"In vain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at first. But speedily understanding that any denial would be in vain, Hamilcar bowed; and he brought them into the commercial house. Some slaves who had run up at a sign kept watch ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... degree, to assume that lady's passive attitude. She had fancied at first that it would be easy to draw her aunt into the whirl of her own activities, but there was a static force in Mrs. Peniston against which her niece's efforts spent themselves in vain. To attempt to bring her into active relation with life was like tugging at a piece of furniture which has been screwed to the floor. She did not, indeed, expect Lily to remain equally immovable: she ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... thoughtful people there must have been from the summer of 1863 serious doubts of the possibility of a successful outcome of their struggle, and a growing and unhappy conviction that the fearful waste of life and treasure would be in vain. They must have had grave misgivings also as to the righteousness of a cause which championed an institution condemned by the whole world and in conflict with the general progress of Christendom. To see their best and bravest consumed in the fire of successive battles, and to be waiting only till ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the waiters who had waited in vain and the wanderers who had wandered fruitlessly, began to realize that the situation was serious. Billie grew desperately impatient. At last she succeeded in engaging a carry-all and two horses from a man at the moat house and soon she and Nancy, seated face to face, were hurrying ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... sovereign, as his brother, his friend, destined to be all that he had hoped, prayed, and believed he would be; willing to accept and return the affection he had so long felt, and give him that friendship and confidence for which he had yearned in vain so long. He saw his country free, independent, unshackled, glorious as of old; and there was a light and lovely being mingling in these stirring visions—when Scotland was free, what happiness ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... spider spat in vain rage. The power he loved was gone; he was the mere shell of a spider; he was dead. Some man might come into the bank to-morrow and take even the semblance of his power from him. They might, indeed, shut up every mill, close ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... nervous, she could not settle to her work. She was more distrait and inattentive even than usual. The younger girls, who delighted in her, and quite prided themselves on having her in their class, nudged her in vain. ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... the arts it is quite another matter. While you will search in vain, in his civilization, for explanations of even the most simple of nature's laws, you will meet at every turn with devices for the beautifying of life, which may stand not unworthily beside the products of nature's ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... days Angelique wept and entreated her father, but in vain. She felt that he would be inflexible and that she must end by submitting to his wishes. ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... report their conversation is unfeasible. Aurora, wanting in all that varied knowledge which those who are fond of reading get from books, had yet a lot to say that some unprejudiced ears found worth while. The dwellers upon earth and their ways had for her an immense and piercing interest. In vain had circumstances circumscribed her early life: neighbors, Sunday-school teacher, minister, village drunkard, fourth of July orator, had furnished comedy for her every day. The human happenings falling within ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... heart," he murmured, "you gave up your life in the service of your king as truly as though you had not been all mistaken in the object of your veneration, and if it lies within the power of Barney Custer you shall not have died in vain." ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... their religion, has made them hard and incurious; it is a land of uncompromising masculinity. The softer element—thanks to the Koran—has become non-existent, and you will look in vain for the creative-feminine, for those intermediate types of ambiguous, submerged sexuality, the constructive poets and dreamers, the men of imagination and women of will, that give to good society in the north ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... me, by the use which divine wisdom made of it. This state of emptiness, darkness, and impotency, went far beyond any trials I had ever yet met. I have since experienced, that the prayer of the heart when it appears most dry and barren, nevertheless is not ineffectual nor offered in vain. God gives what is best for us, though not what we most relish or wish for. Were people but convinced of this truth, they would be far from complaining all their lives. By causing us death He would procure us life; for all our happiness, spiritual, temporal and eternal, ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... Queen Christina, carried the poor man through a gallery and several rooms, locking them after him, and then bid the man kneel down, for he was determined to kill him. The poor creature flung himself at his feet, but in vain; was shot, and lived twelve hours. Mad as this action was from the consequences, there was no frenzy in his behaviour; he got drunk, and, at intervals, talked of it coolly; but did not attempt to escape, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... German front was very short, its left being at Hohenstein, about halfway between Soldau and Allenstein and slightly northeast of Tannenberg. But it made up in activity what it lacked in length. In vain the Russians tried to break the German ranks and open up a road to the northwest. Much blood was spilled on both, sides during three days' fighting, but the German line held. In the meantime the Russians had evacuated Allenstein, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... could be taken, was asleep, and no person durst disturb his repose. By this time a profuse sweat had broke out on every individual, and this was attended with an insatiable thirst, which became the more intolerable as the body was drained of its moisture. In vain those miserable objects stripped themselves of their clothes, squatted down on their hams, and fanned the air with their hats, to produce a refreshing undulation. Many were unable to rise again from this posture, but falling down, were trod ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... chair, in St. Paul's Chapel, and reading some papers. He dwarfs the warriors and statesmen; and as to the kings, we smile at them. Telford is in another of the chapels. This visit to the chapels was much more satisfactory than my former one; although I in vain strove to feel it adequately, and to make myself sensible how rich and venerable was what I saw. This realization must come at its own time, like the other happinesses of life. It is unaccountable that ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... day, night after night, Laura kept watch in vain 270 In sullen silence of exceeding pain. She never caught again the goblin cry: 'Come buy, come buy;'— She never spied the goblin men Hawking their fruits along the glen: But when the noon waxed bright Her hair grew thin and grey; She dwindled, as the fair full ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... face, with its olive complexion and dark eyes, shadowed by the strong, thoughtful brow. People who knew Lord Stafford say that my brother-in-law has a look of that great, unfortunate man—sacrificed to stem the rising flood of rebellion, and sacrificed in vain. Fareham is his kinsman on the mother's side, and may have perhaps something of his powerful mind, together with the rugged grandeur of his features and the bent carriage of his shoulders, which some one the other day called the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... our impedimenta. We found the case in which the mummy had been packed all broken, but the mummy itself could nowhere be found. We searched everywhere around, and dug up the sand which had piled around us; but in vain. We did not know what to do, for Trelawny had his heart set on taking home that mummy. We waited a whole day in hopes that the Bedouins, who had fled, would return; we had a blind hope that they might have in some way removed the mummy from the ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... dialect of that word before he went away, but he had been six months since then in a servile atmosphere. He stood at the open study-door. My father stopped shaving, and let the lather dry on his face, as he shielded with his hand the eyes he in vain tried to believe. Yes, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... Uccello. Others, again, abandoned the old ground of Christian story for the tales of Greece and Rome; and not the least charming products of the time are antique motives treated with the freshness of romantic feeling. We look in vain for the allegories of the Giottesque masters: that stage of thought has been traversed, and a new cycle of poetic ideas, fanciful, idyllic, corresponding to Boiardo's episodes rather than to Dante's vision, opens for the artist. Instead ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... been entrusted with the task of infusing these elements into JANE AUSTEN'S staid and reticent romances, points out that her vocabulary was extraordinarily limited. Her abstinence from decorative epithets led to results that are bald and unconvincing. One may look in vain in her pages for such words as "arresting," "vital," "momentous" or "sinister." She never uses "glimpse," "sense" or "voice" as verbs. We look forward with eager anticipation to the results ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... was broken open and the male bird stolen from the side of its mate. She refused to be comforted, and, retiring to the farthest part of the aviary, sat disconsolate, rarely partaking of food, and giving no attention to her soiled and rumpled plumage. In vain did another handsome drake endeavor to console her for her loss. After some time the stolen bird was found in the quarters of a miserable Chinaman, and at once restored to its mate. As soon as he recognized ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... on his short, brawny arms, stood out like ropes; and then Balmung, descending, cleft the air from right to left. The waiting lookers-on in the plain below thought to hear the noise of clashing steel; but they listened in vain, for no sound came to their ears, save a sharp hiss like that which red hot iron gives when plunged into a tank of cold water. The huge Amilias sat unmoved, with his arms still folded upon his breast; but the smile ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... Placets thundered, And filled the yawning gap; In vain his trusty comrades Avenge their chief's mishap— His last great fight is done. 'They charge! Brave Pottius prostrate lies, No Rider helps him to arise: They charge! Fierce Mariensis dies. The Bridge, the Bridge ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... could move it by myself. I pressed with all my force against one of the handles, when, to my infinite satisfaction, the windlass began to revolve, but as it did so, to my still greater dismay, down came the chain rattling on to the deck. In vain I tried to stop it. I then made a desperate effort to replace it, but as it had taken probably two men some time to put it up I had not the slightest chance of succeeding. My task was something like that of Sisyphus, ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... conquests extended from the fiftieth to the seventy-fifth degree of north latitude. This conquest was completed by a Cossack; another Cossack, as Malte Brun observes, effected what the most skilful and enterprising of subsequent navigators have in vain attempted. Guided by the winds, and following the course of the tides, the current and the ice, he doubled the extremity of Asia from Kowyma to the river Anadyn. Kamschatcka, however, which is their principal ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... not wait in vain. The man whose soul was dead within him, creeping out of the ravine, weighted with silver, had seen the gleam of the lighted window, and could not help retracing his ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... lowly strain; Yet, though he knows me not, I can't help feeling That something of my spirit must remain, And if, in that rich air the man should mellow In mind, in soul, and be a better fellow, I have not lived in vain. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... entering the same house, desired they would bring him something to drink. There were three ill-looking fellows sitting round a table, under which the dog had lain down. The traveller's object was now to find out to whom the dog belonged, he tried every means, in vain, for about an hour, when, seizing hold of the poker he, under some trivial pretext, gave the dog a violent blow on the head, upon which one of the men with an oath asked him why he did this. The gentleman with much presence of mind, turned the poker promptly against the man who asked the question, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... a robin across the meadow thought otherwise, and set at work as if determined to make a night of it. Mr. Early-and-late, the robin's name ought to be. As I left the wood the whippoorwill followed; coming nearer and nearer, till finally he overpassed me and sang with all his might (while I tried in vain to see him) from a tree or the wall, near the big buttonwood. He too is an early riser, only he rises before nightfall ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... they sink to merited contempt, 174 And scorn remunerate the mean attempt. Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain! 179 And sadly gaze on Gold they ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... hear the song of love that fills the air! Oh, heed the voice that pleads in touching prayer! Both fall upon your conscience now in vain, Through vile deceit your ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain: for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... shame and the taunts of his enemies in the distractions of the world. He traveled everywhere, was presented at the different Courts of Europe, and it was in Washington where his uncle was the Mexican Minister to the United States, that he met Blanch and Mrs. Forest and her niece. In vain did he try to forget. In vain did he search for another woman to supplant his love for Chiquita. He plunged into the wildest dissipation, but to no effect. The beautiful face of the dark woman followed him everywhere, stood between ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... in vain to calm his father, but in a voice harsh with passion he continued, and as he spoke, he moved his hands and arms constantly ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... unable not to speak of it. He had spoken, and of course had been simply rebuked. Since that day Crosbie had ceased to be an angel of light, and he, John Eames, had spoken often. But he had spoken in vain, and now he would speak ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... over her boy, who lay as one dead; and, as Jim came with the water, she bathed his head with it and sprinkled some upon his face. But their efforts to bring him back to consciousness were in vain, for he lay breathing heavily, but ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... French in 1708. I might go on for a dozen more pages citing the names of remarkable personages who gave fame to the town, which now is simply wiped from the landscape. But by some miracle, it is stated, the Town Hall still stands practically uninjured. I have tried in vain to substantiate this, or at least to obtain some data concerning it, but up to this writing my letters to ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... returned to the land, I haunted the sea-shore for hours, hoping to see the bodies rise to the surface; but I watched in vain. When at length the full magnitude of the disaster dawned upon me, despair—the utter abandonment of despair—filled my soul for the first time. Never again would my sweet companions cheer my solitary moments. ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... mud and rain, To spend the night in smoking, And then to find that it's in vain - And I've to do it all again - It's ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... Mazarin, and niece of the great Cardinal, completed the group. She had been early removed from her native Italy to the court where her uncle was supreme. His power and her own attractions had drawn a crowd of illustrious suitors round her. Charles himself, during his exile, had sought her hand in vain. No gift of nature or of fortune seemed to be wanting to her. Her face was beautiful with the rich beauty of the South, her understanding quick, her manners graceful, her rank exalted, her possessions immense; but her ungovernable ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the River Nazas wells have been sunk to great depths in this material without a single stone or rock of any description being encountered. Indeed, on some of the cotton lands of this region I have looked in vain to find even a pebble, so fine is the alluvial soil. The stratified rocks, which are scarce upon the southern part of the plateau, become much more prevalent in the north, and the vast sandy, arid plains, which cover enormous areas of land in Chihuahua and Coahuila ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... Ransom's body down in that pool some fathoms below the surface," observed the lawyer, after waiting in vain for some word from the shrinking husband. "Won't you particularize, Mr. Hazen? Tell us just how she was lying and where. Mr. Ransom cannot but wish to know, difficult as he evidently finds it ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... left arose on his ears without suspending his flight. The hound had stopped at the place where the Pedlar's wounds bled so profusely, and deeming the chase now over, it lay down there, and could not be induced to proceed; in vain the men beat it with frantic violence, and tried again to put the hound on the scent,—the sight of blood had satisfied the animal that its work was done, and with dogged resolution it resisted every inducement to pursue the same scent a second time. The pedlar boy in the meantime ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... in vain attempted to persuade Miss Dawson that she was heated and tired, and had better not polka; but the young lady thought him over-careful, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... he bungled sadly—his hearing suddenly failing as well as his memory, there was a dead stop. In vain the prompter, the scene-shifter, the candle-snuffer, as loud as they could, and much louder than they ought, reiterated the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... Craddock. Not that I am insensible to the beauties of Nature—as I have proved before now. How often have I sat upon an eminence, and admiringly gazed at the departing luminary as he sank slowly to rest, flooding hill and valley with tints which a painter might strive in vain to reproduce! I would have to sit there some time to see it all, for I have noticed that with us the Sunset proper does not begin till after the Setting of the Sun is finished. And when the distant mountains assumed a robe of royal purple, and 'the death-smile of the dying ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... discovered. As to going away, it was a thing he would not think of, as long as his rifle was loaded; so he waited and watched, until the bear should give him an opportunity of aiming at a vital part. This he waited for in vain, and, on reflection, he determined to wound the bear; for, knowing the humour of the animal, he felt almost positive it would produce a conflict between him and the boar, which the bear would attack in his wrath. He fired: the bear was evidently wounded, although but ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... logical weapons, may be as deep as a well and as wide as a church door, but beyond shedding a few drops of ichor, celestial or otherwise, he is no whit the worse. So, if any of these opponents be left, I will not waste time in vain repetition of the demonstrative evidence of the practical value of science; but knowing that a parable will sometimes penetrate where syllogisms fail to effect an entrance, I will offer a story ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... I don't know," I went on thoughtfully, "for now I come to think of it, my life has always been busy and care-free, and I have always loved the sun and the sound of wind in trees—yet, like Horace, have asked 'What is Happiness?' and looked for it in vain; and now, here—in this out-of-the-world spot, working as a village smith, it has come to me all unbidden ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... In vain now Clara, sembling gladness, Plies the magic of her wile, To draw him off from his great sadness, And cheat him of a loving smile: The more her sympathy she tenders, The more he will by art defy All beauty which but contrast ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... Cassano, he broke through the Milanese vanguard to their caroccio, and struck down with his own hand its golden crucifix;—two years afterwards its cross and standard were bowed before him—and in vain.[91] He fearlessly claims for himself right of decision between contending popes, and camps against the rightful one on the ashes of the ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... guiding public opinion, the papers in America stimulate all that is worthless and credulous; and you may search in vain to find careful criticism either upon art, music or ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... similar declaration was made in the north of Europe by another great Church authority, Bede. Against the new life thus given to the old truth, the sacred theory struggled long and vigorously but in vain. Eminent authorities in later ages, like Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, Dante, and Vincent of Beauvais, felt obliged to accept the doctrine of the earth's sphericity, and as we approach the modern period we find its truth ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... interrupted the old man; "thou idlest, and mispendest the time in vain talk. Go, fold thy flock, Mark; and do thou, weak-one, house thy charge with less uproar than is wont. We should remember that the voice is given to man, firstly, that he may improve the blessing in thanksgivings and petitions; ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Del Pinzo tried in vain to dodge it, but his horse was traveling too fast. Then, as darkness again closed down on poor Nort he had a vision of the Greaser, covered with blood, shouting and wildly jerking his arms and legs, being pulled ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... before retiring to St. Clair, near Vienne, in Dauphiny. His Letter to Windham tells how he became Secretary of State to the Pretender, and how little influence he could obtain over the Jacobite counsels. The hopeless Rebellion of 1715, in Scotland, Bolingbroke laboured in vain to delay until there might be some chance of success. The death of Louis XIV., on the 1st of September in that year, had removed the last prop of a ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... scenes of passionate emotion that left a track of broken buttons down the waistcoat. The shirts went slowly down to three, then fell to two, and the collars of my unhappy friend subsided to an inch and three-quarters. In vain I lavished my utmost care upon Fifty-Six. It seemed to my tortured mind that the gloss upon his shirts and collars would have melted a heart of stone. Alas! my every effort at reconciliation seemed to fail. An awful month passed; the false fronts ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... a great success as fig-picker. The very sugary figs that old Mr. Cary had panted for and reached for in vain lay bursting with sweetness on ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... noon after his meeting with Farina. The White Rose had rested at Laach, and was blooming again. She and the Goshawk came trotting in advance of the Club through the woods of Laach, startling the deer with laughter, and sending the hare with her ears laid back all across country. In vain Dietrich menaced Guy with the terrors of the Club: Aunt Lisbeth begged of Margarita not to leave her with the footmen in vain. The joyous couple galloped over the country, and sprang the ditches, and leapt the dykes, up and down the banks, glad as morning hawks, entering Andernach ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... resisting the infinite blessing of the friendship of Christ. It is possible for us to be near to Christ through all our life, with his grace flowing about us like an ocean, and yet to have a heart that remains unblessed by divine love. We may make God's love in vain, wasted, as sunshine is wasted that falls upon desert sands, so far as we are concerned. The love that we do not requite with love, that does not get into our heart to warm, soften, and enrich it, and to mellow and bless our life, is love poured out in vain. It is made in vain by ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... wilt not? Yet my heart forebodes deg.86 Danger or death awaits thee on this field. Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace To seek thy father, not seek single fights 90 In vain;—but who can keep the lion's cub From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son? Go, I will grant thee ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... recesses of his memory in vain. She smiled at his perplexity and began to count on ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... into the kitchen, to order a bit of superior cheese, and to have some slices of ham put on the gridiron, and then, coming back to the common room, went rummaging about, from cupboard to cupboard, in search of cake and sweetmeats. Fleda protested and begged in vain. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... scream after another rang out through the corridors. In vain did Bonnie and the nurse seek to soothe her. The high, excited voice ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... when the time came for her to be dressed to go down to the dining-room, she was not to be found. They had searched the house through, thinking she might be playing some trick, though it wasn't like her to do so; then the grounds, making inquiries at the cottages about—all in vain; and now he had been sent off here with some hope—what, he did not know—that at Moor ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... fishes," they sucked his withered breasts, his infected mouth, his livid lips, and finally his virile parts. Hideous spectacle of a tyrant disgraced by nature and struggling against her maledictions! But in vain did he invent new pleasures, in vain did he take part in these scenes in which groups of young men by threes and fours assumed all sorts of lascivious postures, and were at the same time active and passive; the sight of these indulgences of the "sprintriae" (for that is the ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... good, for the money was forthcoming. Soon after, little Toe, with probably less logic but more loving, became possessed of a dollar to buy a steamboat like Craig's. But Mr. K., who had furnished the additional capital, looked in vain for the improved service. The new rolling stock was not in evidence, and explanations were vague and unsatisfactory, as is often the case in the railroad game at which men play. It took a stern court of inquiry to develop the fact that the railroad and steamship had simply changed hands—and ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... but it was in vain. "Whoever strikes at marriage," he cried;—"whoever, either by word or act, undermines this, the foundation of all moral society, that man has to settle with me, and if I cannot become his master, I take care to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... waited patiently for developments which should denote the realisation of his hopes, he waited always in vain. From the first he had so planned his enterprise that it was at the mercy of Sir Robert Walpole; and at last came the crisis of the project, with which the astute financier had never really sympathised. Early in 1730, Walpole threw off the mask. "If you ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... fully aware of many shortcomings, and for these we crave pardon, but if we benefit little Montenegro by the publication of our work, then we shall not have written it in vain. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... keep it up for years, and only when they are exposed in public, as one mother was on a suburban platform by her four-year-old lad shouting, "Mamma, too-too tain tumin, too-too tain tumin," do they sense their responsibility and realize how difficult it is to form new habits. This poor mother tried in vain to have her little fellow say, as did another little lad two and one-half years old, "Mother, the train's ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... no fool, to be made a butt of; and her personality was too vigorous, her individuality too strong, not to make an impression and way of its own wherever she was. The young ladies tried in vain to patronize her: they had not the requisite capital in themselves; and the young gentlemen soon gave up the attempt to make fun of her; her vitality was too much for them, and they were, moreover, disconcerted by her beauty. Miss Valeyon, however, was new to ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... tail began to wag more quickly; and then, having looked in vain for encouragement to her master and mistress, she gave one mighty spring and alighted in Mrs. Baines's lap. It was an aim she could not have missed. Constance emitted an "Oh, FAN!" of shocked terror, and Samuel betrayed ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... arms full wide abroad His works are ever before his God, His name on earth shall long remain, Through envious sinners fret in vain.'" ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... who held that life was full of evils, that it was in vain to seek after pleasure, and that all a wise man could do was to fortify himself as best he could ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... significant ambassador. "Gray Eagle says if you want truly to be a brother to his people you must take a wife among them. He loves you—take one of his!" Peter, through whose veins—albeit of mixed blood—ran that Puritan ice so often found throughout the Great West, was frigidly amazed. In vain did the interpreter assure him that the wife in question, Little Daybreak, was a wife only in name, a prudent reserve kept by Gray Eagle in the orphan daughter of a brother brave. But Peter was adamant. ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... however, which are absent from tombs of the earlier dynasties are here given, while others which are invariably met with in the neighbourhood of the pyramids are lacking. Twenty centuries work many changes in the usages of daily life, even in conservative Egypt. We look almost in vain for herds of gazelles upon the walls of the Theban tombs, for the reason that these animals, in Ramesside times, had ceased to be bred in a state of domestication. The horse, on the other hand, had been imported into the valley of the Nile, and is depicted ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... whose pillars were surmounted by huge griffins. He looked at the deserted lodges, the coat of arms, nothing of which remained but a few drooping fragments. He shook the iron gates, which still held together, in vain. Finally he drove the car through an opening in the straggling fence, and up the long, grass-grown avenue, until he reached the building itself. Here he descended, walked along the weed-framed flags to ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the consolidation of the tranquillity of the world, that the colonists should begin to feel indignant at the continuance of disabilities, for the abrogation of which the most powerful considerations of justice and expediency have been urged in vain. To remove such just grounds for dissatisfaction and complaint, and to allow them, at length, the enjoyment of those rights and privileges, of which they ought never to have been debarred, would, at best, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... having laid him down too near a fire, his feet were burned in a shocking manner. He was one of the handsomest men I ever saw, and, even in his present condition, of commanding presence and of unusual intelligence. I strive in vain to recall his name, but memory in this as in many other cases of patients to whom I was particularly attracted will present their faces only. Calling me to his bedside he spoke kindly and cheerfully, praising my efforts, encouraging me to go on, drawing upon his store of general knowledge ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... the cause of manliness and virtue had been useless. He had not awakened the sleepers in France; he doubted that his voice would ever reach them; he asked himself whether all his effort had not been in vain. This was the natural inner weakness consequent on his physical state; he gave no outward sign of it. Marmontel, who watched his last hours with enthusiastic affection, says that, "In his company we learned ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... songs enough for the lovers Who share love's tender pain, I sing for the one whose passion Is given all in vain. ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... you would in their place to rightly solve the problem that touches them at every vital point. If you insist that they are ruffians, blindly striving with bludgeon and shotgun to plunder and oppress a race, then I shall sacrifice my self-respect and tax your patience in vain. But admit that they are men of common sense and common honesty, wisely modifying an environment they cannot wholly disregard—guiding and controlling as best they can the vicious and irresponsible of either race—compensating error with frankness, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... Struggling was in vain, as Eveley realized at once, and she subsided quickly, trying to think. The thing was impossible. It could not be. Such things did not happen any more—not in real life in the United States. It ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... had asked her way, but in vain. No one seemed to know where Mrs. Carew lived; and, the last two times, those addressed had answered with a gesture and a jumble of words which Pollyanna, after some thought, decided must be "Dutch," the kind the Haggermans—the ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... Pit-a-le-shar-u is recalled. Sa-re-cer-ish, second chief of the Cau-i band, was a man of unusually humane disposition, and had strenuously endeavoured to secure the suppression of the practice. In the spring of 1817 the Ski-di arranged to sacrifice a Comanche girl. After Sa-re-cer-ish had essayed in vain to dissuade them, Pit-a-le-shar-u, a young man about twenty years of age, of almost giant stature, and already famed as a great brave, conceived the bold design of rescuing her. On the day set for the rite he actually cut the girl loose, after ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... recalled me to myself, and I began to scrutinise the dim and shadowy border of the terminator for the feeblest ray of light, but all in vain. ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... laid his head on the window sill and burst into passionate sobbing. When it was almost dark the fit of weeping had passed off. But he remained at the open window, breathing the balmy air. Suddenly he was startled by a cry from the water. In vain his eyes sought to pierce the gathering gloom. Again the cry. Forgetting all restrictions, with a sudden uncontrollable impulse, he rushed down the stairs and out into the garden ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... document which betrothed his daughter to the renowned Solomon! The boy's mother dying at this juncture, the widow had not shrunk from obtaining from the law-courts an attachment on the dead body, by which its interment was interdicted till the termination of the suit. In vain the rich merchant had kidnapped the bridegroom in his carriage at dead of night, the boy was pursued and recaptured, to lead a life of constant quarrel with his mother-in-law, and exchange flying crockery at meal-times; to take refuge in distant tutorships, and in the course of years, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... days, navigators and geographers were constantly in search of certain more or less fictitious islands, among which, the "Island of Men" and the "Island of Women," had been sought for in vain. ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... Wally answered. "We've tried to get him, but in vain; he prefers to go to bed and dream of China. And Billy hangs about like a black ghost, but he won't come in. So we lose a lot of international enjoyment; but, even so, what's left is pretty ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... farther. We, therefore, set our sails, and stood across the bay, which the coast forms to the west of Baldhead, and steered for it. But, as I expected, by three o'clock, the wind headed us; and, as it was in vain to endeavour to fetch Baldhead with our sails, we again took to the oars. The Discovery's boat, (being a heavy king's-built cutter, while ours was one from Deal,) had, in the night-time, detained us very much, and now we ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... they might have colored the furniture, and let the house be. But an entirely and completely enameled home—a home, such as enamel-paint manufacturers love to picture on their advertisements, over which the yearning eye wanders in vain, seeking one single square inch of un-enameled matter—is, I am convinced, a mistake. It may be a home that, as the testimonials assure us, will easily wash. It may be an "artistic" home; but the average man is not yet educated up to the appreciation of ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... some portion of your thought which was fluttering loose, by some distraction which had attacked you. You are lost. The whole of you passes into it. A chain of mysterious forces takes possession of you. You struggle in vain; no more human succor is possible. You go on falling from gearing to gearing, from agony to agony, from torture to torture, you, your mind, your fortune, your future, your soul; and, according to whether ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... time after this to get to sleep, but all was in vain. He heard two bells strike, and then three, and then four. He turned over first one way, and then the other; his head aching, and his limbs cramped and benumbed from the confined and uncomfortable positions in which he was obliged to keep ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... myself belonged to that happy age (i.e., below 15) I had no dearer wish than to possess a friend of similar tastes. I have sought, hoped, waited, grieved, and been at last disillusioned, overcome by desire and despair, and have not found that friend. Even later the hope often reappeared, but always in vain, and I cannot boast of that sure recognition which one reads of in the autobiographies of Urnings. I do not know personally a single fellow-sufferer. It is also doubtful whether such an acquaintanceship would greatly help me, for I have a very peculiar conception of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... voluntary powers, and consequently an absence of all direction of the intellectual processes. This supposition, which has been maintained by numerous writers, from Dugald Stewart downwards, seems to be based on the fact that we frequently find ourselves in dreams striving in vain to move the whole body or a limb. But this only shows, as M. Maury remarks in the work already referred to, that our volitions are frustrated through the inertia of our bodily organs, not that these volitions do not take place. In point of fact, the dreamer, not to speak of ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... drunk the Gauda liquor? When shall I again, decked in ornaments, and with those maidens and ladies of large proportions, gorge upon a large number of sheep and large quantities of pork and beef and the meat of fowls and asses and camels? They who do not eat sheep live in vain!"' Even thus, O Shalya, the young and old, among the inhabitants of Sakala, intoxicated with spirits, sing and cry. How can virtue be met with among such a people? Thou shouldst know this. I must, however, speak again to thee ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... and he dropped down as if shot dead. For some time he lay on the earth perfectly motionless, watched and gently bedewed by the victorious skunk; then he got up and crept whining away. Gradually he quickened his pace, finally breaking into a frantic run. In vain I followed him, shouting at the top of my lungs; he stayed not to listen, and very speedily vanished from sight—a white speck on the vast level plain. At noon on the following day he made his appearance, gaunt ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... we noticed that a few of the trees were beginning to turn, but we looked in vain for the glowing autumnal hues of our Northern forests. Some brilliant scarlet berries—the cassena—were growing along the roadside, and on every hand we saw the live-oak with its moss-drapery. The palmettos disappointed me; stiff and ungraceful, they have a bristling, defiant look, suggestive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... hunger-pangs, a lynx or fox would come, and sniff with greedy longing at the appetizing aroma. Growing desperate, the prowler would dig down, through perhaps three feet of snow, till he reached the stony roof of the house. On this he would tear and scratch furiously, but in vain. Nothing less than a pick-axe would break through that stony defence; and the beavers, perhaps dimly aware of the futile assault upon their walls, would go on calmly nibbling birch-sticks in ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts |
