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More "Fruitless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was in a dilemma and could not find any plan to pursue: the siege was proving fruitless and dangerous and a retreat appeared disgraceful. This led to an uproar on the part of the soldiers, who raised so great an outcry that the enemy, who were encamped in the shelter of the wall, were terrified and retreated. As a consequence, being partly angry ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... at dawn; his efforts had been fruitless. The boy had awakened at hearing Ursus, and for the first time the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... done his best to satisfy himself in the planning and execution of the pictures; but in vain did he blot out one design and labor long and earnestly upon another—success still fled from his pencil. At last, after eight years' fruitless exertion, he despaired, and going to M. de Luynes, told him that he could not make the pictures. At the same time he offered to return the L5,000; but M. de Luynes, one of the most munificent gentlemen in France, refused to receive it. Madame Ingres, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... Being in whose hands the fate of millions is deposited reverse the gloomy picture, and restore to a country long wasted by revolutions, and warfare, and languishing in the midst of the monuments of her glory, the benign blessings of enduring tranquillity. But if this hope prove fruitless, if all the countries of continental Europe are destined to be compressed into one empire, if their devoted princes are doomed to adorn the triumphs of the chief of that mighty republic, which now towers above the surrounding nations of the earth, like the pyramid of the desert, what have we to fear ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... the smaller States. The only option, then, for the former, lies between the proposed government and a government still more objectionable. Under this alternative, the advice of prudence must be to embrace the lesser evil; and, instead of indulging a fruitless anticipation of the possible mischiefs which may ensue, to contemplate rather the advantageous consequences which may qualify the sacrifice. In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of ...
— The Federalist Papers
... Without beginning, plan, or scope, or trend To point a path, there nothing is to hold And steady surmise: so the mind is rolled And swayed and drowned in dull Immensity. Eternity outfaces even Me With its indifference, and the fruitless year Would swing as fruitless were I ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... make me comfortable. I had mush and milk for supper, lapped myself up in a blanket, and laid down till five in the morning. Moses M. Bateman drove me back 16 miles, and I returned to New York (70 miles) after a fruitless journey. ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... glutton, as we all know—and for the rest, who is without yearnings? It is our destiny here below. Only some go through torments and troubles in order to satisfy themselves, and all without success; others foresee the inevitable result, and by a timely resignation save themselves a barren and fruitless effort. Since we cannot be happy, why give ourselves so much trouble? It is best to limit one's self to what is strictly necessary, to live austerely and by rule, to content one's self with a little, and to attach no value ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... opposite tendency, namely, an impulse of the will to banish whatever when recalled gives pain to the furthest conceivable regions of the past. Thus, when we have lost something we cherished dearly, and the recollection of it brings fruitless longing, we instinctively seek to expel the recollection from our minds. The very feeling that what has been can never again be, seems to induce this idea of a vast remoteness of the vanished reality. When, moreover, the lost object was fitted to call forth the emotion of reverence, ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... line—the shouting of officers to their men at a distance—the neighing of horses, and the braying of mules, both men and animals being alike anxious to reach a place of rest, produced a strange and fearful concert, echoed, in the darkness of the night, from the horrid solitude of the Andes. After many fruitless attempts to discover the proper route, a halt until daybreak was usually the last resource. The sufferings of the men and animals on those occasions were extreme. The thermometer was generally below the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... The Count had scarcely breathed his last before his wife came in and forced open the drawers and the desk; the carpet was strewn with litter, some of the furniture and boxes were broken, the signs of violence could be seen everywhere. But if her search had at first proved fruitless, there was that in her excitement and attitude which led me to believe that she had found the mysterious documents at last. I glanced at the bed, and professional instinct told me all that had happened. The mattress ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... could not render any assistance to the poor boy, and no person could be found to venture out in any way. I heard the noise and went to the spot with my dog. I spoke to him, and in he went, more like a seal than a dog, and after several fruitless attempts to mount the wreck he succeeded, and laid hold of the boy, who clung to the ropes, screaming in the most fearful way at being thus dragged into the water. The waves dashed frightfully on the rocks. In the anxiety and responsibility of the moment I thought ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... lifted murmur met his ear, And o'er the distant billows the still eve Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave To-morrow; of the friends he loved most dear; Of social scenes, from which he wept to part! Oh! if, like me, he knew how fruitless all The thoughts that would full fain the past recall, Soon would he quell the risings of his heart, And brave the wild winds and unhearing tide— The World his country, and his ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... to compare wounds and opinions concerning the inefficiency of the local gendarmerie. For that body accomplished nothing toward laying by the heels the authors of the attacks on d'Aubrac and Duchemin, but (for all Duchemin can say to the contrary) is still following "clues" with the fruitless diligence of so many American police detectives on the trail of a bank ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... next made their way to the Indian Ocean; yet, though they sought for the invaluable Tree of Solomon, with all the energy supplied by a burning thirst for gain, their efforts were as fruitless and unsuccessful as those of the Portuguese. Strange tales, too, some of these ancient mariners related on their return to Europe: how, in the clear waters of deep bays, they had observed groves of those marvellous trees, growing fathoms down ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... the merchant at the ferry, directing him to secure and send at least twenty men to Las Palomas. The first day after our return, we rode the mills and the river. Convinced that to sink other wells on the mesas would be fruitless, the foreman decided to dig a number of shallow ones in the bed of the river, in the hope of catching seepage water. Accordingly the next morning, I was sent with a commissary wagon and seven men to the mouth ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... Kiuprili to power as Grand Vizier, and the war was thenceforward conducted with great energy by the Turks. Year after year volunteers flocked to Candia to save the last Christian outpost in the Levant, but it was all fruitless, and in 1669 the island, with the exception of three ports, was surrendered to the Turks—their last important conquest in Europe, and the final ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... that he recoiled in confusion after the first onset; still, he seemed determined to get the place, and after reorganizing, again attacked; but the lesson of the first repulse was not without effect, and his feeble effort proved wholly fruitless. After his second failure we were left undisturbed, and at 9 A.M. I sent the following despatch to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the Palace had been as fruitless as her first. She was denied admittance, with the profoundest regrets on the part of De Pean, who met her at the door and strove to exculpate himself from the accusation of having persuaded Le Gardeur to depart from Tilly, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... great and complex reconstructive effort. I admit they are but beginnings. They may quite possibly wither and perish presently; they may much more probably be seized upon by adventurers and converted into a new cant almost as empty and fruitless as the old. The fact remains that, through this busy and immensely noisy confusion of nearly a hundred millions of people, these little voices go intimating more and more clearly the intention to undertake public affairs in a new spirit and upon new principles, to strengthen the State ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... from the studios and the bachelors' chambers. I wish them good digestion of their goulasch: for those that are to climb, I wish that they may keep the generous and faithful spirit of friendly poverty; for those that are to go on to the end in fruitless struggle and in futile hope, I wish for them that that end may come in some gentle and happier region lying to the westward of that black tide that ebbs and flows by night and day ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... still no admittance, still no penetration; but he had hurt me yet more, while my extreme love made me bear extreme pain, almost without a groan. At length, after repeated fruitless trials, he lay down panting by me, kissed my falling tears, and asked me tenderly "what was the meaning of so much complaining? and if I had not borne it better from other than I did from him?" I ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... fruitless inquiries of the passersby, I decided to go on my own in search of ruined buildings and scenes of destruction. I boarded a bus which carried me through Tottenham Court Road. Recruiting posters were everywhere. The one that impressed me most was a ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... luck to catch him,' said Farmer Brown. 'He's as hard to find these days as a crake in a wheatfield. We should be there in an hour or less. I must thank you that I did not take a fruitless journey into Bristol. What did you ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... possible to ourselves. In this case I believe the ground would be unfavourable to this House, and I believe the juncture is one when, even if we were to win for the moment, our victory would be fruitless in the end.'[56] ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... Is it nothing to have had such a treasure to give, and to have given it freely for the noblest cause for which ever battle was set,—for the salvation of your country, for the freedom of all mankind? Had he died a fruitless death, in the track of common life, blasted by fever, smitten or rent by crushing accident, then might his most precious life seem to be as water spilled upon the ground; but now it has been given for a cause and a purpose worthy even the anguish of your loss ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... as she spoke, and searched the spot—but in vain. There certainly was the cross as she had marked it, and there was the slight excavation under the thatch where it had been; but as for the box itself, all search for it was fruitless—it had disappeared. ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... not in silence pass Calypso's isles,[10.B.] The sister tenants of the middle deep; There for the weary still a Haven smiles, Though the fair Goddess long hath ceased to weep, And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep For him who dared prefer a mortal bride: Here, too, his boy essayed the dreadful leap Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide; While thus of both ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... found himself much tired with his long and fruitless journey (for these boots of seven leagues extremely fatigue the wearer), had a great mind to rest himself, and, by chance, went to sit down upon the rock where these little boys had hid themselves. ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... Kings xvi. 5, according to which Jerusalem was really besieged,—a contradiction which occurs also in that passage itself: "And they besieged Ahaz, and could not fight"—is most simply reconciled by the remark that a fruitless struggle can, as it were, not be called a struggle, just as, e. g., in the Old Testament, such as have a name little known are spoken of as being ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... no doubt that Spotty Bamber chuckled with joy when he got outside. I should like to think so, to feel that our pleasure was mutual. For as to me, my feelings can only be appreciated by some patient angler who, after a long and fruitless sitting, has seen his ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... Nelson's squadron are now brought down to the moment when their united, ardent, and anxious wishes were to be realized. The disappointments they had met with during their hitherto fruitless pursuit,—the state of anxiety, of alternate hope and despair, in which they had been kept, had raised their feelings of emulation to a pitch far beyond description; this was soon to be manifested by the endeavours of each ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... I searched the premises thoroughly; and then, in despair, took my hat, and hurried out into the narrow lane that led toward the open fields and the woods beyond. But I found no trace nor track of Baby Sylvester. I returned, after an hour's fruitless search, to find my guests already assembled on the rear veranda. I briefly recounted my disappointment, my probable loss, and begged ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... occasions on which he had determined that his will should be absolute law. The lady was quick to perceive the firmness of his purpose, and would not (even had she been particularly averse to the proposed measure) hazard her usual authority by a fruitless opposition. But, by long disuse, she had lost the power of consenting graciously to any wish ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... consider first, that, as they are not allowed to have any direction, and in many cases could not conscientiously interfere, in government-matters, it would be folly to disquiet their minds with vain and fruitless speculations. They consider again, that political subjects frequently irritate people, and make them warm. Now this is a temper, which they consider to be peculiarly detrimental to their religion. They consider themselves also in this life as ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... not of old; Our patient hands distil The shining spheres of chemic gold With hard-won, fruitless skill; But that red drop still seems to be Beyond our ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... should have landed, I had been in a worse condition than I was now; and therefore I acquiesced in the dispositions of Providence, which I began now to own, and to believe, ordered every thing for the best; I say, I quieted my mind with this, and left afflicting myself with fruitless ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... they have lost the bliss of heaven for the dross of earth, for a few pieces of metal, for vain honours, for bodily comforts, for a tingling of the nerves. They will repent indeed: and this is the second sting of the worm of conscience, a late and fruitless sorrow for sins committed. Divine justice insists that the understanding of those miserable wretches be fixed continually on the sins of which they were guilty, and moreover, as saint Augustine points out, God will impart to them His own knowledge ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... by-street occupied by a friend of ours, where the fire had not yet reached; but both the child and the nurse disappeared, and since this melancholy catastrophe all our numerous and anxious inquiries respecting them have proved utterly fruitless. Probably they were killed by a falling edifice, and so buried in its ruins; at least, this is my opinion, for my dear wife still has the hope of again beholding our long-lost ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher
... related to Mrs. Tristram his fruitless visit to Madame de Cintre, she urged him not to be discouraged, but to carry out his plan of "seeing Europe" during the summer, and return to Paris in the autumn and settle down comfortably for the winter. "Madame ...
— The American • Henry James
... old; To thee could falsehood bear but fruitless fruit - Lean grafts and sour. I think ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... difficult, rather impossible, to estimate the effect produced by evangelistic services on such occasions. They have not been fruitless as to conversion, but if we look simply at results of this kind it must be acknowledged they are very limited. Instances have occurred of persons having been so impressed that they have followed missionaries ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... with a dread suspicion that Levi had not been eating at the kosher restaurant in Hatton Garden, as he had faithfully vowed to do. But even this terrible thought was swallowed up in the fear that some accident had happened to him. He haunted the house for an hour, filling up the intervals of fruitless inquiry with little random walks round the neighborhood, determined not to return home to his wife without news of their child. The restless life of the great twinkling streets was almost a novelty to him; it was rarely his perambulations in London extended outside the Ghetto, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... small, brave band of friends, had been wholly in vain: his country was crushed by the ruthless heel of despotism. On that night when it had been agreed in assembled council that all resistance was fruitless, and that nothing now remained for patriots but to seek freedom in exile, after tossing in troubled slumbers, he had been visited with a calming and inspiring dream. He saw bending over him a lovely female form, which he knew instinctively to be that ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... Sense. But who ever heard of Evante, as the Name of a Man, in Greece? Neither is this Inscription a Piece of Ethnic Devotion, as Sir George has suppos'd it, to a Statue erected to Jupiter: On the contrary, it despises those fruitless Superstitions. Philo (a Christian, as it seems to me;) sets it up, in Thanks for a safe Voyage, to the true God. That all my Readers may equally share in this little Poem, I have attempted to put it into an ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... on Broadway, and there her heart leaped to see the sign, "Fox-Otter," stretching entirely across the front of a tall building. It was as though an unseen guide had led her to it through the by-ways of her fruitless search for work. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... so filled with the mystery of her absence that even the pretence of distraction became unendurable. Since the news of her broken engagement and her flight had reached him, he had spent three days in a fruitless, though still hopeful, search for her; and the nights when he was forced to relax his efforts were filled with agonised imaginings of her loneliness at so great a distance and yet in reality so near. From the moment that he had heard through Gerty of her disappearance, ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... determinism. There must have existed innumerable inventions that we might term mechanical romances, which, however, we cannot refer to because they have left us no trace, not being born viable. Others are known as curiosities because they have blazed the path. We know that Otto de Guericke made four fruitless attempts before discovering his air-pump. The brothers Montgolfier were possessed with the desire to make "imitation clouds," like those they saw moving over the Alps. "In order to imitate nature," they at first ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... till she had crossed the frontier and was safe in Scotland. The Scots espoused her cause, and assisted her to raise fresh troops, with which she made one or two short incursions into England; but she soon found that she could do nothing effectual in this way, and so, after wasting some time in fruitless attempts, she left Scotland with the king and the prince, and ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Russia, and spent some time in St. Petersburg, attracted thither by the invitation of a friend. The country interested him, but does not seem to have deeply or permanently engaged his attention. That, however, his Russian experiences were not fruitless is manifest from the remarkably picturesque and technically very interesting poem, "Ivan Ivanovitch" (the fourth of the Dramatic Idyls, 1879). Of a truth, after his own race and country—readers will at once think of "Home Thoughts from the Sea," or the thrilling ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... I had made many fruitless attempts, both in Detroit and Green Bay, to procure a servant-woman to accompany me to my new home. Sometimes one would present herself, but, before we could come to a final agreement, the thoughts of the distance, of the savages, the hardships of the journey, ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... is the most remarkable. He seems to have entertained for her a high and perfectly pure devotion. He was the chief agent in the luckless escape to Varennes; was lurking in Paris during the time of her captivity; and was concerned in the many fruitless plots that were made for her rescue. Ferscu lived to be an old man, but died a dreadful and violent death. He was dragged from his carriage by the mob, in ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by: he had already spent an hour in a fruitless quest. He longed to see Crystal and waxed impatient at the delay. Anon at the English hospital a kindly person—who listened sympathetically to his tale—promised him that the ambulance which was just setting out in the direction of Mont Saint Jean would be on the look-out for his ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... dreaded more by his soldiers than the lances of their antagonists. He could wring a Gaucho's secret from his breast; it was useless to attempt a subterfuge before him. Some article, we are told, was once stolen from a company of his troops, and every effort for its recovery proved fruitless. It was reported to Quiroga. He paraded the men, and, having procured a number of sticks, exactly equal in length, gave to each man one, proclaiming that the soldier whose stick should be found longer than the others next morning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... wanted. When he called for brandy they brought him whisky, and it had only been by hard begging, and by oaths as to the promised money, that he had induced them to supply him with the car which had taken him on his fruitless journey to Castle Richmond. As he was driven up to the door in South Main Street, his heart was very sad on ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... and went and the years rolled on. Varick Thomson, an old miner, who had spent years of fruitless toil in the diggings of Australia, lay down and died, and the parson officiated at his funeral. Two other miners grew weary of the poor success in Dead Man's Gulch and went off on a prospecting tour deeper into the ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... ashamed of himself. He went to the teacher and made confession; then as both were afraid the boy might get lost or come to some harm, he went at once on a search. He did not dream that Steve could so directly find his way back, and Raymond wandered about for hours in a fruitless search, doing without his dinner. At last, frightened and contrite, he went to Mr. Polk's office. Here the confession was harder to make, but it came out in all its humiliating details. Having eased his conscience he wound up with a burst of enthusiasm: "I tell ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... blessing of Heaven did not descend on the Legrand establishment. There seemed to be a succession of misfortunes which all Derues' zeal and care as shopman could neither prevent nor repair. He by no means contented himself with parading an idle and fruitless hypocrisy, and his most abominable deceptions were not those displayed in the light of day. He watched by night: his singular organisation, outside the ordinary laws of nature, appeared able to dispense with sleep. Gliding about ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... they who know the World have seen it more than once. I have often, with secret Pity, heard the same Man who has professed his Abhorrence against all Kind of passive Behaviour, lose Minutes, Hours, Days, and Years in a fruitless Attendance on one who had no Inclination to befriend him. It is very much to be regarded, that the Great have one particular Privilege above the rest of the World, of being slow in receiving Impressions of Kindness, and quick in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... by tyrannical means extorted far more, heaped on his depopulated kingdom a debt of one hundred and forty millions of ducats. An implacable hatred of liberty swallowed up all these treasures and consumed in fruitless labor his royal life. But the Reformation throve amid the devastation of his sword, and over the blood of her citizens the banner of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... infancy and childhood, this remark applies with great force; since, at this period, disease is generally so sudden in its assaults, and rapid in its progress, that unless the measures prescribed are rigidly and promptly administered, their exhibition is soon rendered altogether fruitless. ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... hastened to cheer the young don with hopes of a better future, and to effect, if he could, the restoration of Bras-Coupe to his master's favor. But this latter effort was an idle one. He had long sittings with his uncle Agricola to the same end, but they always ended fruitless and often angrily. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... pity thee heartily, now I see thee in earnest in the fruitless love thou expressest to this angel of a woman; and the rather, as, say what thou wilt, it is impossible she should get over her illness, and her friends' implacableness, of which she has had ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... then I related in detail my fruitless journey to Paris, and how the three fugitives had alighted at Munich from the westbound express from the Near East, ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... no man pass, still less the countless throng, whose magnitude surprised me as I rode through the camp. I know Apu, who commands the fortifications and the legions whom he leads. There would be a terrible, fruitless massacre of our half-armed, untrained people, there would be—in short, I have urgent business to discuss with Moses, urgent and immediate, to avert the heaviest misfortune ere it is ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... says: "I have worked, I am tired, The pencil dulls in my hand: I see through the window Walls upon walls of windows with faces behind them, Smoke floating up to the sky, an ascension of seagulls. I am tired. I have struggled in vain, my decision was fruitless, Why then do I wait? with darkness, so easy, at hand!... But to-morrow, perhaps.... I will wait and endure till to-morrow!..." Or again: "It is dark. The decision is made. I am vanquished By terror of life. ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... to suspect that not a single person can be found of so subtle and refined a genius as to be able to discover what the soul is, and what is its quality; therefore I am of opinion, that in attempting to make the discovery, subtlety will be spent in fruitless labor; nevertheless from my childhood I have continued firm in the opinion of the ancients, that the soul of man is in the whole of him, and in every part of the whole, and thus that it is in the head and in all its parts, as well as in the body and in all its parts; and that it is an idle ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... a fond and wakeful bedfellow, who silently sympathized with me in all my trials, and who was as restless and anxious as myself. Sometimes I moaned, and sometimes I prayed; and when I was wearied out with my fruitless labors, I fell asleep. It would have been better, if I could have done it, to have "given to the winds my fears," and lost myself in peaceful and refreshing slumbers; for generally, on the following morning, the needful supplies ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... rich green foliage in the valleys, the white sandy beach, the placid lagoon, and the barrier coral reef with its crested breakers. Then we descended to Spouting Cliff, and looked down at the pale-green monster which we had made such fruitless efforts to spear in days gone by. From this we hurried to the Water Garden, and took a last dive into its clear waters, and a last gambol amongst its coral groves. I hurried out before my companions, and dressed in haste, in ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... was done in many of the parishes of New Zealand during the decade of the 'seventies, and Patteson's martyrdom was not fruitless. But, outwardly, the Church continued weak. Wellington had lost Bishop Abraham in 1870, and, in his place, elected Archdeacon Hadfield in recognition of his magnificent services. But the new bishop's health was still precarious, and he failed to acquire amongst the settlers the ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... critics have persistently neglected him. The present anthology contains a large number of his best poems; and I venture to hope that my attempt to recall attention to the claims of this true poet will not be fruitless. ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... were black spots marking hollows and nowhere his horse. But yet he went forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. He had little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoot here in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of an hour of fruitless search he went back to the water-hole and his traps, seeing the folly of further seeking now. He would have to camp here until daybreak. Tomorrow he might find his horse and might or might not recapture ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... situation; destitute of friends, and not knowing whither to go, or what to do. She asked questions, sifting-questions, about her uncle, about her family, and after what he knew of Mr. Hickman's fruitless application in her favour. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the midst of the hall whither her restless thought had driven her, she stared in a fruitless inquiry at the wall confronting her. Her mind, like her feet, was at a standstill. She could neither think nor act. In fact, she was at the point of a nervous collapse, when slowly from out the void there rose to ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Penobscot. De Valette and Stanhope pursued, as soon as they were at liberty; but, though they had occasional glimpses of his vessels through the day, they found it impossible to come up with them. Night at length terminated the fruitless chase; they were imperfectly acquainted with the coast, and again obliged to anchor, when day-light no longer served to direct their course in the difficult ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... put it in the power of his enemies to prolong the troubles, if he made the return of peace in America to depend on the success of a negotiation with a belligerent power, a negotiation which it would always be in their power to render fruitless. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... found the chief men, the objects of our pursuit, but so completely drunk that all attempts to induce them to return with us were entirely fruitless. We immediately returned to the house of the chief where we had lodged the previous night. In the evening the chief returned, but so intoxicated as to ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... world's larger hope. Pessimists there are who say that human nature is belligerent, and that war will never be abolished. But international warfare has already seen the handwriting on the wall. Mars has been weighed in the balances and found wanting. The fruitless slaughter of the millions is not to be forever nor for long. Let us hasten the day when the rolling war drum will be hushed forever, the bugle note no longer call to carnage; when "nation shall not lift up sword ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... recovery. The thwarts, however, held fast in the overturned canoe a bag of pemmican, one other small bag, the tent and tent stove. Treading water to keep ourselves afloat we tried to right the canoe to save these, but our efforts were fruitless. The icy water so benumbed us we could scarcely control our limbs. The tracking line was fast to the stern thwart, and with one end of this in his teeth, Easton swam to a little rocky island just below the rapid and hauled ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... doubt, and perhaps more than a doubt, even in the case of those most favoured by fortune, whether after all a life has been worth the trouble of living which has unfolded such infinite promise only to bury it fruitless in the grave." ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... with surprise and horror—she did not dart to the window as one would have expected—ready almost to throw herself out of it in fruitless pursuit of her favourite—she stood perfectly still, as if turned into stone. But the expression on her face was so strange and unnatural ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... herself, as not affecting her excepting that it roused in her an intense sympathy. She was indeed the barefooted woman in her conception of morality, in her frankness and in her strong emotions untainted by the gangrene of a rotting civilisation. To suggest to her that fruitless love, that barren marriage, which destroys the soul of France and is spreading through Australia, would be to speak a strange language to her. He could say nothing. He was seized with a desire to get ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... been aimed, and the general confusion that prevailed in the camp prevented any harm from being done. Bullets whistled past him, and many cut twigs from the branches at his side, but not one touched even his dress. The delay caused by these fruitless attempts was of great service to the fugitive, who had gained more than a hundred yards on even the leading men of the Hurons, ere something like concert and order had entered into the chase. To think of following with rifles in hand was out of the question, and after emptying their ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... base—not effected without considerable trouble—disclosed to view, greatly to the exultation of the restoring party, an altar-tomb—the tomb, of course, to which Worby had attracted Lake's attention that same evening. Much fruitless research was expended in attempts to identify the occupant; from that day to this he has never had a name put to him. The structure had been most carefully boxed in under the pulpit-base, so that such slight ornament as it possessed was not defaced; ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... talking about," answered Dorothy, with a fruitless effort to appear matronly and dignified. "If by 'uncle' you mean Uncle Ebeneezer, ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... but against the current, and they daily lost ground. The crews of the ships also began to sicken from fatigue and cold. Whether the admiral had before made up his mind, or whether irritated by his fruitless endeavours to continue his voyage, it is impossible to say; but after three weeks' useless struggle against the wind and currents, he hove to and ordered the captains on board, when he proposed that the prisoner ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... recruiting did not reach a stipulated level—not acceptable. Scores of men had the experience of the writer; going into Laurier's room on the third floor of the improvised parliamentary offices in the National History Museum, spending an hour or so in fruitless discussion and coming out with the feeling that there was no choice between unquestioning acceptance of Laurier's policy or breaking away from allegiance to him. Not that Laurier ever proposed this choice to his visitors. He had a theory—which not even he with all his lucidity could make ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... twenty summers I have seen The sky grow bright, the forest green; And many a wintry wind have stood In bloomless, fruitless solitude, Since childhood in my pleasant bower First spent its sweet and sportive hour, Since youthful lovers in my shade Their vows of truth and rapture made; And on my trunk's surviving frame ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... year 1761, Captain Christopher sailed from Fort Churchill, in the sloop Churchill; and his voyage was not quite fruitless; for he sailed up Chesterfield's Inlet, through which a passage had, by Mr Ellis's account of it, been so generally expected. But when the water turned brackish, which marked that he was not in a strait, but ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... tar. Distance, however, and a want of the proper facilities to enable them to manufacture cheaply, rendered the cost of these commodities so great, that exports of a similar character from Russia and Sweden were still enabled to maintain their old ascendency in the markets of Europe. After many fruitless and costly experiments in the cultivation of the vine, the growing demand for tobacco enabled the planters to turn their labor into a profitable channel. As the demand increased the profits became correspondingly great, and every other species of labor was abandoned ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... occurred abroad, suffice it for us to notice that Pao-y, ever since Chia Cheng's departure, indulged his caprices, allowed his feelings to run riot, and gadded wildly about. In fact, he wasted his time, and added fruitless days ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... calculations could not tire,—Kepler conjectured that celestial movements must be connected with each other by simple laws; or, to use his own expression, by harmonic laws. These laws he undertook to discover. A thousand fruitless attempts—the errors of calculation inseparable from a colossal undertaking—did not hinder his resolute advance toward the goal his imagination descried. Twenty-two years he devoted to it, and still he was not weary. What are twenty-two years of labor ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... a stranger; And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the Quakers, For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country, Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters. So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed endeavor, Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncomplaining, Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her thoughts and her footsteps. As from a mountain's top the rainy mists of the morning Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us, Sun-illumined, with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... account it will be seen that the Hidatsa as well as the Algonkins and Mexicans believed that four days were required before the spirit could finally leave the earth. Why the smell of burning leather should he offensive to spirits it would perhaps be fruitless to ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... to her reputation, great as it was. It seemed as though Nature in creating her had resolved to exhaust her utmost powers, and thus make atonement for all former experimental attempts and fruitless essays. One would have said that, moved by jealousy of the future marvels of the Greek sculptors, she also had resolved to model a statue herself, and to prove that she was still sovereign mistress ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... o'clock in the morning; all the search made by gendarmes, servants, and neighbors had been fruitless, and the dog had not come back. The General entered the salon, empty now for him though the other three children were there; he was worn out with fatigue, and looked old ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... of rhinoceros in Abyssinia; this is the two-horned black rhinoceros, known in South Africa as the keitloa. This animal is generally five feet six inches to five feet eight inches high at the shoulder, and, although so bulky and heavily built, it is extremely active, as our long and fruitless hunt had shown us. The skin is about half the thickness of that of the hippopotamus, but of extreme toughness and closeness of texture. When dried and polished it resembles horn. Unlike the Indian species of rhinoceros, the black variety of Africa ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... wage of love, Hide in thy skies, thou fruitless Jove, Not to be named: It is clear Why the gods will not ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... patent specifications were perhaps intentionally confusing, the committee inquired, how could the original formulas really be known? This quest seemed so fruitless that it was not pursued. Instead the pharmacists turned to American experience in making the English medicines. From many members of the College, and from other pharmacists as well, recipes were secured. The result was shocking. Although almost every one came bolstered with the assertion that it ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen
... obdurate image; and when they thought they might take placidity as the sign of what they waited for, they first hinted, and then expressed in plain terms, the wishes of their hearts. For a time all their efforts were fruitless; but John Carr getting old and weak, wished to be succeeded in his business by George; and the wife, when she became a widow, would require to be maintained—reasons which had more weight with Effie ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... should be very poor. The death of King James in the year following, released him from his engagements, and, as he resided at Hamburgh, he was soon forgotten, and was never called upon to embark in the subsequent fruitless attempts on ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of God is on thee! And, as a skillful gard'ner, from the vine Doth lop away each worthless branch and barren, So He would lop each fruitless bough of thine. Ah! thou art earth-bound, prone, and lowly creeping, clinging to things too frail to be thy stay; Jesus, with watchful care His vineyard keeping, Would lift thee up to ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... whole touched off simultaneously by the pressing of a button—every man with loaded and cocked rifle in hand. Then began the low, mumbling sound of a suddenly aroused camp. The efforts of the officers who had kept their heads to keep it down were fruitless. It was a long line of buzzing sounds like the swarming of bees. But the screaming and yelling continued ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... talk big under their misfortunes, and pretended to say that they had not fled away from the Romans, but came thither in order to fight them with less hazard; for that it would be an unreasonable and a fruitless thing for them to expose themselves to desperate hazards about Gischala, and such weak cities, whereas they ought to lay up their weapons and their zeal, and reserve it for their metropolis. But when they related to them the taking of Gischala, and their ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... ornament became me, he was inflam'd afresh; and viewing me with lovers eyes, addressed himself as such, when laying aside the haughty brow of a master, he put on the tender complacency of a friend: but his endeavours were fruitless. At last meeting with an intire repulse, his love turning to a fury, he endeavour'd to ravish the favours he could not win by intreaty; at what time Tryphoena unexpectedly came in, and observing ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... have on lands within her boundaries, whenever such purchase could be made on reasonable terms. On these positions are based the Georgian claims, which the United States government has hitherto pleaded inability to satisfy, inasmuch as all efforts to purchase the Indian lands have proved fruitless. ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... heart but mine; And in my breast the imperfect joys expire; Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, And new-born pleasure brings to happier men; The fields to all their wonted tribute bear; To warm their little loves the birds complain. I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, And weep the more because I ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... King of England compromising the loyalty of Gilles. Charles gave him over to his brother for punishment. In vain were Gilles's supplications to the Duke, or the entreaties of the Constable, who went to Dinan and knelt to Francis to beg for the pardon of his brother. Equally fruitless his being acquitted at Redon, from there being no proof of his guilt. The unfortunate Gilles was dragged from prison to prison, and consigned to keepers destitute of every feeling of humanity. Montauban, an Italian by descent (his mother was a Visconti), ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... was confessedly not a little puzzled to find out when to use a singular, and when a plural verb, after a nominative with such "a sort of addition made to it." The 246th paragraph of his English Grammar is a long and fruitless attempt to fix a rule for the guidance of the learner in this matter. After dashing off a culpable example, "Sidmouth, with Oliver the spye, have brought Brandreth to the block;" or, as his late editions have it, "The Tyrant, with the Spy, have brought Peter to the block." He adds: "We ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... through the door into the waiting room from the midway of the station, look up and wave his hand, with a frown and a shake of the head that told him his pard's quest for the missing baggage had been fruitless. ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... were any thing but promising about the fourth of July, 1862. Our operations in the Shenandoah Valley had been very expensive and fruitless. The Peninsular campaign, which promised so much at its beginning, which had proceeded at so fearful a cost of treasure and blood, was pronounced a failure at last, and the great armies, depleted and worn, were well nigh discouraged. The celebration of the anniversary of our national birthday ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... seem that his search was fruitless; for after a few moments of indolent and listless examination, he suffered his huge frame to descend the gentle declivity, in the same sluggish manner that an over fatted beast would have yielded to ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... this intercourse with Egypt; and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries she reached a very high position, which she owed to her shipowners and traders. In the fourteenth century, however, the princes of the house of Anjou ruined her like the rest of Provence, in the great and fruitless efforts which they made to recover the kingdom of Naples; and it was not until the reign of Louis XI. that the old Phoenician city recovered its maritime ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... side. It has created the city with all its good and its evil. It has created great nations, but see what the added populations consist of. It brings on the old age of nations. It stands for struggle that is often fruitless and unproductive. It engenders moods and arouses interests and powers that lead to wars and revolutions. It fosters sordid interests, and has made almost universal the necessity of an excess of toil in order barely to live. The great majority of workers do not live in their work, ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... calmly, "has been killed by an acquaintance, a friend, or a familiar customer; he had not even risen from his seat to speak with him; and see, the burnisher is yet grasped in his hand, with which he was at work. Ha!" he exclaimed, as his lictors entered, panting and tired by their fruitless chase, "could you not ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... to be calm, the memories of earthly pleasures, and friends, and home came over me, causing me at intervals to break into wild paroxysms, and make fresh, though fruitless, struggles. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... airy sitting in the wind in the front of the boat and resting themselves after the fruitless roaming in the heat. ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... accomplished grandson. By degrees, and by virtue of being never at all censorious, he familiarised himself with the young man's habits and diversions. He listened delightedly to the tales of his large gambling losses, of the bouts at poker, the fruitless venture in Texas Oil land, the disastrous corner in wheat, engineered by Burman, and the uniformly unsuccessful efforts to "break the bank" in Forty-fourth Street. He never tired of hearing whatever adventures Percival ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... the sun's at morning, and ere noon Death's; nor this only prey fulfilled his mind; For with strange crook-toothed prows of Carian folk 470 Who snatch a sanguine life out of the sea, Thieves keen to pluck their bloody fruit of spoil From the grey fruitless waters, has their God Furrowed our shores to waste them, as the fields Were landward harried from the north with swords Aonian, sickles of man-slaughtering edge Ground for no hopeful harvest of live grain Against us in Boeotia; these being spent, Now this third time his wind ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... that no one else was near, had seized them and carried them off to a cave near to which their boat lay on the rocks. They hoped to have obtained some information from them as to what was going on at the other side of the island, but, while engaged in a fruitless attempt to screw something out of Corrie, who was peculiarly refractory, they were interrupted, first by the yells of Bumpus and his pig, and afterwards by the sudden appearance of Henry and his party on the edge of a cliff a short ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... Grief as I have, but I'm dull; Yet I'll to Laura, and advise with her, Where I will tell her such a heavy Tale, As shall oblige her to a kind concern: —This may do; I'll tell her of this Thought, This is the first of Art I ever thought on; And if this proves a fruitless Remedy, The next, I need not study, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... than footer?' was my formula. Now, though at the time, in order to save fruitless argument, I always agreed with my companion, and praised the game he praised, in the innermost depths of my sub-consciousness, cricket ranked a long way in front of all other forms of sport. I may be wrong. More than once in my career ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... his 'Inferno,' or [Greek text], in which the poet gave his own account of his descent to Hades in search of Eurydice. But only a dubious reference to one adventure in the journey is quoted by Plutarch. Whatever the exact truth about the Orphic poems may be (the reader may pursue the hard and fruitless quest in Lobeck's 'Aglaophamus' {14}), it seems certain that the period between Pisistratus and Pericles, like the Alexandrian time, was a great age for literary forgeries. But of all these frauds the ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... town called Tanay, stopping on the way at a village, hostile to Cebu, where they obtained some food. The people of Tanay fled at their approach, and the little food found there was sent to Legazpi; while the two leaders remained at the island some days in a fruitless endeavor to make peace and friendship with the natives. On All Saints' Day "about the hour of mass" some twenty houses were burned in the Spanish settlement, "among others that where the religious slept, and the hut where mass was said," and many goods were burned. "It could ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... his fruitless pursuit of the butterflies, crept close by his master's side for a nap, and Seth yielded to the temptation to stretch himself out at full length on the soft, ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... and got it out from its hiding-place in her trunk, and they spent a fruitless half-hour wrestling with its secret fastening. They broke their finger-nails trying to pry it open, they pressed and poked every inch of it in an endeavor to find a possible secret spring; they rattled and shook it, rewarded in this case ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... boy understood it in the least. Every effort to describe a circle brought us the length of the cart farther up the road, and we promised fair to reach Bayou Sara before morning, at that rate. At last, after fruitless efforts to dodge under the harness and escape, pony came to a standstill, and could not be induced to move. The children took advantage of the pause to tumble out, but we sat still. Bogged, and it was very dark already! Wouldn't we get it when we got home! Anna groaned, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... powers for a final struggle, becoming resourceful and inventive in proportion to its peril, and forgetting the very instinct of life in the longing for freedom, at last gets to fear nobody and nothing. After fruitless struggles it surrenders in despair, lies down, closes its eyes, and the next instant once more begins the hopeless fight ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... revealed only the quiet, clear, starry sky and the still air. No glare of fire; no sound of voices; the crickets seemed to be going on comfortably and much as usual. The air was a trifle more chill, too; and after a few minutes of fruitless watching the two girls came indoors again; but they would not accept Gyda's proposition and go to bed. It was not very late, they said; and once more the three women sat down round the fire to wait. After a time however, Primrose gave it up and went off. ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... returned from a fruitless search for the "rat" he was enraged to find that Courtland was not awaiting his coming in trembling eagerness to ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... psychological foundations, to the interjections, it would still not follow that language is an instinctive activity. But, as a matter of fact, all attempts so to explain the origin of speech have been fruitless. There is no tangible evidence, historical or otherwise, tending to show that the mass of speech elements and speech processes has evolved out of the interjections. These are a very small and functionally insignificant ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... in distress. Every exertion that the case admitted was made in their behalf, and, the moment the state of the lake allowed, boats were sent off, in every probable direction, to their succor. But the Winkelried was running along the coast of Savoy, ere any ventured forth, and the search proved fruitless. When the rumor spread, however, that a sail was to be discerned coming out from under the wide shadow of the opposite mountains, and that it was steering for La Tour de Peil, a village with a far safer harbor than that ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... bloodshed. No jurist would now presume to contend that the slightest evidence was adduced to prove this. But all were rushed to conviction: Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were hanged on November 11, 1887, after fruitless appeals to the higher courts; Lingg committed suicide in prison, and Fielden, Neebe and Schwab were sentenced to long terms in prison. The four executed leaders met their death with the heroic calmness of martyrdom. "Let the voice of the people be heard!" were Parsons' last ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... of that bitter kind in which we in England are apt to suppose that all the Irish Roman Catholics indulge, had sent his son to Trinity; and there were some in the neighbourhood of Killaloe,—patients, probably, of Dr. Duggin, of Castle Connell, a learned physician who had spent a fruitless life in endeavouring to make head against Dr. Finn,—who declared that old Finn would not be sorry if his son were to turn Protestant and go in for a fellowship. Mrs. Finn was a Protestant, and the five Miss ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... for matches had so far proved fruitless. Shoeblossom stood and quaked behind the door. The reek of hot tin from the dark lantern grew worse momentarily. Mr Seymour sniffed several times, until Shoeblossom thought that he must be discovered. Then, to his ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... news; then the first fruitless descent; then men went down and brought up heavy shapes rolled in canvas and bore them to the women; and "each morning the Red Cross president, lifting the curtain of the car where he slept, would see at first light the still ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... stronger, felt the necessity of seeking employment, but to this the baby proved a formidable obstacle. No one would give a young woman, hampered with a child, work. She would come back to the baby at night worn out in mind and body, after a day of fruitless searching. These long trips of the little mother, with the consequent long absence and exhaustion on her return, did not improve the little one's health, and almost before Anna realized it was ailing, the baby sickened and died. It was her cruelest blow. For the child's ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... closed against teacher and pupils; public conveyances were denied them; physicians would not attend them; Miss Crandall's own friends dared not visit her; the house was assailed with rotten eggs and stones and finally set on fire. Yet the cause was righteous and the opposition proved vain and fruitless. Public opinion is often ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... of those particulars which are plain and easy to have been learnt, we may divine what inquiry he made into those which are obscure and in which he contradicts himself, as already proved. But, laying aside this fruitless controversy, I shall only add that, in consideration of the many falsehoods in the Chronicle and Psalter of Justiniani, the senate of Genoa have imposed a penalty upon any person within their jurisdiction who shall read or keep those books, and have ordered that they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... until he had sought an interview with Wilfred, in his prison chamber, which turned out to be a fruitless one; for, terrified although he was at the loss of his letter, the ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become divine. Belief and love,—a believing love will relieve us of a vast load of care. O my brothers, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... vulgar attainments, and aspiring to performances to which, perhaps, nature has not proportioned the force of man: when they fail, therefore, they fail not by idleness or timidity, but by rash adventure and fruitless diligence. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... an adder towards the staircase. Catherine rushed after her, and came up with her on the footpath outside the house. Her remonstrances were fruitless; and she followed the girl, fastening her undervest as she hurried along in the rear. The walk appeared to her exceedingly tedious. She complained that her legs were getting ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... favourable to us. But we were speedily taught that our hopes were without foundation. The American war-cry was behind us. We rose from our lairs, and endeavoured, as we best could, to retire upon the right, but the effort was fruitless. There too the enemy had established themselves, and we were surrounded. "Let us cut our way through," cried we to the men. The brave fellows answered only with a shout; and collecting into a small compact line, prepared to use their bayonets. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... very intimate, and he would often sleep with them. This is set forth precisely in letters written by friends of his, bishops and abbots, one of whom remarks that Robert had "discovered a new but fruitless form of martyrdom." A royal abbess of Fontevrault in the seventeenth century, pretending that the venerated founder of the order could not possibly have been guilty of such scandalous conduct, and that the letters must therefore be spurious, had the originals destroyed, so far ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... one night, related a story to the police of having been led off, and incidentally made the statement that she had been repeatedly immoral, once with a relative. She dictated and signed a detailed account of the affairs, giving times and places. This was used in investigating and led to much fruitless effort even on the part of experienced people—her story was quite untrue. When studied she proved to be a mild case of chorea, exhibiting the typical psychotic tendencies of that disease, such as we have observed in court work a ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... of Pesaro" is a name linked with some of the most charming musical associations of this age. Though forty years silence made fruitless what should have been the richest creative period of Rossini's life, his great works, poured forth with such facility, and still retaining their grasp in spite of all changes in public opinion, stamp him as being ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... and fruitless scrambling, Mr. Hunt gave up the attempt to penetrate in this direction, and, returning to the little stream on the skirts of the mountain, pitched his tents within six miles of his encampment of the preceding night. He now ordered that signals should ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... reached Constantinople, now become the ultimate goal of his intended travels. To what cause this sudden and singular change, both in demeanour and design, was owing, I was on the point of saying, it would be fruitless to conjecture; but a letter to his mother, written a few days before my arrival at Smyrna, throws some light on the sources of his unsatisfied state. He appears by it to have been disappointed of letters and remittances from his ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... that. Perhaps he wasn't European in his manners," suggested Mrs. Mortimer dryly. She had evidently arisen in the grasp of a mood, not uncommon with her, when an apparently causeless irritability drove her to say things for which she afterward suffered an honest but fruitless remorse. Dr. Melton had recently evolved for this characteristic of hers one of the explanations which the Emerys found so enigmatic. "Marietta," he said critically, "is in a perpetual state of nervous irritation from eye-strain. She has naturally excellent and ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... not tried to find her Since you sent your love by me; Day by day I think I'm blinder,— Fruitless search, as you might see. I wonder, if in sending, If you choose your slave by chance, What that twinkle was portending In ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... Breathing freely and thankfully after this escape, I fled immediately to the little boat in which I usually made my approaches to your habitation on such occasions; and was in the middle of the lake, and out of sight, long before you had given over your fruitless pursuit. The next day you left the city and I remained, the wasted and wasting monument of pas sions which had been as profitlessly as ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... upon the point of touching the real man, he constantly eludes our grasp. Who he was, whether he was one or many, remains a mystery. Whether the poems which bear one or other of his changing titles were really the work of a single writer, is also a matter for fruitless conjecture. We may take it for granted that he was not Walter Map; for Map was not a Canon of Cologne, not a follower of Reinald von Dassel, not a mark for the severe scorn of Giraldus. Similar reasoning renders it more than improbable that the Golias of ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... it was enough; and that was how Harry Hawke and his bosom pal came to be wandering under the eastern wall of the deserted brewery after a fruitless search among those khaki heaps that lay so still in front of the ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... on Smyrna's love, Fruitless the wooings of the unlettered prove; Crassitius she receives with loving arms, For he alone unveiled her ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... brother's house or marry.... After all her striving she found herself back at the point whence she had started; she had accomplished the circle of life, or nearly so. To fulfil the circle she had to marry. There was nothing in life except a little fruitless striving, and then marriage. If she did not accept marriage, what should she do? She was tired asking herself that question; so she put it aside, and applied herself day by day with greater diligence to ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... American passenger bolting up on to the poop, and no one to speak to, that he could see, who could do any good. He called out for the steward, but he had disappeared; and the darkey feared that his plan for defeating the schemes of the mutineers would turn out fruitless from his failing to find any one to help him in undertaking it, when all at once he saw Kate Meldrum, for whom he had a profound respect on account of her plucky behaviour during the storm and her kindness to him when ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... hawks, who had come with an adopted feeling to succour the orphan. These two he killed, and then left the nest. On returning afterwards he found two more charitable individuals on the same errand of mercy. One of these he killed; the other he also shot, but could not find. No more came on the like fruitless errand.") Nevertheless, it is a strange fact that within the same district, during the height of the breeding-season, there should be so many males and females always ready to repair the loss of a mated bird. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... should shoot any small or great shot at the enemy till he came at the distance of caliver or pistol shot, whereby no shot might be made fruitless or in vain; whereof the captains and officers in every ship should ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... time she was put to bed she was suffering from nervous prostration. Meredith, who had returned from his fruitless search, looked like a man walking in his sleep. His wife had clung to his neck in passionate relief, but she had avoided his lips as she had never done before, and a sword seemed to ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... not long to continue. Anna, as she grew stronger, felt the necessity of seeking employment, but to this the baby proved a formidable obstacle. No one would give a young woman, hampered with a child, work. She would come back to the baby at night worn out in mind and body, after a day of fruitless searching. These long trips of the little mother, with the consequent long absence and exhaustion on her return, did not improve the little one's health, and almost before Anna realized it was ailing, the baby sickened and died. It was her cruelest blow. For the child's sake she had ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... been decisive—not perhaps of ultimate issues—but of those prolonged delays in which lies the best hope of a defence. It is an interesting commentary on Kruger's decision that, at the moment these lines are writing, the deliverance of Mafeking is known to have been preceded immediately by a fruitless assault of the burghers, which cost more than that presumed for the attack at the outset, which a competent general on the spot believed then would be successful. Control at a distant capital, exercised by an obstinate, overbearing old man, ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... on the mountain slopes, which Heidi so longed to see. But the windows remained immovable, try what Heidi would to open them, even endeavoring to push her little fingers under them to lift them up; but it was all no use. When after a while Heidi saw that her efforts were fruitless, she gave up trying, and began to think whether she would not go out and round the house till she came to the grass, but then she remembered that the night before she had only seen stones in front of the house. At that moment a knock came to the door, and immediately ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... her. They made what search in Venice they could, without rousing a scandal, and Ashe rushed out to join it, using the special means at a minister's disposal. But it was fruitless. Kitty vanished like a wraith in the dawn; and the living world of action and affairs ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... obtain a footing on its crest, each assault was repulsed with prodigious slaughter. Duke Bernhard was now fully engaged with the Imperialists on the Allersheim, and was gradually gaining ground. Seeing, however, how fruitless were the efforts of Horn to capture the Weinberg, he despatched as many of his infantry as he could spare to reinforce the marshal. ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... before he left home, he was not only thinking of her, but trying to marshal in order what arguments he might use,—so as to convince her at last. He did not at all understand how utterly fruitless his arguments had been with her. When Mrs. Roden had told him of Marion's strength he had only in part believed her. In all matters concerning the moment Marion was weak and womanly before him. When he told ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... of longing, it seemed that almost all of the people whom she could see standing before the files of the daily papers were homesick. The reading-room had been a strange study to her during those weeks spent in fruitless search for the work she wanted to do, and it had likewise proved a strange comfort. When tired and disconsolate and utterly sick at heart there was always one thing she could do—she could go down to the library and look at the paper from home. It was not that she wanted the actual news ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... the evening rapidly approached, a general hush prevailed, and all endeavours to recover his track seemed fruitless. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... ever and as exclusively as ever to making money; still valuing everything, visible or invisible, by the market-price in gold, silver, or bank-notes; although unfortunately much less successful than at the commencement of his career, in accumulating dollars and cents; his seems to be "the fruitless race, without a prize;" and yet Mr. Taylor is approaching the time of life when the end of the race cannot be ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... devised: they must devise some new task, something senseless, to suggest some craving without result. Then Aeacus decreed he should rattle dice for ever in a box with no bottom. At once the poor wretch began his fruitless task of hunting for the dice, which for ever ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... wise father might have done much for him, but his father belonged to that class of men who are only acquainted with a small circle of their own affairs; he had not the least conception of what was needed for his brilliant son. So the best years of young Thaxter's life were consumed in fruitless efforts to harmonize his lofty aspirations with the stubborn facts about him. It was like a fruit-tree planted in a stone quarry. Too late he learned from experience the wisdom that should have come to him from his ancestors. He might have succeeded better if he had been less ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... unproductive] sterilize, addle; disable, inactivate. Adj. unproductive, acarpous[obs3], inoperative, barren, addled, infertile, unfertile, unprolific[obs3], arid, sterile, unfruitful, infecund[obs3]; sine prole; fallow; teemless[obs3], issueless[obs3], fruitless; unprofitable &c. (useless) 645; null and void, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... offered, and he swung the stock of his piece at his adversary's head with such force as to break the sword short off at the hilt. The Nubian sprang at Dobri like a tiger. They grappled, and these men of herculean mould were so well matched that for a few seconds they stood quivering with mighty but fruitless efforts to bear each other down. It was at this moment that the Russian reinforcements came up, fired a volley, and charged. Dobri and Hamed dropped side by side, pierced with bullets. Nicholas also fell. The raging hosts passed over them, and the Turks were driven over the plain like autumn ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... in spite of the laziness of the impelling breeze. The boy, as yet unconscious of his peril, now glances shorewards, and sees the banks wheel past. The crowd of bathers is already far beyond hearing yet, frightened and tired, he wastes his remaining strength in fruitless shouts. Now the deceitful eddies, once so soft and friendly, whirl him down in ruthless exultation. He will never reach the shore, good swimmer ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... self-willed boy was seventeen years old, he realized that his sister was scheming for the ruin of himself and his mother. In the rupture that followed, the people deserted Sophia and flocked about Peter. He placed his sister in a monastery, where, after fifteen years of fruitless intrigue and conspiracy, she was to die. Then, conjointly with his unfortunate brother, he commenced ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... same. By quitting the spot in the canoes, it was evident the pursuers would be balked, temporarily at least, since they must recross the marsh in order to get into their own boats, without which further pursuit would be fruitless. ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... tolerated the Dissenters. The idea of entire religious liberty and equality shocked even his moderate degree of sensitiveness. He met Penn at the court of the Prince of Orange, and, after a long and fruitless effort to convince the Dissenter that the penal laws against the Catholics should be enforced, and allegiance to the Established Church continue the condition of qualification for offices of trust and honor, and that he and his friends should rest contented ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... if service be perverted as beauty is lost, and the honied tube, and medicinal leaf, change into mere swollen emptiness, and salt brown membrane, swayed in nerveless languor by the idle sea,—at last the separation between the two natures is as great as between the fruitful earth and fruitless ocean; and between the living hands that tend the Garden of Herbs where {114} Love is, and those unclasped, that toss with tangle ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... the new. The fierceness of the strife in France incited monarchists in all lands to importunate demands for the extirpation of "the French plague"; and hence were set in motion forces which Pitt vainly strove to curb. War soon broke out in Central Europe. His endeavours to localize it were fruitless; and thenceforth his chief task was to bring to an honourable close a conflict which he had not sought. It is therefore fitting that this study of the latter, less felicitous, but equally glorious part of his career should begin with a survey of the situation in Great Britain and on the Continent ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... on the raft she perceived that their search had been fruitless. However, she advanced toward ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... and intolerance of Archbishop Laud and his followers, combining with and urging on the despotism of the King, had at length completely exhausted the patience of the English people and parliament. Every pacific effort had proved fruitless; and it had become undeniably evident, to every English patriot, that Prelacy must be abolished and the royal prerogative limited, unless they were prepared to yield up every vestige of civil and ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... she wore in the scene just ahead of last night, and she'll have to have it again to-day. Now—" She began to search the ground around the cold brazier. "It might be along here." He helped her look. Pretty soon he would remember an engagement and get away. The search at the end of the pool proved fruitless. The girl continued to chatter. They had worked until one-thirty before that grouch of a Rosenblatt would call it a day. At that she'd rather do water stuff than animal stuff-especially lions. "Lions? I should think so!" He replied ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... Darling to the N.W., and, if any encouraging feature presented itself, to return for the party, and persevere in an examination of the distant interior. Such, at least, appeared to me the most judicious plan: indeed, an attempt to have moved in any other direction would have been fruitless. And, as the result of this journey would be decisive, and would either fix or determine our advance or retreat, I was anxious for ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... and after several fruitless attempts to sleep he rose and went out into the sunshine, where he fell to whetting his knife. He finished putting a double edge upon the blade, fitted a handle to it, and then a cord with which to suspend it round his neck. He showed it to O'Reilly, and after receiving ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... a hundred fruitless attempts to interest lawyers, who have all thought me mad, I made up my mind to come to you. I will tell you of my misfortunes afterwards; for the present, allow me to prove the facts, explaining rather how things must have fallen ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... labor shall be vain—and every evening, throwing yourself on the hard ground, you shall be no nearer to the end of your eternal course!'—And so, for centuries, men without pity have said to the artisan: 'Work! work! work! without truce or rest—and your labor shall be fruitful for all others, but fruitless for yourself—and every evening, throwing yourself on the hard ground, you shall be no nearer to happiness and repose; and your wages shall only suffice to keep you alive in ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... in his limbs, and the severity of the weather. It was at last agreed, as he grew every day worse and worse, that we could be of no use here, and were exposing ourselves needlessly to danger, to abandon this fruitless expedition, and return to our homes. Pedro de Ircio was among the first who advised this, and soon set the example, by retiring to his own town of Villa Rica; but Rangel chose rather to go along with us to Coatzacualco, to our great ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... escape from this dilemma by discovering "Orthodox"—that is to say, Old Ritualist—bishops somewhere in the East; but when the East had been searched in vain, and all their efforts to obtain native bishops proved fruitless, they conceived the design of creating a bishopric somewhere beyond the frontier, among the Old Ritualists who had in times of persecution fled to Prussia, Austria, and Turkey. There were, however, immense difficulties in the way. In the first place it was necessary to obtain the formal permission ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... This delirium and my flushed cheeks and shining eyes led them to be very careful to me. I was told that my mother was away from home; and when after two days of search they were quite sure that all efforts to find either her or my father were likely to prove fruitless, that she had gone to Europe where we would follow her as soon as I was well. This promise, offering as it did, a prospect of immediate release from the terrors which were consuming me, had an extraordinary effect upon me. I got up out of my bed saying that I was well now and ready ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... assigned to the work. True, Bosola wants the last touches, the touches which Shakespere would have given. He is not wholly conceivable as he is. But as a "Plain Dealer" gone wrong, a "Malcontent" (Webster's work on that play very likely suggested him), turned villain, a man whom ill-luck and fruitless following of courts have changed from a cynic to a scoundrel, he is a strangely original and successful study. The dramatic flashes in the play would of themselves save it. "I am Duchess of Malfi still," and the other famous one "Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young," often as they ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... hour now for anger: No wisdom to debate with fruitless choler, Let us consider timely what we must do, Since she is flown to his protection, From whom we have no power to sever ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... all, our fears were fruitless, or let me rather say our hopes, since we agreed that a hurricane chancing here would be a consummation singularly happy. It is certain no fitter scene could well have been selected for such an event, and indeed this was all that was needed to make the ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... have been shown on the file of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming; but I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... fundamental law contains many provisions indicating good sense and just notions of government, but was too complex for an infant settlement; and, after many fruitless attempts to amend it, was laid aside, and a more simple form was adopted, resembling in its principal features, those established in the other colonies, which remained until the proprietary government ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... of masks, clamorous, intoxicated, reeling, and rushing, as they reeled, poured into the room, and separated me from the mystic. I broke through them, and sought him everywhere, but in vain. All my researches the next day were equally fruitless. Weeks were consumed in the same pursuit,—not a trace of Mejnour could be discovered. Wearied with false pleasures, roused by reproaches I had deserved, recoiling from Mejnour's prophecy of the scene in which I was to seek ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... she cannot be found, no more than a flower or a leaf which withered twenty years ago. A bereavement of this kind gives one a glimpse of the feeling those must have who have seen all drop round them, friend after friend, and are left to end their pilgrimage alone. But tears are fruitless, and ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Clarian's cause in as favorable a light as possible; spoke of the youth's noble nature; guarantied that there was no moral obliquity; strongly advised leniency; venturing withal to hope, nay, to believe, that all this devotion, so intense, to a single purpose, would not be fruitless, might possibly win him credit. He certainly had fine imagination, and then he was so absorbed in his work;—it was a question whether it would help him most to encourage or to repress his ardor at present. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... our entire attention to Yvonne, who was writhing with agony on her bed next my room. For three days now Madame Guix had administered mild doses of morphine, but that treatment could not continue very long. Water bags, friction and massage had proved fruitless against sciatica, so we resolved to try a warm bath, with the result that our patient was almost immediately eased but too weak to support the heat. She fainted in the tub and had to be carried back to bed. We were still working over her when Nini appeared and said I was wanted below. When Yvonne's ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... the death of his God has restored its integrity." How then, I would ask, do you pretend that human nature, notwithstanding the death of a God, is still depraved? Is then the death of your God wholly fruitless? What becomes of his omnipotence and of his victory over the Devil, if it is true that the Devil still preserves the empire, which, according to you, he has always exercised in ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... that, after many fruitless attempts to find a situation, Katusha again went to the registry office, and there met a woman with bracelets on her bare, plump arms and rings on most of her fingers. Hearing that Katusha was badly in want of a place, the woman gave her her address, and invited her to come to her house. ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... escape was thus ended, and the girl cautiously closed the door between the two rooms. Then she felt about the smaller apartment for some heavy object with which to barricade herself; but her search was fruitless. Finally she bethought herself of the corpse. That would hold the door against the accident of a child or dog pushing it open—it would be better than nothing, but could she bring herself to ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... jubilee one man, a stranger, but as devout a Christian as any of the conquerors, stood apart downcast, melancholy, saddened by years of fruitless waiting for a few ships. That man ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... some time after this discovery that hope dawned again for Lord Marshmoreton. Only after he had given up the search for the missing paper as fruitless did he recall that it was in George's company that Billie had first come into his life. Between her, then, and himself George was the ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the English, and the death of their commander, Talbot, in 1453, the contest of a century came to an end. All that England retained across the Channel was Calais with Havre and Guines Castle. France was desolated by all this fruitless strife. Some of the most fertile portions of its territory were reduced to a desert, "given up to wolves, and traversed only by ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... ourselves with fruitless researches? What I have said will suffice to show that this opinion has been that of not only one or two of the fathers, which would prove nothing, but of the greater number of those among them who have ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... burnt out, we must carry our fire against him at any seasonable opportunity, and not await on in hopes of an outbreak occurring within, for fear our opponents should themselves burn up the surrounding vegetation, and thus render our own attempts fruitless." The famous Li Ling once baffled the leader of the Hsiung-nu in this way. The latter, taking advantage of a favorable wind, tried to set fire to the Chinese general's camp, but found that every scrap of combustible vegetation in the neighborhood ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... such a stubborn little brute,' he muttered, after many fruitless attempts to turn the donkey round. 'Perhaps if the lady would take the donkey's head, we might just lift the cart; and the little gentleman could throw ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... once set to work. The rope was cut up and unravelled, and the strands cut into pieces about two feet long. They then both set to work trying to discover some way of fastening it by which it would not slip down the rope. They made many fruitless attempts; each time that a strand was fastened with a loop large enough for them to pass a leg through, it slid down the rope when their weight was applied to it. At last they succeeded in finding out a knot which would hold. This was done by tying a knot close to one end of a piece of ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... stance with a galliard sort of step, keeping his eye at the same time fixed on Tressilian's, who, once more dismounted, stood with his horse's bridle in his hand, breathless, and half exhausted with his fruitless exercise, though not one drop of moisture appeared on the freckled forehead of the urchin, which looked like a piece of dry and discoloured parchment, drawn tight across the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... round the room people began to laugh and chatter rapidly as if they feared the sudden reaction might end in hysteria. But although all the candles had now been lit, the effort to revive the mild exhilaration of the evening was fruitless. They wanted to get away. Many still believed that a plot had been balked, and that the assassins were lurking in one of the many rooms ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... still a mystery, the strange current of human existence bears each and all of us with a strong, steady sweep from the tropic lands of sunny childhood, enameled with verdure and gaudy with bloom, through the temperate regions of manhood and womanhood, fruitful or fruitless as the case may be; on to the often frigid, lonely shores of old age, snow-crowned and ice-veined; and individual destinies seem to resemble the tangled drift on those broad gulf billows, strewn on barren beaches, stranded upon icebergs, some to be scorched under ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... generous offer, expressing an affectionate gratitude toward her teacher, and a determination not to leave him, at least for the present. Mrs. Young was much distressed, and adduced every argument of which she was mistress, but her niece remained firm; and finding their entreaties fruitless, Mr. Young said that he would immediately take the necessary steps to secure Robert Grey's portion of the estate to his daughter. Electra sat with her hand nestled in her aunt's, but when this matter was alluded to ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... contact, wherever possible, with the living fact, and his economy. It happened that the famous Commission of the 2nd of June had set on foot an inquiry into the irrigation of lands in the Zaraisky province, which fell under Alexey Alexandrovitch's department, and was a glaring example of fruitless expenditure and paper reforms. Alexey Alexandrovitch was aware of the truth of this. The irrigation of these lands in the Zaraisky province had been initiated by the predecessor of Alexey Alexandrovitch's predecessor. And vast sums of money had actually ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... country of the New Yorker was New York, and the country of the Virginian was Virginia. The New England colonies had once confederated; but, kindred as they were, they had long ago dropped apart. William Penn proposed a plan of colonial union wholly fruitless. James II. tried to unite all the northern colonies under one government; but the attempt came to naught. Each stood aloof, jealously independent. At rare intervals, under the pressure of an emergency, some of them would ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... men returned from their fruitless search. Then a litter was improvised and Boris was placed upon it and taken away. Fred had been very fearful for it had seemed more than likely to him that a sentry would be left to watch the wreck. If that had been done, it would have complicated his position, because he could scarcely have hoped ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... Alan Hawke returned, three weeks later, to the Hotel Grand National, at Geneva, he was sorely wearied and dispirited. A round of inspection of all the principal jewel marts of the continent had been only a fruitless, solitary tourist promenade. And the ominous silence of Captain Anson Anstruther, A. D. C., boded no good to the military future of the adventurer. "Damn me, if I don't think that I have been hoodwinked!" growled Major Hawke, on his re-turn from Moscow ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... first time Mr. Edwards learned that his young client had a will of his own. After a few fruitless exhortations he rose to obey, but remarking: "Right much money in these hard times to withdraw in a lump from the bank." Then, with a sidelong glance at the grave, boyish face, he added significantly: "Know you would ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... have lain untouched for some ages. It is pity there is not something like a public register, to preserve the memory of such statues as have been found from time to time, and to mark the particular places where they have been taken up, which would not only prevent many fruitless searches for the future, but might often give a considerable light into the quality of the place, or the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... that some confusion should be caused among them, since they could not be overpowered by force, endeavours to disorder their foremost battalions by a charge of cavalry. And when he saw them wheel their troops within a narrow compass in fruitless disorder, and that they could not open a passage to the enemy, riding back to the van of the legions, after leaping from his horse, he says, "Soldiers, this is the task for us infantry; come on, as ye shall see me making way with ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... party, but not because of the assaults of their opponents, but because of their impotence in the face of a grave national crisis. Nevertheless, they were on all essential issues beaten by the Democrats; and on the few occasions on which they were victorious, their victories were both meaningless and fruitless. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... of all fruit. Miserable in his affections, barren in his intellect; clinging to solitude, yet accursed in it; dreading as a danger the fame he had once coveted; obscure in spite of learning, hopeless in spite of love, fruitless and joyless in his life, calamitous and shameful in his end,—surely such is no palliative of crime, no dalliance and toying with the grimness of evil! And surely to any ordinary comprehension and candid mind such is the moral conveyed by the fiction of 'Eugene Aram.'"—[A word to the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... impulse of idle curiosity, that flickered among her heavy thoughts, she looked at one of the daguerreotypes, and beheld Judge Pyncheon frowning at her. Fate stared her in the face. She turned back from her fruitless quest, with a heartsinking sense of disappointment. In all her years of seclusion, she had never felt, as now, what it was to be alone. It seemed as if the house stood in a desert, or, by some spell, was made invisible to those who dwelt around, or passed beside it; so that ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... upon without horror; an alternative in which it is impossible he should take either part, with a conscience perfectly at repose. To keep that situation of guilt and remorse at the utmost distance is, therefore, our first obligation. Early activity may prevent late and fruitless violence. As yet we work in the light. The scheme of the enemies of public tranquillity has disarranged, it has ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of all their pecuniary privileges, assuring him that the whole French noblesse would follow the example if they were consulted. Passions were too violently excited, and the disorder of ideas was too general to admit of the proper sense being given to this generous and fruitless proceeding. The third estate looked upon it as a manoeuvre against double representation; the mass of the two orders protested against the forced liberality which it was attempted to thrust upon them. People made merry over the signataries. "Have you read the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... looks over The Street—and through it—from his lofty pinnacle. Don't strain your precious eyes and necks in fruitless endeavors to discover him there, since he can make himself invisible at will. But listen, ye men of The Street, with all your ears, (Erie,) and you will hear a solemn chant like unto that of the muezzin from the minaret. 'Tis the voice of PUNCHINELLO wafting sonorously ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... that business, the very limitations of the grid suit furnished an unending challenge to Moglaut's genius. And out of a sideline experiment incited by that challenge came the disarmer which Jason greeted with such fruitless glee. ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... consequences; they will rather look on themselves as the victims of designing men, who, for selfish purposes, have partly seduced and partly impelled them into the perils and disasters of a gigantic but fruitless rebellion. This state of feeling will leave the minds of the Southern people in a condition to estimate fairly their own relations to the rebellion, and their obligations to the Union, which again calls them, with paternal tenderness, to its generous ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Hair Bracelet, Mrs. Peckover's first question about it, although only answered by a look, was received in such a manner as to show her that any further efforts on her part in that direction would be perfectly fruitless. ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... "the ruby," originally a Greek slave, who made a brave but fruitless attempt to change his name into Yacoub or Jacob, became one of the greatest of Arab encyclopaedists, was checked by the hordes of Genghiz-Khan in his exploration of Central ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... would not be hard to imagine that during the onset of these stupors the tendency to part company with the environment, which ordinarily comes on slowly, might occur with epileptic suddenness and hence liberate convulsive movements. This is, however, a pure speculation but not fruitless if it serves to draw attention to the analogies existing between the stupor reaction and some of the mental symptoms of epilepsy. These analogies are strong; aside from the obvious clinical differences, the stupor and epileptic reactions are dynamically unlike in ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... Scaurnose he found Phemy's parents in a sad state. Joseph had returned that morning from a fruitless search in a fresh direction, and reiterated disappointment seemed to have at length overcome Annie's endurance, for she had taken to her bed. Joseph was sitting before the fire on a three legged stool rocking himself to and fro in a dull agony. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... emphasis to the argument, while all around them were officers, soldiers, guns, natives, wounded men, bullocks, and a surging tide of disorganisation momentarily pouring into the square. But the attempt is fruitless. The whole area has been cleared of buildings right up to the gate of the Residency, only that hard by the Goomtee there still stands the river wing of the Chutter Munzil Palace with its fantastic architecture, and that the palace ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... to the coin of the country. The attention of government was turned away from guarding against the exportation of gold and silver, to watch over the balance of trade, as the only cause which could occasion any augmentation or diminution of those metals. From one fruitless care, it was turned away to another care much more intricate, much more embarrassing, and just equally fruitless. The title of Mun's book, England's Treasure in Foreign Trade, became a fundamental maxim in the political economy, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... among children. At first they yield readily to treatment, but if allowed to continue through the adolescent period the habit becomes fixed so that trying to cure it is a difficult and often fruitless task. Judging from the experience of other cities, about 200 boys and 800 girls in the Cleveland public school system are suffering from some form of speech defect. There are few fields in which the medical inspection department has such an opportunity for effective ...
— Health Work in the Public Schools • Leonard P. Ayres and May Ayres
... appearance at Vauxhall, and emptying the pockets of his intimates, Rann was riding over Hounslow Heath, and flashing his pistol in the eye of the wayfarer. The very year in which Jack danced his last jig at Tyburn, Barrington had astonished London by a fruitless attempt to steal Prince Orloff's miraculous snuff-box. And not even Ellen Roach herself would have dared to assert that Rann was Barrington's equal in sleight of hand. But Rann holds his own against ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... gardens behind old inns in Trastevere, in the hope that they might have some information to sell. But no one gained admittance to the villa except the agents of the police, who came daily to report the fruitless search; and the servants had nothing to tell beyond the bare truth. The young gentleman had gone for a walk near the sea, down at the cottage by the Roman shore, and he had never been heard of again. His mother had been suffering from ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... It soon became clear that the struggle between the factions thus led would be severe, and the conclave a long one. The history of the plots and counterplots by which each strove to circumvent the other is extremely amusing, but too long to be given here. After various fruitless attempts, the Corsini faction concentrated all their forces on Cardinal Aldrovandi. He was a man of decent character, and had the support of a small body of independent cardinals, called the "Zelanti," who, to the great disgust and contempt of their brethren ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... Acten, nach Tieck und F. Hebbel, Musik von Robert Schumann. Op. 81."] and many other members of the church of abstinence, both adepts and neophytes, have since stretched forth their "chaste and innocent" hands in search of an operatic success—they troubled greatly—but their efforts proved fruitless—"the fortunate grip" failed. ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... Doctor Sarson, had suddenly checked the words upon his lips. He turned his head quickly in the direction towards which they had been gazing, towards which in fact, at that moment, Meekins, with a low cry, had made a fruitless spring. The ladder down which they had descended was slowly disappearing. Meekins, with a jump, missed the last rung by only a few inches. Some unseen hand was drawing it up. Already the last few feet were vanishing in mid-air. Mr. Fentolin sat ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... long, he took his book and went upstairs to bed, being tired and sleepy after a long day spent on the hillside in a fruitless search for certain plants which, according to his books, were to be found in that part of Italy, but which he had not yet seen. He fell asleep, thinking of Maria Addolorata's lovely face and fair hair, on which he had never laid eyes. In his ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... After some fruitless efforts, I succeeded at last; but the apprehension of the jeopardy in which I believed myself withstood all the attacks of sleep till towards the morning watch, when, in spite of my fears, I was overpowered with slumber, though I did not long enjoy this comfortable situation, being ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... should lower such pretensions, and, aiming only at some picture of the thing acted, which picture itself will be but a poor approximation, leave the inscrutable purport of them an acknowledged secret.' 'Some picture of the thing acted.' Here we behold the task of the historian; nor is it an idle, fruitless task. Science is not the only, or the chief source of knowledge. The Iliad, Shakspeare's plays, have taught the world more than the Politics of Aristotle or ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... still no sign of Roessle the mill management took alarm. Discovering that he had left the bank for the return journey at a few minutes before eleven, and that nothing had been seen of him at his home, the police were notified. Followed then several hours of fruitless search, until finally, with the whole countryside aroused and the efforts of the police augumented by private search parties, the car was found in a thicket at the edge of a crossroad some four miles back from the river, and, a little way from the car, the body of Roessle, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... can be keeping them?" sighed Zoe, as the two stood together on the brow of the hill, still engaged in their fruitless search. ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... framing for himself a symbolic conception of the universe, which, although doubtless highly imperfect and inadequate as a picture of the great whole, is yet sufficient to serve him as a chart for the guidance of his practical affairs. It has taken long ages of toilsome and often fruitless labour to enable man to look steadily at the shifting scenes of the phantasmagoria of Nature, to notice what is fixed among her fluctuations, and what is regular among her apparent irregularities; and it is only comparatively lately, within the last few centuries, ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... plan was favourably received by the House. After some few objections it was ordered that proposals should be received from the two great corporations. They were both unwilling to lend their aid, and the plan met with a warm but fruitless opposition at the general courts summoned for the purpose of deliberating upon it. They, however, ultimately agreed upon the terms on which they would consent to circulate the South Sea bonds; and their report being presented ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... in hard but fruitless labor, that body was no nearer the end of its undertaking than when it first assembled. The entire world awaited its decision with bated breath, and yet the decision ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... the current of it runs with a sharper and clearer intensity, because I have learned my limitations, and expend no energy in useless enterprises. I have learned what the achievements are which come joyfully bearing their sheaves with them, and what are the trivial and fruitless aims. When I was younger I desired to be known and recognised and deferred to. I wanted to push my way discreetly into many companies, to produce an impression, to create a sense of admiration. Now as the sunset draws nearer, ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... concessions to their political adversaries for the sake of unity; they had still to learn the motto of 1830: "Union is Strength." In this way, the terrible ordeal which they had to undergo under French occupation did not remain entirely fruitless. Neither the Spaniards nor the Austrians had succeeded in uprooting particularist tendencies. The French imposed a centralized regime and impressed the people with its social value. When, in 1830, the Belgians again rebelled against foreign oppression, they had learnt their lesson and ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... anxiously as it drew near the end, and then up, up, up it went, far beyond our reach. We went back and shouted to Sam. What he said in return, we could not make out. Here was a bitter disappointment indeed. Our labour had been fruitless; our hope of escape well-nigh vanished. Presently we saw the end of the rope descending till it came easily within our reach. Short, directly afterwards, appeared at the edge ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... that died; so after a while the fury of the infection appeared to be so increased that, in short, they shut up no houses at all. It seemed enough that all the remedies of that kind had been used till they were found fruitless, and that the plague spread itself with an irresistible fury; so that as the fire the succeeding year spread itself, and burned with such violence that the citizens, in despair, gave over their endeavours to extinguish it, so in the plague it came at last to such violence that ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... consented to teach him this secret doctrine. For this had been his Cabalistic phase, when he dreamed of conjurations and spells and the Mastership of the Name. A sardonic smile twitched the corners of his lips, as he remembered how the poor Rabbi and his pretty wife, after fruitless hints, had lent him the precious tomes to be rid of his persistent all-night sittings, and the smile lingered an instant longer as he recalled his own futile attempts to coerce the supernatural, either by the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... wife were out of employment, and in very great trouble. Mr. H. (missionary) had added his efforts to theirs, and sedulously sought among the families he knew, for positions for them. After two weeks' fruitless endeavor, he said to the man, "Well, John, let us go into the Fulton street meeting and leave it with the Lord." They did so; the request was read ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... I shall not hold out against you. Only I fear your errand may be fruitless, if not worse. The two mules are at your service, and you can leave them at a place I shall indicate. When Manuel returns I shall send him to ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... many a fruitless day in quest of a more attractive pair than they as they strode swiftly down the shady road. They lagged not, for they were strong and healthy, and walking was a joy to them, not an exercise. She kept pace beside him, with her free stride; half a head shorter than he, she did not demand ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... antiquarian and linguist, he unites qualities precious for the due appreciation of Spain. Well-versed in the Castilian, he also displays a familiarity with the Cantabrian tongue—that strange and difficult Vascuense which the Evil One himself, according to a provincial proverb, spent seven years of fruitless labour in endeavouring to acquire. And he patters Romani, the mysterious jargon of the gitanos, in a style no way inferior—so far as we can discover—to Bible Borrow himself. That gentleman, by the bye, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... Becquerel occupied themselves with the theoretical side of the question; but it was not till after 1845 that practical electroculture was undertaken. Williamson suggested the use of gigantic electrostatic machines, but the attempts were fruitless. The methods most generally adopted in experiments consisted of two metallic plates—one of copper and one of zinc—placed in the soil and connected by a wire. Sheppard employed the method in England in 1846 and Forster used the same in Scotland. In the year 1847 Hubeck ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... universal in that Kingdom, that the Judges themselves thought it dishonourable to refuse a Challenge. Henry IVth. seeing the best Blood of France so often sacrific'd to this Idol, endeavour'd to put a Stop to it, but was not able; and the several Edicts made in 1602 and 1609 were fruitless. The Resolutions of Parliament likewise, made in the Reign of Lewis XIIIth. were as ineffectual: the First Check that was given to Duelling, was in the Minority of Lewis XIVth, and from the Method by which it was prevented at last, ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... His name was Doctor Feasible. His practice was not extensive, and he was incumbered with a wife and large family. He also very naturally wished to extend his practice and his reputation; and, after many fruitless attempts, he at last hit upon a scheme which he thought promised ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... for and; and yet he was confessedly not a little puzzled to find out when to use a singular, and when a plural verb, after a nominative with such "a sort of addition made to it." The 246th paragraph of his English Grammar is a long and fruitless attempt to fix a rule for the guidance of the learner in this matter. After dashing off a culpable example, "Sidmouth, with Oliver the spye, have brought Brandreth to the block;" or, as his late ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Journalisms. It is unnecessary to say that in the course of this career he acquires, not only notoriety, but enemies, who watch eagerly for the false step that shall bring him to the ground. In spite of his craft, he is inevitably driven from boldness into rashness, and after waging a fruitless war against rascals more accomplished than himself, he, with a courage that scarcely atones for his imprudence, enters the witness-box, and, a flood of light having been thrown upon his past career, he finds himself for two nights blazoned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... of Spayne in the kingdom of Portugall, and he and the Dutch will put him into possession of Lisbon; and, that being done, he [France] may have Flanders: and this, they say; do mightily take in Spayne, which is sensible of the fruitless expence Flanders, so far off, gives them; and how much better it would be for them to be master of Portugall; and the King of France offers, for security herein, that the King of England shall be bond for him, and that he will countersecure the King of England with Amsterdam; and, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... edge of the fruitless surf A light flame sinks and springs; At the grey soft rim of the flowerless turf A low flame leaps ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... chosen the rebellion had induced about a dozen of their officers to join them; but these men, suddenly repenting, refused to break their oath of allegiance, and were at once hanged from the neighbouring trees. Finding further persuasion fruitless, Pugatscheff wisely refrained from any attempt to reduce the fortress, and marched his band towards Orenburg. On the way he secured large accessions to his force, and in a few days found himself at the head of 1500 men. With ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... inconsequent in the extreme. Nevertheless, he had his own misgivings. His captains came back one after another, with no good tidings of discovery, but with petty plunder gained as they returned from incursions on the Moorish coast. The prince concealed from them his chagrin at the fruitless nature of their attempts, but probably did not feel it less on that account. He began to think, was it for him to hope to discover that land which had been hidden from so many princes? Still he felt within himself ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... without fear put him on his shoulder as before and started toward the monk. And as he walked along, the goblin on his shoulder said to him again: "O King, why do you take such pains for that wretched monk? Have you no sense about this fruitless task? Well, after all, I like your devotion. So, to amuse the weary journey, I will tell ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... penetrated the house, and five of the occupants were killed or wounded. The shells came from a newly erected battery a hundred and fifty yards to the north. Among the killed was one of Mrs. Righton's children; and the boys first learned the news when, on rising from a fruitless attempt to sleep, they went to get a little fresh air outside. Edith and Nelly Hargreaves came out from the door, with jugs, on their way ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... drove his men to boat-falls in hasty endeavor to get a boat over; but the effort could have only proved fruitless, for the stream ran like a mill race around those writhing, twisting grasses that endlessly bent, straightened, and twined, and the undertow was appalling. Houten's launch rounded the Barang's stern and the trader searched the ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... with his hand and gazed anxiously in the direction of the inlet. Granting that Gregory arrived within the next half-hour, what could he possibly accomplish in so short a time? All McCoy's efforts to confer with Rock had been fruitless. The bank president could not be located and ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... nations, separated from each other by a vast tract of sea and land, were contending for empire and power. These were the causes which opened the Alps to Hasdrubal. But the advantage which he gained by the celerity of his march he lost by his delay at Placentia, while he carried on a fruitless siege, rather than an assault. He had supposed that it would be easy to take by storm a town situated on a plain; and the celebrity of the colony induced him to believe that by destroying it he should strike great terror into the rest. This siege ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... will be seen that the Hidatsa as well as the Algonkins and Mexicans believed that four days were required before the spirit could finally leave the earth. Why the smell of burning leather should he offensive to spirits it would perhaps be fruitless to speculate on. ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... the clothes he still had were good, though badly in want of pressing, and when, after still further days of fruitless searching for work the proceeds from the articles he had pawned were exhausted, it occurred to him he might raise something on all but what he actually needed to ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he says, "in the files of the War Department a statement that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from your grief for a loss so overwhelming but I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation which may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the sentence; but the quiet equanimity with which the Baron endured his misfortunes, had something in it venerable, and even sublime. There was no fruitless repining, no turbid melancholy; he bore his lot, and the hardships which it involved, with a good-humoured, though serious composure, and used no violent language against ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... from impatience of repeated disappointments. But still he persevered. Nothing TRULY GREAT can be accomplished without toil and time. Two hours he worked before he went to bed. All his play hours the next day he spent at his mat; which, in all, made five hours of fruitless attempts. The sixth, however, repaid him for the labours of the other five. He conquered his grand difficulty of fastening the heath substantially together, and at length completely finished a mat, which far surpassed his most sanguine expectations. He was extremely happy— sang, danced round ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... speeches seem insipid and tiresome. So I carry my sadness with me wherever I go; a cold weariness, a discontent, a horror of life. Yes, I am lost for ever and ever. Before you stands a man who at thirty-five is disillusioned, wearied by fruitless efforts, burning with shame, and mocking at his own weakness. Oh, how my pride rebels against it all! What mad fury chokes me! [He staggers] I am staggering—my strength is failing me. Where is Matthew? ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... to bed at last, though to toss another hour in fruitless effort to solve this puzzle and to free his eyes of those flashing infamies of the night. Ever and again as he seemed to become composed, free at last of tormenting visions, a mere subtitle would flash in his brain, as where the old mother, when he first punished her insulter, was ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... congregation. In this form of discipline our divine Saviour shows his utmost aversion against private offences being unnecessarily published abroad: and therefore the church, to which the offence is to be told, after private admonition is fruitless, must be understood in the most private sense of the word. The following context evidences that it is a church, which may consist only of two or three met together in Christ's name; yet, notwithstanding, a church having power to bind and loose from ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... my fruitless errand, I met Dr. Elliot, of Port Colborne, who in the interim had been visiting the wounded men. He agreed to find ways and means to convey me to Port Colborne to report to the medical staff, with a view to sending immediate relief. ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... Towcester to-day, searching for the sign of the "Saracen's Head," would find himself on a fruitless errand, for it was changed scores of years back to the Pomfret Arms. Indeed, it was so called at the time The Pickwick Papers were first published, having been altered in 1881 at the bidding of the new lord of the manor when he succeeded ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... the Portuguese put together: he was more vain of his names than of his person; but the Duke of Buckingham, a still greater fool than he, though more addicted to raillery, gave him the additional name of Peter of the Wood. He was so enraged at this, that, after many fruitless complaints and ineffectual menaces, poor Pedro de Silva was obliged to leave England, while the happy duke kept possession of a Portuguese nymph more hideous than the queen's maids of honour, whom he had taken from him, as well as two ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... the question is properly put. To me the question, whether the closer relations between certain independent dialects furnish evidence as to the successive times of their separation, seems, by its very nature, fruitless. Nor have the answers been at all satisfactory. After a number of coincidences between the various members of the Aryan family have been carefully collected, we know no more in the end than what we knew at first, viz., that all the ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... nobody else within call, and I was compelled, therefore, to resign myself as best I could. My efforts to awaken Grammont had proved quite fruitless. I lit a cigar, and walked to and fro. The man in the blouse also lit a. cigar, and paced to and fro, passing in every journey the bench on which Grammont lay asleep. Suspecting him as I did, I never took my eyes from him ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... his side, scarcely deigning to notice us. With heads erect, and as calm countenances as we could command, we passed through the crowd in the ante-room, and made our way into the street. We then hurried back to Don Jose's, to tell him how fruitless had been our ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... heretics rejecting the Old Testament entirely; another contending for the obligation of its law, in all its parts, throughout its whole extent, and over every one who sought acceptance with God. Upon the two latter subjects, a natural, perhaps, and venial, but a fruitless, eager, and impatient curiosity, prompted by the philosophy and by the scholastic habits of the age, which carried men much into bold hypotheses and conjectural solutions, raised, amongst some who ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... not expect her consciously to betray her husband, but his eyes are busy while he puts artless questions. An incautious word, the evasion of a question may give him the hint he seeks, or, on the other hand, she may be too alert and his mission may be fruitless. ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... his brother were shocked at having so unintentionally plunged me into affliction. They offered consolation, but finding their endeavours fruitless, quitted the room, thinking it advisable to leave me to myself. Cerise, for that was the name of the daughter, remained, and after a short pause came to me, and in her silvery voice, as she laid her hand upon ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is usually the vaguest thing in the cloudland of metaphysics. I fancy it means that one must always be hankering after something which one has not and keeping a look of sorrow when one's hankering is fruitless. The feeling of pity with which a "yearnest" one regards somebody who cares only for pleasant and simple or pathetic books is very creditable; but it weighs on the average human being. Why on earth ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... my best beloved fair one, repine not thou at the arts by which thou suspectest thy fruitless vigilence has been over watched. Take care, that thou provokest not new ones, that may be still more worthy of thee. If once thy emperor decrees thy fall, thou shalt greatly fall. Thou shalt have cause, if that come to pass, which may ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... after my fruitless appeal to Natalie, I met Edith Metford, to whom I had unhappily mentioned ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... determined that I would keep the ring, if for no other reason than that Bimbane seemed to attach such an extraordinary value to it, and to require its restoration so badly. I therefore left her at last, quite exhausted with her fruitless entreaties, and doubled up in a little, shapeless, miserably sobbing heap on the divan; and as I went forth from the apartment I summoned her waiting women and directed them to go in and attend to the queen, as I feared that ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
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