"Futilely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shouted Peter Moore. The girl seemed to be headed for the bund bridge. But why? A number of questions stormed futilely in his brain. Why had the girl ignored him? Why had she not gone aboard the Manchuria, as she ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... more he sprang from his bed to press his face against the thick glass of the little port and to rage futilely that he could not elongate his six feet of anatomy, and slip through. In vain he would throw his weight against the door, without so much as shaking it. And then he would sink back upon the bunk and determine to conserve his strength by snatching ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... average specimen of humanity,—neither brave enough to defy the possibilities of eternity nor cowardly enough to shirk those of time. No, I was only trying idiotically to persuade a girl of eighteen that life was not worth living; and more futilely still, myself, that I did not wish her to live. I am afraid, that in my mind philosophy and fact have but small connection with each other; and though my theorizing for your welfare may be true enough, yet,— I cannot help it, Evie,—it would go terribly hard with me if ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... in the brush. They climbed down none too warily, though they knew well what might be lying, venomous as a coiled rattler, in wait for them below. Slipping and sliding in the fog-dampened grass, they reached the spot, to find the big sorrel crumpled there, dead. They searched anxiously and futilely for more, but Blink was not there, nor was there anything to show that he had ever been there. Then not fear, perhaps, but caution, ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... his mate fled away through the pale moonlight, Rasmunsen futilely puncturing the silence with his revolver—a thing that he handled with more celerity than cleverness. Thirty-six hours later the Indian made a police ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... met with no better success. The fact became obvious then that to artillery fire the Mercutians were impregnable. For several days no further military operations were attempted, with the exception of an occasional shell futilely ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... is ... God ... Knowledge." He had tried to convey this to the small creatures who had invaded his world, but they did not heed. Their ill-equipped brains were trying futilely to comprehend the ancient race memory of ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... to "about the same thing" with Horace, Winton. As I have said, Horace was not a journalist. No, I take it that his kinsmen bodily withstood his departure, whereas the crowd—populumque—the democracy stood about futilely pitying him and getting in the way. Now for that noblest of endings—quam si clientum,' and King ran off ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... intrigue enmeshing him, but it was so very fine that he could not pick up the smallest thread whereby to unravel it. Down in his soul he felt the shame of the knowledge that he dared not. A dreamer, rushing toward the precipice, would rather fall dreaming than waken and struggle futilely. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... the last day at camp that it happened. To Pollyanna it seemed such a pity that it should have happened at all, for it was the first cloud to bring a shadow of regret and unhappiness to her heart during the whole trip, and she found herself futilely sighing: ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... grappled him close by the throat, and with a deft twist threw him over on his back. Then the rope tightened mercilessly, while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely. Never in all his life had he been so vilely treated, and never in all his life had he been so angry. But his strength ebbed, his eyes glazed, and he knew nothing when the train was flagged and the two men threw him into the ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... into his arms, lifting her in his big hands, making no more of her than if she had been a feather pillow, up till her face was on a level with his, pressing her close, while in swift, indignant rage she fought back at him, striking futilely while he held her, kissed her, and set her down ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... remembered afterward, although at the time he was too absorbed to fully appreciate it, that this change began one day shortly after he had learned of Nate's departure. As he went mechanically about his work, he was pondering futilely upon his friend's mysterious journey, and his tantalizing hopes lying untried in the depths of the ravine. He hardly noticed the conversation of the men until something was said that touched upon the wish ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... dawn that came up as pink as the palm of a babe, but flowed rather futilely against the tired, speckled eye of incandescent bulb dangling above the Granite Jaw's rumpled, tumbled bed of pain, a gray-looking group stood in whispered conference beside a slit of window that overlooked a narrow clapboard ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... move, baby. This stuff can break your neck if you twist it wrong." She continued for a moment to struggle futilely, and I had to ...
— The Hunted Heroes • Robert Silverberg
... so seldom nowadays that she obtruded her affairs upon any one's notice that Betty glanced at her wonderingly. Her eyes had their starry look, and a smile that she was futilely endeavoring to keep in the background played around ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... a red tam-o’-shanter, but lake and summer cottages were mine alone. I landed and began at once my search for Morgan. There were many paths through the woods back of the cottages, and I followed several futilely before I at last found a small house snugly bid away in a ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... that he found all delight in interminable romps with Scraps. So strong was the play-instinct in him, as well as was his constitution strong, that he continually outplayed Scraps to abject weariness, so that he could only lie on the deck and pant and laugh through air-draughty lips and dab futilely in the air with weak forepaws at Michael's continued ferocious- acted onslaughts. And this, despite the fact that Scraps out-bullied him and out-scaled him at least three times, and was as careless and unwitting of the weight of his legs or shoulders as a ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... which happened before the curtain rose. Consider how frequently Fortune du Boisgobey failed to play fair. Consider how juiceless was the documentary method of Wilkie Collins, how mechanical and how arid, how futilely complicated, how prolonged, and how fatiguing. Consider all the minor members of the sorry brood hatched out of the same egg, how cheap and how childish the most of them are. Consider all these; and we are forced to the conclusion that if the writing of a good detective-story is so rare ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... Mrs. Brinkley hopelessly, and both ladies looked out over the water, where the waves came rolling in one after another to waste themselves on the shore as futilely as if they ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... tenth mosquito I've missed," cheerily resumed Brice, slapping futilely at his own cheek. "In the old days, they used to infest Miami. Now they're driven back into the swamps. But they seem just as industrious as ever, and every bit as hungry. It must be grand to have such ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... up there with a girl I'd known ever since I was a kid—we'd almost been brought up together. And the first thing I did was to go and skid down the side of a ravine." He puffed futilely at his cigarette. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... my breathing. I was as steady and cool as I ever had been upon a target-range, and I had the full consciousness of a perfect hit in anticipation; I knew that I could not miss. And then, as the bear surged forward toward me, the hammer fell—futilely, upon ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... boy he first negotiated quick-starting elevators. But Winn, among other secrets of aviation, had learned that to go up it was sometimes necessary first to go down. The air had refused to hold him. Instead of struggling futilely and perilously against this lack of sustension, he yielded to it. With steady head and hand, he depressed the forward horizontal rudder—just recklessly enough and not a fraction more—and the monoplane dived head foremost and sharply down the void. It was falling with ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... Suddenly, and futilely as I thought while I spoke, I asked—"Gunga Dass, what is the good of the boat if I can't get out anyhow?" I recollect that even in my deepest trouble I had been speculating vaguely on the waste of ammunition in guarding an ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Jersey, which had developed an incredible obstinacy with the cessation of Tex's Comanche yells behind her, Wallie applied the rope he had inherited, with the best imitation he could give of the performance, but futilely. ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... muttering under his breath every time his flying feet struck bits of gravel and sharp stones. The sound of the airplane motors was now much nearer; the siren was still screaming its fright; anti-aircraft guns were futilely belching steel into the air, and the searchlights were getting jumpy in their haste to locate the intruders and hold them in a ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... that she knew that those sacred manuscripts written by the dear, dead hand had not been destroyed by printers, every fibre of her passionate self craved their possession. We argued futilely, as people must, who haven't the ghost of ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... to his chest, one arm was in the small of his back, the other was pressed across his throat, his chin was sunk deep into the German's shoulder. Von Arnheim had only one arm free, the other was pinioned to his side. With this free arm he plucked futilely at Roy's arm across his throat, unable to reach the guarded face. It was a grip Von Arnheim was powerless to break, and it was only a question of time until he ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... examined the end of his cigarette, and gave a lift of shoulder, which might mean anything or nothing, and so was irritating to a degree. He did not pursue the subject further, and so several belated retorts were left tickling futilely the tongues of the Happy Family—which does ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... breath beginning to rip from his poor lungs like a knifed stitch, the roan still faltered on each new ledge to whinny desperately to his mate. Equally futilely from time to time, Barton, with his hands cupped to his mouth, ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... mosquitoes were not so easily deceived. Both boys were promptly located by a scouting party, and mosquito communications went into fast operation. Within a few minutes the entire local mosquito air force had invaded the tree. Rick waved his hands futilely at the whining swarm and muttered unhappily, "There are so many they have to ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... eyes—eyes that glowed with a greenish hate-glare like the night-eyes of the wolf. Backward and yet backward the man bent until it seemed that his spine must snap. His clenched fists ceased to beat futilely against the huge shoulders of his opponent, and he clawed frantically at the snow that hung in a miniature cornice along the edge of ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... bending profile; the well-characterized though softly lined nose, the round chin with, as it were, a second leap in its curve to the throat, and the sweep of the eyelashes over the rosy cheek during the sedulously lowered glance. How futilely he had laboured to express the character of that face in clay, and, while catching it in substance, had yet lost ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... a box of matches and two pepper cans, one empty and the other full. Brit always meant to throw out that empty pepper can and always neglected to do so. Just now he remembered picking up the empty one and shaking it over the potatoes futilely and then changing it for the full one. But he did not take it away; in the wilderness one learns to save useless things in the faint hope that some day they may become useful. The shelves were cluttered with fit companions to that empty ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... quick and sure. His reach was whole inches longer than his opponent's. His strength was that of two ordinary men. What did it avail him? He was like an agile athlete in the circus playing tag with a black panther. He was like a child striking futilely at a wavering butterfly. Sometimes this white-faced, laughing devil ducked under his arms. Sometimes a sidestep made his blows miss by the slightest ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand |
