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More "Useless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... caught the bridle rein, and swung the outlaw's head around, holding him there until Bill had leaned over the broken fence and roped the forelegs once more. After a moment of furious struggle, Sunnysides appeared to realize that it was useless; and thus the two men held him, with his forefeet still hanging outside the fence, while they turned ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... and Ralph's, the end of their compact, the end of the tie that bound them. She found herself shut in with Waddington; the secret that she shared with him shut Ralph out. It was intolerable that all this rich, exciting material should be left on her hands, lodged with her useless, when she thought of what she and Ralph could have made of ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... of oars. The Frenchmen, it was supposed, had thought the pursuit useless, and had given it up. Still daylight must find them far away from the coast, and spell and spell throughout the night the undaunted seamen laboured at ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... "took the bloody, hog-bellied cow-puncher apart, providin' the latter showed." This suited Mormon, who wanted fairly to whip a live opponent, not fight a staggering drunkard. But they could not find him. They had several volunteer assistants who proved useless. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... is guided by considerations such as those will find that he has restored to work horses who would otherwise have been utterly useless. A plain and safe argument wherewith to meet the objections to neurectomy is simply to ask the question what the animal is worth, or to what useful purpose he can be put, that happens to be the ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... It was useless to demand that a man be proclaimed to the principate if that man be dead. True that some of the malcontents—those young men who were hot-headed and whose raging tempers were not easily curbed—refused to accept the news ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... course the fire was out in the lodge and nearly all the wood was wet. Now Quonab drew from a small cave some dry cedar and got down his tinder-box with flint and steel to light up; but a serious difficulty appeared at once—the tinder was wet and useless. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... combined perform the function of sucking, that the term haustellate loses its significance and even misleads the student. For example, in the house fly the tongue (Fig. 210 l, the mandibles, m, and maxillae, mp, are useless), a fleshy prolongation of the labium or second maxillae, is the sucker, while the mandibles and maxillae are used as lancets by the horse fly (Fig. 211, m, mandibles, mx, maxillae). The maxillae in the butterfly are united to form the sucking tube, while ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... It is useless to warn the reader not to take literally all the similes which we are obliged to employ here to express the singular, symmetrical, direct, almost consubstantial union of a man and an edifice. It is equally ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... been addressed to the English parliament on the subject of slavery, and a large number of them were signed by women. The same steps here would be, with one exception, useless and injudicious; because the general government has no control over the legislatures of individual States. But the District of Columbia forms an exception to this rule. There the United States have power to abolish slavery; and it is ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... useless to try to catch Dan Baxter just then, Tom turned his attention to Dick and Henry Bradner. Bradner was struggling hard to get up, but Dick was master of the situation, so Tom had little ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... of seeing for the water; when hauled ashore for repairing: Wounded on the larboard side under the main channel, where I imagine the greatest leak is, but could not come at it for the water: One pump on the larboard side useless; the others decayed within an inch and a half of the bore. Otherwise masts, yards, boats, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... yourself comfortable, Manning," he said. He flipped the gun to direct charge again and pointed it at the boy. Seeing it was useless to try and jump the burly spaceman, Roger relaxed and stretched out on the deck. Miles fired again calmly, and after testing the effect of the ray with his toe, he turned to ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... either in painting or drawing. Nature denied me the correctness of eye and neatness of hand. Yet I was very desirous to be a draughtsman at least—and labored harder to attain that point than at any other in my recollection to which I did not make some approaches. Burrell was {p.110} not useless to me altogether neither. He was a Prussian, and I got from him many a long story of the battles of Frederick, in whose armies his father had been a commissary, or perhaps a spy. I remember his picturesque account of seeing a party of the black hussars bringing in some forage carts which they ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labors with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... of the Mississippi had so far subsided that all our canals were useless, and the roads had become practicable. After McPherson's corps had passed Richmond, I took up the route of march, with Steele's and Tuttle's divisions. Blair's division remained at Milliken's Bend to protect our depots there, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... several beats. He knew that it was useless to deny, but in a moment or two he had himself under ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the cause of this violent transport, I bade the woman wash off the salt, and bathe the part with oil, which she did, and procured him immediate ease. But here another difficulty occurred, which was no other than the landlady's insisting on his paying for the pot he had rendered useless. He said, he would pay for nothing but what he had eaten, and bade her be thankful for his moderation, or else he would prosecute her for damages. Strap, foreseeing the whole affair would lie at his ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... a passion, and set me down as extravagant and mad. He had entertained hopes of making me a schoolmaster, perhaps an inspector of fish, in which office excellent opportunities for increasing one's fortunes were offered; but I had been rendered quite useless to the parish ever since the New York politicians had taken me into their favor. Anybody, he said, might go out upon and know the world, but few had the courage and daring to grapple with its difficulties. And ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... confidence in others. Everybody believes in the determined man. When he undertakes anything his battle is half won, because not only he himself, but every one who knows him, believes that he will accomplish whatever he sets out to do. People know that it is useless to oppose a man who uses his stumbling-blocks as stepping-stones; who is not afraid of defeat; who never, in spite of calumny or criticism, shrinks from his task; who never shirks responsibility; who always keeps his compass pointed to the north star of his purpose, no matter ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... it is pursued the necessity for mere repairs in ships and navy-yards becomes more imperative and more costly, and our current expenses are annually increased for the mere repair of ships, many of which must soon become unsafe and useless. I hope during the present session of Congress to be able to submit to it a plan by which naval vessels can be built and repairs made with great saving ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of the huge 'man-mountain' fallen upon his face to the earth, a huddled heap of useless mail, recalls the words of a psalm, 'When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell' (Psalm xxvii. 2). Is it fanciful to hear in that triumphant chant an echo ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... have been useless to draw his weapon. Theirs were out and could have burned him to a crisp before he could move. Silently and with deadliness apparent in every move they ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl
... of those men," said he, "who carry the whole world in their hearts. It is useless for you to deny it. I am sure you have at least ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... in a hiding-place where my mistress had concealed him, I happened to be close at hand, and M. Agricola said to me, in a quick whisper: 'Tell your generous mistress that her goodness to me will not go unrewarded, and that my stay in that hiding-place may not be useless to her.' That was all he could say to me, for they hurried him off instantly. I confess that I saw in those words only the expression of his gratitude, and his hope of proving it one day to my mistress; but ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... return to his unit without the permission of the Emperor, who to conserve his resources, had forbidden the employment of more officers in any unit than was justified by the number of men they had to command. It was therefore useless for me to beg General Prval to let me go to Champagne. He fixed my departure for the end of March, at which time I would lead to the army a draft composed of mounted men from my own depot ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... down His blessing on my arms, I wish my people to know that they would enjoy peace if it had depended only on my will to procure them a boon which they reasonably, desire, but which must be won by fresh efforts, since the immense conditions I would have granted are useless for the restoration ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a case the certificate does not cure him, but certifies that he is cured. How absurd for a patient just entering the hospital to clamor for his health certificate before receiving the doctor and taking the remedies. In like manner, it is useless for a seeking soul to be clamoring for the witness and waiting for the feeling before receiving Jesus and fully trusting Him for the cure. We are not to trust in the experience, but the Saviour who imparts ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark
... should be, and that it is not Wagner's content or substance or his lack of virtue, that something in us has made us flow past him and not he past us. But something blocks our theory! Something makes our hypotheses seem purely speculative if not useless. It is men like Bach ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... uttered but a truism? Training for life teaches living; but what training for the profitable living together of black men and white? Two hundred years ago our task would have seemed easier. Then Dr. Johnson blandly assured us that education was needed solely for the embellishments of life, and was useless for ordinary vermin. To-day we have climbed to heights where we would open at least the outer courts of knowledge to all, display its treasures to many, and select the few to whom its mystery of Truth is revealed, not wholly by truth or the accidents of the stock ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... them. Bartlett tied his team outside, and then, with his comrade, entered the wide doorway of the smithy. The shop was built of rough boards, and the inside was blackened with soot. It was not well lighted, the two windows being obscured with much smoke, so that they were useless as far as their original purpose was concerned; but the doorway, as wide as that of a barn, allowed all the light to come in that the smith needed for his work. At the far end and darkest corner of the place stood the forge, with the large bellows behind it, concealed, for the most part, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... was in an embrace, but not such a loving one. She had no idea who these persons were who had come upon the scene of action at such an untimely moment. She only knew that a small sandy haired girl had her by the wrists and it was useless to struggle. ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... whatever useless charms and talismans they wore, stood for the unknown quantity in spiritual life. A magician is a man who lays hold on the unseen for the mere joy of it, who steals, if necessary, the holy bread and the sacred fire. ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... which, but a few years ago, slept in the unbroken solitude of nature. The forest spread an interminable canopy of shade over the dark soil on which the fat and useless vegetation rotted at ease, and through the dusky vistas of the wood only savage beasts and more savage men prowled in quest of prey. The whole land now blossoms like a garden. The tall and interlacing trees have unlocked their ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... burdens—who have our food put into our mouths, as they say, and live at our ease—may think, because we give ourselves a little more to prayer, that we are raised above the necessity of such great hardships. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who hast made me so incapable and so useless; but I bless Thee still more for this—that Thou quickenest so many to quicken us. Our prayer must therefore be very earnest for those who give us light. What should we be without them in the midst of these violent storms which now disturb the Church? ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... chosen from all classes; they are expected to procure their maintenance by perambulation and begging, and, among other things, it is their duty to endeavor to turn to some use things thrown aside as useless by others, and to discover the medicinal power of plants. But in Ceylon three orders of priests are recognized; those of the highest order are usually men of high birth and learning, and are supported at the principal temples, most of which ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... railroad when he learned that I was stopping at the house of Mr. De Loche, and had ridden with his command to the junction of the road he was on with that from La Grange and Memphis, where he learned that I had passed three-quarters of an hour before. He thought it would be useless to pursue with jaded horses a well-mounted party with so much of a start. Had he gone three-quarters of a mile farther he would have found me with my party quietly resting under the shade of trees and without even arms in our hands with which ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... so readily that I felt certain that our quest was useless. We started in an hour's time, my poor Clare being led to believe that we had gone to ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... her husband, left an exemplary daughter, who married Lord Bute, and a most unexemplary son, to whom she bequeathed one guinea, and who spent the greater part of his life drifting about the East, and acquiring all kinds of strange and useless knowledge. ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... revert to the final scenes of the Kalmuck flight. These it would be useless to pursue circumstantially through the whole two thousand miles of suffering which remained; for the character of that suffering was 20 even more monotonous than on the former half of the flight, but also more severe. Its main elements were excessive heat, with the accompaniments of famine and ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... system, the ridiculous rivalry of pretence, and by the discredit thrown upon such labours by modern pedantry. A new version of Camden, rectified by all the discoveries subsequent to his time;—that which is found useless or erroneous left out, and the work enlightened by new researches, entered into by a number of inquirers equal in all respects to the task, and exerted over every part of the country, would very much aid the cause of learning and the future progress ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... uncle's commands are imperative," replied Ramorny. "I am a disgraced man, thrown aside, as I may now fling away my right hand glove, as a thing useless. Yet my head might help you, though my hand be gone. Is your Grace disposed to listen to me for one word of serious import, for I am much exhausted, and feel my ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... first on his lips. Why was she unhappy? Why was she so unkind to the father she loved? Ah, if one could see right through her dark eyes into her sorrowful heart, one might have a chance of comforting her! But, as it was, one felt useless and blundering. ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... they sat was one of those third rooms on the first floor, by which city house-builders, self-styled architects, have made the second room useless except at night, in their endeavor to reconcile a desire for a multitude of apartments with the fancied necessity that compels some men to live where land costs five dollars the square foot. The various members of Mr. Grey's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... religious philosophers by declaring that, 'while we argue from the course of nature and infer a particular intelligent cause, which first bestowed, and still preserves order in the universe, we embrace a principle which is both uncertain and useless. It is uncertain, because the subject lies entirely beyond the reach of human experience. It is useless, because our knowledge of this cause being derived entirely from the course of nature, we can ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... corridors at right angles. Beyond these the landing terminated in a downward stairway, exactly similar to the one by which it was approached. Beyond this, all description of this celebrated haunt of crime would be impossible, for the rest was a labyrinth of apparently useless passages and stairways, ascending and descending, the following of which was only to invite complete and utter confusion of mind. The legend ran that the cellars, many floors deep, undermined half a dozen adjacent ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... candle, and went to the cupboard to see if all was safe. Yes, the box was there, but the cupboard door, which I knew I had locked, was unfastened, and when I had to turn the key it became plain that the lock was hampered and useless. How could this have come about? Earlier in the evening it had been perfectly right, and nobody had been in the room since I locked ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... yourself, as you love yourself, as you love the prince, and for our sakes, who are so faithful to you! I am very much obliged to you, replied she, for your care, zeal, and advice; but alas! these are useless to me! You are not to flatter us with hopes; for we can expect no end of our torment but in the grave! One of my companions would have diverted those sad ideas by playing on her lute; but she commanded her to be silent, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... of these dark turnings, and to make it worse, the news that day, as barked out by the press, made the heart ache by its insanity. Useless hecatombs, which the induced egotism of the world behind the lines thought natural; cruelties on all sides, criminal reprisals for crimes—for which these good people clamoured, and loudly applauded. The horizon that surrounded the poor human creatures in their burrow had never ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... live. I know exactly what I'd do. I've got it all worked out! I shall just get blind, roaring drunk and then throw myself in the harbour. My life is useless without you." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... have already surmounted the thousand and one passes which occur between Cabul and Koollum. Much has been printed and a great deal more written and wisely left unprinted concerning the practicability of these routes for a modern army; it savours of a useless truism to state, that if the government making the attempt has resources sufficient in men, transport, and treasure, and dwells not upon the sacrifice of these three necessaries for an army, the thing may be done; ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... Britain on a broadside, to be stuck up in houses; two translations were made of it in French and great numbers bought by the clergy and gentry, to distribute gratis among their poor parishioners and tenants. In Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless expense in foreign superfluities, some thought it had its share of influence in producing that growing plenty of money which was observable for several years ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... sempstress's scissors. These, with an odd volume of Cowper's poems, were all that remained to him of the woman he had loved—of the mother of his child—of his happy little home of other days. Two articles, totally useless to Sam; the scissors could only be of service to a woman—the book to a lettered person. Sam could neither sew ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... Succoth to Etham, and from Etham to the Red Sea? Such grass as there was, even if the sheep and cattle went before the men, women, and children, could not have been of much avail; for what was not eaten by the front ranks must have been trodden under foot at once, and rendered useless to those that followed. After they "encamped by the Red Sea," on the third day, there was no vegetation at all. The journey was over a desert, the surface of which was composed of hard gravel intermixed with pebbles. After crossing the Red Sea, their ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... however, with a keen shoot of pain, for the bolt of a crossbow had wounded his leg, and the blood was now streaming from it. He was instantly laid Hold of by two or three of the men-at-arms. It was useless to struggle, and ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... thousand years; she would freely sacrifice the entire twenty-six years' difference between 776 and 750, were it not that the same purpose, viz., the purpose of consulting the powers or convenience and capacity of the memory, in neglect and defiance of useless and superstitious arithmetic punctilios, may be much better attained by a more trifling sacrifice. Three-quarters of a millennium, that is three parts in four of a thousand years, is a period easily ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... shadowy church-porch on that lovely June morning. Mr. Mason stood with his head bowed, intently listening to the solemn burial service, and reverently wondering at the providence of God, which had passed by him, so old, feeble, and almost useless, and taken from the good Rector and his wife ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... Tenn. But his interest in solving the problem of duplicate transmission proved so absorbing that he continually neglected his duties, and on the occasion of a change of officers he was dismissed as a useless member of the staff. At Louisville he upsets a carboy of sulphuric acid which ruins the handsome furniture of a broker's office on the floor below, and again finds himself adrift in an unappreciative ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... such marks as greatly disfigured a countenance naturally harsh and rugged, beside doing irreparable damage to the auricular organs, which never could perform their functions since I knew him; and it was owing to that horrible disorder, too, that one eye was perfectly useless to him; that defect, however, was not observable, the eyes looked both alike. As Mr. Johnson had an astonishing memory, I asked him if he could remember Queen Anne at all? "He had," he said, "a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn, recollection ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... be wrong to say that these cases are so rare as to be useless in practice. We simply do not observe them for the reason that we take much to be real because it is confirmed reliably. More accurate examination would show that many things are merely imaginative. A large portion of the contradictions ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream—a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought—a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... high wages and prosperous trade he owes entirely to his admirable protective laws. If you talk to the Anglophobe, he will tell you that the dirt, drunkenness, disease, and extravagance of the English lower classes are the sin and scandal of the civilised world; that it is useless for you to ask where the poor live in Berlin, because there are no poor. Everyone in Germany is clean, virtuous, well housed, and well-to-do. If you talk to an honest, reasonable German, he will recognise that each country has ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... due to the simple fact that out of many possible forms that might be used and had been used before the Aryan languages became traditional, settled, and national, one family or clan or nation fancied one, another another. While this one became fixed and classical, all others became useless, remained perhaps here and there in proverbial sayings or in sacred songs, but were given up at last completely, as strange, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... guest; and strange it is to say, that from this day, from some cause, which it is now useless to ascertain, this gentleman became an habitual guest at the Consul's table; accepting a general invitation without even a frown; and, what is more remarkable, availing himself of it, scarcely with ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... young ladies," approved Mrs. Livingston, whose keen eyes had missed nothing of the preparations. "That is as it should be with a Camp Girl. I am afraid it will be useless to suggest that you eat as lightly as possible. You must be famished, but remember you will be going to bed very shortly ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... that I had already formed from reading this clipping. Either the X-ray or radium had caused her dermatitis and nervousness. Which was it? I wished to be sure that I would make no mistake. Of course I knew it was useless to look for an X-ray machine in or near Mrs. Close's room. Such a thing could never have been concealed. The alternative? Radium! Ah! that was different. I determined on an experiment. Mrs. Close's maid was prevailed on to sleep in her mistress's room. Of course ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... never so much as thought of such a thing. In France it is the fashion to take snuff, but the habit seemed to me a useless one, and I don't think that I should ever ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... round brushes which, for all sorts of painting, will be of very general utility. For most of your brushes select the long and thin, rather than the short and thick ones. The stubby brush is a useless sort of thing for most work. There are men who use them and like them, but most painters prefer the more flexible and springy brush, if it is not weak. So, too, the brush should not be too thick. A thick brush takes ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... it should be covered with a light sheet. The attendant must be very careful and quiet to prevent all unnecessary excitement and increase of spasm. Tetanus antitoxin appears to be useful as a remedy in some cases, if given in very large quantities early in the disease; otherwise it is useless. Subcutaneous injections of carbolic acid in glycerin and water (carbolic acid 30 grains, glycerin and water each 1 ounce) appear to be useful in some cases. Injections should be given ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... cotton-bales, but that is an error. When he first began to fortify, he used some cotton-bales, and some sugar, which, it was thought, would do instead of sand; but in some of the early skirmishes it was found that the sugar was useless, because it would not stop cannon-balls; while the cotton was worse, because it took fire, and nearly suffocated the men behind it with smoke. The cotton and sugar were at once thrown aside, and the battle of New Orleans ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... insult to my pride: the comforter humiliates the inconsolable mourner; besides, there are sorrows that all pretend to understand, but which none really appreciate. It is useless, then, to enumerate one's maladies to a would-be physician; and the world is filled with those who delight in the miseries of others; who follow the sittings of courts and luxuriate in heart-rending pictures of ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... alumina I imagine that it would be impossible to keep the soil damp and fit for the growth of plants. I presume that clay washed over and over again in water would still yield mineral matter to the carbonic acid secreted by the roots. I should want a good deal of soil, for it would be useless to experimentise unless we could fill from twenty to thirty moderately sized flower-pots every year. Can you suggest any plan? for unless you can it would, I fear, be useless for us to commence an attempt to discover whether ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... them in the exercises," he said in effect, "because it would have been useless (as well as cruel) to force you to labour on a subject so uncongenial to you; and for the same reason I have decided that it is to be a tale of adventure, in which the heroine need be little more ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... difficulty. One need but remember the swift changes which the name of Apollo passes through in the mouths of the Greeks—[Greek: Apollon], [Greek: Apellon], [Greek: Appellon], [Greek: Apeilon], [Greek: Aploun][19]—to realize that it is useless to demand strict phonetic conservation of mythic proper names. The nominative Cabalas, translated sound for sound into Greek, yields [Greek: Keberos], [Greek: Kebelos]; vice versa, [Greek: Kerberos?] ...
— Cerberus, The Dog of Hades - The History of an Idea • Maurice Bloomfield
... stately galleries, thronged with a multitude of philosophers and poets, that it seemed as if there were a new home for the Muses, and a fresh sanctuary for Hellas. Seneca, a philosopher and a millionaire himself, inveighed against such useless pomp. He used to rejoice at the blow that fell on the arrogant magnificence of Alexandria. 'Our idle book-hunters,' he said, 'know about nothing but titles and bindings: their chests of cedar and ivory, and ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... to put questions. I could not manage it. It seemed to me to be so useless in the presence of this important man. So he said, 'We are never satisfied with the progress we make in view of what still remains to be done.' He spoke of the progress made by the Social Work of The Army in Germany, and of ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... walls, a new era dawned on criminal legislation. It is for these reasons that I look with deep interest on General Booth's experiment. Do not let us say, "The experiment has been tried before; it is useless to attempt it again." I believe there is enough of novelty in General Booth's scheme to justify a hope of success. But for past failures I can but say that people do not regard failure as a ground for ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... street. There he stood 'abiding his horse.' Now Cranstoun, as he confessed, had told Gowrie that his horse was at Scone, two miles away. By keeping his horses there, Gowrie made it impossible for him to accompany the Royal retinue as they went on their useless errand (p. 21, supra). In the street Gowrie 'hears his Majesty call on him out at the chamber window, "My Lord of Gowrie, traitors has murdered your brother already, and ye suffer ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... gun, kept close beside the Prefect, who talked to him with his usual friendliness. Presently he said, "I love your uncle, Angelot, much better than he loves me, and I am sorry that he should run such useless risks." ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... tasks had struck dismay to Avery's heart. She did not privately believe that any one of them could ever be accomplished in the prescribed time. But the day of reckoning was not yet, and she put it resolutely from her mind. It was useless to forestall trouble, and her own burden of toil that day demanded all ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... degree, one of the gods namely, the earthquake, after consulting with the fish and birds, absolved them, and they married and had many children. From those children came the various kinds and classes of people. For it happened that the parents, angered at having so many children idle and useless in the house, took counsel together; afterward the father one day gave way to his anger, and was desirous of punishing them with a stick which he had in his hand (a thing which they can never do). The children fled, so that some of them took refuge ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... is to be worked upon. Begin thus by making a more careful study of your scholars, for it is clear that you know nothing about them; yet if you read this book with that end in view, I think you will find that it is not entirely useless. ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... medicine possesses a very great power over the uterus, rousing its dormant or debilitated contractility, and stimulating it to an extra performance of this necessary function after its natural energy has been in some measure destroyed by forcible but useless action. The direct utility of the ergot was manifested in cases where the uterus appeared quite exhausted by its repeated efforts; and certainly it is but fair to ascribe the decidedly augmented power of the organ to the stimulus of the ergot, for no other means were resorted to ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... hands of genius. Of the two, James had the greater scholarship, the better command of English, and perhaps a nearer approach to command also of character: Ainsworth more "fire in his interior," more variety, somewhat more humour (though neither was strong in this respect), and a certain not useless or despicable faculty of splashy scene-painting and rough but not ineffective stage-management. But of Scott's combination of poetry, humour, knowledge of life, reading, grasp of character, and command ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... Westbrook, who protested against a project of sending her back to school. He counselled resistance. She replied in July 1811 (to quote a contemporary letter from Shelley to Hogg), 'that resistance was useless, but that she would fly with me, and threw herself upon my protection.' This was clearly a rather decided step upon the damsel's part: we may form our own conclusions whether she was willing to unite with Percy without the bond of marriage; ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... Christendom. Nevertheless, the general voice was against any interference on the part of France, the ministers being anxious to avoid an outlay which under the then circumstances of the kingdom they deemed alike useless and impolitic, while the nobles, fearing to lose the advantages which each promised himself by confining the attention of the Queen to the internal economy of the state, came to the same decision. Sillery ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... "I think I may. To make a man laugh is a very insignificant and useless thing. It is far better to make him weep. Such thoughts and such conversation as makes us serious, thoughtful, and sad, and even moves us to tears, are the most ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... impossible quantity in the scheme of domesticity. For instance, the other day, when you had someone's gun in your hands, you deliberately fired at an overflying woodpecker to test your skill. The dead bird was useless. That showed the instinct of a wanton destroyer, and a wanton destroyer, my friend, is not just the safest place ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... upon his theory,—rightly enough upon the atheistic alternative,—the theistic view rids him at once of this "scum of creation." For, as species do not now vary at all times and places and in all directions, nor produce crude, vague, imperfect, and useless forms, there is no reason for supposing that they ever did. Good-for-nothing monstrosities, failures of purpose rather than purposeless, indeed sometimes occur; but these are just as anomalous and unlikely upon Darwin's theory as upon any other. For his particular ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... sure to overtake every creature having a corporeal existence. Therefore, we should strive for the possession of our kingdom before we die. He that faileth to achieve fame, by failing to chastise his foes, is like an unclean thing. He is a useless burden on the earth like an incapacitated bull and perisheth ingloriously. The man who, destitute of strength, and courage, chastiseth not his foes, liveth in vain, I regard such a one as low-born. Thy hand can rain gold; thy fame spreadeth over the whole earth; slaying thy foes, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... his hand. "It is difficult," I said, "to bid the heart submit to these dispensations, and, oh, how utterly impossible to bring it to listen! But life—your life, my friend—must not be passed in useless sorrow. I am convinced, and often have I thought of it since our last meeting, that yours is no vulgar destiny—though I know not to what ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... character. One tooth may be included alone in the cyst or a number may be inclosed together. However this may be, the malformation progresses, especially if confined to the incisor teeth, until the remaining teeth that began to develop normally are crowded out of position and rendered useless. The tumor may reach the size of a man's fist. It appears to be fleshy and dents upon pressure, but it may also appear on closer examination as though it contained irregular sections of thin bone. The outer ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... what my life has been!" She stopped, and a wave of colour flushed her pallid features. "From a little girl, nothing but the streets—the long, cruel streets! and I just a bit of dirt on the pavement—no more; flung here, flung there, and at last swept into the gutter. All dark—all useless!" She laughed a little. "Fancy, Jim! I've ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... had considerable timber. Such property today would be considered valuable, but in those days of plentitude it passed as undesirable. Some of his enemies accused him of making for himself a reputation for generosity by giving away useless land. There is no evidence, however, that such accusations were made by the Negroes.[505] But be that as it may, the experiment was a failure. It was not successful because of the intractability of the land, the harshness of the climate, and in a great measure, the inefficiency of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... give her no counsel. His counsel would have taught her to abandon the property in the first instance, let the result be what it might. He had made his little effort in that direction by seeing the attorney, and his little effort had been useless. It was quite clear to him that there was nothing further for him to do;—nothing further for him, who but a week or two since was so actively putting himself forward and letting the world know that he was Lady ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... developed treacherous spots like quicksands and while one foot remained comparatively secure, the other sank deeply, tripping me. Prone, the entangling fronds caught at my arms and neck; the green blades, no longer tender, scratched my face and smothered my useless cries for help. I sobbed childishly, knowing myself doomed to die in this awful morass, drowned ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... sorrowful heart than he had ever known before. His last chance of success seemed, for a time, to be gone. The villagers would now lose all faith in him, he would have no friends, and even his father and mother might doubt his honesty. It would be useless for him to try for a situation in another store, when it became known why he was ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... about it," replied Nebsecht. "Whether my observations seem good or evil, right or heinous, useful or useless, I want to know how things are, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... composition of Britannia's Pastorals then, a useless or inconsiderable feat? Not at all: since to read them is to taste a mild but continuous pleasure. In the first place, it is always pleasant to see a good man thoroughly enjoying himself: and that Browne thoroughly "relisht ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... bedroom, lit a candle and knelt down to recite the prayers she had selected to say daily for her father. They were many, some of them were beautiful, and more than half of them were centuries old. Her conviction that the very just man was certainly in heaven already did not make it seem wholly useless to pray for him. No one could be quite sure of what happened in paradise, and in any case, if he was in no need of such intercession himself, she was allowed to hope that grace might overflow and avail to help some poor soul in purgatory, by ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... will rise to-morrow. I go farther, and hazard the guess, not the fixed belief, though my guesses are usually borne out by events, that if Doris Martin had not been in this garden at half past ten on Monday night, Adelaide Melhuish would not have been killed some twenty minutes later. It is useless for you to fume and rage in vain effort to disprove either of these presumptive facts. You are simply beating the air. This mystery centers in and around the postmaster's daughter. Come, now, you are a reasonable person. Admit the cold, hard truth, and then ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... Prince that our house had never changed sides, and he would excuse me setting the example. He seemed prepared for this answer, and then he said, "You purpose, my lord, to return to Scotland, and I shall not prevent you, but I ask that ye stir not up useless strife and shed blood in vain, for the end is certain." I will not deny, Jean, that I was moved by his words, for he is a strong man, and has men of the same kind with him. So far I went as to say that if duty did not compell me I would not trouble ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... to the front these days is a question of avoiding roads rendered useless because a broken bridge has cut them in half. All over France are these bridges of iron, of splendid masonry, some decorated with statues, some dating back hundreds of years, but now with a span blown out or entirely ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... that deception was useless. Everything gets to be known, even in this place. Well, he did not care. Cared for nothing but for the lost seconds. What if he should suddenly die. Die before he saw her. Before he could . ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... sent away my third attack. This time I sent a second torpedo after the first to make the strike doubly certain. My crew were aiming like sharpshooters and both torpedoes went to their bull's-eye. My luck was with me again, for the enemy was made useless and at once began sinking by the head. Then it careened far over, but all the while its men stayed at the guns looking for their ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... mad impulse was to snatch up the wronged child, and, if necessary, face the half-drunken men in battle. But this would be worse than useless his second sober thought told him, for there stood Mirandy looking carelessly on from the kitchen door behind. The child was doubtless hers, and the father was taking part in the revolting deed! What could he do? He knew they ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... of you to let women swear on such useless things. It is just as if one of us were to hold a penny in his hand and swear by that. It ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... lying under the surface are sometimes so full of fissures, that, although they themselves are impervious to water, yet, so completely do these fissures carry off rain, that, in some parts of the county of Durham, they render the sinking of wells useless, and make it necessary for the farmers to drive their cattle many miles for water. It sometimes happens that these fissures, or cracks, penetrate to enormous depths, and are of great width, and filled with sand or clay. These are termed faults by miners; and some, which we ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... making her feel that he despised her. Did he see in her only a willing accomplice to her father's money-making schemes? The one perhaps who spent the gains heartlessly and carelessly elsewhere? Beside those settlers' wives he had said were heroines, was she but an idle, contemptible, useless heiress? She spurred her horse on, letting her thoughts run away with her, unwilling that he should overtake her until she had got herself well in hand; and Carew followed behind, feeling again that sense of a black, rayless abyss all about him. ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... scattering clouds doth fleet a vernal dream; The transient flowers pass like a running stream; Maidens and youths bear this, ye all, in mind; In useless grief what profit ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... not true. Many do these things, but those who command their thoughts never allow it. If we never moved the hands except in a task when we commanded them, we should soon become hand-skilled. The useless movements I have spoken of unskill the hand. They are undoing motions, and teach us that we must govern ourselves if we would become anything. Do you know how it is that people do great things? They command themselves. Having determined to do something, they work and work and ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... mean time, the storm came on apace. The rising and roughening sea made the oars useless, and the wind howled frightfully through the cordage and the rigging. The galleys soon began to be forced away from their moorings. Some were driven upon the beach and dashed to pieces by the waves. Some were wrecked on the rocks at one or the other of the projecting points which bounded ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and working with fine and delicate patience at the rigid fingers of soldiers, some of whom had lost their other arms, so that unless they could use their last remaining fingers, three or four to a hand, they would be useless for any work in the world. But most pitiable of all were the long rows of the paralysed and the blind, who lay in the hospital ward, motionless and sightless, with smashed faces. In the Palace of Fine Arts this statuary might have made the ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... night Dave Brainerd and I held one of our long, and, in the past, ofttimes useless and mistaken, symposiums. But this time we were in perfect accord. We had spread upon the table before us our old memoranda from the very beginning of our campaign, and also some few letters and other documents. It had been a long 'session,' according to Dave, but the conclusion was so satisfactory ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... His presence from the provoking of men, and hiding thee privately in His tabernacle from the spite of tongues; when thou wilt discover that thou hast been learning precious lessons for thy immortal spirit, while thou didst seem to thyself merely tossing with clouded intellect on a bed of useless pain; when thou wilt find that God was nearest to thee, at the very moment when He seemed to have left thee ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... is its use?' Dr. Franklin says to such, 'What is the use of an infant?' The answer of the experimentalist is, 'Endeavour to make it useful.' When Scheele discovered this substance, it appeared to have no use; it was in its infancy and useless state, but having grown up to maturity, witness its powers, and see what endeavours to make it ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... of a figure in the shape of a cross; another universal dial showed the hours by a globe and by several gnomons. These universal dials required adjusting before use, and for this a mariner's compass and a spirit-level were necessary. But it would be tedious and useless to enumerate the various forms designed, and, as a rule, the more ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... one of them attached. Since that time, numerous other decisions of a like nature have been rendered in various parts of the country. Thus the unions have been assailed in a vital place, their treasuries. It is manifestly foolish and quite useless for the members of a union to strike against an employer for any purpose whatever, if the employer is to be able to recover damages from the union. Taff Vale judge-made law renders the labor union hors de ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... or should not be, useless, especially when commented on by one who has very much of it ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Prale, as well as I. I can see that it is useless to talk to you. I am sorry that I had a moment's compassion and made the attempt. Please stop the cab ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... the heels of his decision Sam Bolton had a long talk with May-may-gwan, then departed carrying a little pack. It was useless to think now of the canoe, and in any case the time of year favoured cross-country travel. The distances, thus measured, were not excessive, and from the Indian's descriptions, Sam's slow-brooding memory had etched into his mind an ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... stand it no longer! The torture was becoming unbearable. It was useless for her to pretend. She knew as well as he what people were saying in the city. They were spied upon continuously. On the roads, in the orchard, along the river, there were people constantly on the watch for something new ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was the one who could invent entertainment for them, these street lads who had nothing. Out of that nothing he could create what excited them, and give them something to fill empty, useless, often cold or wet or foggy, hours. That made him their captain and ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... without defense; sent headless to Charon, and was obliged, on that account, to make a ventriloquial request for a passage across the Styx; so that, in the morning, it was with genuine relief he returned the jewel to its owner and resumed his wonted meagerness of visage and useless deprivations. ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... Dissenter," said Ursula, somewhat sullenly, "we put up with him because he is rich. Oh, it is all very disagreeable! I don't want to know any new people whatever they are; I find the old ones bad enough. Reginald hates him too, a big lazy useless being that treats one as if one were ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... as I will, I cannot recall a case of man or woman who ever occupied any considerable part of my thoughts and did not contribute largely towards my moral or physical welfare. In other words, and in very colloquial language, I never had useless friends hanging about me. From this crude statement of a signal fact, the thoughtless reader will at once judge me rapacious, egotistical, false, fawning, mendacious. Well, I may be all this and more, but not because all who have known me have rendered me eminent services. I can say that no one ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... visited since my last budget to you was Port Essington, a military post which has been an object of much attention for some time past in connection with the steam navigation between Sydney and India. It is about the most useless, miserable, ill-managed hole in Her Majesty's dominions. Placed fifteen miles inland on the swampy banks of an estuary out of reach of the sea breezes, it is the most insufferably hot and enervating place ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... hearing something of my pocket-book, hung about it all next day till towards the evening, when the sergeant, of whom I have before spoken, came up to me as I was sauntering about the gate, and told me that it was useless my hanging on any longer about the office; that all would be done in my case that could be done; but that, in the meantime, I had better go home, leaving my address; and that if anything occurred, I would instantly be informed of it. "But I think it but right ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... communications have come from the astral world, and to it we are indebted for some useful books with interesting accounts of the life in the unseen regions. Here, of course, as elsewhere, discrimination must be used, for the wise and foolish, the useful and useless are to be found side by side. In accepting or rejecting, one must use his common sense just as he does on this plane in separating the valuable from the worthless. In such matters we should not lose sight ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... damage the paths and bridges. He came again at daylight, and expostulated further; but finding it of no use, he volunteered to accompany me, officiously offering me the choice of two roads. I asked for the coolest, knowing full well that it was useless to try and out-wit him in such matters. At the first stream the bridge was destroyed, but seeing the planks peeping through the bushes in which they had been concealed, I desired the Lama to repair it, which he did without hesitation. So it was at every point: ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... dog,' replied Martin, pointing to his new possession. Whereupon his mother became very angry, and abused him roundly. He ought to be ashamed of himself, when there was scarcely a handful of meal in the house, to have spent the money on a useless brute like that. On the following day she sent him back to the town, saying, 'Here, take our last hundred florins, and buy provisions with them. I have just emptied the last grains of meal out of the chest, and baked a bannock; but it ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... Still, in every way the frog and the toad are underesteemed—as though such a thing as a worthy family frog or an honourable toad of business were in Nature impossible. It is not as though they were useless. The frog's hind legs make an excellent dish for those who like it, as well as a joke for those who don't. Powdered toad held in the palm is a fine thing to stop the nose bleeding—or, at any rate, it was a couple of hundred years ago, according to ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... advantage of the Electro-micro Scolding Machine is, that after it has been in use a short time the girls will all have been shamed into good behaviour; but the Machine will not become useless, as it can, without a farthing outlay, be turned into a Praising Machine, for it can be made to praise in a gentle voice as well as scold in a harsh one. In fact, as said above it will repeat in exact tones, anything ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... of capricious moods as well. She loved her son, and was very proud of him. She selected this girl and that, but no, it was useless. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... fingers, and drew her to his knee. "What do you want me to say, dear discontent? Do?—you were never meant to do anything in this world. Your hands were made to lie one on top of the other...so! Look at them! Most white and most useless!" ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... period not longer than six weeks. He also said that the people were very indifferent as to the necessity of schoolhouses and churches. Quite a few who cleared a little money the previous year had spent it all in buying whisky, in gambling, in buying cheap jewelry, and for other useless articles. After spending two hours in such talk I retired for the evening. Thus ended the first day of my search for ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... him to compose himself. It was useless. Round and round the burning house he went, blowing his horn, and calling on the workers to stop their ungodly labour, for the Lord had told him to blow down the walls of Jericho, and he had ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... rights and, at any rate, there was a desire to maintain some show of decency in legislating the matter. So a more moderate Statute was enacted in 1902. I was the only person who voted against it in either House. It was, of course, clear that resistance was useless. It was not worth while, it seemed to me, to undertake to express my objections at length. I contented myself with the following ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... are the branches' is the one side of that sharpening and making definite of the truth in its personal application, and the other side is, 'Thou art the man.' All preaching and religious teaching is toothless generality, utterly useless, unless we can manage somehow or other to force it through the wall of indifference and vague assent to a general proposition, with which 'Gospel-hardened hearers' surround themselves, and make them feel that the thing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... execute them he would, to the letter, whatever might be the consequence."18 This answer, and the peremptory tone in which it was delivered, promptly adjourned the debate; for the judges saw that debate was useless with one who seemed to consider all remonstrance as an attempt to turn him from his duty, and whose ideas of duty precluded all discretionary exercise of authority, even where the public ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... time he denied his identity with the utmost coolness; then, seeing that denial was useless, he flung away his basket and took to his heels. It was not, however, difficult to trace him; he was tracked to his master's shop, where it was found that he had been a model apprentice and fish-hawker for a year; and he was induced to return to his parents and ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... clouds; the radiance of the star benefits the rose; no thinker would dare to say that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who, then, can calculate the path of the molecule? How do we know that the creations of worlds are not determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who, then, understands the reciprocal flow and ebb ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the State of Missouri. Letters were written by the Gentiles around Far West to all parts of the State, and elsewhere, giving the most fearful accounts of Mormon atrocities. Some of the writers said it was useless to send less than three or four men for each Mormon, because the Mormons felt sure of heaven if they fell fighting, hence they did not fear death; that they fought with the ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... customary. You refuse me the company and obedience of my daughter, which Nature herself indicates. You refuse me the beef and mutton, without pretence that it is a fast of the Church. You now forbid me the promenade, a thing necessary to a person of my age. It is useless to tell me that you do all this by law. Law rests upon the social contract. If the citizen finds himself despoiled of such pleasures and powers as he would have had even in the savage state, the ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... could distinguish all kinds of animals in the dark by their footsteps. It now began to thunder, and our position was getting very uncomfortable. Daniel had not seen anything of the other Indians, and thought it was useless waiting any longer for Tracajas; we therefore sent him to call in the whole party, and made off ourselves, as quickly as we could, for the canoe. The rest of the night was passed most miserably; as indeed were very many of my nights on the Solimoens. A furious squall ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... "'Tis useless to cover the truth wi' saft words, shuriff," Douglas interrupted glumly. "'Tis stolen cattle we are tracing, and 'tis here we wad look for the hides of them. I hae ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... duties, or decadence of mental powers, or physical disability, he made up his mind that he was about to die. Closing his telescopes, putting his achromatic glasses in their several grooves, locking the doors of his laboratories, destroying the papers he deemed useless, and arranging those corrected for publication, he ascended to his sleeping-apartment and rang his ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... any tenderness, his mother having always treated him unkindly, and caring scarcely at all for him; for in country places the useless are obnoxious, and the peasants would be glad, like hens, to kill the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... "The boats are useless," he said, sadly. "There will be the same suicidal folly at every one, even if they have time to lower any more. Come aft. That part will sink last, and there will be less suction there when the ship goes down. We may find something that ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... to London, I was still as uneasy as I was before; I had no relish for the place, no employment in it, nothing to do but to saunter about like an idle person, of whom it may be said he is perfectly useless in God's creation, and it is not one farthing's matter to the rest of his kind whether he be dead or alive. This also was the thing which, of all circumstances of life, was the most my aversion, who had been all my days used to an active life; and I would often ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... gaily-crowded streets was sweet to him as a lazy truant ramble in the woods during church-time. Everything that he looked at delighted him—the richness of shop-windows, showing all the expensive useless goods that no sensible person ever wants; the liveries worn by pampered servants standing at carriage wheels; the glossy coats of mettlesome, prancing horses; the extravagant dresses of fine ladies ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... accompanied her when Mrs. Ogilvie went up to London; but, in her wilful way, she had decided to-day that maids were useless, and that her present maid had round eyes that stared at her from the opposite side of the carriage when they travelled together. In short, Mrs. Ogilvie intended to go ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... organize clubs throughout the United States for playing the game; prizes were to be given. Experts would take it up. He foresaw a department in every newspaper devoted to the game and its problems, instead of to chess and whist and other useless diversions. He wrote to Orion, and set him to work gathering facts and dates by the bushel. He wrote to Webster, sent him a plan, and ordered him to apply for the patent without delay. Patents must also be applied for abroad. With all nations playing this great game, very likely it would ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... when, in spite of the men using it, the scurvy appeared among them, he found that it was some common acid, of no use whatever. How horribly wicked were the manufacturers who could thus, in their greed for grain, knowingly destroy the health and lives of seamen who depended on their useless mixtures for preserving them from one of the most terrible maladies to which those who make long voyages are subject! Whether or not the owners of the Grand Turk had paid less for this mixture than they would have done for good ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... from her friend, the place of superintendent of the queen's household was revived for her. Some cavilers were disposed to grumble at the re-establishment of an office which had been suppressed as useless and costly; but no one could allege that Madame de Lamballe abused the royal favor, and her share in the calamities of later days justified the queen's choice by the proof it afforded of the princess's unalterable fidelity ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... actualised, opportunity is as needful for its exercise as is the stimulus of a proportionate reward. That economic opportunity ought, therefore, to be equalised, so far as possible, is, as an abstract principle, too obvious to need demonstration. But abstract principles are useless till we apply them to a concrete world; and when we apply our abstract doctrine of opportunity to the complex facts of society and human nature, a principle so simple in theory will undergo as many modifications as a film of level water will ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... then explained his plan, which was approved by all but Maitland; and he forbore to urge any further opposition, which, he felt, would now be useless. A temperate meal was partaken of, and a hymn sung by the undaunted little company; and pipes and tobacco having been plentifully placed in the hut, the sides of which were decorated with pieces of ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... that a large share of the unfortunate persons who are shut up in insane asylums are brought there by alcohol. Is it not a dreadful thing that one's mind should be thus ruined by a useless and harmful practice? ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... in a conference of European Powers which the French Emperor desired to convene to settle the Roman question, declaring that this question was one with which England should in no way meddle, and that a conference would be useless and dangerous unless a basis were laid down before. He refused to interfere in any way with the Cretan rebellion, and with the impending disputes between Turkey and Greece. His abstention on this question was blamed by some, but it met with the full approbation ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... all this charity is, as you say, so useless; if it touches but the fringe; if it makes the evil worse, what would ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... measure, of an affront to their species in treating after this manner the "human face divine," and turning that part of us, which has so great an image impressed upon it, into the image of a monkey; whether the raising such silly competitions among the ignorant, proposing prizes for such useless accomplishments, filling the common people's heads with such senseless ambitions, and inspiring them with such absurd ideas of superiority and pre-eminence, has not in it something immoral as ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... over his life and reviewing, with a wiser ken now, the steps by which he had come. He compared the selfish disgust with which he had cast off the world with the very different spirit of little Fleda's look upon it that morning, the useless, self-pleasing, vain life he was leading, with her wish to be like the beloved disciple and do something to heal the troubles of those less happy than herself. He did not very well comprehend the grounds of her feeling or reasoning, but he began ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... subject under investigation. With a stereotyped people like the Chinese, it does not do to ignore these trifles of form and custom; on the contrary, the witness should rather be allowed to wander at will through such useless details until he has collected his scattered thoughts, and may be safely coaxed on to divulge something which partakes more of the nature of evidence. Under proper treatment, a Chinese witness is by no means doggedly stubborn or doltishly stupid; he may be either or both if ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... part. Save for an occasional day of desultory work, he spent his time in the mountains, killing game for which they had no use, trapping animals whose pelts were worthless during the summer months. He seemed to kill for the pleasure he found in killing. Protests from Bruce were useless, and this wanton slaughter added day by day to the dislike he felt for his partner, to the resentment which now was ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... argument should range conclusively around it. Judging so, we should find, I think, that not at the polls, where the last utterance of a people's voice is given—where the results of character, and conscience, and intelligence are shown—is her best and rightful work: on the contrary, that it is useless here, unless first done elsewhere. But where little children learn to think and speak—where men love and listen, and the word is forming—is the office she has to fill, the errand she has to do. The question is, can ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... our authors have introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages, or ignorance of their own ... I have registered as they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, and warn others against the folly of naturalising useless foreigners to the injury of the natives.' Johnson's Works, v. 31. 'If an academy should be established for the cultivation of our style, which I, who can never wish to see dependance multiplied, hope the spirit of English liberty ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... its message comes into such an account, distils and sublimates into such a quintessential judgement on the present, History remains but 'a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. It is in the profoundest sense useless to us unless in the end we can say 'De nobis fabula narratur'—it is our history to which ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... and being still,—perhaps by female contact,—somewhat sentimental, he fell to musing on his past. It was hardly worthy to be proud of. All its morning was reddened with mad frolic, and far toward the meridian it was marred with elegant rioting. Pride had kept him well-nigh useless, and despised the honors won by valor; gaming had dimmed prosperity; death had taken his heavenly wife; voluptuous ease had mortgaged his lands; and yet his house still stood, his sweet-smelling fields were still fruitful, his name was fame enough; and ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... was their life—abundant leisure, elegant display, exuberant merrymaking. Just such a life, by all the rules, as would produce a useless race devoid of any solidity of mind or of character. Just such a life as in fact produced a race of high-minded, intelligent, and capable men; a race that gave us Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, and the scarcely lesser names on down the long list of those wonderful ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... lives, will bring us nearer to death. Death is sure to overtake every creature having a corporeal existence. Therefore, we should strive for the possession of our kingdom before we die. He that faileth to achieve fame, by failing to chastise his foes, is like an unclean thing. He is a useless burden on the earth like an incapacitated bull and perisheth ingloriously. The man who, destitute of strength, and courage, chastiseth not his foes, liveth in vain, I regard such a one as low-born. Thy hand can rain gold; thy fame spreadeth over the whole earth; slaying thy foes, therefore, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... her shoulder at the long mirror, and Celia was smitten with sudden envy. A great-grandmother called Saint Cecilia was not half so interesting as a beautiful great-aunt with a romantic love story; and an old and useless spinet not to be compared to a ring like Patricia's. That the ring was to be Genevieve's she ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... should feel the influence of the Preface, which recommended a search for actuality. But that was twenty years ago, and although I do not feel the need of attacking myself in this connection, I cannot but regard all that pottering with stage properties as useless." ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... do not; but I do intend to carry the law out beyond the firing line. The thief strains the law to get away with the goods; I am going to strain the law to get them back. The murderer strains the law to protect his damned useless neck; I'm going to strain the law to break his neck. Unless," he added, "I break ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... with which the organ was originally endowed; for example, we suppose that it still can detect and appreciate, repulse and define odours. But as a sign-post showing the path to glory, as an index of force of character or intellect, it is practically useless. The new nose is modest, retiring, seeketh not its own, is never puffed up. You would know it for a nose, certainly, but its ample and aristocratic proportions are wanting; it lacks a bridge, is spineless, immature, unfinished. Yet ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... up too. We found some of them on the banks along and some floated in the lake. We recovered over half of them. We built a boom just where Stillwater is today, in still water. Joe Brown had a little house about a mile from there. There were the logs, and the mill at St. Croix was useless. McCusick made a canal from a lake in back and built a mill. The lumbermen came and soon there was a straggling little village. I moved there ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... he had often a passionate longing to resign his parish, and go like his curate for a chaplain at the Front. It seemed to him that people must think his life idle and sheltered and useless. Even in times of peace he had been sensitive enough to feel the cold draughty blasts which the Church encounters in a material age. He knew that nine people out of ten looked on him as something of a parasite, with no real work in the world. And since he was nothing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... some understanding about interests in the mine, should Rosendo find it. The mine will be useless to us unless we work it, for there is no one to buy it from us. To work it, we must have a stamp-mill, or arrastras. The Antioquanians are skilled in the making of wooden stamp-mills; but one would cost perhaps two thousand pesos ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... impulse, it has little more claim to dignity than the experience of the brute, who receives, with like passiveness, sensations from abroad through his waking hours. Such thought, if thought it may be called, having no aim, is as useless as the vision of an eye which rests on nothing, which flies without pause over earth and sky, and of consequence receives no distinct image. Thought, in its true sense, is an energy of intellect. In thought, the mind not only receives impressions or suggestions from without or within, but ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... magician had informed himself of his brother's fate, he lost no time in useless regret, which could not restore him to life; but resolving immediately to revenge his death, departed for China; where, after crossing plains, rivers, mountains, deserts, and a long tract of country without delay, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... which, to the end, was so active and so happily constituted as to be able to take an interest in everything around him, and, even when more than seventy years old, to make new friends to replace those who had dropped off, he passed a long, a happy, and far from an useless life. When he was seventy-four he succeeded to his father's peerage, on the death of his elder brother; but he did not long enjoy the title, by which, indeed, he was not very careful to be distinguished, and in ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... huge responsibility rested was Grant. Lincoln had summoned him from the West and placed him at the head of all the armies of the Republic. As to Halleck who had long since proved himself perfectly useless, he was allowed ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... for the destruction of the city; the latter placing their hopes of deliverance in nothing else but in persevering in such inventions in opposition to the other, as might demonstrate the enemy's engines were useless to them. And this siege they endured for eighteen months, until they were destroyed by the famine, and by the darts which the enemy threw at ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... not fall asleep at the helm, but the wind gradually died away, and the sail hung limp and useless. Jim got out the oars without stepping on anybody, and rowed slowly on. In a little while they came to the end of the shallow lagoon into which the swell had so unexpectedly cast them. A sand-bank stretched from the ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to the late bailiff as the instigator of the outrage that Grevin, his wife, Violette, and Madame Marion declared that they had recognized among the five masked men one who exactly resembled Michu. The color of the hair and whiskers and the thick-set figure of the man made the mask he wore useless. Besides, who but Michu could have opened the iron gates of the park with a key? The present bailiff and his wife, now returned from the masquerade, deposed to have locked both gates before leaving the pavilion. The gates ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... for further orders. I then slept there: in the course of the night, the Chief of the village where I was ordered to go and stop for further orders, sent a messenger to his son here, where I was, desiring him to stop me here. Next morning his son came to me, and said it was useless for me to go any farther; that his father had sent to him and desired he would furnish me with whatever I wanted and keep me here. I told him, if I staid where I was, I should die with all my family, of hunger and thirst; and that I would ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... offered—from the apparatus in a gymnasium to rubber shirts, get off fat—nor do I doubt the efficacy of exercise and its accompaniments in the way of sweating and baths and all that; but when a person has a living to make these methods are useless, not through any demerit of their own but because the man who is fat hasn't the time or opportunity and, more than all, soon fails in the ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe
... fishing-boat was seen in great distress, making for the shore—there were a father and two sons in it. The danger became imminent, as they neared the rocky promontory of the fisher—and the boat upset. Women and boys were screaming and gesticulating from the beach, in all the wild and useless energy of despair, but assistance was nowhere to be seen. The father and one of the lads disappeared for ever; but the younger boy clung, with extraordinary resolution, to the inverted vessel. By accident, the Warlock Fisher came to the door of his hovel, saw the drowning lad, and plunged instantaneously ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... bees of the Paris Exhibition which fastened with their resinous propolis the shutter to a glass-plate fitted in the wall of their hive. Besides, they display none of the sanguinary proclivities and love of useless fighting with which many writers so readily endow animals. The sentries which guard the entrance to the hive pitilessly put to death the robbing bees which attempt entering the hive; but those stranger bees which come to the hive by mistake are left unmolested, especially if they come ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... understood and wrongly employed arose the bloody frenzy of revolutions, the grim party-rage, the useless slaughtering and disputing and the fatal dissipation of thinking and working powers. In their blind faith in reason and the True Word men destroyed their own and each other's joy and happiness, not realizing that they all wanted one and the same thing, for ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... to the backwoodsman; "our companions and their guide will soon be here. As to your cow, you can hardly have so little common sense as to suppose that five travellers would shoot a beast that must be perfectly useless ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... to have to write what will grieve you, but it would be wrong and useless to hide it from you—I was taken ill suddenly yesterday.... What I bear least well is the thought of you. I did so hope that after all your political troubles you might be spared anxieties of a worse kind; but ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... doctor had been found. The wound had been cleansed. It was a cruel one, for the bullet had torn its way through flesh and sinew, and for many a week the fighting arm of Jack Landis would be useless. It had, moreover, carried a quantity of cloth into the wound, and it was almost impossible to cleanse the hole satisfactorily. As for the bullet itself, it had whipped cleanly through, at that short distance ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... a deceiver of those who had shed their best blood in his cause, and the author of the misfortunes of Scotland. Indemnification, redress, and revenge were demanded by every mouth, and each hand was ready to vouch for the claim. Never had just such a feeling existed in Scotland. It became a useless possession to the king, for he could not wring one penny from that kingdom for the public service, and, what was more important to him, he could not induce one recruit for his continental wars. William continued to remain indifferent to all ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... waited a moment, and then held out his hand to Mademoiselle Brun. All three seemed to move and speak under a sort of oppression. It was one of those moments that impress themselves indelibly on the memory—a moment when words are suddenly useless—when the memory of an attitude and of a silence remains all ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... regiments on board, were prepared at Portsmouth for this expedition. But their departure was postponed by unaccountable delays, until the season was judged too far advanced to risk the great ships on the boisterous coast of North America. That the armament, however, might not be wholly useless to the nation, it was employed in making a descent upon the coast of Bretagne, on the supposition that Port L'Orient, the repository of all the stores and ships belonging to the French East India company, might be surprised; or, that this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... that General Howe had taken Philadelphia, corrected his informant very justly. "Say, rather," said the acute philosopher, "that Philadelphia has taken General Howe." The capture of Philadelphia, as we have already taken occasion to remark, was perfectly useless—in fact, worse than useless—to the British arms. It only provided winter quarters to an army which would have been more comfortable and secure in New York; and it held them beleaguered at a remote point when their services were greatly needed to aid Burgoyne and ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... of Avondale was that the rank and file of the station were always treated with fatherly benevolence, and were never discharged. They gradually got useless by reason of mere antiquity, and, without actually dying, slowly mummified, and were duly interred in ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... they scattered through the chateau, seeking everywhere the money they knew they would find here. One of them was engaged in breaking open this trunk, when the others, below, found the money; they called him; he hastened down, and thinking all further search useless, he left the ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... be said as an exhortation, that men may learn, first of all, to esteem prayer as something great and precious, and to make a proper distinction between babbling and praying for something. For we by no means reject prayer, but the bare, useless howling and murmuring we reject, as Christ Himself also rejects and prohibits long palavers. Now we shall most briefly and clearly treat of the Lord's Prayer. Here there is comprehended in seven successive articles, ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... This was accordingly done, as will be seen by the copy of the accompanying dispatch from the Secretary of State to the United States envoy at Mexico. Mexico has no right to jeopard the peace of the world by urging any longer a useless and fruitless contest. Such a condition of things would not be tolerated on the European continent. Why should it be on this? A war of desolation, such as is now threatened by Mexico, can not be waged without ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... could scarcely support the fainting spirits of Julia; he ran to the door, which he endeavoured to open, but the lock was so constructed that it could be moved only on the other side, and all his efforts were useless. He was constrained, therefore, to seek for another door, but could find none. Their situation was the most deplorable that can be imagined; for they were now inclosed in a vault strewn with the dead bodies of the murdered, and must there ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... accompany the diligence upon mules, as probably a couple of these animals might be procured. The captain observed, that though entirely at our disposal, two men could be of no manner of use, as, in case of attack, resistance, except with a large escort, was worse than useless. Nevertheless it was remarked by some ingenious person, that the robbers seeing two, might imagine that there were more behind. In short there were various opinions. One proposed that they should go on the coach, another that they should go in it. Here I ventured to ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... speech or act, and never failed to detect and expose one on the other side. He was sincere and earnest in his opinions, uncompromising, frank and fearless in the expression of them. He never attempted to make a display of himself, or indulged in useless declamation; but spoke earnestly and for the purpose of producing an immediate effect. I heard that when he was in England in 1823 (I think that was the year), the ministry had under consideration introducing him through ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... card, and after Gallegher had read it, and had discovered who the visitor was, he became so demoralized that he was absolutely useless. ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... result. I have heard that these poor blinded birds sometimes fell down exhausted with singing, and kept on calling the absent female till they died, not being willing to yield to a rival, who on his side was also keeping up his equally useless appeals. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... wholly exempt from the performance of any public duty. But except at such times there seems to be nothing in the nature of the sexual relation constituting a reason why a married woman should lead a more secluded and useless life than a man. In this matter of the place of women under the new order, you must understand that it was the women themselves, rather than the men, who insisted that they must share in full the duties as well as the privileges of citizenship. The men would ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... the company, and one sham-languid person said to a sham-aristocratic person, "Who is that?" "Ah, he's a species of over-educated savage!" Now the gentleman who propounded this pleasant piece of criticism was, according to trustworthy history, the meanest, most useless, and most despicable man of his set; yet he could venture to assume haughty airs towards a man whose shoes he was not fit to black, and he could assume those airs on the strength of his slangy impassivity—his "good form." When we remember that this same fictitious indifference characterized ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... completely and laboriously sawed through, and the whole thing had been wedged back into place so that nothing would be detected at a cursory glance. He was regarding the lock on the window. Apparently it was all right; actually it had been sprung so that it was useless. ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... through the welter of his broken face, and rushed, and Roger's straight left stopped him. Again the left flashed into the battered face, and again. Roger was fighting with the desperation of his last remnants of strength. One hand was useless, his leg was stiffening rapidly, but his left worked ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... the story he was asked if he knew these songs. He replied that he did, but on being requested to sing one he made some excuse and was silent. After some further efforts the interpreter said it would be useless to press the matter then as there were several other Indians present, but that to-morrow we should have him alone with us and could then ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... there is in woman! She comes in contact with a genius without portfolio, an exceptionally useless implement like me, and then, without any preaching on her part, he feels himself in duty bound to do all sorts of things he never ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... bright, sharp, and full of vitality, with a strong bent for mischief. He is high-tempered, quarrelsome, and disobedient, and yet in the hands of one who understands his mental peculiarities plastic as dough. It is the aim of the author to show how utterly useless it is to treat such boys—and our schools are full of them—in exactly the same manner as those of different character and temperament, and to demand that teachers have the right to adapt their methods according ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... thought was the Lord's, and not mine. Oh, if we but knew how far charity, instead of wasting or lessening the substance of the donor, blessed, increased and multiplied it profusely. How much is there in the world of useless dissipation, which, if properly applied, might amply serve for the subsistence of the poor, and would abundantly be restored, and amply rewarded to the families of those who ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... were so much as plastered. Nor did he ever buy a slave for above fifteen hundred drachmas; as he did not seek for effeminate and handsome ones, but able, sturdy workmen, horse-keepers and cow-herds: and these he thought ought to be sold again, when they grew old, and no useless servants fed in a house. In short, he reckoned nothing a good bargain, which was superfluous; but whatever it was, though sold for a farthing, he would think it a great price, if you had no need of it; and was for the purchase of lands for ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... think I may. To make a man laugh is a very insignificant and useless thing. It is far better to make him weep. Such thoughts and such conversation as makes us serious, thoughtful, and sad, and even moves us to tears, are the most ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... in persuading him that the chase was useless and that it would be better for him to get into our billet and start out next morning, early. We dragged him up the rue des Augustins, to the rue Amiral Courbet. Outside the iron gates I ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... most unpropitious; no day had passed without some untoward circumstance, and the sailors were not slow in attributing the whole to the influence of the black cat on board. This came to Lord Cochrane's ears, and knowing that any attempt to reason his men out of so absurd a notion was perfectly useless, he offered to sacrifice this object of his regard, and have her thrown overboard. This, however, far from creating any satisfaction, only alarmed the men still more; they were sure that the tempests she would then raise would be ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... newsfac in his prosthetic left hand, which was indistinguishable in appearance and in ordinary usage from the flesh, bone, and blood that it had replaced. Indeed, the right hand, with its stiff little finger, often appeared to be more useless than the left. The hand, holding the glass of rye-and-ginger, gave an impression of over-daintiness ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... I have seen I now can see no more." That was the line. "The things which used to appeal to me now appeal no more—or rather not quite in the same way. I think I used to be very sentimental. It is stupid and useless to be sentimental. People must grow old. There's nothing sad in that. It is natural. It is life. It is life and one must accept life. The unnatural thing, the foolish and wrong thing, is to remain a sentimental ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... always filthy; in one corner lay a heap of useless scraps covered by a sheet of zinc; one could make out grimy cloths, decayed planks, debris, bricks, tiles, baskets: an infernal jumble. Every afternoon some of the women would do their washing in the patio, ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... have now became fathers, and are often reproached by their sons for the practical impossibility of the ideal for which they vainly expended their strength, and, as a result of which, they are worn out and useless. Veressayev and Chirikov have written most ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... the people to persist in the belief that Anne of Cleves would regain Katharine's strangely coveted place. Where the reputation of a whole class was so bad as to make the above kind of declaration impossible, virtue, such as that attributed to the Lady Anne, was at a premium, and as it was useless to think of a suitable foreign alliance in the state of Henry's religious opinions, justice and necessity had alike seemed to point to the reinstatement of the discarded queen. But Henry was exceedingly annoyed at these repeated ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... the work so dear to his heart, but a silence had fallen between them. Then softly and almost hesitatingly Helen said "Mr. Selwyn, I cannot help in this grand evangel, except with money and prayers. May I offer you L300? It is entirely my own, and it lies useless in my ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... letter of Mr. Philip Burr," Sogrange replied, "which letter, by the bye, was dated from 15, 100th Street, New York. An ordinary visit there would have been useless to me. Something ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... consented to this result from no distrust of them; but, feeling that valour and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that would have attended the continuation of the contest, I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to their homes and remain there until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... instinctive horror of Androvsky had never been so great as it was to-day. In vain he had striven to conquer it, to draw near to this man who roused all the repulsion of his nature. His efforts had been useless. He had prayed to be given the sympathy for this man that the true Christian ought to feel towards every human being, even the most degraded. But he felt that his prayers had not been answered. With every day his antipathy for Androvsky increased. Yet he was entirely ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... ladies, acting on their mother's suggestion, took their sunshades, which, it must be confessed, were not altogether useless, although their cousins did very ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... but we hear it as the echo of something from another age long past and fundamentally strange to us. The strife of colours, the sense of balance we have lost, tottering principles, unexpected assaults, great questions, apparently useless striving, storm and tempest, broken chains, antitheses and contradictions, these make up our harmony. The composition arising from this harmony is a mingling of colour and form each with its separate existence, but each blended into a common life which is called a picture by the force ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... be married to-morrow evening at early candle-lighting—'early mosquito-biting,' Bev calls it. Rex has loved Mat since the day when he joined our little wagon-train out of a foolish sort of notion that he could protect us children, otherwise his life was useless to him. But something in his own boyhood made him pity all orphan children. I think it was through neglect in childhood he became an invalid at nineteen. He doesn't show the marks ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... bestowed to gratify an aged relative, he thought it not worth while to go through a long red-tape process to correct the error. There was another Cadet Grant, and their comrades distinguished this one by sundry nicknames, of which "Uncle Sam" was one and "Useless" another. ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... bein' so deep, I don't wonder she wants to roam a bit now she can git 'round. Land sakes, I wish't I could roam a bit, 'stead er sittin', sittin', an' knittin', knittin', mornin', noon an' night, all along of these 'ere useless old legs of mine!" ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... that 'the engines having broken down, an officer extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails.' Oh, yes! he says that some of them looked like 'bonnets in a needlecase,' ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... without expence. We debated therefore in full council what were the easiest methods of raising money, or, more properly speaking, what we could most conveniently sell. The deliberation was soon finished, it was found that our remaining horse was utterly useless for the plow, without his companion, and equally unfit for the road, as wanting an eye, it was therefore determined that we should dispose of him for the purposes above-mentioned, at the neighbouring fair, and, to prevent imposition, that I should go with him myself. Though ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... where some mackerel had already been seen, when a sharp wind from the south drove us from our course; then, seeing that it was useless to struggle against it, we let it drive us. It then became necessary, not to lose our fish, which were good, to go and sell them at the nearest English port, and that was Newcastle. We were told the opportunity was good, as there was an increase of population ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... gone through our costly civil war; and, instead of being exhausted as friends and enemies predicted, the machinery of business appeared to have been set in motion with a new and overwhelming impetus. Every thing was wanted; everybody had work or money; and the most useless commodity found a purchaser: as if our anguish had crazed us, and we went into a delirium of mental opium, and dreamed wild, exhilarating dreams ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
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