"Uselessly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... friends. He knew himself, he shared the benefit of his own talent with many, and he was ever succouring his neighbour in his necessities. He declared himself a capital enemy of vice, and a friend of those who practised virtue. He never spent his time uselessly, but would labour to meet the needs of others, either by himself or by the agency of other men; and he would visit his friends on foot and ever ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... deer and the elk trails were covered with grass and leaves; not even a rabbit could be found in the brush. Then the people prayed, saying: "Oh, Old Man, help us now, or we shall die. The buffalo and deer are gone. Uselessly we kindle the morning fires; useless are our arrows; our knives stick fast in ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... our approach, began to wade and plunge through the treacherous quick-sands or the stream, and gallop away toward the hills. One old veteran was struggling behind all the rest with one of his forelegs, which had been broken by some accident, dangling about uselessly at his side. His appearance, as he went shambling along on three legs, was so ludicrous that I could not help pausing for a moment to look at him. As I came near, he would try to rush upon me, nearly throwing himself down at every ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... utterly defying every attempt to remedy the evil, and that she was rapidly sinking. Learning the melancholy truth, and observing that the Alabama was on my port bow, entirely beyond the range of my guns, doubtless preparing for a raking fire of the deck, I felt I had no light to sacrifice uselessly, and without any desirable result, the lives of all under ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... Fort Orange hold him in esteem," said Antonia, betraying pride. "I have heard he can do more with the Iroquois tribes than any other man of the New World." She uselessly wiped her eyes. She was ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... objective. We will not put into our establishment anything that is useless. We will not put up elaborate buildings as monuments to our success. The interest on the investment and the cost of their upkeep only serve to add uselessly to the cost of what is produced—so these monuments of success are apt to end as tombs. A great administration building may be necessary. In me it arouses a suspicion that perhaps there is too much administration. We have never found a need for elaborate administration and would prefer ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... one traveler, "for hours with the Utes, uselessly trying to blame the twist of the feathered arrow for my bad shots. The Indians say the carving and feathers are so arranged as to give the arrow the correct motion, and one old chief on seeing the twist in the rifle barrel by which the ball is made to revolve in the same manner, ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... Newport, under Count de Barras, which Rodney had failed to attack in the previous September. Graves, who should have caught these ships instead of aiming at the main fleet, engaged him on September 5, handled his fleet badly, and got his ships knocked about. While he remained uselessly at sea the squadron of Barras slipped into the bay. On the 14th the British fleet returned to New York to refit, and Cornwallis was left without succour. Lafayette with a large army of French and Americans was already blocking the neck of the peninsula. Clinton attempted a perfectly ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... school-books. This department of our literature offers a fine field for the efforts of learning and genius. What I contend against is the endless multiplicity of useless works, hastily conceived and carelessly executed, and which serve no purpose but to employ uselessly talents which, if properly applied, might greatly benefit both the community and ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... minutes spent in uselessly smashing the ice and trying to get at the native, they both dived. Now came into play the Eskimo's knowledge of the animal's habits and his skill in this curious kind of warfare. Before diving they looked steadily at the man ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... to cast away, squander: subj. pret. t he genunga g-gewdu wre for-wurpe (that he squandered uselessly the battle-weeds, i.e. gave them ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... his having incidentally heard that Mr. Grandcourt had returned to Diplow; knowing no more than she did that Leubronn had been the goal of her admirer's journeying, and feeling that it would be unkind uselessly to revive the memory of a brilliant prospect under the present reverses. In his secret soul he thought of his niece's unintelligible caprice with regret, but he vindicated her to himself by considering that Grandcourt had been the first ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... prisoners. As this island was the first landing-place of the Spaniards, so it was their last foothold in Mexico. There is a familiar anecdote, which is always retailed by the guides to the strangers whom they initiate into the mysteries of the fortress upon which Cortez is said to have expended uselessly many millions of dollars. Charles V., being asked for more funds wherewith to add to the defenses of San Juan d'Ulloa, called for a spyglass, and, seeking a window, pointed it to the west, seeming to gaze through the glass long and earnestly. When he was asked ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... fervent devotion is not for the great talker; it is impossible that the heart and lips should be uselessly occupied with creatures, and at the same time employed ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... wished for time enough to stop to see the lonely man. I have made good time on this trip, all things considered, with time to spare to make that call, somewhat out of our way. And now the good hours go by while we wait here uselessly." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... on him, and she was no end of a girl, quite the best I've done. And I'd got him right up to the fence, and I'm hanged if I could get him over. He perorated, he posed like a shop-walker, you could see him hanging limp like a broken puppet, and me behind with beads on my forehead uselessly ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... over, and the surviving Navarrese, smarting from the recollection of the tiles and stones that were hurled at them from the roofs by women, children, and old men, had given the final draught of blood to their vengeful swords! Never was so much courage so uselessly squandered. After the lapse of three centuries Henry's figure is still full of heroic life, as, with back set against a shop-window, and sword in hand, he shouted to those who urged upon him the hopelessness of his enterprise: 'My retreat from this town will be that ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... water everyone-half hour, until perspiration on the skin betokens the circulatory depression through the action of the drug. I use aconite in this disease very often, but not in such doses as the first one. It seems to me that it is uselessly large. I use about one-tenth of a drop at a dose everyone to two hours ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... minor canon very likely wanted to see his newest models. The truth is, Master Wacht felt very shy at the possibility of having to listen to the canon's long-winded sermons, which he would deliver himself of uselessly if he attempted to shake his (Wacht's) resolution with respect to Nanni and Jonathan. Accident came to his rescue; for just as the canon, the young lawyer, and the varnisher were standing together, and the first-named ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... own it. But, really, I cannot quite stand seeing her throw herself at Smith—Smith! Oh, I know, I know, he is all right. But oh—well—at any rate thank God I saw him at it. It will keep me from openly and uselessly abasing myself to her and making a fool of myself generally. But Smith! Great God! Smith! Well, it will help to ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... what he himself called a true sport. Women, he maintained, were very much like trout; and so, when this particular woman calmly turned her back upon the smile cast at her, he did not linger there angling uselessly, but betook himself to the store, where his worldly position, rather than his charming personality, might be counted upon to bring him his meed ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... to a standstill square beneath the sluice-gate. Men seemed to be running toward them. The water was beginning to flow the entire length of the boat. Various lighter articles shot past him and disappeared over the side. Charlie had gone crazy and was grabbing at these, quite uselessly, for as fast as he had caught one thing he let it go in favour of another. The cookees, retaining some small degree of coolness, were ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... soldiers; cutting down a servant of the high-priest's. But he was only brave, our Lord was more. The blessed Jesus had true fortitude; He could BEAR patiently, while Peter could only rage and fight uselessly. And see how Christ's fortitude lasted Him, while Peter's mere courage failed him. While our Lord was witnessing that glorious confession of His before Pilate, bearing on through, without shrinking, even to the cross itself, where was Peter? He had denied his Master, ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... pass to the group who abstained, the great mass of the Peerage, too proud to wrangle where they could not win, too wise to knock their heads uselessly against a wall, too loyal not to do their utmost to spare their King. More than three hundred followed Lord Lansdowne's lead, taking for their motto, perhaps, the "Cavendo tutus" of his son-in-law. And still there was fiery blood among them, and strong men swelling with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... stars. Another was an advertisement of a new automobile. The fifth requested an autographed picture of herself. She swept the five over the edge of the table with a sigh of relief. How stupid of all these people, she thought, to take up their time, and her own, so uselessly. ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... What losses! Ah! What losses! And if he had gone in for all those things at once—catching fish and playing the fiddle, and running boats and killing geese—what a fortune he would have made! But nothing of this had happened, even in his dreams; life had passed uselessly without any pleasure, had been wasted for nothing, not even a pinch of snuff; there was nothing left in front, and if one looked back—there was nothing there but losses, and such terrible ones, it made one cold all over. And why was it a man could not live so as to avoid ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... cage, the bird may do as he likes. He may sleep or eat or bathe, or whet his beak uselessly against the cuttlebone thrust between the bars. He may hop about endlessly and chirp salutations to other birds, likewise caged, or he may try his eager wings in a flight which is little better than no flight at all. His cage may be a large one, yet, if he explores ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... Garth—the book of love—was closed, but there were many other volumes in life's library, and Sara did not propose to go through the probable remaining fifty or sixty years of her existence uselessly bewailing a dead past. She would face life, gamely, whatever it might bring, and as she had already sustained one of the hardest blows ever likely to befall her, she would probably make a ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... these thoughts from her, for brave folk, whether men or women, have commonly but one face, and she hated to show friendship to her husband and harbor distrust of him in her bosom. When the young Burgher at last rode away, galloping uselessly to seem what he wished to be—a wild person of sudden habits— she sat on the stoop for a while and thought deeply. And she sighed, as though pondering brought her no decision, and went once more about her work, always with an eye cocked to the window to watch for any rider ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... forward. The drive wheels of machinery rub against the belts and pull them along. There is friction between the wheels of a car and the track they are pushing against, or the wheels would whirl around and around uselessly. ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... females that tenderness could suggest; but though Adelheid, who alone retained sufficient self-command to give an account of her feelings, diminished the danger of their situation with the wish not to alarm their companions uselessly, she could not conceal from herself the horrible truth that the vital heat was escaping from her own body, with a rapidity that rendered it impossible for her much longer to retain the use of her faculties. ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... been told Jock was a son? No, I had simply assumed it, and gone on that assumption without ever once thinking anything more about the matter. And so, with this impenetrable curtain between me and all possibility of guessing the truth I had gone on uselessly groping. ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... to the point, and his lively and animated ways pleased me very much. After the production of Rienzi, however, he too, as a critic, joined the majority of scoffers and detractors. The only person who supported me stoutly but uselessly, through thick and thin, was my old friend Gaillard. His little music-shop was not a success, his musical journal had already failed, so that he was only able to help me in small ways. Unfortunately I discovered not only that he was the author ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... becoming then so hurried as to present nothing decided to the eye, and serving only to confuse the performer instead of giving him confidence. Moreover,—and this is of much more consequence,—the conductor, by uselessly making these four gestures in a quick movement, renders the pace of the rhythm awkward, and loses the freedom of gesture which a simple division of the time into ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... often faithfully performed. A censor, who went to tell the emperor of some faults, took his coffin with him, and left it at the door of the palace. Two censors remonstrated with a late emperor on the expenses of his palace, specifying the sums uselessly lavished for perfumes and flowers for his concubines, and stating that a million of taels of silver might be saved for the poor by reducing these expenses. Sung, the commissioner who attended Lord Macartney, remonstrated with the Emperor Kiaking on his attachment to play-actors ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... Exhibition, for whom who comes there for the first time, is a true chaos in which it is impossible to direct and recognize one's self without a guide. What wants the stranger, the visitor who comes to the Exhibition, it is a means which permits him to see all without losing uselessly his time in the ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... that this invitation concealed some trap, but I puzzled myself uselessly in trying to guess ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... that I had one eye on an ancient and timeless clock, hung uselessly in heaven; whose very name has passed into a figure for such bemused folly. In the true sense of an ancient phrase, I was moonstruck. A lunar landscape a scene of winter moonlight had inexplicably got ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... said or did shook my opinion of the disgraceful series of falsehoods that he had told in my presence the day before, or of the cruel deception by which he had separated Lady Glyde from her sister, and had sent her uselessly to London, when she was half distracted with anxiety on Miss Halcombe's account. I naturally kept these thoughts to myself, and said nothing more to irritate him; but I was not the less resolved to persist in my purpose. A soft answer turneth ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... any of it in being uselessly miserable. Come on out and go for a ride on Silk. I'll take you up on a mountainside, and show you a waterfall that leaps three hundred feet in the clear. The woods are waking up and putting on their Easter bonnets. There's beauty everywhere. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... men to cease firing, as they were wasting their ammunition uselessly, and destroying the prestige of the rifles by missing at ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... allowed to become the scene of a long-continued migration of nations—that of allowing the movements of the British troops to become known, thereby lengthening a war of already intolerable length, to say nothing of exposing uselessly the lives of English detachments, which, in this guerrilla kind of warfare, would inevitably have occurred had the Boer leaders remained in constant communication with ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... hardly worth while to hire men at exorbitant prices to deface articles which they cannot read and condemn books which they cannot understand; and the common sense of Russia has long since revolted against a system which is still as uselessly and childishly vexatious as when pilloried in imperishable language a century ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... The packet was, in fact, sinking. Nearly half the crew were in the hands of the surgeon. The rest, exhausted and hopeless of success, had already fought more nobly than even he could have foreseen, and were now being uselessly sacrificed. Still Captain Cock's pride rebelled against surrender; and as he saw the colours he had defended so well drop down upon the deck, it is recorded that he burst into tears. He had no cause for shame. Such ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... of the soldier, meaning only to gain time for a secure retreat; so that immediately after dispatching the soldier, he decamped in the middle of the night, marching with all possible celerity to get his army into a place of safety, while Don Diego uselessly kept his army under arms in expectation ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... the door; but so intent were the savages upon the battle within, that they did not once notice me, as they rushed forward to the scene of action. Seeing that all was lost, and that to remain would only be throwing away my life uselessly, I sprang to my feet and slipping around the corner of the house I made my way over the old fortification[2] and soon left the noise far behind me. Much has been written and said of grief, but how little do we know of its poignant nature, till we suffer the loss of some dear friend. 'Tis ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... justified on the ground that resistance could not change the result, though it might protract the issue. Because ultimate surrender could not be averted, he characterized life lost in postponing it as blood shed uselessly. The conclusion does not follow from the premise; nor could any military code accept the maxim that a position is to be yielded as soon as it appears that it cannot be held indefinitely. Delay, so long as sustained, not only keeps open the chapter of accidents for the particular post, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... poor, and that the taking of interest for money loaned was forbidden. In fact, deputies from several congregations in the neighborhood of the city appeared before the Council, on June 22d, with the petition, that, since the tithe was eleemosynary under the Gospel, and theirs was uselessly squandered by the canons of the Great Minster, they might be released from the burden. They were plainly rebuked by the Council in a scaled letter. It was not right in the government to support error. But the flame was not ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... that way, then you've made a damned lot of noise uselessly, for now it's beginning ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... in the family of the goats. Not contented with viewing them all as belonging to a single genus, they have divided them into five genera—though to most of the five they ascribe only one species!— thus uselessly multiplying names, and rendering the study of the subject more complicated ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... be away under your brother's protection. If I escape, I shall, if I make my way to England, have the hope of meeting you there; and shall not be haunted with the fear that you have delayed too long, and have sacrificed your lives uselessly. I want you and him to give me your solemn promise that you will act thus, and will, as soon as he considers that further delay will be dangerous, ride off. Remember that this is my last wish, this is ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... (1036. 1150.). v. When the experiment is completed, the acid can be at once poured from between the plates, so that the battery is never left to waste during an unconnected state of its extremities; the acid is not unnecessarily exhausted; the zinc is not uselessly consumed; and, besides avoiding these evils, the charge is mixed and rendered uniform, which produces a great and good result (1039.); and, upon proceeding to a second experiment, the important effect of first contact is again obtained. vi. ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... however, to infer that it always reaches that limit. There may not be as many laborers obtainable as the capital would maintain and employ. This has been known to occur in new colonies, where capital has sometimes perished uselessly for ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... vain, idle, empty, unreal; en —, in vain; —ement, uselessly. vaincre, to conquer. vainqueur, m., conqueror, victor. valeur, f., valor. vallee, f., valley, vale. valoir, to be worth; faire —, to show off, make the most of. vanter, to boast, claim. vapeur, f., vapor, mirkiness. vaste, vast. vautour, m., vulture. veiller, to watch. ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... demesne unscathed. More than once have the good brethren, who wear the white robe of St Romualdo of Ravenna, looked down from their convent walls upon the work of destruction below, and have watched the waves of liquid fire surging angrily but uselessly round the rocky base of their retreat. Hard manual labour, prayer, solitude and contemplation: these are the chief duties enjoined by the famous Tuscan order, and surely no more suitable place for carrying out such precepts could have ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Scots had neglected to guard, and falling upon an outlying portion of the enemies' camp, where the infantry were quartered, slaughtered the surprised Scots at their leisure. Luckily for Mar, the whole of his knights and men-at-arms were far away, uselessly watching the bridge, over which they had expected the disinherited to force a passage. Thus saved from the night ambuscade, the kernel of the Scottish army prepared next morning, August 12, to ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... courageously carry out his plans so long as he has faith in them himself and has good fortune in their execution. Let doubt arise as to either of these things and his troops raise the cry "We are sacrificed," "We are slaughtered uselessly." McClellan's arts of military popularity were such that his army accepted his estimate of the enemy, and believed (in the main) that he had shown great ability in saving them from destruction in a contest at such odds. They were ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the cura is looking after their souls, not their purses; and let him remember that he came from Europa to remove disease from the sheep, not to take their wool. Let him give alms, but let him not scatter the patrimony of Christ uselessly. It will be a suitable alms to provide his parishioners with medals, rosaries, catechisms, and bulls [of the crusade]. [111] Let him not permit idle spongers in the village, who are goblins of cursed consequences; and the whiter they are, the worse. Let the cura be found more often in the houses ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... inlaid when time and means shall permit. This is but a specimen of what is purposed throughout; and if the money which visitors leave in Rome could, in some small part at least, be devoted to these works, instead of being frittered away vexatiously and uselessly on petty extortioners, official and unofficial, the change would be a very great improvement. It does seem a shame that, where so much is necessarily expended, so little of it should be devoted to those still progressing works, from ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... faint voice, "I still have courage to die; but I no longer have any to suffer uselessly. Leave me to ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... or Utumapu; Carl of the ringing laugh, and jolly, smiling face, and tattooed girl-fish on his arm, who could sing, and do tricks with cards, and invent the funniest forfeits when they all played games, and yet, who at leave-time never failed to say with seriousness: "Oh, my pigeon, am I to love uselessly forever?" ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... Durkin; and now, in a sudden passion of blind fear for him she sprang from the cab-step and tried to beat him back with her naked hands, foolishly, uselessly, for she knew that if once together MacNutt and he would fall on one another and fight it out to ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... long undulations, or was it my head? I lay helpless, unable to move. A leg dangled uselessly. There was a bump, the sound of scraping. I heard confused sounds penetrating the walls, and the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... he stayed with the North, was true to his flag, he said. I had seen little of him since my mother's death, when I was ten years old. I was a Southern woman. It seemed monstrous to me. I begged and implored him, but uselessly, and finally our relations were broken off. So I dropped the name of Vernon, and came here to work for our cause, the rest you know. But I could not let him be blown up unsuspecting, could I? If he were killed in action, it would be ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... dare appeal to the public records, to the testimony of those who have opportunities of knowing me, and even to the detail which the public voice can report of the past acts of this government, that my time has been neither idly nor uselessly employed: yet such are the cares and embarrassments of this various state, that, although much may be done, much more, even in matters of moment, must necessarily remain neglected. To select from the miscellaneous ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... had handed over his collections; but afterwards he stayed, taking it for granted that the University would give him the little he wanted. But even that little was difficult to provide, as there were no funds that could be used for that purpose, however uselessly other funds might seem to be squandered. That led to constant grumbling on his part. Ever so many expedients were tried to satisfy him, but none quite succeeded. At last he fell ill and died, and when he was a patient at the Acland Home, where the nurses did all they could for him, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... countless households, by whose generous contributions the armies had been recruited, the talk began to be that it was folly, and even cruelty, to send brave and patriotic citizens to be slaughtered uselessly, while one leader after another showed his helpless incompetence. The disloyal Copperheads became more bodeful than ever before; while men who would have hanged a Copperhead as gladly as they would ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... stood there she noticed, also, that the slant sunbeams were heating Sandy's head to what she judged to be an unhealthy temperature, and that his hat was lying uselessly at his side. To pick it up and to place it over his face was a work requiring some courage, particularly as his eyes were open. Yet she did it and made good her retreat. But she was somewhat concerned, on looking back, to see that the hat was removed, and that ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... you have it. Had he loved her, remorse never would have lifted its head or raised its voice. And again, had not Umballa sought the white woman, this butterfly of the harem might have died of old age without unburdening her soul. Remorse is the result of a crime committed uselessly. Humanity is unchangeable, for ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... towards Durvasa, all those ascetics observed, 'Having bade the king make our meals ready, we have come hither for a bath. But how, O regenerate Rishi, can we eat anything now, for our stomachs seem to be full to the throat. The repast hath been uselessly prepared for us. What is the best thing to be done now?' Durvasa replied, 'By spoiling the repast, we have done a great wrong to that royal sage, king Yudhishthira. Would not the Pandavas destroy us by looking down upon us with angry eyes? I know the royal sage Yudhishthira to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... bridge; and all endeavors to do the thing in a grand engineer's manner, with a level roadway and equal arches, are barbarous; not only because all monotonous forms are ugly in themselves, but because the mind perceives at once that there has been cost uselessly thrown away for the ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... governed the country during his minority, and who fell in battle defending himself against the charge of treason, led several expeditions to Morocco, taking first Alcazar es Seghir or Alcacer Seguer, and later Tangier and Arzilla, thereby uselessly exhausting the strength of the people, and hindering the spread of maritime exploration which Dom Henrique had done so much ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... smile—which had in it a curious quality he could not analyze—were so vivid in his consciousness as to give him pain. The incident, as he stood there ankle-deep in the snow, seemed to him another inexplicable and uselessly cruel caprice ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... country began to cry out that the winter would be upon them before they were ready. They were, it is true, much behindhand, for though many of them had far greater means than Michael Hale and John Kemp, they had not their experience, and often threw away much labour and time uselessly. They were wrong as to the weather, too, for the Indian summer came, and this year it lasted nearly three weeks. The air was pure and cool, though there was not a cloud in the sky, but there was a haze which made the sun looker redder than his wont, and did not let his rays strike ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... the middle of my lunge. I found out what his gun did to you. My right arm, which was the part he'd covered, just went dead and I finished my lunge slamming up against his iron knees, like a highschool kid trying to block out a pro footballer, with the knife slipping uselessly ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... this great continent is like going to sea, they must have a compass, some friendly directing needle; or else they will uselessly err and wander for a long time, even with a fair wind: yet these are the struggles through which our forefathers have waded; and they have left us no other records of them, but the possession of our farms. The reflections ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of its proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of splendour, and more real elegance, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... leisurely, which seemed strange to me, for it was not Kennedy's custom to let moments fly uselessly when he was on a case. However, I soon found out why it was. He was waiting ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... a new kind of flowers, made in the palace. They consist of twelve twigs of flowers of piled gauze. I thought of them yesterday, and as they will, the pity is, only get old, if uselessly put away, why not give them to the girls to wear them in their hair! I meant to have sent them over yesterday, but I forgot all about them. You come to-day most opportunely, and if you will take them with you, I shall have got them off my hands. To the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... origination, can be established.—Do you, in the first place, mean to say that the four individual Lords, Vasudeva, and so on, have the same attributes, but do not constitute one and the same Self?—If so, you commit the fault of uselessly assuming more than one Lord, while all the work of the Lord can be done by one. Moreover, you offend thereby against your own principle, according to which there is only one real essence, viz. the holy Vasudeva.—Or do you perhaps ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... had taken possession of it at first, but the smouldering camp-fires and blazing wagons gave light enough to the Lipans among the rocks to enable them to send occasional bullets at whatever might be stirring there, and the place was given up as uselessly dangerous. The scattered shots which now and then came from the mouth of the pass told that the beaten warriors of To-la-go-to-de were wide-awake and ready to defend themselves, and their position was well known to be a strong one—not ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... and jolting, an electric car came to a standstill just in front of a heavy truck that was headed in an opposite direction. The huge truck wheels were sliding uselessly round on the car tracks that were wet and slippery from rain. All the urging of the teamster and the straining of the horses were in vain,—until the motorman quietly tossed a shovelful of sand on the track under the heavy wheels, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... have received the wine. The Moro was said by some to have fled, by others to have gone into hiding. It seemed as if the police were of the second opinion. They came and went, searching everywhere, but always uselessly. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... run naked amongst underbrush, shrubs, and trees, like wild boars, heedless of obstacles. The Spaniards, on the contrary, were hindered amongst this undergrowth by their shields, their clothes, their long lances, and their ignorance of the surroundings. After a night passed uselessly in the woods the Adelantado, realising the next morning that they could catch nobody, followed the counsel of those islanders who are the immemorial enemies of the Ciguana tribe, and under their guidance marched towards the mountains where the King ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... glitter in her dark eyes as she obeyed. She was not the sort of woman to risk a scene uselessly. Then Wills was brought in. Foyle put a formal question ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... sadly "we won't do all this uselessly" he said "this is a very costly trick if you think it a trick at all, because I have to pay to the servants double the amount that others pay in this village—otherwise they would run away. You can sleep at the door and see that nobody ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... will perhaps think it necessary to retake it; but that will be of no use, and will cause loss of life uselessly on both sides. It had far better return, with its tail between its legs.... England was made by adventurers, not by its Government, and I believe it will only hold its ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... population, in a race which has had, from the beginning, the abnormal and truly monstrous habit of slaughtering each other, not for food—for in a race of normal cannibals, the ratio of increase or decrease might easily be calculated—but uselessly, from rage, hate, fanaticism, or even mere wantonness? No man is less inclined than I to undervalue vital statistics, and their already admirable results: but how can they help us, and how can we help them, in looking at such a past as that of three- fourths of ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... afford cover to the enemy was, as far as possible, cleared away. The chief cause of anxiety to Sir Robert Sale was the deficiency of ammunition, which a single prolonged engagement would go nigh to exhaust. The men were therefore ordered not to expend a single shot uselessly. ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... leave the city, tonight? All say that there is no hope of resistance; and that John of Gischala and Simon are only bringing destruction, upon all in the city, by thus holding out against the Romans. Why should you throw away your life so uselessly?" ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... ever quick to catch on to a joke, seeing each man glance upward, followed suit, spied the enormous handkerchief held high in the left hand, and realizing the situation, burst into hilarious laughter. Uselessly I pleaded; at every possible opportunity the white handkerchief appeared in some left hand, while the stage manager vainly wondered why the audience laughed in such unseemly places ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... "I suppose that chap has a mother somewhere who is wondering where her boy is. This isn't exactly Christian burial, but it's all he'll get, I reckon; for whether it was smallpox or plain fever, nobody's going to uselessly resurrect him. Even the coyotes will ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... was reading in my cabin, little Sam Edwards ran in, saying, "Mountain Jim wants to speak to you." This brought to my mind images of infinite worry, gauche servants, "please Ma'am," contretemps, and the habit growing out of our elaborate and uselessly conventional life of magnifying the importance of similar trifles. Then "things" came up, with the tyranny they exercise. I REALLY need nothing more than this log cabin offers. But elsewhere one must have a house and servants, and burdens ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... comes to the worst I shall do that. It would be imperiling our lives uselessly to go aloft with the overheated gas that ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... methodical, though, under general circumstances, uselessly prolix way, is to cut a square hole, some half an inch wide, in the sheet of cardboard, and a series of small circular holes in a slip of cardboard an inch wide. Pass the slip over the square opening, and match each colour beside one of the circular openings. You will thus have no ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... son's sad loss in life. And even when the stinging sense of guilt is absent, it is a mournful thing for one to feel that he has, so to speak, missed stays in his earthly voyage, and run upon a mud-bank which he can never get off: to feel one's self ingloriously and uselessly stranded, while those who started with us pass by with gay flag and swelling sail. And all this may be while it is hard to know where to attach blame; it may be when there was nothing worse to complain of than a want of promptitude, resolution, and tact, at the one testing time. Every one ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... gain by such a course?" inquired his visitor. "Why uselessly expose yourself to disagreeable notoriety, which must, of course, place Mrs. ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... always arrived punctually at eight o'clock, to buy illustrated joke books and theological tracts, sometimes became impatient, because the cheerful saleswomen disturbed him as he tried to make his selection. And the school-teacher Theo Tontod, who tirelessly, and, as a rule, uselessly asked for the modern newspaper, "The Other A," often got to school too late. Around noon, almost every day, the choral-singer Mabel Meier came, on the arm of an old man. She bought colorful, spicy newspapers, ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... costume that you have on, I cannot ask you to get into my carriage; that would only compromise us both uselessly. I shall send my coachman back, and walk home. You can follow quietly; and, when we get into a quiet street, we will take ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... have nothing to say. Speech and the guillotine sufficed them. Their speeches were childish. "Never a fact,'' says Taine, "nothing but abstractions, strings of sentences about Nature, reason, the people, tyrants, liberty: like so many puffed-out balloons uselessly jostling in space. If we did not know that it all ended in practical and dreadful results, we should think they were games of logic, school exercises, academical ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... housekeepers I was speaking of, whose delight is in administration and organisation, to use long-tailed words; I mean people who like keeping things together, avoiding waste, seeing that nothing sticks fast uselessly. Such people are thoroughly happy in their business, all the more as they are dealing with actual facts, and not merely passing counters round to see what share they shall have in the privileged taxation of useful people, which was ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... the revolution which founded the capitalist mode of production was played at the beginning of the sixteenth century by the breaking up of the bands of feudal retainers, who, as Sir James Steuart well says, "everywhere uselessly filled house and castle." The old nobility had been devoured by the great feudal wars; the new was a child of its time, for which money was the power of all powers. Transformation of arable land ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... not uselessly take up your time, Major Hawke," gloomily rejoined Hardwicke, as he picked up his sword, and, with a cold ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... skirmish was to give the chevalier an opportunity to utter his warning to the Gars. Merle, who saw the enemy disappearing across the hedges, thought best not to follow them nor to enter upon a fight that was uselessly dangerous. Gerard ordered the escort to take its former position on the road, and the convoy was again in motion without the loss of a single man. The captain offered his hand to Mademoiselle de Verneuil to replace her in the coach, for the young nobleman ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac |
