"Uselessly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... punctually at eight o'clock, to buy illustrated joke books and theological tracts, sometimes became impatient, because the cheerful saleswomen disturbed him as he tried to make his selection. And the school-teacher Theo Tontod, who tirelessly, and, as a rule, uselessly asked for the modern newspaper, "The Other A," often got to school too late. Around noon, almost every day, the choral-singer Mabel Meier came, on the arm of an old man. She bought colorful, spicy newspapers, or sentimental ones, with long lyrical poems. The old man, who always had a whining expression, ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... however, we had come a long distance from our friends, and already sacrificed a life uselessly, so it seemed to me then in ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... breath; he looked backwards and forwards from Rachel to Mr. Bruff in such a frenzy of rage with both of them that he didn't know which to attack first. His wife, who had sat impenetrably fanning herself up to this time, began to be alarmed, and attempted, quite uselessly, to quiet him. I had, throughout this distressing interview, felt more than one inward call to interfere with a few earnest words, and had controlled myself under a dread of the possible results, very unworthy of a Christian Englishwoman who looks, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... can attack waste with a definite objective. We will not put into our establishment anything that is useless. We will not put up elaborate buildings as monuments to our success. The interest on the investment and the cost of their upkeep only serve to add uselessly to the cost of what is produced—so these monuments of success are apt to end as tombs. A great administration building may be necessary. In me it arouses a suspicion that perhaps there is too much administration. ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... raise would be useless, and a new scale of wages once adopted would be hard to reduce. Successful or unsuccessful in its effect, it would run into many thousands of dollars. The physician acknowledged himself dreadfully perplexed; he racked his brain uselessly, yearning meanwhile for the autocratic power to compel obedience among his men. He would have forced them back to their jobs had there been a way, and the fact that they were duped only added to ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... of the French divisions acted like a generous enemy. He hailed the boats as they approached, and cried out in English: "Let me advise you, my brave Englishmen, to keep your distance: you can do nothing here; and it is only uselessly shedding the blood of brave men to make the attempt." The French official account boasted of the victory. "The combat," it said, "took place in sight of both countries; it was the first of the kind, and the historian would have cause to make this remark." ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... is quite a different matter," he observed: "then never be daunted by danger. Your duty was to remain on board. Had you been lost I should have had double cause to mourn for you, as you would have uselessly thrown ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it easier than they can get ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... succeed in getting through with the money without a bullet in the back, and if he actually brought it to Pollard the latter would tell him that he had changed his mind, and so the rash act would have been done uselessly. Having no way of holding Pollard to his bargain he had little wish to make the long ride ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... reported that it was rising rapidly. The packet was, in fact, sinking. Nearly half the crew were in the hands of the surgeon. The rest, exhausted and hopeless of success, had already fought more nobly than even he could have foreseen, and were now being uselessly sacrificed. Still Captain Cock's pride rebelled against surrender; and as he saw the colours he had defended so well drop down upon the deck, it is recorded that he burst into tears. He had no cause for ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... to every one of these. No one had heard of any such lady: they showed her the lists of their visitors. She inquired at the post-office. No lady of that name had asked for letters. She asked if there were any pensions, and went round them all—uselessly. ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... ever would be, very dear to him, if he persevered in trying to be considered as a lover. He should always feel affectionately towards her; her very faults gave her an interest in his eyes, for which he had blamed himself most conscientiously and most uselessly when he was looking upon her as his future wife, but which the said conscience would learn to approve of when she sank down to the place of a young friend, over whom he might exercise a good and salutary interest. Mrs Denbigh, if not many months ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... badly served that they inflicted little or no damage, while her own sails and rigging were badly cut about. During the night, the action was fitfully continued, her ammunition being lavishly and uselessly expended. Toolajee himself was present, and had a number of European gunners with him. At noon the next day his grabs edged down again, fell aboard the Restoration, and boarded. On this, the colours were struck, Leake ran below, an example that was followed by his crew, and the ship was taken. ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... faint voice, "I still have courage to die; but I no longer have any to suffer uselessly. Leave me to ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... If this sacrifice of her good name were necessary to save an innocent man's life, perhaps she might summon up enough courage to make it. But, after all, she was by no means sure herself that Underwood had committed suicide. Howard had confessed, so why should she jeopardize her good name uselessly? ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... again I made that circuit, testing each crack, sounding every separate stone in the hope of discovering some slight fault in construction by which I might profit. Everywhere I was confronted by the same dull, dead wall of cold, hard rock, against which I exerted strength and skill uselessly. Finally I dropped upon my knees, creeping inch by inch across the floor, but with no better result. It likewise was composed of great slabs of stone, one having an irregular crack running through it from corner to corner, but all alike ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... and paper, and came to New Orleans. Before leaving France he had read some law, and now he applied himself closely to its study. In a short time he rose to distinction, and was in a lucrative practice. It was a maxim with Judge Martin never to be idle, and never to expend time or money uselessly. He found time from his professional duties to write a history of Louisiana, which is, perhaps, more correct in its facts than any history ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... last presented himself; and with him I worked a long time uselessly upon nails made of cinnabar or vermilion. I was also acquainted with a foreign gentleman newly arrived in Paris, and often accompanied him to the shops of the goldsmiths to sell pieces of gold and silver, the produce, as he said, of his experiments. I stuck ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... "I suppose that chap has a mother somewhere who is wondering where her boy is. This isn't exactly Christian burial, but it's all he'll get, I reckon; for whether it was smallpox or plain fever, nobody's going to uselessly resurrect him. Even the coyotes will fight shy of ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... omitting other events, which daily happened, and which can only serve uselessly to recall past misfortunes and conflicts, after seventy-three days' navigation, reckoned from the time they sailed from Nasca, during which they navigated under a scanty allowance of water, and were afflicted with the calms ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... dinner, followed by a snooze by some of us, while others slept straight on till tea-time. I set out alone for a walk into a part I had not visited before, namely, along the seashore west of Mex Camp, to Dakeilah village. I passed an old fort with three very old cast-iron guns of 9-inch bore, lying uselessly on their sides, one labelled "loaded—dangerous". Beyond that the sand is a great depth, and the natives seemed to have it divided into allotments, each piece dug into a deep, wide trench from ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... commerce, the quantity, owing to the want of water, is so small in relation to the acreage under cultivation, that it does not suffice for home consumption, except in very favourable years; while the utilisation of the magnificent rivers, which now roll their waters uselessly to the sea, would make the land what it once was when the thrifty Moor held it—a thickly populated and flourishing grain-producing district. In place of the wandering flocks of sheep and pigs gaining ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... of that summer to Charles of Burgundy. Not only had he lost in allies, not only had he squandered life and money uselessly in his reckless expedition over the north of France, but his own retinue was diminished and weakened by the men whom Louis had succeeded in luring from his service. The loss that Charles suffered was not only for the time but for posterity. Among ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... or under; though their clothes were not yet actually torn or patched, most of their garments were already in that premonitory state which warns the wearer of old breeches to sit down with deliberation and grace, rather than with rash haste, and to make no uselessly quick movements whereby an old sewing may rip open, or the silk or cloth itself may split and gape in an unseemly manner, furnishing a cause for mirth ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... beach, and now sat beside them, drumming their heels in idleness. This gave me excuse for rating them, and I did it with force of lung. Thinking that there were Indians—or, at least, an Indian—in hiding, I hoped to draw them from cover in this fashion. But my brave periods rattled uselessly. The forest kept its springtime peace, and all that I got out of my display of spirit was the excitement of playing my part well to an unseen audience. We were allowed to ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... can what his feelings must have been, when in Mme. Dauvray's bedroom, with the woman he had uselessly murdered lying rigid beneath the sheet, he saw me raise the block of wood from the inlaid floor and take out one by one those jewel cases for which less than twelve hours before he had been ransacking ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... and uselessly sorry formed a large part of his occupation in life. If a similar situation had arisen in a subsequent hand he would have blundered just as certainly, and he would have been just as ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... which we old-time housekeepers never dreamed of having. Considerable thought should be given to studying to improve and simplify conditions of the home-life. It is your duty. Obtain books; study food values and provide those foods which nourish the body, instead of spending time uselessly preparing dainties to tempt a jaded appetite. Don't spoil Ralph when you marry him. Give him good, wholesome food, and plenty of it; but although the cooking of food takes up much of a housekeeper's time, it is not wise to allow it to take up one's time ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... give dinners, the people attached to the kitchen may be greatly diminished; most of the cooks, as well as the legion of footmen, may be discharged. It is necessary, too, to reduce the number of carriages, and to sell most of the horses standing uselessly in the stable. A plain vehicle, drawn by two good horses, is sufficient for my children, and whenever I want a ride, I believe my husband will lend me ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... I turn away. It is the hour of fate, And those who follow me, gain every state Mortals desire, and conquer every foe Save Death, but those who doubt, or hesitate, Condemned to failure, penury, and woe, Seek me in vain, and uselessly implore. I answer not, and I return ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... two knots, the royals, topgallantsails, and more lofty staysails just "asleep," the topsails alternately filling out and flapping again to the masts with the barely perceptible swing of the ship over the low, long, sleepy heave of the swell, and the courses drooping heavily and uselessly from the yards. The sky was "as clear as a bell," to use a favourite metaphor of Ritson's, not a trace of cloud being visible in any part of the vast sapphire vault which stretched overhead, spangled here and there with a few stars of the first magnitude, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... frame, and his face blenched. Then he struggled again to free himself—turning and twisting himself this way and that; tugging frantically, fiercely, desperately—but uselessly—to burst his fetters; and all the while the old ogre smiled down upon him, and nodded his head, and placidly whetted his knife; mumbling, from time to time, "The moments are precious, they are few and precious—pray the prayer ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Harrigan sweated and groaned uselessly over his labor. Once he smelled a taint of smoke and shouted his triumph, but the peg slipped and the work was undone. He started all over again after a short rest and the peg creaked against the slab of wood with the speed of its rotation—a small ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... he did not wish uselessly to discuss the matter of the lost keepsakes. Janice, young as she was, realized that her father was growing more grave and more serious every day. She did not believe that this change was altogether due to business anxieties, or even ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... to prevent my coming out there uselessly. He must have sent the wire quite an hour before you left. It was very ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Orange hold him in esteem," said Antonia, betraying pride. "I have heard he can do more with the Iroquois tribes than any other man of the New World." She uselessly wiped her eyes. She was weak ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... foolishly and uselessly detached from its adhesions, so far as we can effect it, and drawn forward with a tenaculum and divided. There is one abominable course pursued in effecting this. The violence used in stripping down the tendon is so great, and the lacerated fibrous substance is put so much on the stress, ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... tugging uselessly at the hand of iron gripping his collar. "I know one thing, and it is something you, fine gentleman that you are, do not know. I know who my mother ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... to impress these views upon our commanders for the last two years. You are almost the only one who has properly applied them. I do not approve of General Hunter's course in burning private homes or uselessly destroying private property. That is barbarous. But I approve of taking or destroying whatever may serve as supplies to us or to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... automobile. The fifth requested an autographed picture of herself. She swept the five over the edge of the table with a sigh of relief. How stupid of all these people, she thought, to take up their time, and her own, so uselessly. ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... now pouring into the country! and, thank God, it is now somewhat better expended than it was in the bubble mania, which acted upon the plethora certainly, but bled us too freely and uselessly. The rail-road speculators have taken off many millions, and the money is well employed; for even allowing that, in some instances, the expectations of the parties who speculate may be disappointed, still it is spent in the country; and not only is it affording employment ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... same time carries to it on his legs and head fertilizing pollen from the last of its congeners which he favored with a call. For of course both bees and butterflies stick on the whole to a single species at a time; or else the flowers would only get uselessly hybridized, instead of being impregnated with pollen from other plants of their own kind. For this purpose it is that most plants lay themselves out to secure the attention of only two or three varieties among their insect allies, while they make their nectaries either too deep ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of her—she could not say if it were far or near—an arch, the outline of a low door, lighted through the cracks of it, and she drove her weary feet toward this and bent upon it, but uselessly, for it was thick stone. With her last remnant of strength she set her mouth to the crack and screamed, and it seemed to her that three loud knocks upon the other side answered her in some sort. She screamed again. Again came the three ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... the acid can be at once poured from between the plates, so that the battery is never left to waste during an unconnected state of its extremities; the acid is not unnecessarily exhausted; the zinc is not uselessly consumed; and, besides avoiding these evils, the charge is mixed and rendered uniform, which produces a great and good result (1039.); and, upon proceeding to a second experiment, the important effect of first contact is again obtained. vi. The saving of zinc is very ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... interest to see, and his intelligence made no more progress than his vanity. If, by chance, he made some discovery, he could not communicate it, not recognizing even his own children. The art perished with the inventor. There was neither education nor progress; the generations multiplied uselessly; and, as all started from the same point, the centuries went by with all the rudeness of the first age; the species was already old, and ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... country during his minority, and who fell in battle defending himself against the charge of treason, led several expeditions to Morocco, taking first Alcazar es Seghir or Alcacer Seguer, and later Tangier and Arzilla, thereby uselessly exhausting the strength of the people, and hindering the spread of maritime exploration which Dom Henrique had done so ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... lost for the present," he said to Aska, "let us make for the north; it is useless to delay, men; to try to fight would be to throw away our lives uselessly, we shall do more good by preserving them to fight upon another day. Keep closely together, we shall have the Roman cavalry upon us before long, and only by holding to our ranks can we hope ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... she noticed, also, that the slant sunbeams were heating Sandy's head to what she judged to be an unhealthy temperature, and that his hat was lying uselessly at his side. To pick it up and to place it over his face was a work requiring some courage, particularly as his eyes were open. Yet she did it and made good her retreat. But she was somewhat concerned, on looking back, to ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... their chances, compute the time, do not disturb themselves uselessly, and never abandon their present position until they have a firm grasp on the ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... avoiding the hamlet, and approaching the upper gate of the avenue by a by-path well known to him. A single glance announced that great changes had taken place. One half of the gate, entirely destroyed and split up for firewood, lay in piles, ready to be taken away; the other swung uselessly about upon its loosened hinges. The battlements above the gate were broken and thrown down, and the carved Bears, which were said to have done sentinel's duty upon the top for centuries, now, hurled from their ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... wake; if feasting, rise before I turn away. It is the hour of fate, And they who follow me reach every state Mortals desire and conquer every foe Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate, Condemned to failure, penury, and woe, Seek me in vain and uselessly implore; I answer not ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... in the mind of George Jernam, was not to be driven away. It seemed too hideous for reality; but it took possession of his mind, nevertheless, and he sat alone, trying to shut horrible fancies out of his brain, but trying uselessly. ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... accomplished by drilling the guns' crews separately, until each man has acquired some facility in his particular duties, and then selecting the most deficient for special instruction, combining them as a gun's crew, in order not to uselessly fatigue those who are already expert or readily acquire the drill. Whenever a new order is to be executed, it should be first thoroughly and minutely explained; and as soon as all have heard and appear to understand, execute it. ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... The reasons he gave for this apparent change were, that nature had forbidden slavery in the newly-conquered regions, and that the proviso, under such circumstances, would be a useless taunt and wanton insult to the South. The famous sentence in which he said that he "would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to reenact the will of God," was nothing but specious and brilliant rhetoric. It was perfectly easy to employ slaves in California, if the people had not prohibited it, and in New Mexico as well, ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... manifest: I feel I have been living more or less uselessly. It is a fat time. There are a certain set of men in every prosperous country who, having wherewithal, and not being compelled to toil, become subjected to the moral ideal. Most of them in the end sit down with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were closing again. I don't know how old I appeared to him—and how much wise. Not half as old as I felt just then; not half as uselessly wise as I knew myself to be. Surely in no other craft as in that of the sea do the hearts of those already launched to sink or swim go out so much to the youth on the brink, looking with shining eyes upon that glitter of the vast surface which is only a reflection of his own glances full of fire. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the unfortunate ships. At the shore of the northern, Erebus Bay, the strength of the English seamen was so weakened that they had to abandon two of the boats, together with the sledges on which they had been drawn so far uselessly. At their arrival at Terror Bay the bonds of comradeship were no longer strong enough to keep the party together, or it may be that they agreed to separate. They were now less than a hundred men. At any ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... with respectful firmness, "a terrible storm is gathering. Your Majesty can see this as well as I; are you willing to uselessly risk the lives of so many brave men?" In truth, the heaviness of the atmosphere, and the low rumbling which could be heard in the distance, justified only too well the admiral's fears. "Monsieur," replied the Emperor, more and ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... smaller time-allotment, our students, roughly speaking, keep pace with Northern students because they are older and somewhat more serious, because the course is shortened by the elimination of uselessly perplexing topics in arithmetic like compound proportion and cube root, but chiefly because the utility of mathematics is made vivid, and vigorous interest aroused by its immediate application in class-room and shop to problems arising in the industries. Our students are not stuffed like sausages ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... that it was all true. The serpent seemed fully twenty feet long, with a large head, and a yellow body covered with black marks—a more hideous-looking creature it was scarcely possible to conceive. How I longed for my rifle, which stood up uselessly against the stem of the tree; I only hoped that the serpent would catch hold of it, and perhaps shoot himself! Perhaps he might think fit to swallow it, and then there was a great chance of its sending ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Matteo said. "I hate exerting myself uselessly—wasting my strength, as you do, in rowing at an oar, or anything of that sort; but to do anything great, I would not mind exertion, and would go ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... day and a night. If the Germans used high-explosive, one might believe that they had some deep religious aim necessitating the non-existence of the Cathedral. But they do not use high-explosive here. Shrapnel merely and uselessly torments. ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... had asked Percerin to show him the king's new costumes. "There is not a doubt," he said to himself, "that my friend the bishop of Vannes had some motive in that;" and then he began to rack his brains most uselessly. D'Artagnan, so intimately acquainted with all the court intrigues, who knew the position of Fouquet better than even Fouquet himself did, had conceived the strangest fancies and suspicions at the announcement of the fete, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in order that a few chosen individuals may continue to subsist and to enjoy life. But even the existence of these favoured few is a continual conflict with threatening dangers of every kind. Thousands of hopeful germs perish uselessly every minute. The raging war of interests in human society is only a feeble picture of the unceasing and terrible war of existence which reigns throughout the whole of the living world. The beautiful dream of God's goodness and wisdom ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... friends and talked to them for a moment or two. Tavernake could hear Grier's protesting voice and Beatrice's light laugh. Evidently they were trying uselessly to persuade her to change her mind. Soon she came ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... men who direct our society and understand the nature of my movements support me warmly. A few, I understand, in Africa, in writing home, have styled my efforts as 'wanderings.' The very word contains a lie coiled like a serpent in its bosom. It means traveling without an object, or uselessly. I am now performing the duty of writing you. If this were termed 'dawdling,' it would be as true as the other.... I have actually seen letters to the Directors in which I am gravely charged with holding the views ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... poor, shivering, pallid little woman into a cab, and wound her bare throat up in the scarlet velvet cloak that was hanging uselessly over her arm. She crouched down beside him, saying, "I am so cold, Joe; I am so cold," but she did not seem to know enough to wrap herself up. Joe felt all through this long drive that nothing this side of Heaven ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... of a moderate movement becoming then so hurried as to present nothing decided to the eye, and serving only to confuse the performer instead of giving him confidence. Moreover,—and this is of much more consequence,—the conductor, by uselessly making these four gestures in a quick movement, renders the pace of the rhythm awkward, and loses the freedom of gesture which a simple division of the time into ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... noticed the grim fact that a Government which forever talked about peace had in actual practice, shed more blood in a few hours at Vera Cruz than had been spilled in all the seven years while Roosevelt was President. Moreover, this blood was shed uselessly; no object whatever ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... can you gain by such a course?" inquired his visitor. "Why uselessly expose yourself to disagreeable notoriety, which must, of course, place Mrs. ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... a girl, quite the best I've done. And I'd got him right up to the fence, and I'm hanged if I could get him over. He perorated, he posed like a shop-walker, you could see him hanging limp like a broken puppet, and me behind with beads on my forehead uselessly jerking the wires." ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... a young man, and as a boy was skilful in throwing. He once killed a hare sitting in the flower-garden at Shrewsbury by throwing a marble at it, and, as a man, he once killed a cross-beak with a stone. He was so unhappy at having uselessly killed the cross-beak that he did not mention it for years, and then explained that he should never have thrown at it if he had not felt sure that his old ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... Why should I guarantee Birotteau by my signature? We are to pay, each on his own account, our half of the price of the said land. Now, it is enough to be jointly and separately liable to the sellers. I hold inflexibly to one commercial rule: I never give my guarantee uselessly, any more than I give my receipt for moneys not yet paid. He who signs, pays. I don't wish to be liable to ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... to think that one we cared for had gone back to the air, with only a handful of ashes remaining, than to think of the dark, close, lonesome grave far below the sunlight, clogging and uselessly occupying part of the earth, which should be devoted to growth and ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... one hand, bayonet in the other, fighting my way backward along with my comrades. Then all at once a glittering flash came in the air, and I felt a dull cut on the face, followed directly after by another strange, numbing blow, which made me drop my bayonet, as my arm fell uselessly to my side; and then with a lurch and a stagger, I fell, and was trampled upon twice, when as I rallied once, a black savage-looking sepoy raised his clubbed musket to knock out my brains, but a ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... me, I can't stand here all night. How black it is ahead there. Oooh! Really, now, it does seem a bit terrifying. If I only had a lantern it wouldn't be so—" her gaze fell upon the laborers' lantern that clattered aimlessly, uselessly against the stake. An instant later she had jerked it from its fastening with a cry of joy. "I'll send it back when they go ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... comport with the honor of the nation to have to rely upon the churlish courtesy of England. Already, too, we see it announced that Napoleon will find in the massacre of French subjects a pretext to seize on the island. If our Government will spare a single one of the cruisers which have so uselessly sought the Alabama, it may, during the present year, negotiate a treaty which will at once advance our prosperity in peace, and increase our strength in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... bending stiffly: "and since you say we are no longer bound to each other as friends, you may be certain, nevertheless, that I will never permit a hostile feeling, of which you are the object, to occupy my bosom. You have been long, and I hope not uselessly, my pupil in the duties of chivalry. You are the near relation of the Earl of Pembroke, my kind and constant patron; and if these circumstances are well weighed, they form a connexion which it would be difficult, at least for me, to break through. If you feel yourself, as you seem to intimate, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... huge place—huge, ungainly, and uselessly extensive; built at a time when, at any rate in Ireland, men considered neither beauty, aptitude, nor economy. It is three stories high, and stands round a quadrangle, in which there are two entrances opposite to each other. Nothing can be well uglier than that great paved ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... overwhelm it with all the evil done before it. Not a tear but is remembered and used as a reproach, not a cry of pain but becomes a cry of accusation. Death alone bears the weight of the errors of nature or the ignorance of science that have uselessly prolonged torments in whose name we curse death because it puts ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... and the same logical and coherent discourse somewhat later in the evening, which distinguish similar gatherings of the masculine sex in more civilized localities and under more favorable auspices. No glasses were broken in the absence of any; no liquor was uselessly spilt on floor or table in the ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... individuals who would tear the coats off their backs in desperate adherence to the skirts. Thou, too, O Vanity! art responsible for greater evils:—Time misspent, industry misdirected, labour unrequited, because uselessly or imprudently applied: poverty and isolation, families left unprovided for, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... discouraged, disorganised; desertion is at work among the ranks. To re-enter Paris cannot be thought of: in attempting to do so we should uselessly shed blood." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... I have uselessly assumed the furious air of an angry Minerva, the majestic deportment of the Queen of England opening Parliament, the prudish, affected behavior of a school-mistress on promenade; all this only incites his hopes. If ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... him from exertion for which he had all the will. He constantly complained of weakness in the head and giddiness, which totally unfitted him for work, especially in the morning. He would break out to his friends with the exclamation, 'I waste my life so uselessly, that I have come to bear a marvellous hatred towards myself. I don't know how it is that the time passes away so quickly, and I do so little. I shall not die of years, but of sheer want of strength.' In begging one of his friends at ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... pools of dried blood made a trail which showed the way a wounded man had taken. A little farther they found the body of Bill Haney, flat on its face, with arms spread out on either side. A coyote slunk away as they appeared, dragging its hinder parts uselessly. ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... say that there is no hope of resistance; and that John of Gischala and Simon are only bringing destruction, upon all in the city, by thus holding out against the Romans. Why should you throw away your life so uselessly?" ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... just arrived off Dami-etta with eight thousand janizaries, and on the first of November, 1799, the landing of the first division of four thousand janizaries was effected. At the first tidings of this disembarkation, Kleber had despatched Desaix with a column of three thousand men; but the latter, uselessly sent to Damietta, had found the victory won,—the Turkish division having been completely destroyed by General Verdier,—and the French filled with unbounded confidence. This brilliant achievement ought to have served to encourage ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the most illustrious of mothers uselessly lavished upon her daughters! Already the Queen of Naples was beginning to betray the fatal tendencies of her character; whilst, in France, frivolous pleasures, unreflecting friendships, and petty court-intrigues were day by day undermining the position of Marie Antoinette. "I am much affected at ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... South Wales, therefore when one drought follows another the whole colony is of course depressed. At these times the public offices in Sydney are besieged by crowds of men out of work, and the Government will employ as many as possible, sometimes uselessly. This is a dangerous thing, for men speedily acquire the notion that if they do nothing for themselves the Government is bound to provide for them. But a man out of work in Sydney or Melbourne is a different animal ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... stood alone on the walls of Ypres surrounded by foes, I trust that your Majesty will see that it was wiser for me to yield, and so to have the opportunity of fighting again some day under your royal banner, than to give away my life uselessly." ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... I have troubled you uselessly," I said; "I will go to bed without medicine to-night, I think, and strive to be calm, as Dr. Pemberton enjoined me to do, and there was good sense in his advice, certainly. We have so much to do to-morrow, Evelyn—we two must ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... comrades first and stopped. They could see he was not as young as Fido, but that he was wise and did not bark uselessly at anybody, so they knew that he must be friendly to people. Soon the boys stood face to face, and the strange boy, whose dress indicated that he was not from that section, greeted them in a friendly manner. He asked them what they were doing and where they were from. They told him that they ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy
... aconite and two ounces of water everyone-half hour, until perspiration on the skin betokens the circulatory depression through the action of the drug. I use aconite in this disease very often, but not in such doses as the first one. It seems to me that it is uselessly large. I use about one-tenth of a drop at a dose everyone to two hours during ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... idler. I doubt whether since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work, in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time, is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break this habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit ...
— Lincoln Letters • Abraham Lincoln
... faint a light, at every tread One's sure to stumble 'gainst a rock or tree! An Ignis Fatuus I must call instead. Yonder one burning merrily, I see. Holla! my friend! may I request your light? Why should you flare away so uselessly? Be kind enough to show us ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... interested spectators. On the flag ceasing to fly, a sous-officier rushed up to the flagstaff and hurled it to the ground, shaking his fists and tearing his hair in a bitterness and vexation from which it is impossible to withhold sympathy, in view of what these men had suffered uselessly and what they had done. The French then embarked, and at 9.30 steamed southward, the Faidherbe towing one oblong steel barge and one old steel boat, the other three boats sailing, all full of men. As the little flotilla passed the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Dordrecht. But the army of the right experienced in the meantime the most alarming reverses on the Lower Meuse. The Austrians assumed the offensive, passed the Roer, beat Miazinski at Aix-la-Chapelle; made Miranda raise the blockade of Maestricht, which he had uselessly bombarded; crossed the Meuse, and at Liege put our army, which had fallen back between Tirlemont and Louvain, wholly to the rout. Dumouriez received from the executive council orders to leave Holland immediately, and to ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... hand, he could not proceed to extremities while he was still uncertain, because if I knew the hiding-place, he would have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, and if I didn't, he would have thrown away uselessly his one chance of placating Antony. That was just when Nisbet was beginning to thunder at the gates of Agpur—or rather, a good way off them—so it appealed to him. Of course the flaw in the argument was that if he knew his business, his torturer ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... to be stopped at dawn, although the engineers protest against the masses of stores which uselessly ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... expenditures quite ungrudgingly. He restored very many of the ancient buildings and inscribed upon them his own name to signify that he had repaired them so as to be new structures, and from his private funds. Also he spent a great deal uselessly upon renovating and repairing other places], erecting, for instance, to Bacchus and Hercules a temple of huge size. Yet, though his expenses were enormous, he left behind not merely a few myriad denarii, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... is too young to negotiate with, and too much money would be spent uselessly. For the natives throughout the Indies would not hesitate to violate any treaty in any peril or to ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... perhaps think it necessary to retake it; but that will be of no use, and will cause loss of life uselessly on both sides. It had far better return, with its tail between its legs.... England was made by adventurers, not by its Government, and I believe it will only hold its ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... "Excuse my giving that last order, old man, but I know how keen you are, and I'm not going to let you go off to try and navigate a sieve. You're far too good a man to be drowned uselessly." ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... or did shook my opinion of the disgraceful series of falsehoods that he had told in my presence the day before, or of the cruel deception by which he had separated Lady Glyde from her sister, and had sent her uselessly to London, when she was half distracted with anxiety on Miss Halcombe's account. I naturally kept these thoughts to myself, and said nothing more to irritate him; but I was not the less resolved to persist in my purpose. A ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... and looked at my face through the dusk. 'I have come to the river,' she said, 'to float my lamp on the stream when the daylight wanes in the west.' I stood alone among tall grasses and watched the timid flame of her lamp uselessly ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... reluctance, which much consoles me. I do what is possible to avoid all discussion; I see its danger still so glaring. How could I resist, should the queen condescend to desire, to ask, that I would yet try another year?—and another year would but be uselessly demolishing me; for never could I explain to her that a situation which unavoidably casts all my leisure into the presence of Mrs. Schwellenberg must necessarily be subversive of my health, because incompatible with my peace, my ease, my freedom, my ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... feasting, rise before I turn away. It is the hour of fate, And they who follow me reach every state Mortals desire, and conquer every foe Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate, Condemned to failure, penury and woe, Seek me in vain and uselessly implore. I answer not, and I return ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... But suddenly the buzz died out in a thin thrill away in the open space of the courtyard, leaving Lingard and Almayer standing face to face in the fresh silence of the young day, looking very puzzled and idle, their arms hanging uselessly by their sides—like men disheartened by ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... uselessly, for all had seen. But he threw a life-buoy fastened to the quarter, and was about to throw another, when he looked, and saw that his first was a hundred feet this side of the ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... knowledge that it was inevitable. But now he had come, if not to share her hope, at least to sympathize with it, and to wish ardently for her sake that her faith might be justified. And it seemed a pitiable thing that she should have been deceived, an intolerable thing that she should die there so uselessly,—for him. ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... the hour of fate, And those who follow me reach every state Mortals desire, and conquer every foe Save death. But they who doubt or hesitate— Condemned to failure, penury and woe— Seek me in vain and uselessly implore. I hear them not, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... his own, perceived the helpless ignorance that lay behind the twins' assumption a of severe dignity, and took them in hand and got seats for them in the parlour car. As they knew nothing about cars, parlour or otherwise, but had merely and quite uselessly reiterated to the booking-clerk, till their porter intervened, that they wanted third-class tickets, they accepted these seats, thankful in the press and noise round them to get anything so roomy and calm as these dignified arm-chairs; ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... are effective only against rays, and the hexans cannot destroy anything they cannot see before it strikes them. So it is that all the hexan vessels except those necessary to protect their own strongholds, are being concentrated against Callisto. They cannot spare vessels to guard uselessly the abandoned satellites. Because of the enormously high gravity of Jupiter the hexans there are safe from human attack save for ineffectual long-range bombardment, but Io is being attacked constantly ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... sadly "we won't do all this uselessly" he said "this is a very costly trick if you think it a trick at all, because I have to pay to the servants double the amount that others pay in this village—otherwise they would run away. You can sleep at the door and see that nobody gets in ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... public records, to the testimony of those who have opportunities of knowing me, and even to the detail which the public voice can report of the past acts of this government, that my time has been neither idly nor uselessly employed; yet such are the cares and embarrassments of this various state, that, although much may be done, much more, even in matters of moment, must necessarily remain neglected. To select from the miscellaneous ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... feel like, my poor boy. But it's no good. You'll waste your strength uselessly. It may sound harsh, but my advice to you is: Cut your losses. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... them is precisely the same as that which is destroyed in the atmosphere. If we avail ourselves of a descending stream to turn a water-wheel, we are appropriating a power which nature may appear, at first sight, to be uselessly and irrecoverably wasting, but which, upon due examination, we shall find she is ever regaining by other processes. The fluid which is falling from a higher to a lower level, carries with it the velocity due to its revolution with the earth at a greater distance ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... brisk, Bonaparte, exhibited much impatience, and it must be confessed, his anger was but natural: The Nablousians halted at the openings of the mountain defiles. Bonaparte reproached Lannes bitterly for having uselessly exposed himself, and "sacrificed, without any object, a number of brave men." Lannes excused himself by saying that the mountaineers had defied him, and he wished to chastise the rabble. "We are not in a condition to play the swaggerer," ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the Inn from outside!" Sue called after her, but uselessly. Mrs. Boswell felt that the entire success of the "boom" depended upon the kitchen. They might string lanterns from Boswell's to Jericho, but if the supper shouldn't be good—the thought sent her down the ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... signs himself, 'boisonnet.' He was reported to be a large landed-proprietor who had made a fortune by mining in French Guiana. He proposed for M. Bonnat and himself to secure the monopoly of washing the Protectorate with this flume—a veritable French toy, uselessly complicated, and yet to be used only upon the smallest scale. We must go for our models to California and Australia, not to ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... thought, he sauntered around it, charmed with its nudity, its stupendous candour, its chasteness recalling that of a virgin child, for there was not a piece of sculpture, not an ornament that would have uselessly loaded it. The roofs of the nave, transept, and apse were of equal height above the entablature, which was decorated with simple mouldings. In the same way the apertures in the aisles and nave had no other adornments than archivaults with mouldings, rising above the piers. He stopped in thought ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... as to render him insensible of the evils and sufferings which, alas! it necessarily produces. The natural expression of great feeling and humanity burst from him; but he turned hastily and firmly from the contemplation of evils, which he could not prevent, and would not uselessly deplore. In conversing one day privately with Mr. Percy, he showed that bitter and deep philosophic reflections on the horrors and folly of war had passed through his mind, but that he had systematically ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... it since then; and now it urged itself for fulfilment like a vow. It was a vow to cover not merely one offense, but many—all the long years of nameless, unrecorded irritations, ignored but never allayed, culminating in the act by which this man had robbed him; robbed him uselessly, robbed him not to enjoy the spoil, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... knew well how to handle an oar. Often, indeed, without him she had paddled a passenger across the ferry in her little canoe. He accepted her proposal, and we had the satisfaction of seeing the light punt put off from the shore opposite to that from which we were idly and uselessly looking on, and go gallantly over the surging torrent toward the sinking men. We feared, however, that it would not be in time to save them, as their cries for help grew fainter and fainter, till each one, we thought, would ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... the justness of the argument; Delaherche, it was true, was distinctly not a man to expose himself uselessly. She was reassured, and went and drew the curtains and threw back the blinds; the tawny light from without, where the sun was beginning to pierce the fog with his golden javelins, streamed in a bright flood into the apartment. One of the windows was part way open, and in the soft air ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... am not skilful enough to bring down with the first shot I shall lose my game. It is surprising how confident of that one shot you may get after a while. On the one hand, it is necessary to be extremely keen; on the other, to be sure of your own self-control, not to fire uselessly. The bramble-bushes on the shore of the ditch ahead might cover a hare. Through the dank and dark-green aftermath a rabbit might suddenly come bounding, disturbed from the furrow where he had been feeding. On the sandy paths which ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... he wasted not a ball. The first pitch and the second, delivered breast high and fairly over the plate, beautiful balls to hit, Shultz watched speed by. He swung hard on the third and the crippled Ashwell dove for it in a cloud of dust, got a hand in front of it, but uselessly, for the hit was safe. The crowd ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... spectator, who could not avoid feeling that there existed in the owner either wilful neglect or unsuccessful struggle. The chimneys, from which the thatch had sank down, stood up with the incrustations of lime that had been trowelled round their bases, projecting uselessly out from them; some of the quoins had fallen from the gable; the plaster came off the walls in several places, and the ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... main-boards themselves. Wadded with clothing, shouting in a mixture of French and English and his own peculiar form of slang, Ba'tiste tried in vain to force the laboring animals onward. But they only churned uselessly in the drift; their hoofs could find no footing, save the yielding masses of snow. Puffing, as though the exertion had been his own, the trapper turned and ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... low, vile, despicable, shameless, and deceitful. He had been deceiving him since last year. He was, however, inclined to think that Falk must have gone mad quite recently; for no sane person, without necessity, uselessly, for no earthly reason, and regardless of another's self-respect and peace of mind, would own to having devoured human flesh. "Why tell?" he cried. "Who was asking him?" It showed Falk's brutality because after all he had ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... of guilt is absent, it is a mournful thing for one to feel that he has, so to speak, missed stays in his earthly voyage, and run upon a mud-bank which he can never get off: to feel one's self ingloriously and uselessly stranded, while those who started with us pass by with gay flag and swelling sail. And all this may be while it is hard to know where to attach blame; it may be when there was nothing worse to complain of than a want of promptitude, resolution, and tact, at the one testing time. Every one knows ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... Mr. Mareschal's apparatus as an indispensable addition to every case of domestic electric lighting in which bichromate of potassa piles are used, and, in general, to all cases where the pile becomes uselessly exhausted in open circuit. It will likewise find an application in laboratories, where the bichromate pile is in much demand because of its powerful qualities, and where it is often necessary to order it from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... relieve his own anguish: it is in vain to shew him heaven in order to restrain him; his views presently descend again to earth; he is willing to be happy at any price; therefore, the laws which have neither provided for his instruction, for his morals, nor his happiness, menace him uselessly; he plunges on in his pursuits, and these ultimately punish him, for the unjust negligence of his legislators. If politics more enlightened, did seriously occupy itself with the instruction, with the welfare of the people; if laws were more ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... through the treacherous quick-sands or the stream, and gallop away toward the hills. One old veteran was struggling behind all the rest with one of his forelegs, which had been broken by some accident, dangling about uselessly at his side. His appearance, as he went shambling along on three legs, was so ludicrous that I could not help pausing for a moment to look at him. As I came near, he would try to rush upon me, nearly throwing himself down at every awkward attempt. Looking up, I saw the whole body of Indians ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Navarrese, smarting from the recollection of the tiles and stones that were hurled at them from the roofs by women, children, and old men, had given the final draught of blood to their vengeful swords! Never was so much courage so uselessly squandered. After the lapse of three centuries Henry's figure is still full of heroic life, as, with back set against a shop-window, and sword in hand, he shouted to those who urged upon him the hopelessness of his enterprise: 'My retreat from this ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... but a specimen of what is purposed throughout; and if the money which visitors leave in Rome could, in some small part at least, be devoted to these works, instead of being frittered away vexatiously and uselessly on petty extortioners, official and unofficial, the change would be a very great improvement. It does seem a shame that, where so much is necessarily expended, so little of it should be devoted to ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... equilibrio two colours of doctrines so diametrically opposite, and consequently two parties equally dissatisfied at not being able to crush each other, neutralizing them, in short, by its immense influence in the employment of their strength, when they bewilder or exhaust themselves uselessly for its interests; but I could not touch on these matters, without travelling out of the domain of literature, which is the only one that is at present familiar to me, in order to enter into yours, where you have not leisure to direct me; ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... voluptuary and the sluggard, whose course is one of base self indulgence, are correct? Is it credible that, with no justifying explanation hereafter, it should be ordained that the more gifted and disinterested a man is the more he shall uselessly suffer, from his sympathetic carriage of the greater share in the sin and sorrow of all his race? No, far back in the past there has been some dark mystery which yet flings its dense shadows over our history ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... pity and my courtesy I lose, And I become a scorner of my race, By such a herd surrounded; meanwhile, fly The precious hours of youth, more precious far Than fame, or laurel, or the light of day, Or breath of life: thus uselessly, without One joy, I lose thee, in this rough abode, Whose only guests are care and suffering, O thou, the only ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... confused melees of 1652 the fire-ship "acted, so to speak, alone, seeking by chance an enemy to grapple, running the risk of a mistake, without protection against the guns of the enemy, nearly sure to be sunk by him or else burned uselessly. All now, in 1665, has become different. Its prey is clearly pointed out; it knows it, follows it easily into the relatively fixed position had by it in the enemy's line. On the other hand, the ships of his own division do not ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... frankness and honesty with which he holds his doctrines. What would I not give to gain an entrance into this pure but so obstinate soul for this truth as certain to me as the existence of the sun,—that all the categories of political economy are contradictions! Instead of uselessly exhausting himself in reconciling practice and theory; instead of contenting himself with the ridiculous excuse that everything here below has its advantages and its inconveniences,—M. Dunoyer would seek the synthetic idea which solves all the antinomies, and, instead of ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... a few minutes you are to deal your blow, but in receiving your verdict I shall have at least the satisfaction of having wounded the existing society, that cursed society in which one may see a single man spending, uselessly, enough to feed thousands of families; an infamous society which permits a few individuals to monopolize all the social wealth, while there are hundreds of thousands of unfortunates who have not even the bread that is not ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... the door, he pushed it open with the timidity of a new thief. He thrust his head cautiously sideways, and his eyes met the eyes of his wife, who sat by the table, the lamp-light defining a half of her face. '"Sh!" he said, uselessly. His glance travelled swiftly to the inner door which shielded the one bed-chamber. The pickaninnies, strewn upon the floor of the living-room, were softly snoring. After a hearty meal they had promptly ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane |
