"Vain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the other day at the stolid behaviour of a sheep, who went on grazing with a sublime indifference when a peacock, having marched some distance for the purpose, wheeled round within a yard of his nose, displaying his brilliant charms in vain; and all the eyes of Argus seemed to pale their ineffectual fire, as when Mercury, with his delightful music, in accordance with the command of Jupiter, and with Lempriere's dictionary, made them wink in a delicious drowse. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... to risk another night in the house, and we got out of it that very day, after instituting, with the aid of the servants, a thorough search, with a view to ascertain whether there was any possible means of getting into the rooms except by the usual modes of ingress; but our search was vain; none ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... we took and tethered them in the plantation, and next morning about three o'clock we crept cautiously out of the house and set off on our adventure. It was a winter morning, misty and cold when the light came, and the birds were excessively wild at that hour. In vain we followed the flocks, my brother stalking them through the sedges, above his knees in the water; not a bird could he get, and at last we were obliged to go back empty-handed to face the music. At half-past ten we rode to the door, wet and hungry and miserable, ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... and frowned. Just as Dron was a model village Elder, so Alpatych had not managed the prince's estates for twenty years in vain. He was a model steward, possessing in the highest degree the faculty of divining the needs and instincts of those he dealt with. Having glanced at Dron he at once understood that his answers did not express his personal views but the general mood of the Bogucharovo commune, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... a Robin who made such an outcry that one of the old Redheads flew over in alarm. "Kik-a-rik, kik-a-rik," it cried as it hurried from tree to tree, trying to keep an eye on me while looking for the youngster. Neither of us could find it for some time, but after looking in vain over the west side of a big tree I rounded the trunk and found it calmly sitting on a branch on the east side—which goes to prove that it is never safe to say a Woodpecker isn't on a tree, till you ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... endear'd alike, forever equal,) Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain, Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization, (until which thy proudest material civilization must remain in vain,) Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing worship—thee in no single bible, saviour, merely, Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself, thy bibles incessant within thyself, equal to any, divine as any, (Thy soaring course thee formulating, not in thy two great wars, nor in ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... Then, flinging himself face down in the gravel, he sobbed in unrestrained relief, until, exhausted by the strain of his recent fearful experience, he fell asleep in the shadow of a ragged boulder, where late that afternoon Tabitha found him, after a vain search about ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... that gives to the "amusements" of the imagination that touch of burning fire; that breath of wider air; that taste of sharper salt, which, arriving when we least expect it, and least—heaven knows—deserve it, makes any final opinion upon the stuff of this world vain and false; and any condemnation of the opinions of others foolish and empty. It destroys our assurances as it alleviates our miseries, and in some unspeakable way, like a primrose growing on the edge of a sepulchre, it flings forth ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... blizzard which descended on the evening of the 20th, Zip and Sweep disappeared and on the 21st, a search on the glacier having been in vain, Dovers and Hoadley made their way down to the floe. They found Zip well and hearty in spite of having had a drop of at least forty feet off the glacier. A further search for Sweep proved fruitless. We were forced to conclude that he was either killed by falling ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the management of private enterprise. This produced a climate hostile to private business, inhibiting domestic and foreign investment. The Government of Belarus has artificially revived economic output since mid-1996 by pursuing a policy of rapid credit expansion. In a vain attempt to keep the rapidly rising inflation in check, the government placed strict price controls on food and consumer products, which resulted in food shortages. Long lines for dairy products, chicken, and pork became common in the closing months of 1998. With ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... said the auctioneer. But she only compressed her mouth more firmly. After trying in vain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... of salt-marsh to the right, imprisoning the upland with a vain promise of infinite liberty, and, between low, distant sandhills, a rim of sea. Stretches of pine woods behind, shutting in from the great outer world, and soon to darken into evening gloom. Ploughed fields and elm-dotted pastures to the left, and birch-lined ...
— Eli - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... Touch not her hand if thy finger-tips be found to thrill with hers ever so little. On the whole, shun woman, for she is apt to be a disturbing influence. If thou love her, all is over, and thy whole past and remaining labor and pains will be in vain. ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I have just now seen, I have a morbid dread upon me of some horrible consequences resulting to my dear boy, that I cannot reason with or in any way contend against. All my efforts are vain. The demoniacal passion of this Neville Landless, his strength in his fury, and his savage rage for the destruction of its object, appal me. So profound is the impression, that twice since I have gone into my dear boy's room, to assure myself of his sleeping safely, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... baronial and ducal crests are lies and the fools who use them are liars; the people who soak themselves in rum have nothing but lies in their heads; the multitude who live by their wits and the lack of them in others—they are all liars; the many who imagine a vain thing and pretend to be what they are not liars everyone of them. It is bound to be so in the great cities, and it is a mark of decay. The skirts of Elegabalus, the wigs and rouge pots of Madame Pompadour, the crucifix of Machiavelli and the innocent smile of Fernando Wood stand for ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... the great ship of State rode easily and smoothly upon her way; when it was removed she yawed and staggered until twelve British editors rose up in their omniscience and traced out twelve several courses, each of which was the sole and only path to safety. Then it was that the Opposition said vain things, and that the harassed Prime Minister prayed ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... very often do not know what they are best able to do. They are much too vain. Their minds are directed to something prouder than merely to appear like little plants, which, with freshness, rareness, and beauty, know how to sprout from their soil with real perfection. The ultimate goodness of their own garden and vineyard is superciliously ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... looked at it. She was very imperfectly clothed for such an afternoon, in a serge jacket and skirt supplemented by a small fur collarette, which she drew closer round her neck from time to time, as though in a vain effort to get warm. But she was not conscious of doing so, nor of the cold as cold. All her bodily sensations were miserable and uncomfortable. But she was only actively aware of the ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with the help of the Emperor Penguin embryos about the origin of feathers are justified, the worst journey in the world in the interest of science was not made in vain." ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... in the papers of the South, and soon became known to the whole country, disclosing the plans of the enemy, thus enabling General Sherman to fully meet them. He exhibited the weakness of supposing that an army that had been beaten and fearfully decimated in a vain attempt at the defensive, could successfully undertake the offensive against the army that had so ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... glance indicated the woman, whose misty stare went from the one to the other in a vain effort to follow what they were saying—"do ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... a-going, he strolled back into the wide passage and scanned the horizon once more. Judith Browne did not like to see her husband in this mood. She knew well how vain every exercise of her wifely arts of diversion would prove when he once fell into this train of black thoughts; but she could not refrain from essaying the hopeless task by holding up her apron of homespun ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... 8: Sir Edward Coke, in his 4th Inst. ch. i. declares that this act was disavowed in the next parliament by the Commons, for that they never assented. The Author has searched the Parliament Rolls in vain for the authority on which that ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... themselves in funeral procession, and go sadly along, with their purple and scarlet and golden garments trailing over the withering grass. When the sunshine falls upon them, they seem to smile; but it is as if they were heart-broken. But it is in vain for me to attempt to describe these autumnal brilliancies, or to convey the impression which they make on me. I have tried a thousand times, and always without the slightest self-satisfaction. Fortunately there is no need of ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... amazed to find that his was feigned, and hers was too genuine to be complimentary; after which he tried the attentive, which rarely fails to bring a girl around, and was astonished beyond measure, to find that it was in vain. To be sure, Olive accepted his flowers, sometimes wearing a bud or two in her hair, and seemed to think it very kind in him to remember her in that way. And she went riding day after day with him, with the most hearty enjoyment, ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... A.M., Sickles, having looked in vain for re-enforcements, deemed it necessary to withdraw his lines back of Fairview crest. Himself re-formed the divisions, except that portion withdrawn by Revere, and led them to the rear, where the front line occupied the late artillery breastworks. Ammunition ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... conspirators. The andante amoroso, "Thou hast said it, aye, thou lovest me," becomes a real vivace furioso, and the violoncello ceases to imitate the inflections of the singer's voice, as indicated in the composer's score. In vain Raoul cries, "Speak on, and prolong the ineffable slumber of my soul." Valentine cannot "prolong." It is evident that an unaccustomed fire devours her. Her b's and her c's above the stave were dreadfully shrill. He struggles, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... by which he would prove, that Bishops receive their Jurisdiction from the Pope (seeing the Pope in the Dominions of other Princes hath no Jurisdiction himself,) are all in vain. Yet because they prove, on the contrary, that all Bishops receive Jurisdiction when they have it from their Civill Soveraigns, I will not omit the recitall ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... evident, and his determination to be a painter so fixed, that his parents finally overcame their scruples against an occupation which they considered vain and useless, and sent him to Philadelphia. There he lived as frugally as possible, saving his money for a trip to Italy, and finally, at the age of ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... or hollows containing lagoons. One of these, which we arrived at after travelling about thirteen miles, was a very extensive sheet of water, a pleasing sight to us, still remembering how recently and frequently we had sought that life-sustaining element in vain. This latter had firm banks resembling the ancient channel of a river, although the bed was evidently much higher than the water flowing in the channel we were then exploring; and it was further remarkable in being contracted at one part by masses of a very hard rock consisting ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... It is vain to tell us that the uses of such fetishistic stones are out of harmony with any civilisation. The civilisation of the dwellers in the Clyde sites was not so highly advanced as to reject a superstition which still survives. Nor is there any reason why these people should not have scratched ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... Isabel, with a stern gravity which perhaps the Stage had conspired with Nature, to bestow upon her, "your boast is in vain. Your power,—I am not in your power! Life and death are in my own hands. I will not defy, but I do not fear you. I feel—and in some feelings," added Isabel, with a solemnity almost thrilling, "there is all the strength and all the divinity of knowledge—I ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the least to the greatest in the realm each vies with the other in evil-doing. The husbandmen, citizens, lawyers and priests are hard and avaricious; the princes, dukes and noble lords are proud, vain, cursers, swearers, and traitors. The corruptness of their lives infects the air. It is just that they ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... machine or the distant passage of a train over a bridge. Then he commenced to gasp, to suffocate, and he had to unbutton his collar and his belt. He moved about to make his blood circulate, he tried to read, he attempted to sing. It was in vain. His thoughts, in spite of himself, went back to the day of the murder and made him begin it all over again in all its most secret details, with all the violent emotions he had experienced from the first minute ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... ran, sure-footed, leaping the washes, and outdistancing the pursuers on the left. Allie thought she could turn into the big valley and go down the main trail before the Indians chasing Fresno discovered her. But vain hope! Across the width of the valley where it opened out, a string of Indians appeared, riding ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... thought he would end his troubles; but with a change of weather, or the arrival of a quarter or a dime, his mood would change, and he would wait. Each day he would find some old paper lying about and look into it, to see if there was any trace of Carrie, but all summer and fall he had looked in vain. Then he noticed that his eyes were beginning to hurt him, and this ailment rapidly increased until, in the dark chambers of the lodgings he frequented, he did not attempt to read. Bad and irregular eating was weakening every function of his body. The one recourse left ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... paraffin stove. Accustomed to delays, we quite expected no engine to turn up or something like that, but finally a whistle blew and we were off, and a delirious shout went up, and then we all sighed with relief, and then got doubly merry, shouting vain things over a long untasted beverage, whisky and water. One hears so much about the horrors of war that I scarcely dare to describe the men's accommodation on board this train. It is strange, but true, that I have never travelled more comfortably in my life, and ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... on trying time after time, till he grew hot and impatient, and of course, as his most careful efforts were useless, it was only natural to expect that his more careless trials would be in vain. ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... needful to be strong and audacious;" weak men drop into hopeless lassitude, and the few who happen to be foolish as well as weak rid themselves of life. I dare say that hardly one of those who read these lines has escaped that one awful moment when effort appears vain, when life is one long ache, and when Time is a creeping horror that seems to lag as if to torture the suffering heart. We need only turn to the vivid chapter of modern life to see the utter folly of "giving in." Let us look at the life-history of a statesman who died some years ago ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... field of romance—witchery by daylight; and the success is complete. Geraldine, so far as she goes, is perfect. She is sui generis. The reader feels the same terror and perplexity that Christabel in vain struggles to express, and the same spell that fascinates her eyes. Who and what is Geraldine—whence come, whither going, and what designing? What did the poet mean to make of her? What could he have made of her? Could he ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... them.' We asked them if they had tickets, and they showed us little square pieces of paper exactly similar to one which we hold in our possession. The tickets were all so blurred that the educated Chinese gentleman who accompanied us tried in vain to make out its full meaning. It is by means of these things, put in the hands of Chinese women who are utterly unable to read a word of Chinese, that their liberty is professedly ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... sacred heat, Thou hadst thy gift to Freedom made complete. But while thou sleepest in an honour'd grave Beneath the Gallic sod thou bledst to save, May thy soul's vision scan the ravag'd plain, And tell thee that thou didst not fall in vain: Here, as though pray'dst, a million men advance, To prove Columbia one with flaming France, And heeding now the long-forgotten debt, Pay with their blood the gen'rous LAFAYETTE! Thy ringing odes ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... present next evening, if he joined the marchesa's rubber? Before she could reply, Trenta had hastily answered for her, that "he would settle all that with the count when they met in the morning." So, standing in the street, they parted. Count Marescotti sought in vain for one last glance from Enrica. When he turned round to look for ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... such a one, mon cher ami (The finger-shield of industry,) The inventive gods, I deem, to Pallas gave, What time the vain Arachne, madly brave, Challenged the blue-eyed virgin of the sky A duel in embroidered work to try. And hence the thimbled finger of grave Pallas, To th' erring needle's ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... her Naked, and so led her into a Pond he had within his Yard; and there he ty'd her fast unto a Post which was plac'd in the midst of it; telling her that by to morrow-morning he hop'd she wou'd be something cooler; whilst she in vain protests her Innocency, and intreats him to release her. And having left her in this cold Condition, Locks up his Servants in their Chambers, and taking all the Keys into his own ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... turning round and round its baneful head, the cat always keeping beyond the distance she knew it could spring. At last she saw her opportunity, and rushing in upon it, she seized it by the neck, so that it could not bite her. The snake wriggled violently, but all in vain; after a few convulsive struggles even the tail ceased to move, and I left the eat crunching the bones of ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... I hear, sir, Scindia is becoming jealous of Ghatgay's power, and disgusted both by his imperious manner and by his atrocities in Poona—against which he has several times protested, but in vain. If I am to obtain an audience with Scindia, it must be ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... a long silence as she stood there with the paper in her hand: a silence that grew gradually more terrible, while her face turned white. Over and over she read the scrawled words, as if in the vain hope that the thing they told might yet prove only a hideous dream from which, presently, she might wake. Then, as if very far away, she heard the ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... sorrowing hearts We gaze upon them through our tears, And sadly feel how vain were all Their heroic deeds through weary years; Yet 'mid their enemies they move With firm, bold step and dauntless mien: Oh, Liberty! in every age, Such have ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... Greece—as they were originally also in Latium—reputable employments redounding to the honour of the burgess and of the community to which he belonged, in Latium the better portion of the burgesses drew more and more aloof from these vain arts, and that the more decidedly, in proportion as art came to be more publicly exhibited and more thoroughly penetrated by the quickening impulses derived from other lands. The use of the native pipe was sanctioned, but the lyre remained despised; and while the national amusement ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... flower Unfolds its heart to welcome in the dawn, And on her listening face there shone a light Of still amazement and completed joy In the full gift of hearing. What she heard I cannot tell; nor could she ever tell In words; because all human words are vain. There is no speech nor language, to express The secret messages of God, that make Perpetual music in the hearing heart. Below the voice of waters, and above The wandering voice of winds, and underneath The song of birds, and all the ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... her, stroking her hair, and murmuring words of love and tenderness, realized that his labor and sacrifice had not been in vain, that here was his recompense; she would never misunderstand him again; ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "bow wow," or "moo moo." There are people who have taken much pains to discover whether the roots ever had an independent existence, or if they have merely been scientifically abstracted, or shelled out of the words in which they occur. These are vain questions, for we can never of course come at the matter historically, and the attempt to prove the necessity of the one or the other view is a useless undertaking. It appears to be the most reasonable plan to assume for the Aryan ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... society Be not afraid. I met her deity Cutting the clouds towards Paphos and her son Dove-drawn with her. Here thought they to have done Some wanton charm upon this man and maid, Whose vows are, that no bed-rite shall be paid Till Hymen's torch be lighted; but in vain. Mars's hot minion is return'd again; Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows, Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows, And ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... air and a white magnesium cluster descended slowly, lighting up all the trenches in a sudden blaze which made the pioneers look like ghosts peering over the black brink of the pits. Then the light went out, and the eyes trying in vain to pierce the darkness saw nothing but glittering fiery red circles. The Japanese batteries on the other side opened fire. The air-ship had entirely disappeared, and no one knew whether the uncanny night-bird had been ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... learning to master me. Ay, but though I thought ower muckle about him, never did I speak him fair. I loo'ed Aaron wi' all my heart, and your father kent it; and that, I doubt, was what made him so keen, for, oh, but he was vain! ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... elemental and ultimate principle of philosophy, so the faith of Abraham is the fundamental basis of all religion, which is weakened rather than strengthened by attempts to define it. All definitions of an ultimate principle are vain, since everybody understands what is ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... am a changed, a converted man. These strange, sweet emotions, this unspeakable gladness of heart in the midst of so much that is painful and distracting, prove that I am. I have not taken this journey in vain." ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... calumny. Come, gentle Amoret (for 'neath that name, In worthier verse is sung thy beauty's fame); Come—for but thee who seeks the Muse? and while Celestial blushes check thy conscious smile, With timid grace, and hesitating eye, The perfect model, which I boast, supply:— Vain Muse! couldst thou the humblest sketch create Of her, or slightest charm couldst imitate— Could thy blest strain in kindred colours trace The faintest wonder of her form and face— Poets would study the immortal line, And REYNOLDS own HIS art subdued by thine; That ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... the knight of the castle has become a wretched man, having been taught to believe all evils of his wife, and of his child Otto, and a certain stranger, one Hildebrandt. Gottfried, we see with half an eye, has done it all. It is in vain that Ludwig de Hombourg tells his old friend Karl that this Gottfried is a thoroughly bad fellow, that he had been found to be a cardsharper in the Holy Land, and had been drummed out of his regiment. "'Twas but some silly quarrel ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... pace, the successful prospectors continued on toward Farley's, trying in vain to ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... Canalis, "all these women, even when they are simple-minded, have ideals, and you can't satisfy them. They never say to themselves that a poet is a vain man, as I am accused of being; they can't conceive what it is for an author to be at the mercy of a feverish excitement, which makes him disagreeable and capricious; they want him always grand, noble; it never occurs ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... conscious thought was that she had not broken her word, that she had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There had been no crying out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at temporizing or evasion. She had marched ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... succeeding four years a relentless siege was laid to the fortress by the combined land and naval forces of Spain and France. Both nations summoned to their aid their ablest generals and admirals, using every conceivable device and strategy to capture the fortress, but all in vain. ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... poor woman had suffered and striven so for it, to have it and to keep it. The more critical grew its illness, the intenser grew her strength and resolution by watchfulness, by every means her instinct and experience could suggest, to fight and win the battle against death. And when all was vain, the maddening thought tortured her that it might have ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... tells how he has braved the dangers of every sea, sought death on every rock, challenged every pirate, and how vain all his efforts have been to find the death which ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... see the poor birds how they fly to and fro, They're come for their breakfast again; But the little worms all are hid under the snow, They hop about chirping in vain. ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... and that they could lay hands upon me at any moment when the necessity for so doing should become apparent. Nevertheless, one friend, having applied to the police for my address, spent two whole days in finding me, at haphazard. After a residence of three months, other friends appealed in vain to the police; then obtained from the prefect, who had certified to us, the information that no such persons lived in the town, the only foreigners there being two sisters named Genrut! With this lucid clue our friends cleverly found us. Those who understand Russian ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... he had little stomach for another encounter. Therefore his side-thrust was now being exerted in the opposite direction; he was frankly trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and Triplanetary's formidable cruiser. In vain. A light tractor was clamped on and the Boise flashed up to close range before Rodebush threw on her inertia and Cleveland brought the two vessels relatively to rest by increasing gradually his tractor's pull. ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... cherished some hopes therein—tolerably vague, it is true, yet hardly faint enough, it would seem, for he was disappointed in them. When its bonds fell from him, however, he flattered himself that he had not worn them in vain, but had through them arrived at a knowledge of women as rare as profound. But whatever the reach of this knowledge, it was not sufficient to prevent him from harbouring the presumptuous hope of so choosing ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... harangu'd so long, and, was so big with her Invectives against the young Widow, that her too affected, vain Shew of Virtue, gave Zadig a ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... afoot; but his ills had not yet done with him, for he had not gone far ere he fell into the hands of the King's men, who marched him off, willy-nilly, to Tutbury Town and the Bishop of Hereford. In vain he swore he was a holy man, and showed his shaven crown; off he must go, for nothing would do but that he was ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... slight movement among the reeds—might have remembered that Gentleman Jim found no companionship in her brothers, and would be pretty sure to find his way to the water-hole at any risk, if it were only to vary the monotony and to see how the land lay. And so after one vain effort to free her hands, she stood still and listened, while Fisher poured into her unwilling, uncomprehending ears the story of his love for her, and then, since that made no impression, he warned her again and again against Gentleman ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... came to him remorseful misgivings, and he told himself that it had been one of the sophistries of the flesh, a call of the senses taking in vain the sacred name of Jenny; and then for his comfort he remembered how the greatest of all lovers, Dante, had craved in like manner for the solace of "a very pitiful lady, very young," and had been similarly remorseful on account of his momentary ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... and fought desperately for life, if no longer for victory. Slowly and steadily the Normans pressed on, till they reached the spot where Harold, surrounded by his house-carls, fought beneath his standard. There all their attacks were in vain, till William, calling for his bowmen, bade them shoot their arrows into the air. Down came the arrows in showers upon the heads of the English warriors, and one of them pierced Harold's eye, stretching him lifeless on the ground. In a series of representations in worsted work, known as ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... Captain Mitchell requested a friend of his to ride forward to Brussels, and to gallop back with information of where Sir William was, and whether it was still of any avail for me to proceed: he was expected to meet us at Malines, half-way. We at last left Antwerp; but bribing the driver was in vain. It was not in his power to proceed; for the moment we passed the gates, we were entangled in a crowd of waggons, carts, horses, wounded men, deserters or runaways, and all the rabble and confusion, the consequence of several battles.(24) Every now and then we went ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... offended in vain, however, for after dinner that night, when Sidney sought his father in the Koblins' suite at Riesenberger's cottage, the King was in an ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... of things, I feel prompted to make an attack on the power of that faction. That liberty of speech[110], therefore, which has been left me by my father, I shall assuredly exert against them; but whether I shall use it in vain, or for your advantage, must, my fellow-citizens, depend upon yourselves. I do not, however, exhort you, as your ancestors have often done, to rise in ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... permission to co-operate with Raja Brooke in these expeditions. The pirates were attacked in their strongholds, they fought desperately, and the slaughter was immense. Negotiations with the chiefs had been tried, and tried in vain. The capital of the sultan of Borneo was bombarded and stormed, and the sultan with his army routed. He was, however, soon after restored to his dominion. So large was the number of natives, pirates and others, slain in these expeditions, that the "head-money" ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... lower himself thus—What happens? The rich man goes to a church where flattery and subservience are more plentiful. The stiff-necked rector seeks in vain for funds. For lack of money his church runs down. It cannot keep up its charities and its ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... or else scented him," said Walter to himself. "Our trouble is all in vain for to-day, so I must go acquaint father with ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... things, and that is where Tim had the advantage. He did not mind the hardness of his couch, while Sam, who had always been accustomed to a regular bed, did. He moved from one side to another, and then lay on his back, seeking sleep in vain. ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... in the knowledge that the Dead Man was then in the city; and when he reflected that the Doctor had joined that arch miscreant, he knew not what infernal plot might be concocted against his liberty or life. He puzzled his brain in vain to account for the Doctor's singular conduct in deserting him for the friendship of a villain; and he was forced to arrive at the unwelcome conclusion, that the Doctor was a man whose natural depravity led him to prefer the companionship of crime ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... wonders for the young Warreners, and the next morning they determined to set out to join their countrymen at Allahabad, where they expected to find their father and his troops. The rajah and their fellow-countrymen endeavored in vain to dissuade them, but the former, finding that they were determined, gave them dresses as native women, furnished them with a guide, and sent them across the river in a boat—for they were on the Oude side—with a message to a zemindar ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... vain her eager eyes she brings To ev'ry darksome crack, There was not one! and yet her things Were dropping off her back. She cut her pincushion in two, But no, not one ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... they came to Andresy upon the Seine, Heigho for Rowing! Big BULL pulled his hardest, but pulled in vain, For he found his boasts were all gammon and spinach. Heigho for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... most desired in the world for years past, and upon the whole I do not feel that my happiness is at all increased; perhaps if it were not for one cause it might be, but until that ceases to exist it is in vain that I acquire every other advantage or possess the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the comfort in the coming years, when her girls, who, thanks to the inevitable march of Truth, will have a better chance than she, and her boys, to whom the last stage of education is to be had for the asking, come to her in vain for sympathy and appreciation, to say nothing of the husband, from all understanding of whose rational thought she finds herself barred out?[19] Babies and half-educated children are very pretty to ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... she've a-left em, all The pleaece do miss her, girt an' small. In vain vor them the zun do sheen Upon the lwonesome rwoad an' green; Their zwing do hang vorgot between The leaenen trees, vor they've a-lost The best o' maidens, to their cost, The maid they ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... health if he can find it anywhere; but many a one thinks to gain his own advantage and to win what he desires, who pursues that whereof he sorrows later. And why should he go to seek advice when he does not expect to find health? That were a vain toil! I feel my own ill so heavy a burden that never shall I find healing for it by medicine or by potion or by herb or by root. There is not a remedy for every ill: mine is so rooted that it cannot be cured. Cannot? Methinks I have lied. As soon as I first felt this evil, if I ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... whole party was trooping to the vestry. There was a blotted, scrawled book—and that young girl putting back her veil in her vanity, and laying her hand with the wedding-ring self-consciously conspicuous, and signing her name proudly because of the vain ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... a witty mischievous wench in the neighbourhood, who was a beauty, and makes me hope I shall see the perverse widow in her condition. She was so flippant with her answers to all the honest fellows that came near her, and so very vain of her beauty, that she has valued herself upon her charms till they are ceased. She therefore now makes it her business to prevent other young women from being more discreet than she was herself: however, the saucy thing said the other day well enough, ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... was about to give the word for a further advance, from almost directly ahead, though still some distance away, came the sound of a single pistol shot. Just one shot; that was all. In vain did the lads strain their ears to catch a possible reply to the ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... from the main camp, "grubbing" themselves and living the lives of semi-savages. And it was upon one of these adventures that the three got separated in some way, Banty and the Indian reaching camp a little before sunset, and waiting in vain for Con's appearance while the hours slipped by, and they called and shouted, and fired innumerable shots thinking to guide him campwards, while they little knew that all the gold in British Columbia could not have brought Con's feet ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... saw two whites instead of one they appeared beside themselves with rage. A few missiles were thrown; among other articles a Winchester, which the boy strove in vain to reach as it rebounded from the boat's bow into the sea. Duff was struck with a marlin-spike, but he still clung to the oar he was trying to use. Another black plunged through the window into ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... that looks for us again— How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; How oft hereafter rising look for us Through this same Garden—and for one in vain! ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... more," said his mother, and her face, which looked so extremely weary like the face of one who has waited long in vain, flushed slightly. ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... love and ambition. That her heart was Lord Lindore's she could not conceal from herself, though she would not confess it to another—and that other the tenderest of sisters, whose only wish was to serve her. Mary's tears and entreaties were therefore in vain, and at Adelaide's repeated desire she at length quitted her and returned to ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... 27.—Our eyes have scanned the horizon in vain, but I feel sure we shall see the schooner to-morrow. Graham has quite made up his mind that we cannot go home by it next year. It has no accommodation ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright
... jet butterfly fluttered in vain over a very decollete expanse which covered a heart agitated by rage and ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... wisdom in the remarks made by the Hon. Roscoe Conkling, when he presented a woman's petition, on the danger of granting Mr. Pomeroy a monopoly of such privileges, lest he should grow lukewarm in the cause. True, we have looked in vain for any burst of eloquence from the Kansas gentleman, thus far, in the Senate, but it may be that he can not find words to express the depth of his sympathy for oppressed womanhood, hence the silent eloquence of action alone in behalf of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... counterpane, he vehemently opposing every attempt to make him a deposit between the sheets.—Seven o'clock on the following morning found Mr. Adolphus Casay at the bedside of the violently-snoring and stupidly obfuscated Brown Bunkem. In vain he pinched, shook, shouted, and swore; inarticulate grunts and apoplectic denunciations against the disturber of his rest were the only answers to his urgent appeals as to the necessity of Mr. Brown Bunkem's getting ready to appear before the magistrate. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... disagreeable and troublesome by its constant repetition, which is not dangerous, but exceedingly disturbing. It would be desirable to be acquainted with a safe method of curing this eruption, but so far, it has been sought for in vain." The same physician, speaking of pemphigus, writes in the same place, that its etiology, prognosis and treatment, are still very dubious; that it leads to extensive chronic sufferings, and often terminates ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... to maintain a barbarian religion stricken with moral decadence were in vain. On the very spot on which the last taurobolia took place at the end of the fourth century, in the Phrygianum, stands to-day the basilica ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... walked on her foot and tried to bite her, and she hastily had to send it away. She wished for a pet lamb, but it baaed so loudly that she was almost discovered by the farmer, so that had to go too. And she had been wishing for these vain and unsatisfying things for more than a week before she thought of asking for a little ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... home repentantly and in peace. But he insisted on my going and offering to dance with her the first set in his place. She had already promised, she said, to dance it with Mr. Herbert, and it was in vain that I told her she must look upon me as acting for Phil, and advised her for his sake to excuse herself to Herbert and dance with either Phil or myself. 'If Phil should come and ask me himself on his knees I would not do it,' she declared, with superb grandeur, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... cry, for his heart was almost broken—within an arm's-length of his love, and she was gone for ever! For the moment he did not perceive that the clasp of despair must have drowned them both. Pointing his hands and throwing up his heels, he made one vain dive after her, then he knew that the pit was too deep for the bottom to be reached in that way. He swam to the trunk from which Dolly had leaped, and judging the distance by the sullen ripple, dashed in with a dive like a terrified frog. Like ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... man smiled one of those queer, sad smiles which Hinton had often in vain tried to fathom. Responding to the touch of the vigorous young ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... her silently; like most men, he was inarticulate at the great moments, and Blanche sobbed on. She who for so many years had made herself believe what she wished, had gagged and blindfolded her own soul till truth showed its face to her in vain, was now stripped of all bandages and having facts passed relentlessly before her. She had made Ishmael love her, as she had so many men, by seeming something she was not; she had fallen in love with Ishmael herself, and must keep up the pretence ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... character in general. Deceit frequently lurks beneath the smile and honeyed words of the flatterers, and he who believes that the avenues to woman's heart are only accessible by such means, proves, beyond a doubt, that he has associated with none but the frivolous, the vain and weak-minded of the sex. Poor, indeed, is that compliment which man pays to woman, when he expatiates on her sparkling eyes, her flowing tresses, and ruby lips, as though she were only a beautifully fashioned creature of clay, while he virtually ignores the existence of those higher ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... the dome! 'And you will find how pleasant it is, and how comfortable. It cannot be imagined till you are there.' The moment of entrance, he seemed to say, put an end to the miseries of life. At that threshold they might beat in vain. You soared into a region of peace and light, above envy, above criticism, blessed for ever! All was won, and nothing left to desire. Ah, the Academie! Those who spoke ill of it spoke in ignorance, or in jealousy, because they could not get in. The ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... the workmen had not removed the scaffolding, a fact which was hailed with delight by the choir-boys as affording an unlooked-for means of relaxation. One after another climbed the poles, each striving to outdo the rest in attaining the highest point. In vain did the Empress Maria Theresa, who had perceived them from her windows, issue prohibitions and threaten dire punishment to the offenders—the sport went on unchecked. At length a moment arrived when Joseph, who had beaten his companions by climbing to the top of the tallest pole, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... that could mean only love, she forgot how tenderly and softly he had answered her in the garden; she only remembered that she had done her utmost, and too much, to make him tell her that he loved her, and in vain. She could not forgive him that, for even after three days her cheeks burned fiercely whenever she thought of it. After that, it mattered nothing what became of her, whether she were betrothed, or whether she were married, or whether she went mad, or even whether she died—that ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... "resumed practice at the old stand" without delay, publishing a card to that effect in the village newspaper. He seemed scarcely to note the absence of his wife, who for a quarter of a century had been wearing her life out in a vain endeavor to justify his existence on this globe. In short, he speedily settled back into his old habit of life, and appeared to have totally forgotten that he had come home to die. And Dora, too, soon lapsed into her old routine of schoolkeeping, and so once ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... has known Mr. Fessenden must have wondered how the kindest hearted man in all the world could have likewise been the most noted satirist of his day. For my part, I have tried in vain to form a conception of my venerable and peaceful friend as a champion in the stormy strife of party, flinging mud full in the faces of his foes, and shouting forth the bitter laughter that rang ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... tried in vain to break Lincoln down," concludes Mr. Herndon, "and the judge, badgered effectually by Lincoln's masterly arraignment of law and fact, pretended to see the error of his former position, and finally reversed his decision in his tormentor's favor. ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... move near to that sanctified place. The intimate human relation, husband and wife, parent and child—she knew with pain and yearning that all else—position, great wealth, worldly power—were vain beside the joy of those relations in ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... vain to try to penetrate even with the eye, to say nothing of one's steps, for there all is covered with a misty cloud that rises incessantly from quivering morasses. But finally behind this mist (so runs the common rumour) extends ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... than the windmills!" sighed Sancho, who tried in vain to convince his master of the ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... place along the valley, carrying down acres of rock, soil, and pine-forests, into the stream. I saw one from Kampo Samdong, on the opposite flank of the valley, which swept over 100 yards in breadth of forest. I looked in vain for any signs of scratching or scoring, at all comparable to that produced by glacial action. The bridge at the Tuktoong, mentioned at chapter xix, being carried away, we had to ascend for 1000 feet (to a place where the river could be crossed) by a very precipitous ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... newspaper work? You are a clever girl and you know the world.... Come to my office to-morrow noon—no, I've got a Washington nob on my hands for lunch—" (Becker was vain of his political influence, which consisted for the most part of entertaining visiting politicians at luncheon.) "Come in 'bout four, and we'll see what we can do to help ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... 'Tis vain to struggle—let me perish young— Live as I lived, and love as I have loved; To dust if I return, from dust I sprung, And then, at least, my ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... that I called for, I immediately dismiss it, telling it, "It is not you I have occasion for." But, then, where lie objects half-forgotten? They are present within me, since I look for them there, and find them at last. Again, in what manner are they there, since I look for them a long while in vain? What becomes of them? "I am no more," says St. Augustin, "what I was when I had the thoughts I cannot find again. I know not," continues that father, "either how it comes to pass that I am thus withdrawn from and deprived of myself, or how I am afterwards ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously, sailing round among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous to ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... success. Very rarely in later years, even when Leader of House of Commons, did he exceed twenty minutes, and all his most successful interpositions in debate were on that plan. When, occasionally, he felt that circumstances demanded a long and laboured address, his labour was in vain. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various
... "in these days an Assembly of 350 members cannot in the last instance direct the policy of a great Power." The Government asked for a loan for military operations; he appealed to their patriotism, but it was in vain; the House voted an address to the King, remonstrating against the conduct of foreign affairs, and threw out the loan by a majority of 275 to 51. "If you do not vote the money, we shall take it where we can get it," Bismarck had warned them. The House ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... to them," the old lady said, twinkling. "Don't let it make you vain, Mary. You're well enough, but you aren't half as pretty as a rose, or half as tall as a tree, and there are thousands of trees and roses ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... Nature to give him a new tail, but in vain. She gave him a lecture which he never forgot. She told him that it was no one's fault but his own that he had lost the beautiful tail that he did have and had nothing but a stub left. Mr. Lynx crawled on his stomach to the feet of Old Mother Nature ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... strength), that in this case the long arm will reach, and the strong arm will strike.—This is our Cathedral, sir. The best judges are pleased to admire it, and the best among our townsmen own to being a little vain of it.' ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... searched in vain for any further clue, and, riding wide in every direction, stopped and called her name again and again, while the sun grew lower and lower and shadows crept in lurking-places waiting for the swift-coming night. It was then that Bud, flying frantically ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... crumbling from their parent slope At slender interval, the level calm Is ridg'd with restless and increasing spheres Which break upon each other, each th' effect Of separate impulse, but more fleet and strong Than its precursor, till the eyes in vain Amid the wild unrest of swimming shade Dappled with hollow and alternate rise Of interpenetrated arc, would scan Definite round. I know not if I shape These things with accurate similitude From visible objects, for but dimly now, Less vivid than a half-forgotten ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... thou play (as often I have seen a Musician play in snow, or sleet, or rain) The cornet or expansive concertina Outside a public-house, and all in vain? Music hath charms, but public-house men mock it, Let loose an oath, but button up ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various
... Poor painted Queen, vain flourish of my fortune! Why strew'st thou Sugar on that bottled spider, Whose deadly web ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... to show an immense retrogression. The law of Jehovah should denote what is characteristic of His people over against the heathen. But this certainly did not consist in the cultus of Israel: it would be vain labour to seek in this and that slight variation between the Hebrew and the Greek ritual a difference of principle between them. The cultus is the heathen element in the Israelite religion— the word heathen not being understood, of course, in an ignoble or unworthy sense. If the Priestly ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... and the love of the ever blessed Trinity, shown forth in Christ upon His cross, we can cast ourselves with all our sins; we can cry to Him, and not in vain, for forgiveness and for sanctification; for a clean heart and a right spirit; and that we may become holy and humble men of heart. We can join our feeble praises to that hymn of praise which goes up for ever to God from suns and stars, clouds and showers, beasts and birds, and every living ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... you'll desire in vain, sir, I reckon. Your wife's brought along Saurea, that dower slave of hers, to have ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... other philosophers. These have not been in any better fortune than the others. In vain have they been asked what a material soul is; they have to admit that it is matter which has sensation: but what has given it this sensation? It is a material soul, that is to say that it is matter which gives sensation to matter; they cannot ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... than a year later the transformation which the old Valmet place had undergone was the talk and wonder of Cote Joyeuse. One would have looked in vain for the ruin; it was no longer there; neither was the log cabin. But out in the open, where the sun shone upon it, and the breezes blew about it, was a shapely structure fashioned from woods that the forests ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... by which these and other inscriptions have lately been deciphered. It would not require any great display of forensic or parliamentary eloquence, to convince the public at large, by means of such evidence, that all the labours of Grotefend, Burnouf, Lassen, and Rawlinson had been in vain, and to lay down once for all the general principle that the original meaning of inscriptions written in a dead language, of which the tradition is once lost, can never be recovered. Fortunately, questions of this kind are not settled by eloquent pleading or by the votes of majorities, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... mention of the fat pork finished me off. I bolted out of the berth, which was to windward, and went staggering away to the opposite side of the ship, having made a vain attempt to get to the main-deck, upsetting Tom Pim in my course, and not stopping till I pitched right against Doctor McCall, our surgeon, much after the manner that I had treated old Rough-and-Ready. Our good medico, not being so secure as the ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... boldest of idealists, did not live in vain, in that he not only set apart the State which he founded as a place of refuge for all persons given to free and daring speculation, but made it a kind of Prospero's Isle, that should never cease to be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... Ahijah's court, he will not only be endued with piety, but with an independent spirit, and a resolute will, which will make him a power for good in the very sphere where he seemed likely to be crushed by the powers of evil. It is not in vain that the apostle gave the exhortation, "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Asa was a noble example of obedience to ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... uncle Toby was in the right, and that it would be in vain for the wit of man to think of extracting a purer moral from his cap, without further attempting it, he put it on; and passing his hand across his forehead to rub out a pensive wrinkle, which the text and the doctrine between them had engender'd, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Vain, vain such warning to those happy ears! Disturb not their delight! By unkind powers Doom'd to keep pace with the relentless Hours, He, too, ere long, shall feel Earth's glory change; Familiar names shall ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... and drift out of Riverboro into a gayer, larger world. Her devotion to her sister was so ardent, and her admiration so sincere, that she could not think it possible that Patty would love anywhere in vain; nevertheless, she had an instinct that her affections were crystallizing somewhere or other, and when that happened, the uncertain and eccentric temper of her father would raise ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... phrase: to spoil one's life?—arrested one's attention by its air of wise profundity. At any rate, as I have said before, the words of la belle Madame Delestang made me thoughtful for a whole evening. I tried to understand and tried in vain, not having any notion of life as an enterprise that could be mi managed. But I left off being thoughtful shortly before midnight, at which hour, haunted by no ghosts of the past and by no visions of the future, I walked down the quay of the Vieux Port to ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... of the processes by which he lives and acts. At every moment he is in danger of disobeying laws which, when disobeyed, may bring years of suffering, decline of powers, premature decay. Sanitary reformers preach in vain, because they preach to a public which does not understand the laws of life—laws as rigorous as those of Gravitation or Motion. Even the sad experience of others yields us no lessons, unless we understand the principles ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... advanced eagerly and in some disorder into the ditch, when a terrible fire of musketry was suddenly opened upon them from the front and flank. In vain they tried to defend themselves; the brave prince was struck down by a mortal wound while endeavoring to encourage them, and was carried to the rear, and Allen and two hundred men were taken prisoners. The prince expired a few minutes later before there ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty |
