"Futile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... best clothes; you sat in rows round a stuffy room; you drank stewed tea, and ate buttered cakes. You met every day the same—everlastingly the same ladies, dressed in the same garments, and listened every day to the same futile talk. From the older ladies, criticisms of last Sunday's sermon, and details of household grievances; from the younger, "Have you seen Miss Horby's new hat? Did you hear the latest about the Briggs? ... I'm going to ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to Andy Gowran again, but Mrs. Hittaway did. After a faint and futile endeavour made by her to ascertain what had taken place in the parlour down-stairs, she descended and found Andy seated in his chair, still holding his hat in his hand, as stiff as a wax figure. He had been afraid of the lord, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... under shields or hoods, lined with non-heat-conducting material, and to bury them in non-heat-conducting material in a pulverized state, for the purpose of retaining and equalizing the heat; but all these attempts have proved futile in practice, and the fact remains, that the universal practice in steel works at the present day all over the world is to employ a heating furnace of ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... Bulwer and Byron heroes and heroines are very well, they are all of them handsome; but my personages are mostly unattractive in look, and therefore ill-adapted to figure in ideal portraits. At the best, I have always thought such representations futile. You will not easily find a second Thackeray. How he can render, with a few black lines and dots, shades of expression so fine, so real; traits of character so minute, so subtle, so difficult to seize and fix, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... in the disappearance of the old marriage service. It was like the dropping of a weight to which our shoulders had become so accustomed that we hardly realized it till it was gone. Instead of pompous and futile absurdity—as in the existing exhortation, and homily—beautiful and fitting quotation from the unused treasures of the Bible. Instead of the brutal speech, the crudely physical outlook of an earlier day, the just reticence and nobler perceptions of ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the music of antiquity—that is, in an art-form—is nearly, if indeed not quite, enveloped in mystery; and it were futile to profess to give an historical presentation of an art from its birth, when documentary evidence of ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... the old lady who held her down, that the latter was compelled to release her grasp, and the poor girl got up, vowing she would not have another incision made. Of course all resistance would have been futile, or probably have only brought down a fearful chastisement upon her if she had been alone with her tribe in the bush; but she took advantage of my presence, and escaped with nearly one-third of the incisions deficient. At this ceremony many other natives of both sexes, and of all ages were ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... of "success." When Arthur's manliness first asserted itself, there was perhaps as much of vanity as of pride in his acceptance of the consequences of Hiram's will. But to an intelligent man any environment, except one of inaction or futile action, soon becomes interesting; the coming of Madelene was all that was needed to raise his interest to enthusiasm. He soon understood his fellow-workers as few of them understood themselves. Every human group, of whatever size or kind, is apt to think its characteristics peculiar to itself, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... signal had been rendered futile by this uproarious rapping Wildeve withdrew, passed out at the gate, and walked quickly down the path without thinking of anything except getting away unnoticed. Half-way down the hill the path ran near a knot of stunted hollies, which in the general darkness of the scene stood as the pupil in a ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... 'I deny that the age is crowded; I will admit one fact, and one fact only: that I am futile, that he is futile, and that we are all three as futile as the devil. What am I? I have smattered law, smattered letters, smattered geography, smattered mathematics; I have even a working knowledge of judicial astrology; ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... twenty-story buildings and streams of velvet smoke. Blocks and blocks of tenements, with the same dirty people wallowing around them, answered my searching eyes in blank response. There was an occasional dingy sign offering board and lodging. After I had made several futile inquiries at imposing offices on the river front I felt that it was a hopeless quest. I should never get work unknown, unskilled, already tired and discouraged. My collar was wilted in the fierce heat; my shabby felt sailor hat was no protection against ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... with the loss of two of its arms, was still powerful enough to make all his efforts futile, and he felt himself being drawn into some recess beyond where he had first seen the octopus squatting on the rock and glaring at them ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... been stolen by Azamat with his father's consent; at any rate, that is what I suppose. So, one day, Kazbich went and waited by the roadside, about three versts beyond the village. The old man was returning from one of his futile searches for his daughter; his retainers were lagging behind. It was dusk. Deep in thought, he was riding at a walking pace when, suddenly, Kazbich darted out like a cat from behind a bush, sprang up behind him on the horse, flung him to the ground with a thrust ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... not best after those words the Queen spoke to you last night," she answered simply. "Besides, our best efforts at escape would be futile should she suspect you have not perished where she entombed you. I am safe here, for the present at least, while you can accomplish much more for all of us if she believes you dead and takes no precautions to ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... range on the entire seventy-mile front from Regetow to Wolosate. Convinced that we were directing our chief efforts against his flanks, the enemy now strove to break our resistance in the Rostoki direction, but, after sixteen futile attacks, he was obliged to cede the commanding height of Telepovce, our occupation of which will probably compel him to evacuate his positions at Polen and Smolnik and withdraw to the valley of the Cziroka, a ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... France. In spite of the atrocities committed by Robert and his hirelings, the revolt continued with unabated fury, and at last Gregory was constrained to return in person to Italy with the purpose of pacifying the turbulent forces. He entered Rome, January 17, 1377; but after a year of futile effort he died, leaving the confusion worse ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... try to get her offen that Plank for a minute, and would bring up the World's Fair to her, and how big the housen wuz, I would find my efforts futile; for all she would say about 'em wuz to tell what Mr. Plank would have done if he had been a-livin', and if he had been onhampered, and out of salt, how much better he would have done than the directors did, and what bigger ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... also that the most vital point in the coming conflict would be the control of the sea. Accordingly he urged upon the Athenians the necessity of building a powerful fleet. In this policy he was aided by one of those futile wars so characteristic of Greek history, a war between Athens and the island of AEgina. In order to overcome the AEginetans, who had a large fleet, the Athenians were compelled to build a larger one, and by the time this purpose was accomplished rumors came that ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... Peyster, then in the fifth year of her widowhood, had graciously undertaken to manage and underwrite the debut of her second cousin (not of the main line, be it said) and had tried to discharge her duty in the important matter of securing her a husband. But her efforts had been futile, and to say that Mrs. De Peyster had not succeeded was to admit that poor Olivetta Harmon was indeed a failure. She had lacked the fortune to attract the conservative investor who is looking for a sound business proposition ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... both. After several futile efforts he succeeded in writing a few words. Then he folded up the note, and handed ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and I were much more sensible, but that whole blessed time is wrapped in rosy mists with streaks of moonlight to the tune of heavenly music, so it 's futile to try to recall just what did happen. I ought to have gone to another hotel, but the chain of memory ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... more and more impenetrable. The skipper kept walking from end to end of the bridge, restlessly, and I could sympathize with him. He was in a hurry, a deadly hurry, which he had shown plainly enough from the first moment my eyes had rested upon him, and now this mist was rendering all his haste futile, as far as I could see. Every moment now I expected to see him ring down to the engine room for reduced speed, but we kept on going, doggedly, blindly, until at last we were pitching over long, smooth swells that were covered by ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... to me some modern religious pictures in Byzantine style painted for the Cathedral of Kieff, he said, "They represent an effort as futile as trying to persuade chickens to reenter the egg-shells from which they have escaped." He next showed me two religious pictures; the first representing the meeting of Jesus and Pilate, when the latter asked, "What is truth?" Pilate was depicted as a rotund, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... king, if thou recognise him as a Brahmana by characteristics, then, O long-lived one, the distinction of caste becometh futile as long as conduct doth not ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... After many futile attempts, and some skin knocked off their knuckles through awkward handling of the knife and flint, a good fire was at last kindled, as there was no lack of dry wood on the shore. Catharine then triumphantly produced ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... fishing, denotes energy and economy; but if you do not succeed in catching any, your efforts to obtain honors and wealth will be futile. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... the width of the bridge, under the impression that bridges were cut out of paper, and so brought to ruin at least half an acre of calculations—and Hitchcock, new to disappointment, buried his head in his arms and wept; the heart-breaking delays over the filling of the contracts in England; the futile correspondences hinting at great wealth of commission if one, only one, rather doubtful consignment were passed; the war that followed the refusal; the careful, polite obstruction at the other end that followed the war, till young Hitchcock, putting one month's leave to ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... can wait." After all, Rickie was treating him as he had treated Rickie, as one in the grave, to whom it is futile to make any loving motion. Gone upstairs—to brush his hair for dinner! The irony of the situation appealed to him strongly. It reminded him of the Greek Drama, where the actors know so little ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... with his young friend, and holding this letter in his pocket. Had he shown it to Herbert, or spoken of it, he would have utterly disturbed the equilibrium of the embryo law student, and rendered his entrance in Mr. Die's chambers absolutely futile. "Ten will not be too early for you," he had said. "Mr. Die is always in his room by that hour." Herbert had of course declared that ten would not be at all too early for him; and Mr. Prendergast had observed that after leaving Mr. Die's chambers, he himself would go on to the ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... in council of war together," he said, "and they have not even told her of it, nor suffered her to join them! How can they treat her so—even Dunois and La Hire—when they have seen again and yet again how futile are all plans made by their skill without the sanction of her voice? It makes my gorge rise! Do they think her a mere beautiful image, to ride before them and carry a white banner to affright the foe? It is a shame, a shame, that they should ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... ask of you is that you will not make Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling's position any harder by futile endeavours to form the acquaintance of the ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... afraid of failure; they fear that they haven't the persistence and capacity for application that is needed to assure success. Perhaps they do make an attempt, but the work is hard, they just know that they won't be able to stick it out, and after a few futile efforts they give it up, and spend the rest of their lives wondering what they might have accomplished if ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... motive for simulating defeat, and his long years of experience upon pirate infested waters gave weight to his opinion. The weak spot in his argument was his inability to suggest a reasonable motive. And so it was that for a long time they were left to futile conjecture as to the action that had saved them from a bloody encounter with ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... this brilliant and beloved woman were devoted to futile attempts to solve the problem of Perpetual Motion. I wish she had given ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... sentiments. The papacy remained vacant after the death of Nicholas IV. in 1292, so that there was no danger of Rome taking the appointment into its own hands, and the happy accident, which had given the monks of Christchurch a statesmanlike prior in Henry of Eastry, minimised the chances of a futile conflict between the king and the canonical electors. Eastry took care that the archbishop-elect should be a person acceptable to the sovereign. Robert Winchelsea, the new primate, was an Englishman and a secular clerk, who had taught with ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... fiercer blast than ever, laden with a stinging volley of snow, and seemed to sweep the words from the girl's mouth. She bent before it involuntarily, and the conviction forced itself upon her that, after all, resistance to injustice might be as futile as resistance to storm, that injustice might be one of the primal forces of the world, and one of the conditions of its endurance, and yet with the conviction came the renewed ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... no other way of effecting his object, he had begun to taste the bitterness of futile effort, when fortune, always his friend, put him in a position to do what he wanted in the easiest possible way ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... their appointed course in yonder blue firmament—his device taught that—made her belong to him. If she could have forced herself to silence the desire of her heart, it would have been futile. Whoever divides two trees which have grown from a single root, she said to herself, destroys at least one; but she would live, would be happy on the highest summit of existence. She could not help obeying his summons, for as soon as she listened to the warning voice within, the "Because ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... proposition that a vessel darkened is much safer from submarine attack at night than in the daytime, and Captain Turner exercised proper and good judgment in planning accordingly as he approached dangerous waters. It is futile to conjecture as to what would or would not have happened had the speed been higher prior to the approach to the Irish coast, because, obviously, until then the Captain could not figure out his situation, not knowing how he ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... too many futile words who is never silent; a garrulous tongue, if it be not checked, sings ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... their walks through life by no very distinct principles, still there had been with them so much of adherence to a sacred law, that no acre of the property had ever been parted from the hands of the existing squire. Some futile attempts had been made to increase the territory, as indeed had been done by Kit Dale, the father of Christopher Dale, who will appear as our squire of Allington when the persons of our drama are introduced. Old Kit ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... Ibn Khallikan took a professorship in Cairo, learned by heart further enormous quantities of poetry, and engaged in literary discussions which, judging by a specimen given in one of his Lives, were even more futile than discussions usually are. ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... here to stay, Doctor. Legislation against it is as absurd and futile as a movement to stop the tides. We will never pull down these big department stores or go back to the little ones. The skyscraper will not come down from the heavens merely because a belated traveller rails that his view of ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... are also enabled to realise how futile, how misplaced, and how mischievous it is to raise the cry of "Race-suicide." It is futile because no outcry can affect a world-wide movement of civilisation. It is misplaced because the rise and fall of the population is not a matter of the birth-rate alone, ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... The moon was just rising, and the group of dragoons could easily be distinguished where they had been left. Suddenly turning, the whole gang leveled their pieces and drew the triggers. The action was noticed, and the snapping of the locks was heard by the soldiers, who returned their futile attempt with a laugh of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... had concluded that a command organized and operated as contemplated by this act could do great damage to the enemy guarding that portion of Northern Virginia abandoned by the Confederate armies. But the partizan branch of the service having been brought into disrepute by the worse than futile efforts of others, his superior officers at first refused him permission to engage in so questionable an enterprise. Finally, however, General Stuart gave Mosby a detail of nine men from the regular ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... running from all directions, from the distant groups of mines, rushing to the burning mills, where the little fire corps belonging to the camp, were already engaged in a futile battle with the flames; but around the Yankee Boy mine there was no sign ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... in the gap relieved upon the sky line; and the next, fled trembling and sat down glowing with excitement on the Weaver's stone. She shut her eyes, seeking, praying for composure. Her hand shook in her lap, and her mind was full of incongruous and futile speeches. What was there to make a work about? She could take care of herself, she supposed! There was no harm in seeing the laird. It was the best thing that could happen. She would mark a proper distance to him once and for all. Gradually the wheels of ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... then succeeded by unscrupulous cunning; and, for futile efforts, without hostile collision, to impose a claim of authority upon people who repudiated it, were substituted measures which could be sustained only ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... women about the war are absolutely futile. They follow the war very closely after their own method, and believe that any defeats, such as on the Somme or Verdun, are tactical rearrangements of positions, dictated by the wisdom of the General Staff, and so long ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... acquiescence and walked wearily to the window. This was only an old and futile argument ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... one day understand," she answered, earnestly, "that God has helped us both, and how futile my efforts would have been without such help. But, Mr. Gregory," she continued, looking frankly into his flushed face (for she was beginning to suspect now something of his drift, and instinctively sought to ward off words which might disturb their pleasant relations), "I ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... my dear," said Constance, gravely, "makes a futile attempt semi-weekly to beat his brains out with a club; and every successive failure encourages him to try again; the only effect being a temporary decapitation of his family; and I believe this is the night on which he periodically turns a ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the mirror in the hall the sight of her face made her stop abruptly. There was no vestige of colour in it; and the shadow beneath her eyes made them seem inhumanly large and deep. The bright hair, to be sure, waved over her head and coiled on her neck, but it was like a futile shaft of sunlight falling on a dreary moor in winter. She went on thoughtfully to the door of the living-room but there she paused again with her hand upon the knob; and while she stood there she remembered herself as she had been only a few months before, with the colour flushing in her face ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... young bravo's hand, and the thrashing that he afterwards gets is pitiless, and the would-be stabber finds no voice lifted in his favour. He also gains the stigma of cowardice, and the bad reputation of being malignant and revengeful. Indeed, so utterly futile is the drawing of murderous instruments in little affrays of this sort, that, though I have known them displayed hundreds of times, yet I never knew a single wound to have been inflicted—though many a heavy beating ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union Cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the Rebellion and at the same time uphold its inciting cause are preposterous and futile—that the Rebellion, if crushed out to-morrow, would be renewed within a year if Slavery were left in full vigor—that the army of officers who remain to this day devoted to Slavery can at best be but half way loyal to the Union—and that every hour of deference to Slavery is an hour ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... must be to train the will. Without this faculty in control all else comes to nothing. Exercises may be given for articulation, but without a determined purpose to speak distinctly little good will result. The teacher may spend himself in an effort to inspire and enthuse the student, but this is futile unless the student comes to a resolution to attain those excellencies of which the teacher has spoken. That a student may become self-reliant is the chief business of the teacher. To suggest such vital ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... as Symes saw clearly now, the fulfilment of it would have been futile so far as ending the intimacy was concerned, for the only result would have been that Augusta would have done the visiting. That he let the matter of Dr. Harpe's broken word pass without protest evidenced the completeness of his capitulation, his entire realization ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... Your 'poison' is but the spicy sauce for a strong man's meat, your 'plundering' but the stealing of a napkin from a loaded table. Look for your denizens of hell not among lovers of women, but among lovers of money and of power and of fame. Their dreams are the futile frenzies." ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... was slowly recovering from its dire distress, but its weavers and mechanics were blazing up into fierce, futile struggle with the powers by which masses of the people believed themselves oppressed. If the men of war had no longer anything to do abroad, there was great fear that work might be found for them at home. All Europe was looking on ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... arrangements for the future were discussed, the room was cleared of all but the committee. Experience had brought that about; for when outsiders had been allowed to remain, the number and variety of absurd and futile suggestions which were made, prevented any conclusion being come ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... more than fifty years. In 1449 his pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, who had probably been his assistant in the painting, demanded permission to continue the work; but the authorities were not content to grant it, and it was only in 1499, after some futile negotiations with Perugino, who appears to have refused the commission, that they finally resolved to place the decoration in the hands of Signorelli. Perhaps decided to this step by the success of the Monte Oliveto frescoes, they were yet so cautious ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... a futile attempt of hers was interrupted by the son of one of their neighbors, a lad of eighteen, who had just been given a subordinate position in his father's business. As he strolled up to their veranda steps, Lydia ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... came from the Back Benches. I saw the Speaker's face stiffen like the face of a helmsman as he humours a hard-mouthed yacht after a sudden following sea. The trouble was barely met in time. There came a fresh, apparently causeless gust a few minutes later—savage, threatening, but futile. It died out—one could hear the sigh—in sudden wrathful realisation of the dreary hours ahead, and the ship of ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... attended to her duties, observing all that was passing, but taking no part in these shameful intrigues. Conscious that any attempt to influence Madame de Montespan, hardened as she was in her career, would be futile, she ventured to address herself to the young and inexperienced Duchess de Fontanges. Gently she endeavored to lead her to some conception of the enormity of the life she was leading, and of the indecency of compromising the king and the court ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... that night was destined to be futile. Some minutes were lost in gaining access to the rear roof through the house next on the west, and some minutes more in prying open a shutter and forcing a carefully locked sash. By this time the twilight had deepened ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... ten days at the most. The king promised on his word to abide firmly and stably by what they should decree. But this commission was nearly a year behind time in assembling, and, even when it was assembled, its labors were so slow and so futile, that the Count de Dampmartin was quite justified in writing to the Count of Charolais, become by his father's death Duke of Burgundy, "The League of common weal has become nothing but ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... shires of England, or the snows of Lower Canada; so, after a little time, the Scotch and English volunteers began to melt away, and on the 9th of December the last warrior had disappeared. But the effects of their futile demonstration soon became apparent in the increasing violence and tyranny of Riel and his followers. The threatened attempt to upset his authority by arraying the Scotch and English half-breeds against him served ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... the Congress continued to remonstrate against the cost of the army, until in 1902, after all the futile protests of the intervening years, it condemned an increase of pay to British soldiers in India which placed an additional burden on the Indian revenues of L786,000 a year, and pointed out that the British garrison ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... MAY 28th. D'Harcourt and Thorring, after junction at Donauworth several weeks ago, and a good deal of futile marching up and down in those Donau Countries,—on the left bank, for most part; Khevenhuller holding stiffly, as usual, by the Inn, the Iser, and the rivers and countries on the right,—did at last, being now almost within sight of Passau and that important valley of the Inn across yonder, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in a few moments. The surprise had been so great that resistance was futile. The baffled conspirators stood huddled ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... gold-seeker is constantly liable. Futile attempts of physician to save crushed leg of young miner. Universal outcry against amputation. Dr. C., however, uses the knife. Professional reputation at stake. Success attends the operation. Death of another young miner, who fell into mining-shaft. His funeral. Picturesque appearance ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... find some shelter where a fire could be built to dry his clothes. He was not in a fit condition to risk catching cold. In fact, Duane's teeth were chattering. To find a shelter in that barren waste seemed a futile task. Quite unexpectedly, however, they happened upon a deserted adobe cabin situated a little off the road. Not only did it prove to have a dry interior, but also there was firewood. Water was available in pools everywhere; ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... here in my balcony, I picture the possessor of that voice as a small, stout young man, standing a little apart from the other singers, with his hands behind him, under his coat-tail, and a severe expression of countenance. He sometimes leans forward, with a futile attempt to read the music over somebody else's shoulder, but always resumes his old severity of attitude before singing his part. Meanwhile the celestial subjects of this choral adoration look down upon the scene with a tranquillity and patience which can only result from the security with ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... things, belongs exclusively to a higher power. And it would be well for us to leave the Almighty to perfect his own works and fulfill his own covenants. Especially, as the history of the past shows how entirely futile all human efforts have proved, when made for the purpose of aiding him in carrying out even his revealed designs, and how invariably he has accomplished them by unconscious instruments, and in the face of human expectation. Nay more, that every attempt which has been made by fallible man to ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... your future and leave me without regret. A courtesan is too exacting; I should not love you like the simple, artless girl who felt for a moment the delightful hope of being your companion, of making you happy, of doing you honor, of becoming a noble wife. But I gather from that futile hope the courage to return to a life of vice and infamy, that I may put an eternal barrier between us. I sacrifice both honor and fortune to you. The pride I take in that sacrifice will support me in my wretchedness,—fate ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... behind the fallen king, as with murder in their savage little hearts they rushed forward upon Korak and Akut; but the old ape was too wise to court any such unequal encounter. To have counseled the boy to retreat now would have been futile, and Akut knew it. To delay even a second in argument would have sealed the death warrants of them both. There was but a single hope and Akut seized it. Grasping the lad around the waist he lifted him bodily from the ground, and turning ran swiftly toward another tree which swung low branches ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... from the young recruits. They thought victory complete already, but Ned knew that the Mexicans would not abandon the enterprise. General Urrea, after another futile charge, repulsed in the same deadly manner, withdrew some distance, but posted a strong line of sentinels ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... use the Senate as a council, but the effort proved futile, principally because the Senate balked. For the details see Corwin, The President, Office and ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... stolen horses when abstracted near caravans, is likely to prove of more service than casting horoscopes. Some time after the occurrence mentioned, the missionaries lost a horse and mule. 'We each mounted a camel, and made a circuit in search of the animals. Our search being futile, we resolved to proceed to the Mongol encampment, and inform them that our loss had taken place near their habitation. By a law among the Tartars, when animals are lost from a caravan, the persons occupying the nearest encampment are bound either to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... kinder feeling for her in the heart of her brother. As one fights fire with fire in the great conflagrations of the prairies, Amelie hoped also to combat the influence of Angelique des Meloises by raising up a potent rival in the fair Heloise de Lotbiniere but she soon found how futile were her endeavors. The heart of Le Gardeur was wedded to the idol of his fancy, and no woman on earth could ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... not for me,' said Madame Bertin, as she leaned upon the table and read it. I was laying a sheet upon the body; when I rose she handed it to me. It bore neither name nor address; the poor futile life had blundered out without even this thing completed. It was short, and to some woman. 'Tres-chere amie,' it said; 'once I made a mistake. I have paid for it. You laughed at me once; You would not laugh now. If you ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... came many alterations of opinion; time and again it looks as though we ought to stop when it seemed futile to be pushing and pushing without result; then would come a stretch of easy going and the impression that all was going very well with us. The fact of the matter is, it is difficult not to imagine the conditions in which ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... he had an unalterable grudge. He recognized in the Westerner an eager energy, a clean-cut resilience, and an abounding vitality he would have given a great deal to possess. His own early manhood had been frittered away in futile dissipations and he resented bitterly the contrast between himself and Lindsay that must continually be present in the mind of the girl who had promised to marry him. He had many adventitious things to offer ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... of work, or of official visiting among the soldiers' and sailors' wives and mothers, fell into the way of going out late in the afternoon for a walk by herself. She had grown to dread with a nervous dislike the constant meeting with acquaintances and neighbours, the usual rather futile exchange of remarks about the War, or about the local forms of war and charitable work in which she and they were now all engaged. The stillness and the solitariness of the evening walk soothed ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... listen to a piece of music was to experience a succession of loud and soft auditory sensations, to handle a stone was to receive a group of sensations of touch. To suppose that anything beyond these sensory units was ever really experienced was futile fiction. Experience was a mosaic, of which the stones were the detached sensations, and their washed-out copies, ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a knife and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to try and do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to fall. And I could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile thing, for not only would the man be unrecognizably dead in three seconds, but the very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of his name he had time for was certain to be burnt in ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... lunatic asylum possibly be worse than this house, or any othe r? Kindly take me there at once. Please do! Everybody is wicked and futile and worthless and stupid; I am an object of disgust to myself, I don't believe ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... her arrival that one object of her visit to New York would be futile. She would not see Mr. Keith. He had gone abroad.—"In pursuit of Mrs. Lancaster," said Mrs. Nailor; for Lois was willing enough to hear all that lady had to say on this subject, and it was a good deal. "You know, ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... me, Miss Carson?" he asked. "I am telling the Prince that zeal is not enough, and that high ideals, unless they are accompanied by good conduct, are futile. I want him to change, to ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... It is futile to advance the argument that glasses are unromantic. They are not. I know, because I wear them myself, and I am a singularly romantic figure, whether in my rimless, my Oxford gold-bordered, or the plain gent's spectacles which I wear in ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... the horse so that it broke away, pulling off the paling in the bridle-rein. I ran to bring a hammer to repair the damage. Mr Beecham caught the horse while I attempted to drive the nail into—the fence. It was a futile attempt. I bruised my fingers. He took the hammer from me, and fixing the paling in its place with a couple of well-aimed blows, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... brought to account, and paid out of the estates of Trenck. For this shameful purpose some thousand of florins were paid besides to this species of claimants and though, after examination, their pretensions all proved to be futile, and themselves were cast in damages, yet was none of this money ever refunded, or the false claimants punished. Among these the pretended daughter of General Schwerin received two thousand florins, notorious as was her character. Again, Trenck ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... gave it headlines; from Toronto they sent special reporters. Of course, it was most of all the opportunity of Mr Horace Williams, of the Elgin Express, and of Rawlins, who held all the cards in their hands, and played them, it must be said, admirably, reducing the Mercury to all sorts of futile expedients to score, which the Express would invariably explode with a guffaw of contradiction the following day. It was to the Express that the Toronto reporters came for details and local colour; and Mr Williams gave them just as much as he ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... did you have in you?—some childish notions, a few half-baked sentiments, a lot of undigested beauty, a great black mass of ignorance, a heart filled to bursting with love, and an ambition as big as your love and as futile as your ignorance. And you wanted to write! Why, you're just on the edge of beginning to get something in you to write about. You wanted to create beauty, but how could you when you knew nothing about the nature of beauty? You wanted to write about life when you ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... punishment, treading happiness and heaven beneath the feet,—such as doomed the greatest genius of the Middle Ages to agonies more bitter than scorpions' stings, and shame that made the light of heaven a burden; to futile expiations and undying ignominies. No, it was none of these things,—not even the consecrated endearments of a plighted troth, the sweet rest of trust and hope, in the bliss of which we defy poverty, neglect, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... attempted to carry through a crack between the laths in the kitchen wall. The nuts were too large to go through the crack. The mouse would try to push them through; failing in that, he would go through and then try to pull them after him. All night he or his companion seems to have kept up this futile attempt, fumbling and dropping the nut every few minutes. It never occurred to the mouse to gnaw the hole larger, as it would instantly have done had the hole been too small to admit its own body. It could not ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... reason of his sensitiveness to the opinions of foreigners, the encroachments of foreign officials, and the strictures of the foreign press. He was agitated by a restless craving for their sympathy on the one hand, and by a futile resentment of their criticisms or their claims ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... wrestling with him the fielders have scattered to play at something else. The Gardens are noted for two kinds of cricket: boy cricket, which is real cricket with a bat, and girl cricket, which is with a racquet and the governess. Girls can't really play cricket, and when you are watching their futile efforts you make funny sounds at them. Nevertheless, there was a very disagreeable incident one day when some forward girls challenged David's team, and a disturbing creature called Angela Clare sent down so many yorkers that—However, instead ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... members of the great European aristocracies towards petty islanders. One of the most intolerable forms of the arrogance of the Knights during their last years at Malta was their disgusting behaviour towards the womenfolk of the natives; complaint was dangerous and futile. When the British captured the island in October, 1800, the mere proposal to restore the Order raised such a storm of protest from the Maltese as to prove conclusively to all how hated had been the domination of ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... occasion, and he answered the questions in a prompt, frank, fearless fashion, that more than once evoked a round of applause from the lookers-on. He had nothing but the truth to tell and his cross-examiner ere long came to the conclusion that it was futile endeavouring to get him to tell anything else; and so, with rather bad grace, he gave it up, and said he ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... that new will to power came many enterprises more or less futile and harmless, with the "institutional" church at their head. Piety was cunningly disguised as basketball, billiards and squash; the sinner was lured to grace with Turkish baths, lectures on foreign travel, and free instructions in stenography, rhetoric and double-entry book-keeping. ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... I imagine, to observe how contrary such regulations are to the boasted liberty of the subject, of which we affect to be so very jealous; but which, in this case, is so plainly sacrificed to the futile interests ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... interests, and impressing upon the minds of the children of the poor, sentiments of just subordination and honest independence. How happy would it have been for France, if women of fortune and abilities had always exerted their talents and activity in this manner, instead of wasting their powers in futile declamations, or ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... let ye hold a general fishing inquiry into my business. There are two kinds of foolish folk in this world. Those who babble of their affairs to their womenfolk, and those who babble of them to strangers. I have no womenfolk, thank God! so I cannot talk to the futile creatures." ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... that his well-shod toes could not reach the shins of his preceptor, the young prince ceased his futile effort, and with a most ungracious air moved along the beach. The limping baron followed him gloomily, with itching fingers. He felt that, in spite of the fact that his imperial master would shortly ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... and their leader himself counselled no resistance, why should they encompass their own destruction by a gesture of futile heroism? They answered without much hesitation that they would do as was required ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... bylanes, cow-paths, and cart-tracks, that twice the dawn found me as completely lost as though I had been set down in the midst of the Sahara. I thus wasted much time, and wandered many miles out of my way; wherefore, to put an end to these futile ramblings, I set my face westward, hoping to strike the highroad somewhere between Tonbridge and Sevenoaks; determined rather to run the extra chance of capture than follow haphazard these tortuous and ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... enforcing the fulfilment of financial contracts. On the other hand remedies against a debtor's person, and still more against the persons of his family, are not only inconsistent with the growth of opinion among civilized communities, but are in themselves worse than futile, inasmuch as they strike at the root of all personal effort on the part of a debtor to retrieve his position and render a return to solvency impossible. Hence the necessity of devising some system which is just to creditors while not unduly harsh upon ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... DuPont; (3) a new purge in the top level of the Supreme Soviet; (4) delight to rocketeers at Holloman Air Force Research Center, Cape Canaveral and Vandenburg Air Force Base; and (5) agonizing fits of hair-tearing to every chemist, biologist and physicist who had a part in the futile attempts to analyze the two ingredients of what the press had ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... has most clearly stated Ibsen's position: "He seems to be in ill humor with humanity and the plan of creation in general (if, indeed, he recognized such a plan), and he devotes himself, with ruthless satisfaction, to showing what a paltry contemptible lot men are, and how aimless, futile, and irrational their existence is on this earth, with its chaotic strivings and bewildered endeavors." ... "Furthermore, he utterly undervalues what we call civilization, which he regards primarily ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... he, with a pathetically futile effort to make a fine gesture, "don't do it. I am brave enough to die. You would not have ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... and always would be, much more to her than the world within. She was not to be one of those narrow, self-centred, morbid beings whose days are spent in introspection, and whose powers are wasted in futile efforts to set their own little peculiarities forth in such a way as to make them seem of consequence. She never at any time studied her own nature, except as a part of human nature, and in the hope of finding in herself some clue which ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... figuratively, I stood with open mouth, heart beating slightly faster, and mind making to itself such imbecile remarks as: "Well, what do you think of that! Who in blazes would have expected ducks here?" and other futile remarks. In the meantime, the trained part of me had jerked the gun off my shoulder, pushed forward the safety catch, and prepared for one hasty long shot at the last and slowest of the ducks. Now the instinctive part of one can do the preparations, ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... fortunes do not interest India. The talk in some of the papers about the necessity of smashing him, in order to avert the risk of some general Mahomedan uprising, is futile and imaginative. The Indians think the English rather mad to go crusading against him in the Soudan, and they may soon get irritated at the waste of Indian lives at Suakin, when we want our best men on the N.W. frontier; but, for the rest, they do not concern themselves about ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... After fifteen minutes of futile effort at concentration he flung down the paper and strode to the door of the stateroom. A white linen arm answered his gentle knock. There was a moment's consultation, then the nurse came out and ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... occupied by him; and if while he slept one of his wakeful brothers or sisters crawled over him and momentarily usurped his proud position, then, in the very moment of his awakening, that other puppy would be rolled backward, full of gurgling and futile protestation, and Finn would resume the picked place. Whatever was best in the way of warmth, and food, and comfort, that Finn obtained, even at this absurdly rudimentary stage, by token of superior weight, energy, and vitality. Also, though the last to be born, Finn was the first to ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... and Mr. Cutler, who had seized the opportunity to attempt amateur detective work on his own account, was groveling perseveringly about the floor, among old porcelain and loose pieces of armor, in the futile hope of finding any clue that the thieves might have ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... futile attempt to arrange terms for a cessation of hostilities both parties again took the field. Tournay having been reduced by the allies under Marlborough and Eugene, they next proceeded to threaten Mons. In order to protect this stronghold Villars, the French ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... into as many volumes as she liked. To-day, however, her mind was not attuned to study. She sat with a volume of Macaulay open before her: but her thoughts were not with the author. She was wondering what those two were saying in the room overhead, and finding all attempts at reading futile, she let her head sink back upon the cushion of her deep luxurious chair, and sat with her dreamy eyes fixed on the summer landscape and her thoughts with ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... whole body strained and twisted in a futile effort to raise himself to at least one elbow. "Why, I'm stripped to my waist!" he stammered ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... lies close to the first: The man must enthrone his will to rule over his thought, his feelings, and all his physical powers, so that the outer self may give perfect, unhampered expression to the inner. It is futile, we assert, to lay down systems of rules for voice culture, intonation, gesture, and what not, unless these two principles of having something to say and making the will sovereign have at least begun to make themselves ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... those trite and commonplace remarks that are customary for use under such circumstances and yet are so futile to express one's real sentiments, you arise and undertake to pacify the infuriated creature with household remedies. You try to lure him away with a wad of medicated cotton stuck on the end of a parlor ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... Old Man who supposed That the street door was partially closed; But some very large Rats ate his coats and his hats, While that futile Old Gentleman dozed. ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... from the futile attempt to introduce scientific demonstration into a region which confessedly transcends human experience, and when we consider the question upon broad grounds of moral probability, I have no doubt that men will continue in the future, as in the past, to cherish the ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... the outset by two French privateers, sailed finally from L'Orient, after one futile attempt, August 14, 1779, and made during the first forty days of the fifty days' cruise a number of unimportant prizes. On the 18th of August, the privateer Monsieur, which was not bound by the concordat, took a prize, ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... myself with futile speculations on the subject, however, and as the last peaks of the Scavaig hills vanished in pale blue distance I felt as if I had been brought suddenly back from a fairyland to a curiously dull and commonplace world. ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... beautiful earth, above on the glorious universe studded with shining orbs, without number numberless, what can I make of them? Nothing absolutely nothing—yet they are all creatures like myself. But—if I try—audaciously try—to strain my finite faculties, in the futile attempt to take in what is infinite—if I aspiringly, but hopelessly, grapple with the idea of the immensity of space, for instance, which my reason yet tells me must of necessity be boundless—do I not fall fluttering ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... in each of these letters, probably as a bribe to Jane Clemens to be lenient with his prodigalities, which in his youthful love of display he could not bring himself to conceal. But apparently the salve was futile, for in another letter, a month later, he complains that his mother is "slinging insinuations" at him again, such as "where did you get that money" and "the company I kept in San ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the wretched natives to confess their plot and punished the authors of it. The natives likewise are acquainted with a plant whose smell fortifies them, and serves as remedy against the odour of this tree, making it possible for them to handle the wood. These particulars are futile; and this enough on ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... absurd, futile, obtuse, silly, sottish, undiscerning, dull, ignorant, senseless, simple, stupid, unintelligent. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald |
