"Bootless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'tis a bootless endeavour. As the flight of a bird of the air Is the flight of a joke—you will never See the same one again, you may swear. 'Twas my firstborn, and O how I prized it! My darling, my treasure, my own! This brain and none other devised it - And now ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... not this battle more calamitous by the death of a consul. There is sufficient matter for tears and grief without this addition." In reply the consul said: "Do thou indeed go on and prosper, Cneius Servilius, in your career of virtue! But beware lest you waste in bootless commiseration the brief opportunity of escaping from the hands of the enemy. Go and tell the fathers publicly, to fortify the city of Rome, and garrison it strongly before the victorious enemy arrive: and tell Quintus Fabius individually, that Lucius Aemilius lived, and now dies, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... still in his bootless affection, and his expenses not limited within any compass, it appeared in the judgment of his kindred and friends that he was fallen into a mighty consumption, both of his body and means. In which respects many times they ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... from bad to worse, it would be bootless here to tell. Neither of the two dukes absolutely refused to join the Ministry; but they were persistent in their objection to Mr. Bonteen, and were joined in it by Lord Plinlimmon and Sir Harry Coldfoot. It was in vain that Mr. Gresham urged that he had no other man ready and fit to be ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... with the bootless gold we stand Upon the desert verge of death, and say: "What shall avail the woes of yesterday To buy to-morrow's wisdom, in the land Whose currency is strange unto our hand? In life's small market they had served to pay Some late-found rapture, could we but delay ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... from bridge to bridge, with other talk, The which my drama cares not to rehearse, Pass'd on; and to the summit reaching, stood To view another gap, within the round Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... he had thought of remaining in town he was so. But now he had resolved to fly, and had resolved also that before he did so he would call in the ordinary way and say one last farewell. John, the servant, admitted him at once; though he had on that same morning sent bootless away a score of other suppliants for the honour of being admitted to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... indicate the full strength of the Government, which was simply irresistible. The power of the Compact was not only completely restored, but increased. Never had its ascendency been so great. It was absolute, overwhelming; and any opposition to it was a bootless kicking against the pricks. In the Speech from the Throne his Excellency congratulated the Houses on the loyal feeling pervading the Province, and on the stillness and serenity of the public mind. He drew attention to "the conspicuous ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... us, of course, prowling about stealthily, or making frantic, bootless leaps at the swallows. A cat in a hayloft is a beautiful example of the eternal fitness of things. We had not heard of this fitness then, but we all felt that Paddy was in his ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... come out on a bootless errand, to save the lives of certain men, if it might be. God had not seen wisdom in his plan. That was all. He had meant well. ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... Such a shame! That put him so late that he missed Mr. Williams. You know they have gone to the Upper Pass and can't possibly be back for weeks—excuse me, some of my school people seem to want me," and she flitted from the room. To Eleanor, her life seemed a constant flitting at the beck of bootless duties, nagging duties that only an expert time ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... speech, and bootless boast For which he paid full dear; For while he spake, a braying ass Did sing ...
— R. Caldecott's First Collection of Pictures and Songs • Various
... the starving, bootless, ragged, stupid wretches fell down and worshipped the System, and offered up their children as living sacrifices upon its ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... deeds Are marked with all the narrowness and crime That Freedom's young arm dare not yet chastise, Reason may claim our gratitude, who now 245 Establishing the imperishable throne Of truth, and stubborn virtue, maketh vain The unprevailing malice of my Foe, Whose bootless rage heaps torments for the brave, Adds impotent eternities to pain, 250 Whilst keenest disappointment racks His breast To see the smiles of peace around them play, To frustrate or to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... "He was bootless, and his pants and many-pocketed jumper of coarse dungaree were exceedingly dirty, and looked as if they had been cut out with a knife and fork instead of scissors, they were so marvellously ill-fitting. His head-gear was an ancient ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... which the gentlemen were occupied in the bootless effort of endeavouring to devise expedients to escape the Arabs; bootless, because on such occasions, the successful measure is commonly the result of a sort of sudden inspiration, rather than of ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... were spoken slowly, and hurt the watching man almost as if the torture were his own. A shriek rose from the rounded white throat and the girl threw herself bootless upon the floor, and screamed in passionate childish sorrow, the wealth of disheveled hair mantling the dirty jacket, and ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... Truce to this bootless waiting here without! I will not stay: beside the central shrine The victims stand, prepared for knife and fire— Offerings from hearts beyond all hope made glad. Thou—if thou reckest aught of my command, 'Twere well done soon: but if thy sense be shut From these my words, let thy barbarian ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... "I know it is a bootless errand to ask justice from Thorbiorn, but I will do thy ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... began Hamilton in a lifeless manner, which told me his search had been bootless, and he turned languidly towards a puffy, crusty, military gentleman, whom, from the respect shown him, I judged to be Governor McDonell. "Duncan Cameron's warrant for the arrest is perfectly legal. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... all got well in spite of the doctor, and gave their own special cases and his anxiety all the credit for his grave looks; and all these half-finished streets and rough new roads in the east end of Carlingford were sown thick with the bootless suggestions of Dr Rider's love and fears. The crop did not show upon the vulgar soil, but gave lurking associations to every half-built street corner which he passed in his rounds many a day after, and served at this present momentous ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... hopes that they will meet with favour, merely because the author is sincere, and wishes to do right. Conscious that I make a perilous attempt, in daring to defend myself by attacking ancient error supported by multitudes, with no other seconds besides Truth and Reason, it would be bootless for me to ask indulgence for them on account of my good intentions; and as they can derive no credit from the authority of the writer, I am sensible they must fall by their own weakness, or stand by their own ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... precious diadem. If there be anything noble in the memory of a day, when citizens, unused to war, rose against practised veterans, and, armed with the strength of their cause, overthrew them, why speak of it now? or renew the bitter recollections of the bootless struggle and victory? O Lafayette! O hero of two worlds! O accomplished Cromwell Grandison! you have to answer for more than any mortal man who has played a part in history: two republics and one monarchy does the world owe to you; and especially grateful should your country be to you. Did you not, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... everywhere. A hundred and fifty years ago or so the only very rich people in the community were a handful of great landowners and a few bankers; the rest of the world's business was being done by small prosperous independent men. The labourers were often very poor and wretched, ill clad, bootless, badly housed and short of food, but there was nevertheless a great deal of middle-class comfort and prosperity. The country was covered with flourishing farmers, every country town was a little world in itself, with busy tradespeople ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... long and bootless search, to confess to himself that he would rather see Nan Morgan for one minute than all women else in the world for a lifetime. The other incidents of the evening would have given any ordinary man enough food for reflection—indeed they ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... Such were the bootless, best thoughts I had while looking at the dull blood-stain and blocked-up secret stair of Holyrood, at the ruins of Loch Leven castle, and afterward at Abbotsford, where the picture of Queen Mary's head, as ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... charms my bosom fire, And waste my soul with care; But ah! how bootless to admire, When fated to despair! Yet in thy presence, lovely fair, To hope may be forgiv'n; For sure 'twere impious to despair, So much ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... grand Perfected by the chivalry front which Both he and thou didst draw sweet childhood's milk. These men did quick condone the ev'ry act Which emanated from the Northern mind. Yearly were millions spent on bootless task Of feeding vacant minds on useless food Because unfitted to their various needs. "A little knowledge is a dang'rous thing" And doth unfit the plodding mass for toil, Which is their proper sphere; hence ev'ry thought ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... but you will always be growing stronger, and with every trial nobly met, you will feel a growing assurance that nobleness is not a mere sentiment with you. I sympathize deeply in your anxiety about your mother; yet I cannot but remember the bootless fear and agitation about my mother, and how strangely our destinies were guided. Take refuge in prayer when you are most troubled; the door of the sanctuary will never be shut against you. I send you a paper which is ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... people; and when, on Sunday (July 22), his highness had to undergo a public dinner, in which English servants only were allowed to attend upon him, the Castilian lords, many of whom believed that they had come to England on a bootless errand, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... return voyage. The Caucasus passed numerous boats being towed up the stream, carrying all sorts of merchandise to Nijni-Novgorod. Then passed rafts of wood interminably long, and barges loaded to the gunwale, and nearly sinking under water. A bootless voyage they were making, since the fair had been abruptly ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... distance. To one, Naples was more important than Minorca, more important than a half-dozen ships in a possible fleet action; to the other, Egypt was more important than the presence of sixteen thousand veterans, more or less, on a European battle-field. It is impossible and bootless, to weigh the comparative degree of culpability involved in breaches of orders which cannot be justified. It is perhaps safe to say that while a subordinate has necessarily a large amount of discretion in the particular matter intrusted to him, the burden ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... then, on a bootless errand,' was the answer. 'No power in Heaven and earth will make me surrender my ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... to be done now?" said Richards, who had placed himself in a sort of theatrical posture—his bootless foot on the gig-step, the other sticking fast in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... the daughter of Isaac of York brought her diamonds and rubies—the poor gentle victim!—and, meekly laying them at the feet of the conquering Rowena, departed into foreign lands to tend the sick of her people, and to brood over the bootless passion which consumed her own pure heart, one would have thought that the heart of the royal lady would have melted before such beauty and humility, and that she would have been generous in ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... eminent conveyancers not less than copying clerks, swelled their emoluments by knavish tricks. They would talk for the mere purpose of protracting litigation, injure their clients by vexations and bootless delays, and do their work so that they might be fed for doing it again. Draughtsmen find their clerks wrote loosely and wordily, because they were paid by the folio. "A term," writes the quaint author of 'Saint Hillaries Teares,' in 1642, "so like a vacation; the prime court, the Chancery ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Olly, bootless and coatless, whom the sound of Halloway's voice had brought down from the midst of his slow preparations for bed, to bid his friend good-by, and who sprang upon him with ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... pensive oat, Burning, yearning, ever turning back to one refrain: "Choose between us which to wed; Love is love, and art is art; Wilt thou have a barren bed? Joyless mate and bloodless heart? She will bring thee for her dower Shrunken limb and shriveled breast, Bitter thralldom, bootless power, Days and nights of endless quest, She will take thee heart and brain, Hold thee with a vampire charm, Kiss thee cold in every vein, Drink thy ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... Birkenbog," I said, "that you have given yourself a bootless journey. From what I suspect, your flown bird will be nested ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... unprovoked aggression to repel. What though from private pique her anger grew, And bade her blast a heart she never knew? What though, she said, for one light heedless line, That Wilmot's [2] verse was far more pure than mine! In wars like these, I neither fight nor fly, When 'dames' accuse 'tis bootless to deny; Her's be the harvest of the martial field, I can't attack, where Beauty forms the shield. But when a pert Physician loudly cries, Who hunts for scandal, and who lives by lies, A walking register ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... embody the ethics of Norse warfare at its best, and to present in the most poetic light the rampant, untamable individualism of the ancient Germanic paganism. In defiance of his friend Bjoern's advice, Frithjof, weary of this bootless chase for glory and pelf, resolves to see Ingeborg once more before he dies, and, disguised as a salt-boiler, he enters King Ring's hall. There he sees his beloved sitting in the high-seat beside her aged lord; and the sorrow which the years had dulled revives with an exquisite agony. He punishes ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... only the slighter symptoms of his bootless struggle against the general embarrassment into which the agricultural interests were, year ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... of these aforesaid Tiger Sharks. A brace of confidential inseparables, jogging along in our wake, side by side, like a couple of highwaymen, biding their time till you come to the cross-roads. But giving it up at last, for a bootless errand, they dropped farther and farther astern, until completely out of sight. Much to the Skyeman's chagrin; who long stood in the stern, lance poised for ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the door and, seeing this haggard, bootless individual, who was weakened with fatigue and dazed from his recent horrible experience, did not recognize him, naturally enough, and refused him admission until the old gentleman got his poor scattered brains together ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... of the Empty Womb, thou dost not demand the bootless offering of chaste loins, thou dost not sing the praises of Lenten follies; thou alone receivest the carnal supplications and petitions of poor and avaricious families. Thou determinest the mother to sell her daughter, to give her son; thou ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... Ussher had only just had enough to make him good-humoured. Feemy too was very happy; she had contrived to forget her brother's croaking and Father John's warning, or at least the misery which they had occasioned her, and was very happy in Ussher's good-humour. It were bootless to repeat their conversation, or to tell how often it was interrupted by some unchided caress on the part of Ussher. Feemy, however, had not forgotten her resolution, and was bringing up all her courage to make some gentle ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... loss of many of my folk. So meseems it pleaseth most mighty Zeus, who hath laid low the head of many a city, yea, and shall lay low; for his is highest power. Shame is this even for them that come after to hear; how so goodly and great a folk of the Achaians thus vainly warred a bootless war, and fought scantier enemies, and no end thereof is yet seen. For if perchance we were minded, both Achaians and Trojans, to swear a solemn truce, and to number ourselves, and if the Trojans should gather together ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... aides-de-camp, sanctions by his presence the amusements of the fte. The Mexican generals and other officers follow in his wake, and the gratifying spectacle may not unfrequently be seen, of the president leaning from his box in the plaza de gallos, and betting upon a cock, with a coatless, bootless, hatless, and probably worthless ragamuffin in the pit. Every one, therefore, however humble his degree, has the pleasure, while following his speculative inclinations, of reflecting that he treads in the steps of the magnates of the land; and, as Sam Weller would say, "Vot ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... On their way they preached the word at several villages through which they passed, and the people heard them gladly. Malietoa was unmoved, and they had to return; but their journey had not been so bootless as they supposed. Scarcely had they reached home, than a messenger arrived from the chief of a village they had visited at Apolulu, begging them to return in haste, as he and his people were waiting ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... warm. The unrestrained joy and vivacity of the day emphasised the gloom that rilled the first of the two funeral carriages. Mavis stared with dull surprise at the rollicking gaiety of the afternoon: its callousness to her anguish irked her. It made her think how unnecessary and altogether bootless was the loss she had sustained. She tried to realise that God had singled her out for suffering as a mark of His favour. But at the bottom of her heart she nourished something in the nature of resentment against ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... conventional reasons; but he must be a materialist indeed who undervalues this priceless possession. It is something for a country to have reached the stage of passing "resolutions," even if their conversion into "acts" lags a little; it is bootless to sneer at a real "land of promise" because it is not at once and in every way a ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... his manner, and felt irritated; but there she was, imprisoned, bootless, in her chair, while those appendages ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... that whatever you want, down to a wafer, you must be olely and solely dependent on the Head Waiter for. You must put yourself a new-born Child into his hands. There is no other way in which a business untinged with Continental Vice can be conducted. (It were bootless to add, that if languages is required to be jabbered and English is not good enough, both families and gentlemen ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... to the foot like the American "rubber boot." They are made of heavy, undyed leather, singularly soft and pliable, and thoroughly waterproof. The soles are shod with hobnails, but the boot is not very heavy. We often noted dead Germans who were bootless, their footgear having been appropriated by some victorious Frenchman, who had left near-by ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... mony a shriek, that waefu' night, Rose frae the stormy main; An' mony a bootless vow was made, An' mony a prayer vain; An' mithers wept, an' widows mourned For mony a weary day; An' maidens, ance o' blithest mood, Grew sad, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... all God's charge to His high angels may Guard my foot better? Did I yesterday Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should run Quick to deny me, 'neath the morning sun? And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray? The cock crows coldly. Go and manifest A late contrition, but no bootless fear! For when thy deadly need is bitterest, Thou shall not be denied as I am here; My voice, to God and angels, shall attest— Because I knew this man let him ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... Partly dressed, bootless, unarmed, Driscoll shoved the old man aside, and sped through the church, hopping over half awakened soldiers as he went. Once in the street, he glanced up at the tower room, which was Maximilian's, and thought it odd that no light streamed through ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the only plan, to redeem the past and enjoy blessings in the future, is to cease this bootless warfare and be the first to recognize our independence. We are exasperated with Europe, and like the old colonel in Bulwer's play, we can like a brave foe after fighting him. Let the North do this, and we will trade with its people, I have no doubt, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... never be deserted by this spirit. Oppressed, annihilated I might be; but, if I died, I would die resisting. What use, what advantage, what pleasurable sentiment, could arise from a tame surrender? There is no man that is ignorant, that to humble yourself at the feet of the law is a bootless task; in her courts there is no ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... tragedy of Friday evening are yet fresh in the minds of the people of Waco, and it is bootless to recount them. Two of the principals thereto have passed to the beyond and a third is in the hands of the outraged law. And with him let the law deal. In life Captain Davis was our friend. His assailant was our enemy. ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... a March hare. Take him away. Hold," again added the officer, whom some strange fascination still bound to the bootless investigation. "What's ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... his idol, Velasquez, was affected by the study of El Greco's colouring. Canaille Saint-Saens, when Liszt and Rubinstein were compared, exclaimed: "Two great artists who have nothing in common except their superiority." It is bootless to bracket Velasquez with his elder. And Gautier was off the track when he spoke of Greco's resemblance to the bizarre romances of Mrs. Radcliffe; bizarre Greco was, but not trivial nor a charlatan. As to his decadent tendencies we side with the opinion of Mr. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Will they part here ere long, the young burgher prince to proceed to the Universities of Padua and Mantua, the future great painter to trudge back over the Alps, getting a lift now and again in waggon or carriage or on pillion? Let the man of pretentious science say it is bootless to ask such questions; those who ask them know that it is delightful; know that it is the true way to make the past live for them; guess that would historians more generally ask them, their books would be less ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... do I believe you, Master Waller; Those know I who have ventured gift and promise But for a minute of her ear—the boon Of a poor dozen words spoke through a chink— And come off bootless, save the haughty scorn That cast their bounties back ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... only chance of blessing are from our exalted Daysman, who can lay his hand upon us both. Our praise would be unmeaning minstrelsy, our prayers a litany unheard and obsolete, all our devotional service a bootless trouble, but that "yonder the Intercessor stands and pours his all-prevailing prayer." It is "through Him we both," the Jews who crucified Him and the Gentiles, who by their persevering neglect of Him crucify Him afresh, "have access by one spirit unto ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... my task, although I have been much affected this morning by the Morbus, as I call it. Aching pain in the back, rendering one posture intolerable, fluttering of the heart, idle fears, gloomy thoughts and anxieties, which if not unfounded are at least bootless. I have been out once or twice, but am driven in by the rain. Mercy on us, what poor devils we are! I shook this affection off, however. Mr. Scrope and Col. Ferguson came to dinner, and we twaddled ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... borrowed from the faintest and most fitful of traditions, it spins its own evidence spider-like out of its own inner conscience or conceit, and proffers it with confident complacency for men's acceptance. Here again I cannot but see a mere waste of fruitless learning and bootless ingenuity. That Shakespeare began by retouching and recasting the work of elder and lesser men we all know; that he may afterwards have set his hand to the task of adding or altering a line or a passage here and there in some few ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne |
