"Fruitless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... January 14, but [Page 142] without result; and owing to the quantities of pack ice it was not until four days later that a landing was made at Cape Crozier. Colbeck himself joined the landing party, and after spending several hours in fruitless search, he was just giving up the hunt and beginning despondently to wonder what he had better do next, when suddenly a small post was seen on the horizon. A rush was made for it, and in a few minutes Colbeck ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... lose in others. Of course it immediately occurs to the solver that every LIVE or EVIL is worth twice as much as any other word, since it reads both ways and always counts as 2. This is an important consideration, though sometimes those arrangements that contain most readings of these two words are fruitless in other words, and we lose ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... beach, stowed the dory in the boathouse, and set out in the sleigh for Monday Port. Diligent enquiry there, in likely and unlikely places, proved fruitless. It was nightfall when ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... could, into their heads and hearts. But direct moral exhortation to growing boys, feeling the life of the world quickening in their veins, and with vague old instincts of love and war rising uninterpreted in their thoughts, is apt to be a fruitless thing enough. It is not that they do not listen; but they simply do not understand the need of caution and control, nor do they see the unguarded posterns by which evil things slip smiling into ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... thinks death is best met in bed. I am sure trouble and vexation are not. The watches of the night pass wearily when disturbed by fruitless regrets and disagreeable anticipations. But let ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... was in a dilemma and could not find any plan to pursue: the siege was proving fruitless and dangerous and a retreat appeared disgraceful. This led to an uproar on the part of the soldiers, who raised so great an outcry that the enemy, who were encamped in the shelter of the wall, were terrified and retreated. As a consequence, being partly angry ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... at dawn; his efforts had been fruitless. The boy had awakened at hearing Ursus, and for the first time the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... done his best to satisfy himself in the planning and execution of the pictures; but in vain did he blot out one design and labor long and earnestly upon another—success still fled from his pencil. At last, after eight years' fruitless exertion, he despaired, and going to M. de Luynes, told him that he could not make the pictures. At the same time he offered to return the L5,000; but M. de Luynes, one of the most munificent gentlemen in France, refused to receive it. Madame Ingres, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... Being in whose hands the fate of millions is deposited reverse the gloomy picture, and restore to a country long wasted by revolutions, and warfare, and languishing in the midst of the monuments of her glory, the benign blessings of enduring tranquillity. But if this hope prove fruitless, if all the countries of continental Europe are destined to be compressed into one empire, if their devoted princes are doomed to adorn the triumphs of the chief of that mighty republic, which now towers above the surrounding nations of the earth, like the pyramid of the desert, what have we to fear ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... the smaller States. The only option, then, for the former, lies between the proposed government and a government still more objectionable. Under this alternative, the advice of prudence must be to embrace the lesser evil; and, instead of indulging a fruitless anticipation of the possible mischiefs which may ensue, to contemplate rather the advantageous consequences which may qualify the sacrifice. In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of ...
— The Federalist Papers
... Without beginning, plan, or scope, or trend To point a path, there nothing is to hold And steady surmise: so the mind is rolled And swayed and drowned in dull Immensity. Eternity outfaces even Me With its indifference, and the fruitless year Would swing as fruitless were I ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... make me comfortable. I had mush and milk for supper, lapped myself up in a blanket, and laid down till five in the morning. Moses M. Bateman drove me back 16 miles, and I returned to New York (70 miles) after a fruitless journey. ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... glutton, as we all know—and for the rest, who is without yearnings? It is our destiny here below. Only some go through torments and troubles in order to satisfy themselves, and all without success; others foresee the inevitable result, and by a timely resignation save themselves a barren and fruitless effort. Since we cannot be happy, why give ourselves so much trouble? It is best to limit one's self to what is strictly necessary, to live austerely and by rule, to content one's self with a little, and to attach no value ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... opposite tendency, namely, an impulse of the will to banish whatever when recalled gives pain to the furthest conceivable regions of the past. Thus, when we have lost something we cherished dearly, and the recollection of it brings fruitless longing, we instinctively seek to expel the recollection from our minds. The very feeling that what has been can never again be, seems to induce this idea of a vast remoteness of the vanished reality. When, moreover, the lost object was fitted to call forth the emotion of reverence, ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... line—the shouting of officers to their men at a distance—the neighing of horses, and the braying of mules, both men and animals being alike anxious to reach a place of rest, produced a strange and fearful concert, echoed, in the darkness of the night, from the horrid solitude of the Andes. After many fruitless attempts to discover the proper route, a halt until daybreak was usually the last resource. The sufferings of the men and animals on those occasions were extreme. The thermometer was generally below the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... The Count had scarcely breathed his last before his wife came in and forced open the drawers and the desk; the carpet was strewn with litter, some of the furniture and boxes were broken, the signs of violence could be seen everywhere. But if her search had at first proved fruitless, there was that in her excitement and attitude which led me to believe that she had found the mysterious documents at last. I glanced at the bed, and professional instinct told me all that had happened. The mattress ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... could not render any assistance to the poor boy, and no person could be found to venture out in any way. I heard the noise and went to the spot with my dog. I spoke to him, and in he went, more like a seal than a dog, and after several fruitless attempts to mount the wreck he succeeded, and laid hold of the boy, who clung to the ropes, screaming in the most fearful way at being thus dragged into the water. The waves dashed frightfully on the rocks. In the anxiety and responsibility of the moment I thought ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... lifted murmur met his ear, And o'er the distant billows the still eve Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave To-morrow; of the friends he loved most dear; Of social scenes, from which he wept to part! Oh! if, like me, he knew how fruitless all The thoughts that would full fain the past recall, Soon would he quell the risings of his heart, And brave the wild winds and unhearing tide— The World his country, and his ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... to compare wounds and opinions concerning the inefficiency of the local gendarmerie. For that body accomplished nothing toward laying by the heels the authors of the attacks on d'Aubrac and Duchemin, but (for all Duchemin can say to the contrary) is still following "clues" with the fruitless diligence of so many American police detectives on the trail of a bank ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... next made their way to the Indian Ocean; yet, though they sought for the invaluable Tree of Solomon, with all the energy supplied by a burning thirst for gain, their efforts were as fruitless and unsuccessful as those of the Portuguese. Strange tales, too, some of these ancient mariners related on their return to Europe: how, in the clear waters of deep bays, they had observed groves of those marvellous trees, growing fathoms down ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... the merchant at the ferry, directing him to secure and send at least twenty men to Las Palomas. The first day after our return, we rode the mills and the river. Convinced that to sink other wells on the mesas would be fruitless, the foreman decided to dig a number of shallow ones in the bed of the river, in the hope of catching seepage water. Accordingly the next morning, I was sent with a commissary wagon and seven men to the mouth ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... Kiuprili to power as Grand Vizier, and the war was thenceforward conducted with great energy by the Turks. Year after year volunteers flocked to Candia to save the last Christian outpost in the Levant, but it was all fruitless, and in 1669 the island, with the exception of three ports, was surrendered to the Turks—their last important conquest in Europe, and the final ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... that he recoiled in confusion after the first onset; still, he seemed determined to get the place, and after reorganizing, again attacked; but the lesson of the first repulse was not without effect, and his feeble effort proved wholly fruitless. After his second failure we were left undisturbed, and at 9 A.M. I sent the following despatch to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the Palace had been as fruitless as her first. She was denied admittance, with the profoundest regrets on the part of De Pean, who met her at the door and strove to exculpate himself from the accusation of having persuaded Le Gardeur to depart from Tilly, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... great and complex reconstructive effort. I admit they are but beginnings. They may quite possibly wither and perish presently; they may much more probably be seized upon by adventurers and converted into a new cant almost as empty and fruitless as the old. The fact remains that, through this busy and immensely noisy confusion of nearly a hundred millions of people, these little voices go intimating more and more clearly the intention to undertake public affairs in a new spirit and upon new principles, to strengthen the State ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... from the studios and the bachelors' chambers. I wish them good digestion of their goulasch: for those that are to climb, I wish that they may keep the generous and faithful spirit of friendly poverty; for those that are to go on to the end in fruitless struggle and in futile hope, I wish for them that that end may come in some gentle and happier region lying to the westward of that black tide that ebbs and flows by night and day ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... still no admittance, still no penetration; but he had hurt me yet more, while my extreme love made me bear extreme pain, almost without a groan. At length, after repeated fruitless trials, he lay down panting by me, kissed my falling tears, and asked me tenderly "what was the meaning of so much complaining? and if I had not borne it better from other than I did from him?" I ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... fruitless inquiries of the passersby, I decided to go on my own in search of ruined buildings and scenes of destruction. I boarded a bus which carried me through Tottenham Court Road. Recruiting posters were everywhere. The one that impressed me most was a ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... luck to catch him,' said Farmer Brown. 'He's as hard to find these days as a crake in a wheatfield. We should be there in an hour or less. I must thank you that I did not take a fruitless journey into Bristol. What did you ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... possible to ourselves. In this case I believe the ground would be unfavourable to this House, and I believe the juncture is one when, even if we were to win for the moment, our victory would be fruitless in the end.'[56] ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... Is it nothing to have had such a treasure to give, and to have given it freely for the noblest cause for which ever battle was set,—for the salvation of your country, for the freedom of all mankind? Had he died a fruitless death, in the track of common life, blasted by fever, smitten or rent by crushing accident, then might his most precious life seem to be as water spilled upon the ground; but now it has been given for a cause and a purpose worthy even the anguish of your loss ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... as she spoke, and searched the spot—but in vain. There certainly was the cross as she had marked it, and there was the slight excavation under the thatch where it had been; but as for the box itself, all search for it was fruitless—it had disappeared. ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... not in silence pass Calypso's isles,[10.B.] The sister tenants of the middle deep; There for the weary still a Haven smiles, Though the fair Goddess long hath ceased to weep, And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep For him who dared prefer a mortal bride: Here, too, his boy essayed the dreadful leap Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide; While thus of both ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... found himself much tired with his long and fruitless journey (for these boots of seven leagues extremely fatigue the wearer), had a great mind to rest himself, and, by chance, went to sit down upon the rock where these little boys had hid themselves. ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... Kings xvi. 5, according to which Jerusalem was really besieged,—a contradiction which occurs also in that passage itself: "And they besieged Ahaz, and could not fight"—is most simply reconciled by the remark that a fruitless struggle can, as it were, not be called a struggle, just as, e. g., in the Old Testament, such as have a name little known are spoken of as being ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... no doubt that Spotty Bamber chuckled with joy when he got outside. I should like to think so, to feel that our pleasure was mutual. For as to me, my feelings can only be appreciated by some patient angler who, after a long and fruitless sitting, has seen his ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... Nelson's squadron are now brought down to the moment when their united, ardent, and anxious wishes were to be realized. The disappointments they had met with during their hitherto fruitless pursuit,—the state of anxiety, of alternate hope and despair, in which they had been kept, had raised their feelings of emulation to a pitch far beyond description; this was soon to be manifested by the endeavours of each ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... I searched the premises thoroughly; and then, in despair, took my hat, and hurried out into the narrow lane that led toward the open fields and the woods beyond. But I found no trace nor track of Baby Sylvester. I returned, after an hour's fruitless search, to find my guests already assembled on the rear veranda. I briefly recounted my disappointment, my probable loss, and begged ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... occasions on which he had determined that his will should be absolute law. The lady was quick to perceive the firmness of his purpose, and would not (even had she been particularly averse to the proposed measure) hazard her usual authority by a fruitless opposition. But, by long disuse, she had lost the power of consenting graciously to any wish ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... consider first, that, as they are not allowed to have any direction, and in many cases could not conscientiously interfere, in government-matters, it would be folly to disquiet their minds with vain and fruitless speculations. They consider again, that political subjects frequently irritate people, and make them warm. Now this is a temper, which they consider to be peculiarly detrimental to their religion. They consider themselves also in this life as ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... not of old; Our patient hands distil The shining spheres of chemic gold With hard-won, fruitless skill; But that red drop still seems to be Beyond our ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... fruitless exchange of shots, efforts were made to end the affair, but Graves refused to accept Cilley's statement, again repeated, that he had no reflection to cast upon Mr. Graves, and Cilley refused to abandon the position he had taken ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... should have landed, I had been in a worse condition than I was now; and therefore I acquiesced in the dispositions of Providence, which I began now to own, and to believe, ordered every thing for the best; I say, I quieted my mind with this, and left afflicting myself with fruitless ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... they have lost the bliss of heaven for the dross of earth, for a few pieces of metal, for vain honours, for bodily comforts, for a tingling of the nerves. They will repent indeed: and this is the second sting of the worm of conscience, a late and fruitless sorrow for sins committed. Divine justice insists that the understanding of those miserable wretches be fixed continually on the sins of which they were guilty, and moreover, as saint Augustine points out, God will impart to them His own knowledge ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... by-street occupied by a friend of ours, where the fire had not yet reached; but both the child and the nurse disappeared, and since this melancholy catastrophe all our numerous and anxious inquiries respecting them have proved utterly fruitless. Probably they were killed by a falling edifice, and so buried in its ruins; at least, this is my opinion, for my dear wife still has the hope of again beholding our long-lost ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher
... related to Mrs. Tristram his fruitless visit to Madame de Cintre, she urged him not to be discouraged, but to carry out his plan of "seeing Europe" during the summer, and return to Paris in the autumn and settle down comfortably for the winter. "Madame ...
— The American • Henry James
... old; To thee could falsehood bear but fruitless fruit - Lean grafts and sour. I think ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... difficult, rather impossible, to estimate the effect produced by evangelistic services on such occasions. They have not been fruitless as to conversion, but if we look simply at results of this kind it must be acknowledged they are very limited. Instances have occurred of persons having been so impressed that they have followed missionaries ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... with a dread suspicion that Levi had not been eating at the kosher restaurant in Hatton Garden, as he had faithfully vowed to do. But even this terrible thought was swallowed up in the fear that some accident had happened to him. He haunted the house for an hour, filling up the intervals of fruitless inquiry with little random walks round the neighborhood, determined not to return home to his wife without news of their child. The restless life of the great twinkling streets was almost a novelty to him; it was rarely his perambulations in London extended outside the Ghetto, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... small, brave band of friends, had been wholly in vain: his country was crushed by the ruthless heel of despotism. On that night when it had been agreed in assembled council that all resistance was fruitless, and that nothing now remained for patriots but to seek freedom in exile, after tossing in troubled slumbers, he had been visited with a calming and inspiring dream. He saw bending over him a lovely female form, which he knew instinctively to be that ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... Sense. But who ever heard of Evante, as the Name of a Man, in Greece? Neither is this Inscription a Piece of Ethnic Devotion, as Sir George has suppos'd it, to a Statue erected to Jupiter: On the contrary, it despises those fruitless Superstitions. Philo (a Christian, as it seems to me;) sets it up, in Thanks for a safe Voyage, to the true God. That all my Readers may equally share in this little Poem, I have attempted to put it into an ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... on Broadway, and there her heart leaped to see the sign, "Fox-Otter," stretching entirely across the front of a tall building. It was as though an unseen guide had led her to it through the by-ways of her fruitless search for work. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... so filled with the mystery of her absence that even the pretence of distraction became unendurable. Since the news of her broken engagement and her flight had reached him, he had spent three days in a fruitless, though still hopeful, search for her; and the nights when he was forced to relax his efforts were filled with agonised imaginings of her loneliness at so great a distance and yet in reality so near. From the moment that he had heard through Gerty of her disappearance, ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... determinism. There must have existed innumerable inventions that we might term mechanical romances, which, however, we cannot refer to because they have left us no trace, not being born viable. Others are known as curiosities because they have blazed the path. We know that Otto de Guericke made four fruitless attempts before discovering his air-pump. The brothers Montgolfier were possessed with the desire to make "imitation clouds," like those they saw moving over the Alps. "In order to imitate nature," they at first ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... till she had crossed the frontier and was safe in Scotland. The Scots espoused her cause, and assisted her to raise fresh troops, with which she made one or two short incursions into England; but she soon found that she could do nothing effectual in this way, and so, after wasting some time in fruitless attempts, she left Scotland with the king and the prince, and ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Russia, and spent some time in St. Petersburg, attracted thither by the invitation of a friend. The country interested him, but does not seem to have deeply or permanently engaged his attention. That, however, his Russian experiences were not fruitless is manifest from the remarkably picturesque and technically very interesting poem, "Ivan Ivanovitch" (the fourth of the Dramatic Idyls, 1879). Of a truth, after his own race and country—readers will at once think of "Home Thoughts from the Sea," or the thrilling ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... I had made many fruitless attempts, both in Detroit and Green Bay, to procure a servant-woman to accompany me to my new home. Sometimes one would present herself, but, before we could come to a final agreement, the thoughts of the distance, of the savages, the hardships of the journey, ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... is the most remarkable. He seems to have entertained for her a high and perfectly pure devotion. He was the chief agent in the luckless escape to Varennes; was lurking in Paris during the time of her captivity; and was concerned in the many fruitless plots that were made for her rescue. Ferscu lived to be an old man, but died a dreadful and violent death. He was dragged from his carriage by the mob, in ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by: he had already spent an hour in a fruitless quest. He longed to see Crystal and waxed impatient at the delay. Anon at the English hospital a kindly person—who listened sympathetically to his tale—promised him that the ambulance which was just setting out in the direction of Mont Saint Jean would be on the look-out for his ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... dreaded more by his soldiers than the lances of their antagonists. He could wring a Gaucho's secret from his breast; it was useless to attempt a subterfuge before him. Some article, we are told, was once stolen from a company of his troops, and every effort for its recovery proved fruitless. It was reported to Quiroga. He paraded the men, and, having procured a number of sticks, exactly equal in length, gave to each man one, proclaiming that the soldier whose stick should be found longer than the others next morning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... wanted. When he called for brandy they brought him whisky, and it had only been by hard begging, and by oaths as to the promised money, that he had induced them to supply him with the car which had taken him on his fruitless journey to Castle Richmond. As he was driven up to the door in South Main Street, his heart was very sad on ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... and went and the years rolled on. Varick Thomson, an old miner, who had spent years of fruitless toil in the diggings of Australia, lay down and died, and the parson officiated at his funeral. Two other miners grew weary of the poor success in Dead Man's Gulch and went off on a prospecting tour deeper into the ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... ashamed of himself. He went to the teacher and made confession; then as both were afraid the boy might get lost or come to some harm, he went at once on a search. He did not dream that Steve could so directly find his way back, and Raymond wandered about for hours in a fruitless search, doing without his dinner. At last, frightened and contrite, he went to Mr. Polk's office. Here the confession was harder to make, but it came out in all its humiliating details. Having eased his conscience he wound up with a burst of enthusiasm: "I tell ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... blessing of Heaven did not descend on the Legrand establishment. There seemed to be a succession of misfortunes which all Derues' zeal and care as shopman could neither prevent nor repair. He by no means contented himself with parading an idle and fruitless hypocrisy, and his most abominable deceptions were not those displayed in the light of day. He watched by night: his singular organisation, outside the ordinary laws of nature, appeared able to dispense with sleep. Gliding about ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... they who know the World have seen it more than once. I have often, with secret Pity, heard the same Man who has professed his Abhorrence against all Kind of passive Behaviour, lose Minutes, Hours, Days, and Years in a fruitless Attendance on one who had no Inclination to befriend him. It is very much to be regarded, that the Great have one particular Privilege above the rest of the World, of being slow in receiving Impressions of Kindness, and quick in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... by tyrannical means extorted far more, heaped on his depopulated kingdom a debt of one hundred and forty millions of ducats. An implacable hatred of liberty swallowed up all these treasures and consumed in fruitless labor his royal life. But the Reformation throve amid the devastation of his sword, and over the blood of her citizens the banner of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... infancy and childhood, this remark applies with great force; since, at this period, disease is generally so sudden in its assaults, and rapid in its progress, that unless the measures prescribed are rigidly and promptly administered, their exhibition is soon rendered altogether fruitless. ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... hastened to cheer the young don with hopes of a better future, and to effect, if he could, the restoration of Bras-Coupe to his master's favor. But this latter effort was an idle one. He had long sittings with his uncle Agricola to the same end, but they always ended fruitless and often angrily. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... pity thee heartily, now I see thee in earnest in the fruitless love thou expressest to this angel of a woman; and the rather, as, say what thou wilt, it is impossible she should get over her illness, and her friends' implacableness, of which she has had ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... then I related in detail my fruitless journey to Paris, and how the three fugitives had alighted at Munich from the westbound express from the Near East, ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... no man pass, still less the countless throng, whose magnitude surprised me as I rode through the camp. I know Apu, who commands the fortifications and the legions whom he leads. There would be a terrible, fruitless massacre of our half-armed, untrained people, there would be—in short, I have urgent business to discuss with Moses, urgent and immediate, to avert the heaviest misfortune ere it is ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... says: "I have worked, I am tired, The pencil dulls in my hand: I see through the window Walls upon walls of windows with faces behind them, Smoke floating up to the sky, an ascension of seagulls. I am tired. I have struggled in vain, my decision was fruitless, Why then do I wait? with darkness, so easy, at hand!... But to-morrow, perhaps.... I will wait and endure till to-morrow!..." Or again: "It is dark. The decision is made. I am vanquished By terror of life. ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... to suspect that not a single person can be found of so subtle and refined a genius as to be able to discover what the soul is, and what is its quality; therefore I am of opinion, that in attempting to make the discovery, subtlety will be spent in fruitless labor; nevertheless from my childhood I have continued firm in the opinion of the ancients, that the soul of man is in the whole of him, and in every part of the whole, and thus that it is in the head and in all its parts, as well as in the body and in all its parts; and that it is an idle ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... a fond and wakeful bedfellow, who silently sympathized with me in all my trials, and who was as restless and anxious as myself. Sometimes I moaned, and sometimes I prayed; and when I was wearied out with my fruitless labors, I fell asleep. It would have been better, if I could have done it, to have "given to the winds my fears," and lost myself in peaceful and refreshing slumbers; for generally, on the following morning, the needful supplies ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... rich green foliage in the valleys, the white sandy beach, the placid lagoon, and the barrier coral reef with its crested breakers. Then we descended to Spouting Cliff, and looked down at the pale-green monster which we had made such fruitless efforts to spear in days gone by. From this we hurried to the Water Garden, and took a last dive into its clear waters, and a last gambol amongst its coral groves. I hurried out before my companions, and dressed in haste, in ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... was done in many of the parishes of New Zealand during the decade of the 'seventies, and Patteson's martyrdom was not fruitless. But, outwardly, the Church continued weak. Wellington had lost Bishop Abraham in 1870, and, in his place, elected Archdeacon Hadfield in recognition of his magnificent services. But the new bishop's health was still precarious, and he failed to acquire amongst the settlers the ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... critics have persistently neglected him. The present anthology contains a large number of his best poems; and I venture to hope that my attempt to recall attention to the claims of this true poet will not be fruitless. ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... were black spots marking hollows and nowhere his horse. But yet he went forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. He had little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoot here in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of an hour of fruitless search he went back to the water-hole and his traps, seeing the folly of further seeking now. He would have to camp here until daybreak. Tomorrow he might find his horse and might or might not recapture ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... situation; destitute of friends, and not knowing whither to go, or what to do. She asked questions, sifting-questions, about her uncle, about her family, and after what he knew of Mr. Hickman's fruitless application in her favour. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the midst of the hall whither her restless thought had driven her, she stared in a fruitless inquiry at the wall confronting her. Her mind, like her feet, was at a standstill. She could neither think nor act. In fact, she was at the point of a nervous collapse, when slowly from out the void there rose to ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Penobscot. De Valette and Stanhope pursued, as soon as they were at liberty; but, though they had occasional glimpses of his vessels through the day, they found it impossible to come up with them. Night at length terminated the fruitless chase; they were imperfectly acquainted with the coast, and again obliged to anchor, when day-light no longer served to direct their course in the difficult ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... put it in the power of his enemies to prolong the troubles, if he made the return of peace in America to depend on the success of a negotiation with a belligerent power, a negotiation which it would always be in their power to render fruitless. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... found the chief men, the objects of our pursuit, but so completely drunk that all attempts to induce them to return with us were entirely fruitless. We immediately returned to the house of the chief where we had lodged the previous night. In the evening the chief returned, but so intoxicated as to ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... world's larger hope. Pessimists there are who say that human nature is belligerent, and that war will never be abolished. But international warfare has already seen the handwriting on the wall. Mars has been weighed in the balances and found wanting. The fruitless slaughter of the millions is not to be forever nor for long. Let us hasten the day when the rolling war drum will be hushed forever, the bugle note no longer call to carnage; when "nation shall not lift up sword ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... recovery. The thwarts, however, held fast in the overturned canoe a bag of pemmican, one other small bag, the tent and tent stove. Treading water to keep ourselves afloat we tried to right the canoe to save these, but our efforts were fruitless. The icy water so benumbed us we could scarcely control our limbs. The tracking line was fast to the stern thwart, and with one end of this in his teeth, Easton swam to a little rocky island just below the rapid and hauled ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... doubt, and perhaps more than a doubt, even in the case of those most favoured by fortune, whether after all a life has been worth the trouble of living which has unfolded such infinite promise only to bury it fruitless in the grave." ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... with surprise and horror—she did not dart to the window as one would have expected—ready almost to throw herself out of it in fruitless pursuit of her favourite—she stood perfectly still, as if turned into stone. But the expression on her face was so strange and unnatural ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... herself, as not affecting her excepting that it roused in her an intense sympathy. She was indeed the barefooted woman in her conception of morality, in her frankness and in her strong emotions untainted by the gangrene of a rotting civilisation. To suggest to her that fruitless love, that barren marriage, which destroys the soul of France and is spreading through Australia, would be to speak a strange language to her. He could say nothing. He was seized with a desire to get ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... been aimed, and the general confusion that prevailed in the camp prevented any harm from being done. Bullets whistled past him, and many cut twigs from the branches at his side, but not one touched even his dress. The delay caused by these fruitless attempts was of great service to the fugitive, who had gained more than a hundred yards on even the leading men of the Hurons, ere something like concert and order had entered into the chase. To think of following with rifles in hand was out of the question, and after emptying their ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... base—not effected without considerable trouble—disclosed to view, greatly to the exultation of the restoring party, an altar-tomb—the tomb, of course, to which Worby had attracted Lake's attention that same evening. Much fruitless research was expended in attempts to identify the occupant; from that day to this he has never had a name put to him. The structure had been most carefully boxed in under the pulpit-base, so that such slight ornament as it possessed was not defaced; ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... talking about," answered Dorothy, with a fruitless effort to appear matronly and dignified. "If by 'uncle' you mean Uncle Ebeneezer, ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... but against the current, and they daily lost ground. The crews of the ships also began to sicken from fatigue and cold. Whether the admiral had before made up his mind, or whether irritated by his fruitless endeavours to continue his voyage, it is impossible to say; but after three weeks' useless struggle against the wind and currents, he hove to and ordered the captains on board, when he proposed that the prisoner ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... recruiting did not reach a stipulated level—not acceptable. Scores of men had the experience of the writer; going into Laurier's room on the third floor of the improvised parliamentary offices in the National History Museum, spending an hour or so in fruitless discussion and coming out with the feeling that there was no choice between unquestioning acceptance of Laurier's policy or breaking away from allegiance to him. Not that Laurier ever proposed this choice to his visitors. He had a theory—which not even he with all his lucidity could make ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... twenty summers I have seen The sky grow bright, the forest green; And many a wintry wind have stood In bloomless, fruitless solitude, Since childhood in my pleasant bower First spent its sweet and sportive hour, Since youthful lovers in my shade Their vows of truth and rapture made; And on my trunk's surviving frame ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... year 1761, Captain Christopher sailed from Fort Churchill, in the sloop Churchill; and his voyage was not quite fruitless; for he sailed up Chesterfield's Inlet, through which a passage had, by Mr Ellis's account of it, been so generally expected. But when the water turned brackish, which marked that he was not in a strait, but ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... tar. Distance, however, and a want of the proper facilities to enable them to manufacture cheaply, rendered the cost of these commodities so great, that exports of a similar character from Russia and Sweden were still enabled to maintain their old ascendency in the markets of Europe. After many fruitless and costly experiments in the cultivation of the vine, the growing demand for tobacco enabled the planters to turn their labor into a profitable channel. As the demand increased the profits became correspondingly great, and every other species of labor was abandoned ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... occurred abroad, suffice it for us to notice that Pao-y, ever since Chia Cheng's departure, indulged his caprices, allowed his feelings to run riot, and gadded wildly about. In fact, he wasted his time, and added fruitless days ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... calculations could not tire,—Kepler conjectured that celestial movements must be connected with each other by simple laws; or, to use his own expression, by harmonic laws. These laws he undertook to discover. A thousand fruitless attempts—the errors of calculation inseparable from a colossal undertaking—did not hinder his resolute advance toward the goal his imagination descried. Twenty-two years he devoted to it, and still he was not weary. What are twenty-two years of labor ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... a stranger; And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the Quakers, For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country, Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters. So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed endeavor, Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncomplaining, Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her thoughts and her footsteps. As from a mountain's top the rainy mists of the morning Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us, Sun-illumined, with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... account it will be seen that the Hidatsa as well as the Algonkins and Mexicans believed that four days were required before the spirit could finally leave the earth. Why the smell of burning leather should he offensive to spirits it would perhaps be fruitless to ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... to her reputation, great as it was. It seemed as though Nature in creating her had resolved to exhaust her utmost powers, and thus make atonement for all former experimental attempts and fruitless essays. One would have said that, moved by jealousy of the future marvels of the Greek sculptors, she also had resolved to model a statue herself, and to prove that she was still sovereign mistress ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... o'clock in the morning; all the search made by gendarmes, servants, and neighbors had been fruitless, and the dog had not come back. The General entered the salon, empty now for him though the other three children were there; he was worn out with fatigue, and looked old ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... of rhinoceros in Abyssinia; this is the two-horned black rhinoceros, known in South Africa as the keitloa. This animal is generally five feet six inches to five feet eight inches high at the shoulder, and, although so bulky and heavily built, it is extremely active, as our long and fruitless hunt had shown us. The skin is about half the thickness of that of the hippopotamus, but of extreme toughness and closeness of texture. When dried and polished it resembles horn. Unlike the Indian species of rhinoceros, the black variety of Africa ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... wage of love, Hide in thy skies, thou fruitless Jove, Not to be named: It is clear Why the gods will not ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... patent specifications were perhaps intentionally confusing, the committee inquired, how could the original formulas really be known? This quest seemed so fruitless that it was not pursued. Instead the pharmacists turned to American experience in making the English medicines. From many members of the College, and from other pharmacists as well, recipes were secured. The result was shocking. Although almost every one came bolstered with the assertion that it ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen
... obdurate image; and when they thought they might take placidity as the sign of what they waited for, they first hinted, and then expressed in plain terms, the wishes of their hearts. For a time all their efforts were fruitless; but John Carr getting old and weak, wished to be succeeded in his business by George; and the wife, when she became a widow, would require to be maintained—reasons which had more weight with Effie ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... should be very poor. The death of King James in the year following, released him from his engagements, and, as he resided at Hamburgh, he was soon forgotten, and was never called upon to embark in the subsequent fruitless attempts on ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of God is on thee! And, as a skillful gard'ner, from the vine Doth lop away each worthless branch and barren, So He would lop each fruitless bough of thine. Ah! thou art earth-bound, prone, and lowly creeping, clinging to things too frail to be thy stay; Jesus, with watchful care His vineyard keeping, Would lift thee up to ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... whole touched off simultaneously by the pressing of a button—every man with loaded and cocked rifle in hand. Then began the low, mumbling sound of a suddenly aroused camp. The efforts of the officers who had kept their heads to keep it down were fruitless. It was a long line of buzzing sounds like the swarming of bees. But the screaming and yelling continued ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... talk big under their misfortunes, and pretended to say that they had not fled away from the Romans, but came thither in order to fight them with less hazard; for that it would be an unreasonable and a fruitless thing for them to expose themselves to desperate hazards about Gischala, and such weak cities, whereas they ought to lay up their weapons and their zeal, and reserve it for their metropolis. But when they related to them the taking of Gischala, and their ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... ornament became me, he was inflam'd afresh; and viewing me with lovers eyes, addressed himself as such, when laying aside the haughty brow of a master, he put on the tender complacency of a friend: but his endeavours were fruitless. At last meeting with an intire repulse, his love turning to a fury, he endeavour'd to ravish the favours he could not win by intreaty; at what time Tryphoena unexpectedly came in, and observing ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... have on lands within her boundaries, whenever such purchase could be made on reasonable terms. On these positions are based the Georgian claims, which the United States government has hitherto pleaded inability to satisfy, inasmuch as all efforts to purchase the Indian lands have proved fruitless. ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... heart but mine; And in my breast the imperfect joys expire; Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, And new-born pleasure brings to happier men; The fields to all their wonted tribute bear; To warm their little loves the birds complain. I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, And weep the more because I ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... King of England compromising the loyalty of Gilles. Charles gave him over to his brother for punishment. In vain were Gilles's supplications to the Duke, or the entreaties of the Constable, who went to Dinan and knelt to Francis to beg for the pardon of his brother. Equally fruitless his being acquitted at Redon, from there being no proof of his guilt. The unfortunate Gilles was dragged from prison to prison, and consigned to keepers destitute of every feeling of humanity. Montauban, an Italian by descent (his mother was a Visconti), ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... was confessedly not a little puzzled to find out when to use a singular, and when a plural verb, after a nominative with such "a sort of addition made to it." The 246th paragraph of his English Grammar is a long and fruitless attempt to fix a rule for the guidance of the learner in this matter. After dashing off a culpable example, "Sidmouth, with Oliver the spye, have brought Brandreth to the block;" or, as his late editions have it, "The Tyrant, with the Spy, have brought Peter to the block." He adds: "We ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... through the door into the waiting room from the midway of the station, look up and wave his hand, with a frown and a shake of the head that told him his pard's quest for the missing baggage had been fruitless. ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... were any thing but promising about the fourth of July, 1862. Our operations in the Shenandoah Valley had been very expensive and fruitless. The Peninsular campaign, which promised so much at its beginning, which had proceeded at so fearful a cost of treasure and blood, was pronounced a failure at last, and the great armies, depleted and worn, were well nigh discouraged. The celebration of the anniversary of our national birthday ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... seem that his search was fruitless; for after a few moments of indolent and listless examination, he suffered his huge frame to descend the gentle declivity, in the same sluggish manner that an over fatted beast would have yielded to ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... this intercourse with Egypt; and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries she reached a very high position, which she owed to her shipowners and traders. In the fourteenth century, however, the princes of the house of Anjou ruined her like the rest of Provence, in the great and fruitless efforts which they made to recover the kingdom of Naples; and it was not until the reign of Louis XI. that the old Phoenician city recovered its maritime ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... side. It has created the city with all its good and its evil. It has created great nations, but see what the added populations consist of. It brings on the old age of nations. It stands for struggle that is often fruitless and unproductive. It engenders moods and arouses interests and powers that lead to wars and revolutions. It fosters sordid interests, and has made almost universal the necessity of an excess of toil in order barely to live. The great majority of workers do not live in their work, ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... calmly, "has been killed by an acquaintance, a friend, or a familiar customer; he had not even risen from his seat to speak with him; and see, the burnisher is yet grasped in his hand, with which he was at work. Ha!" he exclaimed, as his lictors entered, panting and tired by their fruitless chase, "could you not ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... to be calm, the memories of earthly pleasures, and friends, and home came over me, causing me at intervals to break into wild paroxysms, and make fresh, though fruitless, struggles. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... airy sitting in the wind in the front of the boat and resting themselves after the fruitless roaming in the heat. ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... accomplished grandson. By degrees, and by virtue of being never at all censorious, he familiarised himself with the young man's habits and diversions. He listened delightedly to the tales of his large gambling losses, of the bouts at poker, the fruitless venture in Texas Oil land, the disastrous corner in wheat, engineered by Burman, and the uniformly unsuccessful efforts to "break the bank" in Forty-fourth Street. He never tired of hearing whatever adventures Percival ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... the sun's at morning, and ere noon Death's; nor this only prey fulfilled his mind; For with strange crook-toothed prows of Carian folk 470 Who snatch a sanguine life out of the sea, Thieves keen to pluck their bloody fruit of spoil From the grey fruitless waters, has their God Furrowed our shores to waste them, as the fields Were landward harried from the north with swords Aonian, sickles of man-slaughtering edge Ground for no hopeful harvest of live grain Against us in Boeotia; these being spent, Now this third time his wind ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... that no one else was near, had seized them and carried them off to a cave near to which their boat lay on the rocks. They hoped to have obtained some information from them as to what was going on at the other side of the island, but, while engaged in a fruitless attempt to screw something out of Corrie, who was peculiarly refractory, they were interrupted, first by the yells of Bumpus and his pig, and afterwards by the sudden appearance of Henry and his party on the edge of a cliff a short ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... Grief as I have, but I'm dull; Yet I'll to Laura, and advise with her, Where I will tell her such a heavy Tale, As shall oblige her to a kind concern: —This may do; I'll tell her of this Thought, This is the first of Art I ever thought on; And if this proves a fruitless Remedy, The next, I need not study, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... than footer?' was my formula. Now, though at the time, in order to save fruitless argument, I always agreed with my companion, and praised the game he praised, in the innermost depths of my sub-consciousness, cricket ranked a long way in front of all other forms of sport. I may be wrong. More than once in my career ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... his 'Inferno,' or [Greek text], in which the poet gave his own account of his descent to Hades in search of Eurydice. But only a dubious reference to one adventure in the journey is quoted by Plutarch. Whatever the exact truth about the Orphic poems may be (the reader may pursue the hard and fruitless quest in Lobeck's 'Aglaophamus' {14}), it seems certain that the period between Pisistratus and Pericles, like the Alexandrian time, was a great age for literary forgeries. But of all these frauds the ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... town called Tanay, stopping on the way at a village, hostile to Cebu, where they obtained some food. The people of Tanay fled at their approach, and the little food found there was sent to Legazpi; while the two leaders remained at the island some days in a fruitless endeavor to make peace and friendship with the natives. On All Saints' Day "about the hour of mass" some twenty houses were burned in the Spanish settlement, "among others that where the religious slept, and the hut where mass was said," and many goods were burned. "It could ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... his fruitless pursuit of the butterflies, crept close by his master's side for a nap, and Seth yielded to the temptation to stretch himself out at full length on the soft, ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... and got it out from its hiding-place in her trunk, and they spent a fruitless half-hour wrestling with its secret fastening. They broke their finger-nails trying to pry it open, they pressed and poked every inch of it in an endeavor to find a possible secret spring; they rattled and shook it, rewarded in this case ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... boy understood it in the least. Every effort to describe a circle brought us the length of the cart farther up the road, and we promised fair to reach Bayou Sara before morning, at that rate. At last, after fruitless efforts to dodge under the harness and escape, pony came to a standstill, and could not be induced to move. The children took advantage of the pause to tumble out, but we sat still. Bogged, and it was very dark already! Wouldn't we get it when we got home! Anna groaned, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... powers for a final struggle, becoming resourceful and inventive in proportion to its peril, and forgetting the very instinct of life in the longing for freedom, at last gets to fear nobody and nothing. After fruitless struggles it surrenders in despair, lies down, closes its eyes, and the next instant once more begins the hopeless fight ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... revealed only the quiet, clear, starry sky and the still air. No glare of fire; no sound of voices; the crickets seemed to be going on comfortably and much as usual. The air was a trifle more chill, too; and after a few minutes of fruitless watching the two girls came indoors again; but they would not accept Gyda's proposition and go to bed. It was not very late, they said; and once more the three women sat down round the fire to wait. After a time however, Primrose gave it up and went off. ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... returned from a fruitless search for the "rat" he was enraged to find that Courtland was not awaiting his coming in trembling eagerness to ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... psychological foundations, to the interjections, it would still not follow that language is an instinctive activity. But, as a matter of fact, all attempts so to explain the origin of speech have been fruitless. There is no tangible evidence, historical or otherwise, tending to show that the mass of speech elements and speech processes has evolved out of the interjections. These are a very small and functionally insignificant ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... in distress. Every exertion that the case admitted was made in their behalf, and, the moment the state of the lake allowed, boats were sent off, in every probable direction, to their succor. But the Winkelried was running along the coast of Savoy, ere any ventured forth, and the search proved fruitless. When the rumor spread, however, that a sail was to be discerned coming out from under the wide shadow of the opposite mountains, and that it was steering for La Tour de Peil, a village with a far safer harbor than that ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... bloodshed. No jurist would now presume to contend that the slightest evidence was adduced to prove this. But all were rushed to conviction: Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were hanged on November 11, 1887, after fruitless appeals to the higher courts; Lingg committed suicide in prison, and Fielden, Neebe and Schwab were sentenced to long terms in prison. The four executed leaders met their death with the heroic calmness of martyrdom. "Let the voice of the people be heard!" were Parsons' last ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... of that bitter kind in which we in England are apt to suppose that all the Irish Roman Catholics indulge, had sent his son to Trinity; and there were some in the neighbourhood of Killaloe,—patients, probably, of Dr. Duggin, of Castle Connell, a learned physician who had spent a fruitless life in endeavouring to make head against Dr. Finn,—who declared that old Finn would not be sorry if his son were to turn Protestant and go in for a fellowship. Mrs. Finn was a Protestant, and the five Miss ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... for matches had so far proved fruitless. Shoeblossom stood and quaked behind the door. The reek of hot tin from the dark lantern grew worse momentarily. Mr Seymour sniffed several times, until Shoeblossom thought that he must be discovered. Then, to his ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... news; then the first fruitless descent; then men went down and brought up heavy shapes rolled in canvas and bore them to the women; and "each morning the Red Cross president, lifting the curtain of the car where he slept, would see at first light the still ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... stronger, felt the necessity of seeking employment, but to this the baby proved a formidable obstacle. No one would give a young woman, hampered with a child, work. She would come back to the baby at night worn out in mind and body, after a day of fruitless searching. These long trips of the little mother, with the consequent long absence and exhaustion on her return, did not improve the little one's health, and almost before Anna realized it was ailing, the baby sickened and died. It was her cruelest blow. For the child's ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer |
