"Unsuccessful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were headed off by the other croquet players, and went through the vicar's kitchen garden into the doctor's field, to which rendezvous the fifth also came at last, clucking disconsolately after an unsuccessful attempt to walk on the cucumber ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... length of 144 feet. The airscrew, ten feet in diameter, was driven by a steam-engine of three horse-power, and the speed attained was about six miles an hour. It would take long to record all the unsuccessful or partially successful experiments in the history of the airship—the elaborately constructed ships which never rose from the ground, the carefully thought out devices which did not work. Progress was ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... brought him his European fame. They established it, but they did not originate it. "The Spy" was a tale of a war, which in character was not essentially different from any other war. So far as the story painted the incidents of a struggle in which the English had been unsuccessful, it could have no right to expect favor from the English public unless there was merit in the execution of the work independent of the subject. The interest with which it was read by a people who could not fail to find ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... reality. A brief spell—a charm of short duration, and the hallucination is dispelled, only to leave us seared and blasted, almost hating mankind, and wearing the mask of the hypocrite, leading a double life, to hide the sears left by unsuccessful ambition, or disappointed aspiration. What were death itself compared with the misery of finding, when too late, that the hopes and happiness we deemed reality, were but a shadow, not a substance, which lingered for awhile and Left us to ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... This unsuccessful attempt had made me reflective; and I resolved now to learn, at the very sources, these theories, these laws, to which every one appealed, but which had become suspicious to me chiefly through the impoliteness of my arrogant ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... I wrote all the morning. Had an answer from D. of W., unsuccessful in getting young Skene put upon the engineer list; he is too old. Went out at two with Anne, and visited the exhibition; also called on the Mansfield family and on Sydney Smith. Jeffrey unwell from pleading so long and late for the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... neat church, appropriated to the alternate use of episcopalians and presbyterians. Wilkesbarre is built on the site of Wyoming: a small mound, near the river, is pointed out, as that on which the fort stood; and the incursion of the Indians, when most of the inhabitants fell, in an unsuccessful battle, is still remembered. Some few escaped, by swimming across the stream, and fled, naked, through the woods, for several days, till they reached the nearest settlement; and this is all the record that exists of Albert ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... patience worthy of reward, the late librarian at Cremona, Professor Peter Fecit, searched for the will of Stradivari, but as no proper register appears to have been kept until long after the famous maker died, his efforts were unsuccessful. Although the contents of the will might throw but a faint light upon the doings of the testator, there might be found particulars that would link together much of ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... has been very unsuccessful with these religionists. I don't believe the Episcopal apparatus—the chaplains, and the colleges, and the beadles—have succeeded in converting a dozen of them; and a sort of martyrdom is in store for the luckless Hebrews at Jerusalem who shall ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The unsuccessful men are all around us; and among them are those who confound all distinctions set up by society, and illustrate the great law of compensation set up by God, cutting society at right angles, and obtuse angles, and acute angles, unnoticed, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... conceded to him. He was a great statesman, moved by a patriotic spirit: his speeches were for the welfare and salvation of the state. In 358 B.C., a war broke out between Athens and its maritime allies, in which Athens was unsuccessful. It was on the conquest of Thessaly by Philip, that Demosthenes made against him the first of that series of famous speeches known as Philippics (351 B.C.). In vain he urged the Athenians to rescue Olynthus. The inefficiency of the aid rendered, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... and pursued the imprudent man who had thus attacked him, and who now rode right in our direction. A second detachment of three hunters went to meet the brute; one of them passed near him at a gallop, and threw his lasso, but was as unsuccessful as his comrade. Three other hunters made the attempt; not one of them succeeded. I, as a mere spectator, looked on with admiration at this combat—at those evolutions, flights, and pursuits, executed with such order ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... of Scotland. 1298—1304.—In 1298 Edward, who had been unsuccessful on the Continent, made a truce with Philip. Returning to England, he marched against Wallace, and came up with him at Falkirk. The battle which ensued, like William's victory at Senlac (see p. 96), was a triumph of inventive ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... be in touch with them. Yet I was quite determined that, even though I must keep one eye upon my own especial command, and the buildings over which they were mounting guard, I would also witness the attack upon the approaching slavers. Ultimately, after two or three unsuccessful attempts, I succeeded in finding a spot from which I could accomplish both objects, and at the same time sit comfortably in ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... the Baron did me the honour to consult with me how he should get down to Lyons? I recommended to him to proceed by water; but, said he, my dear Sir, I have no money;—an evil I did not chuse to redress; and, after several unsuccessful attempts at my purse, and some at my person,—he whispered me that even six livres would be acceptable; but I held out, and got off, by proposing that the Baroness should write a letter to the Prince her father, to whom I had the honour to be known, and that I would carry him the letter, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... a moment before replying. His eyes were quite wide open now. If one could judge from his expression, one would certainly have said that the Baron de Grost's attempts to ingratiate himself with his host were distinctly unsuccessful. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... evening from an unsuccessful fishing. When we reached the hut we found the Princess Serena in an evident state of agitation. Looking cautiously around, she made signs to us that some one was about to kill us, lifting up her hands as if they were holding a ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... after the return of Phil and Jerry from their unsuccessful sortie into the enemy's country, before a practical plan occurred to the ten-brain-power plotters. But the scheme, once its details had been worked out, struck them all as having a fair chance for ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... peculiar action of mercury being produced. We only know that such is the fact; and were we to search for the reason, with all the appliances which modern science could bring to our aid, we should be entirely unsuccessful. According to Bgin's idea, we should expect to see some remarkable development of the absorbent system in the one case, with slight development in the other; but, even were such the case, it would not explain the phenomena, for, when ten grains of the preparation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... "Wonder" burner, which is largely used, especially in the United States. Another two-flame burner, made of steatite, by J. von Schwarz of Nuremberg, and sold by L. Wiener of London, is shown in Fig. 11. Burners of the Argand type have also been manufactured, but have been unsuccessful. There are, of course, endless modifications of flat-flame burners to be found on the markets, but only a few need be described. A device, which should prove useful where it may be convenient to be able to turn one or more burners up or down from the same common distant spot, has been patented ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... was as full of danger as of glory; and the unsuccessful event of two former invasions was sufficient to inspire the most serious apprehensions. The veteran troops, who revered the name of Maximian, had embraced in both those wars the party of his son, and were now restrained by a sense of honor, as well as of interest, from entertaining an idea ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... was not at all surprised. He had felt for some time that Ruth's enemy was, in all probability, some jealous and envious movie actress who, herself unsuccessful, resented the youth and beauty of her successful rival. He called a taxi and directed the driver to take him out to the studio of the company with which Ruth was connected. Here, in all probability, was to be found the woman ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... the proposed plan, or anything in the nature of that plan, simply license for the materially unsuccessful to despoil ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn
... Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi river, had been in active progress, under the personal command of General Grant, for several months. The importance of this strategic point was fully understood by the enemy, and it was defended most stubbornly. At first Grant's plans proved unsuccessful; the cutting of canals and opening of bayous failed—as President Lincoln had expected and predicted. But these failures only served to develop the unsuspected energy of Grant's character and the extent of his ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... career was all he sought for—that wand, the type of knowledge, which can only be obtained by study and perseverance. Day after day he sought for it; but at the end of each day all he could say was that he believed he could tell where it was not. The Dwarf came back equally unsuccessful; but still numberless heaps had been turned over, intricate passages explored, profound depths dived into, and unthought of recesses in the ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... for you, Mr. Applebite," remarked Mrs. Waddledot; "and think how strange it is that you, who really are a nice young man—and I don't say so to flatter you—that you should have been so unsuccessful with the ladies." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... fair lottery, those who draw the prizes ought to gain all that is lost by those who draw the blanks. In a profession where twenty fail for one that succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have been gained by the unsuccessful twenty. How extravagant soever the fees of counselors-at-law may sometimes appear, their real retribution ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... me those papers, and said they explained all. I saw by his countenance, however, he had accomplished nothing of consequence. [The fact is, Hiram, desiring to make the surprise as complete as possible, did exhibit the air of one returning from an unsuccessful mission.] 'So let us enjoy our breakfast before I go again ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and retire to his estate of Anet, and that the Marechal de Brissac should forthwith proceed to Brittany. In vain did the fiery young Prince explain and expostulate; Marie was inexorable; and although the Ducs de Guise and d'Epernon interceded in his behalf, they were equally unsuccessful; nor did they discontinue their entreaties until the Queen bade them rather look to the stability of their own favour than hasten its termination by upholding the cause of those who rebelled against ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... collected stores and weapons, and had hidden themselves in the recesses of the forests until the time came for them to sally out for the attack. Several expeditions sent out by the Dutch to break up these bands were unsuccessful. The Portuguese either eluded them, or the Dutch fell into the ambushes prepared for them, and suffered loss without ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... powerfully demonstrated in the 1920s by a medical doctor, Francis Pottenger. He was not gifted with a good bedside manner. Rather than struggling with an unsuccessful clinical practice, Dr. Pottenger decided to make his living running a medical testing laboratory in Pasadena, California. Dr. Pottenger earned his daily bread performing a rather simple task, assaying the potency of adrenal hormone extracts. At that time, adrenaline, a ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... Joseph Banks happily succeeded in waking Dr. Solander, who had almost lost the use of his limbs; the muscles were so shrunk, that his shoes fell from his feet; but every attempt to recal the unfortunate black to life proved unsuccessful. ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... do so, being anxious, indeed, to learn all he could of her former life, and to ascertain, if, after all, there were indeed no friends to whom he could apply, in the event of his mission to her Aunt Therese proving, from any cause, unsuccessful. But as before, on this point he obtained no sort of satisfaction. Madelon never got much beyond the Florence artists, and her German countess, and Russian princess. M. Linders, it was evident, had had no friends beyond the acquaintance he had made at the different ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... my stock, and returned to the same place where I had slept the night before, but the fraternity had quitted on an expedition. I spent my two-pence in bread and cheese, and paid one penny for my lodging, and again I started the next morning, but I was very unsuccessful; nobody appeared to want matches that day, and after walking from seven o'clock in the morning, to past seven in the evening, without selling one farthing's worth, I sat down at the porch of a chapel, quite tired and worn out. At last, I fell asleep, and how do you ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... occasion when her dearest friend, Miss Pullet called, was found so absorbed in studying a problem by the great Schwerlagerbier, that her visitor could not obtain even a sign of recognition. After various unsuccessful efforts to attract the attention of the fair enthusiast, Miss Pullet departed, and meeting an acquaintance immediately afterwards jocosely remarked that she had left Miss Rooster engaged with thirty-two ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... turned with hasty step toward the office where sat the hotel clerk, pen in hand. He listened with obsequious mien, like a polyglot quick to understand each of his guests, and coming out from his enclosure he made straight toward Jaime, who, still embarrassed by his unsuccessful venture, was pretending to read the advertisements in the vestibule. Febrer at first did not realize that it was he who ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and lasting frost, which extended all over Europe, and occasioned a fair to be kept on the River Thames. In 1741 Admiral Vernon, with a strong fleet, joined with General Wentworth, who had a considerable number of forces under his command, made an unsuccessful attempt on Carthagena [sic]; the greater part of the land forces being either killed or cut off by an epidemical distemper. In 1742, Captain Middleton made a fruitless attempt to discover the North West passage ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... compelled to attempt to understand them rather better than we do. We have found the one thing that we did not expect; and therefore the one thing that we cannot explain. And we are moved to an effort, probably an unsuccessful effort, ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... extend slavery in this section came in the unsuccessful filibustering expedition of the Tennessee lawyer, William Walker, who undertook to establish to the south in Sonora, a State with a constitution like that of Louisiana, basing his advocacy of slavery ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... crops furnish winter fodder. Exports feature shipments of high-grade wool to the UK and the sale of postage stamps and coins. Rich stocks of fish in the surrounding waters are not presently exploited by the islanders. So far, efforts to establish a domestic fishing industry have been unsuccessful. The economy has diversified since 1987, when the government began selling fishing licenses to foreign trawlers operating within the Falklands exclusive fishing zone; overfishing is a growing problem. These license fees ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... moment's notice—and whenever he caught sight, over the scrub and through the quarter-mile break in it, of a traveller on the road, he would jump on his horse and make after him. If it was a horseman he usually pulled him up inside of a mile. Stories were told of unsuccessful chases, misunderstandings, and complications arising out of Howlett's mania for running down and bailing up travellers. Sometimes he caught one every day for a week, sometimes not one for weeks—it was ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... to me that I was getting weaker every day. It looked as if something had to be done, and acting on the maxim that "desperate cases require desperate remedies," I resorted for the time being to the whisky treatment. I made one unsuccessful attempt afterwards to get some to serve as a tonic, which perhaps may be mentioned later, and then forever abandoned the use of the ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... in the new movement, if one more direct argument had not influenced the conviction of some of our leaders. They reason around one central thought—namely, that the old policy of silence, in which they grew up, has been tried and has shown itself unsuccessful. The horrible dimensions which the social evil has taken, the ruinous effects on family life and national health, are before us. The old policy must therefore be wrong. Let us try with all our might the reform, however disgusting its first appearance ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... whose face is of the type peculiar—the sort that you give the baby to play with—practises the habits of fourteen years unsuccessful dyspeptic futurism in a support line trench on a hot day, the result is likely to be full of incident. True—the wretched Bendigo knew no better; but no more did the General. And life is made of these ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... daring but unsuccessful attempt of the Lombard students, who flung themselves on the assailants, and who had gained the terrace of Casa Barberini, and continues: "But at daylight I had counted the forces with which we had to contend. I realized that another June 3d would bereave me of half of the youths ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... provisions and every other necessary; yet the distinction of a first discoverer made us cheerfully encounter every danger, and submit to every inconvenience; and we chose rather to incur the censure of imprudence and temerity, which the idle and voluptuous so liberally bestow upon unsuccessful fortitude and perseverance, than leave a country which we had discovered unexplored, and give colour to a charge ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... before our eyes to render a circumstantial detail of them expedient. I shall only mention, that Mr. Willoughby, his resentments having had time to subside, is at present one of the fastest friends of his old renegado factor; and that Mr. Listen's hopes of Miss Parker vanishing along with his unsuccessful suit to Melpomene, in the autumn of 1811 he married his present lady, by whom he has been blest with one son, Philip, and two daughters, Ann ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... Bellenden," said Lord Evandale; "I have been often unsuccessful in such applications, when I have made them on the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... treatment for neuroses of childhood, psycho-analysis is not only unsuccessful, it has dangers and produces ill effects which far outweigh any advantage which may ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... lofty mood was often one of the after-effects of an unsuccessful game of golf. It generally yielded quite quickly to a little stimulant. Puffin filled his glass from the bottle and the kettle, while his friend put his ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... though unsuccessful in one way, was very effective in another. It shook Henry Little terribly; and the effect was enhanced by an anonymous letter he received, reminding him there were plenty of noiseless weapons. Brinsley had been shot twice, and no sound heard. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... see the telegram." O'Mally made an unsuccessful attempt to roll a cigarette. This honeyed blarney, to his susceptible Irish blood, was far more dangerous than any taunts; but he remembered in time the fable of the fox and the crow. "We have all been ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... I still lingered on in Rome. He was untiring in his researches, but quite unsuccessful. Yet it was not that the police were remiss, or the country people inclined to shield the murderer. The best of them would have sold his own father to the guillotine for half the reward offered by Livingstone, for he lavished as much gold in trying to clear up that crime as in old days ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... advised her to go on a short distance to the police-station and leave a description of the missing woman. She did so; then, finding the search hopeless in this quarter, turned homewards. Mutimer was still absent, but he appeared in five minutes; as unsuccessful as herself. She told him of ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... sleep in anxiety and awake in fear. It is apt to interfere with the circulation of the vital ether of happiness in the young, which is damaging to the complexion of the soul. It is bitter, when you are middle-aged and unsuccessful, to go to sleep in self-reproach and awake unexonerated. It is likely to cause fermentation in the sweetest nature; it is certain to breed gray hairs and a premature longing for death. It is pitiful, if you are the home-keeping mother of an impoverished family, to ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... Eastboro, and was driving off. The lawyer stood still, amazedly looking after him. Then he went into the house and spent the next quarter of an hour trying to call the Twin-Lights by telephone. As the northeast wind had finished what the northwest one had begun and the wire was down, his attempt was unsuccessful. He gave it up after a time and sat down to discuss the astonishing affair with his ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... been altogether unsuccessful he replied, 'as you are certainly more talked about than any one ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... dying man, who was lying at our feet, raised his head, and sought to get up; the effort was unsuccessful, and, with a groan of agony, he fell back and called in feeble ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... hopeless and the aggressors reckless, and how her mediations were rejected in the "Peace Congress," which on her motion had been assembled. Sorrowing over the failure of this, her blessed though unsuccessful attempt to preserve the Union of the Constitution, she was not permitted to mourn as a neutral, but was required by the United States Government to choose between furnishing troops to subjugate her Southern sisters or the reclamation of the grants she had made to the Federal ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Rather dangerous. Falls about. Her knees give way. Might cut her head open. Great struggle for supremacy apparently with flapper sister. Both passionate girls, of course. Only thrown up sponge after hard and unsuccessful fight. Local doctor orders iron, quinine, and strychnine. It's a wonder he didn't order brimstone and treacle. Mother doesn't understand the condition at all, but is sufficiently wise to suspect that the ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... account of a thousand other unsuccessful attempts, particularly of one which I made some years since upon an old woman, whom I had certainly borne away with flying colours, if her relations had not come pouring in to her assistance from all parts of England; nay, I believe I should have got her ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... surprised to see so many of the old Dysenteric Cases end fatally; and imagined I had not fallen upon the Right Method of treating them: but upon consulting the other Physical People[33] employed in the same Service, I found them as unsuccessful, as myself, after having tried a Variety of Remedies: And at last, I was convinced, that when once the Flux had continued long, and injured the Structure of the Intestines to a certain Length, a Gangrene will often ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... O monarch that a king should blaze up for a moment like charcoal of ebony-wood than that he should smoulder and smoke like chaff for many years. A man who has many purposes to serve should not scruple to deal with even an ungrateful person. If successful, one can enjoy happiness. If unsuccessful, one loses esteem. Therefore in accomplishing the acts of such persons, one should, without doing them completely, always keep something unfinished. A king should do what is for his good, imitating a cuckoo, a boar, the mountains of Meru, an empty chamber, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... of the guide was not to disclose Curacao to strangers, but to learn what brought strangers to Curacao. The agent was only too delighted to serve the son of one who in money meant so much to the line. For an hour he searched his books, his warehouse and the quays. But, naturally, the search was unsuccessful, and with most genuine apologies Roddy left him, saying that at the office of the American Consul he would continue his ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... pilots as they steered between the islands and turned the capes of Malea and Taenarium to preserve the just order and regular intervals of such a multitude. As the wind was fair and moderate, their labours were not unsuccessful, and the troops were safely disembarked at Methone, on the Messenian coast, to repose themselves for a while after the fatigues of the sea.... From the port of Methone the pilots steered along the western ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... himself by this fragmentary outpouring of his long and unsuccessful battle, Joseph sank back on his pillows, weak and shaken, but evidently at the ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... and as it were unconsciously, advanced to his present condition. Perhaps Mr. Wayland's endeavours to rouse him had come too soon, or in a less simple and attractive form, for they had been reluctantly received and had proved entirely unsuccessful; while the child-like efforts of the girl, following his lead instead of leading him, were certainly awakening him, and renewing his spirits and interest in the world at ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The chase was not of very long duration, for Ernest's bullet had touched some vital spot; and, within a hundred yards of where he had been struck, the wapiti dropped on his knees, made a faint attempt to stagger again to his feet, and an equally unsuccessful effort to gore Wolf, who wisely kept without his reach; and then, with a convulsive tremor running over all his vast frame, fell ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... economical questions, and lectured on banking at Cambridge (1877) and at King's College, London (1878). He was a free lance in his field, and was not considered orthodox by the majority of economists of his time. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the chairs of political economy at Cambridge (1863), ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... strike. The suddenness of the approach startled Carey for the moment, and he leaped back, but the reaction came as quickly, and with doubled fist he rushed at the black; but the latter was too quick, leaping aside, and Carey's second attack, which took the form of a flying kick, was also unsuccessful. ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... Various were the arts of flattery and violence by which they endeavoured to get supplies of liquor, when Meg's conscience told her they had had too much already. Sometimes they failed, as when the croupier of the Helter Skelter got himself scalded with the mulled wine, in an unsuccessful attempt to coax this formidable virago by a salute; and the excellent president of the Wildfire received a broken head from the keys of the cellar, as he endeavoured to possess himself of these emblems of authority. But little did these dauntless officials care for the exuberant frolics ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... from Ruskin's partial and prejudiced depreciation of these two supreme masters, in order to effect an equally partial appreciation of Turner.[216] The story of Poussin's single-minded and stubborn application to his art cannot here be told. After a life of poverty at Paris and two unsuccessful attempts to work his way to Rome, he at length reached that Mecca of French artists, where a commission to paint two pictures, now at Vienna, for Cardinal Barbarini, established his reputation. Two of his works executed about 1630 during this first Roman period hang ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... earlier knowledge of these islands, unsuccessful efforts to locate and discover them, and the organization of a mission to go there for the conversion of the natives, are given in Murillo Velarde's Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 375 b., 379; and Concepcion's ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... slow one; we had to examine each valley for moose tracks, tramping up one side and down the other, or as we usually managed it, separating at the valley's mouth, each taking a side, meeting at the end and then, if unsuccessful, taking the ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... do I. My biography is always being carefully compiled by newspaper authorities, to the delight of the reading public. Only the other day I learned for the first time that my father was a greengrocer, who went in for selling coals by the half-hundred and thereby made his fortune—my mother was an unsuccessful oyster-woman who failed ignominiously at Margate—moreover, I've a great many brothers and sisters of tender age whom I absolutely refuse to assist. I've got a wife somewhere, whom my literary success causes me to despise—and I have deserted children. I'm ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... drift wood that hid him from being seen from the shore. The dogs stopped at the shore, and bayed after the disappearing prey. The Rebels with them, who had seen Tom spring in, came up and made a pretty thorough search for him. As they did not think to probe around the drift wood this was unsuccessful, and they came to the conclusion that Tom had been drowned. Wirz marched the other two back and, for a wonder, did not punish them, probably because he was so rejoiced at his success in capturing them. He was beaming with delight when he returned them to our squad, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Sedalia, where Mrs. George Gellhorn was elected president and Mrs. John W. Barringer vice-president, both of St. Louis. They went to Jefferson City in September and tried to get a suffrage plank into the platform of the Democratic State convention. Though unsuccessful it was the initial step in bringing the subject out of the parlor and lecture-room into the sphere of politics, the arena where the battle ultimately had to be fought. Twenty-eight leagues were formed this year. Miss Amelia C. Fruchte, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... preparation to protect his line of supplies, Rosecrans would hamper his forward movement and retard and cripple his advance when commenced. The only proper force to meet the enemy's troopers was cavalry. In the early days of the Army of the Ohio, under Buell, a number of unsuccessful attempts were made to chase and fight cavalry with infantry, and in every instance the effort was crowned with failure, the only result being the discomfort and complete exhaustion of the ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... times all told he volunteered for these special services; once in particular, after a fourteen-hour day, he set off at nine o'clock at night in a soaking rainstorm, wandered until two o'clock, and returned unsuccessful, to rouse me and report gravely that he could not find them. For these services he neither received nor expected special reward. And catch him doing anything outside his strict "cazi" ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... intervening apartment to the library where the Medium selects various positions—standing upon a lounge, then upon a cushioned chair, next upon a step-ladder and finally upon the side of a book-case—but all with a like unsuccessful result, no response by rappings ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... Court of Georgia no costs exceeding $10 can be taxed against the unsuccessful party; and it has had eight hundred cases in one year upon its docket. In most States he has substantial costs to pay. These mainly are to meet the expense of printing the record sent up from the court below. A single case will sometimes fill a volume or even ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... of military importance occurred at the North. July and November of that year were marked by bloody Indian massacres at Wyoming, Pa., and Cherry Valley, N. Y., the worst in all that border warfare which was incessant from the beginning to the end of the Revolution. In August an unsuccessful attempt to regain Newport was made by General Sullivan, co-operating with a French fleet under D'Estaing. In the spring and summer of 1779, Clinton, who lay at New York with a considerable army, closely watched by Washington, sent ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... carrying into execution the act of 4th May, 1826, to authorize the President of the United States to run and mark a line dividing the Territory of Florida from the State of Georgia, and of their unsuccessful result. I now transmit to Congress copies of communications received from the governor of ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... the Dwarf, with his hand on her horse's rein, "I am no common soothsayer, and I am no flatterer. All the advantages I have detailed, all and each of them have their corresponding evils—unsuccessful love, crossed affections, the gloom of a convent, or an odious alliance. I, who wish ill to all mankind, cannot wish more evil to you, so much is your course of ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... to go on a mission to A-r-hun.' It is possible that Tachar and Hunan may be two individuals, and, though they probably started overland, it is probable that they were in some way connected with Polo's first and unsuccessful attempt to take the girl to Persia." (E.H. PARKER, Asiatic Quart. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... a reply, but was equally unsuccessful in expressing his real sentiments, or the true state of his feelings, but uncle Rik came to the rescue by turning sharply ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... is the most successful. Needless to say, the reasoning is fallacious. The matter of popularity is a secondary criterion, not a primary criterion of the efficiency of teaching. One may be successful and popular or successful and unpopular; unsuccessful and popular or unsuccessful and unpopular. The question of popularity is beside the question of efficiency, although it may enter into specific ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... the youngest, was the most advanced in the class. Afterwards, finding it was impossible to do for him what this strange child required, Dr Jaeger advised his removal, and gave him a private lesson of an hour every day instead. This was continued with only a few months' interruption and unsuccessful trial of a school at Hamburg, till Barthold was eighteen, when he was sent to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... manner, which meant death to hundreds. If the regiment hesitated or dared to remonstrate, so perfect was the discipline and so great the jealousy that another was ready to cut them down. A warrior returning from battle without his arms was put to death without trial. A general returning unsuccessful in the main purpose of his expedition shared the same fate. Whoever displeased the king was immediately executed. The traditional courts practically ceased to exist so far as the will and action of the tyrant was concerned." With this ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... Barbara, with a tact that was creditable to her, but strangely unsuccessful, also began taking off her hat. Her sister-in-law was too polite to interfere, but, as a matter of fact, she did not take much pleasure in the notion that Barbara was going to stay a very long time, too. She was fond of her, but it was not Barbara whom Michael wanted. ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... him to live by the business. In a perfectly fair lottery, those who draw the prizes ought to gain all that is lost by those who draw the blanks. In a profession, where twenty fail for one that succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have been gained by the unsuccessful twenty. The counsellor at law, who, perhaps, at near forty years of age, begins to make something by his profession, ought to receive the retribution, not only of his own so tedious and expensive education, but of that of more than twenty others, who are never likely ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... practice. She strengthened herself by the assurance that in so doing she was really sparing Jerome, saving him possible moments of indecision, or conflict with himself. She was saving Brenda from the same troubles, if not worse: such perhaps as seeing her brilliant hero made into an unsuccessful struggle-for-lifer. She, the mother, would swallow by her single self all the mental discomforts that might have been the general portion, and, nobody being any the wiser, shoulder hardily for their sakes the consciousness of an obligation which might to the others have poisoned a gift, if not made ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... power and speed for a few leaps, and then taking up again." "At last," according to Randolph, the orator "got up to full speed; and took a rapid view of what England had done, when she had been successful in arms; and what would have been our fate, had we been unsuccessful. The color began to come and go in the face of the chief justice; while Iredell sat with his mouth and eyes stretched open, in perfect wonder. Finally, Henry arrived at his utmost height and grandeur. He raised his hands in ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... deserted the cause of the crusaders in Palestine, after an unsuccessful attack upon a tower on Mount Tabor, he was doubtless piqued at the failure of the King of Jerusalem to render him any support in ordering his affairs at home, where, under his viceroy, the virtual absolutism of the government ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... And, in order to show that Gotar was ungrateful for the counsel he had received, he said: "When thou desiredst to take my life and my wife, thou didst mar the look of thy fair example. Only the sword has the right to decide between us." Then Gotar attacked the fleet of the Danes; he was unsuccessful ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... some thirty years after. When the Drury Lane season began, Macready informed me that he should act the play when he had brought out two others—'The Patrician's Daughter', and 'Plighted Troth': having done so, he wrote to me that the former had been unsuccessful in money-drawing, and the latter had 'smashed his arrangements altogether': but he would still produce my play. I had—in my ignorance of certain symptoms better understood by Macready's professional acquaintances—I had no notion that it was a proper thing, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... unsupportable." Sometimes he treated the matter lightly; sometimes he showed annoyance; sometimes he assured her of his esteem and love, but urged her not to make herself or him "unhappy by imaginations." He was uniformly unsuccessful in stopping Vanessa's importunity. He endeavoured, she said, by severities to force her from him; she knew she was the cause of uneasy reflections to him; but nothing would lessen her ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... inclined to think, for several reasons; the first of which is that the poor man was obviously in a state of abject terror this morning. Secondly, he was so keenly anxious to open up communication with me that he made an unsuccessful attempt to do so while helping me to my whisky and soda. Thirdly, his statement that Turnbull is not the legitimate skipper of the barque is so evidently true that it needs no discussion. And fourthly, if Turnbull had seriously desired to make me a prisoner this afternoon, he could ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Judge Terry occurred on Friday, the 16th. An unsuccessful attempt was made for a public demonstration. The fear entertained by some that eulogies of an incendiary character would be delivered was not realized. The funeral passed off without excitement. The rector being absent, the ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... GARFIELD.—Guiteau's father was a man of integrity and considerable intellectual ability. His children were born in quick succession, and the mother was obliged to work very hard. Before this child was born, she resorted to every means, though unsuccessful, to produce abortion. The world knows the result. Guiteau's whole life was full of contradictions. There was little self-controlling power in him; no common sense, and not a vestige of remorse or shame. In his wild imagination, he believed himself capable of doing the greatest work, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... the sort of women who engage in it, and that the prostitute commonly likes her work, and would not exchange places with a shop-girl or a waitress for anything in the world. The notion to the contrary is propagated by unsuccessful prostitutes who fall into the hands of professional reformers, and who assent to the imbecile theories of the latter in order to cultivate their good will, just as convicts in prison, questioned by tee-totalers, always ascribe their ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... tell Asclepiodorus that her search had been unsuccessful, she felt prompted once more to talk with her friend, the anchorite; but before she had gone far enough even to see his cell, the high-priest's scribe once more stood in her way, and desired her to follow him to the temple. There she had to wait in mortal impatience for more than an hour in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... advocate of translation, however, he does not despise his own tongue. "The cunning is no less," he declares, "and the praise as great in my judgment, to translate anything excellently into English, as into any other language," and he hopes that, if his own attempt proves unsuccessful, others will make the trial, "that such an orator as this is might be so framed to speak our tongue as none were able to amend him, and that he might be found to be most like himself." Wilson comes to his task with all the equipment that the period could afford; his preface gives evidence of a ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... Miss Todd was warm in her congratulations. But the attention which perhaps surprised her most was a warm letter of sisterly affection from Mrs Stumfold, in which that lady rejoiced with an exceeding joy in that the machinations of a certain wolf in sheep's clothing had been unsuccessful. "My anxiety that you should not be sacrificed I once before evinced to you," said Mrs Stumfold; "and within the last two months Mr Stumfold has been at work to put an end to the scurrilous writings which that wolf in sheep's clothing has been putting ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... from a dozen states strive for the prize; yet for one reason or another are unsuccessful in carrying the convention, or of awakening the enthusiasm ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... this incident, from the Westminister Review, October, 1856: "A lady whose husband had been unsuccessful in business established herself as a milliner in Manchester. After some years of toil she realised sufficient for the family to live upon comfortably, the husband having done nothing meanwhile. They lived for a time in easy circumstances after she gave up business and then the husband died, ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... of this year (1694)—soon after his return from an unsuccessful campaign—William suffered an irreparable loss by the death of the queen. The old adage touching an ill wind received a curious exemplification at Queen Mary's death, for although that event sent down the stock of the Bank of England ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... strength of the master; such means must fail of the accomplishment of the purposes designed, and consequently the teacher who tries such a course must have constantly upon his mind the discouraging, disheartening burden of unsuccessful and almost useless labor. He is continually uneasy, dissatisfied, and filled with anxious cares, and sources of vexation and perplexity continually arise. He attempts to remove evils by waging against them a useless and most vexatious ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... by the way, possibly one of the fruits of Empire? We see it in the Roman Empire, too, and how vigorously it was applied to Christians and other criminals. Christianos ad leones! But it was a disastrously unsuccessful policy—or we should not have an Archbishop of Canterbury ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... duty lasted for many weeks in poor Amelia's heart. Meanwhile by every means in her power she attempted to earn money, but was always unsuccessful. Then, when matters had become tragic in the little family circle, she could bear the burden of pain no longer. Her decision was made. For the sake of others the child must go from her. She must ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... persons: wicked peers are rare; fraud is usually confined within what may be called its natural limits—the lawyer's office; the attention paid to the heroines not only by their heroes, but by their unsuccessful and objectionable rivals, is generally of the most honourable kind; and platitude and dulness ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... strikes are successful,' and learn, on statistical inquiry, that in every hundred attempts to reduce wages there are 80 strikes, and that 70 p.c. of the strikes are successful, then 56 p.c. of attempts to reduce wages are unsuccessful. ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... forms of the vocal cavities, leading up to the great scientific truth that he must hold the tongue down and the throat open in order that these great laws of acoustics may become operative. He seems very humble in the presence of such profound erudition and makes several unsuccessful attempts to do what I tell him, but his tone is no better. I tell him so, for I do not wish to mislead him. He is beginning to look helpless and discouraged but waits to see what I will do next. He vexes me not a little, because I feel that anything so simple and yet so ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... bring into the comparison what may be called tentative miracles; that is, where, out of a great number of trials, some succeed; and in the accounts of which, although the narrative of the successful cases be alone preserved, and that of the unsuccessful cases sunk, yet enough is stated to show that the cases produced are only a few out of many in which the same means have been employed. This observation bears with considerable force upon the ancient oracles and auguries, in which a single coincidence of the ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... attendants made search, and came upon the poor fellow, in the act of dressing his spoil. He was too nimble for them, and made his retreat good into a dense swamp. When much effort to start him from his hiding place had proved unsuccessful, it was resolved to lay an ambush for him, some distance ahead. The wagon, meantime, was in charge of a lad, who accompanied the teamster as an assistant. The little boy lay still till nearly night, (in the hope probably ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... catch the spirit of their age in verse, they will give it a temporary stamp; and therefore they either abstain from writing, and take to abusing the age on which they have unluckily fallen, or else come to the same resolution after an unsuccessful attempt to revive faded stimulants. Dante embodied, for instance, his countrymen's rude conception of future punishment—and he did well. But our modern religious poets have never ventured to meddle with those moral aspects of the subject which have ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... shamefully over the lists as a Barber's Bason! Gibbon 'could wish to shew him' (in this ejected, Barber's-Bason state) to any man of solidity, who were minded to have the soul burnt out of him, and become a caput mortuum, by Ambition, unsuccessful or successful. (Gibbon's Letters.) ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... attend, but the Conservatives, led by Henry J. Raymond and Edwin D. Morgan, boldly talked of its control. Ward Hunt became temporary chairman. Hunt was a lawyer whom politics did not attract. Since his unsuccessful effort to become a United States senator in 1857 he had turned aside from his profession only when necessary to strengthen the cause of the Union. At such times he shone as the representative of a wise patriotism. He did not belong in the class of attractive platform speakers, nor ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... fol. 4, with reference to what is here said about Turnus Rufus and his father's grave. The proof from the necromancer lies in the allegation that his art was unsuccessful if practiced on the Sabbath-day. The Sambatyon, Rashi says, is a pebbly river which rushes along all the days of the week except the Sabbath, on which it is perfectly still and quiet. In the Machsor for Pentecost (D. Levi's ed. p. 81), it is styled "the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... sense of self-interest fell, however, upon deaf ears. No eloquence or ingenuity of argument could have availed to stem the strong current of growling prepossession. He was equally unsuccessful in his attempt to touch deeper feelings by exhibiting in a pamphlet, which is perhaps the ablest of the series, The danger of the Protestant Religion, from the present prospect of a Religious War in Europe. "Surely you cannot object to a standing army ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... the inn, his spurs ringing on the stones as he made each turn, his movements watched by a hundred peering eyes. After all, it was not hard to rule, nor to have one's way in this world. But then, he went on to remember, not every one had his self-control, or that contempt for the weak and unsuccessful which lightly took the form of mercy. He held Angers safe, curbed by his gibbets. With M. de Montsoreau he might have trouble; but the trouble would be slight, for he knew Montsoreau, and what it was the Lieutenant- Governor valued above ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... contrived private and romantic interviews. Their friendship seems to have been close and sincere. Subsequently, Madame Recamier was able, through her political influence, to serve Hortense in many ways. She also took an interest in her son Louis Napoleon, and visited him in prison after his unsuccessful attempt at Strasbourg, which kindness he afterwards acknowledged in several notes preserved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... enemy broke down; more than six hundred Germans were captured in this way. In the course of the afternoon and during the day of September 25, 1915, some enemy counter-attacks were made from the direction of Ripont, but were unsuccessful in ousting us from the ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... period, in the beginning, namely, of the sixteenth century, an unsuccessful attempt had been made in the Virginia of Accolti to dramatise a serious novel, as a middle species between Comedy and Tragedy, and to adorn it with poetical splendour. Its subject is the same story on which ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... I thought might interest her, but could obtain little other response than "Yes," with a faint rising inflection. After one of these unsuccessful attempts I detected a slight, peculiar smile on Miss Warren's face. It was a mischievous light in her dark eyes more than anything else. As she met my puzzled look it vanished instantly, and she turned away. ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... resist the hand of the oppressor. Sten Sture's character is one which draws forth a warmth of sentiment such as can be felt for no other character of his time. Living in an age when hypocrisy was looked upon with honor, and when falsehood was deemed a vice only when unsuccessful, he showed in all his dealings, whether with friends or foes, a steadfast integrity of purpose with an utter ignorance of the art of dissimulation. Not a stain can history fix upon his memory. Highly gifted as a statesman, ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... his wife and solicit her not absolutely to desert him in his extreme calamity, but to come up to town with him, in order to make their last efforts for his preservation. This epistle, however, proved in the main as unsuccessful as the rest, though it procured him an answer, wherein the person he wrote to informed him that his wife was extremely lame, insomuch that she could not put on her own clothes; that her servant was gone; that she had no money ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... any supernatural machinery that could be invented. The Pharsalia could not be anything more than an interesting but unsuccessful attempt; it was not on these lines that epic poetry was to develop. Lucan died at an age when most poets have done nothing very remarkable; that he already had achieved a poem like the Pharsalia, would make us think he might have gone to incredible heights, were it not that ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie |
