"Fruitless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... maintained until the Baltimore and Ohio and the Erie system entered Chicago, and the Grand Trunk made connections with Milwaukee and other lake points, and thus disturbed through rates. All efforts to maintain the level of the old tariffs, through agreements, proved now fruitless, for both the Baltimore and Ohio and the Grand Trunk found it to their interest to pursue independent policies, and refused to have their hands tied by an agreement with roads that were interested in continuing, if possible, the commercial supremacy ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... conceit. Amongst these, therefore, he is as mute as a fish. But now imagine his lamp (if he be worth one) to be nearly burnt out, his inventing genius wearied and footsore with ranging over so many unknown regions, and himself wasted with the fruitless expense of much paper, resigning his place of weekly collections to another, whom, in hope of some little share, he has to his stationer recommended, while he lives either poorly respected or dies miserably suspended. The rest I end with his own close:—Next week ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... of the day I spent in prowling about the city, in asking questions here and there, and in watching sharply for either Pillot or my cousin, but the search proved fruitless, and towards the end of the afternoon I returned to my ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... was prematurely in mind and body, found an asylum in the home of her husband's uncle, Master George Gifford, at Arnheim, from which place she made many vain inquiries to lead to the discovery of her boy, which hitherto had proved fruitless. ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... belonged to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's "History of Witchcraft," a "New England Almanac," and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper; who, from that time forward, determined to send his ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... relapsed into one of those periods of self-doubt that made him hate painting, with the hatred of a lover betrayed, who overwhelms the faithless one with insults although tortured by an uncontrollable desire to worship her yet again. So on the Thursday, after three frightful days of fruitless and solitary battling, he left home as early as eight in the morning, banging his door violently, and feeling so disgusted with himself that he swore he would never take up a brush again. When he was unhinged by one of these attacks there was but one remedy, he had to forget ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... dinner one day I met in Broadway the lady who took Anna away. The past and its trials flashed across my brain, and I turned and followed her-found that her home was changed to Mercer street, and this accounted for my fruitless watching in Leonard street. ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... altogether ineffable. Never had I witnessed a like demeanor in Pleyel. Never, indeed, had I observed a human countenance in which grief was more legibly inscribed. He seemed struggling for utterance; but, his struggles being fruitless, he shook his head and turned away ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... as men who had nothing but safety to think of, were terrified by the formidable report of the batteries of Elsinore, and the tremendous preparations which our negotiators, who were now returned from their fruitless mission, had witnessed. They, therefore, persuaded Sir Hyde to prefer the passage of the Belt. "Let it be by the Sound, by the Belt, or anyhow," cried Nelson, "only lose not an hour!" On the 26th they sailed ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... made several attempts that proved unsuccessful) from the cause above mentioned. we then determined to attempt freeing them from the ice by means of boiling water which we purposed heating in the vessels by means of hot stones, but this expedient proved also fruitless, as every species of stone which we could procure in the neighbourhood partook so much of the calcarious genus that they burst into small particles on being exposed to the heat of the fire. we now determined as the dernier resort to prepare ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... together as the weeks passed, and the strain of their fruitless quest continued. One day Jimmie showed her the letter that Eleanor had ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... country will pass away. The so-called Second Revolution of 1913 awakened no sympathy in General Li Yuan-hung, because he was opposed to internal strife and held that all Chinese should work for unity and concerted reform rather than indulge in fruitless dissensions. His disapproval of the monarchy movement had been equally emphatic in the face of an ugly outlook. He was repeatedly approached by the highest personages to give in his adhesion to Yuan Shih-kai becoming emperor, but he persistently refused although grave fears were ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... of your last letter it is quite evident that there has been a radical change in your originally sound and inspired ideas, and which clearly indicates to me that a discussion and exchange of basic concept would be fruitless. I'm rather hurt that you question my integrity with the statement about the "slick, calculating, career-minded cult of Ph. Deism." Moreover, I would appreciate, if possible, the return of my ...
— On Handling the Data • M. I. Mayfield
... as the head of the Basin of Mines, but their search for mineral wealth was fruitless, beyond a few meagre specimens of copper. Their labors were chiefly rewarded by the discovery of a moss-covered cross in the last stages of decay, the relic of fishermen, or other Christian mariners, who had, years before, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... Garden, as he had faithfully vowed to do. But even this terrible thought was swallowed up in the fear that some accident had happened to him. He haunted the house for an hour, filling up the intervals of fruitless inquiry with little random walks round the neighborhood, determined not to return home to his wife without news of their child. The restless life of the great twinkling streets was almost a novelty to him; it was rarely his perambulations in London extended outside ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... quiet evening in his room after a trying day's inquiries into a confidence trick case; inquiries so fruitless that they had brought down on his head an official reproof from ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... made easy on that score. After a fruitless attempt to hoist the trunk to the box seat, they decided to put it on to the back seat of the Victoria. One of the bandits planted himself on the little folding seat opposite the trunk: the other bandit mounted to the ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... would hesitate and doubt; and never could I bring Her Majesty definitely to believe the profferers to be sincere. Hence, they were trifled with, till one by one she either lost them, or saw them sacrificed to an attachment, which her own distrust and indecision rendered fruitless."] ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... good; grounds, and rightly timed. This is true, although Nelson was entirely misled as to Bonaparte's object. The ruse of the latter, as put into effect by Villeneuve, not only deceived the British admiral, but, in its issue, confounded the French. The critical moment of decision, for the whole fruitless campaign, was when Nelson determined to go first off Messina, then to the Morea, and finally to Egypt, upon the inference that by this time one of three things must have happened. Either (1) he must have met the French fleet, personally or by his lookouts, or (2) it had returned ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... authentic event in Chaucer's life occurred in 1359, when he accompanied the king to France in that fruitless expedition which was soon followed by the peace of Bretigny. In this unfortunate campaign Chaucer was taken prisoner, but was ransomed by his sovereign for L16,—about equal to L300 in these times. He had probably before this been installed at court as a gentleman of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... axes, that have been endured by thee! For our sake, O Krishna, thou hadst also to hear many harsh words and endure the fall, violent as the thunder, of weapons in battle! In consequence of Duryodhana's slaughter, all this has not been fruitless, O thou of unfading glory! Act thou again in such a way that the fruit of all those acts may not be destroyed! Although victory hath been ours, O Krishna, our heart, however, is yet trembling in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the dream in empty air. On such an occasion, her grief, as we may readily suppose, is neither deep nor lasting, for its object is twined round her imagination, not her heart. She regrets her wasted hopes and fruitless speculations; but the baby having never been present in its own entity, is now as that which has never been. The unthinking call her an unnatural mother, for they make no distinction. They do not know that death is with her a perfectly arranged funeral, a marble ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... Richelieu River, one at Sorel, another at Chambly, a third still more remote, that of Ste. Therese; then at the head of six hundred soldiers, six hundred militia and a hundred Indians, he marched towards the hamlets of the Mohawks. The result of this expedition was, unhappily, as fruitless as that of the later campaigns undertaken against the Indians by MM. de Denonville and de Frontenac. After a difficult march they come into touch with the savages; but these all flee into the woods, and they find only their huts stocked with immense supplies of corn for ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... nausea which it invariably caused me to feel. But I thought by practice now and again to inure myself to the habit, which was then so new and fashionable among modish gentlemen. While I smoked I mused upon the past and present, and tried to peer into the future—a fruitless task wherein we waste much valuable time; a vain striving, like Eve's, after forbidden knowledge, which, should we possess it, would destroy the little remnant of Eden still existing on earth. Could we ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... women to confide to him the details of the particular sensation that he was working up would avail him nothing here. "You simply haven't got her Bertillon measurements, Simp.," he was forced to admit, after an hour of fruitless thinking. "You'll have to ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... to have some sort of a fever, young marster! 'Deed, I am!" said Martha, as she began to clear the table, after finding all her persuasions fruitless to induce ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... service which they have brought him, will waste no feeling on the men who were God's tools. If we want to live high above low hatreds and revenges, let us cultivate the habit of looking behind men to God. So we shall be saved from many fruitless pangs over irrevocable losses and from many ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... three—man, wife, and child—whose lot was hardly 'of their own making.' The man was tall and bronzed, but he was dying of heart disease; he could not do hard work, and he was too clumsy for light work; so he sat there, after two days' fruitless search, patiently nursing his miserable, scrofulous baby in his dim and narrow den. The cases of individual hopeless suffering are heartbreaking. In one room lay a dying child, dying of low fever brought on by want of food. ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... up on to the poop, and no one to speak to, that he could see, who could do any good. He called out for the steward, but he had disappeared; and the darkey feared that his plan for defeating the schemes of the mutineers would turn out fruitless from his failing to find any one to help him in undertaking it, when all at once he saw Kate Meldrum, for whom he had a profound respect on account of her plucky behaviour during the storm and her kindness ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... his fruitless pursuit of the butterflies, crept close by his master's side for a nap, and Seth yielded to the temptation to stretch himself out at full length ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... to why Melissa had returned, had led to many guesses, and had proved fruitless. "You can know nothing of women," was the end of his reflections, "if you do not know that what seems most improbable is what is most likely to be true. This maid is certainly not one of the flute-players or the like. Who knows what incomprehensible ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thrusts, Santander seemed surprised at his fruitless efforts. Then over his face came a look more like fear. It was the first time in his duelling experience he had been so baffled, for it was his first encounter with an adversary who could keep ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... my efforts to make him talk again were fruitless, I went off into the clearing. Meantime the heat had somewhat abated; but my ill-success, or, as they say among us, my 'ill-luck,' continued, and I returned to the settlement with nothing but one corncrake ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... old friend with a merry twinkle in his eye, which developed into a broad smile by the time we returned from our fruitless inspection of bare benches and tools; ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... agitated, but he did not encourage Sweetwater in any further attempts to recover the lost memorandum. Indeed, such an effort would have been fruitless; the paper was gone, and there was nothing left for them but to continue their way. As they did so it would have been hard to tell in which breast chagrin mounted higher. Sweetwater had lost a clue ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... for a minute, and watched Baumberger make a dexterous cast, which proved fruitless, before he began climbing up the steep slope of jumbled bowlders upon which the bluff itself seemed to rest. He was not particularly interested in his quest, but he was in the mood for purposeless action; he still did not want ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... husband having now returned from their fruitless search, were horrified on perceiving the change which Veile had undergone. Being men, they did not weep. With staring eyes they gazed upon the silent young woman, and beheld in her an apparition which had been dealt with by God's ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... position to that at Rheinstein, and those who had accompanied Hohenfels' valet made search according to this hint, and were rewarded by coming upon a door so stoutly locked that all their efforts to force it open were fruitless. ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... care of him," he continued, turning to Mortimer. "He's a tout. Out you go," this to the other man. Then, tickled in the ribs by the end of the policeman's baton, the tout was driven from the enclosure; the spectators merged into a larger crowd, and Mortimer was left once more to pursue his fruitless search. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... withdrew to the northern bank of the river. The active fighting of 1862 had come to a close. In northern Mississippi Grant and Sherman were blocked; at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the armies of Rosecrans and Bragg were about to make their fruitless onsets already mentioned, and in Virginia the Union outlook was quite as dark as it had been after the first unfortunate trial at arms in July, 1861. Lincoln thought of removing Grant because of the failure of the campaign in northern Mississippi, but gave him another opportunity; ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... Temple, "that Mr. Swift should have the first vacancy that happened among the prebends of Westminster or Canterbury." The memorial had no effect; and, indeed, Swift himself afterward declared that he believed the king never received it. After a long and fruitless attendance at White Hall, Mr. Swift reluctantly gave up all thoughts of a settlement in England. In the year 1701 he took his doctor's degree; and toward the latter end of that year King ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... time, provided warm food could be obtained; but the frost penetrated the cabin, and every one soon became sensitively alive to the awkwardness, not to say danger, of their condition. A whole day was passed in fruitless attempts to obtain fire, by various processes. Friction did not succeed; it probably never does with the thermometer at zero. Sparks could be obtained, but by this time everything was stiff with ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... children to the baptismal font. The authorities refrained from giving formal instructions, leaving everything to the zeal of the officers who knew the wishes of their superiors. The children were first sent for spiritual admonition to the local Greek-Orthodox priests, whose efforts, however, proved fruitless in nearly every case. They were then taken in hand by the sergeants and corporals who adopted military ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... some one shoot Basil Duke through the head, and blow out John Morgan's brains?" exclaimed a disgusted Federal officer, after a fruitless effort ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... skilfully constructed by means of double or triple rows of heavy palisades, masked by flax and divided by shallow ditches which did duty for rifle-pits, could not be carried without being breached by cannon. A fruitless attack upon one of them soon demonstrated this. The pa, called Okaihau, though strong in front, was weak in the rear. Four hundred soldiers, supported by as many Ngapuhi friendlies under Waka Nene, marched against it. Fruitlessly Nene advised the English Colonel ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... designated as the spot where his friend Teanyi would wait for her. Unacquainted with the real distance that separates the Rito from the cave-dwellings above Santa Clara, she had underrated it; and it was only at noon, after she had spent hours walking through the pine timber and in fruitless waiting, that a man stepped up to her from behind a ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Mr. Silver was invited by Mark Lemon to apply to the Governors of Charterhouse for the gift of an admission into "Gown-boys" for the son of the great draughtsman who had been so good a friend. After many fruitless efforts he was at length successful, and received the welcome present from the hands of Lord John Russell—as is set forth elsewhere. On the death of Lemon, Mr. Silver severed his regular connection ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... following my father's death, however, I began again my so-far fruitless search for a cure for my stammering, this time placing myself under the care and instruction of a man claiming to be "The World's Greatest Specialist in the Cure of Stammering." He may have been the world's greatest specialist, ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... nothing he carried forth his armour and set it up in front of his house, saying that he had helped his country so far as lay in his power (he was already a very old man), and that he called on all others to do the same. Solon's exhortations, however, proved fruitless, and Pisistratus assumed the sovereignty. His administration was more like a constitutional government than the rule of a tyrant; but before his power was firmly established, the adherents of Megacles and Lycurgus made a coalition ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... seized them and carried them off to a cave near to which their boat lay on the rocks. They hoped to have obtained some information from them as to what was going on at the other side of the island, but, while engaged in a fruitless attempt to screw something out of Corrie, who was peculiarly refractory, they were interrupted, first by the yells of Bumpus and his pig, and afterwards by the sudden appearance of Henry and his party on the edge of a cliff a ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... grievances were forgotten in this crisis of the cause, and Albert is just about preceding them in the post-chaise, to announce their coming, when, lo! the telegraph says, 'Order reigns in Lyons!' Here, then, after a terrific slaughter, was recorded another fruitless revolt, because a premature one. Nay, it was infinitely worse than fruitless. Not only did the Republicans utterly fail in their attempts, not only were they cruelly crushed by the Royal mercenaries, but they were ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... they embarked together for Fort Frontenac, paddled their canoes a thousand miles, and safely reached their destination. Here, in this third beginning of his disastrous enterprise, La Salle found himself beset with embarrassments. Not only was he burdened with the fruitless costs of his two former efforts, but the heavy debts which he had incurred in building and maintaining Fort Frontenac had not been wholly paid. The fort and the seigniory were already deeply mortgaged; yet, through the influence of Count ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... valley. The signal failure of an expedition for which armies were raised by the Emperor, the Kings of France and England, and many lesser princes, left the power of Egypt an object of almost superstitious awe. The Fifth Crusade (1217) and the Seventh (1248) expended their best energies in fruitless and disastrous descents on the ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... sentiments of my own echoed and exaggerated till I blushed to recognise them. I will do Harry Miller justice: he must have had a kind of talent, almost of genius; all attempts to lower his tone proving fruitless, and the Harry-Millerism ineradicable. Nay, the monster had a certain key of style, or want of style, so that certain milder passages, which I sought to introduce, discorded horribly, and impoverished (if that were possible) ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... of the almost fruitless mission at various courts and was glad to give up the business of an ambassador and return to Antwerp and to the life of a private gentleman. We must not forget that all these years Rubens was painting a great number of pictures in his ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... was his sight that he soon espied Colmor slipping along behind the trees some hundred yards to the left. All his efforts to catch a glimpse of Bill, however, were fruitless. And this appeared strange to Jean, for there were several good places on the right from which Bill could have commanded the front of Greaves's store and the ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... all on board watched, with deep anxiety, what was to follow. Lieutenant Lambton at once steamed into the fort, in the Bittern, to enquire if the government were ready to surrender. It was three o'clock before he steamed out again, with the news that his mission was fruitless; and that the white flag had only been hoisted, by the officer in command of the fort, to enable himself and his men to get away unmolested. Lieutenant Lambton had obtained an interview with the military governor, on behalf of the government, and ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... planned especially with the amateur in view, and the author, in writing it, has had in mind his own fruitless search for information upon the subject of conducting when he was just beginning his career as a teacher; and he has tried to say to the amateur of today those things that he himself so sorely needed to know at that time, and had to find out ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... their knees, and answer, giving out sullen bellowings. Some of them would begin to move from place to place, spreading the baseless alarm, and then came the time for action, else over the plain in mere fruitless frenzy would go the whole frantic band, lashed to madness by their own fears, trampling each other, heedless of any obstacle, in pitiable, deadly rout. Waite knew the premonitory signs well, and at the first warning ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... fallen into their pursuers' hands, and famine menaced them. Nevertheless, they were fierce in attack as tigers, rapid in swoop as vultures, and fought flying in such fashion that the cavalry lost more in this fruitless, worthless work than they would have done in a ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... in it. They lost no time, but hurried about in every direction to find what we were certainly not going to lose sight of again. We heard them wrangling and grumbling as they searched all about Cartref Pellenig. A gun recalled them to the ship after they had spent many fruitless hours in the search. Ere sunset arrived, the low black hull of the evil ship was hardly to be traced on the horizon. Then we questioned the three heroines ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... on Smyrna's love, Fruitless the wooings of the unlettered prove; Crassitius she receives with loving arms, For he alone unveiled her ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... regiment of volunteers, formed in line of platoon columns, was drawn up on the "Campo" directly in front of the house. Sandy had spent his allotted half hour by his sister's side, and, remounting, had cantered out to see the parade. Miss Perkins had declared on the occasion of her third fruitless call that not until Miss Ray sent for her would she again submit herself to be snubbed. So there seemed no immediate danger of her reappearance, and yet Mrs. Brent had given Ignacio orders to open only the panel door when the gate ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... little, stooping man, burned chocolate brown by the sun and with eyes half blinded by the glare, and as the Widow gave up her fruitless vigil, Death Valley Charley took her place. But he was not alone, for through all the weary weeks Virginia had been watching her mother. She had slipped in and out, now lingering on the gallery, now listening through the doorway, expectant but at the same time afraid. She knew ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... solicitor. That very morning he had had an interview with the King, and had been reminded with more exactness than kindness that he had cost King Charles a ship, scores of men, and thousands of pounds, in a fruitless search for buried treasure in Hispaniola. When he had urged his case upon the basis of fresh information, he was drily told that the security was too scant, even for a king. He had then pleaded his case to the Duke of Albemarle and other distinguished gentlemen. They ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... people inhabit the same houses from one generation to another, and where, even if the persons whom you wish to discover are dead, there are neighbours who recollect about them. This second search was fruitless, so he could only advertise for Violet Strachan, and that he ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... moments fixed to the spot. Smarting with pain, the bull then retired for a short time; but his rage prevailing over his fears, he again rushed forward, and was received by a second picador. Less fortunate, however, than his companion, he was unable to withstand the overwhelming shock; and, after a fruitless effort to stem the animal's fury with his pica, it at length broke, and the bull, with one tremendous thrust on the horse's breast, overthrew its rider. Fortunately for the fallen picador, he was protected by the bulk of his horse; and the bull, as it often ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... frontier and was safe in Scotland. The Scots espoused her cause, and assisted her to raise fresh troops, with which she made one or two short incursions into England; but she soon found that she could do nothing effectual in this way, and so, after wasting some time in fruitless attempts, she left Scotland with the king and the prince, and ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the hall whither her restless thought had driven her, she stared in a fruitless inquiry at the wall confronting her. Her mind, like her feet, was at a standstill. She could neither think nor act. In fact, she was at the point of a nervous collapse, when slowly from out the void there rose to her view and pierced its way ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... one short squeal, and his poor mother came at the cry, and circled so near that she would have been shot but for the accidental protection of the dogs, who somehow always seemed to get between, and whom she once more led away on a fruitless chase. ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... of my contemporaries who thought seriously about the matter were very much in my own state of mind—inclined to say to Mosaists and Evolutionists, 'a plague on both your houses!' and disposed to turn aside from an interminable and apparently fruitless discussion to labour in the fertile fields of ascertainable fact. And I may, therefore, further suppose that the publication of the Darwin and Wallace papers in 1858, and still more that of the Origin in 1859, had the effect upon them of that of a flash of light which, to a man who has lost himself ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... last clue had brought her nowhere; she followed the new one as passionately as the old, and told her breathless pupils that their feet must not be weary, for they were treading the path of progress; that these apparently fruitless excursions into the domain of knowledge all served as so many milestones in their glorious ascent ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Hartmannsweilerkopf, after a series of fruitless attacks, followed by a severe bombardment, the Germans succeeded in recovering the trenches which they had lost to the French on December 31, 1915. Besides that, they also captured 20 officers, 1,083 chasseurs, and 15 machine guns. This move compelled ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... nearest neighbours, they waited for no explanation, but fell upon each other. Richard Assheton and Roger Nowell endeavoured to interfere and separate the combatants, and in doing so received some hard knocks for their pains; but all their pacific efforts were fruitless, until the squire appeared, and telling them they were merely the sport of hobgoblins, they desisted, but still the blows fell heavily on them as before, proving the truth of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... herself from the deep sleep with which exhaustion of mind and body had overwhelmed her. She remembered the scenes of the banquet as the phantasms of a dream—strange and terrible; for her thoughts were slow to gather the threads and weave the woof. Only a feeling of failure, of fruitless abasement, was ever present. Hannibal had admired her, but, proof against any controlling attraction, he had put her words aside with little short of contempt. A dread, even, lest the strange acumen of this wonderful man had pierced her mask, and that her very motive ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... foam-bow glows, And the huge flood leaps the rock-wall and a green arch over it throws. There under the roof of water he treads the quivering floor, And the hush of the desert is felt amid the water's roar, And the bleak sun lighteth the wave-vault, and tells of the fruitless plain, And the showers that nourish nothing, and the ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... anxious to avoid a discussion that would evidently be fruitless. "It was Mr. Masters, and not I or any of the other girls, who didn't like your acting, or rather your acting of Shylock. And Mr. Masters himself suggested that you would make a better Bassanio. Didn't ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... would offer a last warning. Forget not that you are acting in direct opposition to the law; that we are here armed with full authority and power to carry out our intentions; and that all opposition on your part will be fruitless, and will be visited upon you hereafter with severe pains and penalties. Forget not, also, that your characters will be irrecoverably damaged from your connexion with parties charged with the heinous ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... heard as they struggled vainly in their endeavour to reach the burning frigate driving away before them. Even at that moment the brave Pedro Alvarez did not forget his passengers. He had done all that a man could do to save the ship, but he believed that his efforts would prove fruitless. He now thought of the means of saving his friends. He was hurrying to the cabin when he perceived them grouped together on the deck. The three ladies stood, not shrieking nor giving way to fear, but calm and collected, waiting till they received directions what to do. Colonel Armytage, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... effect to his pacific disposition and to venture upon a reconciliation, all amicable feelings towards France will be swallowed up in a general sentiment of indignation at her insolence; and instead of wasting any more time in fruitless endeavours to bring her back into the councils of Europe, we shall begin to think of the means of securing ourselves against any possible effects of her ill- will and obstinate resentment. Those who have most strongly advocated the French alliance will be soon ready to cement that ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the dilemma directly, he must consider every possibility—commonly called the horns of the dilemma—upon which the truth of the statement may rest. If there is a single possibility which he is not ready to meet and overthrow, his whole effort is fruitless. For instance, a debater, in attempting to rebut the statement that college fraternities are harmful, said that his opponent must show that fraternities are either morally, socially, financially or intellectually detrimental to their members; he then ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... portly magnitude. After puffing and swelling for some time, "What think you," said she, to her young ones, "will this do?" "Far from it," said they. "Will this?" "By no means." "But this surely will?" "Nothing like it," they replied. After many fruitless and ridiculous efforts to the same purpose, the foolish Frog burst her skin, and miserably expired ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... alarm, but when he saw the others beginning to peer into every corner and every cupboard, he himself joined in the man-hunt. A quarter of an hour later, the four men relinquished their fruitless efforts and gathered beside the ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner
... his ship about no less than eighty-one times. We do not imagine that any navigator had hitherto displayed such perseverance. Let us add that he turned this long cruise to account, to fix astronomically, and with remarkable accuracy, the latitude of various points. At last, wearied with the fruitless boxing about along the edge of the pack, the crew cried for mercy, and it became necessary to return to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... who had been a disbursing officer in the army of Lord Dunmore, where he had attained the rank of Colonel, visited Fort Pitt during the summer in the hope of increasing the number of soldiers in his garrison. His efforts proved fruitless. He returned to Fort Henry by way of the river with several pioneers, who with their families were bound for Fort Henry. One of these pioneers was a minister who worked in the fields every week day and ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... rounded forward at the other. Such a shape was perfectly natural for a rock. He tried to crush down hope, so as to be prepared for disappointment. He tried to convince himself that it must be a rock, and could by no possibility be any thing else. Yet his efforts were totally fruitless. Still the conviction remained that it was a ship, and if so, it could be no other ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... and death; but there are others who aspire to glory by the sole reading of the feats of these persons." The Saint intended to give him to understand that no one is estimable unless by his actions and conduct, and that there is nothing more vain than a reputation grounded on fruitless science. ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... patience, and cried out, "Sir, I cannot bear it! if you count your money any more, I will go out of the room." The chink of the gold did not tempt her more than the person of his Royal Highness. In fact, her heart was engaged; and so the Prince, finding his love fruitless, suspected. He was even so generous as to promise her, that if she would discover the object of her Choice, and would engage not to marry without his privity, he would consent to the match, and would be kind to her husband. She gave ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... true, Madame, but he would have sailed without aid of mine, and it maddens me to think that all this time I have been wasting in a fruitless search, my Jeanette is still unfound. Where may she not be? Dead—perhaps——" His voice trailed off into silence and they sat motionless, fascinated by the spell of romance, tragedy and ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... of a high order, which the war situation had opened out. Without being daunted by the prospect, the President took the step of appealing to the people at large for cooperation. There were so many things to be done besides fighting—things without which mere fighting would be fruitless. The President thus ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... he took his book and went upstairs to bed, being tired and sleepy after a long day spent on the hillside in a fruitless search for certain plants which, according to his books, were to be found in that part of Italy, but which he had not yet seen. He fell asleep, thinking of Maria Addolorata's lovely face and fair hair, on which he had never laid eyes. In his dreams he heard a ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... duty ceases, follow not in fruitless woe, And no farther living creature may with monarch ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... cannot reach him, and fires his musket after him. Hereupon the Jew drops the package which the officer takes and carries to the office, where he gets his reward. The witness whom he has with him—by accident of course—testifies to the zeal of his exertions, fruitless though they were, for the seizure of the unknown smuggler. The smuggler afterward receives from the officer the stipulated portion of the reward. This trick is constantly practiced along the frontier, and to meet ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... swore that he would kill his rival if he ever found him. The current report afterward was, that he committed suicide. He certainly sold the furniture of the House occupied by Chocareille, and suddenly disappeared. All the efforts made to discover him proved fruitless." ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... the manor-house where Brewster and Bradford established the first church of the Pilgrims, was, for a time, entirely fruitless. I inquired of a genuine "Hodge" working in the fields; but his round red face showed no glimmer of light on the matter so far removed from beans and barley. I next encountered a good Wesleyan minister, trudging his morning ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... 310 Thereat she smil'd, and did deny him so, As put[18] thereby, yet might he hope for mo; Which makes him quickly reinforce his speech, And her in humble manner thus beseech: "Though neither gods nor men may thee deserve, Yet for her sake, whom you have vow'd to serve, Abandon fruitless cold virginity, The gentle queen of Love's sole enemy. Then shall you most resemble Venus' nun, When Venus' sweet rites are performed and done. 320 Flint-breasted Pallas joys in single life; But Pallas and your mistress ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... minute and fruitless investigation through the wood, the searchers began to draw together into one body, and to compare notes. The agony of the father grew beyond concealment, yet it scarcely equalled the anguish of the tutor. "Would to ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... child, it had become a matter of physical impossibility to find out where she lived. Thus were they hopelessly sinking, day by day, into all the bitter waves of want. Not but that Henry strived, as we have seen, and shall yet see: still his endeavours had been very nearly fruitless—and, perchance, till all available moveables had been pawned outright, very feeble too. Now, however, that Maria, in her sorrow and her need, must soon become a mother, the state of things grew terrible indeed; their horizon was all ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... pointing at the same time to the money, to signify that he wanted two shillings' worth of fruit. The man, however, continued confounded; and my friend at last, not knowing of what sort the fruits were, whether sour or sweet, bitter or otherwise, ventured, after much hesitation and fruitless attempts to communicate with the shopman by signs and gestures, to take up four apples, and then made his retreat in the best manner he could, followed, as here, by the rabble. I at last caught a glimpse of him, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... or pay a fine; and he, when it was his turn to command, enjoined the company to follow his example drink as he did, and having a narrow earthen pitcher brought in, he put his withered leg into it, and drank his glass and every one in the company, after a fruitless endeavor to imitate, paid his forfeit. It was a good humor of Agapestor's and thus every little merry abuse must be as merrily revenged. Besides he must give such commands as will both please and profit, putting such as are familiar and easy to the person, and ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... after years of fruitless search, during which he had wandered north and south, east and west, hope left him. All his money was spent. He was starving and almost naked, and the diamonds—which had lured him 15 away from all that made life dear—where were they? Poor Ali Hafed never knew. ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... you asleep? We have come on a fruitless errand; Madame Bonnemain cannot come to you. She is going to be married almost immediately, so what are we to ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... account—too long to quote here—given by E. Selous of the preliminaries to intercourse practised by a pair of great crested grebes, while nest-building. Intercourse only took place with much difficulty, after many fruitless invitations, more usually given by the female. ("Observational Diary of the Habits of the Great Crested Grebe," Zoeologist, September, 1901.) It is exactly the same with savages. The observation of Foley (Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologie de ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... thing to get them changed, even when all the world sees there is an opportunity for it. This slowness and aversion in the people to quit their old constitutions, has, in the many revolutions which have been seen in this kingdom, in this and former ages, still kept us to, or, after some interval of fruitless attempts, still brought us back again to our old legislative of king, lords and commons: and whatever provocations have made the crown be taken from some of our princes heads, they never carried the people so far as to place it in another line. ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... sobs and the rhetoric of Miss inexhaustible and every effort to elucidate fruitless, I rose, told Enoch I would explain myself to him by letter, opened the door to go, was seized by the coat by the young lady, and could not without violence, or leaving like Joseph my garment behind me, have torn myself away, if I had not been aided by Enoch; ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... various habitations. And this knowledge he utilized to the best advantage, always to find that his efforts came to naught. The snares he set before possible hiding-places proved abortive; the artifices he employed to uncover the quarry in maze or labyrinth were fruitless. The man had appeared like a vision from the past, and vanished. Whither? Out of the country, once more? Over the seas? Had he taken quick alarm at Steele's words, and effected a hasty retreat from the scenes of his graceless and ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... be devised: they must devise some new task, something senseless, to suggest some craving without result. Then Aeacus decreed he should rattle dice for ever in a box with no bottom. At once the poor wretch began his fruitless task of hunting for the dice, which for ever ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... she could not do without them. What she wanted was a house with room for herself, two maids, and a couple of visitors. Such a house is to be found in tens and hundreds everywhere. She went round and round England in a fruitless search. ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... deny or gloss over the cause of complaint, and his word would be believed rather than that of the convict; and his power of retaliation is so tremendous, that few would care to brave it. The chance is ten to one that a complaint to the directors would be falsified and proved fruitless; and the visit of the governor, council, and magistrates, for the purpose of inquiry, is mere matter of form. When they asked me if I had reason to complain of my treatment, I answered in the negative, because I really had none; but had they asked me if there was any defect ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the boys stood at the rail eagerly scanning the water to discover evidence of the submarine's return. Their search was fruitless. Nothing was found to indicate the presence of their late visitor. The waves rose and fell without hint ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... have been made to capture him during the night, but they have proved as fruitless as trying to catch a weasel (if you happen to have heard of such an animal, Saint George, in your travels) asleep. Fruitless I will not say to him, for he has invariably destroyed the brave men who have ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... road to New Barcelona, by the summit of the Mesa. It was reasonably expected that this way would be shorter, and less dangerous to the health of travellers, than the route taken by the couriers along the coasts; but every attempt to cross the chain of the mountains of the Brigantine was fruitless. In this part of America, as in Australia* to the west of Sydney, it is not so much the height of the mountain chains, as the form of the rocks, that presents obstacles difficult to surmount. (* The Blue Mountains of Australia, and ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... of the rock in the ravine brought out the story of the Trail of the Seven Cedars and the fruitless search for Indian relics. The judge listened to the tale with a peculiar expression of interest. "By the way," he said casually, when they had finished, "did you know that I happen to ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... the Normans remorselessly pursuing; the standard sent from Rome to the duke of Normandy had replaced the Saxon flag on the very spot where Harold had fallen; and, all around, the ground continued to get covered with dead and dying, fruitless victims of the passions of the combatants. Next day William went over the field of battle; and he was heard to say, in a tone of mingled triumph and sorrow, "Here is verily a lake ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... destruction of the Jacobin party. He sent Calvert to Luckner's head-quarters to ask of the Marechal permission to go to Paris and, placing his troops in safety under the guns of Maubeuge, he departed for the capital, whither he arrived on the 28th. After two days spent in incessant and fruitless efforts with the Assembly and National Guard, in audiences with the King and consultations with friends, he sped back to the army, more thoroughly and bitterly convinced than ever that the revolution ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... shore, but they were so bruised against the rocks, that they could not render any assistance to the poor boy, and no person could be found to venture out in any way. I heard the noise and went to the spot with my dog. I spoke to him, and in he went, more like a seal than a dog, and after several fruitless attempts to mount the wreck he succeeded, and laid hold of the boy, who clung to the ropes, screaming in the most fearful way at being thus dragged into the water. The waves dashed frightfully on the rocks. In the anxiety ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... Sturt's Strezletki Creek in South Australian territory was then followed. This peculiar watercourse branches out from the Cooper and runs in a south-south-west direction. It brought Gregory safely to the northern settlements of South Australia. The fruitless search for it, however, was one of the main causes of the death of Burke and Wills in 1861. This was Gregory's final attempt; he accepted the position of Surveyor-General of Queensland, and his labours as an explorer ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... you down," continued she; "I am not easily disheartened, and am not without hope but I shall compass my end." To shorten my story, this good woman made several fruitless attacks in my behalf on the proud enemy of my rest. The vexation I suffered inflamed my distemper to that degree, that my physicians gave me over. I was considered as a dead man, when the old woman came to recall ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... otherwise than so, would be like making an heroic poem a man's first attempt. Among the favourites to the fair one, he found her parrot not to be in the last degree: he saw Poll had her ear, when his sighs were neglected. To write against him, had been a fruitless labour; therefore he resolved to flatter him into his interests, in ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... the lonely man, obsessed, going up and down the China coast, shipping at distant ports, one after another, on fruitless quests, looking for a place to disembark? The proper place to disembark, the place which he would recognize, would know for his own place, which would answer the longing in him that had sent him searching round the world, over the seven seas of the world, the spot in which ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... ask, What expectations have you still of Weimar? With sad candour I must tell you that, after all, I consider your trouble about Weimar to be fruitless. Your experience is that as soon as you turn your back the most perfect vulgarity springs luxuriantly from the soil in which you had laboured to plant the noblest things; you return, and have just ploughed up once more half of the soil, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... the vine, more than another tree? Nay most, than it, more tall, more comely be. What workman thence will take a beam or pin, To make ought which may be delighted in? Its excellency in its fruit doth lie: A fruitless vine, it is ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts 5 that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the 10 consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... which is bought by crime, is a hundred times more reasonable. Nevertheless, almost all women will risk suffering in the future and ages of anguish for the ecstasy of one half hour. If the human feeling of self-preservation, if the fear of death does not check them, how fruitless must be the laws which send them for two years to the Madelonnettes? O sublime infamy! And when one comes to think that he for whom these sacrifices are to be made is one of our brethren, a gentleman to whom we would ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... yonder, the wisest, greatest, simplest of mankind—by times Diogenes and Cromwell, Lafayette and Robespierre was, in jest and joke, mirth and sadness, working out his own and a people's sublime destiny. It was to this curiously unequal personage that Mrs. Sprague, after fruitless pleading with her husband's friends, came finally to secure action on behalf of her son. There was little of the ceremonial needed to gain access to the Chief Magistrate which is now ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... business, he said, and as she knew he had been there two or three times before, Lucy asked no questions, and had no suspicion of the nature of the business which took him first to Carnarvon, where a last fruitless search was made for Elizabeth Rogers or some of her kin, and then to Stoneleigh, which he reached on an early morning train, the same which took Bessie to Liverpool! Thus near do the wheels of fate oftentimes ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... dragoon attempted to push in. She grappled him by the shoulder, whirled him about, and shoved him out with such force that he fell to the ground. Her Covenanted guests all escaped, and the soldiers, after a fruitless pursuit, withdrew. For this heroic service Mrs. Howie suffered much and her life was sought. Often she had to leave her home, and spend whole nights in the cold, damp moor, with a tender ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... too, and neither they nor the horses went at it with any great dash. The fox was not a fellow to be caught very easily, and nothing but a good start could have given them any chance, but the hounds never got well settled to the scent, and after a fruitless cast his lordship gave it up, and Jorrocks and Co. trudged back to Cheltenham, J—— highly delighted at so favourable an opportunity of seeing the hounds. Indeed, so pleased was he with the turn-out and the whole thing, that ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... people toiled and loved, and living sympathies went hand in hand. It was the sense of wasted labor that oppressed her; of two lives consumed in that ruthless process that uses generations of effort to build a single cell. There was a dreary parallel between her grandfather's fruitless toil and her own unprofitable sacrifice. Each in turn had kept vigil by ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... toward the close of the last century. The volume opens with a rapid survey of Irish history, traces the love of liberty among the people, describes the causes of their national characteristics, and minutely portrays the events of the fruitless struggle, which terminated in the complete subjection of their beautiful island to the British crown. Among the biographical sketches, those of Curran, Tone, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Emmets, McNevin, and Sampson ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... disuse the army had rusted in its scabbard, and everything seemed to go wrong but the courage of officers and men. A great demand arose for reform in the whole administration of the country. A movement, now much forgotten, though not fruitless at the time, was started for the purpose of making the civil service more efficient, and putting John Bull's house in order. "Administrative Reform," such was the cry of the moment, and Dickens uttered ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... he joined them at last, and was first consulted without effect and then stationed by the hat, which Clutterham still considered it necessary to leave on the ground. In spite of this strategy, they spent the best part of three-quarters of an hour in quite fruitless wanderings, and Humphreys was obliged at last, seeing how tired Mrs Cooper was becoming, to suggest a retreat to tea, with profuse apologies to Miss Cooper. 'At any rate you've won your bet with Miss Foster,' he said; 'you have been inside the maze; and I promise you the first thing ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... than of his person; but the Duke of Buckingham, a still greater fool than he, though more addicted to raillery, gave him the additional name of Peter of the Wood. He was so enraged at this, that, after many fruitless complaints and ineffectual menaces, poor Pedro de Silva was obliged to leave England, while the happy duke kept possession of a Portuguese nymph more hideous than the queen's maids of honour, whom he had taken from ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... species of rhinoceros in Abyssinia; this is the two-horned black rhinoceros, known in South Africa as the keitloa. This animal is generally five feet six inches to five feet eight inches high at the shoulder, and, although so bulky and heavily built, it is extremely active, as our long and fruitless hunt had shown us. The skin is about half the thickness of that of the hippopotamus, but of extreme toughness and closeness of texture. When dried and polished it resembles horn. Unlike the Indian species of rhinoceros, ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... Russia, and spent some time in St. Petersburg, attracted thither by the invitation of a friend. The country interested him, but does not seem to have deeply or permanently engaged his attention. That, however, his Russian experiences were not fruitless is manifest from the remarkably picturesque and technically very interesting poem, "Ivan Ivanovitch" (the fourth of the Dramatic Idyls, 1879). Of a truth, after his own race and country—readers will at once think of "Home Thoughts from the Sea," or the thrilling ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... groaned Tricotrin. "How fruitless are man's noblest endeavours without the favouring breeze! I shall drown myself at eight o'clock. However, I will readily plead for you first, if your ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick |
