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More "Vain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deprives him of all Providence, hence he neglects his affairs, vocation, and business. He minds neither study, labor, nor prayer; casts away all thoughts of anything but the body beloved; this is his study, this his most vain occupation. If to lovers the success be not answerable to their wish, or so soon and prosperously as they desire, how many melancholies henceforth arise, with griefs and sadness, with which they pine away and wax so lean as they have scarcely any flesh ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... Varvara Pavlovna herself boiled the coffee in the mornings! But Lavretzky was not then in a mood for observation: he was in a beatific state, he was intoxicating himself with happiness; he gave himself up to it like a child.... And he was as innocent as a child, that young Alcides. Not in vain did witchery exhale from the whole being of his young wife; not in vain did she promise to the senses the secret luxury of unknown delights; she fulfilled more than she had promised. On arriving at Lavriki, in ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... under the stone table of a Druidical men-hir glows a small camp-fire sedulously kept alive by Rene for the service of The Lady. She, wrapped up in a coarse peasant-cloak, pensively gazes into the cheerless smoke and holds her worn and muddy boots to the smouldering wood in the vain hope of warmth. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... he held out his hand; to forgive him, and ask forgiveness! But as he has just this minute insulted not only me, but an honorable young lady, for whom I feel such reverence that I dare not take her name in vain, I have made up my mind to show up his game, though he is ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... clasping one of her hands passionately between both his own. The scene was well planned and well executed; his voice had a ring of emotion that sounded pleasantly in Donna Tullia's ears, and his hands trembled with excitement. She did not repulse him, being a vain woman and willing to believe in the reality of the passion so well simulated. Perhaps, too, it was not wholly put on, for she was a handsome, dashing woman, in the prime of youth, and Del Ferice was a man who had always been susceptible to charms of that kind. ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... make great lamentation. The knight would gladly have helped him, and tried to move the great stone; but it was so heavy that a hundred men might not lift it up. When Merlin knew that the knight sought his deliverance, he bade him leave his labour, for all was in vain. He could never be helped but by her that put ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... didn't like you fairly well—The point is—Good old Cynthia! That bally orb may not see one of us to-morrow night, next week, next quarter. 'Through this same Garden, and for us in vain.' Every man Jack. Let me explain. It will ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... well," remarked Jessie, breaking in upon a longer period of silent abstraction into which Mr. Hartman had fallen, after in vain trying to converse cheerfully ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... we are alike?" Rachel asked feebly, looking in vain for any sign of a quizzical humour in ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... walked rapidly over to the place allocated for him, had waited in vain for something to turn up, and long after the time set for the meeting had commenced watching for his brother. Something, he felt sure, had happened in some other part of the grounds. He was strangely uneasy. A great desire to find Porky came over him. He walked down the road, leading from the great ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... she sat down by the shore, and let her head droop as she listened to the sea-dirge. She could love him, now that it was in vain. She knew now the warm yearning for his presence which at Ullswater had never troubled her, and it was too late. No tears came to her eyes; she did not even breathe a deeper breath. Most likely it would pass without a single outbreak ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... guests had assembled. The company was not very presentable, but very sprightly. Liputin, vain and envious, only entertained visitors twice a year, but on those occasions he did it without stint. The most honoured of the invited guests, Stepan Trofimovitch, was prevented by illness from being present. Tea was handed, and there were refreshments and vodka in plenty. Cards ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... seated, his principal lost angels on both sides of him, on thrones of fire terrible to behold—sitting according to their former rank in the regions of light, when they were amiable messengers. It would only be in vain to endeavour to relate how obscene and horrible they were; and the longer I looked at any one of them, seven times more hideous he appeared. In the midst, above the head of Lucifer, was a vast fist, holding ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... the tall man with the shrouded countenance, walked to a short distance from the melancholy group, with a gloomy and abstracted air. While the Doctor made vain efforts to alleviate the sufferings of Radcliff, that unhappy man raised his dying eyes to Sydney's face, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... called on me in vain," said the skipper. "As soon as His will was clear to me, I ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... A.M., Sickles, having looked in vain for re-enforcements, deemed it necessary to withdraw his lines back of Fairview crest. Himself re-formed the divisions, except that portion withdrawn by Revere, and led them to the rear, where the front line occupied the late ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... not a trace was left behind, And not a dimple on the wave; All sought, but sought in vain, to find The spot ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... that they are easily captured. Incredible as it may seem, even this little incident produced a bad effect upon the crew. "Yon puir beastie kens mair, ay, an' sees mair nor you nor me!" was the comment of one of the leading harpooners, and the others nodded their acquiescence. It is vain to attempt to argue against such puerile superstition. They have made up their minds that there is a curse upon the ship, and nothing will ever persuade them to ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sat great strong Roberta, the Marquise of Grez and Bye, holding in the hollow of her arm a beautiful American woman who had herself contrived a monstrous plan to let a quantity of the lifeblood of France to turn into gold for her own vain uses. If to throttle her then and there with my bare strong hands had insured the great big needful mules to France, and saved the honor of my Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth, and my Uncle, the General Robert, I think I might have had a great temptation to administer that death to her; but instead ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... brother, regard a writing-chair as a mediaeval instrument of torture, and faint at the sight of ink. They will put themselves to all kinds of physical and pecuniary inconvenience in order to avoid regular employment. They are the tramps of the fashionable world. But in vain do they sing to Dale of the joys of silk-hatted and patent-leather-booted vagabondage and deride his habits of industry; Dale turns a deaf ear to them and urges on his strenuous career. Rogers, coming ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... design or purpose in the organic world,"—"is neither more nor less than a formal denial of any agency beyond that of a blind chance in the developing or perfecting of the organs or instincts of created beings." "It is in vain that the apologists of this hypothesis might say that it merely attributes a different mode and time to the Divine agency,—that all the qualities subsequently appearing in their descendants must have been implanted, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... ourselves. This evening we hear that Sir Christopher Mings is dead of his late wounds; and Sir W. Coventry did commend him to me in a most extraordinary manner. But this day, after three days' trial in vain, and the hazard of the spoiling of the ship in lying till next spring, besides the disgrace of it, newes is brought that the Loyall London is launched at Deptford. Having talked thus much with Sir G. Carteret we parted there, and I home by water, taking in my boat with me ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the early apostles of this religion, they are applying themselves, with untiring diligence, to soften and subdue the stony heart of hoary Paganism, receiving but too often, as their only return, curses and threats—now happily vain—and retiring from the assault, leading in glad triumph captive multitudes. Often, as I sit at my window, overlooking, from the southern slope of the Quirinal, the magnificent Temple of the Sun, the proudest monument of Aurelian's ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... and half suffocated—no wonder, for three bear-skins and two cushions were a-top of her (not to mention Jack, who had caught his leg in the reins, and was unable immediately to rise),—made vain efforts to extricate himself; the horses were struggling on their sides; and altogether, as the Americans ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... said: "A sufficiently vain threat, sir: I am Hogarth's tutor: he won't let me be taken. Don't waste your time, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... much the demonstrator may try to explain by word of mouth what ought to be seen, the layman cannot see it. When persons who are convinced of the great discovery made by De Vries go to his laboratory to observe the mutations in the varied minute plants of the Aenothera, he often explains in vain the infinitesimal yet essential differences, denoting, indeed, a new species, among seedlings which have hardly germinated. It is well known that when a new discovery is to be explained to the public, it is necessary to set forth the coarser details; the uninitiated cannot take in those minute ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... softer than her cheeks, and was sure the water rippling in the little, grassy orchard canals was no clearer than her brown eyes, or the sky more serene than her brow. She was not in the least proud or vain or haughty, as he imagined when he first beheld her at the ford. He had had doubts of that after her kindly treatment of his dying dog Mike. And now to-day he knew that such an opinion did her an ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... not your fault, Margaret; don't be frightened—papa sha'n't blame you. But I'm much better now." So saying, she tried to walk; but the effort was in vain—she turned yet more pale, and though she struggled to prevent a shriek, the tears rolled ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... before the eyes of the Panchalas. I shall certainly devour the son of Subhadra today, like Rahu swallowing Surya (sun)." And once more addressing the Kuru king loudly, Duhsasana said, "Hearing that Subhadra's son hath been slain by me, the two Krishnas, who are exceedingly vain, will without doubt, go to the region of the departed spirits, leaving this world of men. Hearing then of the death of the two Krishnas, it is evident that the other sons born of Pandu's wives, with all their friends, will, in course of a single day, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the stockade opened to view through the jungle, and they turned into a narrow track leading to a strong gate ridiculously disproportionate to the strength of the stockade. Artillery might have battered in vain at the gate: one might force the walls with the gunner's ramrod. As they swung around the last twisting angle of the path, a flutter of white contrasted with the dark greenery for an instant, then came the sound of a gate crashing shut, and ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... often widely remote from the original. So far as possible, the date or epoch of the first appearance of each word is noted, and the book will be found to contain much curious information for which earlier etymological dictionaries would be ransacked in vain. ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... to do honour to the shape in which thou seest me: but words are vain. Set me to the proof. What dost ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... gives drawings of a stone gateway in the great wall, under which a vain search was ...
— El Kab • J.E. Quibell
... was no vain Utopist. He had a solid basis for his ideals, and endeavoured to realise them in practice. Frederick knew no one so well versed in the natural sciences, political economy, and medicine; and since he also had very accurate knowledge of the geography ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... fools—periwigs, armour, and scrolls—you old fools, you laboured only to make a gentleman of an Irish peasant. Yes, you laboured in vain, my noble lords—you, old gentleman yonder, you with the telescope—an admiral, no doubt—you sailed the seas in vain; and you over there, you mediaeval-looking cuss, you carried your armour through the battles of Cressy and Poictiers in vain; and you, ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... historic fact, and bears out wonderfully the truth of God's words. But I did not mean to give a lecture on history. It is out of place here. I meant to do you good yesterday, and discourage you from becoming an idle rhymer—a vain dreamer. You are not getting angry I hope, little girl, for ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... evidently had no expectation of reaching that mysterious pole, which men have so long and so often tried to find, in vain. ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... his splendour, and seem very blest! Oft must my soul the question undergo, Of, "Dost thou love?" and burn to answer, "No!" Oh! hard it is that fondness to sustain, And struggle not to feel averse in vain; But harder still the heart's recoil to bear, And hide from one, perhaps another there; He takes the hand I give not nor withhold, Its pulse nor checked nor quickened, calmly cold: And when resign'd, it drops a lifeless weight From ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the boys raced along beside it, in vain seeking an open door by which they might climb aboard. There was none but their own compartment, and that had passed them. It was impossible for them to overtake it, and there was not a train ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... sensual and the dark rebel in vain: Slaves by their own compulsion, in mad game They burst their manacles, to wear the name Of Freedom, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... factor grilled his victim for further information. But in vain. Then, furious at his failure, he ordered McTavish placed under guard without parole, and in the next breath commanded a second log cabin to be built as a jail wherein to confine ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... this step, De la Salle made a great effort to divest himself of his post as Superior, but in vain. He argued, but the Brothers were not convinced. He insisted upon an election, and every single vote was given for him. He begged for a second voting, but the result was the same. The Brothers said it would be time enough for them to elect his successor, when death had deprived ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... which time we must have made more than a hundred and fifty miles, it falling nearly calm about an hour before dawn, on the morning of the fourth day out. Everybody was anxious to see the horizon that morning, and every eye was turned to the east, with intense expectation, as the sun rose. It was in vain; there was not the least sign of land visible. Marble looked sadly disappointed, but he endeavoured to cheer us up with the hope of seeing the island shortly. We were then heading due east, with a very light breeze from the north-west. I happened to stand up ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... across the common. Erebus poured forth a long monotonous complaint about the lack of bicycles, which, for them, made this Cosmic All a mere time-honored cheat. With ears impervious to his sister's vain lament, the Terror strode on serenely thoughtful, pondering this pressing problem. Now and again, for obscure but profound reasons, Wiggins spurned the earth and ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... thing for me. Make a million salutations in my name at my husband's feet. I strove to write to him, but I could not; I could not see to write for tears, the paper was spoilt. Tearing it up, I wrote again and again, but in vain; what I have to say I could not write in any letter. Break the intelligence to him in any manner you think proper. Make him understand that I have not left him in anger; I am not angry, am never angry, shall never be angry with him. Could I be angry with him ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... Basta. One of his generals noticed that Michael's artillery, which was so posted as to harass the army of the allies, might be seized by a flank movement. He sent three hundred musketeers, who succeeded in capturing the guns and turning them upon Michael's forces. All was soon lost, and after vain attempts to rally his men he at length yielded to the solicitations of his officers and prepared to fly. His conduct on this occasion is characteristic of the man. 'So he ordered the national flag to be brought, which was made of white silk, ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... had endured the torments of hell-fire, battling against himself—in vain. The heavy lines beneath his eyes grew blacker than the night, his lips were pale with agony and fasting. He had not dared to speak to anyone, he could not tell them, and in him was the impulse to shout out, 'Why should there be?' Now he could bear ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... speculation burst over the town, and everybody bought and sold South Sea stock. In July it was quoted at L1,000. If Gay had then sold out he would have realised a sum in the neighbourhood of L20,000. His friends implored him to content himself with this handsome profit, but in vain. As Dr. Johnson put it, "he dreamed of dignity and splendour, and could not bear to obstruct his own fortune."[2] He who a few months ago had been practically penniless, could not now bring himself to be satisfied with ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... Massa Charley," admitted the vain little darky, "but, golly, I couldn't let you chillens go off alone widout Chris to look after you. Dey was powerful like real fits, anyway. I used to get berry sick, too, chewin' up de soap to make de foam. Reckon dis nigger made a martyr of hisself ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... effeminate amusements. Wrestling had now become the pursuit of professionals. Aristocrats engaged in no rougher pastime than equestrian archery, a species of football, hawking, and hunting. Everybody gambled. It was in vain that edicts were issued against dicing (chobo and sugoroku). The vice ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... connection with cookery as with horticulture, are the utensils and appliances which were at the command of those who had to do with these matters in days of yore; and in both cases an inquirer finds that he has to turn from the vain search for actual specimens belonging to remoter antiquity to casual representations or descriptions in MSS. and printed books. Our own museums appear to be very weakly furnished with examples of the vessels and implements in common use for culinary purposes in ancient ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... greater store by thy youth and goodliness, as a richer and more glorious gift than it had been, were it as fleeting as such things mostly be. Now of this matter will I say no more; but I think that the words that I have said, and which now seem so vain to thee, shall come into thy mind on some later day, and avail thee somewhat; and that is why I have spoken them. But this again is another word, that I have got a right good horse for thee, and other ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... In vain did she complain to her royal consort of the insulting calumnies of Madame de Verneuil; he either affected to disbelieve that she had been guilty of such absurd assumption, or reproached Marie with a want of self-respect in listening ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... miserly back-gardens, these roses; they smiled for the meanest beggar, for the most self- sufficient tramp, for the knowledge-burdened scholar, for the whistling driver of the grocer's wagon. They had often smiled in vain for Abbott Ashton, but that was before he had made the bewildering discovery that they ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure. Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat and thee: Use no entreaty, for it is in vain. ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... preferred against me. Then, because my health was suffering grievously from confinement and the anxiety of suspense, I was moved to my own house, and detained there for another eight months under close guard. My friends besought the King in vain either to restore me to liberty or to bring me to trial. He told them the affair was of a nature very different from anything they deemed, and ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... successful, in cases where a bullet had penetrated more deeply; and even if I could do so, I should at once excite the hostility of the native hakims, and draw very much more attention upon myself than I desired. In vain I protested that I was not a hakim, and had done only what I had seen a white hakim do. Finding that this did not avail, I said that I would not go to see any man, except with one ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... "But," said the Raja, "as all seems to depend upon the pillar being on the head of the snake, we had better see that it is so with our own eyes." He ordered it to be taken up; the clergy tried to dissuade him, but all in vain. Up it was taken—the flesh and blood of the snake were found upon it- -the pillar was replaced; but a voice was heard saying: "Thy want of faith hath destroyed thee—thy reign must soon end, and with it that ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... taught his own servant to disobey, and ordered him not to appear before the board. Quarrels, duels, and other mischiefs arose. In short, Mr. Hastings raised every power of heaven and of hell upon this subject: but in vain: the inquiry ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... big splash a mile off shoreward, and we headed that way. Soon I sighted fins. The first time round we got the bait right and I felt the old thrill. He went down. I waited; but in vain. ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... Iroquois crews within musket shot; those who escaped the terrible volley which received them and killed the majority of them, hastened to warn the band of three hundred other Iroquois from whom they had become detached. The Indians, relying on an easy victory, hastened up, but they hurled themselves in vain upon the French, who, sheltered by their weak palisade, crowned its stakes with the heads of their enemies as these were beaten down. Exasperated by this unexpected check, the Iroquois broke up the canoes of their adversaries, ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... Happily, on my arrival here I found the state of my father a little improved; he still keeps his bed, and is constantly feeble, but his health no longer gives me any serious anxiety. Unfortunately, he has already noticed my depression, my gloomy taciturnity, several times; but he has supplicated me in vain to confide to him the cause of my melancholy grief. I should not dare it, notwithstanding his blind tenderness for me; you know his severity as regards everything which appears to him wanting in frankness and loyalty. Yesterday, I watched with him; when alone by his side, believing him asleep, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... emerged from the forest into another open space, very similar in size and appearance to the one in which they had witnessed the combat between the gorilla and the leopard. As they stood for a moment in the open, blinking their dazzled eyes in the strong and unaccustomed sunshine, in a vain effort to classify the several objects, moving and motionless, that they saw dotted about the plain, a shout reached their ears, answered by another and another, and half a dozen more. Then they became aware of the sound of lowing cattle, and presently, as their eyes adjusted themselves ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... real Penrod in the sawdust box clenched his fists. "Come ahead, then!" he muttered. "You talk too much!" Whereupon, the Penrod of his dream gave Margaret's puny son a contemptuous thrashing under the eyes of his mother, who besought in vain for mercy. This plan was finally dropped, not because of any lingering nepotism within Penrod, but because his injury ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... Many have been the vain attempts to go behind the returns of Vedic hymnology and reduce Indra, Agni, and Soma to terms of a purely naturalistic religion. It cannot be done. Indra is neither sun, lightning, nor storm; Agni is neither hearth-fire nor celestial fire; Soma is ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... hand warmly, protectingly, into her own. And she swore then and there a solemn, inward oath that, cost what it might, the trust reposed in her should not be in vain. When her friend turned to her for help in extremity, she should not find ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... tantamount to an astonishing revival of religion if the people would all walk to church on Sunday and walk home again. Think how the stones would preach to them by the wayside; how their benumbed minds would warm up beneath the friction of the gravel; how their vain and foolish thoughts, their desponding thoughts, their besetting demons of one kind and another, would drop behind them, unable to keep up or to endure the fresh air! They would walk away from their ennui, their worldly cares, their uncharitableness, their pride of dress; for these ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... use in verifying so slight a verbal reference to Panormitan, one of whose huge folios, Venet. 1473, I have examined in vain, perhaps the object might be attained by the assistance of such a book as Thomassin's Vetus et Nova Ecclesiae Disciplina, in the chapter ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... they are now. Moreover, at the gateway of every reading lesson stood sentinel an array of words, with separated syllables, and forbidding accent marks like fixed bayonets, barring the way to the infant mind. I had repeatedly attacked their serried ranks in vain. ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... body quivered with excitement. So he was not alone, not alone. He could not quite have told any one why he was so glad, and this warmth had come to him. His cheeks were burning. No wonder that Bonaparte called in vain, and Doss put his paws on the ladder, and whined till three-quarters of an hour had passed. At last the boy put the book in his breast and buttoned it tightly to him. He took up the salt pot, and went to the ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... Queen-Mother; truly she was a very honourable, wise woman, and I believe had been very handsome. She was magnificent in her discourse and nature, but in the prudentest manner; she was ambitious, but not vain; she loved government, and I do believe the quitting of it did shorten ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... I found between my youth and my middle age! I could scarcely recognize myself. I was then happy, but now unhappy; then all the world was before me, and the future seemed a gorgeous dream, and now I was obliged to confess that my life had been all in vain. I might live twenty years more, but I felt that the happy time was passed away, and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... let us speak of the work; that is, the true greatness of kingdoms and estates, and the means thereof. An argument fit for great and mighty princes to have in their hand; to the end that neither by over-measuring their forces, they leese themselves in vain enterprises; nor on the other side, by undervaluing them, they descend to fearful ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... am very vain and moderately rich, I hereby commission you to paint me, just as soon ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... stood up pretty straight," said Mahaffy affably. The judge's abandoned conduct distressed him not a little, but his remonstrances had been in vain. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... about him during those moments, something she had never encountered before, something against which she knew she would oppose herself in vain. For the first time she saw the man as he was, felt the colossal strength of him, quivered beneath his mastery. He was forcing her towards an obstacle from which every racked nerve winced in horror. He was driving her, and he meant to drive her, into conflict with a ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... much more extended scale. For six days the garrison was valiantly defended by Lieutenant-Colonel Munro, a veteran of the 35th Regiment of the line. Day after day did the gallant old soldier defend his trust, waiting in vain for succours that never arrived. Finally, when he learned that no succours were to be expected, and that to prolong the strife would simply be to throw away the lives of his men, he had an interview with the French commander and agreed ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... basis of many modern codes. Hence it is by their laws that the Romans have had the greatest influence on modern times, and these constitute a wonderful monument of human genius. If the Romans had bequeathed nothing but laws to posterity, they would not have lived in vain. These have more powerfully affected the interests of civilization than the arts of Greece. They are as permanent in their effects as any thing can be in this world—more so than palaces and marbles. The latter crumble away, but ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... water; had remonstrated with her in the beginning, but had been overruled by her impetuous confidence in her own strength and skill. Now, as often as he saw the poor little fellow's woe-begone face, he had a strange mixture of pity and hatred towards him. In vain he reasoned against it. "He has lost his best friend, as well as I," he said to himself; "I ought to try to comfort him." But it was impossible: the child's presence grew more and more irksome to him, until, at last, he ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... impulse that led me to it often made me in later years question the harmfulness." Both her sisters masturbated from a very early age, but not, to her knowledge, her brother. The practice of masturbation was continued. "For many years, imbued with the old ideas of morality, I struggled against it in vain. The sight of animals copulating, the perusal of various books (Shakespeare, Rabelais, Gautier's Mademoiselle de Maupin, etc.), the sight of the nude in some Bacchanalian pictures (such as Rubens's), all aroused passion. Coexistent with this—perhaps ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... however, monsieur, the circumstance is more grave than any you may have been placed in. The safety of the whole army is at stake. Reflect, the general has disappeared, and our search for him has been vain. Is this disappearance natural? Has a crime been committed? Are we not bound to carry our investigations to extremity? Have we any right to wait with patience? At this moment, everything, monsieur, depends upon the words you are about ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a heavy heart, Hamilton, in the end of September, returned to Scotland. Foreseeing the King's ruin, he had resolved to withdraw altogether from the coil of affairs, and retire to some place on the Continent. In vain did his brother Lanark fight against this resolution; and not till he had received several affectionate letters from the King did he consent to remain in Britain on some last chance of being useful. Actually, from this time onwards, Hamilton and Lanark, though not yet daring ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... all we know that under the ancient regime, in spite of manifold failures, shortcomings and disloyalty, there was such a thing as a standard of honour, a principle of chivalry, an impulse to unselfish service, a criterion of courtesy and good manners; we look for these things now in vain, except amongst those little enclaves of oblivion where the old character and old breeding still maintain a fading existence, and as we consider what we have become we sometimes wonder if the price we have paid for "democracy" was not ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... makes answer. "Would he have his daughter a right great lady at the Court? Why, of course he would. Every man would that were not a born fool. My honey-sweet Milisent, let not such vain scruples terrify thee. They are but shadows, ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... for the defence of the temple; and when we were about to ascend the great flight of steps, he expostulated with Cortes for attempting a measure which would ensure the destruction both of them and us, by incensing their gods. Cortes replied that their remonstrances were all in vain, as he was determined to hurl their pretended gods down the steps of the temple. Then fifty of us went up to the summit of the temple, whence we threw down and dashed in pieces all the abominable idols we could find, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... did not trouble his rival. He spent the time in cementing his power in Greece and Asia Minor. Cleopatra tried her fascinations on him, as she had on Caesar and Antony, but in vain. She sought to fly to some place beyond the reach of Rome, but Arabs destroyed her ships. At length Octavius came. Antony made some show of hostility, but Cleopatra betrayed the fleet to his rival and all resistance ended. Octavius ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Knife, yet might he properly have been said to have struck the Blow. The picturesque Attitude of all present, when Clarissa suddenly cries out, 'God's Eye is upon us' has an Effect upon the Mind that can only be felt; and that it would be a weak and vain Effort for ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... shall write a paper entitled "Photographers I Have Met," for few people have faced the fire of the camera oftener than I. I am not a fashionable beauty, nor much of a celebrity, neither am I honestly a vain man—I shrink from the rays of the too truthful lens—but I have been dragged into the line of fire and held there until the deed is done, like an unwilling convict. In nearly every town I have visited have I undergone ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... last was Rosa Blondelle, who sat on a corner sofa, and sulked and looked sad and sentimental because Lyon Berners had not spoken to her, or even approached her since he had seen that look on Sybil's face. To the vain and shallow coquette, it was gall and bitterness to perceive that Sybil had still the power, of whatever sort, to keep her own husband and her admirer from her side. So Rosa sat and sorrowed, or seemed to sorrow, on the corner sofa, from ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Miss Powis, when she greatly acknowledg'd her heart!—How reverse from this innocence, this greatness, is the prudish hypocrite, who forbids even her features to say she is susceptible of love! You may suppose a profusion of friendly acknowledgments fell to my share; but I am not vain enough ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... life without a care, was full of dread and horrible anxiety. Barbette and her little boy returned at the supper-hour, one with her heavy burden of rushes, the other carrying fodder for the cattle. Entering the hut, they looked about in vain for Galope-Chopine; the miserable chamber never looked to them as large, so empty was it. The fire was out, and the darkness, the silence, seemed to tell of some disaster. Barbette hastened to make a blaze, and to light ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... eternal shame as a nation our Government has evaded, up to this hour, pronouncing the expected verdict, has preferred to quibble and define, in its vain attempt to hold the barbarian to a "strict accountability"—whatever that may mean. France does not want our army or our navy, not even our money and our factories, except on business terms, but she has looked in vain ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... the Castilian, that he, from the kindness of his heart, took an active part and has assisted the governor of Luzon to send to this country Captain Chofa Don Blas, the Castilian, and Captain Chofa Don Diego, the Portuguese, with soldiers to find King Prauncar my father. Having searched for him in vain, the two chofas and the soldiers killed Anacaparan, who was reigning as sole great lord. Then they went with their ships to Cochinchina, whence the two chofas went to Lao, to find the king of this land. They brought me back to my kingdom, and I am here now through their aid. The two chofas ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, revenger to execute wrath ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... seized upon William Armstrong of Kinmonth, a notorious freebooter, as he, attended by but three or four men, was returning from the conference; and lodged him in Carlisle Castle. The Laird of Buccleuch, after treating in vain for his release, raised two hundred horse, surprised the castle and carried off the prisoner without further ceremony. This exploit the haughty Queen of England "esteemed a great affront" and "stormed not a little" against the "bauld Buccleuch." Haribee, the place of execution ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... and she told herself that the feeling was foolish. Perhaps it was that she knew in the bottom of her heart that she had been given a spirit and intelligence to cope with a larger life than that of Coniston. With a sense that such imaginings were vain, she tried to think what the would do if she were to become a great lady ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Christ and his apostles in all its perfections, and as long as infidels stop short of the New Testament itself, and short of Christ and his apostles, in their warfare, we may well believe that all their efforts to blot out Christianity will be vain. Protestants themselves have demurred as much as infidels against the errors of the Roman Catholic Church, and fully as much against the errors of each other as denominations. "Truth stands true to her ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... is in the sky. Some among you are very old; but know, that were you all to return to early youth and take it into your heads to fish up the moon in the lake, you would more easily succeed in scooping that planet up in your nets than in effecting what you are ruminating now. In vain do you fatigue your brains. You cannot live with the bear and share your food with the wolf. You must choose. Be assured of this; the English and French cannot be in the same ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... away in a great hurry, and then Harriet and Lucy set off after them, and Uncle Edward had taken Aunt Anne long before to look at the church.' Elizabeth was rejoicing in the prospect of a quiet walk with the children, and was only delaying in a vain attempt to reduce the long fingers of Winifred's glove to something more like the length of the short fingers of its owner, when a sharp voice at the top of the stairs cried out, 'Wait for me!' and Mrs. Hazleby appeared, looking very splendid in ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... refused his hand. He did his utmost to seem at his ease, and to beguile his daughter into a more cordial bearing; but there was a gloom upon that little party of three which was palpably oppressive. It seemed in vain to struggle against the dismal influence. Mr. Granger felt relieved when, just at the close of the meal, his butler announced that Mr. Tillott was in the drawing-room. Mr. Tillott was a mild inoffensive young man of High-church tendencies, the ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... amount of buffalo. This, the man could not do; for the season was so far advanced that if he delayed, and then attempted to make California, he would be certainly overtaken by snow-storms which would bury him and his property in the mountains. In vain he used his best endeavors to impress this state of affairs on the minds of the Indians. They would not listen to him or sanction his going on, and threatened to punish him if he undertook to disobey them. Bidding defiance to these threats, this man started; but had only proceeded a few miles, when ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... blunt term that needs no defining, for even the children comprehend the hopeless degradation it implies. Laws to restrain and punish him are framed; societies to protect and reform him are organized, and mostly in vain. He is prone in life's very gutter; bloated, reeking and polluted with the doggery's slops and filth. He can fall but a few feet lower, and not until he stumbles into an unmarked, unhonored grave, where kind mother earth and the merciful mantle of oblivion will cover and conceal ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... attached to a long line, while the harpoon shaft, by an ingenious arrangement, will slip free from the point. Now, while the shaft remains in the hands of the hunter, the line begins running rapidly down through the hole, for the seal in a vain endeavor to free itself dives deeply. The other end of the line also remaining in the hands of the hunter is fastened to the shaft of the harpoon, and there is a struggle. In time, the seal, unable to return to its hole for air, ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... finding that the efforts he had, at no little cost to himself, made to divert his companions' attention from their terrible danger were vain, he too remained nearly always silent, listening shudderingly to the wash, wash of the water as they tramped through it, and he thought of the time coming when it would ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... diner, nearly suffocated before being dragged out of his berth, was making vain effort to shove a way back into the blazing car, crying that all his money was under that pillow. But it was impossible to stem the ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... as this admission was, his listeners sought in vain to connect it with the immediate issue, and consequently forebore ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... given all that can be known of Thomas Lincoln. I have written impartially and with a strict regard to facts which can be substantiated by many of the old settlers in this county. Thomas Lincoln was a harmless and honest man. Beyond this, one will search in vain for any ancestral clue to the greatness of ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... good men have toiled to harmonise them, in vain. The task transcends the limits of human faculties, as exercised here, at all events. Perhaps the time may come when we shall be lifted high enough to see the binding arch, but here on earth we can only behold the shafts on either side. The history of controversy on the matter surely proves abundantly ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... warfare. There were periods of lull, of truce, of compromise. But every lull was short-lived, every truce was hollow, and every compromise, however pure the motives of its authors, proved deceitful and vain. There could be no lasting peace until the great wrong was destroyed, and impartial ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... most permanent type of ancient Italian religious thought. Aust, whose book on the Roman religion is the most masterly sketch of the subject as yet published, writes thus of this religion of the family:[132] "Here the limits of religion and superstition vanish ... and in vain we seek here for the boundary marks of various epochs." By the first of these propositions he means that the State has not here been at work, framing a ius divinum, including religion and excluding magic; in the family, magic of all kinds ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... lunch, the approaching ordeal at Balham began to loom large on his horizon. In a vain effort to put off the evil hour, he decided that he would first go round to his rooms in Half Moon Street. He had kept them on during the war, only opening them up during his periods of leave. The keys were in the safe possession of Mrs. Green, who, with her ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... we confess that vain and rash swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ and James his apostle, so we judge that the Christian religion doth not prohibit but that a man may swear when the magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... lark; and, the suggestion being acted upon immediately, the tortoise was summarily arrested in its onward career and Mr Flinders lashed across its shelly back, like Mazeppa was strapped upon the desert steed—the hands all roaring with laughter, Jim said, while the mate struggled in vain with his captors and the giant tortoise hissed its objections at the liberty taken with it in thus converting it into a beast of burden without ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Towns Hotel. Could it be true that she had carried away with her, unknowing, the heart of Diaz? Could it be true that her panic flight had ruined a career? The faint possibility that it was true made me sick with vain grief. ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... he said with his vain smirk. "No weight whatever. This entire platform together with its huts is lighter than air. If I should tear loose this little door it would float out of my hands instantly and go straight up to the stars. The substance—I have called it ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... But why these vain efforts? Solitude sent me to nature, and nature to love. Standing in the street of Mental Observation, I saw myself pale and wan, surrounded by corpses, and, drying my hands on my bloody apron, stifled by the odor of putrefaction, I turned ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to the chateau, and joined his mother, who was making vain attempts to soothe Bertha. The only comfort to which she would listen was the assurance that, if Madeleine had really gone, she would be traced and entreated to return ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Cures the Pox, Running of the Reins, &c. in Capital Letters, at all which what sober man cannot but laugh? Yet such as these are inducements to many to resort to them; moreover some of them are Astrologers, Physiognomers, Fortunetellers, Professors of Palmistry and such other vain Arts; much applauded by the ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... entered the bay to procure water or firewood, were again steering towards the islands to fish. Having hastily made a fire upon one of the sand-hills, we fired shots, shouted, waved handkerchiefs, and made every signal we could to attract attention, but in vain. They were too far away to see, or too busy to look towards us. The hopes we had entertained were as suddenly disappointed as they had been excited, and we stood silently and sullenly gazing after the boats as they gradually receded from ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Henry Ford or a yell about the High Cost of Living. Poor soul, he is like one condemned to harangue the vast, idiotic world through a keyhole, whence his anguish issues thin and faint. Yet who will say that all his labour is wholly vain? Perhaps some day the government will crown a Colyumist Laureate, some majestic sage with ancient patient blue eyes and a snowy beard nobly stained with nicotine, whose utterances will be heeded with shuddering respect. All ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... In vain the hapless youth denies it; A barroom loafer testifies it. "Fine him," the court-house rabble shout (This is the latest jury out). So when his pocketbook is eased Most ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... commands were not lightly disregarded, and Patrick Brennan spent the ensuing week in vain endeavour to reconcile himself to a condition of things in which he, the first born of the policeman on the beat, and therefore by right of heredity a person of importance in the realm, should tamely submit to usurpation and insult on the part ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... of man is only found in some prostitutes; it is replaced in woman by coquetry and the desire to please. Vain women profit by the natural grace and beauty of their sex and person, not only to attract and please men, but also to shine among their fellows, to make other women pale before their brilliance and their elegance. Coquettes take infinite pains ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... appeared to have lost its weight, and in vain did Cardinal d'Amboise thunder threats in the name of his friend King Louis, and send envoys to Florence, Venice, Bologna, and Urbino, to complain of the injuries that were being done to the Duke ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... was jealously eager for the hoped-for cup of tea. She carried the things out into the shed, and there looked in vain for any dish or vessel to wash them in. How could it be that Molly managed? Daisy was fain to fetch a little bowl of water and wash the crockery with her fingers, and then fetch another bowl of water to rinse it. ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... my first book, I came to the subject 'Harmonics,' I found myself at a loss as to how to explain these tones; not as to how to produce them myself, but to give a correct theory of their production. I searched in vain through a multitude of musical works, not knowing or thinking of anywhere else to look. I stopped for several weeks, and began a series of observations on the vibrations on the strings of my guitar; having nothing ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... they oppose us, and complain that this certainty of confidence is chargeable with arrogance and presumption. But as we ought to presume nothing of ourselves, so we should presume every thing of God; nor are we divested of vain glory for any other reason than that we may learn to glory in the Lord. What shall I say more? Review, Sire, all the parts of our cause, and consider us worse than the most abandoned of mankind, unless you clearly discover that we thus ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... time in vain regrets. Bestowing a meaningless curse on the dead charger, he turned and went up the narrow glen at a smart pace, but did not overstrain himself, for he knew well that none of the troop-horses could have kept up with him. He counted on having plenty of time to ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... of a single ruler or the persistent intrigue and misrepresentation of an ambassador to embroil the European situation. Unless the nations in council can devise some practical checks upon irresponsible meddling, the flower of their manhood will have massacred each other in vain. The antecedents of Sir Edward Grey, and more especially his attitude during the crisis which led to war, justify us in the hope that his entire influence will be employed in the right direction when the decisive moment arrives, and that he will insist upon such crucial questions as the reduction ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... continue to kill 203:27 him so long as he sins. The foam and fury of illegiti- mate living and of fearful and doleful dying should disappear on the shore of time; then the waves of sin, 203:30 sorrow, and death beat in vain. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... wise-acres may scoff as much as they please at what they term 'castle-building,' I believe all mankind indulge in it more or less; and it is an innocent, harmless pastime, which injures no one. I consider it the 'unwritten poetry,' the romance of life, which all feel; but many, like the dumb, strive in vain to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... thought to be very many in this Island, & the maners, & customs of the Islanders, haue altogether swarued from the matter and truth it selfe, following mariners fables more trifling than old wiues tales, & the most vain opinions of the common sort. These writers, although they haue not left behind them such filthy and reprochful stuffe as that base rimer: yet there are many things in their writings that wil not suffer them to be excused, & altogether acquited from causing an innocent nation to be had in derision ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... February 1473 the important dispositio Achillea, which decreed that the mark of Brandenburg should descend in its entirety to the eldest son, while the younger sons should receive the Franconian possessions of the family. After treating in vain for a marriage between one of his sons and Mary, daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, Albert handed over the government of Brandenburg to his eldest son John, and returned to his Franconian possessions. In 1474 he married ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the general confession she had made had entirely upset her mind, and, in an excess of craziness, she had thrown herself into the deep and rapid waters of the St. Lawrence. Many searches were made to find her body, but all in vain; many public and private prayers were offered to God to help her to escape from the flames of Purgatory, where she might be condemned to suffer for many years, and much money was given to the priest to sing high masses, in order to extinguish the fires of that burning prison, ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... things—certainly it was too much for mere earth. Why Wayne, about whom there had always seemed a certain brooding bigness, certainly a certain rare indifference, should have fallen so absurdly in love with the most vain and selfish and vapid girl that ever wrecked a post was more than Katie could make out. And it had been her painful experience to watch Wayne's disappointment develop, watch that happiness which had so mellowed him recede as day by day ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... over again, "I'm Cock-o'-the-Walk, I'm Cock-o'-the-Walk." Sometimes he would come into the Forge and say it to the horses. The King of the Cats wondered how the human beings could put up with a creature who was so stupid and so vain. He had a red comb that fell over one eye. He had purple feathers on his tail. He had great spurs on his heels. He used to put his head on one side and yawn when the ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... Tom, as he tried once more in vain to open a clogged valve. "I'm afraid we can't do it. Koku, lend a hand here!" he exclaimed as the giant entered. "See if you can twist this wrench around, but don't break off ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... remonstrances to theirs, and prevailing upon the patient to suffer himself to be bled,—an operation now become absolutely necessary from the increase of the fever, and which Dr. Bruno had, for the last two days, urged in vain. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... into a fit of excitement. Lady Swiggs is seen trembling from head to foot, her yellow complexion changing to pale white, her features contorting as with pain, and her hand clutching at her pocket. "O heavens!" she sighs, "all is gone, gone, gone: how vain and uncertain are the things here below." She drops, fainting, into the arms of Sister Slocum, who has overset the wise man in the spectacles, in her haste to catch the prostrate form. On a bench the august body is laid. Fans, water, camphor, hartshorn, and numerous other restoratives are brought ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... her shop what you COULD make for anybody who got a thousand dollars a night. When the Denver papers announced that Thea Kronborg had married Frederick Ottenburg, the head of the Brewers' Trust, Moonstone people expected that Tillie's vain-gloriousness would take another form. But Tillie had hoped that Thea would marry a title, and she did not boast much about Ottenburg,—at least not until after her memorable trip to Kansas City to hear ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... movement along the black line; hands were outstretched in a vain effort at rescue; a savage cry burst from Harry's lips, and the next instant the king had toppled over the edge of the chasm and fallen into the bottomless ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... knew that it was not. In his frenzy he tugged at the handcuffs, fought with the cords that bound him to the stanchion, but all in vain. ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... the R. R., who were always sure of a kind reception and the solace of a cup of hot sparkling coffee at daylight after making the first stop from Lex. The benevolent we are sure will not be appealed to in vain to contribute something towards enabling Mr. Clatterbuck again to commence business. His loss in cash ...
— A Pioneer Railway of the West • Maude Ward Lafferty
... buy that particular scrap from you at—almost its weight in gold. The fact is, I have a secret fund at my disposal such as former commissioners have asked for in vain. I can afford to pay you well, as well as any private client, and I hear you have had some good fees lately. Only ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... vain to recall it when he entered his office a few minutes later, but the sight of his partner spurred him to action and immediately he devised a ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... the German Manners required, but still with the precision, both in sentiment and diction, peculiar to the author. In rich but subdued colors he gives a striking picture of Agricola, leaving to posterity a portion of history which it would be in vain to seek in the dry gazette style of Suetonius, or in the page of ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... was all in vain. Though Timothy twisted and turned and stretched his long neck, he couldn't see his own back, no ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... their names; but they are surrounded by multitudes who are willing to accompany them in the career of sensuality. They are unknown alike to each other, and to any persons of respectability or property in their vicinity. Philanthropy seeks in vain for virtue amidst thousands and tens of thousands of unknown names; charity itself is repelled by the hopelessness of all attempts to relieve the stupendous mass of destitution which follows in the train of such enormous accumulation of numbers. Every individual or voluntary effort is overlooked ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... was that she had not broken her word, that she had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There had been no crying out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at temporizing or evasion. She had marched straight up to ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... along at a tremendous pace. It would soon be near enough to single out its prey—and still the old Fairy stood there, racking her memory in vain. ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Ogden and Provo had become large enough to form Stakes, and in a few years the country around Salt Lake City was dotted with settlements, many of them on lands to which the "Lamanites," who held so deep a place in Joseph Smith's heart, asserted in vain their ancestral titles. ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... and, returning to the dray, found the bullocks, put them to, and started on our way; but when we came above the gully, at the bottom of which the hut lay, we were obliged to give in. There was a very bad creek, which we tried in vain for an hour or so to cross. The snow was falling very thickly, and driving right into the bullocks' faces. We were all very cold and weary, and determined to go down to the hut again, expecting fine weather in the morning. We carried down a kettle, a camp oven, some flour, tea, sugar, and salt ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies; Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee, In life, in death, ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... was published nearly twenty years ago, and has been long out of print, so that the author tried in vain to procure a copy until the kindness of a friend supplied him with the only one he has had for years. A foolish story reached his ears that he was attempting to buy up stray copies for the sake of suppressing it. This edition was in the press ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... closed and early in the afternoon the Boers renewed their attacks upon it, and threatened to enfilade the line. Hughes-Hallett, who after the death of Wauchope succeeded to the command of the Highland Brigade and to whom Methuen had sent orders to hold on until nightfall, asked Colvile in vain to support him and at last was compelled to throw back his right. Methuen's orders were unfortunately known only to Hughes-Hallett and the movement was interpreted as an order from the brigadier for a general retirement. The wave ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... in vain. Raoul persisted, and she was obliged to submit. The conversation now ceased; the two men plying the oars diligently, and to good effect. Occasionally they ceased, and listened to the sounds of the oars in the frigate's ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... dragging me down with her to eternal damnation! And the other one had warned me! She had told me with that "biting kiss" of hers that this seeming angel was no angel, but a Devil to kill me body and soul. She had told me that this fair rose was full of foul poison, and her warning had filled me with vain conceit and enhanced my love for my executioner. I saw it now. Cenni had meant to make that elopement real; and if I had taken her she would have given me her love, as this one had given me her accursed million. Money ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... to him, to hear everyone around freely discussing them, assured that no word they said was understood. Had he been vain, he would have felt gratified at the favorable comments passed on his personal appearance by many of the women and girls; but he put them down, entirely, to the fact that he differed more from them than did the Spaniards, and it was simply the color of his ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... o' yourn, Daddy," said Joe Robinson, "send him this yer specimen. Give him my compliments, and tell him, ef he kin spend money faster than I can, I call him! Tell him, ef he wants a first-class jamboree, to kem out here, and me and the boys will show him what a square drunk is!" In vain would the old man continue to protest against the spirit of the gift; the miner generally returned with his pockets that much the lighter, and it is not improbable a little less intoxicated than he otherwise might have been. It may ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... one shall gravely tell me that I have spent my time idly in a vain and fruitless inquiry after what I can never become sure of, the answer is that at this rate he would put down all natural philosophy, as far as it concerns itself in searching into the nature of such things. In such noble and sublime studies as these, 'tis a glory to arrive ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... to me, and promised to 'venir m'embrasser' before she left Paris; but she did not come. We both tried hard to please her, and she told a friend of ours that she 'liked us'; only we always felt that we couldn't penetrate—couldn't really touch her—it was all vain. Her play failed, though full of talent. It didn't draw, and was withdrawn accordingly. I wish she would keep to her romances, in ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... fact was, that Mrs. Thorpe was secretly vain of her child. She had long since, poor woman, forced down the strong strait-waistcoats of prudery and restraint over every other moral weakness but this—of all vanities the most beautiful; of all human failings surely the most pure! Yes, she was proud of Zack! The dear, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... why he was deserted. But he continued his attention to the public, and wrote from time to time such directions, admonitions, or censures, as the exigence of affairs, in his opinion, made proper; and nothing fell from his pen in vain. In a short poem on the Presbyterians, whom he always regarded with detestation, he bestowed one stricture upon Bettesworth, a lawyer eminent for his insolence to the clergy, which, from very considerable reputation, brought him into immediate and universal contempt. Bettesworth, enraged at ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... most of the military units dissolved into a mere mob whose heart was set on getting back to Washington in any way left open. The regulars and a few formed bodies in reserve did their best to stem the stream. But all in vain. ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... his knees and implored her to remain—rose and sought her in the deepening darkness—ran in circles, calling to her aloud, but all in vain. She was no longer visible, but out of the gloom he heard her voice saying: "Nay, thou shalt not have me by seeking. Go to thy duty, faithless shepherd, or we shall never ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... fly; 'Tis wax, 'tis water, 'tis a glass, It melts, breaks, and away doth pass. 'Tis like a rose which in the dawn The air with gentle breath doth fawn And whisper to, but in the hours Of night is sullied with smart showers. Life spent is wish'd for but in vain, Nor can past years come back again. Happy the man, who in this vale Redeems his time, shutting out all Thoughts of the world, whose longing eyes Are ever pilgrims in the skies, That views his bright home, and desires To ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... of polyglot humanity, came Zoe from her cheerless day bound for the theatre. She was a little whiter, a little more tired than usual. All day long she had heard nothing of Laverick. All day long she had sat in her tiny room with the memory of that horrible night before her. She had tried in vain to sleep,—she had made no effort whatever to eat. She knew now why Arthur Morrison had fled away. She knew the cause of that paroxysm of fear in which he had sought her out. The horror of the whole thing had crept into her blood like poison. Life was once more a dreary, profitless struggle. All ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... too tired to tease our captive lions that evening; even the glowing camp-fire tempted me in vain, and I crawled into my bed with eyes ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... the mountain, Shout with joy, exclaiming: "Brother, Brother, take thy brethren with thee, With thee to thine aged father, To the everlasting ocean, Who, with arms outstretching far, Waiteth for us; Ah, in vain those arms lie open To embrace his yearning children; For the thirsty sand consumes us In the desert waste; the sunbeams Drink our life-blood; hills around us Into lakes would dam us! Brother, Take thy brethren of the plain, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... was in vain for them to sacrifice and offer gifts, seeing that they were hateful to the Gods, who are not, like vile usurers, to be gained over by bribes. And it is foolish for us to boast that we are superior to the Lacedaemonians by reason of our ...
— Alcibiades II • An Imitator of Plato
... heiress, made her the object of much attention from artists and members of clubs, but possibly her love, or affection for art, might have sprung from the desire to gain more knowledge of how to make herself attractive in dress, manner, and conversation. Christine was not offensively vain, but she was passionately fond of admiration. Alfonso had never dreamed that Christine was not genuine at heart. She appeared to him to make much of her American acquaintance, introducing him to her many friends, ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... the Executive would consent to legislation not by him deemed wise or just, there should not be provided means for maintaining the several departments of the government—that the government should be "starved to death." In vain were precedents sought for in the history of England for such suicidal policy. The debate in both branches of Congress ran high, and there was much apprehension felt by the people. Mr. Blackburn of Kentucky, speaking ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... had the Aztecs attempted to bring the little republic into subjection, but in vain. In one campaign Montezuma had lost a favorite, besides having his army defeated; and though a much more formidable invasion followed, "the bold mountaineers withdrew into the recesses of their hills, and coolly watching their opportunity, rushed like a torrent ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... and children was strongly excited, but vain had been all their questions and coaxing, futile every attempt to solve the mystery up to ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... that between Falstaff and Shallow, and Shallow and Silence. It seems difficult at first to fall lower than the squire; but this fool, great as he is, finds an admirer and humble foil in his cousin Silence. Vain of his acquaintance with Sir John, who makes a butt of him, he exclaims, 'Would, cousin Silence, that thou had'st seen that which this knight and I have seen!'—'Aye, Master Shallow, we have heard the chimes at midnight,' ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... suns! Proud Lydian women, who believe yourselves beautiful, but for Nyssia's reserve you would appear, even to your lovers, as ugly as the oblique-eyed and thick-lipped slaves of Nahasi and Kush. Were she but once to pass along the streets of Sardes with face unveiled, you might in vain pull your adorers by the lappet of their tunic, for none of them would turn his head, or, if he did, it would be to demand your name, so utterly would he have forgotten you! They would rush to precipitate themselves beneath the silver wheels of her chariot, that they might have even the pleasure ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... the spirit of her people that flung itself against the advancing tide of white encroachment even as a falcon might fling himself against a horde of crows whose strength was their numbers and whose numbers were without end, so all his wondrous effort was made vain. ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... are at that, you are in the very humour of all social heresy. It is no time for shuffling, or for big, empty words. If you ask yourself what you mean by fame, riches, or learning, the answer is far to seek; and you go back into that kingdom of light imaginations, which seem so vain in the eyes of Philistines perspiring after wealth, and so momentous to those who are stricken with the disproportions of the world, and, in the face of the gigantic stars, cannot stop to split differences between two ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... every one of which last your heavenly Father will chastise you, even while He forgives; in spite of all falls, struggle on. Blessed are you that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for you shall be filled. To you—and not in vain— 'The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him drink of ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... impossible; to move, to be up and doing, to be seeking, questing, became an imperative necessity. Muffled in a heavy traveling coat I went out into the wet and dismal night, having no other plan in mind than that of walking on through the rain-swept streets, on and always on, in an attempt, vain enough, to escape from the deadly thoughts ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... who wish to obtain a favor, to make use either of prayers, presents, or threats, that pity, convenience, or fear, may induce a compliance with their requests. But as with cruel, avaricious, or, in their own conceit, powerful men, these arguments have no weight, it is vain to hope, either to soften them by prayers, win them by presents, or alarm them by menaces. We, therefore, being now, though late, aware of thy pride, cruelty, and ambition, come hither, not to ask aught, nor with the hope, even if we were so disposed, of obtaining it, but to remind thee of ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Most pleasing when she most beguiles), How soon, great foe, can all thy train Of false, gay, frantic, loud, and vain, Enter the unprovided mind, And memory in fetters bind? Load faith and love with golden chain, And sprinkle Lethe o'er the brain! Pleasure, on her silver throne, Smiling comes, nor comes alone; Venus comes with her along, And smooth Lyaeus, ever young; And in their train, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... seizing the stores remaining on the wreck and taking the Admiral personally. Columbus fortunately got news of this, as he nearly always did when there was treachery in the wind; and he sent Bartholomew to try to persuade them once more to return to their duty—a vain and foolish mission, the vanity and folly of which were fully apparent to Bartholomew. He duly set out upon it; but instead of mild words he took with him fifty armed men—the whole available able-bodied force, in fact—and drew near to the position ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... assured her, and stopped with a wince of pain. "It's my wrist, I reckon—broken or sprained." He examined the injured member closely and after a vain attempt to lift it said briefly: "Broken. Isn't that ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... high and low, was Mr. Shorto-Champernowne, but it happened that his more tender emotions had been buried with a young wife these forty years, and children he had none. Nevertheless, taking the standpoint of parental discipline, he held Phoebe's alleged engagement a vain thing, not to be considered seriously. Moreover, he knew of Will's lapses in the past; and ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... Black Mountain with a message from old Nathan Cherry. Old Nathan had joined the church, had fallen ill, and, fearing he was going to die, wanted to see Chad. Chad went over with curious premonitions that were not in vain, and he came back with a strange story that he told only to old Joel, under promise that he would never make it known to Melissa. Then he started for the Bluegrass, going over Pine Mountain and down through Cumberland ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... a native prince who was well inclined to the Persian cause, and gave him instructions to bring about the change of religion by a policy of conciliation. But the Armenians were obstinate. Neither threats, nor promises, nor persuasions had any effect. It was in vain that a manifesto was issued, painting the religion of Zoroaster in the brightest colors, and requiring all persons to conform to it. It was to no purpose that arrests were made, and punishments threatened. The Armenians declined to yield either to argument or to menace; and no progress ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... may prove equal to the task of devising and maturing a plan which, applied to this subject, may promise something better than constant strife, the suspension of the powers of local enterprise, the exciting of vain hopes, and the disappointment of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... more freely than ever. I had fixed the torches several times, had gone through the entire stock of goods three or four times, and had taken off every article of clothing that I dared to, all with the vain hope that something would occur to break the horrid stillness. Such was not the case, however. The eyes of every one were centered upon me—those of the proprietor and musicians as well as ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... complains, "out of mine and other men's books all that we had said against liberty for Popery and Quakers railing against ministers in open congregation, and applied it as against the toleration of ourselves." It was in vain that he explained that he was only in favor of a gentle coercion of dissent, a moderate enforcement of conformity. His plan for dealing with sentries reminds one of old Isaak Walton's direction to his piscatorial readers, to impale the frog on the hook as gently ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... at a windmill that would not move, It puffed with its round red cheeks in vain; One sail stuck fast in a puzzling groove, And baby's breath ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... this brought the combat to an end; or, at all events, to its concluding stroke. Santander, vain of his personal appearance, on feeling his cheek laid open, suddenly lost command of himself, and with a fierce oath rushed at his ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... do some bawling before we got through with this," sniffed Peace, searching in vain for the handkerchief which was never to be found in her pocket, and finally wiping her eyes on the august President's coat-sleeve. "Let's go home now. I want to see what it's like. You didn't bring the carriage, did you? It's just as well, ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... mean time having informed the count de Bellfleur, how much it was in vain for him to flatter himself with any hopes of Louisa, that proud and inconstant nobleman was extremely mortified, and said, that since she was so haughty, he was resolved to contrive some way or other to get her into ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... back to the inn I found Marcoline very melancholy. She said she had been waiting for me to take her to the play, according to my promise, and that I should not have made her wait in vain. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... But in vain did the commissary search all the drawers. He found only those useless papers which are made relics of by people who have made order their religious faith,—uninteresting letters, grocers' and butchers' ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... desire to send a message of cheer to your brothers who fell, the only message, I believe, for which they crave; they are not worrying about their Aunt Jane. They want to know if you have learned wisely from what befell them; if you have, they will be braced in the feeling that they did not die in vain. Some of them think they did. They will not take our word for it that they did not. You are their living image; they know you could not lie to them, but they distrust our flattery and our cunning faces. To us they have passed away; but are you who stepped into their heritage only yesterday, ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie
... honour, if 'tis true," Roxholm said, "but I am not vain enough to believe it—gracious as he ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendour, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sulphur and India-rubber, in proper proportions and in certain conditions, being subjected for a certain time to a certain degree of heat, undergoes a change which renders it perfectly available for all the uses to which he had before attempted in vain to apply it. But it remained to be ascertained what were those proper proportions, what were those conditions, what was that degree of heat, what was that certain time, and by what means the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... hoarse, and the sound rolled round the great square like muffled thunder. One did not seem to know what strange faces might rise at the open windows, what terrors might appear. But all he said was, 'We are ambassadors in vain.' ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... (that Muhammad had crossed), called together all the first nobles of his court, and consulted on the best mode of opposing the mussulmauns. It was agreed that Hoje Mul,[51] a maternal relation to the roy and commander of his armies, should have the conduct of the war. Hoje Mul, vain to excess, on receiving his command, asked the roy if he should bring the prince of the mussulmauns alive a prisoner into his presence, or present him only his head upon a spear. Kishen Roy replied, that a living enemy, in any situation, was not agreeable, therefore he had better ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... a quarter of an hour brought them to the haunted beech-tree; but all was as silent and solitary here as at the blasted oak. In vain Surrey smote the tree. No answer was returned to the summons; and, finding all efforts to evoke the demon fruitless, they quitted the spot, and, turning their horses' heads to the right, slowly ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... wrath against the Queen, more for the wrong done to Sir Accolon than for the treason to himself. In all ways that he might, he sought to comfort and relieve Sir Accolon, but in vain, for daily the knight grew weaker, and, after many days, he died. Then the King, being recovered of his wounds, returned to Camelot, and calling together a band of knights, led them against the castle of Sir Damas. But Damas had no heart to ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... rob him even of his name and identity. He vowed, that the period of his proscription being past, Kate was hourly expecting him, and his appearance overnight was but to execute a little stratagem for her surprise. This explanation but served to aggravate; and in vain did he solicit an interview with the lady, promising to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... were landed. In vain strove the British to pass: Rochambeau our armies commanded, Our ships they were led by De Grasse. Morbleu! How I rattled the drumsticks The day we march'd into Yorktown; Ten thousand of beef-eating British Their weapons we caused to ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Remonstrance was in vain. I found that my sharp landlord had entered my room while I was looking in at the post-office door, and had taken my carpet-bag, with everything I had, even my overcoat, and stowed all in a cupboard under the bar, under lock and key. He would not so much as allow ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... all security, for the Hellenes had not a single bowman, javelin-man, or mounted trooper amongst them; while the enemy rushed forward on foot or galloped up on horseback and let fly their javelins. It was vain to attempt to retaliate, so lightly did they spring back and escape; and ever the attack renewed itself from every point, so that on one side man after man was wounded, on the other not a soul ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... father's eyes were never far away from the clergyman when he came to the house. She knew, or fancied she knew, every thought in her father's mind, and his silence embarrassed her more than criticism could have done. She asked herself in vain why her father, disliking the clergy as she knew he did, should suddenly admit a clergyman into his intimacy. In truth, Mr. Dudley looked on himself as no longer having a right to speak; his feelings and prejudices were to be kept out of her life; ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... impressible, and consequently capricious. When the singer arrived at the Tuscan capital, she was in such a weak and exhausted state that she did not deem it prudent to sing. Her manager was, however, unbending, and insisted on the exact fulfillment of her contract. After vain remonstrances she yielded to her taskmaster, and appeared in "I Puritani," trusting to the forbearance and kindness of her audience. But a few notes had escaped her pale and quivering lips when the angry audience broke out into loud hisses, marks of disapprobation which ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... because the old man would make no statement, and again hinting at the fact that he might be the culprit, left with very ill grace, his long journey from London having been in vain. ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... said how vain it is to class artistic temperaments under a title imposed upon them generally by circumstances and dates, rather than by their own free will. The study of Degas will furnish additional proof for it. Classed with the Impressionists, this master participates in their ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... knew that was so, I would give myself to him. Neither you nor he have ever asked anything of me in vain. Even if I did not love him—as I do—and he needed me, I would give myself to him. You and he have been all there was in life for me. But I am afraid that I may not always be all that life holds for him. He is young; he has had no ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... result that the greatest name in the world to-day is his,—the name of him who as his life-work, healed the sick; clothed the naked; bound up the broken-hearted; sustained the weak, the faltering; befriended and aided the poor, the needy; condemned the proud, the vain, the selfish; and through it all taught the people to love justice and mercy and service, to live in their higher, their diviner selves,—in brief, to live his life, the Christ-life, and who has helped in making it possible ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... your loyalty," said the king, "which hath a sufficient impress on it to pass current without scrutiny. Your example, Sir Thomas, will be of competent weight, without the casting or imposition of vain words into the scale. We acknowledge your ready zeal in our ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... of vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes entirely contents us; that it is not, like all works of genius, like the very sun, which, though the highest published creation, or work of genius, has nevertheless black spots and troubled nebulosities amid its effulgence,—a ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... translated by Huxley (1864, p. 295) from this paper. "It has therefore become my distinct persuasion that the occipital vertebra is indeed a true vertebra, but that everything which lies before it is not fashioned upon the vertebrate type at all, and that efforts to interpret it in such a way are vain; that, therefore, if we except that vertebra (occipital) which ends the spinal column anteriorly, there are no cranial ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... mute,— And after is evil cheer: She shall stand on the shore and cry in vain, Many and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... have been ashamed of his master, pulled hard at his coat, and whined piteously, but all in vain. At last ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... and joyously the portion of soil Providence has committed to our care. Let us never be hindered or distracted by ambitious thoughts, that we could do better, or a false zeal tempting us to forsake our daily task with the vain desire to surpass our neighbors.... Let this one thought occupy our minds. To do well what is given us to do, for this is all that GOD requires at our hands. It may be summed up in four ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... face was unmasked, but Sir Norman's dazzled eyes in vain sought among them for one he knew. All that "rosebud garden of girls" were perfect strangers to him, but not so the gallants, who fluttered among them like moths around meteors. They, too, were in gorgeous array, ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... le desirde conserver la paix fait-il sacrifier les interets de la France a cet interet du moment; en vain la soif des richesses l'emporte-t-elle sur l'honneur dans la balance politique de l'Amerique. Tous ces menagemens, toute cette condescendance, toute cette humilite n'aboutissent a rien: nos ennemis en rient, et les Francais ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... he hit upon some clue? Would he come home in better humor? While these thoughts were passing through my brain, I mechanically took up the execrable puzzle and tried every imaginable way of grouping the letters. I put them together by twos, by threes, fours, and fives—in vain. Nothing intelligible came out, except that the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth made ice in English; the eighty-fourth, eighty-fifth, and eighty-sixth, the word sir; then at last I seemed to find the Latin words rota, mutabile, ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... this sun receives its continued supply of fuel. The question had often perplexed my mind when I gazed toward our Sun from the shores of our world. None of the theories advanced by our scientists and astronomers fully satisfied my mind. And now I looked and studied in vain. Although the awful burnings had been in progress for thousands of years, I could see no fuel that was added to the flames. Hence I was driven to believe that Alpha Centaurus was on fire and was gradually being consumed; this must be true of ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... grey out o'er the welkin keeks, Whan Batie ca's his owsen to the byre, Whan Thrasher John, sair dung, his barn-door steeks, And lusty lasses at the dighting tire: What bangs fu' leal the e'enings coming cauld, And gars snaw-tappit winter freeze in vain, Gars dowie mortals look baith blythe and bauld, Nor fley'd wi' a' the poortith o' the plain; Begin, my Muse, ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... word principle," said Sheffield; "for it is that which Coventry lays such stress on. He says that Christianity has no creed; that this is the very point in which it is distinguished from other religions; that you will search the New Testament in vain for a creed; but that Scripture is full of principles. The view is very ingenious, and seemed to me true, when I read the book. According to him, then, Christianity is not a religion of doctrines or ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... come in from the Gayety Theater across the street, whither he had gone in a vain search for amusement after supper. He had come away in disgust. A soiled soubrette with orange-colored hair and baby socks had swept her practiced eye over the audience, and, attracted by Sam's good-looking blond head in the ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... Vain men, what would ye with this angry swell Of words heart-blinded? Is there in your eyes No pity, thus, when all our city lies Bleeding, to ply your privy hates?... Alack, My lord, come in!—Thou, Creon, get thee back To thine own house. And stir not to such stress Of peril ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... which were Shown them none more than the magnet, those people became extreemly troublesom to us begging Whisky & little articles. Sergt. Floyd was taken violently bad with the Beliose Cholick and is dangerously ill we attempt in Vain to releive him, I am much concerned for his Situation- we could get nothing to Stay on his Stomach a moment nature appear exosting fast in him every man is ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... It was in vain that I tried to rally him. He might have saved her, he said; he had not saved her, and he reproached himself; he had lost her, and he ...
— Hunted Down • Charles Dickens
... crab decorating himself with bright-colored sea-weed, so that he is called the dandy-crab! Still, he is not so vain, after all, as he covers himself with sea-weed that he may escape the sharp eyes and sharp teeth of hungry fishes. I once had a dandy-crab whose back I had scrubbed clean, after which I placed him in an aquarium containing a plain sand bottom. In this tank I also ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a vain hope. He found London, if anything, worse than his native town. Wherever he went he was confronted with the legend: 'No hands wanted'. He walked the streets day after day; pawned or sold all his clothes save those he stood in, and stayed in London for six months, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... tobacco, that make up the masses of our moving population, are adequately described only by the word rowdy. As yet, no title has been found for the female of this class, —bold, dashing, loud-talking and loud-laughing, ignorant, vain, and so coarse that she supposes fine clothes and assuming manners are all that is necessary to elevate her to the rank of a lady. Perhaps you wonder how so numerous a race of these beings has come to exist; but that boy at your elbow, ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... an idler in his prolonged absence. In the first place, he had striven with the whole force of a powerful will to subdue a useless passion, and had striven in vain. He had not, however, yielded for a day to a dreamy melancholy, but, in accordance with his promise "to do his best," had been tireless in mental and physical activity. The tendency to wander somewhat aimlessly had ceased, and he had adopted the plan of ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... alluding to the similarity of the name Fulvius, as he had defeated Cneius Fulvius, the praetor, two years ago, in the same country, expressed his confidence that the issue of the battle would be similar. Nor was this expectation vain; for after many of the Romans had fallen in the close contest, and in the engagement with the infantry, notwithstanding which they still preserved their ranks and stood their ground; the alarm occasioned by the cavalry on their rear, and the enemy shout, which was ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... to the wall. Druk-Valde knocked in vain, and his six months came to an end without Pelle noticing it. This time he made no disturbance, but shrank under a feeling of being accursed. Providence must be hostile to him, since the same blow had been aimed at him twice. In the daytime he sought relief in hard work and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... placed her hand upon her heart, uttered a shrill cry and fell back upon the bed. It was the work of an instant. Coursegol and the Marquis both sprang forward, lifted her, and endeavored to restore her, but in vain. The unfortunate Tiepoletta was dead. Her heart had broken like a fragile vase, shattered by the successive misfortunes she had undergone. A great tear fell from ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... two years passed, on my part, in perpetual intrigues of diplomacy, combined with an unceasing though secret endeavour to penetrate the mystery which hung over the events of that dreadful night. All, however, was in vain. I know not what the English police may be hereafter, but, in my time, its officers seem to be chosen, like honest Dogberry's companions, among "the most senseless and fit men." They are, however, to the full, as much knaves as fools; and perhaps ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gripped his enemy's throat. "Ha!" he cried with savage exultation, holding off his foe at arm's length. "Now! Now! Now!" As he uttered each word between his clenched teeth he shook the gasping, choking wretch as a dog shakes a rat. In vain his victim struggled to get free, now striking wild and futile blows, now clutching and clawing at those terrible gripping fingers. His face grew purple; his tongue protruded; his breath came in rasping gasps; his hands fell to his side. "Keep your hands so," hissed Barney, ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... will ever be good for me," said poor Aggie. "It isn't good for anybody to be near a holdup. And I don't want to be in a moving picture with no teeth. I'm not a vain woman," she said, "but I draw the line ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... dining-room was unendurable. It seemed as though everybody was talking at the top of his voice. The musicians—a pianist and two violinists—found it difficult to make themselves heard. They were pounding and sawing frantically in a vain effort to beat the bedlam of conversation and laughter. It was quite touching. The better to take in the effect of the turmoil, I shut my eyes for a moment, whereupon the noise reminded me of ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... interrupted by a thought of Mrs. Cockburn's, as to her daughter. But how these thoughts came to display the unknown facts concerning the garden by the river, the felling of trees for a camp, and the bare feet, is a question about which it is vain to theorise.[17] ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... parallel to the edge of the Crystal, which crosses it in a straight line without being refracted, as Mr. Bartholinus believed, since that inclination is only 70 degrees 57 minutes, as was stated above. And this is to be noted, in order that no one may search in vain for the cause of the singular property of this ray in its ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens
... L., in the year '32 or '33, while intoxicated, in a fit of rage whipped a female slave until she fainted and fell on the floor. Then he whipped her to get up; then with red hot tongs he burned off her ears, and whipped her again! but all in vain. He then ordered his negro men to carry her to the cabin. There she was found dead ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... she was saying gently, "that I shall ever remember you in any unpleasant way. You see, I know about those bandages, and I know why you need those crutches. Even if you were vain, you wouldn't mind the things I think of you—not ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... which, till the fifteenth century, its lords had ruled as sovereign Marquesses. They still retained a part of their feudal privileges, and Odo's grandfather, tenacious of these dwindling rights, was for ever engaged in vain contests with his peasantry. To see these poor creatures cursed and brow-beaten, their least offences punished, their few claims disputed, must have turned Odo's fear of his grandfather to hatred, had he not observed that the old man gave ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... realized upon the earth. No amount of enlightened sentiment can establish a kingdom without a king; and no universal blessedness can be experienced in this world until the enemy is dethroned and banished. Sadly has the world failed to include these two necessary Divine movements, in its vain dream and godless ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... that, at the worst, Antonio de Sainte Foy might serve his turn for an interpreter. But for the last load of his misfortunes, the merchant, who had engaged to land him on the coast of China, returned not at the time appointed, and he in vain ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... number, have varied little from the plans of the original architects. The Constitution is to-day, not a ruined Parthenon, but rather as one of those Gothic masterpieces, against which the storms of passionate strife have beaten in vain. The foundations were laid at a time when disorder was rampant and anarchy widely prevalent. As I have already shown in my first lecture, credit was gone, business paralysed, lawlessness triumphant, and not only between class and class, but between State and State, there ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... trial continues. Only 9s. came in today, given by one of the labourers. In the midst of this great trial of faith the Lord still mercifully keeps me in great peace. He also allows me to see, that our labour is not in vain; for yesterday died Leah Culliford, one of the orphans, about 9 years old, truly converted, and brought to the faith some months ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller
... waters of the Tigris that they burst into the city, sweeping away more than two miles of the wall. This vast breach it was impossible to repair; and the Assyrian monarch, seeing that further resistance was vain, brought the struggle to an end by burning himself, with his concubines and eunuchs and all his chief wealth, in ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... "For one man's daughter shall the people die, And this fair land become an empty name, Because thou art afraid to meet the shame Wherewith the gods reward thy hidden sin? Nay, by their glory do us right herein!" "Ye are in haste to have a poor maid slain," The King said; "but my will herein is vain, For ye are many, I one aged man: Let one man speak, if for his shame he can." Then stepped a sturdy dyer forth, who said,— "Fear of the gods brings no shame, by my head. Listen; thy daughter we would have thee leave ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... stretched out towards me from all sides; I gave something to the chief person, and let the remaining ones clamour on. When, after experiencing these various annoyances, I rode on towards the town, a new obstacle arose. My Arab guide inquired whither he should conduct me. I endeavoured in vain to explain to him where I wanted to go; he could not be made to understand me. Nothing now remained for me but to accost every well-dressed Oriental whom I met, until I should find one who could understand either French or Italian. The third person I addressed fortunately ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... thee in vain From hundreds who flattered before, Such a word as,—"Oh, not in the main Do I hold thee less ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Walford, a parishioner of Barley, a steady, industrious, trustworthy, single man, who, by long and rigid economy, had saved about L100. On being dismissed, Walford applied in vain to the farmers at Barley for employment! It was known that he had saved money, and could not come on the parish, although any of them would willingly have taken him had it been otherwise! After living a few months without being able to get any work he bought a cart and two horses, and ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... Two Hundred. No one knew where he had gone. Lorenzino was gone too, at least he did not make his usual early morning call. All the houses of their mistresses and other boon-companions were searched in vain, but apparently no one dreamt of calling at Lorenzino's, across the way. Probably, it was thought, the two had gone off to Cafogginolo—their ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... first sight seems more thoroughly modern; old town and new, wide streets and narrow, we search them in vain for any of those vestiges of past times which in some cities meet us at every step. Compare Trieste with Ancona;[5] we miss the arch of Trajan on the haven; we miss the cupola of Saint Cyriacus soaring in triumph above the triumphal monument of the heathen. We ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... Chepstow. And he knew that he had thought of her because Nigel Armine was thinking of her, that he connected her with this music because Nigel was doing the same. This secretly irritated Isaacson. He strove to detach his mind from this thought of Mrs. Chepstow. But his effort was in vain. Her pulse was beneath his fingers, and with every stroke of it he felt more keenly the mystery and cruelty of life. When the movement was finished, he did not speak a word. Nor did he look at Nigel. Even when the last note of the symphony ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... from being a fool, and worse, by that elder brother of his; and I advise every boy to have an elder brother. Have a brother about four years older than yourself, I should say; and if your temper is hot, and your disposition revengeful, and you are a vain and ridiculous dreamer at the same time that you are eager to excel in feats of strength and games of skill, and to do everything that the other fellows do, and are ashamed to be better than the worst boy in the crowd, your brother can be of the greatest use to you, with his larger experience ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... father." At last it was decided that Edith should take the boy and talk to him. He was more prone to listen to Edith than to Ada. Edith did find her brother, and talked to him for an hour,—but in vain. He had managed to collect himself after his past breakdown, and was better able to bear the examination to which his sister put him, than at the first moment. He still blushed when he was questioned; till he became dogged and surly. The interview ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... I murmured, and drew my blanket over my head in a vain attempt to keep out the mosquitoes and smoking furiously with the same object, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... I disquiet myself in vain with the effort to hit upon some characteristic feature, or assemblage of features, that shall convey to the reader the influence of hoar antiquity lingering into the present daylight, as I so often felt it in these old English scenes. It is only an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... rack my brain Or lie awake all night in vain Pursuit of brand new jokes; Nor fear my lines were heard with groans Of pain and sympathetic moans From ...
— Bib Ballads • Ring W. Lardner
... when he knew that his work could not be done. He was weak in health and much in debt, for the king could not pay him his pension nor what he owed him for pictures. The artist grew sad and discouraged. He sought relief in the study of alchemy, and indulged the vain hope of discovering some chemical means of making gold from base metals. All this wasted his time and means, and it is to be regretted that he was less wise than his master, for when an alchemist tried to interest Rubens ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... that they form a pale brown, pulpy mass, with their chitinous coats so tender that they fall to pieces with the greatest ease. The black pigment of the eye-spots is preserved better than anything else. Limbs, jaws, &c. are often found quite detached; and this I suppose is the result of the vain struggles of the later captured animals. I have sometimes felt surprised at the small proportion of imprisoned animals in a fresh state compared with those utterly decayed. Mrs. Treat states with respect [page 411] to the larvae ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... out of the open door, a large book in one hand, and a duster in the other, and she came to meet them in an agony of anxiety. What should they do? The furniture carts had appeared soon after the rest had left for Boston, and the men had insisted upon beginning to move the things. In vain had she shown Elizabeth Eliza's programme, in vain had she insisted they must take only the parlor furniture. They had declared they must put the heavy pieces in the bottom of the cart, and the lighter ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... features, and then "—He turned round. He looked at her. He hid his face on her bosom, and burst into tears. With sobs long and loud, and convulsive as those of a terrified child, he poured forth on her bosom the tribute of impetuous and uncontrollable emotion. He raised his head; but he in vain struggled to restore composure to the brow which had confronted the frown of Sylla, and the lips which had rivalled the eloquence of Cicero. He several times attempted to speak, but in vain; and his voice still faltered with tenderness, when, after a pause ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... virtue of their neighbours. So true is it that the mass of pleasures are but evil, (16) to which men succumb, and thereby are incited to adopt the worse cause in speech and course in action. (17) And with what result?—from vain and empty arguments they contract emnities, and reap the fruit of evil deeds, diseases, losses, death—to the undoing of themselves, their children, and their friends. (18) Having their senses dulled to things evil, while more than commonly ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... sq.) In this narrative the names of the man and woman betray European influence, but the rest of the story may be aboriginal. The Dyaks of Sakarran in British Borneo say that the first man was made by two large birds. At first they tried to make men out of trees, but in vain. Then they hewed them out of rocks, but the figures could not speak. Then they moulded a man out of damp earth and infused into his veins the red gum of the kumpang-tree. After that they called to him and he answered; ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... sincerely hope," wrote Cornwallis to Tarleton, "that you will get at Mr. Marion." But Mr. Marion was not so easily to be caught. On the appearance of a superior force, under the command of Tarleton, which it would have been vain to resist, the skilful partisan turned his forces in another direction, to the borders of North Carolina, where he overawed the Scotch Tories in that disaffected region. The ruthless conduct of the British whom he had left ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... said to himself, "but monuments to oblivion? They are not memorials of the dead, but memorials of the forgetfulness of the living. How vain it is to send a poor forsaken name, like the title page of a lost book, down the careless stream of time! Let me serve my generation, and ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Hungarian. She was then twenty, very ignorant of life, her great Oriental eyes seeing nothing of stern reality; but, with all her gentleness, there was a species of Muscovite firmness which was betrayed in the contour of her red lips. It was in vain that sorrow had early made her a woman; Marsa remained ignorant of the world, without any other guide than Vogotzine; suffering and languid, she was fatally at the mercy of the first lie which should caress her ear and stir her heart. From ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... since the attentions and the praises which he had bestowed upon them, though at first they tended to awaken their ambition, and to inspire them with redoubled ardor and courage, ended, as such favoritism always does, in making them vain, self-important, and unreasonable. Led on thus by the tenth legion, the whole army mutinied. They broke up the camp where they had been stationed at some distance beyond the walls of Rome, and marched toward the city. ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... position was destroyed by a small dog, which had accompanied him on his expedition, manifesting his sympathy by whining, yelping, and leaping around his master. He endeavored to force him away, but his efforts were in vain until he exclaimed, "If you wish so much to help me, go and call some one to ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... casting off the restraints of his religion; or, if they do not lose it utterly, they so adulterate it with their philosophy that it is impossible to separate the false from the true. The reading of philosophic writings, so full of vain and delusive reasonings, should be forbidden to our young folk, just as the slippery banks of a river are forbidden to one who knows not how to swim. I will have none of them in our library, nor will I allow their father to read them where his sons can ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... moments during which an impatient lover awaits the approach of his mistress; and woe betide the wooer of impetuous temperament who is doomed, like our hero, to watch a whole hour and a half in vain. Many a theory did his fancy body forth, and many a conjecture did he form, as to the probable cause of her absence. Was it possible that they watched her even in the dead hour of night? Perhaps the ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... very small salary was the cause of his leaving them at last. He has since gone West, I hear, to a happier lot, let us hope. The circumstances of his predecessor were no better. He died here, and his wife broke down in a vain effort to maintain and educate his children. She was brought back to Merleville and laid beside her husband less than a year ago. There is something wrong in the ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... word, and it is one which we are apt to think applies chiefly to the manners of girls, vain of their personal appearance, and wanting in sense or education. Beatrice would have thought herself infinitely above it; but what else was her love of attention, her delight in playing off her two cousins against each other? Beauty, or the consciousness of beauty, has little ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 497-484. He was now in his fifty-sixth year, and felt depressed and melancholy. As he went along, he gave expression to his feelings in verse:— 'Fain would I still look towards Lu, But this Kwei hill cuts off my view. With an axe, I'd hew the thickets through:— Vain thought! 'gainst the hill I nought can do;' and again,— 'Through the valley howls the blast, Drizzling rain falls thick and fast. Homeward goes the youthful bride, O'er the wild, crowds by her side. How is it, O azure Heaven, From my home I thus ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... prisoner, the day would have passed wearily away with so few means of amusing herself at her disposal. She examined the books which had been placed on the shelves: they were mostly Italian, though she recognised a few as having been on board the Zodiac. In vain, however, she tried to give her attention to them, for whenever she did so her thoughts wandered away till they were lost in the painful reflection which her position naturally suggested. Among her luggage were the means of employing herself ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... him within an hour from dawn, when the camp was to break up, he would before marching burn the village to the ground. The Herr Pfarrer was on his way back from the camp where he had been to plead for mercy, but it had been in vain. ...
— The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl • Jerome K. Jerome
... but enmeshed in the web of some marvellous mummery and about to make acquaintance with the secret of another new and mystical worship? For years and years we had searched, enduring every hardness of flesh and spirit that man can suffer, and now we were to learn whether we had endured in vain. Yes, and Leo would learn if the promise was to be fulfilled to him, or whether she whom he adored had become but a departed dream to be sought for only beyond the gate of Death. Little wonder that he trembled and turned white in the agony of that ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... often happened to him now, a drowsiness overcame him at the wrong time. In vain he battled against it. It conquered him even as he worked; and, at last, he leaned with his arms against the handle of the bellows, and ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... will bring success in commercial circles. Women will find rivals in society; vain and fruitless efforts will be made for ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... did make concessions. The essential principle of the Republican party is, that slavery is a great evil and brings in its train many other evils, and that the legislation of the United States is not to be warped by vain attempts to save the slave-holding interest from inevitable disaster by systematic injustice to the other interests of the country. If we adopt this view, which is admitted even by so ardent a pro-slavery leader ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... she said, "you must not blame yourself too much. Emily had her faults like other women. She was a little vain, a little imperious, not always wise. She should have ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... (their sister's son,) who was highly valued by the Americans, was slain in their service, in November, 1812, on the northern bank of the river Miami. Having been brought up by the American general, Logan, he had adopted that officer's name. He asserted that Tecumseh had in vain sought to engage him in the war on ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... died find the "palace-chamber far apart," and see the read and forsaken volume lying on the floor where she had left it, and the chair beside it upon which she had sat so long waiting for some one in vain. ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... I will hold one of the wings," replied old Langur Dass. Ahmad Din glanced at him—at his hard, bright eyes and determined face. Then he peered hard, and tried in vain to read the thoughts behind the eyes. "You are a madman, Langur Dass," he said wonderingly. "But thou shalt lie behind the right-wing men to pass ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... over and mingled their tears in mutual sympathy. I made a blustering talk which was to cover my real feelings and to show that I had grown indifferent toward Esther, but that tactful woman had not lived in vain, and read ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... p.m. we crossed the Antarctic Circle. An examination of the horizon disclosed considerable breaks in the vast circle of pack-ice, interspersed with bergs of different sizes. Leads could be traced in various directions, but I looked in vain for an indication of open water. The sun did not set that night, and as it was concealed behind a bank of clouds we had a glow of crimson and gold to the southward, with delicate pale green reflections in the water of the lanes to ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... I said, "your daughter did not expect my coming." It was perhaps a vain hope, but I thought that I might ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... and this after an experience of several years in both placer and quartz mines. So honest John Galler's famous placer mine still remains in the great list of lost mines, like the Gunsight Lead and other noted mines for which men have since prospected in vain. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... full of interest in my discovery, what time I could spare from reading the Midsummer's Night Dream, and all about Titania, wishfully I gazed off towards the hills; but in vain. Either troops of shadows, an imperial guard, with slow pace and solemn, defiled along the steeps; or, routed by pursuing light, fled broadcast from east to west—old wars of Lucifer and Michael; or the mountains, though ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... spurred the Moose in the direction of the cry. Democrat was standing with the reins over his head. Under a giant pine close by, Charleton was clinging desperately to the horns of a red bull. Blood was running over the back of his gray shirt. The bull was stamping in a circle in the vain attempt ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... you must have in order to obtain Medusa's head; and now here is a fourth, for without it your quest must be in vain." And they gave him a magic cap, the Cap of Darkness; and when they had put it upon his head, there was no creature on the earth or in the sky—no, not even the Maidens themselves—that could ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... remark here and there, thence to a conversation, thence, as the evening went on and they strolled further and further away from the house, into a monologue on his life and aims and hopes. Young man after young man sought her in vain, or, finding the pair, feared to intrude and retired in discontent, while Medland strove to draw the picture of that far-off society whose bringing-near was his goal in public life. She wondered if he talked to other women like that: and she found ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... indeed the air of a man at the point of death; and as he looked at the wasted features, the sunken eyes, the grey shadows which lay over the whole face, transforming it into a mere mask, Anstice told himself bitterly that all his care had been in vain; that before morning broke there would be one soul the less ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... you approve or not, if that you condemn me, you to condemn all Humanity, and to have vain words and vain regrettings; for these things that be named for faults, do but be the complement of our virtues, and if that you slay the first, you may chance to wither the last; for now I speak of things as they be now, and as they did be then; and nowise of lovely ideals ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... to spend the brief time she allowed herself between breakfast and work, upon the lawn, or somewhere out of doors, but to-day Ralph searched in vain for her. He met La Fleur, however, and that conscientious cook, in her most respectful manner, asked him, if he happened to meet Miss Cicely, would he be so good as to ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... across the brine, Has been the hope that called you mine; I'd rather see that load-star set, Than wed a fair, false, vain coquette. ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... gone a little way, she turned to observe the door, that she might know it again, but all in vain; for, as was before observed, it was invisible to her and all other women. Except in this circumstance, she was very well satisfied with her success, and posted away to the sultan. When she came to the capital, she went by many by-ways to the private door of the palace. The sultan being informed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... always had a passion for life, and the idealism he had come across seemed to him for the most part a cowardly shrinking from it. The idealist withdrew himself, because he could not suffer the jostling of the human crowd; he had not the strength to fight and so called the battle vulgar; he was vain, and since his fellows would not take him at his own estimate, consoled himself with despising his fellows. For Philip his type was Hayward, fair, languid, too fat now and rather bald, still cherishing the remains of his good looks and still delicately proposing to do exquisite things in ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... quite as readily distinguished as before they were fed to the bees. The only perceptible change which they appear to undergo in the cells, is to have the large quantity of water evaporated from them, which is added from thoughtlessness, or from the vain expectation that it will be just so much water sold for honey, to the defrauded purchaser! This evaporation of the water from the honey by the heat of the hive, is about the only marked change that it appears to undergo, ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... with shame and drove to Ellaphine's house by a side street and escorted the horse to the livery-stable by a back alley. On his way home he tried in vain to dodge Luella Thickins, but she headed him off with one of her Sunday-best smiles. She bowled him over by an ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... had nothing in his deep dark well but the waters of bitterness. In truth, with the delivery of that speech he had but parted with what had been a sort of anodyne to suffering. He had only put the fine point on his conviction, of how vain was his career now that he could not share it with Audrey Noel. He walked slowly towards the Temple, along the riverside, where the lamps were paling into nothingness before that daily celebration of Divinity, the meeting of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... For ten nights had Robin waited at the trysting place for sight of Marian; and had waited in vain. ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... Commissioners sent to Virginia to arm the servants & slaves, in case other means of obtaining its submission should fail. Maryland & Virginia he said had already prohibited the importation of slaves expressly. N. Carolina had done the same in substance. All this would be in vain if S. Carolina & Georgia be at liberty to import. The Western people are already calling out for slaves for their new lands; and will fill that Country with slaves if they can be got thro' S. Carolina & Georgia. Slavery discourages arts & manufactures. The ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... convincing by any syllogism; it is only when we try to think with the minds of those old thinkers, living in a world of unmeaning worship, that we begin to realise the nobility of a conviction which they tried in vain to reduce to a syllogism. Sapiens a principio mundus, et deus habendus est;[778] these words, which sound like an article of a creed, suffice for us without the laborious arguments of Cleanthes and Chrysippus ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... suitor to your daughter, The fairest Honorea, in whose eyes Honour itself in love's sweet bosom lies. What shall we say, or seem to strive with heaven, Who speechless sent her first into the world? In vain it is for us to think to loose That which by nature's self we see is bound. Her beauty, with her other virtues join'd, Are gifts sufficient, though she want a tongue: And some will count it virtue in a woman Still to be bound to unoffending ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... awhile "steeping the senses in forgetfulness," renders them fitter for exertion on awakening. My sleep was haunted with hideous and confused dreams, and murder and blood seemed to surround me. I was awakened by convulsive starts, and in vain sought again for quiet slumber; the same images filled my mind, diversified in a thousand horrid forms. Early in the morning, I arose, and went above, and the mild sea breeze dispelled my ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... he wanted it. Delay in the gratification of his desires, opposition to his demands, rendered him as indignant as if he were a spoiled child unable to understand the fixed position and function of the moon. And since the night of his vain singing along the shore to the Nisida he had been ill with fever, brought on by jealousy and disappointment, brought on partly also by the busy workings of a heated imagination which painted his friend Emilio in colors ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... was a very vulgar practice, and that children were not to grow up like dusty thorns by the wayside." "So you see," Pickering went on, smiling and blushing, and yet with something of the irony of vain regret, "I am a regular garden plant. I have been watched and watered and pruned, and if there is any virtue in tending I ought to take the prize at a flower show. Some three years ago my father's health broke down, and he was kept very ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... night—and what a night! not a breath of wind rippled the glassy waters. There was no moon, but the sky was cloudless, and the stars were out, in solemn and mysterious beauty. Every thing seemed preternaturally still, and I felt oppressed by a strange sense of loneliness; I looked round in vain for some familiar object, the sight of which might afford me relief. But far, far as the eye could reach, to the last verge of the horizon, where the gleaming sapphire vault closed down upon the sea, stretched one wide, desolate, unbroken ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... word could be heard, to the dissatisfaction of the audience. The stage, it seems, was put too far behind the proscenium, "owing to the headstrong perversity of Dickens, who never forgave the Bath people." Charles Knight, it was said, remonstrated, but in vain. Boz, however, was not a man to indulge in such feelings. In "Bleak House" he calls ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... laziness. Indeed, if so much legal business could have been transacted within three years and a half, by a lawyer who, besides being young and incompetent, was also extremely lazy, and greatly preferred to go off to the woods and hunt for deer while his clients were left to hunt in vain for him, it becomes an interesting question just how much legal business we ought to expect to be done by a young lawyer who was not incompetent, was not lazy, and had no inordinate fondness for deer-hunting. It happens that young Thomas Jefferson himself ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... whimpering, but most were glad on seeing him in such tribulation. When he came to the locked bower, he could nowhere find an entrance, and, it being cold weather, he began to shiver. He then transformed himself into a fly and tried every opening, but in vain; there was nowhere air enough to make him to get through [Loke (fire) requires air]. At length he found a hole in the roof, but not bigger than the prick of a needle. Through this he slipt. On his entrance he looked around to see if anyone were awake, but ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... tests. Popularity did not make him vain. The losing of his fame did not embitter him. He kept humble and sweet through it all. The secret was his unwavering loyalty to his own mission as the harbinger of the Messiah. "A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven," ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... asked, after all, what did Fenianism do for Ireland? To those who ask the question I would answer that no honest effort for liberty has ever been made in vain. If Fenianism did nothing else, it kept alive the tradition and the spirit of freedom among Irishmen, and handed them on to the next generation. In so far as the men who took part in it were unselfish, were whole-souled ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... hat and cloak riddled with bullets, rushed in vain among his men, taunting them furiously with their cowardice. It was only the night and the death of Gustavus that prevented the Swedes from reaping the full fruits of their victory. The imperial troops retreated unpursued. Wallenstein held a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... "Why turn ye back to the weak and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage again? Ye observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed labour upon you in vain.[102]" "Why do ye subject yourselves to ordinances, handle not, nor taste, nor touch, after the precepts and doctrines of men?[103]" These are strongly-worded passages, and I have no wish to attenuate their significance. Any Christian priest who puts the observance of human ordinances— ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... was first published in 'The Morning Post', Jan. 29, 1803, under the signature W. L. D., along with the one beginning, "I grieved for Buonaparte, with a vain," and was afterwards printed in the 1807 edition of the Poems. Mr. T. Hutchinson (Dublin) suggests that the W. L. D. stood either for Wordsworthius Libertatis Defensor, or (more likely) Wordsworthii Libertati ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... Frederick, "let no man dare to say that battles are in vain. The bloody field of Leuthen produced a flute from Quantz; and by Heaven, that is a greater rarity than the most complete ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... 2: Sensation is entirely a vital function. Consequently it can in no way be said that the angels perceive through the organs of their assumed bodies. Yet such bodies are not fashioned in vain; for they are not fashioned for the purpose of sensation through them, but to this end, that by such bodily organs the spiritual powers of the angels may be made manifest; just as by the eye the power of the angel's knowledge ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... the hearts, and their spirit infused into the life of thousands of educated colored young men and women, who have gone out among their people, carrying educated minds, trained hands and warm hearts, as an outgrowth of that labor which has not been in vain. This magnificent record of Christian endeavor and conquest has largely been made possible by the foresight, energy and fidelity of the many who have been and are at the head of the ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 1, January, 1889 • Various
... him, but it was in vain. "Whoever strikes at marriage," he cried;—"whoever, either by word or act, undermines this, the foundation of all moral society, that man has to settle with me, and if I cannot become his master, I take care to settle ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... imperative to resume her labors immediately. The country was in the throes of a crisis, and thousands of unemployed crowded the streets of the large industrial centers. Cold and hungry they tramped through the land in the vain search for work and bread. The Anarchists developed a strenuous propaganda among the unemployed and the strikers. A monster demonstration of striking cloakmakers and of the unemployed took place at Union Square, New York. Emma Goldman was one of the invited speakers. She delivered an impassioned ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... been none the worse for that, singer. And the tale would have been none the less a tale, which is all we look for from you. This talk of happy endings is silly talk. The King might have sought the Woman in vain, or kept his vow, or drowned himself, or ridden to the confines of Kent, for aught ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... waiting supper for us," said Chris. "I hope they have done a little shooting. A turkey would be splendid to-night. Don't you think so?" added the boy, after waiting in vain for an answer. ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... country shows only too clearly in the lessened income of the State. In vain a number of indirect taxes have been introduced. A kind of tax on meat and meal is levied in a very primitive way on the street corners of the capital. The fishermen pay 20 per cent, of the catch in their nets. Weights and measures must be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... frivolity and corruption of what he called Society, until the boy longed to see this splendid panorama of cities and hasting populations, the seekers of pleasure and money and fame, this gay world which was as fascinating as it was wicked. The preacher said the world was wicked and vain. It did not seem so to the boy this summer day, not at least the world he knew. Of course the boy had no experience. He had never heard of Juvenal nor of Max Nordau. He had no philosophy of life. He did not even know that when ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... if, being there, they did not lend a helping hand to their allies. In this mood, so soon as they caught sight of the enemy, they fell with a crash upon him in passionate longing to recover the old ancestral glory. Nor did they fight in vain—the blows they struck enabled the Mantineans to recover all their property outside, but among those who dealt them died some brave heroes; (11) brave heroes also, it is evident, were those whom they slew, since on either side the weapons wielded were not so short but that ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... the doorway again watching the busy throng passing outside towards Royal Oak. Ten o'clock struck from a neighboring church, and I still waited, knowing only too well that I waited in vain for a man whose body had already been committed to the grave outside that far-away old Scotch town. But I waited in order to ascertain the motive of the bearded Russian in leading me to believe that the ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... signatures of some persons who had formerly known him, to a petition for a pardon, and alone had come to Washington to lay the case before the President. Thronged as the waiting-rooms always were, she had passed the long hours of two days trying in vain to get an audience, and had at ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... play, and when the curtain rises on this act we see the Court of Justice in Venice. The Duke and all his courtiers are present, the prisoner Antonio, with Bassanio, and many others of his friends. Shylock is called in. The Duke tries to soften the Jew's heart and make him turn to mercy, in vain. Bassanio also tries in vain, and still Bellario, to whom the Duke has sent ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... that young Koloman did not come home at the usual time that day, and Margari after looking for him in vain became very curious as to the contents of the packet entrusted to him. What sort of mysterious letters could they be which Miss Henrietta was afraid of falling into the hands of her family. Hum! how nice it ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... taken offence. My heart was full of contrition, but there was no one to whom I could lay it bare, or of whom I could ask forgiveness. I wandered about the dark rooms with a vacant mind. I wished I had a guitar to which I could sing to the unknown: "O fire, the poor moth that made a vain effort to fly away has come back to thee! Forgive it but this once, burn its wings and consume ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... that lady's habit of wrapping herself in her own thoughts on her walks abroad, and partly to her natural short-sightedness. Once Mary said that she had noticed "a horrid man with a red face" staring at them; but Miss Jones, although she was not a vain woman, thought it nevertheless quite natural that men should stare, and fancied more frequently that they did so than was ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... answer the challenge. Rifles were so near that the wood and ridge could be patrolled at regular intervals; therefore it was useless to hide in the wood till morning. Rifles were ranked so far away that an enemy could not slink into the town by any detour; therefore it was vain to return to the city by any remote course. A cry from him would bring his soldiers rushing up the hill. But from him no cry ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... little sigh. The tragedy which a few minutes ago she had seen looming up, eluded her. She had courted a denouement in vain. He ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... leads them on at full speed toward the river; when, suddenly securing himself in some crevice of the cliff which he had previously fixed on, the herd is left on the brink of the precipice. It is then in vain for the foremost buffaloes to retreat or even to stop; they are pressed on by the hindmost rank, which, seeing no danger but from the hunters, goad on those before them till the whole are precipitated, and the shore is strewn ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... blithe Spirit! Happy the man, whose wish and care Happy those early days, when I He is gone on the mountain He that loves a rosy cheek Hence, all you vain delights Hence, loathed Melancholy Hence, vain deluding Joys How delicious is the winning How happy is he born and taught How like a winter hath my absence been How sleep the Brave, who sink to rest How sweet the answer Echo makes How vainly men ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... again replied Deans; "I hae naething to say anent it, either the tae way or the t'other. But I do ken there was ance in a day a just and God-fearing magistracy in yon town o' Edinburgh, that did not bear the sword in vain, but were a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to such as kept the path. In the glorious days of auld worthy faithfu' Provost Dick,* when there was a true ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... paid a compliment to letters, by destroying every building in the city except the house of the poet, Pindar. At Corinth, when the great, the wise, the noble, came to pay homage, one great man did not appear. In vain did Alexander look for his card among all those handed in at the door—Diogenes, the Philosopher, oft quoted by Aristotle, was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... that half Europe has been transformed into a vast slaughterhouse, appeals for sympathy can be other than in vain. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... books, by religion, by love, by benevolence, we endeavour after another life than that which God means for us—a life of truth, namely, of obedience, humility, and self-forgetfulness, we walk equally in a vain show. For God alone is, and without him we are not. This is not the mere clang of a tinkling metaphysical cymbal; he that endeavours to live apart from God must at length find—not merely that he has been walking in a vain show, but that he has been himself ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... in a female breast: Vanessa was excessively vain. She was fond of dress; impatient to be admired; very romantic in her turn of mind; superior in her own opinion to all her sex; full of pertness, gaiety, and pride; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but far from being either beautiful ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... should inspire my strain. The Muses fortune's fickle smile deride, Nor ever bow the knee in Mammon's fane; For their delights are with the village-train, Whom Nature's laws engage, and Nature's charms: They hate the sensual, and scorn the vain; The parasite their influence never warms, Nor him whose sordid soul ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... slaves we may well be concerned; but the future of the whole country, involving the future of the blacks, urges a paramount claim upon our anxiety. Effective benignity, like the Nile, is not narrow in its bounty, and true policy is always broad. To be sure, it is vain to seek to glide, with moulded words, over the difficulties of the situation. And for them who are neither partisans, nor enthusiasts, nor theorists, nor cynics, there are some doubts not readily to be solved. And there are fears. Why ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... fascinated in that direction, and looking still more attentively, he felt convinced it was a human body secured to a plank. He sought the captain instantly, and used every persuasion humanity could dictate to urge him to lower a boat. For some time he entreated in vain. Captain Bartholomew said it was mere folly to think there was any chance of saving a man's life, who had been so long tossed about on the water, it would be only detaining him for nothing; his ship was already too full either for comfort or profit, and ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... not live without these people, neither could she and Nick; but for reasons how different! And if his opportunities had been theirs, what a world they would have created for themselves! Such imaginings were vain, and she shrank back from them into the present. After all, as Lady Altringham she would have the power to create that world which she and Nick had dreamed... only she must create it alone. Well, that was probably the law of things. All human happiness ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... laboratory, and the immense secret which had been confided to his keeping. Then there had been his conversation with his father in the afternoon, their disagreement, and the sudden intrusion of Raffles Haw. Finally the talk with his sister had excited his imagination, and driven sleep from his eyelids. In vain he turned and twisted in his bed, or paced the floor of his chamber. He was not only awake, but abnormally awake, with every nerve highly strung, and every sense at the keenest. What was he to do to gain a little sleep? It flashed across ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... reply, and the chill of horror increased as the feeling that they were searching in vain out and in pressed itself upon all, and they knew that the man they sought must ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... his seat, and covered his face with his hands. The last seal on the fate of THE MAN OF CRIME was set; the last wave in the terrible and mysterious tide of his destiny had dashed on his soul to the shore whence there is no return. Vain, now and henceforth, the humour, the sentiment, the kindly impulse, the social instincts which had invested that stalwart shape with dangerous fascination, which had implied the hope of ultimate repentance, of redemption even in this world. The HOUR and the CIRCUMSTANCE had ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... friend, what you do say is only to frighten me. You have no kind of evidence, and the man of yesterday does not exist! All you wish is to perplex me—to enrage me, so as to enable you to make your last move, should you catch me in such a mood, but you will not; all your pains will be in vain! But why should he speak in such covert terms? I presume he must be speculating on the excitability of my nervous system. But, dear friend, that won't go down, in spite of your machinations. We will try and find out what you really have been ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... laughed at was right. This is the first Garden of Eden, where man lived in complete innocence. Now man has been returned to it, to live again in complete innocence. You do not think straight because there is no reason. You will be cared for. Woe unto him who seeks to despoil it again by seeking vain knowledge!" ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... old age and always dared to look death squarely in the face. He was sensitive to human passion and he felt the wonder of nature in all her ways, her bounteous response in growth to the skill of man, the delight of improving the earth in contrast with the vain glory gained by ravaging it in war. His most striking characteristics were energy and decision united often with strong likes and dislikes. His clever secretary, Alexander Hamilton, found, as he ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... execution of his designs on the rest of the squatter's movables. A murmur ran through the band, as each dark warrior caught a glimpse of the desired haven, after which the nicest ear might have listened in vain, to catch a sound louder than the rustling of feet among the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... though the sun shone brilliantly, she did not appear in the garden before breakfast. From a window above, eyes were watching, watching in vain. At the meal Irene was her wonted self, but she did not enter into conversation with Otway. The young ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... for good. It was not the regularity but the richness, not the self-restraint but the freedom, of the ancients that came home to poets such as Marlowe, or even to critics such as Meres. And if adventurous spirits, like Spenser and Sidney, were for a time misled into the vain attempt to graft exotic forms upon the homely growths of native poetry, they soon saw their mistake and revolted in silence against the ridiculous pedant who preferred the limping hexameters of the Arcadia to Sidney's sonnets, and the spavined ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... to leave the rest dissolute turbulent and factious. If the streets not only abound with women, who inflame the passenger by their appearance, their gesture, and their solicitations; but with houses, in which every desire which they kindle may be gratified with secrecy and convenience; it is in vain that "the feet of the prostitute go down to death, and that her steps take hold on hell:" what then can be hoped from any punishment, which the laws of man can superadd to disease and want, to rottenness and perdition? If you permit ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... for among those whom low fortune has condemned to perpetual drudgery. It must be, therefore, necessary to supply the defects of education, and to produce, by salutary coercions, those effects which it is vain to expect ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... him? He knew that there were to be changes. The nature of them must be communicated to the warden through somebody, and through whom so naturally as the bishop's chaplain. 'Twas thus that he tried to argue himself back to an easy mind, but in vain. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... by the Prvapakshin as to the impossibility of the world, comprising matter and souls and being either in its subtle or its gross condition, standing to Brahman in the relation of a body, we declare to be the vain outcome of altogether vicious reasoning springing from the idle fancies of persons who have never fully considered the meaning of the whole body of Vednta-texts as supported by legitimate argumentation. For as a matter of fact all Vednta-texts distinctly declare that the entire world, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... of affairs was very unusual, and Nick chafed under it. It indicated that he was up against men as good as himself, and his vain work of the past ten days served only to aggravate him, and embitter his grim and inflexible determination to ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... intimacies, of that intercourse which should be as bread of Heaven to the soul. It was a hateful room. Nothing great, nothing to reach the hearts of men could be conceived, brought to birth in its atmosphere. Jacques Sennier, shut in alone, could never have written his opera here. In vain to try. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... obscure your life may be this is true, that it will set in motion influences that will literally outlast the world. I have control over my own action before it is done, but after it is done I seek to control it in vain. If it is a fiendish act it laughs its devilish and derisive laughter in my face and says, "Control me if ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... it, Cyprian. The very last piece I wrote was copied in two papers. It was 'Contemplations in Autumn,' and—don't think I am too vain—one young lady has told me that it reminded her of Pollok. You never wrote in ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... many in his time, he seems to have been both a scientific geographer and a practical sea-captain. At one time he made charts and maps for his livelihood. Seized with the fever for discovery, he is said to have begged in vain from the sovereigns of Spain and Portugal for help in a voyage to the West. About the time of the great discovery of Columbus in 1492, John Cabot arrived in Bristol. It may be that he took part in some of the voyages of the Bristol ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock
... the obscurity in which these two points were shrouded. To find the answer to them was the surest and quickest way of reconciling all the contradictory facts of the case. But Barrant racked his brains for the reason in vain. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... sentiment, brother-in-law, but it is a pleasure, all the same, to see how people appreciate you. I am not vain, I hope; but I could not resist reminding one or two of the people we talked to that we were ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... Christ, in whom such treasures are hidden? Here they oppose us, and complain that this certainty of confidence is chargeable with arrogance and presumption. But as we ought to presume nothing of ourselves, so we should presume every thing of God; nor are we divested of vain glory for any other reason than that we may learn to glory in the Lord. What shall I say more? Review, Sire, all the parts of our cause, and consider us worse than the most abandoned of mankind, unless ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... farmstead Paul went to "Highlands," but his visit seemed in vain. The people who occupied the house had lived there for some twelve years, and they had bought it from an agent as a summer residence. They had heard that the previous owner lived in Edinburgh, but they were not sure. They only knew he was in the habit of letting the house ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... on the threshold of success. We may safely ascribe to him in these days that illusory state of mind which has characterized some of the greatest of men in their over-strained, concluding periods. His extraordinary promises in his later messages, a series of vain prophecies beginning with his speech at the African Church, remind one of Napoleon after Leipzig refusing the Rhine as a boundary. His nerves, too, were all but at the breaking point. He sent the Senate a scolding message because of its delay in passing the Negro Soldiers' Bill. The Senate ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... for the sound of another shot, but in vain. He did not believe another ruffian would enter the fatal room commanded by his position, and he decided to seek a more promising place for his operations. Since the shot he had heard, he was confident that none of the enemy would show themselves at the windows. ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... without provoking any sort of scene or calling attention to my fortitude. But I can't—upon my soul I can't. I can go, I can see it through, but I can't hold my tongue. I want you to know all about it, so that over there, when I'm bored to death, I shall at least have the exasperatingly vain consolation of feeling that you do know—and that it does neither you ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... parents — Toil and Sorrow) who find their utmost efforts scarcely sufficient to keep them out of the debtor's prison! Continual gloom fills the chambers of their hearts; the sun bestows its cheering rays in vain; and all the gay and beautiful influences of the bright world of Nature fail to inspirit him whose every energy is directed to the task of raising his family beyond the threatening grasp of Want. In his few moments of relaxation, when those whom he loves — for whom he is toiling unto death ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... remained an inactive and superfluous person in their house. Now for the first time I had advantage of all that was good in my education. Amid lively activity, and with a distinct object in life, and in affectionate relationships, that which was vain and false fell gradually away from my disposition; and the knowledge which I had obtained, the truths which I had known, were productive in heart and deed since I had, so to ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... to him she told all that had been said. Her brother was away at his club when she got back to her hotel, and she had some hours in which to think of what had taken place. She could not at once bring herself to believe that all her former beliefs were vain ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... toward his anomaly, and his estimate of its morality. As my cases are not patients seeking to be cured of their perversion, this attitude cannot be taken for granted. I have noted the moral attitude in 57 cases. In 8 the subjects loathe themselves, and have fought in vain against their perversion, which they often regard as a sin. Nine or ten are doubtful, and have little to say in justification of their condition, which they regard as perhaps morbid, a "moral disease." One, while thinking it right to gratify his natural instincts, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and passed on its way as usual. The very next time it came within telescopic hail it was seen to have broken into two fragments. Six years later these fragments were separated by many millions of miles; and in 1852, when the comet was due again, astronomers looked for it in vain. It had ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... turned to some one else, all for fear of leaving this creature that had wound itself about her heart. And the end of it all,—her month's warning, and a present perhaps, and the rest of the life to vain regret. Or, worse still, to see the child gradually forgetting and forsaking her, fostered in disrespect and neglect on the plea of growing manliness, and at last beginning to treat her as a servant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sense for such performances was pretty well exhausted and then I discovered it, when I began to be considered a little more by my brother's acquaintance, and in a manner that did not quite please him, as he thought, probably with reason, that it tended to make me too vain. And, perhaps, this might be one occasion of the differences that we began to have about this time. Though a brother, he considered himself as my master, and me as his apprentice, and accordingly, expected the same services from ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... a state of shock, had somehow passed under the influence of a man of the unscrupulous revivalist type, and upon whom, in her present mood, all reasoning was thrown away. Gentleness and firmness were the notes for dealing with a flare-up. Well, gentleness had been tried in vain.... ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... train of servants," writes Mr. Theodore Irving, "Spanish, Indian and negro, were embarked with all speed. But when the gallant old cavalier came to take leave of his young companions in arms, and the soldiers he had lately aspired to lead so vain-gloriously, his magnificent spirit broke forth. He made gifts to the right and left, dividing among the officers and knights all the arms, accoutrements, horses and camp equipage, with which he had come so ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... to-day is radiant, as I ne'er Could picture it in wildest dreaming, when For long, long hours I lay in flowery glen Or wooded copse, and tried in vain to tear The glamour from my eyes, and face the glare And tumult of the busy world of men. I staked my all, and won! and ne'er again Can my blest ...
— Poems • Sophia M. Almon
... judgment or not, I was rather more than inclined to believe him innocent of actual share or complicity in the murders of Noah and Salter Quick. But I could see that he was a queer mortal; odd, even to eccentricity; vain, candid and frank because of his very vanity; given, I thought, to talking a good deal about himself and his doings; probably a megalomaniac. He might treat us well so long as things went well with him, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... constructed a scarecrow from the bones of an ape and of a man, and offer this, without the batting of an eye, as a scientific proof of the antiquity of man. The great anthropologist of world-wide reputation, Prof. Virchow, said: "In vain have Darwin's adherents sought for connecting links which should connect man with the monkey. Not a single one has been found. This so-called pro-anthropus, which is supposed to represent this connecting link, has not appeared. No true scientist claims to have seen him." Sir Ray Lancaster, writing ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... I engaged to prove in IV:xviii., whereby it is plain that the law against the slaughtering of animals is founded rather on vain superstition and womanish pity than on sound reason. The rational quest of what is useful to us further teaches us the necessity of associating ourselves with our fellow men, but - not with beasts, or things, whose nature ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... reluctant consent to this proposition, and to determine later what recourse to take, as if indeed any remained to me in that den of serpents. I would consider, as soon as Mrs. Raymond was gone, what measures to pursue in order to elude the vigilance of McDermot, the detective; and then, if all proved vain, I could but perish! For I would have walked cheerfully over the burning ploughshares of old, lived again through the hideous nightmare of the burning ship and raft, nay, clasped hands with the spectre of La Vigne himself, had it offered ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... the next day that she recalled that remark of his and analyzed it. It meant, of course, that she was beaten; that her first fight for the big thing had been in vain. There would be no use, for the present, in renewing the struggle. He'd taken the one ground that was impregnable. So long as he could go on honestly interpreting every plea of hers for a share in the hard part of his life as well as in the soft part of it, for a way of life that would make them ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the power negotiated for into the hands of their friend Cossim Ali Khan. But when the old man, frightened out of his wits, asked, "What is it he has bid for me?" and added, "I will give half as much again to save myself; pray let me know what my price is,"—he entreated in vain. They were true, firm, and faithful to their word and their engagement. When he saw they were resolved that he should be delivered into the hands of Cossim Ali Khan, he at once surrenders the whole to him. They instantly grasp it. He throws himself into a boat, and will not remain at home an hour, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... enclosure, where the palings turn away sharply at the left, he crossed the road and made for a wooden bench just there amiably presenting itself. It was pleasant to rest. The walk had been a long one; but it now appeared to him that the labour of it had not been wholly in vain. For around him stretched a breezy common, broken by straggling bramble and furze brakes, and dotted with hawthorn bushes, upon the topmost branches of which the crowded pinkish-white blossoms still lingered. ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... people of old were not to look into the holiest, lest they died, save only their high-priest, he might go into it (Num 17:13). To show that we, while here, must have a care of vain speculations, for there is nothing to be seen, by us while here, in heaven, otherwise than by faith in God's eternal testament. True, we may now come to the holiest, even as nigh as the first temple will admit us to come; but it must be by blood and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... resist him; but when a man holds the woman he loves, and who loves him, in his arms, the woman fights in vain. Every sense in her plays traitor, and fights ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... ease, and let him understand that bygones were bygones, and that with her any reconciliation at all was meant to be a complete one; which was wise and right enough. But Valencia had not counted on the excitable and vain nature with which she was dealing; and Lucia, who had her own fears from the first evening, was the last person in the world to tell her of it; first from pride in herself, and then from pride in her husband. For even if a woman has made a foolish match, it is hard to expect ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... attended by Channa and a host of heavenly beings who opened the city gates. Here he was assailed by Mara the Tempter who offered him universal empire but in vain. After jumping the river Anoma on his steed, he cut off his long hair with his sword and flinging it up into the air wished it might stay there if he was really to become a Buddha. It remained suspended; admiring gods placed it in a heavenly shrine and presented Gotama ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... immediately pitched into oblivion. The room thundered with a great shout of laughter that went to the ceiling. I could see Bobbs making angry shouts against an invulnerable bank of uncontrolled merriment. And amid his victory old Fullbil sat with a vain ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... intellectual faculties themselves. For the inner truth of a representation, and its correspondence with the real nature of humanity, the mob has no sense at all. What is flat and superficial it can grasp, but the depths of human nature are opened to it in vain. ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... heavy with hope long deferred, And with prayers that seem vain? Keep saying the word - And that which you strive for you ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... find people who seem pleased with the manner in which I have succeeded in resembling the graphic pictures made to represent me in The World. I can truly say that I am not a vain man, but it is certainly pleasing and gratifying to be greeted by a glance of recognition and a yell of genuine delight from total strangers. Many have seemed to suppose that the massive and undraped head shown in these ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... companies of idle people whom want forces to be thieves, or who now, being idle vagabonds or useless servants, will certainly grow thieves at last. If you do not find a remedy to these evils it is a vain thing to boast of your severity in punishing theft, which, though it may have the appearance of justice, yet in itself is neither just nor convenient; for if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... They were there—in the blackness— those noble men who had died for her in vain. No—not in vain! She breathed a prayer for them—a word of love for Larry. Larry, the waster of life, yet the faithful, the symbol of brotherhood. As long as she lived she would see him stalk before her with his red, blazing fire, his magnificent ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
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