"Vain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not love the brutal bird who had teased another out of her life, but I certainly looked for an improvement in his temper now that he had no one to vex his sight. I looked in vain. He was more savage, more of a tramp and poacher, more of a scold, than ever. He even went so far as to huff at the sparrows outside the window. He never entered into the feelings of his neighbors in any way; when every ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... the two brothers d'Aubray expostulated with her by the medium of an older sister who was in a Carmelite nunnery, and the marquise perceived that her father had on his death bequeathed the care and supervision of her to her brothers. Thus her first crime had been all but in vain: she had wanted to get rid of her father's rebukes and to gain his fortune; as a fact the fortune was diminished by reason of her elder brothers, and she had scarcely enough to pay her debts; while the rebukes were renewed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... some of the party rushed to the church, mounted the belfry, and rang the alarm bell. The solemn booming of that midnight bell roused the affrighted inhabitants from their pillows, and soon the whole population was gathered around the carriages and about the door of the grocer's shop. It was in vain for the king to deny his rank. His marked features betrayed him. Clamor and confusion filled the night air. Men, women, and children were running to and fro; the populace were arming, to be prepared for any emergency; and the royal family were worn out by sleeplessness and toil. ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Many of them, I know, will think far worse of her than they should think. Of what faults, even if we analyse her faults, has she been guilty? Where she has been weak, who among us is not, in that, weak also? Of what vanity has she been guilty with which the least vain among us might not justly tax himself? Having been left alone in the world, she has looked to make friends for herself; and in seeking for new friends she has wished to find the best that ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... after once touching the beast, he could not rub his hands clean; and he chose to consider the winning of the prize-fighter's lass the final triumph or flag on the apex of the now despised philosophy. Vain to ask how he had come to be mixed up with the lot, or why the stolidly conceited, pretentious fellow had seat here, as by right, beside him! We sow and we reap; 'plant for sugar and taste the cane,' some ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
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