"Futile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his house on Minnesota Row were the social feature of Washington. Cabinet officers, diplomatists, Judges, Congressmen, officers of the army and navy, residents, and the strangers within their gates made up the throng that good- humoredly jostled and crowded each other in futile attempts to move through the parlors and hall. When General Grant had issued cards of invitation to his first reception, hundreds who had received none went, all the same, so he afterward announced through the newspapers that he would be "happy ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... further futile attempts to drop the ball upon the mound he had discovered. At last he actually did do so, but instead of breaking in and taking a wicket, as we, who were in the secret, hoped, the batsman got ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... dodge discrimination, and characterize them en masse by negations. The passengers of the Isaac Newton, on a certain evening of July, 18—, were not so intrusively green and so gasping as Britons, not so ill-dressed and pretentious as Gauls, not so ardently futile and so lubberly as Germans. Such were the negative virtues of our fellow-citizen travellers; and base would it be to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... SWELLING OF THE FETUS WITH GAS.—This has been described as occurring in a living fetus, but I have met with it only in the dead and decomposing foal after futile efforts had been made for several days to effect delivery. These cases are very difficult, as the foal is inflated to such extent that it is impossible to advance it into the passages, and the skin of the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... captured near Marseilles and thrust into prison, where he lay for sixteen weary years, all attempts to escape being futile. One night a lucky thought struck him. He raised the window and got out. But he was unhappy. Remorse and dyspepsia preyed upon his vitals. He tried Boerhave's Holland Bitters and the Retired Physician's Sands of ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... Sanderson's experiments render it in the highest degree probable, if they do not actually demonstrate, that the virus of small-pox is 'particulate.' Definite knowledge upon this point is of exceeding importance, because in the treatment of particles methods are available which it would be futile to apply ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... most. The king promised on his word to abide firmly and stably by what they should decree. But this commission was nearly a year behind time in assembling, and, even when it was assembled, its labors were so slow and so futile, that the Count de Dampmartin was quite justified in writing to the Count of Charolais, become by his father's death Duke of Burgundy, "The League of common weal has become nothing but the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... "This comes of being, like my friend Burke, too refined for one's audience," thought Mauleverer, wincing a little from the unexpected reply. "And yet!" he resumed, "I would not forego my power to admire, futile, nay, painful as it is. Even now, while I gaze on you, my heart tells me that the pleasure I enjoy, it is at your command at once and forever to blight into misery; but while it tells me, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... did not need to make her daughter feel uneasy by scrutinizing her face in order to know where her thoughts were. All she had to do was to watch the nervous little hand which lay beside her and with such futile despair stroked the bars of the bench; they changed their position every moment like a fever-patient tossing from side to side in his hot bed. When she did this and looked at the hand, she also knew ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... futile. Charles X. did not change his ministry, and the review took place on the ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... flourishes the words 'Ladies' Seminary'; and which was further published and proclaimed at intervals between the hours of half-past nine and ten in the morning, by a straggling and solitary young lady of tender years standing on the scraper on the tips of her toes and making futile attempts to reach the knocker with spelling-book. The several duties of instruction in this establishment were this discharged. English grammar, composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells, by Miss Melissa Wackles; writing, arithmetic, dancing, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... given in their provincial assemblies, else it will cease to be property. As to the metaphysical refinements, attempting to show that the Americans are equally free from obedience and commercial restraints as from taxation of revenue, being unrepresented here, I pronounce them futile, frivolous, and groundless. Resistance to your acts was necessary as it was just; and your vain declaration of the omnipotence of parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally impotent to convince or enslave your fellow-subjects ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... out," returned her mother. Since that day Charmian had tried to create something, and had found out. But she had not told Mrs. Mansfield. She was now twenty-one, and had been just eighteen when her mother's advice had driven her into the energy which had proved futile. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... was crazy," agreed the seamen. It was as though the gaiety, the spring of gladness, within the little man had been dried up; there was left only the incompetent and despised Dago. He faced the routine of his toil now with no smile of preoccupation for a sweeter vision; he shuffled about decks, futile as ever, with the dreariness of a man ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... 'Now mark this, if the Expeditionary Force—and I ask for no more than two hundred men—does not come within ten days, the town may fall; and I have done my best for the honour of our country. Good-bye,' without being thrilled with vain regrets and futile resolutions. And then the account stops short. Nor will the silence ever be broken. The sixth instalment of the Journals was despatched on the 14th of December; and when it is finished the reader, separated suddenly from the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... again! but they shall end in tears. The very converse, thine, of Orpheus' tongue: He roused and led in ecstasy of joy All things that heard his voice melodious; But thou as with the futile cry of curs Wilt draw men wrathfully upon thee. Peace! Or strong subjection soon shall ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... Burnside, in futile desperation, prepared an order relieving Franklin, Smith and several other officers of inferior rank from duty, and dismissing Hooker, Brooks, Newton and Cochrane from the service. He made no further charge against these officers than that they had no confidence in himself, and ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... down, he unbuckled the strap from the major's ankles. A wild hope that his incomprehensible captive might seize that moment to develop his real intent—that he might fly, fight, or in some way act up to his reckless reputation—sustained him for a moment, but in the next proved futile. The major only said, "Thank you, Tom," ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to Italy by the Allies, and the gradual steps leading up to Italy's decision to remain neutral; nor any hint as to the day when her decision was communicated to England and the other powers, it would be futile to speculate on this subject. Since, however, the Queen of Italy and the wife of the Commander in Chief of the Russian forces are sisters, and since it was in the interest of the Allies to keep Italy neutral, ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... of reorganisation and rehabilitation, and unless there comes about an international concord strong and definite enough to prevent a recurrence of what has been, it would almost seem that restoration were futile; for things will be restored only in time to be ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... recounted by Basil Ringrose in his "Dangerous Voyage and Bold Assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and Others," and by William Dampier in his "New Voyage Round the World." After taking part in 1679 in the futile expedition of the buccaneers to Panama, Wafer joined the party of malcontents who left Captain Sharp and returned on foot across the Isthmus of Darien. Wafer was accidentally wounded in the knee by an explosion of ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... paper stuck under the edge of Hagan's table—" From above, from the floor of the front room now, came the rush and trample of feet. He could not go back for the other half. And any attempt to conceal the fact that Connie Myers had been alone in the house was futile now. They would find the torn letter in the dead man's hand, proof enough that some one else had been there. What was in that part of the letter that was still clutched in that death grip upstairs? A sentence ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... we might have committed, and we may well congratulate ourselves on finding that, after the closest examination into a long series of transactions, so extensive, so complicated, and, in some respects, so disastrous, so keen an assailant could produce only so futile an accusation. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was space here, even as in the mountains. Yet this calm was not of strength, he felt vaguely, like that he had known, but the tranquillity of nature in another, a weaker, less-wholesome mood, apathetic, futile. The thickly dotting cypresses and junipers, bedecked with streaming draperies of Spanish moss, touched the vistas with a funereal aspect. The languid movement of the festoons under the breeze was like the sighings of desolation made visible. The dense tangle of the undergrowth stretched ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... be termed a conquering race. They dominated the north of the Continent, and upheld their empire securely by force of arms. Yet it is curious that both these nations, representing the chief civilizing and inventive powers of the Continent, presented nothing beyond the most futile resistance to the invaders. Their gods desecrated, their faith outraged, stung to utter fury and hate, even these passions failed to lead them to a single victory of consequence, notwithstanding the fact that their tens of thousands of warriors were faced by ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... his feet, staggered to the side of his companion, and steadying himself with the aid of a chair, made futile attempts to raise his comrade to a perpendicular position. His knees bent under him, the chair fell from his unsteady grasp, and murmuring, "We'll pass the bottle round," he lurched forward, and falling across the recumbent Cook, passed from the worship of Bacchus to the arms of Morpheus, ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... disregarded which the prayers of Dominican friars (to their everlasting honor be it spoken) had wrung from the Spanish sovereigns, and which the legislation of that most wise, virtuous, and heroic Inquisitor (paradoxical as the words may seem), Pedro de la Gasca, had carried into effect in Peru,—futile and tardy alleviations of cruelties and miseries unexampled in the history of Christendom, or perhaps on earth, save in the conquests of Sennacherib and Zingis Khan. But on the frontiers, where negroes were imported to endure the toil which was found fatal to the Indian, and all ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... restore silver to its old value as compared with gold; that its fall was owing to natural causes, chiefly to the increased production. They insisted that every attempt to restore silver to its old place would be futile, and that the promise to make the attempt, under any circumstances, was juggling with the people, from which nothing but disaster and shame would follow. They justly maintained that, if we undertook the unlimited coinage ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... should be decided in such or such a manner, but that it should be decided without delay and without appeal. Besides, the world is now grown too vast for general councils, which seem to be made only for the youth of Christianity. In fine, why pursue futile or mischievous discussions as to whether the Pope is above the Council or the Council above the Pope? In ordinary questions in which a king is conscious of sufficient light, he decides them himself, while the others in which he is not conscious ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... conversation was commonplace, and I related various experiences in a desultory fashion. Those that were mildly amusing were most appreciated. But gradually we drifted towards more vital issues and then the long and futile argument began. The weapons of sarcasm and denunciation were denied to me by the laws of politeness and etiquette. I beat in vain against the solid walls of obstinate prejudice and superficiality. His ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... habits. In writing, he thinks of nothing but his idea and the person whom he addresses: ad rem et ad hominem. A man of conviction and doctrine, to write does not weary him; to be questioned does not annoy him. When approached, he cares only to know that your motive is not one of futile curiosity, but the love of truth; he assumes you to be serious, he replies, he examines your objections, sometimes verbally, sometimes in writing; for, as he remarks, 'if there be some points which correspondence can never settle, but which can be made clear by conversation in two ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... to prostitution, and her secret weaknesses for biscuits, followed by keen remorse, to lapses into the habit of masturbation. Her fits of struggling and rolling on the ground are precisely like the outbursts of futile desire which occasionally occur to young abstinent men and women in health and strength. The absorption in thoughts about meals and in literary descriptions of meals is clearly analogous to the abstinent man's absorption in wanton thoughts ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... birthright, man's undying passion. Germany! fated to execration by future generations for that she ahs crucified the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame. Germany! for the balking of whose insolent and futile ambition, and for the crushing of whose archaic military madness we Canadians are tramping on this Dominion Day these English fields and these sweet English lanes 5,000 miles from our Western Canada which dear land we can not ever see ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... a slight commotion on board, as if some of our shipmates rebelled at the idea of leaving us behind, while they sailed homeward; but this intervention on our behalf was futile, for the skipper brandished his revolver, as we could easily see from the top of the cliff, to which we had now climbed, in order to make our voices better heard on board, and after a momentary pause the sails were let drop and hauled out, and the vessel ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... been seriously criticised by real scholars.' We might answer, 'Why tell you what you know very well?' For (i. 50) you say that while Signer Canizzaro calls some of your 'equations' 'irrefutably demonstrated,' 'other scholars declare these equations are futile and impossible.' Do these other scholars criticise your equations not 'seriously'? Or are you ignorant of the names of ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... way, bending outward, and as their owner collapsed down upon his side with the light of consciousness flickering in his eyes, his figure was half-turned to them, and they saw how that he was ornamentally but securely buttoned down the back with many large buttons and how that with a last futile fluttering effort of his relaxing hands he fumbled first at one and then at another of ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... march and, now that he had reached the goal, so long desired, must he turn back to join the shepherds and builders to whom—it now seemed a sore misfortune—he belonged by the accident of birth and ancestry, though, denial was futile, he felt as utterly alien to the Hebrews as he was to the Libyans whom he had confronted on the battle-field. In almost every pursuit he valued, he had nothing in common with his people. He had believed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... answer; and Honor was thankful that the main body of troops arrived in time to save her from the futile attempt. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... profound suspicion remained with him that Sandersen guessed his mission, and was purposely trying to brush away the wrath of the avenger. It would take time to discover the truth, but to secure that time it was necessary to settle the blame for the killing. Cold Feet was a futile, weak-handed little coward. In the stern scheme of Sinclair's life, the death of such a man ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Ryder had been discovered then.... McLean tried, in futile bewilderment, to recall just what amazing thing Ryder had been saying when this ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... torture. By an odd coincidence it chanced that Sir Benjamin Brodie, the acknowledged leader of English surgeons, had publicly expressed this as his deliberate though regretted opinion at a time when the quest which he considered futile had already led to the most brilliant success in America, and while the announcement of the discovery, which then had no transatlantic cable to convey it, was actually on its ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... to the objections from improbability, another series of opposition consists of flat, broad denials of the truth of Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures." This mode of vanquishing direct charges is even more invalid than the former futile cavilling. It is also remarkable, when we remember who are the persons that deny the statements made by Maria Monk. Are they the Roman Priests implicated? Not at all. They are too crafty. The only ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... renewed efforts of the Persian king to destroy Greece, and realized also that the most vital point in the coming conflict would be the control of the sea. Accordingly he urged upon the Athenians the necessity of building a powerful fleet. In this policy he was aided by one of those futile wars so characteristic of Greek history, a war between Athens and the island of AEgina. In order to overcome the AEginetans, who had a large fleet, the Athenians were compelled to build a larger one, and by the time this purpose ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... this refuge turn to spiritualism and psychical research in a futile effort to find a satisfactory solution of the problem of the Hereafter. Again and again we see the unrest of the ever-questioning soul depicted in the drama and the literature of the day as it seeks enlightenment on the potentiality of the future life. The stage presents plays ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... unworthy of him. But she also remembered words, silences, and hints which demonstrated with lamentable plainness the fact that he loved her. She was old enough and sufficiently experienced to avoid the futile speculation as to what had attracted this love. She knew that men marry women who in the estimation of onlooking relatives are unworthy of them, and live happily ever afterwards, without deeming it necessary to explain to those relatives how ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... and shires were left without one inhabitant, the survivors would still be bound meekly to submit, and to be torn in pieces or roasted alive without a struggle. The arguments in favour of this proposition were futile indeed: but the place of sound argument was amply supplied by the omnipotent sophistry of interest and of passion. Many writers have expressed wonder that the high spirited Cavaliers of England should have been zealous for the most slavish theory that has ever been known among men. The truth is that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... futile efforts to find him,—chasing about the country, offering rewards, scattering hand-bills,—there was the lost horse, the veritable Snowfoot, grazing quietly in the ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... honesty in the essence of his operations, was the soul of honour as to their details. I had one grieved letter from him, dignified and tender; and during the rest of that wretched term, working as a clerk, selling my clothes and sketches to make futile speculations, my dream of Paris quite vanished. I was cheered by no word of kindness and helped by no hint of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... turtle, which made off up the creek, but the boy was on his trail and, after a few futile grabs, had the ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... which both the latter and his Sovereign regarded the displacement of Palmerston by Aberdeen, began to lead to a better entente. The scheme of fortifying Paris continued, however, to be debated, while the Orleanist family were still the subjects of futile attentats. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... reason that temporary or technical titles are not used, honorary titles are omitted. There should be no pretense in regard to social position, as pretense is easy and futile. A man appears in society simply as an ordinary individual, to win favor and position by force of his personality, or to ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... owner of a factory would wait for public regulations in this matter, but would, himself, be anxious to prevent his occupation from being injurious to his neighbours. In a manufacturing town, a man may find some excuse, though a most futile one, in the consideration that it would be of no use for him alone to consume his smoke, when there are hundreds of others over whom he has no influence to persuade them to follow his example. But you sometimes see one of these foul-mouthed ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... means far beyond the compass of his natural powers? Still, this was undoubtedly a conclusion of his riper years, a result arrived at after a certain intense if not very prolonged experience in contemporary Utopias, in futile endeavors to raise man above his own level while remaining on it, whether by socialistic ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... veiled animosity towards Damaris, she became more tedious, more frankly intolerable and ridiculous to him whose favour she so desperately sought. Under less anxious circumstances Charles Verity might have been contemptuously amused at this exhibition of futile ardour. Now it exasperated him. Yet he waited, in rather cruel patience. Presently he would demolish her, if to do so appeared worth the trouble. Meanwhile she should have her say, since incidentally he might learn something from it bearing upon the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... still filled with water little wreaths of steam drifted. In those futile wraiths of vapor was all that remained of the might ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... could not last. Much as they had suffered in the assault, the assailants were too numerous to be longer held at bay. With a feeling of despair, Harold recognised the futile click that followed his pressure on the trigger and told him that he had fired ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... there at the time when the United States was settled were at different stages of their development. Some were vigorous with youth, some were in the height of their glory, and some were dying because the descendants of the men who had made them great were futile and incapable. These nations were different in race and religion, in thought, language, traditions, and temperament. When they were not quarreling with each other, they were busy with domestic squabbles. They had kept this up for centuries and were at it when the settlers landed at Jamestown ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... about the top of his broad flat desk, and the floor beside the waste-basket was flaked with the remains of various futile lines and epigrams. The ash-pan was littered with burnt matches, ends of cigars and pipe tobacco, while the ash-crumbs speckled all dark objects, not excepting the green rug under his feet. Warrington smoked incessantly while at work, now a cigarette, now a cigar, now a pipe. Specialists ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... took the house at Dudley Farms and began the routine of American suburban life, forty miles from New York. After several months of futile effort, spaced by periods of laziness that Margaret put an end to, a gentleman's job was secured for Larry, through the kindness of one of his father's friends. At first Larry was inclined to think that the work would belittle him, spoil his chances of "better things." ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... with the forgery. Follow each step. Bendigo never sees his supposed brother once; you never see him again. Your united search through the woods is futile; but Jenny and her husband in the motor boat bring news of him. She comes back with tears in her eyes. She has seen Robert Redmayne—the murderer of her husband! She and the motor boatman have spoken to him; they describe his miserable condition and intense desire to see his brother. ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... permanence, statutes innumerable have been aimed, and clauses strictly interdicting it have of late been incorporated into several State constitutions. The experience of the last few years, if it has proved nothing else, has conclusively demonstrated how utterly impotent and futile such enactments ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... anti-Macedonian party grew gradually from the time of the Peace onwards. In 346, within a month after the return of the Second Embassy, the ambassadors presented their reports before the Logistae or Board of Auditors (after a futile attempt on the part of Aeschines to avoid making a report altogether); and Timarchus, supported by Demosthenes, there announced his intention of taking proceedings against Aeschines for misconduct on the Second Embassy. But Timarchus' own past history was not above reproach: he was attacked ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... Zusammenhang der Geschlechtskrankheiten mit nervoesen Leiden, Stuttgart, 1885. (Hegar, however, went much further than this, and was largely responsible for the surgical treatment of hysteria now generally recognized as worse than futile.) Balls-Headley, "Etiology of Nervous Diseases of the Female Genital Organs," Allbutt and Playfair, System of Gynecology, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... next day the most futile pretext brought about a quarrel, and love alarmed fled again for ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... me, Miss Carson?" he asked. "I am telling the Prince that zeal is not enough, and that high ideals, unless they are accompanied by good conduct, are futile. I want him to change, to be more ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... was, therefore, kept partly closed with a food-tank. The result was that a good deal of snow came in, while the hole diminished in size. For a man to try to crawl out in stiff burberrys appeared as futile as for a porcupine to try to go backwards up a ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Apollo, when the Pythoness Aristonice, sitting above the sacred cleft whence comes the inspiring vapour, thus prophesied." And Callias repeated the hexameters which warned the Athenians that resistance to Xerxes would be worse than futile; that Athens was doomed; concluding with the fearful line, "Get from this temple afar, and brood on the ills ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... last Guffey wearied of this futile inquisition; or perhaps it occurred to him that this was too public a place for the prosecution of a "third degree"—there might be some one listening outside the door. He stopped twisting Peter's wrist, and tilted back Peter's head so that Peter's ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... society, a sort of enervated languor, a morbid longing for something new, now that the old had ceased to be possible or had proved futile; after the great excitement of the Crusades it was impossible to be either sedately idle or quietly active, even as it is with all of us during the days of weariness and restlessness after some long journey. ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... if I did, you couldn't do it;" with which taunt he was off and Frank after him, having made a futile dive at the impertinent little nose which was turned up at him and ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... France. In spite of the atrocities committed by Robert and his hirelings, the revolt continued with unabated fury, and at last Gregory was constrained to return in person to Italy with the purpose of pacifying the turbulent forces. He entered Rome, January 17, 1377; but after a year of futile effort he died, leaving the confusion worse ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the fly, small as he is, is too large to work his way out through the flap, or too bewildered or stupid to find the opening, or too exhausted after his futile efforts to get out through the overhead route to persevere, or too weak with hunger in case of long detention in a pistillate trap where no pollen is, what then? Open a dozen of Jack's pulpits, and in ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... innumerable generations of horses have been led to the water, not one horse has yet been made to drink. With the best, or the worst, will in the world, no publisher can force a book into acceptance. Advertising will not avail, and reviewing is notoriously futile. If the book does not strike the popular fancy, or deal with some universal interest, which need by no means be a profound or important one, the drums and the cymbals shall be beaten in vain. The book may be one of the best and wisest ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... pedigree, too, and, probably, that forbade her to soil her white hands. She was a fine lady, with more heart than head, which she had lost most unwisely to the handsome young doctor. After his death, she made futile efforts for her child's sake, but the grinding wheel of poverty caught the poor butterfly and crushed ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... for the franchise, to carry passengers for a three-cent fare and to pay the city a million-dollar bonus. Other eager capitalists had hastened to offer the city a continuous payment of $100,000 a year. Similar futile attempts had been made year after year to get the franchise. The rich residents of Broadway opposed a street car line, believing it would subject them to noise and discomfort; likewise the stage owners, intent upon keeping up their monopoly, fought against ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... ill. A fever, contracted in South Africa where she had been with her husband—a fever gained in a futile effort to save the life of that husband, had sadly fagged a naturally vigorous constitution. There had been a recurrence soon after her return to America. Now she was in that condition of indolent convalescence that is in women so interesting, in ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... the snow on the window- sill was speckled with black. Below, in the courtyard of the hotel, ice-carts rumbled in and out, and milk-cans were banged down on the cobblestones; a dull day, an empty sky, a futile interview, up here in this wretched little room under the eaves. David wondered how ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... them for shipment. The English government then directed the Assembly so to change the Act that it could be put into practical operation, but an attempt, in 1685, to follow these instructions proved futile. The Burgesses were willing to pass a bill providing for ports in each county, but this was not what the king wanted and so the whole ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... hearing of the offense and after making many futile efforts to come to an agreement, consults with his relatives, when, after being assured of their cooperation he begins to issue threats, all of which reach the ear of his opponent. At first the latter probably is not disturbed ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... [A futile sea voyage in an open boat.] At Guiuan I embarked on board an inconveniently cranky, open boat, which was provided with an awning only three feet square, for Tacloban, the chief town of Leyte. After first experiencing an uninterrupted ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... fifteen-and twenty-story buildings and streams of velvet smoke. Blocks and blocks of tenements, with the same dirty people wallowing around them, answered my searching eyes in blank response. There was an occasional dingy sign offering board and lodging. After I had made several futile inquiries at imposing offices on the river front I felt that it was a hopeless quest. I should never get work unknown, unskilled, already tired and discouraged. My collar was wilted in the fierce heat; my shabby felt sailor ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... headlines; from Toronto they sent special reporters. Of course, it was most of all the opportunity of Mr Horace Williams, of the Elgin Express, and of Rawlins, who held all the cards in their hands, and played them, it must be said, admirably, reducing the Mercury to all sorts of futile expedients to score, which the Express would invariably explode with a guffaw of contradiction the following day. It was to the Express that the Toronto reporters came for details and local colour; and Mr Williams gave ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Jezreel, near the town of Aphek. His servants had counselled him to change his tactics: "The God of the Hebrews is a God of the hills, therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they." The advice, however, proved futile, for he sustained on the open plain a still more severe defeat than he had met with in the mountains, and the Hebrew historians affirm that he was taken prisoner during the pursuit. The power of Damascus was still formidable, and the captivity of its king had done little to bring the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... futile efforts might have compromised Derues had they been heard of at Buisson-Souef; but everything seemed to conspire in the criminal's favour: neither the schoolmaster's wife nor the lawyer thought of writing to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to the "third degree." His argument that he found the diamonds, and that having found them they were his until the proper owner appeared, was futile. Ten minutes after having passed into a room where sat Chief Arkwright, of the Mulberry Street force, and three of his men, and Steven Birnes, of the Birnes Detective Agency, Haney remembered that he hadn't ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... prepare a work which should expose their falsity. In it he determined to lay the precise facts before a public which was indisposed to believe anything to the credit, and disposed to believe everything to the discredit of democratic institutions. On the face of it, this was a futile undertaking, no matter how praiseworthy its motive. Nations, no more than individuals, are convinced by what other nations say of themselves; it is only by what they do. In this particular case the difficulty was rendered more insurmountable ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... tumult of futile chase faded into silence behind the straining fugitive, there might have been seen whirling through the ancient streets of London ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... not venture to support the conviction he avowed by advocating that the Shah should be abandoned to his adoring subjects. Lord Auckland's policy was gravely and radically erroneous, but it had a definite object, and that object certainly was not a futile march to Cabul and back, dropping incidentally by the wayside the aspirant to a throne whom he had himself put forward, and leaving him to take his chance among a truculent and adverse population. Thus early, in all probability, Lord Auckland was disillusioned ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... Mistress of the Seas to perpetrate indignity after indignity on the ships and sailors which were carrying American commerce around the world. The United States demanded a free sea, which Great Britain would not grant. Of necessity, then, such futile weapons as embargoes and non-intercourse acts had to give place to the musket, the bayonet, and the carronade. There could be no compromise between the clash of doctrines. It was for the United States to assert herself, regardless of the odds, or sink into a position of supine ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... policy of the last half-dozen years. John Quincy Adams never tired of ridiculing the puerile maneuvers of backwoods politicians whose ignorance amounted almost to high crime. To him the Independent Treasury Bill was an attempt to separate the Government from business, as futile as to try to divorce the law from the judges in ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... to ask of you is that you will not make Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling's position any harder by futile endeavours to form the ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... the actors in this story having played out their parts and gone to their rest, there is something touching in recording the futile efforts made by Philip to win from Sylvia the love he yearned for. But, at the time, any one who had watched him might have been amused to see the grave, awkward, plain young man studying patterns and colours for a new waistcoat, with his head a little on one side, after ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... rose after a sleepless night, his face drawn in long, deep-set lines. The hours had been spent in futile planning. To save himself from the dire consequences of his misdeeds, to procure the money which would come to Jinnie when she was eighteen years old, was the one idea that dinned constantly at his brain. She ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... those signs? Scoundrel, puppy, foreign-born poacher, didn't you see my sign-boards?" And as she looked down at him—Richard's blood alive and red in a youthful and beautiful body: and she what she was—she fell into one of those futile and dreadful fits of rage to which the evil old are subject; and mumbled with her skinny bags of lips, and shook and nodded her deathly head, and waved her claw-like hands, screeching ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... something the same character, and showing the same futile attempt at impossible effects of light and shade,[954] was a picture of the Resurrection, executed by Edgington, from a design by Sir Joshua Reynolds, for the Lady Chapel of Salisbury Cathedral. ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... Jasper Keene had come of age, and had command of any means of his own, his first act was to have an exhaustive search made for the old fellow, with a view of financial restitution. But the owner of the trading-boat had died, spending his last years in the futile effort to obtain the insurance money. As the little he had left was never claimed, no representative could profit by the restitution that Jasper Keene had planned, and he found what satisfaction he could in giving it secretly to an old man's charity. Then the phantom ...
— The Phantom Of Bogue Holauba - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... A futile crop; for it the fire Smoulders, and, for a stack, a pyre. So go the town's lives on the breeze, Even as the sheddings of the trees; Bosom nor barn is ...
— Later Poems • Alice Meynell
... to this form of sentiment are agitated (or imagine themselves to be agitated) as profoundly on the most futile of pretexts as for the most ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... decided that horses and drivers alike would require a rest when we reached the shores of the lake, and, after our cocheros had made futile attempts to cut figures of 8 with their respective four and two-in-hands on the invitingly firm, yellow sands which surround Lake Palmar, all dismounted, horses were taken out, and, while lunch was being prepared, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... prevail, as to the meaning they intend to convey in speaking of causes and causation. On the one hand, we are told that the grand object of physical inquiry is to explain the nature of phenomena by referring them to their causes; on the other, that the inquiry into 'causes' is altogether vain and futile, and that Science has no concern but with the discovery of 'laws.' Which of these is the truth? Or are both views of the matter true on a different interpretation of the terms? Whichever view we may ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... a futile year of flight, he accepted the inevitable and elected to remain at the cottage where first he had killed the rabbit and slept by the spring. Even after that, a long time elapsed before the man and woman succeeded in patting him. It was a great victory, for they alone were ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... Within her raged a desperate battle between her head and heart. Mingled with her unwelcome quickening of the pulse at his approach and admiration for his audacity in coming to her when he must know that she knew what he was, there was also an overwhelming sense of futile rage that he, a scheming German plotter, dared intrude his presence ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... the first time Bert had spoken to his mother about his plan of organizing a fire department in Lakeville, he had been thinking over the matter for some time. Even before the barn burned down he had had the 'notion in his head, and, when he saw the futile efforts of the bucket brigade, he determined to take ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... openly defying the physicians of repute, for the terrified blacks believed that the English had prayed once too often that the hurricane should be stayed, and that he sulked where none might feel his faintest breath. Therefore they cursed the white doctor as futile, and flung his ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... boys—hungering for novelty as boys only can hunger—the useless and trivial suggestions of friends, the minor arrangements for the move, the decision on domestic questions present and to come, the questions, answers, futile conjectures, all formed a murk through which she labored, striving to please her husband and her children, to uphold authority, quell mutiny, soothe murmurs, and sympathize with enthusiasm; with a tact which ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... THOMAS CARLYLE. Including Wotton Reinfred, Carlyle's only essay in fiction; the Excursion (Futile Enough) to Paris; and letters from Thomas Carlyle, also letters from Mrs. Carlyle, to a personal friend. With Portrait. ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... Inca, what little futile resistance the unarmed host had been able to make ceased. The Indians, relentlessly pursued by their bloody conquerors, fled in every direction, and, to anticipate events, the army deprived of its monarch and its generals, dispersed the next day without ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... but only the humourist can reproduce life. Milton is great; but the poet of life is Shakespeare. Thus the whole case of "realism" falls to the ground. There being no "facts," Zola's laborious series is futile; it may be true to art, but it is not true to life. His vision is incomplete, is inexhaustive; it lacks humour, and to the scientific novelist the lack of humour is fatal. He is the one novelist who cannot succeed without it. Leave out humour, and you may get art and many ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... the country, and at one of them, held at Taunton, Sydney Smith delivered the famous speech in which he compared the attempt of the House of Lords to restrain the rising tide of Democracy to the frantic but futile battle which Dame Partington waged with her mop, during a storm at Sidmouth, when the Atlantic invaded her threshold. 'The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up. But I need not tell you that the contest ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... journalism. Since Mr. Campbell is preeminently an essayist, it is to his dissertations on "The Pursuit of Happiness" and "The Age of Accuracy" which we turn most eagerly; and which in no way disappoint our high expectations. The first of these essays is a dispassionate survey of mankind in its futile but frantic scramble after that elusive but unreal sunbeam called "happiness". The author views the grimly amusing procession of human life with the genuine objective of an impartial spectator, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... to escape from them, dear Mademoiselle! But alas! my visit has also another object: to release you from the promise you were so kind as to make me regarding the matter of our kermess; a project now unfortunately rendered futile by that Zibeline!" ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... Cavalry Brigade had been freshly provided with transport. Half was very excellent mule-transport; the balance was composed of heavy trek-waggons, with lumbering ox-teams. Futile expedient. The disadvantages of the one outweighed the advantages of the other. It is only a matter of weeks since a public outcry was raised—by ignorant critics it is true—because Paris's convoy was overwhelmed in detail, that officer having done what every other successful ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... it. Always, it was 'the very next time'! Edwin was not capable of doing it. His father had a sort of moral brute-force, against which he could not stand firm. He soon recognised this, with his intellectual candour. Then he had tried to argue with Darius, to 'make him see'! Worse than futile! Argument simply put Darius beside himself. So that in the end Edwin employed silence and secret scorn, as a weapon and as a defence. And somehow without a word he conveyed to Stifford and to Big James precisely what his attitude ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... were generally beaten, which possibly accounted for the fact that most of the villages round Oxford said they were a splendid eleven. No team which contained Lambert could help being splendid, but as regards cricket we were the most futile side it is possible to imagine, and Bagshaw, who was a really good sort, was also exactly the right man to ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... agreeable, that Nigel's rigour was softened by it, even towards the master of ceremonies, and he listened with patience to various details which the Chevalier de Beaujeu, seeing, as he said, that Milor's taste lay for the "curieux and Futile," chose to address to him in particular, on the subject of cookery. To gratify, at the same time, the taste for antiquity, which he somehow supposed that his new guest possessed, he launched out in commendation of the great artists of former days, particularly ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... now; now that her love and her reason had both returned, each more vivid than before! Futile, indeed, might be Margrave's boasted secret; but at least in that secret was hope. In recognized ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... moralize. And the more patiently he labors, the greater his respect for the vested wisdom of his time. Whereas he first sought utterly to demolish, he is now content to make his little difference and hand on the work. In the end every purely destructive programme is inevitably futile, because it goes against the grain. For all conduct is constructive in motive, and forward in direction. But how wasteful is the momentary fury—wasteful of high passion and distinguished capacity, and how ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... of joint, and administering food to them with greater care, begin to have doubts about their intellect as well, whether it can work as briskly as it used to do. And the mind, falling under this discouragement of doubt, asserts itself amiss, in making futile strokes, even as a gardener can never work his best while conscious of suspicious glances through the window-blinds. Geoffrey Mordacks told himself that it could not be the self it used to be, in the days when no mistakes were made, but everything was evident ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... enough to accommodate all the family—with the one exception of Frank, who, as it were, grasped the edge of this life-saving apparatus of mine, and tested it suspiciously. His preliminary and perfectly futile opening to the effect that the moon had already set, was, however, smothered ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... calculate the direction the yacht had taken when she left port, and where the land might lie; and when they had argued about it, they set out to swim a certain way. In their hearts each felt that any calculation was futile, but they pretended to be in earnest. They could not see far, but they created for themselves a goal and worked toward it, which is of ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... this man had seen me mute and meek, and the sudden and startling change from passive obedience to uncompromising independence naturally puzzled him. He threatened to drag me to my room, but strangely enough decided not to do so. After half an hour's futile coaxing, during which time an unwonted supply of blood was drawn to his brain, that surprised organ proved its gratitude by giving birth to a timely and sensible idea. With an unaccustomed resourcefulness, by cutting off the supply of light at the electric ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... years of this brilliant and beloved woman were devoted to futile attempts to solve the problem of Perpetual Motion. I wish she had given ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... universe studded with shining orbs, without number numberless, what can I make of them? Nothing absolutely nothing—yet they are all creatures like myself. But—if I try—audaciously try—to strain my finite faculties, in the futile attempt to take in what is infinite—if I aspiringly, but hopelessly, grapple with the idea of the immensity of space, for instance, which my reason yet tells me must of necessity be boundless—do ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... entertain any doubt but that the Rigsdag will grant us the compensation to which we have the most incontestable right, and which cannot be controverted by such futile arguments, as, that the owners have lost nothing by the government depriving them of their property, as the stock of labor is the same, and to be had for an equitable hire. If it even in reality were the case, that the expenses were ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... do nothing but follow him. The narrow cut of the road and impenetrable obstructions on either side prevented my heading off his rascally maneuvers. Finally, on finding a nip of grass by the roadside, he slackened his gait, and after several futile attempts I managed to get a firm hold of his tail. After this we went down the mountain together, much more rapidly than we had come up the ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... his physical inferiority to the other men assailed him; his appreciation of their muscular shoulders had a rasp in it. For once the poverty of spirit to which he held failed to offer him a refuge. His eye wandered restlessly as if attempting futile reconciliations, and the thing most present with him was the worn-all-day feeling about the neck of his cassock. He fixed his attention presently in a climax of passive discomfort on the curtain, where, unconsciously, his gaze crept with a subtle interrogation in it to the ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan |
