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More "Despond" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vitality had been fatally impaired. "What exceeding folly," he wrote to a friend, "was it that tempted me to cross the sea in search of what I do not seem able to find here—a righteous stomach? I have been wallowing in the slough of despond for a week and my digestive apparatus has gone wrong again. I have suffered tortures that would have done credit to the inventive genius of a Dante, and the natural consequence is that I am ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... and knows what he's about. It is rather jumping at conclusions to consider that he will let his vessel be wrecked. Yes, it was nervous work watching a vessel like that; but there, we must hope for the best, and possibly there is no reason to despond. Whoever the brig belonged to had good reason for getting away, and they have succeeded in that. There, come along; let's have our dinner, and think no more about it. But hallo! ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... at Richmond Hill, having safely passed the Slough of Despond, which the vaunted Yonge Street mud road presents, between the celebrated hamlet of St. Alban's and the aforesaid hill, one of the greatest curiosities of which road, near St. Alban's, is the vicinity of a sort of Mormon establishment, where a ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... spirits of Munatius dejected, writes this 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 ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... are some people who study to be pessimistic. They are the "self-appointed inspectors of warts and carbuncles, the self-elected supervisors of sewers and street gutters." They pride themselves on being guides to the Slough of Despond and on holding a pass key to the ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... Zwingli spoke one more, begging all to hold firm to the Gospel, and never to despond as long as they leaned upon it. "What is done from the best motives will be misrepresented by falsehood and slander. Thus it had been said here and there yesterday evening that we would now degrade the body and blood of Christ into sleeping-cups. No!"—cried he—"no one certainly wishes to ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... only a Christian, like Dr. Grey! His faith, like strong wings, bears him high above all sloughs of despond, all morasses of moodiness. People cannot successfully or profitably serve two masters. That is eminently true; not because it is scriptural, but vice versa; because it is so obviously true it could not escape a place in the Bible. Half work pays poor ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... was chiefly of 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 and ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... betrothed wife—had been chosen to inherit those very millions which had formerly stood between him and what he had then imagined to be his happiness. And listening to the strange story, he had sunk deeper and deeper into the Slough of Despond, and now sat rigidly silent, with all the light gone out of his features, and all the ardour quenched in his eyes. Mary looking at him, and reading every expression in that dark beloved face, felt the tears rising thickly in her ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... 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
... tormented herself with dangerous mistrusts, but gave all she had to God, begging Him to purify the gift and supply her mind with the dispositions to render the offering acceptable. She had learned that most difficult lesson even to the holy—to hope rather than despond in the conviction of unworthiness. There was one other victory which the Lady Margaret had gained over herself: she had suppressed an inclination to return the attachment of Gilbert de Hers, which she clearly saw could only lead to unfortunate results. ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... word! This hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or 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 ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... 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 ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... 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 ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Bunyan, a greater humorist, could be saved only in following a path that skirted madness, and 'as by fire.' To Bunyan, Walton would have seemed a figure like his own Ignorance; a pilgrim who never stuck in the Slough of Despond, nor met Apollyon in the Valley of the Shadow, nor was captive in Doubting Castle, nor stoned in Vanity Fair. And of Bunyan, Walton would have said that he was among those Nonconformists who 'might be sincere, well-meaning men, whose indiscreet zeal might be so like charity, as thereby to ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... upon 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
... Moore's father received, through the interest of Lord Moira, the post 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... "merely imaginative. And I 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, my dear." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Barton could take things quite so coolly. Perhaps it might be partly owing to his enfeebled state, but he certainly did not seem to trouble himself much about the future. "I feel as if I should pull through now," he said, once. "I only wanted a helping hand to lift me out of the slough of despond. When I am a bit stronger, doctor, I must paint a pot-boiler or two," and Marcus had ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... earth's brief ills appall the brave? Shall manly hearts despond? Up, faint heart, up! The blackest cloud But veils ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... vilest durance and imminent danger of being put to death till October 8th, when, after the capture of the Summer Palace, both the prisoners were released.] is safe. We have been very uneasy about him, and not without cause. The China war is a slough of despond: the further we advance the more we shall flounder, until we are half ruined ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... that foundation 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, ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... to a peasant, even, it was studied as an epitome of all the social virtues. 'N'etre pas poli' was the sum total of all dispraise: a man could only recover from it by splendid valour or rare gifts; a woman could not hope to rise out of that Slough of Despond to which good-breeding never came. We were behind all the arts of civilization in England, as Francois de Rochefoucault (we give the orthography of the present day) was in his cradle. This brilliant personage, who combined the wit and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... doom shall I despond? I would not from thy snare go free, Release me not from thy sweet bond, I live but in thy mystery; Though all my senses from me flee, I still would glut my glazing eye, Thou nectar of mortality— To taste ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... She is unknown to the public; but the history of the mind of such a woman is discovered in the "Letters of Gesner and his Family." While GESNER gave himself up entirely to his favourite arts, drawing, painting, etching, and poetry, his wife would often reanimate a genius that was apt to despond in its attempts, and often exciting him to new productions, her sure and delicate taste was attentively consulted by the poet-painter—but she combined the most practical good sense with the most feeling imagination. This forms the rareness of the character; for this same woman, who united ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... 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
... another gentleman shook his head in the same way. He held a pleasant position, but he found that promotion was very slow, and he began to despond and to think the times sadly demoralized, and his party—at least he feared it—fatally mercenary. It was evidently indifferent to reform, and seemed to care little for the wishes of the people or the character of the country. He, too, shook his head with profound distrust ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... like you to repine in this way; you who have suffered and endured so much must not despond when, after a long, starless night, ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... were therefore in debt, and that deeply, for people with no immediate, or even remote, prospects of an addition to their income. Then the Bloods during Mary's absence had fallen further into the Slough of Despond, out of which, now their daughter was dead, there was no one to help them. George could not aid them, because, though they did not know it, he was just then without employment. Unable to live amicably with his brother-in-law after Fanny's death, he had resigned his position in Lisbon and gone ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... 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
... therefore I can speak freely to you. Tell her that when she left the grove that day she carried off my heart with her, and that I long to see her even more than she longs for me; tell her only not to despond; the entrance to her apartments is indeed difficult, but I will contrive to see her by some means or other. Come back soon, and, having thought over the matter, I will tell you what is to be done." With this message, Balachandrika went to rejoice her friend; and the prince, though ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... 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 patience with ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... steed Rosinante, with Hebe's cup and many another impalpable marvel, in the warden-ship of the Wandering Jew. So, too, when we read Great-Heart's analysis of Mr. Fearing, this expression, "He had, I think, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough that he carried everywhere with him," we can detect the root of symbolical conceptions like that of "The Bosom Serpent." [Footnote: Mosses from an Old Manse, Vol. II.] I cannot refrain from copying here some passages from ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... myself can be of no use to him; he has not the same friendly feeling for me as he used to have. But it is very certain that those of his friends who have the power should exert themselves to raise him out of this fearful slough of despond. If he isn't effectually helped, there's no saying what may happen. One thing is certain, I think: he is past helping himself. Sane literary work cannot be expected from him. It seems a monstrous ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... thoughts. Had he allowed it, she would have devoted herself exclusively to him, but this he would not have. Very slowly, very painfully, he had struggled out of his Slough of Despond, and what that struggle had meant to him none but himself would ever know. And now that he had made it, and in a measure succeeded, he suffered scarcely less than before. His strength was undoubtedly greater, his spirits were more even; but ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... sinking 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 lying on the ground ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... 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
... meant 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 families to be confounded ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... he's done 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 breath ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... that betwixt them and the gate was a river; but there was no bridge to go over, and the river was very deep... The Pilgrims then, especially Christian, began to despond in their minds, and looked this way and that, but no way could be found by them by which they might escape the river... They then addressed themselves to the water, and entering, Christian began to sink... And with that, a great ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... 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 ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... so much 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 to ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... that there is something generous, rather than derogatory, in giving to the poor exile, whose thoughts are so high and noble, those privileges of a man of rank, which some who were born in such lofty station are too cowardly to avail themselves of. Yet despond not, noble Princess; the challenge is not yet accepted of, and if it was, the issue is in the hand of God. As for me, whose trade is war, the sense that I have something so serious to transact with this resolute man, will keep me from other less honourable quarrels, in which a lack of occupation ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... of high attractiveness came under his eyes, he could not bring himself to the point of proposing marriage. He dreaded to take up the position of husband a second time, discerning a trap in every petticoat, and a Slough of Despond in possible heirs. 'What has happened once, when all seemed so fair, may happen again,' he said to himself. 'I'll risk my name no more.' So he abstained from marriage, and overcame his wish for a lineal descendant to follow him ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... I hold it sinful to despond, And will not let the bitterness of life Blind me with burning tears, but look beyond ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... Roanoke was engaged to marry Sir 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 apology. Mrs. Carbuncle,—whose life at this period was not a pleasant one,—would behave ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... individual soul, as a prominent landmark in the vast monotony of death and horror—a chapter of inspiring deeds. It represents to us the heroism of a forlorn hope, the glory of unselfish sacrifice, the success of failure." 'Tis too easy to despond "while the tired waves" visibly gain no "painful inch," hard to believe that "far back through creeks and inlets making, comes ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... happy. I have brought some solace and light into your days, Eleanor? If I died to-morrow, or was lost from sight, you would look back and say: 'He gave me my dearest hours, my most treasured memories. He brought me from the slough of despond to the ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... charms, especially when they are old and picturesque, and smell of the Middle Ages; but to be kept a prisoner in one of them by rainy weather is apt to plunge a restless wanderer into the Slough of Despond. The chances are that the inn itself becomes at such times a slough, so that Bunyan's expression is then applicable in a real as well as in a figurative sense. There is a constant coming in and going out of peasants with dripping sabots, of dogs with wet paws, and draggle-tailed hens ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... to become an actress, and she went diligently to work, not allowing herself to despond over that first great disappointment. For the next seven years, she worked faithfully learning the new profession from the very bottom. "I became aware," she said, "that one could never sail a ship by entering at the cabin windows; he must serve and learn his ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... despond. I trust all may yet be well with you, and rest assured it gives me heartfelt pleasure to be enabled to render you a service, and take you to a place of safety. But your hand is hot—burning: it is feverish excitement ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... at home. "Gone over to the hospital with Mrs. Blake and the doctor," was the explanation, and these gentle-hearted women, it seems, were striving to do something to rouse the lad from the slough of despond which had engulfed him. That night "Pink" Marble, Hay's faithful book-keeper and clerk for many a year, a one-armed veteran of the civil war, calling, as was his invariable custom when the trader was absent, to leave ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... Abbot Milo despond over this affair. Hear him, and conceive how he shook his head. 'O too great power of princes,' he writes, 'lodged in a room too frail! O wagging bladder that serves as cushion for a crown! O swayed by idle breath, seeming god that yet is a man, man driven by windy passion, that has yet to ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... not quite a man, as the world goes, and not at all an angel, as the celestials see. He must be his own motive, path, and guide, his own priest, king, and law. The world may be his footstool, and may be his slough of despond, but is never his final end. His aims are transcendental, his realm is art, his interests ideal, his life divine, his destiny immortal. All the old theories of saintship are revived in him. He is in the world, but not of it. Shadows of infinitude are his realities. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... of 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 of ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... qualities which are your 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 from the Absolute, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... present the phenomena of the one, at another of the other. They are the people who complain of the cyclic quality of their moods and purposes. Their mood will be a heaven of exaltation and exhilaration, and then descend into a slough of despond from which they feel themselves inextricable. They are always talking about the ups and downs of their mental states. Headache and languor and fatigability, dry skin and lack of appetite for food or exertion on one day or for one week, give way on the next day, or for ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... 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 cold ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... each individual's life are creating other pulsations which answer them back in other lives, we know not where or how many, whenever we thus shrink away from our duty, when we turn our back upon it, or despond about it, when we become deaf to the higher calls, we are, in fact, crying to God to be relieved of our service to Him and to our fellows. And it is a happy thing for our life if He does not answer us according to our cry, ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... 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 braves, ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... 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." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... Dickens by boat from New 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 ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... memories of the pilgrims and their fairs on the Way, he may have had other scenes in his mind which suggested other names. The Delectable Mountains may have been the blue line of the Sussex Downs, or the hills by Black Down and Hindhead. The Slough of Despond may have been the marshy pools of Shalford Common, or the ponds under the hill by Chilworth; and Doubting Castle, spelt Dowding Castle, is actually a name to be found on the Surrey map, south of Epsom Downs on Banstead ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... into what "sloughs of despond" we German translators fall—with the sad necessity of dragging your honor after us. Yet this is but a part of the general woe. When you hear in every bookseller's shop throughout Germany one unanimous complaint of the non-purchasing ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... fact has been falsely set forth again and again that the French peasant of 1789 was down in the very mire of political despond, without a sou to his name; the cock called him to work at dawn, and all for the good of the aristocrats; he was penniless, he was an absurd figure, he was not a man but a beast;—hence his righteous revolt in the sacred ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... discovering a store of farina or rice, but nothing could they find but the rotting tobacco and the monkey-skins, and, starving as they were, they could not manage to eat them. Even when reduced to this extremity the young officers themselves did not despond, nor did their men, who looked to them for example, do so either. Murray calculated that if they could but get a breeze, they might reach the port for which they were steering in less than twenty-four hours. It was very tantalising ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... was beginning to rise, phoenixlike, from the ashes of his despond, the Patriot reprinted the full details of Nellie's complaint as they appeared in a New York daily. For a brief spell he shrivelled up with shame and horror; he could not look any one in the face. Nellie's lawyers had made the astounding, ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... all the days of their sojourn in that "Valley of Despond," did our adventurers feel more despondence, than on the afternoon that succeeded the bursting of their great air-bubble—the balloon. They felt that in this effort, they had exhausted all their ingenuity; and so firmly were they convinced of its being the last, that no one thought about making ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... regretting, Or for passing hours despond; Nor, the daily toil forgetting, Look too ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... the world may applaud this acute sensibility, religion condemns it. As the effect of mere passion, it has nothing in it which can secure the approbation of God; on the contrary, it is offensive to him, who, while he permits us to weep, does not allow us to despond, and who often sees it best to humble a refractory spirit by a repetition ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... always room in every business for an honest, hard-worker. It will not do to presume otherwise; nor should one sit down to grumble or concoct mischief. The most perilous hour of one's life is when he is tempted to despond. He who loses, his courage loses all. There are men in the world who would rather work than be idle at the same price. Imitate them. Success is not far off. An honorable and happy life is before you. ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... hope of interpreting the enigmas presented to him in the earth's structure—instead of being prompted to undertake laborious enquiries into the natural history of the organic world, and the complicated effects of the igneous and aqueous causes now in operation—was taught to despond from the first. Geology, it was affirmed, could never rise to the rank of an exact science; the greater number of phenomena must for ever remain inexplicable, or only be partially elucidated by ingenious conjectures. Even the mystery which invested the ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... 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 ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... British connection, and Extremist orators perambulate the country to preach a boycott of British officials, the Mahars should have sent in petitions imploring the Governor not to abandon them or surrender the power which has alone done something to raise them out of the slough of despond? Mr. Gandhi, however, who would be a great social reformer had he not preferred to plunge into a dangerous political agitation, is not himself blind to such an awful blot as "untouchability" has made on Hindu civilisation, and some of his followers, prompted perhaps ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... plus Christ, is always in the majority? 'It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of My Father which speaketh in you.' 'I laboured, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.' So helped, so inspired, we are wrong to despond; we are wrong not to expect great things and attempt great things; we are wrong not to dare, we are wrong to do the work of the Lord negligently. Let us feel that Christ's work is ours, and we shall be bowed beneath the solemnity of the thought, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... 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
... 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 ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the last of the column was reached and the frieze of ghostly figures was swallowed up into the night. We drew a long breath, for we knew now from the colonel of the battalion whose men had delivered us from that Slough of Despond that we had been within 150 yards of the German lines. We had mistaken Richebourg l'Avoue for Richebourg ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... the bonds of sin and despair, as bound with them. Hence his power as a preacher; hence the wonderful adaptation of his great allegory to all the variety of spiritual conditions. Like Fearing, he had lain a month in the Slough of Despond, and had played, like him, the long melancholy bass of spiritual heaviness. With Feeble-mind, he had fallen into the hands of Slay-good, of the nature of Man-eaters: and had limped along his difficult way upon the crutches of Ready-to-halt. Who better than himself could describe ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... dawns,—when finally hope returns to us, and life again becomes worth while,—these heartbreaking struggles reap their reward. The psychologists call them "plateaus of growth," but some one has said that "sloughs of despond" would be a far ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... Escape, and thought myself extreamly happy, tho' thrown on an unknown Coast, and destitute of every thing necessary to sustain me: But I trusted in that Goodness which had preserved, and which I hoped would provide for me. To despond, I thought, would be mistrusting the Bounty of our Creator, and might be the ready way to plunge me into the Miseries Men naturally apprehend in my Circumstances. I therefore heartily recommended me to the Divine Protection, and enter'd the Woods ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... glanced about the room, hoping to see some blue blossoms awaiting her. But none appeared; and she was about to despond again, ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... of Christian, whom he accompanied as far as the "Slough of Despond," when he turned ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... while despair reigned. What! they had been marching since morning with nothing to eat, they had summoned up all their energies to escape that deadly trap at Harancourt pass, only in the end to be landed in that slough of despond, with an insurmountable wall staring them in the face! It would be hours, perhaps, before it became the last comer's turn to cross, and everyone knew that even if the Prussians should not be enterprising enough to continue their pursuit in the darkness ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... likened to their position in China, where the contempt of men denied them souls, or to that among savage tribes, where they are treated as beasts of burden. But because we are not wallowing in the Slough of Despond, it does not follow that we are sitting in the House Beautiful. The traveller who has climbed to the mer de glace at Chamouni, and sees the valley wide outstretched far below him, sees also far above him the awful sunlit dome of "Sovran Blanc." Whatever point we may have reached, ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... pit, Roll, reach, the bottom, rest, rot there—a plague on it! For a mountain's sure to fall and bury Bedford Town, 'Destruction'—that's the name, and fire shall burn it down! O 'scape the wrath in time! Time's now, if not too late. How can I pilgrimage up to the wicket-gate? Next comes Despond the slough: not that I fear to pull Through mud, and dry my clothes at brave House Beautiful— But it's late in the day, I reckon: had I left years ago Town, wife, and children dear.... Well, Christmas did, you know!— Soon I had met in the valley and tried my cudgel's strength On the enemy ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... a 'bee,' and hemmed handkerchiefs for Mat, marked towels; and one noble being actually took off his coat and packed the trunks in layers of mosaic-work wonderful to behold. A supper celebrated the last evening; and even the doleful Lavinia, touched by such kindness, emerged from her slough of despond and electrified the ball by dancing a jig with ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... 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
... call today for more faith in a way out of the slough of despond, more resolute endeavor to improve social and economic conditions. We beg the leaders of public opinion to pause before they condemn the efforts making to teach those means of social control which may build yet again a home life that ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards
... London has its nerves affected by what happens beyond the Atlantic? What has become of all your reading? There is nothing so unnatural as the feelings of a million of persons who live together in one city. They have not one conception like those in villages and in the country. They presume or despond from quite different motives. They have both more sense and less, than those who are not in contact with a multitude. Wisdom forms empires, but folly dissolves them; and a great capital, which dictates to the rest of the community, is always the last to perceive the decays ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... saw in my dream, that just as they had ended their talk, they drew nigh to a very miry slough, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond."—BUNYAN. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... drip, drip of water was incessant. "We are under the river-bed," said Moore, "in a kind of natural Thames Tunnel." We made what speed we might through this combination of the Valley of the Shadow with the Slough of Despond, and soon were on firmer ground again beneath Moore's own territory. Probably no other white men had ever crawled through the hidden passage and gained the further penetralia of the cave, which now again began to narrow. Finally we reached four tall pillars, of about ten ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... regarding William's experience in Canada. His letters were all of his inner life. He said much regarding his spiritual condition, of his grievous lapses of faith, of his days on the Delectable Mountains and of his descents into the Slough of Despond, but very little of the hills and valleys of his adopted country. Once, shortly after his arrival, he had stated that he was living in a shanty where the bush came right up to the door. Margaret had had some misgivings, but Cousin Griselda had explained that ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... nut, Though the wheels of your mind have dropped into the rut Of wrong thinking. You need a strong hand on the lever Of good common sense, and an earnest endeavor To pull yourself out of the slough of despond Back into the highway of peace just beyond. And now, here we are at Peace Castle in truth, And there stands its Chatelaine, sweet Sister Ruth, To welcome you, Roger; you'll find a new type In this old-fashioned girl, who in years scarcely ripe, And as childish in heart ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... "is the famous Slough of Despond—a disgrace to all the neighborhood; and the greater that it might so easily be ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... self-respect dawned upon me, I was not so altogether ignorant as I had thought myself, I had some available knowledge; and with that feeling came the determination to raise myself out of that slough of despond into which I had fallen ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... quite true, his carelessness (but then he had been so worn out with watching), his fatal mistake, his heartless mistake (and yet he would almost have given his own life for his children) had brought him down to this slough of despond. There was no hope, the doctors never told him of any, and he knew he could not ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... the author's own country. The children undoubtedly listened to the talk of their elders and gazed with wide-open eyes at the execrable plates in the imported editions illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and sword of the Martyrs, the Pilgrim's difficulties in the Slough of Despond, or with the Giant Despair, afforded pleasurable reading; while Mr. Great Heart's courageous cheerfulness brought practically a new characteristic into ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... arrival 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 practice, he could make "a brass sector with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... we, whose 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
... o' the wisps by dreamers and designers! If it were not that all movements work but one way, like the backward and forward of a machine—towards advancement, these things would make a man despond." ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... feet dragging to save themselves from falling. Everything was splashed with filth and corruption; one marvelled at the cleanness of the sky. Trees were blasted, and seemed to be sinking out of sight in this war-created Slough of Despond. We came to the brow of a hill; in the valley was something that I recognised. The last time I had seen it was in an etching in a shop window in Newark, New Jersey. It was a town, from the midst of whose battered ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... some 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... see you 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
... every Athenian may be supplied with ample maintenance at the public expense. Possibly some of you may be calculating that the capital (40) requisite will be enormous. They may doubt if a sufficient sum will ever be subscribed to meet all the needs. All I can say is, even so, do not despond. It is not as if it were necessary that every feature of the scheme should be carried out at once, or else there is to be no advantage in it at all. On the contrary, whatever number of houses are erected, or ships are ...
— On Revenues • Xenophon
... your 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 is a ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... poor Sylvie fell into and floundered in that slough of despond, the lower stratum of the Irish kitchen element, which if one once meddles with, it is almost hopeless to get out of; and one very soon finds that to get out of it is the only hope, forlorn as ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... little adaptation—yes, and wonderfully little—the Slough of Despond, Doubting Castle, the Valley of the Shadow of Death—they all fall into place. Ah! the modern Pilgrim's Progress would read strangely and significantly with woman as the pilgrim! But the end—that ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... 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 ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... all which makes you despond, father? Have you no other grief? Does your heart conceal no other ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... 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 but I was ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... perverse ill-luck. The weather was terribly inclement, alternating between extremes. Heavy snowstorms and hard frosts were followed by thaws and drenching rains. The difficulties of transport continued supreme. Roads, mere spongy sloughs of despond, were nearly impassable, and the waste of baggage-animals was so great that soon ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... province are at a standstill," he repeated, "while all my energies are bent upon this quest. Should we fail to have news of his capture in Dauphiny, we need not, nevertheless, despond. I have sent men after him along the three roads that lead to Paris. They are to spare neither money nor horses in picking up his trail and effecting his capture. After all, I think ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... "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 old gentleman ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... sublime as billows Heaving between this World and Worlds beyond, Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows Arrived, retired to his; but to despond Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, willows Waved o'er his couch; he meditated, fond Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep, And make the worldling ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... patience.... He began life full of hopes, fiery, impetuous, ungovernable, expecting the world to fall at once beneath his powers. Unable to bear the sneers of ignorance or the attacks of envy, he began to despond, and flew to dissipation as a relief. For six weeks he was scarcely sober, and to show what a man does to gratify his appetites when once they get the better of him, he once covered his tongue and throat, as far as he could reach, with Cayenne ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... do to despond. We had been incautious, and we should take good care not to commit the ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... maxim of that sage school of philosophers, the Croakers, who esteem it true wisdom to doubt and despond when other men rejoice, well knowing that happiness is at best but transient; that the higher one is elevated on the see-saw balance of fortune, the lower must be his subsequent depression; that he who is on the uppermost round of a ladder has ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... 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 high-flyer. It is a present from the Squire's friend, Sir Watkyn Williams Wynne; and is, no ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... suddenly deprived of all his honours, and even banished the country, without being able to obtain from his once indulgent master, the privilege of knowing his crimes, or being confronted with his accusers. Fortunately he was in the prime of life, fond of adventure, and not of a temper to despond. He retired to his castle, convened his friends, and communicated to them the king's injustice, and his own projects; which were, to embark for England, and there enter into the pay of the first king who might want his assistance. But he had a wife, the fair and amiable ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... entered on an auspicious period in the history of the mission. Geog Tapa became the radiant centre of spiritual life. The preceding year had been one of apprehension, but the brethren now learned not to despond every time the heavens gathered blackness, for in the darkest hour the sun may break forth and change the whole scene. We have come to the beginning of that series of revivals, with which the ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... things was not brightened by the prospect before him. In casting his eyes around, no cheering object presented itself. No confidence could be placed on receiving reinforcements from any quarter. But, in no situation could Washington despond. His exertions to collect an army, and to impede the progress of his enemy, were perseveringly continued. Understanding that Sir Guy Carleton no longer threatened Ticonderoga, he directed General Schuyler to hasten the troops of Pennsylvania and Jersey to his assistance, and ordered[49] ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... of Pickett's division, went up thither last night, and it may be probable that a battle is imminent. Lee is apt to fight when the enemy is present facing him. The victory of Bragg has lifted a mountain from the spirits of the people, and another victory would cast the North into the "slough of despond." ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... across a sea of mud worse than the Slough of Despond, of methodically advanced barrage fire, of quick work in trench fight, sufficed for the Canadians to take Regina trench—one of the smoothest bits of trench-taking that has been witnessed in the Somme drive. I saw the Canadians, muddy to the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... miss our millionaire, we need not despond over ways and means. The beauty-spots of Great Britain are engaged just now in a fierce rivalry of advertisement. Why should not this rivalry be pressed into the service of beautifying the railway lines along which the tourist must ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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
... the brave country alone for me. And with that he gave a desperate struggle or two, and got out of the mire on that side of the slough which was next to his own house: so away he went, and Christian saw him no more. Wherefore Christian was left to tumble in the Slough of Despond alone; but still he endeavoured to struggle to that side of the slough that was still further from his own house, and next to the wicket-gate; the which he did, but could not get out, because of the burden that was upon his back.[14] But I beheld in my dream, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in my dream, that just as they had ended this talk they drew near to a very miry slough, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond. Here, therefore, they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed with the dirt; and Christian, because of the burden that was on his back, began to sink in the mire. Then said Pliable, "Ah! neighbor Christian, where ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... 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, following ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... her my heart is wax to be moulded as she pleases but enduring as marble to retain whatever impression she shall make upon it. If you believe me I shall fear no discouragement from any other quarter, but if you doubt me, I shall despond. My name is——; my father's I have already given you; he lives in such a house in such a street and you may inquire about him and me of the neighbours, and of others also; for our name and quality are not so obscure but that you may hear of us about the court, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 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
... 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 ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... 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 descent was made ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... Missionary Association speakers, this glorious fact met with cordial applause. All the more did it seem incumbent upon the churches to take hold of the American Missionary Association, still burdened with its debt, and lift it out of the slough of financial despond. This, however, is only the reflection of the feeling among the churches throughout the land. The determination to lift the debt of the American Missionary Association, and to make it possible to continue at least its depleted work, is universal. Special ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 05, May, 1896 • Various
... you by other people, rather than by me: for I am very desirous you should not continue to think me too prone to censure. And, in addition to them, I would have you take a retrospect of your plan. To induce you to despond is a thing which I would most sedulously avoid: but to suffer you to delude yourself with the hopes of sudden wealth (and when I say sudden, I would give you a term of ten years) from the practice of the law, unless you should plunge ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... 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
... hearts despond, because lonesomeness had swallowed me like a whale? Did their ear perhaps hearken yearningly-long for me IN VAIN, and for my trumpet-notes ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... finished its course, and achieved its work much sooner than with us. Probably the last summer had found no human being alive, in all the track included between the shores of Calabria and the northern Alps. My search was utterly vain, yet I did not despond. Reason methought was on my side; and the chances were by no means contemptible, that there should exist in some part of Italy a survivor like myself—of a wasted, depopulate land. As therefore I rambled through the empty town, I formed ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... but he understood the theory of the game. At the University School in Cleveland where Rush taught for many years, he took charge of the football team, and although coaching mere boys, his results were marvelous, and in 1915, when the Princeton coaching system was in a slough of despond, it was decided to give Rush an opportunity to show what ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... to brighter days. You would not now sadden the hours of your absence from me by causing anxious thoughts in my heart. Oh! my precious wife; you have borne much for my sake, you have been to me in very truth a ministering angel. Do not now despond, but still strengthen me by your brave, hopeful smiles. You know how I shall miss you every moment of your absence, but the hope that this ride will do you good makes me willing and anxious to have you ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... a grant of land, which took their name, and became the Manor of Despond; there's where Spoon Hall is now. Sir Thomas Desponder was one of those who demanded the Charter, though his name wasn't always given because he wasn't a baron. Perhaps Miss Palliser ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... spirit, Lorado's swift 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 patience with ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... dreariness has not been induced by the look of the house. Still, when I do look around and see the rich carpets gone, the pictures, statues, all the thousand beautiful things we used to take pleasure in, I say to myself, 'This just man will have his reward.' Don't despond, Jack: I tell you, things will ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... to have ready a Theme to send off to Harvard. Of course, every Thursday morning We, with one accord, begin to make excuses. Well, the Dread Day rolls around to-morrow, and consequently I am deep in the Slough of Despond. My only consolation is that our Geniuses can't write regularly, but then the mood to write never possesses me.... This week, in writing a comparison between Hamlet and Antonio, I did succeed in jotting down something, but unfortunately I found ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... doubt but that both land, and air, and water, afford an abundance of food for man in the Arctic zone, and that, when spurred by necessity, it is within his power to obtain it. We ought not therefore to despond, or give up efforts to rescue those who have well earned the sympathy of the world, by what they must have already suffered. These northern seas will yet be explored. The very difficulty of accomplishing it, will itself give it a charm, which in this restless ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... birds called love-birds, only living in pairs, as if endowed with a common life, pine, despond, and die, when parted by a ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Cambridge professor who had come with Dickens by boat from New 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 when the night came and he saw that ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... and achieved its work much sooner than with us. Probably the last summer had found no human being alive, in all the track included between the shores of Calabria and the northern Alps. My search was utterly vain, yet I did not despond. Reason methought was on my side; and the chances were by no means contemptible, that there should exist in some part of Italy a survivor like myself—of a wasted, depopulate land. As therefore ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... 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 high-flyer. It is a present from the Squire's friend, Sir Watkyn Williams Wynne; and is, no ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... these aids to finding one's way about are prudently dispensed with. There is not a single handsome and hardly a decent building in the whole place. The streets, as I saw them after rain, are veritable sloughs of despond, but they are capable of being changed by dry weather into deserts of dust. It is true, I have only been as yet twice down to the town, but on both visits it reminded me more of the sleepy villages in Washington ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... 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 ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... mean time will you help me pull him out of his slough of despond?" she asked, smiling with the ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... effort, and when he ceases to exert himself he falls. There are intervals, however, of comparative calm, and to one of these the storm-tossed Bunyan was now approaching. He had passed through the Slough of Despond. He had gone astray after Mr. Legality, and the rocks had almost overwhelmed him. Evangelist now found him and put him right again, and he was to be allowed a breathing space at the Interpreter's house. As he was at his ordinary daily work his mind was restlessly ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... the two months succeeding that hideous night when in paralyzed silence she watched Garrison away. The greatest sorrow is stagnant, not active. The heart becomes like a frozen morass. Sometimes memory slips through the crust, only to sink in the grim "slough of despond." ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... 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 ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... 1825:—"Taylor has dropt the 'London'. It was indeed a dead weight. It was Job in the Slough of Despond. I shuffle off my part of the pack, and stand like Christian with light ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... imagination as men, women, cities, landscapes. It is the simplest, the most transparent of allegories. Unlike the Faery Queene, the story of Pilgrim's Progress has no reason for existing apart from its inner meaning, and yet its reality is so vivid that children read of Vanity Fair and the Slough of Despond and Doubting Castle and the Valley of the Shadow of Death with the same belief with which they read of Crusoe's ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... he was beginning to rise, phoenixlike, from the ashes of his despond, the Patriot reprinted the full details of Nellie's complaint as they appeared in a New York daily. For a brief spell he shrivelled up with shame and horror; he could not look any one in the face. Nellie's lawyers had made the astounding, outrageous ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... would have been could General Taylor have been spared to us. Yet, under all circumstances, trusting to our Maker and through His wisdom and beneficence to the great body of our people, we will not despair, nor despond. ...
— The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address • Abraham Lincoln
... touchstone of the individual soul, as a prominent landmark in the vast monotony of death and horror—a chapter of inspiring deeds. It represents to us the heroism of a forlorn hope, the glory of unselfish sacrifice, the success of failure." 'Tis too easy to despond "while the tired waves" visibly gain no "painful inch," hard to believe that "far back through creeks and inlets making, comes silent, flooding in, ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... dearest to thee of all in the world's gift—its most valued treasure, its purest, sweetest, and proudest trophies—why, when these are the stake which is to reward thy courage, thy adherence, to compensate thee for trial, to console thee for loss and outrage—why is it that thou art so ready to despond of the cause so dear to thee, and forfeit the conquest by which alone thy whole existence is made sweet. This is the very suicide of self. Fearful of loss, we forsake the prize, which we have won; and hearkening ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... to come. I'm an older man than you, and I bid you take comfort, and trust to God for better things, and better things will come, too. You are not so badly off now as you were this time twelvemonth. And you know I'll never leave you. Don't despond—don't give away. It's unnatural for a man to do it, and he's lost if he does. Oh, bless you, this is a life of suffering and sorrow, and well it is; for who wouldn't go mad to think of leaving all his young 'uns ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... of Munatius dejected, writes this 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 ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... compartmented, dungeoned storehouse of filed fancies and forgotten files. A tunneled, revetted, embrasured and battlemented citadel filled with rusty armor and broken lances. A hock shop, a junkyard, a hall of distorting mirrors. A cemetery by the sea, a peak of glory, a slough of despond. A radiant light, an encroaching dark, the sweetest of melody, the sourest of discord. A library of trivia, museum of curiosa, sideshow of freaks, and shrine of greatness. It was the lowering pendulum, the waiting pit, the closing walls. ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... witnessed the production of several popular Jewish histories. At that epoch the horizon of the world was extending under new geographical and intellectual discoveries. Israel, on the other hand, seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into the slough of despond. Some of the men who had themselves been the victims of persecution saw that the only hope lay in rousing the historical consciousness of their brethren. History became the consolation of the exiles from Spain who found themselves pent up within the walls of the Ghettos, which ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... 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, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... luck, hard fortune, hard hap, hard luck, hard lot; frowns of fortune; evil dispensation, evil star, evil genius|; vicissitudes of life, ups and downs of life, broken fortunes; hard case, hard lines, hard life; sea of troubles; peck of troubles; hell upon earth; slough of despond. trouble, hardship, curse, blight, blast, load, pressure. pressure of the times, iron age, evil day, time out of joint; hard times, bad times, sad times; rainy day, cloud, dark cloud, gathering clouds, ill wind; visitation, infliction; affliction &c. (painfulness) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... duties: but, although the world may applaud this acute sensibility, religion condemns it. As the effect of mere passion, it has nothing in it which can secure the approbation of God; on the contrary, it is offensive to him, who, while he permits us to weep, does not allow us to despond, and who often sees it best to humble a refractory spirit ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... Lieutenant C. Morton, United States Army, visited him daily in company, with much solicitude; but no effort to rally him, physically or mentally, was successful, and he died this morning. "He died," said the former to me, "because he would die." The Indians seem to me a people who are prone to despond, and easily sink ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... unresisting, into the toils of our enemies, with whom, from the beginning of the Revolution in France, they have ever moved in strict concert and cooeperation. If, with the report of your Finance Committee in their hands, they can still affect to despond, and can still succeed, as they do, in spreading the contagion of their pretended fears among well-disposed, though weak men, there is no way of counteracting them, but by fixing them down to particulars. Nor must we forget that they are unwearied agitators, bold assertors, dexterous sophisters. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... 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 Than Sodom in her day had power to ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... knew that this was impossible, he would narrate these visions with the faith of an old Bible seer, and declare that they must come true, and that it was a sin to despond. But as year after year he journeyed up and down the country, seeing, at Mission after Mission, the buildings crumbling into ruin, the lands all taken, sold, resold, and settled by greedy speculators; the Indian converts disappearing, driven back to their original wildernesses, the last traces ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the Dogeless city's vanished sway; Ours is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto;[382] Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre,[383] can not be swept or worn away— The keystones of the Arch! though all were o'er, For us ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... but then, would it have been possible to carry on any business with continual loss? The starting of Hope Mills had inspired other disheartened firms, and given an impetus to Yerbury industries that might have lain much longer in the Slough of Despond. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... you but knew what balm, for all Despond, lies in an angel's glance, Your looks would on my window fall As ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... had ever done before him, draw up a treatise of consolation for himself."—Life of Cicero. "Then there can be no other Doubt remain of the Truth."—Brightland's Gram., p. 245. "I have observed some satirists use the term."—Bullions's Prin. of E. Gram., p. 79. "Such men are ready to despond, or commence enemies."—Webster's Essays, p. 83. "Common nouns express names common to many things."—Infant School Gram., p. 18. "To make ourselves be heard by one to whom we address ourselves."—Blair's Rhet., p. 328. "That, in reading poetry, he may be the better able to judge of ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... which is quite as villainous as that of Balaclava. The day before had been mild and wet, and my journey was made in a drenching shower, which soon cleared away the white mantle of snow. You cannot imagine the slough of despond I had to pass through. Wet to the skin, I stumbled through mud, I waded through creeks, I passed through pine-woods, and at last got into camp about two o'clock. I then made my way to a small house occupied by the general as his headquarters. I wrote down my name, and gave it to the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... cheered the poor fellow with many a hopeful message from the gospel of mercy and soon drew him out of the Slough of Despond; but he drew him out with so eager an arm that up went this impressionable personage from despond to the fifth heaven. He was penitent, forgiven, justified, sanctified, all in three weeks. Moreover, he now fell into a certain foul habit. Of course Scripture formed a portion of his daily reading and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... could take things quite so coolly. Perhaps it might be partly owing to his enfeebled state, but he certainly did not seem to trouble himself much about the future. "I feel as if I should pull through now," he said, once. "I only wanted a helping hand to lift me out of the slough of despond. When I am a bit stronger, doctor, I must paint a pot-boiler or two," and Marcus had quietly ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... to despond would be to add sin to sin. And whom have I to raise me up, whom to comfort me, if I desert myself?— Thou, O Father, who, I hope, hast not yet deserted, hast not yet cursed me!—For I am thine!—It is fit that mediation should supply ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... 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, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... 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 bids him go on his way. Then ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... talent, the indispensable companion of success; for the 'worm may patiently creep to the height where the mountain-eagle has rested.' The hardest task for genius to learn is, through toiling, to hope on, and though baffled, never to despond." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... of the province are at a standstill," he repeated, "while all my energies are bent upon this quest. Should we fail to have news of his capture in Dauphiny, we need not, nevertheless, despond. I have sent men after him along the three roads that lead to Paris. They are to spare neither money nor horses in picking up his trail and effecting his capture. After all, I think we shall ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... praised, as a quiet, gentleman-like, interesting lad—but he was also reported to be rather slow at acquiring the rudiments of engineering science. Other letters, later in date, described him as a little too ready to despond about himself; as having been sent away, on that account, to some new railway works, to see if change of scene would rouse him; and as having benefited in every respect by the experiment—except perhaps in regard to his professional studies, which still advanced but ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... too tender regard for slavery in some 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, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... 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 day the ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... 30. Noon. 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 ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... was still indomitable, her purpose firm and her faith secure, but she was without the slightest vestige of news, entirely shut off from the outside world, left to conjecture, to scheme, to expect and to despond alone. ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Smooth-it-away, "is the famous Slough of Despond—a disgrace to all the neighborhood; and the greater that it might so easily be converted ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... are right; for Man, to man so oft unjust, Is always so to Women: one sole bond Awaits them—treachery is all their trust; Taught to conceal their bursting hearts despond Over their idol, till some wealthier lust Buys them in marriage—and what rests beyond? A thankless husband—next, a faithless lover— Then dressing, nursing, praying—and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... when attempted by a Buggins. Let Mr Bunn look to himself. He may yet survive his immortality. We foresee a day in which he will be no longer styled Alfred the Great. With the aid of George Robins, and other illustrious persons interested in the destinies of theatrical property, we do not despond of hearing attached to "a bill for the legalization of the Royal and National Academy of Dancing of the United Kingdom," the satisfactory decree of "LA REINE ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... remember you very well. I have an idea that I had some part in rescuing you from the Slough of Despond in which myself am hopelessly immersed. I shall be glad to see you. I am a stranger in a strange city and I am buffeted by the philistines. It will be pleasant to talk of Paris. I do not ask you to come and see me, since my lodging is not ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Cross to the heathen. In his old age abandoned 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 braves, for they deemed him the black Spider-Spirit ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... orations of Cicero, but were embodied in the knowledge of agriculture and the arts which, adopted by the people, made possible later the German civilization. The old rescue mission sought to yank the sinner out of the slough of despond, the social settlement seeks to help him who has fallen in the contest of life or him to whom the opportunity has not been offered, to climb, recognizing that morality and religion attend, not recede progress. The old charity gave alms and the country was ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... brother! and within the veil Boldly thine anchor cast. What though thy boat No shoreland sees, but undulates afloat On soundless depths; securely fold thy sail. Ah! not by daring prow and favoring gale Man threads the gulfs of doubting and despond, And gains a rest in being unbeyond, Who roams the furthest, surest is to fail; Knowing nor what to seek, nor how to find. Not far but near, about us, yea within, Lieth the infinite life. The pure in mind Dwell in the Presence, to themselves akin; And lo! thou sick and ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Bunyan describes, we travel in fashionable company, and in the most agreeable manner. A certain Mr Smooth-it-away has eclipsed the triumphs of Brunel. He has thrown a viaduct over the Slough of Despond; he has tunnelled the hill Difficulty, and raised an admirable causeway across the valley of Humiliation. The wicket gate, so inconveniently narrow, has been converted into a commodious station-house; and whereas it will be remembered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... Despatch-riders on motor-bikes travelled warily, with their feet dragging to save themselves from falling. Everything was splashed with filth and corruption; one marvelled at the cleanness of the sky. Trees were blasted, and seemed to be sinking out of sight in this war-created Slough of Despond. We came to the brow of a hill; in the valley was something that I recognised. The last time I had seen it was in an etching in a shop window in Newark, New Jersey. It was a town, from the midst of whose battered ruins a splintered tower soared ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... which are your 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 from the ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... ourselves only the blessings which He has, and build on that foundation 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 ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... from 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
... South to despond of any other solution of the war than the bloody end that soon followed, was the re-election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. The South felt that as long as he was at the head of the nation nothing but an unconditional surrender ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... done some good-natured things for him in a small five-pound way; he had promised him that loan, too, which would have lifted him out of his Slough of Despond, and he clung with an affectionate gratitude to these exhibitions of brotherly love. Besides, he had accustomed himself—the organ of veneration standing prominent on the top of the vicar's head—to regard Mark in the light of a great practical genius—'natus rebus agendis;' ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... come to Belfield, sometimes preaching a sermon for Mr. Jaynes, and going away again, after a brief sojourn, without having opened his mouth to Laura to speak of love or marriage. At his later visits it was evident that he was inclined to despond about his prospects of getting a settlement, and Laura began to entertain strong hopes that he never would be successful; for she would have given up all the chances of beholding her military hero in person, and would have been content to live a maid forever, continually ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the dogeless city's vanished sway; Ours is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away - The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, For us repeopled were ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... blighted, Mr. Gammon sang and whistled with more than usual vivacity as he dressed each morning. It was not in his nature to despond; he had received many a knock-down blow, and always came up fresher after it. Mrs. Clover's veto upon his tender hopes with regard to Minnie had not only distressed, but greatly surprised him; for during the last few months he had often said to himself that, whether ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... a contented and hopeful one. You have taught me to forget that my childhood and youth were one long night of wretchedness and degradation. You have taught me to forgive the father who suffered my life to be what it was, and made no one poor effort to lift me out of the slough of despond to which he had sunk. I can say no more, Charlotte. There are things that cannot ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... 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, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... entered Egypt with a numerous army, the Egyptian officers and soldiers refused to march against him. The high priest of Vulcan, being thus reduced to the greatest extremity, had recourse to his god, who bid him not despond, but march courageously against the enemy with the few soldiers he could raise. Sethon obeyed. A small number of merchants, artificers, and others who were the dregs of the populace, joined him; and with this handful of men, he marched ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... key to the most exclusive portals of society, should choose her faded, querulous Gertrude. How much of it is due to Violet she will never know, nor the professor either; but it is Violet who has raised Gertrude up to a new estate out of her old slough of despond, who in her own abundant sweetness and generosity has so clothed the other that she has seemed charming even in the sadness of an apathetical life. Everything is amicably settled. Gertrude does not care for the betrothal party, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... to the talk of their elders and gazed with wide-open eyes at the execrable plates in the imported editions illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and sword of the Martyrs, the Pilgrim's difficulties in the Slough of Despond, or with the Giant Despair, afforded pleasurable reading; while Mr. Great Heart's courageous cheerfulness brought practically a new characteristic ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... a malevolent Being who delighted in interfering with the plans of His creatures simply to exhibit His own power. He was doing this—somehow—for her benefit. She saw neither the how nor the why; but He saw them, and He meant good to her. All the world was not limited to the Slough of Despond at her feet. There ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... of summer; the oak leaves expand, the roses blow, butterflies are about, and I have spirits enough to write to you. We have had clouded skies this fortnight past, and roads like the Slough of Despond. Last Wednesday we were benighted on a dismal plain, apparently boundless. The moon cast a sickly gleam, and now and then a blue meteor glided along the morass ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended their talk, they drew nigh to a very miry slough, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond."—BUNYAN. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... for your kind, your seasonable advice and consolation. I hope I shall have more grace given me than to despond, in the religious sense of the word: especially as I can apply to myself the comfort you give me, that neither my will, nor my inconsiderateness, has contributed to my calamity. But, nevertheless, the irreconcilableness of my relations, whom I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... obtained the cash, they sallied 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... to find that here, near to the banks of a river that has not a respectable village on its shores from Fortress Monroe to Richmond,—here, in a houseless and desolate land which can be reached only by roads which are intersected by gullies, which plunge into sloughs of despond, which lose themselves in the ridges of what were once cornfields, or meander amid stumps of what so lately stood a forest,—that here you have every comfort for the sick: all needed articles of clothing, the shirts and drawers, the socks and slippers; and all the delicacies, too, the farinas, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... pulled, the drivers laid on the lash and a string of oaths at the same time; the wind blew, and the rain came down in torrents. More than once on that awful march did we lend a helping hand to get the horses out of some 'slough of Despond.' Over the mountains and through the woods we went, at the rate of about two miles an hour. Many gave out and lay down by the wayside; and when at last morning dawned, a more pitiable set of beings never were seen upon earth. The men looked haggard ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... who are accounted, and rightly 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, for instance, one cordially re-echoes their own criticisms upon their ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... all her thoughts. Had he allowed it, she would have devoted herself exclusively to him, but this he would not have. Very slowly, very painfully, he had struggled out of his Slough of Despond, and what that struggle had meant to him none but himself would ever know. And now that he had made it, and in a measure succeeded, he suffered scarcely less than before. His strength was undoubtedly greater, ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... though the Bastile is especially for the Frondeurs. They are not dead, for the death of D'Artagnan would make a sensation. As for Porthos, I believe him to be eternal, like God, although less patient. Do not let us despond, but wait at Rueil, for my conviction is that they are at Rueil. But what ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... kind, so fond,—oh, you will not sentence me to woe. Mother, oh, speak to me. I care not how many years I wait: say, only say that, if his character be cleared of all they have dared to cast upon it, I shall one day he his. Do not turn from me, mother. Oh, bid me not despond; and yet and yet, because he is poor, oh, would you, can you condemn ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... not despair nor despond, Though I grope in the dark for the dawn: Birth and laughter, and bubbles of breath, And tears, and the blank void of death, Round each its penumbra is drawn,— I touch ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... also to keep a tight rein on their allies—the strength of Athens being derived from the money brought in by their payments, and success in war depending principally upon conduct and capital, had no reason to despond. Apart from other sources of income, an average revenue of six hundred talents of silver was drawn from the tribute of the allies; and there were still six thousand talents of coined silver in the Acropolis, out of nine ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... scowled at it, and at last passed a law preventing the Protestant boys dressing up the figure on the first of July, and walking round it. That was the death-blow of the Orange party, your hanner; they never recovered it, but began to despond and dwindle, and I with them, for there was scarcely any demand for Orange tunes. Then Dan O'Connell arose with his emancipation and repale cries, and then instead of Orange processions and walkings, there were Papist processions and mobs, which made me afraid ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... violently as to strike the top of the carriage was not a unique experience. Nor was the spending of ten hours in making thirty miles with four horses. In the Yellowstone one of the coaches of our party settled down in the midst of a slough of despond on the highway, from which it was finally extricated backwards by the combined efforts of twelve horses borrowed from the other coaches. Misery makes strange bedfellows, and the ingredients of a ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... men with one foot in the grave, in this year 1895, are still accusing each other of embezzling acres of it; the devil of Discord, and Mercury the god of thieves, encamped upon it; the Port Albert Company fell into its Slough of Despond, which in the Court of Equity was known as "Kemmis v. Orr," and there ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... to be 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 ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... usually within a few days after such a conversation the patient is down in the slough of despond. His digestive organs are in a wretched condition. He is nauseated, his tongue is coated, he is suffering from headache and from a multitude of other symptoms according to his individual condition. In fact, many of the old aches and pains which he thought already ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... that looks beyond And shivers in the midst of bliss, That cries, "I should not need despond, If this were ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was not brightened by the prospect before him. In casting his eyes around, no cheering object presented itself. No confidence could be placed on receiving reinforcements from any quarter. But, in no situation could Washington despond. His exertions to collect an army, and to impede the progress of his enemy, were perseveringly continued. Understanding that Sir Guy Carleton no longer threatened Ticonderoga, he directed General Schuyler to hasten the troops of Pennsylvania and Jersey ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... not help him out of his present slough of despond. He thought of how lonesome he should be after Harrington went away the next day. He could have Scott or Charlie Minturn up to see him, to be sure, but somehow, since he had known Harrington, these old friends had not seemed so entertaining ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... with straining eyes, for an approaching sail. Ships, indeed, had ranged the coast to seek them, but with no friendly intent. Their thoughts dwelt, with unspeakable yearning, on the France they had left behind; and which, to their longing fancy, was pictured as an unattainable Eden. Well might they despond; for of a hundred and eighty colonists, besides the crew of the "Belle," less than forty-five remained. The weary precincts of Fort St. Louis, with its fence of rigid palisades, its area of trampled earth, its buildings of weather-stained timber, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... possible for some people to right their matrimonial and social infelicities; whereas for others, because of dullness of wit, thickness of comprehension, poverty, and lack of charm, there was no escape from the slough of their despond. They were compelled by some devilish accident of birth or lack of force or resourcefulness to stew in their own juice of wretchedness, or to shuffle off this mortal coil—which under other circumstances had such glittering possibilities—via the rope, the knife, the bullet, ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... wind; we are steadily bearing south. This, then, is the change I hoped the March equinox would bring! We have been having northerly winds for more than a fortnight. I cannot conceal from myself any longer that I am beginning to despond. Quietly and slowly, but mercilessly, one hope after the other is being crushed and ... have I not a right to be a little despondent? I long unutterably after home, perhaps I am drifting away farther from it, perhaps nearer; but anyhow it is not cheering to see ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... love be 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 ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... dost thou so deep despond? Methinks the future wears a gladsome smile, The children of thy race now spy a star Which like to that of Bethlehem may lead Them in the future to a state ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... poisonous peril. How should she Cower, and resign her trust of empire? Free As winds and waters live the loyal-souled And true-born sons that love her: nay, the bold Base knaves who curse her name have leave to be The loud-tongued liars they are. For she, beyond All woful years that bid men's hearts despond, Sees yet the likeness of her ancient fame Burn from the heavenward heights of history, hears Not Leicester's name but Sidney's—faith's, not fear's— Not Gladstone's ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... weariness were terrible enough without the imaginary monsters and legions of phantoms that peopled it, I cannot say. Nor can I conjecture how far I strayed north or south from my course. I only know that marshes that were like Sloughs of Despond, and barren and wet savannahs, were crossed; and forests that seemed infinite in extent and never to be got through; and scores of rivers that boiled round the sharp rocks, threatening to submerge or dash in pieces ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... shook his head in the same way. He held a pleasant position, but he found that promotion was very slow, and he began to despond and to think the times sadly demoralized, and his party—at least he feared it—fatally mercenary. It was evidently indifferent to reform, and seemed to care little for the wishes of the people or the character of the country. ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... 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 ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... past; I am returning to England. I have lost my hopes of utility and glory; I have lost my friend. But I will endeavour to detail these bitter circumstances to you, my dear sister; and while I am wafted towards England and towards you, I will not despond. ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... 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
... 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 but I was not flippant, ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... climate unequaled for its salubrity, and a promising future, afford profitable occupation, health, and happiness to the whole community; none need suffer unless from their own misconduct, or the visitation of the Supreme Power by which all are ruled; and none need despond who possess energy of character and the capacity to appreciate the many blessings bestowed upon them. What nation in Europe possesses a future at all, much less such a future as that which lies before us? Russia may improve and prosper to a certain extent; beyond that, no human eye can ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... the "vale of misery;" but I could not "use it as a well;" for my pools were empty! Instead of my Creator directing my "going in the way," He had left me to stumble forward blindly, until I had fallen into the Slough of Despond,—the sink of unbelief! ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... up. Perhaps you can do something for him. Little kindness he has known for very long. Give him the five shillings by all means; but next morning see you go out, and try what may be done to lift him out of the slough of despond, and to give him a chance for better days! I know that it may be all in vain; and that after years gradually darkening down you may some day, as you pass the police-office, find a crowd at the door, and learn that they have got the corpse of the poor suicide within. And even ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... window pane, to find its way to freedom through it. There is no escape for the fly until its restless activities discover the right direction, and, to change the figure, there is none for the Negro out of his slough of despond until he can lay hold of the ballot. Wanting the ballot no amount of education and wealth in the South and of agitation in the North will of themselves be able to make Southern Governments responsive to the needs and the rights ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke
... with alacrity. Marian put off her bonnet and furs, and sat down before the fire to despond over the prospect of living in that shabby room, waited on by that slipshod Irish girl, who roused in her something very like racial antipathy. Presently Eliza returned, carrying a small tray, upon which she had crowded a lighted kerosene lamp, a china tea service, a rolled-up table cloth, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... windows, staid eyes rolled in horror, but the minister saw nothing. He was tired, and absorbed in his new possessions. It was good to sit down in his study, and spread his treasures out on the broad table, and gloat over them. A clump of damp moss rested quietly on his new sermon, "The Slough of Despond," but he took no note. He was looking for a place to put this curious little lizard in, and after anxious thought selected the gilt celluloid box, lined with pink satin, which the Mission Circle had given him on Christmas for his collars ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... extravagant accents. "You came to the rescue just in 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 ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... 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 ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... chartered despots in a land of liberty—have only to apply to the Lord Chancellor for an order, and to enter (by heavens, to enter My Sanitarium!) and search the house from top to bottom at a moment's notice! I don't wish to despond; I don't wish to alarm you; I don't pretend to say that the means we are taking to secure your own safety are any other than the best means at our disposal. All I ask you to do is to imagine the Commissioners in the house—and then to conceive the consequences. The consequences!" repeated the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Christian, whom he accompanied as far as the "Slough of Despond," when he turned back.—Bunyan, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... with Hebe's cup and many another impalpable marvel, in the warden-ship of the Wandering Jew. So, too, when we read Great-Heart's analysis of Mr. Fearing, this expression, "He had, I think, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough that he carried everywhere with him," we can detect the root of symbolical conceptions like that of "The Bosom Serpent." [Footnote: Mosses from an Old Manse, Vol. II.] I cannot refrain from copying here some passages from this same portion which recall in an exceptional ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... 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 people will ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... 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 ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... 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; ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... 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, but the ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... the incessant rains, were mud, mud, mud! ordinarily to the ankles, extraordinarily to the knees of the marching infantry. The wagon train moved in front, and the heavy wheels made for the rest a track something like Christian's through the Slough of Despond. The artillery brought up the rear and fared worst of all. Guns and caissons slid heavily into deep mud holes. The horses strained—poor brutes! but their iron charges stuck fast. The drivers used whip and ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... progress if not retrogression. This period of no progress is regarded as a characteristic of the learning curve and is a time of great discouragement to the conscientious student, so distressing that we may designate it "the plateau of despond." Most people describe it as a time when they feel unable to learn more about a subject; the mind seems to be sated; new ideas cannot be assimilated, and old ones seem to be forgotten. The plateau may extend for a long or a short time, depending upon the ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... up! we trusted that this had been He,' but the force of circumstances has shivered the confidence into fragments, and there is no such hope left for us any longer. What brought them out of that Slough of Despond? ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... perfumes?"—his clergymen, his ladies, and his tasks, he is not only constantly amusing himself, but carrying on a secret battle, with all the terrors of Hell. He is, indeed, a pilgrim who struggles out of one slough of despond only to fall waist-deep into another. This strange creature who passed so much of his time writing such things as Verses written at Bath on Finding the Heel of a Shoe, Ode to Apollo on an Ink-glass almost ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... 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, though we ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... comradarie. Then one day in a gallop came a stronger manifestation, a brief minute of exhilaration, with after-hours of thankfulness, and beyond that, alas for the uncertainty of a spoiled temper, an added period of wallowing in the Slough of Despond! ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... shall we therefore despond? [And tearing himself from melancholy, he springs toward the left.] There is still much to do over here. Cock-a—[At this point the crowing of other COCKS ascends from the valley. CHANTECLER listens, then softly.] Hark! Do you ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... out of this Slough of Despond, and having become convinced of God's love she told the good story to the sick in hospitals, to soldiers and sailors without number, and has done more for the good of Jack Tar afloat and ashore than perhaps any other man ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... in Mercer street, when I became her friend, her transient protector. Her hand was as ready to bestow as her heart was warm and generous. She gave me money, and was kind to me; but the degraded character of my position caused me to despond, to yield myself a victim to insidious vice, to become the associate of men whose only occupation was that of gambling and 'roping-in' unsuspecting persons. I was not long in becoming an efficient in the arts these ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... the light. Can you not see that for some reason Carmen doesn't admit the existence of evil? And you know, and I know, that she is on the right track. I have followed the opposite path all my life; and it led right into the slough of despond. Now I have turned, and am trying to follow her. And do you put the thought of Satan out of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... beneath our feet, and the drip, drip of water was incessant. "We are under the river-bed," said Moore, "in a kind of natural Thames Tunnel." We made what speed we might through this combination of the Valley of the Shadow with the Slough of Despond, and soon were on firmer ground again beneath Moore's own territory. Probably no other white men had ever crawled through the hidden passage and gained the further penetralia of the cave, which now again began to narrow. Finally we reached four tall pillars, of about ten feet in height, ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... maintain their ground against the parliament alone; they felt unequal to the contest with a new and powerful enemy. But Charles stood undismayed; of a sanguine disposition, and confident in the justice of his cause, he saw no reason to despond; and, as he had long anticipated, so had he prepared to meet, this additional evil. With this view he had laboured to secure the obedience of the English army in Ireland against the adherents and emissaries of the parliament. Suspecting ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... 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 breath ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... will ye now despond Amid consuming toil, When there is hope and joy beyond Which ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... presented to him in the earth's structure—instead of being prompted to undertake laborious enquiries into the natural history of the organic world, and the complicated effects of the igneous and aqueous causes now in operation—was taught to despond from the first. Geology, it was affirmed, could never rise to the rank of an exact science; the greater number of phenomena must for ever remain inexplicable, or only be partially elucidated by ingenious conjectures. Even the mystery ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... countess, as she did so, was certainly happy to her heart's core. Could it be that she had some hope, unrecognized by herself, that Owen Fitzgerald might now once more be welcomed at Desmond Court? that something might now be done to rescue him from that slough of despond? ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... careless about the whimsies of such a 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 ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... suddenness which is peculiar to the Adriatic. The heavens opened, and to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning the rain descended in torrents, flooding the tents, quenching the illuminations, and reducing the whole ground to a Slough of Despond. The guests naturally rushed for shelter to the little inn, which was much too small to accommodate them. The police made for the barrels of beer, and were soon incapable of keeping order, and a mob of villagers who had assembled to witness the festivities from ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... or bands of miners: he recognized merit when he saw it. From that morning a feeling of self-respect dawned upon me, I was not so altogether ignorant as I had thought myself, I had some available knowledge; and with that feeling came the determination to raise myself out of that slough of despond into which I had fallen the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... like a helpless mourner, bent By sorrow, Rama made lament; And with wise counsel Lakshman tried To soothe his care, and thus replied: "O best of men, thy grief oppose, Nor sink beneath thy weight of woes. Not thus despond the great and pure And brave like thee, but still endure. Reflect what anguish wrings the heart When loving souls are forced to part; And, mindful of the coming pain, Thy love within thy breast restrain. For earth, though cooled by wandering streams, Lies ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... dull world; he is not quite a man, as the world goes, and not at all an angel, as the celestials see. He must be his own motive, path, and guide, his own priest, king, and law. The world may be his footstool, and may be his slough of despond, but is never his final end. His aims are transcendental, his realm is art, his interests ideal, his life divine, his destiny immortal. All the old theories of saintship are revived in him. He is in the world, but not of it. Shadows of infinitude are his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... undoubtedly listened to the talk of their elders and gazed with wide-open eyes at the execrable plates in the imported editions illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and sword of the Martyrs, the Pilgrim's difficulties in the Slough of Despond, or with the Giant Despair, afforded pleasurable reading; while Mr. Great Heart's courageous cheerfulness brought practically a ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... my dream, that just as they had ended their talk, they drew nigh to a very miry slough, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond."—BUNYAN. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... night that they obtained the cash, they sallied 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... overshadowed the 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 deeper with each ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... she despond, and see In a silent ecstasy Chestnuts heave for hours and hours All the glory of their flowers To the melting blue above, That broods over them like love. Leave the garden walls, where blow Apple-blossoms pink, and low Ordered beds of tulips fine. Seek ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... encouraged with the hope of interpreting the enigmas presented to him in the earth's structure—instead of being prompted to undertake laborious enquiries into the natural history of the organic world, and the complicated effects of the igneous and aqueous causes now in operation—was taught to despond from the first. Geology, it was affirmed, could never rise to the rank of an exact science; the greater number of phenomena must for ever remain inexplicable, or only be partially elucidated by ingenious conjectures. Even the mystery which invested the subject was said to constitute one of its principal ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... disappointments had 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 high-flyer. It is a present from the Squire's friend, Sir Watkyn Williams Wynne; ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... world's gift—its most valued treasure, its purest, sweetest, and proudest trophies—why, when these are the stake which is to reward thy courage, thy adherence, to compensate thee for trial, to console thee for loss and outrage—why is it that thou art so ready to despond of the cause so dear to thee, and forfeit the conquest by which alone thy whole existence is made sweet. This is the very suicide of self. Fearful of loss, we forsake the prize, which we have won; and hearkening to the counsel of a natural enemy, eat of ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... had we been 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 was ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... of them are reported to have been in, after the Crucifixion, when they said—'It is all up! we trusted that this had been He,' but the force of circumstances has shivered the confidence into fragments, and there is no such hope left for us any longer. What brought them out of that Slough of Despond? ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 day the ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... to Alida's room to help her sort and address them. "You certainly have your share this year," she said, laughing. "Do you remember what a slough of despond you were in a ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... worse treated than our worse 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
... Queen so much against being governed, that she observes it too much. I could talk till to-morrow upon these things, but they make me melancholy. I could not but observe that lately, after much conversation with Mr. Harley, though he is the most fearless man alive, and the least apt to despond, he confessed to me that uttering his mind to ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... you despond too soon. The good king has unhappily gone from us, but we still have our dear queen. We have also, by the kindness of Heaven, our ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... 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 ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... of what would otherwise be so much human existence abandoned; and that already, as from the garments of the Divine Healer of diseases, a sanative virtue goes out of it. Let them recount the individuals they have seen, and not despond as to many more, rescued from what had all the signs of a destination to the lowest debasement, and utter ruin; some of whom are returning animated thanks, and will do so in the hour of death, for what these, their best human friends, have been the means of imparting to them. Let them ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... path. Yonder dingily-white remnant of a huge snowbank, which will yet cumber the sidewalk till the latter days of March, over or through that wintry waste must I stride onward. Beyond lies a certain Slough of Despond, a concoction of mud and liquid filth, ankle-deep, leg-deep, neck-deep—in a word, of unknown bottom—on which the lamplight does not even glimmer, but which I have occasionally watched in the gradual growth of its horrors from morn till nightfall. Should ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... no effort to rally him, physically or mentally, was successful, and he died this morning. "He died," said the former to me, "because he would die." The Indians seem to me a people who are prone to despond, and easily sink into ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... and round sharp corners, and one which required all Giles's skill as a chauffeur. Another time, trying a short cut across some fields, the car ran into soft earth and refused to stir. Her occupants got down and tried with their united efforts to push her out of her "slough of despond", but with no effect. Giles kept starting the engine, but the wheels, instead of gripping, simply turned round and round, and sank deeper into the soil. They were obliged to go to a farm for help, and have planks fixed under the wheels before the heavy ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... fortune.' To Toddrington our hero proceeded, through cross-country roads—such roads!—very different from the Irish roads. Waggon ruts, into which the carriage wheels sunk nearly to the nave—and, from time to time, 'sloughs of despond,' through which it seemed impossible to drag, walk, wade, or swim, and all the time with a sulky postillion. 'Oh, how unlike my Larry!' thought ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... his coat and packed the trunks in layers of mosaic-work wonderful to behold. A supper celebrated the last evening; and even the doleful Lavinia, touched by such kindness, emerged from her slough of despond and electrified the ball by dancing a jig with great spirit ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... 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
... They had been sufficiently confident even before their victory; and the bearer of a flag of truce told the English officers that he had never imagined they were such fools as to attack Quebec with so small a force. Wolfe, on the other hand, had every reason to despond. At the outset, before he had seen Quebec and learned the nature of the ground, he had meant to begin the campaign by taking post on the Plains of Abraham, and thence laying siege to the town; but he soon discovered ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... at Hoppet Hall; and come in and see you from time to time till you get better." John Morton replied that he should never get better; but though he said so then, there was at times evidence that he did not yet quite despond as to himself. He could still talk to Mrs. Morton of buying Chowton Farm, and was very anxious that he should not be forgotten at the ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... will o' the wisps by dreamers and designers! If it were not that all movements work but one way, like the backward and forward of a machine—towards advancement, these things would make a man despond." ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... affectionately, and said, "Believe me, you will yet be united. Of this, there is an impression on my mind too strong to admit of doubt. If at times you are tempted to despond, remember these words were uttered by your friend, when she drew near the confines of another world: you will be ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... of Despond, he was called to Washington by his patent lawyer. Not having enough money to pay the cost of such a journey, he borrowed the price of a return ticket from Sanders and arranged to stay with a friend in Washington, to save a hotel bill that he could not afford. ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... for Man, to man so oft unjust, Is always so to Women: one sole bond Awaits them—treachery is all their trust; Taught to conceal their bursting hearts despond Over their idol, till some wealthier lust Buys them in marriage—and what rests beyond? A thankless husband—next, a faithless lover— Then ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Thanks to Providence for my Escape, and thought myself extreamly happy, tho' thrown on an unknown Coast, and destitute of every thing necessary to sustain me: But I trusted in that Goodness which had preserved, and which I hoped would provide for me. To despond, I thought, would be mistrusting the Bounty of our Creator, and might be the ready way to plunge me into the Miseries Men naturally apprehend in my Circumstances. I therefore heartily recommended me to the Divine Protection, and enter'd the Woods ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... market from the larger aviary: and to this end this smaller room is connected with the main cage by a large door and has more light: and there, when he has collected the number he wishes to market, the keeper kills them, which is done secretly, lest the others might despond at the sight and themselves die before they ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... hearse and dump your wealth on a lazy world merely causes the growler to circulate rapidly. And so we sympathize with Andrew Carnegie in his endeavor to live up to his dictum to die poor, and yet not pauperize the world by his wealth. But let us not despond. The man is only seventy-eight. His eyes are bright; his teeth are firm; his form is erect; his limbs are agile; and his brain is at its best. Most hopeful sign of all, he can laugh. He can even laugh at himself. If this counts for anything at all, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... 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 ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... 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 ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... Manse, Vol. II.] where Hawthorne has preserved Shelley's skylark and the steed Rosinante, with Hebe's cup and many another impalpable marvel, in the warden-ship of the Wandering Jew. So, too, when we read Great-Heart's analysis of Mr. Fearing, this expression, "He had, I think, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough that he carried everywhere with him," we can detect the root of symbolical conceptions like that of "The Bosom Serpent." [Footnote: Mosses from an Old Manse, Vol. II.] I cannot ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... my country, for ye, her children," he continued, his voice becoming impassioned in its fervor; "lived to redeem this night, to suffer on a while, to be your savior still. Will ye then desert me? will ye despond, because of one defeat—yield to despair, when Scotland yet calls aloud? No, no, it cannot be!" and roused by his earnest, his eloquent appeal, that devoted band sprung from their drooping posture, and kneeling at his feet, renewed ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... 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 if hidden is hidden only for a moment. He is like the day ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... little child who so 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 ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... and I agreed 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
... was soon in progress. Men and women danced in moccasins, and the place was soon a-roar, Burning Daylight the centre of it and the animating spark, with quip and jest and rough merriment rousing them out of the slough of despond in which ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... drearily reviewing the position by the light of a smoky lamp and over the ashes of a dead fire; counting possible votes, making unconvincing calculations based on supposition, wading hand-in-hand ever deeper into the Slough of Despond. ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... other adopted which will be more in harmony with the actual facts of the Egyptian situation. If, as I trust may be the case, Lord Kitchener is able to devise and to carry into execution some plan which will rescue Egypt from its present legislative Slough of Despond, he will have deserved well, not only of his country, but also of all those Egyptian interests, whether native or European, which ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... "Inez, do not despond. I trust all may yet be well with you, and rest assured it gives me heartfelt pleasure to be enabled to render you a service, and take you to a place of safety. But your hand is hot—burning: it is feverish excitement from which you suffer. When we have reached Goliad, ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... this toil accomplished nothing. Then we unloaded all our baggage down to the smallest articles. Another effort and we were still in our slough of despond. I retreated to a neighboring fence and returned with a stout pole. The Cossack brought another, and we arranged to lift the fore wheels to somewhere near the surface. It was my duty to urge the horses, and I flattered myself that I ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... his memories of the pilgrims and their fairs on the Way, he may have had other scenes in his mind which suggested other names. The Delectable Mountains may have been the blue line of the Sussex Downs, or the hills by Black Down and Hindhead. The Slough of Despond may have been the marshy pools of Shalford Common, or the ponds under the hill by Chilworth; and Doubting Castle, spelt Dowding Castle, is actually a name to be found on the Surrey map, south of Epsom Downs on Banstead ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... most agreeable to her; her will is mine; for her my heart is wax to be moulded as she pleases but enduring as marble to retain whatever impression she shall make upon it. If you believe me I shall fear no discouragement from any other quarter, but if you doubt me, I shall despond. My name is——; my father's I have already given you; he lives in such a house in such a street and you may inquire about him and me of the neighbours, and of others also; for our name and quality are not so obscure but that you may hear of us about ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... not think I have ever known what it is to despair, or even to despond (if such were my inclination, I have had some opportunities recently), and it was not long before I began to find out the bright side of Cruces life, and enter into schemes for staying there. But it would be a week or so before the advent of another crowd would wake Cruces ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... opposed this. Then Zwingli spoke one more, begging all to hold firm to the Gospel, and never to despond as long as they leaned upon it. "What is done from the best motives will be misrepresented by falsehood and slander. Thus it had been said here and there yesterday evening that we would now degrade the body and blood of Christ into ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... weary, no doubt, and ready to despond on this prospect, by presenting another which it is in our power to realize. Is it possible for a real American to look at the prosperity of this country without some desire for its continuance, without some respect for the measures which, many will say, produced, and all ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... 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 ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... 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 ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... mystery rather more than five years old, and Mr. Andrew Larkspur had made no progress towards its solution. He had been obliged to acknowledge to Joyce Harker that he had not struck the right trail, and to confess that he had begun to despond. The disappearance of Black Milsom from among the congenial society of thieves and ruffians which he frequented was, of course, easily accounted for by Mr. Larkspur, and the absence of any, even ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... traditions in that Battle of Jutland, it seems nothing short of criminal that the English censor should have permitted the world to hold Great Britain in contempt for twenty-four hours and sink poor France in the slough of despond. However, he is used to abuse, and presumably ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... 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 ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... 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 bids him go on his way. Then come Interpreter's house, the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... great-world 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 ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... what he was to win by this work of love, amid trials and tribulation. He had struggled with the disposition to despond; he had worked like a hero to keep his spirits up; and that which he was called upon to do with his hands was small and trivial compared with that which was done by his mind and heart. He had conquered fear ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... deliverance than through fighting, and fighting bravely, and heroically, as the means of success. She was commissioned, she said, to stimulate the men to fight,—not to pray, but to fight. She promised no rescue by supernatural means, but only through natural forces. France was not to despond, but to take courage, and fight. There was no imposture about her, only zeal and good sense, to impress upon the country the necessity of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... to answer one to another; correspond'ence; correspond'ent; despond' (literally, to promise away: hence, to give up, to ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... 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 ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... true, his carelessness (but then he had been so worn out with watching), his fatal mistake, his heartless mistake (and yet he would almost have given his own life for his children) had brought him down to this slough of despond. There was no hope, the doctors never told him of any, and he knew he could ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... 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
... 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, my dear." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... pane, to find its way to freedom through it. There is no escape for the fly until its restless activities discover the right direction, and, to change the figure, there is none for the Negro out of his slough of despond until he can lay hold of the ballot. Wanting the ballot no amount of education and wealth in the South and of agitation in the North will of themselves be able to make Southern Governments responsive to the needs and the rights of the Negro ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke
... 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
... development of souls? Is it necessary that any should fall in order that they may rise? Did John Bunyan truly picture the ascent of the soul? Does its path, of necessity, lead through the Slough of Despond, through Vanity Fair, by Castle Dangerous, and into the ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... he is not to blame for the disaster, that sooner or later the excitement will subside, and the victims of the first rash judgment be restored to honor; that his name is still dear and respected, that he must not despond, that he must take heart and ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... Mercer street, when I became her friend, her transient protector. Her hand was as ready to bestow as her heart was warm and generous. She gave me money, and was kind to me; but the degraded character of my position caused me to despond, to yield myself a victim to insidious vice, to become the associate of men whose only occupation was that of gambling and 'roping-in' unsuspecting persons. I was not long in becoming an efficient in the arts these men practiced on the ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... own vitality had been fatally impaired. "What exceeding folly," he wrote to a friend, "was it that tempted me to cross the sea in search of what I do not seem able to find here—a righteous stomach? I have been wallowing in the slough of despond for a week and my digestive apparatus has gone wrong again. I have suffered tortures that would have done credit to the inventive genius of a Dante, and the natural consequence is that I am as blue ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... 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 disinterested design of this Ode, and the humane ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... no 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... there bore the impress of the slipshod habits engendered by slavery, and it seemed a civilization rotting before ripeness. The city was certainly, at that time, the most wretched capital in Christendom. Pennsylvania Avenue was a sort of Slough of Despond,—with ruts and mud- holes from the unfinished Capitol, at one end, to the unfinished Treasury building, at the other, and bounded on both sides with cheap brick tenements. The extensive new residence ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Richmond Hill, having safely passed the Slough of Despond, which the vaunted Yonge Street mud road presents, between the celebrated hamlet of St. Alban's and the aforesaid hill, one of the greatest curiosities of which road, near St. Alban's, is the vicinity of a sort of Mormon establishment, where a fellow of the name of David ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... said so much 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
... am sure of it, my dear. Don't despond, but hope and keep happy," said Mrs. March, as tenderhearted Daisy stooped from her knee to lay her rosy cheek against her little ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... 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
... only the blessings which He has, and build on that foundation 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; ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... neighborhood of Lima,—that his whole number did not exceed five hundred men, less than half of the force which he had so recently mustered in the capital. To such humble circumstances was the man now reduced, who had so lately lorded it over the land with unlimited sway! Still the chief did not despond. He had gathered new spirit from the excitement of his march and his distance from Lima; and he seemed to recover his former confidence, as he exclaimed,—"It is misfortune that teaches us who are our friends. If but ten only remain ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... her to become an actress, and she went diligently to work, not allowing herself to despond over that first great disappointment. For the next seven years, she worked faithfully learning the new profession from the very bottom. "I became aware," she said, "that one could never sail a ship by entering at the ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... 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 day begins ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... of hope, rather than of actual prosperity, he had added a wife and family to his cares, but the dawn was speedily overcast. Everything retrograded with him towards the verge of the miry Slough of Despond, which yawns for insolvent debtors; and after catching at each twig, and experiencing the protracted agony of feeling them one by one elude his grasp, he actually sunk into the miry pit whence he had been extricated by ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... mentioned, who had settled round us, had been brought out of heathenism, while the larger number of the population appeared even more hostile to the new faith than at first. Still my father would often say, when he felt himself inclined to despond, "Let us recollect the value of one immortal soul, and all our toils and troubles will appear as nothing." Such was the state of things at the mission station when ...
— Mary Liddiard - The Missionary's Daughter • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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, though we look ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... here, brother! and within the veil Boldly thine anchor cast. What though thy boat No shoreland sees, but undulates afloat On soundless depths; securely fold thy sail. Ah! not by daring prow and favoring gale Man threads the gulfs of doubting and despond, And gains a rest in being unbeyond, Who roams the furthest, surest is to fail; Knowing nor what to seek, nor how to find. Not far but near, about us, yea within, Lieth the infinite life. The pure in mind Dwell in the Presence, to themselves akin; And lo! thou sick and health-imploring ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... a considerable period. The murmur, instead of becoming more distinct, gradually died away. My progress was arrested by fatigue, and I began once more to despond. My exertions produced a perspiration, which, while it augmented my thirst, happily supplied me with ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... 3 Despond then no longer, The Lord will provide; And this be the token— No word he hath spoken, Was ever yet broken, The Lord ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... 'Unhappily, I myself can be of no use to him; he has not the same friendly feeling for me as he used to have. But it is very certain that those of his friends who have the power should exert themselves to raise him out of this fearful slough of despond. If he isn't effectually helped, there's no saying what may happen. One thing is certain, I think: he is past helping himself. Sane literary work cannot be expected from him. It seems a monstrous ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... astonishment to find that here, near to the banks of a river that has not a respectable village on its shores from Fortress Monroe to Richmond,—here, in a houseless and desolate land which can be reached only by roads which are intersected by gullies, which plunge into sloughs of despond, which lose themselves in the ridges of what were once cornfields, or meander amid stumps of what so lately stood a forest,—that here you have every comfort for the sick: all needed articles of clothing, the shirts and drawers, the socks and slippers; and all the delicacies, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... of genuine narrative, but which is redeemed from prose by the unique force of the situation. De Foe painting mere everyday pots and pans is as dull as a modern blue-book; but when his pots and pans are the resource by which a human being struggles out of the most appalling conceivable 'slough of despond,' they become more poetical than the vessels from which the gods drink nectar in epic poems. Since he wrote, novelists have made many voyages of discovery, with varying success, though they have seldom had the fortune to touch ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... 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
... wrote to a woman of high rank, who, though young herself, had known me from a child, and had latterly treated me with great distinction, requesting that she would "lend" me five guineas. For upward of a week no answer came, and I was beginning to despond, when at length a servant put into my hands a double letter, with a coronet on the seal. The letter was kind and obliging; the fair writer was on the sea-coast, and in that way the delay had arisen; she inclosed double of what I had asked, and good-naturedly hinted that ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... never again dare to cross it. I swear to your majesty, upon my honor, that I will hurl Bonaparte from his throne—that I will not rest before the crown has fallen from his head! God has spared me that I may chastise Napoleon; He has told me every night in my dreams, 'Do not despond, do not lose heart! Keep up thy courage and thy confidence, for I shall soon need thee! Thou shalt soon cut Napoleon down from his power, and throw him into the dust whence he sprang.' And I have answered, 'I am on hand, and wait only for the struggle to begin.' Now I say to ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... along 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 ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... about myself. What can I say on that precious topic? My health is pretty good. My spirits are not always alike. Nothing happens to me. I hope and expect little in this world, and am thankful that I do not despond and suffer more. Thank you for inquiring after our old servant; she is pretty well; the little shawl, etc., pleased her much. Papa likewise, I am glad to say, is pretty well; with his and my kindest regards to you and Mr. Gaskell—Believe ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... has a future 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 ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... you 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 should ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... fundamental maxim of that sage school of philosophers, the Croakers, who esteem it true wisdom to doubt and despond when other men rejoice, well knowing that happiness is at best but transient; that the higher one is elevated on the see-saw balance of fortune, the lower must be his subsequent depression; that he who is on the uppermost ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... day Scott described as 'miserable, [Page 349] utterly miserable. We have camped in the "Slough of Despond."' When within twelve miles of the Glacier it was indeed the most cruel fortune to be held up by such a raging tempest. The temperature at noon had risen to 33 deg., and everything was more soakingly wet than ever, if that was possible. The ponies, too, looked utterly ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... the front and reported the situation. D.H. Hill's division was at White Oak Swamp Creek, a slough, and one of "despond" to us, draining to the Chickahominy. The enemy held the high ground beyond, and artillery fire was continuous, but no infantry was engaged. There was no change until nightfall, when we bivouacked where we were. ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... too much sleep, like over-indulgence in any anaesthetic, is only shirking that duty and avoiding that effort to which the higher life calls us, and the sluggard who sleeps more than the tired nerves need is allowing himself to sink deeper and deeper into a slough of despond. He forgets his toil in sleep, but it is only by active, conscious effort when awake that his work may be lifted to the higher plane where the brain is active, where work ceases to be mechanical and a burden, ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... nothing could they find but the rotting tobacco and the monkey-skins, and, starving as they were, they could not manage to eat them. Even when reduced to this extremity the young officers themselves did not despond, nor did their men, who looked to them for example, do so either. Murray calculated that if they could but get a breeze, they might reach the port for which they were steering in less than twenty-four hours. It was very tantalising to be so near it, and ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... travelled warily, with their feet dragging to save themselves from falling. Everything was splashed with filth and corruption; one marvelled at the cleanness of the sky. Trees were blasted, and seemed to be sinking out of sight in this war-created Slough of Despond. We came to the brow of a hill; in the valley was something that I recognised. The last time I had seen it was in an etching in a shop window in Newark, New Jersey. It was a town, from the midst of whose battered ruins a splintered tower ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... him foolish — hot and fond, That chuckles through his deepest ire, That gilds the slough of his despond But dims the goal of ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... rain, pouring rain, for the next few days, washing the walls of snow down the unmetaled streets, a very slough of despond to all beasts of burden. Once more the sight of green grass relieved the eye, weary of the one monotonous hue it had rested on for weeks, and still it rained as if determined not to stop till it had fulfilled its mission, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... gravely, but wagging a roguish forefinger at him; "people can't undo their mistakes so easily. If, as you say, you brought about this painful situation, then you must sit patiently by and watch me as I flounder about in the various sloughs of despond." ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... no one by quoting Janet's common sense. For that I should be sorry. I remember her words because so often, when sinking in sloughs of childish despond, they afforded me firm foothold. More often than I can tell, when compelled to listen to the sententious voice of immeasurable Folly glibly explaining the eternal mysteries, has it comforted me to whisper to myself: "I don't believe it of Him. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... alacrity. Marian put off her bonnet and furs, and sat down before the fire to despond over the prospect of living in that shabby room, waited on by that slipshod Irish girl, who roused in her something very like racial antipathy. Presently Eliza returned, carrying a small tray, upon which she had crowded a lighted kerosene lamp, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... melancholy 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 a little of ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the major, calling at Captain Dade's, was concerned to hear that Mrs. Dade was not at home. "Gone over to the hospital with Mrs. Blake and the doctor," was the explanation, and these gentle-hearted women, it seems, were striving to do something to rouse the lad from the slough of despond which had engulfed him. That night "Pink" Marble, Hay's faithful book-keeper and clerk for many a year, a one-armed veteran of the civil war, calling, as was his invariable custom when the trader was absent, to leave the keys of the safe and desks with Mrs. Hay, was surprised to find her ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... still more from want of men. Year passed after year, and, whether fear of the severity of the rule—though that was groundless, for it had been mitigated for England—or the claim of other religious bodies was the cause, his community did not increase, and he was tempted to despond. But every work has its season; and now for some time past that difficulty had been gradually lessening; various zealous men, some of noble birth, others of extensive acquirements, had entered the Congregation; and our friend Willis, who at this time had received the ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... help him out of his present slough of despond. He thought of how lonesome he should be after Harrington went away the next day. He could have Scott or Charlie Minturn up to see him, to be sure, but somehow, since he had known Harrington, these old friends had not seemed so entertaining to ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... were here!" she had sometimes sighed to herself;—but in all these days she wrote him no word. And he—guessing nothing of her long, silent agony, himself sufficiently bemired in his slough of despond, working away with sad, unsatisfied heart in his little studio, hoping yet for light to come to his night—was, in truth, so full of himself, that Hepsy Ann had little of his thoughts. Shall I go farther, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
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