"Fruitless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they were only the passing expression of an ever-besetting mental restlessness. It is indeed surprising that a writer with artistic instinct and a sense of humour should ever have persuaded himself to enter the fruitless field of religious contention ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... the country there is not one syllable to be found in the correspondence of our ministers, from the first to the last; they felt nothing for a land desolated by fire, sword, and famine: their sympathies took another direction; they were touched with pity for bribery, so long tormented with a fruitless itching of its palms; their bowels yearned for usury, that had long missed the harvest of its returning months;[40] they felt for peculation, which had been for so many years raking in the dust of an empty ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... joy, a world in which each of us may have a noble though a humble part,—the work of the "holy life of action." It will find religion in love and wisdom and virtue, not in bloodless asceticism, philosophical disputation, the maintenance of withered creeds, the cultivation of fruitless emotion, or the recrudescence of forms from which the life has gone out. It is possible, Thoreau tells us, for us to "walk in hallowed cathedrals," and this in our every-day lives of profession or trade. It is the loyalty to duty, the love of God ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... because of the assaults of their opponents, but because of their impotence in the face of a grave national crisis. Nevertheless, they were on all essential issues beaten by the Democrats; and on the few occasions on which they were victorious, their victories were both meaningless and fruitless. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... his fruitless efforts only brought two big tears to his eyes. Then he gazed at his visitors with an expression of indescribable woe, his jaws ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... recovery. Language cannot depict the anguish of the mother as she bent over the couch of her suffering boy, and, if a grain could have increased the burden of her grief, it would have been felt in the memory of the few words of harsh rebuke when he had returned half-frozen and heavy-hearted from his fruitless search after the thimble, for the kind Elizabeth had arrived and explained the incident ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... objects which presented themselves to our view. There was neither grass nor water where we stopped; of course, nothing but the absolute necessity that existed to spare the horses could induce us to halt. People were sent to search the range for water, but all their endeavours proved fruitless, after wandering in every probable direction until sunset. The coldness of the air would have prevented us from feeling much inconvenience from this privation, had it been in our power to have satisfied our hunger but salt pork, would have proved an aggravating ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... at reconciliation failed as all the attempts of the tribunes had. The war with Vaii which, according to Livy, now took place hindered for a while any agrarian movements; but, in 474, the tribunes Gaius Considius and Titus Genucius made a fruitless attempt at distribution, and, in 472, Dionysius speaks of a bill brought forward by Cn. Genucius which is ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... every direction, and in the greatest confusion, notwithstanding the exertions of their generals to form them. I used every means in my power to rally and to get them into some order; but my attempts were fruitless and ineffectual; and on the appearance of a small party of the enemy, not more than sixty or seventy, their disorder increased, and they ran away in the greatest confusion, ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... fruitless manoeuvring, the collision took place, and for two days there was fierce and stubborn fighting on the famous battlefield of Chickamauga. On the second day, September 20, Longstreet, commanding the Confederate left, thoroughly defeated the Federal right and centre and sent them ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... offered no resistance, but allowed himself to be bound and removed with mechanical passiveness. The officer, with part of his soldiers, hoped still to discover Faringhea amongst the ruins; but his search was vain, and, after spending an hour in fruitless endeavors, he set out for Batavia, where the escort of the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... according to their worth in columns, that those devices which had so often led women to confide to him the details of the particular sensation that he was working up would avail him nothing here. "You simply haven't got her Bertillon measurements, Simp.," he was forced to admit, after an hour of fruitless thinking. "You'll have to trust in your ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... not tried to find her Since you sent your love by me; Day by day I think I'm blinder,— Fruitless search, as you might see. I wonder, if in sending, If you choose your slave by chance, What that twinkle was ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... territories or dominions of any foreine prince or potentate not being with us in league or amitie, nor yet wittinglie kepe companie with any parson or parsons evell affected to our State."[177] But the attempt to keep Englishmen out of Italy was generally fruitless, and the proviso was too frequently disregarded. Lord Zouche grumbled exceedingly at the limitations of his licence. "I cannot tell," he writes to Burghley in 1591, "whether I shall do well or no to touch ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... she has her reward: for death sometimes comes, to wither the bud, and disperse the dream in empty air. On such an occasion, her grief, as we may readily suppose, is neither deep nor lasting, for its object is twined round her imagination, not her heart. She regrets her wasted hopes and fruitless speculations; but the baby having never been present in its own entity, is now as that which has never been. The unthinking call her an unnatural mother, for they make no distinction. They do not know ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... instances; people have suffered too severely at the hands of careless and incompetent hosts not to know pretty well what the title of this paper means. So many of us have come away from fruitless evenings, grinding our teeth, and vowing never to enter those doors again while life lasts, that the time seems ripe for ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... aloud. The two great insects had drawn apart by now, and had sprung from under the shattered acid vat. Again they were on the trail. The maneuver had been fruitless! The chase was on again, which meant—since he could not hope to elude the blind but ably directed creatures forever—that all ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... to make soil of that which is removed, may be seen in all the steps of that important operation; whereas, in the more level countries, the scale of elevation is imperceptible, and that of time is so slow as renders our examination fruitless. It is the Alps, therefore, chiefly that we are to take for an example, in tracing this operation of nature upon the surface of this earth, and forming some idea of the course of time that must have flowed ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... Columbus his son Diego made fruitless efforts to recover the honors of which his father had been despoiled, but it was not until he married Maria de Toledo, the beautiful niece of the Duke of Alba, that he met with partial success, probably ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... are the conditions of life in the other. And till these conditions are sensibly grasped, as the conditions of all life, it is impossible that the personal effort after the highest life should be other than a blind struggle carried on in fruitless sorrow and humiliation. Natural Law, ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... stopping up of the hole was not so easy to accomplish. It was in vain that we took up fragments of granite, and stuffed them in with tow, we only scalded our hands without succeeding. The pressure was too great, and our efforts were fruitless. ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... account, he fell gloriously after slaying many Brazilians, refusing quarter and declaring his devotion to his country with his dying breath. The generally accepted report, however, is that he made a fruitless endeavor to escape from his encampment, and, overtaken by a Brazilian horseman, died in a matter-of-fact way from a lance-thrust. His grave is in that wild and lonely valley. At first a wooden cross marked the spot where he lies, but this has disappeared, and a bush, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... handsome young face, the poet's symbolical flowers, and his elegant dress seemed to strike the stranger. He looked at Lucien with something of the expression of a hunter that has found his quarry at last after long and fruitless search. He allowed Lucien to come alongside in nautical phrase; then he slackened his pace, and appeared to look along the road up the hill; Lucien, following the direction of his eyes, saw a light traveling carriage with two horses, and a ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... undertaking, saying that he could not fight against both God and man. One day towards the end of November, he suddenly took his departure, and, leaving Pisa, returned by Sarzana to Pavia. The Venetians saw the failure of this expedition and the fruitless result of their large expenditure of men and money, with great dissatisfaction, and attributed most of the blame ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... situation; destitute of friends, and not knowing whither to go, or what to do. She asked questions, sifting-questions, about her uncle, about her family, and after what he knew of Mr. Hickman's fruitless application in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... play and pole in hand, loyally brought up the rear of our strange procession. I shall not retail that search through robes and skins and blankets and boxes, in foul-smelling, vermin-infested wigwams. It was fruitless. I only recall the lowering face of the big squaw looking over my shoulder at every turn, with heavy brows contracted and gashed lips grinning an evil, malicious challenge. I thought she kept her hands uncomfortably near the ivory handle in the agate belt; but ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... carrying out the Enclosures Act. All missionary efforts put forth to improve the condition of the factory operative and canal-boatmen, previous to the passing of the Factory Act, nearly fifty years since, and the Canal Boats Act of 1877, were fruitless and unprofitable. The passing of the Factory Act has done more for the children in one year than all the missionaries in the kingdom could have done in their lifetime. Similar results are the outcome of the Brickyard Act of 1871, as touching the welfare of the children. And so in like manner ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... to spare his old friend any further agitation; he was in a state of health where too great excitement might prove fatal. But how could he? The negro was guilty, and sure to die sooner or later. He had not meant to interfere, and his intervention might be fruitless. ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... A mile ahead, both channels are closed by a sudd of vegetation, we must thus await until the boats arrive. Altogether the entire journey by the Bahr Giraffe is a painful absurdity, and my expedition will be fruitless in all but geographical results unless the authorities of the Soudan will clear the main ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... appropriate juncture, she made a fruitless effort to shed a few tears, but, to be charitable, the deepest sorrow cannot find ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... below the surface the rock is generally found to contain gold, the value increasing down to eighteen feet of depth, and then again diminishing, though these proportions are very uncertain, and there is much fruitless search. The rock is carried out of the holes in baskets, on ladders of bamboo, and the water in small pails; but in the rainy season the holes cannot possibly be kept free from water, as they are situated on the slope of the mountain, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... fruitless day in quest of a more attractive pair than they as they strode swiftly down the shady road. They lagged not, for they were strong and healthy, and walking was a joy to them, not an exercise. She ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... had been sustained through his long and hitherto fruitless struggle by a deep sense of religion. He believed that God was with him, and would eventually save the people of the Netherlands from the fate to which Philip had doomed them. And yet though an ardent Protestant, and in an age when Protestants were ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... of these inconveniencies determined him to endeavour after some settled income, which, having long found submission and entreaties fruitless, he attempted to extort from his mother by rougher methods. He had now, as he acknowledged, lost that tenderness for her, which the whole series of her cruelty had not been able wholly to repress, till ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... assistance, and on Tuesday night she came back to implore once more the kindly shelter of the parish workhouse. For yet that night she was taken in, but the next morning cast forth into the world again with a piece of dry bread in her hand. On Wednesday the same scene was renewed—the same fruitless casting about for food and shelter, the same disappointment, and the same despair. But parochial bounty can only go thus far, and no farther. Charity herself was worn out with the importunity of this persevering pauper, and on Thursday night the doors of the parish workhouse were finally ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... business, and was riding slowly homeward, through the heavy sultry air, when all at once the storm broke over me. It came tearing down from the blue mountains, raging and driving over the savannas in unchecked fury. I put spurs to my horse, in a fruitless effort to reach home before the worst came, for I knew full well what would follow this outbreak. At this moment I saw approaching me, at full speed, a white horse, whose rider was making hopeless attempts to manage him. I at once recognized Inez, and placing myself across the path, ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... queen, poor Ferscu is the most remarkable. He seems to have entertained for her a high and perfectly pure devotion. He was the chief agent in the luckless escape to Varennes; was lurking in Paris during the time of her captivity; and was concerned in the many fruitless plots that were made for her rescue. Ferscu lived to be an old man, but died a dreadful and violent death. He was dragged from his carriage by the mob, in Stockholm, and murdered ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the event of Germany's breaking off the negotiations with Russia I must reserve the right to act with a free hand. Both appeared to understand my point of view, especially Kuehlmann, who, if he alone should decide, would certainly not allow the negotiations to prove fruitless. As to details, we agreed to demand continuation of the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk in the form of ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... pay him a visit at once, but I doubt whether he is sufficiently recovered to occupy himself with pianoforte and harp matters. A few months ago my children wrote to me from Paris that Erard was very ill, and, after fruitless trials of baths and medicines, had been taken to a ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... aspects they present, for the delight of collecting curious specimens, for the exercise of ingenuity in detecting the secret methods of Nature, for the gratification of arranging facts or objects in regular series, is an innocent and not a fruitless pursuit. Many persons are born with a natural instinct for it, and with special aptitudes which may even constitute a kind of genius. We should do honor to such power wherever we find it; honor according to its kind and its degree; but not affix the wrong ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... tendency, namely, an impulse of the will to banish whatever when recalled gives pain to the furthest conceivable regions of the past. Thus, when we have lost something we cherished dearly, and the recollection of it brings fruitless longing, we instinctively seek to expel the recollection from our minds. The very feeling that what has been can never again be, seems to induce this idea of a vast remoteness of the vanished reality. When, moreover, the lost ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... Emden was not to be long forthcoming. Lord Hastings had no means of knowing just in what part of the sea the Emden might be in so, after two days of fruitless cruising, he put into the port of Penang, on Malacca Straits. Here Lord Hastings received first-hand information concerning the whereabouts of the German "Terror of ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... Worthington, and with him came two or three more relatives, all bound, as they boasted, to "put me through." They were excessively irate against me and very much angered, especially that their race after me to Hancock had been fruitless. I had fallen into the worst ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott
... same time the Frankish Church undoubtedly maintained a position distinctly independent of Rome. Arles never really became a papal vicariate. Gregory's endeavours were fruitless in practical result.[9] The Gallican churches continued to be governed by their bishops, with every degree of local variety, not by the pope. Gregory rather set forth an ideal than established a subordination. His influence was personal not constitutional, and it was not strong. Yet in the ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... abandoned since 1845, were seen but left uncaptured. Sturt's Strezletki Creek in South Australian territory was then followed. This peculiar watercourse branches out from the Cooper and runs in a south-south-west direction. It brought Gregory safely to the northern settlements of South Australia. The fruitless search for it, however, was one of the main causes of the death of Burke and Wills in 1861. This was Gregory's final attempt; he accepted the position of Surveyor-General of Queensland, and his labours as an explorer terminated. ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... 'Hydrabad Cottage.' Now Mary, who behaved with great courage for a couple of days, after that got low-spirited and depressed; the desertion of her father, as she called it, weighed upon her mind, and all my endeavours to rally and comfort her, were fruitless and unavailing. Each day, however, I expected to hear something of, or from, the colonel, that would put an end to this feeling of suspense; but no—three weeks rolled on, and although I took care ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... These, skilfully constructed by means of double or triple rows of heavy palisades, masked by flax and divided by shallow ditches which did duty for rifle-pits, could not be carried without being breached by cannon. A fruitless attack upon one of them soon demonstrated this. The pa, called Okaihau, though strong in front, was weak in the rear. Four hundred soldiers, supported by as many Ngapuhi friendlies under Waka Nene, marched ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... seemed too dear; when he had shrugged his shoulders and ceased to desire what he would not buy. To-night he was not able to count the cost. But he knew—he knew cruelly well—how to cut short this fruitless protest of a young girl who thought him all that was wise and ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... easy task to set up imaginary figures labeled "Marxism," and then to demolish them by learned argument—but the occupation is as fruitless as it is easy. It remains the one central fact of capitalism, however, that a surplus-value is created by the working class and taken by the exploiting class, from which develops the class ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... opening that she was searching for. She ripped the canvas after great effort, for the cloth was tough. Then to her dismay she found a great fold of the canvas on the other side of the opening thus made. All her labor had been fruitless. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... Simeon Stylites on his pillar, and counting every day, and conjecturing each step taken by our friend towards the coast, wishing and praying that no sickness might lay him up, no accident befall him, and no unlooked-for combinations of circumstances render his kind intentions vain or fruitless. Mr. Stanley had got over the tendency to the continued form of fever which is the most dangerous, and was troubled only with the intermittent form, which is comparatively safe, or I would not have allowed him, but would have accompanied him to Zanzibar. I did not tell himself so; nor ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... out and blankly eyed the lifeless hulk. After a moment of this, which was fruitless, Sharon spoke his mind concerning the car. For all the trepidation it had caused him, the doubts and fears and panics, he took his revenge in words of biting acidity—and he was through ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... in my heart grew ever louder and louder. Whilst she lived, I knew my place was beside her; but it has pleased God to take her away. No tie binds me here now. If I stay, I shall but eat out my heart in fruitless longing, shut into these walls, and by no means permitted to sally forth. From a plague-stricken house I may only go to those smitten with the distemper. Father, let me go! prithee let me go! Dinah will take me; she will let me be with her. Ask her; ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the factions thus led would be severe, and the conclave a long one. The history of the plots and counterplots by which each strove to circumvent the other is extremely amusing, but too long to be given here. After various fruitless attempts, the Corsini faction concentrated all their forces on Cardinal Aldrovandi. He was a man of decent character, and had the support of a small body of independent cardinals, called the "Zelanti," who, to the great disgust and contempt ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... Hunter were the first to come forward. Well armed, they stole out of the stockade; but it proved a fruitless mission. The mutineers were bolder than we fancied, or they put more trust in Israel's gunnery. For four or five of them were busy carrying off our stores, and wading out with them to one of the gigs that lay close by, pulling an oar or so to hold her steady against ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... can approach the major fighting ships of a great fleet when that fleet is properly protected by torpedo-defense guns and fast destroyers and light cruisers. The deciding test of a submarine's power in this respect was the fruitless attempts of the best German submarines to reach the Lion with a deathblow, when crippled, after the battle off Dogger Bank, she was being towed home at 5 knots an hour, under the protection of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... of the Lipans had made a brave charge at once, but it had taught them all they needed to know. That was a lost battle, and their only remaining hope was in the speed of their horses. They turned from that fruitless charge as one man, and rode swiftly away—swiftly, but not wildly, for they were veterans, and they kept well together. They were dangerous men to follow, and the main body of their foes was not yet ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... the ancients would have said, to try to extract from it any deliverance ABOUT anything under the sun, even about itself. And it is as unjust, after our failure, to turn upon it and call it a psychical nothing, as it would be, after our fruitless attack upon the billy-goat, to proclaim the non-lactiferous character of the whole goat-tribe. But the entire industry of the Hegelian school in trying to shove simple sensation out of the pale of philosophic recognition is founded on this false issue. It is ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... most completely mastered him, and whom he most completely mastered, was Pindar. The Olympian Odes seemed to him like the Elgin Marbles in their serene and unapproachable splendour. All this classical reading, though it cannot have been fruitless, was not done systematically for the schools. Froude had no ambition, believing that he should soon die. But a reading-party during the Long Vacation of 1839 resulted in an engagement, which changed the course ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... for one of his years. That little old man was Francis P. Blair, Sr., and we knew that we had been forestalled. The President received us politely and patiently listened to what we had to say, but our mission was fruitless. ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... Cairo, and Tewfik appointed in his place. The new khedive seemed fully as anxious as his predecessors to make use of the one man who feared neither danger nor responsibility, and bore a charmed life, and Gordon was at once sent on a fruitless mission to Abyssinia. On his return he carried out the intention that he had formed for some time, and placed his resignation in the hands of the khedive. Well he knew that the Egyptian government cared nothing ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... wife came in and forced open the drawers and the desk; the carpet was strewn with litter, some of the furniture and boxes were broken, the signs of violence could be seen everywhere. But if her search had at first proved fruitless, there was that in her excitement and attitude which led me to believe that she had found the mysterious documents at last. I glanced at the bed, and professional instinct told me all that had happened. The mattress ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... thereafter with a Jock Scott of larger size. It was now about eight o'clock, and we went down the pool again, having a brief run with probably a grilse, which held fast only a moment or two; then I was becoming conscious again of the monotony of fruitless casting when there was a splendid spin of the winch. This, I confess, was of such a nature that I rose at once and determined to take my reward or punishment, as it might happen, standing. It was an undoubted salmon, for fifty ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... sent in search of him were fruitless; but she knew from the glass that he had become apprentice to a stone-mason and had hard work to do. This made her very sad. He was indeed a child born to misfortune, and when she saw him eat out of the same bowl with his companions, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thousand fresh men on guard at the Landing. Beauregard, who had succeeded Johnston, then stopped the battle for the day, with the idea of retiring next morning to Corinth. But, before his orders reached it, his battle-worn right made a desperate, fruitless, and costly attack ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... in verses 1-7 a warning against the faults in worship which make even it to be 'vanity,' unreal and empty and fruitless. These are of three sorts, arranged, as it were, chronologically. The worshipper is first regarded as going to the house of God, then as presenting his prayers in it, and then as having left it and returned to his ordinary life. The writer has cautions to give concerning conduct before, during, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... brutalities were employed. The soldiers began by striking the bridegroom dead. The bride fell shrieking into her mother's arms, whence she was torn by the murderers, who immediately put the mother to death, and an indiscriminate massacre then followed the fruitless attempts to obtain by threats and torture treasure which did not exist. The bride, who was of remarkable beauty, was carried off to the citadel. Maddened by this last outrage, the father, who was the only man of the party left alive, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... foundling, the infirm and aged—even vice and crime here find a refuge and charity; but the world is merciless to the inventor, to the man who thinks. Here everything must show an immediate and practical result. Fruitless attempts are mocked at, though they may lead to the greatest discoveries; the deep and untiring study that demands long concentrations of every faculty is not valued here. The State might pay talent ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... having ended, and the chase being given up as fruitless, we continued our course without any other adventure; and before dark were able to distinguish the blue mountains of Jamaica. St. Domingo and Cuba had both disappeared, and this was now the only land visible; ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... willing, nay, glad, to renounce not only the luxuries but the comforts, almost the bare necessities of existence, they assumed the burden of dogged labor under almost unbearable poverty. Finally, bitterest of all, came the breaking of love-forged chains; the piteous, fruitless struggle of children to explain their position to their parents, members of that older generation who could not understand, who would not yield, who capped defeat by disinheritance.—Such were the battles of this war; such the sudden marvellous development of higher education ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... day, yes, only a day! But oh, can you guess, my friend, Where the influence reaches, and where it will end Of the hours that you frittered away? The Master's command is "Abide in me" And fruitless and vain will your service be If "out of touch" ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... when on shore in foolish pleasures. They have as great reason to be economical as I have myself, and I cannot resist from occasionally censuring them, and therefore I may not appear so kind to them as I am to you when at home, or while I am writing this letter. Although all my efforts may be fruitless, still I feel assured that there is not one man amongst them who would not peril his existence to rescue 'the tiger,' as they call me, from any danger. They well know that I would not stop to think, but would spring into ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... greenhouses was as fruitless as that among the milliners' rooms. No forget-me-nots could be found, and Marie fell exhausted into a chair, desolated at what she felt to be an ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... justify the notion. On the contrary, they absolutely precluded it. By the labors and acumen of the Hon. James Savage and Mr. Charles Deane, of Cambridge, who have no superiors in grappling with such a difficulty, its solution seems, at last, to be reached. "After long fruitless search," Mr. Savage has expressed a conviction that Mr. Deane has "acquired the probable explication." The clue was thus obtained: Mr. Savage says, "This approach to explanation is gained from 'the Life and ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... them, more in harmony with their own taste and preference, we shall not only confer an inestimable boon upon them, but shall turn them into a source of strength and revenue for the country, and shall with them people tracts which are at present barren and fruitless, but which are only waiting to be occupied and which in many cases have only to be restored to the ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... rallied at first amazingly; the weather was exquisitely bright and sunny, and yet bracing. Baby was to be kept in the open air as much as possible, so F—— and I spent our days out on the downs near the house, carrying our little treasure by turns: but all our care was fruitless: he got another and more violent attack about a fortnight ago, and after a few hours of suffering he was taken to the land where pain is unknown. During the last twelve hours of his life, as I sat before the fire with him on my lap, poor F——kneeling in a perfect agony ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... Christ's, and St. Thomas's, for the relief of the impotent through infancy or sickness; and Bridewell for the punishment and employment of the vigorous and idle. But these were far from being sufficient for the care of the poor throughout the kingdom at large; and therefore, after many other fruitless experiments, by statute 43 Eliz. c. 2. overseers of the poor were appointed in ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... records, 'tried to prevent me from bringing forward any motion as to the Zulu War,' but Chamberlain was strong in the opposite sense. "We want to din into the constituencies," he wrote, "that the Government policy is one of continual, petty, fruitless, unnecessary, and inglorious squabbles—all due to their bullying, nagging ways." This was consonant with the Birmingham leader's fierce opposition to Jingoism; and for once he shared the view ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... from the shore, he cast his prize loose, knowing that it would drift slowly up the lake before the light southerly air, and intending to find it on his return. Thus relieved of his tow, the old man held his way down the lake, steering towards the very point where Hurry had made his fruitless attempt on the life of the deer. As the distance from this point to the outlet was less than a mile, it was like entering an enemy's country; and redoubled caution became necessary. They reached the extremity ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... the thing he had set out to do. He knew perfectly well where he was going—and it was not to see Mary Hope. Neither was his destination Lava Creek nor the drying range on either side. His first two days of hard riding had been not altogether fruitless, and he had enough to think of without thinking of Mary Hope. Certain cold facts stared at him, and gibbered their sinister meaning, and dared him to ride on and discover other facts, blood-brothers of these ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... is a man's fruitless fight on behalf of a friend! For one short instant Mrs. Porter allowed Mr. Penway to imagine that the victory was his, then she administered ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... strong drink combined, rendered fruitless all the efforts that were put forth in his behalf ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... our horse-artillery and repeating carbines that he recoiled in confusion after the first onset; still, he seemed determined to get the place, and after reorganizing, again attacked; but the lesson of the first repulse was not without effect, and his feeble effort proved wholly fruitless. After his second failure we were left undisturbed, and at 9 A.M. I sent the following despatch ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... he left home, he was not only thinking of her, but trying to marshal in order what arguments he might use,—so as to convince her at last. He did not at all understand how utterly fruitless his arguments had been with her. When Mrs. Roden had told him of Marion's strength he had only in part believed her. In all matters concerning the moment Marion was weak and womanly before him. When he told her that this or the other thing was proper and becoming, she took it as Gospel because ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Mountain and the pure republicans, to which the party of Order found itself condemned in its fruitless efforts to keep possession of the military and to reconquer supreme control over the Executive power, proved conclusively that it had forfeited its independent parliamentary majority. The calendar ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... according to his rank in the American army. General Howe replied that General Lee was a deserter from his majesty's service, and could not be considered as a prisoner of war nor come within the conditions of the cartel. A fruitless discussion ensued between the Commanders-in-Chief. Congress took up the matter and resolved that General Washington be directed to inform General Howe, that should the proffered exchange of six Hessian field officers ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... standard was joined by the neighboring mountaineers and by troops from Malaga. Thus reinforced, he made repeated assaults upon the Christians, cutting off all stragglers from the camp. All his attempts to force his way into the city, however, were fruitless; many of his bravest men were slain, and he was obliged to retreat into ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... from your husband concerning the originals of some photographs he sent to a detective agency in New York. They have had the case for years, and recognizing the pictures as a clue, they telegraphed Mr. Herron. The prospect of news after years of fruitless searching so prostrated Mrs. Herron that he dared not leave her, ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... he consolidated his dominion over all Afghanistan, suppressing insurrections by a sharp and relentless use of his despotic authority. Against the severity of his measures the powerful Ghilzai tribe revolted, and were crushed by the end of 1887. In that year Ayub Khan made a,fruitless inroad from Persia; and in 1888 the amir's cousin, Ishak Khan, rebelled against him in the north; but these two enterprises came to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Good-Looking Member strained Nolan's patience almost to the breaking point, but after many days of fruitless ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... easy as fruitless to mourn over 'unfulfilled renown,' but it is not easy to believe that the future had any great things in store. Miss Bronte's four novels will remain for all time imperishable monuments of her power. She had touched with effect in two of them all that ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... course of this career he acquires, not only notoriety, but enemies, who watch eagerly for the false step that shall bring him to the ground. In spite of his craft, he is inevitably driven from boldness into rashness, and after waging a fruitless war against rascals more accomplished than himself, he, with a courage that scarcely atones for his imprudence, enters the witness-box, and, a flood of light having been thrown upon his past career, he finds himself for two nights blazoned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... tree, and giving her the ring of Rama, took one from her. He offered to carry her away with him, but Sita declared that Rama must himself come to her rescue. While they were talking together, the demon god appeared, and, after fruitless wooing, announced that if Sita did not yield herself to him in two months he would have her guards "mince her limbs with steel" for his ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... no fear, only a great pity—pity for lost romance, for vain endeavour, for fruitless courage. 'Greeting, Inkulu!' I said in Kaffir, as if I had been one of ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... as such by a kind of courtesy title, although their names could not be found upon the authorised rolls. Though several emperors did their best to stop this practice, the endeavour was for the most part fruitless. Once in England the "esquires" were a class with certain recognised claims, but nothing could stop the polite tendency to add "Esq." to the name of a person on a private letter. The case was somewhat similar at Rome, although the practice did not proceed ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... fifty days the squadron was also necessarily kept in inaction, having achieved nothing beyond the capture of a few merchantmen along the coast, and a fruitless chase of two Spanish frigates, the Prueba and Venganza, which I did not follow up, as involving risk to the transports ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... power of the Constitution, 228; satisfied with a Federal Government such as their fathers had formed, 439; against the violations of the Constitution they remonstrated, argued, and finally appealed to the undelegated power of the States, 439; years of fruitless effort to secure from their Northern associates a faithful observance of the compact, 439; a peaceful separation preferred to a continuance in a hostile Union, 439; pleas for peace ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... roving was his sight that he soon espied Colmor slipping along behind the trees some hundred yards to the left. All his efforts to catch a glimpse of Bill, however, were fruitless. And this appeared strange to Jean, for there were several good places on the right from which Bill could have commanded the front of Greaves's store and the ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... vegetation of the carbonigenous era, composed of forms at the bottom of the botanical scale, flowerless, fruitless, but luxuriant and abundant beyond what the most favoured spots on earth can now shew. The rigidity of the leaves of its plants, and the absence of fleshy fruits and farinaceous seeds, unfitted it to afford nutriment to animals; ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... later the four chums turned wearily away from another fruitless quest. They were now in a part of Baltimore which none of them had ever seen before. A few blocks farther down the street they could see the line of the water and the masts of several sailing vessels that ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... spinster's disposition than this eagerness to believe the worst of the woman she chose to consider her rival in the affections of Mrs. Gosnold. A pitiful, impotent, jealousy-bitten creature: Sally was almost sorry for her, picturing the abashment of the woman when her hopes proved fruitless, her, fawning overtures toward forgiveness and reconciliation. Possibly she had been one of the two to ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... wounds in my right, and others on my back, twenty that afterward had to be dressed, not counting some other scratches. Then they came out to look for me, my "friend" almost stepping on me, but after half an hour's fruitless search they gave up. About two hours later I started home on my long, painful crawl. It took me about twenty minutes to pass the sentry near where I was lying, but after that there was no danger of discovery—the front line still appearing almost unoccupied; but I was getting dizzy ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... universal unwillingness of mankind - which at the time I had not yet learned to look upon as impotence - to recognize the contradiction between their teachings and their life. Once when he had attended a conversation between my young teacher and myself, in which, as was my wont, I had made fruitless efforts to make him sensible of what was lacking in the entire priestly institution and to free myself from the meshes of his arguments, ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... fruitless hunt. They've got me, the thieves!" said Crozier, with a look which gave his long face an almost tragic austerity. Then suddenly the look changed, the mediaeval remoteness passed, and a thought flashed up into his eves which made ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had, in a thick cover too, and neither they nor the horses went at it with any great dash. The fox was not a fellow to be caught very easily, and nothing but a good start could have given them any chance, but the hounds never got well settled to the scent, and after a fruitless cast his lordship gave it up, and Jorrocks and Co. trudged back to Cheltenham, J—— highly delighted at so favourable an opportunity of seeing the hounds. Indeed, so pleased was he with the turn-out and the whole thing, that finding from Skinner, one of the whippers-in, that they met on the ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... a bookish man; he grew more methodical, more persistent, in his historical reading; this, doubtless, was the appointed course for his latter years. It led to nothing definite. His life would be fruitless—— ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... centuries after it was divulged by Geber. Men of the most wonderful talents devoted their lives to the investigation; and in multiplied instances the discovery was said to have been completed. Vast sums of money were consumed in the fruitless endeavour; and in a later period it seems to have furnished an excellent handle to vain and specious projectors, to extort money from those more amply provided with the ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... having remarks made about them is some people's greatest hindrance. "They will think I want to push myself ahead"; "They will think some one else ought to do it"; they will think this, or they will think that, and so fear of what people will say closes the mouth and ties the hands, rendering life fruitless. The thing that ought to concern us is, "What will God think if we do not do it?" It is to him we must give account. It is his approval we should seek. If he approves, what others think is a small matter. Are we not willing to ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... might just as well have addressed himself to the wind—"I can't help it, I shall wait no longer," was the only reply he made, in a surly, hasty tone, which was a convincing proof that all attempts to reason with him would be fruitless. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... life that sought Only to bear the torch and hand it on; And so they made report that all the dreams Of Tycho Brahe were fruitless; perilous, too, Since he avowed that any fruit they bore Would fall, in distant ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... drew near. Between him and Margie there was no semblance of affection. Her coldness never varied, and after a few fruitless attempts to excite in her some manifestation of interest, he took his cue from her, and was ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... thou canst not give me back, With fruitless grief, what I enjoyed before; No more than seas, repenting of a wreck, Can with a calm our ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... in that manner to Sam's father's son? I asked you what your father could possibly know of mine; and you answered, 'As much, you supposed, as he knew of Sam's—it was a proverbial expression.' This did not quite satisfy me; though I am sure I cannot tell why it should not. But I am returning to a fruitless and exhausted subject. Do not be afraid that I shall come back on this well-trodden yet pathless field of conjecture. I know nothing so useless, so utterly feeble and contemptible, as the groaning forth one's lamentations into ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... is not a large "social surplus,"—that is, a surplus of receipts over total expenditures. It is difficult to generalize from such studies with any degree of accuracy; but it seems likely that if we could measure the vast amount of fruitless effort which has been expended in non-productive territories, the result would tend to bear out the general conclusion that the social surplus for the mineral industry as a whole is a modest one, if it exists at all. Of course, ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... of food in the country, stores of clothing were ready for the army's use, but they lay by the wayside, rotting, because there was no money to pay men to bring it to the army. Washington wore himself out in fruitless efforts to awaken Congress to a sense of its duty. And at length, utterly despairing of any support, weary of seeing his men suffer and dwindle day by day under the miseries of Valley Forge, he wrote out his resignation as Commander-in-Chief of the army. And it needed all the persuasions of ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... rapidly beheaded by the enraged burghers. All the entreaties of the Lady Mary, who, dressed in mourning garments, with dishevelled hair, unloosed girdle, and streaming eyes; appears at the town-house and afterwards in the market place, humbly to intercede for her servants, are fruitless There is no help for the juggling diplomatists. The punishment was sharp. Was it more severe and sudden than that which betrayed monarchs usually inflict? Would the Flemings, at that critical moment, have deserved their freedom ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the dilemma directly, he must consider every possibility—commonly called the horns of the dilemma—upon which the truth of the statement may rest. If there is a single possibility which he is not ready to meet and overthrow, his whole effort is fruitless. For instance, a debater, in attempting to rebut the statement that college fraternities are harmful, said that his opponent must show that fraternities are either morally, socially, financially or intellectually detrimental to ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... and influence, at the close of the millennium. The only difference consists in the mention of a few particulars by the apostle, which were not communicated to the prophets; such as the term of Christ's reign on earth; and some fruitless attempts of the powers of darkness against his people, after ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... the putting forth of will, even though it encounter an obstacle which cannot be removed. Such is the mood which is presented in One Way of Love; the foiled lover has at least made his supreme effort; it has been fruitless, but he thinks with satisfaction that he has played boldly for the prize, and never can he say that it was not worth risking all on the bare chance ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... time, provided warm food could be obtained; but the frost penetrated the cabin, and every one soon became sensitively alive to the awkwardness, not to say danger, of their condition. A whole day was passed in fruitless attempts to obtain fire, by various processes. Friction did not succeed; it probably never does with the thermometer at zero. Sparks could be obtained, but by this time everything was stiff with ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... his day. A fruitless search for the one man whom he now believed to be the only person who could lift the blight of suspicion ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... the luminous wave-lengths, it has been possible, after numerous fruitless trials, to obtain stationary waves analogous to those which, in the case of sound, are produced in organ pipes. The marvellous application M. Lippmann has made of these waves to completely solve the ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... death, however, I began again my so-far fruitless search for a cure for my stammering, this time placing myself under the care and instruction of a man claiming to be "The World's Greatest Specialist in the Cure of Stammering." He may have been the world's greatest ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... panic retreat continued for hours and Quebec was not surrendered for some days, the battle was practically decided in ten minutes. The campaign of the next year was gallant but fruitless. In April, before the fleet has come back to the English, De Levis throws himself with the remnants of the French army against the rear wall of Quebec; and as Montcalm had come out to fight Wolfe, so Murray marches out to fight De Levis. Both sides claimed the battle of Ste. Foye as victory, ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Darmstadt, were on the eve of escaping from their allegiance. At the beginning of 1705, the armies of Philip V. were composed of five or six thousand men in rags, their tottering fidelity daily tampered with, and the little band of French auxiliaries exhausted itself in fruitless efforts to retake Gibraltar, which, covered as it was by the English fleet, remained mistress of the Straits, after the first disaster inflicted on the French marine in that war which was destined to cost ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... cave exists, and could be found. There is none but negative evidence that this is a mere cave of the imagination, the void fancy of a vacant hour; but it is the duty of the historian to present the negative testimony of a fruitless expedition in search of it, made last summer. I beg leave to offer this in the simple language befitting all sincere exploits of a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... tragedy,—that of the dying brutes and the scavenger birds. Death by starvation is slow. The heavy-headed, rack-boned cattle totter in the fruitless trails; they stand for long, patient intervals; they lie down and do not rise. There is fear in their eyes when they are first stricken, but afterward only intolerable weariness. I suppose the dumb creatures know nearly as much of death as do their betters, who have only ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... others which could not be removed, but which held together so long as they were left where they lay. All the rest were in the direst confusion. Two hours and a half were spent in subjecting the ghastly heap to a thorough but fruitless search: not a trace of any kind rewarded their trouble. Only one conclusion stared Schwabe and Coudray in the face—their quest was in vain: the remains of Schiller must be left to oblivion. Again the Gewolbe was closed, and ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby
... of speech and manners, his championship of the poor, and his ostentatious disavowal of all selfish pretensions—partly by an artful mixture of stratagem and force. Solon, after having addressed fruitless remonstrances to Pisistratus himself, publicly denounced his designs in verses addressed to the people. The deception, whereby Pisistratus finally accomplished his design, is memorable in Grecian tradition. He appeared one day in the agora of Athens in his chariot ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... said. "I have been living in a fruitless dream. It has all vanished. The absurdity of speaking of creative art! With all my life-long devotion, I have created nothing. I have kept no memorial of her presence, nothing to perpetuate ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Seleucia at Sir Gryphon's casque, At the same time, so fell a blow addrest, It would have rent and torn the iron mask, Had it not been enchanted like the rest. The paynim's labour is a fruitless task, Of arms so hard Sir Gryphon is possest; Who has the foe's already cleft and broke In many parts, nor thrown ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... of the Prussians in the defile of Koesen. The Duke of Brunswick, marching himself at the head of his troops, rushed upon him, violently attacking our immovable squares under a murderous fire. The old general fell, mortally wounded; the effort of Prince William and the king remained equally fruitless. Profiting by the trouble caused by his resistance, Davout threw his troops forward, and seized the heights of Eckartsberg; there, protected by his artillery, he could still defend his positions. The King of Prussia gave orders to retire on Weimar; ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... vernal zephyr blows, Fanning the lily, or the blooming rose. "Grieve not, my lord; a crown indeed is lost; What far outshines a crown, we still may boast; A mind compos'd; a mind that can disdain A fruitless sorrow for a loss so vain. Nothing is loss that virtue can improve To wealth eternal; and return above; Above, where no distinction shall be known 'Twixt him whom storms have shaken from a throne, And him, who, basking in the smiles of fate, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... Uncle Jed grew better, and Dan's visits ceased, that Nance realized what they had meant to her. To be sure her efforts to restore things to their old familiar footing had been fruitless, for Dan refused stubbornly to overlook the secret that stood between them, and Nance, for reasons best known to ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... far the country was likely to be accessible to a foreigner going thither to preach the gospel. The information he received was unfavorable, and his endeavors to obtain in this city the signature of the Russian ambassador to his passport were fruitless. ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... of cultivated raspberries are biennial. A young and in most varieties a fruitless cane is produced in one season; it bears in July the second year, and then its usefulness is over. It will continue to live in a half-dying way until fall, but it is a useless and unsightly life. I know that it is contended by some that the foliage on the old canes aids in nourishing ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... speechless with delight, and when the mistress of Las Palmas had gone up-stairs he felt inclined to pinch himself to see if he were dreaming. He had pursued a fruitless quest during the past few days, and his resentment had grown as he became certain that Tad Lewis had sent him on a wild-goose chase; but the sight of Alaire miraculously restored his good spirits, and the prospect of ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. He had little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoot here in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of an hour of fruitless search he went back to the water-hole and his traps, seeing the folly of further seeking now. He would have to camp here until daybreak. Tomorrow he might find his horse and might or might not recapture it; to-morrow he might see the poor beast lying dead and horribly swollen; ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... without possibility of respite ... Sauve qui peut! Some wrenched down the doors; some clung to the heavy banquet-tables, to the sofas, to the billiard-tables:—during one terrible instant,—against fruitless heroisms, against futile generosities,—raged all the frenzy of selfishness, all the brutalities of panic. And then—then came, thundering through the blackness, the giant swells, boom on boom! ... One crash!—the huge frame building rocks like a cradle, seesaws, crackles. ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... faithfully for her, in the hope that Morgan would come—vain hope, fruitless dream! Morgan would not come. He was safe, far away from there, having his laugh over the muddle that he had ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... servants that Susy should be sent to her room at once. But the young girl was not in her own room, and was apparently nowhere to be found. Clarence, who had now fully determined as a last resource to make a direct appeal to Susy herself, listened to this fruitless search with some concern. She could not have gone out in the rain, which was again falling. She might be hiding somewhere to avoid a recurrence of the scene she had perhaps partly overheard. He turned into the corridor that led to Mrs. Peyton's boudoir. As he knew that it was locked, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... the course of these rather fruitless if interesting investigations among the picturesque shipyards of Bay Street, I had wandered farther along that historic water front than is customary with sight-seeing pedestrians; had left behind the white palm-shaded houses, the bazaars of the sellers of tortoise-shell, ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... Beautiful River, as the French called the Ohio, and drifted down its current till he reached the mouth of the Great Miami. He worked up this shallow and uncertain stream into Shelby County, where he had his friendly but fruitless meeting with the chief of the Miamis. After that he kept on northward to the Maumee, and then embarked on Lake Erie, and so got back to Canada. It could not be honestly said that he had done much to make good his king's claim ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... inexplicable phenomenon, which he stated thus: "When you put a trout into a pail full of water, why does not the water overflow?" The savans, naturally enough, were surprised, and suggested many wise, but fruitless explanations; until at last one of their number, having no proper reverence for royalty in his heart, demanded that the experiment should actually be tried. Then, of course, it was proved that there was no phenomenon to be explained. The water overflowed fast enough. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... Second Revolution of 1913 awakened no sympathy in General Li Yuan-hung, because he was opposed to internal strife and held that all Chinese should work for unity and concerted reform rather than indulge in fruitless dissensions. His disapproval of the monarchy movement had been equally emphatic in the face of an ugly outlook. He was repeatedly approached by the highest personages to give in his adhesion to Yuan Shih-kai becoming emperor, but he persistently refused although ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... be called the traditional sources—Exquemelin, the Jesuits, and perhaps a few narratives like those of Dampier and Wafer. To write another history of these privateers or pirates, for they have, unfortunately, more than once deserved that name, may seem a rather fruitless undertaking. It is justified only by the fact that there exist numerous other documents bearing upon the subject, documents which till now have been entirely neglected. Exquemelin has been reprinted, the story of the buccaneers has been ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... possession of new material to prosecute the case. But Link lately had taken so pessimistic a view of the matter that Lucian fancied he would scoff at his late discoveries, and discourage him in prosecuting what seemed to be a fruitless quest. ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... unaided, themselves attacked the Roman territory. But Romulus with his army met them while they were ravaging the country in straggling parties, and in a trifling engagement convinced them that anger unaccompanied by strength is fruitless. He routed their army and put it to flight, followed in pursuit of it when routed, cut down their king in battle and stripped him of his armour, and, having slain the enemy's leader, took the city at the ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... to purge us with His fan in His hand now, lest we should be found at last fruitless cumberers of the ground or chaff which is rootless, and fit only to be swept out of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... say good-bye," continued Egon, "and to ask one question, one favor—but it is fruitless to ask it now. I have only farewell to ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... philanthropists who dwell complacently upon 'cases' and statistics which represent appalling depths of individual suffering. Her imagination realized these facts with a vividness that was physically unbearable, and unless she could give substantial help, she avoided the fruitless agitation. At the same time, her interest in all rational good works was of the warmest, and she was inclined to exaggerate rather than undervalue the merits of their promoters, with one qualification only. 'Help the millions, by all means,' she has written; 'I only want people not to scorn ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... manifesting his presence around the hook beneath; and all the endeavors which the tantalized angler made, by changing the bait, and throwing the line in different directions around him, proved, for the next hour, equally fruitless. While he was thus engaged, intently watching his line, each moment expecting that the next must bring him a bite, one of those peculiar, subdued, but far-reaching sounds, which are made by the grazing of the oar against the side of ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... mysterious disappearance—I had to impose many a long penance, in order to wash away the sin of impatient repining that was fast leading her into the deeper guilt of blasphemy. She set out on that long journey of which you have possibly heard—that fruitless journey in search of Mary—and during her absence, my superiors ordered my return to my former duties at Antwerp, and for many years I heard no more ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... reached Australia, James Sampson had broken up his home in Melbourne and started with his little daughter for a distant settlement. He never reached the settlement, and all Miss Merivale's efforts to trace him proved fruitless. She at last accepted the belief of the lawyers that he had lost his way, and, like so many other hapless wanderers, had ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... unit on the vast face of the desert was a different matter; and Anstice gazed steadily ahead in an as yet fruitless attempt to make out what this thing which appeared to move towards them ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... louder, Though every leaf, these trees bear, were an Echo, And summon'd in your best friends to redeem you, It should be fruitless: 'tis not that I love you, Or value those delights you prize so high, That I'le enjoy you, a French crown will buy More sport, and a companion, to whom, You in your ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... X ranch proved fruitless, however, except in one particular. The cowboys attached to that "outfit" easily proved that they had not been near the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... in Iona, we sailed for a spot no less interesting. Thousands have described it. Few, however, have seen it by torch or candle light, and in this respect we differ from most tourists. All description, however, of this far-famed wonder must be vain and fruitless. The shades of night were fast descending, and had settled on the still waves and the little group of islets, called the Treshnish Isles, when our vessel approached the celebrated Temple of the Sea. We had light enough to ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... in the Middlesex captain," said P proudly. "For is he not a Plum? I hate to see him go, but I shall not be fruitless; look how ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... needless to say, was bitterly disappointed when he heard what Dick had to tell him the next evening, after his fruitless effort to see the Burtons again. Jack had never wavered in his belief that some time he would settle the mystery of his birth, that had worried him ever since he had been able to understand that he was set apart from others. To see a chance now and then just as he felt that he was about to ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... realized what a start the fleeing one had, the young inventor knew that it would be fruitless to renew the chase. Slowly he ascended the sloping bank, and started for home. As he did so he realized that he had, clasped in his fingers, something he had grabbed from the person he was pursuing just before ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... morning air, and say to himself that he was a cur last night, and that he would stay and hold his own, and, in the end, win somehow. The bulldog strain asserted itself, and he was his own again. At night, after a fruitless day, he might become again depressed, but the morning restrung the bow. Sometimes—these were his weaker days—he would abandon all effort, and seek the free public library, and there plunge into books and find, for the passing time, forgetfulness. These were his only ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... up counting-houses and other places of business which they had in the Corso. In vain did they offer large sums of money to induce the Minister of State to withdraw his order. The applications made by numerous deputations from Jewish communitiesin various towns likewise proved fruitless. They were even forced to attend sermons preached in the churches for the purpose of their conversion, heavy fines being imposed upon all those who absented themselves; and those who were detected either asleep, or not paying sufficient ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... him and went up the quiet trail with the thick shadows all around me and the cold stars overhead; and I was sober in thought, sick at heart for him as much as for myself, and I tortured my mind in fruitless conjecture as to what the end of this strange and ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... full two hours of fruitless search after the lost one, when the Candidate had again joined the despairing mother, that at the very same moment their glances both fell suddenly on the same object—it was Petrea! She lay in a thicket at the foot of the hill; drops of blood ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the dauphin's sojourn in his cousin's domains soon changed. In the summer of 1457, when news came that Dauphine had submitted to Charles VII., when the successive embassies despatched by Philip to the king had all proved fruitless in their conciliatory efforts, Philip proceeded to make more permanent arrangements for ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam |
