desponding

But before I leave what I call the desponding epoch of my schoolboy days, I must not omit to mention a species of impious barbarity, that had well-nigh alienated my heart for ever from religion, and which made me for the time detest the very name of church.

Rattlin the Reefer Edward Howard 1820

Frankenstein, who appears lost in desponding reverie.

Act III 1823

Her angry tone had changed into a kind of desponding complaint before she had ended her sentence.

Wives and Daughters Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 1837

God knows, nothing of this kind was ever in my thoughts; but I have entered very deeply into your affliction with regard to your Mother; and while I was wishing, the many poor souls in the kind of desponding way she is in, whom I have seen, came afresh into my mind; and all the mismanagement with which I have seen them treated was strong in my mind, and I wrote under a forcible impulse, which I could not at that time resist, but I have fretted so much about it since, that I think it is the last time I will ever let my pen run away with me.

The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5 The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb Mary Lamb 1805

“Thus deserted, I retired with my unfortunate family to an obscure quarter of the town, where I remained near two years in a kind of desponding apathy, brooding over my misfortunes, without exerting myself to shake off the burden of them, and barely existing on the trifles which had escaped the general wreck, and some few receipts of small, and almost hopeless, debts.

Francis, the Philanthropist: an unfashionable tale 1786

Elizabeth was sad and desponding; she no longer took delight in her ordinary occupations; all pleasure seemed to her sacrilege toward the dead; eternal woe and tears she then thought was the just tribute she should pay to innocence so blasted and destroyed.

Chapter 9 2010

My father calmed me with assurances of their welfare, and endeavoured, by dwelling on these subjects so interesting to my heart, to raise my desponding spirits; but he soon felt that a prison cannot be the abode of cheerfulness.

Chapter 4 2010

But you, my dear Frankenstein, wherefore are you desponding and sorrowful?

Chapter 1 2010

My father calmed me with assurances of their welfare, and endeavoured, by dwelling on these subjects so interesting to my heart, to raise my desponding spirits; but he soon felt that a prison cannot be the abode of cheerfulness.

Chapter 21 2010

But you, my dear Frankenstein, wherefore are you desponding and sorrowful?

Chapter 18 2010