"Vain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the landvogt is in prison, Let us all rejoice, Sigismund is our choice. Kyrie Eleison! Had he not been snared, evil had it fared, But now that he is ta'en, his craft is all in vain. Kyrie Eleison!" ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... civil wars followed in the train of foreign conquests; Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Antony, Augustus, sacrificed the State to their own ambitions. Good men lamented and protested, and hid themselves; Cato, Cicero, Brutus, spoke in vain. Degenerate morals kept pace with civil contests. Rome revelled in the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, was intoxicated with power, became cruel and tyrannical, and after sacrificing the lives of citizens to fortunate generals, yielded at last her liberties, and imperial despotism began ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... was not given to vain boasting. The open-house festivities of Christmas were approaching. He himself had won the entree to an extraordinary number of fashionable houses; and this evening here was Tom, come with his patron to a nobleman's ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... by the Maker Heights on the right, and the high cliffs on the left and in the bend. Hard by are Mount Edgcumbe Park, and the Hamoaze in full view. Enough: I will say no more as to the description of it, lest my readers may think me vain. But I cannot refrain from asking in this connection: Who would not be ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... were as violent as they were vain. "There's enough," she said simply. "Here are the things you bought. Now go out of the back door and cut across the fields. It's the shortest ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... weakness and disappointment, seizing upon the symbol of the cross, (of which the effigy was always near at hand,) and by a kiss and a tear seeking to ally her fainting heart with the mystic company of the elect who would find admission to the joys of paradise. But the dogmas were vain, because she could not grapple them to her heart; the cross was vain, because it was an empty symbol; the kisses and the tears left her groping blindly for the key that would surely unlock for her the wealth of the celestial kingdom. In this attitude of mind, wearied by struggle and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... my searching into the name and identity of my little strangers in gray had been in vain. But a direful suspicion was growing within me. That heavy black line from the eye! The strongly marked wings! I turned with dread to a family I had not thought of trying—the shrikes. There were the markings, too true! But that delicate blue-gray was not "slate color." Still, people see colors ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... certain essential doctrines as familiar forms of old. Dr. Moffat remarks, "To speak of the Creation, the Fall and the Resurrection, seemed more fabulous, extravagant and ludicrous to them than their own vain stories of lions and hyaenas." Again, "The Gospel appeared too preposterous for the most foolish to believe".(2) While the Zulus declared that they used to accept their own myths without inquiry,(3) it was a Zulu ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... canopies of costly state when sleep refuses to weigh his eyelids down or steep his senses in forgetfulness. The king is credited with control of every comfort; but he is denied by nature comforts which she places freely at command of the humblest. So again does Richard II. soliloquize on the vain pride which imbues the king, while death all the time grins at his pomp and keeps his own court within the hollow crown that rounds the prince's mortal temples. Yet again, to identical effect is Henry VI.'s ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... nor try in vain to fix The How and Why—some wondrous Brew to mix; Better be jocund with a calm Two-score Than sadden ...
— The Golfer's Rubaiyat • H. W. Boynton
... When the alma Venus, the life-giving and joy-giving power of nature, so fondly cherished by the Pagan world, could not save her followers from self- dissatisfaction and ennui, the severe words of the apostle came bracingly and refreshingly: "Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." Throughout age after age, and generation after generation, our race, or all that part of our race which was most living and progressive, was baptized into ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... god disdainfully subjected to the misfortunes of a man. In reading this wonderful performance, which in pure and sustained sublimity is perhaps unrivalled in the literature of the world, we lose sight entirely of the cheerful Hellenic worship; and yet it is in vain that the learned attempt to trace its vague and mysterious metaphysics to any old symbolical religion of the East. More probably, whatever theological system it shadows forth, was rather the gigantic conception of ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... their absence that gave her face a new expression. When she went down town we noticed that her hats were more like the hats the other women in our town wore; but she still affected extravagant footgear, as is right and proper for a stout woman who has cause to be vain of her feet. We noticed that her trips down town were rare that spring and summer. She used to come home laden with little bundles; and before supper she would change her street clothes for a neat, washable ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... the frost and snow really did come, and the Chicadees were in a bad way. Indeed, they were frightened out of their wits, and dashed hither and thither, seeking in vain for some one to set them aright on the way to the warm land. They flew wildly about the woods, till they were truly crazy. I suppose there was not a squirrel-hole or a hollow log in the neighbourhood that some Chicadee did not enter to inquire if this was the Gulf of Mexico. But no one ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... coming reaction. Mrs. Ferrars possessed most feminine qualities, and many of them in excess. She could not reason, but her intuition was remarkable. She was of opinion that "these people never could go on," and that they must necessarily be succeeded by William and his friends. In vain her husband, when she pressed her views and convictions on him, would shake his head over the unprecedented majority of the government, and sigh while he acknowledged that the Tories absolutely did not now command one fifth of the House of Commons; his shakes ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... are, said he, 'but four ways of arriving at this science, viz.—1, by future experiments; 2, past experiments; 3, traditions; 4, physical reasons.' But he was not very hopeful as to the progress of the suggested researches. It is vain, he said, to think at present of future experiments, because many ages are required to procure a competent stock of them. As for the past, it is true that past experiments are within our reach, 'but it is a work of ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... a numerous population, after which we returned to the ships. Hoisting our anchors, we sailed along shore with the wind at S.S.E. for above forty leagues, frequently endeavouring to penetrate into the land, but in vain, as the flux of the sea was so rapid from the S.E. to the N.W. that it was impossible for the vessels to stem the current. In consideration of this circumstance, we resolved to steer a course to the N.W. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... Vain hope, however, for Miss Williams, having closely questioned various ones without gaining any satisfaction, walked straight to the closet and opened the door, when the light from her candle flared directly upon Jennie's white, frightened ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Jack took a crying fit one cold night, much to the annoyance of four or five chiefs, who had come to our lodge to talk and smoke. In vain did the mother shake and scold him with the severest Cheyenne words, until Smith, provoked beyond endurance, took the squalling youngster in his hands; he shu-ed and shouted and swore, but Jack had gone too far to be easily pacified. He then sent for a bucket of water from the river and poured ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... a little additional money. One of the latest is of the seventeenth century, when the daughter of the house was "the beautiful Nicolaide de Blonay, before whom many adorers had bent the knee in vain. Among them, a certain Tavel de Villars, vanquished the proud beauty by his constancy. But the marriage was delayed. Officer in the service of France, Tavel was detained by his military duties. In the mean time Jean-Francois ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... Defoe cannot be held up as an exemplar of moral conduct, yet if he is judged by the measures that he laboured for and not by the means that he employed, few Englishmen have lived more deserving than he of their country's gratitude. He may have been self-seeking and vain-glorious, but in his political life self-seeking and vain-glory were elevated by their alliance with higher and wider aims. Defoe was a wonderful mixture of knave and patriot. Sometimes pure knave seems to be uppermost, sometimes pure patriot; but the mixture is so complex, and ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... said, and all in vain were her mother's entreaties to let matters take their course. Anna only replied by going deliberately on with the preparations for her sudden journey. She was going to find Rose, and blessing her for this kindness ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... change! In vain I look For haunts in which my boyhood trifled; The level lawn, the trickling brook, The trees I climbed, the beds I rifled. The church is larger than before, You reach it by a carriage entry: It holds three ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... understood it. There had been no definite plans ahead. Tacitly, it had been assumed, he thought, that he was to return with them to Montreal and England. This gentle question, then, was Elizabeth's way of telling him that his hopes were vain and his journey fruitless. ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... some who make too much of vain Shews, and of the British Antiquities, have given out to the World, and written some things to that purpose, that Arthur some time King of Britain had both Knowledge of those parts (the New World) and some Dominion in them; for they find (as ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams
... torpedoed without warning or assuring the lives of crew and passengers. And yet by virtue of his pacific principles this promise could not be forcibly extracted until every other possible method had been attempted in vain. Unquestionably he was supported in his policy by many, perhaps most, thoughtful people, although wherever support was given him in the East it was generally grudging. Such a representative and judicial mind as that of ex-President Taft favored ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... Dostoieffski is in his method as an artist, as a man he is full of human pity for all, for those who do evil as well as for those who suffer it, for the selfish no less than for those whose lives are wrecked for others and whose sacrifice is in vain. Since Adam Bede and Le Pere Goriot no more powerful novel has been ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... to accomplish anything go out to my friend Bjorn in Haganes in Fljot. He has a good boat; ask him from me to lend it to you, and then you will be able to sail on to Drangey. It seems to me that if you find Grettir well and hearty your journey will have been in vain. One thing know for certain: do not slay him in open fight, for there are enough men to avenge him. Do not slay Illugi if you can help it. I fear that my counsel may not ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... respects her responsibilities and duties; for the punishment you would otherwise incur is terrible: you would lose your love. Oh! to live loveless, to tear flesh from flesh, to belong no more to the one who is half of your very self, to live on in pain and agony, bereft of the one you have loved! In vain would you stretch out your arms to him; he would turn away from you. You would yearn for happiness, but you would find in your heart nothing but shame and bitterness. Hear me, my daughter, it is in your own conduct, in your obedience, in your purity, in your love, that God has established ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... at the spinney begins to-day," she observed complacently, addressing herself to Lavendar and alluding to the rooting up of an old copse and the planting of a new one—an improvement she had long planned, though hitherto in vain. "The young trees ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... suo, and speaks of Balaam as the best prophet of his time, but with a disposition ill adapted to resist temptation. Philo describes him in the Life of Moses as a great magician; elsewhere[8] he speaks of "the sophist Balaam, being," i.e. symbolizing, "a vain crowd of contrary and warring opinions"; and again[9] as "a vain people"; both phrases being based on a mistaken etymology of the name Balaam. The later Targums and the Talmuds represent him as a typical sinner; and there are the usual worthless Rabbinical ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... always open; we found that at Haarlem open and a numerous congregation listening to a very respectable, venerable-looking preacher, whose voice and manner, style and action approached perfection. His eloquence, however, seemed to be in vain, for I observed many sleepers; and what had an odd effect, though customary in their country, the men with their hats on; they take them off, I believe, during prayers, but put them down during the sermon; we ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... which divided morning school and the free time before dinner the three friends mooned about together, trying in vain to regard the future in a more cheerful light, and to make plans for keeping touch of each other by an interchange of letters and a possible ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... cruel," said the girl. But she spoke as though she were arguing against her own conviction. "He cannot be so vain—so spoiled," she protested, "that because one woman fails to fall on her knees to him, he ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... you, gentlemen, that we are in safety. The keenest eye could not see that the panel opens, and, being backed with brick, it gives no hollow sound when struck. They will search in vain for it." ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... be said to be the act of two nations or two sets of nations, by means of which each tries to get its way by physical force. The peaceful methods of diplomacy having been exhausted, arguments and threats having been tried in vain, both parties resort to the oldest and yet the latest court; the same court as that to which resort the lions of the desert, the big and little fishes of the sea, the fowls of the air, and even the blades of grass ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... that breathes from the grassy quadrangles and stone walls of halls and colleges—was at home in the Bodleian; and at Blenheim quite superseded the powdered Cicerone that attended us, and that pointed in vain with his wand to commonplace beauties in matchless pictures. As another exception to the above reasoning, I should not feel confident in venturing on a journey in a foreign country without a companion. ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... like Alexandre Dumas or Leigh Hunt, and as in the case of Alexander Hamilton, the point still seems to be waiting for final proof. The assertion is persistent, however, and there can be little doubt that such is the case. The standard life of Browning,[15] after wrestling in vain with the problem, dismisses ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... he went from place to place, and did not fear to return to Rome in the travesty of a pilgrim. The story of his adventures would fill many pages, but Rome is not concerned with them. In vain he appealed to adventurers, to enthusiasts, and to fanatics to help in regaining what he had lost. None would listen to him, no man would draw the sword. He came to Prague at last, obtained an audience of the Emperor Charles the Fourth, appealed ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... In vain Fisher assured the porter that it was a mistake to consider him a medical expert; that he professed no science save that of draw poker; that if a false impression prevailed in the hotel it was through a blunder for which he was in no way responsible; and that, much as he regretted ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... fields are as brown as if Winter was there; But the violets are there by the dykes and the dell, Where I played "hen and chickens" and heard the church bell, Which called me to prayer-book and sermons in vain: O when shall I see ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... to seek for him a refuge. She thought she had friends who would shelter him, as Madame Hugo had sheltered Lahorie during the troublous times of the first Empire. She applied to friend after friend in vain. She wept, she implored, she tried to bribe,—in vain. The citizens were too much intimidated to dare shelter one of the proscribed,—even Victor Hugo, perhaps the most honored man in the nation. Madame Drouet, however, would not yield to despair, but pursued her way with undaunted ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... three hundred thousand Turks, after having appealed in vain for aid to the whole of Christendom, had not been willing to survive the loss of his empire, and had been found in the midst of the dead, close to the Tophana Gate; and on the 30th of May, 1453, Mahomet ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God's ministers, ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... incredible projection of his own mind into other people's matters, he was able to tax me to my face with an attempt to win his former fiance's affections. I tried to choke him off. I used every ounce of bluff I possessed. In vain. I left Walpole Street in a state approaching ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... vain to develop the secrets which lie hidden in the sea. Imagination has been at work for ages, and in some cases has pictured the bottom of ocean as a sort of marine paradise, a nautical Eden, with charming grottoes, spacious gardens, coral forests, ridges of golden sands, and heaps of precious ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent, As I by thine a wife: this is a match, And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine; But how, is to be question'd: for I saw her, As I thought, dead; and have, in vain, said many A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far,— For him, I partly know his mind,—to find thee An honourable husband.—Come, Camillo, And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty Is richly noted, and here justified By us, a pair of kings.—Let's ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... have protested but she knew it would be in vain. She submitted somewhat sullenly and walked down to the shore in silence. Clark Bryant strode beside her, humouring her mood. He was a tall, stout man, with an ugly, clever, sarcastic face. He was as clever as he looked, and was one of the younger millionaires ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... youth. See how brightly the candle burns. From boundless stretches of space the icy wind blows, circling, careering, and tossing the flame. In vain. Bright and clear the candle burns. Yet the wax is dwindling, consumed by the fire. ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... put his hands in his pockets and took them out again, twisted his eyes in a vain attempt to see the whole extent of the ink spot on his collar, and finally, standing quite upright, and looking straight before him, said in a very modest and yet manly way, 'I am glad you know that I was not really idle, father; but I didn't work so hard ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... we met with a Texian constable going to arrest a murderer. He asked us what o'clock it was, as he had not a watch, and told us that a few minutes' ride would bring us to Boston, a new Texian city. We searched in vain for any vestiges which could announce our being in the vicinity of even a village; at last, however, emerging from a swamp, through which we had been forcing our way for more than an hour, we descried between the trees a long building, made of the rough logs of the black pine, and as we ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... a humdrum kind. What we vaguely had in mind Was some new sensation or Thrill we never felt before. Vain desire! ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... certainly come against the boat and sink it. Besides, how could one land on the opposite bank among willows which would scuttle the boat, and with a flood of unknown extent? The leader concluded, then, that the operation was physically impossible. In vain did the emperor tempt them with an offer of 6,000 francs per man; even this could not persuade them, though, as they said, they were poor boatmen with families, and this sum would be a fortune to them. But, as I have already said, some lives must be sacrificed to save those of the greater ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... returned at last, he found his own boat safe enough, and he really could not tell if any of the others had walked away; but he looked around in vain for any signs of his late comrade. Not that he spent much time or wasted any great pains in searching for him; and he muttered to himself, ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... and heather, on the breezy, open moor; All within was sun and shelter, and the wealth of beauty's store. But I did not heed the fragrance of flow'ret or of tree, For my eyes were on that rosebud, and it grew too high for me. In vain I strove to reach it through the tangled mass of green, It only smiled and nodded behind its thorny screen. Yet through that summer morning I lingered near the spot: Oh, why do things seem sweeter if we possess them not? My garden buds were blooming, but all that I could ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... off to Chatteris that day, but in vain attempted to see Miss Fotheringay, for whom he left a letter, enclosed to her father. The enclosure was returned by Mr. Costigan, who begged that all correspondence might end; and after one or two further attempts ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Michigan man ever heard the stentorian call of the captain, for sound travels only thirteen hundred feet to the second, and the cow was certainly going considerably faster than that; and, besides, he was himself engaged, with a terrific earnestness, in a vain effort to extricate a word out of his throat, which stuck like a wad in a smutty gun—a word of undoubted Saxon origin and of expressive force, and which has saved more blood-vessels from bursting ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... turned to her sister, not reproachfully but earnestly: "Sure?" she exclaimed. "Of course I am sure. I know myself. You have a far better mind than mine, but I have—well, I know what I have. I don't believe I am vain, but I know, sister, that you and I must rebuild the fortunes of our house, or worse will come to us than we have ever known. You are sure to do your part because you have intellect—brains. You ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... the coach; saw the pretended William Reed, and proved him to be an impostor. The stranger, who was a pious attorney, was soon legally satisfied of the barber's identity, and told him that he had advertised him in vain. Providence had now thrown him in his way in a most extraordinary manner, and he had great pleasure in transferring a great many thousand pounds to a worthy man, the rightful heir of the property. Thus was man's extremity God's opportunity. Had the poor barber possessed one half-penny, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... long drive, and more than once I was nearly killed through hanging my body from the cab window in a vain attempt to catch a glimpse of Dorice in one or other of the motors that passed us on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... progress of the human mind; and, above all, let it never be forgotten, that books of this description contain a mass of materials for the elucidation of the manners and customs of the age, which would in vain be sought for in any ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... very anxious to see Lucheux, as well as Arras, which is not far from Amiens, and, a vast ruin, is said to be by moonlight the most beautiful sight on earth. We both besieged the War Office. But in vain. The great Battle of the Somme had just begun. They are so polite at the Ministere de la Guerre! If I had only thought of it a month earlier. Or if I could remain in France a month or two longer? But helas! They could not take the responsibility of letting an American woman go so ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... work in brass, A tinker is my station; I've travell'd round all Christian ground In this my occupation. I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroll'd In many a noble squadron; But vain they search'd when off I march'd To go an' clout ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dozen men came forward, and from them the sheriff chose two. Fairchild turned to say good-by to Anita. In vain. Already Maurice Rodaine had escorted her, apparently against her will, to a far end of the dance hall, and there was quarreling with her. Fairchild hurried to join the sheriff and his two deputies, just starting ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... however, distancing them, when we found that the river made a sharp bend, and ran back close to the village we had at first seen. At the same time we caught sight of four or five large canoes putting off from the shore, evidently for the purpose of intercepting us. In vain we attempted to escape; the canoes completely surrounded us, and unless we had resolved, rather than yield, to sacrifice our lives, resistance would have been useless. We merely, therefore, warded off with our paddles the blows aimed at our heads, while we cried out ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... are grown to such a degree of violence and malignity as to render all ordinary remedies vain and frivolous. In such a deplorable situation, an adherence to the common forms of business appears to us rather as an apology to cover a supine neglect of duty than the means of performing it in a manner adequate to the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... little harbor of San Diego, its low spit of sand, where the water runs so deep; the opposite flats, where the Alert grounded in starting for home; the low hills, without trees, and almost without brush; the quiet little beach;—but the chief objects, the hide houses, my eye looked for in vain. They were gone, all, and left no ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... those suspicions to himself. Albert may have suspected also, but he, too, said nothing. The censored correspondence between Greenwich and the training camp traveled regularly, and South Harniss damsels looked and longed in vain. He saw them, he bowed to them, he even addressed them pleasantly and charmingly, but to him they were merely incidents in his walks to and from the post-office. In his mind's eye he saw but one, and she, alas, was ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Murray and Mr Braine trying in vain to penetrate the darkness, so as to make out whether any one was near. Then the doctor's steps were heard overhead, and his voice came down so distinctly, that both felt how a ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... herbs of the field, and the prey of carnivorous animals proceeds, either directly or indirectly, from the same source. It is, therefore, through this channel that the simple elements become a part of the animal frame. We should in vain attempt to derive nourishment from carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, either in their separate state, or combined in the mineral kingdom; for it is only by being united in the form of vegetable combination, that they ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... with some confusion and Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand To expound their vain and visionary gleams. I've known some odd ones which seemed really planned Prophetically, or that which one deems A "strange coincidence," to use a phrase By which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... writhing, frothing as he fought in vain to snap his jaws upon the cord he could not touch. And night grew horrible with the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... I might try for hours to explain it to you in vain; but I'll just give you an instance that'll show you better than all my dissertations on the subject, and I was present myself when it happened, more by token, it was the first time I ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... have made from anger for the destruction of all the worlds, must not go in vain. I cannot consent to be one whose anger and vows are futile. Like fire consuming dry woods, this rage of mine will certainly consume me if I do not accomplish my vow. The man that represseth his wrath that hath been excited by (adequate) cause, becometh ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... there be any use in verifying so slight a verbal reference to Panormitan, one of whose huge folios, Venet. 1473, I have examined in vain, perhaps the object might be attained by the assistance of such a book as Thomassin's Vetus et Nova Ecclesiae Disciplina, in the chapter "De Episcopis Titularibus," ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... the patience and skill of forgotten men, and make their efforts not quite useless. It was no rude savage that carved the Palenque cross; and if we can discover what his efforts meant, his labor and his learning have not been all in vain. It will be one more proof that human effort, even misdirected, is not lost, but that it comes, later or earlier, "to forward the general deed ...
— Studies in Central American Picture-Writing • Edward S. Holden
... always true to the letter. But, nevertheless, when this thing which he still chose to pursue should have been put absolutely beyond his reach, he would not allow his calm bosom to be harassed by a vain regret. He was a man too whole at every point,—so Alice told herself,—to allow his happiness to be ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... with a half-defined purpose of finding Webber and inducing him to give up the vain hope of rivalling the editor of The Investor's Monthly. He had always liked the clerk, and when he had helped to pull him out of the market without loss before, he had thought all would go well. But the optimism of the hour ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... have attempted to describe, when I say that we have no revenges to satisfy, no hatreds to appease. We do not ask that anyone shall be punished. We only desire that the Nation shall recognize and remember the grand fidelity of our dead comrades, and take abundant care that they shall not have died in vain. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... the bishop a solemn auto-da-fe was made of all this literature, in the presence of the city officials and the clergy, and the most revolting passages were read in public, "in order to acquaint everybody with the conceited and vain promises of the demons," as the pious writer of the ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... at his subject, let the result be what it might. Indeed he had no hopes as to a favourable result. He had slept upon it, as people say when they intend to signify that they have lain awake, and had convinced himself that all eloquence would be vain. Was it natural that a man should give up his intended wife, simply because he was asked? Gordon's present feeling was an anxious desire to be once more on board the ship that should take him again to the diamond-fields, so that ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... have surprised him greatly to know that Corona looked for him in vain wherever she went, and that, not seeing him, she grew silent and pale, and gave short answers to the pleasant speeches men made her. Every one missed Giovanni. He wrote to Valdarno to say that he had been suddenly obliged to visit Saracinesca in ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... an ordinary child, all this petting would have had an injurious effect upon her mind. But, fortunately she had that rare simplicity, young as she was, which lifted her above the dangers to which many might have been subjected. Instead of being made vain, she only felt grateful for the many kindnesses bestowed upon her by her father and mother and brother Jack, as she was wont to call them. Indeed, it had not been thought best to let her know that such was not the relation in which they really stood ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... effort to attain this unity was the one thought dominating the career of his successor, whose pompous introduction to life naturally inspired him with a high idea of his own rank, and led him to dream of greater dignities for himself and his successor than a bundle of titles,—a splendid, vain, fatal ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... lowest gutter-depths, could not escape the same danger wholly. In the upper air the fairy-tale flies too often in prescribed gyres; and the most modern kinds of all—the novel of analysis, the problem-novel, and all the rest of them—strive in vain to avoid the curse of—as Rabelais put something not dissimilar long ago—"fatras a la douzaine." "All the stories are told," saith the New, even as the Old, Preacher; all but the highest genius is apt to show ruts, brain-marks, common orientations of route and specifications of design. Only the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... attached to a long line, while the harpoon shaft, by an ingenious arrangement, will slip free from the point. Now, while the shaft remains in the hands of the hunter, the line begins running rapidly down through the hole, for the seal in a vain endeavor to free itself dives deeply. The other end of the line also remaining in the hands of the hunter is fastened to the shaft of the harpoon, and there is a struggle. In time, the seal, unable to return to its hole for air, is drowned, and ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... at first to decide between the two claimants and settle the dispute, but all in vain. La Tour made an attempt in 1640 to surprise D'Aunay at Port Royal, but the result was that he as well as his bride, who had just come from France, were themselves taken prisoners. The Capuchin friars induced D'Aunay to set them all at liberty on condition that La Tour should keep the ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... had any sense," she said to herself, "he would waste no time on that vain and frivolous rose. He is far too good a ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... supreme will; And yonder torch light of eternity, Blazing into heaven, candle of omnipotence— Lights thy poor, wandering human midgets— An hundred miles at sea, with lofty hope— That nothing exists or dies in vain; But changed into another form lives on Through countless, boundless, blazing, brilliant worlds Beyond this transient, ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... we live again or not as long as we live cleanly and do our work honestly while we are alive? Surely if we leave this world a little bit better, a little bit richer in knowledge, than we find it, these poor little lives of ours, such as they are, and that's not much—will not have been lived in vain. Of course, as you know, I'm just a common, low-down materialist who can't rise to the poetry of things as you can with this gorgeous theory ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... not, however, long amused by these vain chimeras, which soon vanished before other reflections of more importance and solidity. His imagination, it must be owned, was at all times too chaste to admit those overweening hopes, which often mislead the mind ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... and join in the chorus with me: "Vain 'tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly! Play then the ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... know which, if it isn't repeated," Bandy-legs observed, sagely; for not wanting to be outdone by Toby he had racked his brain in vain to find another possible explanation, and ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... part which the Seventh Division took in this front-rank battle, I cannot do better than quote from The Times of December 16, 1914, in describing the heroic effort of our troops in resisting the furious onslaughts of the Germans in their vain endeavour to reach Calais; to which point the Kaiser had commanded a road 'to be forced at ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... those whom I have loved the best in the world—he tells me of it with a calm look, an eye composed, an unfaltering tongue.—Is this—can it be natural? Is De Lacy sunk so low, that his dishonour shall be told by a common strolling minstrel, as calmly as if it were a theme for a vain ballad? Perhaps thou wilt make it one, ha!" as he concluded, darting a ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... done, "mean and disgusting", and said so, stormily; but of course was not believed. Usually too proud to defend herself, she here returned to the charge again and again; for the hint of connivance had touched her on the raw. But she strove in vain to prove her innocence: she could not get her enemies to grasp the abysmal difference between merely making up a story about people, and laying hands on others' property; if she could do the one, she was capable of the other; and her companions remained convinced that, if she had not ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... smart bird," said Jerry and tried in vain to teach the parrot to say "Jerry." Pedro said "Caramba" again and a few Spanish words Jerry did not understand, ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... bill. No one noticed anything special about him; he was quiet, gentle, and friendly. He must have shot himself at about midnight, though it was strange that no one had heard the shot, and they only raised the alarm at midday, when, after knocking in vain, they had broken in the door. The bottle of Chateau d'Yquem was half empty, there was half a plateful of grapes left too. The shot had been fired from a little three-chambered revolver, straight ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... as historically accurate statements of fact when they are difficult to credit as such? Especially why should we do so in the face of the obvious fact that the earlier part of the Old Testament is simply tradition, handed down, orally at first, by an intensely patriotic and rather vain race? Sacred tradition it is, to be sure; but that should not deter us from endeavoring to analyze it in the light of reason. Besides, hasn't it ever occurred to you that in a translation from the original Hebrew, some of the finer meanings ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... up to the Duke and touched his bridle, so that the horse reared; then produced her presents, and awaited the annual acknowledgment. But the Duke, still sulky, would scarcely speak to her; in vain she fingered her fur-pouch. At last she said in her "level whine," that as well as to bring the presents, she had come to pay her duty to "the new Duchess, the youthful beauty." As she said that, an idea came to the Duke, and the smirk returned to his sulky face. ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... In vain I protested that this was not my idea at all, and that I too wanted to do the patrolling, but when he told a man to take the saddle off my horse and shake down a bed for me, I thought it wiser to acquiesce, or, at least, appear to do so. I shall never forget that night. How we talked and ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... Julian, who had not spoken in vain with the deserting Canadians, and knew a good deal about Bougainville's camp. Then afraid of being asked the password, he hastily added, still speaking French, "Have a care; the English will hear us! The provision boats from ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a through ticket to Tasili Ahaggar—if you wanted to go there—and that the shores of the Sahara became the Riviera of the world, crowded with health resorts and watering-places—so that Pax had not lived in vain, nor Thornton, nor Bill Hood, nor Bennie Hooker, ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... that intoxicates. Or in the still twilight, by the side of her whose every note makes his pulse to tremble with the breathing of song, and the incense of flowers, and forgetfulness of the world, to feel the thought stealing over his heart that perhaps he is not uncared for. It is sweet, but vain; sweet and vain as the smiling, blushing slumber of a young girl. Dream on! dream on! for if you can always sleep, what will matter to you the storms and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... and to all appearance a stupid young officer of the gendarmerie. The pair lived as such people do, and again made prey of Madame de Boulainvilliers, in 1781, at Strasbourg. The lady was here the guest of the sumptuous, vain, credulous, but honourable Cardinal Rohan, by this time a man of fifty, and the fanatical adorer of Cagliostro, with his philosopher's stone, his crystal gazers, his seeresses, his Egyptian mysteries, and his powers of healing ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... ten and, now quite calm, knelt in front of the safe. He turned the four knobs with careful attention. Next, he examined the bunch of keys, selected one of them, then another, and attempted, in vain, to insert them ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... that is progress. Compared to this, a mere education of the mind is vain and dull—a hoarding of facts, as coins are hoarded; a gathering of vanities, as clothes and adornments are gathered together. His soul cried out within him: Teach the Spirit of God. "The soul who ascendeth to worship God is plain and true."... Teach the Spirit, ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... of Zurich had only submitted to the Reformation with reluctance. Others, on the contrary, thought the grievances in the paper of the Zurich Council exaggerated. "When have we refused you justice?" said they. "How often have you appealed to us in vain?"—"Yes," rejoined the treasurer Funk, an active young man, and one of Zwingli's warmest adherents—"we know your ways of doing justice. That unhappy pastor made an appeal and you referred him to the executioner." ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... the fault of the recipient. As an elephant made of wood or an antelope made of leather, even so is a Brahmana that has not studied the Vedas. All the three have nothing but names.[121] As a eunuch is unproductive with women, as a cow is unproductive with a cow, as a bird lives in vain that is featherless, even so is a Brahmana that is without mantras. As grain without kernel, as a well without water, as libations poured on ashes, even so is a gift to a Brahmana void of learning. An unlearned Brahmana is an enemy (to all) and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... vain thus to plead Sir. George's cause, a dashing Col. Rivers (meant, we were told, by the Hon. W. Sheppard, to personify Col. Henry Caldwell, of Belmont) had won the heart of Emily, who preferred true love to a coronet. Let us treasure up a few more sentences fallen from Emily's light-hearted confidante. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... and left with "Hello, Frank," "How are you, Dan?" "Evening, Charley," and so on. Occasionally the Colonel swept off his hat, with elaborate deference, to a woman, but I looked in vain for My Lady in Black. I did not see her—nor did I see her peer, despite the fact that now and then I observed a face and figure ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin |
