"Vainly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tied round me, and I had a pair of slippers for my feet. The shirt was of the army linen; and when I contemplated myself in this dress of a malefactor, chained thus to the wall in such a dungeon, vainly imploring mercy or justice, my conscience void of reproach, my heart of guilt—when I reflected on my former splendour in Berlin and Moscow, and compared it with this sad, this dreadful reverse of destiny, I was sunk in grief, or roused to indignation, that might ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... intense intoxicating emotion she was experiencing. What frightful tide was this which had swept into her well-ordered life! She vainly put up her arms and tried to push him away, but with each sign of revolt he held her ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... else for this work, I am not the man I thought I was." He then rose and said, in a voice he vainly attempted should appear calm and dignified, "Sergeant, keep the prisoners in custody this night: I have changed my mind. Be ready to march at four tomorrow morning. We will have a bonfire to light us on our journey: ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... for him in daily life, about the Courts of Justice and in the political arena, but his equal for simplicity of character, for unaffected piety, and purity of motive, have I never discovered, although I have seen many, who, without his talents, have vainly endeavoured ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... one of her maids of honor; and although the queen had not recognized her, she was convinced that it was none other than Laura von Pannewitz, and that she was now going to a rendezvous with her unknown lover, whom the queen had hitherto vainly endeavored to discover. The queen called her waiting-maids to her assistance, and putting on her furs and hood, she told them she felt a desire to take a solitary walk in the garden, and that none of ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... of them in the country; this route seems to be a continuation of the Kan Suh Imperial highway. A wall now destroyed connected these towers together. "There is no doubt," writes M. Bonin, "that all these remains are those of the great route, vainly sought after till now, which, under the Han Dynasty, ran to China through Bactria. Pamir, Eastern Turkestan, the Desert of Gobi, and Kan Suh: it is in part the route followed by Marco Polo, when he went from Charchan to Shachau, by the city of Lob." The route of the Han has been also looked for, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... loss two armies sent against him from the provincial capital; but the end of the T'ai-p'ing rebellion set free the whole resources of the empire against him, and he remained inactive while the Imperialists advanced leisurely westwards. In 1871 he tried vainly to obtain aid from England, sending over his son, Prince Hassan, for that purpose. The following year saw the enemy at the gates of Ta-li, and by and by there was a treacherous surrender of an important position. Then a promise of an amnesty was obtained at the price ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... thrilling jar—a low dull thud—a sound of broken glass—a quick blank stoppage. Next instant she found herself flung wildly forward into her neighbour's arms, while the artist, for his part, with outstretched hands, was vainly endeavouring to break the force ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... Alexander, he was again accused, and suffered exile. Recalled from exile, on the death of Alexander, he roused himself for the deliverance of Greece, without success, and, hunted by his enemies, he took poison in the sixty-third year of his age, having vainly contended for the freedom of his country,—one of the noblest spirits of antiquity, spotless in his public career, and lofty in his private life. As an orator, he has not probably been equaled by any man of any country. By his contemporaries he was regarded as faultless as a public speaker, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... how much this law excludes! All that is fondly magnificent, insolently ambitious, or vainly difficult. There is, indeed, such a thing as Magnanimity in design, but never unless it be joined also with modesty and Equanimity. Nothing extravagant, monstrous, strained, or singular, can be structurally beautiful. No towers ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... there be, why a man should not rightly enough be called miserable, whom we see inflamed and raging with lust, coveting everything with an insatiable desire, and in proportion as he derives more pleasure from anything, thirsting the more violently after them? And as to a man vainly elated, exulting with an empty joy, and boasting of himself without reason, is not he so much the more miserable in proportion as he thinks himself happier? Therefore, as these men are miserable, so on the other hand those ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... higher quality, some of which, like the lovely Never the Time and Place, I have been already quoted. Ixion is too obscurely put to attain its end with the general public. But it may be recommended, though vainly, to those theologians who, hungry for the Divine Right of torture, build their God, like Caliban, out of their own minds; who, foolish enough to believe that the everlasting endurance of evil is a necessary guarantee of the everlasting endurance of good, are still bold and bad enough ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... peril in the Lydstep caves: Down the steep gorge, grotesquely boulder-piled And tempest-worn, as ocean hurrying wild Up it in thunder breaks and vainly raves,— My haste hath sped me to the rippled sand Where, arching deep, o'erhang on either hand These halls of Amphitrite, echoing clear The ceaseless mournful music of the waves: Ten thousand beauteous ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... of later investigation—as to the actors in the events of this ride to Cambridge. When Bowden and Clarke had attested their loyalty by horsewhipping young Wiswell, they took him in charge to Cambridge, and vainly tried to persuade Nathaniel Hancock, the constable, to carry him before a magistrate. This refusal brought him into difficulty with Council; but his humble submission was finally accepted and he was discharged on payment of costs, on the plea that upon the change ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... days Spike had lived in torment, and to-night, as he leaned throbbing head between clutching hands, his haggard eyes sought vainly for that fell word which he could read everywhere except in the newspaper before him; his sufferings had grown almost beyond his strength, for to his old torments was added ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... strangely erect, and his face was brave though pale. A cane lay on the table. The master's eye was sterner than his heart. His hand reached for the cane, but he replaced it in a drawer, and for twenty minutes the listeners in the corridor vainly pricked their ears ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... had been unrestrained and agreeable on both sides, but now they were left alone together, neither appeared able to utter a word. Nizza cast her eyes timidly on the ground, while Leonard caressed little Bell, who had been vainly endeavouring by her gamesome tricks to win ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that the military operations were, in fact, conducted. It was not till late in the year A.D. 162 that Verus, having with reluctance torn himself from Italy, appeared, with his lieutenants, upon the scene in Syria, and, after vainly offering them terms of peace, commenced hostilities against the triumphant Parthians. The young Emperor did not adventure his own person in the field, but stationed himself at Antioch, where he could enjoy the pleasures and amusements of a ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... of this kind of passage: 'Those who rather desire what is another's, nor bestow that is their own, are to be admonished to consider carefully that the earth out of which they are taken is common to all men, and therefore brings forth nourishment for all in common. Vainly, then, do they suppose themselves innocent who claim to their own private use the common gift of God; those who in not imparting what they have received walk in the midst of the slaughter of their neighbours; since they almost daily slay so ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... increased, and a driving storm came on. Tying our horses to the horns of the victims, Henry began the bloody work of dissection, slashing away with the science of a connoisseur, while I vainly endeavored to imitate him. Old Hendrick recoiled with horror and indignation when I endeavored to tie the meat to the strings of rawhide, always carried for this purpose, dangling at the back of the saddle. After some difficulty we overcame his scruples; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... roofs of heaven, Come now and look over the wall: Oh let your sad mother but see you, Oh let her not vainly call! Hasten, her heart is breaking, Let her your smile behold; The mother is sadly weeping, The ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... were apparently repeated to his satisfaction, for while I was vainly endeavouring to convince myself that I was unconnected with the sailing of U.39, he banged the receiver into place (Old Man Max does everything in ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... night; not as the poet hears them, but as one in pain. "He never loved me!" she murmured, so softly that even the sparrows in the vine heard her not. And bitter indeed was the pain. But of what use to struggle, or to sigh, or vainly to regret? As things are written, so must they be read. She readily held him guiltless; what she regretted most deeply was the lack of power to have him and to hold him. Long before, she had realized the ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... does not drink," she returned, trying vainly to suppress a smile; but this contradiction did ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... earth,' expresses the same principle: the same law holds in the earth as in the kingdom of heaven. How should it be otherwise? Has the creator of the ends of the earth ceased to rule it after his fashion, because his rebellious children have so long, to their own hurt, vainly endeavoured to rule it after theirs? The kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor; the meek shall inherit the earth. The earth as God sees it, as those to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs also see it, is ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... which could hide us from their sight. At length we reached the bottom of the ravine, which was surrounded by naked rocks. Deep snow covered it, and we could not find a single place where we could hide. It was now broad day, and we stood still for a moment, looking vainly in every direction, and much perplexed to know what to do. At length we discovered in the rocks an opening, which on examination, turned out to be a cave, but so small as to be hardly able to contain us all. Close to it was a water-fall, which coming down from ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... were surging ahead alongside the cliff wall, and the little pony with the boy on his back was inch by inch being forced to the verge, of which there was a clear fall now of about one hundred feet. Vainly he looked for a tree overhanging the road into which he could leap; there were no trees. And every few strides he found himself appreciably nearer the edge. Looking back, as far as he could see the steers were crowding, and looking forward the road curved, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... of it than one can recall the name of a half-forgotten acquaintance suddenly encountered in the street. It might have been fourteen, or forty-one; or a hundred and fifty. Every number was as likely as it was unlikely. I tried vainly to concentrate my mind. The result was nothing. The missing number gave no clue. To enter the wrong room in that ship at that hour meant death for me. Of that I was certain. To leave the right room ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... were gliding along among scenes strange and new, Hinpoha was vainly trying to comfort herself for having to stay at home by catching in a bottle the bees which were crawling in and out of the cosmos blossoms in the garden. Interesting as the bees were, however, they could not keep her thoughts from turning to ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... hot and dry, his brain felt as if on fire; but at every order from Nic he bent down over his oar and pulled and pulled, till his strokes grew more and more wild, and at last, as he made one more desperate than ever, he did not dip the blade, but fell backward from the thwart. Then, after vainly trying to pull with both oars himself, Nic turned to face his companion in misfortune, wondering in his ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... witty enemy. General de Segur, like every one else, noticed the hostility which the Empress in vain tried to conceal. "The Empress of Austria," he says, "whose parents had been dispossessed by Napoleon in Italy, was noticeable for her aversion which she vainly essayed to hide; it made itself at once manifest to Napoleon, and he met it with a smiling face; but she made use of her intelligence and charm to win over hearts and to sow the ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... and vainly tries to raise the siege? Lo, I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal, And with him horse and foot, and parks of artillery, And artillery-men, the deadliest that ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... oppressed hearts of the other two. They knew now that, even if death should be their lot, Argutis would be faithful to their father and sick brother, and the slave at once showed his ingenuity and shrewdness; for, while the young people were vainly trying to think of a hiding-place for Heron and Philip, he suggested a spot which would hardly be discovered even ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Bessie, he finally fell asleep and dreamed of her. On the bed he tossed restlessly, murmuring her name. He seemed to see her near at hand, yet gliding away before him as he vainly sought to overtake her. She turned her bewitching face and smiled at him alluringly. Desperately he strove to reach her, but always she kept just beyond his grasp. Yet she beckoned him on with her smile and with her hypnotic eyes. Finally, in mad desperation, he made one last great ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... aged man went forth with slow and tottering tread, The frosts of many a Northland Yule lay thick upon his head; A staff was in his outstretched hand, to lead him on his way, And vainly rolled his faded eyes to find ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... her knees weakened suddenly like knots of tissue paper. No power on earth could have made her break discipline by taking a chair while the Senior Surgeon stood, so she sank limply down to the floor instead, with two great solemn tears welling slowly through the fingers with which she tried vainly to ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Showed Power in frightful attitude: the queen Marks the surpassing prodigy, and strives To shake off terror in her crowded court, And wonders why she trembles, nor suspects How Fear and Love assume each other's form, By birth and secret compact how allied. Vainly (to conscious virgins I appeal), Vainly with crouching tigers, prowling wolves, Rocks, precipices, waves, storms, thunderbolts, All his immense inheritance, would Fear The simplest heart, should Love refuse, assail: Consent—the maiden's pillowed ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... know any better," cried the old lady, vainly trying to settle her gray puffs as they were before, "than to run into people in this way, I'll ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... abroad in the fall of '75 when that quiet wedding took place which she was vainly implored to attend as first bridesmaid. Three years had elapsed since her mother's death, but her heart was still in mourning. But early in the spring of the Centennial year, after a stormy passage, she was safely restored to her own land, and the evening after the arrival of their party Captain ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... the door, and the wind rushed into the house and up the stairs, and I had to shut the bedroom door hastily to keep it out. Then I heard Polly pulling and pulling at it, and vainly trying to shut it, and I had to go down to help her. She was some minutes away, for she had difficulty in rousing her neighbour, and I sat beside the unconscious child. He was talking the whole time, but I could distinguish very little of what he said. ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... quite yearned over him, in some conjunction lately, though ever so fleet-ingly, apprehended: which circumstance constituted precisely an association as tormenting, for the few minutes, as it was vague, and set him to sounding, intensely and vainly, the face that itself figured everything agreeable except recognition. He couldn't remember, and the young man didn't; distinctly, yes, they had been in presence, during the previous winter, by some chance of travel, through ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... not escape the prevailing infection, although an inborn amenity of disposition saved him from atheism in its more blatantly offensive forms. The existence of the Supreme Being might be, (probably was) so he feared, but "a fond thing vainly imagined". Yet such is the constitution of the human mind that age confers a certain prestige and authority even upon phantoms and suspected frauds. Hence it followed that Mr. Verity, in the plenitude of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... achieve No unimportant, though a silent task. A life all turbulence and noise may seem, To him that leads it, wise and to be praised; But wisdom is a pearl with most success Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies. He that is ever occupied in storms, Or dives not for it or brings up instead, Vainly industrious, a ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... could, be otherwise, our regrets, desires, aspirations, and the like, shew but as so many testimonies to our own essential imperfection, weaknesses to be surmounted, rather than signs of worth to stamp us, as we vainly ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... knew that I could do to-night what I had vainly tried to do; that to-night, for to-night at least, I felt something of what I desired to feel. The blood ran free in my veins; if I did not love her, yet I loved love, and for love's sake would love Elsa. If to-night the barrier between us could ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... of the day was at times really painful. In order that the camels might start in time, our tents were packed early; sometimes we would sit for hours waiting the good pleasure of the cameleers under the scanty shade of a mimosa, vainly endeavouring to find in its dwarfed foliage a relief from the burning rays of the sun. Night after night, be it moonlight or starlight, on we went; the task was before us, and duty urged us on to reach the land where our countrymen were ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... back. They were arrested, and all their excuses were of no avail. Laplace ordered the men to be taken outside the town and shot. The young girl was condemned to be hanged; and the sentence was to be carried out that very day, but some nuns who had been sent for to prepare her for death, having vainly begged Laplace to show mercy, entreated the girl to declare that she would soon become a mother. She indignantly refused to save her life at the cost of her good name, so the nuns took the lie on themselves ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of Poetry, among all nations and at all times? They are actions; human actions; possessing an inherent interest in themselves, and which are to be communicated in an interesting manner by the art of the Poet. Vainly will the latter imagine that he has everything in his own power; that he can make an intrinsically inferior action equally delightful with a more excellent one by his treatment of it: he may indeed compel us to admire his skill, but his work will possess, within ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... Vainly I tried to shake him off. The more I labored, the closer he clung to me, as if fearful that I should escape his grasp. I believed that my last moment had come. I gave myself up in despair, and thought of Flora—what would become of her. I asked God ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... Much trouble may be thus saved by understanding this matter. During my early days in beekeeping, I wished for the greatest possible increase of stocks. I had some that had cast the first swarm, and soon after clustered out again. I vainly watched them for weeks and months, expecting another swarm. But had I understood the modus operandi, as the reader may now understand it, I should have been through with all my anxiety, as well as watching, in a fortnight. As it was, it lasted two months. I found no one to give ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... conceived so certain a persuasion that my design would be gratified, that I did not for a moment doubt that I should witness some immediate testimony from God in favour of the innocence of his saint; though as often as the idea occurred to my mind, I endeavoured to drive it away, that I might not vainly appear to tempt Providence by looking for a miracle where it was not necessarily to be expected. Early the next morning I betook myself to the place of execution, and, arriving there before any other person, stationed myself close to the scaffold, though I was afterwards somewhat forced ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... souls wallowing in luxury and sloth. Shaping smiled, and said, 'How comes it that your wisdom is greater than that of the Master of wisdom?' Hator said, 'My wisdom does not come from you, nor from your world, but from that other world, which you, Shaping, have vainly tried to imitate.' Shaping replied, 'What, then, do you do in my world?' Hator said, 'I am here falsely, and therefore I am subject to your false pleasures. But I wrap myself in pain—not because it is good, but because I wish ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... orators. But the poets,—especially men of the sparkling fancy of Bellman, or the rich lyrical inspiration of Tegner, are not to be fettered by such conventionalities; and they have given the verse of Sweden an ease, and grace, and elegance, which one vainly seeks in its prose. In Stockholm, the French taste, so visible in the manners of the people, has also affected the language, and a number of French words and forms of expression, which have filtered through society, from the higher to the lower classes, are now ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... "This dusty pane might serve for looking-glass," and simultaneously exclaims, as she throws them rejectingly from her nervous fingers, "Three, four—four grey hairs!" then with an almost sublime coquetry of horror turns abruptly to Sebald, saying with a voice striving vainly to be blithe— ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... of this picture can not be exprest in human language: the most beautiful nights in Europe can give no idea of it. In the midst of our cultivated fields the imagination vainly seeks to expand itself; everywhere it meets with the dwellings of man; but in these desert countries the soul delights in penetrating and losing itself in these eternal forests; it loves to wander by the light of the moon on the borders of immense lakes, to hover over the roaring gulf ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... the afternoon. Rain since morning and a gray sky low enough to be reached with an umbrella; the close weather which sticks. Mess, mud, nothing but mud, in heavy puddles, in shining trails in the gutters, vainly chased by the street-scrapers and the scavengers, heaved into enormous carts which carry it slowly towards Montreuil—promenading it in triumph through the streets, always moving, and always springing up again, growing through the pavements, splashing the panels of the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... pacings to and fro, of happy work, of firelit evenings, of talk, of laughter, the groups breaking up and reforming—how little one had guessed and valued the joy, the content, the blessing of them at the time! In the midst of them, one was reaching forwards, restlessly and vainly, to the future that was to be richer yet. Then the future became the happy present, and still one had leaned forward. How idle it all was! even while he waited and gazed, the light of evening was gone, the clouds were lustreless ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... one vainly plod, and one win immortality— If I were Francois Villon and Francois ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... Religion sit, Enthroned with heavenly Wit! Look where you see The greatest scorn of learned vanity! (And then how much a nothing is mankind! Whose reason is weigh'd down by popular air, Who, by that, vainly talks of baffling death; And hopes to lengthen life by a transfusion of breath, Which yet whoe'er examines right will find To be an art as vain as bottling up of wind!) And when you find out these, believe true Fame is there, Far above all reward, yet to which ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... that at the other end of Europe, in burning Moscow and on the bridge of the Beresina, he had found the common soul, even as he had found the common sky, his enemy. But all this does not affect the first great lines of the quarrel, which had begun before horsemen in Germanic uniform had waited vainly upon the road to Varennes or had failed upon the miry slope up to the windmill of Valmy. And that duel, on which depended all that our Europe has since become, had great Russia and gallant Spain and our own glorious island only as subordinates or seconds. That duel, first, last, ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... than from compulsion.[15] At forty leagues from shore, they were met by a small vessel: the captain turned pale, but the crew were attached to M. de Lafatette, and the officers were numerous: they made a show of resistance. It turned out, fortunately, to be an American ship, whom they vainly endeavoured to keep up with; but scarcely had the former lost sight of M. de Lafayette's vessel, when it fell in with two English frigates,—and this is not the only time when the elements seemed bent on opposing M. de Lafayette, as if with the intention ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... fell dead, and Gyt fell with him. His cowardly companion, who had witnessed this fearful struggle from the rock, now took courage to advance, and carried the mangled body of Gyt to the nearest house. Medical aid was at hand, but vainly applied, as on the third day, he died of a locked jaw. Such was the tragical end of this rencounter, from the sheer cowardice ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... mine—"I, sir, am the Vicomte Anne de Keroual de Saint-Yves, at your service. I haven't a notion how or why you come to be here: but you seem likely to be an acquisition. On my part," I continued, as there leapt into my mind the stanza I had vainly tried to recover in Mrs. McRankine's sitting-room, "I have the honour to refer you to the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not hear a word of it, but their motions were eloquent. My sympathy was with the magistrate, of course, and I watched eagerly while he passed a letter over to the doctor, who vainly strove to read it by the light of the moon. Finding this impossible, he was about to return it, when the other struck a match and lit a lantern hanging from the horn of his saddle. The two heads came together again, but as quickly separated with every appearance of irreconcilement, and I was settling ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... F——, meanwhile, was vainly attempting to open the door. He now turned round to me, and asked my permission to use force. And I should here state, in justice to the servant, that, far from evincing any superstitious terrors, his nerve, composure, and ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... wildly in the darkness, and heads were popping out of tenement windows on all sides. As Kennedy and I flung ourselves into the crowd we caught a glimpse of Gennaro, with blood streaming from a cut on his shoulder, struggling with a policeman while Luigi vainly was trying to interpose himself between them. A man, held by another policeman, was urging the first officer on. "That's the man," he was crying. "That's ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... ministers of doom—the flames bite them, the devils fish for and catch them with long grappling-hooks:—in sad contrast to the group on the opposite side, a queen, condemned herself but self-forgetful, vainly struggles to rescue her daughter from a demon who has caught her by the gown and is dragging her backwards into the abyss—her sister, wringing her hands, looks on in ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... inherited the mother's dread, and her fear of doing or saying something that was not just "the correct thing" made her put all the responsibility of conversation on her mother's shoulder. Dexie was amused, as well as provoked, as she listened to the efforts at conversation which Cora vainly endeavored to sustain with her double, and it was evident that Mrs. Gurney also was surprised as well as ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... thence, He was, early in 1628, sent out to Manhattan, where he arrived April 7. It is not known just when he returned to Holland, but he appears to have been under engagement for three years. In 1637-1638 we find the classis vainly endeavoring to send him again to New Netherland, but prevented by the Company, which had a veto upon all such appointments in ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... the Trust into her sister's hand. Magdalen took it from her mechanically. "You!" she said, looking at her sister with the remembrance of all that she had vainly ventured, of all that she had vainly suffered, at St. Crux—"you have ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... They had drifted away leaving little phrases dragging in his thought. Now Anna had found him. Not a phantom, but the thing as he had left it, without a detail gone. The gesture of her agony intact. His thought shifted vainly away. He knew she was standing as he had left her—horribly inanimate—and he must go back. He would hold her in his arms, kiss her lips, kneel before her weeping for forgiveness. Ah! he would be kind. At night he would sit holding her head in his arms, stroking ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... care elude the gloomy grave, Which claims no less the fearful than the brave, For lust of fame I should not vainly dare In fighting fields, nor urge the soul to war, But since, alas! ignoble age must come, Disease, and death's inexorable doom; The life which others pay let us bestow, And give to fame what we to nature owe; Brave though we fall, and honoured if we live, ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... join in thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice. I would speak, but speech breaks not into song, and I cry out baffled. Ah, thou hast made my heart captive in the endless meshes of ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... short as a protest against the superstition that a soldier's hair must be long, which originated in the idea that strength is located in the hair and may have still been current in their time. We know that the Puritans strove vainly against the veneration of the Maypole as the spirit of the new vegetation, [335] and against the old nature-rites observed at Christmas, the veneration of fire as the preserver of life against cold, and the veneration of the evergreen plants, the fir tree, the holly, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... must be told how Earl Erik Hakonson fared in that fight. True to the agreement which he and the two allied kings had come to over their dice throwing on the morning of that same fateful day, he had stood apart from the battle while Sweyn had vainly striven to make a prize of the Long Serpent; and during the midday and until the retreat of King Sweyn he had engaged no more in the conflict than to direct his arrows from afar into the thick of Olaf Triggvison's host. Now, Earl Erik was wise in warfare, ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... massacre of the strikers, and the judicial murder of the labor leaders, which followed upon the historic Haymarket bomb explosion. The Anarchists stood the martyr test of blood baptism. The apologists of capitalism vainly seek to justify the killing of Parsons, Spies, Lingg, Fischer, and Engel. Since the publication of Governor Altgeld's reason for his liberation of the three incarcerated Haymarket Anarchists, no doubt is left that a fivefold legal murder had been ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... What makes you think there is a mystery about me?" she demanded, trying vainly to hide ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... news. Liege was rather uncomfortably near Germany, and as we were not being sent to work there it sounded remarkably like being imprisoned. Every one who could exerted themselves on our behalf; the American Consul in particular went over and over again to vainly try to get the commandant to change his mind. We were to start on Monday morning, and on Sunday at midday the order still stood. But at four o'clock that afternoon we got a message to say that our gracious masters had changed ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... had not vainly boasted that he was a sound sleeper, for notwithstanding the scuffle over his head, he did not awake; and happily Norah, who had been stationed at his cabin door to keep him in check should he attempt to break out, was ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... him two little boxes made of ivory set with gold and pearls. On the lid of each (which the king vainly tried to open) was an inscription in diamonds. On one stood the words 'Honour and Glory,' and on the ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... sight of my geographical studies he boxed my ears sharply, sprang forward to Beaupre's bed, and, awaking him without any consideration, he began to assail him with reproaches. In his trouble and confusion Beaupre vainly strove to rise; the poor "outchitel" was dead drunk. My father pulled him up by the collar of his coat, kicked him out of the room, and dismissed him the same day, to the inexpressible ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... monastic cloister. Heloise had already, at my bidding, taken the veil and entered a convent. Thus it was that we both put on the sacred garb, I in the abbey of St. Denis, and she in the convent of Argenteuil, of which I have already spoken. She, I remember well, when her fond friends sought vainly to deter her from submitting her fresh youth to the heavy and almost intolerable yoke of monastic life, sobbing and weeping replied in ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... also dangerous to its peace. It seemed as if both she and Laura had receded from him to an immeasurable distance, and he could not think of either without almost gnashing his teeth in rage at himself, and at what he regarded as his perverse and cruel fate. At times he would vainly endeavor to banish their images from his mind, but more often would indulge in wild and impossible visions of coming back to them in a dazzling halo of literary glory, and of overwhelming them with humiliation that they were so slow to recognize the genius which smouldered for weeks under ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... said Robina at last, when he had vainly been trying to repeat it to her, with his eye on a sheet of music all the time, 'you can't do two things at once. If I were you, I would lock up that violin till the summer ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... say, but could not find a word. She tried to rally, but vainly. I passionately repeated ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... up. Some of the seamen on the yards were pulling one way, and some another; some declared the snarl was in one place, others in another place. The rogues had realized an undoubted success in the work they had undertaken. Vainly the midshipmen in the tops tried to bring order out of confusion. Those who were actually laboring to untangle the ropes ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... hear?" he asked in a subdued whisper, after a few seconds of silence, in which he had vainly sought to catch ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... rambling sort of way, snoring all the time in monosyllables, except when he erroneously swallowed his tonsils, and then he would struggle awhile and get black in the face, while the passengers vainly hoped that he ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... with fire. Before the King found an opportunity to give his definite answer to the consular question, the Cabinet retired. The Ministerial strike recently set on the political stage, was even then in the perspective. But the King having vainly tried to form a Conservative Ministry and matters becoming serious, a retreat was sounded, the Storthing itself taking the initiative, this time, strange to say, receiving the hint from Mr MICHELSEN. The requests of the Ministers to resign were withdrawn, and ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... "severely alone," which much afflicted her, for he was her great admiration, and had been pleased to express his approbation of her agility and courage so often that she was ready to attempt any fool-hardy feat to recover his regard. But vainly did she risk her neck jumping off the highest beams in the barn, trying to keep her balance standing on the donkey's back, and leaping the lodge gate at a bound; Ben vouchsafed no reward by a look, a smile, a word of commendation, and Bab felt ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... vision born from sea and cloud. Yet I knew I was not deceived. Where the craft could be bound; for what secret purpose it was afloat; who were aboard, were but so many unanswerable questions arising in my mind. I stared vainly into the darkness, puzzled and uncertain, impressed alone by the one controlling thought, that some mysterious object, some hidden purpose alone could account for that swift, silent passage. Where could they have come from, unless ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... which has been heretofore so bountifully bestowed upon us by the Author of All Good still continues to call for our warmest gratitude. Especially have we reason to rejoice in the exuberant harvests which have lavishly recompensed well-directed industry and given to it that sure reward which is vainly sought in visionary speculations. I cannot, indeed, view without peculiar satisfaction the evidences afforded by the past season of the benefits that spring from the steady devotion of the husbandman to his honorable pursuit. No means of individual comfort is more certain ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that I could make out nothing beyond half a mile. And so, even though a whole fleet might be passing near me, my chances of rescue were very small. But from the look of the ocean I knew that no fleets were likely to be thereabouts, and that even though the haze lifted I might search long and vainly for sight of so much as a single sail. As far as I could see around me the water was covered thickly with gulf-weed, and with this was all sorts of desolate flotsam—planks, and parts of masts, and fragments of ships' timbers—lolling languidly on the soft swell that was running, ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... Preliminary Discourse, Section 1st, enumerates the great nations which have vainly attempted the conquest of Arabia, from the Assyrians down to the Romans, and he asserts that even the Turks have held ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... contained the Duke's party, dressed in various gay costumes, as Tartar warriors and Indian queens. In the stern were the servants and attendants, travestied in the most grotesque and ludicrous style. This magnificent and unwieldly car had by some chance lost its place in the procession, and vainly endeavoured to whip in; as it is a point of honour among the charioteers not to yield the pas. Our coachman, however, was ordered (though most unwilling) to draw up and make way for it; and this little civility was acknowledged, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... done, or how the beholder was to express it, threw his mind into the same state of bewilderment as the mathematician experiences when he vainly pores over the circle to discover the principle by which he ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... gains-spurs and harness jingle like the iron upon the smith's forge. The sand rolls up in huge folds behind his horse's heels-the polished steel flashes back the sunlight, as it penetrates the clouds of dust. Nearer and nearer he approaches,—madly plunged the horses of the Moslems as they strove vainly to reach the haven of safety-the walls of the holy city. It is useless. The knight has divined the object of their precipitate flight, as a stifled female shriek is borne to his ears, and nothing can exceed ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... scenery and light-land farming; but on this occasion we shall make our way to Sheffield, over a line which calls for no especial remark—the most noticeable station being East Retford, for the franchise of which Birmingham long and vainly strove. What delay might have taken place in our political changes if the M.P.'s of East Retford had been transferred to Birmingham in 1826, it ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... the "treacle ale" of later years. But to the fabrication of this beverage, Jen added mysterious rites, during which the door of the still-room was locked, barred, and the keyhole blinded, while Eben and Rob, my uncles, stood without vainly asking for a taste, or simulating by their moans and cries the ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... winter-march from Prague to Egra had sown fatal seed. His legs had been frost-bitten, and before they could be cured he was stricken by small-pox, which left him disfigured and almost blind. So after a service of nine years, he quitted military life (1744). He vainly solicited employment as a diplomatist. The career was not yet open to the talents, and in the memorial which Vauvenargues drew up he dwelt less on his conduct than on his birth, being careful to show that he had an authentic ancestor who was Governor of Hyeres in the early ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... meddled and took a side in the internal politics of the country. Yung Ching saw and seized his opportunity. His measures of repression against the recalcitrant party in his own family culminated in the summary exile of Sourniama and all his descendants down to the fourth generation. Sourniama vainly endeavored to establish his innocence, and he sent three of his sons, laden with chains, to the palace, to protest his innocence and devotion. But they were refused audience, and Sourniama and his family sank into oblivion and wretchedness on ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... was now to be found. James Antony had replied with considerable asperity to the letter giving news of her whereabouts, as was only natural, since his agents had for a month been searching for her vainly in the neighbourhood of Benares. He sent the document which had been prepared for her signature, and directed Gerrard to use all possible means to obtain a personal interview, in which he was to assure her that no further steps would be taken ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... other. Have men avoided me and women shown no pity and children screamed and fled only for my black veil? What but the mystery which it obscurely typifies has made this piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend, the lover to his best-beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin,—then deem me a monster for the symbol beneath which I have lived and die. I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to property or without definite occupations, for the purpose of proceeding against them as criminal members of society. As far back as 1846 the Government forewarned the Jews of the imminent "bloody operation over a whole class," against which Governor-General Vorontzov had vainly protested. [1] All Jews were ordered to register at the earliest possible moment among the guilds and estates assigned to them, "with the understanding that in case this measure should fail, the Government would of itself carry out the assortment," to wit: "it ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... Yourii, vainly assuming playful tone as he leant forward and gazed into her eyes, that shone strangely in the gloom. They expressed surprise and expectancy. Yourii longed to embrace her, yet again his courage failed him, and he pretended to stifle ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... reader shrink from our page as irreverent. It shall not preach the possibility of inventing perpetual motion or a machine with a soul in it, as was lately and vainly attempted in our good city of Lynn,—where, however, it may be said, they do succeed in making soles to what resemble machines. It is not for us to be either so enthusiastic, impious, or uncharitable as to prophesy that human ingenuity will ever endow its creations with anything more than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the stifling hours of the afternoon, when the insect peoples, frantic with drought, wander hither and thither, vainly seeking to quench their thirst at the faded, exhausted flowers, the Cigale makes light of the general aridity. With her rostrum, a delicate augur, she broaches a cask of her inexhaustible store. Crouching, always singing, on the twig of a suitable shrub ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... was sufficiently serious. The rocks could not be let go for a moment, and the blood was spurting out of more than twenty cuts. The most serious ones were in the head, and I vainly tried to close them with one hand, while holding on with the other. It was useless; the blood gushed out in blinding jets at each pulsation. At last, in a moment of inspiration, I kicked out a big lump of snow and struck it as plaster on my head. The idea was a happy one, and the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
