"Vain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the lawyer who had accompanied them insisted that they were only doing what his client had a legal right to ask them to do; in vain that he urged them to enter on the property regardless of those who tried to ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... and tried to prevent us. But Lady Georgina, seizing both wrists, held him tight as in a vice with her dear skinny old hands. He writhed and struggled all in vain: he could not escape her. 'I've often spanked you, Bertie,' she cried, 'and if you attempt to interfere, I'll spank you again; that's the long and the short ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... lustre of her husband's fame, and to find other women envious of her, was to Augustine a new harvest of pleasures; but it was the last gleam of conjugal happiness. She first wounded her husband's vanity when, in spite of vain efforts, she betrayed her ignorance, the inelegance of her language, and the narrowness of her ideas. Sommervieux's nature, subjugated for nearly two years and a half by the first transports of love, now, in ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... that had drunk the blood of Lovejoy, the Anti-Slavery martyr. I felt that that fact ought to inspire him. I was disappointed. Mr. Lincoln's speech was altogether colorless. It was an argument, able but perfectly cold. It was largely technical. There was no sentiment in it. Lovejoy had died in vain so far as that address was concerned. I am free to say that I was led to doubt whether Mr. Lincoln was then in hearty sympathy with any movement looking to the freedom of the slave, and this impression was not afterwards wholly removed from ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... tried again to open the door, exerting all her strength in pulling upon the latch, but all in vain. They were finally obliged to give up the attempt ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... dear, and did your heart not break, To leave this precious home you made in vain? Poor shabby things! so prized for old times' sake, With all their memories of love and pain. Alas! while shouts the raucous auctioneer, And rat-faced dames are prying everywhere, The echo of old joy is all I hear, All, all I see ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... find I have no hat to take off. Probably some Yankee has it as a trophy by this time. I am a Confederate officer in distress, and as a daughter of the South, I know I can appeal to you, and not in vain." ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... vain that those professionally concerned try to deceive themselves on this point; not everything in the past is interesting." "Supposing we were to write the Life of the Duke of Angouleme," says Pecuchet. "But he was an ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... the effects of the blow, he found himself lying on the cold earth in total darkness, and firmly bound hand and foot. It is impossible to describe the agony of that bold spirit as he lay writhing on the ground, in the vain effort to burst the cords that bound him. He thought of Aneetka and his own utter helplessness, while she was, no doubt, in urgent need of his strong arm to deliver her. The thought maddened him, and again he strove ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... in vain to Tauler for an explanation of the obscurest point in Eckhart's philosophy, as to the relations of the phenomenal to the real. We want clearer evidence that temporal existence is not regarded as something illusory or accidental, an error which may be inconsistent with the theory of immanence ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... "You are vain of the likeness, I see, master," replied Tristram, joining in the laugh. "How say you, Mab?" he added to his granddaughter, who at that moment returned with a jug and a couple of drinking-horns. "Whom ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... whispered it to Mrs. Crull, or Bog, or her uncle, or to any other living soul, but the mystery of that awful night had hung over her young mind like a pall, which in vain she had ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... family had retired to bed; but their son attempted in vain to sleep. A sense of shame overpowered him keenly. He tossed and turned, and groaned, at the contemplation of the disgrace which he knew would be heaped on him the following day. What was to be done? How was he to wipe it off? There was but one method, he believed, of getting his hands once more ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... there is no Deliberation; because manifestly impossible to be changed: nor of things known to be impossible, or thought so; because men know, or think such Deliberation vaine. But of things impossible, which we think possible, we may Deliberate; not knowing it is in vain. And it is called DELIBERATION; because it is a putting an end to the Liberty we had of doing, or omitting, according to our own Appetite, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... the arch-enemy of heresy housed his true faith in the palace-tomb-and-church of the Escorial. If the more light-minded tourist shirks this act of piety, he makes a mistake which he will repent afterward in vain. The Escorial is, for its plainness, one of the two or three things worthiest seeing among the two or three hundred things worth seeing in Spain. Yet we feigned meaning to miss it after we returned to Madrid from Toledo, saying that everybody ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... the way of their greatest strength and usefulness, because it takes away their real independence and keeps them thinking about themselves instead of about others. It is a form of bondage which makes them vain and self-conscious and renders impossible the truest and happiest companionship between men and ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... with my whole heart, hear me, O Lord![207] Who can question but that when men pray their cry to the Lord is vain if it be nought but the sound of the corporeal voice and their heart be not intent upon God? But if their prayer come from the heart, then, even though the voice of the body be silent, it may be hidden from ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... rather, for him to curse these women, and to curse the dear creature's family (implacable as the latter were,) in order to lighten a burden he voluntarily took up, and groans under, is meanness added to wickedness: and in vain will he one day find his low plea of sharing with her friends, and with those common wretches, a guilt which will be adjudged him as all his own; though they too may meet their punishment; as it is evidently begun; in the first, in their ineffectual reproaches of one another; in ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... with the prices of many products at the lowest ever known, with many workers seeking in vain for work, and with charity laboring to keep back suffering and starvation in all our cities. And yet, in view of the condition, Mr. Cleveland sent to Congress at the beginning of the annual session a free ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... this was the Malerball, or artists' ball. It was considered rather select, and had I not been lucky enough to have one or two pupils, members of the club, who had come forward with offerings of tickets, I might have tried in vain to ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... wanted not the skill or power, In the World's Fabrick those were shown, And the Materials were all his own. But well he knew what place would best agree With Innocence, and with Felicity: And we elsewhere still seek for them in vain, If any part of either yet remain; If any part of either we expect, This may our judgement in the search direct; God the first Garden made, and the first ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... interference proved had been inconsiderable. In a case[574] which came before that Court the preceding winter, I had laboured to persuade the Judges to return to the ancient law. It was my own sincere opinion, that they ought to adhere to it; but I had exhausted all my powers of reasoning in vain. Johnson thought as I did; and in order to assist me in my application to the Court for a revision and alteration of the judgement, he dictated to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... try all you can to meet me to-morrow evening at the usual place. I have been waiting and longing for you in vain to-day. Only think of me, love, as I am now, and always, thinking of you; and I know you will come. ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... poetic form of great sweetness and beauty. None of all the English poets could equal him, for he learned not the art of song from men, nor sang by the arts of men. Rather did he receive all his poetry as a free gift from God, and for this reason he did never compose poetry of a vain or ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... to be expressed at once, all Anna's past and present, the kind of experience that has made her and that has brought her to the point she now touches. Without this her action is arbitrary and meaningless; it is vain to say that she acted thus and thus unless we perfectly understand what she was, what she had, what was around her, in the face of her predicament. Obviously there is no space to lose; and it is enough to look at Tolstoy's use of it, and then to see how Balzac ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could in like manner prohibit the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation? The means of security can be only regulated by the means and the danger of attack. * * * It will be in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation.'"[1280] Authoritative judicial recognition of the power is found in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority,[1281] where, in sustaining the power of the Government to construct and operate Wilson Dam and the power plant connected ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the switches some time in vain, but at length discovered them and succeeded in extinguishing the lights of the room the pair were in. But the lights of the adjoining rooms still ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... the men searched for the fugitive, but in vain. He had disappeared completely and in the deep darkness pervading the thickly-grown brush and trees of the forest he ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... charm the long ambrosial years The gods bring many gifts, and mine shall be— Immortal life in mortal agony— Vain longing, fanned by winged hopes and fears To inextinguishable flame—and tears Bitter as death, ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... centre, and a bit of Bologna sausage placed very near it; and everybody laughed till the tears stood in their eyes to see Villikins and Dinah struggle to nibble the sausages, and at the same time to evade the candle flame. Villikins barked, and sniffed, and howled in impatience, and after many vain attempts succeeded in dragging off the prize, though he singed his nose in doing it. Dinah, meanwhile, watched him placidly, her delicate nostrils quivering with expectation, and, after all the excitement had subsided, walked with dignity to the table, her beautiful gray satin trail sweeping behind ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the contrary, moped in her room all morning, went to Rutherford Inn for a lonely luncheon and returned to the Hall and her room to weep again and ponder darkly over her unhappy situation. She tried in vain to prepare an argument by which she might clear herself should Mrs. Weatherbee decide to expose her wrong-doing to Miss Rutledge. She could think of nothing that might carry weight. The case against her was too complete to afford ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... putative father of a whining jesuitical piece, fallaciously called, "THE ADDRESS OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA," hath, perhaps, from a vain supposition, that the people here were to be frightened at the pomp and description of a king, given, (though very unwisely on his part) the real character of the present one: "But" says this writer, "if you are inclined to pay compliments to an administration, which we ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... had been foreseen, Winchester became almost the only settlement west of the Blue Ridge, on the northern frontier; and fears were entertained that the enemy would soon pass even that barrier, and ravage the country below. Express after express was sent to hasten the militia, but sent in vain. At length, about the last of April, the French and their savage allies, laden with plunder, prisoners, and scalps, returned ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to believe that the labors of Ned Clinton were not entirely in vain, even though they were not encouraging. The boat was certainly progressing, and the height of the pole above the water showed that the depth was less by a ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... rebel bullet cut his throat, letting out a liberal quantity of fresh bright blood. This so put him hors de combat that he had to leave the field, somewhat to the longevity account of the Sixty-firsters there present. So we continued in this lowly attitude till after Hooker's men made another vain assault over the ground we had occupied. Then, toward sundown, we were withdrawn, and marched back into the city, and took up our quarters for the night in the same grist mill we ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... with the last triumphant announcement with a positive shout, which made the hearts of his adversaries turn cold. In vain they laughed the idea to scorn; in vain they argued that if for the last six months he had never said a word even to the Guinea-pigs, he would hardly now come and take up with the Tadpoles. Bramble and Padger insisted ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... supposed that Raleigh was a complete loser by these vain expeditions. But a passage in a letter of August 21, 1602, shows us that this was not the fact. He says: 'Neither of them spake with the people,' that is, with the lost Virginian colonists, 'but I do send both the barques away again, having saved the charge in sassafras wood.' From the same letter ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... Stevens. He took the little kitten, almost as soon as it was born, and tied a string and a stone to its neck, and is now throwing it into the river. Poor thing! how it will agonize and try to get loose. But all will be in vain: ...
— Pleasing Stories for Good Children with Pictures • Anonymous
... over the den which he never saw. Sometimes the mother wolf met him on her wanderings and they hunted together. Often he brought the game he had caught, a fox or a young goose; and sometimes when she had hunted in vain he met her, as if he had understood her need from a distance, and led her to where he had buried two or three of the rabbits that swarmed in the thickets. But spite of the attention and the indifferent watch which he kept, he never ventured near ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... family, had been deserted by her husband, who had left her, besides her own children, the charge of his bedridden parents. Under this accumulation of burdens, she had been heroically struggling for some months, in the vain attempt, by her single energies, to ward off the approach of want, and to act at the same time the part of nurse to the old couple. She had succeeded in a great measure, and modestly sought but a little help to enable her to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... vain to collect my thoughts while his love talk fanned my blood. Finally I managed to say: "Can't you see that you are playing ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... Stow, Lambard, Camden, Burton, Dugdale, and many other antiquaries and historians. Polydore Virgil, who had stolen from them pretty freely, had the insolence to abuse Leland's memory—calling him "a vain glorious man;" but what shall we say to this flippant egotist? who, according to Caius's testimony [De Antiq. Cantab. head. lib. 1.] "to prevent a discovery of the many errors of his own History of England, collected and burnt a greater number of ancient histories ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... her. But it piqued me a little to think that, but for the accident of an accident, I might never have tracked her down. If the letter had been posted in London as she intended, and not at Basingstoke, I might have sought in vain for her ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... remembered her; and when she came again, they said, "Ecco! Ecco! (That is Italian for Look! Look!) There is the little blue-eyed, golden-haired angel." Rea did not know that the people said this, which was well, for it might have made her vain. ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson
... did not make him vain. The losing of his fame did not embitter him. He kept humble and sweet through it all. The secret was his unwavering loyalty to his own mission as the harbinger of the Messiah. "A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven," he said. The power over men which he had wielded ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... of the mind, he found it irksome to go through automatically the daily vulgar routine of the convent; the pure flame of an elevated religious feeling being kindled in his soul, he tried to evade the vain exercises of the monks, the puerile gymnastics, and the adoration of so-called relics. His character was frank and open, and he was unable to hide his convictions; he put some of his doubts before his companions, and these hastened to refer ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... Will in vain endeavoured to get on deck; the sides were too high for him. Finding himself left with half the crew, he made his way in the boat forward along the side of the pirate vessel and clambered up by the bowsprit shrouds. Some of the men in the other boats, ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... was a vain woman in every sense of the word—vain of her birth and of her beauty, and accustomed to receive that homage to which she considered herself entitled. She had been spoiled in her infancy, and as she grew up had leant nothing, because she was permitted to do as she pleased; she was therefore ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... No longer live insensible to shame, Lost to your country, families and fame. Could our romantic muse this work atchieve, Would there one honest heart in Britain grieve? Th' attempt, though wild, would not in vain be made, If every honest hand ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... closed my eyes, to try to banish thought; the effort was vain. I opened my eyes, and dreamed. I could recall the Doctor's dark face, his large brow, his bright eyes, and a pipe—yes, a pipe, with its carven bowl showing a strange head; and I could recall more easily the Captain's long jaw, and ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... place. Here there were countless seats and tables covered with the most costly cloths and drinking vessels of gold and silver. The guests were assembled, but the two travellers saw no faces that they knew; they looked in vain for the bridegroom and the bride. As they were conducted to their places, a low murmur broke out among the guests, who talked in an undertone, and asked where the great ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... truth, do I seek truth Only that I may things denote, And, rich by striving, deck my youth As with a vain, unusual coat?' ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... friends, try to outlive the bitter past, to wash the sin away, and begin anew. If not for your own sakes, for that of the dear mothers, wives, and children, who wait and hope so patiently for you. Remember them, and do not let them love and long in vain. And if there be any here so forlorn that they have no friend to care for them, never forget the Father whose arms are always open to receive, forgive, and comfort His prodigal sons, even at the eleventh hour.' There the little sermon ended; but the preacher of ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... become more precise by coming into touch with facts, scientifically studied, and where Intellect, instead of confining itself to Science proper (that is, to what can be inferred from facts, or proved by reasoning), combines with this an unconscious and inconsistent metaphysic which in vain lays claim to scientific pretensions. The future seems to belong to a philosophy which will take into account the whole of what is given." [Footnote: Life and Consciousness, as reported in The Hibbert Journal, Vol. X, Oct., 1911, pp. 24-44.] Intuition, to be fruitful, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... these solid globes, that seem incapable of corruption or decay: the regularity of their motions may be ascribed to a principle of reason or instinct; and their real, or imaginary, influence encourages the vain belief that the earth and its inhabitants are the object of their peculiar care. The science of astronomy was cultivated at Babylon; but the school of the Arabs was a clear firmament and a naked plain. In their nocturnal marches, they steered by the guidance of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... your Egyptians?—the angry tempers or sulky looks, the impatient words, the vain and foolish thoughts, the besetting sins that master you so often. Have you tried so often to fight against them, and failed, that it seems almost no use, and you do not see how to conquer them or to escape them? Are you very tired of fighting, and ...
— Morning Bells • Frances Ridley Havergal
... glittering lances of rhetoric, by any sapping and mining of profound disquisition, by any gunpowdery explosions of indignation, by sharp shootings of wit, by howitzers of mental strength made to swing shell five miles, by cavalry horses gorgeously caparisoned pawing the air. In vain all the attempts on the part of these ecclesiastical foot soldiers, light horsemen, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... Grono, where Baedeker says there is a chapel containing some ancient frescoes. I searched Grono in vain for any such chapel. A few miles higher up, the church of Soazza makes its appearance perched upon the top of its hill, and soon afterwards the splendid ruin of Mesocco on another rock or hill which rises in the middle of ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... own chair wiv scushions, and she shall set in her own chair wiv a 'igh hup bact, and she shall set in her own chair wiv...." Here came a pause, due to inanition of distinctive features. Dolly's style was disfigured by vain repetitions, beyond a doubt. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... similar garments inside a large cupboard in the linen room. It never struck her to look in the pockets, so the letter so longed for and expected lay upstairs in the dark, and Gipsy waited and hoped, and hoped and waited, all in vain. ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... him whom she wished to forget. She made an effort, but in vain. Serge was uppermost; he possessed her. She was afraid. Would she never be able to break off the remembrance? Would his name be ever on her lips, his face ever ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Taking his horse as a central point he moved round it in ever widening circles, calling at intervals, and with his eyes glued to the long grass which swished under his feet. For more than ten minutes he searched in vain; and then, once more, he found himself beside the man he ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... going away, it was a thing he would not think of, as long as his rifle was loaded; so he waited and watched, until the bear should give him an opportunity of aiming at a vital part. This he waited for in vain, and, on reflection, he determined to wound the bear; for, knowing the humour of the animal, he felt almost positive it would produce a conflict between him and the boar, which the bear would attack ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... own day, patriots and warriors, orators and statesmen, and were to address us in their presence, would he not say to us: "Ye men of this generation, I rejoice and thank God for being able to see that our labors and toils and sacrifices were not in vain. You are prosperous, you are happy, you are grateful; the fire of liberty burns brightly and steadily in your hearts, while DUTY and the LAW restrain it from bursting forth in wild and destructive conflagration. Cherish liberty, as you love it; cherish its securities, as you wish to ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... it. On a rock of sardonyx he strove to break it then, but Durendala remained unharmed. A third time he strove, and struck a rock of blue marble with such force that the sparks rushed out as from a blacksmith's anvil. Then he knew that it was in vain, for Durendala would not be shattered. And so he raised Olifant to his lips and blew a dying blast that echoed down the cliffs and up to the mountain tops and rang through the trees of the forest. And still, to this day, do they say, when the spirit of the warrior ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... back resolutely, but in vain. Meg was not to be so easily disposed of. Hatty was going to say some hasty words to Meg, as she twitched away from her, when Meg pleaded, "Do wake up, sister Hatty. ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly
... parent, however friendly or tender with his children, but must feel sometimes that they have thoughts which are not his or hers; and wishes and secrets quite beyond the parental control: and, as people are vain, long after they are fathers, ay; or grandfathers, and not seldom fancy that mere personal desire of domination is overweening anxiety and love for their family, no doubt that common outcry against thankless children might often be shown to prove, not ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Grecian babblers, who have dared to meddle with the immortal truths, and name the Most High by another name—by the name of Serapis—confounding the substance of the Invisible? Does not Egypt cry aloud for freedom?—and shall she cry in vain? Nay, nay, for thou, my son, art the appointed way of deliverance. To thee, being sunk in eld, I have decreed my rights. Already thy name is whispered in many a sanctuary, from Abu to Athu; already priests and people swear allegiance, even by the sacred symbols, unto him who shall be declared ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... in London have become popular with suicides, yet apparently without any special reason, except that even suicides are vain and like to die with eclat. Waterloo Bridge is chosen for its privacy; the Monument used to be chosen, we presume, for its height and quietude. Five persons have destroyed themselves by leaps from the Monument. The first of these unhappy creatures was William ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... was hard. What was the freedom of a country in which the voice of the original founders was spent in vain? Had not they, the "Forty" miners of Bottle Flat, really started the place? Hadn't they located claims there? Hadn't they contributed three ounces each, ostensibly to set up in business a brother miner who unfortunately ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... In vain do the laws ordain that such offices shall not be given away to attendants on governors and members of the high court of justice, for under pretext of the scarcity of Europeans experienced in the colony, means are found to elude the statute, by converting this plea into an exception ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... refused to listen to you, but considered that, as he had been—as he would put it—compelled to leave that modern paradise, the Rand, and to settle at Cape Town, it became the responsibility of the inhabitants of Cape Town to maintain him. Table Mountain echoed with the sounds of their vain talk. They considered that they were the only people who knew anything about what the English Government ought to do, and who criticised it the most, threatening at every moment that they would write to their influential friends—even the poorest ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... not agree with the fact. Finding that this simple relation would not do, Kepler undertook a vast series of calculations to find out the true method of expressing the connection. At last, after many vain attempts, he found, to his indescribable joy, that the square of the time in which a planet revolves around the sun was proportional to the cube of the average distance of the planet from ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... 7. But in vain the heedless child tried to study; her eyes and thoughts wandered perpetually to the pretty toy before her. "How I should like to see it sail!" said she to herself. The more she looked at it, the more anxious she became to see ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... raised by voluntary enlistment ... or in case of actual invasion or imminent danger thereof, it shall be lawful for H.M. —— to order and direct that the number of men so required ... shall be raised by ballot as herein provided." The effort at revival was unfortunately vain, and when in 1859 international trouble again seemed to be brewing, instead of appealing once more to the immemorial defence of the country, the Government weakly and with most deplorable results allowed the formation of a new body, the volunteers—a body whose patriotism was noble, whose ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... river with one mad roar like thunder, and the water was thrown up upon the village and its helpless inmates. In a moment the peaceful scene was one of death and torture. Men, women and children were struggling helplessly in the water and trying in vain to reach the higher benches. At the next moment the water receded and carried many back struggling into the channel of the river. Hias Peter found himself, with others, struggling among logs, timbers and debris of every description. Just before the water receded he saw his wife and heard ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... appeared to me only as immaculate young men in tailor-made tunics and well-creased trousers, wearing swords and wrist-watches, and full of a healthy belief in their own importance. My mates are apt to consider them as being somewhat vain, and no Tommy dares fail to salute the young commissioned officers when he meets them out with their young ladies on the public streets. For myself, I have a great respect for them and their work; day and night they are at their toil; when parade comes to an end, and the battalion is dismissed ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... said to Alla, "but I'm so vain, I really want to go out there and hear people tell me that I ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... the fight of his race in vain. When the roses' leaves drift a second time on the velvet turf, Maxime Valois receives the hand of Dolores from her mother. The union is blessed by the invocation of his priestly friend. It is a simple wedding. Bride and groom are all in all to each other. There are none of ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... troubles; but with a change of weather, or the arrival of a quarter or a dime, his mood would change, and he would wait. Each day he would find some old paper lying about and look into it, to see if there was any trace of Carrie, but all summer and fall he had looked in vain. Then he noticed that his eyes were beginning to hurt him, and this ailment rapidly increased until, in the dark chambers of the lodgings he frequented, he did not attempt to read. Bad and irregular eating was weakening ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... from that day to this they have made diligent search for the port of Monterey, but in vain, and now, despairing of finding it, their provisions nearly gone, they return to San Diego. Then follows the latitude at various points as observed by Costanso. It requests the commanders of the San Jose or San Antonio, if they, or either of them, ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... one philosophy, which was 'to bear up well,' and when, not that, 'as well as you could.' She saw scores of things around her to be remedied, or, at least, bettered, by a little exertion, and not one which could be helped by a vain regret. For the loss of that old barbaric splendour and profuse luxury which her father mourned over, she had no regrets. She knew that these wasteful and profligate livers had done nothing for the people either in act or in example; that they ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... they stared at the second hands of their watches the minutes crept away—Pete wound his watch up tight in the vain hope of making it go a little faster—and at last Bannon turned with a nod ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... that at the Siege of Perth, on one occasion the ammunition failing, their nectarines made admirable cannon-balls. Even the enlightened mind of Jeffrey cannot shake off the illusion that myrtles flourish at Craig Crook.[22] In vain I have represented to him that they are of the genus Carduus, and pointed out their prickly peculiarities.... Jeffrey sticks to his myrtle illusions, and treats my attacks with as much contempt ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... cautiously questioned her; she denied that anything was the matter, and he felt reassured. His chief care was to keep her free from excitement; and in this hope he gave way to her more than he would otherwise have done. But alas! the moment was approaching when all his care would be in vain; when the built-up security of years was destroyed by a single act of wilful disobedience to him. The sword so long suspended over his head, was to ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... powerless were the mightiest monarch's arm, Vain his loud threat and impotent his frown! How ludicrous the priest's dogmatic roar! The weight of his exterminating curse How light! and his affected charity, To suit the pressure of the changing times, What palpable deceit! but for thy aid, Religion! but for thee, prolific ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... fellow." So decided the Major as he splashed into his morning tub. There was one man, however, in Delhi who now viewed Hawke's presence with a secret alarm, amounting to dismay. It was the stern old miserly Scotsman who had paced his floor half the night in a vain effort to reassure himself. "What does he know? I must have old Ram Lal watch him," mused Hugh Johnstone. "I was a fool not to have cleared out from here months ago, before these spies were set upon me. First, Anstruther; ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... unsanctified reason of man would accept as the only worthy guide of faith and life what Judaism, Paganism, and Philosophy had long since decidedly rejected. But the spirit of Christianity is so totally at variance with that of the world that it is vain to expect harmony between them. Truth, however, will not suffer on that account; and when the issues appear it will shine all the brighter for the fires through which it has passed. The country where Rationalism has exerted its first and chief influence is Germany, than ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... delicacy of the desert, where allwhere is the softness of pure sand, Khalid is perfectly happy. Never did he seem so careless, our Scribe asserts, and so jovial and child-like in his joys. Far from the noise and strife of politics, far from the bewildering tangle of thought, far from the vain hopes and dreams and ambitions of life, he lives each day as if it were the last of the world. Here are joys manifold for a weary and persecuted spirit: the joy of having your dearest friend and ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... the shepherd tried to dissuade us from going any further in the failing light: in vain he told us of the dangers we should run. We thanked him, put him off with some excuse about going "a little" further, and turned resolutely on up the "path" he had pointed us to. It was by no means the sort of ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... tried with a desperate fierceness to make herself like the man before her, to put away, by sheer power of will, all memory, the knowledge of everything save what was in this little room, but it was the vainest of all vain efforts. She saw herself for a thief and a cheat—stealing, for love's sake, the mere body of the man she loved while mind and soul were absent. In her agony she almost cried out aloud as the words said themselves within her. And she denied them. She said: "His mind ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... say he considered the alteration of Kempt's original movement the turning-point of the battle. Wishing to reward our hero for his intelligence and courage, he caused inquiries to be made for him in every direction, but in vain. It was not till many years afterwards that he accidentally heard of the man's whereabouts, and managed to secure for him a good appointment in the West of England, in recognition ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... before the perfection of bloom were on her face, and her eyes either shrank before one or else gleamed fiercely with the impulse of concealment. There is in all youth and imperfection a stage wherein it turns at bay to protect its helplessness with a vain show of inadequate claws and teeth, and Catherine Cavendish had reached it, and I also, in my different estate ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... left my mother in the grave,' said Wilderspin, 'I had but one hope, that she who was watching my endeavours might not watch in vain. Art became now my religion: success in it my soul's goal. I went to London; I soon began to develop a great power of design, in illustrating penny periodicals. For years I worked at this, improving in execution with ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... one day become apparent. And here we still are, all three, insulting one another and blaming one another for our wasted lives. Oh, what a hell! And there was no escaping it. I tried often enough ... but in vain. The broken bonds became tied again. Only this summer, under the stimulus of my love for Genevive, I tried to free myself and did my utmost to persuade the two women whom I call mother. And then ... and then! I was up against their complaints, ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... evidence, too bustling, too anxious that his own opinion, though comparatively unimportant, should get a hearing. In general, Boswell's faults are easily noticed, and have been too much talked about. He was morbid, restless, self-conscious, vain, insinuating; and, poor fellow, he died a drunkard. But the essential Boswell, the skilful and devoted artist, is almost unrecognized. As the creator of the Life of Johnson he is almost as much effaced as is Homer in the Odyssey. He is indeed so closely ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... thicket and were lost, and as the woman watched the soldiers beating the bushes and brambles with their swords in a vain search for the fugitives, a very evil thought came ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... without that calculation there can be no morality.[599] Hence the morality is equivalent to a 'conviction of the general utility' of the action.[600] 'All this,' he concludes, 'is settled by universal consent. It is vain, therefore, to think of disputing it.' One may, however, ask what it means. I have already observed that the view of the non-moral character of motive was a natural corollary from the purely legal point of view. I must now consider the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... readily conceded that four years is barely sufficient time in which to gain a satisfactory insight into their various departments. For a person, however gifted, to hope to receive an adequate medical training in two or three years is vain. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... came to his master's well-known whistle, he was surprised to find the poor thing had been wounded, though slightly, by an arrow, which one of the forayers had shot off in anger after he had long chased it in vain. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... attempt.' You know how the Emperor likes every one to yield to his opinion when he has adopted one which he does not choose to give up; so he said, rather changing his tone of good-humoured familiarity, 'All you say is in vain, Monsieur le General: I am not liked either at Berlin or Weimar.' There is no doubt of that, Sire; but because you are not liked in these two Courts, is it to be inferred that they would assassinate you?'—'I know the fury of those women; but patience. Write to General Lauer: direct him ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... been seen again in the Bois de Boulogne since the night of her dinner, although Henri had sought in vain to meet her in the mornings in the bridle-path, and afternoons in the ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... storm clouds above the dark sheet of water, and illuminated with its fitful light the shadows that lay upon the bosom of the waves. She felt how infinitely darker were the shadows within her own bosom, and how vain it was to seek for any moon among her ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... I have always known," he interposed. "I knew Tarboe had a hold on your heart. I'm not so vain as to think I've always been the one man for you. I lived ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... frontier. If they had, the sooner we knew it the better, for then the House would only have one course, however they might deplore it, to pursue. But here was a case where the common sense of the American people could, he thought, be appealed to not in vain. Instead of fortifying, let us neutralize the frontier—let us agree to do away with the expenditure. [Mr. BRIGHT: On both sides the frontier?] Yes, on both sides. If the American people were appealed to as the hon. member for Rochdale appealed to the Emperor of ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... Sister Medliker, to comfort your heart with vain hopes and delusions. A mother's leanin's is the soul's deceivin's,—and yer leanin' on a broken reed. If the boy truly found that gold he'd have come to ye and said: 'Behold, mother, I have found gold in the highways and byways; rejoice and be exceedin' glad!' and ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... in one of those fits of sadness for which tears are the sole remedy; so Mary Seyton, perceiving that not only would every consolation be vain, but also unreasonable, far from continuing to react against her mistress's melancholy, fully agreed with her: it followed that the queen, who was suffocating, began to weep, and that her tears brought her comfort; then little by little ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... enraged gnome fling two great clouds together, and hurl a thunderbolt after the flying maiden, splintering the rocky barriers which had stood a thousand years. But his fury was vain, the thunderclouds melted away into a soft mist, and the gnome, after flying about for a while in despair, bewailing to the four winds his unhappy fate, went sorrowfully back to the palace, and stole once more through every room, with ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... but nothing of the sort took place. She bounced out of her seat with a "You villain!" on her lips, seized a chair by the back, and before I had made a move she hit me over the head, forcing me to my knees. I tried to get up, tried to explain who I was, but in vain. Before I could get out of the room she struck me again, and it was only after I had tumbled up the back-stairs that she gave the alarm. Then she came up to my room, rapped at the ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... my strong point, nevertheless I believed myself quite equal to any problem of that nature which Jim was likely to propound; and I answered vain-gloriously, and with a view to divert the attention of the still-sobbing Daisy ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... Her life had been marked by extreme vicissitudes; and at its conclusion—dark and cheerless as it was—she wisely looked for consolation where she had so frequently found it, and where, it may be confidently said, it is never sought in vain. ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... Labor, should have been sacrificed by the Republican Machine, for that Machine was a special organ of Capital, by which Capital made and administered the laws of the States and of the Nation. But Roosevelt's struggle was not in vain; before he died, many of those who worked for his downfall in 1912 were looking up to him as the natural leader of the country, in the new dangers which encompassed it. "Had he lived," said a very eminent ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... Holbein, Wechtlin, Urse Graff, Schauffelein and Cranach. In his excellent work entitled "Last Words on the History of the Title-Page," Mr. A.W. Pollard observes "From 1550 onwards we find beauty in nooks and corners. Here and there over some special book an artist will have laboured, and not in vain; but save for such stray miracles, as decade succeeds decade, good work becomes rarer and rarer, and at last we learn to look only for carelessness, ill-taste, and caricature, and of these are seldom disappointed." These remarks apply with equal force to the Printer's Mark, although some exceptionally ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... principle," said Sheffield; "for it is that which Coventry lays such stress on. He says that Christianity has no creed; that this is the very point in which it is distinguished from other religions; that you will search the New Testament in vain for a creed; but that Scripture is full of principles. The view is very ingenious, and seemed to me true, when I read the book. According to him, then, Christianity is not a religion of doctrines or mysteries; and if you are looking for dogmatism ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... expect to find it, nor do I expect that anyone else will ever find it. It is undiscovered. When you first began to gather my drift, perhaps there was a resurrection of hope in your breast. Perhaps you said to yourself, "This man will show me an easy, unfatiguing way of doing what I have so long in vain wished to do." Alas, no! The fact is that there is no easy way, no royal road. The path to Mecca is extremely hard and stony, and the worst of it is that you never quite get there ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... prophecy is widely removed from that of human foresight and presentiment. It is that of a revelation made by the Holy Spirit respecting the future, always in the interest of God's kingdom. It is no part of the plan of prophecy to gratify vain curiosity respecting "the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power." Acts 1:7. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God"—this is its key-note. In its form it is carefully adapted to this great ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... grown in compassion since the days when Surgeon Fallon's soldiers were starved and neglected in the Meeting House. To-day I am sure no class of men in real need could appeal to the community, or to any constituent group of it, in vain. The growth has been along lines which, beginning in a group-compassion that has from earliest days recompensed any poor member of the Meeting in his sudden losses of property, have widened first to Quakers of other places, then to other Christians, then to other men, and last ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... d'Aubray expostulated with her by the medium of an older sister who was in a Carmelite nunnery, and the marquise perceived that her father had on his death bequeathed the care and supervision of her to her brothers. Thus her first crime had been all but in vain: she had wanted to get rid of her father's rebukes and to gain his fortune; as a fact the fortune was diminished by reason of her elder brothers, and she had scarcely enough to pay her debts; while the rebukes were renewed from the mouths of her brothers, one of whom, being civil lieutenant, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the hounds were after, and the little dog came back no more. Free Joe waited and waited, until he grew tired of waiting. He went back the next night and waited, and for many nights thereafter. His waiting was in vain, and yet he never regarded it as in vain. Careless and shabby as he was, Free Joe was thoughtful enough to have his theory. He was convinced that little Dan had found Lucinda, and that some night when the moon was shining brightly ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... excitable temperament. It probably did not deceive his hearers any more than it deceives us. His vanity is more deplorable; and the only palliation it admits is the fact that it is a defect which rarely goes with a bad heart. Had Cicero been less vain, he might have been more ambitious; as it was, his ridiculous self-conceit injured no one but himself. His wordiness is of all his faults the most seductive and the most conspicuous, and procured for him even in his lifetime the epithet of Asiatic. He himself was sensible that his periods ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... the North, While the sister rivers seek the main, Red with our life-blood flowing forth— Who shall gather it up again? Though we march to the battle-plain Firmly as when the strife began, Shall all our offerings be in vain?— Abraham Lincoln, give ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... saw the school-mistress, forced by some accident to interrupt her knitting, stick one of her great knitting-needles in her capacious head-dress. A "senior," who was more familiar with her head-dress, explained the phenomenon in vain to Leon and Norine, for the boy, none the less, preserved in the presence of Mademoiselle Merlin ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... these, in the sweetest, tenderest voice that ever caressed a lover's senses, Basil knew not how to word all that was in his heart. Passion spoke for him, and not in vain; for in a few moments Veranilda's tears were dry, or lingered only to glisten amid the happy light which beamed from her eyes. Side by side, forgetful of all but their recovered peace, they talked sweet ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing |
