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More "Vain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dear, and did your heart not break, To leave this precious home you made in vain? Poor shabby things! so prized for old times' sake, With all their memories of love and pain. Alas! while shouts the raucous auctioneer, And rat-faced dames are prying everywhere, The echo of old joy is all I hear, All, all I see ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... find I have no hat to take off. Probably some Yankee has it as a trophy by this time. I am a Confederate officer in distress, and as a daughter of the South, I know I can appeal to you, and not in vain." ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... vain that those professionally concerned try to deceive themselves on this point; not everything in the past is interesting." "Supposing we were to write the Life of the Duke of Angouleme," says Pecuchet. "But he was an ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... the effects of the blow, he found himself lying on the cold earth in total darkness, and firmly bound hand and foot. It is impossible to describe the agony of that bold spirit as he lay writhing on the ground, in the vain effort to burst the cords that bound him. He thought of Aneetka and his own utter helplessness, while she was, no doubt, in urgent need of his strong arm to deliver her. The thought maddened him, and again he strove ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... in vain to Tauler for an explanation of the obscurest point in Eckhart's philosophy, as to the relations of the phenomenal to the real. We want clearer evidence that temporal existence is not regarded as something illusory or accidental, an error which may be inconsistent with the theory of immanence ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... "You are vain of the likeness, I see, master," replied Tristram, joining in the laugh. "How say you, Mab?" he added to his granddaughter, who at that moment returned with a jug and a couple of drinking-horns. "Whom ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... whispered it to Mrs. Crull, or Bog, or her uncle, or to any other living soul, but the mystery of that awful night had hung over her young mind like a pall, which in vain she had ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... family had retired to bed; but their son attempted in vain to sleep. A sense of shame overpowered him keenly. He tossed and turned, and groaned, at the contemplation of the disgrace which he knew would be heaped on him the following day. What was to be done? How was he to wipe it off? There was but one method, he believed, of getting his hands once more ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... there is no Deliberation; because manifestly impossible to be changed: nor of things known to be impossible, or thought so; because men know, or think such Deliberation vaine. But of things impossible, which we think possible, we may Deliberate; not knowing it is in vain. And it is called DELIBERATION; because it is a putting an end to the Liberty we had of doing, or omitting, according to our own Appetite, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... the arch-enemy of heresy housed his true faith in the palace-tomb-and-church of the Escorial. If the more light-minded tourist shirks this act of piety, he makes a mistake which he will repent afterward in vain. The Escorial is, for its plainness, one of the two or three things worthiest seeing among the two or three hundred things worth seeing in Spain. Yet we feigned meaning to miss it after we returned to Madrid from Toledo, saying that everybody ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... the way of their greatest strength and usefulness, because it takes away their real independence and keeps them thinking about themselves instead of about others. It is a form of bondage which makes them vain and self-conscious and renders impossible the truest and happiest companionship between men and ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... with my whole heart, hear me, O Lord![207] Who can question but that when men pray their cry to the Lord is vain if it be nought but the sound of the corporeal voice and their heart be not intent upon God? But if their prayer come from the heart, then, even though the voice of the body be silent, it may be hidden from ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... rather, for him to curse these women, and to curse the dear creature's family (implacable as the latter were,) in order to lighten a burden he voluntarily took up, and groans under, is meanness added to wickedness: and in vain will he one day find his low plea of sharing with her friends, and with those common wretches, a guilt which will be adjudged him as all his own; though they too may meet their punishment; as it is evidently begun; in the first, in their ineffectual reproaches of one another; in ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... with the prices of many products at the lowest ever known, with many workers seeking in vain for work, and with charity laboring to keep back suffering and starvation in all our cities. And yet, in view of the condition, Mr. Cleveland sent to Congress at the beginning of the annual session a free ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... this was the Malerball, or artists' ball. It was considered rather select, and had I not been lucky enough to have one or two pupils, members of the club, who had come forward with offerings of tickets, I might have tried in vain to ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... wanted not the skill or power, In the World's Fabrick those were shown, And the Materials were all his own. But well he knew what place would best agree With Innocence, and with Felicity: And we elsewhere still seek for them in vain, If any part of either yet remain; If any part of either we expect, This may our judgement in the search direct; God the first Garden made, and the first ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... interference proved had been inconsiderable. In a case[574] which came before that Court the preceding winter, I had laboured to persuade the Judges to return to the ancient law. It was my own sincere opinion, that they ought to adhere to it; but I had exhausted all my powers of reasoning in vain. Johnson thought as I did; and in order to assist me in my application to the Court for a revision and alteration of the judgement, he dictated to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... try all you can to meet me to-morrow evening at the usual place. I have been waiting and longing for you in vain to-day. Only think of me, love, as I am now, and always, thinking of you; and I know you will come. ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... poetic form of great sweetness and beauty. None of all the English poets could equal him, for he learned not the art of song from men, nor sang by the arts of men. Rather did he receive all his poetry as a free gift from God, and for this reason he did never compose poetry of a vain or ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... to be expressed at once, all Anna's past and present, the kind of experience that has made her and that has brought her to the point she now touches. Without this her action is arbitrary and meaningless; it is vain to say that she acted thus and thus unless we perfectly understand what she was, what she had, what was around her, in the face of her predicament. Obviously there is no space to lose; and it is enough to look at Tolstoy's use of it, and then to see how Balzac ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could in like manner prohibit the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation? The means of security can be only regulated by the means and the danger of attack. * * * It will be in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation.'"[1280] Authoritative judicial recognition of the power is found in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority,[1281] where, in sustaining the power of the Government to construct and operate Wilson Dam and the power plant connected ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the switches some time in vain, but at length discovered them and succeeded in extinguishing the lights of the room the pair were in. But the lights of the adjoining rooms still ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... the men searched for the fugitive, but in vain. He had disappeared completely and in the deep darkness pervading the thickly-grown brush and trees of the forest he ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... charm the long ambrosial years The gods bring many gifts, and mine shall be— Immortal life in mortal agony— Vain longing, fanned by winged hopes and fears To inextinguishable flame—and tears Bitter as death, ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... centre, and a bit of Bologna sausage placed very near it; and everybody laughed till the tears stood in their eyes to see Villikins and Dinah struggle to nibble the sausages, and at the same time to evade the candle flame. Villikins barked, and sniffed, and howled in impatience, and after many vain attempts succeeded in dragging off the prize, though he singed his nose in doing it. Dinah, meanwhile, watched him placidly, her delicate nostrils quivering with expectation, and, after all the excitement had subsided, walked with dignity to the table, her beautiful gray satin trail sweeping behind ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the contrary, moped in her room all morning, went to Rutherford Inn for a lonely luncheon and returned to the Hall and her room to weep again and ponder darkly over her unhappy situation. She tried in vain to prepare an argument by which she might clear herself should Mrs. Weatherbee decide to expose her wrong-doing to Miss Rutledge. She could think of nothing that might carry weight. The case against her was too complete to afford ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... putative father of a whining jesuitical piece, fallaciously called, "THE ADDRESS OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA," hath, perhaps, from a vain supposition, that the people here were to be frightened at the pomp and description of a king, given, (though very unwisely on his part) the real character of the present one: "But" says this writer, "if you are inclined to pay compliments to an administration, which we ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... had been foreseen, Winchester became almost the only settlement west of the Blue Ridge, on the northern frontier; and fears were entertained that the enemy would soon pass even that barrier, and ravage the country below. Express after express was sent to hasten the militia, but sent in vain. At length, about the last of April, the French and their savage allies, laden with plunder, prisoners, and scalps, returned ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to believe that the labors of Ned Clinton were not entirely in vain, even though they were not encouraging. The boat was certainly progressing, and the height of the pole above the water showed that the depth was less by a ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... rebel bullet cut his throat, letting out a liberal quantity of fresh bright blood. This so put him hors de combat that he had to leave the field, somewhat to the longevity account of the Sixty-firsters there present. So we continued in this lowly attitude till after Hooker's men made another vain assault over the ground we had occupied. Then, toward sundown, we were withdrawn, and marched back into the city, and took up our quarters for the night in the same grist mill we ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... with the last triumphant announcement with a positive shout, which made the hearts of his adversaries turn cold. In vain they laughed the idea to scorn; in vain they argued that if for the last six months he had never said a word even to the Guinea-pigs, he would hardly now come and take up with the Tadpoles. Bramble and Padger insisted ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... supposed that Raleigh was a complete loser by these vain expeditions. But a passage in a letter of August 21, 1602, shows us that this was not the fact. He says: 'Neither of them spake with the people,' that is, with the lost Virginian colonists, 'but I do send both the barques away again, having saved the charge in sassafras wood.' From the same letter ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... Stevens. He took the little kitten, almost as soon as it was born, and tied a string and a stone to its neck, and is now throwing it into the river. Poor thing! how it will agonize and try to get loose. But all will be in vain: ...
— Pleasing Stories for Good Children with Pictures • Anonymous
... over the den which he never saw. Sometimes the mother wolf met him on her wanderings and they hunted together. Often he brought the game he had caught, a fox or a young goose; and sometimes when she had hunted in vain he met her, as if he had understood her need from a distance, and led her to where he had buried two or three of the rabbits that swarmed in the thickets. But spite of the attention and the indifferent watch which he kept, he never ventured near ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... family, had been deserted by her husband, who had left her, besides her own children, the charge of his bedridden parents. Under this accumulation of burdens, she had been heroically struggling for some months, in the vain attempt, by her single energies, to ward off the approach of want, and to act at the same time the part of nurse to the old couple. She had succeeded in a great measure, and modestly sought but a little help to enable her to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... Stow, Lambard, Camden, Burton, Dugdale, and many other antiquaries and historians. Polydore Virgil, who had stolen from them pretty freely, had the insolence to abuse Leland's memory—calling him "a vain glorious man;" but what shall we say to this flippant egotist? who, according to Caius's testimony [De Antiq. Cantab. head. lib. 1.] "to prevent a discovery of the many errors of his own History of England, collected and burnt a greater number of ancient histories ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... her. But it piqued me a little to think that, but for the accident of an accident, I might never have tracked her down. If the letter had been posted in London as she intended, and not at Basingstoke, I might have sought in vain for her ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... remembered her; and when she came again, they said, "Ecco! Ecco! (That is Italian for Look! Look!) There is the little blue-eyed, golden-haired angel." Rea did not know that the people said this, which was well, for it might have made her vain. ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson
... did not make him vain. The losing of his fame did not embitter him. He kept humble and sweet through it all. The secret was his unwavering loyalty to his own mission as the harbinger of the Messiah. "A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven," he said. The power over men which he had wielded ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... of the mind, he found it irksome to go through automatically the daily vulgar routine of the convent; the pure flame of an elevated religious feeling being kindled in his soul, he tried to evade the vain exercises of the monks, the puerile gymnastics, and the adoration of so-called relics. His character was frank and open, and he was unable to hide his convictions; he put some of his doubts before his companions, and these hastened to refer ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... Will in vain endeavoured to get on deck; the sides were too high for him. Finding himself left with half the crew, he made his way in the boat forward along the side of the pirate vessel and clambered up by the bowsprit shrouds. Some of the men in the other boats, ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... was a vain woman in every sense of the word—vain of her birth and of her beauty, and accustomed to receive that homage to which she considered herself entitled. She had been spoiled in her infancy, and as she grew up had leant nothing, because she was permitted to do as she pleased; she was therefore ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... No longer live insensible to shame, Lost to your country, families and fame. Could our romantic muse this work atchieve, Would there one honest heart in Britain grieve? Th' attempt, though wild, would not in vain be made, If every honest hand ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... closed my eyes, to try to banish thought; the effort was vain. I opened my eyes, and dreamed. I could recall the Doctor's dark face, his large brow, his bright eyes, and a pipe—yes, a pipe, with its carven bowl showing a strange head; and I could recall more easily the Captain's long jaw, and ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... place. Here there were countless seats and tables covered with the most costly cloths and drinking vessels of gold and silver. The guests were assembled, but the two travellers saw no faces that they knew; they looked in vain for the bridegroom and the bride. As they were conducted to their places, a low murmur broke out among the guests, who talked in an undertone, and asked where the great ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... truth, do I seek truth Only that I may things denote, And, rich by striving, deck my youth As with a vain, unusual coat?' ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... friends, try to outlive the bitter past, to wash the sin away, and begin anew. If not for your own sakes, for that of the dear mothers, wives, and children, who wait and hope so patiently for you. Remember them, and do not let them love and long in vain. And if there be any here so forlorn that they have no friend to care for them, never forget the Father whose arms are always open to receive, forgive, and comfort His prodigal sons, even at the eleventh hour.' There the little sermon ended; but the preacher of ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... become more precise by coming into touch with facts, scientifically studied, and where Intellect, instead of confining itself to Science proper (that is, to what can be inferred from facts, or proved by reasoning), combines with this an unconscious and inconsistent metaphysic which in vain lays claim to scientific pretensions. The future seems to belong to a philosophy which will take into account the whole of what is given." [Footnote: Life and Consciousness, as reported in The Hibbert Journal, Vol. X, Oct., 1911, pp. 24-44.] Intuition, to be fruitful, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... these solid globes, that seem incapable of corruption or decay: the regularity of their motions may be ascribed to a principle of reason or instinct; and their real, or imaginary, influence encourages the vain belief that the earth and its inhabitants are the object of their peculiar care. The science of astronomy was cultivated at Babylon; but the school of the Arabs was a clear firmament and a naked plain. In their nocturnal marches, they steered by the guidance of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... your Egyptians?—the angry tempers or sulky looks, the impatient words, the vain and foolish thoughts, the besetting sins that master you so often. Have you tried so often to fight against them, and failed, that it seems almost no use, and you do not see how to conquer them or to escape them? Are you very tired of fighting, and ...
— Morning Bells • Frances Ridley Havergal
... glittering lances of rhetoric, by any sapping and mining of profound disquisition, by any gunpowdery explosions of indignation, by sharp shootings of wit, by howitzers of mental strength made to swing shell five miles, by cavalry horses gorgeously caparisoned pawing the air. In vain all the attempts on the part of these ecclesiastical foot soldiers, light horsemen, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... Grono, where Baedeker says there is a chapel containing some ancient frescoes. I searched Grono in vain for any such chapel. A few miles higher up, the church of Soazza makes its appearance perched upon the top of its hill, and soon afterwards the splendid ruin of Mesocco on another rock or hill which rises in the middle of ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... own chair wiv scushions, and she shall set in her own chair wiv a 'igh hup bact, and she shall set in her own chair wiv...." Here came a pause, due to inanition of distinctive features. Dolly's style was disfigured by vain repetitions, beyond a doubt. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... similar garments inside a large cupboard in the linen room. It never struck her to look in the pockets, so the letter so longed for and expected lay upstairs in the dark, and Gipsy waited and hoped, and hoped and waited, all in vain. ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... him whom she wished to forget. She made an effort, but in vain. Serge was uppermost; he possessed her. She was afraid. Would she never be able to break off the remembrance? Would his name be ever on her lips, his face ever ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Taking his horse as a central point he moved round it in ever widening circles, calling at intervals, and with his eyes glued to the long grass which swished under his feet. For more than ten minutes he searched in vain; and then, once more, he found himself beside the man he ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... going away, it was a thing he would not think of, as long as his rifle was loaded; so he waited and watched, until the bear should give him an opportunity of aiming at a vital part. This he waited for in vain, and, on reflection, he determined to wound the bear; for, knowing the humour of the animal, he felt almost positive it would produce a conflict between him and the boar, which the bear would attack ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... own day, patriots and warriors, orators and statesmen, and were to address us in their presence, would he not say to us: "Ye men of this generation, I rejoice and thank God for being able to see that our labors and toils and sacrifices were not in vain. You are prosperous, you are happy, you are grateful; the fire of liberty burns brightly and steadily in your hearts, while DUTY and the LAW restrain it from bursting forth in wild and destructive conflagration. Cherish liberty, as you love it; cherish its securities, as you wish to ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... it. On a rock of sardonyx he strove to break it then, but Durendala remained unharmed. A third time he strove, and struck a rock of blue marble with such force that the sparks rushed out as from a blacksmith's anvil. Then he knew that it was in vain, for Durendala would not be shattered. And so he raised Olifant to his lips and blew a dying blast that echoed down the cliffs and up to the mountain tops and rang through the trees of the forest. And still, to this day, do they say, when the spirit of the warrior ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... back resolutely, but in vain. Meg was not to be so easily disposed of. Hatty was going to say some hasty words to Meg, as she twitched away from her, when Meg pleaded, "Do wake up, sister Hatty. ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly
... parent, however friendly or tender with his children, but must feel sometimes that they have thoughts which are not his or hers; and wishes and secrets quite beyond the parental control: and, as people are vain, long after they are fathers, ay; or grandfathers, and not seldom fancy that mere personal desire of domination is overweening anxiety and love for their family, no doubt that common outcry against thankless children might often be shown to prove, not ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Grecian babblers, who have dared to meddle with the immortal truths, and name the Most High by another name—by the name of Serapis—confounding the substance of the Invisible? Does not Egypt cry aloud for freedom?—and shall she cry in vain? Nay, nay, for thou, my son, art the appointed way of deliverance. To thee, being sunk in eld, I have decreed my rights. Already thy name is whispered in many a sanctuary, from Abu to Athu; already priests and people swear allegiance, even by the sacred symbols, unto him who shall be declared ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... in London have become popular with suicides, yet apparently without any special reason, except that even suicides are vain and like to die with eclat. Waterloo Bridge is chosen for its privacy; the Monument used to be chosen, we presume, for its height and quietude. Five persons have destroyed themselves by leaps from the Monument. The first of these unhappy creatures was William ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... was hard. What was the freedom of a country in which the voice of the original founders was spent in vain? Had not they, the "Forty" miners of Bottle Flat, really started the place? Hadn't they located claims there? Hadn't they contributed three ounces each, ostensibly to set up in business a brother miner who unfortunately ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... In vain do the laws ordain that such offices shall not be given away to attendants on governors and members of the high court of justice, for under pretext of the scarcity of Europeans experienced in the colony, means are found to elude the statute, by converting this plea into an exception ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... refused to listen to you, but considered that, as he had been—as he would put it—compelled to leave that modern paradise, the Rand, and to settle at Cape Town, it became the responsibility of the inhabitants of Cape Town to maintain him. Table Mountain echoed with the sounds of their vain talk. They considered that they were the only people who knew anything about what the English Government ought to do, and who criticised it the most, threatening at every moment that they would write to their influential friends—even the poorest ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... not agree with the fact. Finding that this simple relation would not do, Kepler undertook a vast series of calculations to find out the true method of expressing the connection. At last, after many vain attempts, he found, to his indescribable joy, that the square of the time in which a planet revolves around the sun was proportional to the cube of the average distance of the planet from ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... 7. But in vain the heedless child tried to study; her eyes and thoughts wandered perpetually to the pretty toy before her. "How I should like to see it sail!" said she to herself. The more she looked at it, the more anxious she became to see ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... raised by voluntary enlistment ... or in case of actual invasion or imminent danger thereof, it shall be lawful for H.M. —— to order and direct that the number of men so required ... shall be raised by ballot as herein provided." The effort at revival was unfortunately vain, and when in 1859 international trouble again seemed to be brewing, instead of appealing once more to the immemorial defence of the country, the Government weakly and with most deplorable results allowed the formation of a new body, the volunteers—a body whose patriotism was noble, whose ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... river with one mad roar like thunder, and the water was thrown up upon the village and its helpless inmates. In a moment the peaceful scene was one of death and torture. Men, women and children were struggling helplessly in the water and trying in vain to reach the higher benches. At the next moment the water receded and carried many back struggling into the channel of the river. Hias Peter found himself, with others, struggling among logs, timbers and debris of every description. Just before the water receded he saw his wife and heard ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... appeared to me only as immaculate young men in tailor-made tunics and well-creased trousers, wearing swords and wrist-watches, and full of a healthy belief in their own importance. My mates are apt to consider them as being somewhat vain, and no Tommy dares fail to salute the young commissioned officers when he meets them out with their young ladies on the public streets. For myself, I have a great respect for them and their work; day and night they are at their toil; when parade comes to an end, and the battalion is dismissed ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... said to Alla, "but I'm so vain, I really want to go out there and hear people tell me that I ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... the fight of his race in vain. When the roses' leaves drift a second time on the velvet turf, Maxime Valois receives the hand of Dolores from her mother. The union is blessed by the invocation of his priestly friend. It is a simple wedding. Bride and groom are all in all to each other. There are none of ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... troubles; but with a change of weather, or the arrival of a quarter or a dime, his mood would change, and he would wait. Each day he would find some old paper lying about and look into it, to see if there was any trace of Carrie, but all summer and fall he had looked in vain. Then he noticed that his eyes were beginning to hurt him, and this ailment rapidly increased until, in the dark chambers of the lodgings he frequented, he did not attempt to read. Bad and irregular eating was weakening ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... from that day to this they have made diligent search for the port of Monterey, but in vain, and now, despairing of finding it, their provisions nearly gone, they return to San Diego. Then follows the latitude at various points as observed by Costanso. It requests the commanders of the San Jose or San Antonio, if they, or either of them, ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... one philosophy, which was 'to bear up well,' and when, not that, 'as well as you could.' She saw scores of things around her to be remedied, or, at least, bettered, by a little exertion, and not one which could be helped by a vain regret. For the loss of that old barbaric splendour and profuse luxury which her father mourned over, she had no regrets. She knew that these wasteful and profligate livers had done nothing for the people either in act or in example; that they ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... they stared at the second hands of their watches the minutes crept away—Pete wound his watch up tight in the vain hope of making it go a little faster—and at last Bannon turned with a nod ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... that at the Siege of Perth, on one occasion the ammunition failing, their nectarines made admirable cannon-balls. Even the enlightened mind of Jeffrey cannot shake off the illusion that myrtles flourish at Craig Crook.[22] In vain I have represented to him that they are of the genus Carduus, and pointed out their prickly peculiarities.... Jeffrey sticks to his myrtle illusions, and treats my attacks with as much contempt ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... cautiously questioned her; she denied that anything was the matter, and he felt reassured. His chief care was to keep her free from excitement; and in this hope he gave way to her more than he would otherwise have done. But alas! the moment was approaching when all his care would be in vain; when the built-up security of years was destroyed by a single act of wilful disobedience to him. The sword so long suspended over his head, was to ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... powerless were the mightiest monarch's arm, Vain his loud threat and impotent his frown! How ludicrous the priest's dogmatic roar! The weight of his exterminating curse How light! and his affected charity, To suit the pressure of the changing times, What palpable deceit! but for thy aid, Religion! but for thee, prolific ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... fellow." So decided the Major as he splashed into his morning tub. There was one man, however, in Delhi who now viewed Hawke's presence with a secret alarm, amounting to dismay. It was the stern old miserly Scotsman who had paced his floor half the night in a vain effort to reassure himself. "What does he know? I must have old Ram Lal watch him," mused Hugh Johnstone. "I was a fool not to have cleared out from here months ago, before these spies were set upon me. First, Anstruther; ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... unsanctified reason of man would accept as the only worthy guide of faith and life what Judaism, Paganism, and Philosophy had long since decidedly rejected. But the spirit of Christianity is so totally at variance with that of the world that it is vain to expect harmony between them. Truth, however, will not suffer on that account; and when the issues appear it will shine all the brighter for the fires through which it has passed. The country where Rationalism has exerted its first and chief influence is Germany, than ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... delicacy of the desert, where allwhere is the softness of pure sand, Khalid is perfectly happy. Never did he seem so careless, our Scribe asserts, and so jovial and child-like in his joys. Far from the noise and strife of politics, far from the bewildering tangle of thought, far from the vain hopes and dreams and ambitions of life, he lives each day as if it were the last of the world. Here are joys manifold for a weary and persecuted spirit: the joy of having your dearest friend and ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... the shepherd tried to dissuade us from going any further in the failing light: in vain he told us of the dangers we should run. We thanked him, put him off with some excuse about going "a little" further, and turned resolutely on up the "path" he had pointed us to. It was by no means the sort of ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... tried with a desperate fierceness to make herself like the man before her, to put away, by sheer power of will, all memory, the knowledge of everything save what was in this little room, but it was the vainest of all vain efforts. She saw herself for a thief and a cheat—stealing, for love's sake, the mere body of the man she loved while mind and soul were absent. In her agony she almost cried out aloud as the words said themselves within her. And she denied them. She said: "His mind ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... say he considered the alteration of Kempt's original movement the turning-point of the battle. Wishing to reward our hero for his intelligence and courage, he caused inquiries to be made for him in every direction, but in vain. It was not till many years afterwards that he accidentally heard of the man's whereabouts, and managed to secure for him a good appointment in the West of England, in recognition ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... before the perfection of bloom were on her face, and her eyes either shrank before one or else gleamed fiercely with the impulse of concealment. There is in all youth and imperfection a stage wherein it turns at bay to protect its helplessness with a vain show of inadequate claws and teeth, and Catherine Cavendish had reached it, and I also, in my different estate ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... left my mother in the grave,' said Wilderspin, 'I had but one hope, that she who was watching my endeavours might not watch in vain. Art became now my religion: success in it my soul's goal. I went to London; I soon began to develop a great power of design, in illustrating penny periodicals. For years I worked at this, improving in execution with ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... one day become apparent. And here we still are, all three, insulting one another and blaming one another for our wasted lives. Oh, what a hell! And there was no escaping it. I tried often enough ... but in vain. The broken bonds became tied again. Only this summer, under the stimulus of my love for Genevive, I tried to free myself and did my utmost to persuade the two women whom I call mother. And then ... and then! I was up against their complaints, ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... evidence, too bustling, too anxious that his own opinion, though comparatively unimportant, should get a hearing. In general, Boswell's faults are easily noticed, and have been too much talked about. He was morbid, restless, self-conscious, vain, insinuating; and, poor fellow, he died a drunkard. But the essential Boswell, the skilful and devoted artist, is almost unrecognized. As the creator of the Life of Johnson he is almost as much effaced as is Homer in the Odyssey. He is indeed so closely ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... thicket and were lost, and as the woman watched the soldiers beating the bushes and brambles with their swords in a vain search for the fugitives, a very evil thought came ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... without that calculation there can be no morality.[599] Hence the morality is equivalent to a 'conviction of the general utility' of the action.[600] 'All this,' he concludes, 'is settled by universal consent. It is vain, therefore, to think of disputing it.' One may, however, ask what it means. I have already observed that the view of the non-moral character of motive was a natural corollary from the purely legal point of view. I must now consider the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... readily conceded that four years is barely sufficient time in which to gain a satisfactory insight into their various departments. For a person, however gifted, to hope to receive an adequate medical training in two or three years is vain. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... came to his master's well-known whistle, he was surprised to find the poor thing had been wounded, though slightly, by an arrow, which one of the forayers had shot off in anger after he had long chased it in vain. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... attempt.' You know how the Emperor likes every one to yield to his opinion when he has adopted one which he does not choose to give up; so he said, rather changing his tone of good-humoured familiarity, 'All you say is in vain, Monsieur le General: I am not liked either at Berlin or Weimar.' There is no doubt of that, Sire; but because you are not liked in these two Courts, is it to be inferred that they would assassinate you?'—'I know the fury of those women; but patience. Write to General Lauer: direct him ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... been seen again in the Bois de Boulogne since the night of her dinner, although Henri had sought in vain to meet her in the mornings in the bridle-path, and afternoons in the ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... storm clouds above the dark sheet of water, and illuminated with its fitful light the shadows that lay upon the bosom of the waves. She felt how infinitely darker were the shadows within her own bosom, and how vain it was to seek for any moon among her ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... I have always known," he interposed. "I knew Tarboe had a hold on your heart. I'm not so vain as to think I've always been the one man for you. I lived ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... frontier. If they had, the sooner we knew it the better, for then the House would only have one course, however they might deplore it, to pursue. But here was a case where the common sense of the American people could, he thought, be appealed to not in vain. Instead of fortifying, let us neutralize the frontier—let us agree to do away with the expenditure. [Mr. BRIGHT: On both sides the frontier?] Yes, on both sides. If the American people were appealed to as the hon. member for Rochdale appealed to the Emperor of ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... Sister Medliker, to comfort your heart with vain hopes and delusions. A mother's leanin's is the soul's deceivin's,—and yer leanin' on a broken reed. If the boy truly found that gold he'd have come to ye and said: 'Behold, mother, I have found gold in the highways and byways; rejoice and be exceedin' glad!' and ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... in one of those fits of sadness for which tears are the sole remedy; so Mary Seyton, perceiving that not only would every consolation be vain, but also unreasonable, far from continuing to react against her mistress's melancholy, fully agreed with her: it followed that the queen, who was suffocating, began to weep, and that her tears brought her comfort; then little by little ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... enraged gnome fling two great clouds together, and hurl a thunderbolt after the flying maiden, splintering the rocky barriers which had stood a thousand years. But his fury was vain, the thunderclouds melted away into a soft mist, and the gnome, after flying about for a while in despair, bewailing to the four winds his unhappy fate, went sorrowfully back to the palace, and stole once more through every room, with ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... but nothing of the sort took place. She bounced out of her seat with a "You villain!" on her lips, seized a chair by the back, and before I had made a move she hit me over the head, forcing me to my knees. I tried to get up, tried to explain who I was, but in vain. Before I could get out of the room she struck me again, and it was only after I had tumbled up the back-stairs that she gave the alarm. Then she came up to my room, rapped at the ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... my strong point, nevertheless I believed myself quite equal to any problem of that nature which Jim was likely to propound; and I answered vain-gloriously, and with a view to divert the attention of the still-sobbing Daisy ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... Her life had been marked by extreme vicissitudes; and at its conclusion—dark and cheerless as it was—she wisely looked for consolation where she had so frequently found it, and where, it may be confidently said, it is never sought in vain. ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... Labor, should have been sacrificed by the Republican Machine, for that Machine was a special organ of Capital, by which Capital made and administered the laws of the States and of the Nation. But Roosevelt's struggle was not in vain; before he died, many of those who worked for his downfall in 1912 were looking up to him as the natural leader of the country, in the new dangers which encompassed it. "Had he lived," said a very eminent ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... Holbein, Wechtlin, Urse Graff, Schauffelein and Cranach. In his excellent work entitled "Last Words on the History of the Title-Page," Mr. A.W. Pollard observes "From 1550 onwards we find beauty in nooks and corners. Here and there over some special book an artist will have laboured, and not in vain; but save for such stray miracles, as decade succeeds decade, good work becomes rarer and rarer, and at last we learn to look only for carelessness, ill-taste, and caricature, and of these are seldom disappointed." These remarks apply with equal force to the Printer's Mark, although some exceptionally ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... principle," said Sheffield; "for it is that which Coventry lays such stress on. He says that Christianity has no creed; that this is the very point in which it is distinguished from other religions; that you will search the New Testament in vain for a creed; but that Scripture is full of principles. The view is very ingenious, and seemed to me true, when I read the book. According to him, then, Christianity is not a religion of doctrines or mysteries; and if you are looking for dogmatism ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... expect to find it, nor do I expect that anyone else will ever find it. It is undiscovered. When you first began to gather my drift, perhaps there was a resurrection of hope in your breast. Perhaps you said to yourself, "This man will show me an easy, unfatiguing way of doing what I have so long in vain wished to do." Alas, no! The fact is that there is no easy way, no royal road. The path to Mecca is extremely hard and stony, and the worst of it is that you never quite get there ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... prophecy is widely removed from that of human foresight and presentiment. It is that of a revelation made by the Holy Spirit respecting the future, always in the interest of God's kingdom. It is no part of the plan of prophecy to gratify vain curiosity respecting "the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power." Acts 1:7. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God"—this is its key-note. In its form it is carefully adapted to this great ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... grown in compassion since the days when Surgeon Fallon's soldiers were starved and neglected in the Meeting House. To-day I am sure no class of men in real need could appeal to the community, or to any constituent group of it, in vain. The growth has been along lines which, beginning in a group-compassion that has from earliest days recompensed any poor member of the Meeting in his sudden losses of property, have widened first to Quakers of other places, then to other Christians, then to other men, and last ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... d'Aubray expostulated with her by the medium of an older sister who was in a Carmelite nunnery, and the marquise perceived that her father had on his death bequeathed the care and supervision of her to her brothers. Thus her first crime had been all but in vain: she had wanted to get rid of her father's rebukes and to gain his fortune; as a fact the fortune was diminished by reason of her elder brothers, and she had scarcely enough to pay her debts; while the rebukes were renewed from the mouths of her brothers, one of whom, being civil lieutenant, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the hounds were after, and the little dog came back no more. Free Joe waited and waited, until he grew tired of waiting. He went back the next night and waited, and for many nights thereafter. His waiting was in vain, and yet he never regarded it as in vain. Careless and shabby as he was, Free Joe was thoughtful enough to have his theory. He was convinced that little Dan had found Lucinda, and that some night when the moon was shining brightly ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... excitable temperament. It probably did not deceive his hearers any more than it deceives us. His vanity is more deplorable; and the only palliation it admits is the fact that it is a defect which rarely goes with a bad heart. Had Cicero been less vain, he might have been more ambitious; as it was, his ridiculous self-conceit injured no one but himself. His wordiness is of all his faults the most seductive and the most conspicuous, and procured for him even in his lifetime the epithet of Asiatic. He himself was sensible that his periods ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... the North, While the sister rivers seek the main, Red with our life-blood flowing forth— Who shall gather it up again? Though we march to the battle-plain Firmly as when the strife began, Shall all our offerings be in vain?— Abraham Lincoln, give ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... saw the school-mistress, forced by some accident to interrupt her knitting, stick one of her great knitting-needles in her capacious head-dress. A "senior," who was more familiar with her head-dress, explained the phenomenon in vain to Leon and Norine, for the boy, none the less, preserved in the presence of Mademoiselle Merlin ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... these, in the sweetest, tenderest voice that ever caressed a lover's senses, Basil knew not how to word all that was in his heart. Passion spoke for him, and not in vain; for in a few moments Veranilda's tears were dry, or lingered only to glisten amid the happy light which beamed from her eyes. Side by side, forgetful of all but their recovered peace, they talked sweet ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... Supreme, that we are to receive more from the covering vault than the light and the dew which we share with the weed and the worm, only as a succession of meaningless and monotonous accident, too common and too vain to be worthy of a moment of watchfulness, or a glance of admiration. If in our moments of utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last resource, which of its phenomena do we speak of? One says it has been ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... the first anointed King in Scotland, about the year 1100.—12. the souls, who in those dayes were said to be in Purgatory.—25. not to be feared, if there be no true cause for it.—26. to swear, to wit, idly, rashly, and in vain.—27. Priests may have wives, according to the constitution of the law, and of the primitive Christian Church.—30. every day by Faith.—31. be contracted and consummate, the Kyrk may make, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... enthusiasm evoked by mountain or statue or canvas is as nothing compared to the rapturous devotion felt by the multitude for this One, who united in full splendor all those eminent qualities of mind and heart that all the ages and generations have in vain sought to emulate. High over all the other worthies He rises like a star riding in untroubled splendor above ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... before, the writer has looked for similar evidence, but, so far, in vain. Each of these crops, including tomatoes, potatoes, alfalfa, blackberries and apples, have been seen growing in as close contact with black walnut as they could possibly be placed. Oftentimes they have been found much nearer to black walnut trees than would have been wise to place ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... hungry, savage-eyed, and vicious, they know no fear of any living thing, and seizing an octopus and biting off tentacle after tentacle with their closely-set, needle-like teeth and swallowing it whole is a matter of no more moment to them than the bolting of a tender young mullet or bream. In vain does the Sea Thug endeavour to enwrap himself round and round the body of one of these sinuous, scaleless sea-snakes and fasten on to it with his terrible cupping apparatus of suckers—the eel slips in and out and "wolfs" and worries his enemy without the slightest harm to itself. Some of them ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... place the same historian, speaking of the absence of truth and the prevalence of error in the third century, says: "It is vain to expect Christian faith to abound without Christian doctrine. Moral and philosophical and monastical instructions will not effect for men what is to be expected from evangelical doctrine. And if the faith of Christ was so much declined (and its decayed state ought to be dated from ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... she found that Phineas had hired a servant; but Mr. Bunce predicted nothing but evil from so vain an expense. "Don't tell me; where is it to come from? He ain't no richer because he's in Parliament. There ain't no wages. M.P. and M.T.,"—whereby Mr. Bunce, I fear, meant empty,—"are pretty much alike when a man hasn't a fortune at his back." "But ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... kind of a nose that has a real character value is the one presenting no obstruction to breathing. The assigned value given to a "pretty" nose has no relation to character, except as its owner is vain because of it. ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... from far forests in America, and from the wild raging seas—the sea sends up its continual treasures of rain—everywhere are harmony and fitness, beauty and use in all God's works. He has made nothing in vain. All His works praise Him, and surely, also, His saints should give thanks to Him! Oh! my friends—every thunder shower—every fresh south-west breeze, is a miracle of God's mercy, if we could but see ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... Russia. The echoes of his speech to the Diet, calling upon the nation to fight till death, vowing that he was ready to make the sacrifice of his own life should his country need it, were still in the ears of those who had heard it. The army had waited in vain for him to place himself at its head; then Catherine II threatened him, and as usual he dared not disobey. "Yielding to the desire of the Empress," he told his subjects, "and to the necessities of the country," he condemned the proceedings of the long Diet in which he had recognized ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... commemoration day, his fellow-citizens should not fail to bear also in honoured memory the thousands of other good Americans who like Lincoln gave their lives for their country and without whose loyal devotion Lincoln's leadership would have been in vain. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... the gift of Eblis to these Northerners. What is his purpose with her—that he would not show her in the suk as the law prescribes, but comes slinking here to beg thee set aside the law for him? Ha! I talk in vain. I have shown thee graver things to prove his vile disloyalty, and yet thou'lt fawn upon him whilst thy fangs are bared to thine ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... winds blow in her chosen direction; she will please herself; she will be her own good luck and her own commander-in-chief, and, withal, nobody's misery or humiliation, unless you count the swain after swain that will sigh in vain." As for Bonaventure, sitting beside her, you could just see his bare feet limply pendulous under his wide palm-leaf hat. And yet he was a ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... to be just such a bright, loving wife as Aunty is; to have my husband lean on me as Uncle leans on her; to have just as many children, and to train them as wisely and kindly us she does hers. Then, I should feel that I had not been born in vain, but had a high and sacred mission on earth. But as it is, I must just pick up what scraps of usefulness I can, and let the ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... wins hearts, generosity that makes friends, unselfishness that loves another better than one's self, integrity that commands confidence, neatness which attracts; tastefulness, a true woman's strength; good manners, without which all my list of virtues is in vain; cleanliness next to godliness; and, above all, true godliness that makes the noblest ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... which constitute Babylon, the great body of Christ's true followers are still to be found in their communion. There are many of these who have never seen the special truths for this time. Not a few are dissatisfied with their present condition, and are longing for clearer light. They look in vain for the image of Christ in the churches with which they are connected. As these bodies depart farther and farther from the truth, and ally themselves more closely with the world, the difference between the two classes will widen, and it will ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... breach may possibly be skinned over, though it can hardly be healed: in the Republican party it must widen and deepen. The latter stands now in a position analogous to that of the Whig party when it made its last vain attempt to elect its candidate, and shortly after went to pieces, the mass of its adherents going over to that meagre band which in the same election had stood firm around the standard of Liberty. It is for the Reformers to say whether they will contend for the inheritance which is legitimately theirs. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... black dot against the blue, was the water tank beside the station. For three miles, four, it held its place; then, as, with the old unconscious motion the girl turned to look back, she searched for it in vain. Behind them as before, unbroken, limiting, only the brown plain and the blue surrounding wall met her gaze. At last, there in the solitude, there with no observer save nature and nature's God, she and the other ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... and years hence—before he died at any rate, he might know how much she had been tempted. She thought that she did not want to hear that all was explained to him, if only she could be sure that he would know. But this wish was vain, like so many others; and when she had schooled herself into this conviction, she turned with all her heart and strength to the life that lay immediately before her, and resolved to strive and make the best ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... returning, and feeling by this time convinced that there must surely be another outlet at no great distance, he set his teeth and pushed on, hoping to reach that other outlet before his last torch should be consumed. But the hope was vain, for in less than ten minutes Dick found himself in profound darkness, with still no indication of any other outlet than that by ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... through all these parts, directing them to arrest me wherever I was found, and to hinder me from proceeding on my journey. These orders came too late to contribute to my preservation, and this prince's goodness had been in vain, if God, whose protection I have often had experience of in my travels, had not been ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... more nearly we came to a longish stretch of highway, which the French had cleared of visual obstructions in anticipation of resistance by infantry in the event that the outer ring of defenses gave way before the German bombardment. It had all been labor in vain, for the town capitulated after the outposts fell; but it must have been very great labor. Any number of fine elm trees had been felled and their boughs, stripped now of leaves, stuck up like bare bones. There were ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... poor child's countenance showed that it had few minutes to live. Sometimes it lay so still I thought the last pang was over; when a slight convulsion would agitate its frame, and a momentary pressure of its little hands, would give the gasping father a short vain ray of hope. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... chariot to the ground, with a spear in his left hand, and in his other hand grasped a shining jagged stone, that his hand covered. Firmly he planted himself and hurled it, nor long did he shrink from his foe, nor was his cast in vain, but he struck Kebriones the charioteer of Hector, the bastard son of renowned Priam, on the brow with the sharp stone, as he held the reins of the horses. Both his brows the stone drave together, and his bone held not, but his eyes fell to the ground in the dust, there, in front of his feet. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... a throne of endless conquest vain, Love bids the monarch drag his servile chain; And glorying less to please, than to destroy, 70 In scenes of woe exults ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... a large and beautiful gem, so uncommon and rare, that all search for it is vain, all efforts to obtain it hopeless; but it consists of a series of smaller and commoner gems, grouped and set together, forming a pleasing and graceful whole. Happiness consists in the enjoyment of little pleasures scattered along the common path of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... but she defended its merits with energy, and munched biscuits with an excellent appetite. Afterwards she smoked a cigarette and Dion his pipe, sitting on the ground and leaning against the tent wall. In vain Achilles drew her attention to the chairs. Rosamund stretched out her long limbs ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... out, and they hide themselves in the most terrific manner: hanging themselves up behind draperies, like bats, and tumbling out in the dead of night with frightful caterwaulings. Hereupon French borrows Beaucourt's gun, loads the same to the muzzle, discharges it twice in vain, and throws himself over with the recoil, exactly like a clown. . . . About four pounds of powder and half a ton of shot have been fired off at the cat (and the public in general) during the week. The funniest ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... that Kelly's marriage would have been the means of producing a change in him for the better, but it did not. He was, in fact, the slave of a low, vain ambition, which constantly occasioned him to have some quarrel or other on his hands; and, as he possessed great physical courage and strength, he became the champion of the parish. It was in vain that his wife used every argument to ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... though that pen he wielded in his hand Ordain'd the Wealth of Nations to command; Yet when on Helicon he dar'd to draw, His draft return'd and unaccepted saw. If thus like him we lay a rune in vain, Like him we'll strive some humbler prize ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... rousing wines, One anodynes, And one declares That nothing ails it but the pains of growth. My last look loth Is taken; and I turn, with the relief Of knowing that my life-long hope and grief Are surely vain, To that unshapen time to come, when She, A dim, heroic Nation long since dead, The foulness of her agony forgot, Shall all benignly shed Through ages vast The ghostly grace of her transfigured past Over the present, harass'd and forlorn, Of nations yet unborn; And this shall be the lot ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... the house that night. Downstairs, Mrs. Carew sat by the shaded lamp in her upright armchair. She was not writing, but had re-opened the large black Bible. Molly was courting sleep in vain, having resolutely blown out her candle. Sidney made no pretence. He was fully dressed, and seated at his rarely-used writing-table. Before him lay a telegraph-form bearing nothing but ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... aligned:— Set forth my sev'rance, griefs, tyrannic wrongs, * And ill device ill-suiting lover-kind. How oft love-claimant, craving secrecy, * How oft have lovers 'plained as sore they pined, How many a brimming bitter cup I've quaffed, * And wept my woes when speech was vain as wind! And thou:—"Be patient, 'tis thy bestest course * And choicest medicine for mortal mind!" Then unto patience worthy praise cleave thou; * Easy of issue and be lief resigned: Nor hope thou aught of me lest ill alloy * Or aught ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... politician or the stage-king is understood from point to point, from end to end. This is a degree of trouble which will be gladly taken by a very humble artist; but not even the terror of eternal fire can teach a business man to bend his imagination to such athletic efforts. Yet without this, all is vain; until we understand the whole, we shall understand none of the parts; and otherwise we have no more than broken images and scattered words; the meaning remains buried; and the language in which our prophet speaks to us is a dead language ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... part of the original inscription. The most important trophy which the English conqueror brought from Scotland was the stone of Scone, a reminder now of the union of the two kingdoms, but then a constant source of irritation to the Scots, who tried in vain to get it back. The chair which encloses the stone was made in Edward's time, and has ever since been used as the seat of our sovereigns at their coronations. Once and once only a man not of royal birth was privileged to receive the insignia of government seated ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... endeavor to obtain "something for nothing" by piling their luggage into seats they have not paid for on the train; on the boat they fortify themselves in a circle of chairs that are "engaged"—generally to hold their wraps and lunch-boxes, while others look in vain for seats. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Interest or Happiness of the City, the Question was put, What Place I thought most pleasant to walk in? No body can doubt but before the stinking Streets of London, I would esteem a fragrant Garden, or shady Grove in the Country. In the same Manner, if, laying aside all worldly Greatness and Vain Glory, I should be ask'd, where I thought it was most probable that Men might enjoy true Happiness, I would prefer a small peaceable Society, in which Men, neither envy'd nor esteem'd by Neighbours, should be contented to live upon the Natural Product of the Spot they inhabit, ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... Sun-god who called it forth. Once each year, in the sultry heats of June, the women wept and tore their hair in memory of his untimely death, and Istar, it was said, had descended into Hades in the vain hope of bringing him back to life. One of the most famous of Babylonian poems was that which told of the descent of Istar through the seven gates of the underground world, and which was chanted at the annual commemoration of his death. At each gate, it is said, the goddess left behind ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... forthwith. Paddy was completely nonplussed:—all the provisions were gone, and yet his guests were not to be trifled with. He made a hundred excuses—"'Twas late—'twas dry now—and there was nothing in the house; sure they ate and drank enough." But all in vain. The ould sinner was threatened with instant death if he delayed. So Paddy called a council of war in the parlour, consisting of his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... made simultaneously on different parts of the town, and though the besieged fought bravely, they fought in vain, and by the next morning all but the Castle and the little fort above were in the hands of the enemy. Sir Hugh Pollard, the Governor (Sir Edward Seymour was at this time taking part in the defence of Exeter), had been wounded the night before, ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... flattery, though he was not prepared to marry. It was quite possible that she might be able to dig such a pit for him that it would be easier for him to marry her than to get out in any other way. Of course she must trust something to his own folly at first. Nor did she trust in vain. Before her week was over at Mrs. Gore's she received from him a letter, which, with the correspondence to which it immediately led, shall ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... public or private undertaking, as when about to take a journey, or when entering upon marriage; he regulating the gathering of roots and berries, the hunting and fishing, and the division of spoils. The priests said of the chief, "He speaks calmly, but never in vain." They admired the self-control of the Indians, who never showed any impatience when misfortunes befell them; and said, that, the farther they penetrated into the wilderness, the better Indians they found. They were especially pleased with those ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... twenty knights to the assistance of the three policemen and the six porters; so that for Eames, even had he desired it, there was no possible chance of escape. But he did not desire it. One only sorrow consumed him at present. He had, as he felt, attacked Crosbie, but had attacked him in vain. He had had his opportunity, and had misused it. He was perfectly unconscious of that happy blow, and was in absolute ignorance of the great fact that his enemy's eye was already swollen and closed, and that in another hour it would be as black ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... assembled, one gloomy afternoon, a large body of armed men, not connected with the searching parties which had been ransacking the region in the vain duplex search which we have tried to describe. It was a war-party under the command of Addedomar the outlaw—if we may thus characterise a man in a land where there was little or no law of any kind, ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... was constantly exposed to danger and death. How unhappy such a condition for a man tormented with fear, which is vain if no danger comes; and if it does, only augments the pain! It was my happiness to be destitute of this afflicting passion, with which I had the greatest reason to be affected. The prowling wolves diverted my nocturnal hours with perpetual howlings, and the ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... length, the conversation which ensued. It was tolerably connected, as might be looked for in so small a company, seldom, branching out into miscellaneous details, and turning chiefly upon literary matters. But I found it impossible to join in it with any degree of relish. In vain did my opposite neighbour call up before my imagination the scenes of my birthplace; in vain did our landlord crack his jokes—for he was a great humourist—and rally me upon my dulness; in vain did he allege that I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... failed to accomplish, was accomplished at last by a voluntary association of students, organizing that sense of honor which, in youth and societies of youth, if rightly touched, is never appealed to in vain. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... thing in the awful dampness, so we folded the blankets with the dry part on top as well as we could, and then "crawled in." We hated to get up for dinner, but as we were guests, we felt that we must do so, but for that meal we waited in vain—not one morsel of dinner was prepared that night, and Miss Hayes and I envied the enlisted men when we got sniffs of their boiling coffee. Only a soldier could have found dry wood and a place for making ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... religion, has made them hard and incurious; it is a land of uncompromising masculinity. The softer element—thanks to the Koran—has become non-existent, and you will look in vain for the creative-feminine, for those intermediate types of ambiguous, submerged sexuality, the constructive poets and dreamers, the men of imagination and women of will, that give to good society in the north its sweetness and chatoyance; for those "sports" ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... the tutor at his college, and taken his name off the books without any degree. About this, too, he had argued with Sir Thomas, expressing a strong opinion that a university degree was in England, of all pretences, the most vain and hollow. At twenty-three he began his career at the Moonbeam with two horses,—and from that day to this hunting had been the chief aim of his life. During the last winter he had hunted six days a week,—assuring Sir Thomas, however, that ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... this privileged first-born of reason, I perceived, would be vain. I therefore only requested him to let me remain another day at his house, while I sought for a lodging; and not to inform Mr. Venables that I had ever ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... was gone. And Chet! Chet Bullard!... Harkness' head was heavy on his shoulders; his feet took him with hopeless, lagging steps to his waiting ship. He was tired—and the long strain of the flight had been in vain. He was suddenly certain of disaster. And Chet—Chet was up there at some hitherto untouched height, ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... finds it difficult to reform it. The best people, who are determined to broaden all their 'a''s, will forget in moments of excitement, and fall back into old habits. It requires constant vigilance to keep the letter 'a' flattened out. It is in vain that scholars have pointed out that in the use of this letter lies the main difference between the English and the American speech; either Americans generally do not care if this is the fact, or fashion can only work a reform in a limited ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the women in a fascinated way, again opened his mouth in vain, and again Anna dragged backward at ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... collar was point-de-vice of prime quality over black velvet. My uncle's welcome was more than a vain lad could stomach; and what youth of his first teens hath not a vanity hidden ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... with her by the medium of an older sister who was in a Carmelite nunnery, and the marquise perceived that her father had on his death bequeathed the care and supervision of her to her brothers. Thus her first crime had been all but in vain: she had wanted to get rid of her father's rebukes and to gain his fortune; as a fact the fortune was diminished by reason of her elder brothers, and she had scarcely enough to pay her debts; while the rebukes were renewed from the mouths ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... abundant life of the time, unsuspicious of all dangers that gathered darkly against it, flowed on its cheerful aimless way. In the cities men fussed about their businesses and engagements. The newspaper placards that had cried "wolf!" so often, cried "wolf!" now in vain. ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... suffered, wept, and languished, Thinking hope was all in vain, Soul in mourning, torn heart anguished? Then you understand ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... down. Then she went down the lower flight of steps until she came to a closed door, which had been securely fastened from the outside by the man who brought up her box. She shook it and beat it with her little fists; but all in vain. Nobody seemed to hear her knocks; or, if heard, they were disregarded. She tried the baize door with like ill-success. Hugo had said the truth; ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... mean. And you know quite as well as I do that it is perfectly true. The dinners were a beastly bore, which proves that they were a loud success. Your work was not done in vain. But now I want something else. We must push along the ball we've been talking of. And the yachting cruise—that ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... withal, of a genial temper, he was sensitive of affront, and keen in his expressions of displeasure; he had his hot outbursts of anger with Wilson and Wordsworth, and even with Scott, on account of supposed slights, but his resentment speedily subsided, and each readily forgave him. He was somewhat vain of his celebrity, but what shepherd had not been vain of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... inevitable disaster, of such alien surroundings. Who also does not know that often when the whole will is set to identify conduct with conviction, it may be, for all its passionate and bitter sincerity, set in vain. In every hour of every day there are hundreds of lives that battle honestly, but with decreasing spiritual forces, with passion and temptation. Sometimes a life is driven by the fierce gales of enticement, the swift currents of desire, right ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... stump against "ignorant men and small boys," for time out of mind all over this country and every other country where they could command an audience of curious people willing to throw away an hour or two on a vain, futile and foolish harangue, proposing to transform men into women and women into men. Such dissatisfied females should not hurl anathemas at men, forsooth, because they happened to be born into the world women instead of men. God alone is responsible for the difference ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... from behind the waterfall, which seemed determined to sweep us from the bridge, and scatter us on the rocks and among the torrents below. I remarked that I wanted to go home; but it was too late. We were almost under the monstrous wall of water thundering down from above, and speech was in vain in the midst of such a ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... history. About the middle of the century, Roger Williams (1599-1683), having ventilated opinions contrary to the general Calvinism, was driven out of Salem, where he had ministered to a grateful church. His pleas for a real religious freedom were in vain, and he was forced to wander from the colonial settlements and find a precarious home among the Indians. After much privation, he succeeded in establishing a new colony at Rhode Island, where a more liberal ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... touched the subject of suffrage in Louisiana, repeating that he held it better to extend to the more intelligent colored men the elective franchise, giving the recently emancipated a prize to work for in obtaining property and education.[106] The Convention tried in vain to declare what constituted a Negro, giving it up in disgust. It did abolish slavery in general; granted suffrage to those whites who were loyal to the government; and to colored men according to educational and property qualifications. In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... If we do not obtain definite guarantees against the monster who has barely failed to strangle them and to force the entire world back into the darkness of slavery, we shall have failed in our task, and the blood shed in the fight for Liberty will have been shed in vain. ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... he had tried in vain to get some trace of the two missing girls, and expressed the hope of seeing the boys soon, to get the benefit of any advice they could give him. He also stated that he was progressing well with his scientific work of noting the effect of terrific noises on insects. But, somehow or ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... ourselves close by in the grass and stones. Presently we saw from our own hiding-place three white men, armed with guns, seeking for us. Their names were Martinus Meyer, Jan Meyer, and Isaac Meyer, all three sons of old Isaac Meyer. They sought us in vain. From our hiding-place we heard the waggon driven away; and later, when we went back to Degaza's kraal, they told us that the Meyers had inspanned the waggon, and had returned with it to the Transvaal ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... looked—in vain. By this time the servants were gone to bed, and the two searchers were quite alone on the ground floor of their magnificent mansion. Mrs. Greyne began to look seriously perturbed. Her ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... await: Thou leavest desolate and bare Thy kingdom rare, And thine own glory dost reject And true estate. 40 But cast these slippers now aside, This gaudy dress and its long train, Thou art all bowed, Lest Death come on thee unespied And in thy pride These thy desires and trappings vain Prove ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... girl. As his eyes rested contemplatingly on his companion's bent head and youthfully-lean figure, he began to visualize a very plain, dowdy sister. The "Good Lord, no!" probably meant that although Freddy was not the least vain of his own extraordinary good looks, he could not help exclaiming at the idea of his dowdy sister being considered ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Homage for the Duchy of Aquitaine had not been rendered to him, and on this pretext he began to exercise all possible modes of annoyance on the borders, and to give judgment against any Guiennois or Poitevins who sued against Edward as their liege lord, Edward remonstrated in vain, and sent his brother Edmund, Earl of Kent, a fine-looking but weak young man of twenty-two, to endeavor to make peace, but in vain: on the first pretext, a war ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... woman With a smile that still was sweet, Sewed on a little garment, With a cradle at her feet. Pantaloon stood ready and waiting, It was time for the going on; But the clown in vain searched wildly,— The "property baby" ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... solicitation were more powerful than the laws—that it was your duty not to pity the aged mother of Timarchus, nor his children, nor any one else, but to attend solely to one point, namely, that if you abandoned the cause of the laws and the constitution, you would look in vain for any to have pity on yourselves. {284} Is that unhappy man to have lost his rights as a citizen, because he witnessed the guilt of Aeschines, and will you then suffer Aeschines to escape unscathed? On what ground can you do so? for if Aeschines demanded so heavy a penalty from those whose ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... policies have secured the necessaries of life, ambition, avarice, and luxury, find the mind at leisure for their reception, and soon engage it in new pursuits; pursuits that are to be carried on by incessant labour, and, whether vain or successful, produce anxiety and contention. Among savage nations, imaginary wants find, indeed, no place; but their strength is exhausted by necessary toils, and their passions agitated not by contests about superiority, affluence, or precedence, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... overcome with shame and drove to Ellaphine's house by a side street and escorted the horse to the livery-stable by a back alley. On his way home he tried in vain to dodge Luella Thickins, but she headed him off with one of her Sunday-best smiles. She bowled him over by an ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... reduced to such a weak state that they were obliged to be drawn on board our vessel by ropes. A brig bound for Havannah took part of the men, and we took the remainder. To attempt any description of my feelings on witnessing such scenes would be in vain. You will not be surprised to learn that I felt somewhat uneasy at the thought that we were so far from England, and that I also might possibly suffer similar shipwreck; but I consoled myself with the hope that fate would be more kind to us. It was not so much so, however, as I had ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... p. 424.).—My note of the coat-armour in question stands thus: "Three bars between ten bells, four, three, two, and one." And I have before now searched in vain for its appropriation. I am consequently obliged to {494} content myself with the supposition that it is a corruption, as it may easily be, of the coat of Keynes, viz. "vair, three bars gules," the name of the wife of John ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... and there they showed him the chain, desiring him to try his strength in breaking it. At the same time they told him that it was a good deal stronger than it looked. They took it in their own hands and pulled at it, attempting in vain to break it, and then they said ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... "Robinson is a vain man," she said thoughtfully. "He will not let go the chance of notoriety given him by the murder of a well-known actress. Was she really murdered? Robinson said so when I met him ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... all melted away in the train," protested Fanny Fitz in vain. Those of her friends who had only seen the mare in the catalogue sent dealers to buy her, and those who had seen her in the flesh—or what was left of it—sent amateurs; but all, dealers and the greenest of amateurs alike, entirely ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... while the yellow acacia was not more brightly golden than the silken tresses of Bertha,—tresses that ran in ripples, and lost themselves in a sunny stream of natural curls, which seemed audaciously bent on breaking their bounds, and looked as though they were always in a frolic. In vain they were smoothed back by the skilful fingers of an expert femme de chambre, and confined in an elaborate knot at the back of Bertha's small head; the rebellious locks would wave and break into fine rings upon the white brow, and lovingly steal ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... screams of women and children aroused me from profound torpor! Shrieks were followed by volleys of musketry. Then came a loud tattoo of knocks at my door, and appeals from the negro chief to rise and fly. "The town was besieged:—the head-men were on the point of escaping:—resistance was vain:—they had been betrayed—there were no fighters to ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... gives the word to fire into them as they stand; and instantly out flashes the fire of three rifles from as many loopholes, followed by such a commotion over there among the shadows as seems to indicate that the fire has not been in vain. Two more shots, one each from Henderson and Manners, complete the enemy's discomfiture, and ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... long way across Isla Water. And twice across is longer. And "The Cold Hand of Isla" summons the chief of Clan Morhguinn when his time has come to look upon his own wraith face to face. But The Cold Hand of Isla had touched this girl in vain—MOLADH MAIRI!! ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... leadership.[1772] Although his standard of official honesty had always been as low as his standard of official responsibility, it never aroused violent party opposition until his personal resentments brought Democratic defeat. This classified him at once as a common enemy. In vain did he protest as Tweed had done against being made a "scape-goat." His sentence was political death, and as a first step toward its execution, Mayor Cooper refused to reappoint him comptroller, an office which he had held for four years. Republican ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... was, of all men, the most unfit for a position like that in which he was placed. He was a good fighter, a chivalrous, brave man; but he was weak and vain, and without tact or discretion. His intentions were, at all times, pure, but want of judgment frequently placed him in unpleasant positions. The condition of the minds of the people of Georgia, at this ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... their most grievous burden, and insuring peace by the absolute control the Companies was certain to acquire of foodstuffs and the munitions of war? Then, indeed, his life would not have been in vain! ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... curiosity, as Amabel waited on Charles and her flowers, or Laura drew, wrote letters, and strove to keep down the piles of books and periodicals under which it seemed as if her brother might some day be stifled—a vain task, for he was sure to want immediately whatever she put out of ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... caused in Christendom, the waste of noble lives, the devastation of once happy provinces, and the effusion of innocent blood. Going from camp to camp they exhorted, prayed, and reproached the rival sovereigns, urging that while Christians were shedding each other's blood in vain, the infidels were daily waxing bolder and more insolent. Their arguments would have been but of little use had either of the monarchs felt sure of victory. King Edward, however, felt that his ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... themselves of it. Their rifle fire became hotter and more incessant than ever, and as the Canadian troops were all huddled up in a narrow road, their murderous volleys were very destructive. It was a vain effort on the part of the officers to check the retreat and rally the men for the first few hundred yards, but after a while they cooled down and retired in an orderly manner, occasionally turning around to take a parting shot at the Fenians, who were pursuing them. Occasionally a squad or ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... Serbie, c'est a dire de la punition de la politique precedente de la Serbie et des garanties pour l'avenir. De ceci l'Allemagne conclue qu'il faut exercer une action moderatrice a Petersbourg. Ce sophisme a ete refute a Paris comme a Londres. A Paris, le Baron de Schoen a en vain tache d'entrainer la France a une action solidaire avec l'Allemagne sur la Russie en faveur du maintien de la paix. Les memes tentatives out ete faites a Londres. Dans les deux capitales il a ete repondu que l'action devrait etre ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... fireplace, the perfectly bound books, and the costly spaces of the great room. Yet he was voicing the same longing that I, whose fight was just beginning, had often felt—the longing to step aside from the struggle for vain things, the longing to turn from the smoke and grime of the conflict to the quiet and peace of the valley. Now I voiced that longing too, forgetting Mrs. Bannister and her evident creed that man's chief end was to know ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... more proud and obstinate—so proud and obstinate as to find it a thing incredible that the order should indeed change and the old regime pass away—still remain, and by their vain endeavours to lord it in their castles provoke such scenes as that enacted at Bellecour in February of '93 (by the style of slaves) or Pluviose of the year One of the French Republic, as it shall presently come to be known in the annals of ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... was still in the hands of the station-master, to whose care it had been addressed. This diligent person professed to have sent a man through the Orient Express, from end to end, calling for Miss Helen Mowbray, but calling in vain. He had no theory more plausible to offer than that the lady had not started from Kronburg; or else that she had left the train at Felgarde before her name had been cried. But certainly she would not have had time to go far, if she were a through passenger, for the ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... can produce the most tragically terrific upheavals! Had she not bought a return railway ticket, the whole disaster might have been averted. But for that horrible square inch of pink cardboard, all would have been well, her ordeal would not have been suffered in vain. The wickedly strong intoxicant had of course begun the mischief by making her blurt out those imbecile words that first set Will on the rampage; but it was the knowledge of the telltale ticket, close at hand, unguarded, certain to be found if looked for, that had unnerved her so completely. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... frequently crossed; but in a fight of this kind, discipline tells its tale. The blacks and Egyptians maintained their lines, steadily and firmly; and against these, individual effort and courage, even of the highest quality, were in vain. ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... crowns taken away. I had a diamond ring on my finger, which I hoped they would not observe, and I turned the stone inside, heartily wishing, as I did so, that it had the power of Gyges' ring, and could render me invisible. But all was in vain. The robbers soon found it out. When they had taken every ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... he be like in the monotonous class-room? These may seem wanton charges to some, but I am not speaking without my book. Monthly I am brought into close contact with the pedagogic intelligence through the medium of three educational magazines. A certain morbid habit against which I struggle in vain makes me read everything I catch a schoolmaster writing. I am, indeed, one of the faithful band who read the Educational Supplement of the Times. In these papers schoolmasters write about their business, lectures upon the questions of ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... Este.[401] The play is an avowed and solitary attempt to revive the 'satyric' drama of the Greeks, a kind of which the Cyclops of Euripides is the only extant example. The action is simple. The rural demigods, fauns, satyrs, and the like, having long sought the love of the nymphs of Diana in vain, enter, at the suggestion of Egle the mistress of Silenus, upon a plan whereby they may have the careless maidens in their power. They make a show of leaving Arcadia in high dudgeon, abandoning their families of little fauns and satyrs. On these the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... if my faith is vain, If hopes like these betray, Pray for me that I too may gain The sure and ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... Island of Sphakteria—the scene of the first famous surrender of the Spartans—before the Greek fleet could arrive to relieve it. The forts of Navarino then capitulated, and Ibrahim pushed on his victorious march towards the centre of the Morea. It was in vain that the old chief Kolokotrones was brought from his prison at Hydra to take supreme command. The conqueror of Dramali was unable to resist the onslaught of Ibrahim's regiments, recruited from the fierce races of the Soudan, and fighting with the same ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... who tries to play peacemaker between two of his mistresses. This is enough to bring lava from any "extinguished volcano." Liszt, after almost vain efforts to avoid downright hair-pulling, decided to take the comtesse away from Nohant. He seems to have sided with her against Sand, and said afterward: "I did not care to expose myself to her insolence" (sottise). Chopin, however, took sides with Sand, and it is said that his heart chilled toward ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... Here, you women; tear me the nap off with your fingers. My God! what is to be done? She'll bleed to death!" And he held her to his breast, and almost moaned with pity over her, as he pressed the cold sponge to her wound—in vain; for still the red ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... not merely calmed but delighted her; to be the wife of Delvile seemed now a matter of necessity, and she soothed herself with believing that to struggle against it were vain. ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... rushed upon the scaffold, picking up the book of Hours and the crucifix as relics; and Jeanne Kennedy, remembering the little dog who had come to his mistress, looked about for him on all sides, seeking him and calling him, but she sought and called in vain. He had disappeared. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... most attractive of the author's duties to explore the interior of Australia. There the philosopher may look for facts; the painter and the poet for original studies and ideas; the naturalist for additional knowledge; and the historian might begin at a beginning. The traveller there seeks in vain for the remains of cities, temples, or towers; but he is amply compensated by objects that tell not of decay but of healthful progress and hope;—of a wonderful past, and of a promising future. Curiosity alone may attract us into the mysterious recesses of ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... Henry Harrison[6] was governor of Indiana territory. He had fought under General Wayne[7] in his war with the Indians in Ohio. Everybody knew Governor Harrison's courage, and the Indians all respected him; but he tried in vain to prevent the Indians from going to war. The "Prophet" urged them on at the north, and Tecumseh had gone south to persuade the Indians there ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... placed nearly five hundred dollars in missus's hands: but how vain were the hopes that had borne us through so many privations for the accumulation of this portion of our price of freedom! Master has sold my children,—yes, sold them! He will not tell me where nor to whom. Missus will neither see nor hear me; ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... obsequies, without friend or mourner, without surviving relatives to take a last look or shed a tear, was one of the appalling spectacles. There was the breathless suspense and anxiety of those who feared the worst, who waited in vain for news of the safety of their friends, and at last were compelled to believe that their loved ones ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... their ingle nooks, dormer windows, or many gables. Here the men to whom we still pay tribute spent their hours of ease, unconscious that their lightest words would be sought for eagerly in generations to come—and be sought in vain. But the knowledge that the old houses had their being, and that the great poets of the Elizabethan era frequented them, hallows many a dusty, dingy street in the city's by-ways now given over to feverish activity from dawn to dusk, and to ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... so, but I don't know where she is. Curtis has tried to find her, but in vain. He ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... slaves and freedmen, such as had contented the simple greatness of Augustus and Trajan, three or four magnificent courts were established in the various parts of the empire, and as many Roman kings contended with each other and with the Persian monarch for the vain superiority of pomp and luxury. The number of ministers, of magistrates, of officers, and of servants, who filled the different departments of the state, was multiplied beyond the example of former times; and (if we may borrow ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... constant expectation of being sent for again to Gloucester, and begin (sic) a canvas. I think if I prevent it, and an opposition, I shall be very vain of my conduct. There is nothing so flattering as the shewing people who thought that they could dupe you, that you know more of the matter than they do. I know too little to be active, but have prudence ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... endowed with fine human virtues and even finer human weaknesses. Miss Tillotson, next to the head clerk in rank and pay—and a pretty and pushing young person—dreamed of getting acquainted with him—really well acquainted. It was a vain dream. For him, between up town and down town a great gulf was fixed. Also, he had no interest in or ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... "Yes, but in vain," returned the princess; who then related to Raoul the scene that took place at Chaillot, and the king's despair on his return; she told him of his indulgence to herself, and the terrible word with which the outraged princess, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Heights, which rise sharply behind the little town of Fredericksburg on the southern bank of the Rappahannock River. Burnside attacked in front. His soldiers had to cross the river and assault the hill in face of a murderous fire—and in vain. He lost thirteen thousand men to only four thousand of the Confederates. "Fighting Joe" Hooker now succeeded Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac. We must now turn to the West, and see what had been ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... of Leuchars is a vain imagination concerning a certain fleet of Danes wrecked on Sheughy Dikes.' WALTER SCOTT. 'The fishing people on that coast have, however, all the appearance of being a different race from the inland population, and their dialect has many peculiarities.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... symptoms, instead of going to the foundation of the evil—a deficiency of self-respect, growing out of a want of instruction in things proper to be known, and for which the education of the country makes no provision—all will be in vain. How far there will prevail a more enlarged view of this painful subject, is not discoverable from the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... are less numerous and less peculiar, it must often be difficult to distinguish them. To this, other reasons may be added. Amongst the aristocratic nations of the Middle Ages, generation succeeded generation in vain; each family was like a never-dying, ever-stationary man, and the state of opinions was hardly more changeable than that of conditions. Everyone then had always the same objects before his eyes, which he contemplated from the same point; his eyes gradually ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... forgotten, despite the numerous facts against him. I demand that D'ORLEANS be sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal." The Convention, once his hireling adulators, unanimously supported the proposal. In vain he alleged his having been accessory to the disorders of 5th October, his support of the revolt on 10th August, 1792, his vote against the King on 17th January, 1793. His condemnation was pronounced. He then asked only for a ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... at the door. It did not budge. It had caught at the bottom. Pulling with all her might proved to be in vain. Pausing, with palms hot and bruised, she heard a louder, closer approach of the invaders of her home. Fear, wrath, and impotence contested for supremacy over her and drove her to desperation. She was alone here, and she must rely on herself. ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... rolled over. I looked round. At the edge of the wood a hare had just come into view, with one ear bent down and the other one sharply pricked, The blood rushed to my head, and I forgot everything else as I shouted, slipped the dog, and rushed towards the spot. Yet all was in vain. The hare stopped, made a rush, ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... things in the world detest letter-writing. Besides, I heard you was just going to be married, and as a poet, I durst not approach you without an Epithalamium, and an Epithalamium was a thing, which at that time I could not compass. It was all in vain, that Cupid and Hymen, Juno and Luna, offered their assistance; I had no sort of ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... which these words are the text has been preached many times in many ways to congregations for whom the Dollar Devil had always a more winning eloquence. Like many another man who has talked wearily to his fellows with an honest sense of what they truly need, I feel how vain it is to hope for many earnest listeners. Yet here and there may be men and women, ignorantly sinning against the laws by which they should live or should guide the lives of others, who will perhaps be willing to heed what one unbiased ...
— Wear and Tear - or, Hints for the Overworked • Silas Weir Mitchell
... (1814).—The armies of the allies now poured over all the French frontiers. Napoleon's tremendous efforts to roll back the tide of invasion were all in vain. As the struggle became manifestly hopeless, his most trusted officers deserted and betrayed him. Paris surrendered to the allies. Napoleon was forced to abdicate, and the ancient House of the Bourbons was reestablished in the person of a brother of Louis XVI., who took the title ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... somewhat unwilling aspect, though she was decently civil to Mr. and Miss Lovel. She had protested against the flagrant breach of etiquette in calling on people who had just dined with her, instead of waiting until those diners had discharged their obligation by calling on her; but in vain. Her father had brought her to look at some of Clarissa's ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Vain were supplications and prayers to wait. Gabrielle led me away to the meadows, where a fly was in waiting, which conveyed us to the church. I saw her married; I signed something in a great book; I felt her warm tears and embraces, and I knew that Mr. Thomas Erminstoun kissed me ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... with a wild laugh; "you ask this? The time has at last come for an explanation. I would willingly have spared you, but it is in vain that we seek to avoid our fate! Rest here!" and seizing my wrist, she dragged me down on the fallen trunk of a tree that lay half hidden by the tall grass at the side of the path. Immediately behind us was a gloomy wood, choked with rank autumnal growths. A more dank, unwholesome situation ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... possible, that the savour of this suspended bliss was too sweet to lose. A tremor ran through Blanche as their eyes met. She recognised that in him was an austerity against which even she could beat in vain. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... like passions with ourselves." Yet, just in the acknowledgement of his own infirmities by Zwingli, and in his submission with humble faith to a Higher Power, do the unmistakable features of true religion shine victoriously above that worship of self which springs only from vain conceit.—May the following work produce the same conviction in the ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... away. "Monsieur, you talk in vain. You have no royal warrant to supersede mine. Do what you will when you come to Toulouse," and he smiled darkly. "Meanwhile, the Vicomte ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... present was positively known by me which made it out of the question that Joseph Pendean's wife should be the mother of Giuseppe Doria. But none the less many facts might exist as yet beyond my knowledge, which would prove such a suspicion vain. I considered how to obtain these facts and naturally my thought turned to Giuseppe himself. To show you by what faltering steps we sometimes climb to safe ground, I may say that at this stage of my inquiry I had not imagined Doria and Michael Pendean were one and the same ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... doubt, as they would say, from the self-fertilisation of plants, is the result of the increase of some morbid tendency or weakness of constitution common to the closely related parents, or to the two sexes of hermaphrodite plants. Undoubtedly injury has often thus resulted; but it is a vain attempt to extend this view to the numerous cases given in my Tables. It should be remembered that the same mother-plant was both self-fertilised and crossed, so that if she had been unhealthy she would have transmitted half her morbid tendencies to her crossed offspring. ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... bald and are usually vain in the matter of dress, probably due to the fact that in the past they were attaches of royalty. A midget is usually suave in manners and not easily embarrassed in public. Several instances are related that midgets, back in the conspiring and deceitful days of royalty, gave their patrons ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... proved to be vain. Bud and Hal were both still listening-in, but with little suggestion of expectancy on ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... sacrifice would not, could not be in vain. Otherwise I should be merely urging on you the individualism which you once advocated ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... her young-sister-in-law with wide eyes. It was the first time in all her petted, vain life that any one had called her to account. She was, at first, too deeply amazed to resent the ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... said the poor woman, with a glance at the wretched forms beside her; "and may you," she added, after a momentary pause, "deserve the blessing of God, for it is bestowed in vain on those ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... meant, and that he had not sent that shower of fine bird shot after the trio of desperate young scamps in vain. ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... had great faith, which they have supplemented with mighty works. They have been able to put trust in each other and trust in their Government. Their candor in dealing with foreign governments has commanded respect and confidence. Yet these remarkable powers would have been exerted almost in vain without the constant cooperation and careful administration ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... Probably you will never know just why your story has struck so deeply home with me and why it seemed to make you more a son to me than a stranger. I have guessed that in going west you are simply wandering. You are fighting in a vain and foolish sort of way to run away from something. Isn't that it? You are running away—trying to escape the one thing in the whole wide world that you cannot lose by flight—and that's memory. You can ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... her ghostlike as she passed through the living-room, their startled questions unheeded. Could it be true that she had betrayed every decent attribute of a woman in vain? Why had the counter-attack failed? Because Westerling had been too strong, too clever, for old Partow? Because God was still with the heaviest battalions? Half running, half stumbling, the light of the lantern bobbing and trembling weirdly, she ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... the Master, in disgust, pointed out these diverse failings of the pup, that the Mistress was wont to draw on historic precedent for other instances of slow development, and to take in vain the names of Thackeray, Lincoln, Washington ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... Break not out in vain lamenting! Preserve you for your father the firm friend, And for yourself the lover, all will ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... horse, although sixty pounds was still allowed to the other horse for travelling the same distance, the calculation evidently being based on the supposition that the police magistrate's horse would eat six times as much as mine. Remonstrance was vain, and I found I had burdened myself with an animal, possessing no social or political influence whatever. I knew already that the world was governed without wisdom, and I now felt that it was ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... north, one hundred leagues from the Island de los Pinos. Being at sea, they were taken with a sad and tedious calm, and, by the agitation of the waves alone, were thrown into the gulf of Honduras: here they laboured hard in vain to regain what they had lost, both the waters and the winds being contrary; besides, the ship wherein Lolonois was embarked could not follow the rest; and what was worse, they wanted provisions. Hereupon, they were forced to put into the first port they could reach, to revictual: so they ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... fortune had suffered so severely as to render inevitable a reduction in his expenses by no means inconsiderable, nevertheless continued to actuate him, nearly to the exclusion of all other pursuits; he was, however, a proud, or rather a vain man, and could not bear to make the diminution of his income a matter of gratulation and triumph to those with whom he had hitherto competed, and the consequence was, that he frequented no longer the expensive haunts of dissipation, and retired from the gay world, leaving ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company tried in vain to see behind the mask-like face of the man in the revolving chair. His failure only excited his admiration and respect. Instinctively he recognized the genius before him, and his desire to add this strength to ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... in the water swam towards the wherry, and I judged from her movements that those in her were engaged in picking them up. I sang out and struggled in vain; but the Frenchman held me fast, and finally, to save himself further trouble, lifted me up by the collar and shoved me down the companion-hatch into the cabin, closing the slide over me. There was I, like a mouse caught in a trap. At first I burst ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... hated to see the King, and she was afraid to see Gilbert, whom she knew to be in the ship's company, and she was very sad, also, and cared not for the daylight nor for men's voices. It made it worse that she had tried to sacrifice herself for the woman Gilbert loved, since it had been in vain, and she had not been believed, and since he had after all come with her, she knew not why. As for the King, he sat all day long on the quarter-deck under an awning, telling beads, and praying fervently that the presence of the woman ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... By howling storm-blast driven; Where waves their power vaunted, From land it had been riven. No cry nor moan it uttered, I heard no plaint repeated; In vain its pinions fluttered — It had ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... "this rule."[005] It was, doubtless, such a compendium of doctrine he had in view when he charged Timothy to "keep that which was committed to his trust," contrasting this "deposit" with "profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called."[006] The bearing of this charge is made more emphatic when it is repeated by the Apostle in connection with the exhortation, "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... the Duchess of Hohenberg, had been assassinated during a visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, June 28, 1914, and that the Austrian Government had determined to hold Serbia responsible. England, France, Russia, and Serbia tried, in vain, during the next five weeks to check the outbreak of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... of wood or an antelope made of leather, even so is a Brahmana that has not studied the Vedas. All the three have nothing but names.[121] As a eunuch is unproductive with women, as a cow is unproductive with a cow, as a bird lives in vain that is featherless, even so is a Brahmana that is without mantras. As grain without kernel, as a well without water, as libations poured on ashes, even so is a gift to a Brahmana void of learning. An unlearned Brahmana is an enemy (to all) and is the destroyer of the food that is presented to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... loyalty of hers is very touching indeed. In the fifth century the peasants braved persecution by parading the gods of the old religion in the shape of small dolls made of linen or flour. Still the same in the eighth century. The Capitularies threaten death in vain. In the twelfth century, Burchard, of Worms, attests their inutility. In 1389, the Sorbonne inveighs against certain traces of heathenism, while in 1400, Gerson talks of it as ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... they were soon too busy to pay any attention to my cries; and somehow I got to be less frightened, when I saw that he couldn't get near me, though he tried ever so hard. Round and round he went, tugging at the bars in vain; then he mounted on the top, and peered at me through the openings, grinning in a very ugly manner. Now, I had always been considered a bold cockatoo, and anything but a coward; and so, when I saw his tail sticking between the bars, I flew down to the bottom ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... could not live out the play, But dy'd commodiously on wedding-day,[A] While I his relict, made at one bold fling, Myself a princess, and young Sty a King. You, ladies, who protract a lover's pain, And hear your servants sigh whole years in vain; Which of you all would not on marriage venture, Might she so soon upon ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... the first men of his age, and you have yet not done him justice. Try him by that test to which he sought in vain to stimulate the vulgar and selfish spirit of Napoleon; class him among the men who, to compare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of all ages; turn back your eyes upon the records of time; summon, from the creation of the world to this day, the mighty dead of every age and every ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... weary out Miss Martindale's patience, or that some chance might reveal their presence to Violet; but in vain; Theodora's politeness was exemplary, and she endured Mrs. Albert Moss's familiarity so well, that when at length they departed, the last words were a parting whisper, 'Good morning, Miss Martindale. If we had known what we interrupted—but ah! I have gone through those ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... parting shot from Thora. She well knew that any lad in Orkney would envy her the discovery of a falcon's nest, and that Tom, more than any other, would be jealous of her finding what he might have searched for in vain. ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... Burnham and Sergeants Vincent and Taylor, who were wounded; Quinn and Dame were the only ones unhurt. The whole regiment now fell back about 600 yards, in the shelter of the woods. Six times we advanced, hoping to find some spot where the men could cross, but in vain. We entered this fight with 1080 men, and lost 371 killed and 150 wounded; total loss, 421. The rebels shelled us with their heavy guns. On our front were artillery and infantry; on our left a wooded ridge full of riflemen. We had two six-pounders; one ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... hinge of thy faith; if it be right, all is thine: if wrong, then all is lost, however thy hopes and expectations are to the contrary: 'For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of unbelief. 21 For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briars ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... is already a novelist. They record the strokes of finesse and the subterfuges necessary to the attainment of the vain ambitions which are the preoccupation of human genius in superficial levels of Society in all ages. We realise the waste of energy and diplomacy expended to score small points in the social game. His art is a mirror to weed-like qualities of human nature which enjoy a spring-time ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... "'The gad-about is a vain thing and a mighty cause for stumblin'.' You mind that, an' take better care hencefarrard to set a right example to other maids an' not lead 'em wrong. Theer shan't be no froward liver under this roof, Joan Tregenza, an' you, as be my awn darter's the last ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... I am of that nation, more unhappy than wise, upon which of late a sea of woes has poured down. In the course of our misfortune I was carried to Barbary by two uncles of mine, for it was in vain that I declared I was a Christian, as in fact I am, and not a mere pretended one, or outwardly, but a true Catholic Christian. It availed me nothing with those charged with our sad expatriation to protest this, nor would my uncles ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... England. Its aim was anti-Romanist. The Reformation which it had in mind was Luther's, and it wished, by fighting an alleged insidious revival of Roman Catholicism, to make sure that so far as England was concerned Luther had not preached in vain. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... cream tarts was in the room, but painfully depressed and silent. His late companions sought in vain to lead ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... relief are sent. The yeoman's instinct revolts at it. Attempts have been made to get over this niceness of feeling by erecting a special class-room for farmers' sons, and patriotic baronets have even gone so far as to send their own boys so as to set the example. But it is in vain. The middle-class farmer is above all men exclusive in his ideas. He detests the slightest flavour of communism. He likes to be completely and fully independent. He will not patronise the "parish" school. What then is he to do? ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... refrain from tears. I thought it best, however, to humor his fancy, at least for the present, or until I could adopt some more energetic measures with a chance of success. In the mean time I endeavored, but all in vain, to sound him in regard to the object of the expedition. Having succeeded in inducing me to accompany him, he seemed unwilling to hold conversation upon any topic of minor importance, and to all my questions vouchsafed no other reply than ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of France appeared to have lost its weight, and in vain did Cardinal d'Amboise thunder threats in the name of his friend King Louis, and send envoys to Florence, Venice, Bologna, and Urbino, to complain of the injuries that were being done to the ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Away the boat pulled from the ship, and no officer took upon himself to call her back. At length, however, it appearing certain that the man must have sunk, or, what was too likely, been carried off by a shark, the boats were recalled on board. One only returned. In vain the other was summoned. No answer was made to the repeated calls of the boatswain. A gun was fired; still, after waiting a certain time, the boat did not return. It was strange that no one could tell in which direction she had ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... sought to be upheld. The decline in agricultural interests throughout the country has had its effect upon the apparent efficiency of the farming class everywhere. The mad rush to the cities, with a vain hope of improvement in condition, has well nigh demoralized ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... she would ever succeed herself, she centred in them all her hopes of overcoming the animosity of fate. They would provide satisfaction for her disappointed vanity, they would give her that wealthy, honourable position which she had hitherto sought in vain. From that time forward, without abandoning the business struggle, she conceived a second plan for obtaining the gratification of her domineering instincts. It seemed to her impossible that, amongst her three sons, there should ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... years since I had made my first appeal in the old Capitol at Albany. My reflections were sad and discouraging, as I sat there and listened to the speakers and remembered how long we had made our appeals at that bar, from year to year, in vain. The members of the committee presented the same calm aspect as their predecessors, as if to say, "Be patient, dear sisters, eternity is before us; this is simply a question of time. What may not ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... preferred? Here did their sland'rous breath infest the air? Hence did malicious tongues the scandal bear? Gush'd 'neath this sacred dome the prurient flood Of filth and venom, from that viper brood, Which o'er the land hath spread its noisome stain, While shudd'ring virtue weeps, but weeps in vain? And (O shame's nauseous dregs!) did noble lips Here taste that stream with epicurean sips? And mitred heads, as o'er its scum they bent, Snuff the rank steam, and chuckle at the scent?— My soul is sick!—I turn with sated ear, And find a cordial ...
— The Ghost of Chatham; A Vision - Dedicated to the House of Peers • Anonymous
... we should boast, Save in the death of Christ, our God; All the vain things that charm us most, We'd sacrifice ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... hunted industriously for some hours, literally scratching for a living; but the ground had evidently been most effectually gone over before, as the tracks of bears proved. A few onions, washed from some passing vessel, were eagerly devoured. We scanned the washings along the strand in vain for anything that would satisfy hunger. Nothing remained but to make the venture of stopping at the fort. This fort, like many others, was established during the Seminole war, and at its close was ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... the house in the Rue Servandoni was left on the latch night and day for a whole week. But Madame Vernet's generous hope was in vain; while she still hoped and watched, the end had come. On the evening of the seventh, Condorcet, with one of his legs torn or broken, his garments in rags, with visage gaunt and hunger-stricken, entered an inn in the hamlet of Clamart, and ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... cleaves his path, Impatient cleaves as tho' the bolt of wrath He bears from Heaven withheld its awful burst From weaker heads and souls but half way curst, To break o'er Him, the mightiest and the worst! But vain his speed—tho', in that hour of blood, Had all God's seraphs round MOKANNA stood With swords o'fire ready like fate to fall, MOKANNA'S soul would have defied them all; Yet now, the rush of fugitives, too strong For ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... valuable assets was the hardest question to answer. Her only relatives were an elderly maiden aunt and an irascible old uncle whose time was too filled with providing the wherewithal to maintain a very elaborate establishment for a very vain wife and three frivolous daughters, to leave any left over in which to think of the welfare of his only sister's child. Moreover, his wife and daughters could not endure her, and, truth to tell, they had about as much affinity for one another ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... conciliate that gallant soul. Her father, a gentleman in misfortune—a gentleman of a fine spirit and courtly manners, who always bore with him—he deeply honoured. Her sister he considered somewhat vain and proud, but a young lady of infinite accomplishments, who could not forget the past. It was an instinctive testimony to Little Dorrit's worth and difference from all the rest, that the poor young ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... myself, I was lying in my own berth aboard the ship. I felt weak, faint, and dizzy, and strove in vain to collect my thoughts sufficiently to remember what had happened. My state-room door was open, and I perceived that the sun's rays were shining brightly through the sky-light upon the cabin-table, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... studied in German universities and distinguished European scholars had been called to chairs in American universities, but neither had succeeded in essentially modifying the type of higher education. Dr. Gilman himself had tried in vain to secure the opportunity for graduate work in this country. Now, without any traditions to bind them, the organizers of the University had the opportunity "which marked the entrance of the higher education in America upon a new phase ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... the life-giving and joy-giving power of nature, so fondly cherished by the Pagan world, could not save her followers from self- dissatisfaction and ennui, the severe words of the apostle came bracingly and refreshingly: "Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." Throughout age after age, and generation after generation, our race, or all that part of our race which was most living and progressive, was baptized into a death; and endeavoured, by suffering in the ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... abused. The manners even of the lowest classes are genteel and becoming; their curiosity is great, but it never makes them rudely inquisitive: their language is musical, and in most cases easy of pronunciation. We heard a boat song to-day, the air of which was sweet and plaintive; we tried in vain to catch the words, and unfortunately, none of us had skill enough to note down the air. We observed several people in canoes, making drawings of the ships, but they hid their work when they were observed. ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... Court soon after this, after having promised Jacob Nowell to return and report progress so soon as there should be anything worth telling. He went back to Wigmore Street heavy-hearted, depressed by the reaction that followed the vain hope which the silversmith's letter had inspired. It mattered little to him to know the antecedents of Marian's father, while Marian's destiny remained still ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... said. "Several people whom you know, and my mother and sisters, who have so long been regrettably prevented from making your acquaintance." Bessie Alden lost no time in calling her sister's attention to the injustice she had done the Duchess of Bayswater, whose hostility was now proved to be a vain illusion. ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... evening was marked by an apparition before which, none the less, overstrained suspense folded on the spot its wings. Adjusting her respirations and attaching, under dropped lashes, all her thoughts to a smartness of frock and frill for which she could reflect that she had not appealed in vain to a loyalty in Susan Ash triumphant over the nice things their feverish flight had left behind, Maisie spent on a bench in the garden of the hotel the half-hour before dinner, that mysterious ceremony of the table d'hote for which she ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... live. One hundred years lacking fourteen didst thou suffer, enjoy, weep, dream, groan, pray and strike thy rugged breast! And yet methinks that in those years there was much quiet peace and sweet content; for constant pain benumbs, and worry destroys, and vain unrest summons the grim messenger of death. But thou didst live and work and love; howbeit, thy touch was not always gentle, nor thy voice low; but on thy lips was no lie, in thy thought no concealment, in thy heart no pollution. But mark! thou didst come out of poverty and obscurity: ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... caution to the Temperance Workers. And I can assure you we enjoyed ourselves for a while, but for how long I am unable to tell exactly. Mother soon missed us but being very busy she could not look for us until evening, when she started out to look us up, after searching and calling in vain. She decided to take the dogs to help find us. With their aid we were soon located, lying in the sweet corn, "dead drunk," while the demijohn quite empty, bottom side up, stared at mother with a reproachful ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... exclaimed, "God forgive you," with a severity so different from the idea which the words conveyed, that the object of her anger was, on this, obliged freely to indulge that impulse which she had in vain been struggling to suppress; and no longer suffering under the agony of restraint, she gave way to her humour, and laughed with a liberty so uncontrolled, that soon left her in the room with none but the tender-hearted Miss Woodley a ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... of salutation had passed, he asked me why I had not got my gun with me; and after a weak and vain endeavour to avoid answering the question, I confessed all that had occurred. He sneered at my fears and my fathers' warnings, and laughed away all my half-formed good resolutions,—telling me that I might just as well go and borrow one of my sister's petticoats at once, for to that I should ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... thou art no thy lane,[7-13] In proving foresight may be vain; The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men, Gang aft a-gley,[7-14] An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... had let me go with him. I heard his footsteps swing heavily across the quadrangle, as if challenging the notice of the enemy. Whether the enemy heard or answered the challenge I could not say. The steps died away into silence, and I listened in vain for further sign. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... above, and recognizable for true. Many Despatches his Excellency wrote in this world,—sixty or eighty volumes of them still left,—but among them is this One: the angriest of mankind cannot say that his Excellency lived and embassied quite in vain! ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... abolish. As early as 1785 the Dey of Algiers found in American commerce a fresh field for his ploughing; and of all traders, none proved so welcome as that which boasted of its shipping, yet carried not an ounce of shot to defend it. Hesitating protests and negotiations were essayed in vain; until at last public opinion was so aroused by the sufferings of the captives as to demand of Congress the immediate construction of a fleet. Ill news travels apace, and the rumours of these preparations echoed so promptly among ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... opposition was encountered. Soon the summit of the ridge was gained, and the men swept on and disappeared over the crest, leaving the mopping-up parties to complete their work. The Tanks bravely waddled up after them, in a vain effort to keep up, for the attacking infantry went so fast, in the first stages, that they easily outstripped those ponderous giants and left them ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... strong Roberta, the Marquise of Grez and Bye, holding in the hollow of her arm a beautiful American woman who had herself contrived a monstrous plan to let a quantity of the lifeblood of France to turn into gold for her own vain uses. If to throttle her then and there with my bare strong hands had insured the great big needful mules to France, and saved the honor of my Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth, and my Uncle, the General Robert, ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... on you I will pay you off, you brute," he exclaimed, thrashing the poor animal with his heavy whip. The horse dashed on for some way, then stopped short. He was dead lame. In vain Peach tried to make him move. To return would have taken longer than to go on; so dismounting, he led on the animal, hoping to reach the blacks' camp before night-fall. He went on and on, and it grew darker and darker, ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... growled the King, as the Lord Chamberlain made a low bow and pointed with his staff to the stranger. The King had a bad temper and did not like to receive callers in the morning. But the silly countryman was too vain of his great deed to notice the King's ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... talking abroad, when I should be instructing my family at home, is as bad: 'Whoso keepeth the commandment, shall feel no evil thing: 'and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment' (Eccl 8:5). Good things mistimed, are fruitless, unprofitable, and vain. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... bazaar gates to Sultan Valide and the head of Galata bridge, and at last back again to the Seraskierat, and, leaving the Dove Mosque of Bajazet on the right, once more to the Vinegar Sellers' Landing, in the vain hope that Alexander might have found his way down to the quay where the steam launch ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... than most of us,' interposed another voice. 'He seems to have an enviable facility for appearing where we others in vain wish ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... conditions of the various States of Italy at that date. On April 8 in that year, Lorenzo de' Medici, who had succeeded in maintaining a political equilibrium in the peninsula, expired, and was succeeded by his son Piero, a vain and foolhardy young man, from whom no guidance could be expected. On July 25, Innocent VIII. died, and was succeeded by the very worst Pope who has ever occupied S. Peter's chair, Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI. It was ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... allowed to enter—gave me some directions relative to his release; but before we could make any arrangement, I was ordered to depart by those iron-hearted jailers, who could not endure to see us enjoy the poor consolation of meeting in that miserable place. In vain I pleaded the order of the governor for my admittance; they again harshly repeated, 'Depart, or we will pull you out.'" The same evening all the foreigners succeeded, by the payment of money, in being removed from the common prison to an open shed, where Mrs. ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... not so vain as to be proud of having it thought that I was ushered into the world with a prodigy or a miracle, and I should never have mentioned this trifling circumstance had it not been for some libels since published by my enemies, wherein they affect to make the said ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and found herself possessed of a bag of candy!—red-and-white stick-candy of the variety that she had often seen selling at street corners (out of show-cases that went on wheels). More than once she had longed, and in vain, to stop at one of these show-cases and purchase. Now she suddenly remembered having done so with a high hand. The sticks were striped spirally. Boldly she produced one and fell to sucking it, making more noise with her sucking than ever the strict ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... know that you are vain and self-seeking, and look forward contentedly to the time when your father will transfer his ownership of your physical attractions to that nobleman who offers ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... asses! Be thou accursed in sleeping and in waking, eating and drinking, standing, sitting, lying—O be thou accursed completely and consumedly! Here now, methinks, Sir Monkish Tunbelly, is cursing as it should be cursed. But now—(hush thy vain babbling, heed and mark me well!)—now will I to dictums contumacious, from cursing thee I will to song of thee, of thy plump and pertinacious person—a song wherein shall pleasant mention be o' thy round and goodly paunch, a song that shall be sung, mayhap, when ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... at all the fellaheen are to pay him back without interest. Of course at the rate at which money is here, his profit would be but small interest on the money unless he could get the money directly, and he has now waited six months in vain. ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... defense. This resulted again in very fierce bayonet encounters. The Austro-German forces attempted to stop the Russian advance and launched a long series of very energetic counterattacks, especially in the region of the river Koropiec. All of these, however, were in vain. They were repulsed and resulted in considerable losses. According to their official statement, the Russians made about 8,500 prisoners in the Sereth sector on August 5 and 6, 1916, captured four ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... of his death, given by his old landlady Mrs. Quickly, in the first act of Henry V., tho' it be extremely natural, is yet as diverting as any part of his life. If there be any fault in the draught he has made of this lewd old fellow, it is, that tho' he has made him a thief, lying, cowardly, vain-glorious, and in short every way vicious, yet he has given him so much wit as to make him almost too agreeable; and I don't know whether some people have not, in remembrance of the diversion he had formerly afforded 'em, been sorry to see his friend Hal use him so scurvily, when he comes to ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... are even like grains of sesame without the kernel, or like show-animals encased in skins, or like grains of rice without the kernel. Why shouldst thou then longer wait upon the fallen sons of Pandu? Vain is the labour used upon pressing the sesame ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... cougar or mountain lion behaved exactly as the others had done. He tore at the door, then he circled the tree two or three times, hunting in vain for an opening. Every vein in him was swollen with rage, and the yellowish-green ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... philanthropist, your hope is vain To get by giving what you lost by gain. With every gift you do but swell the cloud Of witnesses against you, swift and loud— Accomplices who turn and swear you split Your life: half robber and half hypocrite. You're ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... was defined, the other day, by a Mahatma as a "psychic resolvent, which eats away all dross and leaves only the pure gold behind." If the candidate has the latent lust for money, or political chicanery, or materialistic scepticism, or vain display, or false speaking, or cruelty, or sensual gratification of any kind the germ is almost sure to sprout; and so, on the other hand, as regards the noble qualities of human nature. The real man comes out. Is it not the height of folly, then, for ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... was subsiding. It increased again and became as severe as before. None expected to escape. A sudden rush was simultaneously made to endeavor to attain the open-air and fly to a place of safety; but, before the door was reached all stopped short, as by a common impulse, feeling that hope was vain—that it was only a question of death within the building or without, of being buried beneath the sinking roof or crushed by the falling walls. The uproar slowly died away in seeming distance. The earth was still, and oh! the blessed ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... you think it was for myself that I have been so persistent in magnifying my name? Oh! I am perhaps very unjust, but this injustice comes from the violence of my heart! I would have liked two words for myself in your letter, but I sought them in vain; two words for him who, since the landscape in which you live has been before his eyes, has not passed, while working, ten minutes without looking at it; I have there sought all, ever since it came to me, that we have asked in the silence ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... with any liquor thereafter. An habitual drunkard was punished by having a great D made of "Redd Cloth" hung around his neck, or sewed on his clothing, and he was disfranchised. In 1630 Governor Winthrop abolished the "Vain Custom" of drinking healths at his table, and in 1639 the Court publicly ordered the cessation of the practice because "it was a thing of no use, it induced drunkenness and quarrelling, it wasted wine and beer and it was ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... close and companionable; they come down to the earth not more than two miles from where we stand. I tried many experiments with the moon, when it was full, to see if I could not outrun the bright and tricksy traveller. My efforts were vain and only increased my wonder. I never spoke of it nor required an explanation from my elders. Children ask no questions regarding those simple operations of nature which they first observe. They remain deep in their silent ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... being changed to Tokio. Hither, in September, 1871, the daimios were once more summoned, and the order was issued that they should give up their strongholds and feudal retainers and retire to private life. They obeyed. Resistance would have been in vain. Thus fell another ancient institution, eight centuries old. The revolution was at an end. The shogunate and the feudal system had fallen, to rise no more. A single ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... whispering timid voice, "O gracious sir, our lady is doubly yours, since she was gained by your own valour when you rescued her from death, and is assigned to you by the all-powerful God of Love. Do not let her languish in vain. Make her your wife without delay." With this request I could not refuse to comply, and taking the hand of the princess, ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... virtue By the light fancies of fools, thus transported. Cannot but vent the Aetna of his fires, T'inflame best bosoms with much worthier love Than of these outward and effeminate shades; That these vain joys, in which their wills consume Such powers of wit and soul as are of force To raise their beings to eternity, May be converted on works fitting men: And, for the practice of a forced look, An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase, Study the native frame of ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... a queer uniform he has on," remarked Jimmy, as he tried in vain to move some of the beams from his side of the mass of timber that had fallen when the mill was blown up. "It's mostly American, but it has a British ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... Lord Castlefort, or likely to be Lord Castlefort, at that time; and she bade her guess, among all she could recollect having ever seen at Cecilhurst, who the man of Louisa's choice could be. Lady Katrine, with infinite forbearance, smiled, and gave no hint, while Helen guessed and guessed in vain. She was astonished when she saw him come into the room. He was a little deformed man, for whom Lady Louisa had always expressed to her companions a peculiar abhorrence. He had that look of conceit which unfortunately sometimes accompanies personal ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... already pointed out how she discouraged, in Isabella, the vain desire to load her memory with historical and chronological facts, merely for the purpose of ostentation. She gradually excited her to read books of reasoning, and began with those in which reasoning and amusement are mixed. She also endeavoured to cultivate ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... low before my God in prayer the whole of the evening, February 3, and to examine my heart once more as to all the motives concerning it; and being able, as formerly, to say, that His glory was my chief aim, i. e., that it might be seen that it is not a vain thing to trust in the living God,—and that my second aim was the spiritual welfare of the orphan-children,—and the third their bodily welfare; and still continuing in prayer, I was at last brought to this state, that I could say from my heart, that ...
— Answers to Prayer - From George Mueller's Narratives • George Mueller
... Duke, contrary to Daumon's prognostications, recovered? Had he discovered his son' insidious attack upon his life, and only pardoned it upon a blind compliance being given to his will? She passed away the whole day in these vain suppositions, and tried to think of every plan to stay the celebration of this union, for she had not given up her hopes, nor did she yet despair of ultimate success. Her new and unlooked-for fortune placed a fresh weapon at her disposal, and she felt that ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... envious dogs, mad dogs; beware of exciting the fury of such with your flaming red velvet and dazzling ermine. It makes ragged Lazarus doubly hungry to see Dives feasting in cloth-of-gold; and so if I were a beauteous duchess . . . Silence, vain man! Can the Queen herself make you a duchess? Be content, then, nor gibe at thy betters of "the Duke of ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... advertisements in the hope of getting sorely needed work; the sending of these to their destination cost money for postage stamps, which made sad inroads on her rapidly dwindling funds. But time and money were expended in vain. The address from which she wrote was a poor recommendation to possible employers. She could not make personal application, as she dared not leave her baby for long at a stretch. Sometimes, her lover's letters ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... should not show us who you are? Would you let me tell you what manner of man you have shown us that you are? You have exhibited yourself to us as a mean fellow, querulous, passionate, cowardly, finding fault with everything, blaming everybody, never quiet, vain: this is what you have exhibited to us. Go away now and read Archedamus; then if a mouse should leap down and make a noise, you are a dead man. For such a death awaits you as it did—what was the man's name—Crinis; and he too was proud, ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... have been vain, for a letter of the next Assyrian king, Assuruballit, speaks of a regular exchange of messengers, and indicates that the Sutu of the desert—doubtless at the instigation of the Babylonians—were about to kill every Egyptian who showed ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... the courage of its convictions. The Republican party came to the front with a determination to secure, if possible, freedom for the slave, liberty for the oppressed, and justice and fair play for all classes and races of our population. That its efforts in these directions have not been wholly in vain are among the most glorious and brilliant achievements that will constitute a most important part of the history of our country; for it had been the unmistakable determination of that party to make this beautiful ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... supper— which was in fact his breakfast, he found nothing there. At first he could not imagine such neglect, and went smelling and smelling about for his bowl of milk—it was not always placed in the same corner now—but in vain. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... of features, dress, or appearance. He was merely conscious that with him, in a locked room of which he knew himself to be the only human inmate, there sat something which bore a human form. He looked at it for a moment with a hope, which he felt to be vain, that it might vanish and prove a phantom of his excited imagination, but still it sat there. Then my brother put down his violin, and he used to assure me that a horror overwhelmed him of an intensity which he had previously believed impossible. Whether the image which ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... difficult it must have become to introduce great crimes, or cruel, unbridled, tragical passions, into a modern work, above all if that work be destined for stage presentation; for the poet will seek in vain for the mysterious excuse these crimes or passions demand. And yet, for all that, so deeply is this craving for mysterious excuse implanted within us, so satisfied are we that man is, at bottom, never as guilty as he may appear to be, that we are still fully ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... we proposed it to her, she peremptorily refused, and declared that she would go out as a governess, or anything, rather than consent. I tried what coaxing would do, and her father tried threatening; but all was in vain. This was about a year ago, and she is now only seventeen; but she ever was a most ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... liberally out of his own experience. He will not put you by with conversational counters and small jests; he will give you the best of himself, like one interested in life and man's chief end. A Scotsman is vain, interested in himself and others, eager for sympathy, setting forth his thoughts and experience in the best light. The egoism of the Englishman is self-contained. He does not seek to proselytise. He takes no interest in Scotland or the Scots, and, what is the unkindest cut ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... became public property, and then admitted them with unblushing equanimity. His delays were so tantalizing that they might well have revived unpleasant memories of the famous X. Y. Z. negotiations, in which he tried in vain to extort bribe-money from the American negotiators [Footnote: Jefferson was guilty of much weak and undignified conduct during these negotiations, but of nothing weaker and more petty than his attempt to flatter ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... warmer coat, a carriage to shelter me from the weather, and to transport me from place to place without fatigue.' But the man who asks him for that fine blue ribbon would say, if he had the courage and the honesty to speak as he feels, 'I am vain, and it will give me great satisfaction to see people look at me, as I pass, with an eye of stupid admiration, and make way for me; I wish, when I enter a room, to produce an effect, and to excite the ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... therefore the Master has but one desire: Remember your Father is, and sees and hears in secret; go there and stay there, and go again from there in the confidence: He will recompense. Trust Him for it; depend upon Him: prayer to the Father cannot be vain; He will reward ...
— Lord, Teach Us To Pray • Andrew Murray
... genial spirits fail; 40 And what can these avail, To lift the smoth'ring weight from off my breast? It were a vain endeavour, Though I should gaze for ever On that green light that lingers in the west: 45 I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... England. Reasons. Ill Conduct of the War. Expense. Vain Concession. France Aids America. Spain too. Lord North Wavers. Holland Joins the Colonies. Cornwallis's Surrender. Franklin in France. Influence and Skill. Joy. Negotiations for a Treaty of Peace. The Treaty Signed. Its Provisions. Peace a Benediction. Cessation of Hostilities. Redcoats ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... customers only having appeared, and one of these had gone away without purchasing. There was one wandering about outside who would have been only too glad to become a customer, had he known who sat behind the counter. Stephen had searched in vain for Rudolph in the neighbourhood where he had so mysteriously vanished from sight. He could not recognise him under the alias of "Ralph le Juwelier," by which name alone his neighbours knew him. Evening after evening he watched the corner of Mark Lane, and some fifty ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... agency of this society he worked to bring about "Peace with Honor," but, as one of their cardinal principles was the abandonment of abolitionism, he worked in vain. He bitterly denounced the Emancipation Proclamation, and President Lincoln came in for many hard words from his pen, being considered by him weak and vacillating. Mistaken though I think his attitude was in this, his opinions were shared by many prominent ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of Selkirk and Dampierre and Stradling does not remember the two famous ships, the "Cinque Ports" and the "St. George?" In every actvial book of the times, ship's names were sprinkled over the page as if they had been shaken out of the pepper box. But you inquire in vain the name of the slaver that wrecked "poor Robinson Crusoe"— a name that would have been printed on his memory beyond forgetting because of the very misfortune itself. Now the book is the autobiography of a man whose only years of active life ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... to take off the priest's dress, in which task she had been interrupted by Brooke. He again tried to dissuade her, but in vain. ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... while a well-known, numerous, and influential family, so that, if it were possible that Jack could have been taught anything, the means were forthcoming: he was sent to every school in the country; but it was in vain; at every following vacation, he was handed over from the one pedagogue to the other, of those whose names were renowned for the Busbian system of teaching by stimulating both ends: he was horsed every day and still remained an ass, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... "for if a man's esteem and gratitude are ever worth the winning, you have won mine today. If ever the future should bring to you a time when you need a man's help, believe me, you will not call in vain. God grant that no such time may ever come to you to break the sunshine of your life, but if it should ever come, promise me that you will let ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... you know, brothers, our introduction to you that it was not in vain, [2:2]but having suffered before, and been injuriously treated, as you know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God with much contention. [2:3]For our exhortation was not of error, nor of impurity, nor with deceit, [2:4]but ...
— The New Testament • Various
... parents of philosophy is curiosity, and that Diderot had trained himself in the school of the sceptics. That evening he scaled the walls of the park of Vincennes, flew to the scene of the festival, and there found what he had expected. In vain for her had he written upon virtue and merit, and the unhallowed ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... of the Scowrers was held far from the place where their adherents might have terrified the guardians of the law. In vain they struggled. In vain the money of the lodge—money squeezed by blackmail out of the whole countryside—was spent like water in the attempt to save them. That cold, clear, unimpassioned statement from one who knew every detail of their lives, their organization, ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... of pigeon-hole "S" another printed letter, and with a faint cry collapsed in a dead faint. At least so her condition was described to those few who were not privileged to be present. Ambulance classes had not been held in vain at York Hill, and in less time than it takes to tell Genevieve found herself on the sofa in the housekeeper's room, where she proceeded to indulge in an ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... memories saves hope for him." It is the spirit that inspired the sweet Troubadours, and set the voice of Mirabeau thundering like the mistral. The poet proclaims his belief in his race. "For the waves of the ages and their storms and horrors mingle the nations and wipe out frontiers in vain. Mother Earth, Nature, ever feeds her sons with the same milk, her hard breast will ever give the fine oil to the olive; Spirit, ever springing into life, joyous, proud, and living spirit that neighest in the noise of the Rhone ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... feet long by twenty wide, closed at one end by a wall thrown up with evident haste and lack of skill, and completely filled with human bodies that fell to dust at the first touch, evidently laid there all at the same time, just after death, and probably numbering at least a thousand. In vain one conjectures the reason of such wholesale burial—one of Nero's massacres, perhaps, or a ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... a black-faced villain not six months since! He got t' vain cat to go to London an' have her photograph done in a dress any decent woman would 'a' blushed to look at! Like one o' these Venuses up at t' Manor! Good riddance! ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... in its faultiness proved to be about on a par with 'rummy-rum,' 'triddy' and 'toot.' The last word reminds me of a man near by who was even judged to be somewhat vain of his Maori accent and pronunciation. With one word he was indeed very particular, he could not bring himself to use that manifest corruption 'toot.' With him it was ever 'tutu.' He had to make rather a boggle or dodge of it when he used the colonial made verb formed ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... avail To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale A melancholy music,—why advert To these things? O Beloved, it is plain I am not of thy worth nor for thy place! And yet, because I love thee, I obtain From that same love this vindicating grace, To live on still in love, and yet in vain,— To bless thee, yet renounce ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... consecutively, taking a run and a jump to each try, till at last I hit the right angle. I have not taken it off for three days and nights lest I should disturb that exquisite pose. Ladies, princes, queens, ecclesiastical processions go by in vain: I do not remove it. That angle of the hat is something to mount guard over. As Swinburne says—"Not twice on earth do ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... chronicled in most unequivocal language the name and future redemption of Africa. For twelve centuries the problem "how shall Africa be redeemed?" has been unsolved, although earnestly sought for by the civil and religious powers of Europe; but in every instance it has been in vain, and the cloud of her wretchedness blackened on each failure. Mysterious and inscrutable are the ways of Providence to accomplish her restoration, lift her from the jaws of death, bind her as a jewel to the throne of righteousness, and give her a place among the civilized ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... times did I strive to throw myself in the way of the lady and her assiduous attendant—venturing even to cross their path, on one occasion, for the purpose of making some discovery. But the attempt was vain, for my old acquaintance had apparently become so near-sighted as not to discern a person, unless he came bolt-upright against him—or unless, perchance, on some occasions, when he was sufficiently ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... conviction, that, for the first few weeks at least, the phenomena actually occurred,—and that, had not the gentlemen of the Academy been very unfortunate or very injudicious, they could not have failed to perceive their reality. And I seek in vain some apology for the conduct of these learned Academicians, called upon to deal with a case so fraught with interest to science, when I find them, merely because they do not at once succeed in personally verifying sufficient to convince them of the existence of certain novel phenomena, not only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... over the outside and inside of the house, but rapidly; for to do more than just indicate the points worth attention would be waste of effort. To convey an idea of the feelings produced by architecture is perhaps possible, but it is perfectly vain to hope to picture it or reproduce in words the actual beauties of proportion or of colour. Those who wish to verify them must see for themselves and ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... flew far and wide over the town and made an extraordinary sensation. Everybody was asking, "What could he mean by that?" And everybody went on asking that question, but in vain; for the judge only said he knew what he was talking about, and stopped there; Tom said he hadn't any idea what his uncle meant, and Wilson, whenever he was asked what he thought it meant, parried the question ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... died out? Have its altars grown cold? Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold? Then Nature must teach us the strength of the chain That her petulant children would sever in vain. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... chickens and puppies and cats and children, the last now smitten into astonished silence by his appearance, he knocked on the door. The woman who came to answer him was dressed in what had been a black and purple percale, wrapper, she had a baby on her arm, and was making vain attempts to fasten up a great coil of hair at the back of her head. No, she told him volubly, she couldn't remember the town when it was any different, though she and Pat had lived there ever since they were married and came over from Ireland, and that was ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... Greece, owes little to foreign sources; and that it began in the heathen age, before Christian or Romantic influences had touched Iceland. Valuable as the early Christian poetry of England is, we look in vain there for the humour, the large-minded simplicity of motive, the suggestive character-drawing, the swift dramatic action, which are as conspicuous in many poems in the Edda as in many ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday
... On reaching Utica I diverged from the great route to see this place, not anticipating the pleasure of meeting you here so early; but hearing you were expected, I determined to remain, with a hope, which I rejoice to find was not vain, that you would not be sorry to see an ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... crashing down the shore in the vain hope of reaching the drifting body. The canoe was up in the woods where they had dropped it at the sound of Jack's gunshots. He could not begin to get near enough with that twenty-foot rope. There was but one hope left—a huge overhanging pine tree a little above the falls—perhaps he could help ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... nose under the glasses she used while she was working. And perhaps after a few moments she would slip away herself for a visit to the lunch-room. Mr. Brauer, watching Front Office through his glass doors, attempted in vain to discourage these excursions. The bolder spirits enjoyed defying him, and the more timid never dared to leave their places in any case. Miss Sherman, haunted by the horror of "losing her job," eyed the independent Miss Brown and Miss ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... years, on the pages of the clerk's minute-book, are a disappointment. One searches in vain for even the slightest trace of the presence in the Meeting House of the troops. There is no record of the presence in the Meeting House of the "Tories" or guerrillas of the Revolution; and not a word about the ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... that was thrown across it five or six hundred years ago; the miller's house just below, with its bright little garden flaming with flowers a few inches above the water, and two great wheels turning slowly, slowly, as if time and change and the rush of life were the vain words of tiresome fools. On the side of the bridge looking up-stream, each pier is built out in the form of a sharp angle This was intended to lessen the push of the current upon the masonry in time of flood. A great many old bridges in Guyenne ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... in a dense part of his way now, with the sky quite hidden by the overhanging boughs, so that it was not possible to see more than a few feet behind or before him, and hence he looked back in vain; and though he listened intently there was no heavy snorting breath, such as he would probably have heard if it had ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... not at once abdicate, but with the spread of Gogol's popularity her reign was practically at an end. In vain some of the conservative critics decried the new favourite as talentless, prosaic, and vulgar. The public were not to be robbed of their amusement for the sake of any abstract aesthetic considerations; ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... or patience. He believed, and he did not make haste. He waited for God; and he did not wait in vain. No man will wait in vain. When the time was ready; when the Jews were ready; when Pharaoh was ready; when Moses himself, trained by forty years' patient thought, was ready; then God came in ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... with a tinge of gold, clustered closely round his head, for he had not adopted the French mode of wearing it in long ringlets, a fashion unsuited for the work of a campaign, and which de Lisle and Chavigny had in vain urged him to adopt. He was handsomely dressed, for he knew that Conde would be surrounded by many of the young nobles of France. He wore his broad hat with feather; his helmet and armour being carried, together with his valises, ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... consider the evening time of this gospel day. The morning was light because of the truth being experienced and taught. The noonday was dark because traditions and theories and vain philosophies of man became substitutes for the Word of God. This evening time was seen by prophetic eye. "But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... bridge, crossed the stream upon it, then turned up, on the opposite bank, and walked on until they came to the cotton landing. Caleb then pointed to the place where he had fallen in; and they looked all about there, upon the bank, and in the water, but in vain. No ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott
... huge cairns of the old Tuatha is not related; but Roman coins of Valentinian and Theodosius, and torques and armlets of gold, have been discovered by accident within their precincts, and an enlightened modern curiosity has not explored them in vain, in the higher interests ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... up, my father wanted me to enrol myself in the corps of janissaries, and become a lion-killer like himself; I remonstrated, but in vain; he applied, and I was accepted, and received the mark on my arm, which constituted me a janissary. I put on the dress, swaggered and bullied with many other young men of my acquaintance, who were ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... because you cannot be made to come. Your cheerfulness embellishes you, and relaxes your nerves, which are too highly strung. You have your own opinion, and you leave others their own. You are extremely polite. You have divined le monde. In vain one would transplant you—you would take root anywhere. In short, you are not an ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Newton would be unphilosophical. In Art. 4 we learn that Newton in the first rule states that "Nature is simple, and does not abound in superfluous causes of things." And again: "In the nature of Philosophy nothing is done in vain; and by means of many things, it is done in vain when it can be done by fewer." Here then we have apparently two forces which act in the same molecular or planetary or interstellar space, at one and the ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... results of our institutions for half a century, without exciting a spirit of vain exultation, should serve to impress upon us the great principles from which they have sprung—constant and direct supervision by the people over every public measure, strict forbearance on the part of the Government from exercising any doubtful or disputed powers, and a cautious ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... duty to marry Mary Lawrie. He must rush at his subject, let the result be what it might. Indeed he had no hopes as to a favourable result. He had slept upon it, as people say when they intend to signify that they have lain awake, and had convinced himself that all eloquence would be vain. Was it natural that a man should give up his intended wife, simply because he was asked? Gordon's present feeling was an anxious desire to be once more on board the ship that should take him again to the diamond-fields, so that he might be at peace, knowing then, as he would know, that ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... authority. My father and I have not been friendly, of late years. He was a severe man, cold and unsympathetic, but I am sorry we could not have been reconciled before this awful fate overtook him. However, it is now too late for vain regrets. I tried not to disobey or antagonize my one parent, but he did not understand my nature, and perhaps ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... at the unsteady wavering of each note. At last I asked her why she did not sing in a steady tone. Her reply was she could not help it. I then inquired if she had former instructions. She replied she had. After trying in vain to get a pure tone, I told her I'd rather not teach her as I had no knowledge of how to relieve her of this defect which could not be allowed in a perfect singer. Her disappointment was so great as to cause her to weep. My heart was touched for her ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... exclaimed in a vain effort to stop her tears—"mais voyons! Come, you must not cry like that." Little by little she ceased crying, until her sobbing gave way to brave little hiccoughs, then, at length, she ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... houses, and catch a glimpse of the water half a mile out, and soon the old castles which guard the entrance of the strait that leads into the gulf, looming in the distance, and now and then a group of human beings in the vanishing vapour. Of these he made some inquiries, but in vain, respecting the boat and his friends. He then made the brig, but could learn nothing except their departure in the morning. He at length obtained a horse and galloped along the coast towards Lerici, keeping a sharp look out as he proceeded and stopping at every village in his progress ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Aisse, the Circassian maid, when at last her "owner" returned to Paris to fall under the spell of her radiant beauty and to claim her as his chattel, bought with good gold and trained at his cost to adorn his harem. In vain did Aisse weep and plead to be spared a fate from which every fibre of her being shrank in horror. Her "master" was inexorable. "When I bought you," he said, "it was my intention to make you my daughter or my mistress. ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... secure in the benignity of his temper, began to assume the unhappy privilege of sovereigns. They made war on each other at pleasure, and, pursuing their hostilities with the most scandalous license, they reduced that fine country to a deplorable condition. In vain did the people, ruined by the tyranny and divisions of the great, apply to Robert for protection: neither from his circumstances nor his character was he able to afford them any effectual relief; whilst Henry, who by his bribes and artifices kept alive the disorder of which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... waltz, a sense of dread almost overwhelmed her. A weight seemed suddenly to press upon her heart, as if some terrible disaster were near. Hers was not a mind to be easily disturbed by such things, and she was not naturally of a superstitious nature. She tried to shake off the feeling, but all in vain. What was the cause of it? she asked ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... is good and necessary in the midst of tumultuous earthly pleasures to be reminded of the fleeting vanity of all sublunary things; and to still the voluptuous music with prayer, I am come to administer this medicine to your vain and sin-sick soul. Come with me, you there!" said the king, turning his head backward to the courtiers, who were gathered in silent and frightened groups. "You there, follow us!" He dragged the queen forward; silently the procession of richly-adorned ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... logically to have abandoned the theory that the moths are guided to their wedding festivities by means of strongly scented effluvia. That I did not do so was due to a fortuitous observation. Chance often has a surprise in store which sets us on the right road when we have been seeking it in vain. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... consciousness he maintained an impenetrable silence on the subject of the attack made upon him. Parker and Hargreaves protested. The military authorities demanded explanation in vain. To all but the Agent Seth vouchsafed the curtest of replies, and to him he made only a ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... motives of adulation. Compliments, superfluity of apparel, and furniture, outward shows of rejoicing and mourning, and the observation of days and times, we esteem to be incompatible with the simplicity and sincerity of a Christian life; and public diversions, gaming, and other vain amusements of the world, we cannot but condemn. They are a waste of that time which is given us for nobler purposes, and divert the attention of the mind from the sober duties of life, and from the reproofs of instruction, by which we are guided ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... wanting, have been equally accomplished by others. On the other hand, there are a few master-spirits—men not of an age but for all time—whose power has been so deeply infused, so generally and silently absorbed, that it would be vain to inquire how it has operated in detail. We cannot indicate the course or fix the limits of its action: we perceive only that without it our intellectual life must have been dormant or extinct. Rousseau belongs to neither of these classes. His power was not general but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... seeing his guest at his feet, and hearing him speak these words, stood confounded at the sight, not knowing what he would say or do next, and tried to make him arise. But all was in vain until he had promised him that he would grant him any gift that he sought ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... Why should we patch this pirate up again? Why should you always win and win in vain? Bid him not cut the leg but cut ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... of prayer thou askest of Him thy necessity; for knowing thyself—the knowledge on which true prayer is founded—thou seest thyself to have great need. Thou feelest thyself surrounded by thine enemies—by the world with its insults and its recalling of vain pleasures, by the devil with his many temptations, by the flesh with its great rebellion and struggle against the spirit. And thou seest that in thyself thou art not; not being, thou canst not help thyself; and therefore thou dost hasten in ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... It was in vain to sit still and wish for what was not to be had, and this extremity roused my application: we had several spare yards, and two or three large spars of wood, and a spare top-mast or two in the ship; I resolved to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... Jackdaws come back," growled the Saw-Horse, which lay waving its legs in a vain endeavor to get upon its feet again. "Jackdaws are especially fond ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... account of the lives of the primitive Christians. Their pattern she recommended to our imitation, and said, their conversation was not like this of our age: For now, says she, there is nothing but frothy, vain discourse, which is far different from theirs. Theirs was to edification, and to build one another up in faith; so that they were not as we are, nor are we as they were: but, says she, we ought to ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... journalist. Her view of it was clearer every hour; there was a difference however in the course of action which she judged this view to demand. At first he was to have been blown up sky-high for the mess he had got them into—profitless as the process might be and vain the satisfaction; he was to have been scourged with the sharpest lashes the sense of violated confidence could inflict. At present he was not to be touched with a ten-foot pole, but rather cut dead, cast off and ignored, let alone to his dying day: Delia quickly caught at this for the ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... our necessary wants. If we can not sell, we can not buy. That portion of our population (and we have seen that it is not less than four-fifths) which makes comparatively nothing that foreigners will buy, has nothing to make purchases with from foreigners. It is in vain that we are told of the amount of our exports, supplied by the planting interest. They may enable the planting interest to supply all its wants; but they bring no ability to the interests not planting, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... text-books, and proposed that the study of the Greek and Roman poets and orators should be introduced into the schools and colleges. Some of the classical scholars were for doing away with theology altogether, as a vain, monkish study which only obscured the great truths of religion. The old-fashioned professors, on their part, naturally denounced the new learning, which they declared made pagans of those who became enamored of it. Sometimes the humanists were permitted to teach their favorite subjects in the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... Sexwolf, "thou fatiguest thyself in vain—heavy arms here are needless. I have fought in this country before: and as for thy steed, thou wilt soon have to forsake ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... going to tell Miss Merivale what Mrs. Metcalfe said about your music, Rose," she said. "It would make you vain if ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... that screened the hut-window, or if it had been there all along and the leaping elusive lightning had blinded him to it. But the light was there before him as he reached the place, and in a moment the knowledge flashed upon him beyond all questioning that he had not come upon a vain quest. ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... know that Alfred was so very silly that he began to be angry even with the toy, and he said, 'Spin, I say; spin directly,' and then he shook it very hard, but in vain; the little hands did not move, and the wheel stood still. So then he was very angry indeed, and, setting up a loud cry, he threw the toy to the other end of the room. Just at this very moment the servant opened the door and said that dinner was ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... nor too hasty in words, Nor too weak in war, nor unwise in his rashness, Nor too forward nor fain, nor fearful of death, Nor too eager and arrogant till he equal his boasting. 70 The wise man will wait with his words of boasting Till, restraining his thoughts, he thoroughly knows Where his vain words of vaunting eventually will lead him. The sage man perceives how sorrowful it is When all the wealth of the world lies wasted and scattered. 75 So now over the earth in every land Stormed on by winds the walls are standing ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
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