From the highest spire of contentment / my fortune is thrown; / and fear and grief and pain for my deserts / are my hopes, since hope is gone.
1897, (w), (w) Chapter 21
"Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you. And I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us!"
Not thus the land appear'd in ages past, / A dreary desert and a gloomy waste.
(quote-book)
puhekieltä Any barren place or situation.
1858, William Howitt, Land, Labour, and Gold; Or, Two Years in Victoria (page 54)
He declared that the country was an intellectual desert; that he was famishing for spiritual aliment, and for discourse on matters beyond mere nuggets, prospectings, and the price of gold.
2006, Philip N. Cooke, Creative Industries in Wales: Potential and Pitfalls (page 34)
So the question that is commonly asked is, why put a media incubator in a media desert and have it managed by a civil servant?