"Despond" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spirit, Hector, I am sure you will succeed. You are young and hopeful. I am too much inclined to despond. I have always been timid about the future. It ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... the dreary prairies, these five Eldorado seekers proved to be jovial fellows, and there was about them an elasticity of temper which did not allow them to despond. The divine had made up his mind to go to Rome, and convert the Pope, who, after all, was a clever old bon vivant; the doctor would go to Edinburgh, and get selected, from his superior skill, as president of the Surgical College; one of the lawyers determined he would ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... naturally enough, as signs of continued remorse, lifted her out of this supposed slough of despond with affectionate peremptoriness. "Don't feel so badly about it, darling. We won't have any more talk for the present about differing judgments, or of going away, or of anything uncomfortable"; and ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... chaste, if virtue conquer ill, If fortune bind both lovers in one bond, If either at the other's grief despond, If both be governed by one life, one will; If in two bodies one soul triumph still, Raising the twain from earth to heaven beyond, If love with one blow and one golden wand Have power both smitten breasts to ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... of his friends," said Kirk. "He needs to be assured that such is not the case—that his friends and acquaintances have no desire to cut him. I think if that could be done he would come out of the slough of despond and be worth something. We may need him this summer; or a man who has his pitching ability ought to develop ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... longing was ever more firmly planted in the human heart, than that of discovering some short cut to the high road of mental acquirement. The toilsome learner's "Progress" through the barren outset of the alphabet; the slough of despond of seven syllables, endangered as they both are by the frequent appearance of the compulsive birch of the Mr. Worldly-wisemen who teach the young idea how to shoot, must ever be looked upon as a probation, the power of avoiding which is "a consummation devoutly to be wished." Imbued with this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... baggage. He said he preferred it; he considered that he was not properly equipped without that enormous sack—big as that which the "Pilgrim's Progress" man shuffled off when he scrambled out on the right side of the Slough of Despond. I think he regarded the trip to the river—though we drove comfortably to it, and drove home again the same evening—as a serious expedition into unknown wilds, and was buoyed up throughout with the fancy that he ranked with the eminent explorers who go forth with ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... and less Trouble than my self. Not with less Trouble, believe me, Madam; (return'd Gracelove) and then began to inform Fairlaw in every Point of her unhappy Circumstances. The good old Gentleman heard 'em with Amazement and Horror; but told her, however, that she need not despond, for he would take Care to right her against her Brother; and, that in the mean Time she should be as welcome to him as any of his nearest Kindred, except his Wife and Daughter. Philadelphia would have knelt to thank him; but he told her, that humble ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... all the earth, Chequered with all complexions of mankind, And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see Much that I love, and more that I admire, And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair That pleases and yet shocks me, I can laugh And I can weep, can hope, and can despond, Feel wrath and pity when I think on thee! Ten righteous would have saved a city once, And thou hast many righteous.—Well for thee— That salt preserves thee; more corrupted else, And therefore more obnoxious at this hour ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... forth to carry devastation and affright throughout the camps of innocent and unsuspecting blacklegs. As might be expected, it took about as many minutes as they had pounds to effect the ruin of the adventurers. Did they despond? Not they; a flaw existed in their calculations. They looked for it with care, and were torn from their employment only by the exigencies of the time, and the pressing demands of nature for immediate bread. Mr Wedge had from this period struggled on, living as he knew ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... with ducked heads and bodies bent double (the Germans were only two hundred yards on the other side of the parapet) walked on dry earth for at least ten paces. The officer's laughter was loud at the corner of the next traverse, when there was an abrupt descent into a slough of despond. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... accounted, to be gross and conspicuous failures, we should find that they were not free from a certain pleasant vanity about their own qualifications and efficiency. The few people whom I have met who are apt to despond over their work are generally people who do it remarkably well, and whose ideal of efficiency is so high that they criticise severely in themselves any deviation from their standard. Moreover, if one goes a little deeper—if, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... she was thrilling with strange and mysterious joy, and was elated beyond measure, as if Christian principle and heaven were already won; as many a pilgrim is happier before the quickly coming fall into the "Slough of Despond" than ever again until within the gates of ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... black fury, but fell soon into a slough of despond. His life was over, but he was not dead. For him, as for the rest of us, death would, I think, have been more merciful—and yet, I would not have had him die ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... one's Time"! O those dismal Phantoms, conjured up by the blatant Book-taster and the Indolent Reviewer! How many a poor Soul, that would fain have been honest, have they bewildered into the Slough of Despond and the Bog ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... 'shrill yet silent tears,' as if veiling her shame in a cloudy mantle, shall I, too, lie down and weep? Why not? for am I not 'a part of all I see'? And even now, in fasting and mortification, am I not sorrowing for my sin and for its dreary chastisement? But shall I then despond ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... Montfort; and closed with his prayer to her, if so, to forgive lines coloured by hasty passion, and, for the sake of all, not to disdain that self-vindication which might perhaps yet soften a nature possessed of such depths of sweetness as that which appeared now so cruel and so bitter. He would not yet despond—not yet commission her to give his last farewell ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not like you to repine in this way; you who have suffered and endured so much must not despond when, after a long, starless night, the ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Irad. Despond not: wherefore wilt thou wander thus To add thy silence to the silent night, And lift thy tearful eye unto the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Haven, with whom already a warm friendship had been formed that lasted for life, and who has pleasantly sketched what happened. Mr. Felton saw Irving constantly in the interval of preparation, and could not but despond at his daily iterated foreboding of I shall certainly break down; though besides the real dread there was a sly humor which heightened its whimsical horror with an irresistible drollery. But the professor plucked up hope a little ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... me," he confided to his friend Bob Wilson one evening as during his transit through a particularly dismal slough of despond they in company were busily engaged in blazing the trail with empty bottles; "One such as I, a man of thirty and of good health, without a dollar or the prospect of a dollar, an income or the prospect of an income, a home or the prospect of a home, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... discussion in beasts of burden and the lower order of animals generally were inconvenient, and rather to be discouraged; so she cut it short, now, somewhat imperiously. Thereupon, Dick Tresilyan slid into a slough of despond, in which he had been wallowing ever since. A faint gleam of sunshine broke in when one of his intimates, hearing he was going to France, suggested "that's where the brandy comes from;" but it was instantly overclouded by the remark which followed. "I suppose, though, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... amidst in his native county, or had noticed in his tinker's wanderings. "Born and bred," writes Kingsley, "in the monotonous Midland, he had no natural images beyond the pastures and brooks, the town and country houses, he saw about him." The Slough of Despond, with its treacherous quagmire in the midst of the plain, into which a wayfarer might heedlessly fall, with its stepping-stones half drowned in mire; Byepathmeadow, promising so fair, with its stile and footpath on the other side of the fence; the pleasant river fringed with meadows, ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... so long estranged yourself from our society;" and continued, "I can't think you could have taken any offence at anything we may have done or said; but if so, upon your mentioning it, we will endeavour to make the amende honorable,"—he was perfectly reclaimed from his "slough of despond." At the same time he knew he could make no explanation, and therefore kept silent. What was he to do? he was again enslaved as hopelessly as ever; for the charm of Eleanor's presence he could not resist. How could he act a part of coldness or indifference, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... thus unpleasantly engaged, and yet we were not over the "Slough of Despond." At length we drew near its farthest verge. Here ran a deep stream some five or six feet in width. The gentlemen, as they reached it, dismounted, and began debating what ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... could be answered. Full three hours had elapsed since the last sound of a trumpet had been heard; it was now one o'clock, and as yet no trace of the travellers had been discovered in any quarter. The most hopeful began to despond; and general lamentations prevailed ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... become well-known places, and moral qualities distinct human beings. Evangelist, who puts Christian on the way to the Wicked Gate; Pliable, who deserts him at the first difficulty; Help, who pulls him out of the Slough of Despond; Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who shows him an easy way to be rid of his burden, are all life-like individuals. Timorous, Talkative, Vain Confidence, Giant Despair, are not mere personifications, but distinct human beings with whom every reader of the "Pilgrim's ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... faint-hearted to shrink at every little molehill of difficulty; she had plenty of what the boys call pluck (no word is more eloquent than that), and a fund of quiet humor that tided her safely over many a slough of despond. If any one could have read Bessie's thoughts a few minutes after the laboring engine had ceased to work, they would have been as follows, with ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... dissented from it. "I tremble for my country," said he; "the moderes are meditating the reform of the constitution already; and to place again in the king's hands the power the people have scarcely acquired. My mind is overwhelmed by these gloomy reflections, and I despond. I am ready to quit the post you have confided to me. Oh, my country, be but thou saved, and I shall breathe my ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... splendors in the realm of literature. There is a sunrise and sunset. There is a transition from the light of the sun to the gentler light of the moon. There is a rest in nature which seems necessary in all her great operations. And so with all the great operations of the human mind. But do not let us despond if we seem to see a diminished efficacy in the production of what is essentially and immortally great. Our sun is hidden only for a moment. It is like ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... temperament is friendly to piety. St. Augustine calls hers the "devout sex." And meet is the appellation. For her weakness teaches her to lean upon an Almighty arm; and her trustfulness,—so striking, that to doubt, suspect, and despond, come, in her, only from peculiar physical infirmity, or from a most erroneous education,—leads her to confide in God. Add to these the earnest affection of this sex, and we have a moral predisposition ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... Philadelphia principles, in blocks, and, like Philadelphia, gridironed all over with tramway lines. It is a good thing one is able to get off the marble pavements into the cars without having far to go, for the streets are at times mere sloughs of despond. It is the same ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... his days "unwept, unhonored, and unsung." We have a picture of this middle-aged man, clerking for his younger brothers in a country store, at eight hundred dollars a year, and day by day sinking further into the slough of despond. ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... his shoulder, and smiled cheerfully. 'Now, father, don't despond. All will be well, and we shall see no such misfortune as that for many a year. Leave all to me. I am a rare ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... she replies, though she trembles with fear, For she lives all alone and no neighbours are near; But she says to herself, when she's like to despond, That the boys are at work ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... you easily fire and easily despond. Keep up a correspondence with Lady Lyndon. You know there's nothing she likes so much. There's the Irish abbe, who will write you the most charming letters for a crown apiece. Let her go; write to her, and meanwhile ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... half-baked notionist as I am. We are here in a most pleasant country, full of walks, and idle to our heart's desire. Taylor has dropped the "London." It was indeed a dead weight. It had got in the Slough of Despond. I shuffle off my part of the pack, and stand, like Christian, with light and merry shoulders. It had got silly, indecorous, pert, and everything that is bad. Both our kind remembrances to Mrs. K. and yourself, and strangers'-greeting to Lucy,—is it Lucy, or Ruth?—that ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... nonsense at times—insomuch that I would have laughed had I not been jealous of what I deemed the mutual love of Ada and thee. No, Erling, thy suit will prosper, depend on't. It is I who have reason to despond, for ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... Miserable, utterly miserable. We have camped in the 'Slough of Despond.' The tempest rages with unabated violence. The temperature has gone to 33 deg.; everything in the tent is soaking. People returning from the outside look exactly as though they had been in a heavy shower of rain. They drip pools on the floorcloth. The snow is steadily ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Vienna, with the view of beginning an artistic career, and was only prevented from carrying out his design by want of money to defray the expenses of the journey. He was in great distress, and even began to despond, until finally in the summer he contrived to get to Posen, and thence to Berlin, where he ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... position on the very spot, as it were, where, by his crime and folly, he had lost both. She was satisfied that such a course promised far better for the future than a return to his mother's luxurious home. With all its beauty and comfort it would become to him almost inevitably a slough, both of "despond" and of dissipation—dissipation of the worst and most hopeless kind, wherein the victim's ruling motive is to get rid of self. The fact that the young man was capable of turning upon and facing a scornful and hostile world was a good and hopeful sign. If he had been willing ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... to five to one. Ah, but why should we despond on that account?" And his voice vibrated with renewed confidence. "The country is a difficult one, easy to defend, and Lord Wellington's genius will have made the best of it. There are, for example, ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... smile, or hope: she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination—her soft, bright foe, our sweet Help, our divine Hope. We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite the terrible revenge that awaits ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... desire and prayer is to get through with the business in hand. I have been in a Slough of Despond for some days past, having written so fiercely that I came to a stand-still. There are points where a writer gets bewildered and cannot form any judgment of what he has done, or tell what to do next. In these cases it is best ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... are cutting the last piece of ground from beneath your feet—letting yourself sink at once into a slough of despond?" ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... he goes on his journey Mr. Worldly Wiseman meets him and urges him to return; but he hastens on, only to plunge into the Slough of Despond. His companion Pliable is here discouraged and turns back. Christian struggles on through the mud and reaches the Wicket Gate, where Interpreter shows him the way to the Celestial City. As he passes a cross beside the path, the heavy burden which he carries (his ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... thought of the task that lay before me, if he recovered, the more I felt inclined to despond. The oftener the English physician who attended on him said to me, "He may get the better of the fever, but he has a fixed idea, which never leaves him night or day, which has unsettled his reason, and which will end in killing him, unless ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... been petty, yet sore grievances to the squire, and had made him to despond about success. He has lately, however, been made happy by the receipt of a fine Welsh falcon, which Master Simon terms a stately highflyer. It is a present from the squire's friend, Sir Watkyn Williams Wynn; and is, no doubt, a descendant ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... of Barrack-Master in Dublin, and thus became independent. In 1815, "Retrenchment" deprived him of this office, and he was placed on half-pay. The family had to seek aid from the son, who entreated them not to despond, but rather to thank Providence for having permitted them to enjoy the fruits of office so long, till he (the son) was "in a situation to keep them in comfort without it." "Thank Heaven," he writes afterwards of his father, "I have been able to make his latter days tranquil and comfortable." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... left—most kinds of human nature. If I hadn't, I'd have more money, I s'pose. Perhaps you've noticed that those who trust a good deal are usually poor. It's all right, Mr. Ellery; you go and take your walk. And I'll walk into that pantry closet. It'll be a good deal like walkin' into the Slough of Despond, but Christian came out on the other side and I guess likely I will, if the supply of soapsuds ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... as "Thank you." She put the shawl round her mistress, and then went slowly back. She sat down on the stone steps, and glared stupidly at the scene, and felt very miserable and leaden. She seemed to be stuck in a sort of slough of despond, and could not move in any direction ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... be said, that when the tea was finally announced, our young lady came downstairs a great deal more cheerful; that she did not despond, or deplore her fate, or think about George's coldness, or Rebecca's eyes, as she had been wont to do of late. She went downstairs, and kissed her father and mother, and talked to the old gentleman, and made him more merry than he had been for many a day. She sate down ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... able to have their loads of grain carried over this dreadful place for three or four cents a bushel was to the farmers of the Rock River and Fox River valleys—who, having hauled their wheat from forty to eighty miles to this Slough of Despond, frequently could get it no farther—a privilege which they soon began to appreciate. The road had all it could do, at once. It was a success. There was now no difficulty in getting the stock taken up, and before long it was finished to Fox River. It paid from fifteen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... the strange likeness to her own son, and her welcome was kindly given. But she was anxious and preoccupied, having but risen from the perusal of the despatches Paul had brought; and although her natural courage and hopefulness would not permit her to despond, she could not but admit that danger menaced the cause of the Red Rose, whilst she realized, as her young son could not do at his age, how utterly disastrous would be a single victory of the enemy at such ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... pleasant, dearest Monna Nina; for it was not so pleasant indeed to hear how ill you had been—and yet to be lifted into the hope, or rather certainty, of seeing you next week pleased us extremely of course, and the more that your note through Lady Lyell had thrown us backward into a slough of despond and made me sceptical as to ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... simply trusted Christ for salvation that she could give no account of any 'law work.' And as one of the old examiners, who thought there could be no genuine conversion without a period of deep conviction, asked her, "But, my dear, how about the Slough of Despond?" she dropped a courtesy and said, "Please, sir, I didn't ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... career. Why did they so? He had been that road in the rain since; he had been there in all weathers; he had been there often with as desponding a heart as brought him down that first time; which indeed did not despond at all then, though it felt the weight of life's undertakings and drawbacks. And the warm rain, and yellow, sun-coloured mist of this April day, had no likeness to the cold, pitiless, pelting December storm. Yet passing all the times between, his mind went back constantly to that ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway; Our's is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto: Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre cannot be swept away—- The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, For us repeopled were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... perfectly intelligible to any child, and further, it is highly dramatic and picturesque. It is, to be sure, an allegory, but one of those allegories which seem inherent in the human mind and hence more natural than the most direct narrative. For all men life is indeed a journey, and the Slough of Despond, Doubting Castle, Vanity Fair, and the Valley of Humiliation are places where in one sense or another every human soul has often struggled and suffered; so that every reader goes hand in hand with Christian and his friends, fears for them in their dangers and rejoices in their escapes. ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... the circumambient mud: the great folks of the neighbourhood (Lord and Lady Carlisle) coming to call graciously on the strangers, and being whelmed, coach and four, outriders and all, in a ploughed field of despond: the "universal scratcher" in the meadows, inclined so as to let the brute creation of all heights enjoy that luxury: Bunch the butler, a female child of tender years but stout proportions: Annie Kay the factotum: the "Immortal," a chariot which was ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... life into a liveliness of exercise, according to the present exigent. There is a power in a saint, because Christ is in him, that overpowers all the powers of darkness without, and all the power of indwelling corruption within, so that when the poor weak creature is ready to despond; within sight of his duty, and say, because of difficulty, what is my strength that I should hope? Christ saith, despond not, my grace is sufficient for thee, and my power shall rest upon thee, to a reviving thee, ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... serve for a time, and they make life worth living, In spite of life's troubles—'tis vain to despond; Oh, man! WE at least, WE enjoy, with thanksgiving, God's gifts on this earth, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... or has, it's just because it's HIM, I suppose, but I know my chance is gone for good! THAT leaves me free to act for her; no one can accuse me of doing it for myself. And I swear she sha'n't go through that slough of despond again while I have ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... For surety in a case of debt, 'Tis not the thing t' accept the terms, But dread th' event—the tale affirms. A Stag approach'd the Sheep, to treat For one good bushel of her wheat. "The honest Wolf will give his bond." At which, beginning to despond, "The Wolf (cries she) 's a vagrant bite. And you are quickly out of sight; Where shall I find or him or you Upon the ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... frozen roots wait the drawing near of God's sun. The soul looks ever unto the hills whence cometh its help. In the morning, at noon, and at night, man longs for a deliverer. God is the pledge of the soul's victory over the body. For men floundering in the slough of sin and despond these words, "Ye may, ye must be born again," are sweeter than angel songs falling ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... unsalable, yet there was a steady growth and they were a promising source of income. From the results of my mavericking and my trading operations I had been enabled to send two thousand young steers up the trail the spring before, and the proceeds from their sale had lifted me from the slough of despond and set me on a financial rock. Therefore my regard for the eternal cow ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... enough, but it is just the one which should test your manhood. It is not for one who has been all his life buffeting with the world and ill-fortune, to despond at every mischance or misdeed. Proceed with your narrative; and, in providing for the future, you will be able to forget not ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... nation was again directed to Egypt the scene was transformed. It was as though at the touch of an angel the dark morasses of the Slough of Despond had been changed to the breezy slopes of the Delectable Mountains. The Khedive and his Ministers lay quiet and docile in the firm grasp of the Consul-General. The bankrupt State was spending surpluses upon internal improvement. The disturbed Irrigation Department was vivifying the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... the heavens and the earth can a poet despond? O Life, O Beyond, Thou art strange, ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... work commenced in tears, May see our labours thrive, Till finished with success, to make Our drooping hearts revive. Though he despond that sows his grain, Yet, doubtless, he shall come To bind his full-ear'd sheaves, and bring ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that the great numerical majority of the inhabitants bear this character, he spoke truly, inasmuch as the great numerical majority of the inhabitants are negroes, among the most depraved in the island. Kingston is like the slough of Despond, a place whither all the scum and filth of the negro population in the east end of the island do continually run, and make it a very sink of wickedness. But are the white families and the large number of thoroughly respectable colored ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "Well, don't despond," said the Bloater, laying his hand on Jim's shoulder. "I have reason to know that the obstacles in your way shall soon be removed, because that dear ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... can even imagine that little thing finding Tom just the least bit slow, at times, if it were not for his goodness. Tom is so kind that I'm convinced he sometimes feels your joke in his heart when his head isn't quite clear about it. Well, we will not despond, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... wondered at, should it not indeed be forgiven him, if, impelled by the anxieties and privations at home, the unfortunate poet, driven to the brink of madness, plunged still deeper into the Slough of Despond? Unable to provide for the pressing necessities of his beloved wife, the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... linger with regretting, Or for passing hours despond; Nor, the daily toil forgetting, Look too ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... saving pursuits—he to boast!—when all that was asked of him was a kindly: "My poor fellow soul, you have indeed fought a hard fight; but there IS a God above us who will recompense you at His own time, take the word for it of one who has also been through the Slough of Despond." And then just these ... these hobbies of his, of which he had made so much. Now that he was alone with himself he saw them in a very different light. Lepidoptera collected years since were still unregistered, plants and stones unclassified; his poor ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... wings glued to one of the eddies, its limbs feebly quivering; a fish arises, and it is gone. Lower down the stream, I can see over a knoll the green and damp turf roofs of four or five hovels, built at the edge of a morass, which is trodden by the cattle into a black Slough of Despond at their doors, and traversed by a few ill-set stepping stones, with here and there a flat slab on the tops, where they have sunk out of sight;—and at the turn of the brook I see a man fishing, with a boy and a dog—a picturesque and pretty group enough certainly, if they had not been there ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... yield to groundless fears that truth and duty will be abandoned, because men in a public assembly are still men, and feel that esprit du corps which is one of the laws of their nature? Still less should we despond or complain, if we reflect that this very spirit is a guardian instinct that watches over the life of this assembly. It cherishes the principle of self-preservation, and without its existence, and its existence with ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... transient gleam from Hampton Roads and Kernstown; plunging the public mind into a slough of despond, in which it was to be sunk deeper and ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... and a score of others, who are not at all the bloodless creatures of the Romance of the Rose, but men real enough to stop you on the road and to hold your attention. Scene after scene follows, in which are pictured many of our own spiritual experiences. There is the Slough of Despond, into which we all have fallen, out of which Pliable scrambles on the hither side and goes back grumbling, but through which Christian struggles mightily till Helpful stretches him a hand and drags him out on solid ground and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... guns are good but the Almighty is better, and He is on our side, no matter what the Kaiser says about it.' I would have gone crazy many a day lately, Miss Oliver, dear, if I had not sat tight and repeated that to myself. My cousin Sophia is, like you, somewhat inclined to despond. 'Oh, dear me, what will we do if the Germans ever get here,' she wailed to me yesterday. 'Bury them,' said I, just as off-hand as that. 'There is plenty of room for the graves.' Cousin Sophia said that I was flippant ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... right here, Mrs. Trapes! In fact, Arthur broke into my—er—life just when things were at their darkest generally. Arthur found me very depressed and gloomy. Arthur taught me that life might yet have its uses. Arthur lifted me out of the Slough of Despond. Arthur brought me—to you! And behold! life is good and perchance shall be even better if—ah yes, if! So you see, my dear Mrs. Trapes, Arthur has done much for me, consequently I have much to thank Arthur for. Indeed, I look ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... the nick of time. If I had had to languish here all summer there wouldn't have been enough left of me to go to college in the fall. Think what a misfortune you have averted from that institution! An hour ago I was wallowing in the slough of despond; now I am skittering on the heights once more. Hurrah for the spring that broke the company that owned the island that sheltered the camp that Jack hasn't built yet but will very soon!" And she danced up and down until the heat ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... States, and by a too zealous anxiety for instant emancipation in others,—by fear of provoking opposition in one quarter, and by a blind defiance of all obstacles in another. Now what shall be done? Shall we hesitate, despond, despair? Never! For Heaven's sake, take off the muzzle. Use every weapon which the God of Battles has placed in our hands. Put forth all the power of the nation. Encourage and promote all fighting generals; cashier all officers who are determined to make war on peace principles; arm, equip, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... lack of interest amuses me. I will be honest with the reader, though, and any Master Pliable is free to forsake me at this point; for I cannot promise to be really livelier than my walk. There is a Slough of Despond in full view, and not a Delectable Mountain to be seen, unless you choose so to call the high lands about Waltham, which we shall behold dark blue against the western sky presently. As I sally forth upon Benicia Street, ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... contained their equal. Their productive capability is the marvel even of this age of industrial miracles. And yet, with every nerve strained to its utmost tension; toiling, saving—at very death-grips with destiny—they are sinking year by year deeper into the Slough of Despond—into that most frightful of all Gehennas, the hell ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the mansion, by the burnside in the glen, where there was abundance of water and secure privacy. Watt's extreme diffidence was often the subject of remark at Dr. Roebuck's fireside. To the Doctor his anxiety seemed quite painful, and he was very much disposed to despond under apparently trivial difficulties. Roebuck's hopeful nature was his mainstay throughout. Watt himself was ready enough to admit this; for, writing to his friend Dr. Small, he once said, "I have met with many disappointments; and I must have sunk under the burthen ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... my recent misery was the ecstasy which succeeded my liberation. The happy sense of relief imparted to me such a feeling of buoyancy that I was enabled to extricate myself from this 'slough of despond,' and I soon reached the swift current, when a few strokes landed me in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in the metropolis, he sought a situation, but in vain, and he was beginning to despond, when he obtained work with one John Morgan, an instrument-maker, in Finch Lane, Cornhill. Here he gradually became proficient in making quadrants, parallel rulers, compasses, theodolites, etc., until, at the end of a year's ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... Ballybay, still deep down in the slough of its eternal despond, a few lorn and desolate-looking men stood on the platform. There they were once more, as if it were but yesterday, with their hands deep down in their pockets; the wistful, curious glance in their eyes, and the melancholy slouch in their shoulders. They tried to raise a cheer, ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... remember certain boys whom Somers, and Dimock, and Danvers praised on a certain occasion?" said Walter. "Come, Rex, don't despond. We weren't afraid then, why ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... and unwilling consent to give up Christ—was a greater sin than all the sins of David, Solomon, Manasseh, and even than all the sins that had been committed by all God's redeemed ones. Was there ever a man in the world so capable of describing the miseries of Doubting Castle, or of the Slough of Despond, as poor John Bunyan? ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... must now return to the weary chapter of European diplomacy, to trace the tortuous course of popes and princes, duping one another with false hopes; saying what they did not mean, and meaning what they did not say. It is a very Slough of Despond, through which we must plunge desperately as we may; and we can cheer ourselves in this dismal region only by the knowledge that, although we are now approaching the spot where the mire is deepest, the hard ground is ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... strove to glut His rage, refining on my pain, Sent me forth to the wilderness, 850 Bound—naked—bleeding—and alone, To pass the desert to a throne,— What mortal his own doom may guess? Let none despond, let none despair! To-morrow the Borysthenes May see our coursers graze at ease Upon his Turkish bank,—and never Had I such welcome for a river As I shall yield when safely there.[275] Comrades, good night!"—The Hetman threw 860 ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... the future, about which Symonds did not despond, though he was disposed to blame, somewhat sharply, our late companions, for choosing to find their way South independently; I thought he was unjust then, and since that I have had ample evidence of their good intentions ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... have little to do they go back to childishness. They long for novelty—new playthings, new adventures, new sensations, new friends. So our upper classes are utterly restless. Every old pleasure is a slough of despond. The ladies have tried jewels, laces, crests, titled husbands, divorces, gambling, cocktails, cigarettes, and other branches of exhilaration. They have passed through the slums of literature and of the East Side of Gotham. The gentlemen have shown them the ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... inheritances from your Parent. Do not make the great mistake of confounding the Relative with the Absolute. Avoid this pitfall into which so many have fallen. Do not allow yourself to fall into the "Slough of Despond," and wallow in the mud of "nothingness," and to see no reality except in the person of some forceful teacher who takes the place of the Absolute in your mind. But raise your head and assert your Divine Parentage, and your Heritage ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Despond not. I cannot think that he is lost. We were but a furlong from the shore. My belief is, that seeing the capture of the Queen was certain, and that to him, if taken with her in arms against his country, death was inevitable, he, when he fell, rose again at a safe distance, and ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... to die, in the swamps, by his timid companions, He prayed to the Virgin on high, and she led him forth from the forest; For angels she sent him as men— in the forms of the tawny Dakotas, And they led his feet from the fen, from the slough of despond and the desert, Half dead in a dismal morass, as they followed the red-deer they found him, In the midst of the mire and the grass, and mumbling "Te Deum laudamus." "Unktomee[72]—Ho!" muttered the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... all she loved; and to the chances of life. It was a sweet indolence of the mind, which made one of her most beautiful traits of character; there is something so unselfish in tempers reluctant to despond. You see that such persons are not occupied with their own existence; they are not fretting the calm of the present life, with the egotisms of care, and conjecture, and calculation: if they learn anxiety, it is for another; but in the heart of that other, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... enemies." Yet it appears by a subsequent letter, that the grievances of which the General complained so bitterly, were not cured even by the presence of the Chevalier; that those who had made a pretext of his absence to complain and despond, desponded still, and that, in fact, the malady was so deep-seated ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... Pine to send the chicken! We didn't have anything for supper but coffee and rolls and eggs. He's certainly bringing good things in his wake. How delicious that chicken does smell! Let's take it as a good omen, Alec, a forerunner of better days. He'll surely get you out of your slough of despond." ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and I am glad to learn that you are at experiment once more. But how is the health? Not well, I fear. I wish you would get yourself strong first and work afterwards. As for the fruits, I am sure they will be good, for though I sometimes despond as regards myself, I do not as regards you. You are young, I am old.... But then our subjects are so glorious, that to work at them rejoices and encourages the feeblest; delights and enchants ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... having now floundered through the Slough of Despond, passed through the Wicket Gate, climbed the Hill Difficulty, and got safe by the Lions, entered the Palace Beautiful, and was "had in to the family." In plain words, Bunyan united himself to the little Christian brotherhood at Bedford, of which the former loose-living ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... that, though it was a very honourable thing to command a ship, we should be very glad to be relieved of the honour. Since we captured the vessel we had not had a moment to take any food. Hunger made us rather inclined to despond. We, however, found out what was the matter with us, and sent Billy Wise down into the cabin to forage. He soon returned with some biscuit and white cheese, and dried plums and raisins, and a few bottles of claret, but there was no honest ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... at this, and went off. At a quarter of seven, Polly, in a storm of remonstrance from all but one, hurried off to help poor Amy Loughead through her Slough of Despond. ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... yet to us now living it seems as if man had not yet lost all that part of his soul which longs for beauty: nay we cannot but hope that it is not yet dying. If we are not deceived in that hope, if the art of to-day has really come alive out of the slough of despond which we call the eighteenth century, it will surely grow and gather strength and draw to it other forms of intellect and hope that now scarcely know it; and then, whatever changes it may go through, it will at the last be victorious, and bring abundant content to mankind. On the other hand, ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... almost exclusively Honiton, which I personally am not good Englishwoman enough to admire except at its latest stage (just the past few years), when lace-making, as almost every other art work in this country, is emerging from what, from an artistic point of view, has been one long Slough of Despond. ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... are fluidic and impressionable, and take on any form that the mental power has achieved sufficient strength to stamp, and because of this—which is the explanation of the outward phenomena whose significance, on the spiritual side, is all condensed in prayer—one need never despond or despair. At any instant he can so unite his own will with the divine will that new combinations of event and circumstance will appear in his life. A writer on this line of ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... corresponding in length at all to his past. Otherwise the history of life becomes a "story told by an idiot." For its satisfaction is the only one which never causes satiety, and of which over-indulgence is impossible. All others lead only to a slough of despond, or the deeper and more treacherous slough of contentment, beyond which rise no delectable mountains or ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... rest of those babies have returned to their duty," continued Monroe, who was always the first to despond. ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... have all their lives been subject to compulsory labor should, on having this labor left to their discretion, be disposed at first to relax, and, in some instances, totally abstain from it, was equally to be expected. But we have no reason to despond, nor to imagine that, because such has occurred in some ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... poor-laws, into which you have ventured for the love of the country, form a sad quagmire. They are like John Bunyan's Slough of Despond, into which, as he observes, millions of cart-loads of good resolutions have been thrown, without perceptibly mending the way. From what you say, and from what I have heard from others, there is a very natural desire to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Ode to reconcile him to his destiny, and to inspire him with delight in the beautiful Scenery by which he was surrounded; insinuating, that should Augustus banish him, which was no improbable event, he ought not to despond, but to form his conduct upon the spirited example of Teucer; who, together with his Friends and Followers, was banished from his native City, Salamis, by his Father, because he had not revenged upon the Greeks the death of his Brother Ajax.—The ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... deeper and deeper in the Slough of Despond, the firing of a musket, and the shriek of the man who was struck, attracted my attention. Looking towards the opposite end of the pen I saw a guard bringing his still smoking musket to a "recover arms," and, not fifteen feet from him, a prisoner ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Griffin Tewett, and the lover was an occasional visitor in Hertford Street. Mrs. Carbuncle was as anxious as ever that the marriage should be celebrated on the appointed day, and though there had been repeated quarrels, nothing had as yet taken place to make her despond. Sir Griffin would make some offensive speech; Lucinda would tell him that she had no desire ever to see him again; and then the baronet, usually under the instigation of Lord George, would make some awkward ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... and south, the early American road was a veritable Slough of Despond. Watery pits were to be encountered wherein horses were drowned and loads sank from sight. Frequently traffic was stopped for hours by wagons which had broken down and blocked the way. Thirteen ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... surprise, said he would think the matter over, and that something would assuredly turn up, talked vaguely of advantageous appointments which he had interest in England to procure, assured me of his sympathy and friendship, and bade me not despond, but keep my heart up, for that I had plenty of time to turn in, and meanwhile I must limit my expenses, and not be offended if he occasionally gave me a friendly check when he saw me 'outrunning the constable.' ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... his way towards them. The feet of thousands of people, who had visited the spot since the news of the accident was made known, had worn away the last blade of grass from the slippery fields and had left a very Slough of Despond behind them. I was down half a dozen times, and when I reached the hovel where the rescue-party had gathered I was as much like a mud statue as a man. Everything was in readiness, and the ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... spoke, she glanced about the room, hoping to see some blue blossoms awaiting her. But none appeared; and she was about to despond again, when the ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... wit and the good fraternal companionship of Charles Francis Browne were of daily comfort; but above all others I depended upon my wife whose serenely optimistic spirit carried me over many a deep slough of despond. How I leaned upon her! Her ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Christian, whom he accompanied as far as the "Slough of Despond," when he turned back.—Bunyan, Pilgrim's ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... they would seem as precious to me when I had got them as they do now. Once I did not know what it was to despond, but I lost my pupils last winter, and everything seemed hopeless. I am not vain or egotistic; I do not pine for applause and wealth, but I should like to sing.... I've heard so much about my voice that I'm curious to know what ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... make you despond. Ours is a calling of ups and downs; it is an advantage of its uncertainty that you never know what may happen next; the darkest hour may he very near the dawn. This is where Bohemianism, in the best sense of the term, will serve the actor. I do not ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... star had swum into the world's ken'; of how 'the situation of this country is perilous with so much Bolshevik gunpowder moving about', and how 'it has required a strong heart and a clear head to keep the nation from falling either into the sloughs of despond or ...
— Tract XI: Three Articles on Metaphor • Society for Pure English
... need is encouragement, uplift, hope. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened and developed. Instead of telling a friend in trouble, despair, or suffering that you feel very sorry for him, try to pull him out of his slough of despond, to arouse the latent recuperative, restorative energies within him. Picture to him his God image, his better self, which, because it is a part of the great immortal principle, is never sick and never out of harmony, can never ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Aunt Polly's mission, for a fact, and Helen was much relieved, for she had found herself quite helpless to lift the conversation out of the slough of despond into which it had fallen; she wanted a little time to collect her faculties and think of something clever to start with again. When in answer to the request of Aunt Polly she arose and went to the piano, the crushed feeling of course left her, and her serenity returned; for Helen ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... want now attacked poor Kit. He could obtain no employment. His expectations in this respect, as well as his earnest efforts, received so little encouragement that he began, finally, to despond. Extreme poverty is a wet damper on the fires of the best genius; but, as was the case with Kit, it does not effectually put it out. Kit saw with sorrow that he must retrace his steps. To obtain means to carry out his ardent desires, in the spring of 1827 ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... in a very slough of despond when suddenly things began to happen. I might have known that Sanstead House would never permit solitary brooding on Life for long. It was a place of incident, not ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... which no creature can overthrow; so that no one should trust in his own righteousness, but on Christ's righteousness, and on all that Christ has. But what is it to rest upon His righteousness? Nothing else but that I should despond in regard to myself, and think with myself,—my righteousness, my truth, must go to pieces, and what is built thereon; while His righteousness, His truth, His life, and all the blessings which He has, are eternal. There lies the foundation on which I stand; whatever stands ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... despond. The grace of our Lord is sufficient for us, and his strength is made perfect in our weakness. ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker |
