"Vain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Supreme, that we are to receive more from the covering vault than the light and the dew which we share with the weed and the worm, only as a succession of meaningless and monotonous accident, too common and too vain to be worthy of a moment of watchfulness, or a glance of admiration. If in our moments of utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last resource, which of its phenomena do we speak of? One says it has been ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... the first anointed King in Scotland, about the year 1100.—12. the souls, who in those dayes were said to be in Purgatory.—25. not to be feared, if there be no true cause for it.—26. to swear, to wit, idly, rashly, and in vain.—27. Priests may have wives, according to the constitution of the law, and of the primitive Christian Church.—30. every day by Faith.—31. be contracted and consummate, the Kyrk may make, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... enthusiasm evoked by mountain or statue or canvas is as nothing compared to the rapturous devotion felt by the multitude for this One, who united in full splendor all those eminent qualities of mind and heart that all the ages and generations have in vain sought to emulate. High over all the other worthies He rises like a star riding in untroubled splendor above ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... before, the writer has looked for similar evidence, but, so far, in vain. Each of these crops, including tomatoes, potatoes, alfalfa, blackberries and apples, have been seen growing in as close contact with black walnut as they could possibly be placed. Oftentimes they have been found much nearer to black walnut trees than would have been wise to place ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... vain, a. conceited, arrogant, egotistical, overweening, vainglorious; nugatory, fruitless, ineffectual, frustrate, unavailing, bootless, futile, abortive, ineffective, empty; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... hungry, savage-eyed, and vicious, they know no fear of any living thing, and seizing an octopus and biting off tentacle after tentacle with their closely-set, needle-like teeth and swallowing it whole is a matter of no more moment to them than the bolting of a tender young mullet or bream. In vain does the Sea Thug endeavour to enwrap himself round and round the body of one of these sinuous, scaleless sea-snakes and fasten on to it with his terrible cupping apparatus of suckers—the eel slips in and out and "wolfs" and worries his enemy without the slightest harm to itself. Some of them ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... place the same historian, speaking of the absence of truth and the prevalence of error in the third century, says: "It is vain to expect Christian faith to abound without Christian doctrine. Moral and philosophical and monastical instructions will not effect for men what is to be expected from evangelical doctrine. And if the faith of Christ was so much declined (and its decayed state ought to be dated from ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... in vain consulted many craftsmen and builders, he sent, by the advice of the archbishop, for Merlin, and asked him what to do. "If you would honour the burying-place of these men," said Merlin, "with an everlasting monument, send for the Giants' Dance which is ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... she found that Phineas had hired a servant; but Mr. Bunce predicted nothing but evil from so vain an expense. "Don't tell me; where is it to come from? He ain't no richer because he's in Parliament. There ain't no wages. M.P. and M.T.,"—whereby Mr. Bunce, I fear, meant empty,—"are pretty much alike when a man hasn't a fortune at his back." "But ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... kind of a nose that has a real character value is the one presenting no obstruction to breathing. The assigned value given to a "pretty" nose has no relation to character, except as its owner is vain because of it. ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... from far forests in America, and from the wild raging seas—the sea sends up its continual treasures of rain—everywhere are harmony and fitness, beauty and use in all God's works. He has made nothing in vain. All His works praise Him, and surely, also, His saints should give thanks to Him! Oh! my friends—every thunder shower—every fresh south-west breeze, is a miracle of God's mercy, if we could but see ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... Russia. The echoes of his speech to the Diet, calling upon the nation to fight till death, vowing that he was ready to make the sacrifice of his own life should his country need it, were still in the ears of those who had heard it. The army had waited in vain for him to place himself at its head; then Catherine II threatened him, and as usual he dared not disobey. "Yielding to the desire of the Empress," he told his subjects, "and to the necessities of the country," he condemned the proceedings of the long Diet in which he had recognized ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... commemoration day, his fellow-citizens should not fail to bear also in honoured memory the thousands of other good Americans who like Lincoln gave their lives for their country and without whose loyal devotion Lincoln's leadership would have been in vain. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... the gift of Eblis to these Northerners. What is his purpose with her—that he would not show her in the suk as the law prescribes, but comes slinking here to beg thee set aside the law for him? Ha! I talk in vain. I have shown thee graver things to prove his vile disloyalty, and yet thou'lt fawn upon him whilst thy fangs are bared to thine ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... winds blow in her chosen direction; she will please herself; she will be her own good luck and her own commander-in-chief, and, withal, nobody's misery or humiliation, unless you count the swain after swain that will sigh in vain." As for Bonaventure, sitting beside her, you could just see his bare feet limply pendulous under his wide palm-leaf hat. And yet he was a ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... to be just such a bright, loving wife as Aunty is; to have my husband lean on me as Uncle leans on her; to have just as many children, and to train them as wisely and kindly us she does hers. Then, I should feel that I had not been born in vain, but had a high and sacred mission on earth. But as it is, I must just pick up what scraps of usefulness I can, and let the ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... wins hearts, generosity that makes friends, unselfishness that loves another better than one's self, integrity that commands confidence, neatness which attracts; tastefulness, a true woman's strength; good manners, without which all my list of virtues is in vain; cleanliness next to godliness; and, above all, true godliness that makes the noblest ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... which constitute Babylon, the great body of Christ's true followers are still to be found in their communion. There are many of these who have never seen the special truths for this time. Not a few are dissatisfied with their present condition, and are longing for clearer light. They look in vain for the image of Christ in the churches with which they are connected. As these bodies depart farther and farther from the truth, and ally themselves more closely with the world, the difference between the two classes will widen, and it will ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... breach may possibly be skinned over, though it can hardly be healed: in the Republican party it must widen and deepen. The latter stands now in a position analogous to that of the Whig party when it made its last vain attempt to elect its candidate, and shortly after went to pieces, the mass of its adherents going over to that meagre band which in the same election had stood firm around the standard of Liberty. It is for the Reformers to say whether they will contend for the inheritance which is legitimately theirs. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... black dot against the blue, was the water tank beside the station. For three miles, four, it held its place; then, as, with the old unconscious motion the girl turned to look back, she searched for it in vain. Behind them as before, unbroken, limiting, only the brown plain and the blue surrounding wall met her gaze. At last, there in the solitude, there with no observer save nature and nature's God, she and the other ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... and years hence—before he died at any rate, he might know how much she had been tempted. She thought that she did not want to hear that all was explained to him, if only she could be sure that he would know. But this wish was vain, like so many others; and when she had schooled herself into this conviction, she turned with all her heart and strength to the life that lay immediately before her, and resolved to strive and make the best ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... returning, and feeling by this time convinced that there must surely be another outlet at no great distance, he set his teeth and pushed on, hoping to reach that other outlet before his last torch should be consumed. But the hope was vain, for in less than ten minutes Dick found himself in profound darkness, with still no indication of any other outlet than that by ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... through all these parts, directing them to arrest me wherever I was found, and to hinder me from proceeding on my journey. These orders came too late to contribute to my preservation, and this prince's goodness had been in vain, if God, whose protection I have often had experience of in my travels, had not been ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... in vain. No reply, or, what was worse, worthless and delusive replies, came to his advertisements. The London police, who had pretended to be so hopeful at first, began to despair in a visible manner, having ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... more nearly we came to a longish stretch of highway, which the French had cleared of visual obstructions in anticipation of resistance by infantry in the event that the outer ring of defenses gave way before the German bombardment. It had all been labor in vain, for the town capitulated after the outposts fell; but it must have been very great labor. Any number of fine elm trees had been felled and their boughs, stripped now of leaves, stuck up like bare bones. There were ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... poor child's countenance showed that it had few minutes to live. Sometimes it lay so still I thought the last pang was over; when a slight convulsion would agitate its frame, and a momentary pressure of its little hands, would give the gasping father a short vain ray of hope. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... chariot to the ground, with a spear in his left hand, and in his other hand grasped a shining jagged stone, that his hand covered. Firmly he planted himself and hurled it, nor long did he shrink from his foe, nor was his cast in vain, but he struck Kebriones the charioteer of Hector, the bastard son of renowned Priam, on the brow with the sharp stone, as he held the reins of the horses. Both his brows the stone drave together, and his bone held not, but his eyes fell to the ground in the dust, there, in front of his feet. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... a throne of endless conquest vain, Love bids the monarch drag his servile chain; And glorying less to please, than to destroy, 70 In scenes of woe exults ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... a large and beautiful gem, so uncommon and rare, that all search for it is vain, all efforts to obtain it hopeless; but it consists of a series of smaller and commoner gems, grouped and set together, forming a pleasing and graceful whole. Happiness consists in the enjoyment of little pleasures scattered along the common path of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... but she defended its merits with energy, and munched biscuits with an excellent appetite. Afterwards she smoked a cigarette and Dion his pipe, sitting on the ground and leaning against the tent wall. In vain Achilles drew her attention to the chairs. Rosamund stretched out her long limbs ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... out, and they hide themselves in the most terrific manner: hanging themselves up behind draperies, like bats, and tumbling out in the dead of night with frightful caterwaulings. Hereupon French borrows Beaucourt's gun, loads the same to the muzzle, discharges it twice in vain, and throws himself over with the recoil, exactly like a clown. . . . About four pounds of powder and half a ton of shot have been fired off at the cat (and the public in general) during the week. The funniest ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... that Kelly's marriage would have been the means of producing a change in him for the better, but it did not. He was, in fact, the slave of a low, vain ambition, which constantly occasioned him to have some quarrel or other on his hands; and, as he possessed great physical courage and strength, he became the champion of the parish. It was in vain that his wife used every argument to ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... though that pen he wielded in his hand Ordain'd the Wealth of Nations to command; Yet when on Helicon he dar'd to draw, His draft return'd and unaccepted saw. If thus like him we lay a rune in vain, Like him we'll strive some humbler prize ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... rousing wines, One anodynes, And one declares That nothing ails it but the pains of growth. My last look loth Is taken; and I turn, with the relief Of knowing that my life-long hope and grief Are surely vain, To that unshapen time to come, when She, A dim, heroic Nation long since dead, The foulness of her agony forgot, Shall all benignly shed Through ages vast The ghostly grace of her transfigured past Over the present, harass'd and forlorn, Of nations yet unborn; And this shall be the lot ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... the house that night. Downstairs, Mrs. Carew sat by the shaded lamp in her upright armchair. She was not writing, but had re-opened the large black Bible. Molly was courting sleep in vain, having resolutely blown out her candle. Sidney made no pretence. He was fully dressed, and seated at his rarely-used writing-table. Before him lay a telegraph-form bearing nothing but ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... aligned:— Set forth my sev'rance, griefs, tyrannic wrongs, * And ill device ill-suiting lover-kind. How oft love-claimant, craving secrecy, * How oft have lovers 'plained as sore they pined, How many a brimming bitter cup I've quaffed, * And wept my woes when speech was vain as wind! And thou:—"Be patient, 'tis thy bestest course * And choicest medicine for mortal mind!" Then unto patience worthy praise cleave thou; * Easy of issue and be lief resigned: Nor hope thou aught of me lest ill alloy * Or aught ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... politician or the stage-king is understood from point to point, from end to end. This is a degree of trouble which will be gladly taken by a very humble artist; but not even the terror of eternal fire can teach a business man to bend his imagination to such athletic efforts. Yet without this, all is vain; until we understand the whole, we shall understand none of the parts; and otherwise we have no more than broken images and scattered words; the meaning remains buried; and the language in which our prophet speaks to us is a dead language ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... part of the original inscription. The most important trophy which the English conqueror brought from Scotland was the stone of Scone, a reminder now of the union of the two kingdoms, but then a constant source of irritation to the Scots, who tried in vain to get it back. The chair which encloses the stone was made in Edward's time, and has ever since been used as the seat of our sovereigns at their coronations. Once and once only a man not of royal birth was privileged to receive the insignia of government seated ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... endeavor to obtain "something for nothing" by piling their luggage into seats they have not paid for on the train; on the boat they fortify themselves in a circle of chairs that are "engaged"—generally to hold their wraps and lunch-boxes, while others look in vain for seats. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Interest or Happiness of the City, the Question was put, What Place I thought most pleasant to walk in? No body can doubt but before the stinking Streets of London, I would esteem a fragrant Garden, or shady Grove in the Country. In the same Manner, if, laying aside all worldly Greatness and Vain Glory, I should be ask'd, where I thought it was most probable that Men might enjoy true Happiness, I would prefer a small peaceable Society, in which Men, neither envy'd nor esteem'd by Neighbours, should be contented to live upon the Natural Product of the Spot they inhabit, ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... Sun-god who called it forth. Once each year, in the sultry heats of June, the women wept and tore their hair in memory of his untimely death, and Istar, it was said, had descended into Hades in the vain hope of bringing him back to life. One of the most famous of Babylonian poems was that which told of the descent of Istar through the seven gates of the underground world, and which was chanted at the annual commemoration of his death. At each gate, it is said, the goddess left behind ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... forthwith. Paddy was completely nonplussed:—all the provisions were gone, and yet his guests were not to be trifled with. He made a hundred excuses—"'Twas late—'twas dry now—and there was nothing in the house; sure they ate and drank enough." But all in vain. The ould sinner was threatened with instant death if he delayed. So Paddy called a council of war in the parlour, consisting of his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... made simultaneously on different parts of the town, and though the besieged fought bravely, they fought in vain, and by the next morning all but the Castle and the little fort above were in the hands of the enemy. Sir Hugh Pollard, the Governor (Sir Edward Seymour was at this time taking part in the defence of Exeter), had been wounded the night before, ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... flattery, though he was not prepared to marry. It was quite possible that she might be able to dig such a pit for him that it would be easier for him to marry her than to get out in any other way. Of course she must trust something to his own folly at first. Nor did she trust in vain. Before her week was over at Mrs. Gore's she received from him a letter, which, with the correspondence to which it immediately led, shall ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... public or private undertaking, as when about to take a journey, or when entering upon marriage; he regulating the gathering of roots and berries, the hunting and fishing, and the division of spoils. The priests said of the chief, "He speaks calmly, but never in vain." They admired the self-control of the Indians, who never showed any impatience when misfortunes befell them; and said, that, the farther they penetrated into the wilderness, the better Indians they found. They were especially pleased with those ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... twenty knights to the assistance of the three policemen and the six porters; so that for Eames, even had he desired it, there was no possible chance of escape. But he did not desire it. One only sorrow consumed him at present. He had, as he felt, attacked Crosbie, but had attacked him in vain. He had had his opportunity, and had misused it. He was perfectly unconscious of that happy blow, and was in absolute ignorance of the great fact that his enemy's eye was already swollen and closed, and that in another hour it would be as black ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... assembled, one gloomy afternoon, a large body of armed men, not connected with the searching parties which had been ransacking the region in the vain duplex search which we have tried to describe. It was a war-party under the command of Addedomar the outlaw—if we may thus characterise a man in a land where there was little or no law of any kind, ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... was constantly exposed to danger and death. How unhappy such a condition for a man tormented with fear, which is vain if no danger comes; and if it does, only augments the pain! It was my happiness to be destitute of this afflicting passion, with which I had the greatest reason to be affected. The prowling wolves diverted my nocturnal hours with perpetual howlings, and the ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... length, the conversation which ensued. It was tolerably connected, as might be looked for in so small a company, seldom, branching out into miscellaneous details, and turning chiefly upon literary matters. But I found it impossible to join in it with any degree of relish. In vain did my opposite neighbour call up before my imagination the scenes of my birthplace; in vain did our landlord crack his jokes—for he was a great humourist—and rally me upon my dulness; in vain did he allege that I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... failed to accomplish, was accomplished at last by a voluntary association of students, organizing that sense of honor which, in youth and societies of youth, if rightly touched, is never appealed to in vain. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... In vain he entreated them not to kill themselves; and assured them that heaven would be satisfied, and that human nature could not endure beyond a certain point. No answer, but the loud sound of the scourges, which are many of them of iron, with sharp points that enter the flesh. At length, as if they ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... thing in the awful dampness, so we folded the blankets with the dry part on top as well as we could, and then "crawled in." We hated to get up for dinner, but as we were guests, we felt that we must do so, but for that meal we waited in vain—not one morsel of dinner was prepared that night, and Miss Hayes and I envied the enlisted men when we got sniffs of their boiling coffee. Only a soldier could have found dry wood and a place for making ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... religion, has made them hard and incurious; it is a land of uncompromising masculinity. The softer element—thanks to the Koran—has become non-existent, and you will look in vain for the creative-feminine, for those intermediate types of ambiguous, submerged sexuality, the constructive poets and dreamers, the men of imagination and women of will, that give to good society in the north its sweetness and chatoyance; for those "sports" ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... the tutor at his college, and taken his name off the books without any degree. About this, too, he had argued with Sir Thomas, expressing a strong opinion that a university degree was in England, of all pretences, the most vain and hollow. At twenty-three he began his career at the Moonbeam with two horses,—and from that day to this hunting had been the chief aim of his life. During the last winter he had hunted six days a week,—assuring Sir Thomas, however, that ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... this privileged first-born of reason, I perceived, would be vain. I therefore only requested him to let me remain another day at his house, while I sought for a lodging; and not to inform Mr. Venables that I had ever ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... was gone. And Chet! Chet Bullard!... Harkness' head was heavy on his shoulders; his feet took him with hopeless, lagging steps to his waiting ship. He was tired—and the long strain of the flight had been in vain. He was suddenly certain of disaster. And Chet—Chet was up there at some hitherto untouched height, ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... finds it difficult to reform it. The best people, who are determined to broaden all their 'a''s, will forget in moments of excitement, and fall back into old habits. It requires constant vigilance to keep the letter 'a' flattened out. It is in vain that scholars have pointed out that in the use of this letter lies the main difference between the English and the American speech; either Americans generally do not care if this is the fact, or fashion can only work a reform in a limited ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the women in a fascinated way, again opened his mouth in vain, and again Anna dragged backward at ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... collar was point-de-vice of prime quality over black velvet. My uncle's welcome was more than a vain lad could stomach; and what youth of his first teens hath not a vanity hidden ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... with her by the medium of an older sister who was in a Carmelite nunnery, and the marquise perceived that her father had on his death bequeathed the care and supervision of her to her brothers. Thus her first crime had been all but in vain: she had wanted to get rid of her father's rebukes and to gain his fortune; as a fact the fortune was diminished by reason of her elder brothers, and she had scarcely enough to pay her debts; while the rebukes were renewed from the mouths ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... abundant life of the time, unsuspicious of all dangers that gathered darkly against it, flowed on its cheerful aimless way. In the cities men fussed about their businesses and engagements. The newspaper placards that had cried "wolf!" so often, cried "wolf!" now in vain. ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... suffered, wept, and languished, Thinking hope was all in vain, Soul in mourning, torn heart anguished? Then you understand ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... down. Then she went down the lower flight of steps until she came to a closed door, which had been securely fastened from the outside by the man who brought up her box. She shook it and beat it with her little fists; but all in vain. Nobody seemed to hear her knocks; or, if heard, they were disregarded. She tried the baize door with like ill-success. Hugo had said the truth; ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... mean. And you know quite as well as I do that it is perfectly true. The dinners were a beastly bore, which proves that they were a loud success. Your work was not done in vain. But now I want something else. We must push along the ball we've been talking of. And the yachting cruise—that ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... withal, of a genial temper, he was sensitive of affront, and keen in his expressions of displeasure; he had his hot outbursts of anger with Wilson and Wordsworth, and even with Scott, on account of supposed slights, but his resentment speedily subsided, and each readily forgave him. He was somewhat vain of his celebrity, but what shepherd had not been vain of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... inevitable disaster, of such alien surroundings. Who also does not know that often when the whole will is set to identify conduct with conviction, it may be, for all its passionate and bitter sincerity, set in vain. In every hour of every day there are hundreds of lives that battle honestly, but with decreasing spiritual forces, with passion and temptation. Sometimes a life is driven by the fierce gales of enticement, the swift currents of desire, right ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... stump against "ignorant men and small boys," for time out of mind all over this country and every other country where they could command an audience of curious people willing to throw away an hour or two on a vain, futile and foolish harangue, proposing to transform men into women and women into men. Such dissatisfied females should not hurl anathemas at men, forsooth, because they happened to be born into the world women instead of men. God alone is responsible for the difference ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... from behind the waterfall, which seemed determined to sweep us from the bridge, and scatter us on the rocks and among the torrents below. I remarked that I wanted to go home; but it was too late. We were almost under the monstrous wall of water thundering down from above, and speech was in vain in the midst of such a ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... history. About the middle of the century, Roger Williams (1599-1683), having ventilated opinions contrary to the general Calvinism, was driven out of Salem, where he had ministered to a grateful church. His pleas for a real religious freedom were in vain, and he was forced to wander from the colonial settlements and find a precarious home among the Indians. After much privation, he succeeded in establishing a new colony at Rhode Island, where a more liberal ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... touched the subject of suffrage in Louisiana, repeating that he held it better to extend to the more intelligent colored men the elective franchise, giving the recently emancipated a prize to work for in obtaining property and education.[106] The Convention tried in vain to declare what constituted a Negro, giving it up in disgust. It did abolish slavery in general; granted suffrage to those whites who were loyal to the government; and to colored men according to educational and property qualifications. In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... If we do not obtain definite guarantees against the monster who has barely failed to strangle them and to force the entire world back into the darkness of slavery, we shall have failed in our task, and the blood shed in the fight for Liberty will have been shed in vain. ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... he had tried in vain to get some trace of the two missing girls, and expressed the hope of seeing the boys soon, to get the benefit of any advice they could give him. He also stated that he was progressing well with his scientific work of noting the effect of terrific noises on insects. But, somehow or ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... ourselves close by in the grass and stones. Presently we saw from our own hiding-place three white men, armed with guns, seeking for us. Their names were Martinus Meyer, Jan Meyer, and Isaac Meyer, all three sons of old Isaac Meyer. They sought us in vain. From our hiding-place we heard the waggon driven away; and later, when we went back to Degaza's kraal, they told us that the Meyers had inspanned the waggon, and had returned with it to the Transvaal ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... looked—in vain. By this time the servants were gone to bed, and the two searchers were quite alone on the ground floor of their magnificent mansion. Mrs. Greyne began to look seriously perturbed. Her ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... await: Thou leavest desolate and bare Thy kingdom rare, And thine own glory dost reject And true estate. 40 But cast these slippers now aside, This gaudy dress and its long train, Thou art all bowed, Lest Death come on thee unespied And in thy pride These thy desires and trappings vain Prove ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... girl. As his eyes rested contemplatingly on his companion's bent head and youthfully-lean figure, he began to visualize a very plain, dowdy sister. The "Good Lord, no!" probably meant that although Freddy was not the least vain of his own extraordinary good looks, he could not help exclaiming at the idea of his dowdy sister being considered ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Homage for the Duchy of Aquitaine had not been rendered to him, and on this pretext he began to exercise all possible modes of annoyance on the borders, and to give judgment against any Guiennois or Poitevins who sued against Edward as their liege lord, Edward remonstrated in vain, and sent his brother Edmund, Earl of Kent, a fine-looking but weak young man of twenty-two, to endeavor to make peace, but in vain: on the first pretext, a war ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... woman With a smile that still was sweet, Sewed on a little garment, With a cradle at her feet. Pantaloon stood ready and waiting, It was time for the going on; But the clown in vain searched wildly,— The "property baby" ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... solicitation were more powerful than the laws—that it was your duty not to pity the aged mother of Timarchus, nor his children, nor any one else, but to attend solely to one point, namely, that if you abandoned the cause of the laws and the constitution, you would look in vain for any to have pity on yourselves. {284} Is that unhappy man to have lost his rights as a citizen, because he witnessed the guilt of Aeschines, and will you then suffer Aeschines to escape unscathed? On what ground can you do so? for if Aeschines demanded so heavy a penalty from those whose ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... policies have secured the necessaries of life, ambition, avarice, and luxury, find the mind at leisure for their reception, and soon engage it in new pursuits; pursuits that are to be carried on by incessant labour, and, whether vain or successful, produce anxiety and contention. Among savage nations, imaginary wants find, indeed, no place; but their strength is exhausted by necessary toils, and their passions agitated not by contests about superiority, affluence, or precedence, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... overcome with shame and drove to Ellaphine's house by a side street and escorted the horse to the livery-stable by a back alley. On his way home he tried in vain to dodge Luella Thickins, but she headed him off with one of her Sunday-best smiles. She bowled him over by an ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... reduced to such a weak state that they were obliged to be drawn on board our vessel by ropes. A brig bound for Havannah took part of the men, and we took the remainder. To attempt any description of my feelings on witnessing such scenes would be in vain. You will not be surprised to learn that I felt somewhat uneasy at the thought that we were so far from England, and that I also might possibly suffer similar shipwreck; but I consoled myself with the hope that fate would be more kind to us. It was not so much so, however, as I had ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... p. 424.).—My note of the coat-armour in question stands thus: "Three bars between ten bells, four, three, two, and one." And I have before now searched in vain for its appropriation. I am consequently obliged to {494} content myself with the supposition that it is a corruption, as it may easily be, of the coat of Keynes, viz. "vair, three bars gules," the name of the wife of John ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... and there they showed him the chain, desiring him to try his strength in breaking it. At the same time they told him that it was a good deal stronger than it looked. They took it in their own hands and pulled at it, attempting in vain to break it, and then they said ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... "Robinson is a vain man," she said thoughtfully. "He will not let go the chance of notoriety given him by the murder of a well-known actress. Was she really murdered? Robinson said so when I met him ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... all melted away in the train," protested Fanny Fitz in vain. Those of her friends who had only seen the mare in the catalogue sent dealers to buy her, and those who had seen her in the flesh—or what was left of it—sent amateurs; but all, dealers and the greenest of amateurs alike, entirely ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... while the yellow acacia was not more brightly golden than the silken tresses of Bertha,—tresses that ran in ripples, and lost themselves in a sunny stream of natural curls, which seemed audaciously bent on breaking their bounds, and looked as though they were always in a frolic. In vain they were smoothed back by the skilful fingers of an expert femme de chambre, and confined in an elaborate knot at the back of Bertha's small head; the rebellious locks would wave and break into fine rings upon the white brow, and lovingly steal ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... screams of women and children aroused me from profound torpor! Shrieks were followed by volleys of musketry. Then came a loud tattoo of knocks at my door, and appeals from the negro chief to rise and fly. "The town was besieged:—the head-men were on the point of escaping:—resistance was vain:—they had been betrayed—there were no fighters to ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... gives the word to fire into them as they stand; and instantly out flashes the fire of three rifles from as many loopholes, followed by such a commotion over there among the shadows as seems to indicate that the fire has not been in vain. Two more shots, one each from Henderson and Manners, complete the enemy's discomfiture, and ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... long way across Isla Water. And twice across is longer. And "The Cold Hand of Isla" summons the chief of Clan Morhguinn when his time has come to look upon his own wraith face to face. But The Cold Hand of Isla had touched this girl in vain—MOLADH MAIRI!! ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... leadership.[1772] Although his standard of official honesty had always been as low as his standard of official responsibility, it never aroused violent party opposition until his personal resentments brought Democratic defeat. This classified him at once as a common enemy. In vain did he protest as Tweed had done against being made a "scape-goat." His sentence was political death, and as a first step toward its execution, Mayor Cooper refused to reappoint him comptroller, an office which he had held for four years. Republican ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... was, of all men, the most unfit for a position like that in which he was placed. He was a good fighter, a chivalrous, brave man; but he was weak and vain, and without tact or discretion. His intentions were, at all times, pure, but want of judgment frequently placed him in unpleasant positions. The condition of the minds of the people of Georgia, at this ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... their most grievous burden, and insuring peace by the absolute control the Companies was certain to acquire of foodstuffs and the munitions of war? Then, indeed, his life would not have been in vain! ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... curiosity, as Amabel waited on Charles and her flowers, or Laura drew, wrote letters, and strove to keep down the piles of books and periodicals under which it seemed as if her brother might some day be stifled—a vain task, for he was sure to want immediately whatever she put out of ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... caused in Christendom, the waste of noble lives, the devastation of once happy provinces, and the effusion of innocent blood. Going from camp to camp they exhorted, prayed, and reproached the rival sovereigns, urging that while Christians were shedding each other's blood in vain, the infidels were daily waxing bolder and more insolent. Their arguments would have been but of little use had either of the monarchs felt sure of victory. King Edward, however, felt that his ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... themselves of it. Their rifle fire became hotter and more incessant than ever, and as the Canadian troops were all huddled up in a narrow road, their murderous volleys were very destructive. It was a vain effort on the part of the officers to check the retreat and rally the men for the first few hundred yards, but after a while they cooled down and retired in an orderly manner, occasionally turning around to take a parting shot at the Fenians, who were pursuing them. Occasionally a squad or ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... Serbie, c'est a dire de la punition de la politique precedente de la Serbie et des garanties pour l'avenir. De ceci l'Allemagne conclue qu'il faut exercer une action moderatrice a Petersbourg. Ce sophisme a ete refute a Paris comme a Londres. A Paris, le Baron de Schoen a en vain tache d'entrainer la France a une action solidaire avec l'Allemagne sur la Russie en faveur du maintien de la paix. Les memes tentatives out ete faites a Londres. Dans les deux capitales il a ete repondu que l'action devrait etre ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... fireplace, the perfectly bound books, and the costly spaces of the great room. Yet he was voicing the same longing that I, whose fight was just beginning, had often felt—the longing to step aside from the struggle for vain things, the longing to turn from the smoke and grime of the conflict to the quiet and peace of the valley. Now I voiced that longing too, forgetting Mrs. Bannister and her evident creed that man's chief end was to know ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... more proud and obstinate—so proud and obstinate as to find it a thing incredible that the order should indeed change and the old regime pass away—still remain, and by their vain endeavours to lord it in their castles provoke such scenes as that enacted at Bellecour in February of '93 (by the style of slaves) or Pluviose of the year One of the French Republic, as it shall presently come to be known in the annals of ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... was still in the hands of the station-master, to whose care it had been addressed. This diligent person professed to have sent a man through the Orient Express, from end to end, calling for Miss Helen Mowbray, but calling in vain. He had no theory more plausible to offer than that the lady had not started from Kronburg; or else that she had left the train at Felgarde before her name had been cried. But certainly she would not have had time to go far, if she were a through passenger, for the ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... can produce the most tragically terrific upheavals! Had she not bought a return railway ticket, the whole disaster might have been averted. But for that horrible square inch of pink cardboard, all would have been well, her ordeal would not have been suffered in vain. The wickedly strong intoxicant had of course begun the mischief by making her blurt out those imbecile words that first set Will on the rampage; but it was the knowledge of the telltale ticket, close at hand, unguarded, certain to be found if looked for, that had unnerved her so completely. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... frequently crossed; but in a fight of this kind, discipline tells its tale. The blacks and Egyptians maintained their lines, steadily and firmly; and against these, individual effort and courage, even of the highest quality, were in vain. ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... crowns taken away. I had a diamond ring on my finger, which I hoped they would not observe, and I turned the stone inside, heartily wishing, as I did so, that it had the power of Gyges' ring, and could render me invisible. But all was in vain. The robbers soon found it out. When they had taken every ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... he be like in the monotonous class-room? These may seem wanton charges to some, but I am not speaking without my book. Monthly I am brought into close contact with the pedagogic intelligence through the medium of three educational magazines. A certain morbid habit against which I struggle in vain makes me read everything I catch a schoolmaster writing. I am, indeed, one of the faithful band who read the Educational Supplement of the Times. In these papers schoolmasters write about their business, lectures upon the questions of ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... Este.[401] The play is an avowed and solitary attempt to revive the 'satyric' drama of the Greeks, a kind of which the Cyclops of Euripides is the only extant example. The action is simple. The rural demigods, fauns, satyrs, and the like, having long sought the love of the nymphs of Diana in vain, enter, at the suggestion of Egle the mistress of Silenus, upon a plan whereby they may have the careless maidens in their power. They make a show of leaving Arcadia in high dudgeon, abandoning their families of little fauns and satyrs. On these the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... if my faith is vain, If hopes like these betray, Pray for me that I too may gain The sure and ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... Island of Sphakteria—the scene of the first famous surrender of the Spartans—before the Greek fleet could arrive to relieve it. The forts of Navarino then capitulated, and Ibrahim pushed on his victorious march towards the centre of the Morea. It was in vain that the old chief Kolokotrones was brought from his prison at Hydra to take supreme command. The conqueror of Dramali was unable to resist the onslaught of Ibrahim's regiments, recruited from the fierce races of the Soudan, and fighting with the same ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... in vain for an equal march of infantry; nine-tenths of it through a wilderness, where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found, or deserts, where for want of water, there is no living creature. There, with almost hopeless labor we have dug deep wells. Without a guide we have crossed ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... who tries to play peacemaker between two of his mistresses. This is enough to bring lava from any "extinguished volcano." Liszt, after almost vain efforts to avoid downright hair-pulling, decided to take the comtesse away from Nohant. He seems to have sided with her against Sand, and said afterward: "I did not care to expose myself to her insolence" (sottise). Chopin, however, took sides with Sand, and it is said that his heart chilled toward ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... Here, you women; tear me the nap off with your fingers. My God! what is to be done? She'll bleed to death!" And he held her to his breast, and almost moaned with pity over her, as he pressed the cold sponge to her wound—in vain; for still the red ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... not merely calmed but delighted her; to be the wife of Delvile seemed now a matter of necessity, and she soothed herself with believing that to struggle against it were vain. ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... rushed upon the scaffold, picking up the book of Hours and the crucifix as relics; and Jeanne Kennedy, remembering the little dog who had come to his mistress, looked about for him on all sides, seeking him and calling him, but she sought and called in vain. He had disappeared. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... most attractive of the author's duties to explore the interior of Australia. There the philosopher may look for facts; the painter and the poet for original studies and ideas; the naturalist for additional knowledge; and the historian might begin at a beginning. The traveller there seeks in vain for the remains of cities, temples, or towers; but he is amply compensated by objects that tell not of decay but of healthful progress and hope;—of a wonderful past, and of a promising future. Curiosity alone may attract us into the mysterious recesses of ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... Henry Harrison[6] was governor of Indiana territory. He had fought under General Wayne[7] in his war with the Indians in Ohio. Everybody knew Governor Harrison's courage, and the Indians all respected him; but he tried in vain to prevent the Indians from going to war. The "Prophet" urged them on at the north, and Tecumseh had gone south to persuade the Indians there ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... placed nearly five hundred dollars in missus's hands: but how vain were the hopes that had borne us through so many privations for the accumulation of this portion of our price of freedom! Master has sold my children,—yes, sold them! He will not tell me where nor to whom. Missus will neither see nor hear me; ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... obsequies, without friend or mourner, without surviving relatives to take a last look or shed a tear, was one of the appalling spectacles. There was the breathless suspense and anxiety of those who feared the worst, who waited in vain for news of the safety of their friends, and at last were compelled to believe that their loved ones ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... their ingle nooks, dormer windows, or many gables. Here the men to whom we still pay tribute spent their hours of ease, unconscious that their lightest words would be sought for eagerly in generations to come—and be sought in vain. But the knowledge that the old houses had their being, and that the great poets of the Elizabethan era frequented them, hallows many a dusty, dingy street in the city's by-ways now given over to feverish activity from dawn to dusk, and to ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... so, but I don't know where she is. Curtis has tried to find her, but in vain. He ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... slaves and freedmen, such as had contented the simple greatness of Augustus and Trajan, three or four magnificent courts were established in the various parts of the empire, and as many Roman kings contended with each other and with the Persian monarch for the vain superiority of pomp and luxury. The number of ministers, of magistrates, of officers, and of servants, who filled the different departments of the state, was multiplied beyond the example of former times; and (if we may borrow ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... constant expectation of being sent for again to Gloucester, and begin (sic) a canvas. I think if I prevent it, and an opposition, I shall be very vain of my conduct. There is nothing so flattering as the shewing people who thought that they could dupe you, that you know more of the matter than they do. I know too little to be active, but have prudence ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... endowed with fine human virtues and even finer human weaknesses. Miss Tillotson, next to the head clerk in rank and pay—and a pretty and pushing young person—dreamed of getting acquainted with him—really well acquainted. It was a vain dream. For him, between up town and down town a great gulf was fixed. Also, he had no interest in or ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... "Yes, but in vain," returned the princess; who then related to Raoul the scene that took place at Chaillot, and the king's despair on his return; she told him of his indulgence to herself, and the terrible word with which the outraged princess, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Heights, which rise sharply behind the little town of Fredericksburg on the southern bank of the Rappahannock River. Burnside attacked in front. His soldiers had to cross the river and assault the hill in face of a murderous fire—and in vain. He lost thirteen thousand men to only four thousand of the Confederates. "Fighting Joe" Hooker now succeeded Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac. We must now turn to the West, and see what had been ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... of Leuchars is a vain imagination concerning a certain fleet of Danes wrecked on Sheughy Dikes.' WALTER SCOTT. 'The fishing people on that coast have, however, all the appearance of being a different race from the inland population, and their dialect has many peculiarities.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... symptoms, instead of going to the foundation of the evil—a deficiency of self-respect, growing out of a want of instruction in things proper to be known, and for which the education of the country makes no provision—all will be in vain. How far there will prevail a more enlarged view of this painful subject, is not discoverable from the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... are less numerous and less peculiar, it must often be difficult to distinguish them. To this, other reasons may be added. Amongst the aristocratic nations of the Middle Ages, generation succeeded generation in vain; each family was like a never-dying, ever-stationary man, and the state of opinions was hardly more changeable than that of conditions. Everyone then had always the same objects before his eyes, which he contemplated from the same point; his eyes gradually ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... forgotten, despite the numerous facts against him. I demand that D'ORLEANS be sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal." The Convention, once his hireling adulators, unanimously supported the proposal. In vain he alleged his having been accessory to the disorders of 5th October, his support of the revolt on 10th August, 1792, his vote against the King on 17th January, 1793. His condemnation was pronounced. He then asked only for a ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... at the door. It did not budge. It had caught at the bottom. Pulling with all her might proved to be in vain. Pausing, with palms hot and bruised, she heard a louder, closer approach of the invaders of her home. Fear, wrath, and impotence contested for supremacy over her and drove her to desperation. She was alone here, and she must rely on herself. ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... rolled over. I looked round. At the edge of the wood a hare had just come into view, with one ear bent down and the other one sharply pricked, The blood rushed to my head, and I forgot everything else as I shouted, slipped the dog, and rushed towards the spot. Yet all was in vain. The hare stopped, made a rush, ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... things in the world detest letter-writing. Besides, I heard you was just going to be married, and as a poet, I durst not approach you without an Epithalamium, and an Epithalamium was a thing, which at that time I could not compass. It was all in vain, that Cupid and Hymen, Juno and Luna, offered their assistance; I had no sort of ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... which these words are the text has been preached many times in many ways to congregations for whom the Dollar Devil had always a more winning eloquence. Like many another man who has talked wearily to his fellows with an honest sense of what they truly need, I feel how vain it is to hope for many earnest listeners. Yet here and there may be men and women, ignorantly sinning against the laws by which they should live or should guide the lives of others, who will perhaps be willing to heed what one unbiased ...
— Wear and Tear - or, Hints for the Overworked • Silas Weir Mitchell
... (1814).—The armies of the allies now poured over all the French frontiers. Napoleon's tremendous efforts to roll back the tide of invasion were all in vain. As the struggle became manifestly hopeless, his most trusted officers deserted and betrayed him. Paris surrendered to the allies. Napoleon was forced to abdicate, and the ancient House of the Bourbons was reestablished in the person of a brother of Louis XVI., who took the title ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... somewhat unwilling aspect, though she was decently civil to Mr. and Miss Lovel. She had protested against the flagrant breach of etiquette in calling on people who had just dined with her, instead of waiting until those diners had discharged their obligation by calling on her; but in vain. Her father had brought her to look at some of Clarissa's ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Vain were supplications and prayers to wait. Gabrielle led me away to the meadows, where a fly was in waiting, which conveyed us to the church. I saw her married; I signed something in a great book; I felt her warm tears and embraces, and I knew that Mr. Thomas Erminstoun kissed me ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... with a wild laugh; "you ask this? The time has at last come for an explanation. I would willingly have spared you, but it is in vain that we seek to avoid our fate! Rest here!" and seizing my wrist, she dragged me down on the fallen trunk of a tree that lay half hidden by the tall grass at the side of the path. Immediately behind us was a gloomy wood, choked with rank autumnal growths. A more dank, unwholesome situation ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... possible, that the savour of this suspended bliss was too sweet to lose. A tremor ran through Blanche as their eyes met. She recognised that in him was an austerity against which even she could beat in vain. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... like passions with ourselves." Yet, just in the acknowledgement of his own infirmities by Zwingli, and in his submission with humble faith to a Higher Power, do the unmistakable features of true religion shine victoriously above that worship of self which springs only from vain conceit.—May the following work produce the same conviction in the ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... away. "Monsieur, you talk in vain. You have no royal warrant to supersede mine. Do what you will when you come to Toulouse," and he smiled darkly. "Meanwhile, the Vicomte ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... present was positively known by me which made it out of the question that Joseph Pendean's wife should be the mother of Giuseppe Doria. But none the less many facts might exist as yet beyond my knowledge, which would prove such a suspicion vain. I considered how to obtain these facts and naturally my thought turned to Giuseppe himself. To show you by what faltering steps we sometimes climb to safe ground, I may say that at this stage of my inquiry I had not imagined Doria and Michael Pendean were one and the same ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... In vain had Tom and Bob, hurrying recklessly, bumping their canoe along the rough shore, essayed to complete the carry before it would be too late. To their chagrin and dismay, the sound of a horn blown three times with a vigour announced to them the triumph of their comrades. Sadly they shouldered ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... doubt, as they would say, from the self-fertilisation of plants, is the result of the increase of some morbid tendency or weakness of constitution common to the closely related parents, or to the two sexes of hermaphrodite plants. Undoubtedly injury has often thus resulted; but it is a vain attempt to extend this view to the numerous cases given in my Tables. It should be remembered that the same mother-plant was both self-fertilised and crossed, so that if she had been unhealthy she would have transmitted half her morbid tendencies to her crossed offspring. ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... bald and are usually vain in the matter of dress, probably due to the fact that in the past they were attaches of royalty. A midget is usually suave in manners and not easily embarrassed in public. Several instances are related that midgets, back in the conspiring and deceitful days of royalty, gave their patrons ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... proved to be vain. Bud and Hal were both still listening-in, but with little suggestion of expectancy on ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... sacrifice would not, could not be in vain. Otherwise I should be merely urging on you the individualism which you once advocated ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... her young-sister-in-law with wide eyes. It was the first time in all her petted, vain life that any one had called her to account. She was, at first, too deeply amazed to resent the ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... In vain did Fairfax solicit his release: Cromwell refused it, and Villiers remained in durance until the abdication of Richard Cromwell, when he was set at liberty, but not without the following ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... said the poor woman, with a glance at the wretched forms beside her; "and may you," she added, after a momentary pause, "deserve the blessing of God, for it is bestowed in vain on those ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... meant, and that he had not sent that shower of fine bird shot after the trio of desperate young scamps in vain. ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... had great faith, which they have supplemented with mighty works. They have been able to put trust in each other and trust in their Government. Their candor in dealing with foreign governments has commanded respect and confidence. Yet these remarkable powers would have been exerted almost in vain without the constant cooperation and careful administration ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... Probably you will never know just why your story has struck so deeply home with me and why it seemed to make you more a son to me than a stranger. I have guessed that in going west you are simply wandering. You are fighting in a vain and foolish sort of way to run away from something. Isn't that it? You are running away—trying to escape the one thing in the whole wide world that you cannot lose by flight—and that's memory. You can ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... her ghostlike as she passed through the living-room, their startled questions unheeded. Could it be true that she had betrayed every decent attribute of a woman in vain? Why had the counter-attack failed? Because Westerling had been too strong, too clever, for old Partow? Because God was still with the heaviest battalions? Half running, half stumbling, the light of the lantern bobbing and trembling weirdly, she ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... the Master, in disgust, pointed out these diverse failings of the pup, that the Mistress was wont to draw on historic precedent for other instances of slow development, and to take in vain the names of Thackeray, Lincoln, Washington ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... Break not out in vain lamenting! Preserve you for your father the firm friend, And for yourself the lover, all will ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... horse, although sixty pounds was still allowed to the other horse for travelling the same distance, the calculation evidently being based on the supposition that the police magistrate's horse would eat six times as much as mine. Remonstrance was vain, and I found I had burdened myself with an animal, possessing no social or political influence whatever. I knew already that the world was governed without wisdom, and I now felt that it was ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... north, one hundred leagues from the Island de los Pinos. Being at sea, they were taken with a sad and tedious calm, and, by the agitation of the waves alone, were thrown into the gulf of Honduras: here they laboured hard in vain to regain what they had lost, both the waters and the winds being contrary; besides, the ship wherein Lolonois was embarked could not follow the rest; and what was worse, they wanted provisions. Hereupon, they were forced to put into the first port they could reach, to revictual: so they ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... fortune had suffered so severely as to render inevitable a reduction in his expenses by no means inconsiderable, nevertheless continued to actuate him, nearly to the exclusion of all other pursuits; he was, however, a proud, or rather a vain man, and could not bear to make the diminution of his income a matter of gratulation and triumph to those with whom he had hitherto competed, and the consequence was, that he frequented no longer the expensive haunts of dissipation, and retired from the gay world, leaving ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company tried in vain to see behind the mask-like face of the man in the revolving chair. His failure only excited his admiration and respect. Instinctively he recognized the genius before him, and his desire to add this strength to ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... in the water swam towards the wherry, and I judged from her movements that those in her were engaged in picking them up. I sang out and struggled in vain; but the Frenchman held me fast, and finally, to save himself further trouble, lifted me up by the collar and shoved me down the companion-hatch into the cabin, closing the slide over me. There was I, like a mouse caught in a trap. At first I burst ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... hated to see the King, and she was afraid to see Gilbert, whom she knew to be in the ship's company, and she was very sad, also, and cared not for the daylight nor for men's voices. It made it worse that she had tried to sacrifice herself for the woman Gilbert loved, since it had been in vain, and she had not been believed, and since he had after all come with her, she knew not why. As for the King, he sat all day long on the quarter-deck under an awning, telling beads, and praying fervently that the presence of the woman ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... By howling storm-blast driven; Where waves their power vaunted, From land it had been riven. No cry nor moan it uttered, I heard no plaint repeated; In vain its pinions fluttered — It had ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... "this rule."[005] It was, doubtless, such a compendium of doctrine he had in view when he charged Timothy to "keep that which was committed to his trust," contrasting this "deposit" with "profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called."[006] The bearing of this charge is made more emphatic when it is repeated by the Apostle in connection with the exhortation, "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds |
