"Useless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "It is useless, madame," said he. "I have thought this matter over for a long time, and your madness to-day has only hurried what must in any case have taken place. ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was said during all this time. Words were useless. Silence formed the best communion for them. He took her hand at parting. She spoke not a word; his lips moved, but no audible sound escaped. Yet in their eyes as they fastened themselves on one another in an intense gaze there was ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... the sale at last takes place. But to the poor emigrant's astonishment and disappointment the land, which he has chosen so as not to interfere with other property, which is unoccupied, and entirely useless both in a public and private sense,—is bid for, and finally knocked down to another at an unreasonable price.[205] This other person is a "land shark," who has gained, perchance, a fortune by regularly attending sales and buying up land that is known to be ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... the city books were furnished? Perhaps it was because she had read they were in several states. But why did she not know? Why did not her mother go with her? Other mothers—but when had her mother ever been or done anything at all like other mothers? Because she never had been it was useless to blame her now. Elnora realized she should have gone to town the week before, called on some one and learned all these things herself. She should have remembered how her clothing would look, before she wore it in public places. ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... entire session, my business to meet the official great and to make myself acceptable, I came into a certain intimacy with the Administration circle, having long had friendly relations with the President. In all my life I have never passed so delightful and useless a winter. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... apostasy (Itaque plures tu unus paululum cedendo querimonias et gemitus excitasti quam centum mediocres aperta defectione). I would die with you a hundred times rather than see you survive the doctrine surrendered by you. You will pardon me for unloading into your bosom these pitiable, though useless groans." (Schluesselburg 13, 635; C. R. 41 [Calvini Opera ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... she might still have passed muster as a fairly good-looking woman. Unfortunately she was animated by an unceasing activity in trivial matters, and was rarely silent. Some women make one think of a printed page in which there are too many italics, and too many useless marks of exclamation. At first, their constant cries of admiration and outbursts of enthusiasm produce a vague sense of uneasiness in the listener, which soon develops to a feeling of positive distress ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... ever had had the advantage of hearing a sermon. "I have been reading that story of Troy again" (thus he writes to a noble youth of Rome whom he cared for), "quietly at Praeneste, while you have been busy at Rome; and truly I think that what is base and what is noble, and what useful and useless, may be better learned from that, than from all Chrysippus' and Crantor's talk put together."* Which is profoundly true, not of the Iliad only, but of all other great art whatsoever; for all pieces of such art are didactic ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... decided that the horse was useless, and had given orders to have him sent back to Thessaly, whence he came. Alexander was very much concerned at the prospect of losing so fine an animal. He begged his father to allow him to make the experiment of mounting ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and delay caused to the enemy by this spirited resistance enabled the convoy to disperse, and all get off but three, out of thirty-two. The English ships did not strike till they were so much cut up that one sunk immediately afterwards, and the other was burned by the captors as useless. ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... is but a useless beast, here! God has given him a thicker mantle, and a warmer dress than to us Christians, but even this advantage will soon prove a curse to my poor friend. The long hair he carries will quickly be covered with icicles, and, as the snow deepens, it will retard ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... is what people so often do when they travel, they leave behind them the things they want most and take a lot of other things that are useless. Now, that resolution of the dominant seventh was hardly worth saving—at least it ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... should see the pure light of morning as it entered her little blue room in which she thought she was. For her mind, heavy with sleep, did not recall to her the adventure of the lake. But indeed, it was useless to rub her eyes, the dwarfs did not vanish, and so she was obliged to believe that they ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... something for him," thought she. "But to sit here useless! And I must not even speak to him until ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... don't you see, Andy, the little monoplane would be utterly useless to them unless they had some one who knew how ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... was near when the Lutheran Church in America would shake off the yoke of symbolism and step forward, recognized by the great Protestant world. "The attempt"—the correspondent continues—"to live in one and the same house with the symbolists is useless. We thank God that we have a paper which says in its first year: No compromise any longer with symbolism! Hallelujah! May the whole Church hear it." (L. u. W. 1865, 277.) Revealing both its ignorance and animus, the American Lutheran, Rev. Anstaedt then being the editor, said in its ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... had charge of burials found fault with the waste of money on funeral pomps. For instance, the officer for the display of armorial distinctions was really useless. It would be far better to have a goodly display of wax-tapers. A low mass accompanied ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... Roman peasant women. America follows closely in their footsteps, Great Britain's turn comes next, then Germany puts in a modest claim, while the worst customers of all are the Scandinavians, to whose deep, earnest, thoughtful nature the glittering baubles appear mere useless trifles. Among the Russian, Turkish, and Hungarian women, only the richest classes indulge in these ornaments; they are scarcely ever seen among the people, which may perhaps be explained by the fact that they would not at all suit the ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... desire to maintain some show of decency in legislating the matter. So a more moderate Statute was enacted in 1902. I was the only person who voted against it in either House. It was, of course, clear that resistance was useless. It was not worth while, it seemed to me, to undertake to express my objections at length. I contented myself with the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Del Pinzo made as he brushed himself off. Bather a useless proceeding it would appear, for he was always dirty and unkempt ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... straightened himself to the full height of his short body and threw back his head in simple pride. A strange indistinct sense of cleanness, strength and pride filled his soul, and everything—the sun and the sky and the people and the field and death—seemed to him insignificant, remote and useless. ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... a sleep, and sleeping, with a smile on her thin, wan face,— She passed away one morning, while I prayed to the throne of grace. I knelt in the little cabin, and prayer after prayer I said, Till the surgeon came and told me it was useless—my wife ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... There was no prospect of a storm or a calm. The stranger was coming up after us with fearful speed. We were within range of her guns, but she did not fire— so we concluded that she had none on board. It was useless for us to attempt to do anything by fighting. Jerry and I talked about it, but we gave it up as a hopeless case. The stranger could quickly have settled the matter ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... faithfully applied. Having thus endeavoured, to the best of their abilities, to provide for the welfare and safety of the Province, your representatives take the liberty of reminding you that the best laws are useless without the zealous co-operation of the people. Unless you are prepared to endure the greatest privations and to make the severest sacrifices, all that your representatives have done will be of no avail. Be ready, then, at all times to rally round the Royal Standard, and let those who ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... money would not be useless. Lady Lufton, with all her high-flown ideas, was not an imprudent woman. She knew that her son had been extravagant, though she did not believe that he had been reckless; and she was well content to think that some balsam from the old bishop's coffers should be ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... the subject, and still more so anything about myself. I steadily ENDEAVOUR never to forget my firm belief that no one can at all judge about his own work. As for Lamarck, as you have such a man as Grove with you, you are triumphant; not that I can alter my opinion that to me it was an absolutely useless book. Perhaps this was owing to my always searching books for facts, perhaps from knowing my grandfather's earlier and identically the same speculation. I will only further say that if I can analyse my own feelings (a very doubtful process), it is nearly as much for your sake as for ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... I wish we were," Harold agreed. "It is too hard being useless out here when such a splendid fight is going on. Ah! they have their eyes on us!" he exclaimed as a puff of smoke burst out from some bushes near the shore and a ball came skipping along on the surface of the water, sinking, ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... batteries. The hill swarmed with infantry as well, sheltered by fences and ravines, while shells from the gunboats in James River could reach every part of the Confederate line. Yet not till nine in the evening did Lee let the useless carnage cease. Badly demoralized as the opposing army was, McClellan at midnight withdrew to Harrison's ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... Rochelle. But imposing as was his force, Buckingham showed himself as incapable a soldier as he had proved a statesman. The troops were landed on the Isle of Rhe, in front of the harbour; but after a useless siege of the Castle of St. Martin, the English soldiers were forced in October to fall back along a narrow causeway to their ships, and two thousand fell in the retreat without the loss of a single ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... things, my friend, when you know that they are useless?" she replied, with a look which grew in the end so soft that Wilfrid ceased to behold her eyes, but saw in their place a fluid light, the shimmer of which was like the last vibrations ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... reveal himself, and by thus revealing, realize.... For she is not his love; she is only his wife; and what is left of a romance when the romance is left out?" Although there is an element of truth in this, yet it is useless as a support for the theory of Japanese "impersonality." For it is not a fact that the Japanese do not fall in love; it is a well-known experience to them. It is inconceivable how anyone at all acquainted with either Japanese life or literature could make such an assertion. ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... resumed the captain of the JUMPING JENNY; 'my handful of Latin, and small pinch of Greek, were as useless as old junk, to be sure; but my reading, writing and accompting, stood me in good stead, and brought me forward; I might have been schoolmaster—aye, and master, in time; but that valiant liquor, rum, made a conquest of me rather ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... time, I shall see the happier country face to face. If you hear that I am sick, say no prayers in church for my recovery,—it would be useless; pray rather for my new life. And now let us go ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... illegible scrawl, and that 101, two thirds of the entire number, were marksmen, signing with a cross. Few of the prisoners could read with facility; more than half of them could not read at all; the most of them thought books were useless, and were totally ignorant of the nature, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... shelter of her tent. A day or two later Crestwick and the packer overtook them, having discovered nothing; and then the party was animated by a strong desire to escape from the river and reach the trail to the settlements as soon as possible. Further search for Gladwyne was useless; the flood had swept him away and no one would ever know where his bones lay. He had set out on his longest and most mysterious journey, leaving only two women to mourn him, and of these one, who had tried to love him out of duty, would by ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... end foremost, and to take a tender interest in one another's goods, moveable, handy, and divisible; instead of hungering after hungry land, which feeds nobody, until itself well fed and tended, and is as useless without a master as a donkey or a man is. The knowledge of these rudiments of civilization was not yet lost at Springhaven; and while everybody felt and even proved his desire to share a neighbour's trouble, nobody meddled with any right ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... if the ministers of religion were to interest themselves in this matter, and accustom their people to consult them as to the nature of the monumental inscriptions which they wish to introduce into churches and church-yards, a gradual improvement would take place in this respect. What is offensive, useless, or erroneous, would no longer find admittance, and a succession of valuable warning and consolation to the living would perpetuate the ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... toiled, of toil to reap no end, but endless toil and never-ending woe." Page 347: Cruelty is such as Hogarth might have painted her. Page 361: all the passage about Love (where he seems to confound conjugal love with creating and preserving love) is very confused, and sickens me with a load of useless personifications; else that ninth book is the finest in the volume,—an exquisite combination of the ludicrous and the terrible. I have never read either, even in translation, but such I conceive to be the manner of Dante or Ariosto. The tenth book ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... nobly, it easily creates vivid, agreeable, and natural fancies, places them in their best light, clothes them with all appropriate adornments, studies others' tastes, and clears away from its own thoughts all that is useless and disagreeable. ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... to the eye there is none; not to say that the d in poids' puts it for us in relation with 'pondus,' the x in 'poix' with 'pux,' the s in 'pois' with the Low Latin 'pisum.' In each case the letter which these reformers would dismiss as useless, and worse than useless, keeps the secret of the word. On some other attempts in the same direction see in D'Israeli, Amenities of Literature, an article On Orthography and Orthoepy; and compare Diez, Romanische Sprache, vol. i. p. 52. [In the form poids ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... they assisted the crew in hoisting the horses and guns on board. The gun-carriages, however, being too heavy, were left on board the raft, and she was let drop astern. As, however, their loss made the guns useless, Tom and Archie were sent to the nearest ship to obtain assistance. As they got alongside, they found that she was the Briton, and, Archie having explained matters to his uncle, who was on deck, Commander Murray sent a boat with a fresh crew, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... comes to me asking for help in solving my problems." Finally the light broke upon him. He stopped answering letters, buying lunches for casual friends and visitors from out of town, he stopped lending money to old college pals and frittering his time away on all the useless minor matters that pester the good-natured. He sat down in a secluded cafe with his cheek against a seidel of dark beer and began to caress the universe with ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... is either altogether left out, or made a quite unimportant part of the dwelling. It is but a lumber room, at best; and should be approached only by a flight of steps from a rear chamber or passage, and used as a receptacle for useless traps, or cast-off furniture, seldom wanted. It is hot in summer, and cold in winter, unfit for decent lodging to any human being in the house, and of little account any way. We much prefer running the chambers partially into the roof, which we think gives ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... contrary, my intention was to save. I hoped to save Wilfred from committing a dark deed, I longed to save Ruth from becoming a villain's prey. I had no desire to hurt either Wilfred or his accomplice. No good could come of that. To meet evil with evil is useless for any ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... the horrible trump, as a soldier, nor dreads he the angry sea; he shuns both the bar and the proud portals of citizens in power. Wherefore he either weds the lofty poplars to the mature branches of the vine; and, lopping off the useless boughs with his pruning-knife, he ingrafts more fruitful ones: or he takes a prospect of the herds of his lowing cattle, wandering about in a lonely vale; or stores his honey, pressed [from the combs], in clean vessels; or shears his tender sheep. ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... are to be punished, that the government has sentenced them, that it is the law; and though they may find cause to disagree with the decree that consigns them to hopeless and useless servitude, they accept it as at least legal and incident to the game as played. But they do not believe that the government has condemned them to starvation, or to poisoning (and the condition in which food often comes to the convicts' table ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... woodcraft, had heard plainly a man creeping through the underbrush beside us. Fear of the Congo chief and pity for the wretch tore at my heart. Suddenly there loomed in front of us, on the path, a great, naked man. We stood with useless ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Narrative.—We see that this beautiful story has a purpose. Its purpose is to teach us kindness to our parents. It is well planned. Every sentence and every paragraph is adapted to the end in view. No useless item or circumstance is admitted. The story stops when the end is reached. Anything added to the fifth paragraph would spoil the story. We certainly can learn ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... useless iterations of a Greek chorus, the tale was flung at him, piecemeal and in chunks, and in a triple key. When presently he understood, Hazen looked down for a moment at the puppy—which was making sundry advances of ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... mane there's no room aboard fer us, thin why in hell don't ye git out th' way an' rid th' ship av a useless ruffian," ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... we may sometimes wish that we could have suggested answers to his antagonists, or pointed out to them the rocks which lay concealed under the ambiguous terms good, pleasure, and the like. But it would be as useless to examine his arguments by the requirements of modern logic, as to criticise this ideal from a merely utilitarian point of view. If we say that the ideal is generally regarded as unattainable, and that mankind will by no ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... said in his deep, quiet voice. "Let us talk together of this matter as friends, for a useless king were I but for such as you who keep my throne from ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... made the gunfire almost useless. The shell-bursts were spaced too far apart; they ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... do dear little nice ones, left undone by city governments and by the millionaires. I can sing, and read, and study; I can travel; and there are always people needing something wherever you are, if you have eyes to see them; one needn't live a useless life even if one hasn't any responsibilities. But"—she paused—"I've been talking all this time about my own plans and ambitions, and I began by asking yours! Isn't it strange that the moment one feels conscious of friendship, one begins to ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... remains to be seen. To be frank, I doubt it. We'll have a talk to-morrow, Mark; and maybe Doria will remember a thing or two that happened at 'Crow's Nest' and so help me. But until I have slept I am useless." ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... day a brave soldier, but he evidently knew nothing of the art of war. He allowed Belisarius to disencumber himself of many useless consumers of food by sending the women, the children, and the slaves out of the City. His attention was disturbed by feigned attacks, when the reinforcements, which were tardily sent by Justinian, and the convoys of provisions, ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... flowing hair, or wigs, or caps; the last on the right hand is a head thrusting out its tongue, perhaps a sportive essay of the carver." When the restoration was begun about the middle of the nineteenth century, this screen was removed, treated as useless lumber, and stowed away in the triforium, which at that time, as already described, was separated from the church by a wall. Here in 1880 the vicar, the Rev. E. L. Berthon, found, to use his own words, "the ancient oak-carvings of heads in ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... give. In vain for him to open wide the supply valve. Vain to adjust the carburetor. Even as he made a despairing, instinctive motion to perform these useless acts—while Beatrice, deathly pale and shaking with terror, clutched at him—the engine spat forth a last, convulsive ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... he let the earl feel the ploughman's grasp: it was useless to struggle. His lordship threw ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... mean, yes, he did. Whitney was no boob." (This time Mrs. McGregor failed to protest; perhaps she decided it was useless.) "He had, as I told you, made wheels and canes and knives and nails in his father's workshop at home. He had even made a violin. So he wasn't at all fussed about trying to make a cotton gin. I guess he had a hunch he could ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... "the confusion." He makes man the inventor of speech, and resorts to raillery: speaking against his opponent Eunomius, he says that, "passing in silence his base and abject garrulity," he will "note a few things which are thrown into the midst of his useless or wordy discourse, where he represents God teaching words and names to our first parents, sitting before them like some pedagogue or grammar master." But, naturally, the great authority of Origen, Jerome, and Augustine prevailed; ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... also that over the left ilium. The fluid has increased during the last twenty-four hours so that there is now nearly as much as was drawn off through the canula yesterday. I concluded that further delay to a free opening was useless; consequently with the patient lying on his right side, and near the edge of the bed, I made an opening one inch long in the lower portion of the abscess,—for I now considered it one,—near the spot where the needle of the aspirator ...
— Report on Surgery to the Santa Clara County Medical Society • Joseph Bradford Cox
... the Impressionist technique. It is the work of Claude Monet which presents the most complete example of it, and which also came first as regards date. But it is very difficult to determine such cases of priority, and it is, after all, rather useless. A technique cannot be invented in a day. In this case it was the result of long investigations, in which Manet and Renoir participated, and it is necessary to unite under the collective name of Impressionists a group of men, tied by friendship, who made a simultaneous effort ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... of his limbs again. But the doctor's fears that he would never be able to resume the life of a mountaineer were unfortunately confirmed. He never properly recovered the use of his foot; and Toni often cast a sorrowful glance at the gun now hanging useless on the wall. To this cause of regret there was added anxiety for the future. The chase, which had hitherto so materially assisted in supplying his wants, could no longer be followed; and although Walter had grown tall and strong, he ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... useless screaming, running, trying to attract some one's attention, a sickening sense of terror and failure, and the last car slatted itself past with a mocking clatter, as ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... whose hollows are covered with leaves and which thou canst choose freely and to thy heart's content. O patient one exercising due discrimination in thy wisdom, do thou forsake this old tree that is dead and useless and shorn of all its leaves and no ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... promise to support the mission, but nothing was realized from their promises, and it soon became apparent that they cared more about the fur trade than about religion. Champlain saw many people who he believed could assist the settlement, but the winter was passed in useless negotiations. He therefore prepared a greater shipment than usual from his own resources, and he was fortunate in finding that his old friend, Louis Hebert, an apothecary of Port Royal, was willing to accompany him. Hebert took his family with him, composed ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... that the Congress will be beset by many groups who will urge that the legislation that I have proposed should either be eliminated or modified to the point where it is nearly useless. The Congress has a clear responsibility to meet this challenge with courage and determination. I have every confidence that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... overseas. When Thomas Jefferson, as Secretary of State, fought down Southern opposition to a retaliatory shipping policy, he uttered a warning which his countrymen were to find still true and apt in the twentieth century: "If we have no seamen, our ships will be useless, consequently our ship timber, iron, and hemp; our shipbuilding will be at an end; ship carpenters will go over to other nations; our young men have no call to the sea; our products, carried in foreign bottoms, will be ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... half an hour too late to be of any use to me, if I wanted to go and meet my people—which was the case—for by the wording of the message you can see that they were to arrive at the station at 11.45. Why did, your h. c. send me this useless message? Can't he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thereby put out the little flame of the match. If he entertain the thought the little flame will communicate itself until almost before he is aware of it a consuming fire is raging, and then effort is almost useless. The thought must be banished from the mind the instant it enters; dalliance with it means failure and defeat, or a fight that will be indescribably fiercer than it would be if the thought ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... Constantinople, under the name of Donanma, not only when the Sultanas are enceintes, but also when they are brought to bed. In 1803 the rumour of the pregnancy of a Sultana, being falsely spread, involved all the Ministers in useless expenses to prepare for a Donanma which never took place." Lane justly remarks upon this passage that the title Sultan precedes while the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... roused to activity. Even before the ledge was entirely clear he was leaning over his father, knife in hand. It was useless to attempt to extricate the rope-end from the crack in which it was caught; the only thing to do was to cut it. Percy stooped quickly. Already the next sea was curling over his head. He made a ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... see either of them, will you say that Miss Bonnicastle, Colonel Bonnicastle's sister, will be here again in the morning, unless it storms, upon important business? Ask them to wait here for me, please. I should not like to make a second useless trip. Good-afternoon." ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... years before, but it was still regarded even by practical men as a doubtful venture. It was one of those "inventions born before their time," which, according to the Emperor Napoleon III., "must necessarily remain useless until the level of the common intellect rises to comprehend them." Thanks, however, to the co-operation of Mr. David Napier, a cousin of Robert's, who assisted him in the construction of the Comet, and took a lively personal interest in the advancement ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... appeared. But along their path the waste was unbroken. The swamp on either side of the road was filled with birds, who flew in and out and perched on the dry planks in the walks. An abandoned electric-car track, raised aloft on a high embankment, crossed the avenue. Here and there a useless hydrant thrust its head far above the muddy soil, sometimes out of the swamp itself. They had left the lake behind them, but the freshening evening breeze brought its damp breath across ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... for illustration," said she, "that cotton should be superseded. Vast numbers of our slaves might then be useless here. What would become of them? We should implore the North to relieve us of them, in part. Then would rise up the Northern antipathy to the negro, stronger, probably, in the abolitionist than in the pro-slavery man; and as we sought ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... her handkerchief, while Elma turned aside, realising sadly that it was useless to prolong the discussion. Presently Geoffrey and his mother would arrive and then they would all consult together. Elma had not rehearsed her own share in the conversation; the all-important decision was in the last issue to be left to herself, and she had spoken ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... who had enlisted his services. Now he was walking from corner to corner, and, like Stepan Trofimovitch, was muttering to himself, though he looked on the ground instead of in the looking-glass. He was not trying on smiles, though he often smiled rapaciously. It was obvious that it was useless to speak to him either. He looked about forty, was short and bald, had a greyish beard, and was decently dressed. But what was most interesting about him was that at every turn he took he threw up his right fist, brandished it above his head and suddenly brought ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... debate, therefore, one's first effort should be to state his own side so clearly and concisely as to make the principles involved easily understood. His second object should be so to divest his opponent's argument of useless verbiage as to make it stand forth clearly; for as truth is self-evident, so error bears upon its face its own condemnation. Error needs only to ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... did agree with General Sherman to go and advise him to that course, and on the 19th I had an interview alone with Mr. Stanton, which led me to the conclusion that any advice to him of the kind would be useless, and I ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... such sponges! I'm thankful I was never one to go trailin' about the country after my relations. I never was away from home more than a day in my life till I was married, and it's been nothing but work ever since, and now to be laid here like a useless log, with everything going hotfoot to destruction! It's a good thing you've come at last, for the children are makin' sawdust and splinters of every bit of crockery in the house, and that Martha Spriggs ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... see that it required a good deal of money to live in New York as I wished to live and that I should have to find, very soon, some more or less profitable employment. I was sure that unknown, without friends or prestige, it would be useless to try to establish myself as a teacher of music; so I gave that means of earning a livelihood scarcely any consideration. And even had I considered it possible to secure pupils, as I then felt, I should have hesitated about taking up a work in which the chances ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... rotten, no window is useless and yet if air will not come in there is a speech ready, there always is and there is no dimness, not a bit ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... so picturesque, and so detailed as positively to require no addition, I should have deemed it my duty to attempt to supply the want; but with their narrative before us in all its original freshness, it would be useless to attempt anything further. Both of these writers were on the spot at the time of the city's greatest grandeur and prosperity, though in the time of Nuniz the period of its political decay had set in. With their descriptions I shall not ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... he cried. "Hereward has escaped! Quick! Shut the gates!" He saw Adams near and hurried up to him. "My blight has escaped," he said breathlessly, holding up the now useless leash. "He gnawed through the chain and got away. I'm afraid he may be running amok among the guests. Supposing he were to leap upon Sir Thomas from behind and savage him—it's too terrible." He moved anxiously ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... despair. The birds were fast eating and destroying his partially ripened corn. He could not husk it yet. It was not ripe enough. He thought how easy it would be to protect his field if he had a gun. But he had learned that it is useless to give time to idle dreaming. He must do something ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... criminal, disloyal or immoral, but in the breach or non-observance of positive regulations made by the legislature, or persons having statutory authority, for a great variety of purposes. It would be useless to give details on the subject here. Again, there are cases where an agreement may be made and performed without offending the law, but on grounds of "public policy" it is not thought right that the performance should be a matter of legal obligation, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... cleanse their souls. "There is no place in the moral history of mankind of a deeper or more painful interest than this ascetic epidemic. A hideous, sordid, and emaciated maniac, without knowledge, without patriotism, without natural affections, passing his life in a long routine of useless and atrocious self-torture, and quailing before the ghastly phantoms of his delirious brain, had become the ideal of the nations which had known the writings of Plato and Cicero, and the lives of Socrates and Cato." ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... for experience had taught him that Charley never made useless demands. In a few minutes he was back dragging the sapling ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... home if he were slain, but to watch and come to him if he killed the dragon, or were only hurt by it. He then rode down the hillside, and towards the haunt of the dragon. It roused itself at his advance, and at first he charged it with his lance, which was perfectly useless against the scales. His horse was quick to perceive the difference between the true and the false monster, and started back, so that he was forced to leap to the ground; but the two dogs were more staunch, and sprang at the animal, whilst their master struck at it with his sword, but ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that Mrs. Driscoll had been called up immediately after his departure. Mrs. Driscoll was one of those terrible people who say nothing yet see everything; for the last year and a half she had been watching Rafferty; knowing it to be quite useless to report what she knew to her easy-going master, she had, none the less, kept on watching. As a result, she was now able to bring up a hard fact, a small hard fact more valuable than worlds of ductile evidence. ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... world! Ah me! I searched the sky, I searched the sea, With much of useless grief and rueing, Those winged thoughts of mine pursuing— So dear were they, So lovely ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... 21 Same; and so without material change, the daily record of wind, weather, and the ship's general course—the repetition of which would be both useless and wearisome —continued through the month and until the vessel was near half the seas over. Fine warm weather and the "harvest-moon." The ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... serious, our progress was slow, until some genius conceived the idea that the track, rails and ties, might be lifted from its bed bodily, turned over, and subjected to a high heat; a convenient supply of dry fence-rails would furnish ample fuel to render the rails useless. In this way a good deal of the track was effectively broken up, and communication by rail from Corinth to the south entirely cut off. While we were still busy in wrecking the road, a dash was made at my right and rear by a squadron of Confederate ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... before the time this story begins, did something to Johnny's back which made his poor legs nearly useless, and changed the lively, rosy boy into a pale cripple. His mother took in fine washing, and worked hard to pay doctors' bills and feed and clothe her boy, who could no longer run errands, help with the heavy tubs, or go to school. ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... sudden weight and pulled—and while he pulled felt in a moment no grip, no weight at all. Between two hateful screams a face slid by him, out of reach, silent, with parted lips; and as it slipped away he fell back staggering, grasping the useless, headless crutch. ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is effectual that does not render it useless. Nothing but the ballot renders corruption useless. .'. Nothing but the ballot is an ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... strange to see him enslaved and compelled by his labor to maintain both his master and himself, after having declared him incapable of doing either. Why not let him go then? Why hold with an unyielding grasp, so miserable and useless a piece of property? Is it benevolence that binds him with his master's chain? Judge ye. Stranger still is the fact of attaching such vast influence to his presence and so much concern regarding his movements, when in a state of freedom, if indeed, he is of so little ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... made his whole vision crumble—his theory that she had secretly kept herself true. Even to her old lover she wouldn't be so! He was sick; he couldn't eat; he knew that he looked very strange. He murmured something about it being useless to cry over spilled milk—he tried to turn the conversation to other things. But it was a horrid effort and he wondered whether they felt it as much as he. He wondered all sorts of things: whether they guessed he disbelieved ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... breaking both wings. I did not blame him when he keeled over. The leader disposed of, Hubbard and George again fired in quick succession, and two of the other geese dropped just as they were turning back upstream and vainly trying to rise on their wings, which were useless so soon after the moulting season. The second shot emptied George's rifle. He threw it down, grabbed a paddle and went after one of the birds, which, only slightly wounded, was flopping ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... behind?" cried Gwenny, in a voice that settled it. And so we began to arrange about it; and I was much excited. It was useless now to leave it longer; if it could be done at all, it could not be too quickly done. It was the Counsellor who had ordered, after all other schemes had failed, that his niece should have no food until she would obey him. He had strictly ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... repent always read it—and sometimes she would come upon threats and curses, and cry out and turn white and begin to shiver. Then she would beg me to pray and pray with her. And we would kneel down on the bare floor and pray together. My prayers were worse than useless. What could I say? I was a black sinner, too—a man who was perjuring his soul with lies—and they were told and acted for her sake, and she knew it. She used to cling about my neck and beg me to betray ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... say not yes to thy words. The iron-workers enter into the smithy; they rummage in the workshops of the carpenters; the handicraftsmen and saddlers are at hand; they do whatever thou requirest. They put together thy chariot; they put aside the parts of it that are made useless; thy spokes are faconne quite new; thy wheels are put on; they put the courroies on the axles and on the hinder part; they splice thy yoke, they put on the box of thy chariot; the [workmen] in iron forge the ...; they put the ring that is wanting ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... was useless to insist on such a matter with his father, and he did not persist; but this is what he did. He knew that exactly at midnight his father stopped writing, and quitted his workroom to go to his bedroom; he had heard him ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... daughters, if she would sing with them on Sundays; but she could not get through the drudgery of the exercises, and advanced only so far as to be able to take her proper part in a hymn. Here, however, she was almost useless, from incapability of proper subordination, the sopranos, tenors, and basses being well ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... were lowered, and the anchor let go. A boat was then launched. As we were standing looking towards the shore, the chief touched me on the shoulder, and made signs that I was to get into the boat. I knew that resistance would be useless. Two men then stepped in. I also did as I was ordered. He then signed to Oliver and Macco to follow; Macco going forward, and Oliver and I sitting in the stern. We endeavoured to ascertain from the ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... it was all useless. The next morning the first one of us was smitten with the plague—a little nurse-girl in the family of Professor Stout. It was no time for weak-kneed, sentimental policies. On the chance that she might be the only one, ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... survey of all self-governing colonies has been, and still is, regarded by the Imperial Government as a matter for the Colonial Governments. The survey of Cape Colony alone on a scale large enough for tactical purposes would have cost L150,000, and it would have been perfectly useless to ask the Treasury to sanction the provision of any such sum. A map, on a scale of twelve and a half miles to an inch, had been produced by the Survey department of the Cape Government, covering Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free State, and part of the Transvaal, and arrangements were made with ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... fifteen he announced that he wanted to leave England and go to the Colonies. He had kept touch with the Home. The Rockleys knew that, when Hadrian made a declaration, in his quiet, half-jeering manner, it was worse than useless to oppose him. So at last the boy departed, going to Canada under the protection of the Institution to which he had belonged. He said good-bye to the Rockleys without a word of thanks, and parted, it seemed, without a pang. Matilda and Emmie wept ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... ears. The annoying clatter of shoes on bare floors gave us no peace. The constant clash of harsh noises, with an undercurrent of many voices murmuring an unknown tongue, made a bedlam within which I was securely tied. And though my spirit tore itself in struggling for its lost freedom, all was useless. ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... it seems a useless thing our goin' up to the oak. I know the Cap' sayed we were to wait for them under it. Why cant we just as well stay heer? 'Taint like they'll be long now. They wont dally a minute, I know, after they've ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... will not take them off our hands nor facilitate their adjustment. Distrust of the capacity, integrity, and high purposes of the American people will not be an inspiring theme for future political contests. Dark pictures and gloomy forebodings are worse than useless. These only becloud, they do not help to point the way of safety and honor. "Hope maketh not ashamed." The prophets of evil were not the builders of the Republic, nor in its crises since have they saved or served it. The faith of the fathers was ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... of Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets. It seemed useless for one to look for books in this great ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... are thick with rusting cans, old tires and miscelaneous rubbish. Some of them are so gutted by gully wash that any attempt at beautification would be worse than useless. Some are swept—farm fashion—free from surface dust and twigs. Some attempt—others achieve grass and flowers. Vegetable gardens are far less frequent then they should ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... receive the perfect conviction which the Admiral meant to convey, but it would have been useless to press the enquiry farther. She therefore satisfied herself with common-place remarks or quiet attention, and the Admiral had ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... am full of wrong and miserable feelings, which it is useless to detail, so grudging and sullen, when I should be thankful. Of course, when one sees so blessed an end, and that, the termination of so blameless a life, of one who really fed on our ordinances and got strength from them, and sees the same continued in a whole ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... recently almost ignored them altogether, penetrated France between the forts, and left a superior force "in observation," to watch the garrison and accept its surrender when the greater events of the war ahead made further resistance useless; but earth-forts, and especially field-works, will hereafter play an important part in war, because they enable a minor force to hold a superior one in check for a time, and time is a most valuable element in all wars. It was one of Prof. Mahan's ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... It is useless to deny that we were in constant fear even when there were soldiers by. The unsettled conditions gave us a creepy feeling that expressed itself in the anxious faces and broken words of our American women. One would ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... been almost useless to despatch a new Governor to the Red River settlement unless there had also been obtained a number of settlers to fill the place of those so skillfully led away by Duncan Cameron. Lord Selkirk now secured the best band of Emigrants attainable. ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... and his home, his parents, and his beautiful life there came up to his inward vision. The dreary pounding sea made him homesick, and for the first time he burst into tears. But George was a brave boy. He knew that crying was useless, and felt a ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... never came to our house; we met in an unfrequented spot, and my father's illness had interrupted these interviews. Altogether I can not tell if Jules discovered any thing. A fearful circumstance rendered all our precautions useless, and cut the knot of our secret connection, to loose which voluntarily I felt I had no power. A wedding-feast, at a neighboring castle, assembled all the nobility and gentry, and officers quartered near, together; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... possibility of such transformations is becoming less and less; and, so far as we yet know, the final state of the present universe must be an aggregation (into one mass) of all the matter it contains, i. e. the potential energy gone, and a practically useless state of kinetic energy, i. e. uniform temperature throughout that mass." Thus our authors conclude that the visible universe began in time and will in time come to an end; and they add that under the physical conditions of ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... prayers and expostulations were in vain; and the dog then, brandishing over my head an enormous bludgeon, said—what abominable language!—'I think, doctor, I shall put an end to an existence derogatory to your self and useless to others.' At that moment the young gentleman beside me sprang over the very gate by which the tall ruffian had disappeared, and cried, 'Hold, villain!' On seeing my deliverer, the coward started back, and plunged into a neighbouring wood. The good young gentleman pursued him for a few ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her breath even, while Roger slept there in the shadowed bed. Had this thing happened to her before their arrival at Heston, she must have fallen upon Roger in mad grief and passion, ready to kill him or herself; must at least have poured out torrents of useless words and tears. She could not have sat dumb like this; in misery, but quite able to think things out, to envisage all the dark possibilities of the future. And not only the future. By a perfectly logical diversion her thoughts ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as he spoke, were on the figure of Lee, who still stood on the bridge awed and worshipful, barred of approach by Lize. "She shall not know," he silently vowed. "Why put her through useless suffering and shame? Edward Wetherford's disordered life is near its end. To betray him to his wife and daughter would be but the reopening ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... said her father, as if he were in the kindest manner heading her off from a useless project, "that I'd better make a call on her ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... these inquiries would be as useless as it would be sad, if the rate of infant mortality were fixed by determinate laws, such as those which limit the stature of man or the age to ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... they do show some of the lines, and persons who disbelieved have expressed surprise at their excellence. Success was only obtained by means of specially sensitised plates, for the ordinary photographic rays and ordinary plates were found useless, whilst the process of photographing so small and distant a planet is surrounded ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... yet I was windy, too. And now it has all come true like a dream. I can call to mind not one little thing I ettled for in my lusty days that hasna been put into my hands in my auld age; I sit here useless, surrounded by the gratification of all my wishes and all my ambitions, and at times I'm near terrified, for it's as if God had mista'en me for some ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... foolish one! alike unfit For healthy joy and salutary pain: Thou knowest the chase useless, and ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... your note of this day. Though not entirely of the opinion you express of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia; I reciprocate your desire to avoid the useless effusion of blood, and therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on conditions of ...
— Lee's Last Campaign • John C. Gorman
... well. Fort Sumter is certainly battered down and utterly useless to the enemy, and it is believed here, but not entirely certain, that both Sumter and Fort Wagner are occupied by our forces. It is also certain that General Gilmore has thrown some shot into the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... trade all the same, and I think a much more useless one than that of butchers or bakers. Oh! how tired I used to be of the drives every day in Aunt Shaw's carriage, and how I longed ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the child every morning, and I as regularly took it off. It has been fully proved since to be as useless an appendage as the vermiform. She had several cups with various concoctions of herbs standing on the chimney-corner, ready for insomnia, colic, indigestion, etc., etc., all of which were spirited away when she was at her dinner. In vain I told her we were homeopathists, and afraid ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... peculiar to Englishmen, and when displayed is very frequently not appreciated. But that critics should be honest we have a right to demand, and critical dishonesty we are bound to expose. If the writer will tell us what he thinks, though his thoughts be absolutely vague and useless, we can forgive him; but when he tells us what he does not think, actuated either by friendship or by animosity, then there should be no pardon for him. This is the sin in modern English criticism of which there is ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... who can tell that the very ease of such a destiny might not have wearied my heart, enervated my mind, and rendered me at once burdensome to myself and useless to the world? Is it not hunger that gives the true zest to the banquet, however exquisite, and labour that gives the true charm to the couch, however embroidered? Is not the noblest enjoyment of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... silent. He knew that an argument was useless. Besides, he knew that in Hal's position his own ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... your own business, my little man. You like scrub turkey. I don't. Give me a black or a wood duck, freshly killed, before all scrub or 'plain' turkeys in Australia. And move yourself, you useless animal, and get one of your turkeys and pluck it while Toby is getting a duck or two. Wonderfully intelligent nigger is Toby. I've never yet known him to fail in getting me a duck if there was one within a mile. I say, Tommy, d'ye like crawfish? ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke |
