"Unsuccessfully" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... always what he had taken delight in. And as I knew he had learnt psalmody formerly, in his youth, and had constantly practised it in private, at home, on Sunday evenings, (as well as endeavoured to teach it in the little school he so unsuccessfully set up, at the beginning of his misfortunes, before he took to hard labour,) I was in no pain for his undertaking it in this little congregation. They seemed much pleased with this; and so we went to chapel, and made a pretty tolerable appearance; Mrs. Jewkes, and all the servants, attending, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... On the 21st, while the troops were being placed in position by Thomas, under order of Buell, the enemy retreated, marching for a short distance toward Louisville, then turned to the right, and took position near Bardstown. Bragg claimed in his official report that after maneuvring unsuccessfully for four days to draw General Buell into an engagement, he found himself with only three days' rations on hand for his troops "and in a hostile country," that even a successful engagement would materially cripple him, and as Buell had another route to ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... vellum, which fell (in more senses than one) under the hammer for L262, Dent having paid L903 for it at Sir Mark Sykes' sale. Both the purchasers, Payne and Foss, and Dibdin, made strenuous efforts to persuade the Earl of Spencer to purchase it, but unsuccessfully; it subsequently became the property of Grenville, and passed with his collection into the British Museum. Dent is the Pontevallo of the 'Bibliomania,' and Baroccio of the 'Bibliographical Decameron,' and does not seem to have been an altogether amiable specimen ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... the street by Casey," he told her, trying not unsuccessfully for his habitual detached manner. "I stopped to get the news for you. King is not dead, but probably fatally wounded. Casey is in jail. There is a great public excitement—a mob is forming. I've been expecting something ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... royalty were open to her. And some of the most elaborate fetes of the season.—which indeed were very elaborate on behalf of this and that travelling potentate,—were attained. On these occasions Miss Longestaffe was fully aware of the struggle that was always made for invitations, often unsuccessfully, but sometimes with triumph. Even the bargains, conducted by the hands of Lord Alfred and his mighty sister, were not altogether hidden from her. The Emperor of China was to be in London and it was thought ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... legitimate kingship. Could St. Remy's vial be found, or had it and its contents vanished in the whirlpool of the Revolution? That was to be learned. A worthy magistrate of Rheims, Monsieur de Chevrieres, took in hand the task of discovery. He searched diligently but unsuccessfully, until one day, in the early months of 1819, when three gentlemen, sons of Philippe Hourelle, called upon him, and told the story which we have just transcribed. A portion of the holy oil of coronation, they declared, had been in their father's ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... prejudices, both in earnest and in sport, successfully and unsuccessfully; but one I find very obstinate,—it has pursued me incessantly for years. A piano-player, with a rigid, strained, and vicious touch, proceeding from the arm, may play a great deal, but his playing is thoroughly vulgar and without beauty. He feels this ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... were John Rolle, member for Truro, a merchant and politician, who died in November 1648, and who as early as 1645 had been proposed, though unsuccessfully, for the Navy Committee; and three less conspicuous members of Parliament: Sir Walter Earle (of the Presbyterian party), Giles Greene, and Alexander Bence. They were all superseded the following year by the new Admiralty Committee of the ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... beautiful centre of the richest land in the State. In 1847 he was a member of the national Congress, where he voted about forty times in favor of the principle of the Jefferson proviso. In 1849 he sought, eagerly but unsuccessfully, the place of Commissioner of the Land Office, and he refused an appointment that would have transferred his residence to Oregon. In 1854 he gave his influence to elect from Illinois, to the American Senate, a Democrat, who would certainly do justice to Kansas. In ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... be conferred by solitude, its application must be attained by general converse. He has learned to no purpose, that is not able to teach; and he will always teach unsuccessfully, who cannot recommend his sentiments by his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... qualities are highly appreciated on the Continent and elsewhere, and there is no earthly reason why they should not be grown here. The history of the introduction of the tomato into Australia is instructive in this connection. For years and years it struggled desperately, but unsuccessfully, for a place, and the attempt to bring it into use was on the point of being abandoned in consequence. But at last its undeniable merits were acknowledged, and to-day it is in universal request. Now, it is perfectly ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... mercurial physic, afforded her ease and the inflammation disappeared, but was succeeded by an oedematous swelling of the part, which very gradually extended along the arm, and downward to the breast, back, and belly. Friction, electricity and mercurial ointment were amongst the number of applications unsuccessfully employed to relieve her for the space of three months, during which time she continued in ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... and not very easily organised political power which was already beginning to move the masses here then, and already threatening, to the observant eye, with its portentous movement, the foundations of tyranny, the fact, too, that these men were understood to have made use of the stage unsuccessfully as a means of immediate political effect, are facts which lie on the surface of the history of these works, and unimportant as it may seem to the superficial enquirer, it will be found to be anything but irrelevant as this inquiry ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... international affairs, and that we did recognise that the welfare of all human beings was part—if you like to put it so—of our national interests. We failed to make that recognition. We have been trying feebly and unsuccessfully to repair that great mistake ever since, and for my part I do not believe there is any hope of a solution of the Russian difficulty until we absolutely acknowledge the failure we then made, ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... wind that blows nobody any good. The prim man in the cloth boots, who had been unsuccessfully attempting to make a joke during the whole time the round game lasted, saw his opportunity, and availed himself of it. The instant the glasses disappeared, he commenced a long story about a great public character, whose name he had forgotten, making a particularly happy reply to another eminent ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... most undoubtedly paralyse the efforts of myself and others who have worked unsparingly—and not unsuccessfully—since the commencement of the war, and would play right into the hands of those who are a contemptible minority among the Nationalists of Ireland, and who are trying—unsuccessfully trying—to prevent recruiting and to undermine thus the position and power of the Irish party because of the attitude ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... bewildered Bishop of London, who declared that he did not know which way to vote, for "he was confounded between dangers and inconveniences on one side and destruction on the other." It is not out of place to mention here that when a Bill was unsuccessfully brought in nearly twenty years after for the Repeal of the Septennial Act, many of those who had voted in favor of parliaments of seven years in 1716 voted the other way, while opponents in 1716 were turned ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... "Dalton (Edward) Doubting's Downfall, 1s. 6d." Application was made, when other books were ordered, three several times; in each case the answer was "sold." Since that date inquiries have been instituted from time to time, in the usual quarters, but always unsuccessfully. No clue can be given as to the size or date, but from the quaintness of the title it is presumed to be about ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... seen by us, may, I apprehend, be fairly stated as follows: In the island of Cuba, a powerful military force,—government it scarcely could be called,—foreign to the island, was holding a small portion of it in enforced subjection, and was endeavoring, unsuccessfully, to reduce the remainder. In pursuance of this attempt, measures were adopted that inflicted immense misery and death upon great numbers of the population. Such suffering is indeed attendant upon war; but it may be stated as a fundamental ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... in the corner, tried to smile, and said, as required, "Yes," or "No." Alden, pitying her from the depths of his heart and yet secretly ashamed, tried unsuccessfully, now and then, to draw her into ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... the people to pay, it may thus diminish, or perhaps destroy, some of the funds which might enable them more easily to do so. Thirdly, by the forfeitures and other penalties which those unfortunate individuals incur, who attempt unsuccessfully to evade the tax, it may frequently ruin them, and thereby put an end to the benefit which the community might have received from the employment of their capitals. An injudicious tax offers a great temptation ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... by first Edward and John Balliol, the prison of William Wallace, and the scene of that unavailing remorse which agonised the bosom of his betrayer (a rude sculpture within the castle represents Sir John Monteith in an attitude of despair, lamenting his former treachery), captured by Bruce, unsuccessfully besieged by the fourth Edward, reduced by the Earl of Argyll, surprised, while in false security, by the daring of a bold soldier, Captain Crawford, resided in by James V, visited by that fair and erring Queen, the "peerless Mary," ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... class honour or divine right; just as, with us, the Church prefers to hush up rather than to publish any unfortunate internal episode that would redound to its discredit. So shocked was he at the assassination of the ruler of Ts'i by an usurping family in 481, that, even at his venerable age, he unsuccessfully counselled instant war against Ts'i. His motive was perhaps doubtful, for the next year we find a pupil of his, then in office, going as a member of the mission to the same usurper in order to try and obtain a cession of territory improperly ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... distinguish it from the other dormitory, Upper House, which stood a hundred yards higher on the hill, looked very uninviting. Its windows frowned dark and inhospitable and no light shone from the hall as they entered. Mr. Whipple paused and searched unsuccessfully for a match. ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... individual, who, having just come to live in Boston, was much interested in its topography, and who saw one day a street car making off in what seemed to him a queer direction, so that he wondered where it could be going and tried unsuccessfully to read its sign. The next night he dreamed of seeing the car near at hand and reading the sign, which, though really consisting of nonsense names, satisfied his ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... York, "Splendour" was just beginning its phenomenal three years' run. The city was mad about the play. People came to see it again and again—a sure sign of a long run. The Sarah Haddon second-act costume was photographed, copied (unsuccessfully), talked about, until it became as familiar as a uniform. That costume had much to do with the play's success, though Sarah Haddon would never admit it. "Splendour" was what is known as a period play. The famous dress ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... renewed, though unsuccessfully, the attempt he had made before the 18th Fructidor to obtain a dispensation of the age necessary for becoming a Director. Perceiving that the time was not yet favourable for such a purpose, he said to me, on the 29th of January 1798, "Bourrienne, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... to serve his own interest and Jeff's equally, strove and labored with him, but in vain. His employer's wife, a still more good-natured woman, successful in her way, and equally anxious to serve Jeff's interests and her own, also strove with him as unsuccessfully. At the end of a month he discharged his employer, after a simple, boyish, utterly unbusiness-like interview, and secretly tore up his wife's letter. "I don't know what to make of that chap," said the husband to his wife; "he's about ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... says Mr. Cumming, I rode into camp, after unsuccessfully following the spoor of a herd of elephants for two days, in a westerly course. Having partaken of some refreshment, I saddled up two steeds and rode down the bank of Ngotwani, with the Bushman, to seek for any game I might find. After riding ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... or 1765, to the establishment of the famous concerts subsequently known as the Bach and Abel concerts. For ten years these were organized by Mrs Comelys, whose enterprises were then the height of fashion. In 1775 the concerts became independent of her, and were continued by Abel unsuccessfully for a year after Bach's death in 1782. At them the works of Haydn were first produced in England. After the failure of his concert undertakings Abel still remained in great request as a player on various instruments new and old, but he took to drink and thereby hastened ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... iii., p. 61.).—Lady Bingham, whose daughter, afterwards Lady Crewe, was unsuccessfully courted by Sir Symonds D'Ewes (for which see his autobiography), was Sarah, the daughter of John Heigham, Esq., of Gifford's Hall in Urekham Brook, Suffolk, of the same family with Sir Clement Heigham, Knt., of Barrow, Suffolk, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... harm to think about it," growled Fraser, good- naturedly. He felt out a pipe from his pocket and endeavored unsuccessfully to blow ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... by the sight of a man who seemed to be having troubles of his own. He was down at the side of an automobile, perspiring freely and vexed with the whole world as he unsuccessfully labored at changing a tire. The automobile was no ordinary car. It had a driver's seat in front and a closed car behind like the closed delivery wagons Glen had seen in town. Bright colored letters announced to the world that J. Jervice supplied the public with ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... disappointed, but by the oddest of chances he was to pick up yet another thread of the Minute mystery, a thread which, however, was to lead him into an ever-deeper maze than that which he had already and so unsuccessfully attempted to penetrate. ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... must beg your indulgence. The accident—as we now suppose it to be—which has given to the last comer the number already held by a gentleman who has unsuccessfully consulted me, may have a meaning which we can none of us at present see. If the three visitors who have been so good as to wait will allow the present holder of Number Fourteen to consult me out ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... fighting at Baranowitchi in the great Russian offensive last summer, at a time when the Russians repeatedly but unsuccessfully stormed that important railway junction, some Prussian units found their right flank unsupported one morning at dawn, because two Bohemian battalions had changed flags during the night. The next Russian attack caused the Prussians to lose 48 ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... intention to reinvest some oil revenue into agriculture). A number of aid programs sponsored by the World Bank and the IMF have been cut off since 1993 because of corruption and mismanagement. No longer eligible for concessional financing because of large oil revenues, the government has been unsuccessfully trying to agree on a "shadow" fiscal management program with the World Bank and IMF. Businesses, for the most part, are owned by government officials and their family members. Undeveloped natural resources include titanium, iron ore, manganese, uranium, ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... his determination to persevere in reading aloud from the book of his choice, if he had to ram undigested wisdom whole into the mental stomachs of his offspring—all this would have deterred a less obstinate man. But Madigan, who had become a bully through weakness (forced to domineer unsuccessfully in his home by the conquering softness of his sister's disposition), had the bully's despairing consciousness of being in the wrong at the very moment of superficial victory; of being powerless in the very act of ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... intimacy of Brougham, Jeffrey, Leyden, Logan, Sydney Smith, and other literary aspirants. In 1778 he published "Observations on the Zoonomia of Dr Darwin,"—a pamphlet replete with deep philosophical sentiment, and which so attracted the notice of his friends that they used every effort, though unsuccessfully, to secure him the chair of rhetoric in the University during the vacancy which soon afterwards occurred. His professional views were originally directed to the bar, but disgusted with the law after a twelve-month's trial, he entered on a medical course, to qualify himself as physician, and in ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... disaster was perceived, an officer ran to the ship's captain to inform him that it was capsizing. Kempenfelt, the admiral, was at his desk below deck; his coxswain, notwithstanding the danger, attempted to reach him, but unsuccessfully, for the waters had already engulphed him. His loss was deplored in all the land; he was generally esteemed, and his great abilities were acknowledged by the State. And now the dauntless sea-warrior, ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... deterred from entering into any engagements with the proposers; congratulating himself, in the meantime, on his good fortune, in being favoured with the advice and direction of such a sage counsellor. Nevertheless, he began to be impatient, after having unsuccessfully consulted all the money brokers and conveyancers about town, and resolved to try the expedient of a public advertisement. But he was persuaded by my lord to postpone that experiment, until every other method should have failed, because it would attract the attention ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... How do you pick up so much about that sort of people?" demanded Claire, suppressing a yawn rather unsuccessfully. Claire found such topics of conversation far from entertaining, and was perfectly willing that Peggy should realize this fact. But Peggy herself was too interested to ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... cloths, dipped in water, were wound about the forehead and temples. As soon as I could remove my eyes from this horrible spectacle, I observed my friend Dr. D——, one of the most humane of a humane profession, standing by the bedside. He had been attempting, but unsuccessfully, to bleed the patient, and had now applied his finger to ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... to a tract of land in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, on which in 1841-1847 a communistic experiment was unsuccessfully tried. The experiment was one of the practical manifestations of the spirit of "Transcendentalism," in New England, though many of the more prominent transcendentalists took no direct part in it. The project was originated by George Ripley, who also virtually ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... Zumala-Carreguy, in Spain, with Schamyl, in the Caucasus, and with Kossuth, in Hungary, chronicling his exploits in works which won him the friendship of Wellington and other notables. Going to Central America, he fought gallantly, but unsuccessfully, at Grenada, and he then came to Washington, where he was soon known as an envoy of "Cuba Libre." He married a cultivated woman, and his tall, soldier-like figure was to be seen striding along on the sunny sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue every ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... have tried to explain, and unsuccessfully it seems, it is haunted by nothing more ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... the interior long remaining Gallic, the frontier Teutonic. From Caesar's time down to the fifth century, the land was Roman. Afterward, in several periods, it was in part, or in whole, included in the domain of France—in Charlemagne's time and after; under Louis XI., who sought, somewhat unsuccessfully, its complete submission; under Louis XIV., who virtually conquered it; under the French Revolution, and during Napoleon's ascendency. On Belgium soil Marlborough fought and won Ramillies, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... behold it. Its departure, however, was insufficient to calm his agitation and quell the storm that raged within him. He was a prey to that rare moral torture sometimes witnessed when a feeble talent wrestles unsuccessfully to attain a development above its capacity—a furious endeavour which often conducts young and vigorous minds to great achievements, but whose result to old and enervated ones is more frequently despair and insanity. Tchartkoff, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... Independence seemed within his reach, when misfortune, equally unforeseen as inevitable, at all points assailed him! In the course of one disastrous year, death deprived him of his family, and adversity of his property. He had unsuccessfully speculated, and the insolvency of several who were considerably indebted to him, had completed his ruin! At the time he committed the act for which he stood convicted at that bar, he had not tasted food for three days, neither had he in the world a friend or relative to whom he could apply ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... which swarmed during that agitated period from the press. The desultory student, however, did not altogether intermit his academical studies. In 1793 he competed for another Greek verse prize, this time unsuccessfully. He afterwards described his ode On Astronomy as "the finest Greek poem I ever wrote;" [4] but, whatever may have been its merits from the point of view of scholarship, the English translation of it, made eight years after by Southey (in which form alone it now exists), seems ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... Graf von Loeben, the scion of an old, aristocratic, Protestant family, was born at Dresden, August 18, 1786. He received his first instruction from private tutors. For three years from 1804 on, he unsuccessfully, because unwillingly, studied law at the University of Wittenberg. In 1807 he entered, to his profound delight, the University of Heidelberg, where, in association with Arnim, Brentano, and GOerres, he satisfied ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield
... a different fate,—the governor of the island, indeed, was her suitor,—and forbade their intercourse. There were rumors of a private marriage; her apartments were searched for any record, note, or proof, unsuccessfully. If there were such, they had been left in the gentleman's hands for better concealment. It being supposed that they continued to meet, M. Le Blanc prevailed upon the governor to arrest the lover on some trifling pretence and send him out of the island. Shortly afterward, as he once confessed ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... who had been torn away from a distant colony, and exposed to the contemptuous treatment of those through whose hands he passed—owed his final liberation to the interference of an advocate, and the firmness of the judges. He obtained L200 damages, against which the government appealed, unsuccessfully, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... can be joined by the Brest. This is the state of our situation. "le have stopped the embarkation of the six thousand men for Flanders; and I hope the King's journey thither, The Opposition fight every measure of supply, but very unsuccessfully. When this Welsh election is over, they will probably go out of town, and leave the rest of the session ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... three months before, he spoke of the death of one whom he had known from his boyhood (ante, i. 47-8) and with whom he had fought unsuccessfully for some years against the management of the Literary Fund. "Poor Dilke! I am very sorry that the capital old stout-hearted man is dead." Sorrow may also be expressed that no adequate record should remain of a career which for steadfast purpose, conscientious maintenance ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... operation. When Kepler, after vainly endeavoring to connect the observed places of a planet by various hypotheses of circular motion, at last tried the hypotheses of an ellipse and found it answer to the phenomena; what he really attempted, first unsuccessfully and at last successfully, was to discover the circumstance in which all the observed positions of the planet agreed. And when he in like manner connected another set of observed facts, the periodic times of the different planets, by the proposition that the ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... friar tells his beads. As such actions sometimes are the symptoms of mental occupation, I began to anticipate the brilliant results of so much thinking. I cried, hem! in hopes to rouse them to expression—and not quite unsuccessfully: for one remarked, it was a wretched day; another wished it was fine; and a third hoped it shortly would be so. Meantime, the index of the clock went round; it was gaining close upon ten before all had withdrawn from the table. My eye followed ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... remained in the hands of their gallant defenders, under the Athenian Iphicrates. The long walls were soon restored, by aid of the Athenians, but were again retaken by Agesilaus and the Spartans, together with Lechaeum. This success alarmed Thebes, which unsuccessfully sued for peace. The war continued, with the loss, to the Corinthians, of Piraeum, an important island port, which induced the Thebans again to open negotiations for peace, which were ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the drawing-room, he looked for her again, and looked unsuccessfully. The window, however, was open, and he advanced to it. Clarice was on the balcony alone, her elbows on the rail, a hand on either side of her cheek. Something in her attitude made ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... return to France in the year 1601, Champlain received a pension, together with the appointment of geographer to the king. Pierre de Chauvin, Sieur de Tontuit, who had unsuccessfully endeavoured to establish a settlement at Tadousac, died at this time, while Champlain was residing in Paris. Here he had the good fortune to meet Aymar de Chastes, governor of the town and chateau of Dieppe, under whose orders he had served during the latter ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... enemies. Then again, what good will it do you to tell the public what you think of Tandy? That won't convince a living soul who isn't convinced already. The rest will say that you are naturally very angry with the man who found you out—the man from whom you unsuccessfully tried to extort a bribe. You see there were no witnesses present when your interview with Tandy occurred. That was a capital mistake on your part. Then, too, you went to his house for this business, and people will say that that, too, looks bad. You have destroyed the invitation ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... usual, Indian breastworks. With their unerring aim, they laid low twenty of the soldiers. Most of the other forty of Davidson's command were more or less severely wounded. Bravely the poor fellows fought, though unsuccessfully. They however ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... with forefinger upraised. I could not think of my house as separate from my country: I had robbed my house, I had robbed my country. For this sin my house had ceased to be mine, my country also was estranged from me. Had I died begging for my country, even unsuccessfully, that would have been worship, acceptable to the gods. But theft is never worship—how then can I offer this gold? Ah me! I am doomed to death myself, must I desecrate my country with my impious touch? The way to put the money back is closed to me. I have not the strength to return ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... express her own mind in becoming tone and place. But Mrs Grantly's sway, if sway she has, is easy and beneficent. She never shames her husband; before the world she is a pattern of obedience; her voice is never loud, nor her looks sharp: doubtless she values power, and has not unsuccessfully striven to acquire it; but she knows what should be the limits of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... but she begged her sister not to disturb her. "Don't talk to me, Bell," she said. "I'm trying to make myself quiet, and I half feel that I should get childish if I went on talking. I have almost more to think of than I know how to manage." And she strove, not altogether unsuccessfully, to speak with a cheery tone, as though the cares which weighed upon her were not unpleasant in their nature. Then her sister kissed her and left ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... of the frequency of occurrence of consanguineous marriages has been strongly felt by many far-sighted men. G.H. Darwin and A.H. Huth have tried unsuccessfully to have the subject investigated by the British Census, and Dr. A.G. Bell has recently urged that the United States Census make such an investigation.[1] Another motive for undertaking this present work, aside ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... they had forgotten something; they had forgotten journalism. They had forgotten that there exists in the modern world, perhaps for the first time in history, a class of people whose interest is not that things should happen well or happen badly, should happen successfully or happen unsuccessfully, should happen to the advantage of this party or the advantage of that part, but whose interest simply is that ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... 'Ode to Duty,' in which the lofty vein is very unsuccessfully attempted. This is ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... to find an apron in the folds of an umbrella on the hall rack, the very place where, strange to say, Laura had searched unsuccessfully a moment before. With the help of the latter she was soon draped in its red and white bars and joined Alene ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... in Parliament, your dear mother displayed a true wife-like devotion. She worked with an energy and earnestness all her own, first at Birkenhead in 1861, and later at Devonport and Sandwich—constituencies which I fought unsuccessfully—and my return for Hastings in 1868 afforded her the more gratification. It had been the custom in the last-named constituency to invite the active assistance of ladies, and especially the wives of the ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... can believe me, Rollo found all the marvellous things which he had so unsuccessfully endeavoured to purchase before, a beautiful picture called Spring with pink apple-blossoms a-bloom, a string of magnificent pearls, much larger than those he had seen in the other shop, a bright red book entitled Memorandum, ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell
... Miss Mills what I had endeavoured, so very unsuccessfully, to expound to Dora. Miss Mills replied, on general principles, that the Cottage of content was better than the Palace of cold splendour, and that ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... and of other great animals of the chase. Here they encamped, and on the following morning the young men set out by different ways in the direction of the mountain to hunt; but at night they returned empty handed. Thus they hunted four days unsuccessfully. Every day while his sons were gone the old man busied himself cutting down saplings with his stone ax and building a house, and the daughters gathered seeds, which constituted the only food of the family. As the saplings were abundant ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... not the slightest sympathy with most of his ideas; they seem to me misinterpretations of evolutional teachings; and if not misinterpretations, they are simply undeveloped and ill-balanced thinking. But the title of one of his books, and the idea which he tries always unsuccessfully to explain,—that of a state above mankind, a moral condition "beyond man," as he calls it,—that is worth talking about. It is not nonsense at all, but fact, and I think that I can give you a correct idea of the realities in the case. Leaving Nietzsche entirely alone, then, ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... and he who holds it is sure to be possessed of this fort, and that which it contains. My days and nights have all been passed there since we separated, because I thought that duty called me thither. But," he added, with an air of chagrin, which he endeavored, though unsuccessfully, to conceal, "had I been aware that what I then believed a soldier's conduct could be so construed, shame would have been added to the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... that had contrived, not unsuccessfully, to combine religion with journalism. His immediate forebears seem to have been persons of marked individuality, and his pedigree was, for the New World, of quite respectable antiquity. The founder of the family, George Willis, was born ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... was still living, a discreet, wise princess. She had several times unsuccessfully tried to check her son's prodigality and debauchery, giving him to understand, that, if he did not soon take another course, he would not only squander his wealth, but also alienate the minds of his people, and occasion some revolution, which perhaps might ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... police of every kind, the iniquities of all Protestants, the benefits likely to accrue to mankind from an unlimited manufacture of potheen, and the injustice of rents, were fully discussed; on the latter head certainly Brady fought the battle of his master, and not unsuccessfully; but not on the head that he had a right to his own rents, but what he was to do about Flannelly, if he did not ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... b—, and the word damnation, which he repeated with surprising volubility, without any sort of propriety or connection; and retreated into his penetralia, leaving the baffled devotee in the humble posture she had so unsuccessfully chosen to ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... of the Foreign Office, the goddess that is never seen without her lance and helmet? Does our Whitehall Mars make eyes there at bright young Venus of the Privy Seal, disgusting that quaint tinkering Vulcan, who is blowing his bellows at our Exchequer, not altogether unsuccessfully? Old Saturn of the Woolsack sits there mute, we will say, a relic of other days, as seated in this divan. The hall in which he rules is now elsewhere. Is our Mercury of the Post Office ever ready to fly nimbly from globe ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... not then present. I went to Goodwood in the gig with Mr Pinnock, and arrived in time to see my sister-in-law die at two o'clock in the morning. Her only conscious moments had been those in which she laboured unsuccessfully to speak, which had occurred at six o'clock. She wore a ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... consequences which this attitude of the Allies toward Italy may have on European politics generally. Her most eminent statesman, Signor Tittoni, who succeeded Baron Sonnino, transcending his country's mortifications, exerted himself tactfully and not unsuccessfully to lubricate the mechanism of the alliance, to ease the dangerous friction and to restore the tone. And he seems to have accomplished in these respects everything which a sagacious statesman could do. But to arrest the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Hautgoustham, an English Nobleman, desired him to fill his box with the choicest Snuff he had. Thinking my Lord really a Judge, he gives him some undeniable Bouquet Dauphine; but the Peer would have none of it. Then he tries him with one Mixture after another, but always unsuccessfully; until at last he bethinks him of the Musty Parcel he has at home, and accordingly, having fetched some of that, returns to the Coffee-House, and says that he has indeed a Snuff of extraordinary Smell and Taste, but that 'tis extravagantly dear. Lord Hautgoustham tries ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... Penalosa, by an agreement with the king, is to take six hundred colonists—married and single—to the islands, in return for which he is to be governor for life. He establishes the town of Arevalo in Panay, builds the Chinese Parian, endeavors, although unsuccessfully, to discover a return passage to Nueva Espana, by the South Sea, and despatches "a ship to Peru with merchandise to trade for certain goods which he said that the Filipinas needed." He imposes the two per cent export duty on goods to Nueva Espana, and the three per cent ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... boy spoke the man who had laid the bomb so unsuccessfully faced away to the east and disappeared down the slope. It was not difficult to keep track of him, although the necessity for concealment was imperative, and the fellow proceeded at a ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... trample on the penguins to get across the beach to Borchgrevink's hut—how interesting it all was, my first landing on this inhospitable continent: my impressions left a wonderful memory of mouse-coloured, woolly little young of the Adelie penguin—I even remember taking one away and trying unsuccessfully to bring it up. It must have taken Campbell's crew a long time to get accustomed to the pungent odour thereabouts. Levick dressed the ground with bleaching powder to help dispel that dreadful odour of guano before Campbell's men put down their ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... crowd have fought England briefly and unsuccessfully a few times on the soil of Ireland ... but the children of the faith have fought her with church, and school, and catechism around the globe. Their banner, around which they fought, was not the banner ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... frequently been cited as an authority sustaining the right of Congress to levy a tax upon a franchise or privilege granted by a state. It is true that in that case the eminent counsel for the bank (Messrs. Reverdy Johnson and Caleb Cushing) argued unsuccessfully "that the act imposing the tax impaired a franchise granted by the state, and that Congress had no power to pass any law which could do that;"[2] and that two justices dissented on that ground. The conclusive answer to this argument, was, however, ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... is 1650, when the States-General disbanded part of the forces which the Prince of Orange (William) wished to retain. The prince attempted, but unsuccessfully, to possess himself of Amsterdam. In the same year he died, at the early age of twenty-four; some say of the small-pox; others, with Sir ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... important decision is to exert pressure upon France to break her pact with the Soviet Union—something Hitler has been unsuccessfully trying to accomplish for a long time. At the moment it appears that Great Britain will succeed just as she has already succeeded in breaking the Czechoslovakian-Soviet pact—another ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... Belisarius was partially reinstated in favour and sent to command in Italy against Totila. In 548, he quitted that country for the second time, after struggling unsuccessfully against the Gothic monarch. The jealousy of Justinian had prevented his receiving the supplies necessary for carrying on the war with vigour; and the want of success is not to be considered as any stain on the military reputation of Belisarius. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... play at least bears marks of such handling as the brutal Shakespearean Hector's of the "mangled Myrmidons"; it is too visibly "noseless, handless, hacked and chipped" as it comes to us, crying on Hemings and Condell. And it is in this unlucky scene that unkindly criticism has not unsuccessfully sought for the gravest faults of language and manner to be found in Shakespeare. For certainly it cannot be cleared from the charge of a style stiffened and swollen with clumsy braid and crabbed bombast. But against the weird sisters, and her who sits above them and apart, ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the eye was his thumb, with a deformed nail thick and strong as a turtle's shell. About Petrovich's neck hung a skein of silk and thread, and upon his knees lay some old garment. He had been trying unsuccessfully for three minutes to thread his needle, and was enraged at the darkness and even at the thread, growling in a low voice, "It won't go through, the barbarian! you pricked me, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... seems, therefore, that preparations would have been made to resist it; and when the berserks are not retained at home to cope with the monster, it is due to the exigencies of the story. The berserks might have been retained at home to cope unsuccessfully with the monster, or avoid coping with it at all as the king's other men did, and thus place Bjarki's feat of slaying it in the strongest relief. But by letting the berserks be absent at Christmas and return later, the author accomplished more than this. Bjarki ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... careful aim, flung it at the rat. The latter, with a quick movement, sprang aside and dodged the missile. He then took another book, and a third, and flung them one after another at the rat, but each time unsuccessfully. At last, as he stood with a book poised in his hand to throw, the rat squeaked and seemed afraid. This made Malcolmson more than ever eager to strike, and the book flew and struck the rat a resounding blow. It gave a terrified squeak, and turning on his pursuer a look ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... had the province of Macedonia after the consulship, Cicero having voluntarily withdrawn in his favour to secure his support against Catiline. Scandal said that he had bargained to pay Cicero large sums from the profits of the province. He governed so corruptly and unsuccessfully that he was on his return condemned ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... volumes, which bring the work down to the murder of Anne Boleyn, afforded the most desirable material for the critics, many of whom most pointedly dissented from his views, and some of whom severely attacked his positions, and not always unsuccessfully. They were, naturally, not disposed to think that an act bad in itself changed its character when it became the act of Henry VIII. It was contrary to all human experience to suppose that Henry was in all cases in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... than by the mere exposition of it and because you have looked in on the nine-year-old chemistry of a vocal and blond dream in the dreaming, are you to know the Lilly of seventeen, who secretly and unsuccessfully washed her hair in a solution of peroxide, and at eighteen, through the patent device of a megaphone inserted through a plate-glass window, ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... two pieces of furniture in the room, however, which were placed with an eye to attract attention, and these the Girl prized most highly: one was a homemade rocking-chair that had been made out of a barrel and had been dyed, unsuccessfully, with indigo blue, and had across its back a knitted tidy with a large, upstanding, satin bow; the other was a homemade, pine wardrobe that had been rudely decorated by one of the boys of the camp and in which the Girl kept her dresses, and was piled up high towards ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... his measures infringed upon their established rights; that the Count d'Artois had had a very stormy discussion with Necker himself, and, when he could neither convince nor overbear him, had tried, though unsuccessfully, to enlist the queen against him. The count had since employed the controller of his own household, M. Boutourlin, to write pamphlets against him, and, in point of fact, many of the most elaborate details of a financial statement which Necker had recently published were ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... been made, especially in a work published in London, 1878, to prove, of course unsuccessfully, that the Annals were forged in the fifteenth century by the Italian scholar ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... a former paper, to take notice of the repeated trials which have been unsuccessfully made in the United Netherlands for reforming the baneful and notorious vices of their constitution. The history of almost all the great councils and consultations held among mankind for reconciling their discordant opinions, assuaging their mutual jealousies, and adjusting ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison |
