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More "Vain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to say something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst's kick a superior power that would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that there was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily, the Innocent met this objection by assuring the party that he was provided with an extra mule loaded with provisions, and by the discovery of a rude attempt ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... people, who, although of superior rank, were not so well fitted for the ballet as young Law; and although the answer to this was close at hand, the Marechal could not find it, and exhausted himself in vain exclamations. He could not, therefore, resist the Regent; and having no support from M. le Duc, superintendent of the King's education and a great protector of Law and of confusion, he gave in, and the financier's son was named ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... proved that sympathy as a civil agent is vague and powerless until caught and chained in logical propositions and coined into law. When every prayer and tear represents a ballot, the mothers of the race will no longer weep in vain over the miseries of their children. The active interest women are taking in all the great questions of the day is in strong contrast with the apathy and indifference in which we found them half a century ago, and the contrast ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... to give orders, my lord, and messengers bring everything I want; but it is all in vain, the sun will sink directly, and his highness has given ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... her more natural element by the very weight of her beauties. Like this last-named victim of misdirected ambition, poetical expressions, being once fairly reduced to the level of ordinary use, so that all feel at liberty to take them in vain, can never 'revocare gradem.' ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the French ambassador returned to Venice, and related what the duke had said, what they had done, and how all search had been in vain. No one doubted that Caesar was the culprit, but no one could prove it. So the most serene republic, which could not, considering their war with the Turks, be embroiled with the pope, forbade Caracciuala to take any sort of private vengeance, and so the talk grew gradually less, ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the pavement stood my father in a shabby summer overcoat and a serge cap, from which a bit of white wadding was sticking out. On his feet he had big heavy goloshes. Afraid, vain man, that people would see that his feet were bare under his goloshes, he had drawn the tops of some old boots up round ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." And then he sums up what doing right is, in one short sentence: "Love thy neighbour as thyself; for love is the fulfilling of the law." All that the laws want to make you do, is to behave like men who do love ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... Not in vain had he pondered in youth the political maxims of the great Florentine. He cultivated assiduously the friendship of Church and Mob; he knew that no throne, however seemingly well-established, can weather the blasts of fortune save by resting on those twin pillars of security. So it came about ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... naughty fairy, he cannot find a single friend. No one helps him when he is in trouble. No one really loves him. Those who come to admire his handsome beaded jacket and long fringed leggins soon go away sick and tired of his vain, vain words and ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... criticising Norton's manner and conversation, and rapidly arrived at the conclusion that Raymond had described him accurately. The Resident, though a very worthy individual, was undoubtedly a bore; and Colonel Trevor, beside whom he sat, strove in vain to appear interested in his conversation. For he had heard his opinions on every subject on which Norton had any opinions over and over again. As the Resident was the only other European in the station he dined regularly at the Mess on the weekly Guest Night with ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... that I entered the house on the lake. I had often begged the "trap-door lover," as we used to call Erik in my country, to open its mysterious doors to me. He always refused. I made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance. Watch him as I might, after I first learned that he had taken up his permanent abode at the Opera, the darkness was always too thick to enable me to see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake. One day, when I thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat and ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... place impossible. Carrying fire and sword through the land, Marius reached a fort in which the king's treasures were. It stood on a precipice, which was considered inaccessible on all sides but one. For many days he strove in vain to gain the walls by this road, and only an accident saved him from failure in the end. A Ligurian in the army, while gathering snails, unconsciously got nearly to the top of the hill. Finding this out he clambered further and got a full view of the ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... its own, and gave it the shape of Abraham Lincoln. Behind this it placed another demon, if possible more devilish, and called it Mr. Seward. In regard to these two men, English society seemed demented. Defence was useless; explanation was vain; one could only let the passion exhaust itself. One's best friends were as unreasonable as enemies, for the belief in poor Mr. Lincoln's brutality and Seward's ferocity became a dogma of popular faith. The last time Henry Adams saw Thackeray, before his sudden death at Christmas in 1863, was ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... intimate relation with his children; he depended on them. And now he made acquaintance with the heroic nature of his daughters, and saw the petty drudgery of their lives, and how worthily they turned it to a grace in the wearing of it. And now he saw clearly the vain, dependent, passionate temperament of his son, and knew how, by the lack of training, the plant had been ruined and draggled in the mire, which might have beautifully flowered and borne good fruit had it been staked and supported; the poor espalier thing that could not stand ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... disposition, which, in reality, had been the cause of making Malcolm a party to the conveyance of the treasure; this, in fact, had in all probability sacrificed my friend's life. I thought of his poor wife and children in Oregon, who would bewailing in vain for his return, which he, poor follow, had delayed so long, in the hope of going back to them laden with wealth. Throughout the whole of the night most of the party remained gathered around the camp-fire-now in sullen silence, and now expressing their bitter dissatisfaction at the ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... He strained and panted, till it seemed as though the tendons of his body must break, but the wall remained whole and the slit unpassable; and then he gave way, almost childishly, to his passion of rage, and shouted insults and threats at Rad el Moussa in the vain hope that some one would hear and carry them. And some one did hear, though not the ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... speech made in that convention by a member of it, Mr. Rice a native Virginian, is a specimen of the free discussion that prevailed on that "delicate subject." Said Mr. Rice: "I do a man greater injury, when I deprive him of his liberty, than when I deprive him of his property. It is vain for me to plead that I have the sanction of law; for this makes the injury the greater—it arms the community against him, and makes his case desperate. The owners of such slaves then are licensed robbers, and not the just proprietors of what they claim. Freeing them is not ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... trammel himself into a poet-laureate or stamp-distributor, and he stopped, ere he had quite passed that well-known "bourne from whence no traveller returns"—and so has sunk into torpid, uneasy repose, tantalized by useless resources, haunted by vain imaginings, his lips idly moving, but his heart for ever still, or, as the shattered chords vibrate of themselves, making melancholy music to the ear of memory! Such is the fate of genius in an age, when in the unequal contest with ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... for putting an end to the truce according to his wishes; and telling the king's messenger that he would refer the matter to his council, he answered him the next day. He said, that while he alone had in vain endeavoured to restore peace, no one else had desired it. That he must, therefore, carry word back that Syphax must hope for peace on no other condition than his abandonment of the Carthaginians. Thus he put an end to the truce, in order that he might be free to execute his designs without breaking ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... to where she lay, we found her doubled up in the long grass, apparently senseless, but moaning pitifully; and again, as on the previous day, I sent Piet off to the river for water with which to restore her. But all our efforts were vain, for in less than half an hour after we had come to her the unhappy girl died, without recovering consciousness. As soon as I was quite sure that she was dead I mounted my horse, and, bidding Piet place the poor scarred, emaciated corpse in my arms, rode back to the ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... written the noblest chapter of American history. They have honored their fathers and mothers, their churches, the American public school, and the land of Washington and Lincoln. Those who sleep beneath foreign soil have not died in vain. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... for a long time triumphed over the good intentions of the best of kings, oppressed France. The National Assembly has re-established the basis of public prosperity. What it has desired the nation has willed. Your majesty no longer desires in vain the happiness of Frenchmen. The National Assembly has nothing more to wish, now that on this day in its presence you consummate the constitution by accepting it. The attachment of Frenchmen decrees to ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... In vain to-day did she perform feats of daring and agility that would have done credit to a flying fish. No one had eyes for her except an agitated mother and grandmother, who finally ordered her summarily out of the water and into ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... men known to be in consumptions gasped under the scourge of the boatswain's mate, when the Surgeon and his two attendants stood by and never interposed. But where the unscrupulousness of martial discipline is maintained, it is in vain to attempt softening its rigour by the ordaining of humanitarian laws. Sooner might you tame the grizzly bear of Missouri than humanise a thing so essentially ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... remember she'd made the same promise to another man when she'd begged him in vain to help her. She only knew that Deforrest Young was offering herself and her little child a home, and a safe refuge ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... to join those two, dominate the tumult, let it roll away from under his feet—the mere life of men, vain like a dream and interfering with the tremendous sense of his own existence. He resisted it, he could hardly have told why. Even the sense of self-preservation had abandoned him. There was a throng of people pressing close about him yet careful not to get in his way. Surprise, concern, doubt were ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... already know, Jasper Jay was a vain fellow. And it was not only of his brilliant blue suit that he was proud. He was greatly pleased with his own voice, though many of the feathered folk thought it harsh and disagreeable. But, that, perhaps, was because ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... bereavement, and his sympathy was shown in his manner rather than in his words. "Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson," said he, "and I have a piece of work for us both to-night which, if we can bring it to a successful conclusion, will in itself justify a man's life on this planet." In vain I begged him to tell me more. "You will hear and see enough before morning," he answered. "We have three years of the past to discuss. Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start upon the notable adventure of ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... likely that harder measures must be meted. The long success of that daring Lyth, and the large scale of his operations, had compelled the authorities to stir at last. They began by setting a high price upon him, and severely reprimanding Carroway, who had long been doing his best in vain, and becoming flurried, did it more vainly still; and now they had sent the sharp Nettlebones down, who boasted largely, but as yet without result. The smugglers, however, were aware of added peril, and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... around the courtyard, searching in vain for Sister Maddelena, even until the moonlight broke through the torn and sweeping fringes of the storm. I tried the door where the white figure vanished: it was locked; but I had found what I sought, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... first bewilderment of my heated brain I tried to think what slanderer could have traced my family to the ignoble animal mentioned above. Vain were my endeavours. At the end of that dance I whispered the Colonel to come into the cloak-room, and I ...
— The Trial of William Tinkling - Written by Himself at the Age of 8 Years • Charles Dickens
... in vain. There was white chiffon upon the line, but all the doors were locked. Doctor Ralph was not there, either, and even the kitten was not in sight, so, regretfully, Araminta ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... member of the Little Fire order (Ma-ke-tsa-na-kwe), but he grew careless, neglected his sacrifices, and resigned his rank as "Keeper of the Medicines," from mere laziness. In vain his fathers warned him. He only grew hot with anger. One day Mi-tsi went up on the mesas to cut corral posts. He sat down to eat his dinner. A great black bear walked out of the thicket near at hand and leisurely approached him. Mi-tsi dropped his dinner ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... would not retreat, since ill-chance had led him so near. He marched a few paces further, and the two regiments clapped their hands. It was at this moment the second discharge shook the walls, and the Vicomte de Bragelonne again disappeared in the smoke; but this time the smoke dispersed in vain; we no longer saw him standing. He was down, with his head lower than his legs, among the bushes, and the Arabs began to think of leaving their intrenchments to come and cut off his head or take his body—as is the custom with the infidels. But Monseigneur ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... one else in the roomy carriage, their airings suggested a conscious public manifestation. Or it may have been unconscious. Russian simplicity often marches innocently on the edge of cynicism for some lofty purpose. But it is a vain enterprise for sophisticated Europe to try and understand these doings. Considering the air of gravity extending even to the physiognomy of the coachman and the action of the showy horses, this quaint display might have possessed a mystic significance, but to ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... search they almost immediately returned with the well-known steel-bound, russet leather pocket-book which the old gentleman had been in the habit of carrying for years. Its valuable contents, however, had been abstracted, and the magistrate in vain endeavored to extort from the prisoner the use which had been made of them, or the place of their concealment. Indeed, he obstinately denied all knowledge of the matter. The constables, also, discovered, between the bed and sacking ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the emperor and his mother at the ensuing festival of Easter. Perceiving the growing strength of the prelate's interest, the court deemed it prudent to restrict its demand to the use of one of the churches. But all entreaties proved in vain, and drew forth the following characteristic declaration from the bishop: — "If you demand my person, I am ready to submit: carry me to prison or to death, I will not resist; but I will never betray the church of Christ. I will not call ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... The flame went out! Tommy closed the lighter with a snap and opened it. In vain. In his excitement he must have spilled all the contents, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... were to be absolutely perfect in its construction, if carelessly thrown aside after being brought home from a fire, and allowed to remain in that state till the next occasion, it would be in vain (especially in small towns, where alarms are rare) to expect to find it in a serviceable condition; some of the parts must have grown stiff, and if brought into action in this state something ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... said the captive; "but may I beg you to remember my anxious and sorrowing relations, who will strain dim eyes in vain and all the rest of that sort of thing. They'll be horribly frightened at Moolapund if I am not back there ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... There is no limit; its field is horizonless; its appeal is as universal as is the appeal of Christianity itself. It appeals to the rich, the poor, the high, the low, the cultured, the ignorant, the gifted, the stupid, the modest, the vain, the wise, the silly, the soldier, the civilian, the hero, the coward, the idler, the worker, the godly, the godless, the freeman, the slave, the adult, the child; they who are ailing in body or mind, they who have friends that are ailing in body ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... shall not go down. I am sure you believe in me, in my honesty of purpose, and also in the grand work which The Revolution seeks to do, and therefore you will not allow me to ask you in vain to come to the rescue. Yesterday's mail brought forty-three subscribers from Illinois and twenty from California. We only need time to win financial success. I know you will save me from giving the world a ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... even supposing that he did perform it? Again, the history gives an account of a certain book called the "Sleeping Bard," the most remarkable prose work of the most difficult language but one, of modern Europe,—a book, for a notice of which, he believes, one might turn over in vain the pages of any review printed in England, or, indeed, elsewhere.—So here are two facts, one literary and the other physiological, for which any candid critic was bound to thank the author, even as in Romany Rye there is a fact connected ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... for the workgirl's friends and told them a made-up story of a runaway carriage which had knocked her down and lamed her, outside my door. They believed me, and the gendarmes for a whole month tried in vain to find the author of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... features; and while thus labouring under the torments of a wounded spirit, the Eustons, rejoicing in her confusion, pointed it out as a certain proof of her conscience upbraiding her, and a fresh volley of crimes and accusations were poured forth. It was in vain that Edmund attempted to be heard, and that Charles challenged every one to fight in her behalf, and that Ellen, with distressed vociferation and tears gushing into her eyes, kept again and again exclaiming—"It is not true—I am sure it is not; there are many good people in the West Indies, ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... a patron's aid, I've prayed and preached, and preached and prayed— Applauded but ill-fed. Such vain eclat let others share; Alas, I cannot feed on air— I ask not ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... He peered in vain for the white form against the dark background. In the silence he seemed to hear ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... was left untouched. Now the bo'sun cried out to the boy to take another oar, and get ashore while still he had chance, and at that we all called out various things, one advising one thing, and another recommending some other; yet our advice was vain, for the boy moved not, at which some cried out that he was stunned. I looked now to where the brown thing had been, for the boat had moved a few fathoms from the spot, having got some way upon her before the oar was snatched, and thus I discovered that the monster had ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... Ouchi family, came into collision at Ningpo. It was a mere question of precedence, but in the sequel Zuisa was seized, Ningpo was sacked, and its governor was murdered. The arm of the shogun at that time could not reach the Ouchi family, and a demand for the surrender of Sosetsu was in vain preferred at Muromachi through the medium of the King of Ryukyu. Yoshiharu ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... she sailed triumphantly over them, Sylla's pulses tingled, and she was fired with the spirit of emulation. Although she was some little distance behind, she resolved to catch and pass the leaders, and with that intent commenced bucketing her mare along in rather merciless fashion. In vain did Jim shout words of warning. She turned a deaf ear to them. Had he not recommended that she should keep the road? Did he think the art of crossing a country was known only to the maidens of Fernshire? She was determined to catch Blanche and her cousin, whatever her escort might ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... and is the great dynamic force that lies back of all industry and progress. Return to the old standards of wage and industry in employment are unthinkable. The terrible tragedy of war which has just ended and which has brought the world to the verge of chaos and disaster would be in vain if there should ensue a return to the conditions of the past. Europe itself, whence has come the unrest which now holds the world at bay, is an example of standpatism in these vital human matters which America ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... part, the boy did not forget his father. In vain they gave him a German title and a German name, and removed the Imperial arms with their eagle; in vain they expunged the Napoleon from his name,—Napoleon, which was an object of terror to the enemies of France. His Highness, Prince Francis Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt, knew very well that ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... reply. "Yes, my son, he died—died cursing the tyrant's bullet in his lungs. He threw away his life in a vain attempt to alter human nature, to set straight that which is crooked and cannot be set straight. He sought to bring about at once that which cometh not until the lion shall eat straw like an ox. See, my son, that you do ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... measure. The sword in his hand he swung, and drove into the ash-tree up to the hilt, leaving it there, a prize to whomsoever should be able to draw it out. The men present had all made the essay in vain; guests coming and going since then had tried, equally without success. "There in silence waits the sword." There in the ash-tree. "Then I knew," Sieglinde concludes, "who it was had come to me in my sorrow. I know, too, who it is alone can conquer the sword. ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... city and its surroundings her pleasure was great: "At Pisa we say, 'How beautiful!' here we say nothing; it is enough if we can breathe." They had hoped for summer wanderings in Northern Italy; but Florence held them throughout the year except for a few days during which they attempted in vain to find a shelter from the heat among the pines of Vallombrosa. Provided with a letter of recommendation to the abbot they set forth from their rooms at early morning by vettura and from Pelago onwards, while Browning rode, Mrs Browning and Wilson in basket sledges were ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... she to the minster, / and with her many a maid. In such rich apparel / Kriemhild was arrayed, That hearty wishes many / there were made in vain: Her comely form delighted / the eye of many a ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... feel much obliged if any of your correspondents or readers can inform me of the origin of the proverb "Ex pede Herculem." In what classical author is it to be found? I have looked in vain ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 77, April 19, 1851 • Various
... use of any species of influence, but that the reward would be quicker. Therefore I always tried to look after their comfort personally; selected their camps, and provided abundantly for their subsistence, and the road they opened for me shows that my work was not in vain. I regretted deeply to have to leave such soldiers, and felt that they were sorry I was going, and even now I could not, if I would, retain other than the warmest sentiments of esteem and the tenderest affection for the officers and men of "Sheridan's ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... fetched by somebody, and that I should have no reason to complain. Yet here I was going, all through my impatience, to lose the fruits of a great expectation. (To the Messenger). Had you come but one moment later, your journey would have been in vain; I was going, this very instant, to give the girl up into this gentleman's hands; but it is well, I shall take great care of her. (Exit Messenger). (To Mascarille). You yourself have heard what this ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... proceed, the subject deep command, Awe with your navies every hostile land. Vain are their threats, their armies all are vain: They rule the balanced world who ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... us not to rejoice, but to be humbled, that a chastisement so terrible should have fallen upon any of our race; but we may be thankful for this—that this chastisement was at least not sent in vain. The great triumph in the field was not all; there came after it another great triumph—a triumph over passion, and there came up before the world the spectacle, not of armies and military commanders, but of the magnanimity ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... sadly along, with their purple and scarlet and golden garments trailing over the withering grass. When the sunshine falls upon them, they seem to smile; but it is as if they were heart-broken. But it is in vain for me to attempt to describe these autumnal brilliancies; or to convey the impression which they make on me. I have tried a thousand times, and always without the slightest self-satisfaction. Fortunately there is no need of such a record, for Nature ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... she said, "are they who, having been slain by the sword, declare the manner of their death by a continual rehearsal, and enact the deeds of their past life in a living spectacle." Then a wall hard to approach and to climb blocked their further advance. The woman tried to leap it, but in vain, being unable to do so even with her slender wrinkled body; then she wrung off the head of a cock which she chanced to be taking down with her, and flung it beyond the barrier of the walls; and forthwith the bird came to life ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... this is negligible, seeing that a tie cannot directly cause innovations. Either AEschines joined in the rejoicings, or he did not, does not allow for a decent conformity with the public movement where resistance would be vain; yet such conformity as need not be inconsistent with subsequent condemnation of the proceedings, nor incompatible with patriotic reserve founded on a belief that the rejoicings are premature ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... she sealed the letter, "it might be mean to play this trick on anybody else, but Kit plays so many jokes on other people, he deserves it. And while he's not over-conceited, yet he's just vain enough to be tickled to death with this appreciation of his music. 'Miss Harcourt' will get an answer, all right! Come on, girls, let's get ready to go ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... or perhaps suggesting it through some other equally hopeless form of hallucination. He turned and followed the man, trying to identify him through his companion, who appeared to be a petty tradesman of a shrewder, more material type. But in vain, and as the pair turned into a side street the consul slowly retraced his steps. But he had not proceeded far before the recollection that had escaped him returned, and he knew that the likeness suggested by the face he had seen was that of ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... found only in the arrangement of the lectures. The author himself could not see through the chaos. He accordingly made his table of contents a mere meagre alphabetical index. Having once attempted in vain to explain the order of his instructions, he actually gave the matter up ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... true. I had written it myself, I had tried to write a poetical epitaph, but in vain; my feelings refused to utter themselves in rhyme. My heart had gradually been filling during my lonely wanderings; it was now charged to the brim, and overflowed, I sunk upon the grave, and buried my face in the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... were made simultaneously on different parts of the town, and though the besieged fought bravely, they fought in vain, and by the next morning all but the Castle and the little fort above were in the hands of the enemy. Sir Hugh Pollard, the Governor (Sir Edward Seymour was at this time taking part in the defence of Exeter), had been wounded the night before, and, ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... faultiness proved to be about on a par with 'rummy-rum,' 'triddy' and 'toot.' The last word reminds me of a man near by who was even judged to be somewhat vain of his Maori accent and pronunciation. With one word he was indeed very particular, he could not bring himself to use that manifest corruption 'toot.' With him it was ever 'tutu.' He had to make rather a boggle ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... clever. They will run and stop and run and stop again, keeping just without his reach. He sees them here and there about him. His mind is filled with vague, delicious thoughts that come out of the very air; before he realises what he has done he has spent his years in vain pursuit and turning ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... of an hour later Laura sat in the corner of a railway-carriage, muffled in her cloak (the July evening was fresh, as it so often is in London—fresh enough to add to her sombre thoughts the suggestion of the wind in the Channel), waiting in a vain torment of nervousness for the train to set itself in motion. Her nervousness itself had led her to come too early to the station, and it seemed to her that she had already waited long. A lady and a gentleman had taken their place in the carriage (it ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... away, Burkett, the constable, was having a convulsion in his vain endeavour to extricate his cranium from a milk-can. The sounds that issued from that can ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... item of information: money being plenty now, she had taken on a servant to help about the house and run errands. She tried to tell it in a commonplace, matter-of-course way, but she was so set up by it and so vain of it that her pride in it leaked out pretty plainly. It was beautiful to see her veiled delight in this grandeur, poor old thing, but when we heard the name of the servant we wondered if she had been altogether wise; for although we were young, and often thoughtless, we had fairly good perception ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... luggage. Questioned by his wife he foolishly admitted that he was concerned with the safety of a dark gentleman from Worcester. Without more ado the good woman pushed him into his bedroom and turned the key upon him." Charles and his friends waited in vain at the inn, the "dark gentleman" as insouciant as ever, the rest of the party greatly perturbed. Urgently advised by Ellesdon (organizer of the escape) to wait no longer, the party took to the Bridport road, and so in the early morning the fugitives rode up and ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... to revert to similar circumstances in the past. The pallid shades of memory struggle in vain with the life and freedom of the present. Looked at in this light nothing can be shallower than the oft-repeated appeal to Greek and Roman examples during the French Revolution; nothing is more diverse than the genius of those nations and that of our times. Johannes von Mueller, in his Universal ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... fallen while in the innermost councils of that great party, and whose name was held in honor. His talents had now gained him a position among the ablest members of the bar; and his old political associates looked to him for aid in the crisis which was drawing near; and they looked in vain. This aspect of his political life it is my office ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... preferment in the Church as a reward for services to the State. Much of the diplomatic work of the previous reign had passed through his hands; he helped to arrange the marriage of Arthur and Catherine, and was employed in the vain attempt to obtain Margaret of Savoy as a bride for Henry VII. As Archbishop he crowned and married Henry VIII., and as Chancellor he delivered orations at the opening of the young King's first three Parliaments.[89] ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... encouraged, strengthened, throughout all the years of her wedded life. For Guy Darrell's sake, and to him alone, that pride she had cast away—trampled upon; such humility was due to him. But when the humility had been once in vain, could it be repeated—would it not be debasement? In the first experiment she had but to bow to his reproach—in a second experiment she might have but to endure his contempt. Yet how, with her sweet, earnest, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to the vain, ambitious girl before her, struck with words as one strikes in the dark, aiming at a depth and tenderness that she dimly felt ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... society would dispel his lassitude, but he cannot be persuaded to go anywhere. A short time since, I had some music in my house, but our friend Steffen stayed away. Do recommend him to be more calm and self-possessed, which I have in vain tried to effect; otherwise he can neither enjoy health nor happiness. Tell me in your next letter whether you care about my sending you a large selection of music; you can indeed dispose of what you ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... Chu-Erh of Alderbourne resembles most nearly the old Goodwood dogs. He has the same square, cobby appearance, broad chest, bowed legs, profuse feather, and large, lustrous eyes—points which are frequently looked for in vain nowadays—and his breeder and owner may well be proud ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... the soft green grass; With feet, hands, eyes, looks, lips, report your gain; Whisper it to the billows of the main, And to th' aerial Zephyrs as they pass, That old decrepit Winter—He hath slain That Host which render'd all your bounties vain." Son. to Lib., Pt. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... good for little rabbits to hear what I'm going to tell you," she whispered. "It often makes them proud and vain; but I suppose you will know it ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... a little, and Adam turned toward the beacon, that had glowed in vain for a year. It had been built on a high, altar-shaped rock, across the gorge, where it could be kept up without leaving the park. Robin went with him, and they gathered a pile of timber that insured the brilliancy of their signal until ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... house obeyed Mistress Randall, and Ambrose submitted, knowing it vain to resist, and remembering the pursuit he had recently escaped; yet the very refreshment of food and cleanliness revealed to him how stiff and weary were his limbs, though he was in no mood for rest. His uncle appeared at the door just as he ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... meritorious lawyer, had been a member of the Board of Assistants in London. They declared their dissent from the Church of Higginson; and at every risk of union and tranquillity, they insisted upon the use of the English Liturgy." "Finding it to be a vain attempt to persuade the Browns to relinquish their resolute opposition, and believing that their speeches tended to produce disorder and dangerous feuds, Endicot sent them back to England in the returning ships; and faction, deprived of its ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... of outside aid from Congress and adjacent States met with disappointment. In vain did the advocates of the canal in 1812 plead that its construction would promote "a free and general intercourse between different parts of the United States, tend to the aggrandizement and prosperity of the country, and consolidate and strengthen the ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... born in him a deep compassion for all women of her kind. In vain he waited for Pen in the library that night. But, feeling she was in deep waters, Pen had resolved ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... There were two ovens, which certainly kept the place at a temperature higher than might have been agreeable on that hot September night. Kneading troughs were ranged round the walls, and in the centre, like an altar-tomb, was the fatal "board" where, however, I sought in vain for the traces of perspiration or tears. All was scrupulously clean. In common phrase, you might have "eaten your dinner" off ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... day, what do you know of the gradual sinking beneath consumption, or the quick wasting of fever—the grand results of 'life' and dissipation—which men have undergone in these same rooms? How many vain pleaders for mercy, do you think, have turned away heart- sick from the lawyer's office, to find a resting-place in the Thames, or a refuge in the gaol? They are no ordinary houses, those. There is not a panel in the old wainscoting but what, if it were endowed with ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... little bow. Mr. Thorne, however, was kept standing at the foot of the couch, for the new dean sat in the seat of honour near the table. Mr. Arabin the while was standing with his back to the fire, his coat-tails under his arms, gazing at her with all his eyes—not quite in vain, for every now and again a glance came up at him, bright as a ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... light fell upon many dwellings only to reveal the utter darkness that reigned without and within. No need to ask why. All knew that in each darkened home stricken hearts filled with an agony of desolation struggled in vain to remember that they were mothers and wives of heroes, but could not yet lift their eyes from the ghastly wounds—the ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... 600 volumes which the list enumerates, I cannot refrain from naming two or three. I have searched over its biblical department in vain to discover mention of the celebrated "Saint Cuthbert's Gospels." It is surprising they should have forgotten so rich a gem, for although four copies of the Gospels appear, not one of them answers to its description; two are specified as "non glos;" it ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... and might be frequently met in the lanes carrying soup and other comforts to them. Her father declared, with a laugh, that she ought to have been a Sister of Charity, and did not notice the fact that all Diana's pensioners resided in the vicinity of Champdoce. But it was in vain that she wandered about, continually changing the hour of her visits. The "Savage of Champdoce" was not to be seen, nor was he even a regular attendant at Mass. At last a mere trifle changed the whole current of the young man's existence; for, a week after the conversation in which ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... and silent among those who had died for it. The battle-fire gone, for the present, Ned felt pity for the Mexicans who lay so thick about the cannon. Nor did he fail to admire the courage that had been spent so freely, but in vain. ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... being completely projected from the brain in a visible form, what remains but the mechanical imitation of it? Anybody can do that. The thing is the conception. In vain Minnie suggests the vulgar notion of acquiring facility by drawing and copying ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... and hence we have only a vague announcement of moral precepts, the utter futility and barrenness of which must be evident to every one. Catholics, agreeing with very many enlightened and zealous Protestants, believe that secular education, administered without religion, is not only vain, but exceedingly pernicious; that it is fast undermining the Christian faith of this nation; that it is rapidly filling the land with rationalism; that it is destroying the authority of the Holy Scriptures; that it is educating men ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... awakened song shall die Kissing her feet, and woo her not in vain, Until, as once, upon her breast I lie, Pardoned ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... green apples to the pigs, bran to the rabbits, and corn to the pigeons, came back presently, and could not see the big Yollande beside the pond, only her children floating far, far away on the water. Surprised she drew nearer, called, but in vain. The mother-hen had disappeared. Then only did she understand the tragedy that had occurred. She called for help. Petit-Jacques immediately opened the big sluice and the water ran out, but much too slowly for their impatience. At last they began to see the bottom, and soon the ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... down the alley swiftly, in pursuit, and gaining the street, looked anxiously up and down, in a vain hope of seeing some one who would satisfy his curiosity as to who or what it was; for it had passed him so fleetly and lightly, that he could almost believe it had been a shadow. He could see nothing, however; but catching a glimpse of Mr. Clinton, leisurely sauntering ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... palm for us (Companions!) be proffer'd, Lo! now the maidens muse and meditate matter of forethought Nor meditate they in vain; they muse a humorous something. Yet naught wonder it is, their sprites be wholly in labour. We bear divided thought one way and hearing in other: 15 Vanquish't by right we must be, since Victory loveth the heedful. Therefore at least d'ye turn your minds the task to consider, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... him at first. In self-defence I had done so, and stood by him, and done my very best to put him through. But when I began to understand that there was nothing to stand by or put through, that his talent was not talent at all, but merely a vain man's longing to possess talent—well, the situation became pretty bad. I tried to be civil. I tried to hold my tongue, indeed I did. But to be bullied and grumbled at, and expected to work, so as to give him leisure and means for the development of gifts which didn't ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... morning alone, and did not return at the usual time to dinner. We wondered at this, for Peterkin was always very punctual at the dinner-hour. As supper-time drew near, we began to be anxious about him, and at length sallied forth to search the woods. For a long time we sought in vain, but a little before dark we came upon the tracks of the hogs, which we followed up until we came to the brow of a rather steep bank or precipice. Looking over this, we beheld Peterkin lying in a state of insensibility at the foot, with his cheek resting on ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... a quarter of an hour or more in a vain attempt to find the path, John struck out boldly for a dim mass that loomed in the distance, and which he took to be Mooifontein Hill. And so it was, only instead of keeping to the left, where he would have arrived at the ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... find one. There was a handsome peacock in the grounds, and pussy admired him very much, and thought she would like to play with him. So she tried to form an acquaintance, and, as the peacock was not half so vain as he looked, she succeeded very well. They were soon so friendly that pussy could rub against him and box his ears with impunity; she even tried to scramble upon his back. He took all her play in good part, and seemed to enjoy it quite as much as she did. Perhaps he was flattered by pussy's admiration, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... his search was quite vain, and only the mare's nervous state encouraged him. Then at length, low down in the deep shadow of the bush, something caught and held his attention. ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... shouting, in vain,—shouting all kinds of things. Red Fox Scout Van Sant sprang to Fitz's side, and again we heard him say: "Run, Fitz! Over here. Make for ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... after that," writes he; "the victorious soldiers on the one hand killing, breaking into houses, plundering, sacking, roaring, and threatening; on the other hand, the subdued flying, turning their backs to be cut and slashed, and with outstretched hands begging quarter; some, in vain resisting, sold their lives as dear as they could, whilst the citizens to no purpose prayed, lamented, and bewailed. All the streets are strewed with dead and mangled bodies. Here were to be seen some that begged relief, and then again others weltering in their own gore, ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... evident to us that all pursuit was in vain until the fog had lifted. Meanwhile we left Lestrade in possession of the house while Holmes and I went back with the baronet to Baskerville Hall. The story of the Stapletons could no longer be withheld from him, but he took the blow bravely when ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... flaps from the reeds, and away wings her course up the river: Straight and swift is her flight o'er the meads, but she hardly outstrips the canoemen. See! the voyageurs bend to their oars till the blue veins swell out on their foreheads; And the sweat from their brawny breasts pours; but in vain their Herculean labor; For the oars of Tamdoka are ten, and but six are the oars of the Frenchman, And the red warriors' burden of men is matched by the voyageurs' luggage. Side by side, neck and neck, for a mile, still they strain their strong arms to the utmost, Till rounding a ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... upon a submerged rock, and there we were held fast. In vain the Indians, using their big oars as poles, endeavoured to push the boat back into deep water. Finding this impossible, some of them sprang out into the water which threatened to engulf them; but, with the precarious footing the ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... neglect, he still prosecuted his design; and, in 1678, published the third part, which still leaves the poem imperfect and abrupt. How much more he originally intended, or with what events the action was to be concluded, it is vain to conjecture. Nor can it be thought strange that he should stop here, however unexpectedly. To write without reward is sufficiently unpleasing. He had now arrived at an age when he might think it proper ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... sailed up the Esquimaux river for six or eight miles, spending a few hours at a house situated on the bank. The day was warm and but little wind blowing, and the swarms of black flies were absolutely terrific. In vain we frantically waved our net among them, allured by some rare moth; after making a few desperate charges in the face of the thronging pests, we had to retire to the house, where the windows actually swarmed ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... white thought of Nance, was always the black background of the whole circumstances of the case, and the grim fact of Tom Hamon's death, and he pondered this last with knitted brows from every point of view, and strove in vain for a gleam of light on ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... On his seventh birthday his mother dressed him and herself carefully and rode over to the lonely graveyard. She did not go flower-laden. Rather, she went as was her custom, to spend an hour with the quiet dead in silent thought. Hugh Noland's sacrifice had not been in vain. The life he had laid down had, whatever its mistakes and weaknesses, been a happy one to himself, and had carried a ray of cheer to all with whom it had come in contact, while his death had pointed toward an ideal of purity, in spite of failures. That brief period during ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... of professional forestry, and if no other award had been made than the grand prize by the scientific jury that served in that Department, we would feel as though our efforts has been appreciated and that our labors had not been in vain. ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... killed; but we very soon defeated them. These people were the most powerful archers I had yet seen, as they were able to drive their arrows through two suits of well quilted cotton armour; and their country is mostly composed of a marsh which quakes under foot. It was in vain therefore to think of pursuing the natives in such an impracticable country; and as they treated all our offers of peace with contempt, we judged it best to return to our colony of Coatzacualco; which we did through the districts of Guimango, Nacaxa, Xuica, Teotitlan, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... quarter-deck hail was being heard from below. Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale? But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in the act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his hand into the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove to make himself heard without it. Meantime his ship was still increasing the distance between. While in various silent ways the seamen of the Pequod were evincing their observance of this ominous incident ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... she did," replied the prince, with just a suspicion of vain-glory. "Nobody would be fool enough to give a blanket for you when you was ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... desperation with his Celtic cavalry unprotected by any coats of mail on the iron-clad lancers of the enemy; but the death-despising valour of his Celts, who seized the lances with their hands or sprang from their horses to stab the enemy, performed its marvels in vain. The remains of the corps, including their leader wounded in the sword-arm, were driven to a slight eminence, where they only served for an easier mark to the enemy's archers. Mesopotamian Greeks, who were accurately acquainted with ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... I might have expected it. Gentlemen," and he turned toward the expectant group, "this man and I have a personal grievance of long standing unsettled. I have sought him for months in vain. When he came last night to our assistance, before I even consented to accept his services I insisted that no occurrence of the defence should prevent our meeting if we both survived. Now he endeavors to sneak away like a whipped cur. I demand satisfaction at his hands, and if it is ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... departed, saying they would come again shortly to decide about the silk, I could not utter a word to detain them. Nay, by the beard of the Prophet, I could do nothing but gaze at the houri till she was out of my sight. For three long days I waited in vain for their return. At last my heart began to be sick within me, and I feared I should never again behold the lovely maiden who had bewitched my soul, when on the fourth day I saw two females approaching, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the landvogt is in prison, Let us all rejoice, Sigismund is our choice. Kyrie Eleison! Had he not been snared, evil had it fared, But now that he is ta'en, his craft is all in vain. Kyrie Eleison!" ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... civil wars followed in the train of foreign conquests; Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Antony, Augustus, sacrificed the State to their own ambitions. Good men lamented and protested, and hid themselves; Cato, Cicero, Brutus, spoke in vain. Degenerate morals kept pace with civil contests. Rome revelled in the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, was intoxicated with power, became cruel and tyrannical, and after sacrificing the lives of citizens to fortunate generals, yielded at last her liberties, and imperial despotism began ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... was not given to vain boasting. The open-house festivities of Christmas were approaching. He himself had won the entree to an extraordinary number of fashionable houses; and this evening here was Tom, come with his patron to a nobleman's ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... by the Maker Heights on the right, and the high cliffs on the left and in the bend. Hard by are Mount Edgcumbe Park, and the Hamoaze in full view. Enough: I will say no more as to the description of it, lest my readers may think me vain. But I cannot refrain from asking in this connection: Who would not be ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... were as violent as they were vain. "There's enough," she said simply. "Here are the things you bought. Now go out of the back door and cut across the fields. It's the shortest ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... weakness and disappointment, seizing upon the symbol of the cross, (of which the effigy was always near at hand,) and by a kiss and a tear seeking to ally her fainting heart with the mystic company of the elect who would find admission to the joys of paradise. But the dogmas were vain, because she could not grapple them to her heart; the cross was vain, because it was an empty symbol; the kisses and the tears left her groping blindly for the key that would surely unlock for her the wealth of the celestial kingdom. In this attitude of mind, wearied by struggle and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... my searching into the name and identity of my little strangers in gray had been in vain. But a direful suspicion was growing within me. That heavy black line from the eye! The strongly marked wings! I turned with dread to a family I had not thought of trying—the shrikes. There were the markings, too true! But that delicate blue-gray was not "slate color." Still, people see colors ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... certain essential doctrines as familiar forms of old. Dr. Moffat remarks, "To speak of the Creation, the Fall and the Resurrection, seemed more fabulous, extravagant and ludicrous to them than their own vain stories of lions and hyaenas." Again, "The Gospel appeared too preposterous for the most foolish to believe".(2) While the Zulus declared that they used to accept their own myths without inquiry,(3) it was a Zulu ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... canopies of costly state when sleep refuses to weigh his eyelids down or steep his senses in forgetfulness. The king is credited with control of every comfort; but he is denied by nature comforts which she places freely at command of the humblest. So again does Richard II. soliloquize on the vain pride which imbues the king, while death all the time grins at his pomp and keeps his own court within the hollow crown that rounds the prince's mortal temples. Yet again, to identical effect is Henry VI.'s ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... nor try in vain to fix The How and Why—some wondrous Brew to mix; Better be jocund with a calm Two-score Than sadden ...
— The Golfer's Rubaiyat • H. W. Boynton
... When the alma Venus, the life-giving and joy-giving power of nature, so fondly cherished by the Pagan world, could not save her followers from self- dissatisfaction and ennui, the severe words of the apostle came bracingly and refreshingly: "Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." Throughout age after age, and generation after generation, our race, or all that part of our race which was most living and progressive, was baptized into ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... god disdainfully subjected to the misfortunes of a man. In reading this wonderful performance, which in pure and sustained sublimity is perhaps unrivalled in the literature of the world, we lose sight entirely of the cheerful Hellenic worship; and yet it is in vain that the learned attempt to trace its vague and mysterious metaphysics to any old symbolical religion of the East. More probably, whatever theological system it shadows forth, was rather the gigantic conception of ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... their absence that gave her face a new expression. When she went down town we noticed that her hats were more like the hats the other women in our town wore; but she still affected extravagant footgear, as is right and proper for a stout woman who has cause to be vain of her feet. We noticed that her trips down town were rare that spring and summer. She used to come home laden with little bundles; and before supper she would change her street clothes for a neat, washable ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... the frost and snow really did come, and the Chicadees were in a bad way. Indeed, they were frightened out of their wits, and dashed hither and thither, seeking in vain for some one to set them aright on the way to the warm land. They flew wildly about the woods, till they were truly crazy. I suppose there was not a squirrel-hole or a hollow log in the neighbourhood that some Chicadee did not enter to inquire if this was the Gulf of Mexico. But no one ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... coming reaction. Mrs. Ferrars possessed most feminine qualities, and many of them in excess. She could not reason, but her intuition was remarkable. She was of opinion that "these people never could go on," and that they must necessarily be succeeded by William and his friends. In vain her husband, when she pressed her views and convictions on him, would shake his head over the unprecedented majority of the government, and sigh while he acknowledged that the Tories absolutely did not now command one fifth of the House of Commons; his shakes ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... are, said he, 'but four ways of arriving at this science, viz.—1, by future experiments; 2, past experiments; 3, traditions; 4, physical reasons.' But he was not very hopeful as to the progress of the suggested researches. It is vain, he said, to think at present of future experiments, because many ages are required to procure a competent stock of them. As for the past, it is true that past experiments are within our reach, 'but it is a work of ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... a numerous population, after which we returned to the ships. Hoisting our anchors, we sailed along shore with the wind at S.S.E. for above forty leagues, frequently endeavouring to penetrate into the land, but in vain, as the flux of the sea was so rapid from the S.E. to the N.W. that it was impossible for the vessels to stem the current. In consideration of this circumstance, we resolved to steer a course to the N.W. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... Vain hope, however, for Miss Williams, having closely questioned various ones without gaining any satisfaction, walked straight to the closet and opened the door, when the light from her candle flared directly upon Jennie's white, frightened ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Jack took a crying fit one cold night, much to the annoyance of four or five chiefs, who had come to our lodge to talk and smoke. In vain did the mother shake and scold him with the severest Cheyenne words, until Smith, provoked beyond endurance, took the squalling youngster in his hands; he shu-ed and shouted and swore, but Jack had gone too far to be easily pacified. He then sent for a bucket of water from the river and poured ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... a little additional money. One of the latest is of the seventeenth century, when the daughter of the house was "the beautiful Nicolaide de Blonay, before whom many adorers had bent the knee in vain. Among them, a certain Tavel de Villars, vanquished the proud beauty by his constancy. But the marriage was delayed. Officer in the service of France, Tavel was detained by his military duties. In the mean time Jean-Francois ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... Defoe cannot be held up as an exemplar of moral conduct, yet if he is judged by the measures that he laboured for and not by the means that he employed, few Englishmen have lived more deserving than he of their country's gratitude. He may have been self-seeking and vain-glorious, but in his political life self-seeking and vain-glory were elevated by their alliance with higher and wider aims. Defoe was a wonderful mixture of knave and patriot. Sometimes pure knave seems to be uppermost, sometimes pure patriot; but the mixture is so complex, and ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... said, and all in vain were her mother's entreaties to let matters take their course. Anna only replied by going deliberately on with the preparations for her sudden journey. She was going to find Rose, and blessing her for this kindness ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... change! In vain I look For haunts in which my boyhood trifled; The level lawn, the trickling brook, The trees I climbed, the beds I rifled. The church is larger than before, You reach it by a carriage entry: It holds three ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... understood it. There had been no definite plans ahead. Tacitly, it had been assumed, he thought, that he was to return with them to Montreal and England. This gentle question, then, was Elizabeth's way of telling him that his hopes were vain and his journey fruitless. ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... some who make too much of vain Shews, and of the British Antiquities, have given out to the World, and written some things to that purpose, that Arthur some time King of Britain had both Knowledge of those parts (the New World) and some Dominion in them; for they find (as ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams
... torpedoed without warning or assuring the lives of crew and passengers. And yet by virtue of his pacific principles this promise could not be forcibly extracted until every other possible method had been attempted in vain. Unquestionably he was supported in his policy by many, perhaps most, thoughtful people, although wherever support was given him in the East it was generally grudging. Such a representative and judicial mind as that of ex-President Taft favored ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... Dostoieffski is in his method as an artist, as a man he is full of human pity for all, for those who do evil as well as for those who suffer it, for the selfish no less than for those whose lives are wrecked for others and whose sacrifice is in vain. Since Adam Bede and Le Pere Goriot no more powerful novel has been ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... to accomplish anything go out to my friend Bjorn in Haganes in Fljot. He has a good boat; ask him from me to lend it to you, and then you will be able to sail on to Drangey. It seems to me that if you find Grettir well and hearty your journey will have been in vain. One thing know for certain: do not slay him in open fight, for there are enough men to avenge him. Do not slay Illugi if you can help it. I fear that my counsel may not ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... respects her responsibilities and duties; for the punishment you would otherwise incur is terrible: you would lose your love. Oh! to live loveless, to tear flesh from flesh, to belong no more to the one who is half of your very self, to live on in pain and agony, bereft of the one you have loved! In vain would you stretch out your arms to him; he would turn away from you. You would yearn for happiness, but you would find in your heart nothing but shame and bitterness. Hear me, my daughter, it is in your own conduct, in your obedience, in your purity, in your love, that God has established ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... at the spinney begins to-day," she observed complacently, addressing herself to Lavendar and alluding to the rooting up of an old copse and the planting of a new one—an improvement she had long planned, though hitherto in vain. "The young trees ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... suo, and speaks of Balaam as the best prophet of his time, but with a disposition ill adapted to resist temptation. Philo describes him in the Life of Moses as a great magician; elsewhere[8] he speaks of "the sophist Balaam, being," i.e. symbolizing, "a vain crowd of contrary and warring opinions"; and again[9] as "a vain people"; both phrases being based on a mistaken etymology of the name Balaam. The later Targums and the Talmuds represent him as a typical sinner; and there are the usual worthless Rabbinical ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... always open; we found that at Haarlem open and a numerous congregation listening to a very respectable, venerable-looking preacher, whose voice and manner, style and action approached perfection. His eloquence, however, seemed to be in vain, for I observed many sleepers; and what had an odd effect, though customary in their country, the men with their hats on; they take them off, I believe, during prayers, but put them down during the sermon; we ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... which divided morning school and the free time before dinner the three friends mooned about together, trying in vain to regard the future in a more cheerful light, and to make plans for keeping touch of each other by an interchange of letters and a possible ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... cruel," said the girl. But she spoke as though she were arguing against her own conviction. "He cannot be so vain—so spoiled," she protested, "that because one woman fails to fall on her knees to him, he ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... you, gentlemen, that we are in safety. The keenest eye could not see that the panel opens, and, being backed with brick, it gives no hollow sound when struck. They will search in vain for it." ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... be said to be the act of two nations or two sets of nations, by means of which each tries to get its way by physical force. The peaceful methods of diplomacy having been exhausted, arguments and threats having been tried in vain, both parties resort to the oldest and yet the latest court; the same court as that to which resort the lions of the desert, the big and little fishes of the sea, the fowls of the air, and even the blades of grass ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... that breathes from the grassy quadrangles and stone walls of halls and colleges—was at home in the Bodleian; and at Blenheim quite superseded the powdered Cicerone that attended us, and that pointed in vain with his wand to commonplace beauties in matchless pictures. As another exception to the above reasoning, I should not feel confident in venturing on a journey in a foreign country without a companion. ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... like Alexandre Dumas or Leigh Hunt, and as in the case of Alexander Hamilton, the point still seems to be waiting for final proof. The assertion is persistent, however, and there can be little doubt that such is the case. The standard life of Browning,[15] after wrestling in vain with the problem, dismisses ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... he went from place to place, and did not fear to return to Rome in the travesty of a pilgrim. The story of his adventures would fill many pages, but Rome is not concerned with them. In vain he appealed to adventurers, to enthusiasts, and to fanatics to help in regaining what he had lost. None would listen to him, no man would draw the sword. He came to Prague at last, obtained an audience of the Emperor Charles the Fourth, appealed ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... fields are as brown as if Winter was there; But the violets are there by the dykes and the dell, Where I played "hen and chickens" and heard the church bell, Which called me to prayer-book and sermons in vain: O when shall I see ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... to seek for him a refuge. She thought she had friends who would shelter him, as Madame Hugo had sheltered Lahorie during the troublous times of the first Empire. She applied to friend after friend in vain. She wept, she implored, she tried to bribe,—in vain. The citizens were too much intimidated to dare shelter one of the proscribed,—even Victor Hugo, perhaps the most honored man in the nation. Madame Drouet, however, would not yield to despair, but pursued her way with undaunted ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... three hundred thousand Turks, after having appealed in vain for aid to the whole of Christendom, had not been willing to survive the loss of his empire, and had been found in the midst of the dead, close to the Tophana Gate; and on the 30th of May, 1453, Mahomet ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God's ministers, ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... incredible projection of his own mind into other people's matters, he was able to tax me to my face with an attempt to win his former fiance's affections. I tried to choke him off. I used every ounce of bluff I possessed. In vain. I left Walpole Street in a state approaching ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... vain to develop the secrets which lie hidden in the sea. Imagination has been at work for ages, and in some cases has pictured the bottom of ocean as a sort of marine paradise, a nautical Eden, with charming grottoes, spacious gardens, coral forests, ridges of golden sands, and heaps of precious ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent, As I by thine a wife: this is a match, And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine; But how, is to be question'd: for I saw her, As I thought, dead; and have, in vain, said many A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far,— For him, I partly know his mind,—to find thee An honourable husband.—Come, Camillo, And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty Is richly noted, and here justified By us, a pair of kings.—Let's ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... have protested but she knew it would be in vain. She submitted somewhat sullenly and walked down to the shore in silence. Clark Bryant strode beside her, humouring her mood. He was a tall, stout man, with an ugly, clever, sarcastic face. He was as clever as he looked, and was one of the younger millionaires ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... youth. See how brightly the candle burns. From boundless stretches of space the icy wind blows, circling, careering, and tossing the flame. In vain. Bright and clear the candle burns. Yet the wax is dwindling, consumed by the fire. ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... put his hands in his pockets and took them out again, twisted his eyes in a vain attempt to see the whole extent of the ink spot on his collar, and finally, standing quite upright, and looking straight before him, said in a very modest and yet manly way, 'I am glad you know that I was not really idle, father; but I didn't work so hard ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... we met with a Texian constable going to arrest a murderer. He asked us what o'clock it was, as he had not a watch, and told us that a few minutes' ride would bring us to Boston, a new Texian city. We searched in vain for any vestiges which could announce our being in the vicinity of even a village; at last, however, emerging from a swamp, through which we had been forcing our way for more than an hour, we descried between the trees a long building, made of the rough logs of the black pine, and as we ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... a humdrum kind. What we vaguely had in mind Was some new sensation or Thrill we never felt before. Vain desire! ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... certainly come against the boat and sink it. Besides, how could one land on the opposite bank among willows which would scuttle the boat, and with a flood of unknown extent? The leader concluded, then, that the operation was physically impossible. In vain did the emperor tempt them with an offer of 6,000 francs per man; even this could not persuade them, though, as they said, they were poor boatmen with families, and this sum would be a fortune to them. But, as I have already said, some lives must be sacrificed to save those of the greater ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... returned at last, he found his own boat safe enough, and he really could not tell if any of the others had walked away; but he looked around in vain for any signs of his late comrade. Not that he spent much time or wasted any great pains in searching for him; and he muttered to himself, ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... and heather, on the breezy, open moor; All within was sun and shelter, and the wealth of beauty's store. But I did not heed the fragrance of flow'ret or of tree, For my eyes were on that rosebud, and it grew too high for me. In vain I strove to reach it through the tangled mass of green, It only smiled and nodded behind its thorny screen. Yet through that summer morning I lingered near the spot: Oh, why do things seem sweeter if we possess them not? My garden buds were blooming, but all that I could ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... off to Chatteris that day, but in vain attempted to see Miss Fotheringay, for whom he left a letter, enclosed to her father. The enclosure was returned by Mr. Costigan, who begged that all correspondence might end; and after one or two further attempts ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Michigan man ever heard the stentorian call of the captain, for sound travels only thirteen hundred feet to the second, and the cow was certainly going considerably faster than that; and, besides, he was himself engaged, with a terrific earnestness, in a vain effort to extricate a word out of his throat, which stuck like a wad in a smutty gun—a word of undoubted Saxon origin and of expressive force, and which has saved more blood-vessels from bursting ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... turned to her sister, not reproachfully but earnestly: "Sure?" she exclaimed. "Of course I am sure. I know myself. You have a far better mind than mine, but I have—well, I know what I have. I don't believe I am vain, but I know, sister, that you and I must rebuild the fortunes of our house, or worse will come to us than we have ever known. You are sure to do your part because you have intellect—brains. You ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... the coach; saw the pretended William Reed, and proved him to be an impostor. The stranger, who was a pious attorney, was soon legally satisfied of the barber's identity, and told him that he had advertised him in vain. Providence had now thrown him in his way in a most extraordinary manner, and he had great pleasure in transferring a great many thousand pounds to a worthy man, the rightful heir of the property. Thus was man's extremity God's opportunity. Had the poor barber possessed one half-penny, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... long drive, and more than once I was nearly killed through hanging my body from the cab window in a vain attempt to catch a glimpse of Dorice in one or other of the motors that passed us on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... progress of the human mind; and, above all, let it never be forgotten, that books of this description contain a mass of materials for the elucidation of the manners and customs of the age, which would in vain be sought for in any ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... very anxious to see Lucheux, as well as Arras, which is not far from Amiens, and, a vast ruin, is said to be by moonlight the most beautiful sight on earth. We both besieged the War Office. But in vain. The great Battle of the Somme had just begun. They are so polite at the Ministere de la Guerre! If I had only thought of it a month earlier. Or if I could remain in France a month or two longer? But helas! They could not take the responsibility of letting an American woman go so ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... work in brass, A tinker is my station; I've travell'd round all Christian ground In this my occupation. I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroll'd In many a noble squadron; But vain they search'd when off I march'd To go an' clout ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dozen men came forward, and from them the sheriff chose two. Fairchild turned to say good-by to Anita. In vain. Already Maurice Rodaine had escorted her, apparently against her will, to a far end of the dance hall, and there was quarreling with her. Fairchild hurried to join the sheriff and his two deputies, just starting ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... however, distancing them, when we found that the river made a sharp bend, and ran back close to the village we had at first seen. At the same time we caught sight of four or five large canoes putting off from the shore, evidently for the purpose of intercepting us. In vain we attempted to escape; the canoes completely surrounded us, and unless we had resolved, rather than yield, to sacrifice our lives, resistance would have been useless. We merely, therefore, warded off with our paddles the blows aimed at our heads, while we cried out ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... are grown to such a degree of violence and malignity as to render all ordinary remedies vain and frivolous. In such a deplorable situation, an adherence to the common forms of business appears to us rather as an apology to cover a supine neglect of duty than the means of performing it in a manner adequate to the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... little harbor of San Diego, its low spit of sand, where the water runs so deep; the opposite flats, where the Alert grounded in starting for home; the low hills, without trees, and almost without brush; the quiet little beach;—but the chief objects, the hide houses, my eye looked for in vain. They were gone, all, and left no ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... those suspicions to himself. Albert may have suspected also, but he, too, said nothing. The censored correspondence between Greenwich and the training camp traveled regularly, and South Harniss damsels looked and longed in vain. He saw them, he bowed to them, he even addressed them pleasantly and charmingly, but to him they were merely incidents in his walks to and from the post-office. In his mind's eye he saw but one, and she, alas, was ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Murray and Mr Braine trying in vain to penetrate the darkness, so as to make out whether any one was near. Then the doctor's steps were heard overhead, and his voice came down so distinctly, that both felt how a ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... herbs of the field, and the prey of carnivorous animals proceeds, either directly or indirectly, from the same source. It is, therefore, through this channel that the simple elements become a part of the animal frame. We should in vain attempt to derive nourishment from carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, either in their separate state, or combined in the mineral kingdom; for it is only by being united in the form of vegetable combination, that they ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... with some confusion and Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand To expound their vain and visionary gleams. I've known some odd ones which seemed really planned Prophetically, or that which one deems A "strange coincidence," to use a phrase By which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... writhing, frothing as he fought in vain to snap his jaws upon the cord he could not touch. And night grew horrible with the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... I might try for hours to explain it to you in vain; but I'll just give you an instance that'll show you better than all my dissertations on the subject, and I was present myself when it happened, more by token, it was the first time I ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... have made from anger for the destruction of all the worlds, must not go in vain. I cannot consent to be one whose anger and vows are futile. Like fire consuming dry woods, this rage of mine will certainly consume me if I do not accomplish my vow. The man that represseth his wrath that hath been excited by (adequate) cause, becometh ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... there be any use in verifying so slight a verbal reference to Panormitan, one of whose huge folios, Venet. 1473, I have examined in vain, perhaps the object might be attained by the assistance of such a book as Thomassin's Vetus et Nova Ecclesiae Disciplina, in the chapter "De Episcopis Titularibus," ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... the patience and skill of forgotten men, and make their efforts not quite useless. It was no rude savage that carved the Palenque cross; and if we can discover what his efforts meant, his labor and his learning have not been all in vain. It will be one more proof that human effort, even misdirected, is not lost, but that it comes, later or earlier, "to forward the general deed ...
— Studies in Central American Picture-Writing • Edward S. Holden
... always true to the letter. But, nevertheless, when this thing which he still chose to pursue should have been put absolutely beyond his reach, he would not allow his calm bosom to be harassed by a vain regret. He was a man too whole at every point,—so Alice told herself,—to allow his happiness to be ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... with a half-defined purpose of finding Webber and inducing him to give up the vain hope of rivalling the editor of The Investor's Monthly. He had always liked the clerk, and when he had helped to pull him out of the market without loss before, he had thought all would go well. But the optimism of the hour ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... have attempted to describe, when I say that we have no revenges to satisfy, no hatreds to appease. We do not ask that anyone shall be punished. We only desire that the Nation shall recognize and remember the grand fidelity of our dead comrades, and take abundant care that they shall not have died in vain. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... the bishop a solemn auto-da-fe was made of all this literature, in the presence of the city officials and the clergy, and the most revolting passages were read in public, "in order to acquaint everybody with the conceited and vain promises of the demons," as the pious writer of the ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... at his subject, let the result be what it might. Indeed he had no hopes as to a favourable result. He had slept upon it, as people say when they intend to signify that they have lain awake, and had convinced himself that all eloquence would be vain. Was it natural that a man should give up his intended wife, simply because he was asked? Gordon's present feeling was an anxious desire to be once more on board the ship that should take him again to the diamond-fields, so that ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... have surprised him greatly to know that Corona looked for him in vain wherever she went, and that, not seeing him, she grew silent and pale, and gave short answers to the pleasant speeches men made her. Every one missed Giovanni. He wrote to Valdarno to say that he had been suddenly obliged to visit Saracinesca in ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... an ordinary child, all this petting would have had an injurious effect upon her mind. But, fortunately she had that rare simplicity, young as she was, which lifted her above the dangers to which many might have been subjected. Instead of being made vain, she only felt grateful for the many kindnesses bestowed upon her by her father and mother and brother Jack, as she was wont to call them. Indeed, it had not been thought best to let her know that such was not the relation in which they really stood ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... effort to attain this unity was the one thought dominating the career of his successor, whose pompous introduction to life naturally inspired him with a high idea of his own rank, and led him to dream of greater dignities for himself and his successor than a bundle of titles,—a splendid, vain, fatal ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... lowest gutter-depths, could not escape the same danger wholly. In the upper air the fairy-tale flies too often in prescribed gyres; and the most modern kinds of all—the novel of analysis, the problem-novel, and all the rest of them—strive in vain to avoid the curse of—as Rabelais put something not dissimilar long ago—"fatras a la douzaine." "All the stories are told," saith the New, even as the Old, Preacher; all but the highest genius is apt to show ruts, brain-marks, common orientations of route and specifications of design. Only the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... attached to a long line, while the harpoon shaft, by an ingenious arrangement, will slip free from the point. Now, while the shaft remains in the hands of the hunter, the line begins running rapidly down through the hole, for the seal in a vain endeavor to free itself dives deeply. The other end of the line also remaining in the hands of the hunter is fastened to the shaft of the harpoon, and there is a struggle. In time, the seal, unable to return to its hole for air, is drowned, and ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... at first to decide between the two claimants and settle the dispute, but all in vain. La Tour made an attempt in 1640 to surprise D'Aunay at Port Royal, but the result was that he as well as his bride, who had just come from France, were themselves taken prisoners. The Capuchin friars induced D'Aunay to set them all at liberty on condition that La Tour should keep the ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... had any sense," she said to herself, "he would waste no time on that vain and frivolous rose. He is far too good a ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... supreme will; And yonder torch light of eternity, Blazing into heaven, candle of omnipotence— Lights thy poor, wandering human midgets— An hundred miles at sea, with lofty hope— That nothing exists or dies in vain; But changed into another form lives on Through countless, boundless, blazing, brilliant worlds Beyond this transient, ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... we live again or not as long as we live cleanly and do our work honestly while we are alive? Surely if we leave this world a little bit better, a little bit richer in knowledge, than we find it, these poor little lives of ours, such as they are, and that's not much—will not have been lived in vain. Of course, as you know, I'm just a common, low-down materialist who can't rise to the poetry of things as you can with this gorgeous theory ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... not, however, long amused by these vain chimeras, which soon vanished before other reflections of more importance and solidity. His imagination, it must be owned, was at all times too chaste to admit those overweening hopes, which often mislead the mind ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... and join in the chorus with me: "Vain 'tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly! Play then the ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... know which, if it isn't repeated," Bandy-legs observed, sagely; for not wanting to be outdone by Toby he had racked his brain in vain to find another possible explanation, and ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... part which the Seventh Division took in this front-rank battle, I cannot do better than quote from The Times of December 16, 1914, in describing the heroic effort of our troops in resisting the furious onslaughts of the Germans in their vain endeavour to reach Calais; to which point the Kaiser had commanded a road 'to be forced at ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... those whom I have loved the best in the world—he tells me of it with a calm look, an eye composed, an unfaltering tongue.—Is this—can it be natural? Is De Lacy sunk so low, that his dishonour shall be told by a common strolling minstrel, as calmly as if it were a theme for a vain ballad? Perhaps thou wilt make it one, ha!" as he concluded, darting a ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... done, "mean and disgusting", and said so, stormily; but of course was not believed. Usually too proud to defend herself, she here returned to the charge again and again; for the hint of connivance had touched her on the raw. But she strove in vain to prove her innocence: she could not get her enemies to grasp the abysmal difference between merely making up a story about people, and laying hands on others' property; if she could do the one, she was capable of the other; and her companions remained convinced that, if she had not ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... smart bird," said Jerry and tried in vain to teach the parrot to say "Jerry." Pedro said "Caramba" again and a few Spanish words Jerry did not understand, ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... bill. No one noticed anything special about him; he was quiet, gentle, and friendly. He must have shot himself at about midnight, though it was strange that no one had heard the shot, and they only raised the alarm at midday, when, after knocking in vain, they had broken in the door. The bottle of Chateau d'Yquem was half empty, there was half a plateful of grapes left too. The shot had been fired from a little three-chambered revolver, straight ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... as historically accurate statements of fact when they are difficult to credit as such? Especially why should we do so in the face of the obvious fact that the earlier part of the Old Testament is simply tradition, handed down, orally at first, by an intensely patriotic and rather vain race? Sacred tradition it is, to be sure; but that should not deter us from endeavoring to analyze it in the light of reason. Besides, hasn't it ever occurred to you that in a translation from the original Hebrew, some of the finer meanings ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... up to the Duke and touched his bridle, so that the horse reared; then produced her presents, and awaited the annual acknowledgment. But the Duke, still sulky, would scarcely speak to her; in vain she fingered her fur-pouch. At last she said in her "level whine," that as well as to bring the presents, she had come to pay her duty to "the new Duchess, the youthful beauty." As she said that, an idea came to the Duke, and the smirk returned to his sulky face. ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... Julian, who had not spoken in vain with the deserting Canadians, and knew a good deal about Bougainville's camp. Then afraid of being asked the password, he hastily added, still speaking French, "Have a care; the English will hear us! The provision boats from ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a through ticket to Tasili Ahaggar—if you wanted to go there—and that the shores of the Sahara became the Riviera of the world, crowded with health resorts and watering-places—so that Pax had not lived in vain, nor Thornton, nor Bill Hood, nor Bennie Hooker, ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... that intoxicates. Or in the still twilight, by the side of her whose every note makes his pulse to tremble with the breathing of song, and the incense of flowers, and forgetfulness of the world, to feel the thought stealing over his heart that perhaps he is not uncared for. It is sweet, but vain; sweet and vain as the smiling, blushing slumber of a young girl. Dream on! dream on! for if you can always sleep, what will matter to you the storms and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... and to all appearance a stupid young officer of the gendarmerie. The pair lived as such people do, and again made prey of Madame de Boulainvilliers, in 1781, at Strasbourg. The lady was here the guest of the sumptuous, vain, credulous, but honourable Cardinal Rohan, by this time a man of fifty, and the fanatical adorer of Cagliostro, with his philosopher's stone, his crystal gazers, his seeresses, his Egyptian mysteries, and his powers of healing ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... ten and, now quite calm, knelt in front of the safe. He turned the four knobs with careful attention. Next, he examined the bunch of keys, selected one of them, then another, and attempted, in vain, to insert them ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... that is progress. Compared to this, a mere education of the mind is vain and dull—a hoarding of facts, as coins are hoarded; a gathering of vanities, as clothes and adornments are gathered together. His soul cried out within him: Teach the Spirit of God. "The soul who ascendeth to worship God is plain and true."... Teach the Spirit, ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... of Zurich had only submitted to the Reformation with reluctance. Others, on the contrary, thought the grievances in the paper of the Zurich Council exaggerated. "When have we refused you justice?" said they. "How often have you appealed to us in vain?"—"Yes," rejoined the treasurer Funk, an active young man, and one of Zwingli's warmest adherents—"we know your ways of doing justice. That unhappy pastor made an appeal and you referred him to the executioner." ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... the fault of the recipient. As an elephant made of wood or an antelope made of leather, even so is a Brahmana that has not studied the Vedas. All the three have nothing but names.[121] As a eunuch is unproductive with women, as a cow is unproductive with a cow, as a bird lives in vain that is featherless, even so is a Brahmana that is without mantras. As grain without kernel, as a well without water, as libations poured on ashes, even so is a gift to a Brahmana void of learning. An unlearned Brahmana is an enemy (to all) and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... and left with "Hello, Frank," "How are you, Dan?" "Evening, Charley," and so on. Occasionally the Colonel swept off his hat, with elaborate deference, to a woman, but I looked in vain for My Lady in Black. I did not see her—nor did I see her peer, despite the fact that now and then I observed a face and figure ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... and joyously the portion of soil Providence has committed to our care. Let us never be hindered or distracted by ambitious thoughts, that we could do better, or a false zeal tempting us to forsake our daily task with the vain desire to surpass our neighbors.... Let this one thought occupy our minds. To do well what is given us to do, for this is all that GOD requires at our hands. It may be summed up in four ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... anything that was visible. As far as the darkness would permit, I explored the interior, which, after all, was neither more nor less than a small closet. From what cause it had been shut out from the apartment to which it had belonged, it were vain to conjecture. All that was really cognisable to the senses presented itself in the shape of a shallow recess, some four feet by two, utterly unfurnished, save with some inches of accumulated dust and rubbish, that made it a work of great peril to grope out the fact of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... are in vain trying to crush us. Every wrong will come back to the authors. That is our firm belief, and therefore you will find no despondency in Bohemia, but only firm determination not only to defend to the last ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... scarcely keep her feet under the crushing force of these blows. In what vain manner had she, an inexperienced girl, blind to all but a noble purpose, contended with men whose cunning had sufficed to snare the chiefs of her people! Worse even, she had herself forged the weapons for the destruction of all she had hoped to save. Iddilcar watched ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... progress, although, here and there, stiff opposition was encountered. Soon the summit of the ridge was gained, and the men swept on and disappeared over the crest, leaving the mopping-up parties to complete their work. The Tanks bravely waddled up after them, in a vain effort to keep up, for the attacking infantry went so fast, in the first stages, that they easily outstripped those ponderous giants and left ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... before the couente, was right sharpely rebuked by the Abbesse, for puttinge of their house to so great a shame. She, to excuse hir-selfe, sayde, she was forced by a yonge man, that came into hir bedde chaumbre, agaynst whom (beynge stronger than she) it was in vain for hir to striue, and force coulde not be imputed to hir for a cryme. Then sayde the Abbesse: thou mought est haue bene helde excused, if thou haddest cryed. The Nunne sayed: so woulde I haue doone, had it not beene in our Dortour[300] ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... Mather used it also. At the time of the Revolution the Old South was looted, and this document (along with many others) disappeared absolutely. No trace whatever could be found of it: the most exhaustive search was in vain, and scholars and historians mourned for a loss that was irreparable. And then, after half a century, after the search had been entirely abandoned, it was discovered, quite by chance, by one who fortunately knew its value, tucked into the Library of Fulham ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... a place of shelter in vain they eventually took refuge in the Parthenon, under the shadow of the great western wall. Perhaps in consequence of the wind the Acropolis was entirely deserted. Only the guardians were hidden somewhere, behind ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... have to trust to luck," the professor said, after a vain attempt, by means of powerful glasses, to distinguish something. "There is too much ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... which beheld the appearance of both of these religious teachers and leaders. He was a trained administrator with long experience when he urged upon his prince the necessity of reform, and advocated a policy of union throughout the States. His exhortations were in vain, and so far ill-timed that he was obliged to resign the service of one prince after another. In his day the authority of the Chow emperor had been reduced to the lowest point. Each prince was unto himself the supreme authority. Yet one cardinal ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... the mother's brother would take the grandchild in his arms and begin running round and round the corpse. Round and round he ran, and grandfather's ghost looked after him, craning his neck from side to side and twisting it round and round in the vain attempt to follow the rapid movements of the runner. When the ghost was supposed to be quite giddy with this unwonted exercise, the mother's brother made a sudden dart away with the child in his arms, the bearers ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... mightily upward. Still more so, when a man regards himself as a necessary member of this union. The feeling of our dignity and our power grows strong, when we say to ourselves; My being is not objectless and in vain; I am a necessary link in the great chain, which, from the full development of consciousness in the first man, reaches forward into eternity. All the great, and wise, and good among mankind, all the benefactors of the human race, whose names I read in ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... conscious of the action, but it roused Rachel. She smiled, and extending her hand, said, with quivering lips, which she made vain efforts to compose: ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... fortune some day for some one to inherit—why not Lans?" she argued to herself and began her campaign. She had grown to love the boy in her vain, worldly way; she wanted him and the Markham money, and she cautiously felt her way through the years while the child was ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... it with a start; and then, still without speech, he put his hand before his face. She waited for a word in vain. ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... feast every day, and go to theatres at night.' But when the dragoons came I was thankful to be what I was. Did you hear what happened to Collette at our place? Collette was the prettiest girl of our village, and a good girl, but a thought too vain. Perhaps it is too much to expect a woman not to be vain when she is pretty, but all are not. Collette's skin was like lilies and roses. When the dragoons were let loose on us they burnt her father's furniture, and beat him within an inch of his life. They asked Collette ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... the Medicine Man had come to trade. But he knew differently, and waited for the visitor to "show his hand." Whatever bargain was to be proposed, he knew that his share would not be increased by any show of eagerness to possess the robe that even chiefs had coveted in vain. ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... little encouragement now and I believe he will do better things than he has ever done. I am convinced that he has far bigger things in him than we have seen yet. But he is extraordinarily sensitive and extraordinarily vain. The danger is that he may be frightened and blighted by the harshness and hatred of the world. He may shrink into himself and do nothing if the wind be not tempered a little for him. A hint of encouragement now, the feeling that men like yourself think him ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... 'Tis vain to struggle—let me perish young— Live as I lived, and love as I have loved; To dust if I return, from dust I sprung, And then, at least, my heart can ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... to help him, and thirsting to exact the vengeance, now long overdue, for his father's murder. Feng, on hearing this, leapt from his couch, but was cut down while deprived of his own sword, and as he strove in vain to draw the strange one. O valiant Amleth, and worthy of immortal fame, who being shrewdly armed with a feint of folly, covered a wisdom too high for human wit under a marvellous disguise of silliness! And not only found in ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the fear of God in the nigger's hearts," were the words of many a sanguinary captain and crew. They did not, of course, mean that literally. They meant the fear of themselves, and of all whites. They used the name of God in vain, for after a century and more of such intermittent effort the Polynesians have small fear or faith for the God of Christians, despite continuous labors of missionaries. God ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... "It is vain to ride on," he answered obdurately, insolence rising in his voice. "Another half-league—another league at most, and ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... perhaps, but not without its frequent illustrations since he wrote it. "It seems ... that the largest heads grow narrow when they are assembled, and that where there are, most wise men, there is least wisdom. Large bodies are always deeply attached to details, to vain customs; and essential matters are always postponed. I have heard that a king of Aragon, having assembled the Estates of Aragon and Catalonia, the first meetings were taken up in deciding in what language the deliberations should be held. The dispute ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... toward the ocean and the lover beyond. And one day, it is said, a great ship from London came, and it touched at the pier before her windows, and Charles Mordaunt plead his cause with the stern father once more. But he plead in vain, and the ship and the lover sailed away. For a while longer, the colonial girl waited and looked out upon the river, then she too went away and ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... bitter curse of rage Cummings stepped forward, and, with rough hands, separated the boon companions, thrusting the tramp without ceremony under the table, Moriarity in the meantime shaking Cook in vain attempts to rouse him from his maudlin stupor. Cook, however, was too far "under the influence" to be aroused, and to the vigorous shakings and punchings would respond only with a hiccough and part of the ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... as we all wish had never disgraced the history of infant humanity or constituted the day-dreams of our ancestors. They carefully select that which flatters and pleases the vanity of their fellows, and pass by unnoticed, everything else. This course may tickle vain people, but it cannot meet with favor among those who love the truth, and the whole truth. There are sins of omission as well as of commission, and writers betray and deceive the world as much by the former class as by the latter. Some fastidious writers are afraid to call things by their ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... Similarly so, "field-glasses" stamped with the names of famous makers. These are little things, perhaps, but they give the most trusting of young constables some ideas of "ways that are dark and tricks that are vain." ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... to invent a necessity for Jordan's return to London, but a little thought convinced him that all such expedients would be in vain, because Jordan had, as he said, "enlisted fo' the wah," and Sedgwick realized that if on any pretext he sent him away, the suspicion might arise in Jordan's mind that the object was a selfish one, now ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... it had remained so always. But a proverb says, not in vain, that 'Where the Devil cannot go himself he will send an old woman.' And he sent her to us. It was your father's Aunt, your great-aunt, Petrik. She came once to us and asked me aside if the new mother liked me, and was sorry ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy
... get that trap," said Skipper Tom, "and 'tis hard to believe he'll take un away from us so soon, for I tried not to be vain about un, only just a bit proud of un and glad I has un. If He's took un from me I'll know 'twere to try my faith, and I'll ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... Bloomfield, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs speaks of the invasion as 'a breach of faith which may entail upon Europe widespread calamities'. But all these remonstrances were in vain. Notwithstanding these solemn warnings, notwithstanding this evidence that in the German Courts the just influence of England was lowered, the invasion of Schleswig takes place. And what is the conduct ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... how vain you men are! You want me to swear to you that I would sooner have you with me than him. You are not content with—thinking it, unless I tell you that it is so. You know that it is so. Though he is to be my husband,—I suppose he will be ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... qualities in which the Irish peasantry are most deficient. In the present crisis, the people are more disposed to regard the extensive destruction of their crops in the light of an extraordinary visitation of Heaven, with which it is vain for human efforts to contend, than to employ counteracting or remedial applications. "Sure the Almighty sent the potato-plague, and we must bear it as well as we can!" is the remark of many; while, in other places, the copious sprinklings of holy water on the potato ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... the ordinary methods of destroying the tiger had been tried again and again without success. Cattle and goats had been tied up, and the native shikaris had taken their posts in trees close by, and had watched all night; but in vain. Spring traps and deadfalls had also been tried, but the tiger seemed absolutely indifferent to the attractions of their baits, and always on the lookout for snares. The attempts made at a dozen villages near the jungle had all been ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... are not given and shown these mysteries without paying a price: we must learn to live in extraordinary lowliness and loneliness of spirit. The interests, enjoyments, pastimes of ordinary life dry up and wither away. It becomes in vain that we seek to satisfy ourselves in any occupation, in anything, in any persons, for God wills to have the whole of us. When He wills to be sensibly with us, all Space itself feels scarcely able to contain ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... I was lying in my own berth aboard the ship. I felt weak, faint, and dizzy, and strove in vain to collect my thoughts sufficiently to remember what had happened. My state-room door was open, and I perceived that the sun's rays were shining brightly through the sky-light upon the cabin-table, at which sat Capt. Hopkins, overhauling the medicine-chest, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... divers games of chance, Beware that Street in Cairo dance!" All, all in vain, the warning cry— Adlai whooped, as ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Wycliffe's ideas, conveyed to the continent, precipitated the outbreak of the Hussite storm in Bohemia. The council of Constance thought to quell it by condemnation of Wycliffe's teaching and by the execution of John Huss (1415). But in vain. The flame burst forth, not in Bohemia alone, where Huss's death gave the signal for a general rising, but also in England among the Lollards, and in Germany among those of Huss's persuasion, who had many points of agreement with the remnant of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... by those who slew Maximilian Messervy. My wife—who is to me like the apple of mine eye—is alone, battling with hostile authority, and with tenants too ready to profit by her helpless condition. I am as one encompassed by quicksands, and nigh to be swallowed up. I am tempted to say with David, 'Vain is the help of man.' Do you show me a bridge of escape?" he asked, turning to Prynne, "what is your meaning? I pray you ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... absurd or vain Or barbarous or inhumane, But if it lay the least pretence To piety and godliness, Or tender-hearted conscience, And zeal for gospel truths profess,— Does sacred instantly commence, And all that dare but question it are straight Pronounced th' uncircumcised ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... the discoverer, and we only promulgate his discovery in the plainest language we can command; and if we can reach the ear of the American farmers, and call their attention to this, we shall not have labored in vain. ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... the fawn was leaping wildly through the street, and the hound in full pursuit. The bystanders were eager to save it; several persons instantly followed its track, the friends who had long fed and fondled it, calling the name it had hitherto known, but in vain. The hunter endeavored to whistle back his dog, but with no better success. In half a minute the fawn had turned the first corner, dashed onward toward the lake, and thrown itself into the water. But, if for a moment the startled creature believed itself safe in the cool bosom of the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... Day" and by a creation of peers, who fluctuate between rhapsodic applause of King George and rhapsodic applause of Jehovah. After spending "a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets," after being a hanger-on of the profligate Duke of Wharton, after aiming in vain at a parliamentary career, and angling for pensions and preferment with fulsome dedications and fustian odes, he is a little disgusted with his imperfect success, and has determined to retire from the general mendicancy business ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... eyes closed again. The old man sat down with a sinking heart. Did not these sound like "last words?" Had she not got a first glimpse of the "far country" to which she was hastening? How vain to struggle against God, he thought. He never uttered a word. His daughter-in-law looked at him with compassionate eyes that he could hardly bear. Katie came in with a glass of milk in ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... all in vain. The conduct of Philip and his Viceroy coincided in spirit with the honest brutality of Vargas. "Non curamus vestros privilegios," summed up the whole of the proceedings. Non curamus vestros privilegios had been the unanswerable reply to every constitutional argument which had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of giving liberty to the press, and from recommending the works of Bentham to a people who could not even read, Byron replied to the colonel's rather hasty remarks, "Judge me by my acts." This request he had often repeated, as his life was not one of those which fear the light of day. All in vain. His enemies were not satisfied with this means of putting an end ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... regular series of petty thefts lately; small sums unable to be accounted for, safes opened in the most mysterious manner, and money abstracted—though never any large sums fortunately—even the clerks' coats had not been left untouched. I have had a constant watch kept, but all in vain. So, naturally, when this big deposit came to hand on Tuesday morning, I determined that special precautions should be taken at night, and put poor old Simmons down in the vault with the bank's watchdog for company. That was the last time I saw him ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... his mind, and feelingly delineated the strength of his affection, and the bitterness of his disappointment. Robbed, as he believed, of her love, the world had no longer any thing to attach him; and he resolved to bury himself in some retirement, which the vain passions of life could ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... protection of his saints in troublous times are past understanding. To this very intent doubtless, was the gift of comeliness bestowed on the maiden, a matter wherefore I have often, in much perplexity, inquired of the Lord, seeing that it is a gift that often brings the soul into jeopardy through vain thoughts. But now is the matter made plain ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... the Huguenot clergy storm and rage, in vain did they threaten to excommunicate anyone having dealings with the Bishop. They could not prevent the majority of their congregations from pressing every day to hear the Saint's sermons, which created a ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... Sponge strained his eyes in search of Dundleton Tower. In vain he fancied every high, sky-line-breaking place in the distance was the much-wished-for spot. Dundleton Tower was no more a tower than it was a town, and would seem to have been christened by the rule of contrary, for it was nothing but a great ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... away. With twice ten ships I climbed the Phrygian main, My goddess-mother pointing out the way, As Fate commanded. Now scarce seven remain, Wave-worn and shattered by the tempest's strain. Myself, a stranger, friendless and unknown, From Europe driven and Asia, roam in vain The wilds of Libya"—Then his plaintive tone No more could Venus bear, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... country shows only too clearly in the lessened income of the State. In vain a number of indirect taxes have been introduced. A kind of tax on meat and meal is levied in a very primitive way on the street corners of the capital. The fishermen pay 20 per cent, of the catch in their nets. Weights and measures ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... take leave of truth and sobriety and candour and humanity. Thou mayst perform the Rajasuya and the Aswamedha sacrifices, but do not even come near an action which in itself is sin! If after such a length of time, ye sons of Pritha, you now give way to hate, and commit the sinful deed, in vain, for virtue's sake, did ye dwell for years and years in the woods in such misery! It was in vain that you went to exile, after parting with all your army; for this army was entirely in your control then. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... is to bury "some seeds" in untilled ground, regardless of suitability, and "wait till they come up," you will wait in vain for a decent crop. ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... perfect. Like a good speaker on a rostrum, the bird faces first in one direction and then in another, and occasionally with a slow and stately movement it completely revolves on its axis for the benefit of those in the rear. "Vain as a peacock" is by no ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... the chief towns of the provinces by thousands,[17] every writer of which put himself forward as a legislator,[18] and of which the vast majority advocated what they called the rights of the Third Estate, in most violent language; and, finally, he adopted the course which is a great favorite with vain and weak men, and which he probably represented to himself as a compromise between unqualified concession and unyielding resistance, though, every one possessed of the slightest penetration could see that it practically ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... of vigil: but the world had got hold of Pen in the shape of his selfish old Mentor: and those who have any interest in his character must have perceived ere now, that this lad was very weak as well as very impetuous, very vain as well as very frank, and if of a generous disposition, not a little selfish in the midst of his profuseness, and also rather fickle, as all eager ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... searched the Manor in vain, but they never thought of looking in the garden, where the fugitive was waiting till the darkness should be black enough to hide him. Sir Piers got safely away to France, and returned in triumph to his estates ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... was he doing? She paused and looked behind her, scanning the pavement on both sides of the street. She was half-hoping that she would discover Carter or some of his men shadowing their quarry, but her hope was vain. There was no one in the block at the moment but herself and Mr. Hoff. If Fleck's men had been watching his movements, the old man certainly seemed ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... engaged in a kind of engineering work wholly unlike any they had hitherto undertaken. The owners of the Melliston Steamship Line, with a fleet of twenty-two freight steamships engaged in the West Indian and Central American trade, had looked in vain for suitable dock accommodations for their vessels, worth a total of more than six million dollars. In their efforts to improve their service the Melliston owners had found at Blixton a harbor that would have suited them ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... he bound up a punctured thigh, that the Heat Ray of the Martians was nothing compared with me. I was moting towards Leatherhead, where my cousin lived, when the streak of light caused by the Third Crinoline curdled the paraffin tank. Vain was it to throw water on the troubled oil; the mischief was done. Meanwhile a storm broke. The lightning flashed, the rain beat against my face, the night was exceptionally dark, and to add to my difficulties the motor took the wick between its ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... divine. His plighted word he ne'er forgets; On erring sense a watch he sets. By nature wise, his teacher's skill Has trained him to subdue his will. Good, resolute and pure, and strong, He guards mankind from scathe and wrong, And lends his aid, and ne'er in vain, The cause of justice to maintain. Well has he studied o'er and o'er The Vedas and their kindred lore. Well skilled is he the bow to draw, Well trained in arts and versed in law; High-souled and meet for happy fate, Most ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... but in the Hebrew tongue; and said, that "since they all heard what were the king's commands, they would consult their own advantage in delivering up themselves to us; for it is plain the both you and your king dissuade the people from submitting by vain hopes, and so induce them to resist; but if you be courageous, and think to drive our forces away, I am ready to deliver to you two thousand of these horses that are with me for your use, if you can set as many horsemen ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Wales,—she was domesticated in the family of the Dowager Lady Primrose, an ardent Jacobite, who afterwards, in 1750, was courageous enough to receive the young Chevalier during a visit of five days, which were employed by Charles in the vain endeavour to form another scheme of invasion. The abode of Lady Primrose was the resort of the fashionable world; and crowds of the higher classes hastened to pay their tribute to the heroine of the day. It may be readily conjectured, how singular an impression the quiet, simple manners of ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... him, the dread Child of fore-scheming Woe! And help is vain; the fell desire within Is veiled not, but shineth bright like Sin: And as false gold will show Black where the touchstone trieth, so doth fade His honour in God's ordeal. Like a child, Forgetting all, he hath chased his winged bird, And planted amid his people a sharp thorn. And no God hears ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... Walter's answer was evasive, and left an impression on his brother's mind that there was something amiss which had been kept back from him. He made several loving attempts to draw his sister out of herself, and to lead her to confide her sorrows or difficulties to him, but all in vain: and when he attempted gently to guide her thoughts to Him who alone could give her true peace, she would turn from him with a vexed expression of countenance and an air of almost disdain. Poor Amos! how grievously was he disappointed to find the sister for whom he had done and suffered so much ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... had been among the projects of the Directory: it was now the dream of the First Consul. It was in vain for England to produce, if he shut her out of every market. Her carrying trade must be annihilated if he closed every port against her ships. It was this gigantic project of a "Continental System" that revealed ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... careful. I was kind to friends, a physician to the sick, merciful to the weak, stern toward the headstrong. Though possessed of knowledge, I loved silence. Though strong, I was not overbearing. Though young, I mocked not the old. Though valiant, I was not vain. When I spoke of one absent I praised and blamed him not, for by conduct like this are we known ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... two of them to me for money, which he directed to be done by the cutwall, or marshal. He came accordingly and made the offer to my interpreter, who answered without my knowledge, that the Christians kept no slaves, and, as I had already set free those the king had given me, it was in vain to propose the matter to me. I afterwards suspected this were done to try me whether I would give a little money to save the lives of two children, or, if it even were in earnest, I thought there was no great loss in doing a good deed. So, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... given in mistake instead of a coin of a different denomination, to "the natural" of the parish for holding his shelty while he transacted business at the bank. A gleam in the boy's eye drew his attention to a gleam of white as the metal dropped into his pocket. In vain the laird assured him it was not a good bawbee—if he would give it up he would get another—it was "guid eneuch" for the like of him. And when the laird in his extremity swore a great oath that unless it was given ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... idea of a big, husky old police detective running to cast his burden on such shoulders! I couldn't quite do it then. I went and telephoned the little girl that I was doing the best I could—and then ran circles for the rest of the day, chasing one vain hope after another, and finally, in the late afternoon, sneaked ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... the advice of Regulus, though they bitterly regretted his sacrifice. His wife wept and entreated in vain that they would detain him—they could merely repeat their permission to him to remain; but nothing could prevail with him to break his word, and he turned back to the chains and death he expected, as calmly as if he had been returning to his home. ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... anticipatory moments of dreaming, but the ultimate realization of which often falls so desperately short of the anticipation. In the present instance, however, no such calamity had befallen. He felt that his weary journeyings, with their many discomforts and trials, had not proved vain. Many of his hopes ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... brief treatment of each subject. This brevity has in turn compelled me to deal with principles rather than with detailed descriptions of individual devices—though in several cases recognized types are examined. The reader will look in vain for accounts of the Yerkes telescope, of the latest thing in motor cars, and of the largest locomotive. But he will be put in the way of understanding the essential nature of all telescopes, motors, and steam-engines so far as they are at present developed, which I think may be of ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... Mr. MacManus was an honest man to the cause to which his whole heart was given. The night before he left for Ireland, he slept at the house of a merchant in Manchester, named Porteus; that gentleman used all his influence to dissuade his friend from so mad an exploit, but in vain. The embryo chief left a considerable store of pistols in the custody of Mr. Porteus, which were delivered to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... with a hazy red glow. Then it died out. The voices ceased. The land and the water slept invisible, unstirring and mute. It was as though there had been nothing left in the world but the glitter of stars streaming, ceaseless and vain, through the black stillness ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... the poor, gaudy, gilt rays converging towards it. There are days in the year in which the great church is still literally filled with reverent worshippers, and if you come late to service you push the [123] doors in vain against the closely serried shoulders of the good people of Amiens, one and all in black for church-holiday attire. Then, one and all, they intone the Tantum ergo (did it ever sound so in the Middle Ages?) ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... 16. My family and hers were friendly. My attraction to her soon became a matter of common knowledge and joking to members of my family. She was a dark, passionate-looking child, with large eyes that—to me—seemed full of an inner knowledge of sexual mysteries. Precocious, vain, jealous, untruthful—those were qualities in her that I myself soon recognized. But the very fact that she was not conventionally 'goody-goody' proved an attraction ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the fence, yet Marco could plainly perceive that they were busily employed in doing something there, though he could not imagine what. He wished very much to go and see; but he knew that it would be in vain to make request for permission, and so he ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... brothers d'Aubray expostulated with her by the medium of an older sister who was in a Carmelite nunnery, and the marquise perceived that her father had on his death bequeathed the care and supervision of her to her brothers. Thus her first crime had been all but in vain: she had wanted to get rid of her father's rebukes and to gain his fortune; as a fact the fortune was diminished by reason of her elder brothers, and she had scarcely enough to pay her debts; while the rebukes were renewed from the mouths of her brothers, one of whom, being civil lieutenant, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... assailants managed to climb up to the level of the parapet; but only to be thrust backward with pikes, and cut down with swords and axes. For two hours the assault continued, and then De Brissac, seeing how heavy was the loss, and how vain the efforts to scale the wall at any point, ordered the trumpeters to sound the retreat; when the besiegers drew off, galled by the fire of the defenders until they were ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... plays of Terence are written with a purpose; and the purpose is the same which animated the political leaders of free thought. To base conduct upon reason rather than tradition, and paternal authority upon kindness rather than fear; [29] to give up the vain attempt to coerce youth into the narrow path of age; to grapple with life as a whole by making the best of each difficulty when it arises; to live in comfort by means of mutual concession and not to plague ourselves with unnecessary troubles: ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... had lost so much. The town of S—-, toward which these weary travelers turned their steps, was stretching out its hands to clasp Opportunity and Prosperity as those fickle commodities rebounded from the vain-glorious North; the smile was creeping back into the haggard face of the Southland; the dollars were jingling now because they were no longer lonely. The bitterness of life was not so bitter; an ancient sweetness was providing ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... originality, which among the mestizos, appears to arise from their equivocal position, is also to be found among the natives. Distinctly marked national customs, which one would naturally expect to find in such an isolated part of the world, are sought for in vain, and again and again the stranger remarks that everything has been learned and is only ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... illumined that wretched countenance like the last ray of the sun before it disappears behind the clouds which bear the aspect, not of a downy couch, but of a tomb. But as we have said, he waited in vain for his son to come to his apartment with the account of his triumph. He easily understood why his son did not come to see him before he went to avenge his father's honor; but when that was done, why did not his son come and ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... rolled off her horse, and went into the house. She then discovered, for the first time, that there was no one at home. After resting awhile, she mounted to depart. But Isaac, as full of mischief as Puck, put the bars up, so that she could not ride out. In vain she coaxed, scolded, and threatened. Finding it was all to no purpose, she rode up to the block and rolled off from her horse again.—Isaac, having the fear of her whip before his eyes, ran and hid himself. She let down the bars for herself, but before she could ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... any reassurance to be found that night in the concrete justification of his life. He set himself down to work in vain. One ghost called up another. The room with its solemn, bloodless impedimenta became—not a monument to his success, but a Moloch, to whom everything had been sacrificed—the joy of life, its laughter, its colour—and Christine. And ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... course! I hold all love is so: And I shall love my wife right well, I know. Now there's a point regarding selfish love, You thirst to argue with me, and disprove. But since these cosy hours will soon be gone, And all our meetings broken in upon, No more of these rare moments must be spent In vain discussions, or in argument. I wish Miss Trevor was in—Jericho! (You see the selfishness begins to show.) She wants to see you?—So do I: but she Will gain her wish, by taking you from me. 'Come all the same?' that means I'll be allowed To realize that 'three can make ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and endeavoured to reason with him. But I found it impossible for a person upon my plane to reach with any argument a person upon his. In vain I recapitulated his successive trials ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... more. The school had hummed like a busy mill from morning until night. And now that the grinding was done and they had come at last to their reward,—the hoped-for summons to the court, which had been sought so long in vain,—the boys of St. Paul's bubbled with glee until the under-masters were in a cold sweat for fear their precious charges would pop from the wherries into the Thames, like so many ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... my feelings as I landed on Beechey Island and looked down upon the bay, on whose bosom once had ridden Her Majesty's ships "Erebus" and "Terror;" there was a sickening anxiety of the heart as one involuntarily clutched at every relic they of Franklin's squadron had left behind, in the vain hope that some clue as to the route they had taken hence ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... agitation were pitiful to see. In vain Joan strove to soothe and quiet her. She would listen to no words of comfort. Not another hour would she remain in that house. The servants, some of whom had already fled, were beginning to take the alarm in good earnest, and were packing up their worldly goods, only anxious to be gone. Horses ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and systematic attempt to poison the sources of virtue, or, at least, an elaborate and incessant habit of conformity to the bad tastes of a bad age, we can think of no plea fully available for his defence. Vain to say, "he wrote for bread." He did not—he wrote only for the luxuries, not the staff of life. Vain to say, "he consulted the taste of his audience, and suited their atmosphere." But why did he select that atmosphere as his? And why so much gratuitous ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... short time another Indian village was reached, where the warriors tried in vain to lure the whites ashore; and as the boats were hugging the opposite bank, they were suddenly fired at by a party in ambush, and one man slain. Immediately afterwards a much more serious tragedy occurred. There was with the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the teeth, or even biting thread, is apt to break the enamel; and when once broken, you will wish in vain to have it mended. The dentist can fill a hole in the tooth; but he can not cover ...
— Child's Health Primer For Primary Classes • Jane Andrews
... which is God, who foreseeth all things, and the eternity of His vision, which is always present, concurreth with the future quality of our actions, distributing rewards to the good and punishments to the evil. Neither do we in vain put our hope in God or pray to Him; for if we do this well and as we ought, we shall not lose our labour or be without effect. Wherefore fly vices, embrace virtues, possess your minds with worthy hopes, offer up humble prayers to your highest ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... blew the vessel along the western coast of Ireland. Mr. Astor, now thoroughly panic-stricken, offered the captain ten thousand dollars if he would put him ashore anywhere on the wild and rocky coast of the Emerald Isle. In vain the captain remonstrated. In vain he reminded the old gentleman of the danger ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... Lady,—to be mistress of a ducal castle,—a position of power and influence among the lords and ladies of the kingdom? To have diamonds and pearls? To have precedence over others of lower station in social life? Questions came in troops before her; vain her attempts to ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... fore legs were jammed immovably against his ribs. A touch of his hind foot on the ice would remedy this mishap, but he was too far in for that. Vigorously he struggled, but in vain. The blood rushed to his head, and the keen frost quickly put an end to his pains. In a few minutes he was dead, and in half an hour he was frozen, solid as a block of wood, with his hind legs and tail ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... things, by a letter from Spurius Lucretius, they were filled with the most intense anxiety, lest the joy they had experienced on the destruction of Hasdrubal and his army, two years before, should be rendered vain by another war's springing up in the same quarter, equal in magnitude, but under a new leader. They therefore ordered Marcus Livius, proconsul, to march his army of volunteer slaves out of Etruria to Ariminum, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... reach the coveted goal of University distinctions, but unfortunately, as such distinctions are often achieved merely by a process of sterile cramming which leaves the recipients quite unable to turn mere feats of memory to any practical account, the sacrifices prove to have been made in vain. Whilst the skilled artisan, and even the unskilled labourer, can often command from 12 annas to 1 rupee (1s. to 1s. 4d.) a day, the youth who has sweated himself and his family through the whole course ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... day by day, and they know not, often care not to know, that there are devoted hearts existing on their memories alone. There are pretty blue eyes weeping over the "garden gate" where "some one" is "waiting" and "wishing in vain." Let them weep. There are miseries in life, that can be learned only by many repetitions. If they don't break the heart at ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... two posts to the southeast and to the south-west of the town, and these also were vigorously attacked. Here, however, the advance spent itself without result. In vain the Ermelo and Carolina commandos stormed up to the Gordon pickets. They were blown back by the steady fire of the infantry. One small post manned by twelve Highlanders was taken, but the rest defied all attack. Seeing therefore that his attempt at a coup-de-main was a failure, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thoroughly a professional theatrical dresser that she must have died of inanition in what she would have called private life. Lastly, she had heard that Madame Bonanni had now given up the semblance, long far from empty, but certainly vain, of a waist, and dressed herself in a garment resembling a priest's cassock, buttoned in front from her throat to ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... we talk of dainties, then, Of better meat than's fit for men? These are but vain: that's only good Which God hath bless'd ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... and do it yourself! bravely answered Anton. Drake's whistle blew one shrill long blast, which loosed a withering volley at less than point-blank range. Anton tried to bear away and shake off his assailant. But in vain. The English guns now opened on his masts and rigging. Down came the mizzen, while a hail of English shot and arrows prevented every attempt to clear away the wreckage. The dumbfounded Spanish crew ran below, Don Anton looked overside to port; and there was the English pinnace, from ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... few miles from this place. If some of our Northern friends could have heard the words of gratitude for the work of the American Missionary Association, and seen the tears of joy over what has been accomplished, they would know that their labors and gifts had not been in vain. ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 6, June 1896 • Various
... Haworth, and brought a match to the combustible materials of the place, only too ready to blaze out into wickedness. The story is, that he tried all means of persuasion, and even intimidation, to have the races discontinued, but in vain. At length, in despair, he prayed with such fervour of earnestness that the rain came down in torrents, and deluged the ground, so that there was no footing for man or beast, even if the multitude had been willing to stand such a flood let down from above. And so Haworth races were stopped, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... cries the proprietor to the surrounding crowd of barefoot, penniless boys, and half-grown lads, "and a knife to be given to the man that hits the bull's eye." Many a penny do these urchins spend here in the vain hope of winning the knife, and many are the seeds of evil sown among them by these "chances." In another gallery the proprietor offers twenty dollars to any one who will hit a certain bull's eye three times in succession. Here men contend for ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... off. I've often heard that young married women are all over that sort of thing. Certainly she had said there was nobody at the house but Clarence and herself and Bill and Clarence's father, but a woman who could take the name of St. Andrews in vain as she had done wouldn't be likely ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... a war, a chaos of the mind When all its elements convulsed combined, Lie dark and jarring with perturbed force, And gnashing with impenitent remorse. That juggling fiend who never spake before, But cries, "I warn'd thee," when the deed is o'er; Vain voice, the spirit burning, but unbent, May writhe, rebel—the ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.' Had our Tour produced nothing else but this sublime passage, the world must have acknowledged that it was not made in vain. Sir Joseph Banks, the present respectable President of the Royal Society, told me, he was so much struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together, and remained for some time in an attitude of silent admiration. BOSWELL. ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... and officers of the revenue, repaired to the principal church of Nicomedia, which was situated on an eminence in the most populous and beautiful part of the city. The doors were instantly broke open; they rushed into the sanctuary; and as they searched in vain for some visible object of worship, they were obliged to content themselves with committing to the flames the volumes of the holy Scripture. The ministers of Diocletian were followed by a numerous body of guards and pioneers, who marched in order of battle, and were provided with all the instruments ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... impatient to reach the heights of Baccano; from which, at the distance of fifteen miles, we were to view the cross of St. Peter's glittering on the horizon, while the postilions rising in their stirrups, should point forward with exultation, and exclaim "ROMA!" But, O vain hope! who can controul their fate? just before we reached Baccano, impenetrable clouds enveloped the whole Campagna. The mist dissolved into a drizzling rain; and when we entered the city, it poured in torrents. Since we ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... sun-dial in the Quadrangle at All Souls—"Pereunt et imputantur;" or that of another similar monitor—"Ab hoc momento pendet aeternitas." Take time for exercise; take time for relaxation; but make steady reading your object and your business. Do not be so weak, or so unmanly, or so vain, as to be ashamed of being known to read. You went to Oxford on purpose to study; why should you be ashamed of ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... each man for himself, apparently, yet all guided and controlled by some unseen, yet acknowledged, power; and, in five minutes, save where some hapless pony lay quivering and kicking on the turf, the low ground close at hand was swept clean of horse or man. The wild attack had been made in vain. The Sioux were scampering back, convinced, but not discomfited. Some few of their number, borne away stunned and bleeding by comrade hands from underneath their stricken chargers,—some three or four, perhaps, who had dared too much,—were now ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... did not rise till half-past one this morning, and was again faced with a long night's work. In vain Sir DONALD MACLEAN protested against the practice of taking wee sma' Bills in the wee sma' oors. Mr. BONAR LAW was obdurate. He supposed the House had not abandoned all hope of an Autumn recess. Well, then, had not the poet said that the best of all ways to lengthen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... wonder whether any one would recognize in you the fresh-faced and somewhat callow stripling with whom I talked about the Dominion that day on Starcross Moor. It is not so very long ago, and yet life has greatly changed and taught us much since then. You must not be vain about it, but I really think ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... had merely shown one of those sudden and ephemeral bursts of form that occasionally are witnessed in every branch of sport; but he couldn't last against such a man as the "white hope"!—they looked for a knock-out any minute now. Nor did they look in vain. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... anchor, and as they passed she hailed them. "On going on board," relates John Stanhope, "the captain gave us a detailed account of a most melancholy occurrence which had marked their voyage. Their few hours' advantage in starting had enabled them to effect what we had in vain attempted—the weathering Cape Espartel. There were on board the actual passengers who had cut us out of our berths. They had felt as anxious as I had done to plant their feet upon the coast of Africa. They accordingly got into a boat and landed. They ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... vast areas and a multitudinous audience, and probably they made the usual scenery of his consciousness, for we all of us carry on our thinking in some habitual locus where there is a presence of other souls, and those who take in a larger sweep than their neighbors are apt to seem mightily vain and affected. Klesmer was vain, but not more so than many contemporaries of heavy aspect, whose vanity leaps out and startles one like a spear out of a walking-stick; as to his carriage and gestures, these were as natural ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... that we two go together." She tried with a desperate fierceness to make herself like the man before her, to put away, by sheer power of will, all memory, the knowledge of everything save what was in this little room, but it was the vainest of all vain efforts. She saw herself for a thief and a cheat—stealing, for love's sake, the mere body of the man she loved while mind and soul were absent. In her agony she almost cried out aloud as the words said themselves within her. And she denied them. She said: "His ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
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