"Bootless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... did at the name. But even then he felt that Demorest was no longer of such importance to him. He felt, too, that he was not yet quite sure of his voice or even what to say. As he hesitated she went on half playfully: "It seems hard that you had to come all the way here on such a bootless errand. You haven't ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... well do I believe you, Master Waller; Those know I who have ventured gift and promise But for a minute of her ear—the boon Of a poor dozen words spoke through a chink— And come off bootless, save the haughty scorn That cast their bounties back to ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... My feet better? Did I yesterday Wash thy feet, My beloved, that they should run Quick to destroy me 'neath the morning sun? And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray? The cock crows coldly. Go, and manifest A late contrition, but no bootless fear! For, when thy final need is dreariest, Thou shall not be denied, as I am here; My voice to God and angels shall attest, Because I KNOW this man, let ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... long and bootless search, to confess to himself that he would rather see Nan Morgan for one minute than all women else in the world for a lifetime. The other incidents of the evening would have given any ordinary man enough food for reflection—indeed they did ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... preach—I hate to prate— - I'm no fanatic croaker, But learn contentment from the fate Of this East India broker. He'd everything a man of taste Could ever want, except a waist; And discontent His size anent, And bootless perseverance blind, Completely wrecked the peace of mind Of ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... futile, shadowy, unsatisfying, baseless, idle, trifling, unserviceable, bootless, inconstant, trivial, unsubstantial, deceitful, ineffectual, unavailing, useless, delusive, nugatory, unimportant, vapid, empty, null, unprofitable, visionary, fruitless, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... several attempts," Glazier continues, "to assert what I considered my rights, but as I had not, at that time, much muscle to back my claims, they were not recognized, and thus I spent the whole night in a bootless ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... March hare. Take him away. Hold," again added the officer, whom some strange fascination still bound to the bootless ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... door closed behind her they went naturally and wordlessly into each other's arms. Lips met lips in a kiss that lasted for a long, long time. It was not a passionate embrace—passion would come later—it was as though each of them, after endless years of bootless, fruitless longing, had ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... of Kadan (1534), Francois strengthened himself with a definite alliance with Soliman; and when, on the death of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, who left no heirs, Charles seized the duchy as its overlord, Francois, after some bootless negotiation, declared war on his great rival (1536). His usual fortunes prevailed so long as he was the attacking party: his forces were soon swept out of Piedmont, and the Emperor carried the war over the frontier into Provence. That also failed, and ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... been the issue of these anxieties, and of the measures to which they gave rise, had not the French Revolution intervened to aggravate the distresses of Great Britain, and to constrain her to violent methods, is bootless to discuss. It remains true that, both before and during the conflict with the French Republic and Empire, the general character of her actions, to which the United States took exception, was determined by the conditions ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... arms he was; one grievous blot, So deem'd full many a courtly dame, I wot, Cross'd the full growth of his aspiring days, And dimm'd the lustre of meridian praise: With bootless artifice their lures they troll'd; Still, Gugemer lov'd not, or nothing told. The court's accustom'd love and service done, To his glad sire returns the welcome son. Now with his father dwelt he, and pursued Such ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... against the wanton and bootless mischief which fear or design has imputed to the Bank of the United States. Public opinion would cry out against its illiberal course, and would fully avenge the wrong. Some of their best customers would desert them. They would lose most of their deposits. Their notes would be industriously collected ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... his bootless affection, and his expenses not limited within any compass, it appeared in the judgment of his kindred and friends that he was fallen into a mighty consumption, both of his body and means. In which respects many times they advised him to leave the city of Ravenna, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... of Kew, meanwhile, has returned to Baden; where, though it is midnight when she arrives, and the old lady has had two long bootless journeys, you will be grieved to hear, that she does not sleep a single wink. In the morning she hobbles over to the Newcome quarters; and Ethel comes down to her pale and calm. How is her father? He has had a good night: he is a little ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... renewed, And which to end redeemer none is born. Such is the guerdon of thy love for man. A god thyself, thou gav'st, despite the gods, To mortals more than is a mortal's due. And therefore must thou keep this dreary rock, Erect, with frame unbending, reft of sleep, And many a bootless wail of agony Shalt utter. Change of mind in Zeus is none, Ruthless the rule when ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... come back," remarked the knight to his lady, "that yon spies will have grown weary of their bootless watch, and will have taken themselves off. It is but the malice and suspicion of the Lord of Mortimer which causes the prior to act so. Alone he would never trouble himself. He knows that Brother Emmanuel is not at Chad, and has not been these ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... 685 Small need of inroad, or of fight, When the sage Douglas may unite Each mountain clan in friendly band, To guard the passes of their land, Till the foiled king, from pathless glen, 690 Shall bootless turn him ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... as I thought, that a journey of little glory thou shouldst make to the island; thou hast got maimed, and honour is no nigher to us than before, yea, we must have bootless shame on ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... residence was null, and he had to expiate, by many a petty mortification, by many a bitter tear, the boyish ambition which brought him to the Netherlands. He had certainly had ample leisure to repent the haste with which he had got out of his warm bed in Vienna to take his bootless journey to Brussels. Nevertheless, in a country where so much baseness, cruelty, and treachery was habitually practised by men of high position, as was the case in the Netherlands; it is something in favor of Matthias that he had not been base, or cruel, or treacherous. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... last point, I visited that very picturesque as well as memorable ruin, the Chateau d'Arques. It is a monument of the great victory gained near it by the Huguenots under Henri IV. over the League. This and the other Huguenot victories, alas! proved bootless; and it is melancholy to visit the fields where they were won. By a series of calamities, the party was in the end erased from history; and scarcely a trace of its existence remains in the religious or political condition of Roman Catholic and Imperial France. It has left some noble names, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... with which he delivered the last sentence changed to a howl as his bootless foot alighted heavily upon an odd pebble, and Nobby peered out of some long grass, boot in mouth, to see whether the situation was affording further opportunities. Apparently it was not, for he lay down where he was and proceeded with ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... the old villain's life, grey friar," said mad Ralph, parrying a stroke of Grimbeard's axe, but this was but a bootless boast, for the conflict was not one with knightly weapons, but with those of the forest. The train of Herstmonceux were but equipped for the hunt and in such weapons as they possessed the outlaws were far better versed than they, for with boar spear ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... may dare to paint the woe, When Egbert saw his home laid low? Where, by the desolated hearth, The mother lay who gave him birth, And, close beside, his fair young wife, And servants, slain in bootless strife— Mournful the King stood near. Alfred, who came to be his guest, And deeply rued that his behest Had all unguarded left that nest, To meet such ruin drear. With hand, and heart, and lip, he gave All king or friend, both ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and trainmen parted company, the former to undertake a bootless quest for the red marauders, the latter to return to Leavenworth, their occupation gone. The government held itself responsible for the depredations of its wards, and the loss of the wagons and cattle was assumed ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... of English traders in this region. The French commander, Saint Pierre, receives the young Virginian courteously, plies master and men with such lavish hospitality that Washington has much trouble to keep his drunk Indians from deserting, and dismisses his visitor with the smooth but bootless response that as France and England are at peace he cannot answer Governor Dinwiddie's message till he has heard from the Governor of Canada, Marquis Duquesne. Not much satisfaction for emissaries who had forded ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... old Pagan ideal whose charm even unlovely Paul could not understand, but, as the legend tells us, his soul fainted within him, his heart misgave him, and, standing alone on the seashore at dusk, he "troubled deaf heaven with his bootless cries," his thin voice pleading for ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... is good for a bootless bene?" With these dark words begins my tale; And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring When prayer is ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... of love and mercy, whilst their deeds Are marked with all the narrowness and crime That Freedom's young arm dare not yet chastise, Reason may claim our gratitude, who now 245 Establishing the imperishable throne Of truth, and stubborn virtue, maketh vain The unprevailing malice of my Foe, Whose bootless rage heaps torments for the brave, Adds impotent eternities to pain, 250 Whilst keenest disappointment racks His breast To see the smiles of peace around them play, To frustrate or to sanctify ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... was her treasure house, and from it alone could she hope to keep her leaking purse full of gold and silver. So it was that she strove strenuously, desperately, to keep out the world from her American possessions—a bootless task, for the old order upon which her power rested was broken and crumbled forever. But still she strove, fighting against fate, and so it was that in the tropical America it was one continual war between her and all the world. Thus it came that, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... after this bootless errand, Lucien and Coralie were breakfasting in melancholy spirits beside the fire in their pretty bedroom. Berenice had cooked a dish of eggs for them over the grate; for the cook had gone, and ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... love, and fancy healed by no medicine but favor. Phoebus had herbs to heal all hurts but this passion; Circes had charms for all chances but for affection, and Mercury subtle reasons to refel all griefs but love. Persuasions are bootless, reason lends no remedy, counsel no comfort, to such whom fancy hath made resolute; and therefore though Phoebe loves Ganymede, yet Montanus ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... "do you remember the little story—quite a little story, and not very clever—that I read when you were ill, called 'Bootless Betty'?" ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... "Peter—O Peter!" all day, calling, reminding, and chiding— Taking us back to the time when Peter he done gone and done it! These are the voices of those left by the boy in the farmhouse When, with his laughter and scorn, hatless and bootless and sockless, Clothed in his jeans and his pride, Peter sailed out in the weather, Broke from the warmth of his home into that fog of the devil. Into the smoke of that witch brewing ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... battle had been won by Theodoric and his allies (for in other parts of the field the Margrave Rudiger had vanquished Reinald) yet was it a bootless victory by reason of the death of Attila's sons. And Theodoric, riding back to the battle-field, came where his brother Diether was lying; and lamented him saying: "There liest thou; my brother Diether. This is the greatest sorrow that has befallen me, that thou art thus ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... plan, to redeem the past and enjoy blessings in the future, is to cease this bootless warfare and be the first to recognize our independence. We are exasperated with Europe, and like the old colonel in Bulwer's play, we can like a brave foe after fighting him. Let the North do this, and we will trade ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... those most close in blood, even by accident, is to incur the guilt of parricide, or kin-killing, a bootless crime, which can only be purged by religious ceremonies; and which involves exile, lest the gods' wrath fall on the land, and brings the curse of childlessness on the offender ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... suffer, but you will always be growing stronger, and with every trial nobly met, you will feel a growing assurance that nobleness is not a mere sentiment with you. I sympathize deeply in your anxiety about your mother; yet I cannot but remember the bootless fear and agitation about my mother, and how strangely our destinies were guided. Take refuge in prayer when you are most troubled; the door of the sanctuary will never be shut against you. I send you a paper which is very sacred to ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Hearing the twang of his bow and the slap of his palms, both resembling the roll of the thunder, the troops, O king, trembled all over the field. The shafts, O chief of men, of thy sire were never bootless as they fell. Indeed, shot from Bhishma's bow they never fell only touching the bodies of the foe (but pierced them through in every case). We saw crowds of cars, O king, deprived of riders, but unto which were yoked fleet steeds, dragged on all sides with the speed of the wind. Full ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... withdrawal of his army from thence and its transference to northern Virginia, the defeats suffered by Pope, and the first invasion of Maryland, occurred either immediately before or during the time that Farragut was in Pensacola. His own bootless expedition up the Mississippi and subsequent enforced retirement conspired also to swell the general gloom; for, although thinking military men could realize from the first that the position into which the fleet was forced was so ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... virago's hard teeth closed over his fingers. Two ran from the oars to him. But the woman, conscious that she fought for life or death, held fast. Curses, blows, even a dagger pried betwixt her lips—all bootless. She seemed as a thing possessed. And all the time the Etruscan ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... come, but few shall go back," he cried defiantly; "besides, ye come on a bootless errand. There is not a man in broad Scotland who hath the power ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... reasons; but he must be a materialist indeed who undervalues this priceless possession. It is something for a country to have reached the stage of passing "resolutions," even if their conversion into "acts" lags a little; it is bootless to sneer at a real "land of promise" because it is not at once and in every way a ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... that persuades Men from themselves, to think they be Headless, or other bodies' shades, Hath long and bootless dwelt with me; For could I think she some idea were, I still might love, forget, and ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... moments no less than when we are wayward and criminal, our trust for personal safety, and our only chance of blessing are from our exalted Daysman, who can lay his hand upon us both. Our praise would be unmeaning minstrelsy, our prayers a litany unheard and obsolete, all our devotional service a bootless trouble, but that "yonder the Intercessor stands and pours his all-prevailing prayer." It is "through Him we both," the Jews who crucified Him and the Gentiles, who by their persevering neglect of Him crucify Him afresh, "have access ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... bootless here to repeat the words of wise and loving counsel with which the elder of the two ladies endeavored to comfort the younger, and to make her understand what were the duties which still remained to her, and which, if they were rightly performed, would, in their performance, ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... "He was bootless, and his pants and many-pocketed jumper of coarse dungaree were exceedingly dirty, and looked as if they had been cut out with a knife and fork instead of scissors, they were so marvellously ill-fitting. His head-gear was an ancient ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He slunk back in a curve. Doesn't see me. Along by the edge of the mole he lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed against it. He trotted forward ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... corn stealers"—forth with behaving as enemies. This induced one of the proprietors of the burnt houses to upbraid therewith one Maryn Adriaenzen, who at his request had led the freemen in the attack on the Indians, and who being reinforced by an English troop had afterwards undertaken two bootless expeditions in the open field. Imagining that the Director had accused him, he being one of the signers of the petition he determined to revenge himself. With this resolution he proceeded to the Director's house armed with a pistol, loaded ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... appointed its own Thanksgiving Day, and in Maine the 17th had been set. Addison's choice had proved the best turkey: I think it weighed nearly seventeen pounds; he divided the five dollars with Theodora. The old Squire never learned of Halstead's bootless experiment in ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... suspense; but there is a certain grave acquiescence in ignorance, a recognition of our impotence to solve momentous and urgent questions, which has a satisfaction of its own. After high aspirations, after renewed endeavours, after bootless toil, after long wanderings, after hope, effort, weariness, failure, painfully alternating and recurring, it is an immense relief to the exhausted mind to be able to say, "At length I know that I can know nothing about anything." ... ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... perhaps the reader will understand, the significancy. When the daughter of Isaac of York brought her diamonds and rubies—the poor gentle victim!—and, meekly laying them at the feet of the conquering Rowena, departed into foreign lands to tend the sick of her people, and to brood over the bootless passion which consumed her own pure heart, one would have thought that the heart of the royal lady would have melted before such beauty and humility, and that she would have been generous in the moment of ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... upon, For all God's charge to His high angels may Guard my foot better? Did I yesterday Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should run Quick to deny me, 'neath the morning sun? And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray? The cock crows coldly. Go and manifest A late contrition, but no bootless fear! For when thy deadly need is bitterest, Thou shall not be denied as I am here; My voice, to God and angels, shall attest— Because I knew this man let ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... and, regardless of all personal considerations, were ever on the alert, ready to sound the alarm to save their fellows from a fate far more to be dreaded than death. In this they had frequently succeeded, and many times had turned the hunter home bootless of his prey. They began their operations at the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, and had thoroughly examined all matters connected with it, and were perfectly cognizant of the plans adopted to carry out its provisions in Pennsylvania, and, through a correspondence with reliable persons in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... refrain: "Choose between us which to wed; Love is love, and art is art; Wilt thou have a barren bed? Joyless mate and bloodless heart? She will bring thee for her dower Shrunken limb and shriveled breast, Bitter thralldom, bootless power, Days and nights of endless quest, She will take thee heart and brain, Hold thee with a vampire charm, Kiss thee cold in every vein, Drink thy blood to make ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... The victory of April, 1760, was a comforting incident—a species of compensation to a handful of brave and faithful colonists, for the crushing disaster which had befallen their cause, the preceding September. It was the crowning—though bootless victory—to the recent brilliant, but useless success of the French arms at Carillon, Monongahela, Fort George, Ticonderoga, Beauport Flats. It was, moreover, the last title, added to numerous others, to the esteem and respect of ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... restless Sherman has been only wasted valor, a bootless sacrifice. Her terrific sallies, lightning counter-thrusts, and final struggles with the after-occupation, can be traced in the general desolation, by every step of ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... staircase, so narrow that a large man could not ascend it. The staircase terminated against a dead stone ceiling, closing all further passages, the last step being only six or eight inches from it. For what purpose a staircase was carried up to such a bootless termination we could not conjecture. The whole tower was a substantial stone structure, and in its arrangements and purposes about as incomprehensible as ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... shouted, and the horse whirled off, and it seemed to me as if he flew with the speed of lightning. My hat fell off the first thing; and there I was, clinging with might and main to the neck of the fiery animal, my head bare, my feet bootless, and my old stripped shirt blown from my back, and streaming out behind, and fluttering like a banner in the breeze; my ragged pants off at the knees, and my long legs dangling down some length below; and at the same time crying "Whoa! whoa!" as loud as I could. Nor was this all; frightened ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... as mechanic mimes These mortal minion's bootless cadences, Played on the stops of their anatomy As is the mewling music on the strings Of yonder ship-masts by the unweeting wind, Or the frail tune upon this withering sedge That holds its papery blades against the ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... are not only imminent but actual. The whole effort to support a Christian education in the public schools is sometimes called a "bootless wrangle." One section is thrown over towards secularism, pure and simple, in recoiling from Church-education exclusive and reactionary. The leading of the little child, the favorite indication of the millennium's arrival, is frustrated amid the ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... bridge to bridge ... Pass'd on, and to the summit reaching, stood To view another gap, within the round Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs. Marvellous darkness shadow'd o'er the place. In the Venetian arsenal as boils Through wintry months tenacious pitch, to smear Their unbound vessels ... So not by force of fire but art divine Boiled here a glutinous thick mass, that round ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... spoken slowly, and hurt the watching man almost as if the torture were his own. A shriek rose from the rounded white throat and the girl threw herself bootless upon the floor, and screamed in passionate childish sorrow, the wealth of disheveled hair mantling the dirty jacket, ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... the bootless, best thoughts I had while looking at the dull blood-stain and blocked-up secret stair of Holyrood, at the ruins of Loch Leven castle, and afterward at Abbotsford, where the picture of Queen Mary's ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... one wished to believe about her? Was she capable of taking unto herself the past and temperament with which one would graciously endow her? Katie's sense of justice forced from her the admission that it was expecting a good deal of Ann. She could see that nothing would be more bootless than thrusting traditions upon people who would not know what to do with them. But something about Ann encouraged one to believe she could fit into a background prepared for her. And if she could—would—! The prospect lured—excited. It was as inexplicably ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... expos'd a punie wounde, But on Destoutvilles sholder came ameine, And fell'd the champyon to the bloudie grounde. Then Doullie myghte his bowestrynge drewe, 115 Enthoughte to gyve brave Tosslyn bloudie wounde, But Harolde's asenglave stopp'd it as it slewe, And it fell bootless on the bloudie grounde. Siere Doullie, when he sawe hys venge thus broke, Death-doynge blade from out the ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... abuses, to set in motion the car of state on the track of justice and economy, and to distinguish between that which is really essential to human happiness and human rights, and that which is merely the result of some wild and bootless proposition in political economy, are the great self-imposed tasks that the European people seem now to have assumed; and God grant that they may complete their labors with the moderation and success with which they would appear to ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... boys, each armed with a paper containing a problem in arithmetic, had to run to their sisters, wait for the problem to be solved, and then run back with the answer. Excellent! Simpson at his most inventive. Unfortunately, when the bootless boys arrived at the turning post, they found nothing but a small problem in arithmetic awaiting them, while on the adjoining stretch of grass young mathematicians were trying, with the help of their sisters, to get into two pairs of ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... through the broken clouds, the wind was light, and the sea comparatively smooth. On consultation with my shipmate, we came to the conclusion it was hardly worth while to pull the boat about in different directions on a bootless quest after the sloop. We also rejected the idea of returning to the town. We laid in our oars, composed ourselves as comfortably as we could beneath the thwarts, and with clear consciences resigned ourselves ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... still I'll pray that thou may'st never know The pangs of baffled love, or feel my woe. But sure to thee, dear, charming—fatal maid! (For me thou'st charmed, and me thou hast betray'd,) This last request I need not recommend— Forget the lover thou, as he the friend. Bootless such charge! for ne'er did pity move A heart that mock'd the suit of humble love. Yet, in some thoughtful hour—if such can be, Where love, Timocrates, is join'd with thee— In some lone pause of joy, when pleasures pall, And fancy broods o'er joys it can't recall, Haply ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... I had been out the entire night before, together with the small repute in which I was held for deeds of arms, excused me from taking part in this bootless errand, so again I profited by the small esteem in which I was held. I say I profited, for I stayed at the castle with Jane, hoping to find my opportunity in the absence of everybody else. All the ladies ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... They called themselves "Brothers of the Coast," and took a solemn oath not to secrete from each other any portion of the common spoil, nor uncharitably to disregard each other's wants. Violence and lust would have gone upon bootless ventures, if justice and generosity had not been crimped to strengthen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... speech, and bootless boast For which he paid full dear; For while he spake, a braying ass Did ...
— R. Caldecott's First Collection of Pictures and Songs • Various
... Battle of Eckeren..... The Prince of Hesse is defeated by the French at Spirebath..... Treaty between the Emperor and the Duke of Savoy..... The King of Portugal accedes to the Grand Alliance..... Sir Cloudesley Shovel sails with a Fleet to the Mediterranean..... Admiral Graydon's bootless Expedition to the West Indies..... Charles King of Spain ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... apologized the stranger—he was vestless and bootless. Evidently he had been on the point of retiring when the spirit moved him to visit his fellow-guests. "I'd like ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... so bootless and uncalled for! Marian Holbury might have divorced her husband had she wished, and remained unstigmatized. Yet she had, by yielding to an ungoverned impulse, reversed their positions of justification. Now the news of their names on the same sailing lists ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... swan With bootless labor swim against the tide, And spend her strength with over-matching waves. 1043 SHAKS.: 3 Henry VI., ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... mother who used him as a man to deal for her with men, yet so loftily treated him as a boy when she dealt with him herself. And if he loved her in the earlier period of his thraldom, when scarce would he see her one hour in the twenty-four, to what all-encompassing fervour did the bootless passion rise when, the day of departure having dawned and sunk, he found himself on board the privateer, sailing away with her towards unknown warlike ventures, her knight to protect her, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... imposed on, or sent on a bootless errand, on the first of April; which day it is the custom among the lower people, children, and servants, by dropping empty papers carefully doubled up, sending persons on absurd messages, and such like contrivances, to impose on every ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... full strength of the Government, which was simply irresistible. The power of the Compact was not only completely restored, but increased. Never had its ascendency been so great. It was absolute, overwhelming; and any opposition to it was a bootless kicking against the pricks. In the Speech from the Throne his Excellency congratulated the Houses on the loyal feeling pervading the Province, and on the stillness and serenity of the public mind. He drew attention to "the conspicuous tranquillity ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... us but little, that we were defeated of our golden Recua, and that in these we could find not past some two horse-loads of silver: but it grieved our Captain much more, that he was discovered, and that by one of his own men. But knowing it bootless to grieve at things past, and having learned by experience, that all safety in extremity, consisteth in taking of time [i. e., by the forelock, making an instant decision]; after no long consultation with PEDRO the chief of our Cimaroons, who declared that "there were ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... Partly dressed, bootless, unarmed, Driscoll shoved the old man aside, and sped through the church, hopping over half awakened soldiers as he went. Once in the street, he glanced up at the tower room, which was Maximilian's, and thought it odd that no ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... boats being towed up the stream, carrying all sorts of merchandise to Nijni-Novgorod. Then passed rafts of wood interminably long, and barges loaded to the gunwale, and nearly sinking under water. A bootless voyage they were making, since the fair had been abruptly broken up at ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... Sincere, took her to a place where she saw one Fool and one Want-wit washing of an Ethiopian with intention to make him white, but the more they washed him the blacker he was, Mercy blushed and felt guilty before the shepherds,—she so took home to her charitable heart the bootless work of Fool and Want-wit. Mercy put on the Salvationist bonnet at her first outset to the Celestial City, and she never put it off till she came to that land where there are no more poor to make hosen and hats for, and no more Ethiopians ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... important than Minorca, more important than a half-dozen ships in a possible fleet action; to the other, Egypt was more important than the presence of sixteen thousand veterans, more or less, on a European battle-field. It is impossible and bootless, to weigh the comparative degree of culpability involved in breaches of orders which cannot be justified. It is perhaps safe to say that while a subordinate has necessarily a large amount of discretion in the particular matter intrusted to him, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... tell Lyde of wedding-law slighted, Penance of maidens and bootless task, Wasting of water down leaky cask, Crime in the prison-pit ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... regrets. After all, the insurgents were abandoning him, and allowing themselves to be beaten like idiots. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the Republic was mere dupery. Those Rougons were lucky! And he recalled his own bootless wickedness and underhand intrigues. Not one member of the family had ever been on his side; neither Aristide, nor Silvere's brother, nor Silvere himself, who was a fool to grow so enthusiastic about the Republic and ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... in the community were a handful of great landowners and a few bankers; the rest of the world's business was being done by small prosperous independent men. The labourers were often very poor and wretched, ill clad, bootless, badly housed and short of food, but there was nevertheless a great deal of middle-class comfort and prosperity. The country was covered with flourishing farmers, every country town was a little world in ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... of December, after nineteen days of excessive toil, they arrived at Cahiague, the chief town of the Hurons, the rendezvous of the allied tribes, whence they had set forth on the first of September, nearly four months before, on what may seem to us a bootless raid. To the savage warriors, however, it doubtless seemed a different thing. They had been enabled to bring home valuable provisions, which were likely to be important to them when an unsuccessful hunt might, as it often did, leave them nearly destitute of food. ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... have often Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd And left me to a bootless inquisition,[372-10] Concluding, Stay, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... privilege granted to a few, or a right to which all people are justly entitled, it is bootless to discuss; but its development among civilized nations is a worthy object of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... of hours of this bootless sort of thing we had made no headway toward getting a guide, nor could we get definite information about the Buffaloes or the Wolves. Finally the meeting suffered a ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... our danger, and it may enable you to form some idea of what were our feelings after returning from our bootless ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... and bootless boast, for which he paid full dear! For, while he spake, a braying ass did sing most ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... bright blues and reds. They were a jolly little couple, as unconcerned about their environment as Robinson Crusoe after five years on his island. Soon the father came home. I can see him still—the vacant brown face of a very feeble-minded half-breed, ragged and tattered and almost bootless. He was carrying an aged single-barrelled boy's gun in one hand and a belated sea-gull in the other, which bird was destined for the entire evening meal of the family. A half-wild-looking hobbledehoy boy of fifteen years also ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... boldly, "it is bootless to threaten. one who holds his life at no rate. Thine anger can but slay; nor do I think thy power extendeth, or thy will stretcheth, so far. The terrors which your race produce upon others, are vain against me. My heart is hardened against fear, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... are familiar with the truth that bodily activity deadens emotion. Under great irritation we get relief by walking about rapidly. Extreme effort in the bootless attempt to achieve a desired end greatly diminishes the intensity of the desire. Those who are forced to exert themselves after misfortunes, do not suffer nearly so much as those who remain quiescent. ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... American "rubber boot." They are made of heavy, undyed leather, singularly soft and pliable, and thoroughly waterproof. The soles are shod with hobnails, but the boot is not very heavy. We often noted dead Germans who were bootless, their footgear having been appropriated by some victorious Frenchman, who had left near-by his own ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... vid your bootless errands, and your soling and healing? I tell you I have done vat I svore to do: I have exposed him at school; I have broak off a marriage for him, ven he vould have had tventy tousand pound; and ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... faith, where faith hath no reward, To move remorse where favour is not borne, To heap complaints where she doth not regard, Were fruitless, bootless, vain, ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... opened it an inch, holding her breath. At first, nothing! Was it fancy? Or was some one noiselessly rifling the room down-stairs? But surely no one would steal of Uncle Tod, who, everybody knew, had nothing valuable. Then came a sound as of bootless feet pressing the stairs stealthily! And the thought darted through her, 'If it isn't he, what shall I do?' And then—'What shall ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... several hours. Meanwhile their passions were excited to the boiling point by the very presence of the difficulty, as men go mad of thirst when water is denied them. At length, after a long season of such violent commotion, such restless pain, such curses, shrieks, and blasphemies, such bootless gesticulations, such aimless contests with each other, that they seemed to be already inmates of the prison beneath, they set off in a blind way to make the circuit of the city as before they had ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... task, although I have been much affected this morning by the Morbus, as I call it. Aching pain in the back, rendering one posture intolerable, fluttering of the heart, idle fears, gloomy thoughts and anxieties, which if not unfounded are at least bootless. I have been out once or twice, but am driven in by the rain. Mercy on us, what poor devils we are! I shook this affection off, however. Mr. Scrope and Col. Ferguson came to dinner, and we twaddled away the evening ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... heard, and granted half his prayer, And half he scattered to the winds. To slay With sudden stroke Camilla unaware He gave, but gave not his returning day; The breezes puffed the bootless wish away. Shrill sang the lance; each Volscian eye and heart Turned to the queen. The weapon on its way,— The rush of air she heeds not, till the dart Strikes home, and, staying, draws ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... also doubt whether he is better than I. I see men who begin with ideas of universal reform, and who, before their beards are grown, propound their loud plans for the regeneration of mankind, give up their schemes after a few years of bootless talking and vain-glorious attempts to lead their fellows; and after they have found that men will no longer hear them, as indeed they never were in the least worthy to be heard, sink quietly into the rank and ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... demon cries, and blows A blast of sulphur from his mouth and nose. Ah! bootless aim! the critic fiend, Sagacious Yamen, judge of hell, Is judged in his turn; Parchment won't burn! His schemes of vengeance are dissolved in air, Parchment ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... citizens of Bergen resented the attack by the English fleet, contradictory or dilatory orders produced doubt and confusion, and the damage and loss were distributed equally amongst the attackers and the attacked. De Ruyter drew off with his convoy, and Sandwich returned from a bootless errand. France managed to detach Denmark from England, and to bring about a treaty with the Dutch which bound Denmark to assist Holland against England. Sweden remained at best ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... bootless insolence. [To his Attendants and IDENSTEIN. You need not further to molest this man, 270 But let him go his way. Ulric, good morrow! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... awful tragedy of Friday evening are yet fresh in the minds of the people of Waco, and it is bootless to recount them. Two of the principals thereto have passed to the beyond and a third is in the hands of the outraged law. And with him let the law deal. In life Captain Davis was our friend. His assailant was our enemy. In death they take on the proportions of common humanity. Upon ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... anything noble in the memory of a day, when citizens, unused to war, rose against practised veterans, and, armed with the strength of their cause, overthrew them, why speak of it now? or renew the bitter recollections of the bootless struggle and victory? O Lafayette! O hero of two worlds! O accomplished Cromwell Grandison! you have to answer for more than any mortal man who has played a part in history: two republics and one monarchy does the world owe to you; and especially grateful should your country ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... reached the close of my argument. It were bootless to ask whether this charge could possibly have any weight with you, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court. But there was probably another design at the root of the prosecution. The political struggle between the bourgeoisie and the government has lately shown some slight ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... compassion for his poor people." Such, in Italy, whether in her kingdoms or her republics, were the Heads with whom Charles VIII. had to deal when he went, in the name of a disputed right, three hundred leagues away from his own kingdom in quest of a bootless ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... countenance, the expression of which, though she had not heard his doom, so filled her with concern and indignation, that—her eyes and thoughts fixed upon him, at the other end of the class—she did not know when her turn came, but allowed the master to stand before her in bootless expectation. He did not interrupt her, but with a refinement of cruelty that ought to have done him credit in his own eyes, waited till the universal silence had at length aroused Annie to self-consciousness and a sense of annihilating confusion. Then, with a smile on his thin lips, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... bosom fire, And waste my soul with care; But ah! how bootless to admire, When fated to despair! Yet in thy presence, lovely fair, To hope may be forgiv'n; For sure 'twere impious to despair, So ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... when I waded ashore. I was swordless, coatless, hatless, and bootless; but I carried a well-filled purse in my belt. Up to that time I had given no thought to my ultimate destination; but being for the moment safe, I pondered the question and determined to make my way to Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, where I was sure a warm ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... was attended sometimes by comical, as well as painful, incidents. Peter Simple's experiences, as told by Marryat, were not yet quite obsolete in practice. A story ran of one, not long before my "date," who, having been sent on two or three bootless errands by unauthorized jesters, finally received from a person in due authority the absurd-sounding, but legitimate, message to have the jackasses put in the hawse-holes.[7] "Oh no," he replied, resentfully, "I have been fooled often enough! That I will not do." I can better vouch for another, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... the matter, so I restored our prisoner's knife to him, and treated him with increased consideration. It was well-nigh dark when we beached the boat, and entirely so before we reached Havant, which was fortunate, as the bootless and hatless state of our dripping companion could not have failed to set tongues wagging, and perhaps to excite the inquiries of the authorities. As it was, we scarce met a soul before reaching ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... campaign by despatching 15,000 men across the Apennines to join the Etruscan insurgents. But Pompeius intercepted and slew 5,000 of them, and dispersed the rest, who, even if they had reached Etruria, would have found that they had come on a bootless errand. He followed up this success by blow after blow. One of his lieutenants, Sulpicius, crushed the Marrucini at Teate. Another, Q. Metellus Piso, subdued the Marsi. Pompeius in person fought ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... seen how his unsuggestive fixity and assurance could cramp and close a mind; and he felt more beholden to the rivals who produced d'Adda, Barillon, and Bonnet, than to the author of so many pictures and so much bootless decoration. He tendered a course of Bacon's Essays, or of Butler's and Newman's Sermons, as a preservative against intemperate dogmatism. He denounced Macaulay's indifference to the merits of the inferior cause, and desired more generous treatment of the ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Father, I crave. O Holy Father, pardon and grace! Dame Alice, my wife, The bane of my life, I have left, I fear me, in evil case! A scroll of shame in my rage I tore, Which that caitiff Page to a paramour bore; 'Twere bootless to tell how I storm'd and swore; Alack! and alack! too surely I knew The turn of each P, and the tail of each Q, And away to Ingoldsby Hall I flew! Dame Alice I found,—She sank on the ground,— I twisted her neck till I twisted it round! With jibe and jeer and mock and scoff, ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... mould this commonwealth on model grand Perfected by the chivalry front which Both he and thou didst draw sweet childhood's milk. These men did quick condone the ev'ry act Which emanated from the Northern mind. Yearly were millions spent on bootless task Of feeding vacant minds on useless food Because unfitted to their various needs. "A little knowledge is a dang'rous thing" And doth unfit the plodding mass for toil, Which is their proper sphere; hence ev'ry thought ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... thought of remaining in town he was so. But now he had resolved to fly, and had resolved also that before he did so he would call in the ordinary way and say one last farewell. John, the servant, admitted him at once; though he had on that same morning sent bootless away a score of other suppliants for the honour of being admitted to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... evil crumble into dust. Even now the sands are running in the glass; Set not your heart upon vain things that pass; Ambitions, honors, toils, are but the snare Where lurks for aye the blind old world's despair. Nay, quiet the bootless striving in your breast And let your tired heart here at last find rest. In vain have joy, love, beauty, struck deep root In your heart's heart, unless you pluck the fruit; Then put away the cheating soul's ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... have told you,' he said, 'I am fully convinced that our messenger has gone on a bootless errand. I believe you will find that what has really occurred is this: either yesterday, or the day before, Sir Jocelin was found by his servant—I imagine he had a servant, though no mention is made of any—lying ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel |
