"Futile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was brought to account, and paid out of the estates of Trenck. For this shameful purpose some thousand of florins were paid besides to this species of claimants and though, after examination, their pretensions all proved to be futile, and themselves were cast in damages, yet was none of this money ever refunded, or the false claimants punished. Among these the pretended daughter of General Schwerin received two thousand florins, notorious as was her character. Again, Trenck was accused of having appropriated the money to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... Rand, then bit his lip. He had not meant to carry things so far, but the pent-up anger had its way at last. His mind was weary and tense, irritable from two sleepless nights and from futile decisions, and he inherited a tendency to black and sudden rage. It was true he had walked through life with a black dog at his heels. Sometimes he turned, closed with, throttled, and flung off his pursuer; sometimes he left him far behind; more than once he had seen ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... the highroad, I turned sharply left, retracing the route by which I had come to the Eurasian doctor's abode. If he had suspected that I had intended to call at Friar's Park despite his assurance that such a visit would prove futile, then he was disappointed. A new and strange theory to account for "the Oritoga mystery" had presented itself to me—a horrible theory, yet, so far as my present data went, a feasible one. Above all, I realized that I had committed a strategical ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... Equally futile would be the offer of a wholesale pardon. A singular illustration of this occurred in 1887, when in honour of Her Majesty's Jubilee in the Bombay Presidency alone, no less than 2,465 prisoners were released out of a total of 6,087. Yet the Government ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... the presidential reception on the following evening would be of special dignity and splendour, and it was thought the part of duty by all who were of consequence in Richmond to attend and make a brave show before the world. Mr. Davis, at the futile peace conference in the preceding July, had sought to impress upon the Northern delegates the superior position of the South. "It was true," he said, "that Sherman was before Atlanta, but what matter if he took it? the world must have the Southern ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... time? The dandy is the 'child of his age,' and his best work must be produced in accord with the ages natural influence. The true dandy must always love contemporary costume. In this age, as in all precedent ages, it is only the tasteless who cavil, being impotent to win from it fair results. How futile their voices are! The costume of the nineteenth century, as shadowed for us first by Mr. Brummell, so quiet, so reasonable, and, I say emphatically, so beautiful; free from folly or affectation, yet susceptible to exquisite ordering; plastic, austere, ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... at his desire, to the seclusion of a quiet nook on the shore of the Altenfjord, where he succeeded in making a bold and vivid picture of the scene before him. The colors of the sky had, however, defied his palette, and after one or two futile attempts to transfer to his canvas a few of the gorgeous tints that illumed the landscape, he gave up the task in despair, and resigned himself to the dolce far niente of absolute enjoyment. From his half pleasing, half melancholy reverie the voice of the unknown maiden had startled him, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... around it; and in betwixt my sleeping, my eating and drinking (for Adam and Godby kept me excellent well supplied) I would betake me to my carving and fashioning of this eye and with my initials below it, the which foolish business (fond and futile though it was) served in no small measure to abate my consuming impatience and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... some temptation to sit over the fire if Geraldine had been alone there; but Alda, when Wilmet was out of reach, engrossed Cherry's ears with descriptions of her feelings, and cravings for sympathy in her suspense, treating every other subject as futile, and the interruption of the children's lessons as an insult. No one might talk of anybody but Ferdinand; and Cherry did not wonder that Felix looked wearied and harassed, and always betrayed some anxiety to come first into possession of the morning post. One day, nearly ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... published posthumously and she left nothing else but a couple of fragments. One of these, Lady Susan, does not, so far as it extends, promise much, though it is such a fragment and such an evident first draft even of this, that judgment of it is equally unfair and futile. The other, The Watsons, has some very striking touches, but is also a mere beginning. Persuasion—which appeared with Northanger Abbey and which, curiously enough, has, like its nearly twenty years elder sister, Bath ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... move not best after those words the Queen spoke to you last night," she answered simply. "Besides, our best efforts at escape would be futile should she suspect you have not perished where she entombed you. I am safe here, for the present at least, while you can accomplish much more for all of us if she believes you dead and takes no ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... the room where the two eagles of Dynevor were imprisoned, he found that the task he had set himself with his father was a more difficult one than he had anticipated. Edward was very greatly incensed by this fierce and futile rebellion that had cost him so many hundreds of brave lives, and had inflicted such sufferings on his loyal troops. The disaster at Menai still rankled in his breast, and it was with a very stern brow and a face of resolute determination that he returned to Carnarvon to look into matters, and ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... I set Every silly old-man threat While Lampito's with me. Or dear Ismenia, the noble Theban girl. Then let decree Be hotly piled upon decree; in vain will be your labours, You futile rogue abominated by your suffering neighbour To Hecate's feast I yesterday went— Off I sent To our neighbours in Boeotia, asking as a gift to me For them to pack immediately That darling dainty thing ... a good fat eel [1] ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... earnest, zealous, sincere, learned—the Doctor Buckley of his day—showed how that: "if the Copernican Theory should prevail, it would be the absolute undoing of the Bible, and the destruction of the Church, rendering the death of Christ futile. If the earth is only one of many planets, and not the center of the universe, and the other planets are inhabited, the whole plan of salvation fails, since the inhabitants of the other spheres are without the Bible, and Christ ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... him both. After several futile efforts he succeeded in writing a few words. Then he folded up the note, and handed it ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and deprive him of the half pay (which in a great measure accrued to him from purchase,) without accusation, arbitrarily, and on secret and suborned information of having; merited the inflicted contumely. But futile has been the effort of malevolence; Sir Robert Wilson's half pay was L460 per annum, and the subscriptions in indemnification of his ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... salary of $1000—and travel allowance of $2.50 for each mile between his home and the State House. This is too clear for argument. There is no need to consider those who are too rich to serve for this sum. It would be futile to discuss whether their services are worth more or less than this, as that is not here the question. Membership in the General Court is not a job. There are services rendered to the Commonwealth by senators and representatives that are priceless. For the searching out ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... a stand, sat facing the three callers, each of whose salutations she returned with a curtly polite bow. She had a desperate sense of being at bay, and that the hands of all these great men, whose supremacy she acknowledged with the futile uprearing of any angry woman, were against her. She eyed the lawyer, Eliphalet Means, with particular distrust. She had always held all legal proceedings as a species of quagmire to entrap the innocent and unwary. She watched while the lawyer took some documents from his ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... matter from the artificial and arbitrary segregation forced upon unwilling people by the laws of men. Under these conditions the disputes as to whether the best society of the blacks is inferior or superior to the best society of the whites becomes as academic and futile as would be similar contentions as to whether the best society of Constantinople is inferior or superior to ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... castles of the Roman aristocracy were at times strong fortifications from which war of the most ferocious and unscrupulous character was waged. Christendom was steeped in violence; only a gentle saint or bishop here and there caught a futile vision of a world of peace. Every man was armed against possible trouble with his neighbour; every noble had his retainers and kept them well exercised; every prince was free, as far as the spiritual authorities ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... all my attempts to satisfactorily analyze Winder's character and discover a sufficient motive for his monstrous conduct have been futile. Even if we imagine him inspired by a hatred of the people of the North that rose to fiendishness, we can not understand him. It seems impossible for the mind of any man to cherish so deep and insatiable ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... did not think it worth while being jealous, realising that he had no cause so far as the lady was concerned. I went on to suggest that we should try to run away, but we soon rejected the project as futile, and, to be perfectly honest, I do not believe that either of us would really have left Ayesha even if some superior power had suddenly offered to convey us from these gloomy caves and set us down in Cambridge. We could no more have left her than a moth can leave the light that destroys ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... sat there rocking back and forth, steadily, quietly. But her thin fingers were rolling a corner of her apron hem painstakingly, as if she meant to hem it again. Her eyes were fixed absently upon the futile task. Casey watched her as long as he dared and cleared his throat twice in the hope that she would notice him. But the old woman rocked back and forth and rolled her apron hem; unrolled it and carefully rolled ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... eyed him in bewilderment, and then, roused to a sense of her position by a renewed gurgling from the skipper's chair, set to work to try and thump that misguided man into a more serious frame of mind. Failing in this, she sat down, and, after a futile struggle, began to laugh herself, and that so heartily that Master Jones, smiling sympathetically, closed the door and came boldly ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... not by their politics but by the amenity of the social life they foster. Feeling that this was witchcraft or divination even more questionable, and dreading she had another Giorgione to sell, I made a last futile effort for freedom, proposing introductions. With a phrase she subdued me, and my halting French began to be eloquent. I confessed my innermost ambition, the creation of a criticism learned and judicial in substance but impressionistic ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... had been black. This was worse than forgetfulness in him; it was misremembrance. She pulled at the silver hairs passionately as though she would pluck them out and make him see her as she had been. But soon she stopped her futile effort to uncount the years. "I am foolish," she whispered to herself, and coiled her lock again and bound it in its place. "There are other ways of making him remember. Presently when he wakes again I will talk to ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... 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 ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... these lines are in print the Chancellor will have brought in his new Budget, and therefore any attempt to forecast the measures by which he will meet next year's revenue would be even more futile than most other endeavours at prophecy. But from the figures of last year as they are before us we see once more that the proportion of expenditure raised by revenue still leaves very much to be desired; L707 millions out of, roughly, L2700 millions is not nearly enough. ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... exponents of his thoughts. [Footnote: La propriete des termes est le caractere distinctif des grands ecrivains; c'est par la que leur style est toujours au niveau de leur sujet; c'est a cette qualite qu'on reconnait le vrai talent d'ecrire, et non a l'art futile de deguiser par un vain coloris les idees communes. So D'Alembert; but Caesar long before had said, ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... of the only doctor resident in the neighbourhood—a big, brusque-mannered man, who throughout these terrible two months has been their chief stay and help. He meets her on her entrance with an embarrassed air that tells its own tale, and at once renders futile ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... that to argue with her in the frame of mind she was then in would be futile—my presentiment at Holt that some day I should fall foul of her had come true! I turned ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... Upstill ceased his futile efforts, caught up his carbine, and fired—not without risk to Dorothy, for he was far too wrathful to take the aim that would have ensured her safety. But she rode on unhurt, meditating how to secure Upstill when she got him to Wyfern, whither she doubted not he would follow her. Her difficulties ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... go and find George. "What a chance I had almost missed," was the word in his heart. The errand might be futile, the message a blind, but it was at least ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... phenomena of the succession of animal life in past periods can only be explained by some law of evolution, it seems at the same time certain that there has always been some other deeper and higher law at work, on the nature of which it would be futile to ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... weren't horrid at all," Virginia broke in at last, her heart suddenly warming to this very obviously spoiled, futile, but none the less likable, Florrie. "You mustn't talk that way. And if your parents made ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... "It is futile to reason with you," he said. "There is only one way to handle such as you. At present I hold the power to coerce you, and I shall continue to hold that power until I am safely out of your two-by-four kingdom. If you do as I say you shall have your throne back again. ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... out the want of authenticity or reason in the traditional morality by which men lived. Socrates went a step further. If current customs are not authoritative, he said, let us find those that have and ought to have enduring authority over men. If the traditional standards are proved to be futile and inefficacious, let us find the unfaltering standards authenticated by reason. Let us substitute relevant and adequate codes and creeds for those which have by reason been shown to be unreasonable. Beneath the multiplicity of contradictory and often vicious customs, reason must be able ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... Mix, her mirth quite beyond control, as she gave various futile little tugs and twitches at the trap. "That's the trouble! The key never has had the slightest effect. Oh, I will NOT laugh this way!" she upbraided herself sternly. "Bu—bu—but you did look so—" She abruptly turned her back upon him for a moment, facing ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... were girls, but as the cadet of an ancient family he had a Tory squire's prejudice in favour of a Salique Law. With the thousands went a charming grange in the north country and many fat acres which should of right be transmitted to a male Carteret. If—futile thought—Dick had only ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... entirely devoid of cells, even of an unfinished one. These were ridiculous fortifications, of no use whatever; and yet the Bee treated the matter with the utmost seriousness and took infinite pains over her futile task. One of these uselessly barricaded galleries furnished me with some hundred pieces of leaves arranged like a stack of wafers; another gave me as many as a hundred and fifty. For the defence of a tenanted nest, two dozen and even fewer are ample. ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... until my toes almost left the ground. And there was obviously no connection between him and the tree—or between him and anything else but myself, for that matter. At this I went weak; my arms relaxed despite my will, and an incredible fact happened: I found the body sliding skyward through my futile grasp. Desperately I got my hands clasped together about his wrist, this last grip almost lifting me from the earth; his legs and remaining arm streamed fantastically skyward. Through the haze which seemed to be finally drowning my amazed and tortured soul, I knew that my ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... forced to see that his arguments were futile, and wisely yielded to the inevitable. At a general conference each man was called upon to state his wishes. Several desired to leave at the earliest possible moment, others as soon as the debt was fully ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... with many fronded ferns, discovers the fountain in full bearing. White with foam, and angry for its long delay in the grip of Mangerton, and the hollow of the Devil's Punch Bowl, the flood breaks through the wall of rocks seventy feet high, and spits a shower of spray on every futile thing which attempts to stem its course or stay its purpose. The panorama spread out beneath the rocks of Torc comprehends, in all their glory of colour and contrast, the Middle and Lower ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... but think that it was very foolish, very childish, to have stamped upon her wedding ring and smashed the crystal vase upon the tiles. She was visited by no more outbursts, moving her to such futile expedients. She began to do as she liked and to feel as she liked. She completely abandoned her Tuesdays at home, and did not return the visits of those who had called upon her. She made no ineffectual efforts to conduct her household ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... instructed him as to conduct, he had endeavoured to be blameless: as subject to ruler, son to father, younger brother to elder, husband to wife, and friend to friend. He had worked beyond his strength to clear himself of debt, and when his best endeavours proved futile he had sold his goods and distributed their price amongst the creditors. Having taken the vow of an ascetic, for years he was a vegetarian. Nevertheless, all had failed, and he bitterly reproached himself with having fallen into ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... fellow-traveller still keeping behind, but at no great distance. They halted after a space; but how long it is impossible to say. Hours and minutes, in seasons of pain or excitement, are, in the mind's duration, arbitrary and conventional. To measure time by the state of our feelings would be as futile as an attempt to measure space by the slowness or impetuosity of our movements. Hours dwindle into minutes, and minutes are exaggerated into hours, according to the circumstances under which the mind moves on. We are conscious of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... her wonderful touch made such a difference in the whole appearance of the stall, and her dainty devices were so graceful and effective, that Gillian and Mysie implored her to come and tell them what to do with theirs, where they were struggling with cushions, shawls, and bags, with the somewhat futile assistance of Mr. Armine Brownlow and Captain Armytage, whenever the latter could be spared from the theatrical arrangements, where, as he said, it was a case of parmi les borgnes-for his small experience with ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... deplorable habit, had been passing, and the glitter had died off the plain as the sun went on its way to make a futile attempt at purifying ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... electricity has done and may yet do—futile expectation dismissed—has shown it the creator of a thousand material resources, the perfector of that communication of things, of power, of thought, which in every prior stage of advancement has marked the successive ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... 