"Bootless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now reached the close of my argument. It were bootless to ask whether this charge could possibly have any weight with you, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court. But there was probably another design at the root of the prosecution. The political struggle between the bourgeoisie and the government ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... in his bootless affection, and his expenses not limited within any compass, it appeared in the judgment of his kindred and friends that he was fallen into a mighty consumption, both of his body and means. In which respects many times they advised him to ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... the old Pagan ideal whose charm even unlovely Paul could not withstand, but, as the legend tells us, his soul fainted within him, his heart misgave him, and, standing alone on the seashore at dusk, he "troubled deaf heaven with his bootless cries," his thin voice pleading for grace after ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Ullah reported all things ready, Scott settled down coatless and bootless on the broad leather-covered bunk. The heat under the iron-arched roof of the station might have been anything over a hundred degrees. At the last moment Martyn entered, hot ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... fetched: he bids that he be tied and bound, and says that he will have him hanged or burned and the ashes scattered to the wind. For the shame that the emperor has suffered, John shall pay the penalty (but it will be a bootless penalty!) because he has secreted in his tower the nephew and the wife of the emperor. "I'faith you speak the truth," quoth John; "I will not lie in the matter; I will stick to the truth throughout, and if ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... they could not; often as they tried it, with the whole world encouraging and urging them. [Old Sir Henry Wotton, Provost of Eton in his old days, remembers how he went Ambassador on this errand,—as on many others equally bootless;—and writes himself "Legatus," not only "thrice to Venice, twice to" &c. &c., but also "once to Holland in the Juliers matter (semel in Juliacensi negotio):" see Reliquiae Wottonianae (London, 1672), Preface. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... few shall go back," he cried defiantly; "besides, ye come on a bootless errand. There is not a man in broad Scotland who hath ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... privilege granted to a few, or a right to which all people are justly entitled, it is bootless to discuss; but its development among civilized nations is a worthy ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... were my visit bootless. Hester, I will not dwell upon thy life From year to year, nor drag thy colliered soul Back to its days of spotless innocence. Thy father's amity for me, thou knowest, And how, upon his death, I stood toward thee In place ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... the bootless gold we stand Upon the desert verge of death, and say: "What shall avail the woes of yesterday To buy to-morrow's wisdom, in the land Whose currency is strange unto our hand? In life's small market they have served to pay Some late-found rapture, could we but delay Till Time ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He slunk back in a curve. Doesn't see me. Along by the edge of the mole he lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed against it. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... need detain you no longer, but return whence I came from my bootless errand. I do not envy you, sir; it is always better to be the injured than the injurer. Permit me to pass, sir, as I must lose ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... hare. Take him away. Hold," again added the officer, whom some strange fascination still bound to the bootless investigation. "What's my ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... spoke to me, You desired my name to know, I in your case act not so, Since I speak, whoe'er you be, Forced, but most unwillingly (As to listening heaven is plain) To reply:—a bootless task Were it in me, indeed, to ask, Since, whoe'er you be, my strain Must be one of proud disdain. So I pray you, cavalier, Leave me in this lonely wood, Leave me in the solitude I enjoyed ere ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... Ullah reported all things ready, Scott settled down at full length, coatless and bootless, on the broad leather-covered bunk. The heat under the iron-arched roof of the station might have been anything over a hundred degrees. At the ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... was now several miles in width, and Spike, at first, proposed to his mate, to keep off dead before the wind, and by crossing over to the north shore, let the steamer pass ahead, and continue a bootless chase to the eastward. Several vessels, however, were visible in the middle of the passage, at distances varying from one to three miles, and Mulford pointed out the hopelessness of attempting to cross the sheet of open water, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... burned to death or killed, for the roof of the barn had fallen in. After some little time, however, and after much struggling on my part, I was able to allay their fears by appearing before them. It required no small amount of pluck—as I call it—to face them—bootless, coatless, vestless, hatless, penniless, and, withal, with my feet and trousers besmeared with cow dung. But there is a time in every man's life when he shall come to evoke sympathy from his fellows. "He's coming!" they said, "Here he is!" they shouted, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... and marched and fought again, Patient and earnest through the bootless toils And fiery trials of that dread campaign Upon the Peninsula. 'Twas fitly called 'Campaign of Battles.' Aye, it sorely pierced The scarred and bleeding nation, and drew blood Deep from her vitals till she shook and reeled, Like some huge ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... bootless waiting here without! I will not stay: beside the central shrine The victims stand, prepared for knife and fire— Offerings from hearts beyond all hope made glad. Thou—if thou reckest aught of my command, ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... Glendinning, boldly, "it is bootless to threaten. one who holds his life at no rate. Thine anger can but slay; nor do I think thy power extendeth, or thy will stretcheth, so far. The terrors which your race produce upon others, are vain against ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... long and bootless search, to confess to himself that he would rather see Nan Morgan for one minute than all women else in the world for a lifetime. The other incidents of the evening would have given any ordinary man enough food for reflection—indeed they did force de Spain to realize that his life would ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... aforesaid Tiger Sharks. A brace of confidential inseparables, jogging along in our wake, side by side, like a couple of highwaymen, biding their time till you come to the cross-roads. But giving it up at last, for a bootless errand, they dropped farther and farther astern, until completely out of sight. Much to the Skyeman's chagrin; who long stood in the stern, lance ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... other, through many narrow and tortuous byways and alleys, until I realized I was hopelessly lost. With my fair guide in front and my good sword by my side, lightly I recked of streets or houses. Yet I dared not forget I was on an errand for the Governor and must not expose myself to bootless peril. ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... mate, Or Dorcas Eastman prone to invest In Cupid's bonds, they could find their fate In the bootless bard of Crockery Quest. For they've heaps of trumpery—so have the rest Of those spinsters whose ware I'd like to own; You can see why I say with such certain zest, "These do I love, ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... although I have been much affected this morning by the Morbus, as I call it. Aching pain in the back, rendering one posture intolerable, fluttering of the heart, idle fears, gloomy thoughts and anxieties, which if not unfounded are at least bootless. I have been out once or twice, but am driven in by the rain. Mercy on us, what poor devils we are! I shook this affection off, however. Mr. Scrope and Col. Ferguson came to dinner, and we twaddled away ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... and wishes to do right. Conscious that I make a perilous attempt, in daring to defend myself by attacking ancient error supported by multitudes, with no other seconds besides Truth and Reason, it would be bootless for me to ask indulgence for them on account of my good intentions; and as they can derive no credit from the authority of the writer, I am sensible they must fall by their own weakness, or stand by their own ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... demon cries, and blows A blast of sulphur from his mouth and nose. Ah! bootless aim! the critic fiend, Sagacious Yamen, judge of hell, Is judged in his turn; Parchment won't burn! His schemes of vengeance are dissolved in air, ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... they should provoke the jealousy of the people; and when, on Sunday (July 22), his highness had to undergo a public dinner, in which English servants only were allowed to attend upon him, the Castilian lords, many of whom believed that they had come to England on a bootless errand, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... elapsed in this bootless wandering, when he entered a narrow lane in the quarter of Saint Andre and uttered a sudden cry of joy as he caught a glimpse of the object for which he was in search. His eye lighted on a sign which bore the simple ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... his idol, Velasquez, was affected by the study of El Greco's colouring. Canaille Saint-Saens, when Liszt and Rubinstein were compared, exclaimed: "Two great artists who have nothing in common except their superiority." It is bootless to bracket Velasquez with his elder. And Gautier was off the track when he spoke of Greco's resemblance to the bizarre romances of Mrs. Radcliffe; bizarre Greco was, but not trivial nor a charlatan. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Caesar's plan To mould this commonwealth on model grand Perfected by the chivalry front which Both he and thou didst draw sweet childhood's milk. These men did quick condone the ev'ry act Which emanated from the Northern mind. Yearly were millions spent on bootless task Of feeding vacant minds on useless food Because unfitted to their various needs. "A little knowledge is a dang'rous thing" And doth unfit the plodding mass for toil, Which is their proper sphere; hence ev'ry thought Hard thrust within their skulls doth ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... utter empty knowledge, And fill his belly with the east wind? Should he reason with bootless prattle? Or with speeches that ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... that King James, "who is the greatest man the sunn shines uppon, and never told a ly in his life, has given you his Royall word to protect you." [Footnote: Dongan's Reply to the Five Nations, Ibid., III. 535.] Vaillant returned from his bootless errand; and a stormy correspondence followed between the two governors. Dongan renewed his demands, then protested his wish for peace, extolled King James for his pious zeal, and declared that he was sending over missionaries of his own to convert the Iroquois. [Footnote: Dongan ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... us understand one another," said Rotha solemnly. "What is it you wish to tell me? You said my father had gone on a bootless errand. What do you know about it? Tell me, and don't torment ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... native band, in which a big drum had the leading part, received us with 'God save the Queen' - whether in honour of King Tamy, or of his visitors, was not divulged. We were first introduced to a number of chiefs in European uniforms - except as to their feet, which were mostly bootless. Their names sounded like those of the state officers in Mr. Gilbert's 'Mikado.' I find in my journal one entered as Tovey-tovey, another as Kanakala. We were then conducted to the presence chamber by the Foreign Minister, Mr. Wiley, a very pronounced Scotch gentleman with a star of the first ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... a further security against the wanton and bootless mischief which fear or design has imputed to the Bank of the United States. Public opinion would cry out against its illiberal course, and would fully avenge the wrong. Some of their best customers would desert them. They would lose most of their deposits. Their notes would be industriously ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... ready to take offence, and nowise disposed to pass it over, or smooth it away. She seldom showed this in words, it is true, but it rankled in her mind. Listless and brooding, she sat, day after day, comparing the present with the past, wishing vain wishes, indulging bootless regrets, and looking upon her aunt and grandmother with an eye of more settled aversion. The only other person she saw was Mr. Van Brunt, who came in regularly to meals; but he never said anything, unless in answer to Miss Fortune's questions, and remarks about the farm concerns. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... York brought her diamonds and rubies—the poor gentle victim!—and, meekly laying them at the feet of the conquering Rowena, departed into foreign lands to tend the sick of her people, and to brood over the bootless passion which consumed her own pure heart, one would have thought that the heart of the royal lady would have melted before such beauty and humility, and that she would have been generous in ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Seldom, if ever, had the world seen so complete a victory. France no longer possessed so much as an acre of ground in all North America. The unknown regions beyond the Mississippi river were handed over to Spain in payment for bootless assistance rendered to France toward the close of the war. Spain also received New Orleans, while Florida, which then reached westward nearly to New Orleans, passed from Spanish into British hands. The whole country north of Florida and east of the Mississippi ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... Sir Henry's house. As long as he had thought of remaining in town he was so. But now he had resolved to fly, and had resolved also that before he did so he would call in the ordinary way and say one last farewell. John, the servant, admitted him at once; though he had on that same morning sent bootless away a score of other suppliants for the honour of being ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... canals, and farmhouses, in the fields, the (p. 118) streets, and the gardens. Cellars serve for the same purpose. A fortnight ago my section was billeted in a house in a mining town, and the enemy began to shell the place about midnight. Bootless, half-naked, and half-asleep, we hurried into the cellar. The place was a regular Black Hole of Calcutta. It was very small, damp, and smelt of queer things, and there were six soldiers, the man of the house, his wife, and seven ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... felucca appeared disposed to enter the bay and to find an anchorage under the protection of a small battery that had been planted for this express purpose near its head. But the distance was so great as obviously to render such an experiment bootless; and, after looking in that direction a few minutes, the head of la Divina Providenza was laid off shore, and she made every possible effort to put herself under the cover of the lugger. All this was done in plain view of Raoul, whose glass was constantly at ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... It would be bootless here to repeat the words of wise and loving counsel with which the elder of the two ladies endeavored to comfort the younger, and to make her understand what were the duties which still remained to her, and which, if they were rightly performed, would, in ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... bridge to bridge, with other talk, The which my drama cares not to rehearse, Pass'd on; and to the summit reaching, stood To view another gap, within the round Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs. Marvelous darkness shadow'd o'er the place. In the Venetians' arsenal as boils Through wintry months tenacious pitch, to smear Their unsound vessels; for th' inclement time Sea-faring men restrains, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... prince himself contracted the beginnings of a mortal disorder. Thus the crowning victory of his career was the last of his triumphs. Like many other leaders of chivalry, he had not understood the limitations of his resources, and had dissipated on this bootless Spanish campaign means scarcely sufficient to grapple with the spirit of disaffection already undermining his power in Aquitaine. With shattered health and the mere skeleton of his gallant army, he made his way ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... brightness to find slabs of dirt upon their new oil-cloth, Indian mats, and bright encaustic tiles. Justly may the gentlest spirit chunter and complain while the guilty husband, from his dressing-room hard by, vainly essays to evade his shame by a quotation—"Would my darling have me come bootless home—home without boots, and in wet weather, too?" Better to give the real, the only excuse, and say that the soil is so—no, not adhesive, not sticky, not tenacious, but, to use a word ten thousand times more expressive ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... people." Such, in Italy, whether in her kingdoms or her republics, were the Heads with whom Charles VIII. had to deal when he went, in the name of a disputed right, three hundred leagues away from his own kingdom in quest of a bootless and ephemeral conquest. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... dare to paint the woe, When Egbert saw his home laid low? Where, by the desolated hearth, The mother lay who gave him birth, And, close beside, his fair young wife, And servants, slain in bootless strife— Mournful the King stood near. Alfred, who came to be his guest, And deeply rued that his behest Had all unguarded left that nest, To meet such ruin drear. With hand, and heart, and lip, he gave All king or friend, both true and brave, Could give, one pang of grief to save, To comfort, ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... But even then he felt that Demorest was no longer of such importance to him. He felt, too, that he was not yet quite sure of his voice or even what to say. As he hesitated she went on half playfully: "It seems hard that you had to come all the way here on such a bootless errand. You haven't even seen ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... point, or from which, she drove ashore, stern foremost; on which side, or on which, she passed the little Island in the bay, for ages henceforth to be aground certain yards outside her; these are rendered bootless questions by the darkness of that night and the darkness of death. Here ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... tragedy of Friday evening are yet fresh in the minds of the people of Waco, and it is bootless to recount them. Two of the principals thereto have passed to the beyond and a third is in the hands of the outraged law. And with him let the law deal. In life Captain Davis was our friend. His assailant was our enemy. In death they ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... that shrewd and knavish sprite Called Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he That frights the maidens of the villagery, Skims milk, and sometimes labours in the quern, And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn; And sometimes makes the drink to bear no harm, Misleads night wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that Hob-Goblin call you, and sweet Puck; You do their work, and they ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... and Peleus' soul was stirred with gladness, and straightway he spake in the midst of all: "My friends, why do we thus cherish a bootless grief like this? For those two have perished by the fate they have met with; but among our host are steersmen yet, and many a one. Wherefore let us not delay our attempt, but rouse yourselves to the work and cast ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... Peace of Kadan (1534), Francois strengthened himself with a definite alliance with Soliman; and when, on the death of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, who left no heirs, Charles seized the duchy as its overlord, Francois, after some bootless negotiation, declared war on his great rival (1536). His usual fortunes prevailed so long as he was the attacking party: his forces were soon swept out of Piedmont, and the Emperor carried the war over the frontier into Provence. That also failed, and Charles was fain to withdraw after great ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... zeal, prompted by sympathising hearts, as by a sense of outraged justice, the day's search proves fruitless—bootless. No body can be found, dead or living; no trace of the missing man. Nothing beyond what they have ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... one imposed on, or sent on a bootless errand, on the first of April; which day it is the custom among the lower people, children, and servants, by dropping empty papers carefully doubled up, sending persons on absurd messages, and such like contrivances, to impose ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... though she had not heard his doom, so filled her with concern and indignation, that—her eyes and thoughts fixed upon him, at the other end of the class—she did not know when her turn came, but allowed the master to stand before her in bootless expectation. He did not interrupt her, but with a refinement of cruelty that ought to have done him credit in his own eyes, waited till the universal silence had at length aroused Annie to self-consciousness and a sense of ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... "He was bootless, and his pants and many-pocketed jumper of coarse dungaree were exceedingly dirty, and looked as if they had been cut out with a knife and fork instead of scissors, they were so marvellously ill-fitting. His head-gear ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... heart upon, For all God's charge, to his high angels, may Guard my foot better? Did I yesterday Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should run Quick to deny me 'neath the morning sun,— And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray?— The cock crows coldly.—Go, and manifest A late contrition, but no bootless fear! For when thy deathly need is bitterest, Thou shalt not be denied, as I am here— My voice, to God and angels, shall attest,— Because I KNOW this man, let him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... paper containing a problem in arithmetic, had to run to their sisters, wait for the problem to be solved, and then run back with the answer. Excellent! Simpson at his most inventive. Unfortunately, when the bootless boys arrived at the turning post, they found nothing but a small problem in arithmetic awaiting them, while on the adjoining stretch of grass young mathematicians were trying, with the help of their sisters, to get into two ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... he was; one grievous blot, So deem'd full many a courtly dame, I wot, Cross'd the full growth of his aspiring days, And dimm'd the lustre of meridian praise: With bootless artifice their lures they troll'd; Still, Gugemer lov'd not, or nothing told. The court's accustom'd love and service done, To his glad sire returns the welcome son. Now with his father dwelt he, and pursued Such pastimes as are meet for youth of ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... what family or families was it born? If you can get an understanding answer to these two questions, an answer that will tell you what its relations stand for as well as what their name is, your inquiries will be anything but bootless. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... even shreds of wreaths that dear hearts had put there a century ago, now all ruined and rotten—some still clinging, water-sodden, to the coffins, and some trampled in the sand of the floor. I had spent some time in this bootless search, and was resolved to give up further inquiry and foot it home, when the clock in the tower struck midnight. Surely never was ghostly hour sounded in more ghostly place. Moonfleet peal was known over half the county, and the finest part of it was the clock bell. 'Twas said that in times ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... Con was bold, But in the strange, wild days of old; To one rough hand was oft decreed The noblest and the blackest deed. 'Twas pride that spurred O'Donnell on, But still a generous heart had Con; He wished to show that he was strong, And not to do a bootless wrong. ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy |
