"Futile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he tried to recover himself by going over again the paths of his youth, a garret in London, a studio off Montparnasse, shabby, hungry; all no use. He was done for, futile. Done himself in for no purpose, for he had lost her, too. For, you see, he planned, when he left her to come back shortly, crowned anew; to come back in triumph, for she was all his life. Nothing else mattered. He just wanted to lay something at her feet in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... exposition. Briefly expressed, the difference is that, where he thinks there is no mystery, the doctrine he combats recognizes a mystery. Speaking for myself only, I may say that, agreeing entirely with Mr. Martineau in repudiating the materialistic interpretation as utterly futile, I differ from him simply in this, that while he says he has found another interpretation, I confess that I cannot find any interpretation; while he holds that he can understand the Power which is manifested in things, I feel obliged ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... schemes will, in my judgment, prove utterly futile. Perhaps the history of the world does not give an instance of the emigration of six millions of people. Notwithstanding the treatment that Ireland has received from England, which may be designated as a crime of three ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... a futile endeavor to convert her to his view of her rival, when a knock suddenly came to his door. A slovenly girl, one of his own neighbors, brought him a bit of paper, with a line ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... pertinent to those who will not have it that the supernatural Revelation—spiritual though it be—can be recognized or believed in apart from an acknowledgment of attendant miracles, wrought in physical nature by an intervention of God. Such a contention, however, is as futile and desperate as was John Wesley's declaration, "The giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving up of the Bible." Such mischievous fallacies succeed only in blinding many a mind to the real issue which ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... unsuited to a lady's ears. When you think that the hand of man was made to wield the sceptre of imperial power over this magnificent world, it becomes a gross impropriety to divert it from the path of destiny into so futile an effort as hooking up a mere bit of fuss, feathers and fallals. You might just as well hitch up a pair of thoroughbred elephants to a milk wagon. It will do, as Adam says, for the Mollycoddle and the meticulous weakling, ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... Heine became for a number of years the subject of his song. His favorite, almost exclusive vehicle; of expression is the simple stanza of the Volkslied, which he uses with consummate skill for new effects. Heine's attempts in law proved as futile as those in business; although he did pass his examination for the degree of Doctor juris, the study of poetry had been his chief endeavor in his university career. Finally he decided to make literature his profession. Disgruntled with things in general ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... weren't horrid at all," Virginia broke in at last, her heart suddenly warming to this very obviously spoiled, futile, but none the less likable, Florrie. "You mustn't talk that way. And if your parents made you ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... forgotten it as soon as it was made. At no time was he a very scrupulous man of his word. There was no help for it; so smothering my vexation as well as I could, I strolled moodily up the street, propounding futile inquiries about Madame Lalande to every male acquaintance I met. By report she was known, I found, to all—to many by sight—but she had been in town only a few weeks, and there were very few, therefore, who claimed her personal acquaintance. These few, being still comparatively ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... regard to Lepidus: for, having placed his statue on the rostra, I also voted for its removal. I tried by paying him a compliment to recall him from his insane policy. The infatuation of that most unstable of men rendered my prudence futile. Yet all the same more good was done by demolishing the statue of Lepidus, than ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... by a number of prisoners, who are credible persons, and this is but a part of their sufferings; so that the excuse made by the enemy that the prisoners were emaciated and died by contagious sickness, which no one could prevent, is futile. It requires no great sagacity to know that crowding people together without fresh air, and feeding, or rather starving them in such a manner as the prisoners have been, must unavoidably produce a contagion. Nor is it a want of candor to suppose that ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... friendly countries. In this way it was aimed to disintegrate the commercial domination of Germany which had been built up by the efforts of a generation. It was felt that by this method efforts on the part of Germany and Austria-Hungary to recapture lost Italian import trade would be rendered futile. During this same month announcement was made regarding the third Italian war loan. This was declared to have reached on February 6, 1916, 3,000,000,000 lire, which, together with former loans, showed that altogether 5,000,000,000 lire had been contributed. Considerable ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... to work becomes a kind of morality, and lack of physical strength to procure the means of subsistence a moral downfall. She was a burden, but a burden against her will, and her pride, the only luxury of the poor and the one most often wrested from them, rose in a futile resistance. It must come to that she knew. She knew that she could not be less comfortable or more neglected, but her shelter would be gone, and she would be ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... defiance of desperate will; and even then it is for the woman's sake rather than for his own. Henry Irving's acting made clear and beautiful that condition of temperament. A noble and affectionate nature, shipwrecked, going to pieces, doomed, but making one last tremendous though futile effort to avert the final and inevitable ruin—this ideal was made actual in his performance. The intellectual or spiritual value of such a presentment must depend upon the auditor's capacity to absorb from a tragedy its lessons of insight into the relations of the human soul to the moral government ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... languishes for God, because it thirsts after the good and beautiful; and all her efforts to satisfy its cravings will prove futile until it is immersed in the bosom of the Divinity, the Source of all goodness and beauty. With woman the heart is the great receptacle of grace, the principal agent in the practice of piety and virtue. If this precious disposition of her heart offers many and great advantages, it carries with it ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... Wrongdoing is a great, hard, terrible fact. We must face it. We must have some clear and consistent principles of action with reference to these wrongdoers; or else our wrath and indignation will betray us into the futile attempt to right one wrong by another wrong; and so drag us down to the level of the wrongdoers against whom ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... the student had had the grave and righteous intention of denouncing the superstition, but gradually he had perceived that to do so would be futile. The artistic soul of him was caught by the curious recital. He remembered now the bidding of Mary Torrance, and thought with pleasure that he would go back and repeat these strange stories to Miss Torrance, and smile ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... chance the country lawyers Larsen consulted happened to be attorneys for the little sawmill men. Larsen tried in his blundering way to express his feeling that "nobody had a right to hang our drive." His explanations were so involved and futile that, without thinking, Bob ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... person writes his own memoirs, we have, at least, the motives which he thinks it creditable to assign to his conduct—he has, generally the candour of vanity, and even when he has not that candour, he is sometimes blinded into discovering truth unawares; but nothing can be more futile and fastidious than the meagre notes of the original actor, fresh woven and discoloured by the hands of an obsequious servant, who conceals all the facts he cannot explain, and all the motives he cannot justify. Such memoirs resemble ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... fact at length dawned upon the British commander, he made a futile attempt at a diversion by sending Benedict Arnold to attack New London. It was as weak as the act of a drowning man who catches at a straw. Arnold's expedition, cruel and useless as it was, crowned his infamy. A sad plight for a man of his power! If he had only had more strength of character, ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... floated through the air, enhancing the spectral element which enveloped her. She retreated to the parlor, and, running her fingers over the keys of the piano, endeavored by playing some of her favorite airs to divest her mind of the dreary, unearthly images which haunted it. The attempt was futile, and there in the dark, cold parlor she leaned her head against the piano, and gave herself up to the guidance of one who, like the "Ancient Mariner," holds his listener fascinated and breathless. Once her guardian had warned her not to study Poe too closely, but the book ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... you call them. However, don't you think the most sensible thing is for you to wait till you meet her at dinner tonight, and then you can form your own opinion? I'm beginning to get a little bored with this futile discussion." ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... as if to say, what a relief it is to be seated! So completely did the tender manifestation reflect Mr. Powell's apparent condition that the whole audience burst into a roar of laughter. Here, too, all attempts to speak were futile. At Port Byron a generous sprinkling of cayenne pepper on the stove soon cut short all constitutional arguments and ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... no disease in which treatment has been more savage than in this. The remedies in common use at that time were mainly new and of supposed specific powers; but they were so violent, and proved to be so futile, that they have all been given up since by the ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... my duty, to say much about their relations to each other; indeed Beyle delayed his novel-work so long, and Balzac codified his own so carefully and so early, that the examination of the question would need to be meticulous, and might even be a little futile in a general history, though it is an interesting subject for a monograph. It is enough to say that, generally, both belong to the analytical rather than to the synthetical branch of novel-writing, and may almost be said ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... proved equally futile as a corrective. Inexplicable though it appeared, their mistress apparently derived some obscure satisfaction out of the process of splashing about in the wet sea, and because they loved her they bore it ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... But such thoughts were futile, and soon she rose and turned on the electric light. Then she sat down at a little writing-table which had been thoughtfully provided for her by M. Polperro, and hurriedly, with feverish eagerness, wrote ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... sequence. Causality in action. An atom is dissected, a belly rumbles in hunger, a star blooms into brief nova; a bird wheels in futile escape, an ice-flow impacts, an equation is expressed in awesome mushrooming shape. These are multitudinous, apocalyptic. They are timeless and equal. These are things whereby suns wheel or blossom or die, a tribe vanishes, a civilization ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... confounded with the Jewish Christianity which is the most original form in which Christianity realised itself. This was no longer able to influence the Christianity which had shaken itself free from the Jewish nation (as to futile attempts, see below), any more than the protecting covering stripped from the new shoot, can ever again acquire significance ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... they do not actually demonstrate, that the virus of small-pox is 'particulate.' Definite knowledge upon this point is of exceeding importance, because in the treatment of particles methods are available which it would be futile to apply to molecules. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... beginning of trouble for both countries. Firmness is wanted, and equal laws for all. At present everything is in favour of Ireland." United Ireland says:—"It would be better to go on for twenty years in the old miserable mill-horse round of futile and feverish and wasting agitation than to accept this bill as a settlement of national claims. And if the bill passes now it cannot deflect the national agitation by a hair's breadth, or cause its intermission ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... and futile appeal, Mrs. Cary had made herself very late, and when she entered the large marquee which Travers had had erected in his garden she found that all the guests had arrived, including Rajah Nehal Singh himself. He stood facing the entrance, and she felt, ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... with us," said the skipper sternly. Curlie had not intended going with them. He had meant to remain behind and send a call for aid, then to swim for the raft. But now, as he saw the water gaining on the stricken craft, he realized how dangerous and futile it would be. He was needed on the raft to help get her away. Having seen all this ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... commander and told her story and his, and found and brought her back to her people. He strove to find the man for whose sake she had abandoned her father's lodge and forfeited her good name. Hawk well knew how futile was her trust that the white chief would ever claim her as his wife, but among so many comrades he was concealed, and Hawk left his message. Sooner or later his people should find the white man who had wrought the wrong and his days were ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the "third degree." His argument that he found the diamonds, and that having found them they were his until the proper owner appeared, was futile. Ten minutes after having passed into a room where sat Chief Arkwright, of the Mulberry Street force, and three of his men, and Steven Birnes, of the Birnes Detective Agency, Haney remembered that he hadn't found the diamonds at all—somebody ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... property rights and the power of guardianship over their own children. They will not consent to their own disfranchisement or to the loss of opportunities of education and of economic independence. It is as futile as it is stupid to expect that in this matter history will go backward. To oppose measures already accomplished which are in the direction of democratic adjustment of social relations, even by those who ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... details the expenses of each person according to his rank in the State, or the fortune which he could prove. But this law had the fate of all such enactments, and was either easily evaded, or was only partially enforced, and that with great difficulty. Another futile attempt to put it in practice was made in 1306, when the splendour of dress, of equipages, and of table had become still greater and more ruinous, and had descended progressively to the ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... on the banker's heels, was admitted by Withers, who broke into a storm of futile, highly ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... The things she whispered then were exactly those which Brent would have given the riches of the earth to have heard her say to him; and Mac replied with all his doggy eloquence, furiously wiggling his body and making futile attempts to lick her face. Brent stood silently by, and for the first time in his life—at least the first time in his remembrance—something mysteriously hot and wet slipped down ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... George glanced at the futile old couple, then cast his eye upwards, to the various stretches of the grand staircase which could be seen from the well below. Almost every length of the banisters was blazing, and the cracked and broken skylight above caused a ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... constructed, behind which we carried the sick men. In the very center we buried two jars of water, to guard us against thirst. In addition we had ten petroleum cans full of water; all told, a supply for four days. Late in the evening Sami's wife came back from the futile negotiations, alone. She had unveiled for the first and only time on this day of the skirmish, had distributed cartridges ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... writing-desk, turned on the lights and sat down. He smiled as he took up the pen to begin his composition. Not one chance in a thousand. And after several attempts he realized that the letter he had in mind was not the simplest to compose. There were a dozen futile efforts before he produced anything like satisfaction. Then he filled out a small check. A little later he stole down-stairs, round the corner to the local branch of the post-office, and returned. It was only a blind throw, such as dicers sometimes make in the dark. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... late, Thoughts Underworld, the Brainstorm Slum, The land of Futile Piffledom; A salon weird where congregate Freak, Nut and ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... Allison to the sofa beside her, and was attempting a futile task of comfort. Mrs. Allison answered in monosyllables, glancing hither and thither. At last she said in a low, swift voice, as though addressing herself, rather than her companion, "If all fails, I have made up my mind. I shall leave ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from her improvements, though it was sometimes littered with her work-bags or her work. She had long ago developed the dreadful mistake that it "helped" Michael at his work if she brought hers (perfectly futile as a rule) there too. "I just sit silently in his room, my dear, and stitch or knit something for poor people in Marrybone—I'm told you mayn't say Mary-le-bone. I feel it helps Michael to know I'm there, but of course I don't interrupt ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... in Myla's empty heart and rapidly grew into an obsession; but soon she realized with a sinking sensation how futile were her desires. She was no match for the Jaguar; indeed, the mere sight of the fearsome beast made her tremble. Never could she muster the courage to descend from her lofty perch while such a creature ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... elevation of man above all good merely human, and by means far beyond the compass of his natural powers? Still, this was undoubtedly a conclusion of his riper years, a result arrived at after a certain intense if not very prolonged experience in contemporary Utopias, in futile endeavors to raise man above his own level while remaining on it, whether by socialistic schemes or ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... administering food to them with greater care, begin to have doubts about their intellect as well, whether it can work as briskly as it used to do. And the mind, falling under this discouragement of doubt, asserts itself amiss, in making futile strokes, even as a gardener can never work his best while conscious of suspicious glances through the window-blinds. Geoffrey Mordacks told himself that it could not be the self it used to be, in the days when ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... marvellous beauty, and to these instruments the resolute investigator turns, promising himself the discovery of its constituent parts. The more its lustre penetrates his soul, the more determined become his efforts. As yet, however, all such praiseworthy researches have been futile, and the composition of the Cremonese varnish remains a secret lost to the world—as much so as the glorious ruby lustre of Maestro Giorgio, and the blue so coveted by connoisseurs of china. Mr. Charles Reade truly says: ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... perceive that M. Sainte-Beuve himself, and many other people with him, would consider that this was praiseworthy and not blameworthy, or to point out why it ought really to be accounted worthy of blame and not of praise. For as there is a curiosity about intellectual matters which is futile, and merely a disease, so there is certainly a curiosity—a desire after the things of the mind simply for their own sakes and for the pleasure of seeing them as they are—which is, in an intelligent being, natural and laudable. Nay, and the very desire to see things as ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... everybody talked about it; they had come since because they could not help it, and they should keep on coming, while they lived, for the same reason; they had tried to break their chains and stay away, but it was futile; now, they had no desire to break them. Others came nearer formulating what they felt; they said they could find perfect rest and peace nowhere else when they were troubled: all frets and worries and chafings sank to sleep in the presence of the benignant serenity of the Alps; the Great Spirit of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... whole generation has been lost because the machine ran wild without guidance, and all attempt at improvement was met by futile resistance. ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards
... who formed the Christian community at Rome, had never in any way come into collision with the Roman government. They must have been the victims rather than the exciters of the messianic tumults—for such they are conjectured to have been—which led to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by the futile edict of Claudius. Nay, so obedient and docile were they required to be by the very principles on which their morality was based, so far were they removed from the fierce independence of the Jewish zealots, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... protest would be futile—realizing the full extent of Britt's effrontery. However, in his amazement he began to rail ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... the hopes of the Bolsheviks any more than those of the Egyptian anchorites; I regard both as tragic delusions, destined to bring upon the world centuries of darkness and futile violence. The principles of the Sermon on the Mount are admirable, but their effect upon average human nature was very different from what was intended. Those who followed Christ did not learn to love their enemies or to turn the other ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... awfully,' I said as we rode on again, and then we did not stop until we reached four cross-roads. Seeing the word 'Polehampton' on a finger-post, I perceived that I had returned to the road from Castlemore to London, which I had left to cross the fields in my futile endeavour to avoid the tramp. It was true that I had made a fairly wide circuit, for my new friend told me I should still have five miles ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... broke the silence, a vague gray shadow moved into sight. He saw Silvermane and called as loudly as he dared. The stallion melted into the misty curtain, the beating of hoofs softened and ceased. Hare spurred Bolly to her fleetest. He had a long, silent chase, but it was futile, and unnecessarily hard on the mustang; so he pulled her in ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... sort of light that showed in the eyes of a black cat seasonably appearing under them. Inquiries into English civilization can always wait, but such passing effects stay for no man, and I put them down roughly in behalf of a futile philosopher who ought to have studied them in their ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... to ridicule the ideals and ambitions of children when they seem to us too high-flown or futile. But a person's ideals stand too close to the centre of his character to be treated so rudely. It is better to ignore the many trifling flights of fancy that are not likely to have any permanent effect, and to throw the child into circumstances that will force the emergence ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... would have little taste for handling unsympathetic things. Well, if so, Philippina is the answer to that. Here is the most masterly portraiture of a woman utterly without imagination or heart or anything except a kind of futile and worthless attraction, that I remember to have met for some time. As I say, it is all rather astonishing from Mr. CALTHROP. The men who love Flip, and whose lives are ruined by her, are easier to understand. About Sir ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... his hirelings, the revolt continued with unabated fury, and at last Gregory was constrained to return in person to Italy with the purpose of pacifying the turbulent forces. He entered Rome, January 17, 1377; but after a year of futile effort he died, leaving the confusion worse than ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... a few skirmishes in Virginia and North Carolina, where the governors managed to raise small forces of loyalists, who were thoroughly defeated by the Whig militia, and of a gallant but hopeless attempt by the rebels to capture Canada. After some futile efforts on the part of Congress to induce the French to revolt, two bodies of men, in the autumn of 1775, made their way across the border. One, entering Canada by way of Lake Champlain, occupied Montreal, ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... at my side. I turned and saw that it came from Desiree. Her hands were raised to her face; she was holding them before her as though in a futile attempt to cover ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... all the actors in this story having played out their parts and gone to their rest, there is something touching in recording the futile efforts made by Philip to win from Sylvia the love he yearned for. But, at the time, any one who had watched him might have been amused to see the grave, awkward, plain young man studying patterns ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... companions came to reprove him for leaving them, to warn him of the peril of apostasy, to entreat him to return. It all sounded vague and futile. They spoke as if he had betrayed or offended some one; but when they came to name the object of his fear—the one whom he had displeased, and to whom he should return—he heard nothing; there was a blur of silence in their speech. The clock pointed to the hour, but the bell did not strike. ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... had expended thousands of pounds in a plant for their venture. Mr. Mortimer cruelly permitted them to go on with their costly preparations, and the first intimation they had that the field was occupied came from the newsdealers selling The Lantern. After some futile attempts at relief and redress, M. Rochefort took himself off and set up his paper ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... and he thought that whisper expressed assent—that for him, she too was willing to relinquish the home and the friends of her childhood. Ay, is it not ever so? Invoke whom we may in hours of trial, does not the oracle take its tone from our own wishes? Fond and futile pretense to invoke the Spirit of Love to decide where love is interested! As Marguerite seemed to stand beside Dumiger he lost sight of ambition, and all its pomp and circumstance; all he asked was to ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... conversation was commonplace, and I related various experiences in a desultory fashion. Those that were mildly amusing were most appreciated. But gradually we drifted towards more vital issues and then the long and futile argument began. The weapons of sarcasm and denunciation were denied to me by the laws of politeness and etiquette. I beat in vain against the solid walls of obstinate prejudice and superficiality. His statements were uttered with dogmatic ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... It was a futile effort, though, upon Dick's part, for the other Malay dropped his oar, and picking up another spear, came ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... From Solomon to Burke, the wisest men have been the saddest of men. The Scottish physician who ordered his secretary to select from his library all the books upon medicine and surgery that were printed prior to 1880 and sell them, tells us how futile is the pursuit of wisdom and how rapidly the systems of to-day become the cast-off garments of to-morrow. Nor must the perfect man represent power and wealth alone, for "the wealth of Croesus cannot bring sleep to the sick ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... gone, so suddenly that his movement to intercept her was futile, and she passed through the door before he could reach her. Again he called her name, but her footsteps were almost running up the passageway. He dropped back, his blood cold, his hands clenched in the darkness, and his face as white as the girl's had been. Her words had held him stunned ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... not our work, still we have had the earnest will, the longing desire; we have made continually, perseveringly, our tiny, often futile, efforts to please and place Him first, and though perhaps almost all were failures, He has counted every one to us ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... subject was gleaned partly from neighbouring families, partly from infrequent visits to "Aunt Jane"—whom he hated with a deep unreasoned hate—and "Uncle George," who had a kind, stupid face, but anyhow tried to be funny and made futile bids for favour with pen-knives and half-crowns. Possibly it was these uncongenial visits that quickened in him very early the consciousness that his own beautiful home was, in some special way, different from other boys' homes, and his mother—in a still more special way—different from other ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... put his cigar into a tumbler and stepped out into the wings. They were crowded on both sides of the stage with the members of the company; the girls were tiptoeing, with their hands on the shoulders of the men, and making futile little leaps into the air to get a better view, and others were resting on one knee that those behind might see over their shoulders. There were over a dozen children before the footlights, with the prima donna in the centre. She was singing the verses of a ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... educate woman, until you accord to her her rights, and arouse her conscience by the weight of her responsibilities, is futile, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... above the sullen shields; Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well, And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell. They knew not fear that to the foeman yields, They were not weak, as one who vainly wields A futile weapon; yet the sad scrolls tell How on the ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... is that this partnership, in which there were three young and pretty women, no shadow of discord was found amongst the men. They often yielded to the most futile fancies of their mistresses, but not one of them would have hesitated for a moment between the mistress ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... the race. When the individual soul had been decreed by the embittered gods eternally to dwell alone and never yet had been tricked beyond the moment of nervous exaltation into the belief that it had fused into its mate. Life itself was futile enough, but that dream of the perfect love between two beings immemorially paired was the most futile and ravaging of all the dreams civilization had imposed upon mankind. The curse of imagination. Only the savages ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... squall passed over, and the boat was again presented to his sight; she was still in the centre of the stream, about three hundred yards from the shore. The man who was in her, finding all his attempts futile, had lain on his oar, and was kneeling in the stern sheets, apparently in supplication. Newton could not resist the appeal; it appeared to point out to him that he was summoned to answer the call made upon Providence. The boat was now a quarter of a mile farther down the river than where ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... at the dinner-hour with a futile excuse. Mrs. Lismore waited until the servant had withdrawn. "Now, Ernest," she said, "it's time to tell me ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... duties ordained in respect of every mode of life are capable, if well performed, of leading to heaven and the high fruit of Truth. Duties which are as so many doors, to great sacrifices and gifts and none of the practices inculcated by them are futile in respect of consequence. One who adopts particular duties with steady and firm faith, praises these duties adopted by him to the exclusion of the rest, O chief of Bharata's race. This particular topic, however, on which thou wishest me to discourse was in days of yore the subject ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... like a narcotic to his real individuality. He thirsted for contest, for the control of brain and will; he wanted to construct; he was filled with the idea of simplifying things, of economizing strength; he saw how futile was much competition, and how the big brain could command and control with ease, wasting no force, saving labour, making the things controlled bigger ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... were at times strong fortifications from which war of the most ferocious and unscrupulous character was waged. Christendom was steeped in violence; only a gentle saint or bishop here and there caught a futile vision of a world of peace. Every man was armed against possible trouble with his neighbour; every noble had his retainers and kept them well exercised; every prince was free, as far as the spiritual authorities were concerned, to covet and bloodily exact the lands of his neighbour. The noble, ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... published posthumously and she left nothing else but a couple of fragments. One of these, Lady Susan, does not, so far as it extends, promise much, though it is such a fragment and such an evident first draft even of this, that judgment of it is equally unfair and futile. The other, The Watsons, has some very striking touches, but is also a mere beginning. Persuasion—which appeared with Northanger Abbey and which, curiously enough, has, like its nearly twenty years elder sister, Bath for its principal scene—has also some pretensions ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... something and probably you'll soon find out," returned her mother. Since that day Charmian had tried to create something, and had found out. But she had not told Mrs. Mansfield. She was now twenty-one, and had been just eighteen when her mother's advice had driven her into the energy which had proved futile. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... starvation. The power of the Spanish armies, it is asserted, is to be used not to spread ruin and desolation, but to protect the resumption of peaceful agricultural pursuits and productive industries. That past methods are futile to force a peace by subjugation is freely admitted, and that ruin without conciliation must inevitably fail to win for Spain the fidelity of ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley
... wholly lack. You should not attempt to "salt" the gold mine in yourself with the characteristics of other men who have succeeded by the development and use of capabilities that were natural to them, but that would be unnatural to you. It is worse than futile—it is foolish for you to imitate anybody else. Just be your best self. Make the most of what you have that is salable. You require no ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... the obligation thus imposed on him. She was his now, to have and to hold, to keep, to protect, and to defend—she who was once so glorious of her strength, of her savage isolation, her inviolate, pristine maidenhood. All words seemed futile and ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... residences were saved, but there was despair among the survivors, who were unable to get word from husbands and fathers who were caught on the east side and unable to cross after bridges were destroyed. Efforts to get lines across the river were futile. ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... not. This principle is still indeed clearly recognized by people in Oldenburg, though, as might be expected, they do not now carry out the principle to its logical conclusion by burning the bewitched animal or person alive; instead they resort to a feeble and, it must be added, perfectly futile subterfuge dictated by a mistaken humanity or a fear of the police. "When anything living is bewitched in a house, for example, children or animals, they burn or boil the nobler inwards of animals, especially the hearts, but also the lungs or the liver. If animals have ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... wall until he came to the barrier, seemingly oblivious of the carrion reek which told of a snake-devil's den somewhere about. And he raised his arm high, bringing the point of his spear gratingly along the carved surface. Nor did it seem to Dalgard a futile gesture, for Sssuri lived and breathed, stood free and armed in the city of his enemies—and ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... interruption! but after your statement of the fact that such sentimental asseverations would be futile, you waste time in recapitulating the loves of the lady aforementioned, and we in hearing them. I think I express the opinion of the audience—fit, but few—when I say that we require no other evidence than that afforded by the story I have told of Mrs. Lennox's susceptibility ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... to stand like Lily Jennings; she tried to walk like her; she tried to smile like her; she made endeavors, very often futile, to dress like her. Mrs. Wheeler did not in the least approve of furbelows for children. Poor little Amelia went clad in severe simplicity; durable woolen frocks in winter, and washable, unfadable, and non-soil-showing frocks in summer. She, although her mother had perhaps more money wherewith ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Putney seemed to Priam Farll to approach the Utopian. It seemed to breathe of romance—the romance of common sense and kindliness and simplicity. It made his own existence to that day appear a futile and unhappy striving after the impossible. Art? What was it? What did it lead to? He was sick of art, and sick of all the forms of activity to which he had hitherto been accustomed and which he had mistaken ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... darkness. The light was fading out of the west, and the early autumnal dusk was at hand. Lillian was sensible of an accession of lassitude, a realization of defeat in a cause which she felt now it was futile to have essayed. Why should he forgive? How was reparation possible? She could not call back the Past—she could not assuage griefs that time had worn out long ago, searing over the wounds. She was quite silent as she rose and together they took their way down toward the bungalow. While she flagged ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... designs of the Duke. He had forgotten that sovereign dukes must make sure their succession even unto the third and fourth generation. His first impulse had been to tell the Duke that to introduce him to the Countess would be futile, for he was already married. But the instant warning of the mind that his Highness could never and would never accept the daughter of a Jersey ship-builder restrained him. He had no idea that Guida's descent from the noble de Mauprats ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... freedom is man's inalienable birthright, man's undying passion. Germany! fated to execration by future generations for that she ahs crucified the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame. Germany! for the balking of whose insolent and futile ambition, and for the crushing of whose archaic military madness we Canadians are tramping on this Dominion Day these English fields and these sweet English lanes 5,000 miles from our Western Canada which ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... compare with the slavery enforced to-day in the dens of the sweater. It is not a choice between liberty and discipline that confronts these unfortunates, but between discipline mercilessly enforced by starvation and inspired by futile greed, and discipline accompanied with regular rations and administered solely for their own benefit. What liberty is there for the tailors who have to sew for sixteen to twenty hours a day, in a pest-hole, in order to ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... Philip was wealthy and personally popular, while Otto's brusquerie and selfishness alienated many supporters. Consequently from 1203 Philip distinctly obtained the upper hand, and at length in 1207 Innocent opened negotiations with him. But these were rendered futile when Philip fell victim to the assassin's knife in June, 1208. Otto's acceptance now became inevitable, and he did everything to conciliate his opponents. He submitted himself to a fresh election by the German nobles, and won the Hohenstaufen by marrying Beatrice, the ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... liberal committee that the election would be lost by the furious insanity of their candidate. But they decided upon supporting Moggs, having found that they would be deposed from their seats if they discarded him. At last, when the futile efforts to control Moggs had been maintained with patience for something over a week, when it still wanted four or five days to the election, an actual split was made in the liberal camp. Moggs was turned ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... himself protected well, looked at the fatal tree. No one was firing, then, and he could see nothing among its branches. In the fresh green of its young foliage it looked like a huge cone set upon a giant stem, and Ross shook his fist at it in futile anger. Nor was a foe visible elsewhere. The entire savage army lay hidden in the forest and nothing fluttered or moved but the leaves and ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... unfulfilled; and were it not that "Hope springs eternal in the human breast," all faith, all energy, all life, and all success would be at an end, as then we should know that most of our efforts are futile, whereas now we hope they may attain complete fruition. Yet, on the other hand, we learn that the fruit of dreamy hoping is waking blank despair. We were again in a region of scrubs as bad and as dense as those I hoped and thought, I had ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... averages about five months, and five days each week, at a salary of $1000—and travel allowance of $2.50 for each mile between his home and the State House. This is too clear for argument. There is no need to consider those who are too rich to serve for this sum. It would be futile to discuss whether their services are worth more or less than this, as that is not here the question. Membership in the General Court is not a job. There are services rendered to the Commonwealth by senators and representatives that are priceless. For the searching out of great ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... worked it, and trained it, the passions, at the critical moment, would be roused with better effect, and would be properly organised. Organised passions are what you need for a strong public movement. Whirling emotions in contrary currents are utterly futile." ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... was resorted to and the sound of frequent explosions added to the terror of the people. All efforts to stay the progress of the fire, however, proved futile. The south side of Market street from Ninth street to the bay was soon ablaze, the fire covering a belt two blocks wide. On this, the main thoroughfare of the city, are located many of the finest edifices in the city, including the Grant, Parrott, Flood, Call, Examiner and Monadnock ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... hesitations, the consultations, the maunderings, the doubts, and the delays of the two authorities who had the matter in hand, the Signoria and the Operai, as who should say the working committee, and who made a hundred difficulties and shook their wise heads, and considered one foolish and futile plan after another with true ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... asserted, and render all attempts to enforce such claims merely attempts at usurpation. Again, could such claims from extraneous sources be regarded as legitimate, the effort to resist or evade them, by protest or denial, would be as irregular and unmeaning as it would be futile. It could in no wise affect the question of superior right. For the position here combatted, no respectable authority has been, and none it is thought can be adduced. It is certainly irreconcilable with the doctrines already cited from ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... futile experiments with brandy, a looking-glass and a feather, old Martha hid these things carefully out of sight; she disarranged the bed, turning back the clothes as they might have been left by one newly wakened and risen out of it; drew ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... upon the sky line; and the next, fled trembling and sat down glowing with excitement on the Weaver's stone. She shut her eyes, seeking, praying for composure. Her hand shook in her lap, and her mind was full of incongruous and futile speeches. What was there to make a work about? She could take care of herself, she supposed! There was no harm in seeing the laird. It was the best thing that could happen. She would mark a proper distance to him once and for all. Gradually the wheels ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... revolution has followed neither of these lines. Always the opponent of sane social reforms which Socialists deride as "melioration" or as futile attempts to shore up an obsolete system, it has consistently disassociated itself from such men as Lord Shaftesbury, who did more to better the conditions of the working classes than anyone who has ever lived. Anarchy, on the other hand, has been used by them merely as a means to an end; ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... soot was sifting down; the snow on the window- sill was speckled with black. Below, in the courtyard of the hotel, ice-carts rumbled in and out, and milk-cans were banged down on the cobblestones; a dull day, an empty sky, a futile interview, up here in this wretched little room under the eaves. David wondered how soon he ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... of her own accord how much he loved her, surely it was a hopeless task to attempt an explanation through mere words. If, after all, she was capable of misconceiving the entire set of his motives during the past two years, expostulation would be futile. In his thoughts of her he fell into a great spiritual dumbness. Never, even in his moments of most theoretical imaginings, did he see himself setting before her fully and calmly the hopes and ambitions of which she had been the mainspring. And before a reconciliation, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... experiences, stubbornly braving the perils of the wilds; making themselves a nuisance to business men in the cities. The matter had, however, a more serious aspect. Prescott had spent some time on the useless search and he could not continue it throughout the winter. It would be futile to speculate on the movements of men so erratic as those he had followed. He could not neglect his farm, and he had a heavy crop to haul in and sell: this was a duty that ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... securing possession of my mind, and gathering to him, magnet-like, the thousand observations which my experience sent in his direction. In my mind his life-story ended with his death at the Cote Dorion. For years and years I saw his ending there. Yet it all seemed to me so futile, despite the wonder of his personality, that I could make nothing of him, and though always fascinated by his character I was held back from exploiting it, because of the hopelessness of it all. It led nowhere. It was the 'quid ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... much she had. He supposed we were living up his salary of $10,000 a year as we went along, for it wasn't in him to save a cent. Mother took a good deal of delight in her secret. For a while she had done her best to induce him to save something, and then, realizing that her plea was futile, she got busy herself in a systematic manner and in the course of seven or eight years she laid aside ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... north-western army in 1812 occupied the city. Failing to hear immediately of the declaration of war between the United States and Great Britain, he was cut off from his supplies shipped by Lake Erie. He made from Detroit on the 12th of July an awkward and futile advance into Canada, which, if more vigorous, might have resulted in the capture of Malden and the establishment of American troops in Canada, and then retired to his fortifications. On the 16th of August 1812, without any resistance and without consulting ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... deny that the age is crowded; I will admit one fact, and one fact only: that I am futile, that he is futile, and that we are all three as futile as the devil. What am I? I have smattered law, smattered letters, smattered geography, smattered mathematics; I have even a working knowledge of judicial astrology; and here I stand, all London roaring by at the street's ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... the fact that one of the Assistant Commissioners of Police was an old friend of mine, we were spared much of the tedious interrogation and well-meant, but in the circumstances utterly futile, attentions of the subordinate officers ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... for them, by killing an innocent man. But he was too cowardly for that, and, no doubt, thought that the murder of one poor Jew was a small price to pay for popularity with his troublesome subjects. Still, like all weak men, he was not easy in his conscience, and made a futile attempt to get the right thing done, and yet not to suffer for doing it. The rejection of Barabbas is touched very lightly by John, and must be left unnoticed here. The great contribution to our knowledge which John makes is this private interview ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... could think of no other way of effecting his object, he had begun to taste the bitterness of futile effort, when fortune, always his friend, put him in a position to do what he wanted in the easiest possible way ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... watching that no stray sparks or wisps of burning grass got behind them, Dave and his comrades worked hard. The immediate danger seemed to have passed, but a shift in the wind might come at any time, and render their task futile. ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... white, and ashen feathers tumbled by the little ripples of the pool. But the older bird was merely winged. Recovering himself almost instantly from the shock of the wound and the fall, he made one pathetically futile effort to rise again, then started swimming down the pond, trailing his shattered wing behind him and straining his gaze toward ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... completely crushed by his disapprobation. She started to make excuses, then felt that she could not. Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. She knew that any explanation would sound stupid and futile. Why was it the man affected her in this oppressive fashion? No other doctor had ever done so. Why was it that the mere physical presence of him, of his big, thick body and his little bald head with its small, glancing eyes, filled her at times with a sort of repulsion? From the first ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... seed was planted; and the crop would have surprised Napoleon. Prince Leopold, thrown upon his own resources at fifteen, made a career for himself and married the heiress of England. The Princess of Leiningen, struggling at Amorbach with poverty, military requisitions, and a futile husband, developed an independence of character and a tenacity of purpose which were to prove useful in very different circumstances. In 1814, her husband died, leaving her with two children and the regency of the principality. After her brother's marriage with the Princess Charlotte, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey |
