All 42 Uses of
despair
in
War and Peace
- The princess blushed, and raised her arms with a gesture of despair.†
Chpt 1
- But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty for pardon.†
Chpt 2
- Their voices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by their faces that they despaired of the possibility of checking this disorder.†
Chpt 2 *
- The general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting and of the powder smoke and stopped in despair.†
Chpt 2
- Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an unkind look or bad opinion from him," Rostov decided; and sorrowfully and with a heart full despair he rode away, continually looking back at the Tsar, who still remained in the same attitude of indecision.†
Chpt 3
- "And I might have been in his place!" thought Rostov, and hardly restraining his tears of pity for the Emperor, he rode on in utter despair, not knowing where to or why he was now riding.†
Chpt 3
- His despair was all the greater from feeling that his own weakness was the cause of his grief.†
Chpt 3
- His despair at failing in a Scripture examination, his borrowing money from Gavril to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sonya on the sly—he now recalled all this as childishness he had left immeasurably behind.†
Chpt 4
- "My dear," he heard what seemed to him her despairing whisper behind him.†
Chpt 5
- "Say what you like," exclaimed Sonya, in a despairing voice as she looked at Natasha, "say what you like, it's still too long."†
Chpt 6
- The despairing, dejected expression of Natasha's face caught his eye.†
Chpt 6
- That tremulous expression on Natasha's face, prepared either for despair or rapture, suddenly brightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile.†
Chpt 6
- Religion, and religion alone, can—I will not say comfort us—but save us from despair.†
Chpt 6
- Hope alternated with despair.†
Chpt 7
- Nicholas cried in despair.†
Chpt 7 *
- Pierre no longer suffered moments of despair, hypochondria, and disgust with life, but the malady that had formerly found expression in such acute attacks was driven inwards and never left him for a moment.†
Chpt 8
- It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and despair, showing the possibility of consolation.†
Chpt 8
- Princess Mary wrote that she was in despair at the misunderstanding that had occurred between them.†
Chpt 8
- Natasha cried angrily, in a voice of despair and repressed irritation.†
Chpt 8
- And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned.†
Chpt 8
- He did not know that Natasha's soul was overflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not her fault that her face happened to assume an expression of calm dignity and severity.†
Chpt 8
- Though he concealed the fact under a show of irritation and contempt, he was evidently in despair that the sole remaining chance of verifying his theory by a huge experiment and proving its soundness to the whole world was slipping away from him.†
Chpt 9
- From the host's room came the sounds of a child crying, the despairing sobs of a woman, and the hoarse angry shouting of Ferapontov.†
Chpt 10
- It is pitiable and sad, and the whole army is in despair that this most important place has been wantonly abandoned.†
Chpt 10
- Men leave their customary pursuits, hasten from one side of Europe to the other, plunder and slaughter one another, triumph and are plunged in despair, and for some years the whole course of life is altered and presents an intensive movement which first increases and then slackens.†
Chpt 11
- Why, we were beginning to despair!†
Chpt 11
- In answer to questions with which he was greeted, the courier made a despairing gesture with his hand and passed through the room.†
Chpt 11
- Flourishing his arms in despair the count left the room without replying.†
Chpt 11
- Smiling unnaturally and muttering to himself, he first sat down on the sofa in an attitude of despair, then rose, went to the door of the reception room and peeped through the crack, returned flourishing his arms, and took up a book.†
Chpt 11
- The caleche flew over the ground as fast as the horses could draw it, but for a long time Count Rostopchin still heard the insane despairing screams growing fainter in the distance, while his eyes saw nothing but the astonished, frightened, bloodstained face of "the traitor" in the fur-lined coat.†
Chpt 11
- "Oh, I am really in despair at what has occurred," said Pierre rapidly, quite forgetting the part he had intended to play.†
Chpt 11
- The art of his reading was supposed to lie in rolling out the words, quite independently of their meaning, in a loud and singsong voice alternating between a despairing wail and a tender murmur, so that the wail fell quite at random on one word and the murmur on another.†
Chpt 12
- The tales and descriptions of that time without exception speak only of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion, despair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians.†
Chpt 12
- As the war had caught him in the service, Nicholas Rostov took a close and prolonged part in the defense of his country, but did so casually, without any aim at self-sacrifice, and he therefore looked at what was going on in Russia without despair and without dismally racking his brains over it.†
Chpt 12
- Your mother in despair, and you all ruined….†
Chpt 12
- When he received the news of the battle of Borodino and the abandonment of Moscow, Rostov was not seized with despair, anger, the desire for vengeance, or any feeling of that kind, but everything in Voronezh suddenly seemed to him dull and tiresome, and he experienced an indefinite feeling of shame and awkwardness.†
Chpt 12
- When similar doubts had assailed him before, they had been the result of his own wrongdoing, and at the bottom of his heart he had felt that relief from his despair and from those doubts was to be found within himself.†
Chpt 12
- That feeling was so strong at the moment of leaving Voronezh that those who saw her off, as they looked at her careworn, despairing face, felt sure she would fall ill on the journey.†
Chpt 12
- She recalled his long sad and severe look at those words and understood the meaning of the rebuke and despair in that protracted gaze.†
Chpt 15
- They saw that she alone was able to restrain her mother from unreasoning despair.†
Chpt 15
- The events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and the flight from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natasha's despair, Petya's death, and the old countess' grief fell blow after blow on the old count's head.†
Chpt 15
- Thus in a time of trouble ever memorable to him after the birth of their first child who was delicate, when they had to change the wet nurse three times and Natasha fell ill from despair, Pierre one day told her of Rousseau's view, with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet nurse is unnatural and harmful.†
Chpt 15
Definitions:
-
(despair as in: she felt despair) hopelessness; or distress (such as extreme worry or sadness from feeling powerless to change a bad situation)
-
(despair as in: do not despair) lose hope or feel distress