"Vain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impression he made on me personally was such that I wished him to read it, and I corrected to this end with a surreptitious hand what might be wanting in the careless conspicuity of the sheet. I'm afraid I even watched the result of my manoeuvre, but up to luncheon I watched in vain. ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... which led to that mansion, only edified by the distant appearance of the blue smoke curling against the pale sky of the winter evening, when he thought he beheld the Dominie taking a footpath for the house through the woods. He called after him, but in vain; for that honest gentleman, never the most susceptible of extraneous impressions, had just that moment parted from Meg Merrilies, and was too deeply wrapt up in pondering upon her vaticinations to make any answer to Hazlewood's call. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... meeting YOU day by day, an implied insult in your every look and word, as much as to say: 'I'M giving you your daily bread; I'M keeping the roof over you!' I'm sick of it. And I end it to-night. Let me go or I'll—I'll—" and she tried in vain to release herself ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... along at a tremendous pace. It would soon be near enough to single out its prey—and still the old Fairy stood there, racking her memory in vain. ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... that one by one died 'ere we gave them birth, The songs we tried in vain to sing, too sweet, too beautiful for earth. No endeavor is in vain; Its reward is in the doing, And the rapture of pursuing, Is the prize the ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
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