"In vain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they were not quite the girls she would like to live with; they were very well as studio friends. Mildred thought she might hire a chaperon; that would be very expensive! And for the solution of her difficulty Mildred sought in vain until one day, in the National Gallery, Miss Brand suggested that they should go to ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... the foundation of the evil—a deficiency of self-respect, growing out of a want of instruction in things proper to be known, and for which the education of the country makes no provision—all will be in vain. How far there will prevail a more enlarged view of this painful subject, is not discoverable from the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... century a courageous and determined navigator, Martin Frobisher, made three voyages to America, but without establishing a colony, or finding the treasures of gold and gems which he sought. Later, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the half-brother of Raleigh, and Barlow, made attempts to found colonies, but in vain. ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... a long story short, the Sultan besieged Vijayanagar in vain for a month, and then retreated across the Tungabhadra, harassed at every step by masses of the Hindus from the city. He halted at last in an open plain, and the king also pitched his camp at no great distance. Muhammad's retreat had been deliberately ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... this ravishing creature was wedded by proxy to Gustave de Poopinac, a dashing young officer in the Garde du Corps,[2] and at twenty-five she came to Court in order to see her husband; but alas! Fate, seated securely in Destiny's irreproachable turret, willed it that her journey should be in vain. She left Old Picardy a merry, laughing married woman—and arrived at Versailles a widow. Gustave, the husband whose love she would never know, perished at an early hour on the morning of her arrival, ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... deny His gifts,—the things that are to be to know, The tongue of sooth-saying that cannot lie, And knowledge gave he of all birds that fly 'Neath heaven; and yet his prayer did she disdain. So he his gifts confounded utterly, And sooth she saith, but evermore in vain. ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... hideous yellow worm, that gnawed away the shoulder and palsied the arm and ate into the vitals. Every second, one fell and died, making frantic efforts to tear away the reptile from its grasp, but in vain. Then the white mists rolled away, and I saw the strange woman standing where she had been when the first vision began. She was silent, the music was hushed, Adolph Von Berg had fallen back asleep in his chair, and drawing out ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... terrors, Antonia?' rejoined the Abbot, folding her in his arms, and covering her bosom with kisses which She in vain struggled to avoid: 'What fear you from me, from one who adores you? What matters it where you are? This Sepulchre seems to me Love's bower; This gloom is the friendly night of mystery which He spreads over our delights! Such do I think it, and ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... in the gentle moonlight of a summer night in England, amid the tangled glades of a deep forest, or the turfy swell of her romantic commons, could fancy they saw the fairies tracing their sportive ring. But it is in vain to regret illusions which, however engaging, must of necessity yield their place before the increase of knowledge, like shadows at the advance of morn." ("Demonology." p. 183). "Tales of ghosts and demonology are out of date at forty years of age and upward. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... loitered in vain, the wonder of the Inns and its frequenters. Nan never appeared. To her father a letter had come; the Duke had come up on the back of it; there had been long discourse and a dram of claret wine in the parlour; the General came out when his Grace's cantering horse had ceased its merry hollow sound ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... strange power we call "life," doubly mysterious when manifested in an organism so simple as this, so open to our search, seems to challenge us to discover its secret, and, armed with our glittering lenses and our flashing stands of exquisite workmanship, we search intently, but in vain. And yet not in vain, for we are more than recompensed by the wondrous revelations beheld and the unalloyed pleasures enjoyed, through the study of even ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... place by his side and not leave him under that rush of horses' feet, but it was in vain; and now without a master or a friend I was alone on that great slaughter ground; then fear took hold on me, and I trembled as I had never trembled before; and I too, as I had seen other horses do, tried to join in the ranks and gallop with them; but I was beaten off by the swords ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... is far superior," he answers, in a fierce and sulky tone, that he in vain tries to make sound playful. "'Balaam like a Life-Guardsman?' and why was he, may I ask? Something humorous about ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... for yourselves how that must be so. Take any of the commandments. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." If a man love God, you will not require to tell him that. Love is the fulfilling of that law. "Take not His name in vain." Would he ever dream of taking His name in vain if he loved him? "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Would he not be too glad to have one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... were in question, from Attila in the fifth century to Batu Khan in the thirteenth, or the followers of the Prophet, who tore away from Christendom the southern shores of the Mediterranean, and held Spain in their iron grasp, while from age to age they exhausted their strength in vain against the Eastern Empire, the threatening danger was always coming with the morning sun; whatever might be the shock that took the attention of Europe away from herself, it directed it upon Asia. This is a fact of cardinal ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... foregoing scene from a distance. Fresh and blooming as she was, he had long pursued her with attentions, but in vain; coming up at that moment, he greeted her and asked maliciously how she was? "Oh, oh," she moaned, quivering spasmodically, and springing, up she clutched at the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... bright brief part. The old Flax-spinner's fingers trembled as she spun, when she saw the frowns, for she had given of her heart's blood to buy happiness for this maiden she loved, and well she knew there can be no happiness where frowns abide. She felt that her years of sacrifice had been in vain, but when the Oak wagged his head she called back waveringly, "My little Olga will not ...
— The Legend of the Bleeding-heart • Annie Fellows Johnston
... their Aeolus had been brought. Such a one was our Crocker, who cared very little for the blusterings. On this occasion he had remained away for the sake of having an additional day with the Braeside Harriers, and when he pleaded a bilious headache no one believed him for an instant. It was in vain for Aeolus to tell him that a man subject to health so precarious was altogether unfitted for the Civil Service. Crocker had known beforehand exactly what was going to be said to him, and had discounted it at its exact worth. Even in the presence of Mr. Jerningham he ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... not that be exactly the same as if I had told it you with my lips? And you would take the paper eagerly to see what it was that I had to say to you. So to-day, when you read your Bible, either alone or at your Bible-lesson, watch to see what Jesus will say to you in it. You will never really watch in vain. You will see some word that seems to come home to you, and that you never noticed so much before. Oh, listen lovingly to it, for that is what He says to you! Or if you are really watching and wishing ...
— Morning Bells • Frances Ridley Havergal
... away eggless, and gone to their palatial homes only to suffer untold agonies, the result of those unholy alliances between farmers and hens. They have tossed sleeplessly on their downy beds, wondering if there was no balm in Gilead, no rooster there. They have looked in vain for compassion on the part of the farmers, who haye only laughed at their sufferings, and put ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... were Phidias, Alcamenes, and many other sculptors, together with poets, philosophers, warriors, and statesmen; men whose names will rise superior to the lapse of time, and whose fame, like the rocky barriers of the ocean, on which the elements in vain expend their fury, will be of equal duration with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... in vain expectation of that seed that was to be laid upon his tongue, and give him renewed and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... art come to this Tyrian city, thou art surely beloved by the Gods. And now go, show thyself to the queen. And as for thy ships and thy companions, I tell thee that they are safe in the haven, if I have not learnt augury in vain. See those twenty swans, how joyously they fly! And now there cometh an eagle swooping down from the sky, putting them to confusion, but now again they move in due order, and some are settling on the earth and some are preparing to settle. Even so doth it fare with thy ships, for either are they ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... "In vain I'm promis'd such a heav'nly prize, "Ah! cruel SULTAN! who delay'st my joys! "While piercing charms transfix my am'rous heart, "I dare not snatch one kiss ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... It was in vain the governor sent down remonstrance and menace from the Alhambra. The fatal day was at hand, and the corporal was put in capilla, that is to say, in the chapel of the prison; as is always done with culprits the day before execution, that they may meditate on their approaching end and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... gage of battle from his employer, in vain, Banneker decided to leave the issue to chance. Surely he was not surrendering any principle, since he continued to write as he chose upon whatever topics he selected. Time enough to fight when there ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and the tales of hairbreadth escapes from elephants, which I had read in various publications, were sources of attraction against which I strove in vain; and I at length determined upon the very wild idea of spending twelve ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... "In vain she seeks to close her weary eyes, Those eyes still swim incessantly in tears— Hope in her cheerless bosom fading dies, Distracted by a thousand cruel fears, While banish'd from his love ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... his genius he called up a spirit which he has in vain endeavored to lay, or exorcise from ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... of the evening before, and up to the arrival of Wall at noon, when they had gone into camp, had been wholly in vain. ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... discovered the military vehicle surrounded by an enchanted multitude who were staring through its windows at the merchandise—blankets, pans, kettles, saddles, ropes, parcels, stoves, baskets, and box of nibs—within, while the policeman strove in vain to keep both the road and the pavement clear. George preceded the Major, pushing aside with haughty military impatience the civilians so reluctant to move. He felt as though he had been in the Army for years. No longer did his uniform cause him ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... and trials, suffering, sorrow and death are found on every hand. Many things would tempt us from our allegiance and continuance. Like the Psalmist, we see the wicked prospering, and we are ready to burst out with the faithless cry: "I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency." Or we have been toiling in the vineyard for long without seeing any fruit, and like the prophet, we are tempted to cry: "I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought." Then we hear the voice of the Apostle ...
— The Prayers of St. Paul • W. H. Griffith Thomas
... Ah, I know the taste of it!" and she moistened her lips with the white fluid. "It can hurt no one, but I will take no more of it, or old Hekt will be tormented with love and longing for thee; and that would ill please the rich young lord, ha! ha! If the drink is in vain I am paid enough, if it takes effect thou shalt bring me three more gold rings; and thou wilt return, I know ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... established upon the basis of inexorable justice, not at all upon the paradisical sentiments of fraternity, self-sacrifice, and love, to the exercise of which so many honorable socialists are endeavoring now to stimulate the people. It is in vain that, following Jesus Christ, they preach the necessity, and set the example, of sacrifice; selfishness is stronger, and only the law of severity, economic fatality, is capable of mastering it. Humanitarian enthusiasm may produce shocks favorable to the progress of civilization; but these ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... had slowly dragged away Since Hercules, upon that fateful day, Within Arcadian wilds had sought in vain To snare the sacred stag; through sun and rain, Through wintry cold and winds that tossed and whirled The falling leaf, through drifting snows that pearled Arcadian slopes, untiring in pursuit, He held a lonely chase that bore no fruit; If he at morn descried the stag afar, ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... residence by break of day, he arrived in the afternoon at a small village within half a mile of Sego, where he endeavoured in vain to procure some provisions. He was again informed that Mansong had sent people to apprehend him, and the dooty's son told him he had no time to lose, if he wished to escape. Mr. Park now fully saw the danger ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the shy, slippery denizens of the deep are not to be captured at will, and that, with all the poor schemes they might be enabled to contrive, their efforts to capture even a single fish might be exerted in vain. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... your hearts, any more of His truth in your minds than you had a year ago, ten years ago, or at that far-off period when some of you greyheaded men first professed to be Christians? Have you experienced so many things in vain? Have the years taught you nothing? Ah, brethren! for how many of us is it true: 'When for the time ye ought to be teachers ye have need that one teach you which be the first principles of the oracles of God'? 'Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... heard, that even jetting water May have such spouting force, that it becomes A rod of glittering white iron, and swords Will beat rebounding on its speed in vain?— Of such a force I mean to have ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... he knocked at the door in vain, but he persisted in his clamouring, arousing the ancient echoes. Finally, ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... that Lona was dead. She had died with my name upon her lips, and her secret—the explanation of her strange conduct on that night—died with her. I shall never know it. Bitterly did I repent my inability to reach her. The thought that she had waited in vain for me, that with her last breath she had called upon me, and I had answered not, was unendurable torture, and I fled India and came to America in the futile endeavour to forget it all. Out of my black past there ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... most business-like looking bundles, all of them, though neatly kept, really in hopeless confusion. In vain was the search, and notes came forth which rendered it but too plain that there had been a considerable amount of debt even before the marriage, and that she had made partial payments and promises ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heart palpitates with the uncertainty; I could wish at once to have it appear and yet to delay. A sort of painful and delicious shiver shakes me; my entire nature runs to meet the peril with an impetus that my will would in vain try to resist. (Juliette Adam: Le General Skobeleff, Nouvelle Revue, 1886, abridged.) Skobeleff seems to have been a cruel egoist; but the disinterested Garibaldi, if one may judge by his "Memorie," lived in an unflagging emotion ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... the officer of a passing troop of a cavalry regiment, looking at the beast on which I was mounted, was pleased to take a fancy to it, and ordered me, in an authoritative tone, to descend, and to give up my steed for the benefit of the Republic. I represented to him, in vain, that I was a soldier, like himself, and the bearer of despatches to Paris. "Fool!" he said; "do you think they would send despatches by a man who can ride at best but ten leagues a day?" And the honest soldier was so wroth at my supposed duplicity, that he ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... me often. You have said That God is just, and I have looked around To seek the proof in human lot, in vain. The rain falls kindly on the just man's fields, But on the unjust man's more kindly still; And I have never known the winter's blast, Or the quick lightning, or the pestilence, Make nice discriminations when let slip ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... follow the advice of Regulus, though they bitterly regretted his sacrifice. His wife wept and entreated in vain that they would detain him; they could merely repeat their permission to him to remain; but nothing could prevail with him to break his word, and he turned back to the chains and death he expected as calmly as if he had been returning to his home. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... now in the Gulf of Mexico and there had not been a living thing in sight all day. We had a sermon preached on deck. The text was, "Thou shall not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain." ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... Have I thanked God for all His blessings? Have I been more anxious to please others than to please God, or offended Him for the sake of others? Second "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Have I cursed? Have I taken God's name in vain or spoken without reverence of holy things? Third. "Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day." Have I neglected to hear Mass through my own fault on Sundays and holy days of obligation? Have I kept others from Mass? Have I been late, ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... hear the little footsteps in the rain Running to help us, though they run in vain, Tapping in hundreds on the window-pane ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... morning, and we will go to see about it." On our way to the War Department the next morning, the senator said, "I don't know that I can do anything with this —— Whig administration"; but he assured me all should be made right in the next. That seemed to me the kind of man I had looked for in vain up to that time. I waited in the anteroom only a few minutes, when the great senator came out with a genial smile on his face, shook me warmly by the hand, and bade by good-by, saying: "It is all right. You can go back to West Point. The Secretary has given me his promise." I need ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... a drop of the milk of human kindness in his composition. Regardless of his own physical wants, he despised the same wants in others. Charity sued to him in vain, and the tear of sorrow made no impression on his stony heart. Passion he had felt—cruel, ungovernable passion. Tenderness was foreign to his nature—the sweet influences of the social virtues he had ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... below. From somewhere around the corner came, at intervals, the sharp cry of a woman in agony. With that last sound Nance was all too familiar. The coming and going of a human life were no mystery to her. But each time the cry of pain rang out she tried in vain to stop her ears. At last, hot, hungry, lonesome, and afraid, she laid her dirty face against the baby's fuzzy head and they ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Radiologists, two Internists, a dozen nurses and another Four-star Black Doctor across to the Lancet; and when they arrived at the patrol ship's entrance lock, they discovered that their haste had been in vain. ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... a long distance from home, and knowing that before long Ralph Darley would turn off to the left, he again made an effort to urge on the cob, but in vain. ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... parents, I am of that nation, more unhappy than wise, upon which of late a sea of woes has poured down. In the course of our misfortune I was carried to Barbary by two uncles of mine, for it was in vain that I declared I was a Christian, as in fact I am, and not a mere pretended one, or outwardly, but a true Catholic Christian. It availed me nothing with those charged with our sad expatriation to protest this, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... In vain my poor imagination grapples With these new lines in fancy shades, These purple evening coats with yellow lapels, These vests composed in flowered brocades; Nor can I think that noisy checks Would help me to attract ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... Church. The last I ever heard of Brown, he visited Europe. After his return from his well-earned holiday he died and was laid to rest in his own native soil. Peace to Brown's ashes—his work was well done! It cannot be said of him, as of many others, that he lived in vain, as he was doubtless the forerunner of the later and more accomplished leader and dictator of New ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... Phil looked in vain for signs of diligence in the direction of stories from the pen of Captain Mayne Plunkett, and articles on the affairs of the heart by ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... ubi supra, 183; Euseb. Philad. Dialogi, i. 40; Mem. de l'estat, ubi supra, 126. Charles was not generally so complaisant. Fervaques in vain interceded for his friend Captain ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... poignancies softened by time and memory into an ineffable, faint melody; it was the moon that drenched my bygone youth with wonder-light—a dream-face, exquisite as running water, unfolding flowers and those other sweets that poets try in vain to entangle in the meshes of ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... child extremely ill, and not a penny, not a thing to eat in the house. He came back to ask Mr. Grey what was to be done; and as the suspicion of diphtheria made every one inclined to fight shy of the house, I thought I had better go down and see what was to be done. I knocked a good while in vain; but at last she looked out of window, and I told her I only wanted to know what could be done for her child, and would send a doctor. Then she told me how to open the door. Poor thing! I found her the picture of desolation, in the midst of the dreary ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had proved a good friend to the chums, especially to Billie, they had tried in vain to draw her into their little escapades. She was what the girls usually referred to scornfully as "a grind," yet, strange to ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... hours before my looking-glass, trying to make it give in that I was good-looking. But never was a glass so set in its way. In vain I used my best arguments, pleaded before it hour after hour, re-brushed my hair, re-tied my cravat, smiled, bowed, and so forth, and so forth. "Ill-looking and awkward!" was my only response. At last it went so far as to intimate that I had, with all the rest, a conceited ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... haply he is some spy whose sole purpose in coming hither was to compass my destruction. So there is no help for it; die he must, and then only shall I be sure of my own life." Again cried Duban, "Spare me and Allah shall spare thee; and slay me not or Allah shall slay thee." But it was in vain. Now when the physician, O Ifrit, knew for certain that the King would kill him, he said, "O King, if there be no help but I must die, grant me some little delay that I may go down to my house and release myself ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... I quail even now at the recollection, and the dread of what may come. I tried to quiet him, but in vain; he shook ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... sailed into the bay As the sun went down in a cloudy sky, And never a kid saw he at play, And he listened in vain for the welcoming cry. In his little house he learned it all, And he clinched his hands and he bowed his head— ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... to-night is our personal part in the conquest and redemption of our sin-enslaved souls. He who has redeemed our souls with His own blood tells us with all plainness of speech, that His blood will be shed in vain, as far as we are concerned, unless we add to His atoning death our own patient life. Every human life, as our Lord looks at it, and would have us look at it, is a vast field of battle in which a soul ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... returning the fire of the savages with coolness, accuracy, and regularity; and from the number of dead Indians and pools of blood found on the hill-side the next day, learned that their work here had not been in vain. ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... something like it, was the name of the city), was beginning to be rather irksome to him. Every lady-dog, as she passed him, seemed anxious to allow him plenty of room; the three kittens in arms, at sight of him set up a chorus of cries, which their nurse tried in vain to appease; a mastiff, who was on guard on the opposite side of the way, seemed very much inclined to interfere for the preservation of public peace; whilst a couple of puppies, touched off in the extreme of the then prevailing fashion at Caneville, turned up ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... Your search shall not be long. See, I have all you wish. I have the paper here! (She tears it from the front of her dress). See, all the plans! Your visit shall not be in vain. And if you want a prisoner, and if you are not satisfied, why then take me. Ha! I am not afraid of you! Come, take me as your spy; I'll do you men no harm. Here, take the paper; it's all you need. I have the information, but I'll give it back to you. (She tears the paper in pieces, flinging ...
— The Southern Cross - A Play in Four Acts • Foxhall Daingerfield, Jr.
... of France, and Venice was engaged in a close alliance with that monarchy.[*] Henry, therefore, was constrained to remain in tranquillity during some time; and seemed to give himself no concern with regard to the affairs of the continent. In vain did Maximilian endeavor to allure him into some expense, by offering to make a resignation of the imperial crown in his favor. The artifice was too gross to succeed, even with a prince so little politic as Henry; and Pace, his envoy, who ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... 1775, the British were engaged in examinations of the country, in landing and drilling the troops, and in vain attempts to check the progress or expression of the public sentiment ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... optics, made rapid progress. These two early phases of the problem leave but little more to be wished for; it is not so with a third phase, hitherto a good deal neglected, connected with physiology, and with the action of light on the nervous system. Therefore, we should search in vain in old treatises on optics and on astronomy, for a strict and complete discussion on the comparative effect that the size and intensity of the images, that the magnifying power and the aperture of a telescope ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... Vainamoinen regrets having renounced the daughter of Louhi in favour of Ilmarinen, and begins to build a boat, but cannot complete it without three magic words, which he seeks for in vain in Tuonela, the death-kingdom, but afterwards jumps down the throat of the dead giant, Antero Vipunen, and compels him to sing ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... else to say. The result of his consent was terrible. For a full half-hour they stood in the glaring sun, while Gaspare and Amedeo solemnly tried on aprons over their suits in the midst of a concourse of attentive contadini. In vain did Maurice say: "That's a pretty one. I should take that one." Some defect was always discoverable. The distant mother's taste was evidently peculiar and not to be easily suited, and Maurice, not being familiar with it, was unable to ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... weapon, even by a self-infuriated man, no matter what amount of insult might be heaped upon me, for it seemed to me that this great excess of compound profanity, foulness and epithet must be more than a mere indulgence, and therefore must have some object. "Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird." Therefore, as before without thought, I thereafter by intent kept my hands away from my pockets, and generally in sight and spread ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... men have lived out their lives, learned their lessons, and stand where the shadow grows thicker, so that we try in vain to see beyond, what then? We preach a gospel of life, of an eternal hope. We believe that death, instead of being the end, is only a transition, the beginning really of the higher and the grander life. We cannot look through the gateway ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... freshmen, would some day do for America and the world. He mentioned briefly the boys from Sanford who had died in the World War "to make the world safe for democracy," and he prayed that their sacrifice had not been in vain. Finally, he spoke of the chapel service, which the students were required to attend. He hoped that they would find inspiration in it, knowledge and strength. He assured them that the service would always be nonsectarian, that there would ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... sat very still; she did not feel sleepy or tired, and her dark eyes scanned the marsh hopefully, but as the summer morning drifted toward noon she began to realize that her watch was in vain. ...
— A Little Maid of Province Town • Alice Turner Curtis
... lifting Gerald in his arms as if he were an infant, carried him off bodily. Gerald, who was strong and agile as a young panther, fought and struggled, pouring out a torrent of angry protest; but in vain. When Jack put forth his full strength, there was no possibility of resistance. He bore the furious lad to his tent, and throwing him on the cot, deliberately sat down on his feet, in calm and cheerful silence. Gerald twisted ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... themselves, which were all set on the table to be carved and distributed by the guests. This ancient and honest method is attended with a good deal of trouble, and a lavish effusion of gravy, yet by no means bestowed or dispensed in vain, because you have thereby the absolute assurance of a banquet actually before your eyes, instead of a shadowy promise in the bill-of-fare, and such meagre fulfilment as a single guest can contrive to get upon his individual plate. I wonder that Englishmen, who are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the space at their disposal. The door to the parlour was closed although the lodger had left town for the holidays, and so nothing but the living-room remained. There Keith whiled away the long hours in vain speculation on the ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... with her body bright sprinkles the waters white, Which flee from her fair form, and flee in vain, Dyed with the dear unutterable sight, And circles out her beauties to the ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... according to the people, ran the city wall: finding it thickly strewed with scoriae, old and new, I decided that this was the Siyaghah or "smiths' quarter." Between it and the sea the surface is scattered with glass, shards, and slag: I inquired in vain for "written stones," and for the petroleum reported to exist ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... most carefully concealed. On one occasion he went to visit a lady with whom he maintained very intimate relations. Not choosing to take a groom on such an occasion, he gave his horse to a boy in the street to hold. On coming out he looked up and down the street, but in vain, and at length had to go home steedless. On reaching L—— House, the groom, waiting at the door for his return, said, "Shall I go for the horse, my lord?" "The horse is dead," was the brief response. "Where shall I send for the saddle and bridle, my lord?" "Oh—a—a—h" (and then with emphasis), ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... Adventurer quivered from stern to stern, and then, after a moment no longer than a heart-beat, lurched forward again. Directly over the bow, glimpsed vaguely through the rain and gloom, rose a towering cliff. Steve's frantic efforts were in vain, for although he tore at the clutch and the propeller thrashed the water astern, the Adventurer was already in the smother of the surf and an instant ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... obeyed the movements of his arm, and they danced, mingling with that gay throng, where the feet were lighter than the hearts, we may be sure. They went through the whole dance in silence, as Phillip afterwards told me—and he tried in vain to engage Lucille's full attention ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... the maps, my dear boy," she said, "and find that it is seventy or eighty miles out of your direct course, and we have puzzled ourselves in vain as to why you should have made your way there. The girls guess that you have gone there to deliver in person some message from one of your late fellow-prisoners to his family. I am not good at guessing, ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... said Mr. Chillingworth. "But, at all events, so far as the result goes, it is quite clear that any further watching, in this house, for the appearance of Sir Francis Varney, will now be in vain. He has nothing to do now but to keep quiet until we are tired out—a fact, concerning which he can easily obtain information—and then he immediately, without trouble, walks into the premises, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... troubled with a phthisic, Did cough, and fetch a sigh so deep, As did her very bottom sweep: Whereby to all she did impart, How love lay rankling at her heart: Which, when I smelt, desire was slain, And they breathed forth perfumes in vain. Their angel voice surprised me now; But Mopsa, her Too-whit, Too-whoo, Descending through her oboe nose, Did that ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... tattooing with an eastern skill the skin of a great lion, that a year before he had killed in single combat in the heart of Oran, having watched for the beast twelve nights in vain, high perched on a leafy crest of rock, above a water-course. While he worked his tongue flew far and fast over the camp slang—the slangs of all nations came easy to him—in voluble conversation with the Chasseur next, who was making a fan out ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... have honored the best days of French chivalry. The energy and daring of the French explorers, whether traders or missionaries, have not been equaled in the pioneer work of other races. And the annals of Christian martyrdom may be searched in vain for more heroic examples of devotion to the work of the gospel than those which adorn the history of the French missions in North America. What magnificent results might not be expected from such an enterprise, in the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Year! that round dost run Thy course, bold lover of the sun, And chearful when the day's begun As morning Leveret, Thou long the Poet's praise shalt gain; Thou wilt be more belov'd by men In times to come; thou not in vain Art ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... of 1862, General Hunter, finding himself with less than eleven thousand men under his command, and charged with the duty of holding the whole tortuous and broken seacoast of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, had applied often, and in vain, to the authorities at Washington for reinforcements. All the troops that could be gathered in the North were less than sufficient for the continuous drain of General McClellan's great operations against the enemy's capital; ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... out, in one of his troubled and feverish nights, a dream bud in the brain of the man. He saw the face of Jesus looking on him over the top of the Wicket Gate, at which he had been for some time knocking in vain, while the cruel dog barked loud from the enemy's yard. But that face, when at last it came, was full of sorrowful displeasure. And in his heart he knew that it was because of a certain transaction in horse dealing, wherein he had hitherto lauded his own cunning—adroitness, ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... gathering dust in his unfrequented studio, and thinks of the dreams which gave fairy tints to his palette, that none else could perceive,—when he feels that his genius is unacknowledged, and his toil in vain,—when he sees Dorb's crudities in every window, and Dorb's praises in the "Art-Journals," while Pinxit is starving unknown,—doesn't he take down the old saw from his easel, and try its edge over his proud, swelling heart? When Scripsit, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... I have tried in vain to find the causes of these peculiar changes of feeling. The ostensible reasons, as given in the newspaper, are so trivial as to be hardly worthy of belief. For example, here is the kind of news that comes ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... front of the Palais de Justice. ]—in the centre of Paris, that humiliating pyramid which accused them of complicity with, or inciting, the famous regicide of the student, Jean Chatel, assassin of Henri IV. Pere de la Chaise, many times and always in vain, had prayed his Majesty to render justice to the virtues of his order, and to command the destruction of this slanderous monument. The King had constantly refused, alleging to-day one motive, to-morrow another. One ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... conversationalist. Notwithstanding his acknowledged superiority to all others, and the fact that he was petted and caressed by every one, I felt an instinctive repugnance to him, that for a long time I tried in vain to overcome. Perhaps it was because I had heard him so highly spoken of, that I was ready to find fault. However that maybe, I felt a secret antipathy to this man. Would I had been allowed to follow the ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... In vain did the Countess use her prettiest smiles to hold Danny Grin by her side as she played. Dalzell had been schooled at Annapolis and in the Navy itself, and knew how to take his leave gracefully, which he did, followed by the pouts of the Countess. As soon as she saw that the ensign's ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... instance of taxation on personal property, was granted to the king at the opening of 1188 to support his intended Crusade. But the Crusade was hindered by strife which broke out between Richard and the new French king, Philip; and while Henry strove in vain to bring about peace, a suspicion that he purposed to make his youngest son, John, his heir drove Richard to Philip's side. His father, broken in health and spirits, negotiated fruitlessly through ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... whoop! I have killed a grisly. My bear!" he shouted, and it was all in vain that the Big Tongue ran faster than even the Long Bear himself, for Two Arrows had the advantage of them. His lance was the first to be plunged into the dying monster, and the great brute tore up the sod around him for only ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... load that love on me did lay; In vain, and sleep for me is changed to wake alway. Whenas wanhope doth press my heart both night and day, I cry aloud, "O Fate, hold back thy hand, I pray. For all my soul is sick with dolour and dismay!" If but the Lord of Love were just indeed to me, Sleep had not fled mine ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... rest, it was not in vain that they invoked him; and if I should take upon me to relate the miracles which have been lately done through his intercession, they would take up another volume as large as this. Neither shall I go about to make a recital of what things were wrought in succeeding ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... acting as hinge in the upper part: it reminded me of the Grco-Roman townlets in the Haurn, where the credulous discovered "giant Cities" and similar ineptitudes. Our search for Midianite money was in vain; Mr. Clarke, however, picked up, near the sea, a silver "Taymr," the Moghal, with a curiously ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... When he had in vain consulted many craftsmen and builders, he sent, by the advice of the archbishop, for Merlin, and asked him what to do. "If you would honour the burying-place of these men," said Merlin, "with an everlasting ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... air melted a bit at the inference that my writing had not been in vain. "Where have you been published?" ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... constantly recurred, demanding to be solved, and refusing to be sent away unanswered. And still, after the lapse of ages, press upon the human mind and demand solution, the same great questions—perhaps still demanding it in vain. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... and the trailing robe through the turmoil of the street, Peace managed to land on the opposite walk without mishap, but how she ever did it was a marvel to the big, brawny policeman shouting warnings to them as he tried in vain to reach the little figures dodging so recklessly under horses' noses, in front of flying automobiles and across ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... mother of a girl but three months old, at the time this little stranger was left on her hands. A few weeks later her own child died; and having waited several months in vain for tidings from the Hedworth family, she had the surviving infant christened by the same name as that borne by her own daughter, and soon came to love it, as much, perhaps, as if she had borne it. Three years passed in this manner, when the time drew ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in the attitude of combat.]—Note by the Rev, Mr. Stewart of Douglas.] was in some sort rescued from the tumult by the Lady of Berkely, in whom the action seemed less strange, owing to the pilgrim's dress which she still retained, and who in vain endeavoured to solicit the attention of the boy's father to the task in which she ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... in reconstruction. The provisional legislatures formed at the close of the war were composed of white men only; but the experiment failed because of the short-sighted laws that were enacted. If the fruit of the Civil War was not to be lost, if all the sacrifice was not to prove in vain, it became necessary for Congress to see that the overthrow of slavery was final and complete. By the Fourteenth Amendment the Negro was invested with the ordinary rights and dignity of a citizen of the United ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... her slowly and sat down beside her. She drew away from him with a violent movement. But he laid his hand upon her knee—a shaking hand which his impatient will tried in vain to steady. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... two brothers d'Aubray expostulated with her by the medium of an older sister who was in a Carmelite nunnery, and the marquise perceived that her father had on his death bequeathed the care and supervision of her to her brothers. Thus her first crime had been all but in vain: she had wanted to get rid of her father's rebukes and to gain his fortune; as a fact the fortune was diminished by reason of her elder brothers, and she had scarcely enough to pay her debts; while the rebukes were renewed from the mouths of her brothers, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... produce the results. We can not sit down and fold our hands in idleness and expect things to work themselves out. We must be workers, not shirkers. The man who prays for a bountiful harvest but prepares no ground and plants no seed will pray in vain. Faith and works must go together. We must permit God to direct our efforts and command our efforts. We must be willing to work when he wants us to work and in the way he wants us to work. Our attempts to trust will amount to nothing if we are not willing to obey. ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... the party beheld a curious thing. Chris' pony had reached the edge of the grass and had stopped so suddenly as to nearly throw its rider over its head. In vain did the little negro apply whip and spur. Not a step further would the animal budge. They saw Chris at last throw the reins over the pony's head and leaping from his saddle plunge into the grass. Only the top of his head was visible but they could trace ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... established a school inside of the prison walls—found work for the idle hands of the women, and succeeded in forming a Committee of Ladies who were willing to help in the reformation of the female prisoners. It soon became evident that the labour was not in vain. A marked difference in the habits of the women was apparent. Instead of the riot and filth which were the accompaniments of idleness, order, neatness, and decency, were maintained. Nor did she rest ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... own path and I could not stop him. I hoped and thought he would get tired after a time of the Paris halls and drunken nights and sick headaches, but I waited in vain. He had gradually got intimate with the back as well as the front of the scenes, and this I liked less than anything. The state of Howard's finances, too, threw an extra weight of responsibility on me, for he must have trodden a straighter road, and perhaps he would ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... time they formed not the least considerable portion of the cabinet of Lord Grey, he resumed his seat on the ministerial benches. On that occasion an administrative post was offered him and declined; and on subsequent occasions similar requests to him to take office were equally in vain. Lord George, therefore, was an original and hearty supporter of the Reform Bill, and he continued to uphold the Whigs in all their policy until the secession of Lord Stanley, between whom and himself there subsisted warm personal as well as political sympathies. ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... another dreary and disheartening winter, and returned to France in the spring of 1542. His patron, De Roberval, who had failed to fulfil his intention to accompany him the preceding year, met him at St. John, Newfoundland. In vain Roberval urged and commanded him to retrace his course; but the resolute old navigator had too recent an experience and saw too clearly the inevitable obstacles to success in their undertaking to be diverted from his purpose. Roberval proceeded ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... prudence, and the intrigues of his friends to obtain what was necessary for the establishment of his new colony. Father d'Olbeau, on his side, spared nothing; both spoke frequently to the members of the company, but in vain, for these people, who always had their ears open to flattering tales of the great profit to be made in the Indian trade, closed them to the requests and entreaties made them. They therefore contented themselves with ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... determined that there should be no more of that boy and girl philandering since the object of it was gone; angry with herself for having suffered from it so much in the past, furious at its having been all in vain. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... quilted skirt, and sundry other articles were soon looked up and repaired to meet the poor creature's necessities—but shoes for the boys! The message had been very urgent upon that point. Shoes! shoes! any sort of shoes! Now our boys had, for the most part, grown up and departed, and in vain I rummaged through the garret—that receptacle of ancient treasures—for relics of the past, in the way of masculine shoes and boots. I was giving it up in despair, when suddenly an idea occurred to me. It had happened, in days long past, that a French ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... One searches in vain for some picture of sacred motherhood, as depicted in popular plays and motion pictures, something more normal and encouraging. Then one comes to the bitter realization that these, in very truth, are the "normal" cases, not the exceptions. ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... as we fought together; In vain: the little Christian band The pagans drown'd, as in stormy weather, The river drowns ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... and which suddenly blazed up again in the scattered squadrons. They paused—they looked at one another, "Death—death to the French!" they cried, and rushing upon them with irresistible fury, they drove back the veteran warriors into the fortress, defeated and in confusion. After this it was in vain that the French proposed terms of surrender. Heedless of the rules of war the young archers of Cacamo shot the Justiciary as he presented himself upon the walls, and, seeing him fall, the whole multitude rushed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... forty sat on his right—he promptly forgot her name each time he heard it—who ate fastidiously and chose birth-control as the subject for conversation. And he dodged it in vain, for her conversation had become a monologue, and he sat fiddling with his food, very red, while the silky voice, so agreeable in pitch and ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... neglected, and who was allowed to die in the depths of poverty and misery, is now the most honoured of his countrymen, and his rank as one of the world's great poets is universally acknowledged, his labours have been to a certain extent in vain. ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... the reach of spirit, or man, or heathen. His flesh remained the same, and grew not less; but that of Pierre wasted, and his eye grew darker with suffering. For man is only man, and hunger is a cruel thing. To give one's food to feed a fool, and to search the silent plains in vain for any living thing to kill, is a matter for angels to do and bear, and not mere mortals. But this man had a strength of his own like to his code of living, which was his own and not another's. And at last, when spring leaped gaily forth from the grey cloak of winter, and men ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... long been aware of Henry's intentions; every care had been taken to prevent communication between Catherine and her nephew, and a plot had been laid to kidnap a messenger she was sending in August to convey her appeal for protection. All was in vain, for the very day after Wolsey's court had opened in May, Mendoza wrote to Charles that Wolsey "as the finishing stroke to all his iniquities, had been scheming to bring about the Queen's divorce"; and on the 29th of July, some days ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... myself, I was lying in my own berth aboard the ship. I felt weak, faint, and dizzy, and strove in vain to collect my thoughts sufficiently to remember what had happened. My state-room door was open, and I perceived that the sun's rays were shining brightly through the sky-light upon the cabin-table, at which sat Capt. Hopkins, overhauling the medicine-chest, which was open before him. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... steel, her aid applied, "And stay, dear youth (she said), or with thee take Thy Lydia, thine alike in life or death!" At Lydia's name, at Lydia's well known voice, He strove again to raise his drooping head And ope his closing eye, but strove in vain, And on her trembling bosom sunk away. Now other fears distract his weeping friends: But short their grief! for soon his life return'd, And, with return of ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... "which open pastimes in my youth, being now suppressed, worser practices within doors are to be feared." In some parts of England they still trip it gaily in the moonlight. A clergyman in Gloucestershire tried to establish a cricket club in his parish, but his efforts were all in vain; the young men preferred to dance together on the village green, and the more manly diversion had no charms for them. Dancing was never absent from our ancestors' festivities, and round the ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... begging him to say just one word to her, but in vain. When the landlord saw that the stranger was to blame for the interruption in the work, he said: "Why don't you let my servant finish his work in peace? Don't you see he is dumb? Be kind enough to go away from here, if you are ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... ignorance of runes is the more to be deplored since it led to a carelessness and want of interest in the preservation of priceless relics, even among antiquaries. The stone which thus came into Camden's possession has utterly disappeared, and the inscription which he tried in vain to decipher, and which might have thrown light on a mysterious subject, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... he moaned and when Buckbee found him he was still calling down curses on the sex. In vain Buckbee begged him to pull himself together and get down to figures and facts, he brushed all the papers in a pile before him and told him to do it himself. Buckbee made memoranda and called up the bank, and then called up Stoddard himself; and ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... the solution of which had better not be attempted. It must, however, be acknowledged, that the seamen, on the occasion of the first mutiny, had just grounds of complaint, and that they did not proceed to acts of violence until repeated and humble remonstrance had been made in vain. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is satisfaction. He deceives himself so long as he imagines it to lie in self-indulgence, so long as he deems himself the center and object of effort. His mind is spent in vain upon itself. Not in action itself, not in "pleasure," shall it find its desires satisfied, but in consciousness of right, of powers greatly and nobly spent. It comes to know itself in the motives which satisfy ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... allowed to go on his way unobserved. But the half-dozen words in which Saracinesca had described Ugo's scheme for hindering Giovanni's marriage had set the Cardinal thinking, and the Cardinal seldom wasted time in thinking in vain. His interview with Saracinesca ended very soon, and the Prince and the statesman entered the crowded drawing-room and mixed in the throng. It was long before they met again ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... him how all the other boys Had homes to go to at the dinner-hour— While he—alas!—he had no home!—At least These very words seemed rising mockingly, Until his every thought smacked raw and sour And green and bitter as the apples he In vain essayed to stay his hunger with. Nor did he join the glad shouts when the boys Returned rejuvenated for the long Wet revel of the feverish afternoon.— Yet, bravely, as his comrades splashed and swam And spluttered, in their weltering merriment, He tried to laugh, too,—but his voice was hoarse ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... those who can never remember them without thinking of occasions of kindness and assistance neglected or disregarded. Many of them have perhaps left behind them widows and children struggling with adversity, and soliciting from us aid which we strive in vain ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... best to complete now the story of his journey of the mind. A reserved man tells more of himself indirectly than directly. Readers of the Autobiography complain that it is concerned with everything in the world except G. K. Chesterton. You can certainly search its pages in vain for any account of the process of his conversion: for that you must look elsewhere: in the poems to Our lady, in The Catholic Church and Conversion, in The Well and the Shallows, and in the letters ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... I said, whispering in vocal italics—you know how they do it—turning on her, perplexity on face, right hand down, left on brow. I knew quite well what she meant. I knew quite well the dramatic unreality of my behaviour. But I struggled against it in vain. "What do you mean?" I said, and, in a kind of hoarse ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... of old and sacred memories, seeking everywhere for the Redeemer, who had been once the dearest reality, the one object of love and life? The two sentry-angels, who sat, the one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain, sought in vain to comfort her. "Woman," they said, in effect, "there is no need for tears; didst thou but know, couldst thou but understand, thy heart would overflow with supreme joy, and thy tears become smiles." "They have taken away my Lord," she said, "and I know not where ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... Robin Oig, indeed, spoke the English language rather imperfectly upon any other topics but stots and kyloes, and Harry Wakefield could never bring his broad Yorkshire tongue to utter a single word of Gaelic. It was in vain Robin spent a whole morning, during a walk over Minch-Moor, in attempting to teach his companion to utter, with true precision, the shibboleth Llhu, which is the Gaelic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... thoughts to was the ship's boat, which lay on the high ridge of sand, where it had been thrust by the storm which had cast me on these shores. But it lay with the keel to the sky, so I had to dig the sand from it and turn it up with the help of a pole. When I had done this, I found it was all in vain, for I had not the strength to launch it. So all I could do now was to make a boat of less size out of a tree; and I found one that was just fit for it, which grew not far from the shore, but I could no more stir this than ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... England, the Frondeurs had to guide them no Hampden or Cromwell; they had at their backs neither people nor army; the English had been able to accomplish a revolution; the Fronde failed before the dexterous prudence of Mazarin and the queen's fidelity to her minister. In vain did the coadjutor aspire to take his place; Anne of Austria had not forgotten the Earl of Strafford.—Cardinal de Retz learned before long the hollowness of his hopes. On the 19th of December, 1652, as he was repairing to the Louvre, he was ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... from time to time, but endeavor'd rather to discourage his proceeding. One of Young's Satires was then just published. I copy'd and sent him a great part of it, which set in a strong light the folly of pursuing the Muses with any hope of advancement by them. All was in vain; sheets of the poem continued to come by every post. In the mean time, Mrs. T——, having on his account lost her friends and business, was often in distresses, and us'd to send for me, and borrow what I could spare to help her out of them. I grew fond of her company, and, being ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... back to poppy cultivation, Great Britain may feel at liberty to import opium again. If that happens, the whole vicious circle will be complete. All barriers will be down, and this whole long, ten-years' struggle will have been in vain. ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... Ammianus Marcellinus has it—the unmistakable visage of a Chinese woman. Whether they understood one word; what they thought of it all; whether they were there for any purpose save to see and be seen, were questions to which I tried in vain, after service, to get an answer. All that could be told was, that the richer Chinese take delight in thus bedizening their wives on high days and holidays; not with tawdry cheap finery, but with things really expensive, and worth what they cost, especially the silks and brocades; and ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... fogs, felo de ses, and Fawkes, has been ushered in with becoming ceremony at the Tower and at various other parts of the metropolis. In vain has an Act of Parliament been passed for the suppression of bonfires—November asserts her rights, and will have her modicum of "flare up" in spite of the law; but with the trickery of an Old Bailey barrister she has thrown the onus upon October. Nor is this all! Like a traitorous Eccalobeion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... hot season and rains of 1858 I suffered greatly from boils and feverishness. After applying in vain the usual means of cure prescribed, I was advised to try a sea voyage. I accordingly arranged to go down the Bay of Bengal to Point de Galle in Ceylon, and to await there the arrival of my wife from England, so as to return with her ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... reason seems almost a breach of the third clause of the Decalogue, remembering what is said to be its equivalent by one who of all men who have lived had the most intimate means of knowing. All work of reconstruction must be inspired by a spirit of true philanthropy; without that the labour is in vain. There is no other motive power that can move the world in the path of ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... better upon the flood, and five at low water: to whom I had given instructions that they should anchor at the edge of the shoal, and upon the best of the flood to thrust over, which shoal John Douglas buoyed and beckoned (beaconed) for them before. But they laboured in vain; for neither could they turn it up altogether so far to the east, neither did the flood continue so long, but the water fell ere they could have passed the sands. As we after found by a second experience: so as now we must either give over our enterprise, or leaving our ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... along the valley, carrying down acres of rock, soil, and pine-forests, into the stream. I saw one from Kampo Samdong, on the opposite flank of the valley, which swept over 100 yards in breadth of forest. I looked in vain for any signs of scratching or scoring, at all comparable to that produced by glacial action. The bridge at the Tuktoong, mentioned at chapter xix, being carried away, we had to ascend for 1000 ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... what was going forward in the forest beyond; indeed the occupants had certain problems of their own to absorb them. A strange unrest seemed in possession of the place. Decherd had disappeared for a time. Mrs. Ellison, in her own room, rang and called in vain for Delphine. The master himself, moody and aloof, took saddle and rode across the fields; but if there were fewer hands at labor than there should have been, he did not notice the fact as he rode on, his hat pulled down over his face, and his mind busy with many things, not all of ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... hatred (I pretend not To love the Duke, and have no cause to love him), Yet 'tis not now my hatred that impels me To be his murderer. 'Tis his evil fate. Hostile concurrences of many events Control and subjugate me to the office. In vain the human being meditates Free action. He is but the wire-work'd[31] puppet Of the blind Power, which out of its own choice Creates for him a dread necessity. What too would it avail him, if there were A something pleading for him in my heart— ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... They had tried in vain to check the bleeding. No one could have done more than Arthur had done, but a main artery had been injured, and nothing could have saved him. He had said nothing after the first cry, except when he saw Alured's grief. "Never mind; I'm glad it was not you." And once or twice, as they carried ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... before Thackeray got a general hearing Dickens had fame and mighty influence. It was in the eighteen thirties that the self-made son of an impecunious navy clerk, who did not live in vain since he sat for a portrait of Micawber and the father of the Marshalsea, turned from journalism to that higher reporting which means the fiction of manners and humors. All the gods had prepared him for ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... in his chair, as the trap in which he was caught revealed itself. Heavily his eyes searched Judge Hildreth's face for some sign of pity or relenting, but in vain. ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... works. They have been able to put trust in each other and trust in their Government. Their candor in dealing with foreign governments has commanded respect and confidence. Yet these remarkable powers would have been exerted almost in vain without the constant cooperation and careful administration ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... her frank comradeship, he regretted that she had let Ainley and the Indian depart without knowledge of her presence. Guessing that the lake was some sort of waterway between two points, daily, almost hourly, in the frequent absences of the girl, he scanned it for any sign of human presences, but in vain. The lake's surface was unbroken by the movement of canoe or boat; its shores showed no tell-tale column of smoke. They were indeed alone ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... pane was found uninjured. The company was nevertheless greatly concerned, and it was generally believed that some one's life had been attempted. Some present ran to the police, while the rest searched the adjoining houses;—but in vain; nothing was discovered that could excite the least suspicion. The next evening sentinels were stationed at all the neighbouring windows; the house itself, where Antonelli lived, was closely searched, and spies ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... Baron received an anonymous letter something to this effect: 'Monsieur de Nucingen is dying of love for an unknown lady; he has already spent a great deal utterly in vain; if he will repair at midnight to the end of the Neuilly Bridge, and get into the carriage behind which the chasseur he saw at Vincennes will be standing, allowing himself to be blindfolded, he will see the woman he ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... sound, too, to the Spanish, Italian, and other languages derived from the Latin, is certainly the best, and is likewise useful as facilitating the acquisition of sounds which the Englishman attempts in vain. Accordingly I wish the cockneyfied pedant who first disturbed it by reading Emo for Amo, and quy for qui, had choked in the attempt. But the question is, whether a youth who has been taught in ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... examined the engine in a professional manner; they did everything but take it down; they tried in vain all known devices to conquer the recalcitrancy of engines; and when they had reached despair and fury George, startlingly visited ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett |
