"Unavailing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and months rolled away; yet every step that could be taken to find out the name of the vessel proved unavailing. Although the conjecture of Forster, that she was one of the many foreign West Indiamen which had met with a similar fate during that tempestuous winter, was probably correct; still no clue could be gathered by which the parentage of the ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... virtuous acts and harmless joys The minutes will not stay; We 've always time to welcome them To-day, my love, to-day. But care, resentment, angry words, And unavailing sorrow Come far too soon, if they appear To-morrow, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... wended his weary and unavailing way into all the places listed, John made his final report to Colette who remained ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... applications, however, were not wholly unavailing to obtain him the professional employments usually so hard to get in times of peace. For five of the ten years, 1783-1793, he commanded frigates, chiefly on the Newfoundland station; and in them, though now turning thirty, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... among the reeds just as merrily as ever, bees hummed and butterflies wheeled and hovered—life and the world were very fair. Yet for once I was blind to it all; moreover, my pipe refused to "draw"—pieces of grass, twigs, and my penknife were alike unavailing. ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... and the mountain breeze had cooled my burning brow, and my thoughts had resumed their usual course, I realized that to pursue my perished happiness would be unavailing and unreasonable. What more did I want?—To see her?—Why? Was not all over between us? A single, bitter, farewell kiss would not have enriched my recollections, and, after it, parting would only have been more difficult ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... over space to distant spheres The lightnings are prevailing Th' ungodly rise, and all their tears And sighs are unavailing. The day of grace is past and gone; They shake before the Judge's Throne All ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... has, consequently, in hand a melange of the useful and agreeable—a little for the grave and a little for the gay—so that, should our endeavors to impart instruction prove unavailing, en revanche we may, perhaps, be more successful in our ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... hill and sat down heavily, following with straining eyes and yearning heart his rapidly disappearing figure. The same pang that every mother must feel, those who have a son at least, once in her life if no more, came to her heart; all her prayers had been unavailing, her requests unheeded, her pleas and wishes disregarded. She had an idea, not altogether warranted perhaps, but still she had it, that the influence was not so much the example of General Washington, nor the eloquence of Patrick Henry, nor the force of neighborly example, nor rigid principle, ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... would have afforded a noble subject for contemplation and record. This reflection may possibly be thought too visionary by the more sedate and cold-blooded part of my readers; yet I own, I frequently indulge it with an earnest, unavailing regret. BOSWELL. In The Spectator, No. 436, Hockley in the Hole is described as 'a place of no small renown for the gallantry of the lower order of Britons.' Fielding mentions it in Jonathan Wild, bk. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... evidences of the men who had taken the boats was made, and Zeke and Fred even went down the stream a mile vainly hoping that they might find the boat stranded somewhere in the region. Their search was unavailing and when they returned to the camp it was with a fixed opinion that the sole solution of their difficulties was to be found in patiently remaining in camp until Pete and John had made their long journey ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... are now gloomy indeed; but they do not idly dwell on them, or give way to utter despondency. That would be unavailing; besides, there is no time for it. Something must be done to meet the altered circumstances. But what? A question to which none of them makes an immediate answer, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... necessities of war take no heed of economic principles. The work which the secretary had done became as the rope of sand. It is not surprising that Gallatin wearied of his post; that he watched with vain regret and unavailing sighs the unavoidable increase of the national debt, and that he sought relief in other services where success was not so evanescent as in the Treasury Department. Before the close of Madison's administration, February 12, 1816, the public debt ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... brought poor Netta to herself with difficulty, and let her put the letter in its envelope, and both in her bosom, without a question. Netta lay on the sofa, with her eyes closed, and said not a word. All that Gladys or Minette could do to attract her attention was unavailing. But when Rowland came, she roused herself sufficiently to say, 'I am ready to go home now, Rowland: I must go directly.' And then she relapsed into a state of passive inaction. Rowland went for Mr ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... with angry tears for which I blamed myself as I fell to pacing the weather side of the poop—and so often afterwards! So often, and with such unavailing bitterness! ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... sermon, but a student of theology in the University began to put questions immediately after the benediction, and a tumult soon arose. The audience was composed of friends and foes, the former endeavoring to prevent a disturbance, while the latter reviled them. Finding remonstrance unavailing, Dr. King unfurled at the door the flag of the United States, which the absent Consul had committed to his care, and at the sight of this the ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... portrait and Oliver had led Mr. Brownlow to recognise the boy as the child of his dear old friend. Then, just when he had determined to adopt Oliver, the boy had disappeared, and all efforts to find him had proved unavailing. Mr. Brownlow knew that, although the mother and father were dead, the elder brother was alive, and at once commenced a search for him. Now he had discovered him in the man Monks, the friend of thieves and murderers, and by a chance clue he found also that there had been a will, dividing ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... thus binding them firmly to his cause. [Footnote: As Csar approached Rome, Cato took flight, and, determined to mourn until death the unhappy lot of his country, allowed his hair to grow, and resigned himself to unavailing grief. Too weak and perplexed to stand against opposing troubles, he fondly thought that resolutions and laws and a temporizing policy might avail to bring happiness and order ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... Prince Edward by the upper Worcester road. De Montfort knew that against such odds the fight would be a hopeless one, and urged his supporters to flee while there was yet time, and not to lose their lives in an unavailing struggle; but none would desert their leader in the hour of peril. "Then," exclaimed the Earl, "may the Lord have mercy on our souls for our bodies are in the ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... sensation of fear; but no time was given him for thought. Fifty yards! What was that to the raking stride of his untamed mare? It would be gone in a few seconds. Action was the only thing to serve him, and such action as instinct prompted him to was utterly unavailing. With a mighty heave of his body, and with all the strength of his sinewy arms, he tried to pull the creature on to her haunches. As well try to stem the tide ahead of him. She threw up her head until ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... took place, that night, in the little parlour—a consultation that was to settle the future destinies of the Tuggses. The shop was shut up, at an unusually early hour; and many were the unavailing kicks bestowed upon the closed door by applicants for quarterns of sugar, or half-quarterns of bread, or penn'orths of pepper, which were to have been 'left till Saturday,' but which fortune had decreed were ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... breast, nor laughed in its eyes; never bathed the pink form of a little son or daughter; never felt a tugging of tiny hands at her voluminous calico skirts! Nora had burnt many candles before the statue of the blessed Virgin without remedying this deplorable condition. She had sent up unavailing prayers—she had, at times, wept hot tears of longing and loneliness. Sometimes in her sleep she dreamed that a wee form, warm and exquisitely soft, was pressed against her firm body, and that a hand with tiniest pink nails crept within her bosom. But as she reached ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... Quincy, in the House, and Lloyd, in the Senate, both from Massachusetts, advocated a navy, and Clay and Davies, of the West, raised their voices in its support; but their efforts were unavailing. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... fellow or more suitable candidate for a Cotswold constituency ever walked than Colonel Chester Master, of the Abbey; yet his efforts to win the seat under the new ballot act were always unavailing, saving the occasion on which he got in by three votes, and then was turned out again within a month. An unknown candidate from London—I will not say a carpet-bagger—was able to beat the local squire, entirely owing to the very fact that ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... not have it otherwise. I admire Mr. Yancy—he is simple and direct, and fit for any company under heaven except that of fools. His treatment of you has placed me under everlasting obligations; he shall share what we have. My one bitter, unavailing regret is that Solomon Mahaffy will not be here to partake of our altered fortunes." ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... eldest daughter was knocked down with the butt end of a musket; and a poignard was held at the breast of his wife while the mob plundered her apartments. Paul Heraut, a silk weaver, was literally cut in pieces, in the presence of a large crowd, and amidst the unavailing cries and tears of his wife and four young children. The murderers only abandoned the corpse to return to Heraut's house and secure every thing valuable. The number of murders on this day could not be ascertained. One person saw six bodies at ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... sarcastically. "She has all the arts of her kind, I perceive; but I hope, Senor Don Manuel, that you are not to be imposed upon by such shallow artifices. We must secure the duenna, and examine her well; perchance a few threats will not be altogether unavailing." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... overcrowding. So far as the mass of poorer workers in London and other large cities are concerned, it would appear that their endeavour to escape beyond the limits of congested city life has hitherto been unavailing: the decentralising forces of rising ground rents, uncomfortable and insanitary dwellings, are ever at work, but the centralising forces set up by any large number who seek an outlet in the same direction, with close spacial limitations ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... All unavailing is the prayer— The proud ones pass us by; Their chariots roll, their torches glare Cold on the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... disbanded his levies; they retired overwhelmed with indignation at the conduct of their sovereign, who so readily relinquished the only means of redress that he possessed, and whom they now saw it would be unavailing to assist, since he was so ready to desert ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... keep a smooth surface on this inner tumult was as endless and unavailing as efforts made in a nightmare. He lost all sense of what he was saying to his neighbors and once when he looked up his wife's ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... to declare that they would rather lose their entire fortunes than pour forth the life which it was not theirs to give. A general feeling pervaded the whole interest, that it would be better to peril a great wrong than to suffer an unavailing remorse. One petition against the penalty of death was presented, which bore three names only; but those were an honourable proof of the prevalent feeling. The name of Nathan Meyer Rothschild was the first, "through whose hands," said Mr. Smith, on presenting ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... another; and not being encouraged to hope, by your kind notice, that my application to you would be acceptable:—apprehending that my relations had engaged your silence at least*—THESE—But why these unavailing retrospections now?—I was to be unhappy—in order to be happy; that is my hope!—Resigning therefore to that hope, I will, without any further preamble, write a few lines, (if writing to you, I can write but a few,) in answer to the subject of your ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... passionate repentance and atonement, of her impetuous adoption of her father's remorseless theory, mistaken though it might be, that pain is the remedy for sin, and of the utter, hopeless despair which had overwhelmed her now that she believed it had all proved unavailing. ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... from unavailing prayer, And rose and faced the Goddess steadily, Till even the laughter-loving lady fair Half shrank before the anger of her eye, And Helen cried with an exceeding cry, "Why does Zeus live, if we indeed must be No more than sullen ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... motor cars felt the heavy hand of public necessity when General Wood began impressing machines. The sightseers were ordered from their cars and the latter were pressed into public service. Protests were unavailing. The more stubborn surrendered at the points of rifles, and gave up their cars "until released by order of the chairman," as the placards ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... Thousand. And although his works are rife with the sort of technical problems and solutions which those initiated into musical science are supposed to relish, few musicians found them really attractive. Reger made various attempts to regain the favor he had lost. They were unavailing. Even when he turned his back on the absolutists and wrote programmatic music, romantic suites that begin with Debussy-like low flutes and end with trumpet blasts that recall the sunrise music of "Also Sprach Zarathustra," ballet suites ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... very miserable. It was only now that he knew how thoroughly he loved this woman—now that she was so utterly beyond his reach. Weak and wavering as he was in many things, he was not weak enough to abandon himself altogether to unavailing sorrow. He knew that work alone could preserve him from sinking—hard, constant, unflinching work, that one great cure for all our sorrow, that only means of adapting ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... GREGORY, for ever fled! And am I left to unavailing woe! When fortune's storms assail this weary head, Where cares long since have shed untimely snow, Ah, now for comfort whither shall I go! No more thy soothing voice my anguish chears: Thy placid eyes with smiles no longer glow, My hopes to cherish, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... grief the sympathy of friends, and the words of consolation bring no relief. How much more harshly do such words grate on the ear when the soul is bowed down by remorse and unavailing regret! Then the wounded spirit finds peace nowhere but ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... over. They laughed until they were hysterical over each scene as it occurred. A comedy in three acts, Betty called it—the losing of the cold-cream bottle and the finding of same in madam's overshoe. The unavailing search for a certain black silk handkerchief in which madam was wont to tie her head up in of nights, and the substitution of a towel instead, which the ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the chase, an unavailing one, he believed, only because the game used quite unfair tactics of concealment, he remembered the shell. A longing for possession seized him. It was more than that. The thing was already his; had always been his. Yet ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... Union," is that of arousing, keeping alive and intensifying a sentiment adverse to the liquor traffic. So long as the State and National Governments give the sanction of law to this traffic, they find their efforts to save the fallen, utterly unavailing in far too many instances. In an appeal made by the women of the State Union to the voters of Massachusetts, under date of August 15th, 1877, the curse of this traffic is exhibited in words of solemn earnestness. The document ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... would I not give to see you? Oh, this fearful curse of poverty! I must find some means of escape from my difficulties, or go mad. I cannot live without you. I have planned a thousand impossible schemes, which I have been obliged to abandon as unavailing. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... Mr. Froude was compelled to write of Carlyle these sad words: "For many years after she had left him, when he passed the spot where she was last seen alive he would bare his gray head in the wind and rain, his features wrung with unavailing sorrow." ...
— The Wedding Day - The Service—The Marriage Certificate—Words of Counsel • John Fletcher Hurst
... no one dared to check them—no one ventured to repine. They had the name of law to justify their proceedings, and all its authority to uphold them. Compromises were attempted in some instances, but they were found unavailing. Easily evaded by persons who never intended to be bound by them, they only added keenness to the original provocation, without offering a remedy for it. The two bloodsuckers, it was clear, would not ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... thou, my GREGORY, for ever fled? And am I left to unavailing woe? When fortune's storms assail this weary head, Where cares long since have shed untimely snow, Ah, now for comfort whither shall I go? No more thy soothing voice my anguish cheers: Thy placid eyes with smiles ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... the camp, I was informed of the particulars of the progress of the victorious son of the distinguished Meheromet Ali from Wady Haifa to Meroe. Before his march every thing had submitted or fallen. All attempts to arrest his progress had proved as unavailing as the obstacles opposed by the savage rocks of the Cataracts of the Nile to the powerful course of that beneficent and ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... attempts to fire the house, they at length succeeded in pushing a cart loaded with hay and other combustible materials, all in flames, against the rear of the house. All the efforts of the garrison to extinguish the fire were unavailing, and the building was soon in a blaze. As the flames rapidly rolled up the wall and over the roof, the savages raised shouts of exultation, which fell as a death-knell upon the hearts of those who had now no alternative but to be consumed in the flames or to surrender themselves ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... hers unavailing? Of Despard nothing was known for some time. Mr. Thornton once mentioned to his wife that the Rev. Courtenay Despard had joined the Eleventh Regiment, and had gone to South Africa. He mentioned this because he had ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... said that the provision which limits the appropriation of money for the support of an army to the period of two years would be unavailing, because the Executive, when once possessed of a force large enough to awe the people into submission, would find resources in that very force sufficient to enable him to dispense with supplies from the acts of the legislature. But the question again recurs, upon what pretense ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... to be done. He was tired of taking unavailing precautions, of sitting passively waiting for attacks. In the nature of things it was impossible to guard adequately works extending over miles of uninhabited country. Guerilla warfare could not be met ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... They stated their readiness to assault the place; but in case Budrudeen insisted on leading in person, they must decline accompanying him. Budrudeen was angry, I was angry too, and the doctor most angry of all; but anger was unavailing: it was clear they did not intend to do anything in earnest; and after much discussion, in which Budrudeen insisted that if I went he should likewise go, and the Malays insisted that if he went they would ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... met him a week ago, even I who knew the circumstances, could see no difference whatever in his manner. I thought he was wrong, at first, but I came to the conclusion afterwards that his decision was not an unwise one. He spared you three months of unavailing pain; he had no fear of death, and was able to go about as before to meet his friends without his health being a subject of discussion, and in all ways to go on as usual until the call came. His death was evidently painless; he sat down in his easy arm-chair after lunch for his usual ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... moment, but soon formed again; when a forward movement was made with such spirit and intrepidity as to render the feeble efforts of a handful of men, without the means of defence, unavailing; and they fled through an open space, in the rear of the redoubt, which had been left for a gateway. At this moment, the rear of the British column advanced round the angle of the redoubt, and threw in ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... Regent to apply his eye to the glass at the top of the machine. "Tsong-Kaba!" said he; "the louse is as big as a rat."... Having viewed it for an instant, he hid his face in his hands, saying, that it was a horrible sight. He tried to prevent the others from looking, but his expostulations were unavailing. Every body in turn bent over the microscope, and started back with cries of horror. The Secretary-Lama perceiving that his little animal scarcely moved, put in a word in its behalf. We raised the tweezers and restored the louse to its owner. Alas! the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... be alike unavailing," repeated Lucrezia. "And if you ask what you have done—you have dared to step with your ill-placed passion between my lord and the Lady Adelaide: you have brought discredit upon the long-upheld religion ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... institution on the distant hills of central New York? So, too, with the most eminent men at the other universities. What sum will draw them to us from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the University of Virginia, and the University of Michigan? An endowment twice as large as ours would be unavailing.'' Therefore it was that I broached, as a practical measure, in my "plan of organization,'' the system which I had discussed tentatively with George William Curtis several years before, and to which he referred afterward in his speech at the opening of the university at Ithaca. This ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... mean to say that there are not those who rebel against Bonaparte's tyranny, or that the Bourbons have no friends; on the contrary, the latter are not few, and the former very numerous. But a kind of apathy, the effect of unavailing resistance to usurpation and oppression, has seized on most minds, and annihilated what little remained of our never very great public spirit. We are tired of everything, even of our existence, and care no more whether we are governed by a Maximilian Robespierre ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the curiosity of Ali's wife, who was extremely desirous to see a Christian, but that afterwards, they had no doubt that Ali would make him a present, which would compensate for his trouble, and conduct him safely to Bambarra. Entreaty or refusal would have been equally unavailing. Mr. Park took leave of his landlord and company with great reluctance, and, attended by his negro boy (for Daman's slave made his escape on seeing the Moors), followed the messengers, and reached Dalli ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... been effected in this interval, which included the very best part of the navigable season, had we been previously aware of the position and extent of the American Continent about this meridian, is in itself certainly unavailing; but it may serve to show the value of even the smallest geographical information in seas where not an hour must be ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... chain, the procession was met by a certain man who was ardently attached to the deceased. He leaped upon the chiefs who were carrying the King's body; he desired to die with him on account of his love. The chiefs drove him away. He persisted in making numerous attempts, which were unavailing. Kalaimoka also had it in his heart to die with him, but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and rowing down endeavoured to tow them to the bank; but they were now in a blaze from end to end, the heat was so great that it was difficult to approach them, and all endeavours to fasten ropes to them were frustrated, as these were instantly consumed. The Northmen, finding their efforts unavailing, then turned their attention to trying to tow the ships below ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... made is prevailed upon to grant what is asked of him; but the mind of God is unchangeable and inflexible: The Triumpher in Israel will not spare, and will not be moved to repentance; for He is not a man that He should repent.[113] Consequently it is unavailing to pray to God. ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... important, the key to Paris, without a moment's warning, without the semblance of a siege, should thus fall into the hands of the enemy, was a blow as directly to the heart of De Bethune as it could have been to any other of Henry's adherents. But while they had been distracting the king by unavailing curses or wailings, Henry, who had received the intelligence just as he was getting into bed, had sent for support and consolation to the tried friend of years, and he now reproachfully contrasted their pusillanimity with De ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the respect due to a man who had rendered himself so illustrious. General Bonaparte, offended at this behaviour, refused to receive him again, and expressed himself to me with much warmth on the occasion of this visit. All my efforts to remove his displeasure were unavailing this impression always continued, and he never did for M. de Cominges what his means and the old ties of boyhood might well ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done—of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired! There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... intense, he seized the keys, and again set to work. But all his attempts to open the drawers were unavailing, and this was not so much owing to the shaking of his hands as to his continual misconceptions. He could see, for instance, that a certain key would not fit the lock, and yet he continued to try ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... failed, for the English lines were as unyielding as ever. Direct attack was unavailing. In the Norman character fox and lion were equally blended, as William now showed. He ventured on the daring stratagem of ordering a pretended flight, and the unwary English rushed down the slope, pursuing the fugitive with shouts of delight. The error was fatal ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... regrets were bitter and unavailing. 2. The anger of the righteous is weighty. 3. The air seemed deep and dark. 4. She had grown tall and queenly. 5. The peacemakers are blessed. 6. I came into the world helpless. 7. The untrodden snow lay bloodless. 8. The fall of ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... the mast there was a well, from which, with a grain-shovel, the water was thrown out. Lawry examined this hole, feeling under the planks, and thrusting the shovel in as far as he could. This search was unavailing, and he gave it up in despair. As he stepped on shore, his curiosity prompted him to look under the platform outside ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... never take place!" he said, and was convinced of its being impossible. He forgot that while he was wasting energy at Fairly, Rhoda had sat hiving bitter strength in the loneliness of the Farm; with one vile epithet clapping on her ears, and nothing but unavailing wounded love for her absent unhappy sister to make music ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which is best, God knows;—besides poor Mrs. Byron, I have been deprived by death of two most particular friends within little more than a month; but as all observations on such subjects are superfluous and unavailing, I leave the dead to their rest, and return to the dull business of life, which however presents nothing very pleasant to me either in prospect ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... essayed a much less romantic role in life, belonging rather to the crowd of uplifters who conduct the drab and dreary battle with the slums. The futility of most of these schemes for badgering the poor makes one feel at times that these battles are shams and unavailing. This is depressing. It is thrilling, then, suddenly to acquire the glamorous title of war-correspondent, and to have before one the prospect of real ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... Ctesiphon, Ctesiphon and Kut. Thus may the events of the last month in Mesopotamia, no longer a "blessed word," be expressed in a bald formula, which takes no account of the unavailing heroism of General Townshend's small but splendid force. Things have not been going well in the East. The Allies have been unable to save Serbia, Monastir has fallen, and our lines have been withdrawn to ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... unprepared; Kaiser at such a pass; 'War like to be, about the Palatinate Dispute [our friend Friedrich Wilhelm's]: Where is England to get, allies?'—and hours long of the like sort. A judicious wet cloth; which proved unavailing. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... and then he wondered how his grandmother had managed with her, and if she had cried for him or for her mother, and as he reached the house he stood still a moment, to listen. But the sounds which met his ear were peals of laughter, mingled with mild, and, as it would seem, unavailing ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... regretful; Bought my bride the bread of barley, Veal, and beer, and best of butter, Fish and fowl of all descriptions, Beer I bought, home-brewed and sparkling, Wheat from all the distant nations, All the dainties of the Northland; All of this was unavailing, Gave my wife no satisfaction, Often came she to my chamber, Tore my sable locks in frenzy, With a visage fierce and frightful, With her eyeballs flashing anger, Scolding on and scolding ever, Ever speaking words of evil, Using epithets the vilest, Thought ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... complimented him highly on the art he exhibited in adorning the persons of her sons; and bestowing upon him a gigantic mantle, said that he, and he alone, might be enabled to fit it to the shoulders of living men. The rest of the poem was occupied in Mr. Snip's unavailing attempts to adjust this mantle to the eminent politicians of the day, when, just as he had sunk down in despair, Britannia reappeared to him, and consoled him with the information that he had done all mortal man could do, and that she had only desired to convince ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... There was nothing which his power extended to, that, in his rage, he did not threaten. He proposed a closer and a more rigorous survey of his cell, so that he might discover the mode by which his tormentor entered, were it as unnoticeable as an auger-hole. If his diligence should prove unavailing, he determined to inform the jailers, to whom it could not be indifferent to know, that their prison was open to such intrusions. He proposed to himself, to discover from their looks whether they were already privy to these visits; and if so, to denounce ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... to penetrate what is to me, indeed, no secret; neither do I form the unavailing wish that our expired intercourse should revive. C'en est fait. A knot which has been loosened or untied may be formed again, but this knot has been cut. Accordingly, I neither address you by your name nor subscribe my own. My hand-writing, though not disguised, is, like ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... with him, argued, cajoled, ridiculed, but all to no purpose. Jack painted a picture of the crowd in the Garden, the cat-calls, the jeers, imitated the introduction of past and present champions, and Jerry winced a little, but was not moved. Finding all else unavailing, I fell back upon our friendship, recalling all Jerry's old ideals and mine. He softened ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... preventing smallpox by inoculation with the virus of cow-pox. It detracts nothing from the merit of this discovery to say that the preventive power of accidental inoculation had long been rumored among the peasantry of England. Such vague, unavailing half-knowledge is often the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... dissolved pearls which the quack doctor, Leoni di Spoleto, prescribed for him (as if he desired to adapt his remedies rather to the riches of his patient than to his necessities) were useless and unavailing, and so he had come to understand that he must part from those gentle-tongued women of his, those sweet-voiced poets, his palaces and their rich hangings; therefore he had summoned to give him absolution for his sins—in a man of less high place they might perhaps ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Scott. "What you write of me, would make me more conceited, than what I scribble myself."—Pope. (3.) Participles, or participial adjectives, reversed in sense by the prefix un; as, unaspiring, unavailing, unbelieving, unbattered, uninjured, unbefriended. (4.) Words of a participial form construed elliptically, as if they were nouns; as, "Among the dying and the dead."—"The called of Jesus Christ."—Rom., i, 6. "Dearly beloved, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... again jeoparded in the year 1456, when Basil Greene, being commissioned by Henry the Sixth to enrich his sovereign by discovering the philosopher's stone, squandered the greater part of his fortune in unavailing experiments; while his son, who was also infected with the spirit of the age, was blown up in his laboratory when just on the point of discovering the elixir of life. It seems to have been about this time ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... is such indefinite, on-leading expansiveness, such a multitude of features without apparent redundance, their lines graduating delicately into one another in endless succession, while the whole is so fine, so tender, so ethereal, that all pen-work seems hopelessly unavailing. Tracing shining ways through fiord and sound, past forests and waterfalls, islands and mountains and far azure headlands, it seems as if surely we must at length reach the very paradise of the poets, the abode of ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... those who had no watch-dogs bought them; there were new locks, new bolts, new fastenings. At one time there was a mounted patrol of young men, which, however, was soon broken up by their mothers. But this trouble was unavailing, for at ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... himself was threatened. "If you will be another Romulus, like Romulus you shall die" (one form of the legend of Rome's first king represented him as having been torn to pieces by the senators.) But all resistance was unavailing. The new command was created, and of course bestowed upon Pompey. The price of corn, which had risen to a famine height in Rome, fell immediately the appointment was made. The result, indeed, amply justified ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... of our bodies. The deep stupor of the soldiers and sailors instantly changed to despair. All saw their inevitable destruction, and expressed by their moans the dark thoughts which brooded in their minds. Our words were at first unavailing to quiet their fears, which we participated with them, but which a greater strength of mind enabled us to dissemble. At last, an unmoved countenance, and our proffered consolations, quieted them by degrees, but could not entirely ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... house was the key of our position, and throughout the siege they made the most desperate attempts to capture it. But Barnard had entrusted this post of danger to the Gurkhas, and all efforts to dislodge them were unavailing. At first Reid had at his command only his own battalion and two companies of the 60th Rifles; but on the arrival of the Guides their Infantry were also placed at his disposal, and whenever he sounded the alarm he was reinforced by two more ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... and romantic, it was not in Josiah Cargill's nature to yield to unavailing melancholy; yet he sought relief, not in society, but in solitary study. His seclusion was the more complete, that his mother, whose education had been as much confined as her fortunes, felt awkward under her new dignities, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... against the very dame who had been so cruelly misusing him, my little great-heart gave but one hoarse cry and fell upon the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of a soul's tragedy. After three years of unavailing chivalry, he suddenly, in one hour, threw off the yoke of obligation; had he been Shakespeare he would then have written TROILUS AND CRESSIDA to brand the offending sex; but being only a little dog, he began to bite them. The surprise of the ladies whom he attacked indicated the monstrosity ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... an hour! This sad event occurred on May 31, 1871: and the newspapers at the time, both British and South African, fully recorded not only the accident but the heroism of the brave youth, the kind but unavailing assiduities of friends, and the municipal honours accorded to him at his funeral, when the mayor and council, the volunteers and chief inhabitants of King William's Town (every window shuttered) followed him to the grave, where Archdeacon Kitton read ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... munificent Being from whom we received the principles of our existence, and upon whose bounty we depend from day to day. We cannot be saved by our own righteousness; did not we read together last night, in the Psalms—That God did not find one perfect amongst the children of men. Then dry these unavailing tears, and return thanks to that divine Providence that has saved thee from ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie
... he fell dead without a groan. There was a shout of triumph from the outside, while the tidings soon spread sadness through the garrison, for all loved and venerated the man. Philip Fleming, so soon as he learned the heavy news, lost no time in unavailing regrets, but instantly sent a courier to Prince Maurice; meantime summoning a council of superior officers, by whom Colonel John van Loon was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... possible. Her Spartan (or Tolstoyan) treatment of herself may be of value in character- building, as mortification of the flesh is supposed to be in general. Practically, I think the relations between peasants and nobles render her sacrifices unavailing. For example: one of the peasant women having been taken ill,—there was a good deal of sickness in the village,—she went to the hayfield to do the woman's work and prevent the forfeit of fifteen ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... below; and then, with the noise of rending cloth and followed by several pots, he dropped upon the sod. Once more the bell was rung, and now with furious and repeated peals. The desperate Challoner turned his eyes on every side. They fell upon the ladder, and he ran to it, and with strenuous but unavailing effort sought to raise it from the ground. Suddenly the weight, which was thus resisting his whole strength, began to lighten in his hands; the ladder, like a thing of life, reared its bulk from off the sod; and Challoner, leaping back with a cry of almost superstitious terror, beheld ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as the Tempter spoke, and feeble Nature's fears Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavailing tears, I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in silent prayer, To feel, O Helper of the weak! that Thou ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... arm, or stood upon its head in the bathing-tub, until it finally reverts to the rag-bag whence it came,—what an affluence of breathing life is thrown around it by one touch of dawning imagination! Its little mistress will find all joy unavailing without its sympathetic presence, will confide every emotion to its pen-and-ink ears, and will weep passionate tears if its extremely soiled person is pricked when its clothes are mended. What psychologist, what student of the human heart, has ever applied his subtile analysis ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... probably, even as James of Scotland wore the iron belt. At a pause in the conversation you may hear him rattling the coppers in his pocket moodily, as the spectres in old romances rattle their chains; but his remorse is unavailing. A fair chance once lost, Whist and Erycina never forgive. The beautiful bird that might then have been limed and tamed shook her wings and flew away exultingly: far up in air the unlucky fowler may still sometimes hear ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... wrung his hands, but the Kalevide plunged into the sea after the maiden, and sought for her for a long time in vain. When he abandoned the search, he did not venture to return to the island, but after crying out a few words of unavailing regret swam again towards Finland. The father's cry of despair fully roused the mother, who sprang up, and ran down to the shore, only to learn that ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... is unavailing and should not be attempted. No matter how valuable the diseased animals may have been before they contracted the disease, they should at once be destroyed and the contagion eradicated. This is the best policy for the individual as well as for ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... assemble, as generally happens, by reason of the unheard-of and atrocious nature of an extraordinary occurrence. They complained, each for himself, of the royal villainy and violence. Both the grief of the father affected them, and also Brutus, who reproved their tears and unavailing complaints, and advised them to take up arms, as became men and Romans, against those who dared to treat them like enemies. All the most spirited youths voluntarily presented themselves in arms; the rest of the young men followed also. From thence, after an adequate ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... oneself of means to obtain it or to hinder it: but the answer has already been given above in the passage combating the lazy [161] sophism. If good or evil were a necessity without these means, then such means would be unavailing; but it is not so. These goods and evils come only with the aid of these means, and if these results were necessary the means would be a part of the causes rendering them necessary, since experience teaches us that often fear or hope hinders evil or advances good. This objection, then, differs ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... have made a worse choice of an ambassador. Divided as the Jews were, among themselves, they were united in a common hatred for the man whom they regarded as a traitor to his country; and the harangue of Josephus, to the effect that resistance was unavailing, and that they should submit themselves to the mercy of Titus, was drowned by the execrations from the walls. In fact, in no case could his words have reached any large number of the inhabitants; for he had cautiously placed himself out of bow shot of the walls, and his words could scarcely have ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... their characters. Melanchthon, who thought every kind of disturbance a crime, oversteps the limits of his usual gentleness, and cannot find language strong enough to express his indignation. The peasants are criminals against whom he invokes all laws human and divine. If friendly negotiation is unavailing, the magistrates should hunt them down as if they were robbers and assassins. "And yet," adds he—and we require at least one feature to remind us of Melanchthon—"let them take pity on the orphans when having recourse to the penalty ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... the greatest evils which man can experience. It is never void of danger, frequently of fatal issue, and invariably productive of regret. It is one against which there is the least resource, where patience, fortitude and ingenuity are in most cases, unavailing, except to protract a struggle with destiny, which, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... for me, Asking of his own heart what brought him here? You know my recent story, all men know it, And judge of it far differently from those Who sate in judgement to heap scorn on scorn. But spare me the recital—it is here, Here at my heart the outrage—but my words, Already spent in unavailing plaints, Would only show my feebleness the more, 150 And I come here to strengthen even the strong, And urge them on to deeds, and not to war With woman's weapons; but I need not urge you. Our private wrongs have sprung from public vices, In this—I cannot call it commonwealth, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... as Audrey had passed to gather her flowers she had had a glimpse of a dark, closely-cropped head, and the perfect profile that she had admired last night, and she knew the new master would be fully occupied all the morning. Audrey felt a little needle-prick of unavailing compunction as she remembered her allusion ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... lands for nearly three hundred years. Deep as this loyalty and pride in the soul of him there lay a cold suspicion of the Yankee. He had met him in those old days of trade war, had suffered and had seen his Company suffer from his wiles, and finally had been compelled to witness with bitter but unavailing hate the steady encroachment of those rival traders upon the ancient prerogatives and preserves of his own Company, once the sole and undisputed lords of the northern half of the American continent. In the person of Mr. Alvin P. Jones, McTavish saw the representative ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... of the above remarkable story, was hanged in the jailyard at A—— for the wilful and brutal murder of Doctor Ambrose Matthai, a retired practitioner of that place. The plea of insanity, so strongly urged by the prisoner's counsel, proved unavailing, and the condemned man paid the penalty for his crime on ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... zeal on her behalf broke the ice; and besides, as the search proved unavailing, she needed sympathy; and he gave it her, and did not abuse her husband ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... her arms, I have always regarded as one of the most wonderful in Shakspeare. Cleopatra is not a woman to grieve silently. The contrast between the violence of her passions and the weakness of her sex, between her regal grandeur and her excess of misery, her impetuous, unavailing struggles with the fearful destiny which has compassed her, and the mixture of wild impatience and pathos in her agony, are really magnificent. She faints on the body of Antony, and is recalled to life by ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... she said with a friendliness that shattered all hope. "Mr. Van Truder has just arranged for breakfast at that farmhouse over there. The relief train won't be here for half an hour or more and you must be famished." Eleanor's flimsy excuses were unavailing; her protestations that she could not eat a mouthful fell on obdurate ears. Windomshire, catching sight of the forlorn Anne, was about to assert himself vigorously in declining the invitation when a meaning look from the governess caused him to refrain. The ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... constitution of the United States, also met in Carpenter Hall in secret session for four months before agreeing upon its provisions. This hall seemed the most appropriate place for establishing the centennial rooms of the National Woman Suffrage Association, but the effort to obtain it proved unavailing[4] as will be seen by the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... up the hateful visitant the noise of its attack had aroused the military guards across Epping Forest, in Chingford village, and, aided by a search-light, the anti-aircraft-gun opened its unavailing fire on the Zeppelin—ineffective, except that its returning shrapnel smashed up several roofs and battered some innocent heads. The Germans had gauged their skyward path to London along which, apparently, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... Azrael, Angel of Death. And yet that veiled face, I know Is lit with pitying eyes, Like those faint stars, the first to glow Through cloudy winter skies. That they may never tire, Angels, by God's decree, Bear wings of snow and fire, — Passion and purity; Save one, all unavailing, (The Prophet saith), His wings are gray and trailing, Azrael, Angel of Death. And yet the souls that Azrael brings Across the dark and cold, Look up beneath those folded wings, And find them ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... with shouts of laughter, in the midst of which the nonplussed witness backed out of court, and all the efforts of special constables, and even the high sheriff himself, were unavailing in getting him again ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... My pleas were unavailing. The young lady sobbed and sobbed. I fidgeted on the edge of my chair in an agony of mortified embarrassment. "Don'ts" were quite useless and I could think of nothing else to say except "Compose yourself" and ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... day, as I afterwards learned, George made the mistake of returning to France, not that he feared punishment for himself, but because he did not want to speak the unavailing truth and thereby bring upon himself the king's wrath, nor did he want to bear false witness ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... in the United States Circuit Court, Judge M. Hall McAllister presiding, and Judge Ogden Hoffman sitting as associate. The trial came off September, 1856, and on the 23d of that month the jury returned a verdict of acquittal. Adjutant-General Kibbe, of the State militia, meantime made unavailing demand upon the Executive Committee for the arms. They were not returned to the State until after the Committee ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... pierced through the heavy, drunken stupor that pressed upon her brain. With vague movements of hands, she endeavoured to fasten the front of her dress, and with a groan rolled herself out of the light; but her efforts to fall back into insensibility were unavailing, and like the dawn that slips and swells through the veils of night, a pale waste of consciousness forced itself upon her. First came the curtains of the bed, then the bare blankness of the wall, and then the great throbbing pain that lay ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... works I deduce a different original. He was refined and urbane; of a casuistical and prying disposition; like many sensitive men, unduly preoccupied with the sexual life of youth; like a true feudal aristocrat, ever ready to apply force where verbal admonition proved unavailing. . ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... was so hotly pressed by his fierce opponents, whose fangs he could almost feel within his haunches, that he suddenly stopped and stood at bay, receiving the foremost of his assailants, Saturn, on the points of his horns. But his defence, though gallant, was unavailing. In another instant Herne came up, and, dismounting, called off Dragon, who was about to take the place of his wounded companion. Drawing a knife from his girdle, the hunter threw himself on the ground, and, advancing on all fours towards ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sprang from a faith more confirmed than that of the French poet: and from a charity which, in combination with faith, showed its power unimpaired amidst the languors and pains of approaching dissolution. I will hope that a prayer, which, I am sure, was deeply sincere, may not be always unavailing. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... themselves in a blur before my eyes. Carmel was no fool even if she had wild and demoniacal moments. This could not be my note to her,—that fatal note which would make all denial of our mutual passion unavailing. ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... of supplication in the younger sister's voice as she made the last suggestion, which ought to have melted the heart of the elder; but it was unavailing. "As he has asked to see me, I think you had better not," said Annabella. Miss Anne Prettyman bore her cross meekly, offered no argument on the subject, and returning to the little parlour where she had left the major, brought ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... remarked late at night a solitary light twinkling from a remote lattice of one of its towers. 'There,' said I, the unhappy nun sits weeping in her cell, while perhaps her lover paces the street below in unavailing ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... proud predictions of Prince Alexis, and the protection of the sacred amulet, were alike unavailing. The babe sickened, wasted away, and died in less than two months after its birth. There was great and genuine sorrow among the serfs of Kinesma. Each had received a shining ruble of silver at the christening; and, moreover, they were now beginning to appreciate the milder regime of their ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... moment when, by any even partial failure or effeminate collapse of your energies, you will be self-denounced as a murderer. You had but the twinkling of an eye for your effort, and that effort might have been unavailing; but to have risen to the level of such an effort would have rescued you, though not from dying, yet from dying as a traitor to your final and ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... said, or what de Crucis answered, he could never afterward recall. He had a confused sense of having cried out a last unavailing protest, faintly, inarticulately, like a man struggling to make himself heard in a dream; then the room grew dark about him, and in its stead he saw the old chapel at Donnaz, with its dimly-gleaming ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... conjecture was unavailing, then and always thenceforth. Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next day, did tidings transpire of any such figure as the Stranger; nor could the Traveller, who had passed through the neighbouring Town in coach-and-four, be connected with this Apparition, except in the way of ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... these particulars—interrupted, as it constantly was, by unavailing lamentations on one side and by useless self-reproaches on the other—occupied much more time than either mother or son had imagined. It was not till the clock in Mr. Blyth's hall struck, that Mrs. Thorpe discovered how much longer her absence from home had ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... here by slaves in chains, who perform a kind of plaintive melancholy dirge in recitative, to sooth their unavailing toil, which, with the accompanyment of the clanking of their irons, is the real voice of wo, and attunes the soul to sympathy and compassion, more than the most elaborate piece ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... she prayed him in the humblest manner to spare his only child; she could never survive the union—it would break her heart—she was young, and wished still to remain for some years under the paternal roof. But tears and entreaties were unavailing. Don Pedro commanded her, in the most peremptory manner, to obey. Rising, with a dignity and composure of manner he had never seen in her before, for she had ever appeared in his presence only a timid and frightened child, she professed her readiness to make his ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... to convince my unfortunate uncle were all rendered unavailing, and shown to be so to Julia herself in a very short time afterward. The insolence of Mrs. Clifford, when I did seek an interview with her husband, was so offensive and unqualified, that Julia herself, with a degree of indignation which she could ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... Every feature quivered under the invisible cutting hand of cruel experience. In those last sharp moments of introspection she had gained such a knowledge of suffering that a fire seemed to have consumed her vision of life, reducing it to a frightful desert of eternal woe and unavailing sacrifice. Partially stunned, and partially blinded by misery, she felt the awful helplessness and pain of what is sometimes called the second birth, a crisis in all human development when the first true realisation comes that the soul is a stranger, a rebel, strong as eternity, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... good order, in spite of the numerous masses which closely threatened us. This unfortunate affair was the most disastrous his Majesty had experienced during the whole campaign, since the roads leading to the capital had been left uncovered; and the prodigies of his genius and valor were unavailing against such overwhelming numbers. An instance which furnishes an excellent proof of the presence of mind which the Emperor preserved in the most critical positions was, that before evacuating Arcis he committed to the Sisters of Charity a sum sufficient for the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... the stream, which generally fell harmless upon brazen helmet and buckler. But few were wounded, and still fewer slain. Yet neither party dared venture the passage of the stream in the presence of the other. At length, weary of the unavailing conflict, Sviatoslaf, the insurgent chief, sent a challenge ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... very unsteady gait. Unheeding the warnings of a companion he would venture too near the edge; a sudden gust of wind came, he was carried off his equilibrium and fell into the lake. His companion did all he could to save him, but as there was a storm raging at the time, his efforts were unavailing. He said Ginsling's bloated face appeared for a moment in the hollow of the waves, and with an agonizing tone he cried to God to save him; then a huge wave, more mighty than its fellows, engulfed him, and he sank in life to rise no more. A few days after his corpse was ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... singular spirit of our young friend that she could remind herself with a pang that when people had awfully good manners—people of that class,—you couldn't tell. These manners were for everybody, and it might be drearily unavailing for any poor particular body to be overworked and unusual. What he did take for granted was all sorts of facility; and his high pleasantness, his relighting of cigarettes while he waited, his unconscious bestowal of opportunities, of boons, of blessings, were all a part of his splendid security, ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... insanity; but, terrified by the alteration of his features, stood transfixed by the bedside. He grasped my shoulder convulsively, and, striking his breast with the other hand, made a desperate attempt to articulate. It was unavailing; he extended his arm towards them, and made another violent effort. There was a rattling noise in the throat—a glare of the eye—a short ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... master of the ship having weighed anchor, hoisted sail and departed: the lady in vain entreating him to wait the return of her beloved, or send her on shore, for he was captivated with her beauty. Finding herself thus ensnared, as she was a woman of strong mind, instead of indulging in unavailing complaint, she assumed a satisfied air; and as the only way to preserve her honour, received the addresses of the treacherous master with pretended complacency, and consented to receive him as a husband at the first port at which the ship might touch. With these assurances ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Mormon statement at least, by virtue of an express covenant in their behalf. If there was such a covenant, it was broken. A vindictive war was waged upon them, from which the weakest fled in scattered parties, leaving the rest to make a reluctant and almost ludicrously unavailing defence, till September 17th, when one thousand six hundred twenty-five troops entered Nauvoo and drove all forth who had not retreated ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... it determinedly, grabbing at the side-bar with an evident desire to secure it in her teeth. The girl kept a tight rein and attempted to soothe her with the tender caress of her hand; but her efforts were unavailing. The ears were now turned backwards, and had assumed that curiously vicious inclination which in a horse is indicative of bad temper or equine terror. Kitty had no vice in her, and Prudence quickly understood the nature of her ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... an hour of desperate and unavailing use of home remedies, Lilly sent for a doctor, one in the building, who came down ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... finding all remonstrances unavailing, he quickened his pace and walked on in silence till they reached the music-seller's, where, after some deliberation, they obtained the requisite music, and, after a few more errands, ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... modest mite to a charitable object willingly—secret almsgiving suited her; but in public plans, on a large scale, she could take no part; as to originating them, that was out of the question. This Shirley knew, and therefore she did not trouble Mrs. Pryor by unavailing conferences, which could only remind her of her own deficiencies, and do ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... tinker woman, full of zeal, dashed at it and flung it back, revealing, amongst other debris, an old wooden bedstead heaped with rags. On either side of one of its legs protruded the passion-fraught faces of the coupled hound-puppies, who, still linked together, had passed through the period of unavailing struggle into a state of paralysed insanity of terror. Muffled squeals and tinny crashes told that conflict was still raging beneath the bed; the tinker women screamed abuse and complaint; and suddenly the dachshund's ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross |
