"Desperation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this, the hour of his humiliation and trial. Far different from Eugene Pearson, who had no cares and no temptations to commit crimes, and who had practiced a scheme of vile deception and ingratitude for years, Thomas Duncan had been found in a moment of weakness and desperation, and under the influence of wily tempters, had yielded himself up to their blandishments, and had done that which had made him a felon. As to Eugene Pearson, the trusted, honored and respected official of the bank, who had deliberately planned and assisted ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... life, a living truth. Learn from the creature dearest to your heart, how bad the bad are born. See every bud and leaf plucked one by one from off the fairest stem, and know how bare and wretched it may be. Follow her! To desperation!' ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... yet still in desperation struggling onward, he won the top of the cliff, swung to the left along the path that led to the bridge, and—more dead than alive—rushed onward in ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... home-coming emotions that I had expected to be feeling, save that of pure hilarity. James Hardin was carrying two bubbly, squirmy, tousle-headed babies, on one arm, and a huge suitcase in the other hand, and his gray felt hat set on the back of his shock of black hair at an angle of deep desperation, though patience shone from every line of his strong, gaunt body, and I could see in the half light that there were no lines of irritation about his mouth, which Richard had said looked to him like that of the prophet Hosea, when ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Even if you were really criminal, for that can only drive you to desperation, and not instigate you to virtue. I also am unfortunate; I and my family have been condemned, although innocent; judge, therefore, if I do not ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... sharpest intellects and most untiring men in the Colony were commissioned to find out the truth regarding the fate of Caroline. Bigot was like a stag brought to bay. An ordinary man would have succumbed in despair, but the very desperation of his position stirred up the Intendant to a greater effort to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... sung from chateau to chateau, either by the troubadours themselves, or by the jongleur or instrument player by whom they were attended; they often abounded in extravagant hyperboles, trivial conceits, and grossness of expression. Ladies, whose attractions were estimated by the number and desperation of their lovers, and the songs of their troubadours, were not offended if licentiousness mingled with gallantry in the songs composed in their praise. Authors addressed prayers to the saints for aid in their amorous ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... however, no easy matter to grant these reasonable requests. The Roman Catholic party resisted, with all the energy of desperation, the concession of any places for worship according to the reformed faith. Catharine was loth to take the decided step of disregarding their remonstrances. It seemed more convenient to avail herself of the representations of the majority ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... from him in his desperation and weakness. He said to himself that he had put this young life into the hazard without cause. Had he, then, saved the lad from the rapids and Silver Tassel's brutality only to have him drag fish out of the jaws of death ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... contrast egoistic anger with the altruistic and oppose the anger which is effective with the anger that disturbs reason and judgment; intellectual anger against brute anger. Rarely do men show anger to their superiors; extreme provocation and desperation are necessary. Men flare up easily against equals but more easily and with mingled contempt against the inferior. Anger, though behind the fighting spirit, need not bluster or storm; usually that ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... when the Spaniards landed, peaceable people; quiet and gentle. So at least they are described. But those who take to the mountains must be either escaped slaves, or fugitives from the cruelty of the Spaniards; and even the gentlest man, when driven to desperation, becomes savage and cruel. To these men our white skins would be like a red rag to a bull. They can never have heard of any white people, save the Spaniards; and we need expect little mercy if we fall into their hands. I think we had better watch, turn about. I will take the first watch, for ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... labours to represent God by halves, and that it is a false representation of God. He represents him as clothed with justice and vengeance,—as a consuming fire, in which light a soul can see nothing but desperation written; and he labours to hold out the thoughts of his mercy and grace, or diverts a soul from the consideration of his promises; whence it comes, that they are not established, that though salvation be near, yet it is far from them ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... young men squander their substance and become poor; but a nephew of theirs, returning home in desperation, falleth in with an abbot and findeth him to be the king's daughter of England, who taketh him to husband and maketh good all his uncles' losses, restoring them ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the troops in the ditch would not believe the signal to be genuine, and struck their own buglers who attempted to repeat it. "Gathering in dark groups, and leaning on their muskets," says Napier, "they looked up in sullen desperation at Trinidad, while the enemy, stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming their shots by the light of fireballs, which they threw over, asked as their victims fell, 'Why they did ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... too sure of that. The boldest fellows in that exploit were the liberated felons: they fought with desperation, for they ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... appearance of the precious documents, we started the baggage also, under the charge of a surroudjee, and remained alone. Another hour passed by, and yet another, and the Bey was still occupied in sleeping off his hunger. Mr. Harrison, in desperation, went to the office, and after some delay, received the passports with a vise, but not, as we afterwards ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... a blessed desperation of otherwise being unable to get rid of this burden which has grown on our backs ounce by ounce for long years, let us go to Him. He and He alone can deal with it. 'Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned,' and to Thee, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... When in desperation we finally made up our minds, we began picking our dubious way up among a mass of rocks that threatened to become a stone avalanche at any moment. None of us liked it, but none of us knew how little ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... Finally, in desperation, his father said: "Camille, you are of an age when you should be at the head of a business; but since you refuse to avail yourself of your opportunities and become a merchant, why, then, I'll settle upon you the sum of three hundred dollars a year ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... it, man, I'm in love with a girl and I want to marry her if I can get rid of this other darned, mysterious, Tom-fool of a woman," Ford gritted at last, in sheer desperation. "Or if it's just a josh, by this and by that I mean ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... dying. Perhaps it was a man—at the thought the girl rose unsteadily to her feet. She could not stay alone another moment in this horrible place; she would go and find Scott, if she had to brave Angel Gonzales to do it. With a recklessness born of desperation she slid and scuffled down the side of the cliff and ran blindly down ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... came with her boarders, and I knew, the minute I saw her, that something was wrong. She had a look of desperation and defiance which I had seen on her face before. Thinks I to myself: "You are all upset over something, but you have made up your mind to hide it, whether ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... men became very unmanageable; for they hated the captain: he treated them like slaves, and imposed upon them on every occasion; so that at length, goaded to desperation by his cruelty, they positively refused to handle a rope until he agreed to the terms they ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... storm, the small granules of ice smiting him in the face and taking his breath. The wind set itself against him with wide obstructing arms, and he reeled, staggered and plunged forward or from side to side, in a sort of blind desperation. ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... coincidence of the fall with the close of the year, relating how, by an astonishing chance, practically all the heads of the hierarchy throughout the world had been assembled in the Vatican which had been the first object of attack, and how these, in desperation, it was supposed, had refused to leave the City when the news came by wireless telegraphy that the punitive force was on its way. There was not a building left in Rome; the entire place, Leonine City, Trastevere, suburbs—everything was gone; for ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... it are very common in novels," insisted Tabitha. "And what is more likely for a man disappointed in love than, in desperation, to indenture himself?" ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... lips, a rich scarlet, were too thin, and tightly drawn for a judge of faces to admire; the chin was clear-cut and firm—a face on the whole, I decided, that might drive a man, snared by its beauty, to desperation. There was passion and power both ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... homeless! Cast your eye around the tables of a casino's gambling-room. What an uniform and abject herd, huddled together with one despondent impulse! Here and there, maybe, a person whom we know to be vastly rich; yet we cannot conceive his calm as not the calm of inward desperation; cannot conceive that he has anything to bless himself with except the roll of bank-notes that he has just produced from his breast-pocket. One and all, the players are levelled by the invisible presence of the goddess they are courting. Well, the visible presence of the judge in a court of law ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... from the after part of the vessel, a determined band, led by the captain, pressed us hard. Twice we were driven back almost to our own ship, many of our men losing the number of their mess, but, finally, determined courage got the better of desperation. Inch by inch we drove the pirates aft—the chief of them, to do him justice, keeping always in the front rank, and I believe he killed, with his own hand, more of our people than did all his crew together, though he himself did not receive a scratch. During all this time the marines kept ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... the present time pale, whatever might be its ordinary tint. Its charm was a noble and majestic calm. There is the calm of divine peace and joy; there is the calm of heartlessness; there is the calm of reckless desperation; there is the calm of death. None of these was the calm which breathed from the features of the stranger who intruded upon the solitude of Caecilius. It was the calm of Greek sculpture; it imaged a soul nourished upon the visions of genius, and subdued and attuned by the power of a strong will. ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... exhausted aviator. Then the impulse of self-preservation, that most elementary of all instincts, forced him to snatch up the rifle, to sight hastily, blindly, between those two, great greenish eyes. Choking out a strangled sob of desperation, Nelson made his trembling finger close over the cold strip of steel that must be ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... There is still another bit of evidence. In order to give the laboring classes cause for revolt, the food supply in the factory districts was reduced and many people suffered from hunger and in their desperation came out into the streets. During the revolutionary week little, if any, food came in, but immediately after it the soldiers found 250,000 "puds" of flour, [FN: Russkaia Svoboda, 1917. No. 3, p. 24.] enough to last Petrograd ten days, meat, besides other food hidden in police ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... before we could expostulate with or arrest him in his course, plunged down a long slope and dashed into the river, with a hissing and splashing that completely blinded us for a few seconds, and drenched us to the skin. We held on with the desperation of fear; but before we could well know whether we swam or rode we had passed the stream, and our unconquered little horse was tugging us might and main up the opposite bank. That once obtained, we saw before us a wide expanse of heath, rugged ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... most forlorn dilemma. This is palpable fraud in monsieur le tems, to hold out such lures merely to draw one into jeopardy. Having neither wife nor daughter near me on whom to vent my spleen, renders the case more deplorable. It is downright desperation. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... by the southern army of France had been sudden, and the Germans had been forced to give way under the desperation and courage ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... himself was pursued by Benefico: nor could the good Benefico trust farther to this coward spirit of his base adversary, than only to make the horrid creature fly; for he well knew that a close engagement might make him desperate; and fatal to himself might be the consequence of such a brutal desperation; therefore he prudently declined any attempt to destroy this cruel monster, till he should gain some ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... of Lorraine was threatened, and, before she knew it, the invasion had begun. She did not repel it with desperation; at times, even, she smiled at the invader, and that, if not utter treachery, was giving aid ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... him was the wall: of the half circle which he faced well-nigh all were old soldiers and servants of the colony, gentlemen none of whom had come in later than Dale,—Rolfe, West, Wynne, and others. We were swordsmen all. When in his desperation he would have thrown himself upon us, we contented ourselves with keeping him at sword's length, and at last West sent the knife in the dark hand whirling over the palisade. Some one had shouted to the musketeers ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... attempt to run away, there we are struck with terror. Therefore, as we may expect it to happen with those who err in the greatest matters, we convert natural confidence (that is, according to nature) into audacity, desperation, rashness, shamelessness; and we convert natural caution and modesty into cowardice and meanness, which are full of fear and confusion. For if a man should transfer caution to those things in which the will may be exercised ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... in his well-ordered life hit in anger, but behind this blow was desperation, and the weight of a young and active body. The man went down. Bennington seized the lariat with both hands and tried to ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... of Miss Evers? Well, I admire Miss Evers—I don't mind admitting that; but I ain't dangerous," said Captain Lovelock, with a lustreless eye. "How can a fellow be dangerous when he has n't ten shillings in his pocket? Desperation, do you call it? But Miss Evers has n't money, so far as I have heard. I don't ask you," Lovelock continued—"I don't care a damn whether she has or not. She 's a devilish charming girl, and I don't mind telling you I 'm hit. I stand no chance—I know I stand ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... chiefly in Thuringen and the West of Saxony, seeking something to fight with, and finding nothing; getting more and more impatient of such paltry misery; at times nigh desperate; and habitually drifting on desperation as on a lee shore in the night, despite all his efforts. Till, in Section THIRD, which goes from November 5th, through December 5th, and into the New Year, he does find what to do; and does it,—in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... occasionally rushed by them, leaving behind a kind of reaction, that more than once brought the life of the manacled captive in imminent jeopardy. But it would seem the wary cockswain had a motive for this apparently inconsiderate desperation. When they had made good quite half the distance between the point where Barnstable had landed and that where he had appointed to meet his cockswain, the sounds of voices were brought indistinctly to their ears, in one ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... would stop howling!" exclaimed one of the men, in desperation, stalking off a bit to cram his hands in his pocket, and ejaculate ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... larger than any he had seen. But a second look showed him those ribs starting through mangy fur in visible hoops, the skin tight over the skull, far too tight. The water-cat had been close to death by starvation; its attack on the men probably had been sparked by sheer desperation. A starving carnivore in a land lacking the normal sounds of small birds and animal life, in a ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... father what he thought L—— was doing with so much money. Fettered thus, with the torments both of Prometheus and Tantalus—the vulture gnawing at her vitals, and the lost joys mocking her out of reach—she had at last in sheer desperation been driven to request her father to procure her the assistance of a ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... in desperation.] — Oh, Widow Quin, what'll I be doing now? I'd inform again him, but he'd burst from Kilmainham and he'd be sure and certain to destroy me. If I wasn't so God-fearing, I'd near have courage to come behind him and run a pike into his side. Oh, it's a hard ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... many attempts to induce me to consent to an exchange; at one time coming out with a fishing-rod, at another with a fiddle, at another with a cocked hat, at another with a flute. But I resisted all these overtures, and sat there in desperation; each time asking him, with tears in my eyes, for my money or my jacket. At last he began to pay me in halfpence at a time; and was full two hours getting by easy ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... staghorn handle would cost more than sixty copecks. And as the prince sat dreaming in the Summer Garden under a lime-tree, a wicked demon had come and whispered in his car: "Rogojin has been spying upon you and watching you all the morning in a frenzy of desperation. When he finds you have not gone to Pavlofsk—a terrible discovery for him—he will surely go at once to that house in Petersburg Side, and watch for you there, although only this morning you gave your word of honour not to see HER, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... from the burden of unwanted children. Dr. Werner shows that in Germany, for instance, in the year 1532, it was the law that those guilty of infanticide were "to be buried alive or impaled. In order to prevent desperation, however, they shall be drowned if it is possible to get to a stream or river, in which they shall be torn ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... go down to-morrow," he said, and even Mr. Blithers subsided. He looked to his wife in desperation. She failed him for the first time in her life. Her ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... stalks on the Shropshire hillsides, nothing had equalled the gloom. Even when the victims fled to Switzerland, they found the Lake of Geneva and the Rhine not much gayer, and Carlsruhe no more restful than Paris; until at last, in desperation, one drifted back to the Avenue of the Bois de Boulogne, and, like the Cuckoo, dropped into the nest of a better citizen. Diplomacy has its uses. Reynolds Hitt, transferred to Berlin, abandoned ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... their idle vows would be merely the humiliation of himself. So he tossed his dignity to recklessness, as the ultraconvivial give the last wink of reason to the wine-cup. Persecuted as he was, nothing remained for him but the nether-sublime of a statuesque desperation. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the many attractions of Moscow one is apt to recall a page from history and remember the heroic, self-sacrificing means which the people of this Asiatic city adopted to repel the invading and victorious enemy. It was an act of sublime desperation to place the torch within the sanctuary of Russia and destroy all, sacred and profane, so that the enemy should also be destroyed. It was the grandest sacrifice ever made to national honor by any people. "Who would have thought ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... York just getting the range with her beautiful 8-inch rifles astern. They shivered in unison with the quivering hulk as shot after shot struck home. They screamed at their crews and stamped and fumed. At the guns their crews worked with drunken desperation, but down in the stoke-hole the firemen plied their shovels with a will and a skill that formed the most surprising feature of the Spanish side of the battle. Because of them this was a race worthy of the American mettle, for it put to the full test the powers of the men of the three ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... in various Courts of Europe, but always without success. Things were becoming awkward. The firm had borrowed heavily to pay for the stones, and anxiety seems to have driven Bohmer to the verge of desperation. Again he offered the necklace to the King, announcing himself ready to make terms, and to accept payment in instalments; but again it ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... so only in the hope of terrorizing our people and disrupting our morale. Our people are not afraid of that. We know that we may have to pay a heavy price for freedom. We will pay this price with a will. Whatever the price, it is a thousand times worth it. No matter what our enemies, in their desperation, may attempt to do to us—we will say, as the people of London have said, "We can take it." And what's more we can give it back and we will give ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and once honourable Rob Roy was now driven to desperation. His natural capacity for warlike affairs had been improved in the collection of the black mail, or protection fees; a service of danger, in which many a bloody conflict with freebooters had shown the Macgregors of what materials their leader was composed. The black mail was a ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... Camillus was named dictator, as the Gauls were overrunning the environs of Rome. He proceeded against the barbarians with the intention of using up time and not risking the issue in conflict with men animated by desperation: he expected to exhaust them more easily and securely by the failure of provisions. And a Gaul challenged the Romans to furnish a champion for a duel. His opponent, accordingly, was Marcus Valerius, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... time to add more, for at that instant three fierce dogs rushed upon the bull at once, and by their joint attacks rendered him almost mad. The calm deliberate courage which he had hitherto shown was now changed into rage and desperation: he roared with pain and fury; flashes of fire seemed to come from his angry eyes, and his mouth was covered with foam and blood. He hurried round the stake with incessant toil and rage, first ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... inferior character. No single newspaper could afford what the syndicate, with the expense divided among a hundred newspapers, could pay. Nor had the editors of these woman's pages either a standard or a policy. In desperation they engaged any person they could to "get a lot of woman's stuff." It was stuff, and of the trashiest kind. So that almost coincident with the birth of the idea began its abuse and disintegration; the result we see in the meaningless ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... woman, paler than before, had sat mute and trembling, with all her hopes ruined. Yet her desperation forbade her to abandon the chances of his mercy, and she ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... In desperation they telephoned to Dillingham, who was playing "hearts" at the Savoy with Frohman and Gillette. He hurriedly got some food together in a basket, and with his two friends drove to where the young women ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... roots of wonted chivalry Be not quite dead your princely breast within, Devise not how with frame and praise to die, But how to live, to conquer and to win; Let us together at these gates outfly, And skirmish bold and bloody fight begin; For when last need to desperation driveth, Who dareth most ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... whizzed the head of the besom round so that its dirty spray rained in the boy's face and eyes. John let him have the wet lump slash in his mouth. Gilmour dropped the besom and hit him a sounding thwack on the ear. John hullabalooed. Murther and desperation! ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... pressure upon three faces of the redoubt forced the last issue, that the defenders poured forth one more destructive volley. A single cannon cartridge was distributed for the final effort, and then, with clubbed guns and the nerve of desperation, the slow retreat began, contesting, man to man and inch by inch. Warren fell, shot through the head, in the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... would cease. But either he did not lay hold of the right men, or else imprisonment had no terrors; for all through the autumn and winter of 1881 agrarian crimes increased with terrible rapidity. In a fit of desperation, Forster cast Parnell into prison, and Gladstone announced the feat amid the tumultuous applause of the Guildhall. But things only went from bad to worse, and soon there were forty agrarian murders unpunished. Having ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... and tantrums on one side of the Channel and the Royal anger on the other, the Duke was driven to the extremity of his exiguous Royal wits; until finally, in sheer desperation, he decided to make the plunge—to break the news to the King. Had he but known how inopportune the time was he would surely have taken the first boat back to Calais rather than face his brother's anger. George was distracted by trouble at home and abroad. His mother was dying; across ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... despair of any better chance for him, his parents thought of apprenticing him to a tailor, and John James was waked up from a dream of Rebecca and informed of the cruelty meditated against him. I forbear to describe the tears and terror, and frantic desperation in which the poor boy was plunged. Little Miss Cann rescued him from that awful board, and Honeyman likewise interceded for him, and Mr. Bagshot promised that, as soon as his party came in, he would ask ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... twenty cents for making crocheted lace which sold for a dollar and a half. By working twelve hours a day, she had been able to make forty-seven cents. Seeing her little brother grow pale from lack of food, she had, in desperation, taken the first, the awfully decisive first step downward, and had almost at once thereafter vanished, drawn down by the maelstrom of vice. The little brother, wild with grief over his sister's disappearance, had been taken to an orphan asylum where he ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... adrift.' The event showed Belt's sagacity. The unfortunate government expedition left Melbourne loaded with camp-followers and impedimenta, and by the time they reached a few stages beyond Cooper's Creek were well-nigh exhausted. Burke, the leader of the expedition, in desperation started with his two men, Wills and King, and bravely struck out for the Gulf of Carpentaria. Through desert and fertile plains, not altogether destitute of water, they reached in safety the northern shore of Australia; but the energy, the courage, and the strength ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... his sister to get a divorce, but she remained steadfast and silent. In desperation Rabbi Gershon asked a friend of his, Rabbi Mekatier, to take Israel to a mad woman, who told people their good and bad qualities, and whose stigmatization, he thought, might have an effect upon his graceless brother-in-law. The audience-chamber of the possessed creature ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the midst of the unusual horrors that surrounded him, while clinging to the unfamiliar mizzen shrouds on which in desperation the poor monkey had found a temporary refuge, the electric fire showed him the dark figure of his old familiar friend standing not far off. With a shriek of not quite hopeless despair, and an inconceivable ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... gentleman?" Rosalind has caught up the speaker with a decisive rally. Her natural strength is returning, prompted by something akin to desperation. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... replied the other—"that word's no kenned on the Borders. Is it the doing o't, or the dool for the doing o't, that has the desperation in't?" ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... light attracts a moth, till it flies into it, to its own destruction. Such seceders mourn and dread the step; pray about it, think and think, till they are bewildered and harassed; and then, in a fit of desperation, go off to some Romish priest to be received. A man who had an honourable position, a work and responsibility, suddenly becomes a nonentity, barely ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... the boy, 'is proof to you of how the meekest may be driven to desperation by the shackles I speak of, and which I pray you ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... thought swiftly, as she ran to the instrument and sat down before it. With a strength born of her desperation she mastered the quivering of her hands, and catching her breath, began in a weak and trembling voice the melody ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... slip past to the north of the city, and had reached the Lough Corrib River, and could even faintly hear the bells of St. Nicholas below, when a half-troop of horse fell upon them. Then in desperation Brian's men smote for the last time, and put the royalists to flight; but there Brian lost the most of his men. However, he got fresh horses, and so fled eastward again when ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... large coffee houses and bankers were being foreclosed. The industry was passing into European hands. The smaller planters were becoming desperate; and desperation is only a step from revolution. The government of the state of Sao Paulo knew this; and to save the state, it finally promised it would buy the next coffee crop, and would hold it for the planters at such a price as would be necessary to continue the industry. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... she must spend another night in the bed led her to active measures of reform. With disgustful desperation, she emptied the room and swept it as with fire and sword. Her change of mind, from the passive to the active state, relieved and stimulated her, and she hurried from one needed reform to another. She drew others into the vortex. She inspired the chambermaid to unwilling ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... dost indeed seem so jealous of the salvation Thou hast purchased, that Thou dost prefer the sinner to the righteous! The poor sinner beholds himself vile and wretched, is in a manner constrained to detest himself; and finding his state so horrible, casts himself in his desperation into the arms of his Saviour, and plunges into the healing fountain, and comes forth "white as wool." Then confounded at the review of his disordered state, and overflowing with love for Him, who having alone ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... of these devilish imaginings to wife and friend was a failure. He undertook it in a fit of desperation, when it seemed as if only a strong and well grounded opposition would save his reason. But this was just what he could not get. Purdy, whom he tried first, held the crude notion that a sick person should never be gainsaid; ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Judah," the captain at last said, in desperation, "if you feel so almighty bad about it, perhaps you won't want me here. I can ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... have been spared me. However this may be, I had not the patience of mind necessary for a protracted experiment. What I did must be done at once; if I would win I must fight for it, and must find the incentive to courage in the conscious desperation ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... will be in. You may break stones on the road, but I forbid you to hold a pen for literary composition; and once back home, you must renounce railway travelling as long as it produces uncomfortable sensations." All this was said imperatively, and although it drove my husband almost to desperation, I thanked Mr. Haden in my heart for his courageous and timely interference, and Gilbert did the same after recovering from ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... sand, until, seeing a few antelopes in the distance, they camped on the margin of a small stream. All now, that were capable of the exertion, turned out to hunt for a meal. Their efforts were fruitless, and after dark they returned to their camp famished almost to desperation. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... flung open, and a flying crowd streamed out in distracted confusion—then another, and a third—all troops in King Philometor's uniform. She ran to the door of the room into which she had thrust her children; that too was locked. In her desperation she once more sprang to the window, shouted to the flying Macedonians to halt and make a stand—threatening and entreating; but no one heard her, and their number constantly increased, till at length she saw her husband standing on the threshold of the great hall with a gaping wound on his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... her sufferings and besought him to refrain from giving her husband the poison. But alas! she appealed to a heart of stone. He disregarded her entreaties and spurned her from his door. Driven to desperation she armed herself, broke into the house, drove out the base-hearted landlord and proceeded upon the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... exclaimed, "it doesn't seem that the Martians are so badly off for water as some of our clever people imagine! Why, I've read that the need of water here must be so great that the people, driven to desperation, must be fighting each other to extermination in ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... the patient against the inroads of the disease can be expected unless the patient is thoroughly nourished. One of the sad facts in connection with those unfortunates whose fight against tuberculosis is nearly over and who in desperation have fled to Arizona, hoping that the dry air might afford relief, is that the lack of nourishing food, inevitable in those deserts, hastens on the disease, so that the expected benefits from the dry air are entirely offset. Likewise, ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... of laughter was heard on the quiet air. Mrs. Evringham leaned forward. "There are the children now," she said, as figures turned in at the gateway; "and who is that? It is"—with desperation,—"he's here! Nat ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... loose sort of hearsay groping faith that turns to Jesus in desperation. Things can't be worse, and possibly there might be help. There's the very different faith that looks Jesus in the face and hears the simple word of assurance so quietly spoken. He actually heard the word spoken about his dying darling, ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... as if I could never work again. There seems to be one way, mamma, in which I can help you." And then she hesitated, and a deep, burning flush crimsoned the face that was so pale before. "Well," she said, at last, in a kind of desperation, "I might as well speak plainly, if I speak at all. It's no secret to you how Roger Atwood feels toward me, and also, mamma, you know my heart. While I could kiss his hand in gratitude, while I would not shrink from any suffering ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... this uncomfortable state up to the dinner-hour, so that the Curate, even had his own feelings permitted it, had but little comfort in his home visit. At dinner Mr Wentworth did not eat, and awoke the anxiety of his wife, who drove the old gentleman into a state of desperation ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... pointed skyward, answered, speaking very fast, 'Oh, no, ma'am, not at all, ma'am, a thousand times obleeged, ma'am,' and continued his sneaking retreat. By this time I had hold of the cape of his overcoat and was plucking it in utter desperation. 'John,' I said, speaking low, 'what in thunder do you mean? This is the best chance we'll ever have.' I was looking at the lady meanwhile in the most imploring manner, and she was regarding me with a kind of a pleasant, amused smile on her face. ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... last bawled, with the accents of one driven to desperation, "if there a'n't no dodging you, then there a'n't. Here's for you, you everlasting varmints—due ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... when Nick could not swim a stroke; but, by keeping heroically at it, he had managed to master the art to some extent. Desperation assisted him in this predicament, and the way he threshed the water was a caution. Herb afterwards declared it beat any old stern-wheel towboat he had ever seen, charging up the current of ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... they will be lost," I cried out in desperation. For Mary was shrieking that she would not go, and I knew that Humphrey did not know the way, and could not find it and launch the boat in time with that struggling maid to encumber him, for already the door ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... alone who Leaves her father and mother behind, when she follows her husband. So it is with the youth; no more he knows mother and father. When he beholds the maiden, the only beloved one, approaching. Therefore let me go hence, to where desperation may lead me, For my father already has spoken in words of decision, And his house no longer is mine, if he shuts out the maiden Whom alone I would fain take home as my ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... drum on the tent roof, a pleasant sound after the burning dust of the trail. The two trampers kept abreast of us nearly all day, but they began to show fatigue and hunger, and a look of almost sullen desperation ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... defense which fully rivals that of Saragossa. Is it not a little singular that the Spaniards, who in the open field were, with a few remarkable exceptions, absolutely contemptible, yet frequently defended towns with wonderful fortitude, courage, and desperation. It may, indeed, be said that in every siege where the Spaniards were commanded by brave and resolute chiefs they behaved admirably. This great range of hill country was the stronghold of the guerillas, and every convoy from France had to be protected by a large force, and even then often suffered ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... question here is pressing, the harvest will be good, if present indications continue. Rye is the principal crop and this is harvested about July 12th. I think, however, Germany can last, and in very desperation may try a great offensive which may break the French lines and change the whole position. The people here, although tired of war, are well disciplined and will see this thing ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... not been in so wild a panic he would have given himself up, for no man willingly invites the discharge of a deadly weapon a few paces behind him. But the youth was bent on escape if the feat were possible and ran with the vigor of desperation. ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... us to make a wise decision now, to take no step which might lead to the downfall or even to the extermination of their race, and thus make all their sacrifices of no avail. Our struggle, up to the present, has not been an aimless one. We have not been fighting in mere desperation. We began this strife, and we have continued it, because we wanted to maintain our independence and were prepared to sacrifice everything for it. But we must not sacrifice the African nation itself upon the altar of independence. ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... from the crowd with desperation convulsing his features. Tearing off the broad-brimmed hat which he wore, he flung it on ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... kept his word; and without difficulty, for he had many to help him. To drive the English to desperation, and get a pretext for seizing their lands, was the game which the Normans played, and but ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... of two or three hours, Partridge returned back to his master, without having seen Mrs Waters. Jones, who was in a state of desperation at his delay, was almost raving mad when he brought him his account. He was not long, however, in this condition before he ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Unable to defend himself, he expected to have his eyes torn out, when he let go, and slipped to a broader ledge. Again the eagle pounced upon him; and so close was she, that even then he could not get a shot at her. In desperation, he took off his bonnet and threw it at the bird. She, seeing it fall, immediately followed it to the foot of the rock. This gave him an opportunity of bringing his gun to bear on her. The shot took effect, and she fell dead ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... Kendall," said he in desperation one day, "I wish you didn't like me quite so well. We don't hitch first rate—at least, I don't. Seems to me you're neglectin' ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... they were accompanied for the first fifty yards with showers of sparks like sky-rockets. But Fritz can be very obstinate on occasions, and all our teasing with rifle-grenades failed to make him retaliate with anything larger than "pineapples" (light trench-mortars). In desperation, I sent to the brigade bombing officer for some smoke and gas-bombs. Even these failed to rouse his anger sufficiently when—Eureka!—we discovered some "lachrymose" or "tear" bombs. These did the trick and over came a "rum-jar" as the "minnie" shells are generally called. I had ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... all. They were in such confusion that we sallied out, captured their camp, with the pasha's banner and an enormous quantity of spoil, and pursued them to their harbour. Then we halted, fearing that they might in their desperation turn upon us, and, terribly weakened as we were by our losses, have again snatched the victory from our grasp. So we let them go on board their ships without interference, and this morning there is not a Turkish sail in sight. The inhabitants are well ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... few minutes there was a struggling mass in front of the gates. Our men, finding them closed and no way to escape their assailants, fought with the desperation of cornered beasts. ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... Lycians were on a sudden possessed with a strange and incredible desperation; such a frenzy as cannot be better expressed than by calling it a violent appetite to die, for both women and children, the bondmen and the free, those of all ages and of all conditions strove to force away the soldiers that came in to their assistance, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... are in the western governments, where there is less game and more population than in Siberia. It is in these regions that travelers are sometimes pursued by wolves, but such incidents are not frequent. It is only in the severest winters, when driven to desperation by hunger, that the wolves dare to attack men. The horses are the real objects of their pursuit, but when once a party is overtaken the wolves make no nice distinctions, and horses and men are alike devoured. Apropos of hunting I heard a ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... broken down behind him, and the chance of coming off honourably without killing or being killed, (the hope of which issue has cheered the sinking heart of many a duellist,) seemed now altogether to be removed. Yet the very desperation of his situation gave him, on an instant's reflection, both firmness and courage, and presented to him one sole alternative, conquest, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... dreadful exigencies and extremities, and perished in the streets or fields for mere want, or dropped down by the raging violence of the fever upon them. Others wandered into the country, and went forward any way, as their desperation guided them, not knowing whither they went or would go: till, faint and tired, and not getting any relief, the houses and villages on the road refusing to admit them to lodge whether infected or no, they ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... state, promising the poor a redistribution of lands, and the rich a confirmation of their securities. However, Solon himself tells us that it was with reluctance that he interfered, as he was threatened by the avarice of the one party, and the desperation of the other. He was chosen archon next after Philombrotus, to act as an arbitrator and lawgiver at once, because the rich had confidence in him as a man of easy fortune, and the poor trusted him as a good man. It is said also that a saying ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... a fiendish delight in watching the conflict, and the fierce desperation which marked its violence. On the one side were the forces of fusion, a reluctant stomach, an unwilling oesophagus, a loathing palate; on the other, the stern, unconquerable will. A natural philosopher would have gathered new proofs of the unlimited capacity of the human ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... clutch at the paddle, missed it, and disappeared once more from sight. The shark rushed to the spot and turned in dismay, and driven to desperation, Tom hit the monster over the head with the paddle. Then the ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... after being with Lord Keith, I went into Madame Bertrand's cabin to see how she was, and found her in bed. I asked her, how she could be so indiscreet as to attempt to destroy herself? "Oh! I am driven to desperation," she said; "I do not know what I do; I cannot persuade my husband to remain behind, he being determined to accompany the Emperor to St Helena." She then ran into a great deal of abuse of Napoleon, saying, "If his ends are served, ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... bottle, Atkinson became communicative, and his history not only made me feel better inclined towards him, but afforded me another instance, as well as Carbonnell's, how often it is that those who would have done well, are first plundered, and then driven to desperation by the heartlessness of the world. The cases, however, had this difference, that Carbonnell had always contrived to keep his reputation above water, while that of Atkinson was gone, and never to be re-established. ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... Bones at last in desperation, "go to the storeman, and let him bring all the paints he has so that I may show Bosambo a ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... interest, and in which the greater part of his quickly-made fortune was invested. With the loss of his political pull, disaster came to one after another of those enterprises, and his successive losses were soon heavy enough to drive him almost to desperation. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... subject rather ill chosen, but recognized that my friend was talking more or less at random and in desperation; indeed, failing his reminiscences of Graywater Park, I think the demon of silence must ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... the philanthropist, and lied amid all his contrition. It was desperation at the severance from his wife and children that had driven him to drink, lust of gold that had spurred him across the Atlantic. Now a wiser and sadder man, he would be content with a modicum and the wife ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... his own desperation and distress on learning that Inza Burrage had fallen into the power of Del Norte caused him to twist and turn on the bed. Only for O'Toole, he might have been baffled in following Inza's captors. Through the acquaintance and friendship of O'Toole with Red Ben, Del Norte's Indian guide, had ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... shall I fly? Where hide me and my miseries together? Where's now the Roman constancy I boasted? Sunk into trembling fears and desperation, Not daring to look up to that dear face, Which used to smile, even on my faults: but, down, Bending these miserable eyes to earth, Must move in penance, ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... which does not now commend itself to civilized people, managed to jockey everybody with whom he had any dealings. He is much in the position of a certain financier who, after a vain effort to justify his proceedings, turned at last in desperation upon his critics and said: 'Well, I don't care what view you hold of it. You can have the morality, but I've got ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... girl had ceased to be subject to her. "No, mamma, I will not go. If you will ask Serjeant Bluestone, or Sir William Patterson, I am sure they will say that I ought not to be made to go." There were some terrible scenes in which the mother was driven almost to desperation. Lady Anna repeated to the Countess all that she had said to Lord Lovel,—and swore to her mother with the Bible in hand that if ever she became the wife of any man she would be the wife of Daniel Thwaite. Then the Countess with great violence ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... pain. His eyes were like two deep red balls of fire, his tongue was out and curling upwards, his long tufted tail curled on high, or lashing madly against his sides. A more wild, and at the same time a more magnificent picture of desperation I ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat |
