public opinion in France, they must be aware of the utter hopelessness of the cause in which they find themselves embarked, yet such is their chivalrous sentiments of honour, that they will sacrifice every thing rather than abandon those whose prosperity they have partaken, and thus incur all the penalty of the acts of a government whose ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... old eyes under their white brows filled and the Doctor turned hastily back to the figure on the bed. A worn figure it was—thin and looking old—with lines of care and anxiety, of constant pain and ceaseless fear, of dread and hopelessness. Only a faint suggestion of youth was there, only a hint of the beauty of young womanhood that might have been; nay that would have been—that ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... had more opportunities to exercise the pattern," he replied. "For the pattern, dear friend, is scoundrelism. And I, God bless me ..." He paused and gestured as if in a hopelessness ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... snapped back to Hank Brown with his hand clasping Marion's arm in that leisurely climb to the trail. His black mood returned, pressing the dead weight of hopelessness upon him. He might as well settle the whole thing with a bullet, he told himself again. After all, what would it matter? Who would care? Last night he had thought instantly of Marion and his mother, ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... not see that you have a right to know anything about my private affairs," answered Lucy with some hauteur, "but in order that you may fully understand the hopelessness of your own case, I will confess that—that there ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... fully satisfied himself, and that was the hopelessness of getting out by the way his visitors came in. They were too cautious ever to leave the door unguarded; hence the prisoner felt that if he knocked down and stunned the frank, good-tempered boy who seemed ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... only to have ripened and perfected her exquisite beauty, but with the rounded smoothness, and the fresh, pure colouring of youth was mingled a weird indescribable expression of stern hopelessness, of solemn repose, as if she had deliberately shaken hands for ever with all that makes life bright and precious, and were fronting with calm smile and quiet pulses a grim and desperate conflict, which she well knew could have an end only in the peace of the pall, that long truce, whose ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Mary could not keep back their tears, and Paganel had not a word of hope or comfort to give them. John Mangles was grieved to the heart, though he, too, was beginning to yield to the feeling of hopelessness which had crept over the rest, when suddenly the whole party were electrified by hearing a voice exclaim: "My Lord, praise and thank God! if Captain Grant is alive, he is ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... power, to make such a display of the strength and resources of the Federal Government, such an example of the fate which must ever await treason in our midst, and, above all, such a convincing manifestation of the utter hopelessness of all attempts to destroy a great and good government, deriving its powers and functions from the people themselves, as to put forever at rest the machinations of traitors and anarchists. Experience has shown that he was right, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... all her hopes. Her spirit was broken. She knew that her will was helpless against his, and with a fatalism that she had learned in the desert she accepted the inevitable with a crushed feeling of hopelessness. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... wish to feel the hopelessness of this unguided search, do not look at a map of the Pacific, but go there. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of square leagues of sea, ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... sigh, Nehal Singh mounted the steps and seated himself. In his attitude also there was a hopelessness—not indeed the hopelessness of a man whose plans are thwarted, but of one who is keenly conscious that he has no plans, no goal, no purpose. As he sat there, his fine head thrown back against the white ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... she had thrown herself violently against the nearest tree-trunk, she could not have been stricken more breathless than she was by the compact, embattled solitude that encompassed her. The hopelessness of impressing these cold and passive vaults with her selfish passion filled her with a vague fear. In her rage of the previous night she had not seen the wood in its profound immobility. Left alone with the majesty of those enormous columns, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... had permitted her gaze to wander. It passed from her husband's face to the deplorable surroundings which she had almost grown accustomed to, but which now stood out in her mind with an added sense of hopelessness. The lime-wash over the cracked and broken plaster which filled the gaps between the logs of the walls. The miserable furnishing, much of it of purely home manufacture, thrown up into hideous relief by the few tasteful knickknacks which had been ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... rejection of his suit; it explained, also, Ruth's unwillingness to have him speak to her of his love. How poignant must have been her anguish that day on Montanvert if she cared for him! She loved him—how could he doubt it?—but she had accepted the hopelessness of the position. In his own mind he had accused her of coquetry in their walk at the cascade of Nant d'Arpenaz. He saw through it all now; the scales had fallen from his eyes. She was hiding her misery under a smooth face, as women will. A sudden ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... condition. Edhem Pasha, the general in command of the Turkish army, had decided that it was impossible to break through the Greek lines, and had ordered a retreat to Elassona. That very night he telegraphed the hopelessness of his situation to Constantinople, and a special messenger left for Athens, bearing a message from ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 29, May 27, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... I feared," groaned her questioner, smiting his forehead. "He is coming here to-day to tell you what man of opulence he wants you to have, and I am to be witness to my own hopelessness!" ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... Archie had last seen him—indeed, if anything, he had improved in appearance. Time helps most griefs to put on a better face, and though the marks of what he had passed through would not be likely to leave his countenance, the utter hopelessness had in a measure disappeared. When Daisy came into the parlor, she also wore a mien not quite so crushed as when she left the room at Midlands with her words of farewell. Whatever her trouble was, it had not left her without something to live for. Her youth was doing ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... of utter defeat and hatred in the shaking voice. The tree-toads, beginning their nightly chorus from the wet places below the cottonwoods, emphasized the dreariness of the recital, the ancient hopelessness of the weak beneath the heel ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... of the river, continuous and at times heavy fighting continued, sometimes assuming almost the proportions of pitched battles. During the last week of the month Mackensen apparently realized the hopelessness, for the present at least, of driving the enemy out of Dobrudja, and shifted some of his forces over to the west bank of the river. The Russians had retired behind the Rimnik River, a small stream which is about twenty-five miles north of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... feelings are here brought together without effort and without discord, in the beauty of Adonis, the rapidity of his flight, the yearning, yet hopelessness, of the enamoured gazer, while a shadowy ideal character is thrown over the whole! Or this power acts by impressing the stamp of humanity, and of human feelings, on inanimate ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... his jubilation as he talked of more cartridges. He forgot Bram, and the Eskimos waiting outside the corral, and the apparent hopelessness of their situation. HER FATHER! He wanted to shout, or dance around the cabin with Celie in his arms. But the change that he had seen come over her made him understand that he must keep hold of himself. He dreaded to see another light come into those glorious ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... which I dream can possibly be at Washington, and I do not see how the present central government can possibly be transferred to any other centre. But to go to Washington, to see and talk to Washington, is to receive an extraordinary impression of the utter isolation and hopelessness of Washington. The National Government has an air of being marooned there. Or as though it had crept into a corner to do something in the dark. One goes from the abounding movement and vitality of the northern cities to this sunny ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... on a level with the roaring of the lion, in that it is designed to terrify. But the jackal does not terrify by such obvious methods as the lion. He plays on your eerie, ghostly, superstitious side. He brings up into the imagination the malignity and hopelessness of the damned. He seems to people the night with wailing horrors. To a man dying of thirst in the desert, the jackal must just give the final touch of despair that makes death and nothingness seem best. ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... long tale to tell, and even then only those who have lived in the country and had practical experience could fully comprehend the hopelessness of working a small farm, unless you are of a wholly sordid nature. Iden's nature was not sordid; the very reverse. The beginning, or one of the beginnings, of the quarrel between father and son arose because of this; Grandfather ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... lowered before that heartful look. His face was a study in hopelessness. From his expression of deep sorrow Iredale might have been his own brother ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... optimism and belief in being led, as she stood now with the wind blowing in her face it seemed to her that she stood before absolute hopelessness. ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... thrust his free hand upward for the pin, but he could not reach it. Neither could he pull his coat down through the bands of rope. He worked at it for a long time, and finally stopped his efforts, baffled, despairing, his heart filled with angry hopelessness. Again the breeze fluttered the lapel, and with a sudden impulse of revengeful savagery he thrust down his head and snapped at the coat. Unexpectedly, he caught it in his teeth. Filled with a new inspiration, he kept fast hold of the cloth and by working ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... ah! Oo!..." he muttered, recalling everything that had happened. And again every detail of his quarrel with his wife was present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his position, and worst of all, his ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... you to, so you can't," said Mrs. Burton, in a tone which would reduce any reasonable person to hopelessness. But Toddie, in spite of manifest ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... freshly, and was rapidly increasing in strength, so that, in spite of the efforts of the galley slaves, the pirates gradually drew away, running straight before the wind, and aiding the effects of the sails with oars. Seeing the hopelessness of the chase, Piccolomini abandoned it, after rowing for two miles, and returned to the island. The other two galleys were lying beside each other, and Piccolomini had ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... and hopelessness did not last long, however. As Nebuchadrezzar's guerrillas continued their cruel and merciless warfare, destroying crops and whole villages, Jeremiah determined that he must once more return to Jerusalem. He was ready and willing to pay for his efforts ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... on that occasion will be related in due course. I would only mention here that, through my earlier experiences of the world, I had become fairly impervious to deception, and my desire for closer acquaintance with these circles speedily gave way to a complete hopelessness and an entire lack of ease ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... by James Earle Fraser, of New York, is a great chapter in American history, told in noble sculpture. The dying Indian, astride his exhausted cayuse, expresses the hopelessness of the Red Man's battle against civilization. (p. 86.) There is more significance and less convention, perhaps, in this than in any other piece of Exposition sculpture. It has the universal touch. ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... see to whom he was speaking, and saw standing in the doorway a little thin woman, with a sharp, cross face, and dull, tired eyes, eyes which looked as though they never brightened, or lost their look of weary hopelessness. This was her stepmother. She gave no sign of welcome, no word of comfort to the child, yet, somehow, Jessie's heart went out to her a little. It might have been only that in her terror of her father, she was ready to cling to any one who might ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... those eyes with plenty of light for themselves, and some to spare for other people. But it was neither her wan look nor her dull eyes that distressed me: it was the expression of her face. It was very sad to look at; but it was not so much sadness as utter and careless hopelessness ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... too, of his rushing days, and Nancy, answering, hid from him the utter hopelessness of her outlook. Her life began and ended with his letters and the week-ends which he was able to give her. But some of his week-ends had to be spent with Eve; a man cannot completely ignore the fact that he ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... critics, and that he foresaw the piece would very soon die a natural death. Cleo shrugged her shoulders and wrote the necessary undertaking. Morgan understood that her "innovation" might have got her into serious trouble, had not the entire hopelessness of her acting proclaimed her as a person ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... deliberately choosing to rebel against Omnipotence! He must have known it would be utterly, absolutely, forever hopeless! Intelligent creatures do not rebel under conditions like that, particularly when you combine with the absolute hopelessness of the case the fact that he knew he ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... of faith had grown to manhood. Then he became a child of faith in his own experience, as well as in his father's. Following meant separation. It meant believing God against the unlikeliest circumstances, against nature itself, hoping in the midst of hopelessness. Everything spelled out "hopelessness." God alone spelled out "hope." He took God against everything else. It meant going to school to God, until he could be used as God planned. And Abraham consented. He ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... away into the darkness and secrecy from which it had come. Ah! there was neither sign nor token of the missing boy, there or elsewhere. Nothing, nowhere—these were the words that went the round of Cherton, with their dreary hopelessness, as the days flowed on, and tidings went here and there of the lost boy, while his description was sent to the police authorities, far ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... James was hardly more regretted by his immediate subjects than by his Irish allies. All external events now conspired to show the hopelessness of resistance to the power of King Henry. From Scotland, destined to half a century of anarchy, no help could be expected. Wales, another ancient ally of the Irish, had been incorporated with England, in 1536, and was fast becoming reconciled ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... by." He draws a fine comparison between William Morris and Chaucer: "How does the spire of hope spring and upbound into the infinite in Chaucer; while, on the other hand, how blank, world-bound, and wearying is the stone facade of hopelessness which rears itself uncompromisingly behind the gayest pictures of William Morris! . . . Again, how openly joyful is Chaucer, how secretly melancholy is Morris! Both, it is true, are full of sunshine; but Chaucer's is spring sunshine, Morris's is autumn. . ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... of her present mission than of the past errors of her people. The faster she walked the more vividly she pictured the possible complications of this meeting. She knew the dull, mean nature of her aunt, and the utter hopelessness of all appeal to anything but her selfish cupidity, and saw in this fatuous essay of Corbin only an aggravation of her worst instincts. Even the dead body of her son would not only whet her appetite for pecuniary vengeance, but give it plausibility in the eyes of their emotional but ignorant ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Lone-Rock. Round and round she went like one in a treadmill, always to come back to the starting point, that there was nothing she could do in Lone-Rock to earn money, and she must earn some, and she could not go away from home. Sometimes the hopelessness of the situation gave her a wild caged feeling, as if she must beat herself against the bars of circumstance and make them give way for her pent-up forces to ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... while, with Portugal as an ally, she controlled the two stations of Lisbon and Gibraltar, watching the trade routes both of the ocean and of the inland sea. By the end of 1708 the disasters of France by land and sea, the frightful sufferings of the kingdom, and the almost hopelessness of carrying on a strife which was destroying France, and easily borne by England, led Louis XIV. to offer most humiliating concessions to obtain peace. He undertook to surrender the whole Spanish monarchy, reserving only Naples for the Bourbon king. The allies refused; they demanded the abandonment ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... weary of the strife, And long to change this eager life For shadowy and dull hopelessness, Thinking indeed to gain no less Than this, to die, and not to die, To be as if ye ne'er had been, Yet keep your memory fresh and green, To have no thought of good or ill, Yet keep some thrilling pleasure still? Oh, idle dream! Ah, verily If it shall happen unto me That I have thought of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... guns. The funeral rites are half festive, half mourning, partaking somewhat of the character of an Irish wake. There is nothing more heart-rending than their death wails. When the natives turn their eyes to the future world, they have a view cheerless enough of their own utter helplessness and hopelessness. They fancy themselves completely in the power of the disembodied spirits, and look upon the prospect of following them as the greatest of misfortunes. Hence they are constantly deprecating the wrath of departed souls, believing that, if they are appeased, there is no other ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... replied. There was in the words sadness, despair, hopelessness unutterable. "It's too late. Body, mind, soul are wasted, gone. There's no chance, Tom. It's ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne |
