"Ineffectual" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Conditioned," as a ground of faith in the Infinite Being, is utterly void, meaningless, and ineffectual. Let us re-state it in Hamilton's own words: "The conditioned is the mean between two extremes, two inconditionates exclusive of each other, neither of which can be conceived as possible, but of which, on the principle of Contradiction and Excluded ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... the way in which the arrangement had been made—to the coercion in fact. She was too shrewd, however, not to perceive that, in consequence of Diavolo's attitude, rebellion on her part would be both undignified and ineffectual. So she held her peace, and went to walk off her irritation in the grounds alone; and there she encountered her fast friend of many years' standing, Mr. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe, who was just riding in to lunch at the castle. When he saw her he dismounted, and Angelica snatched the whip from his ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Colonel! if that nigger gal a' yourn don't stand close with her blazer we'll get into an all-fired snarl," says one, endeavouring to extricate himself and regain his upright. After sundry ineffectual attempts, surging round the room in search of his hat, which is being very unceremoniously transformed into a muff beneath their entangled extremes, he turns over quietly, saying, "There's something very strange about the floor of this establishment,—it don't seem solid; ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... down!" cried Gwyn; but the more he shouted the louder the dog howled, while he kept on making ineffectual efforts to mount ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... magistrate, glancing up from the passport. "ALORS, MONSIEUR, VOUS ETES LE FIRS D'UN BARON?" And when the Cigarette (his one mistake throughout the interview) denied the soft impeachment, "ALORS," from the Commissary, "CE N'EST PAS VOTRE PASSEPORT!" But these were ineffectual thunders; he never dreamed of laying hands upon the Cigarette; presently he fell into a mood of unrestrained admiration, gloating over the contents of the knapsack, commanding our friend's tailor. Ah, what an honoured guest ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... excellent horsemen, as almost to realise the fable of the Centaurs, charging an enemy with the impetuosity of lightning and disappearing with the quickness of thought, they requested me every moment to engage; but I know too well the value of regular infantry, and how ineffectual would be the efforts of light cavalry against their bayonets. I was obliged to restrain their ardour by every argument I could muster, principally by giving them to understand that by a hasty attack we ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... which was more like that of a dog than a human being; and after an ineffectual attempt to get at Dick, he dragged himself away to kneel down at the first clear pool to bathe his ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... of humour, and the irony of his situation was not lost on him. He took a grim, ferocious delight in calling up the might-have-beens and the 'fatuous ineffectual yesterdays' of life. There is a certain sardonic satisfaction to be gleaned from a frank recognition of the fact that you are the architect of your own misfortune. He felt that satisfaction, and laughed at Darkey, who was one of those who ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... returns as dust to dust, and "the spirit returns to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes). But there would be no evolution and no fulfilment of purpose if the spirit were not to return a richer and more developed spirit by reason of its sojourn in the flesh: there would be stagnation, just a simple ineffectual turning round and round, as of a screw that had stripped ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... palace of Istakhar seven sisters so beautiful that they seemed seven houris. These seven maidens were the daughters of a sage, who had no treasures save those beauties and his own wisdom. The last was not sufficient to foresee this misfortune, the former seemed ineffectual to prevent it. The eldest exceeded not her twentieth year, the youngest had scarce attained her thirteenth; and so like were they to each other that they could not have been distinguished but for the difference of height, in which ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... several ineffectual efforts to get up. Once he gained his feet, but his legs were too weak to sustain him, and he slowly wilted and sank back into the snow. His eyes were half closed, and the surface of them was glassy. His jaws were apart, and through them the tongue protruded, draggled and limp. ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... After many ineffectual attempts to conciliate the friendship of the Deys, the ferment of opposition seemed to have subsided, and Dr. Ayres received an invitation to meet the chiefs at a friendly conference in King Peter's town. This amicable appearance, however, proved to be ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... once, the uplifted rod was known to fall ineffectual from his hand—when droll squinting W—— having been caught putting the inside of the master's desk to a use for which the architect had clearly not designed it, to justify himself, with great simplicity averred, that he ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... is, the better the work will be performed; and it will become the wisdom of the parliament in what they do, to make it effectual; for should such an undertaking as this prove ineffectual, instead of remedying, it ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... turn on the particular official situation to be held by Canning, than on the vesting in him the lead of the House of Commons, the necessity of which seems to be so generally and strongly felt, that opposition to it must be ineffectual. At the same time nothing is yet known of Peel's sentiments, and there will not be wanting those among his friends who will urge him ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... much of a business place, after all," thought Sam; but, perhaps, it was hardly fair to draw such a conclusion from his own failure to procure a situation. Sam made one or two more ineffectual applications, which did not tend to improve his spirits. As he came out of the last one, he saw, to his great joy, Julia Stockton passing by. She recognized ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... to remove all antiquity arising from the separation of [Greek: paralytikon] from [Greek: airomenon] which agrees with it, and transposed [Greek: pherontes] to the verb it is attached to, thus clumsily excluding the exquisite hint, clear enough to those who can read between the lines, that in the ineffectual attempt to bring in the paralytic only some of the company reached our Lord's Presence. Of course the scribe in question found followers ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... positive simplicity, and sufficiently defends the criminal; but it is, in a way, a coat of mail which becomes crushing as soon as the stiletto of cross-examination finds a joint to it. As soon as mere denial is ineffectual in face of certain proven facts, the examinee is entirely ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... such an offence as this which follows. The war of freedom of the Araucan Indians is the most gallant episode in the history of the New World. The Spaniards themselves were not behindhand in acknowledging the chivalry before which they quailed, and, after many years of ineffectual attempts to crush them, they gave up a conflict which they never afterwards resumed; leaving the Araucans alone, of all the American races with which they came in contact, a liberty which they were unable ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... her sable coat, which she had put over the back of a conspicuous chair in the hall. Figgis, however, came in at the moment to say that lunch was ready, and she delayed them all very much by a long, ineffectual search for it, during which Figgis, with a visible effort, held up the sable coat, so that it was displayed to the utmost advantage. And then, only fancy, Susan discovered that it was in her sable muff ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... its price increased, and the Flemish industry was faced by the double difficulty of preserving its market from the import of English cloth, through Hanseatic ships, and of obtaining the necessary raw material. The restrictive measures taken against the import of English cloth proved ineffectual, and Spanish wool, which was tried as a substitute for English, was of inferior quality. Ypres was the first to suffer, in spite of the solicitude of the dukes, who reduced commercial taxes in its favour. Its population fell from 12,000 in 1412 to 10,000 ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... belt pfff!" He had a marvellously realistic gift when it came to horrors: Janet felt her hair coming out by the roots. Although she never went to church, she did not like to think that no God existed. Of this Mr. Shivers was very positive. Edward, too, listened uneasily, hemmed and hawed, making ineffectual attempts to combat Mr. Shivers's socialism with a deeply-rooted native individualism that Shivers ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in their doorways, looked spotted and dusty too. A cloud of flies fought and surged about the closely guarded door of the butcher shop; a delivery cart was at the curb, the discouraged horse switching an ineffectual tail. ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... Reformation succeeded in proclaiming that existing Christianity was a lie; but substituted no theory of it which could be more rationally or credibly sustained; and ever since, the religion of educated persons throughout Europe has been dishonest or ineffectual; it is only among the labouring peasantry that the grace of a pure Catholicism, and the patient simplicities of the Puritan, maintain their imaginative dignity, or assert their ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... look for employment. If he had had a little capital he might have set up as a newsboy or boot-black, but five cents can hardly be considered sufficient capital for either of these lines of business. Credit is the next best thing to capital, but Sam had no credit. He found that out, after an ineffectual attempt to borrow money of a boot-black, who, having ten dollars in a savings-bank, was regarded in his own class with high respect as a wealthy capitalist. The name of this exceptional young man was William Clark, better known among the boys as ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... ought to know. It may be heated electrically, but it will have sham chimneys, in whose darkness, unless they are built solid, dust and filth will gather, and luckless birds and insects pass horrible last hours of ineffectual struggle. It may have automatic window-cleaning arrangements, but they will be hidden by "picturesque" mullions. The sham chimneys will, perhaps, be made to smoke genially in winter by some ingenious contrivance, there may be sham open fireplaces within, with ingle ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... asserted his claim to the Western empire, conferred on his son-in-law and ally the title of Augustus. By consenting to receive that honor from Maximian, Constantine seemed to embrace the cause of Rome and of the senate; but his professions were ambiguous, and his assistance slow and ineffectual. He considered with attention the approaching contest between the masters of Italy and the emperor of the East, and was prepared to consult his own safety or ambition in the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... one side might disappear. If, again, this mound had been formed of rock, like what remains of those mountains, in that case, the catastrophe, which this author has suggested as the cause of that destruction, would have been ineffectual to procure that end; for, though such a debacle might have carried away a great mass of loose materials, it could not have moved ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... all the better and more generous hopes of our kind are to be lost and ineffectual, that genius is finally wasted, and goodness an exotic to be trampled under foot in the blind movements of Nature—that requires more power of faith than I can muster. Once believe that thought ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... nothing about prehistoric man, because he was prehistoric, therefore we cannot say where he got his religion from. But "the whole human race has a tradition of the Fall." And so on: the argument that Christ was a poor sheepish and ineffectual professor of a quiet life is answered by the flaming energy of His earthly mission; the suggestion that Christianity belongs to the Dark Ages is countered by the historical fact that it "was the one path across the Dark Ages that was not dark." It was the path that led from Roman to modern ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... lives we shall find that God meets the things that we commit to Him in prayer with special blessing, and often allows the best things that we have not committed to Him to be ineffectual, simply to remind us of our dependence upon Him for everything. It is very gracious and mindful of Him thus gently to compel us to remember Him and to hold us so close to Him that we cannot get away even the length of a ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... endeavours to get the name of the whole island proved ineffectual. Probably it is too large for them to know by one name. Whenever we made this enquiry, they always gave us the name of some district or place, which we pointed to; and, as before observed, I got the names of several, with the name of the king or chief of each. Hence I conclude, that the country ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... the sailors had that same unearthly quality as the light—ineffectual, remote. Out of the hold of the Truxton came a ghostly sigh. Bedient couldn't explain, unless it was some new and mighty strain upon the keel ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... be let alone, and the assistant physician in charge of my case, after several ineffectual attempts to engage me in conversation, humored my persistent taciturnity. For more than a year his only remarks to me were occasional conventional salutations. Subsequent events have led me to doubt the wisdom of ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... the overseers, and other persons before mentioned, find after a proper length of time that all their united efforts have been ineffectual, and that they have no hope of success with respect to his amendment, they lay the case, if it should be of a serious nature, before a [16]court, which has the name of the monthly meeting. This court, or meeting, make a minute of the case, and appoint a committee to visit him. ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... But it was ineffectual. "I was a fool, too," admitted Smith. "In Venice it sounded like a good joke, but it looks different now." ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... charm, and not at all to the high places of self-sacrifice, or the austere peaks of martyrdom. Burning indignation against intolerable things, fierce denunciation of the cruelties and abominations of the world find no encouragement or sympathy from this serene, detached, and therefore somewhat ineffectual, teaching. ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... over them in an effort to straighten them out in the direction in which he wished to go, they replied with snarls, and refused to obey. Their open defiance of his authority sent Marks into a rage. He tried to lash them, but in his blinded condition his aim was poor and his efforts ineffectual. ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... How ineffectual so far are all European attempts at democracy! Carlyle's satire about the thirty men of Dumdrudge called out, they know not why, to kill thirty men from a Dumdrudge elsewhere is not referred to in these days; but it still expresses ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... 'Nem min',' he said, 'I comin' right down in de summer to buy you back an' bring you home.' He's comin', too—nuver tol' me a lie in he life—comin' dis evenin.' Make 'aste." This in tremulous eagerness to the woman, who had involuntarily caught the feeling, and was now with eager and ineffectual haste ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... he had been found dead in his house. As soon as rumour spread the news through the whole assembly, just as an army disperses on the fall of its general, so did they scatter in different directions. Panic chiefly seized the tribunes, now taught by their colleague's death how utterly ineffectual was the aid the devoting laws afforded them.[72] Nor did the patricians display their exultation with due moderation; and so far was any of them from feeling compunction at the guilty act, that even those who were innocent wished to ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... at the moon with ineffectual arrows; our hopes are set on inaccessible El Dorado; we come to an end of nothing here below. Interests are only plucked up to sow themselves again, like mustard. You would think, when the child was born, there would be an end to trouble; ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bare arms crossed, leaned his shoulders against the bulkhead of the cabin. He was bending his head under the deck beam; his fair beard spread out magnificently over his chest; he looked colossal, ineffectual, and mild. There was something lugubrious in the aspect of the cabin; the air in it seemed to become slowly charged with the cruel chill of helplessness, with the pitiless anger of egoism against ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... and westward of it with the flood tide, which runs stronger here than in any other part of the Frozen Strait. The night was fine, but extremely dark, so that after ten o'clock we could not distinguish where the land lay, and the compasses could not be depended on. After an ineffectual attempt to push through the ice towards the middle of the Strait, in order to avoid the danger of being entangled among the numerous islands lying off this shore, we were literally obliged to let the ship take her chance, keeping the lead going and ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... without doing material damage. None of the guns was allowed to respond, as the distance was too great with the ammunition the battery had, and, indifferent as it was, it was too precious to be wasted in a duel at an ineffectual range. Doubtless deceived by this, the enemy came on in force, being obliged by the character of the ground to keep almost entirely to the road, which really made them advance in column. The battery waited. Under orders of ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... lantern containing a scrap of tallow candle, whose meagre gleam flickered hither and thither apprehensively among the huge shadows of the darkening wood. In her right hand the woman carried a large tin bucket, half filled with fresh-run maple-sap. By the glimmer of the ineffectual candle, she moved wearily from one great maple to another, emptying the birch-bark cups that hung from the little wooden taps driven into the trunks. The night air was raw with the chill of thawing snow, and carried no sound but the soft tinkle of the sap as it dript swiftly into the ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... of each diocese and to all inferior clergy throughout the kingdom. Arbitrary it might be, but it was excellent in intention; for stubborn-necked personages had to be dealt with, with whom milder measures would have proved ineffectual. As it was, violent opposition was raised against the decree, and the Puritanical preachers wore loud in its condemnation, and as far as was consistent with safety, vehement in their attacks upon ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... clearing away the lunch things. Mrs. McVeigh had entered the house. Delaven and Gertrude were walking beside Loring's chair, wheeled by Ben, along the shady places. Evilena was coming towards them from across the lawn, pouting because of an ineffectual attempt to catch up with Ken, whom she fancied she saw striding along the back drive to the quarters, but he had walked too fast, and the hedge had hidden him. She came back disappointed to be asked by Delaven what sort of uniform she was pursuing ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... mountain side descending precipitously to the torrent, and leaving us no option but to take to the water, roaring and boiling as it was. Our guide went first with great deliberation and groping his way with a stick, and after an ineffectual attempt to scale the rock above, F. and I also unwillingly followed his example. The water was piercingly cold as it swept against us, and the pain was so great that we were glad to blunder over as ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... I afterwards discovered, had grazed my forehead, but without making any dangerous impression. The assassin, perceiving that his pistol had been ineffectual, muttered, in an enraged tone, "This shall do your business!" At the same time, he drew a knife forth from ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... with him, and took a Voyage into Sicily in Pursuit of him, he having withdrawn himself thither on purpose to avoid her. It was in that Island, and on this Occasion, she is supposed to have made the Hymn to Venus, with a Translation of which I shall present my Reader. Her Hymn was ineffectual for the procuring that Happiness which she prayed for in it. Phaon was still obdurate, and Sappho so transported with the Violence of her Passion, that she was resolved to get rid of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... gush or protestations of loyalty, in which I would simply say: 'Please allow me to come back to Berlin, because I prefer it to any other place of residence,' would certainly be ineffectual, and I should only have humiliated myself ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... this tribe, made weak by its sins, might be protected on either side by the piety of Reuben and the heroism of Gad. In the West are storehouses of snow, the storehouses of hail, of cold, and of heat, and as powerless as are mortals against these forces of nature, so ineffectual shall be the enemies of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin, for which reason their post was to the West of the camp. From the North comes the darkness of sin, for this tribe alone will declare itself willing to ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... title we had given Rayel's strangely derived conception—was among the paintings included in the sale to Mr. Paddington. Rayel thought he could reproduce it, and for days after it was gone he made ineffectual efforts to paint another woman after the ideal of our hearts. But, alas! try as he would, that face never came back to his canvas. Many beautiful faces were conjured by his masterful touch, but they were other faces, and none of them satisfied us. The failure made ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... operations were a succession of blunders both in strategy and in performance. On the northern frontier a series of incompetent generals led little armies of half-hearted soldiers to unnecessary defeats or at best to ineffectual victories; and the most conspicuous military success was won at New Orleans by the Western pioneers, who had no constitutional scruples about fighting outside of their own states, and who were animated by lively patriotic feelings. On the whole, ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... the government, there was no difference expressed. The issue that roused the most heated debate was whether the colored man should be kept out of the right of suffrage until woman could also be enfranchised. One young, but not ineffectual speaker, declared he considered the women the bitterest enemies of the negro; and asked, with intense emotion, shall they be permitted to prevent the colored man from obtaining his rights? But it was not shown ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and kindly, whose sympathies are quickly moved, gain an unfair share of our regard both in life and afterwards. We are more pleased by an ineffectual attempt to be kindly, than by real kindness bestowed ungraciously. Mill's great qualities should not be overlooked because they were hidden by a manner which seems almost deliberately repellent. He devoted himself through life to promote the truth ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... enable him to be sure of doing it well and thoroughly. He felt so little hope of success that he did not even trouble himself to go to the office of the Commissary on the day of the awarding of the contract, until he learned from his companions that all their efforts to secure it had been ineffectual. Then he called on the Commissary, merely through curiosity, to learn the name of the fortunate man, and to his utter astonishment was told that the contract had been awarded to himself. The Government was satisfied, from his sensible offer, ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... there lies a germ of truth, without which none of their theories would have a corporal's guard of honest believers. We have been working towards that truth in an unsystematic way for centuries, but we are a long way from it, and till we solve how to realize it, we shall have ineffectual discontent." ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... dissatisfaction were beginning to appear, and what he had attempted to do for the cure of his eyes had hitherto been futile. The remedies of the oculists to whom he had been directed by Daphne herself had proved ineffectual. The great physician Erasistratus, from whom he first sought help, had refrained, at her entreaty and her father's, from refusing to aid him, but indignantly sent him away when he persisted in the declaration that it would be impossible for him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ineffectual; but her look, her breathless voice made up for their lack of originality. Once she said: "I never saw it so lovely before; it is an enchanted land!" with no suspicion that the larger part of her ecstasy arose ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... Countrymen! The perfidious act of your reckless enemies to render ineffectual the late resolves of the body of the people, demands your assembling at the Old South Meeting House, precisely at ten o'clock this day, at which time the ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... From years of ineffectual efforts on the part of State and national legislatures and commissions to regulate the rate business, it would appear that the only remedy is national ownership, which would place the rate-making power in one body with no inducement to act otherwise than fairly ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... foreground, talking to his father; he shook hands shyly and squeezed past her to Nares, the apologetic, ineffectual vicar, and from Nares to Mrs. Waring, who was talking to a young officer whom she had brought over with her party. Colonel Waring stood by the fire, retailing safe newspaper opinions on the war and representing to Eric's theatre-trained eyes, with their passion for "types," almost ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... names of Rome. You will aim at a second expulsion of the Tarquins; but it will be more like a second proscription of Sylla. Massacres and disorders never pave the way to peace. If, on the other hand, you fail, the chains of Rome are riveted for ever: an ineffectual struggle to escape is but an excuse for additional tortures to ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... seem to be at variance with this opinion, were it not certain, though I cannot explain the cause, that local poetry, like local language or local melody, is in proportion to the interest it awakens among the local inhabitants, weak and ineffectual in its influence on the sentiments of the general world. The "Rans de Vaches," the most celebrated of all local airs, is tame and commonplace,—unmelodious, to all ears but those of the Swiss "forlorn ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... know about that, sir; my business is with the baronet—particular." Mr. Mollett, as he spoke, strained every nerve to do so without appearance of dismay; but his efforts were altogether ineffectual. He could not bring himself to look Mr. Prendergast in the face for a moment, or avoid feeling like a dog that dreads being kicked. All manner of fears came upon him, and he would at the moment have given up all his hopes of money from the Castle Richmond people to have been free from Mr. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... was the little satisfaction I should be able to give my benefactor for his ineffectual generosity, when he should come to hear what a misfortune I had met with, which he would perhaps regard as incredible, and consequently ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... by the scruff of the neck; he was dos-'a-dos, with his booted legs kicking in the air, and his fists making warlike but idle demonstrations and his mouth uttering ineffectual ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... showered down upon men by a beneficent tyrant, a Frederick I, inspired by the sagas of Siegfried and of Charlemagne, or the second Frederick, the "Wonder of the World" to the thirteenth century, and ever alluring, yet ever eluding, the curiosity of the nineteenth; or a Henry VII, ineffectual and melancholic. Such "justice" passes easily by its own excess into the injustice which dispatches Alva's army or finds bizarre expression in the phrase of "le Roi soleil,"—"The State? I am the State." The ideal of modern life, the ideal of which Britain is ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... the influence of this dreadful phantasy, I saw a pale, glimmering, ineffectual light rising before me. It was neither lamp, fire, nor candle; and though like, it was not yet flame. I took it at first for the lustre of a reflection from some unseen light, and I walked towards it, in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various
... me drowsy. Ten minutes more, and I shall be asleep in the sun, with my head down-dropped on the window-sill. I get up, and, putting on my out-door garments, stray out into the sun, leaving Barbara—her pretty forehead puckered with ineffectual wrath, and Tou Tou blurred with grimy tears, to their death-struggle with the restive verb "to love." It is the end of March, and when one can hide round a corner from the wind, one has a foretaste of summer, in the sun's warm strength. I gaze lovingly at the rich brown earth, so lately ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... stock to any member of the administration, or any member of either House of Parliament, to facilitate the passing of the bill. He again declined to answer. He was anxious, he said, to treat the House with all possible respect, but he thought it hard to be compelled to accuse himself. After several ineffectual attempts to refresh his memory, he was directed to withdraw. A violent discussion ensued between the friends and opponents of the ministry. It was asserted that the administration were no strangers to the convenient taciturnity of Sir John ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... through Paris. They knew that their shots were perfectly useless, but they were firing for the fun of retorting, hoping at the same time that one of their chance shots might achieve a miracle; but the only miracle was that the shooters did not kill each other with their precipitate and ineffectual fire. As it was, a few passers-by did fall, wounded ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to sleep, she discovered her willingness to yield, by breathing, perhaps for the space of a minute, in the manner of a person that sleeps, though the effort, from the state of her disorder, usually proved ineffectual. ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... the direction of affairs, and made desperate attempts to repel the invading Germans; though he failed in this, he never ceased to feel the shame of the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, and strove hard to recover them, but all his efforts proved ineffectual, and he died in Dec. 31, to the grief of the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... captivity, used to disturb their worship in jail by his maniac howling, two of them took turn about to hold him down by force, and silence him by a napkin thrust into his mouth. This mode of quieting the unlucky heretic, though sufficiently emphatic, being deemed ineffectual or inconvenient, George Jackson, a Cameronian, who afterwards suffered at the gallows, dashed the maniac with his feet and hands against the wall, and beat him so severely that the rest were afraid that he had killed him outright. After which specimen of fraternal chastisement, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... would hang himself or join in with Peter, unless Jack's children were all turned out to starve. Of several attempts to cure Martin, and make peace between him and Jack, that they might unite against Peter; but all made ineffectual by the great address of a number of Peter's friends, that herded among Martin's, and appeared the most zealous for his interest. How Martin, getting abroad in this mad fit, looked so like Peter in his air and dress, and talked so like him, that many of the neighbours ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... me constantly once, and sometimes twice a day, for several days together, to see what success at the lake; till at length she grew very impatient, for fear, as she afterwards told me, I should either think she had not done what she said, or had done it in an ineffectual manner. But one day, walking by the lake, I thought I saw something floating in the water at a very great distance. "Youwarkee," says I, "I spy a sail!" Then running to my boat* and taking her in, away we went, plying my ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... faults of the King's government, while it declared utter distrust of his policy. Cromwell did not hesitate to say that if the House of Commons had failed to adopt and print the "Remonstrance," he would have left England never to return. The radicals in the House next made an ineffectual attempt to pass the "Root and Branch Bill," for the complete destruction— "root and branch"—of the Established Church of England. Finally, the House enacted a law forbidding the dissolution of the present Parliament ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... is past, when all Nature slumbers, and when the ancients feared to sing, lest the great god Pan should be awakened. Soft changes, the gradual shifting of every shadow on every leaf, begin to show the waning hours. Ineffectual thunder-storms have gathered and gone by, hopelessly defeated. The floating-bridge is trembling and resounding beneath the pressure of one heavy wagon, and the quiet fishermen change their places to avoid the tiny ripple that glides stealthily to their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... night, that the force at my command was wholly insufficient for its capture. Fortunately, I determined to try the effect of another day's fire. But, had it not been for you, this would assuredly have been as ineffectual as the first. You have, indeed, performed a most gallant action; and I shall have great pleasure in reporting your conduct to the authorities ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... books, has transformed these giants into windmills to deprive me of the honour of the victory; such is his inveterate malice against me; but in the end, all his pernicious wiles and stratagems shall prove ineffectual against the prevailing edge of ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... mamma's acquaintances were too polite to complain before her face, they made up for it by what they said behind her back. In allusion to the poor lady's ineffectual remonstrances, one gentleman said that the more mischief Amelia did, the dearer she seemed to grow to her mother. And somebody else replied that however dear she might be as a daughter, she was certainly a very dear friend, and proposed that ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... yelled vengeance, violently wrenching the weapons from the hands of their dying companions to supply the place of those they had discharged at their antagonists. Sufficient intervals were afforded, and every encouragement held out for them to make proposals, but all was ineffectual. They sallied forth with increased vigor, so as to oblige the Griquas to retreat, though only to a short distance, for they never attempted to pursue above 200 yards from their camp. The firing, though without any order, was very destructive, as each took a steady aim. ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... said the Frank, "doth paltry intrigues and quarrels of slaves involve a single thought of suspicion of the noble Countess of Paris? The oaths of thy whole generation were ineffectual to prove but that one of her hairs had changed its ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... ineffectual search, uncertain what course to pursue, and with a heart full of despair, Richard crossed the river, and proceeded towards the house, in front of which he found Mistress Nutter and Nicholas, both of whom seemed surprised when they ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... back, the legs wide apart. One arm was thrust upward, the other outward; but the latter was bent acutely, and the hand was near the throat. Both hands were tightly clenched. The whole attitude was that of desperate but ineffectual resistance ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm; An endless tapestry the past has woven drapes The halls of my life, compelling my soul ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... lessening. As the brook gradually subsided to its customary level, the forest became more and more silent. The greater his endeavor to sleep, the less dormant Roland felt, and all his senses seemed unduly quickened by this ineffectual beckoning to somnolence. He judged by the position of the stars, as he lay on his back, that it was past midnight, when suddenly he became aware of a noise to the west of him, on the other side of the brook. Sitting up, and listening intently, he suspected, ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... rough-hewn face? Gabriel Honore Riqueti de Mirabeau, the world-compeller, the type Frenchman of this epoch, as Voltaire of the last. And if Mirabeau is the greatest, who of these six hundred may be the meanest? Shall we say that anxious, slight, ineffectual-looking man, under thirty, in spectacles; complexion of an atrabiliar shade of pale sea-green, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... fortress, with a garrison of 250 men; and Manuel de Sousa had orders to secure its safety by sea, with a squadron of twenty-two vessels. The zamorin soon repented of having allowed this fort to be built in his dominions, and used ineffectual endeavours to induce the rajah of Chale, Caramanlii, and Tanore to break with the Portuguese, even going to war against them, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... if the testator appointed him guardian in the erroneous belief that he was free. The appointment of another man's slave as guardian, without any addition or qualification, is void, though valid if the words 'when he shall be free' are added: but this latter form is ineffectual if the slave is the testator's own, the appointment being void from ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... flies happen to fall into the snare, the spider does not sally out at once, but very patiently waits till it is sure of them; for, upon his immediately approaching the terror of his appearance might give the captive strength sufficient to get loose; the manner, then, is to wait patiently, till, by ineffectual and impotent struggles, the captive has wasted all its strength, and then he becomes a certain ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... save as his assassins. They would not have been heard of in after times, if they had not "struck the foremost man of all this world"; in other words, the great sun of Rome had to be shorn of his beams, else so ineffectual a fire as Brutus could nowise catch ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... back as though he had been stung. He had caught sight of his reflected face. So horrible was it that sensibility awoke long enough to be shocked. There were three minnows in the pool, which was too large to drain; and after several ineffectual attempts to catch them in the tin bucket he forbore. He was afraid, because of his great weakness, that he might fall in and drown. It was for this reason that he did not trust himself to the river astride one of the many drift-logs which ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... the present. We therefore soon agreed to let that part of the reef very severely alone for at least a week, and to devote the interval to the prosecution of our survey of the channel. Accordingly, after making an ineffectual attempt to do justice to the excellent meal which Grace Hartley had provided for us, we three males hauled the boat alongside, descended into her, and got ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... it is true, point out the operations of the mind, the sentiments of the heart, the influence of the passions; and so far they are of previous use: but without subsequent practice, experience, and observation, they are as ineffectual, and would even lead you into as many errors in fact, as a map would do, if you were to take your notions of the towns and provinces from their delineations in it. A man would reap very little benefit by his travels, if he made them only in his closet upon a map of the whole ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... gloriously fallen, covered with heroic wounds. Captain Tyler is wounded rather dangerously, but I hope he will soon recover. The French Admiral Magon, in the Algerzaries (sic), of equal force, laid us alongside, and attempted boarding, but found it ineffectual. At the same time we were engaged by three other sail of the line. After engaging this fine fellow for about an hour he struck his flag, and we took possession of her (sic); in short, with this noble ship's company we ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... violated vestal? ... doth SHE not count her lovers by the score? ... are not her vows long since broken? ... is not her life a life of wanton luxury and open shame? ... Why doth the Law, beholding these things, remain in her case dumb and ineffectual?" ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Leicester, in order to accommodate the differences between them, but found that the fears and animosities on both sides, as well as the ambition of Leicester, were so violent, as to render all his endeavors ineffectual. But when this solemn appeal, ratified by the oaths and subscriptions of the leaders in both factions, was made to his judgment, he was not discouraged from pursuing his honorable purpose: he summoned the states of France at Amiens; and there, in the presence of that assembly, as well ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... Science tells us that the light of the sun probably comes from its contraction; and that that process of contraction will go on until, at some point within the bounds of time, though far beyond the measure of our calculations, the sun himself shall die, the ineffectual beams will be paled, and there will be a black orb, with neither life nor light nor power. And then, then, and after that for ever, 'they that love Him' shall continue to be as that dead sun once was, when he went forth ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the later years of the eighteenth century more powerfully than any other event; that it gave a completely new direction to the statesmanship of Pitt; that it instantaneously shattered, and rendered ineffectual for a whole generation, one of the two great parties in the State; and that it determined for a like period the character and ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... childlike sense of humour. There is nothing that it enjoys more than to have a Minister struggling with the pronunciation of some outlandish place-name. When, therefore, Mr. ILLINGWORTH, posed with the deficiencies of the mail service to Bryngwran and Gwalchmai, made a gallant but ineffectual effort to get over the first obstacle and evaded the second by calling it "the other place," Members ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various |
