"Fruitless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... closed against teacher and pupils; public conveyances were denied them; physicians would not attend them; Miss Crandall's own friends dared not visit her; the house was assailed with rotten eggs and stones and finally set on fire. Yet the cause was righteous and the opposition proved vain and fruitless. Public opinion is often ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... of those particulars which are plain and easy to have been learnt, we may divine what inquiry he made into those which are obscure and in which he contradicts himself, as already proved. But, laying aside this fruitless controversy, I shall only add that, in consideration of the many falsehoods in the Chronicle and Psalter of Justiniani, the senate of Genoa have imposed a penalty upon any person within their jurisdiction who shall read or keep those books, and have ordered that they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... until he had sought an interview with Wilfred, in his prison chamber, which turned out to be a fruitless one; for, terrified although he was at the loss of his letter, the ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become divine. Belief and love,—a believing love will relieve us of a vast load of care. O my brothers, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... vulgar attainments, and aspiring to performances to which, perhaps, nature has not proportioned the force of man: when they fail, therefore, they fail not by idleness or timidity, but by rash adventure and fruitless diligence. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... an adder towards the staircase. Catherine rushed after her, and came up with her on the footpath outside the house. Her remonstrances were fruitless; and she followed the girl, fastening her undervest as she hurried along in the rear. The walk appeared to her exceedingly tedious. She complained that her legs were getting ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... favourable to us. But we were speedily taught that our hopes were without foundation. The American war-cry was behind us. We rose from our lairs, and endeavoured, as we best could, to retire upon the right, but the effort was fruitless. There too the enemy had established themselves, and we were surrounded. "Let us cut our way through," cried we to the men. The brave fellows answered only with a shout; and collecting into a small compact line, prepared to use their bayonets. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... very intimate, and he would often sleep with them. This is set forth precisely in letters written by friends of his, bishops and abbots, one of whom remarks that Robert had "discovered a new but fruitless form of martyrdom." A royal abbess of Fontevrault in the seventeenth century, pretending that the venerated founder of the order could not possibly have been guilty of such scandalous conduct, and that the letters must therefore be spurious, had the originals destroyed, so far ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... one night, related a story to the police of having been led off, and incidentally made the statement that she had been repeatedly immoral, once with a relative. She dictated and signed a detailed account of the affairs, giving times and places. This was used in investigating and led to much fruitless effort even on the part of experienced people—her story was quite untrue. When studied she proved to be a mild case of chorea, exhibiting the typical psychotic tendencies of that disease, such as we have observed in court work a ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... of Pesaro" is a name linked with some of the most charming musical associations of this age. Though forty years silence made fruitless what should have been the richest creative period of Rossini's life, his great works, poured forth with such facility, and still retaining their grasp in spite of all changes in public opinion, stamp him as being ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... and fruitless scrambling, Mr. Hunt gave up the attempt to penetrate in this direction, and, returning to the little stream on the skirts of the mountain, pitched his tents within six miles of his encampment of the preceding night. He now ordered that signals should ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... reached Constantinople, now become the ultimate goal of his intended travels. To what cause this sudden and singular change, both in demeanour and design, was owing, I was on the point of saying, it would be fruitless to conjecture; but a letter to his mother, written a few days before my arrival at Smyrna, throws some light on the sources of his unsatisfied state. He appears by it to have been disappointed of letters and remittances from his ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... that. Perhaps he wasn't European in his manners," suggested Mrs. Mortimer dryly. She had evidently arisen in the grasp of a mood, not uncommon with her, when an apparently causeless irritability drove her to say things for which she afterward suffered an honest but fruitless remorse. Dr. Melton had recently evolved for this characteristic of hers one of the explanations which the Emerys found so enigmatic. "Marietta," he said critically, "is in a perpetual state of nervous irritation from eye-strain. She has naturally excellent and ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... not tried to find her Since you sent your love by me; Day by day I think I'm blinder,— Fruitless search, as you might see. I wonder, if in sending, If you choose your slave by chance, What that twinkle was portending In ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... Breathing freely and thankfully after this escape, I fled immediately to the little boat in which I usually made my approaches to your habitation on such occasions; and was in the middle of the lake, and out of sight, long before you had given over your fruitless pursuit. The next day you left the city and I remained, the wasted and wasting monument of pas sions which had been as profitlessly as ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... upon the point of touching the real man, he constantly eludes our grasp. Who he was, whether he was one or many, remains a mystery. Whether the poems which bear one or other of his changing titles were really the work of a single writer, is also a matter for fruitless conjecture. We may take it for granted that he was not Walter Map; for Map was not a Canon of Cologne, not a follower of Reinald von Dassel, not a mark for the severe scorn of Giraldus. Similar reasoning renders it more than improbable that the Golias of ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... it was enough; and that was how Harry Hawke and his bosom pal came to be wandering under the eastern wall of the deserted brewery after a fruitless search among those khaki heaps that lay so still in front of the ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... on Smyrna's love, Fruitless the wooings of the unlettered prove; Crassitius she receives with loving arms, For he alone unveiled her ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... brother's house or marry.... After all her striving she found herself back at the point whence she had started; she had accomplished the circle of life, or nearly so. To fulfil the circle she had to marry. There was nothing in life except a little fruitless striving, and then marriage. If she did not accept marriage, what should she do? She was tired asking herself that question; so she put it aside, and applied herself day by day with greater diligence to ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... American passenger bolting up on to the poop, and no one to speak to, that he could see, who could do any good. He called out for the steward, but he had disappeared; and the darkey feared that his plan for defeating the schemes of the mutineers would turn out fruitless from his failing to find any one to help him in undertaking it, when all at once he saw Kate Meldrum, for whom he had a profound respect on account of her plucky behaviour during the storm and her kindness to him when ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... hawks, who had come with an adopted feeling to succour the orphan. These two he killed, and then left the nest. On returning afterwards he found two more charitable individuals on the same errand of mercy. One of these he killed; the other he also shot, but could not find. No more came on the like fruitless errand.") Nevertheless, it is a strange fact that within the same district, during the height of the breeding-season, there should be so many males and females always ready to repair the loss of a mated bird. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... should shoot any small or great shot at the enemy till he came at the distance of caliver or pistol shot, whereby no shot might be made fruitless or in vain; whereof the captains and officers in every ship should ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... time she was put to bed she was suffering from nervous prostration. Meredith, who had returned from his fruitless search, looked like a man walking in his sleep. His wife had clung to his neck in passionate relief, but she had avoided his lips as she had never done before, and a sword seemed to ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... not long to continue. Anna, as she grew stronger, felt the necessity of seeking employment, but to this the baby proved a formidable obstacle. No one would give a young woman, hampered with a child, work. She would come back to the baby at night worn out in mind and body, after a day of fruitless searching. These long trips of the little mother, with the consequent long absence and exhaustion on her return, did not improve the little one's health, and almost before Anna realized it was ailing, the baby sickened and died. It was her cruelest blow. For the child's sake she had ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... been decisive—not perhaps of ultimate issues—but of those prolonged delays in which lies the best hope of a defence. It is an interesting commentary on Kruger's decision that, at the moment these lines are writing, the deliverance of Mafeking is known to have been preceded immediately by a fruitless assault of the burghers, which cost more than that presumed for the attack at the outset, which a competent general on the spot believed then would be successful. Control at a distant capital, exercised by an obstinate, overbearing old man, ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... on the mountain slopes, which Heidi so longed to see. But the windows remained immovable, try what Heidi would to open them, even endeavoring to push her little fingers under them to lift them up; but it was all no use. When after a while Heidi saw that her efforts were fruitless, she gave up trying, and began to think whether she would not go out and round the house till she came to the grass, but then she remembered that the night before she had only seen stones in front of the house. At that moment a knock came to the door, and immediately ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... her. They made what search in Venice they could, without rousing a scandal, and Ashe rushed out to join it, using the special means at a minister's disposal. But it was fruitless. Kitty vanished like a wraith in the dawn; and the living world of action and affairs ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... obtain a footing on its crest, each assault was repulsed with prodigious slaughter. Duke Bernhard was now fully engaged with the Imperialists on the Allersheim, and was gradually gaining ground. Seeing, however, how fruitless were the efforts of Horn to capture the Weinberg, he despatched as many of his infantry as he could spare to reinforce the marshal. ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... before he left home, he was not only thinking of her, but trying to marshal in order what arguments he might use,—so as to convince her at last. He did not at all understand how utterly fruitless his arguments had been with her. When Mrs. Roden had told him of Marion's strength he had only in part believed her. In all matters concerning the moment Marion was weak and womanly before him. When he told ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... of longing, it seemed that almost all of the people whom she could see standing before the files of the daily papers were homesick. The reading-room had been a strange study to her during those weeks spent in fruitless search for the work she wanted to do, and it had likewise proved a strange comfort. When tired and disconsolate and utterly sick at heart there was always one thing she could do—she could go down to the library and look at the paper from home. It was not that she wanted the actual news ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... the evening rapidly approached, a general hush prevailed, and all endeavours to recover his track seemed fruitless. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... ever and as exclusively as ever to making money; still valuing everything, visible or invisible, by the market-price in gold, silver, or bank-notes; although unfortunately much less successful than at the commencement of his career, in accumulating dollars and cents; his seems to be "the fruitless race, without a prize;" and yet Mr. Taylor is approaching the time of life when the end of the race cannot be ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... devised: they must devise some new task, something senseless, to suggest some craving without result. Then Aeacus decreed he should rattle dice for ever in a box with no bottom. At once the poor wretch began his fruitless task of hunting for the dice, which for ever ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... wise father might have done much for him, but his father belonged to that class of men who are only acquainted with a small circle of their own affairs; he had not the least conception of what was needed for his brilliant son. So the best years of young Thaxter's life were consumed in fruitless efforts to harmonize his lofty aspirations with the stubborn facts about him. It was like a fruit-tree planted in a stone quarry. Too late he learned from experience the wisdom that should have come to him from his ancestors. He might have succeeded better if he had been less ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... unproductive] sterilize, addle; disable, inactivate. Adj. unproductive, acarpous[obs3], inoperative, barren, addled, infertile, unfertile, unprolific[obs3], arid, sterile, unfruitful, infecund[obs3]; sine prole; fallow; teemless[obs3], issueless[obs3], fruitless; unprofitable &c. (useless) 645; null and void, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... offered, and he swung the stock of his piece at his adversary's head with such force as to break the sword short off at the hilt. The Nubian sprang at Dobri like a tiger. They grappled, and these men of herculean mould were so well matched that for a few seconds they stood quivering with mighty but fruitless efforts to bear each other down. It was at this moment that the Russian reinforcements came up, fired a volley, and charged. Dobri and Hamed dropped side by side, pierced with bullets. Nicholas also fell. The raging hosts passed over them, and the Turks were driven over the plain like autumn ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... in spite of the laziness of the impelling breeze. The boy, as yet unconscious of his peril, now glances shorewards, and sees the banks wheel past. The crowd of bathers is already far beyond hearing yet, frightened and tired, he wastes his remaining strength in fruitless shouts. Now the deceitful eddies, once so soft and friendly, whirl him down in ruthless exultation. He will never reach the shore, good swimmer ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... self-willed boy was seventeen years old, he realized that his sister was scheming for the ruin of himself and his mother. In the rupture that followed, the people deserted Sophia and flocked about Peter. He placed his sister in a monastery, where, after fifteen years of fruitless intrigue and conspiracy, she was to die. Then, conjointly with his unfortunate brother, he commenced ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... same. By quitting the spot in the canoes, it was evident the pursuers would be balked, temporarily at least, since they must recross the marsh in order to get into their own boats, without which further pursuit would be fruitless. ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... tolerated the Dissenters. The idea of entire religious liberty and equality shocked even his moderate degree of sensitiveness. He met Penn at the court of the Prince of Orange, and, after a long and fruitless effort to convince the Dissenter that the penal laws against the Catholics should be enforced, and allegiance to the Established Church continue the condition of qualification for offices of trust and honor, and that he and his friends should rest contented ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... if service be perverted as beauty is lost, and the honied tube, and medicinal leaf, change into mere swollen emptiness, and salt brown membrane, swayed in nerveless languor by the idle sea,—at last the separation between the two natures is as great as between the fruitful earth and fruitless ocean; and between the living hands that tend the Garden of Herbs where {114} Love is, and those unclasped, that toss with tangle ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... the new. The fierceness of the strife in France incited monarchists in all lands to importunate demands for the extirpation of "the French plague"; and hence were set in motion forces which Pitt vainly strove to curb. War soon broke out in Central Europe. His endeavours to localize it were fruitless; and thenceforth his chief task was to bring to an honourable close a conflict which he had not sought. It is therefore fitting that this study of the latter, less felicitous, but equally glorious part of his career should begin with a survey of the situation in Great Britain and on the Continent ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... on the raft she perceived that their search had been fruitless. However, she advanced toward ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... and intolerance of Archbishop Laud and his followers, combining with and urging on the despotism of the King, had at length completely exhausted the patience of the English people and parliament. Every pacific effort had proved fruitless; and it had become undeniably evident, to every English patriot, that Prelacy must be abolished and the royal prerogative limited, unless they were prepared to yield up every vestige of civil and ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... she wore in the scene just ahead of last night, and she'll have to have it again to-day. Now—" She began to search the ground around the cold brazier. "It might be along here." He helped her look. Pretty soon he would remember an engagement and get away. The search at the end of the pool proved fruitless. The girl continued to chatter. They had worked until one-thirty before that grouch of a Rosenblatt would call it a day. At that she'd rather do water stuff than animal stuff-especially lions. "Lions? I should think so!" He replied ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... Darling to the N.W., and, if any encouraging feature presented itself, to return for the party, and persevere in an examination of the distant interior. Such, at least, appeared to me the most judicious plan: indeed, an attempt to have moved in any other direction would have been fruitless. And, as the result of this journey would be decisive, and would either fix or determine our advance or retreat, I was anxious for ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... and after several fruitless attempts to sleep he rose and went out into the sunshine, where he fell to whetting his knife. He finished putting a double edge upon the blade, fitted a handle to it, and then a cord with which to suspend it round his neck. He showed it to O'Reilly, and after receiving ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... a hundred fruitless attempts to interest lawyers, who have all thought me mad, I made up my mind to come to you. I will tell you of my misfortunes afterwards; for the present, allow me to prove the facts, explaining rather how things must have fallen ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... labor shall be vain—and every evening, throwing yourself on the hard ground, you shall be no nearer to the end of your eternal course!'—And so, for centuries, men without pity have said to the artisan: 'Work! work! work! without truce or rest—and your labor shall be fruitful for all others, but fruitless for yourself—and every evening, throwing yourself on the hard ground, you shall be no nearer to happiness and repose; and your wages shall only suffice to keep you alive in ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... in his limbs, and the severity of the weather. It was at last agreed, as he grew every day worse and worse, that we could be of no use here, and were exposing ourselves needlessly to danger, to abandon this fruitless expedition, and return to our homes. Pedro de Ircio was among the first who advised this, and soon set the example, by retiring to his own town of Villa Rica; but Rangel chose rather to go along with us to Coatzacualco, to our great ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... escape from this dilemma by discovering "Orthodox"—that is to say, Old Ritualist—bishops somewhere in the East; but when the East had been searched in vain, and all their efforts to obtain native bishops proved fruitless, they conceived the design of creating a bishopric somewhere beyond the frontier, among the Old Ritualists who had in times of persecution fled to Prussia, Austria, and Turkey. There were, however, immense difficulties in the way. In the first place it was necessary to obtain the formal permission ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... This delirium and my flushed cheeks and shining eyes led them to be very careful to me. I was told that my mother was away from home; and when after two days of search they were quite sure that all efforts to find either her or my father were likely to prove fruitless, that she had gone to Europe where we would follow her as soon as I was well. This promise, offering as it did, a prospect of immediate release from the terrors which were consuming me, had an extraordinary effect upon me. I got up out of my bed saying that I was well now and ready ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... assigned to the work. True, Bosola wants the last touches, the touches which Shakespere would have given. He is not wholly conceivable as he is. But as a "Plain Dealer" gone wrong, a "Malcontent" (Webster's work on that play very likely suggested him), turned villain, a man whom ill-luck and fruitless following of courts have changed from a cynic to a scoundrel, he is a strangely original and successful study. The dramatic flashes in the play would of themselves save it. "I am Duchess of Malfi still," and the other famous one "Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young," often as they ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... all, our fears were fruitless, or let me rather say our hopes, since we agreed that a hurricane chancing here would be a consummation singularly happy. It is certain no fitter scene could well have been selected for such an event, and indeed this was all that was needed to make the ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... have been shown on the file of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming; but I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... fundamental law contains many provisions indicating good sense and just notions of government, but was too complex for an infant settlement; and, after many fruitless attempts to amend it, was laid aside, and a more simple form was adopted, resembling in its principal features, those established in the other colonies, which remained until the proprietary government ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... of masks, clamorous, intoxicated, reeling, and rushing, as they reeled, poured into the room, and separated me from the mystic. I broke through them, and sought him everywhere, but in vain. All my researches the next day were equally fruitless. Weeks were consumed in the same pursuit,—not a trace of Mejnour could be discovered. Wearied with false pleasures, roused by reproaches I had deserved, recoiling from Mejnour's prophecy of the scene in which I was to seek ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... she cannot be found, no more than a flower or a leaf which withered twenty years ago. A bereavement of this kind gives one a glimpse of the feeling those must have who have seen all drop round them, friend after friend, and are left to end their pilgrimage alone. But tears are fruitless, and ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Clarian's cause in as favorable a light as possible; spoke of the youth's noble nature; guarantied that there was no moral obliquity; strongly advised leniency; venturing withal to hope, nay, to believe, that all this devotion, so intense, to a single purpose, would not be fruitless, might possibly win him credit. He certainly had fine imagination, and then he was so absorbed in his work;—it was a question whether it would help him most to encourage or to repress his ardor at present. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... our entire attention to Yvonne, who was writhing with agony on her bed next my room. For three days now Madame Guix had administered mild doses of morphine, but that treatment could not continue very long. Water bags, friction and massage had proved fruitless against sciatica, so we resolved to try a warm bath, with the result that our patient was almost immediately eased but too weak to support the heat. She fainted in the tub and had to be carried back to bed. We were still working over her when Nini appeared and said I was wanted below. When Yvonne's ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... the death of his God has restored its integrity." How then, I would ask, do you pretend that human nature, notwithstanding the death of a God, is still depraved? Is then the death of your God wholly fruitless? What becomes of his omnipotence and of his victory over the Devil, if it is true that the Devil still preserves the empire, which, according to you, he has always exercised in ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... that, after many fruitless attempts to find a situation, Katusha again went to the registry office, and there met a woman with bracelets on her bare, plump arms and rings on most of her fingers. Hearing that Katusha was badly in want of a place, the woman gave her her address, and invited her to come to her house. ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... escape was thus ended, and the girl cautiously closed the door between the two rooms. Then she felt about the smaller apartment for some heavy object with which to barricade herself; but her search was fruitless. Finally she bethought herself of the corpse. That would hold the door against the accident of a child or dog pushing it open—it would be better than nothing, but could she bring herself to ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... jubilee one man, a stranger, but as devout a Christian as any of the conquerors, stood apart downcast, melancholy, saddened by years of fruitless waiting for a few ships. That man ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... some time after this discovery that hope dawned again for Lord Marshmoreton. Only after he had given up the search for the missing paper as fruitless did he recall that it was in George's company that Billie had first come into his life. Between her, then, and himself George was the ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the English, and the death of their commander, Talbot, in 1453, the contest of a century came to an end. All that England retained across the Channel was Calais with Havre and Guines Castle. France was desolated by all this fruitless strife. Some of the most fertile portions of its territory were reduced to a desert, "given up to wolves, and traversed only by ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... ourselves with fruitless researches? What I have said will suffice to show that this opinion has been that of not only one or two of the fathers, which would prove nothing, but of the greater number of those among them who have ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... burnt out, we must carry our fire against him at any seasonable opportunity, and not await on in hopes of an outbreak occurring within, for fear our opponents should themselves burn up the surrounding vegetation, and thus render our own attempts fruitless." The famous Li Ling once baffled the leader of the Hsiung-nu in this way. The latter, taking advantage of a favorable wind, tried to set fire to the Chinese general's camp, but found that every scrap of combustible vegetation in the neighborhood ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... such a stubborn little brute,' he muttered, after many fruitless attempts to turn the donkey round. 'Perhaps if the lady would take the donkey's head, we might just lift the cart; and the little gentleman could throw ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... once set to work. The rope was cut up and unravelled, and the strands cut into pieces about two feet long. They then both set to work trying to discover some way of fastening it by which it would not slip down the rope. They made many fruitless attempts; each time that a strand was fastened with a loop large enough for them to pass a leg through, it slid down the rope when their weight was applied to it. At last they succeeded in finding out a knot which would hold. This was done by tying a knot close to one end of a piece of ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... stance with a galliard sort of step, keeping his eye at the same time fixed on Tressilian's, who, once more dismounted, stood with his horse's bridle in his hand, breathless, and half exhausted with his fruitless exercise, though not one drop of moisture appeared on the freckled forehead of the urchin, which looked like a piece of dry and discoloured parchment, drawn tight across the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... round the room people began to laugh and chatter rapidly as if they feared the sudden reaction might end in hysteria. But although all the candles had now been lit, the effort to revive the mild exhilaration of the evening was fruitless. They wanted to get away. Many still believed that a plot had been balked, and that the assassins were lurking in one of the many rooms ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... still a mystery, the strange current of human existence bears each and all of us with a strong, steady sweep from the tropic lands of sunny childhood, enameled with verdure and gaudy with bloom, through the temperate regions of manhood and womanhood, fruitful or fruitless as the case may be; on to the often frigid, lonely shores of old age, snow-crowned and ice-veined; and individual destinies seem to resemble the tangled drift on those broad gulf billows, strewn on barren beaches, stranded upon icebergs, some to be scorched under ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... generous offer, expressing an affectionate gratitude toward her teacher, and a determination not to leave him, at least for the present. Mrs. Young was much distressed, and adduced every argument of which she was mistress, but her niece remained firm; and finding their entreaties fruitless, Mr. Young said that he would immediately take the necessary steps to secure Robert Grey's portion of the estate to his daughter. Electra sat with her hand nestled in her aunt's, but when this matter was alluded to ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... contact, wherever possible, with the living fact, and his economy. It happened that the famous Commission of the 2nd of June had set on foot an inquiry into the irrigation of lands in the Zaraisky province, which fell under Alexey Alexandrovitch's department, and was a glaring example of fruitless expenditure and paper reforms. Alexey Alexandrovitch was aware of the truth of this. The irrigation of these lands in the Zaraisky province had been initiated by the predecessor of Alexey Alexandrovitch's predecessor. And vast sums of money had actually ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... country of the New Yorker was New York, and the country of the Virginian was Virginia. The New England colonies had once confederated; but, kindred as they were, they had long ago dropped apart. William Penn proposed a plan of colonial union wholly fruitless. James II. tried to unite all the northern colonies under one government; but the attempt came to naught. Each stood aloof, jealously independent. At rare intervals, under the pressure of an emergency, some of them would ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... men returned from their fruitless search. Then a litter was improvised and Boris was placed upon it and taken away. Fred had been very fearful for it had seemed more than likely to him that a sentry would be left to watch the wreck. If that had been done, it would have complicated his position, because he could scarcely have hoped ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... Alan Hawke returned, three weeks later, to the Hotel Grand National, at Geneva, he was sorely wearied and dispirited. A round of inspection of all the principal jewel marts of the continent had been only a fruitless, solitary tourist promenade. And the ominous silence of Captain Anson Anstruther, A. D. C., boded no good to the military future of the adventurer. "Damn me, if I don't think that I have been hoodwinked!" growled Major Hawke, on his re-turn from Moscow ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... first time Mr. Edwards learned that his young client had a will of his own. After a few fruitless exhortations he rose to obey, but remarking: "Right much money in these hard times to withdraw in a lump from the bank." Then, with a sidelong glance at the grave, boyish face, he added significantly: "Know you would ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... have lain untouched for some ages. It is pity there is not something like a public register, to preserve the memory of such statues as have been found from time to time, and to mark the particular places where they have been taken up, which would not only prevent many fruitless searches for the future, but might often give a considerable light into the quality of the place, or the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... that some confusion should be caused among them, since they could not be overpowered by force, endeavours to disorder their foremost battalions by a charge of cavalry. And when he saw them wheel their troops within a narrow compass in fruitless disorder, and that they could not open a passage to the enemy, riding back to the van of the legions, after leaping from his horse, he says, "Soldiers, this is the task for us infantry; come on, as ye shall see me making way with ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... party, but not because of the assaults of their opponents, but because of their impotence in the face of a grave national crisis. Nevertheless, they were on all essential issues beaten by the Democrats; and on the few occasions on which they were victorious, their victories were both meaningless and fruitless. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... of all fruit. Miserable in his affections, barren in his intellect; clinging to solitude, yet accursed in it; dreading as a danger the fame he had once coveted; obscure in spite of learning, hopeless in spite of love, fruitless and joyless in his life, calamitous and shameful in his end,—surely such is no palliative of crime, no dalliance and toying with the grimness of evil! And surely to any ordinary comprehension and candid mind such is the moral conveyed by the fiction of 'Eugene Aram.'"—[A word to the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... impulse of idle curiosity, that flickered among her heavy thoughts, she looked at one of the daguerreotypes, and beheld Judge Pyncheon frowning at her. Fate stared her in the face. She turned back from her fruitless quest, with a heartsinking sense of disappointment. In all her years of seclusion, she had never felt, as now, what it was to be alone. It seemed as if the house stood in a desert, or, by some spell, was made invisible to those who dwelt around, or passed beside it; so that ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... upon without horror; an alternative in which it is impossible he should take either part, with a conscience perfectly at repose. To keep that situation of guilt and remorse at the utmost distance is, therefore, our first obligation. Early activity may prevent late and fruitless violence. As yet we work in the light. The scheme of the enemies of public tranquillity has disarranged, it has ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of all their pecuniary privileges, assuring him that the whole French noblesse would follow the example if they were consulted. Passions were too violently excited, and the disorder of ideas was too general to admit of the proper sense being given to this generous and fruitless proceeding. The third estate looked upon it as a manoeuvre against double representation; the mass of the two orders protested against the forced liberality which it was attempted to thrust upon them. People made merry over the signataries. "Have you read the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... looks over The Street—and through it—from his lofty pinnacle. Don't strain your precious eyes and necks in fruitless endeavors to discover him there, since he can make himself invisible at will. But listen, ye men of The Street, with all your ears, (Erie,) and you will hear a solemn chant like unto that of the muezzin from the minaret. 'Tis the voice of PUNCHINELLO wafting sonorously ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... that business, the very limitations of the grid suit furnished an unending challenge to Moglaut's genius. And out of a sideline experiment incited by that challenge came the disarmer which Jason greeted with such fruitless glee. ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... consequences; they will rather look on themselves as the victims of designing men, who, for selfish purposes, have partly seduced and partly impelled them into the perils and disasters of a gigantic but fruitless rebellion. This state of feeling will leave the minds of the Southern people in a condition to estimate fairly their own relations to the rebellion, and their obligations to the Union, which again calls them, with paternal tenderness, to its generous ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Hair Bracelet, Mrs. Peckover's first question about it, although only answered by a look, was received in such a manner as to show her that any further efforts on her part in that direction would be perfectly fruitless. ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... "the ruby," originally a Greek slave, who made a brave but fruitless attempt to change his name into Yacoub or Jacob, became one of the greatest of Arab encyclopaedists, was checked by the hordes of Genghiz-Khan in his exploration of Central ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... would not be hard to imagine that during the onset of these stupors the tendency to part company with the environment, which ordinarily comes on slowly, might occur with epileptic suddenness and hence liberate convulsive movements. This is, however, a pure speculation but not fruitless if it serves to draw attention to the analogies existing between the stupor reaction and some of the mental symptoms of epilepsy. These analogies are strong; aside from the obvious clinical differences, the stupor and epileptic reactions are dynamically unlike in ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... Scaurnose he found Phemy's parents in a sad state. Joseph had returned that morning from a fruitless search in a fresh direction, and reiterated disappointment seemed to have at length overcome Annie's endurance, for she had taken to her bed. Joseph was sitting before the fire on a three legged stool rocking himself to and fro in a dull agony. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... emphasis to the argument, while all around them were officers, soldiers, guns, natives, wounded men, bullocks, and a surging tide of disorganisation momentarily pouring into the square. But the attempt is fruitless. The whole area has been cleared of buildings right up to the gate of the Residency, only that hard by the Goomtee there still stands the river wing of the Chutter Munzil Palace with its fantastic architecture, and that the palace ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... to the coin of the country. The attention of government was turned away from guarding against the exportation of gold and silver, to watch over the balance of trade, as the only cause which could occasion any augmentation or diminution of those metals. From one fruitless care, it was turned away to another care much more intricate, much more embarrassing, and just equally fruitless. The title of Mun's book, England's Treasure in Foreign Trade, became a fundamental maxim in the political economy, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... among children. At first they yield readily to treatment, but if allowed to continue through the adolescent period the habit becomes fixed so that trying to cure it is a difficult and often fruitless task. Judging from the experience of other cities, about 200 boys and 800 girls in the Cleveland public school system are suffering from some form of speech defect. There are few fields in which the medical inspection department has such an opportunity for effective ...
— Health Work in the Public Schools • Leonard P. Ayres and May Ayres
... appearance at Vauxhall, and emptying the pockets of his intimates, Rann was riding over Hounslow Heath, and flashing his pistol in the eye of the wayfarer. The very year in which Jack danced his last jig at Tyburn, Barrington had astonished London by a fruitless attempt to steal Prince Orloff's miraculous snuff-box. And not even Ellen Roach herself would have dared to assert that Rann was Barrington's equal in sleight of hand. But Rann holds his own against ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... gardens behind old inns in Trastevere, in the hope that they might have some information to sell. But no one gained admittance to the villa except the agents of the police, who came daily to report the fruitless search; and the servants had nothing to tell beyond the bare truth. The young gentleman had gone for a walk near the sea, down at the cottage by the Roman shore, and he had never been heard of again. His mother had been suffering from ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... It soon became clear that the struggle between the factions thus led would be severe, and the conclave a long one. The history of the plots and counterplots by which each strove to circumvent the other is extremely amusing, but too long to be given here. After various fruitless attempts, the Corsini faction concentrated all their forces on Cardinal Aldrovandi. He was a man of decent character, and had the support of a small body of independent cardinals, called the "Zelanti," who, to the great disgust and contempt of their brethren ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... Acten, nach Tieck und F. Hebbel, Musik von Robert Schumann. Op. 81."] and many other members of the church of abstinence, both adepts and neophytes, have since stretched forth their "chaste and innocent" hands in search of an operatic success—they troubled greatly—but their efforts proved fruitless—"the fortunate grip" failed. ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... Doctor Sarson, had suddenly checked the words upon his lips. He turned his head quickly in the direction towards which they had been gazing, towards which in fact, at that moment, Meekins, with a low cry, had made a fruitless spring. The ladder down which they had descended was slowly disappearing. Meekins, with a jump, missed the last rung by only a few inches. Some unseen hand was drawing it up. Already the last few feet were vanishing in mid-air. Mr. Fentolin sat ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... long, he took his book and went upstairs to bed, being tired and sleepy after a long day spent on the hillside in a fruitless search for certain plants which, according to his books, were to be found in that part of Italy, but which he had not yet seen. He fell asleep, thinking of Maria Addolorata's lovely face and fair hair, on which he had never laid eyes. In his ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... After some fruitless efforts, I succeeded at last; but the apprehension of the jeopardy in which I believed myself withstood all the attacks of sleep till towards the morning watch, when, in spite of my fears, I was overpowered with slumber, though I did not long enjoy this comfortable situation, being ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... should lower such pretensions, and, aiming only at some picture of the thing acted, which picture itself will be but a poor approximation, leave the inscrutable purport of them an acknowledged secret.' 'Some picture of the thing acted.' Here we behold the task of the historian; nor is it an idle, fruitless task. Science is not the only, or the chief source of knowledge. The Iliad, Shakspeare's plays, have taught the world more than the Politics of Aristotle or ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... still no sign of Roessle the mill management took alarm. Discovering that he had left the bank for the return journey at a few minutes before eleven, and that nothing had been seen of him at his home, the police were notified. Followed then several hours of fruitless search, until finally, with the whole countryside aroused and the efforts of the police augumented by private search parties, the car was found in a thicket at the edge of a crossroad some four miles back from the river, and, a little way from the car, the body of Roessle, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... can be keeping them?" sighed Zoe, as the two stood together on the brow of the hill, still engaged in their fruitless search. ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... framing for himself a symbolic conception of the universe, which, although doubtless highly imperfect and inadequate as a picture of the great whole, is yet sufficient to serve him as a chart for the guidance of his practical affairs. It has taken long ages of toilsome and often fruitless labour to enable man to look steadily at the shifting scenes of the phantasmagoria of Nature, to notice what is fixed among her fluctuations, and what is regular among her apparent irregularities; and it is only comparatively lately, within the last few centuries, ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... plan was favourably received by the House. After some few objections it was ordered that proposals should be received from the two great corporations. They were both unwilling to lend their aid, and the plan met with a warm but fruitless opposition at the general courts summoned for the purpose of deliberating upon it. They, however, ultimately agreed upon the terms on which they would consent to circulate the South Sea bonds; and their report being presented ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... in hard but fruitless labor, that body was no nearer the end of its undertaking than when it first assembled. The entire world awaited its decision with bated breath, and yet the decision ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... the current of it runs with a sharper and clearer intensity, because I have learned my limitations, and expend no energy in useless enterprises. I have learned what the achievements are which come joyfully bearing their sheaves with them, and what are the trivial and fruitless aims. When I was younger I desired to be known and recognised and deferred to. I wanted to push my way discreetly into many companies, to produce an impression, to create a sense of admiration. Now as the sunset draws nearer, ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... concessions to their political adversaries for the sake of unity; they had still to learn the motto of 1830: "Union is Strength." In this way, the terrible ordeal which they had to undergo under French occupation did not remain entirely fruitless. Neither the Spaniards nor the Austrians had succeeded in uprooting particularist tendencies. The French imposed a centralized regime and impressed the people with its social value. When, in 1830, the Belgians again rebelled against foreign oppression, they had learnt their lesson and ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... anxiously as it drew near the end, and then up, up, up it went, far beyond our reach. We went back and shouted to Sam. What he said in return, we could not make out. Here was a bitter disappointment indeed. Our labour had been fruitless; our hope of escape well-nigh vanished. Presently we saw the end of the rope descending till it came easily within our reach. Short, directly afterwards, appeared at the edge ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... that died; so after a while the fury of the infection appeared to be so increased that, in short, they shut up no houses at all. It seemed enough that all the remedies of that kind had been used till they were found fruitless, and that the plague spread itself with an irresistible fury; so that as the fire the succeeding year spread itself, and burned with such violence that the citizens, in despair, gave over their endeavours to extinguish it, so in the plague it came at last to such violence that ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... consented to teach him this secret doctrine. For this had been his Cabalistic phase, when he dreamed of conjurations and spells and the Mastership of the Name. A sardonic smile twitched the corners of his lips, as he remembered how the poor Rabbi and his pretty wife, after fruitless hints, had lent him the precious tomes to be rid of his persistent all-night sittings, and the smile lingered an instant longer as he recalled his own futile attempts to coerce the supernatural, either by the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... wife were out of employment, and in very great trouble. Mr. H. (missionary) had added his efforts to theirs, and sedulously sought among the families he knew, for positions for them. After two weeks' fruitless endeavor, he said to the man, "Well, John, let us go into the Fulton street meeting and leave it with the Lord." They did so; the request was read ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... I shall not hold out against you. Only I fear your errand may be fruitless, if not worse. The two mules are at your service, and you can leave them at a place I shall indicate. When Manuel returns I shall send him to ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... many a fruitless day in quest of a more attractive pair than they as they strode swiftly down the shady road. They lagged not, for they were strong and healthy, and walking was a joy to them, not an exercise. She kept pace beside him, with her free stride; half a head shorter than he, she did not demand ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... antiquarian and linguist, he unites qualities precious for the due appreciation of Spain. Well-versed in the Castilian, he also displays a familiarity with the Cantabrian tongue—that strange and difficult Vascuense which the Evil One himself, according to a provincial proverb, spent seven years of fruitless labour in endeavouring to acquire. And he patters Romani, the mysterious jargon of the gitanos, in a style no way inferior—so far as we can discover—to Bible Borrow himself. That gentleman, by the bye, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... Becquerel occupied themselves with the theoretical side of the question; but it was not till after 1845 that practical electroculture was undertaken. Williamson suggested the use of gigantic electrostatic machines, but the attempts were fruitless. The methods most generally adopted in experiments consisted of two metallic plates—one of copper and one of zinc—placed in the soil and connected by a wire. Sheppard employed the method in England in 1846 and Forster used the same in Scotland. In the year 1847 Hubeck ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... universal in that Kingdom, that the Judges themselves thought it dishonourable to refuse a Challenge. Henry IVth. seeing the best Blood of France so often sacrific'd to this Idol, endeavour'd to put a Stop to it, but was not able; and the several Edicts made in 1602 and 1609 were fruitless. The Resolutions of Parliament likewise, made in the Reign of Lewis XIIIth. were as ineffectual: the First Check that was given to Duelling, was in the Minority of Lewis XIVth, and from the Method by which it was prevented at last, ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... His name was Doctor Feasible. His practice was not extensive, and he was incumbered with a wife and large family. He also very naturally wished to extend his practice and his reputation; and, after many fruitless attempts, he at last hit upon a scheme which he thought promised ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... for and; and yet he was confessedly not a little puzzled to find out when to use a singular, and when a plural verb, after a nominative with such "a sort of addition made to it." The 246th paragraph of his English Grammar is a long and fruitless attempt to fix a rule for the guidance of the learner in this matter. After dashing off a culpable example, "Sidmouth, with Oliver the spye, have brought Brandreth to the block;" or, as his late ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Journalisms. It is unnecessary to say that in the course of this career he acquires, not only notoriety, but enemies, who watch eagerly for the false step that shall bring him to the ground. In spite of his craft, he is inevitably driven from boldness into rashness, and after waging a fruitless war against rascals more accomplished than himself, he, with a courage that scarcely atones for his imprudence, enters the witness-box, and, a flood of light having been thrown upon his past career, he finds himself for two nights blazoned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... of Spayne in the kingdom of Portugall, and he and the Dutch will put him into possession of Lisbon; and, that being done, he [France] may have Flanders: and this, they say; do mightily take in Spayne, which is sensible of the fruitless expence Flanders, so far off, gives them; and how much better it would be for them to be master of Portugall; and the King of France offers, for security herein, that the King of England shall be bond for him, and that he will countersecure the King of England with Amsterdam; and, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... edge of the fruitless surf A light flame sinks and springs; At the grey soft rim of the flowerless turf A low flame leaps ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... chosen the rebellion had induced about a dozen of their officers to join them; but these men, suddenly repenting, refused to break their oath of allegiance, and were at once hanged from the neighbouring trees. Finding further persuasion fruitless, Pugatscheff wisely refrained from any attempt to reduce the fortress, and marched his band towards Orenburg. On the way he secured large accessions to his force, and in a few days found himself at the head of 1500 men. With ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... inconsequent in the extreme. Nevertheless, he had his own misgivings. His captains came back one after another, with no good tidings of discovery, but with petty plunder gained as they returned from incursions on the Moorish coast. The prince concealed from them his chagrin at the fruitless nature of their attempts, but probably did not feel it less on that account. He began to think, was it for him to hope to discover that land which had been hidden from so many princes? Still he felt within himself ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... without fear put him on his shoulder as before and started toward the monk. And as he walked along, the goblin on his shoulder said to him again: "O King, why do you take such pains for that wretched monk? Have you no sense about this fruitless task? Well, after all, I like your devotion. So, to amuse the weary journey, I will tell ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... penetrated the house, and five of the occupants were killed or wounded. The shells came from a newly erected battery a hundred and fifty yards to the north. Among the killed was one of Mrs. Righton's children; and the boys first learned the news when, on rising from a fruitless attempt to sleep, they went to get a little fresh air outside. Edith and Nelly Hargreaves came out from the door, with jugs, on their way ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... drove his men to boat-falls in hasty endeavor to get a boat over; but the effort could have only proved fruitless, for the stream ran like a mill race around those writhing, twisting grasses that endlessly bent, straightened, and twined, and the undertow was appalling. Houten's launch rounded the Barang's stern and the trader searched the ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... with his hand and gazed anxiously in the direction of the inlet. Granting that Gregory arrived within the next half-hour, what could he possibly accomplish in so short a time? All McCoy's efforts to confer with Rock had been fruitless. The bank president could not be located and ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... nations, separated from each other by a vast tract of sea and land, were contending for empire and power. These were the causes which opened the Alps to Hasdrubal. But the advantage which he gained by the celerity of his march he lost by his delay at Placentia, while he carried on a fruitless siege, rather than an assault. He had supposed that it would be easy to take by storm a town situated on a plain; and the celebrity of the colony induced him to believe that by destroying it he should strike great terror into the rest. This siege ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... will be seen that the Hidatsa as well as the Algonkins and Mexicans believed that four days were required before the spirit could finally leave the earth. Why the smell of burning leather should he offensive to spirits it would perhaps be fruitless to speculate on. ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... the clothes he still had were good, though badly in want of pressing, and when, after still further days of fruitless searching for work the proceeds from the articles he had pawned were exhausted, it occurred to him he might raise something on all but what he actually needed to ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he says, "in the files of the War Department a statement that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from your grief for a loss so overwhelming but I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation which may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the sentence; but the quiet equanimity with which the Baron endured his misfortunes, had something in it venerable, and even sublime. There was no fruitless repining, no turbid melancholy; he bore his lot, and the hardships which it involved, with a good-humoured, though serious composure, and used no violent language against ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... from impatience of repeated disappointments. But still he persevered. Nothing TRULY GREAT can be accomplished without toil and time. Two hours he worked before he went to bed. All his play hours the next day he spent at his mat; which, in all, made five hours of fruitless attempts. The sixth, however, repaid him for the labours of the other five. He conquered his grand difficulty of fastening the heath substantially together, and at length completely finished a mat, which far surpassed his most sanguine expectations. He was extremely happy— sang, danced round ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... speeches seem insipid and tiresome. So I carry my sadness with me wherever I go; a cold weariness, a discontent, a horror of life. Yes, I am lost for ever and ever. Before you stands a man who at thirty-five is disillusioned, wearied by fruitless efforts, burning with shame, and mocking at his own weakness. Oh, how my pride rebels against it all! What mad fury chokes me! [He staggers] I am staggering—my strength is failing me. Where is Matthew? ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... to bed at last, though to toss another hour in fruitless effort to solve this puzzle and to free his eyes of those flashing infamies of the night. Ever and again as he seemed to become composed, free at last of tormenting visions, a mere subtitle would flash in his brain, as where the old mother, when he first punished her insulter, was ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... congregation. In this form of discipline our divine Saviour shows his utmost aversion against private offences being unnecessarily published abroad: and therefore the church, to which the offence is to be told, after private admonition is fruitless, must be understood in the most private sense of the word. The following context evidences that it is a church, which may consist only of two or three met together in Christ's name; yet, notwithstanding, a church having power to bind and loose from ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... my fruitless errand, I met Dr. Elliot, of Port Colborne, who in the interim had been visiting the wounded men. He agreed to find ways and means to convey me to Port Colborne to report to the medical staff, with a view to sending immediate relief. ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... Towcester to-day, searching for the sign of the "Saracen's Head," would find himself on a fruitless errand, for it was changed scores of years back to the Pomfret Arms. Indeed, it was so called at the time The Pickwick Papers were first published, having been altered in 1881 at the bidding of the new lord of the manor when he succeeded ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... the Portuguese put together: he was more vain of his names than of his person; but the Duke of Buckingham, a still greater fool than he, though more addicted to raillery, gave him the additional name of Peter of the Wood. He was so enraged at this, that, after many fruitless complaints and ineffectual menaces, poor Pedro de Silva was obliged to leave England, while the happy duke kept possession of a Portuguese nymph more hideous than the queen's maids of honour, whom he had taken from him, as well as two ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... the question is properly put. To me the question, whether the closer relations between certain independent dialects furnish evidence as to the successive times of their separation, seems, by its very nature, fruitless. Nor have the answers been at all satisfactory. After a number of coincidences between the various members of the Aryan family have been carefully collected, we know no more in the end than what we knew at first, viz., that all the ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... nobody else within call, and I was compelled, therefore, to resign myself as best I could. My efforts to awaken Grammont had proved quite fruitless. I lit a cigar, and walked to and fro. The man in the blouse also lit a. cigar, and paced to and fro, passing in every journey the bench on which Grammont lay asleep. Suspecting him as I did, I never took my eyes from him ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... his side, scarcely deigning to notice us. With heads erect, and as calm countenances as we could command, we passed through the crowd in the ante-room, and made our way into the street. We then hurried back to Don Jose's, to tell him how fruitless had been our ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... heretics rejecting the Old Testament entirely; another contending for the obligation of its law, in all its parts, throughout its whole extent, and over every one who sought acceptance with God. Upon the two latter subjects, a natural, perhaps, and venial, but a fruitless, eager, and impatient curiosity, prompted by the philosophy and by the scholastic habits of the age, which carried men much into bold hypotheses and conjectural solutions, raised, amongst some who ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... not expect her consciously to betray her husband, but his eyes are busy while he puts artless questions. An incautious word, the evasion of a question may give him the hint he seeks, or, on the other hand, she may be too alert and his mission may be fruitless. ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... his brother were shocked at having so unintentionally plunged me into affliction. They offered consolation, but finding their endeavours fruitless, quitted the room, thinking it advisable to leave me to myself. Cerise, for that was the name of the daughter, remained, and after a short pause came to me, and in her silvery voice, as she laid her hand upon ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is usually the vaguest thing in the cloudland of metaphysics. I fancy it means that one must always be hankering after something which one has not and keeping a look of sorrow when one's hankering is fruitless. The feeling of pity with which a "yearnest" one regards somebody who cares only for pleasant and simple or pathetic books is very creditable; but it weighs on the average human being. Why on earth ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... my best beloved fair one, repine not thou at the arts by which thou suspectest thy fruitless vigilence has been over watched. Take care, that thou provokest not new ones, that may be still more worthy of thee. If once thy emperor decrees thy fall, thou shalt greatly fall. Thou shalt have cause, if that come to pass, which may ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... after my fruitless appeal to Natalie, I met Edith Metford, to whom I had unhappily mentioned ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... determined that I would keep the ring, if for no other reason than that Bimbane seemed to attach such an extraordinary value to it, and to require its restoration so badly. I therefore left her at last, quite exhausted with her fruitless entreaties, and doubled up in a little, shapeless, miserably sobbing heap on the divan; and as I went forth from the apartment I summoned her waiting women and directed them to go in and attend to the queen, as I feared that ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood |
