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More "Fruitless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his essay were fruitless, his project most probably being deemed the dream of a visionary. Still it continued to haunt his mind, and he would often talk of making an expedition to Aleppo some time or other, when his means were greater, to inquire into the arts peculiar to the East, and to bring home such ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... comparatively few kindergartners know its value; nevertheless knowledge of this kind can never be useless or fruitless to the person who is forming the mind of the child, and who should be a perfect mistress of her science ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... breathings, and those very gentle variations of the figures upon the wall, were but the natural effects of that customary rushing of the wind. But a deadly pallor, overspreading her face, had proved to me that my exertions to reassure her would be fruitless. She appeared to be fainting, and no attendants were within call. I remembered where was deposited a decanter of light wine which had been ordered by her physicians, and hastened across the chamber to procure it. But, as I ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... very, very sorry, Mr. Getz, that my visit has proved so fruitless. You don't realize what a mistake you ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... window, but no voice answered him either in sympathy or derision. Of all the people—now increased in numbers—collected in the street before Vetranio's palace, no one turned even to look on him. For days and days past, such fruitless appeals as his had been heard, and heard unconcernedly, at every hour and in every street of Rome—now ringing through the heavy air in the shrieks of delirium; now faintly audible in the last faltering ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... 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, and of keeping him ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... in the innate impotence of its administration. It can only take notice of formal and accidental defects therein and attempt to remedy them. If these modifications are fruitless, social crime must be a natural imperfection independent of mankind, a law of God, or else the dispositions of private individuals are too vitiated to second the good intentions of the administration. And what perverted ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... embrace and settle all the points in difference between us, which might bring us to a mutual understanding on our neutral and national rights and provide for a commercial intercourse on conditions of some equality. After long and fruitless endeavors to effect the purposes of their mission and to obtain arrangements within the limits of their instructions, they concluded to sign such as could be obtained and to send them for consideration, candidly declaring to the other negotiators at the same time that they were acting ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Thomas Jefferson • Thomas Jefferson
... admitted that the boyhood memories were hopelessly and altogether at fault in the deceptive moonlight. Blount gave the horse a breathing halt on one of the hogbacks and tried to reconstruct the puzzling hills into some featuring that he could remember. The effort was fruitless. He was very thoroughly ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... went and got me a cloak, put it over my shoulders, and offered to wake up Mme. Arnould to see if a vehicle could be obtained; but I would hear of nothing, convinced as I was that I should lose, in a perhaps fruitless inquiry, more time than I should take to cover half the road. Besides, I felt the need of air and physical fatigue in order to cool down the over-excitement ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... After long and fruitless attempts to reason her into a different state of mind, the father went in search of the husband. He found him irritated and mortified. He loved his wife, in his way, for her personal beauty. He was very proud of her; he was piqued to the last degree by her frankness. He could not but acknowledge ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... good opportunity to get three things he wanted,—a wife, a fortune, and the French crown. The King of France and his most powerful rival, the Duke of Burgundy, had each a daughter. To make sure of one of them, Henry secretly proposed to both. After long and fruitless negotiations the French King declined to grant the enormous dowry which the English King demanded. The latter gladly interpreted this refusal as equivalent to a ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... "No fruitless toils! No brainless broils! Each moment levell'd at the mark! Our day so short Invites to sport; Be sad ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... innocent, and to thir thoughts Firm peace recoverd soon and wonted calm. 210 On to thir mornings rural work they haste Among sweet dewes and flours; where any row Of Fruit-trees overwoodie reachd too farr Thir pamperd boughes, and needed hands to check Fruitless imbraces: or they led the Vine To wed her Elm; she spous'd about him twines Her mariageable arms, and with her brings Her dowr th' adopted Clusters, to adorn His barren leaves. Them thus imploid beheld With ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... thus that we shall ever find, in the labours of man, one half fruitless, by the side of another moiety profitable; we shall then no longer condemn the curiosity which leads to knowledge; we shall acknowledge that, if the human mind often wanders in its path, if it has not ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... inscrutable points in the nature of some women—in spite of all, she had loved her great, strong, brutal, bullying husband, and probably was only jealous of the gold because he had showed too plainly that in his estimation it, and not she, came first. Her days, unhappy enough before, were now spent in fruitless misery, waiting for him who returned never again. A year and a day passed, and still no tidings came to her of Bryan de Blenkinsopp. The deserted wife could bear no longer her life in this alien country, and she, too, with all her ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... young hunter had no ear to such whisper of prudence or mercy. Dim and blind in the fissure, he struck the ground and the tree with his stick, shouted out, bade the eyes gleam, and defied them. Whether or not the reptile had spent its ire in the first fruitless spring, and this unlooked-for return of the intruder rather daunted than exasperated, we leave those better versed in natural history to conjecture; but instead of obeying the challenge and courting the contest, it glided by the sides of the oak, close ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... present condition, his mind was not wholly occupied with Augusta Mildmay. The evil words which had been spoken to him of Mary had not been altogether fruitless. His cousin Adelaide had told him over and over again that Lady George was as other women,—by which his cousin had intended to say that Lady George was the same as herself. Augusta Mildmay had spoken of his Phoenix in the same strain. The Marquis had ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... foolish, that Judd," grumbled Friday, seeing that the search had been fruitless. "He think maybe he can ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... house is the receptacle for Chowles's plunder. Besides, we should not have found the lantern burning if they had gone forth again. No, no; they must be hidden somewhere, and I will not quit the place till I find them." Their search, however, was fruitless. They mounted to the garrets, opened every door, and glanced into every corner. Still, no one was ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... about them is some people's greatest hindrance. "They will think I want to push myself ahead"; "They will think some one else ought to do it"; they will think this, or they will think that, and so fear of what people will say closes the mouth and ties the hands, rendering life fruitless. The thing that ought to concern us is, "What will God think if we do not do it?" It is to him we must give account. It is his approval we should seek. If he approves, what others think is a small matter. Are we not willing to ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... failed him, trying to force everything and always meeting with obstacles, he displayed indeed the courage and endurance of a good commander, but his undertakings produced him neither fame nor good opinion, and even the reputation that he had he came very near losing by his want of success and his fruitless disputes. Lucullus himself was in no small degree the cause of all this; for he was not a man who tried to gain the affection of the soldiery, and he considered everything that was done to please the men as a disparagement to the general's power, and as tending to destroy it. But, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... command, Let us not strive, nor labour to withstand What is past help. The longest date of grief Can never yield a hope of our relief: Fold back our arms; take home our fruitless loves, That must new fortunes try, like turtle-doves Dislodged from their haunts. We must in tears Unwind a love knit up in many years. In this last kiss I here surrender thee Back to thyself.—So, thou again art free: Thou in another, sad as that, resend The truest heart that lover ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... near. Between him and Margie there was no semblance of affection. Her coldness never varied, and after a few fruitless attempts to excite in her some manifestation of interest, he took his cue from her, and was ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... ascertain the manner of my unfortunate mother's fate. Both abroad and in England, I had sought tidings of her everywhere, but in vain; in mentioning my mother's retiring into a convent, you have explained the reason why my efforts were so fruitless. With these two objects in view, I thought myself more likely to learn the whole truth as a stranger than in my proper person; for in the latter case, I deemed it probable that your delicacy and kindness ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... during the War of 1812, the title was for many years lost sight of, and the farm was covered over by other claims and by occupants. As St. Louis began to grow, his brothers and sisters, and their descendants, concluded to look up the property. After much and fruitless litigation, they at last retained Mr. Stoddard, of Dayton, who in turn employed Mr. Ewing, and these, after many years of labor, established the title, and in the summer of 1851 they were put in possession by the United States marshal. The ground was laid off, the city survey extended over ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... act falls fruitless; none can tell How vast its power may be; Nor what results enfolded ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... never exceeded two hundred and fifty horse and three hundred foot, and of this number the chief work had beer done by the fifty or sixty volunteers and their followers. The heroism which had been displayed was fruitless, except as a proof—and so Leicester wrote to the Palatine John Casimir—"that Spaniards were not invincible." Two thousand men now sallied from the Loor Gate under Verdugo and Tassis, to join the force under Vasto, and the English were ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... conjecturing each step taken by our friend towards the coast, wishing and praying that no sickness might lay him up, no accident befall him, and no unlooked-for combinations of circumstances render his kind intentions vain or fruitless. Mr. Stanley had got over the tendency to the continued form of fever which is the most dangerous, and was troubled only with the intermittent form, which is comparatively safe, or I would not have allowed him, but would have accompanied ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... Duke of, grandson of preceding; at 15 he became archbishop of Rheims, but the death of his brother placed him in the dukedom (1640); he opposed Richelieu, was condemned to death, but fled to Flanders; with Masaniello he made a fruitless attempt to seize the kingdom of Naples, and eventually settled in Paris, becoming grand-chamberlain ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... After fruitless angling for a husband—the Duc de Guise, the Prince de Joinville, and many another who, with one consent, fled from her advances, she resigned herself to a life of obscurity and gluttony, until death came, one day in the year ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... considered less than his due, having come about a mile, he took his own part in a manner most edifying in one so young; and had the retainers of our party not been as well provided as he, I believe he would have pistolled the whole of us. At length, finding his efforts fruitless, he sprang on the pony, and putting her to her best pace, was soon out of sight. About the same time we fell in with two monks from the convent of Bercelli, who were on their way to pay their respects to the Vladika. This was fortunate, as we had intended to sleep there. These ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... he feared, Philippe," he said. "Then if I can get no justice for this deed, at least it shall be fruitless to him. The thing he feared in you, he shall fear in me. He feared that men might be swayed by your eloquence to the undoing of such things as himself. Men shall be swayed by it still. For your eloquence and your arguments shall be my heritage from you. I ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... the neighboring State of Peru, owing to the onerous duties levied on our principal articles of export, has been on the decline, and all endeavors to procure an alteration have hitherto proved fruitless. With Bolivia we have yet no diplomatic intercourse, and the continual contests carried on between it and Peru have made me defer until a more favorable period the appointment of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... moment's pause or hesitation, they cast themselves upon their miserable comrade; and, though he struggled furiously, and struck down two or three of the foremost, and shouted himself hoarse, in fruitless efforts to explain, he was secured, and bound and gagged, within a shorter time than is required ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... feeling of ill-will, and a desire to tease his brother, by placing him in an awkward and embarrassing situation—one in which he would be compelled either to interrupt the game by refusing to obey the orders of the king, or to expose himself to ridicule by making a fruitless attempt to sing ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... the request of the committee. The persons so arrested were taken before Justice Black, of Daviess County, and examined; witnesses were examined for both parties, and much hard and false swearing was done on both sides. After a long and fruitless examination the committee adjourned, leaving the military to look after matters until something would turn up to change the feeling of danger then existing. It was thought by the committee that all would soon become quiet and peace would ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... sufferings of the poor,—given some vivid pictures of life in England as it was in those days, before the repeal of the Corn Laws had mitigated a little the sufferings of the dependent masses; and had expressed some human sympathy with all this fruitless pain, and a manly indignation at some forms of atrocious wrong. But there was nothing in his teaching of the people which should have given offence to the veriest conservative. The main burden of it was that "workingmen ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... over and back were fruitless as far as his object was concerned. But just as the Allawanda was about to pull out for her third voyage across the inlet, there came on board a woman, with a shawl so closely wrapped about her that her features were completely hidden. There were only a few oil lamps on the old-fashioned ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... imagine you can defy us thus?" she cried, laying an almost brutal grip upon the girl's arm, as she arose to abandon, for the time, her apparently fruitless task. "No, indeed! You will find to your cost that you have stronger wills than your ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... talk of London, of this place, and of every place in the whole kingdom, is of our great, expensive, and yet fruitless expedition; I have seen an officer who was there, a very sensible and observing man: who told me that had we attempted Rochfort, the day after we took the island of Aix, our success had been infallible; but that, after we had sauntered ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... from that fruitless clumping he had a broad grin on his face. He saw that while Dick was not yet over the goal line, only the fullback was in the way and the fullback was no match for Dick in ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... the building of a railroad, instead of a canal, across New York State from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, and for several years this indefatigable spirit journeyed from town to town and from State to State, in a fruitless effort to push his favorite scheme. The great success of the Erie Canal was finally hailed as a conclusive argument against all the ridiculous claims made in favor of the railroad and precipitated a canal mania which spread ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... the last clue had brought her nowhere; she followed the new one as passionately as the old, and told her breathless pupils that their feet must not be weary, for they were treading the path of progress; that these apparently fruitless excursions into the domain of knowledge all served as so many milestones in their glorious ascent of the ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... before he left home, he was not only thinking of her, but trying to marshal in order what arguments he might use,—so as to convince her at last. He did not at all understand how utterly fruitless his arguments had been with her. When Mrs. Roden had told him of Marion's strength he had only in part believed her. In all matters concerning the moment Marion was weak and womanly before him. When he told ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... from Bahia was set fine weather. A few flying-fish made fruitless attempts to rise from the surface of the sea, attracting but little attention from the sea-gulls which sat looking wistfully across the unbroken deep with ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... cigar had gone out; he lit it with much ceremony, and when he began to speak again the irritation was gone from his voice, and it had once more its contemplatively nasal tone. "The discussion here is probably fruitless, we are neither of us sufficiently objective in this matter. I therefore regret having ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... numerous and powerful artillery, and beat off all the efforts of Lee and Jackson and Longstreet and the two Hills, and Armistead and the others. More than five thousand of the Southern troops fell in the fruitless charges. Then McClellan retreated to the James River and his gunboats and the forces of the North were not to come as near Richmond again ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... many of the Moors had fled, a company of volunteers. With these, and a further reinforcement of sixty sailors, the little fort held out till 7 o'clock in the evening, when the English, after three fruitless assaults, ceased fire and withdrew. Street fighting is always confusing, and hence the following vague description of the day's events from Captain ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... went up the quiet trail with the thick shadows all around me and the cold stars overhead; and I was sober in thought, sick at heart for him as much as for myself, and I tortured my mind in fruitless conjecture as to what the end of this strange and fateful ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... it before they were within its reach. It likewise happens frequently that whales come too near the stream, and are overpowered by its violence; and then it is impossible to describe their howling and bellowings in their fruitless struggles to disengage themselves. A bear once, attempting to swim from Lofoden to Moskoe, was caught by the stream and borne down, while he roared terribly, so as to be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and pine trees, after being absorbed ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the representatives of the different American nations have been learning to work together effectively, for, while the First Conference in Washington in 1889, and the Second Conference in Mexico in 1901-2, occupied many months, with much time wasted in an unregulated and fruitless discussion, the Third Conference at Rio exhibited much of the facility in the practical dispatch of business which characterizes permanent deliberative bodies, and completed its labors within the period of six weeks originally ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Reserve Brigade of the 14th Division, who had only reached bivouacs near Poperinghe at three in the morning, returned and made a gallant but fruitless counter-attack to recover the lost trenches. Could it have been expected that men, who had been in the trenches for a week, marched back during the night no less than 12 miles, only to turn once more, ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... ogre was feeling very tired after so much fruitless marching (for seven-league boots are very fatiguing to their wearer), and felt like taking a little rest. As it happened, he went and sat down on the very rock beneath which the little boys were hiding. Overcome with weariness, he had not sat there long before he fell asleep ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... long-abandoned mystery, threshing over the old, dry chaff of it. It was in the chapel of this house of the Little Sisters of Samaria that Robbins and Dumars had stood during that eager, fruitless news search of theirs, and looked upon the gilded statue of ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... relate to you, Sir, that the French fleet which you put to flight on the 12th went through the Mona Channel on the 18th, only the day before I was in it." That sustained vigorous chase could not have been fruitless is further shown by the fact that Rodney himself, deliberately as he moved, apparently lying-to each night of the first half-dozen succeeding the battle, reached Jamaica three days only after the main body of the defeated French gained Cap Francois, though they had ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... inquiry from your husband concerning the originals of some photographs he sent to a detective agency in New York. They have had the case for years, and recognizing the pictures as a clue, they telegraphed Mr. Herron. The prospect of news after years of fruitless searching so prostrated Mrs. Herron that he dared not leave her, and ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... and—what was that that came over Elinor's face as she sank back into the corner of her carriage, not knowing her mother's anxious look followed her still—what was it? Oh, dreadful, dreadful life! oh, fruitless love and longing!—was it relief? The mother tried to get that look out of her mind as she drove silently and slowly home, creeping up hill after hill. There was no need to hurry. All that she was going to was an empty and silent house, where ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... mysterious machinery are we human beings filled—machinery that is in motion all the while, whether we are aware of it or not—that now, with some part of my mind, and with my pencil assisting, I composed several stanzas to my kingly ancestor, the goal of my fruitless search; and yet during the whole process of my metrical exercise I was really thinking and wondering about John Mayrant, his ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... Leclerc, after fruitless efforts to conquer the colony, was himself carried off by the yellow fever. Rochambeau succeeded him by right of seniority, and was as unsuccessful as Menou had been in Egypt. The submission of the blacks, which could only have been obtained by conciliation, he endeavoured ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... strain was stronger than the wolf. Their language was that of their mother. The only trace of wolf parentage was shown in their greater size and the dark fur of their backs. Breed's search for his old enemy proved fruitless. Many things of which Breed was unaware had taken place on his old home range since he had left it, and Flatear, terrified by the latest of these events, had slunk away to ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... same category, which, if all were present, would assume the serial order of B C D E F. When one or more of them are omitted from the series, there occurs anatomical variety, which of course occasions variety in opinion, fruitless though never ending. By that interpretation of the parts which I here venture to offer, and to which I am guided by considerations of a higher law of formation, I encompass and bind together, as with a belt, all the ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... It is perhaps fruitless to attempt to turn the tide of common sentiment, and gentlemen must be permitted to choose their own money's worth. They may think and say that they want the volume as it left the author's hands, not diluted ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... fruitless attempts, the visitors took leave of the happy bride, who was thereupon locked up again by her jealous husband, and left to her own resources ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... lives in the east; Ku, who builds, and Lono, who directs. These three gods in one, who had existed from the beginning, created light; next they built the three heavens; they then made the earth, sun, moon, and stars. The angels were spat from their mouths, and after the fruitless or experimental creation of Welahilana and Owe, the chief god, Kane, with his saliva, mixed with red earth, made the first man, Kumuhonua, and from his rib took the first woman, Keolakuhonua. These parents of the race were put into a beautiful ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... no rest. We cannot turn again Back to the world and all her fruitless pain, Having once sought the ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... conceive no greater exercise in folly—one would conclude that he never failed, that he always held the strings by which his puppets were constrained to dance, and that he could pluck them from their games and shut them within his black box whenever he grew wearied of their fruitless sport. He trumpets his successes, but he never speaks of his failures—he buries them so deeply that he forgets them himself. He veils his plans, movements, and personal appearance in a fog of mystery. None, not even his closest associates, know what he would be at until a job is completely ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... seen together that day about town by many, for the story of their courtship was still veiled in mystery and afforded ground for the widest speculation, while that of their difficulties, and such particulars as de Spain's fruitless efforts to conciliate Duke Morgan and Duke's open threats against de Spain's life were widely known. All these details made the movement and the fate of the young couple the object ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... she had rejected at least half a dozen offers of marriage and she guessed if there was any watching to be done it would have to be done by the opposite sex. (As Miss Miller had repeatedly alluded to these fruitless masculine manifestations, Mrs. Pollock merely sniffed,—and afterwards confided to Miss Molly Dowd her belief that if any one had ever asked Angie Miller to marry him she'd be a grandmother by this time.) From this, it may be correctly surmised that Miss ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... reached Scaurnose he found Phemy's parents in a sad state. Joseph had returned that morning from a fruitless search in a fresh direction, and reiterated disappointment seemed to have at length overcome Annie's endurance, for she had taken to her bed. Joseph was sitting before the fire on a three legged stool rocking himself to and fro in a dull agony. When he heard Malcolm's voice, he ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... preserves, and causing him great trouble with counter-suits and involved claims. His hatred of the community had even united him with the priest because he was on terms of permanent hostility with the mayor. But his relations with the Church turned out as fruitless as his struggles with the State. The priest was a kindly old soul who bore a certain resemblance to Renan, and seemed interested only in getting alms for his poor out of Don Marcelo, even carrying his good-natured boldness so far as ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... people may imagine. First of all, it was necessary to awaken the girl, who had fallen asleep with her face on the kitchen table; this took a little time, and, even when she did answer the bell, another quarter of an hour was consumed in fruitless endeavors to impart to her a faint and distant glimmering of reason. The man to whom the order for the oysters had been sent, had not been told to open them; it is a very difficult thing to open an oyster ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... Boy! forever lov'd, for ever dear, What fruitless tears have wash'd thy honour'd bier; What sighs re-echoed to thy parting breath, Whilst thou wert struggling in the pangs of death. Could tears have turn'd the tyrant in his course, Could sighs have check'd his dart's relentless force; Could ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... unattainable. But the financial and social difficulties which yearly increase may result in such dangers that governments must be compelled after immense sacrifices to do what it would be wiser to do to-day—namely, to abandon a fruitless competition. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... by the grace of Thy Holy Spirit. Give me virtue to be strengthened with might in the inner man, and to free my heart from all fruitless care and trouble, and that I be not drawn away by various desires after any things whatsoever, whether of little value or great, but that I may look upon all as passing away, and myself as passing away with them; because there is no profit under the ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... unfortunately those fine fishes, breams, eels and angel-fish, which show themselves so readily through the limpid wave, are not as easy to catch as to see. Under the surface, almost at a level with the water, there is a ledge of rocks, upon which the net cannot be managed. After several fruitless attempts, he is obliged to content himself with the insignificant employment of fishing with a line; a nail flattened, sharpened and bent, performs the office of a hook. Success ensues, but only with time and patience; ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... the floor, below the stony foundation of that gigantic palace, from the depths of a dark damp grave, a voice piteously cried and implored me: "Oh, rescue me! Break through these doors of hard illusion, deathlike slumber and fruitless dreams, place by your side on the saddle, press me to your heart, and, riding through hills and woods and across the river, take me to the warm radiance of ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... search alone, the ground being in such a state that the delicately-mounted jewel ran great risk of being trodden into the snow and thus injured or lost. They humored him for a moment, then, seeing that his efforts bade fair to be fruitless, my son insisted upon joining him, and the two looked the ground over, inch by inch, from the place where Mr. Deane had set foot to ground in alighting from his carriage to the exact spot where he had stood when he had finally seized hold of the horse. But no ruby. Then Harrison ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... A fruitless service. Sibylla rejected it. She wanted neither water nor anything else, were all the thanks Lionel received, querulously spoken. He laid the glass upon the table, and, sitting down by her side in all patience, he set himself to the work of soothing her, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... lent:— We that did nothing study but the way To love each other, with which thoughts the day Rose with delight to us, and with them set, Must learn the hateful art, how to forget! —Fold back our arms, take home our fruitless loves, That must new fortunes try, like turtle doves Dislodged from their haunts. We must in tears Unwind a love knit up in many years. In this one kiss I here surrender thee Back to thyself: so ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... wish to succeed in shooting the heron must approach him entirely unseen, and by stratagem." "Extremely suspicious and shy," says Audubon. "Unless under very favorable circumstances, it is almost hopeless to attempt to approach it. To walk up towards one would be a fruitless adventure." Dr. Brewer's language is to the same effect,—"At all times very vigilant and ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... cries, His whip and spur each desperate rider plies; The prescient coursers foaming, cheek by jowl, Now see the stand and guess th' approaching goal; True to their blood, and frantic still to win, Goaded, they fly, and spent, will not give in; Exactly matched, with fruitless efforts strain In rival speed, a single inch to gain. Once more, the fluttering Spencers urge the goad, Bend o'er their saddles, lift them, light their load Just at the goal—one spur and it is done! The rowel'd Red ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... open our eyes fully, and look this matter dispassionately in the face. Let us try and ascertain whether we are in reality deceiving ourselves and waging a vain and fruitless war against our exasperated and misguided brethren of the South. We know they have instituted a causeless rebellion, which has brought unnumbered woes upon our common country. But if we cannot restore the Union, and reestablish one great and powerful nationality ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... aft heavily toward the deck-house, and Dampier watched him with a smile of comprehension, for he was a man who had in his time made many fruitless efforts, and bravely faced defeat. After all, it is possible that when the final reckoning comes some failures ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... and cf. Metaphysics, 1st ed., p. 109) falls foul of Plotinus for this argument. "The reality of the external world is utterly severed from our senses. It is vain to call the eye sunlike, as if it needed a special occult power to copy what it has itself produced: fruitless are all mystic efforts to restore to the intuitions of sense, by means of a secret identity of mind with things, a reality outside ourselves." Whether the subjective idealism of this sentence is consistent with the subsequent ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... Piedmont was abandoned, the Mantuan, the Milanese, the Modenese, Parmasan, and Montferrat, yielded up. This Queen also brought about the strict union between England and Scotland, after sundry fruitless attempts of the same kind for a century past. In short, the successes of her reign justly denominate her one of the most triumphant Monarchs of former ages, and her piety and virtue will ever be acknowledged by the British nation. The four last ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... blessings of a temperate; and well-spent life; it induces a thoughtful reflection that a life of goodness alone insures an end of peace. The holly, the mistletoe, the ivy, the acorn shell, the leafless branch, and the fruitless vine encircle the brow-fit emblems of the period which marks an exchange of time for eternity. All the figures are rendered complete by a carved lion's foot, at the bottom of each, and above the feet is a connecting frame, to make that portion of the stand perfect. Between the figures ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... 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 ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... steam engine. Want of water-power proved a serious difficulty at Soho. He wrote to a friend, "The enormous expense of the horse-power" (it was also irregular and sometimes failed) "put me upon thinking of turning the mill by fire. I made many fruitless experiments on ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... impolite in that. Perhaps he wasn't European in his manners," suggested Mrs. Mortimer dryly. She had evidently arisen in the grasp of a mood, not uncommon with her, when an apparently causeless irritability drove her to say things for which she afterward suffered an honest but fruitless remorse. Dr. Melton had recently evolved for this characteristic of hers one of the explanations which the Emerys found so enigmatic. "Marietta," he said critically, "is in a perpetual state of nervous irritation from eye-strain. She has naturally excellent and normal eyesight, but she ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... the weight of their usurped authority; he would 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
... no longer the same man who had displayed such coolness at the commencement of the interview. Exhausted by his efforts and by a struggle that had lasted for weeks, costing him so much fruitless energy, he was now trembling; and clinging to Don Luis, with one of his knees on the chair beside which Don ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... consciously turn out bad stuff, but, since Maisie did not care even for his best, it were better not to do anything at all save wait and mark time between Sunday and Sunday. Torpenhow was disgusted as the weeks went by fruitless, and then attacked him one Sunday evening when Dick felt utterly exhausted after three hours' biting self-restraint in Maisie's presence. There was Language, and Torpenhow withdrew to consult the Nilghai, who had come it to talk ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... taking a bias under the prejudice of false rules, never arrives at a knowledge of the true nature of quantity; and accordingly we find that all attempts hitherto to settle the prosody of our language, have been vain and fruitless."—Sheridan's Rhetorical ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... disaster; he rode with lightening speed hither and thither, commanding, ordering, nay imploring too; but already the night was falling, the confusion became each moment more inextricable, and the effort was a fruitless one. A regiment of the Guards, and two batteries were in reserve behind Planchenoit; he threw them rapidly into position; but the overwhelming impulse of flight drove the mass upon them, and they were carried away upon the torrent ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... much as make coffins for those that died, so, after a while, the fury of the infection appeared to be so increased, that, in short, they shut up no houses at all. It seemed enough that all the remedies of that kind had been used till they were found fruitless, and that the plague spread itself with an irresistible fury; so that, as the fire the succeeding year spread itself and burnt with such violence that the citizens in despair gave over their endeavors to extinguish it, so in the plague it came at last to ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... Hernando del Pulgar overturned some, cut down others, rejoined his companions, who still maintained possession of the gate by dint of hard fighting, and all made good their retreat to the camp. The Moors were at a loss to imagine the meaning of this wild and apparently fruitless assault; but great was their exasperation, on the following day, when the trophy of hardihood and prowess, the "Ave Maria" was discovered thus elevated in bravado in the very centre of the city. The mosque thus boldly sanctified by Hernando del Pulgar was actually consecrated ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... impudence for one of Perron's compatriots to retort the charge upon the English, to whom Shah Alam was indebted for such brief gleams of good fortune as he had ever enjoyed, and whose only offence against him had been a fruitless attempt to withhold him from that premature return to Dehli, which had been the beginning of his worst misfortunes. It was, moreover, a gross exaggeration to call the British the Diwans of the empire now, whatever may have once been their titular position in Bengal. On the 6th of July Lord ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... said, and 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 Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... building a new draining system at the lake for Messrs. Parke and Van Buren. They did all they could to try and avert the disaster by digging a sluiceway on one side to ease the pressure on the dam, but their efforts were fruitless. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... mine, my pride and joy prevent in no manner my taking the whole consolation of it at once, now—I will be confident that, if I obey you, I shall get no wrong for it—if, endeavouring to spare you fruitless pain, I do not eternally revert to the subject; do indeed 'quit' it just now, when no good can come of dwelling on it to you; you will never say to yourself—so I said—'the "generous impulse" has worn itself out ... time is doing his ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... 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.
... BACON'S "suspected novelties" were of this nature; his recognition of the value of the writings of non-Christian moralists was, no doubt, another "suspected novelty". Appeals for his release directed to the Pope proved fruitless, being frustrated by JEROME D'ASCOLI, General of the Franciscan Order, who shortly afterwards succeeded to the Holy See under the title of NICHOLAS IV. The latter died in 1292, whereupon RAYMOND GAUFREDI, who had been elected General of the Franciscan Order, and who, it is thought, was well disposed ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... lost tales of savage wars; And you have known the desert sands, The camp beneath the silver stars, The rush at dawn of Arab bands, The fruitless toil, the hopeless dream, The fainting feet, the faltering breath, While Gordon by the ancient stream Waited at ease ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... mention of the rock in the ravine brought out the story of the Trail of the Seven Cedars and the fruitless search for Indian relics. The judge listened to the tale with a peculiar expression of interest. "By the way," he said casually, when they had finished, "did you know that I happen to own that ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... not a few ordained ministers who cannot read or write, and many more who know very little of God's Word. One such recently sought ordination, and when asked to find the book of Jude, he replied, after a fruitless search, "That book is torn out of my Bible and I can't find it." He was ordained just the same. Our friends may be sure, however, that the leaven has been cast into the meal, and in due time will leaven the mass. But, oh, the darkness, the moral corruption, the sorrow and ruin that comes from ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 1, March, 1898 • Various
... which might be said to this effect, to ease their afflicted minds, what comfort our best divines can afford in this case, Zanchius, Beza, &c. This furious curiosity, needless speculation, fruitless meditation about election, reprobation, free will, grace, such places of Scripture preposterously conceived, torment still, and crucify the souls of too many, and set all the world together by the ears. To avoid which inconveniences, and to settle their distressed minds, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... 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
... 1777, a vessel from Rochelle, laden with salt, and manned by eight hands, with two passengers on board, was discovered making for the pier of Dieppe. The wind was at the time so high, and the sea so boisterous, that a coasting pilot made four fruitless attempts to get out, and conduct the vessel into port. Boussard, a bold and intrepid pilot, perceiving that the helmsman was ignorant of his dangerous position, endeavoured to direct him by a speaking trumpet and signals; but the captain could neither ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... in the long and fruitless search, and at length, tired out, Odin took from his pocket an auger, wherewith holes are bored, and bade the giant use his great strength to drill a hole through the ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... city. In the course of a long siege, thousands of Romans died of plague and famine, and only a heavy ransom, amounting to $1,575,000, relieved the citizens from their terrible situation in the year 409. In the same year Alaric again besieged Rome, after fruitless negotiations with Honorius, and his attempt once more proving successful, he created Attilus, prefect of the city, emperor. But the imprudent measures of his puppet sovereign exasperated Alaric. Attilus was formally deposed in 410, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... good husband and amiable wife. They strove to 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
... these things go," a whispering voice urged upon me, "as once those vast unmeaning Saurians whose bones encumber museums came and went rejoicing noisily in fruitless lives."... ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... last, and taking off her watch went through the nightly task of wondering where she had put the key after using it last. It was not until she had twice made a fruitless tour of the room with the candle that she remembered that she had left ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... matter of physical impossibility to find out where she lived. Thus were they hopelessly sinking, day by day, into all the bitter waves of want. Not but that Henry strived, as we have seen, and shall yet see: still his endeavours had been very nearly fruitless—and, perchance, till all available moveables had been pawned outright, very feeble too. Now, however, that Maria, in her sorrow and her need, must soon become a mother, the state of things grew terrible indeed; their horizon was all over ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... louder, Though every leaf, these trees bear, were an Echo, And summon'd in your best friends to redeem you, It should be fruitless: 'tis not that I love you, Or value those delights you prize so high, That I'le enjoy you, a French crown will buy More sport, and a companion, to whom, You in your best trim are ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... harmonize history, philosophy, ethics, and politics, subordinating them all to the art of poetry. The plan is grand but impracticable, and except for the original moral interpretation, to which in the earlier books the incidents are skilfully adapted, it is fruitless as one reads to undertake to follow the allegories. Many readers are able, no doubt, merely to disregard them, but there are others, like Lowell, to whom the moral, 'when they come suddenly upon it, gives ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... ninety eighth fragment. "To those who descend from a fruitless and ill starred life Persephone [the Queen of the Dead] will grant a compensation for their former misfortune, after eight years [the judicial period of atonement and lustration for great crimes] granting them their lives again. Then, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... is true that he shut out the Catholics from the pale of his charity and barely tolerated the Dissenters. The idea of entire religious liberty and equality shocked even his moderate degree of sensitiveness. He met Penn at the court of the Prince of Orange, and, after a long and fruitless effort to convince the Dissenter that the penal laws against the Catholics should be enforced, and allegiance to the Established Church continue the condition of qualification for offices of trust and honor, and that he and his friends should rest contented ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... only its outward ears to deluge, while it unfolds and pursues some other thoughts within; so they find neither hearers to attend to them, nor credit them. They say those that are prone to Venus are commonly barren: so the prating of talkative people is ineffectual and fruitless. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... prophecy, and testify to the degenerate people at once the cause, the suddenness, and the certainty of their destruction! Let us join, then, the Master and His disciples, as they stand on the crest above Bethany, and, gazing on that fruitless leaf-bearer, "hear this parable of ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... in climate, in food, or the like, did not take place and had nothing to do with the matter. It was no case of what is commonly called adaptation to circumstances; but, to use a conveniently erroneous phrase, the variations arose spontaneously. The fruitless search after final causes leads their pursuers a long way; but even those hardy teleologists, who are ready to break through all the laws of physics in chase of their favourite will-o'-the-wisp, may be puzzled to discover what purpose could be attained ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... men returned from their fruitless search. Then a litter was improvised and Boris was placed upon it and taken away. Fred had been very fearful for it had seemed more than likely to him that a sentry would be left to watch the wreck. If that had been done, it would have complicated his position, ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... have absolutely no heart at all," sobbed that lachrymose lady, as she mingled tears and sniffles with fruitless efforts ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... was invited by Mark Lemon to apply to the Governors of Charterhouse for the gift of an admission into "Gown-boys" for the son of the great draughtsman who had been so good a friend. After many fruitless efforts he was at length successful, and received the welcome present from the hands of Lord John Russell—as is set forth elsewhere. On the death of Lemon, Mr. Silver severed ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... not last, and they then had to contend not only against the wind, 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 all the captains on board, when he proposed ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... present, for the delight of collecting curious specimens, for the exercise of ingenuity in detecting the secret methods of Nature, for the gratification of arranging facts or objects in regular series, is an innocent and not a fruitless pursuit. Many persons are born with a natural instinct for it, and with special aptitudes which may even constitute a kind of genius. We should do honor to such power wherever we find it; honor according to its kind and its degree; but not affix ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... "The old system of discipline may be described in general as consisting of a series of minor punishments for various petty offences, while the more extreme measure of separating a student from College seems not to have been usually adopted until long forbearance had been found fruitless, even in cases which would now be visited in all American colleges with speedy dismission. The chief of these punishments named in the laws are imposition of school exercises,—of which we find little notice after the first foundation of the College, but which we believe yet exists in the colleges ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... make any impression on them. The next day they removed into the harbour and struck their top-masts. We cruised between Capes di Gata and Palos for a fortnight, occasionally looking into Carthagena to see if the Spaniards would take the hint. Finding all our wishes and hints fruitless, we left a frigate and a brig sloop to watch their motions and shaped our course for Gibraltar. Near the small island of Alberaw we fell in with two frigates convoying twenty sail of levanters, the commodore of which called me ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... it. Boats, yachts, and ships have been carried away by not guarding against it before they were within its reach. It likewise happens frequently that whales come too near the stream, and are overpowered by its violence; and then it is impossible to describe their howling and bellowings in their fruitless struggles to disengage themselves. A bear once, attempting to swim from Lofoden to Moskoe, was caught by the stream and borne down, while he roared terribly, so as to be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and pine trees, after being ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... but he would have sailed without aid of mine, and it maddens me to think that all this time I have been wasting in a fruitless search, my Jeanette is still unfound. Where may she not be? Dead—perhaps——" His voice trailed off into silence and they sat motionless, fascinated by the spell of romance, tragedy and mystery ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... a time three jars full of money were stolen from a Raja's palace. As all search was fruitless the Raja at last gave notice that, whoever could find them, should receive one half of the money. The offer brought all the jans and ojhas in the country to try their hand, but not one of them ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... before he had been ungenerous and angry; for his pride was hurt and his will thwarted: now his heart bled and hope died hard; but all that was manliest in him rose to help him bear the loss, for this love was genuine, and made him both just and kind. His face was pale with the pain of that fruitless passion, and his voice betrayed how hard he strove for self-control, as he ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... Alps and ventured back to their misty island, where they spent an unsatisfactory summer, moving from place to place in a fruitless search for better weather. Several hemorrhages forced them to the conclusion that they must be once more on the wing, and as both felt an unconquerable repugnance to spending another winter at bleak Davos, it ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... on his return, to find his prisoner had escaped. A diligent search, by the precaution of the confederates, was rendered fruitless. ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... of opportunity' is meaningless and mere claptrap in the absence of any equality to respond to such opportunity. What is wanted is not equality of opportunity, but education adapted to individual potentiality; and if the time and money now spent in the fruitless attempt to make silk-purses out of sows' ears, were devoted to the higher education of children of good natural capacity, it would contribute enormously to ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... took some effect: it was mystical, and I pondered in a vain endeavour to ascertain to what it could allude. My conjectures were fruitless: I could only recall that in the course of the evening I had been much excited by the beauty of a young countess, for whom, on account of her marriage, the ball had been given. The count, her husband, was a noble and elegant young man, and their mutual attachment had been a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... 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 speculate on. ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... searching for the sign of the "Saracen's Head," would find himself on a fruitless errand, for it was changed scores of years back to the Pomfret Arms. Indeed, it was so called at the time The Pickwick Papers were first published, having been altered in 1881 at the bidding of the new lord of the manor when he succeeded to the ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... though," said Rivers, "and will use every technicality that the law furnishes to baulk the fanatics and make their efforts fruitless." ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... question being presented with the motives for this resolution, that those islands not only did not increase the royal revenues, but even decreased and diminished them, and were a continual cause of great and fruitless expense, as they are so many, so remote, and so difficult of conservation. The instigators of this proposition availed themselves, as says the author of the History of the Malucas, [8] of the example of the kings of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... throat, cry louder, Though every leaf, these trees bear, were an Echo, And summon'd in your best friends to redeem you, It should be fruitless: 'tis not that I love you, Or value those delights you prize so high, That I'le enjoy you, a French crown will buy More sport, and a companion, to whom, You in your best trim are ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... sin before He cast it out. Of a sick woman He said that Satan had bound her; and to Peter He said, "Thou art an offense unto me." He came teaching and showing men how to destroy sin, sickness, and death. He said of the fruitless tree, "It ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to get it—he had credit, could borrow it from the bank, from the Khedive himself! The proposal was audacious—Kingsley could offer no security worth having. His enthusiasm and courage were so infectious, however, though his ventures had been so fruitless, that Dicky laughed in his face. Kingsley's manner then suddenly changed, and he assured Dicky that he would receive five thousand pounds for the thousand within a year. Now, Dicky knew that Kingsley never made a promise to any one ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... prison, and was one who survived). This poor wretch had been long raving for water and air; I told him I was determined to give up life, and recommended his gaining my station. On my quitting it he made a fruitless attempt to get my place; but the Dutch surgeon, who sat on my shoulder, supplanted him. Poor Cary expressed his thankfulness, and said he would give up life too; but it was with the utmost labor we forced our way from the window (several ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Roman Republic, when the Neapolitan troops had entered the Papal territory on their fruitless crusade, the country round Velletri was occupied by Garibaldi's soldiery. Near Velletri there is a little town called Giulianello, of which a certain Don Dominico Santurri was the head priest. Justly or unjustly, this ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... demands perseverance in definite courses of action. We are inclined, and usually with reason, to suspect the effectiveness of a man who has half a dozen professions in half as many years. Such vacillations produce whimsical and scattered movements; but they are fruitless in ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... the long hours in the train in fruitless broodings on a discouraging situation, and he remembered how his bitterness had turned to exasperation when he found that the Weymore sleigh was not awaiting him. It was absurd, of course; but, though he ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... strange pain at his heart, and the pain of intense and fruitless calculation in his brain; and, as the Mahometan prays towards Mecca, and the Jew towards Jerusalem, so Captain Lake's morning orisons, whatsoever they were, were offered at the window of his bed-room toward London, from whence he looked for his salvation, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Porter, Crossthwaite, and I were at the door, accompanied by a policeman, and a search-warrant. Porter had insisted on accompanying us. He had made up his mind that his son was at Downes's; and all representations of the smallness of his chance were fruitless. He worked himself up into a state of complete frenzy, and flourished a huge stick in a way which shocked the policeman's orderly ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... interpreter, in which promises of tobacco probably again played the principal part, he finally gave way and sprang courageously down into the ice-cold water, but immediately jumped up again trembling with cold; crying, "My tobacco! my tobacco!" All attempts to induce him to renew the bath were fruitless, the ceremony was incomplete, and the ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... men started off at once; the captain having discharged his rifle threw it over his shoulder, and advanced in silence. Another half hour passed, and the pursuit was still fruitless. Maston was oppressed by sinister forebodings. He looked fiercely at Nicholl, asking himself whether the captain's vengeance had already been satisfied, and the unfortunate Barbicane, shot, was perhaps lying dead on some bloody track. The same thought seemed to occur to Ardan; and both were ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... to be to my country, and terrible unto the foeman. They were but words that I spoke: they only were meant for concealing Those emotions from thee with which my heart is distracted; And so leave me, O mother! for, since the wishes are fruitless Which in my bosom I cherish, my life must go fruitlessly over. For, as I know, he injures himself who is singly devoted, When for the common cause the whole are not ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... could. If I had been strong like you and brave-hearted I might have struggled longer. Bid I did tramp the streets and look into the women's faces. She must have been among them, if she's living the life you speak of; but God would not let me find her. Why was it that my search was fruitless? Perhaps there was evil in my heart at first—I don't mind telling you that now—but I swear to you by Him who died for us that at last I only wanted to find my sister that I might save her. But I am such ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... affairs, while the commissioners cited their instructions as a sufficient warrant for their right to hear complaints against the colony. A deadlock ensued, but in the end the colony triumphed. After spending a month in fruitless negotiations, the commissioners gave up the struggle, preferring to leave the conduct of Massachusetts to be passed upon by the Crown rather than to prolong the controversy. For the time being, the Massachusetts men had their own way; but they had raised a serious and dangerous question, ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... nobody sees or cares, and I don't feel as if I was really of any use," sighed Rose, thinking of the long, dull winter, full of efforts that seemed fruitless. ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... yearned after his lost child, it had become a matter of physical impossibility to find out where she lived. Thus were they hopelessly sinking, day by day, into all the bitter waves of want. Not but that Henry strived, as we have seen, and shall yet see: still his endeavours had been very nearly fruitless—and, perchance, till all available moveables had been pawned outright, very feeble too. Now, however, that Maria, in her sorrow and her need, must soon become a mother, the state of things grew terrible indeed; their horizon was ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... across the high road at some six miles' distance from Bolton Church. No stray boy had passed that day. Thereupon the parson turned, and, after retracing his way for two miles or more, struck into a cross-road which led westward. There were the same fruitless inquiries here at the scattered houses, and when he came at length upon the great river-road along which the boy had passed at the first dawn there was no one who could tell anything of him; and by noon the parson reentered the village, disconsolate and hungry. He was by no means a vindictive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... opportunity for it. This slowness and aversion in the people to quit their old constitutions, has, in the many revolutions which have been seen in this kingdom, in this and former ages, still kept us to, or, after some interval of fruitless attempts, still brought us back again to our old legislative of king, lords and commons: and whatever provocations have made the crown be taken from some of our princes heads, they never carried the people so far as to place it in another line. Sec. 224. But ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... of recruiting the depleted and disordered ranks of the army, and it soon assumed an importance that made it an absorbing topic throughout the Confederacy. There was no other source to recruit from. The appeal to foreigners was fruitless. "The blacks had been useful soldiers for the northern army, why should they not be made to fight for their masters?" it was asked. Of course there was the immediate query whether they would fight to keep themselves in slavery. This opened up a subject into which those who discussed it were ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... stance with a galliard sort of step, keeping his eye at the same time fixed on Tressilian's, who, once more dismounted, stood with his horse's bridle in his hand, breathless, and half exhausted with his fruitless exercise, though not one drop of moisture appeared on the freckled forehead of the urchin, which looked like a piece of dry and discoloured parchment, drawn tight across the brow ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... for rebellion. "They call for revenge," said he, "on account of the removal of the Parliament. These men, who, in 1798, endeavoured to destroy the Parliament, now call upon the loyal men who opposed its transfer, to join them in rebellion; an appeal vain and fruitless." ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... heard of such a box, and did not know what it was like; so he went to every country asking all the people he met what sort of box was a sun-jewel box, and where he could get it. At last one day, after a fruitless search, he was very sad, for he thought, "I have promised the servant to bring her a sun-jewel box, and now I cannot get one for ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... long absent child had a soothing effect upon Mr. Linwood, and he now recovered rapidly from the sad and almost hopeless condition in which she had found him. When able to converse, without danger of a relapse, he told Clotelle of his fruitless efforts to obtain a clew to her whereabouts after old Mrs. Miller had sold her to the slave-trader. In answer to his daughter's inquiries about his family affairs up to the time that he left America, ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... assist me. I have been to the house of Miss Tarrant's parents, in Cambridge, but it is closed and empty, destitute of any sign of life. I went there first, on arriving this morning, and rang at this door only when my journey to Monadnoc Place had proved fruitless. Your sister's servant told me that Miss Tarrant was not staying here, but she added that Mrs. Luna was. No doubt you won't be pleased at having been spoken of as a sort of equivalent; and I didn't say to myself—or to the servant—that you would do as well; I only reflected that I could at least ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... a state of feeling such as this shall universally or even very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... of Balder was written in 1829, the year during which Borrow produced so many of his ballad translations, the year in which he made his fruitless effort to obtain subscribers for his Songs of Scandinavia. On December 6th of that year he wrote to Dr. [afterwards Sir] ...
— A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... rank in the American army. General Howe replied that General Lee was a deserter from his majesty's service, and could not be considered as a prisoner of war nor come within the conditions of the cartel. A fruitless discussion ensued between the Commanders-in-Chief. Congress took up the matter and resolved that General Washington be directed to inform General Howe, that should the proffered exchange of six ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... 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
... different in the barn where Harry had taken up his abode to what it was at the grammar-school. In the former, it saw the tired lonely boy sleeping heavily, his face stained with tears; in the latter, a great stir and confusion. Campbell had run away. The search in the night had been fruitless; and to add to the general excitement, that morning the Examiner was to commence the viva voce part of the examination. The hour of preparation, from seven to eight, was not a very industrious one. Boys were ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... not only sad but alarming. Death knows no hatred: death is deaf and blind, nothing more, and astonishment was felt at this ruthless destruction of all who bore one name. Still nobody suspected the true culprits, search was fruitless, inquiries led nowhere: the marquise put on mourning for her brothers, Sainte-Croix continued in his path of folly, and all things went on as before. Meanwhile Sainte-Croix had made the acquaintance ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Austria, Baden, Basel, Elsass, and the Swiss Cantons united under the leadership of France to resist them. Charles led an army of 60,000 men to aid the Archbishop of Cologne against his subjects, but spent eleven months in a fruitless attempt to take a small fortified town, Neuss, in which a considerable portion of his army perished. He was compelled to raise large sums of money from his unwilling subjects in the Netherlands to repair his losses, and in 1475 he attacked Duke Rene of Lorraine, captured ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... at finding herself alone. She wandered about the wood, not knowing what was become of Lysander, or which way to go to seek for him. In the mean time Demetrius, not being able to find Hermia and his rival Lysander, and fatigued with his fruitless search, was observed by Oberon fast asleep. Oberon had learned by some questions he had asked of Puck that he had applied the lovecharm to the wrong person's eyes; and now, having found the person first intended, he touched the eyelids of the sleeping ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... commenced. But this interlude was greatly enjoyed both by himself and by the little company of English merchants who formed his first pastoral charge, and who, on a vacancy occurring, made a strong but fruitless attempt to induce him to remain as their ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... mistaken notions of sectional advantage, would be to fail in our duty to ourselves and our country, would be a fatal blindness to the lessons which immemorial history has been tracing on the earth's surface, either with the beneficent furrow of the plough, or, when that was unheeded, the fruitless ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... and agricultural prosperity. His efforts would have been attended with much success, but for the ill-judged expedition, which Bonaparte sent against the island, under the command of Le Clerc. This expedition, fruitless as it was in respect of its general object, proved ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... in Oriental glyptics, says: "The efforts of some learned men to discover traces of a reciprocal influence have been fruitless. The pyramids of Egypt have no affinity with those of Chaldea, the sculpture of Egypt does not resemble in anything that of Nineveh or Caleh; would the glyptic art have escaped that individual development which ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... an attack which he might have prevented is bound to permit the self-defence, also; and Dr. Adler, having granted to Dr. Royce the freedom of libelling me, was bound to grant to me the equal freedom of defending myself against the libel. But this equal freedom Dr. Adler denied. After some fruitless correspondence, I wrote to him on May 4 as follows: "I require the freedom, not of 'parliament,' but of the courts—freedom to present my 'facts,' and no less to draw my 'inferences'—freedom to array my evidence, and no less to make my pleading. By publishing his ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... however, to convert the Shoshones were fruitless. Indian nature would seem to be a nature apart and distinct. The red men, unless in suffering or oppression, will not listen to what they call "the smooth honey words of the pale-faced sages;" and even when they do so, they argue upon every dogma ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... forensic eloquence and of Attic law, especially in will cases[1]—brought an action against Aphobus, and gained a verdict for about 2400. But it does not appear that he got the money; and, after some more fruitless proceedings against Onetor, the brother-in-law of Aphobus, the matter was dropped,—not, however, before his relatives had managed to throw a public burden (the equipment of a ship of war) on their late ward, whereby his resources were yet further straitened. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... feared yer gwine to have some sort of a fever, young marster! 'Deed, I am!" said Martha, as she began to clear the table, after finding all her persuasions fruitless to induce the ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... monsieur. Therefore, after a hundred fruitless attempts to interest lawyers, who have all thought me mad, I made up my mind to come to you. I will tell you of my misfortunes afterwards; for the present, allow me to prove the facts, explaining rather how ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... tree, and giving her the ring of Rama, took one from her. He offered to carry her away with him, but Sita declared that Rama must himself come to her rescue. While they were talking together, the demon god appeared, and, after fruitless wooing, announced that if Sita did not yield herself to him in two months he would have her guards "mince her limbs with ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... after he left and ended about five minutes before he returned, so that its whole duration was twenty minutes. There had been no aurora at all before; there was nothing after, for his quest had been fruitless, and, since we would not venture that water in the dark, we made our camp on the bank and were thus two hours or more yet in the open. The boy had stopped to look at it himself, "long time," as he said, and declared it was the only red aurora he had ever seen in his twenty odd years' life. It ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... request! where would he fly? Bid him remain till wintry storms subside, Till kinder breezes, smooth the ruffled tide. 535 The nuptial vow, which he so vainly swore, His plighted faith no longer I implore, Nor yet his Latian kingdom to forego: Some fruitless space, some breathing time for woe, 'Till fate have thought the wretch subdu'd to grieve, Is all I beg—Obtain this last reprieve— 540 For pity gain it,—and the short delay With all her parting soul, will Dido pay". So pray'd the Queen, and o'er and o'er again, ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... however, he wrote a recipe for making the precious article. The grateful and admiring mortal continued his operations, according to the directions of his visitor; but the charm was lost: he could not succeed, and was at last completely ruined by his costly and fruitless experiments. Both he and his friend Kircher were fully persuaded that the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... working class is no struggle for privileges, but a struggle for equal rights and equal duties; it is a struggle for the abolition of all privileges"—thus runs the programme of the Socialist Movement. It follows that half-measures and small concessions are fruitless. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... up his official duties, and what occurred abroad, suffice it for us to notice that Pao-yue, 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 and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Sir Humphry Davy, Humboldt, Wollaston and Becquerel occupied themselves with the theoretical side of the question; but it was not till after 1845 that practical electroculture was undertaken. Williamson suggested the use of gigantic electrostatic machines, but the attempts were fruitless. The methods most generally adopted in experiments consisted of two metallic plates—one of copper and one of zinc—placed in the soil and connected by a wire. Sheppard employed the method in England in 1846 and Forster used the same in Scotland. In the year 1847 Hubeck in Germany surrounded ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... embassy, his other household officers, several Italian noblemen, and Sir Richard Belling, the special agent at Rome, the Nuncio, by way of Genoa and Marseilles, reached Paris. In France he was detained nearly five months, in a fruitless attempt to come to some definite arrangement as to the conduct of the Catholic war, through Queen Henrietta Maria, then resident with the young Prince of Wales—afterwards Charles II.—at the French ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... point from which the river flowed. Here he again took to water, and, swimming back to the bank from which he had at first started, he landed and made a vain cast down the hollow. Back he returned after his fruitless search, and once more he took to water. I began to despair of the possibility of his finding; but the true old bound was now swimming steadily down the stream, crossing and recrossing from either bank, ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... these fruitless reflections—since I am incapable of writing any thing else; since my pen will slide into this gloomy subject, whether I will or not; I will once more quit it; nor will I again resume it, till I can be more its master, ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... must have," replied Tag, with the air of one who feels it fruitless to deny what peace officers were prepared to charge against one of ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... life in the other. And till these conditions are sensibly grasped, as the conditions of all life, it is impossible that the personal effort after the highest life should be other than a blind struggle carried on in fruitless sorrow and humiliation. ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... that business, the very limitations of the grid suit furnished an unending challenge to Moglaut's genius. And out of a sideline experiment incited by that challenge came the disarmer which Jason greeted with such fruitless glee. ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... with a hot air balloon in some gardens near Chelsea Hospital, and at a date previous to that fixed upon by Lunardi. In attempting, however, to carry out this unworthy project the adventurer met with the discomfiture he deserved. He failed to effect his inflation, and when after fruitless attempts continued for three hours, his balloon refused to rise, a large crowd, estimated at 60,000, assembled outside, broke into the enclosure, committing havoc on all sides, not unattended with acts of violence ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... year that Da Gama returned from India by a route around the south end of Africa, with his ships loaded with rich produce, Sebastian Cabot returned from a fruitless voyage to the strange, barren ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw
... some photographs he sent to a detective agency in New York. They have had the case for years, and recognizing the pictures as a clue, they telegraphed Mr. Herron. The prospect of news after years of fruitless searching so prostrated Mrs. Herron that he dared not leave her, and he ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... ever anew and in small detail all the objects and phenomena that present themselves to us, so as to get their meaning, or that it thus prevents our mental power from scattering and from being worn out with wearisome, fruitless detail labors. The secret of its extraordinary success lies in the fact that it refers the new to the old, the strange to the familiar, the unknown to the known, that which is not comprehended to what is already understood and thus constitutes a part of our mental furniture; that it ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... All godless life is fruitless, inasmuch as it has no permanent results. Permanent results of a sort, indeed, follow everything that men do, for all our actions tend to make character, and they all have a share in fixing that which depends upon character—viz. destiny, both here and yonder. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... to normal space, just in time to see the Thessian ship spin in a quick turn, under an acceleration that would have crushed a human to a pulp. Again the pilot dived at the terrestrian ship. Again it vanished. Twice more he tried these fruitless tactics, seeing the ship loom before him—bracing for the crash—then it was gone instantaneously, and though he sailed through the spot he knew it to have occupied, it was not there. Yet an ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... of the room for a moment, probably packing his bag, when he had come back tired and weary from his fruitless quest, and Mrs. Dampier, if keenly disappointed that he had no news, had yet thanked him very touchingly for the trifling trouble, or so it now seemed, that ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... sons, Shat and Don. Shat, contrary to his father's wishes, wanted to roam abroad, so he set out on his travels, but go whither he would, he could get received nowhere. So, after fruitless wanderings, he returned home. ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... 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 chose to relate; and, finding that he really enjoyed them, the young ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... the right track. Swiftly but earnestly she recited the nature and the circumstances of the misfortune that had overtaken Pierce Phillips, and of the fruitless efforts his friends were making in his behalf. She concluded by asking her hearers ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... painful and fruitless scrambling, Mr. Hunt gave up the attempt to penetrate in this direction, and, returning to the little stream on the skirts of the mountain, pitched his tents within six miles of his encampment of the preceding night. He now ordered that signals ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... 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 enclosed water-vapor in a light, stout case, which fell on cooling. Then they tried ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... After the fruitless issue of two several treaties, for arranging the differences that had taken place in eastern India, between the English and Hollanders respecting the trade of the spice islands, the first at London in 1613, and the second at the Hague in 1616, a third negociation was entered into ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... to be transferred to the men of Gotham, it were fruitless to inquire.[3] Similar jests have been long current in other countries of Europe and throughout Asia, and accident or malice may have fixed the stigma of stupidity on any particular spot. There is probably no ground whatever for crediting the tale of the origin of the proverb, ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... But this would not fully account for the practice of it in solitude. Some have regarded it as in obedience to the feminine instinct for the cultivation of patience and self-denial —patience in a fruitless activity, and self-denial in the eternal act of mastication without swallowing. It is no more related to these virtues than it is to the habit of the reflective cow in chewing her cud. The cow would ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to tell how, at last, weary with wintriness, she travelled towards the southern regions of her globe, to meet the spring on its slow way northwards; and how, after many sad adventures, many disappointed hopes, and many tears, bitter and fruitless, she found at last, one stormy afternoon, in a leafless forest, a single snowdrop growing betwixt the borders of the winter and spring. She lay down beside it and died. I almost believe that a child, pale and peaceful ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... future, had assembled there. They plotted against the Republic; they planned descents upon France, attacks upon Paris, movements in La Vendee, and the assassination of Robespierre and his friends; but all these schemes were rendered fruitless by the spirit of rivalry and of intrigue that prevailed. They were all united upon the result to be attained, but divided as to the means of attaining it. In this great party there were a thousand factions. They quarreled at a word; they slandered ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... sterilize, addle; disable, inactivate. Adj. unproductive, acarpous[obs3], inoperative, barren, addled, infertile, unfertile, unprolific[obs3], arid, sterile, unfruitful, infecund[obs3]; sine prole; fallow; teemless[obs3], issueless[obs3], fruitless; unprofitable &c. (useless) 645; null and ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... departure—after Mary's mysterious disappearance—I had to impose many a long penance, in order to wash away the sin of impatient repining that was fast leading her into the deeper guilt of blasphemy. She set out on that long journey of which you have possibly heard—that fruitless journey in search of Mary—and during her absence, my superiors ordered my return to my former duties at Antwerp, and for many years I heard no more ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Before thy God. He to whose searching eye Heavens' pure immaculate ether seems unclean. Ask of tradition, ask the white hair'd men Much older than thy father, since to us Thou deign'st no credence. Say they not to thee, All, as with one consent, the wicked man Travaileth with fruitless pain, a dreadful sound Forever in his ears; the mustering tramp Of hostile legions on the distant cloud, A far-off echo from the woe to come? Such is his lot who sinfully contends Against the just will ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... exertions, the tide caught him and he disappeared beneath the surface, and was carried down stream a few yards under the pier. The river police dragged for him, and the lightermen did all they could for some considerable time, but without success. After fifteen minutes' fruitless search, a lighterman suggested that the boy must be under the pier. He rowed his boat to the other end of the stage, and there saw the boy's hand upright in the water. He soon got the body out, but life was extinct, and the doctor could only pronounce him to be dead. Thus died John Clinton, a boy ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... the long-abandoned mystery, threshing over the old, dry chaff of it. It was in the chapel of this house of the Little Sisters of Samaria that Robbins and Dumars had stood during that eager, fruitless news search of theirs, and looked upon the gilded ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Life, then conquer yourself. Bring every thought, every impulse, every desire into perfect obedience to the divine power resident within you. There is no other way to peace but this, and if you refuse to walk it, your much praying and your strict adherence to ritual will be fruitless and unavailing, and neither gods nor angels can help you. Only to him that overcometh is given the white stone of the regenerate life, on which is written the New ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... practical woman. She wound up her fruitless search by shaking the child, as if the latter were a plum-tree and might yield over-ripe ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... put a stop to these practices, but without result. Hypnotic treatment was not tried, because the child was still too young and her attention wandered too much. Mechanical methods of control were also fruitless. The trouble continued for five years, during all of which time the child was under my own observation. She went to school, where she proved a diligent scholar, and was one of the most successful pupils; ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... were plied, and excavations made round the imbedded bow, and the bowman uttered oaths loud enough to have raised a small earthquake; but still the boat was immovable. She was stuck fast in the mud, and every effort to move her was fruitless. Garfield ordered a small boat to be lowered, and take a line to the other bank, by which to warp the steamer free; but the captain and now the crew protested it was certain death to attempt to cross that foaming ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... great distress they were in; yet did they 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 decent departure, as they ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... her. His voice, as he passionately swore that never with his consent should his daughter marry the son of Hezekiah Grindley, sounded strange to her. Pleadings, even tears, for the first time in her life proved fruitless. ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... time coming. The old gentleman could not be decoyed outside of his grounds at night. Several times Stapleton lurked about with his hound, but without avail. It was during these fruitless quests that he, or rather his ally, was seen by peasants, and that the legend of the demon dog received a new confirmation. He had hoped that his wife might lure Sir Charles to his ruin, but here she proved unexpectedly independent. ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... a great deal of fruitless argument on both sides, the Justice said: "I won't wrangle with you over the battlefield, although I still persist in my belief that Hermann defeated Varus somewhere around this neighborhood. As a matter of fact it doesn't make any particular difference to me where it happened—the question is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... are as rich wheat lands as in any part of the world; but then the mass of the population were densely ignorant of the true character of the country, and those who knew better, were in too many instances personally interested in keeping them ignorant. The stories that were told of the fruitless endeavours of industrious men to obtain patches of land for a freehold home under the Order-in-Council seem, to the present generation, like ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... of the Legion of Honor, but only for the bare pension due to him after twenty-two years of service, and I do not know how many campaigns. He did not obtain his pension or his traveling expenses; he did not even receive his arrears of pay. He spent a year in making fruitless solicitations, holding out his hands in vain to those whom he had saved; and at the end of it he came back here, sorely disheartened but resigned to his fate. This hero unknown to fame does draining work on ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... his father commanded, laying a hand upon his sleeve. "Understand me, citizen-deputy, or citizen-commissioner, or citizen-blackguard or whatever you call your vile self, you are come on a fruitless journey to Bellecour. Neither I nor my son is so lost to the duty which we owe our rank as to so much as dream of acceding to your preposterous request. I think, sir, that you had been better advised to have left the mob to its work last night, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... Love smites it, nor defies More scornfully life's misery, And for no other lord Will it all dangers face so readily. When thou thy aid dost lend, O Love, is courage born, or it revives; And wise in deeds the race of man becomes, And not, as it is prone, In fruitless thought alone. ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... then, properly the turning-point of the battle; when the Fiend said, Worship me or be torn in shreds; and was answered valiantly with an Apage Satana?—Singular Teufelsdroeckh, would thou hadst told thy singular story in plain words! But it is fruitless to look there, in those Paper-bags, for such. Nothing but innuendoes, figurative crotchets: a typical Shadow, fitfully wavering, prophetico-satiric; no clear logical Picture. 'How paint to the sensual eye,' asks he once, 'what passes in the Holy-of-Holies of Man's Soul; in what words, known ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... recollection of having put them carefully away just before falling asleep; and, indeed, previously to my last journey to the trap, I had been able to remember the exact spot where I had deposited them. But now I endeavored in vain to call it to mind, and busied myself for a full hour in a fruitless and vexatious search for the missing articles; never, surely, was there a more tantalizing state of anxiety and suspense. At length, while groping about, with my head close to the ballast, near the opening of the box, and outside of it, I perceived a faint glimmering of light in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... began to move, gathered way, and thundered on. Still he did not return. The porter began to make up the berths. To him she applied for information. He knew nothing. The conductor was in equal ignorance. Inquiries throughout the train were fruitless. The man of the seat across the aisle was not forthcoming. His few belongings, which threw no light on his identity, were gathered up to await his appearance. It was suggested, to Clyde's indignation, ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... went to London in search of Colonel Spencer. He visited his clubs, and, because it was necessary, many of the gambling places, but his quest was fruitless. As a last resort he went to the War Office and learned that the Colonel had sailed the day before to ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... With fruitless labor, Clara bound, And strove to stanch the gushing wound: The monk, with unavailing cares, Exhausted all the Church's prayers. Ever, he said, that, close and near, A lady's voice was in his ear, And that ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... did their father anticipate that the excursion should extend no farther than the country of some friendly tribe? He entertained no such idea. Had this been their plan, their errand would have been likely to prove fruitless. In a country of that sort they would have seen but little of the buffalo; for it is well-known that the buffaloes are only found in plenty upon those parts of the prairies termed "war grounds"—that ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... that there was little reason to hope that the lieutenant should have escaped the fate his own rashness had invoked. He had his remaining seven men to think of, and he concluded that it was his duty under all the circumstances to bring these off alive, and not procure their massacre by attempting fruitless quixotries. ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... teacher, and a determination not to leave him, at least for the present. Mrs. Young was much distressed, and adduced every argument of which she was mistress, but her niece remained firm; and finding their entreaties fruitless, Mr. Young said that he would immediately take the necessary steps to secure Robert Grey's portion of the estate to his daughter. Electra sat with her hand nestled in her aunt's, but when this matter was alluded to she rose, and ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... he had his own life to make or mar. Without Sheila he knew it would be utterly fruitless and without an object. Rather than lose Sheila he would sell the schooner, cut himself off from friends and home, and, with her, face the world anew. He was determined, if Sheila left Big Wreck Cove, ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... by savages, where if I 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 wishes ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... Lotty was frightened, but, as long as she was told that there was still hope of recovery, declined to mention any name. The stubborn independence which had supported her through these long years asserted itself again, as a reaction after her fruitless appeal; at moments she felt that she could die with her lips closed, and let what might happen to her child. But when she at length read upon the faces of those about her that her fate hung in the balance, and when she saw the face of little Ida, ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... was broken in three places, twelve wounds in my right, and others on my back, twenty that afterward had to be dressed, not counting some other scratches. Then they came out to look for me, my "friend" almost stepping on me, but after half an hour's fruitless search they gave up. About two hours later I started home on my long, painful crawl. It took me about twenty minutes to pass the sentry near where I was lying, but after that there was no danger of discovery—the front line still appearing almost ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... purchased immortal fame for her discreet behavior at the death of the king, her husband; for whose soul she caused a world of Masses to be said, and a world of alms to be distributed, in lieu of other idle expenses and fruitless lamentations. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... attending to what is known or what is thought of? Psychology usually goes to work in this abstract fashion; but such a mode of procedure is hopeless,—as hopeless as the analogous instance by which the wits of old were wont to typify any particularly fruitless undertaking,—namely, the operation of milking a he-goat into a sieve. No milk comes, in the first place, and even that the sieve will not retain! There is a loss of nothing twice over. Like the man milking, the inquirer obtains no milk in the first ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the safety of the king's person, and on the other, fearful lest, if nothing of the kind should be discovered, they might be exposed to ridicule for entertaining groundless fears, unbecoming in statesmen and the ministers of the crown. It was suggested, also, that if the search proved fruitless, the earl of Northumberland might feel himself aggrieved, in consequence of his relationship to Percy, the owner of the house. All the members of the council agreed in the necessity of instituting a search: ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury
... guilty pair, like a blood-hound, for weary months and months. For a long time it seemed as though he must give up the search as fruitless; but at last, in the open street of a French city, he met the man Walls face to face. He flew at him like a madman, grasped his throat, and held him until the man turned black in the face. But he ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... nook and corner which could by any possibility contain the form of a man. As Somers was not up-stairs, of course they did not find him; and we will not weary our readers by following them in their fruitless search. ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... nearly thirty years before had inaugurated the Geological Society—weary of the fruitless conflicts between "Neptunists" and "Plutonists"—had determined to eschew theory and confine their labours to the collection of facts, their publications to the careful record of observations. Greenough, the actual founder of ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... may truly be said to begin with her birth; for she had scarcely entered her second year when her marriage—that never-accomplished project, which for half a century afterwards inspired so many vain hopes and was the subject of so many fruitless negotiations, was already proposed as an article of a treaty between France ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... . The wind was against the smoke that day; and his spirits rose, as he walked in the brisk air with the rich sky above him. After all, this venture upon his native purlieus had been fax from fruitless: he could not have expected to do much better. He had made his coup; he knew no other who could have done it. It was a handsome bit of work, in fact, and possible only to a talented native thoroughly sophisticated in certain foreign ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... the Whig writers furnished much more than was enjoyed by Democrats. An effort was made to stay the tide in favor of Harrison by poetry as well as by argument. The effort was fruitless. The contest of 1840 had its origin in the most distressing financial difficulties that ever rested upon the country, and it was conducted on the part of the Whigs by large expenditure of money, for those days, ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... 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 in the ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... away, and its waters seemed to increase instead of diminishing. When the old woman saw that the powers of her magic were of so little avail, she had recourse to cunning. She threw a lot of gold nuts into the pond, hoping in this way to catch the duck, but all her efforts were fruitless, for the little creature refused to ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... dos-a-dos had gone out at Paris a year or two before, and that doubtless the newer mode had reached New York before it reached Mr. Vigne! These are trifles, but they are the trifles that make up the sum of national peculiarities, ignorance of which leads us into a thousand fruitless and absurd conjectures. In this little anecdote we learn the great rapidity with which new fashions penetrate American usages, and the greater ductility of American society in visible and tangible things, at least; and the heedless manner with which even ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... running his pencil through two feet of their length at one stroke. Then the expense was mentioned; but Richard reminded Hiram that his cousin paid, and that he was treasurer. This last intimation had great weight, and after a silent and protracted, but fruitless opposition, the work was suffered to ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... leave this earth to-day, to- morrow, or the next day? Be assured of this—that whatever I have determined to do is past all power of being affected by a human opposition. Occupy yourself not with any fruitless attempts, but calmly listen to me, else I know what to do." Seeing a suppressed fury in his eye, notwithstanding I saw also some change stealing over his features as if from some subtle poison beginning to work upon his frame, awestruck I consented to listen, and sat still. "It is well that ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... as sensitive to new impressions as a leaf to the wind. He knew that strong as the priesthood of the fierce gods undoubtedly was, there was surely an undercurrent of rebellion against their cruelty and their unlimited power. In a fruitless attempt to keep the Spaniards out of the city by the aid of the gods, three hundred little children had been sacrificed. If Cortes failed to conquer, by peaceful means or otherwise, nothing was more certain than that he and all of his followers not killed in the fighting ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... thereafter with a Jock Scott of larger size. It was now about eight o'clock, and we went down the pool again, having a brief run with probably a grilse, which held fast only a moment or two; then I was becoming conscious again of the monotony of fruitless casting when there was a splendid spin of the winch. This, I confess, was of such a nature that I rose at once and determined to take my reward or punishment, as it might happen, standing. It was an undoubted salmon, for fifty yards ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... have been made to capture him during the night, but they have proved as fruitless as trying to catch a weasel (if you happen to have heard of such an animal, Saint George, in your travels) asleep. Fruitless I will not say to him, for he has invariably destroyed the brave men who have gone out to attack him, and has swallowed them for his ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... time replaced by the conquering troops of the Union; the salons where only the best and brightest had collected have been sullied by a conquering soldiery; and their leader has waged a vulgar warfare on the noble womanhood his currish spirit could not gaze upon without a fruitless effort to degrade. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... rang Mr. Bobbsey had just come in from another fruitless search. Both he and his wife ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... of all of us, the seeds of the eternal war between the natural man and the artificial; between our wilder genius and our social conventionalities;—thoughts that from time to time break forth into the harbingers of vain and fruitless revolutions, impotent struggles against destiny;—thoughts that good and wise men would be slow to promulge and propagate, for they are of a fire which burns as well as brightens, and which spreads from heart to heart—as a spark spreads amidst flax;—thoughts ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it were for me to begin again, certainly it should be by the same method and the same progress, how fruitless soever it might be to me; folly and insufficiency are commendable in an incommendable action: the farther I go from their humour in this, I approach so much nearer to my own. As to the rest, in this traffic, I did not suffer myself to be totally carried away; I ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Spring and never reap The Autumn yield; 'Tis hard to till, and 'tis tilled to weep O'er fruitless field. ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... approach of night came to the bank of a river. There, possessed by his despair, he said to himself: "Where shall I seek my palace? In what province, country, or part of the world, shall I find that and my dear princess? I shall never succeed; I would better free myself at once from fruitless endeavours, and such bitter grief as preys upon me." He was just going to throw himself into the river, but, as a good Mussulman, true to his religion, he thought he should not do it without first saying his prayers. Going ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... productive of the happiest effects. The delight we feel in tracing the successive stages of that pilgrimage by which the saints of the Most High have "passed into the skies," is neither a faint nor fruitless emotion, but a healthful exercise of the moral sympathies. It purifies, while it elicits; the affections of the heart. As we trace the formation of their character, we are insensibly forming our ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... of Darmstadt, were on the eve of escaping from their allegiance. At the beginning of 1705, the armies of Philip V. were composed of five or six thousand men in rags, their tottering fidelity daily tampered with, and the little band of French auxiliaries exhausted itself in fruitless efforts to retake Gibraltar, which, covered as it was by the English fleet, remained mistress of the Straits, after the first disaster inflicted on the French marine in that war which was destined to cost it its ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... to continue this debate would be a fruitless waste of time, and interfere with the current business of Congress, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... time, but distribute the new levies among the English strongholds of the Loire, thus securing them against capture; then be patient and wait—wait for more levies from Paris; let Joan exhaust her army with fruitless daily skirmishing; then at the right time fall upon her in resistless mass and annihilate her. He was a wise old experienced general, was Fastolfe. But that fierce Talbot would hear of no delay. He was in a rage over the punishment which the Maid had inflicted upon him at Orleans ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
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