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 ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... a critic. It is not for him to set up sign-posts, or even warning-boards, for those who run and read. To attain true distinction he should erect a pillory upon his study table, and start the fun himself with a choice selection of the literary analogues of the superannuated eggs and futile kittens which served as projectiles in the past. The public may be trusted to keep it going, and also to retain a grateful recollection of the original promoter of the sport. My little weekly and ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... preservation of a subtle balance and impossible by the use of extremes. This balance of color resides more within the spherical surface of this system than in the excessive chromas which project beyond. It is futile to encourage children in efforts to rival the poppy or buttercup, even with the strongest pigments obtainable. Their sunlit points give pleasure because they are surrounded and balanced by blue ether and wide green fields. Were these conditions ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... about Shakspere, and, so far as we knew, no one had ever before subjected him to this indignity. One might as well have an opinion about Virtue or the law of gravitation. An opinion of any sort was impossible. One favorable would be puny, futile, immodestly patronizing. An unfavorable opinion had heretofore not been within realms of ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... were presented to you, dear ancestor, by that girl Feng," Madame Wang smiled. "It only shows how sincere her filial piety is. She does not render futile the love, which you, venerable ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... between two well-known Parisian personalities, referred for some reason or other to the "well-known fact" of two officers in Napoleon's Grand Army having fought a series of duels in the midst of great wars and on some futile pretext. The pretext was never disclosed. I had therefore to invent it; and I think that, given the character of the two officers which I had to invent, too, I have made it sufficiently convincing by the mere force of its absurdity. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... a subsidy from the crown was futile, but Henry felt compunction for his abrupt recall of the monopoly. The result was that De Monts, in recognition of his losses, {61} was given a further monopoly—for the season of 1608 only. At the same time, he was expressly relieved from the obligation to take out ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... sure, are corraled for you. But you must tame them and break them, in order that on them you may ride the ranges of human intercourse. If you have not yet learned how to subdue them to your will and use, it would be futile to tell you how. You have been put in the way of mastering words. The task that henceforth confronts you is your own. You must have at ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... their hours. The father was generally the earliest in the breakfast-parlour, and Charlotte would soon follow and give him his coffee, but the others breakfasted anywhere, anyhow, and at any time. On the morning after the archdeacon's futile visit to the palace, Dr. Stanhope came downstairs with an ominously dark look about his eyebrows; his white locks were rougher than usual, and he breathed thickly and loudly as he took his seat in his armchair. He had open letters in his hand, and when Charlotte came into the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... with him in the procession—such is not his character, his feeling, or his sense of honour. The summoning of those who had moved with, and as part of, the multitude, to give evidence against their fellows, was not only a most injudicious, but a futile expedient, and naturally has caused very great dissatisfaction and annoyance. The circumstance, however, proves that the prosecutions was instituted without that exact care and minute attention to all particulars which are necessary in a case ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... was - all hands were kept at work all day, coaling, watering, and making a futile attempt to pull the cable from the shore on board through the sand. This attempt was rather silly after the experience we had gained at Cape Spartivento. This morning we grappled, hooked the cable at once, and have made an excellent start. Though I have called this ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all attempts to get even one man to carry a load had proved futile. I had to abandon ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... with sweat, and his fingers ached from clinging as if they were on fire. Crawling against the wind along a wider ledge at the top, they came to a chasm, crossed by a foot-wide causeway. The wind bowled and moaned in it, and the futile lantern rays only suggested unimaginable, things—death ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... was constantly saying that the earl would like to see him, he determined to call on the afternoon before his departure. Lady Cochrane, as usual, did not appear, and neither did her daughter, and after a futile conversation with Dundonald, who seemed feebler than ever, Claverhouse left, and had it not been for a sudden whim, as he was going through the courtyard, he had never seen Jean Cochrane again, and many things would ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... eh? Ah, when I had the jaundice, I read many books.' He waved his arms to indicate long galleries of libraries. 'Plenty, plenty, books. Oh, yes.' Once again I had the feeling of listening to an automaton. It seemed so futile talking to such a being. Indeed, that is why I tell you about him. He was my first foreigner. I had always been able to get into some sort of touch with the people I had met. I knew how they lived ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... furling of it. He had taken a strong fancy to me; and was much pleased with the gift. His first inquiry was, naturally, what I expected to get out of him by such a splendid gift. Knowing that it would be futile to attempt to persuade him that I gave the thing freely, and without expecting any return, I said that, although the umbrella was worth a mere ponamu,[6] at least, yet that I should be satisfied if he would give me a kitful of taro ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... upon his own head. All he has to show for it after months of hating and contriving is his position here in this room to-day—and a dead dog. Surely it must make plain to him that his course has been not only futile ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... very nature, placed out of our reach. They say that all these phenomena originated miraculously, or in some way totally different from the ordinary course of nature, and that therefore they conceive it to be futile, not to say presumptuous, to attempt to ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Las Palomas after their few effects, and had all the families contentedly housed, either about headquarters or at the outlying ranchitas, before the first contingent of beeves was gathered. But the attempt to induce any of the new families to occupy the stone cottage proved futile, as they were superstitious. There was a belief among the natives, which no persuasion could remove, regarding houses that were built for others and never occupied. The new building was tendered to Tio Tiburcio and his wife, instead of their own palisaded jacal, ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... close and comfortable enough, for its era and degree; but the furniture was ponderous and ugly to the point of nightmare. The chairs, tables, and sofas wore the semblance of solid mahogany, twisted and tortured in a futile struggle to achieve elegance; the carvings, or mouldings, were screwed or glued on, and the lines of structure, intended to charm the eye, accomplished only the discomfort of the body. The dining-table was like a plateau; the sideboard resembled a cliff-dwelling. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Amalie Heine became for a number of years the subject of his song. His favorite, almost exclusive vehicle; of expression is the simple stanza of the Volkslied, which he uses with consummate skill for new effects. Heine's attempts in law proved as futile as those in business; although he did pass his examination for the degree of Doctor juris, the study of poetry had been his chief endeavor in his university career. Finally he decided to make literature his profession. Disgruntled with things in general and more especially with Germany—he ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... today's lies, his tomorrow's lies—all his obsolete interpretations, his canonized interpretations; all his systems, his philosophies; all his Gods and Phantoms—these riot and war around him. Error endlessly assassinates itself in a futile effort to ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... defence by sea. The same argument applies to the eastern theatre. If Russian armies advance victoriously along the Baltic and co-operate with a combined fleet of our opponents, any continuation of the naval war would be rendered futile by the operations ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... present generation I cannot see anything of an harmonious co-operation between these schools and home influences. If the family be thoroughly bad, and the child cannot be removed altogether, how feeble the barrier, how futile the expedient! If the family be of middle character, the children will lose more by separation from domestic cares and reciprocal duties, than they can possibly gain from captivity with such formal ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the end of them, "they're all fairly futile, but if you like to write them out neatly and frame them in gold I don't mind hanging them up in the bathroom. Has anybody else got anything fatuous to say before the ladies ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... of the exiled Obrenovich family, a troop of whom, disguised as Austrian hussars, entered Shabatz, and shot the good collector dead as he issued from his house to enquire the cause of the disturbance. The attempt, however, was futile, and the whole party were taken ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... most, my lord,'" quoted the manager, and passed quickly on with his tin pot, in a futile effort to evade the outstretched hand ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... the sole atonement she could make for the wrong she had done her sister; so she did not cease her endeavours to plead for her to the Great Helper above, but her efforts were futile. Yet even when she heard voices close by the house, among which she distinguished Countess Cordula's and—if she was not mistaken—her father's, she resisted the impulse ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... divided her attention between the futile efforts of the amateur grave-digger and the flippant behavior of a black and white magpie, which was perched on the branch of a dead pine near by, derisively jerking its long tail. She wondered whether the magpie perhaps shared ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... else. It seems unfair to all of us, who were not blessed with equally industrious and provident fathers and uncles, and it is often bad for the man who gets the income as a reward for no effort of his own, because it gives him a false start in life and sometimes tends to make him a futile waster, who can only justify his existence and his command over other people's work, by pointing to the efforts of his deceased sire or uncle. Further, unless he is very lucky, he is likely to grow up with the notion that, just because he has been left or given ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... consulted a visiting card—"Mr. Reginald Brett, I think, is your name? It would be idle on my part to compliment you on your bravery, but it would be still more futile to attempt to conceal from you the danger of the position ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... harm can they do? Can they have any effect upon your character? You must say to yourself that all this is a consequence of the structure of your brain-cells. What could be more futile than trying to forget? As if the very essence of the ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... to those who do not know him intimately. It is not because he has been without ambition. On the contrary he has longed to soar like the eagle but he has the wings of the sparrow and whatever exertion he has made has ended in a feeble and futile fluttering. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... walked along Cheapside feeling very much downhearted over his rebuff with Longworth. The pretended forgetfulness of the young man, of course, he took at its proper value. He, nevertheless, felt very sorry the interview had been so futile, and, instead of going back to Wentworth and telling him his experience, he thought it best to walk off a little of his disappointment first. He was somewhat startled when a man accosted him; and, glancing up, ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... heard voices and the stamping of horses' hoofs. The sounds were muffled by the heavy wooden shutters she had taken pains to close and bar, but they told her that Longorio had returned. Since it was futile to deny him entrance, she waited where she was. Old Pancho's voice sounded outside; then there came a knock upon the door of the room in ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... brown hair, a ribbon of silver tinsel, uncommon both in material and design. I felt assured that the dog's owner must be a woman, and hastily removed the ribbon, expecting to find embroidered upon it some such name as "Amelie" or "Leontine." But my examination proved futile, the silver ribbon afforded me no clue to the antecedents of my canine waif. And indeed, as I stood contemplating him in some perplexity, the conviction forced itself on my mind that he was not exactly ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... had never looked on this side of the picture? Now, bitter self-reproach, womanly shame, and tears—vain, useless tears—filled up the remaining hours of the night. Jenny Aiken's feeble attempts at consolation were worse than futile, and she was sent off abruptly to her room for misconstruing the cause of her mistress' grief. Lady Mabel found little relief in remembering her father's injunction, to play her part well, and not fail of success. She was hardly soothed even by ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... this animal's tracks—as plain as could be. So the scouts guessed every animal known, excepting the coyote and water-loving creatures. After many futile suggestions, they made a plaster cast of ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... which authorized the Supreme Court to issue writs of mandamus in the exercise of its original jurisdiction was held invalid in Marbury v. Madison,[55] as an unconstitutional enlargement of the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction. After two more futile efforts to obtain a writ of mandamus, in cases in which the Court found that power to issue the writ had not been vested by statute in the courts of the United States except in aid of already existing jurisdiction,[56] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... realized how futile this was. As a matter of fact, the shells were passing high over them and exploding even back of the line of cannon. For the Germans did not yet have the range, some of the Allies' guns having been moved up during ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... from the Back Benches. I saw the Speaker's face stiffen like the face of a helmsman as he humours a hard-mouthed yacht after a sudden following sea. The trouble was barely met in time. There came a fresh, apparently causeless gust a few minutes later—savage, threatening, but futile. It died out—one could hear the sigh—in sudden wrathful realisation of the dreary hours ahead, and the ship ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... of his spouse to Christ, and of declaration that in this world "love is imperfect, life frail, and joy mutable." A far more vivid touch is given by the mother who, when search for the fugitive has proved futile, ruins the nuptial chamber, destroys its decorations, and hangs it with rags and sackcloth,[12] and who, when the final discovery is made, reproaches the dead saint in a fashion which is not easy to reply to: "My son, why hadst thou no pity of us? Why ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... conceal. He met them, mounted on his pony, as they entered the mine property. At first he was inclined to make the men turn about and go over the ground again, but after learning from the leader of the party the precautions they had taken, he decided that further search to the north would be futile. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... our supper we beat the willow thicket for driftwood. By the time we had collected enough, night had fallen, and the pungent, weedy smell from the shore increased with the coolness. We threw ourselves down about the fire and made another futile effort to show Percy Pound the Little Dipper. We had tried it often before, but he could never be got past the ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... brother. If, giving out on the eve of battle that I am their brother, I go to the Pandavas, what would all the Kshatriyas say? Furnished with every object of desire, and worshipped by them with a view to make me happy, how can I render that friendship of Dhritarashtra's sons utterly futile? Having provoked hostilities with others, they always wait on me respectfully, and always bow down to me, as the Vasus bow down to Vasava. They think that aided by my might, they are capable of encountering the foe. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... minutes glided easily away, with Hugh Johnstone's old-time gallantry artfully separating the two secret conspirators against his peace. Alan Hawke lunched gayly, with but one lurking regret—a futile sorrow that he had not bent Justine Delande to his will. There was no dark pledge between them, no secret bond of a man's perfidious victory, no soft surrender, the seal of a ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... remonstrance. So little effect had been found to result from the petitions of individuals in the legislature on any of the great questions which in any degree interfered with the system adopted by administration, and in which they seemed resolved to persevere, that it was thought futile and absurd to resort to that mode of stating complaint or soliciting redress. If a corporation petitioned, they were answered only by an observation on the manner in which the petition was obtained, by contrasting it with other petitions procured by Castle ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... herself an instant in the gap relieved upon the sky line; and the next, fled trembling and sat down glowing with excitement on the Weaver's stone. She shut her eyes, seeking, praying for composure. Her hand shook in her lap, and her mind was full of incongruous and futile speeches. What was there to make a work about? She could take care of herself, she supposed! There was no harm in seeing the laird. It was the best thing that could happen. She would mark a proper distance to him ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... breathless, he lay down behind the western parapet. The exercising-yard, into which it was his object to drop, was just below him; but it was necessary to find some object to which to fasten his rope; and here he perceived how futile would have been his plan of escape without assistance from without; for here, having slid down it, he must needs leave his rope tied to a neighboring chimney. There was not length enough to cut ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... carried his high collar with much gravity, by exclaiming, 'Here's a lily of the valley,' or pulling off a bough, and presently, struck with the contrast between the splendid passivity of nature and the futile activity of man, ejaculated, as he gazed on the great woods that climbed the opposite hill-side, and the distance composed of clustered roofs, shining water and blue haze, 'How beautiful, how peaceful!' With ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... with wrath, made a rush at her, and the next moment a very agile young person was seen dodging round tables and chairs with the future partner of Tiber & Co. in hot pursuit. 'You monkey, how dare you meddle with my papers?' cried the irate poet, making futile grabs at the saucy girl, who skipped to and fro, waving a bit of paper tantalizingly ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... effect of the reform was to admit the tradesmen and tenant-farmers, the sturdy English middle class, to a share in the government. Thirty-five years later, after Lord Russell had made three or four futile endeavors to carry still further the principle of reform, his opponents, the Conservatives, led by Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, passed the Reform Bills of 1867-68, greatly reducing the property qualification of voters, and rectifying ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... been futile for Jan to try to find her out in the big, dark orchard: he knew that the sensible thing for him to do was to remain where he was, and wait for her. And he did not have to wait very long! There was ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... satisfied Lord Ballindine might have been, had he been able to see all this, and could he have known how futile was every effort Lord Cashel could make to drive from Fanny Wyndham's heart the love she ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope |
