"Bootless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impracticable and visionary theories. To abolish abuses, to set in motion the car of state on the track of justice and economy, and to distinguish between that which is really essential to human happiness and human rights, and that which is merely the result of some wild and bootless proposition in political economy, are the great self-imposed tasks that the European people seem now to have assumed; and God grant that they may complete their labors with the moderation and success with which they would appear to have ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... could cease to love, the world would wag as well as may be. But now,—now,—as they say, Thyonichus, I am like the mouse that has tasted pitch. And what remedy there may be for a bootless love, I know not; except that Simus, he who was in love with the daughter of Epicalchus, went over seas, and came back heart-whole,—a man of my own age. And I too will cross the water, and prove not the first, maybe, nor the last, perhaps, but a ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... foe now laugh'd outright, When on his battle-ground he saw, That every savage tooth and claw Had got its proper beauty By doing bloody duty; Himself, the hapless Lion tore his hide, And lash'd with sounding tail from side to side. Ah! bootless blow, and bite, and curse! He beat the harmless air, and worse; For, though so fierce and stout, By effort wearied out, He fainted, fell, gave up the quarrel; The Gnat retires ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... at the sheriff sleepily as the official strode into the aisle and peered in between the bars. He tipped the bootless foot back on its toes as he lifted his other foot ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... of all personal considerations, were ever on the alert, ready to sound the alarm to save their fellows from a fate far more to be dreaded than death. In this they had frequently succeeded, and many times had turned the hunter home bootless of his prey. They began their operations at the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, and had thoroughly examined all matters connected with it, and were perfectly cognizant of the plans adopted to carry out its provisions in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... souls apart like opening flowers Until our lives, through quivering bodies drawn, Are mingled and confounded. Then, far spent, Our eyes will close to undisturbed rest. For that desired thing I leave you now. To pinnacle this day's accomplishment, By telling Grootver that a bootless quest Is his, and that his schemes have met ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... must ye echo as mechanic mimes These mortal minion's bootless cadences, Played on the stops of their anatomy As is the mewling music on the strings Of yonder ship-masts by the unweeting wind, Or the frail tune upon this withering sedge That holds its papery blades against the gale? —Men pass to dark corruption, at the ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... willing, after a long and bootless search, to confess to himself that he would rather see Nan Morgan for one minute than all women else in the world for a lifetime. The other incidents of the evening would have given any ordinary man enough ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... understand one another," said Rotha solemnly. "What is it you wish to tell me? You said my father had gone on a bootless errand. What do you know about it? Tell me, and don't ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... persevering still in his bootless affection, and his expenses not limited within any compass, it appeared in the judgment of his kindred and friends that he was fallen into a mighty consumption, both of his body and means. In which respects many times they advised him to leave ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... by two of these aforesaid Tiger Sharks. A brace of confidential inseparables, jogging along in our wake, side by side, like a couple of highwaymen, biding their time till you come to the cross-roads. But giving it up at last, for a bootless errand, they dropped farther and farther astern, until completely out of sight. Much to the Skyeman's chagrin; who long stood in the stern, lance ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... a March hare. Take him away. Hold," again added the officer, whom some strange fascination still bound to the bootless investigation. "What's ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... thought of Sir Roger, and however many little touches may have been added by other hands, he remains Addison's creation: and furthermore it does not matter a snap of the fingers whether any actual person served as the model from which the picture was taken. Of all the bootless quests that literary criticism can undertake, this search for "the original" is the least valuable. The artist's mind is a crucible which transmutes and re-creates: to vary the metaphor, the marble springs to life under the workman's hands: we can almost see it happening ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... that his idol, Velasquez, was affected by the study of El Greco's colouring. Canaille Saint-Saens, when Liszt and Rubinstein were compared, exclaimed: "Two great artists who have nothing in common except their superiority." It is bootless to bracket Velasquez with his elder. And Gautier was off the track when he spoke of Greco's resemblance to the bizarre romances of Mrs. Radcliffe; bizarre Greco was, but not trivial nor a charlatan. As to his decadent ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... speech, and bootless boast, For which he paid full dear; For while he spake, a braying ass Did sing most loud and clear, Whereat his horse did snort as he Had heard a lion's roar, And gallop'd off with all his might, As ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... death of a consul. There is sufficient matter for tears and grief without this addition." In reply the consul said: "Do thou indeed go on and prosper, Cneius Servilius, in your career of virtue! But beware lest you waste in bootless commiseration the brief opportunity of escaping from the hands of the enemy. Go and tell the fathers publicly, to fortify the city of Rome, and garrison it strongly before the victorious enemy arrive: and tell Quintus Fabius individually, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... slowly, and hurt the watching man almost as if the torture were his own. A shriek rose from the rounded white throat and the girl threw herself bootless upon the floor, and screamed in passionate childish sorrow, the wealth of disheveled hair mantling the dirty jacket, ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... ages—had all passed through the various phases of the civilization of their time, and that they did not grow out of the tail of any gorilla. It is not for profane man to inquire what possible reason there could be for the perpetuation—let alone the creation—of such a useless, bootless race. There they are, occupiers of the soil for unknown centuries—before the white man ever saw their faces—many thousands of them still squatting there, cleaving, like bereaved Autochthons, to the bosom of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... thick and black overhead, and when dark was fairly upon me I was, for all practical purposes, like a blind man in an unfamiliar room. It didn't take me long to comprehend that I was merely wasting the strength of my horse in bootless wandering; with moonlight I could have made it, but in that murk I could not hope to find the post. So I had no choice but to make camp in the first coulee that offered, and an exceeding lean camp I found it—no grub, no fire, no rest, for though I hobbled my horse I didn't ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... certainly elapsed in this bootless wandering, when he entered a narrow lane in the quarter of Saint Andre and uttered a sudden cry of joy as he caught a glimpse of the object for which he was in search. His eye lighted on a sign which bore the simple but ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... always be growing stronger, and with every trial nobly met, you will feel a growing assurance that nobleness is not a mere sentiment with you. I sympathize deeply in your anxiety about your mother; yet I cannot but remember the bootless fear and agitation about my mother, and how strangely our destinies were guided. Take refuge in prayer when you are most troubled; the door of the sanctuary will never be shut against you. I send you a paper which is very sacred to me. Bless Heaven that your heart is awakened to ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the country, I said no word. It was bootless to interrupt their own methods of getting at what was really in ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... and unconscious Tom approaching, lost in the profundity of thought, and though not in love, ruminating on every miss he had made in that day's bootless trudge. ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... I have a packet for thee from him. It is in my mails, and I will give it thee anon. He is come on a bootless errand! As long as my mother and my sister Mall are both living, he might as well try to bring two catamounts together ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Princes of Germany by the Peace of Kadan (1534), Francois strengthened himself with a definite alliance with Soliman; and when, on the death of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, who left no heirs, Charles seized the duchy as its overlord, Francois, after some bootless negotiation, declared war on his great rival (1536). His usual fortunes prevailed so long as he was the attacking party: his forces were soon swept out of Piedmont, and the Emperor carried the war over the frontier into Provence. ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... certain anxiety of the tawny tiny owl that had sat like a stuffed ornament on the mantel-piece of a neighboring room, and he listened with a quaking vicarious presentiment of woe for the sounds of capture and despair. He was sensible of waiting and hoping for the fox's bootless return, when he ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... you what good things you have written, or—I hope I may add—that I know them to be good? A propos, when I first opened upon the just-mentioned poem, in a careless tone I said to Mary, as if putting a riddle, "What is good for a bootless bene?" [3] To which, with infinite presence of mind (as the jest-book has it) she answered, "A shoeless pea." It was the first joke she ever made. Joke the second I make. You distinguish well, in your old preface, between the verses of Dr. Johnson, of the ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... significancy. When the daughter of Isaac of York brought her diamonds and rubies—the poor gentle victim!—and, meekly laying them at the feet of the conquering Rowena, departed into foreign lands to tend the sick of her people, and to brood over the bootless passion which consumed her own pure heart, one would have thought that the heart of the royal lady would have melted before such beauty and humility, and that she would have been generous in ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... forbidden to land lest they should provoke the jealousy of the people; and when, on Sunday (July 22), his highness had to undergo a public dinner, in which English servants only were allowed to attend upon him, the Castilian lords, many of whom believed that they had come to England on a bootless ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... crib, And find no sympathy for Caesar's plan To mould this commonwealth on model grand Perfected by the chivalry front which Both he and thou didst draw sweet childhood's milk. These men did quick condone the ev'ry act Which emanated from the Northern mind. Yearly were millions spent on bootless task Of feeding vacant minds on useless food Because unfitted to their various needs. "A little knowledge is a dang'rous thing" And doth unfit the plodding mass for toil, Which is their proper sphere; hence ev'ry thought Hard thrust within their ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... from the woodland and meadow, "Peter—O Peter!" all day, calling, reminding, and chiding— Taking us back to the time when Peter he done gone and done it! These are the voices of those left by the boy in the farmhouse When, with his laughter and scorn, hatless and bootless and sockless, Clothed in his jeans and his pride, Peter sailed out in the weather, Broke from the warmth of his home into that fog of the devil. Into the smoke of that ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... "He was bootless, and his pants and many-pocketed jumper of coarse dungaree were exceedingly dirty, and looked as if they had been cut out with a knife and fork instead of scissors, they were so marvellously ill-fitting. His head-gear was an ancient Panama hat, which flopped about, and almost ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... attended sometimes by comical, as well as painful, incidents. Peter Simple's experiences, as told by Marryat, were not yet quite obsolete in practice. A story ran of one, not long before my "date," who, having been sent on two or three bootless errands by unauthorized jesters, finally received from a person in due authority the absurd-sounding, but legitimate, message to have the jackasses put in the hawse-holes.[7] "Oh no," he replied, resentfully, "I have been fooled often enough! That I will not do." I can better vouch for another, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... several attempts," Glazier continues, "to assert what I considered my rights, but as I had not, at that time, much muscle to back my claims, they were not recognized, and thus I spent the whole night in a bootless struggle for freedom. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... no beauty; not fair as a red-and-white rose, like Lady Eglinton, or any one of her six daughters; not dainty, like poor imprisoned Lady Lovat; she was more like desperate Lady Primrose, flying shrieking from her mad husband's sword and pistols, or fierce Lady Grange, swearing her bootless revenge on the wily, treacherous, scared Lord of Session. She was but wild, witty Nelly Carnegie, whom no precise, stern mother could tame, no hard life at her embroidery or her spinet could subdue. She was brown as a gipsy, skin, eyes, and hair—the last a rich, ruddy chestnut brown—with nothing ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... to paint the woe, When Egbert saw his home laid low? Where, by the desolated hearth, The mother lay who gave him birth, And, close beside, his fair young wife, And servants, slain in bootless strife— Mournful the King stood near. Alfred, who came to be his guest, And deeply rued that his behest Had all unguarded left that nest, To meet such ruin drear. With hand, and heart, and lip, he gave All king or friend, both true and brave, Could give, ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bold, But in the strange, wild days of old; To one rough hand was oft decreed The noblest and the blackest deed. 'Twas pride that spurred O'Donnell on, But still a generous heart had Con; He wished to show that he was strong, And not to do a bootless wrong. ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... bootless trials, bootless the feet must remain, and George, laying the failure down in despair, rose from his knees, and left Gibbie seated on the chest more like a king discrowned, than a beggar unshod. And like a king the little beggar bore his pain. He heaved one sigh, and a slow moisture gathered in ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... that Demorest was no longer of such importance to him. He felt, too, that he was not yet quite sure of his voice or even what to say. As he hesitated she went on half playfully: "It seems hard that you had to come all the way here on such a bootless errand. You haven't even seen ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... the bootless gold we stand Upon the desert verge of death, and say: "What shall avail the woes of yesterday To buy to-morrow's wisdom, in the land Whose currency is strange unto our hand? In life's small market they have served to pay Some late-found rapture, could ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... starving, bootless, ragged, stupid wretches fell down and worshipped the System, and offered up their children as living sacrifices upon ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Lk. v. 1-11 is sometimes identified with Jn. xxi. 3-13. So WendtLJ I. 211f., WeissLX II. 57f., and Meyer on Luke v. 1-11. Against the identification see Alford, Godet, and Plummer on the passage in Luke. The two are alike in scene, the night of bootless toil, the great catch at Jesus' word. They differ in personnel, antecedent relations of the fishermen with Jesus, the effect of the miracle on Peter, and the subsequent teaching of Jesus, as well as in time. These ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... his presence the amusements of the fete. The Mexican generals and other officers follow in his wake, and the gratifying spectacle may not unfrequently be seen, of the president leaning from his box in the plaza de gallos, and betting upon a cock, with a coatless, bootless, hatless, and probably worthless ragamuffin in the pit. Every one, therefore, however humble his degree, has the pleasure, while following his speculative inclinations, of reflecting that he treads in the steps of the magnates of the land; and, as Sam Weller would say, "Vot a consolation ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... and words of kindness are bootless. Between you and me, such words should be full of love, or they would have no meaning. What can I say to you that shall be both ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... I thought, that a journey of little glory thou shouldst make to the island; thou hast got maimed, and honour is no nigher to us than before, yea, we must have bootless shame on ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... the last appeal to the country in the matter of the Reform Bill. Staid and substantial fathers of families doubtless recollect the strife of parties and opinions which filled those times, and in which themselves took part, with all the bootless haste and fervour of twenty; feeling especially indignant that they were not yet householders, as their incorruptible votes might save the nation. England has floated safely through many a conflict ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... and a stone staircase, so narrow that a large man could not ascend it. The staircase terminated against a dead stone ceiling, closing all further passages, the last step being only six or eight inches from it. For what purpose a staircase was carried up to such a bootless termination we could not conjecture. The whole tower was a substantial stone structure, and in its arrangements and purposes about as incomprehensible as the ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... the doctor, and gave their own special cases and his anxiety all the credit for his grave looks; and all these half-finished streets and rough new roads in the east end of Carlingford were sown thick with the bootless suggestions of Dr Rider's love and fears. The crop did not show upon the vulgar soil, but gave lurking associations to every half-built street corner which he passed in his rounds many a day after, and served at ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... all things ready, Scott settled down coatless and bootless on the broad leather-covered bunk. The heat under the iron-arched roof of the station might have been anything over a hundred degrees. At the last moment Martyn ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... us, of course, prowling about stealthily, or making frantic, bootless leaps at the swallows. A cat in a hayloft is a beautiful example of the eternal fitness of things. We had not heard of this fitness then, but we all felt that Paddy was in his own ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to influence him the more. He had allowed his son to join them. On their way they preached the word at several villages through which they passed, and the people heard them gladly. Malietoa was unmoved, and they had to return; but their journey had not been so bootless as they supposed. Scarcely had they reached home, than a messenger arrived from the chief of a village they had visited at Apolulu, begging them to return in haste, as he and his people were waiting to hear from their lips the truths of ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... shot on the light breeze by; A noise and a smoke on the plain afar— 'Tis the cloud and the clang of the Moslem war. And the light that flashed from his black eyes, lo! Was a light that paled the red wine's glow; And he shook his fetters in bootless ire, And called on the Prophet, and named his sire. But the lady of Saad heard the clang, And she knew the far sabres his fetters rang. Oh! she had the heart where a man might rest, For she knew the tempest in his breast. She rose. Ere she reached him, he called ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... with love, and fancy healed by no medicine but favor. Phoebus had herbs to heal all hurts but this passion; Circes had charms for all chances but for affection, and Mercury subtle reasons to refel all griefs but love. Persuasions are bootless, reason lends no remedy, counsel no comfort, to such whom fancy hath made resolute; and therefore though Phoebe loves Ganymede, yet Montanus must ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... preach—I hate to prate— - I'm no fanatic croaker, But learn contentment from the fate Of this East India broker. He'd everything a man of taste Could ever want, except a waist; And discontent His size anent, And bootless perseverance blind, Completely wrecked the peace of mind Of ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... Such were the bootless, best thoughts I had while looking at the dull blood-stain and blocked-up secret stair of Holyrood, at the ruins of Loch Leven castle, and afterward at Abbotsford, where the picture of Queen Mary's head, as it lay on the pillow when severed from the block, hung opposite to a fine caricature of "Queen ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... emphasised the gloom that rilled the first of the two funeral carriages. Mavis stared with dull surprise at the rollicking gaiety of the afternoon: its callousness to her anguish irked her. It made her think how unnecessary and altogether bootless was the loss she had sustained. She tried to realise that God had singled her out for suffering as a mark of His favour. But at the bottom of her heart she nourished something in the nature of resentment against the Most High. She ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... began Hamilton in a lifeless manner, which told me his search had been bootless, and he turned languidly towards a puffy, crusty, military gentleman, whom, from the respect shown him, I judged to be Governor McDonell. "Duncan Cameron's warrant for the arrest is perfectly legal. If Your Honor should surrender yourself, you will save Fort Douglas for ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... "Yes, bootless was it to have expected anything from such a source as that. Never, despite one's wishes, was anything possible of acquisition thence... This is usually the case. Felitzata, as a clever woman indeed (albeit ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... a bootless bene?" With these dark words begins my tale; And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring When prayer is ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... bootless insolence. [To his Attendants and IDENSTEIN. You need not further to molest this man, 270 But let him go his way. Ulric, good morrow! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... detain you no longer, but return whence I came from my bootless errand. I do not envy you, sir; it is always better to be the injured than the injurer. Permit me to pass, sir, as I must ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... Her screaming stilled, but his own outcry more than replaced it. In a twinkling the virago's hard teeth closed over his fingers. Two ran from the oars to him. But the woman, conscious that she fought for life or death, held fast. Curses, blows, even a dagger pried betwixt her lips—all bootless. She seemed as a thing possessed. And all the time the Etruscan ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... door, going to his room. She opened it an inch, holding her breath. At first, nothing! Was it fancy? Or was some one noiselessly rifling the room down-stairs? But surely no one would steal of Uncle Tod, who, everybody knew, had nothing valuable. Then came a sound as of bootless feet pressing the stairs stealthily! And the thought darted through her, 'If it isn't he, what shall I do?' And then—'What shall I do—if ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... probably be unable to capture one, and only drive them farther away; if I did not, how was I to get them in? And what would their parents think of me, if they saw or heard the children rioting, hatless, bonnetless, gloveless, and bootless, in the deep soft snow? While I stood in this perplexity, just without the door, trying, by grim looks and angry words, to awe them into subjection, I heard a voice behind me, in harshly piercing ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... turn!" the demon cries, and blows A blast of sulphur from his mouth and nose. Ah! bootless aim! the critic fiend, Sagacious Yamen, judge of hell, Is judged in his turn; Parchment won't burn! His schemes of vengeance are dissolved ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... presence—this instant!" exclaimed the general, irritated by this imprudent remark. "The prisoners shall die; and let me tell you that your errand is bootless." ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... was now several miles in width, and Spike, at first, proposed to his mate, to keep off dead before the wind, and by crossing over to the north shore, let the steamer pass ahead, and continue a bootless chase to the eastward. Several vessels, however, were visible in the middle of the passage, at distances varying from one to three miles, and Mulford pointed out the hopelessness of attempting to cross the sheet of open water, and expect to go unseen by the watchful eyes of ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... Halbert Glendinning, boldly, "it is bootless to threaten. one who holds his life at no rate. Thine anger can but slay; nor do I think thy power extendeth, or thy will stretcheth, so far. The terrors which your race produce upon others, are vain against me. My heart is hardened against fear, as by a sense of despair. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... my bosom fire, And waste my soul with care; But ah! how bootless to admire, When fated to despair! Yet in thy presence, lovely fair, To hope may be forgiv'n; For sure 'twere impious to despair, So much ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... from themselves, to think they be Headless, or other bodies' shades, Hath long and bootless dwelt with me; For could I think she some idea were, I still might love, forget, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... Cnuti, 61. make it a 'scetus inexpiable.' 'Hus brec and baernet and open thyfth and asbereniorth and hlaford swice after woruld laga is boileds.' Word for word, 'House break and burnt, and open theft, and manifest murdher, and lord-treachery, after world's law is bootless.' Bracton says, it was punished by death. 'Si quis turbida seditione iricendium fecerit nequiter et in felonia, vel ob inimicitias, vel praedandi causa, capital puniatur pcena vel sententia.' Bract. L. 3. c. 27. He defines it as commissible by burning 'cedes alien as.' Ib. Britton, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... before you spoke to me, You desired my name to know, I in your case act not so, Since I speak, whoe'er you be, Forced, but most unwillingly (As to listening heaven is plain) To reply:—a bootless task Were it in me, indeed, to ask, Since, whoe'er you be, my strain Must be one of proud disdain. So I pray you, cavalier, Leave me in this lonely wood, Leave me in the solitude I enjoyed ere you ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... of December, after nineteen days of excessive toil, they arrived at Cahiague, the chief town of the Hurons, the rendezvous of the allied tribes, whence they had set forth on the first of September, nearly four months before, on what may seem to us a bootless raid. To the savage warriors, however, it doubtless seemed a different thing. They had been enabled to bring home valuable provisions, which were likely to be important to them when an unsuccessful hunt might, as it often did, leave them nearly destitute ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... corridor, and as the door closed behind her they went naturally and wordlessly into each other's arms. Lips met lips in a kiss that lasted for a long, long time. It was not a passionate embrace—passion would come later—it was as though each of them, after endless years of bootless, fruitless ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... was wrapped in a sheet of flame. In the next instant, the fire burst through the dividing partition of the cabins, obliging our hero to fly in his night-gown, with his inexpressibles under his arm. Thus, coatless and bootless, he leaped on shore, when delay a second longer would have effectually prevented his ever ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... Bourdon, sinking back in his seat, and burying his face in his hands: "it were a bootless errand; she could not, in the face of that evidence, believe my unsupported assertion! It were as well perhaps she did not. And yet, sir, it is hard to be trampled into a felon's grave, loaded with the maledictions of those whom you would coin your heart to serve and bless! ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... up, comrades; further resistance were but a bootless sacrifice." Not the least noteworthy of Bayard's many fine qualities were his rare good sense and his cheerfulness under misfortune. If he won, he enjoyed his victory; if he lost, he accepted defeat ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... everywhere. A hundred and fifty years ago or so the only very rich people in the community were a handful of great landowners and a few bankers; the rest of the world's business was being done by small prosperous independent men. The labourers were often very poor and wretched, ill clad, bootless, badly housed and short of food, but there was nevertheless a great deal of middle-class comfort and prosperity. The country was covered with flourishing farmers, every country town was a little world in itself, with busy tradespeople and professional ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... often Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd And left me to a bootless inquisition,[372-10] Concluding, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... "My wayward lover often I excite So vain and bootless an emprize to quit; Nor idly hope to turn her stedfast sprite, Too deeply with another passion smit; And make apparent to the Scottish knight, Ariodantes such a flame had lit In the young damsel's ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the recital of his tricks, and the pictures of himself arrayed in white cravat, or gayly disporting himself on a 'see-saw'? I feel inclined to wake him up, and whisper how, one cold winter's night, I met a party of five little children, hatless and bootless, hurrying along an East-end slum, and saying encouragingly to the youngest, who was crying with cold and hunger, 'Come along: we'll get there soon.' I followed them down the lighted street till they paused in front of a barber's ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... little, that we were defeated of our golden Recua, and that in these we could find not past some two horse-loads of silver: but it grieved our Captain much more, that he was discovered, and that by one of his own men. But knowing it bootless to grieve at things past, and having learned by experience, that all safety in extremity, consisteth in taking of time [i. e., by the forelock, making an instant decision]; after no long consultation with PEDRO the chief of our Cimaroons, who declared that "there were ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... and bootless boast! They had scarcely seated themselves to work again, the lieutenant puffing vigorously, before they heard footsteps in the corridor, with a rustle of silks, and a hand tapped on ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... high-minded, the very Caesar's wife of democratic virtue,—spotless and unsuspected; never seeking office, yet alike faithful to his principles and his party; and with indignant foot spurning the Administration's bootless bribe,—the fact outtravels fancy. Nay, Gentlemen, it is something to be an American—I feel it as I look about me. For the honorable Attorney is perfectly suited to this Honorable Court;—yea, to the Administration which gives them both their dignity and their work and its pay. Happy country ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... 'tis a bootless endeavour. As the flight of a bird of the air Is the flight of a joke—you will never See the same one again, you may swear. 'Twas my firstborn, and O how I prized it! My darling, my treasure, my own! This brain and none other devised it - And now ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... but there is a certain grave acquiescence in ignorance, a recognition of our impotence to solve momentous and urgent questions, which has a satisfaction of its own. After high aspirations, after renewed endeavours, after bootless toil, after long wanderings, after hope, effort, weariness, failure, painfully alternating and recurring, it is an immense relief to the exhausted mind to be able to say, "At length I know that I can ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... trainmen parted company, the former to undertake a bootless quest for the red marauders, the latter to return to Leavenworth, their occupation gone. The government held itself responsible for the depredations of its wards, and the loss of the wagons and cattle was ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... Arthur continued, "if I concede that I am no better,—I also doubt whether he is better than I. I see men who begin with ideas of universal reform, and who, before their beards are grown, propound their loud plans for the regeneration of mankind, give up their schemes after a few years of bootless talking and vainglorious attempts to lead their fellows; and after they have found that men will no longer bear them, as indeed they never were in the least worthy to be heard, sink quietly into the ranks-and-file,—acknowledging ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be all right, Mabel," said Mr. Brindlock to his wife; and neither of them ever rallied him upon his bootless experience ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... boys, each armed with a paper containing a problem in arithmetic, had to run to their sisters, wait for the problem to be solved, and then run back with the answer. Excellent! Simpson at his most inventive. Unfortunately, when the bootless boys arrived at the turning post, they found nothing but a small problem in arithmetic awaiting them, while on the adjoining stretch of grass young mathematicians were trying, with the help of their sisters, to get into two pairs of boots ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... those most close in blood, even by accident, is to incur the guilt of parricide, or kin-killing, a bootless crime, which can only be purged by religious ceremonies; and which involves exile, lest the gods' wrath fall on the land, and brings the curse of childlessness on the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... not heard his doom, so filled her with concern and indignation, that—her eyes and thoughts fixed upon him, at the other end of the class—she did not know when her turn came, but allowed the master to stand before her in bootless expectation. He did not interrupt her, but with a refinement of cruelty that ought to have done him credit in his own eyes, waited till the universal silence had at length aroused Annie to self-consciousness and a sense of annihilating confusion. Then, with a smile ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... against the wanton and bootless mischief which fear or design has imputed to the Bank of the United States. Public opinion would cry out against its illiberal course, and would fully avenge the wrong. Some of their best customers would desert them. They ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... render useless &c adj.; dismantle, dismast, dismount, disqualify, disable; unrig; cripple, lame &c (injure) 659; spike guns, clip the wings; put out of gear. Adj. useless, inutile, inefficacious, futile, unavailing, bootless; inoperative &c 158; inadequate &c (insufficient) 640; inservient^, unsubservient; inept, inefficient &c (impotent) 158; of no avail &c (use) 644; ineffectual &c (failure) 732; incompetent &c (unskillful) 699; stale, flat and unprofitable; superfluous ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dark circuitous ways, I plunged and stumbled; round me, far and near, Quaint hordes of eyeless phantoms did appear, Twisting and turning in a bootless chase, — When, like an exile given by God's grace To feel once more a human atmosphere, I caught the world's first murmur, large and clear, Flung from a singing river's ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... themselves hoarse with delight, and turning unlimited catharine-wheels in their happy delirium. I could hear them distinctly clapping their hands; I could not hear the patter of their feet, though—the poor little fellows were bootless. Then they ceased their play for a moment. Somebody was beckoning to them to follow him. He quietly led them beneath the branches of the very biggest tree in the garden. He pointed his finger upwards. It was a very short sermon—a sermon from a text set up by Nature which ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to her as yet unasked question. She had come to him for guidance, to beg his counsel concerning her brother's letter, and he had told her in his music all that he knew of the world. He had shown her the cruel agony of the worldly life, the unrest, the bootless seeking, the satiety of realised ambition, and the calmness, the peace of the ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... quenched in tears: Then Disappointment's blighting breath Breathes o'er him, and he droops to death; While the Destroyer glideth by, And smiles, as if in mockery. How strong a hand hath Time! Fame wins The eager youth to her embrace; With tameless ardour he begins, And follows up the bootless race; Ah! bootless—for, as on he hies, With equal speed the phantom flies, Till youth, and strength, and vigour gone, He faints, and sinks, and dies unknown; While the Destroyer passeth by, And smiles, as if ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... a bootless errand,' was the answer. 'No power in Heaven and earth will make me surrender my ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... questioning" of the final import and outcome of "that world-famous Waterloo," compare the Ode from the French, "We do not curse thee, Waterloo," written in 1815, and published by John Murray in Poems (1816). Compare, too, The Age of Waterloo, v. 93, "Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo!" and Don Juan, Canto VIII. stanzas xlviii.-l., etc. Shelley, too, in his sonnet on the Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte (1816), utters a like lament ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... never got his head sufficiently clear to appreciate this, and he faithfully continued to play the part for which he had been cast by them, but without understanding it. He persistently charged the responsibility for his bootless return and ignominious situation upon Mr. Lincoln; and though his errand proved conclusively that the South was making no advances,[72] and though no man in the country was more strictly affected with personal knowledge of this fact than he was, yet he continued to tell the people, with ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... face to face they stood) Illustrious Hector threw a spear well-aim'd, But smote him where the belts that bore his shield 485 And falchion cross'd each other on his breast. The double guard preserved him unannoy'd. Indignant that his spear had bootless flown, Yet fearing death at hand, the Trojan Chief Toward the phalanx of his friends retired. 490 But, as he went, huge Ajax with a stone Of those which propp'd the ships (for numerous such Lay rolling at the feet of those who fought) Assail'd him. Twirling like a top it pass'd The ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... you," answered the man; "and Philip here says that our search will be bootless, for that he is ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... While I was yet a child? now, grown mature, And competent to understand the speech Of my instructors, feeling, too, a mind Within me conscious of augmented pow'rs, I will attempt your ruin, be assured, Whether at Pylus, or continuing here. I go, indeed, (nor shall my voyage prove Of which I speak, bootless or vain) I go An humble passenger, who neither bark Nor rowers have to boast my own, denied 420 That honour (so ye judg'd it best) by you. He said, and from Antinoues' hand his own Drew sudden. Then their delicate repast The busy suitors on all sides prepar'd, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... their places were immediately taken by a half-dozen ill-kempt, bedraggled children. A tousled head was thrust from the doorway, and after a moment of inspection a man stepped out upon the hard-trodden earth of the dooryard. He was bootless and a great toe protruded from a hole in the point of his sock. He wore a faded hickory shirt, and the knees of his bleached-out overalls were patched with ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... he was; one grievous blot, So deem'd full many a courtly dame, I wot, Cross'd the full growth of his aspiring days, And dimm'd the lustre of meridian praise: With bootless artifice their lures they troll'd; Still, Gugemer lov'd not, or nothing told. The court's accustom'd love and service done, To his glad sire returns the welcome son. Now with his father dwelt he, and pursued Such pastimes ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... pardon, Holy Father, I crave. O Holy Father, pardon and grace! Dame Alice, my wife, The bane of my life, I have left, I fear me, in evil case! A scroll of shame in my rage I tore, Which that caitiff Page to a paramour bore; 'Twere bootless to tell how I storm'd and swore; Alack! and alack! too surely I knew The turn of each P, and the tail of each Q, And away to Ingoldsby Hall I flew! Dame Alice I found,—She sank on the ground,— I twisted her neck till I twisted it round! With jibe and jeer and mock and scoff, I twisted ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... the slighter symptoms of his bootless struggle against the general embarrassment into which the agricultural interests were, year after year, so ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... immorality. The victory of April, 1760, was a comforting incident—a species of compensation to a handful of brave and faithful colonists, for the crushing disaster which had befallen their cause, the preceding September. It was the crowning—though bootless victory—to the recent brilliant, but useless success of the French arms at Carillon, Monongahela, Fort George, Ticonderoga, Beauport Flats. It was, moreover, the last title, added to numerous others, to the esteem ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... to bridge ... Pass'd on, and to the summit reaching, stood To view another gap, within the round Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs. Marvellous darkness shadow'd o'er the place. In the Venetian arsenal as boils Through wintry months tenacious pitch, to smear Their unbound vessels ... So not by force of fire but art divine Boiled here a glutinous thick ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... of assured consequence. There is now to be a deep and solemn consultation, as when two ambassadors are going over a heavy protocol from a third. It happened to me to see one of these myrmidons returning from a bootless errand of inspection to a reputed collection; he was hot and indignant "A collection," he sputtered forth—"that a collection!—mere rubbish, sir—irredeemable trash. What do you think, sir?—a set of the common quarto edition of the Delphini ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... plead my faith, where faith hath no reward, To move remorse where favour is not borne, To heap complaints where she doth not regard, Were fruitless, bootless, vain, and ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... themselves "Brothers of the Coast," and took a solemn oath not to secrete from each other any portion of the common spoil, nor uncharitably to disregard each other's wants. Violence and lust would have gone upon bootless ventures, if justice and generosity had not been crimped ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... and Peleus' soul was stirred with gladness, and straightway he spake in the midst of all: "My friends, why do we thus cherish a bootless grief like this? For those two have perished by the fate they have met with; but among our host are steersmen yet, and many a one. Wherefore let us not delay our attempt, but rouse yourselves to the work and ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... a few minutes to keep our whole party chewing all that day and at intervals for many subsequent days. It is a rather bootless kind of effort, at best, though it may tend to develop the ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... risen when I waded ashore. I was swordless, coatless, hatless, and bootless; but I carried a well-filled purse in my belt. Up to that time I had given no thought to my ultimate destination; but being for the moment safe, I pondered the question and determined to make my way to Haddon ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... control. As any one who may happen to take up this volume will very soon discover that there is other matter which it is necessary to know it may be as well to tell all such persons, in the commencement, therefore, that their reading will be bootless, unless they have leisure to turn to the pages of Homeward Bound ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... "ere you set your mind so keenly against what is proposed, will consider your own want of power to prevent it. Every wise man, when he sees a rock giving way, withdraws from the bootless ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... thought it bootless to row so far down the stream, or to seek any farther of this old fox; and therefore from the river of Waricapana, which lieth at the entrance of Emeria, we returned again, and left to the eastward those four rivers which fall ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... of 1589, Ralegh had been busy, as men of the sea were then, half Queen's servants, half buccaneers, in gathering the abundant spoils to be found on the high seas; and he had been with Sir John Norreys and Sir Francis Drake in a bootless but not unprofitable expedition to Lisbon. On his return from the Portugal voyage his court fortunes underwent a change. Essex, who had long scorned "that knave Ralegh," was in the ascendant. Ralegh found the Queen, for some reason or another, and reasons were not hard to find, offended and dangerous. ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... was the matter. The young ladies came, pale and frightened, but in faultless attire. I put an armed guard by the prisoners at the door, under command of D'ri. Then I had them bare the feet of the four Britishers, knowing they could not run bootless in the brush. We organized a convoy,—the general and I,—and prepared to start for the garrison. We kept the smudges going, for now and then we could hear the small thunder of hornet-wings above us. There is a ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... did live on this pittance in shabby genteel poverty with her boy and her parents in Fulham. Dobbin and Joseph Sedley were in India now, and old Sedley, always speculating in bootless schemes, once more brought ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... luckless speech, and bootless boast! For which he paid full dear; For while he spake, a braying ass Did ...
— The Diverting History of John Gilpin • William Cowper
... brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He slunk back in a curve. Doesn't see me. Along by the edge of the mole he lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed against it. He trotted forward and, lifting again his ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Bonus liberdonaco. Booby simplanimulo. Book libro. Book-keeper librotenisto. Book (copy-book) kajero. Bookseller libristo. Boom soni. Booming sonado. Boon bonfaro, gajno. Boorish maldelikata. Boot boto. Booth budo. Bootless neprofita. Bootmaker botisto. Booty akirajxo. Borax borakso. Border (edge) randajxo. Border, to put a borderi. Bore (a hole) bori. Bore (of a gun) kalibro. Borer (tool) borilo. Born, to be naskigxi. Born again renaskigxi. Borne portita. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... consternation. Many thought I had been burned to death or killed, for the roof of the barn had fallen in. After some little time, however, and after much struggling on my part, I was able to allay their fears by appearing before them. It required no small amount of pluck—as I call it—to face them—bootless, coatless, vestless, hatless, penniless, and, withal, with my feet and trousers besmeared with cow dung. But there is a time in every man's life when he shall come to evoke sympathy from his fellows. ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... Then wend ye to the greenwood merrily, And let the light roes bootless from ye run. Marian and I, as sovereigns of your toils, Will wait within our ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... battle had been won by Theodoric and his allies (for in other parts of the field the Margrave Rudiger had vanquished Reinald) yet was it a bootless victory by reason of the death of Attila's sons. And Theodoric, riding back to the battle-field, came where his brother Diether was lying; and lamented him saying: "There liest thou; my brother Diether. This is the greatest sorrow that has befallen me, that thou art thus ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin |
