"Vainly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had ever lack'd the means Of satisfaction, for he could not stoop Obeying, in humility so low, As high he, disobeying, thought to soar: And for this reason he had vainly tried Out of his own sufficiency to pay The rigid satisfaction. Then behooved That God should by his own ways lead him back Unto the life, from whence he fell, restor'd: By both his ways, I mean, or one alone. But since the deed is ever priz'd the more, The more the doer's good intent ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... pride—the pride of all the Esmonds—which prevents you from listening to him. Go down on your knees in your chamber and pray to be corrected of that dreadful fault." Ward's discourse that evening was about Naaman the Syrian, and the pride he had in his native rivers of Abana and Pharpar, which he vainly imagined to be superior to the healing waters of Jordan—the moral being, that he, Ward, was the keeper and guardian of the undoubted waters of Jordan, and that the unhappy, conceited boys must go to perdition unless ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Vainly, in your misfortunes, do you say to yourself, 'I have not deserved them.' Is it then the calamity of Virginia—her death and her present condition that you deplore? She has undergone the fate allotted to all,—to high birth, to beauty, and even to empires ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... the quiver of the enemy was for the time empty. He departed 'for a season,' or rather, until an opportunity. He was foiled when he tried to tempt by addressing desires. His next assault will be at Gethsemane and Calvary, when dread and the shrinking from pain and death will be assailed as vainly. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... who had been selected to execute monuments voted by Parliament, had to haunt the ante-chambers of the Treasury during many years before they could obtain a farthing from him. One of them, after vainly soliciting the minister for payment during fourteen years, had the courage to present a memorial to the King, and thus obtained tardy and ungracious justice. Architects it was absolutely necessary to employ; and the worst that could be found seem to have been employed. Not ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... time to time for the maintenance Of Indian allies. By the by, Washington, in his letter to William Fairfax, expressed himself much disappointed in Croghan and Montour, who proved, he said, to be great pretenders, and by vainly boasting of their interest with the Indians, involved the country in great calamity, causing dependence to be placed where there was none. [Footnote: Letter to W. Fairfax, Aug. 11th, 1754.] For, with all their boast, they never could induce above thirty fighting ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Mercy, Mercy, vainly pleading, Rent her garments, smote her breast, Till a voice from Heaven proceeding, Gladden'd all the gloomy west,— "Come, ye weary, Come, and I will give ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... in vain their Affections reveal, To a Nymph that is peevish, proud sullen and coy; Vainly do Virgins their Passions conceal, For they boil in their Grief, 'till themselves they destroy, And thus the poor Darling lies under a Curse: To be check'd in the Womb, or o'erlaid ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... appealing vainly for help, scores of girls crowded in as close to the water's edge in the darkness as state troops and policemen on duty would allow them, but there was no chance to cross the stream ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... the keen weapon more than once grazed his skin and buried its edge in the tree beside his head. With still greater malice, a French officer of low grade levelled his musket at the prisoner's breast and attempted to discharge it. Fortunately for Putnam it missed fire. The prisoner vainly solicited more merciful treatment. The heartless villain thrust the muzzle of his gun violently against the captive's ribs, and in the end gave him a painful blow on the jaw with the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... my blood responded to that electric touch, I had a twinge of cynical bitterness. Yes, apparently I was at last getting what I had so long, so vainly, and, latterly, so hopelessly craved. But—why was she giving it? Why had she withheld herself until this moment of material happiness? "I have to pay the rich man's price," thought I, ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... claims this as an event recorded in its books, and its beautiful ruins and wide naves with old trees for columns are, so says popular rumor, haunted by another wanderer, an abbot with snow-white beard, who walks the cloisters at night counting the graves of his brethren, and vainly seeking his own, which if he once find his penance will be over. This part of the Rhine was the favorite home of many of the poets who have best sung of the national river: a cluster of townlets recalls no less than five of them to our mind—Unkel, where Freiligrath ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... by a written promise to that effect, I solicited the King to have her placed in confinement. My son, having got information of the steps I had taken, defeated my intentions by escaping with the object of his passion. For more than six months I have vainly endeavoured to discover where he has concealed himself, but I have now some reason to think he is at the Hague. The Count earnestly conjured the Marquis to make the most rigid search, in order to discover his son's retreat, and to endeavour to prevail ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... thou canst baffle the Fates' Bitter decrees, and break for a while their barrier gates, Thine to become Marcellus! I pray thee bring me anon Handfuls of lilies, that I bright flowers may strew on my son, Heap on the shade of the boy unborn these gifts at the least, Doing the dead, though vainly, the last ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... these be worth commending then, That vainly show their might, How dare you blame those holy men That ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the river was lost under the rocks for several hundred miles. There were other accounts of great falls whose roaring music could be heard on the distant mountain summits; and there were stories current of parties wandering on the brink of the canyon and vainly endeavoring to reach the waters below, and perishing with thirst at last in sight of the river which was roaring its mockery into ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... be made to see, on the one hand, the spirituality and exceeding breadth of the divine law, and be quickened, on the other, to a sense of its unnumbered transgressions; if the mercy of God out of Christ, in which so many vainly and vaguely trust, should become obscured by the inflexible justice and spotless holiness of His character and if the solitary spirit, as it is dragged towards the mysterious precipice, is made to hear, from ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... may be found in that unrestrained levity of disposition, that fondness for dissipation and coquetry, which alienated the affections of Mr. Boyer from me. This event fatally depressed and enfeebled my mind. I embraced with avidity the consoling power of friendship, insnaringly offered by my seducer; vainly inferring, from his marriage with a virtuous woman, that he had seen the error of his ways, and forsaken his licentious practices, as he affirmed, and I, fool that I ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... for yesterday, and the day before yet, father." In short, Tom makes but one hearty meal in a week, and that one might serve a troop of infantry to digest. The squalling of an infant at the lower end of the room, whose papa was vainly endeavouring to pacify the young gourmand with huge spoonfuls of mock-turtle, drew forth an observation from the alderman, that had well nigh disturbed the entire arrangement of the table, and broke up the harmony ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... news that a companion of our youth is about to be married—shock which seems to shake the memory of that youth; to confuse the background of our life. It is by means of such shocks as these that Fate endeavours vainly to make us realise that the past is irrevocable—that we are passing on, and that that which has been can never be again. And at the same time we learn something else: namely, that the past is not by any means unchangeable. So potential is To-day that it not only holds To-morrow ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... door and rush to hers—to try vainly to open it—to cry "Hortense! Hortense! what has happened? For Heaven's sake, what has happened?" is the work ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... firm rule, vainly protested even by his wife, that the household should have breakfast on Christmas Day before tackling the stockings—a hurried mockery of a meal, to be sure, yet to his masculine idea a reenforcement of food for the infant stomach before the long, hurtling ...
— The Blossoming Rod • Mary Stewart Cutting
... with an angry glare, and cover the adjoining plains with floods of fire. Lava has often poured from their destructive cones, and can be traced thence over a distance of thirty miles; proving that they once served as vents for the volcanic force which the thin crust of earth was vainly striving to confine. But their activity is apparently ended. The voices with which they formerly shouted to one another in the joy of devastation have been silenced. Conquered at last, their fires smolder now beneath a barrier ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... Utrecht to defend himself against charges of irreligion and slander. What might have happened we cannot tell; but Descartes threw himself on the protection of the French ambassador and the prince of Orange, and the city magistrates, from whom he vainly demanded satisfaction in a dignified letter,[20] were snubbed by their superiors. About the same time (April 1645) Schoock was summoned before the university of Groningen, of which he was a member, and forthwith disavowed the more abusive ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... hear a word of it, but their motions were eloquent. My sympathy was with the magistrate, of course, and I watched eagerly while he passed a letter over to the doctor, who vainly strove to read it by the light of the moon. Finding this impossible, he was about to return it, when the other struck a match and lit a lantern hanging from the horn of his saddle. The two heads came together ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... gayety with which she used to intermingle her instructions suddenly succeeded an uniformity of manner, neither familiar nor severe, but which seemed to prepare me for some explanation. After having vainly racked my brain for the reason of this change, I mentioned it to her; this she had expected and immediately proposed a walk to our garden the next day. Accordingly we went there the next morning; she had contrived that we should remain alone the ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... really innocent, and only dimly surmised how he would haunt her hereafter. Would he look well in citizen's clothes? How would Norman Mann seem in his uniform? She wished she had a jacket cut like his. And so on in an indolent way. But penitence was getting the better of her, and after vainly trying to read or write, she settled herself down for a cry. To think that she, Mae Madden, could have acted so absurdly. She never would forgive herself, never. Then she cried some ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... image was rather the image of the motion than of the object moving.' Again: 'The introspection was disturbed by the idea of motion; I did not get a clear image of the moving object; imaged the motion rather than the object.' And a subject, who on one occasion vainly searched the ideational field for sixty seconds to find an object, reports: 'I had a feeling of something going up and down, but no object.' Clearly an important addition was made to the active processes implied in the ideation of a resting object, ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... neighbor, a clergyman of uncertain denomination, had tried vainly for several minutes to attract his attention by clearing his throat, passing the salt, and making measured requests for water, ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... Judson walked up the street, he trod on air. It was like a dream come true. He would be crossing the Pacific, going to foreign lands, getting the very job he had been vainly longing for—and getting ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... and vainly for self-confidence, for courage, for will power. Perhaps you have realized for years that you are slow in perception, and have struggled to make yourself take mental snap-shots of details and conditions. You have wished and willed ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... to the bulwarks. A heave of the swell had lifted the boat up to receive our discharge, which must have burst point-blank upon her bottom boards; for I leaned over in bare time to see her settling down in a swirl beneath the feet of her crew, who, after vainly grabbing for hold at the Gauntlet's sides, flung themselves forward and were swimming one and all in a sea already discoloured for ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... was getting late, and after vainly trying to distinguish objects through streaked and misty glass, the girls gave up and leaned back with a sigh of tired but ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Ah vainly does the Pilgrim, whose long road Leads o'er the barren mountain's storm-vext height, With anxious gaze survey The ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... very well. In reality, however, it is not so; something, I know not what, is lacking, and everything is very paltry. In other lands, in the delightful isles of Oceania, in the old, lifeless quarters of Stamboul, it seemed as if mere words could never express all I felt, and I struggled vainly against my own inability to render, in human language, the ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... had Bob seen his guardian so ill at ease, and from his knowledge of the man, he decided that his entrance must have interrupted him when he was engaged at some unusual task. But how to meet the situation, Bob did not know, and he was vainly striving to think of the right thing to say when their relations were brought back to their normal plane ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... Mass was perfunctory. Vainly he strove to hold in thought the symbolism of the service, the offering of Christ as a propitiation for the world's sins. But gradually the folly of Milton's extravagant, wild dream, which the poet clothed in such imperishable beauty, stole over him and blinded this vision. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... of the people into our hands. This is no affair of cat and bird, but of the capitalist and the proletariat on which he battens. So for a little space let the unholy creature lie there writhing. Let it understand what it is to have a back broken by the weight of an impossible burden. Let it try vainly to drag its limbs from beneath an immovable load. Observe it, let it suffer. Very soon we will finish with it, and explode the iniquitous system it represents. See, in the name of humanity, of labour, of the unknown and unnumbered millions of ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly seen against the crimson ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... their chapels were no longer used for divine service; some of the monastic churches became cathedrals or parish churches, but most of them were pillaged, desecrated, and destroyed. When pilgrimages were declared to be "fond things vainly invented," and the pilgrim bands ceased to travel along the pilgrim way, the wayside chapel fell into decay, or was turned into a ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... was speedily accounted for by the tableau which presented itself on opening the door. It was a tableau extremely vivant, and represented a small girl, with violent gesticulations, in the act of rejecting a dainty little meal which a maid, who stood by her with a tray, was vainly endeavoring to induce her to accept. The young lady's arguments were too forcible to admit of gainsaying, for the servant did not dare to venture within reach of either the hands or feet of her small but vigorous opponent. The ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... fables vainly used, All trifling toys that do no truth import, Lo, here how the end (at length) though long diffused, Unfoldeth plain a true and rare report; To glad those minds which seek their country's wealth, By proffered pains to enlarge his happy health. At Rome I was, when Fox ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... At fourteen she was playing child's parts with her grandmother. A few years later she came to New York to get a start. Though she bore one of the most distinguished and honored names in the profession, she sat around in agents' offices for six months, beating vainly at the door of opportunity. Finally she got a chance to understudy Elsie De Wolfe, who was playing with John Drew, in "The Bauble Shop," at the Empire. One day when that actress became ill this seventeen-year-old child played the part of a thirty-two-year-old ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... thicker, thicker, thicker Froze the ice on lake and river, Ever deeper, deeper, deeper Fell the snow o'er all the landscape, Fell the covering snow, and drifted Through the forest, round the village. Hardly from his buried wigwam Could the hunter force a passage; With his mittens and his snow-shoes Vainly walked he through the forest, Sought for bird or beast and found none, Saw no track of deer or rabbit, In the snow beheld no footprints, In the ghastly, gleaming forest Fell, and could not rise from weakness, Perished there from cold and hunger. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... most heinous that had ever been brought before him in his judicial capacity! How many murderers, felons, and robbers, described as poor harmless, innocent, foolish boys, brought into trouble by a love of frolic! How many witnesses, vainly endeavouring to tell the truth, forced by the ingenuity of lawyers into falsehood and perjury! What awful denunciations and what light wit, almost in the same breath! Of what laughter hardly suppressed by judicial authority would it tell—what agonizing ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... t' fergit the basque? Er what hez happened to it?" cried Sary, sympathetically, while Barbara struggled vainly to wrench herself free from the ill-smelling wrap that generally ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... lived with this idea in my mind, this horrible uncertainty, this abominable suspicion. And each year an irresistible force takes me back to Pont Labbe. Every year I condemn myself to the torture of seeing this animal raking the manure, imagining that he resembles me, and endeavoring, always vainly, to render him some assistance. And each year I return more uncertain, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... right conditions, his divine gift fostered and directed to become worthy of its exalted destiny. Already centuries old in Europe, the conservatory is a young thing of comparatively limited experience on our soil. It was introduced here twenty-five years ago by Eben Tourjee. He had longed and vainly sought for the advantages to perfect his own talent, and resolved while a mere boy that those of like tastes who came after him should not have to contend with the obstacles he had fought—that instruction should be brought within the reach of all by a college ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... of the second reading came. The ever zealous Arthur Stanley was present. 'A superb speech from Gladstone,' he records, 'in which, for the first time, all the arguments from our report were worked up in the most effective manner. He vainly endeavoured to reconcile his present with his former position. But, with this exception, I listened to his speech with the greatest delight.... To behold one's old enemies slaughtered before one's face with the most irresistible ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... surrounding heights, as there was nothing which could hide us from their sight. At length we reached the bottom of the ravine, which was surrounded by naked rocks. Deep snow covered it, and we could not find a single place where we could hide. It was now broad day, and we stood still for a moment, looking vainly in every direction, and much perplexed to know what to do. At length we discovered in the rocks an opening, which on examination, turned out to be a cave, but so small as to be hardly able to contain us all. Close to it was a water-fall, which ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... is a philosophy, properly so called, which vainly pretends to find a support in the observation of facts. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, the rival of Cuvier, set forth views analogous to those which Mr. Darwin has lately reproduced. But in his replies to the attacks which were made ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... hunting up to ninety; And, what's still stranger, left behind a name For which men vainly decimate the throng, Not only famous, but of that GOOD fame, Without which glory's but a tavern song,— Simple, serene, the antipodes of shame, Which hate nor envy e'er could tinge ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... to make known his presence at the great lady's door as he would have done at that of a grisette. He rapped with his knuckles, but a hollow sonority revealing the void, "intonuere cavernae," echoed beyond the door which he vainly appealed to with his fist. He also perceived from beneath that door a ray of vivid light, the sure sign of an uninhabited apartment where curtains and carpets and furniture no longer dim the light or deaden sound. Compelled to believe in a total ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Other nations, to whatever epoch they carry back their ancestors, whether before or after the Deluge, whether the mythical or historical character prevail, they are constant to this sacred number ten, which some have vainly attempted to connect with the speculations of later religious philosophers on the mystical value of numbers. In Chaldea, Berosus enumerates ten Antediluvian kings whose fabulous reign extended to thousands of years. The legends of the Iranian race commence with the. reign ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... The rocks could not be let go for a moment, and the blood was spurting out of more than twenty cuts. The most serious ones were in the head, and I vainly tried to close them with one hand, while holding on with the other. It was useless; the blood gushed out in blinding jets at each pulsation. At last, in a moment of inspiration, I kicked out a big lump of snow and struck it as plaster ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have proved less than, with all my care, she must undergo now. There was my fault. I did not, I declare, seek to attach her. I did nothing wrong so far. But I dared to measure suffering—to calculate consequences presumptuously and vainly: and this is my retribution. How would it have been, if I had allowed them to go back to Birmingham, and had been haunted with the image of her there? But why go over this again, when my very soul is weary of it all? It lies behind, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... just as easy as anything; I don't see how he did it," she said, coming down with a bump after vainly attempting ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... would follow this statement, for though Tabitha was not ordinarily a cry-baby, the day of trials had been too much for her; but he was surprised when after a moment of silence in which he was vainly trying to think of something consoling to say, she remarked, "Well, I don't know's I care much about the berries, 'cause we're going to move, and I s'pose if we had a lot of jelly put up, Dad would say it wasn't any use to take it with us, and we would have to ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... skins and furs of animals; they must not drink ardent spirits; and I do not remember whether he extended his inhibitions to the gun and gunpowder, in favor of the bow and arrow. I concluded, from all this, that he was a visionary, enveloped in their antiquities, and vainly endeavoring to lead back his brethren to the fancied beatitudes of their golden age. I thought there was little danger of his making many proselytes from the habits and comforts they had learned from ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... cloud of smoke and dust, accompanied by a terrific roar, and they felt themselves lifted off their feet and sent heels over head, while down upon them came showering all the more solid portions of the above-mentioned materials about their ears, as they lay half stunned and stifled and vainly endeavouring to rise. Another foot in advance, and they would have been blown to destruction. Hemming had seen the old Spaniard fire his pistol into the tub, and guessed what was coming. Murray and Adair felt themselves very much hurt, so indeed were Hemming and Needham; ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... instance, the land of enormous extensions of time and space. In past years I have made two memorable journeys into that far land. My adventures there are seared in sharpest detail on my brain. Yet I have tried vainly, with endless words, to describe any tiny particular phase to persons who ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... Ida struggling vainly in opposition, and taking this with the shawl, carried them to a closet, in which she placed them, and then, locking the door, deliberately put the key in ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... with his face in his mother's lap, though he had not thought a moment before of doing any such thing. Jessie hung over him, frantically hugging him. Mr. Jarvis, vainly trying to join this group, could only lay his hands on Jack's head and say in a broken voice: "My son! My son!" while Betty performed a war dance around the party, wildly brandishing a basting spoon in one hand and wiping her streaming eyes on the dishcloth which she held ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... consuming all their stock of provisions, they were forced to rely upon the birds and fishes they could catch. Famine pressed them, and at length one day, in the absence of Ulysses, they slew some of the cattle, vainly attempting to make amends for the deed by offering from them a portion to the offended powers. Ulysses, on his return to the shore, was horror-struck at perceiving what they had done, and the more so on account of the portentous signs which followed. The skins crept on the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... It seems to us that we have returned from afar in space and afar in time. These are doubtless very old scenes, scenes of youth or infancy that we live over then in all their details, with a mood which colors them with that fresh sensation of infancy and youth that we seek vainly ...
— Dreams • Henri Bergson
... until the nature of primitive antiquity had been thoroughly studied, and the instincts of man had been shown to exist in greater force, when his state approaches more nearly to that of children or animals. The philosophers of the last century, after their manner, would have vainly endeavoured to trace the process by which proper names were converted into common, and would have shown how the last effort of abstraction invented prepositions and auxiliaries. The theologian would have proved that language must have had a divine origin, because in childhood, while the organs are ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... the friend Whose evil stars have urged him forth to claim On such a day the hospitable rites! Looks, blank at best, and stinted courtesy Shall he receive. Vainly he feeds his hopes With dinner of roast chicken, savory pie, Or tart, or pudding; pudding he nor tart That day shall eat; nor, though the husband try Mending what can't be helped to kindle mirth From cheer deficient, shall his consort's brow Cheer up propitious; the ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... which he had placed the arsenic. It was, however, equally like hundreds of other bottles in his shop. In the absence of the label (on which he had himself written the word "Poison"), it was impossible for him to identify the bottle. The dressing-case and the deceased lady's bedroom had been vainly searched for the chemist's missing label—on the chance that it might have become accidentally detached from the mysterious empty bottle. In both instances the search had been without result. Morally, it was ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... rebellion still, and the latter, although compelled to uphold the light that warns against itself, continues its perpetual warfare with the sea; but both are effectually conquered by means of the wonderful intelligence that God has given to man, and the sea for more than half a century has vainly beat against the massive tower whose foundation is on ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... issuing from the chimney in a considerable volume, and the marks of recent hoofs were visible around the door. They could even hear the murmuring of human voices within the house. But all the lower windows were closely secured; and when they knocked at the door, no answer was returned. After vainly calling and entreating admittance, they withdrew to the stable, or shed, in order to accommodate their horses, ere they used farther means of gaining admission. In this place they found ten or twelve horses, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... shared the common bed of the rest of the party—which was the ground. A more unwholesome resting-place in Africa, particularly on the steamy, swampy banks of a river, could hardly be imagined. So indeed Muley-Hassan seemed to think, for after a short time, during which the boys vainly tried to secure some sleep, he ordered Diego to provide them with blankets to place between themselves and ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... and dislike. When, after his discharge from Baltimore jail, he was engaged in delivering his message on the subject of slavery, and was seeking an opportunity to make what he knew known to the people of Boston, he was forced, after vainly advertising for a hall or meeting-house in which to give his three lectures, to accept the offer of Abner Kneeland's Society of Infidels of the use of their hall for that purpose. The spirit of these people, branded by the community ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... England anxiously awaited his return, and when after a long time he did not appear they were sadly distressed. There is a legend that a faithful squire named Blondel went in search of him, as a wandering minstrel traveled for months over central Europe, vainly seeking for news ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... tried vainly to analyze the extraordinary and new sensations to which this place gave ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... than the poor witness can do to keep on the chair. The judge is on his right, the counsel on the left, and the jury in front of him, and after vainly trying to keep his eye on them all at the same time, in obedience to his counsel's injunctions, he is requested by the opposing counsel to observe some witness in the court behind him. In my opinion the witness ought to ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... information concerning the colonists which it contains. That it has been brought out once more, well illustrated, is something which will give pleasure to thousands who have long desired an opportunity to read the story again, and to the many who have tried vainly in these latter days to procure a copy that they might read it for the ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... many years I should not die save in Jerusalem, Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land. But bear me to that chamber, there I'll lie, In this ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan
... Conspiracy, With Treason linked and Anarchy, Shall dig, with secret joy, their country's grave. No more thy waning cheek shall pale, Thy trembling limbs with terror fail, Thy bleeding wounds Heaven's balsam vainly crave. Uplift thy forehead fair, And mark the monstrous snare Of subtle foes, who sucked thy fainting breath, And yielding thee to the embrace of death, Awaited the fulfilment of their reign, To shed thy lovely limbs ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... her. She folded the rain-coat, and placed it smoothly in the suit-case, then with dismay remembered that she had nothing in which to put her own cloth dress, save the few inadequate paper wrappings that had come about her simple purchases. Vainly she tried to reduce the dress to a bundle that would be covered by the papers. It was of no use. She looked down at the suit-case. There was room for the dress in there, but she wanted to send Mr. Dunham's property back at once. She might leave the dress in the store, but some detective ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... men average about 5 feet 4 1/8 inches in height, and have the appearance of being taller than they are. Again and again one is deceived by their height, and he repeatedly backs a 5-foot-7-inch Igorot up against a 6-foot American, vainly expecting the stature of the brown man to equal that of the white. Almost never does the Bontoc man appear heavy or thickset, as does his brother, the Benguet Igorot — the human pack horse seen ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... earth were we ever to find each other again? A horrible picture presented itself to my mind of our both wandering distractedly up and down Europe, perhaps for years, vainly seeking each other. The touching story of Evangeline recurred to me with ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... future course and termination of this great central stream. Kingdoms had been discovered, more flourishing and more populous than any formerly known on that continent; but other kingdoms, still greater and wealthier, were reported to exist in regions, which Mr. Park had vainly attempted to reach. The lustre of his achievements had diffused among the public in general an ardour for discovery, which was formerly confined to a few enlightened individuals; it was, however, evident that the efforts of no private association ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... resumed his rapid walk, his face darkened with an anger he vainly tried to curb. Never had she seen him ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... rise. This immense volume of water was vainly seeking an outlet through the narrow defile formed by the hills and which ordinarily sufficed for the bed of the Gardon; but, finding the passage inadequate now, it dashed itself violently against the rocks and against the supports of the aqueduct which haughtily defied the furious ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... the sail.] is at once hauled aft, [Footnote: Hauled aft: hauled toward the stern of the ship.] and the boat flies up into the wind; while the terrified cetacean [Footnote: Cetacean: marine mammal.] vainly tries, by tremendous writhing and plunging, to rid himself of the barbed weapon. The mast is unshipped, and preparation made to deliver the coup de grace. [Footnote: Coup de grace: the decisive, finishing ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... and the Canadian rivers and cities. I stopped in Toronto, and realized myself abroad without any signal adventures; but at Montreal something very pretty happened to me. I came into the hotel office, the evening of a first day's lonely sight-seeing, and vainly explored the register for the name of some acquaintance; as I turned from it two smartly dressed young fellows embraced it, and I heard one of them say, to my great amaze and happiness, "Hello, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... greatly worried by the situation. All her life, despite the fact that she was beautiful, despite the fact that her father was a rich man—richer, by a dozen times, than many of the people for whose friendship she longed vainly—she had vaguely felt that there was an invisible gulf between her and the girls with whom she came in contact at the exclusive schools to which she had been sent, between her and the gentlefolk with whom, in some measure, she had mixed since she had left school-walls. ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... and the feeling that she was fit to deal a heavy blow against her enemies warmed her heart and kindled her eye. In one of those flights of fancy, not characteristic of her but tiresomely frequent this afternoon, she envisaged herself battered with rotten eggs upon a platform, from which Ralph vainly begged her ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... operation, particularly when he observed that the waitress was standing in the hall below-stairs, looking at him with eyes that betokened an astonishment as creditable to her as it was disgraceful to him. He tried vainly to stop his wild descent when he noted her presence. He clutched madly at the banisters, turning his hands and knees into brakes in his effort to save his dignity; but once started he could not stop, and as a consequence he went down like a flash, slid precipitately over the ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... representation of "Irene" he began to publish a series of short essays on morals, manners, and literature. This species of composition had been brought into fashion by the success of The Tattler, and by the still more brilliant success of The Spectator. A crowd of small writers had vainly attempted to rival Addison. The Lay Monastery, The Censor, The Freethinker, The Plain-Dealer, The Champion, and other works of the same kind, had had their short day. None of them had obtained a permanent place in our literature, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... inn, and, after vainly racking my brain over it all for a time, I turned in, but to a miserably ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... what different feelings, clasps his feet. Not even Gehazi, or any other stickler for propriety, has the heart to thrust her back this time. The story draws a curtain over that meeting in the prophet's chamber. Sad hearts who have vainly longed for such a moment, can fancy the rapture. But the day will come, not here, but in the upper chamber, when parted ones shall clasp each other again; and many a mourner shall hear Jesus say from the throne what ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... so often renewed within the last few years. The Parliament was divided, but exiled to Pontoise, as a punishment for its opposition to the system of Law; it found itself threatened with removal to Blois. Chancellor d'Aguesseau had vainly sought to interpose his authority; a magistrate of the Grand Chamber, Perelle by name, was protesting eloquently against any derogation from the principles of liberty of the Gallican Church and of the Parliaments. "Where did you find such maxims laid down?" asked the chancellor, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... singing of the birds, and his heart was lighter. He saw plainly that all his misfortunes were owing to the loss of the lamp, and vainly wondered who had robbed him ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... went away and secretly took an impression of the lock of the hayloft. A key was made by this pattern, and when night came the Marquise de Combray's daughter stole down—holding her breath and walking noiselessly—to the tax collector's office, and vainly tried ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... them speak out plainlie, And cloak no cause for ill or good; The other answering him as vainly, Began to reckon kin and blood; He raise, and raxed him where he stood, And bade him match him wi' his marrows; Then Tyndale heard these reason rude, And they let off a flight ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... to bed, she slept soundly, very soundly. She must have been asleep for some hours when suddenly she awoke with unusual alertness. The intensity of her dream had wakened her. She had heard Michael's voice crying, as though it were vainly trying to reach her. It was as clear as the overseer's whistle each morning; it had wakened her just as suddenly. The anguish of his soul came to her out of the silence. Three times he had called ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... falls into a fury with them. The same manner of forgiving our enemies is not uncommon in the present century.] I recall the doubts and fears which agitated me, see the dear wife nursing her infant and looking up into my face with hypocritical smiles that vainly try to mask her alarm: the struggles of pride are fought over again: the wounds under which I smarted re-open. There are some acts of injustice committed against me which I don't know how to forgive; ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Vainly, for a time, the mate, with four men to help him, struggled to set the staysail, upon which depended the safety of the brig from the savage rocks to leeward of her. At last they succeeded stimulated by the hoarse shouts of Captain 'Siah on the ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... peacefully, and slept like a child until morning, while Wyvis Brand was frantically pacing up and down his old hall for the greater part of the night, and Janetta was wetting her pillow with silent tears, and Philip Ashley, sleepless like these others, vainly tried to forget his disappointment in the perusal of certain blue-books. Margaret was the cause of all this turmoil of mind, but she knew nothing of it, and most certainly did ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... when they got outside, he received none. She did not speak to him at all—possibly because she could not trust herself, and she hurried towards the great Entrance Hall at a pace which left him hopelessly in the rear. As she went she vainly endeavoured to think of any possible excuse or apology that she could offer her distinguished visitors, but her chief anxiety was that she might not arrive until after they had awaked, and Miss Heritage ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... your former lives. When I shall check my foes, and delight my friends, I shall satisfy you by gifts of food and clothes.—Thou shouldst also, O sire, at our request, enquire after the welfare of those that are masterless and weak, and of those that vainly strive to earn a living, and of those that are ignorant, in fact, of all those persons that are in pitiable circumstances. O charioteer, meeting those others, that coming from different quarters, have sought the protection ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Cockburn were counsel together in a case in which it was sought to prove that the heir of an estate was of low capacity, and therefore incapable of administrating his affairs. Jeffrey had vainly attempted to make a country witness understand his meaning as he spoke of the mental imbecility and impaired intellect of the party. Cockburn rose to his relief, and was successful at once. "D'ye ken young Sandy ——?"—"Brawly," ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... 2 Vainly with rocks his tomb was barred While Roman guards kept watch and ward; Majestic from the spoiled tomb, In pomp ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... during these excursions that Harry was more particularly struck by certain phenomena, which he vainly sought to explain. Several times, while walking along some narrow cross-alley, he seemed to hear sounds similar to those which would be produced by violent blows of a ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... Castilian King, That vainly threatened kingdoms to displace, Like flying doves, ye did before ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... against the followers of Almagro. Orgonez being down, their confusion increased. The infantry, unable to endure the fire of the arquebusiers, scattered and took refuge behind the stone-walls, that here and there straggled across the country. Pedro de Lerma, vainly striving to rally the cavalry, spurred his horse against Hernando Pizarro, with whom he had a personal feud. Pizarro did not shrink from the encounter. The lances of both the knights took effect. That of Hernando penetrated the thigh of his opponent, while Lerma's weapon, glancing ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... which falsifies history, it is our right, and, if the falsification is important, it may be our duty, to expose the error. So, if those having the administration of a government falsify history, as the Guizot ministry of France did, when, vainly hoping to stem the tide of opposition to Louis Phillipe, it covered Paris with handbills declaring "He is not a Bourbon, he is a Valois," it is our privilege to "put the foot down firmly," as President Lincoln said, upon any ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... replied Yourii, vainly assuming playful tone as he leant forward and gazed into her eyes, that shone strangely in the gloom. They expressed surprise and expectancy. Yourii longed to embrace her, yet again his courage failed him, and he pretended to ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... is, if your proud-swelling glory May not fill this narrow room! Why, then, strive so vainly, oh, ye proud ones! To escape ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... I vainly reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food. If he stirred to touch anything in compliance with my entreaties—if he stretched his hand out to get a piece of bread—his fingers clenched before they reached it, and remained on the table, forgetful ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... and not to the gulf stream, the existence of which was then totally unsuspected. West of the Azores now and then there hove in sight the mysterious Islands of St. Brandan; and 200 leagues west of the Canaries lay somewhere the lost Island of the Seven Cities, that two valiant Genoese had vainly endeavored to discover, and in search of which, yearly, the merchants of Bristol sent expeditions, even before Columbus sailed. In his northern journey, too, some vague and formless traditions may have reached his ear of the voyages of Biorn and Lief, and of the pleasant coasts of Helleland, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... for any uneasiness. As the afternoon wore on, however, there were indications that a change of weather was impending. The sky lost the pure brilliancy of its blue, and by insensible degrees assumed an ashen pallor, which the sun vainly struggled to pierce until he merged from a palpitating, rayless ball of light to a shapeless blotch of dim, watery radiance, and then disappeared. At the same time the wind died away until we were left becalmed and rolling rail-under upon a swell that ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... The girl vainly tried to defend Noel; but her mistress did not listen. She murmured, "Why does he absent himself, and what is he plotting? An absence of eight days is suspicious. Can he by any chance intend to be married? Ah! ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... know one's own meaning, and to speak of—date stones. Yet with one's father, one can open one's heart. He to whom I go has need of my services, and what he has for twelve months vainly asked me to do, I will promise to do, for the girl's sake, if I cannot win ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... had been blown down the coast, vainly struggling to keep away from the reefs, and were finally wrecked, one after another, at various distances to the south of ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... around, but offered no assistance. They seemed rooted to the ground in terror at the rash act, and crossed themselves in mute astonishment. At this juncture, while Gilbert was examining the extent of the wound, and vainly endeavoring to stanch the blood, the Lady Margaret and the priest appeared at the doorway, having been attracted by the ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... Elite Club Bryce Denning first saw him. He came in with Shaw McLaren, a young man whose acquaintance was considered as most definitely satisfactory. Vainly Bryce Denning had striven to obtain any notice whatever from McLaren, whose exclusiveness was proverbial. Who then was this stranger he appeared so anxious to entertain? His look of supreme satisfaction, his high-bred air, and peculiar intonation quickly ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... resided some months, and vainly endeavoured through St. Bernard's agency to induce the Emperor Conrad to arm in his behalf. At last, losing all patience at the lengths to which the Romans—encouraged by his absence—had begun to carry things, he levied at Tivoli, ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... after some seconds of half-frightened open-mouthed staring, had suddenly burst into a violent fit of almost hysterical giggling, which he seemed trying vainly to suppress. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... - Threw off his dark enclosure: His dauntless victim looked and smiled With singular composure. For hours he tried to daunt the youth, For days, indeed, but vainly - The stripling smiled!—to tell the ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert |
