"Vainly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the most scrupulous politeness; trying, and trying vainly, to conceal some strong agitation which was in possession of him. His wild brown eyes—wilder than ever in the moonlight—rested entreatingly, with a strange underlying expression of despair, on Naomi's face. His hands, clasped lightly in front of him, trembled ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... the west, searching many dark corners and vainly seeking entry to others; had gilded with equal impartiality the spires of five hundred churches and the tin cornices of thirty thousand tenements, with their million tenants and more; had smiled courage and cheer to patient mothers trying to make the most of life in the teeming ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... beginning to wish that he would go, but he lingered for some time, vainly hoping for a glimpse of Elsie. On finally taking his leave, he asked her to point out Mrs. Schilling's house, and she noticed that ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... these excursions that Harry was more particularly struck by certain phenomena, which he vainly sought to explain. Several times, while walking along some narrow cross-alley, he seemed to hear sounds similar to those which would be produced by violent blows of a pickax ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... yet none, peasant or peer, proved false to him. He was sheltered alike in cottage and hall; more than a score of people knew of his route, yet not a word of betrayal was spoken, not a thought of betrayal was entertained; and the agents of the Protector vainly scoured the country in all directions for the princely fugitive, who found himself surrounded by a loyalty worthy a better man, and was at last enabled to leave the country ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... a few hours of alternate fog and sunshine on the top of the mountain, vainly hoping for the most modest view; our inability to obtain it was extremely disappointing, for the mountain commands a superb prospect, which I enjoyed fully in the following November, from a spot a few miles further west. The air, which was ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... bribed barbers without success. I have vainly shadowed men for a month who looked as if they intended growing beards. I even took advantage of Armageddon to join the Navy, where beards are permitted; but when I tried to start growing one I was instantly reprimanded for not shaving by a bearded Commander, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... specious promises of easier methods, inuring her students to toil as the price of success; not rigid and motionless, but plastic and adapting herself to the necessities of different minds; yet never confounding things that differ, nor vainly hoping on a narrow basis of culture to rear the superstructure of the broadest attainment and character, but ever determined to make her instructions the most truly ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... they met with a series of mishaps which they laid at the door of an ill-favored man who had vainly tried to become their guide. The disappearance of Janus Grubb, the guide who had been engaged by Miss Elting during their mountain hike, and the surprising events that followed made the story of their mountain trip ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... stomach, and kept hitting him without taking breath or knowing where his blows fell. Blood flowed down the face of the German, who, choking and with a rattling in his throat, spat forth his broken teeth, and vainly strove to shake off this infuriated man ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... is the way you fight!" cried Diamond, wheeling about and leaping at Willis, who gave a scream and vainly tried ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... events, he who undertakes it will meet with little sympathy, and will find few to help him. And let him toil as he may, the sun and noontide of his life shall pass by, the evening of his days shall overtake him, and he himself have to quit the scene, leaving that unfinished which he had vainly hoped to complete. He may lay the foundation; it will be for his successors to raise the edifice. Their hands will give the last touch; they will reap the glory; their names will be remembered ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... How vainly men themselves amaze! The stars began to blink, An art that there were few to praise, Nor any drop ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... of Madame de Birague, Valentina Balbiani.[64] Under a sumptuous dress, covered with sculpture so delicate that the marble looks like lace, a thin and shrunken form can be distinguished. The wasted hand holds a tiny book whose pages it has no strength to turn. Her little dog tries vainly to awake her from a slumber that is eternal. A corpse that is almost a skeleton lies beneath. This is not the sincere expression of the sorrow Villon knew; for we can easily imagine the unhappy Valentina's fate from our knowledge of her husband, one of the hell-hounds of ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... I galloped the giraffe, vainly endeavoring to swing him around, but once a swamp retarded me and another time a low hill shut the giraffe from view. When I passed the hill he had disappeared and could not be found again. There was no deep regret at having lost him, for I felt particularly grateful to him for having given ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... difficulties but a step back to say that the secret of the amenity was "style"; for what in the world was the secret of style, which you might have followed up and down the abysmal old Italy for so many a year only to be still vainly calling for it? Everything, at any rate, that happy afternoon, in that place of poetry, was bathed and blessed with it. The castle of Barbarossa had been on the height behind; the villa of black Tiberius had overhung the immensity ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... "Do you think I cannot see?" And peering down into the drawer which the Jew was vainly trying to close, he cried, "Heaps of money! French money! Five-franc pieces! the very thing I want! I must ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... production. So with De Laines, Counterpanes, Brussels Carpetings and fabrics generally; and yet Americans will talk as though the encouragement given by protective Duties to home Manufacturers were given at the expense of our consumers. Vainly are they challenged from day to day to name one single article whereof the production has been transplanted from Europe to America through Protection, which has not thereby been materially cheapened to the American consumer; it suits them better ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore, For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... "new trade of tobacco, in which he feared that there were more than seven thousand tobacco-houses." James the First, in his memorable "Counterblast to Tobacco," only echoed from the throne the popular cry; but the blast was too weak against the smoke, and vainly his paternal majesty attempted to terrify his liege children that "they were making a sooty kitchen in their inward parts, soiling and infecting them with an unctuous kind of soot, as hath been found in some great tobacco-eaters, that ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... How literally this question was answered, let the snows of Russia tell. There are other ministers of the wrath of heaven besides the frosts of a Northern winter. Napoleon III. was in the zenith of his power when he heard the sentence which he vainly tried to stifle. His great political wisdom, and the wonderful success of all he undertook had hitherto astonished the world. There was now a manifest change. But it need not here be said with what unspeakable humiliation his star ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... 'business is business' phrases a lie: 'Tis only war grown miserly. If Traffic is battle, name it so: War-crimes less will shame it so, And we victims less will blame it so. But oh, for the poor to have some part In the sweeter half of life called Art, Is not a problem of head, but of heart. Vainly might Plato's head revolve it: Plainly the heart of a child ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... a driving storm came on. Tying our horses to the horns of the victims, Henry began the bloody work of dissection, slashing away with the science of a connoisseur, while I vainly endeavored to imitate him. Old Hendrick recoiled with horror and indignation when I endeavored to tie the meat to the strings of rawhide, always carried for this purpose, dangling at the back of the saddle. After some difficulty we overcame his scruples; and heavily ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... real effort to cure patients is made. Sufferers with means are kept comfortable by being given drugs whenever they demand them, thus satisfying their consciences that they are being "treated," while vainly waiting till they are sufficiently strong to get entirely off "dope." In such a house of quackery Marie stayed two years. Her remaining fifteen hundred dollars and a thousand of her sister's went for fake treatment. She learned to smoke cigarettes with the young doctor; ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... making shirts at twenty-five cents apiece! When this befell her, she had but four dollars and twenty cents in the world. This she made furnish food to herself and her child for four long weeks, while she vainly sought for work. She offered to do any thing—to sew, scrub, cook, wash—any thing; but no! there was nothing for her—NOTHING! She must drain the cup to the very dregs, that the vengeance of God—and He would not be just if He did not take terrible vengeance for crime ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... arrived, with chattering loud, Chaffinch and sparrow and finch, in a cloud; Round and around in their fierce attack, They plucked the feathers from breast and back; And the poor little linnet all vainly strove, Fighting with ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... is as red as a peony. Now I know a secret!' Charlotte vainly endeavoured to hide her confusion. 'Very well—not a word! I won't say more,' continued De Stancy good-humouredly, 'except that he seems to be a very ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... vainly believed, and some vainly teach, that there is but one work of grace; but such a doctrine is contrary to the word of God, the conditions of the plan of redemption, and the glorious testimonies of thousands of saints who have lived in the past and ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... happy heart is certain to be a kind one, and, eager though he was to reach his journey's end, he paused once and again to lend a helping hand. Now it was to a peddler who was vainly trying to piece together the broken strap that had held his pack, again to restore a young bird to its nest, and then to release a white rabbit which had caught its foot in a trap and ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... In the ardour of the fight the king found himself surrounded by the enemy's footmen, was unhorsed, and while they were vainly seeking for a vulnerable spot in his armour some French knights ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... on the roofs of heaven, Come now and look over the wall: Oh let your sad mother but see you, Oh let her not vainly call! Hasten, her heart is breaking, Let her your smile behold; The mother is sadly weeping, The maiden ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... brilliant laxity among the upper classes. The severe and frugal morals of the Republic still survived in great families, as well as among that middle class, from which the Empire drew its solid support; but in fashionable society there was a marked and rapid relaxation of morals which was vainly combated by stringent social and sumptuary legislation. The part taken by women in social and political life is among the most powerful factors in determining the general aspect of an age. This, which had already been great under the later Republic, was now greater than ever. The Empress ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... taking her hand, which he perceived trembled violently, in his own; "and I trust you will remember your absent brother—" kindly, he was about to say, but Emily, attempting to rise, was overpowered by the emotions which she had vainly striven to suppress, and sunk back ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... free mulatto women having illegitimate children by Negroes and other slaves, and free Negro women having illegitimate children by white men, and their issue, were subjected to the same penalties as in the former act were provided against white women. Thus vainly did the colony of Maryland struggle with the problem of race intermixture. Generally throughout the South the rule in the matter of the child of the Negro father and the indentured white mother was that the child should be bound in servitude for ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... to grip hold on it, by the might of his finger nails. It wuz a hard job, and Josiah's face got red and I felt, as well as see, that his temper wuz a risin'. And I sez, instinctively, "Josiah, be calm!" For I knew not what unguarded word he might drop as he vainly tried to grip hold on't, and it eluded his efferts and came down on the ground every time, a carryin' with it, I s'pose, portions of his fingernails, ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... offensive. The Serapeum garrison, which had stopped the enemy three-quarters of a mile from the position, cleared its front, and the Tussum garrison by a brilliant counter-attack drove the enemy back. Two battalions of Anatolians of the Twenty-eighth Regiment were thrown vainly into the fight. Our artillery gave them no chance, and by 3:30 in the afternoon a third of the enemy, with the exception of a force that lay hid in bushy hollows on the east bank between the two posts, were in full ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... New Mexico with the intention of making Los Angeles in the golden State my future home, and now, thirty years later, I have not reached there yet. Vainly have I tried to break the thraldom of my fate, for I did not know that here I was to meet face to face with the mighty mystery of an ancient cult, the God of a long-forgotten civilization, a psychic power which has ordered my ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... sent in a caravel to the island of Saona, to take particular vengeance for the destruction of the shallop and its crew. The natives made a desperate defence and fled. The island was mountainous, and full of caverns, in which the Indians vainly sought for refuge. Six or seven hundred were imprisoned in a dwelling, and all put to the sword or poniarded. Those of the inhabitants who were spared were carried off as slaves; and the island was ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... vainly endeavoring to start his oarsmen with words, took up an extra oar and began vigorously prodding them with it. Cleggett had not seen this man look towards the Jasper B., but he nevertheless had the feeling that the man had ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... two lives, like confluent rivers, were unkindly torn apart; One to slide through fruited gardens, longing vainly for the sea, One to purl 'neath ample bridges, bearing cargoes to the mart, But ever dreaming fondly of a ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... the reader shrink from our page as irreverent. It shall not preach the possibility of inventing perpetual motion or a machine with a soul in it, as was lately and vainly attempted in our good city of Lynn,—where, however, it may be said, they do succeed in making soles to what resemble machines. It is not for us to be either so enthusiastic, impious, or uncharitable as to prophesy that human ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... San Francisco with Worth and Barbara, the next morning, I was headed south at a high rate of speed. Sitting in the Pullman smoker, going over what had happened and what I had made of it, vainly studying a small, blue blotter with some senseless hieroglyphics reversed upon it, I wasn't at all sure that this move of mine was anywhere near the right one. But the thing hit me so quick, had to be decided in a flash, and my snap judgment ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... in a peculiar predicament, for he was held in a stooping position with the lobster clinging to his ankle and wrist. He put on the ground the foot which had first been gripped and was vainly endeavoring to pull the lobster loose when Frank, attracted by the crowd, hurried up. He saw at once what the trouble was, and with one well-directed kick he sent the lobster spinning out into the middle of the street, the suddenness of the ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... splash in the water, a shower of sparkling drops as the osprey arose, a fish vainly struggling in its talons, and from a dusty gray roadster, which had halted along the highway while the occupant watched the hawk, there came an ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... habitue of Mr. Hoffman's office, and it seems quite amusing that one who was so dull at reading law that he makes merry with his own deficiencies, should have a connection with two offices. But the name of Matilda was the magnet which drew him to one where he vainly struggled to climb Alp on Alp of difficulties in hope of love's fruition, while at the other he might smile at the bewilderments of Coke, brush away the cobwebs from his brain, and recreate himself with the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... Leopold's Camp,—Bivouac rather, with its face to the south, and Chotusitz ahead. Thursday, 17th May, 1742; a furiously important Day about to dawn. High Problem of the 23th February last; Britannic Majesty and his Hyndfords and Robinsons vainly protesting:—it had to be tried; Hungarian Majesty having got, from Britannic, the sinews for trying it: and this ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a tone she vainly strove to render steady, "only yesterday I told M. Boulle I could not take the love he proffered me, and make any return. And then I felt on a certain equality. I understand better now. I am nameless, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... The sweet strong old psalm is valid in its assurances to-day for every soul which puts itself under the shadow of Christ's protecting intercession: 'The Lord shall keep thee from all evil, He shall keep thy soul.' We have not 'to lift up our eyes unto the hills,' for 'vainly is help hoped for from the multitude of the mountains,' but 'Our help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth.' Therefore we may dwell at peace in the midst of an alien world, having the Father for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... is, in solitude, that this should happen to minds morbidly meditative,—that when we stretch out our arms in darkness, vainly striving to draw back the sweet faces that have vanished, slowly arises a new stratagem of grief, and we say, 'Be it that they no more come back to us, yet what hinders but we should go to them?' Perilous is that crisis for the young. In its effect perfectly the same as ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... these words was so much the more gratified that his very eyebrows distended, and his eyes laughed. "You've got your wits about you!" he speedily exclaimed. "My mind is ever so dull! I've vainly given way to a fit of joy. But to think of these contingencies was ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... to be insulted she was disappointed, for that young person went off into fits of cackling giggles which she vainly tried to suppress. At last she rose to ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... He was trying—vainly trying—to bring his mind to it. Nothing really big had happened to him before: and his first feeling, characteristically selfish, was that this terrible thing had risen up to alter all the rest of ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his hand, and turned the key in the lock. Young Adams opened the paper which he had taken from the detective's hand, and while his blood-shot eyes vainly sought to master the few lines there written, Mr. Poindexter attracted the attention of Mr. Gryce, and, fixing him with his eye, formed his ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... her eyes upon the woman full of stupid amazement, and vainly sought in her face for some trace of the ideal loveliness which only the other day, so it seemed, had made her so charming. She began to fancy that the woman was under some evil spell and that if anyone could but repeat the talismanic word, her ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... the immaterial, between the unconscious and the conscious,—or, to describe the two realms with names which bring them nearest together, between that which is without sensation and that which has sensation: a gulf to bridge which philosophy also has vainly exerted its utmost efforts, as has been well known since the "supernatural assistance" of Descartes and the "preestablished harmony" of Leibnitz. Wherein lies the real necessity that there should ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... until almost sunset Parish Thornton went doggedly and vainly on with his man-hunt. Yet he set his teeth and swore that he must not fail; that he could not afford to fail. He would go home and have supper with ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... other than herself, that her eyes could discover—and yet to her ears came the sound again, and this time more distinctly. It was the sound of a man's voice, and it was moaning as if in pain. She rose and searched vainly through the bushes of the hillside where the rock ran out from the woods. She lifted her skirts and splashed her bare feet in the shallow creek water, wading persistently up and down. Her shyness was forgotten. The groan was a groan of a human creature in distress, and she must find and succor ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... self-reverence, the ascription of all agency to supernatural power began to be seriously curtailed. "The Divine right of kings" went its way with other archaisms into the limbo of oblivion, from which the reigning monarch in Prussia would appear to be vainly endeavouring to rescue it, while man began to realise that the causes of natural and human phenomena were to be sought in nature and in man. As a consequence of this, a new theory of conscience began to take shape, which was ultimately described by one of the boldest ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... O vainly the whirlwind of France up the turf to the palisade swept: Shoulder to shoulder the Englishmen stand, and the shield-wall is kept:— As, in a summer to be, when England and she yet again Strove for the sovranty, firm stood our squares, through the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... lighter than the steers, the heavier animals were surging ahead alongside the cliff wall, and the little pony with the boy on his back was inch by inch being forced to the verge, of which there was a clear fall now of about one hundred feet. Vainly he looked for a tree overhanging the road into which he could leap; there were no trees. And every few strides he found himself appreciably nearer the edge. Looking back, as far as he could see the steers were crowding, and looking ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... you don't know any better," cried the old lady, vainly trying to settle her gray puffs as they were before, "than to run into people in this way, I'll have ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... He ceased his cries as their lights flashed into view. "Stop, stop!" he shouted, "don't come a step further. I am sinking a foot a minute. The ground is rotten here. I guess it's up to me to say good-bye, chums," he continued in a voice he strove vainly to make steady. "You can't help me, and I'm ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... ministers usually are and, though not exactly handsome, had fascinating dark glowing eyes. Now, as his eyes turned toward her, she suddenly prickled with embarrassment—her legs were showing to her knees! She tried vainly to pull down her skirt, then tried to head Gypsy toward the barn. But Grandma Shears, ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... Often, during this day, was the voice of mirth even heard in this dwelling. It was not like the mirth of the well-known company of prisoners in the first French revolution—men who knew that they should leave their prison only to lose their heads, and who, once mutually acknowledging this, agreed vainly and pusillanimously to banish from that hour all sad, all grave thoughts, and laugh till they died. It was not this mirth of despair; nor yet that of carelessness; nor yet that of defiance. Nor were theirs the spirits of the patriot in the hour of struggle, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... his mate selected their den and raised their family that season. There they lived all summer, and killed Joe's cattle, sheep, and dogs, but laughed at all his poisons and traps, and rested securely among the recesses of the cavernous cliffs, while Joe vainly racked his brain for some method of smoking them out, or of reaching them with dynamite. But they escaped entirely unscathed, and continued their ravages as before. "There's where he lived all last summer," said Joe, pointing to the face of the cliff, "and I couldn't ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... with a humiliating sense of my utter incompetency to do it entire justice. I weep and wonder—my very soul thrills with the pathos of woman's martyr position on the earth and her volunteer sufferings above all. But I would vainly attempt to utter all I feel. I must leave it to each bearded fellow-creature, as he walks through the wilderness of this world, to behold with a sympathising eye and spirit an endurance so affecting, and endeavour to compensate it, to the individual ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... St. Peter's tomb, with a letter in which the Pope conjured Charles Martel not to attach any credit to the representations or words of Luitprandt, king of the Lombards, and to lend the Roman Church that effectual support which, for some time past, she had been vainly expecting from the Franks and their chief. "Let them come, we are told," wrote the Pope, piteously, "this Charles with whom ye have sought refuge, and the armies of the Franks; let them sustain ye, if they can, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... uttered the most piercing lamentations and cries. She leaned over the dying Antony, crying out incessantly with the most piteous exclamations of grief. She bathed his face, which was covered with blood, and vainly ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... renunciation made at the treaty of the Pyrenees was not valid, it was foreseen, that upon the death of the king of Spain, a sickly infant, the whole monarchy would be claimed by Lewis; after which it would be vainly expected to set bounds to his pretensions. Charles acquainted with these well-grounded apprehensions of the Dutch, had been the more obstinate in insisting on his own conditions at Breda; and by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... which is well known to Europe as proved by such works as "Gamiani," and "Anandria ou Confessions de Mademoiselle Sappho, avec la Clef," Lesbos, 1718. Onanism is fatally prevalent: in many Harems and girls' schools tallow candles and similar succedanea are vainly forbidden and bananas when detected are cut into four so as to be useless; of late years, however, China has sent some marvellous artificial phalli of stuffed bladder, horn and even caoutchouc, the latter material of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Dane swung into the story of Sargol, of the pest they had carried away from that world. And at the proper moment he thrust a gloved hand into the cage and brought out the wriggling thing which struck vainly with its poisoned talons, holding it above the dark table so that those unseen watchers could witness the dramatic change of color which made it such a menace. Dane continued the story of the Queen's ill-fated voyage—of their ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... the brave front and cheerful aspect that Cabot maintained before his helpless comrade, he often broke down when off by himself, vainly straining his eyes from the summit of some ice hummock for any hopeful sign, and acknowledged that their situation was ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... vile and helpless sinner: nothing but sin dwells hi my heart. It is the seat of every vice, every evil thought, and every depraved passion. [Jer. 17:9, 10; Mark 7:21-23]. Dark and gloomy clouds envelope my soul. A weight of sorrow presses upon my heart, and I vainly strive to free myself from its influence. Everything looks dark. 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me?' 'How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?' 'Mine ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... that I was a coward indeed. It was not the roaring and growling of the big beasts that affected me so much as it was the stealthy noises—the ones that you heard suddenly close by and then listened vainly for a repetition of—the unaccountable sounds as of a great body moving almost noiselessly, and the knowledge that you didn't KNOW how close it was, or whether it were creeping closer after you ceased to hear it? It was those noises—and ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... there was one of the midshipmen who had made a cruise in a merchant-ship. The knots I had to ask about—to which that diabolical youngster invariably replied, "I can't describe it, sir, but I will make it for you"—the convolutions through which the strands went in his ready fingers, and my eyes vainly strove to follow, are a poignant subject. There was no room for the time-honored refuge of a puzzled instructor—"We will take up that subject next recitation;" the confounded boy was ready right along, and I had only to be thankful that there were ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... either note-book or journal, and as my memory is not a retentive one I have allowed much to escape which I should now vainly attempt to recall. Some things must, however, have made a vivid and durable impression on my mind, as fragments remain, after the lapse of years, far more distinct than occurrences of much more recent date; such, amongst others, are my recollections of ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... of the uproar in 1557, when the predecessors of these turbulent students took up arms, marched in a body to the Pre-aux-Clercs, set fire to three houses in the vicinity, and slew a sergeant of the guard, who vainly endeavored to restrain their fury. Their last election of a rector, Messire Adrien d'Amboise,—pater eruditionum, as he is described in his epitaph, when the same body congregated within the cloisters ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... penitential psalms, the poet, raising his head from his miserable pallet, and pointing to his faithful slave, exclaimed: "Alas! when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and blest with the love of ladies; but now, I am a forlorn deserted wretch! See—there stands my poor Antonio, vainly supplicating FOURPENCE to purchase a little coals. I have not them to give him!" The cavalier, Sousa quaintly relates, in his 'Life of Camoens,' closed his heart and his purse, and quitted the room. Such were the grandees of Portugal!—Lord Strangford's REMARKS ON THE ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... made to his wife in the morning. Thus did he sacrifice Jesus to the enmity of the Jews, and endeavour to stifle remorse by washing his hands before the people, saying, 'I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it.' Vainly dost thou pronounce these words, O Pilate! for his blood is on thy head likewise; thou canst not wash his blood from thy soul, as thou dost from ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... wrung from him by the sudden death of his eldest son, who having been thrown off his horse on a heap of stones in the high-road, after three days of severe bodily and mental suffering, now lay a sadly- disfigured corpse, under the vainly mourning blazonry of his house, in the darkened hall of his ancestors. The disconsolate narrator then added, "that in contrite repentance his son had conjured him, with his dying breath, to confess the falsehood of all that had passed to the grossly-abused Robert;" amongst which, was Algernon ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... the mistake again in regard to Bapaume of crediting the Germans with human feelings—they vainly hoped that the Germans would respect historic monuments when they gained no military advantage by destroying them. But every day that the war is prolonged is but adding to the evidence already so colossal ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... or that kissing is always wrong, or that wearing buttons is always wrong, people are afraid to contradict him for fear they should be contradicting their own great-grandchild. For their superstition is an inversion of the ancestor-worship of China; and instead of vainly appealing to something that is dead, they appeal to something that may never ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... house; but reached it only in time to see the corpse carried out. Oh, that was a day of sorrow,—a heavy day! All the slaves cried. My mother cried and lamented her sore; and I (foolish creature!) vainly entreated them to bring my dear mistress back to life. I knew nothing rightly about death then, and it seemed a hard thing to bear. When I thought about my mistress I felt as if the world was all gone wrong; and for many ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... The first is introduced by the formula [Greek: oudepote anegnote] (ver. 42: comp. Orig. ii. 794 c), and both exhibit the expression [Greek: epi ton lithon touton] (ver. 44), not [Greek: ep' ekeinon ton lithon]. Vainly is it urged on the opposite side, that [Greek: pas ho peson] belongs to St. Luke,—whereas [Greek: kai ho peson] is the phrase found in St. Matthew's Gospel. Chrysostom (vii. 672) writes [Greek: pas ho pipton] while professing to quote from St. Matthew; ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... experience," he replied. Suddenly she saw that he was tired, his face was lined and dejected. "You read too much," Linda declared. He said: "But only out of the printed book." She wondered vainly what he meant. As he stood before the glimmering coals, in the room saturated in repose, she wished that she might give him more; she wanted to spend herself in a riot of feeling on Arnaud and their children. What a detestable character she had! Her desire, ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... what had happened, watched the dogs disappear. Then, in sudden realization that they had escaped from him and were gone, he ran after them calling them excitedly but vainly. ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... Lockwood gave a Bridge party which failed as such because Radville knew not Bridge; but everybody went and played progressive euchre, instead. The drug-store prospered in moderation, Sothern and Lee vainly contesting its conquering campaign. ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... plains, obscuring the sight as effectually as though there was a deep eclipse. The eyes and nostrils of the traveller become irritated by the fine particles, and the dust is sifted into his ears and mouth. The latter gets coated with dust, and all moisture is denied the palate. Vainly the tongue is rolled from side to side to check the burning thirst, until at last the member gets so swollen that it becomes incapable of motion, and then, unless relief is soon afforded, death ensues. Water, slimy, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... a sudden gesture, the captain hid his face in his clenched fists, vainly trying to hold back a sob. ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... us examples and instances of the operation of the out-of-consciousness planes of thought. One has written that when the solution of a problem he had long vainly dealt with, flashed across his mind, he trembled as if in the presence of another being who had communicated a secret to him. All of us have tried to remember a name or similar thing without success, and have then ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... and dread, Turns half the Glory of your Gold to Lead; Thus Time,—at Ronsard's wreath that vainly bit, - Has marred the Poet to preserve the Wit, Who almost left on Addison a stain, Whose Knife cut cleanest with a poisoned pain, - Yet Thou (strange Fate that clings to all of Thine!) When most a Wit dost most a Poet shine. In Poetry thy Dunciad expires, When Wit has shot "her ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... own worst perplexities. In passing to the operations further west we are passing to an instance in which Lincoln felt it right to stand to the end by a decried commander, and that decried commander proved to possess the very qualities for which he had vainly looked in others. The reverse side of General Grant's fame is well enough known to the world. Before the war he had been living under a cloud. In the autumn of 1862, while his army lay between Corinth and Memphis, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... nearly two years after I left Liverpool that memorable night, I found myself in the little city of Ogdensburg, N. Y., past which the majestic St. Lawrence flows with a sleepy movement quite in harmony with the spirit of the old town on its southern shore. All this time I had been vainly beating about the Western Hemisphere in quest of my uncle. He had left Detroit many years before, but I chanced to meet a number of men there who had known him well. Although he had enjoyed a very large practice and a wide reputation for skill, ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... says (Tract. xliv, super Joan.): "If God were not to hear sinners, the publican would have vainly said: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner"; and Chrysostom [*Hom. xviii of the same Opus Imperfectum] says: "Everyone that asketh shall receive, that is to say whether ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... were sitting with the doctor chatting on deck, after vainly trying to pierce the darkness with our eyes or to hear some sound, when all at once ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... like a wretch, and I sing like a wretch, and I make wretched all my hearers. My mother's own nervous terror when she had to sing on the stage, as a young woman, was excessive, as she has often told me; and her mother repeatedly but vainly endeavored to bribe her with the promise of a guinea if she would sing as well in public any of the songs that she sang perfectly well at home. I sang for some time, and by degrees got more courage, till at last I managed to sing tolerably in ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... forests were ever on the alert, and many a man and woman, and even some of the little children, fell victims to these savage beasts. A feeling of sadness and despair seemed to take possession of all. Vainly they called upon the conjurers and medicine-men to get help from their Manitos to make the ways easier and their sorrows less, and to find out for them why they were travelling on this trail, and the place to which ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... I known the soft, inchanting wiles, Which Cupid practised in Aurelia's smiles. 'Till by degrees, like the fam'd Asian taught, Safely I drank the sweet, tho' pois'nous draught. Love vex'd to see his favours vainly shown, The peevish Urchin ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... battle during the Revolutionary War, terror stricken colonists were retreating before the superiorly equipped and disciplined British soldiers, it was Israel Putnam who vainly implored the frightened Americans to make a stand. General Putnam cursed and swore, when he saw that it was impossible to stop his men and induce them to give battle to the British. Was there a Putnam here to essay to inspire courage into these ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... came from the wretched man's throat, and his shaking fingers vainly strove to loosen his neck-tie. At the same moment, I heard a noise, as of struggling, in the bedroom, and the nurse's voice in eager remonstrance. I instantly made a movement towards Mr Renshawe, with a view to loosen his ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... for a moment doubt that I should witness some immediate testimony from God in favour of the innocence of his saint; though as often as the idea occurred to my mind, I endeavoured to drive it away, that I might not vainly appear to tempt Providence by looking for a miracle where it was not necessarily to be expected. Early the next morning I betook myself to the place of execution, and, arriving there before any other person, stationed myself ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Philippines, but it is the highest development, perfected by experience, of the original plan under which the Philippines had prospered and progressed until its benefits were wrongfully withheld from them. Filipino leaders had been vainly asking Spain for the restoration of their rights and the return to the system of the Laws of the Indies. At the time when America came to the Islands there was among them no Rizal, with a knowledge of history that would enable him to recognize ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... of beauty vain, Her nets she spread for every swain, I strove to hate, but vainly strove: Tell me, my heart, if this ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... of 1848 led him to return to Paris and thence to Germany. He had a quarrel with Marx over a matter in which he himself confessed later that Marx was in the right. He became a member of the Slav Congress in Prague, where he vainly endeavored to promote a Slav insurrection. Toward the end of 1848, he wrote an "Appeal to Slavs,'' calling on them to combine with other revolutionaries to destroy the three oppressive monarchies, Russia, Austria and Prussia. Marx attacked ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... gave us friendly welcome. They are as bright to-day as when, "four feet on the fender," we talked with some gifted friend whose pen, dipped in the heart's blood of life, gave word to thoughts which had flamed within us and sought vainly to escape the walls of our being that they might go out to the world and fulfil their mission. They who built the shrines before which we offer our devotion have passed from the world of men, but the fires they kindled yet burn with ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... seat. The little weasel-faced man looked most uncomfortable, for the Englishman used him as a prop on one side and the managing wife nearly overwhelmed him on the other; he slept fitfully, and always with the air of a martyr, waking up every few minutes and vainly trying to shake off his burdens, who invariably made stifled exclamations and sunk ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is ingendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... sweetness, but to have ended by becoming an obscure housepainter in a village that lived by raising corn and by feeding that corn to red steers —ugh!—the thought made him shudder. He looked with envy at the blue coat and the brass buttons of the railroad agent; he tried vainly to get into the Caxton Cornet Band; he got drunk to forget his humiliation and in the end he fell to loud boasting and to the nursing of a belief within himself that in truth not Lincoln nor Grant but he himself had thrown the winning die in the ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... is asked of him by vain men, he answers them vainly; nevertheless he speaketh some things truly. For the Devil fills him with his spirit, that he may overthrow ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... there. Looking down, we beheld Felix seated on the top of a most extraordinary vehicle, the driver of which he had superseded, and was trying to persuade the lumbering old horse to get on. Smart was behind vainly endeavouring to persuade his young master to come down. A glance at the drawing-room windows effected what Smart's entreaties had failed to do, and the young pickle was soon at high breakfast, and had demolished a pretty considerable quantity ere his steady ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... the lowest form of a miser, is then a worker of metals, and becomes the god of all the treasures of the world; and has a daughter, Ambition, before whom all the world kneels for favours—with the Hesperian fruit, the waters of Tantalus, with Pilate washing his hands vainly, but not impertinently, in the same stream—that we should be at one moment in the cave of an old hoarder of treasures, at the next at the forge of the Cyclops, in a palace and yet in hell, all at once, with the shifting mutations of the most rambling dream, and our judgment ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Gaston, he waited vainly at the barrier, till, giving up all hope, he returned to the hotel. As he crossed the garden of the Tuileries, ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... submission, with many disdainful words provoked Tybalt to the prosecution of his first quarrel with him; and Tybalt and Mercutio fought, till Mercutio fell, receiving his death's wound while Romeo and Benvolio were vainly endeavoring to part the combatants. Mercutio being dead, Romeo kept his temper no longer, but returned the scornful appellation of villain which Tybalt had given him, and they fought till Tybalt was slain by Romeo. This deadly broil falling out in the midst of Verona at noonday, the news of it ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Captain Hastings took out his watch and left the consul, who vainly endeavoured to renew the conversation in order to gain time. When he quitted the Karteria, he pulled towards the shore, instead of proceeding to communicate Hastings' orders to the master of the brig. This being, apparently, a concerted signal, the greatest exertions were suddenly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... eyes—the French grenadiers running furiously up the breach, the grim line of levelled muskets that barred it, the sudden roar of the English guns as from every side they smote the staggering French column. Vainly single officers struggled out of the torn mass, ran gesticulating up the breach, and died at the muzzles of the British muskets. The men could not follow, or only died as they leaped forward. The French grenadiers, still fighting, swearing, and screaming, were swept back ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the fundamental cause of all that happened later. My wife was suffering, and the rascals (the doctors) would not permit her to conceive a child, and taught her how to avoid it. I was profoundly disgusted. I struggled vainly against it, but she insisted frivolously and obstinately, and I surrendered. The last justification of our life as wretches was thereby suppressed, and life became baser ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... alone one evening pondering deeply over his troubles, and searching vainly for some way out of them. That morning had shown the figure 2 upon the wall of his house, and the next day would be the last of the allotted time. What was to happen then? All manner of vague and terrible fancies ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in the rear, vainly exhorting everyone to caution: the slope was steep, one might break one's neck. What was wrong with these people, he wondered? They had become like young kittens after a dose of cat-nip. He himself felt a certain kittenishness sporting within him; but ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... the whole of his period of service, had vainly importuned the home Government for money and arms and ships to defend this island against the ceaseless attacks of the English. When he handed over the command to his successor, Field-Marshal Toribio Montes, in 1804, the treasury was empty. He himself had long ceased to draw his salary, and the ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... the people of the place together, to read a few chapters of the Scripture, and then to address them with a little Christian exhortation. I was soon asleep, but my slumbers were by no means tranquil. I thought I was surrounded with difficulties of various kinds amongst rocks and ravines, vainly endeavouring to extricate myself; uncouth visages showed themselves amidst the trees and in the hollows, thrusting out cloven tongues and uttering angry cries. I looked around for my guide, but could not find him; methought, however, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... unrevenged. He had, indeed, caused an unparalleled slaughter on the night of September 19, 1914, as has been stated, but his troops were avid for reprisal and the French strategist knew well how dangerous it is to allow an army, eager for action and revenge, to eat its heart out vainly. He was too wise to run the risk of a countercharge, but four days later his opportunity came, and he took advantage ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Haredale searched vainly next day for Emma and Dolly Varden. He could not believe they had lost their lives in the burning building, yet he was filled with anxiety because of their disappearance. Could he have known what had happened he would ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... jet from the fountain-head, but that is all. The new arguments, which he discovers in support of his ideas and which opposition suggests to him, are an agreeable surprise, and shed a light which we should vainly search for even in his works. His correspondence differs essentially from his books, in that it gives you no uneasiness; it places you in the very heart of the man, explains him to you, and leaves you with an impression of moral esteem and almost ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... country and times than was Whitman. Not by the literature of his country was he begotten, but by the spirit that lies back of all, and that begat America itself,—the America that Europe loves and fears, that she comes to this country to see, and looks expectantly, but for the most part vainly, ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... was plain: as long as the Tempest was in reach, I must make the acquaintance of both Sebright and the doctor. To this end, I excused myself with Mr. Fowler, returned to Honolulu, and passed the remainder of the day hanging vainly round the cool verandahs of the hotel. It was near nine o'clock at night before I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with an officer of the forest department of India, which vainly strives to save the forests from wandering tribes who practice nomadic agriculture, reaping indeed where they sow, but rarely sowing twice in the same place, which is the difficulty. These tribes inhabit the hills of India, and depend for food solely upon crops grown in the ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... my thoughts that have been and are to be bestir themselves and arise before me. The blood rushes wildly through my swollen veins, my mouth thirsts for the contact of your lips, and my fancy seeks vainly among the many forms of joy for one which might at last gratify my desire and give it rest. And then again I suddenly and sadly bethink me of the gloomy time when I was always waiting without hope, and madly loving without knowing it; when my innermost being overflowed with a vague ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... to be taken outside the town and shot. The young girl was condemned to be hanged; and the sentence was to be carried out that very day, but some nuns who had been sent for to prepare her for death, having vainly begged Laplace to show mercy, entreated the girl to declare that she would soon become a mother. She indignantly refused to save her life at the cost of her good name, so the nuns took the lie on themselves and made the necessary declaration ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and scattered in all directions. Hundreds of dervishes were slain, and ultimately many who escaped were so closely pressed by friendlies and Abyssinians that they surrendered. A thousand fugitive Baggara or so vainly tried to make their way up the Blue Nile, in order to retire to their former country in Kordofan. They were caught crossing far up stream, near Rosaires, by Colonel Lewis, vigorously attacked, defeated, and finally ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... the dim fog of superstition than in air rarefied to nothing by the air-pump of unbelief; in which the panting breast expires, vainly ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... please," said Waterman, rising as the court ruled that Phil's last answer, which the defendant's counsel had sought vainly to interrupt, should be stricken out, "the plaintiff rests. We will waive argument in this case," he added impressively, putting from him, with unprecedented self-denial, the chance of pillorying the unfeeling ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... place, gazing into the strange faces he meets, till the sense of loneliness becomes oppressive. An invisible but impassable barrier seems to stand between him and the moving multitude. He hears languages that fall without a meaning upon his ear; wonders at the soft inflections of the voices; vainly seeks some familiar look or word; thinks it strange that he alone should be cut off from all communion with the souls of men around him; and then wonders if they have souls like other people, and why there is no kindred ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... with a secret complacency, his exploits, his grandeur and magnificence, is saying to himself, "Is not this great Babylon that I built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?"(23) in this very instant, when, by vainly flattering himself that he held his power and kingdom from himself alone, he usurped the seat of the Almighty: a voice from heaven pronounces his sentence, and declares to him, that "his kingdom was departed from him, that he should be driven from men, and his dwelling ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... terrors of the mob, who would most eagerly have rallied around the banners of such an invading army, headed by their own king. Louis, however, with his characteristic want of energy, was very unwilling to assume a hostile attitude toward his subjects, and still vainly hoped, by concessions and by the exhibition of a forgiving spirit, to reconcile ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... day was put off, and again put off, delay followed delay, while the men speculated on the cause, condemned the authorities and blasphemed generally. The War would be over before they could get anywhere near the front, and they chafed vainly. The troopships lay in the harbours, the men were ready in ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... made no signs of moving. "Ar'n't you coming with me, dearest?" she asked him. No; the "dearest" had "business" that night. His man should get her a coach and go with her. And the coach being at the door of the hotel, Amelia made George a little disappointed curtsey after looking vainly into his face once or twice, and went sadly down the great staircase, Captain Dobbin after, who handed her into the vehicle, and saw it drive away to its destination. The very valet was ashamed of mentioning the address to the hackney-coachman ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... were received with much coolness both by Catholic leaders of opinion in France and Belgium and by Protestant leaders in England and Holland. Schmerling himself appears to have been overawed, and gave forth a sort of apologetic theory, half scientific, half theologic, vainly hoping ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... telling her about themselves, they frequently looked whither their lovers sat smoking. Sometimes Mildred felt them press her along the walk which passed by the dining table. But for half an hour their attractions were arrayed vainly against those of cigarettes and petits verres. Rose was the only woman who remained at table. She hung over her lover, desirous that he should listen to her. Mildred thought, 'What a fool.... ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... know that Mr. Goldwin Smith would have had a greater chance—perhaps he might have had even less chance—of election than Mr. H. J. S. Smith. But there would have been greater comfort in manly defeat in open strife under such a leader than there could be in a defeat which it had been vainly hoped to escape by a compromise on the great moral question of the moment. The Oxford Liberals lost, and, I must say, they deserved to lose. It is a great gain for an University candidate to be "distinguished;" but one would think that it would commonly be possible ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... is wrong, rather than in a prudent attention to establish what is right; but we shall never obtain a fair garden merely by rooting up weeds, we must also plant flowers; for the natural richness of the soil we have been clearing will not suffer it to lie barren, but whether it shall be vainly or beneficially prolific, depends on the culture. What the present age has gained on one side, by a more enlarged and liberal way of thinking, seems to be lost on the other, by excessive freedom and unbounded indulgence. ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... seldom seen with wild delight Urging the rapid car along the strand, Or, skilful in the art that Neptune taught, Making th' unbroken steed obey the bit; Less often have the woods return'd our shouts; A secret burden on your spirits cast Has dimm'd your eye. How can I doubt you love? Vainly would you conceal the fatal wound. Has not the fair Aricia ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... despairing, breaking spirit, and encircled his neck with her arms, and held him in an embrace that he strove vainly to loosen. "Lassiter, would you kill me? I'm fighting my last fight for the principles of my youth—love of religion, love of father. You don't know—you can't guess the truth, and I can't speak ill. I'm losing all. ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... the sultan himself, finding that his affairs were going to ruin, retreated from province to province, accompanied by as large a force as he could keep together, and vainly seeking to find some place of safety. He had several sons, and among them two whose titles were Jalaloddin and Kothboddin. Jalaloddin was the oldest, and was therefore naturally entitled to be his father's successor; but, for some reason or other, ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... confirm the dread predictions of evil which the roll had contained. What else can a faithful messenger of God do than reiterate its threatenings? Vainly do men seek to induce the living prophet to soften down God's own warnings. Foolishly do they think that the messenger or the messenger's Sender has any 'pleasure in the death of the wicked'; and as foolishly ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren |
