"Futile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the most part fallen, made it impracticable for her to take the decisive part which she had played in the days of William III. and of Marlborough in the struggle against the French army; her contributions to the land war were for the most part misdirected and futile. Her expeditions to Dunkirk, to Holland, and to Hanover embarrassed rather than materially assisted the cause of her allies. But her navy, favourably handicapped by the breakdown, due to the Revolution, of the French navy, eventually produced in the person of Nelson ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... O! who can pierce the cloud that o'er him lowers? It were as vain my wayward fate to scan; Enough, 'twill come with th' onhurrying hours— The futile purpose or the settled plan: Or Death, perchance, e'en now each tie may sever! There's many a grave in this bright rolling river, That's bounding onward where the one I love, To meet my coming, now, on its far banks ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... most delightful two hours with the Oxford mathematician and the Oxford don, walking about and into the wonderful college buildings, and afterward the three had a bite of lunch together. But all efforts to return to "Lewis Carroll" were futile. While saying good-by to his ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... on Catholicism, should not, however, be confounded with the Jewish Christianity which is the most original form in which Christianity realised itself. This was no longer able to influence the Christianity which had shaken itself free from the Jewish nation (as to futile attempts, see below), any more than the protecting covering stripped from the new shoot, can ever again acquire significance ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... consulted the little American clock; it had stopped. How like America! The only recorded instance, he would explain to Irene, of an export from that country being required—the commodity proved inadequate. No, that would make Irene cry. . . . The folly of hopeless, futile thoughts jingled on. Suddenly he heard the cry of a belated newsvendor, howling some British victory, some horrible scandal in Paris. Scandal, exposure, publicity—there was the horror. He could almost hear the journalists stropping their pens. If his thoughts ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... in the enthusiasm, especially after Dr. Dumfarthing had given them a Sunday afternoon talk in which he showed that their studies were absolutely futile. As soon as they knew this they went to work with a vigour that put new life into ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... it. They met at a quick lunch counter, an unusual meeting, for Rokeby lunched almost invariably at his club. As Osborn ate his sandwiches and drank his ale he was looking sideways at Rokeby all the time, and feeling, somehow, how futile he was, how worthless bachelors were to the world; and presently, when the space around them had cleared, and the white-capped server had moved ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... that he had bolted with the nugget, but as he could hardly dispose of such a large mass of gold without suspicion, and as the police both in Ballarat and Melbourne had made inquiries, which proved futile, this ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... war broke out, Alexandria was occupied by Union troops. The Union authorities knew of the sale of Mount Vernon and repeated but futile efforts were made to find the securities. Mr. Burke's home was searched no less than three times. The funds were never found in their hiding place of the soiled-clothes basket. There they reposed until Mrs. Burke (nee Trist, great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson) and Mrs. Upton Herbert (nee ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... to exclaim at the inaction of the years; but here, where vivid and well-preserved wall-paintings looked down on a jumbled collection of smashed fragments of wood and bones, one felt how hardly the Powers deal with the dead. How far away seemed the great fight between Amon and Aton; how futile the task which Horemheb accomplished so gloriously! It was all over and forgotten, and one asked oneself what it mattered whether the way was difficult or the battle slow to win. In the fourth year of the reign of Horemheb a certain harper named Neferhotep partly composed ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... organization, it could control the policy of the government only by breaking down and sweeping away the barriers which the Constitution has erected against it. It follows that all attempts to establish the majority in power by merely reforming the party must be futile. ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... could they have seen the flush of excitement as he threw down the cards, exclaiming, "By Jove! I've lost again!" and have watched the flashing eye and heaving breast, they would have felt, even more keenly than they did, how futile were words or sympathies ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... adults under the law. They will not consent to lose property rights and the power of guardianship over their own children. They will not consent to their own disfranchisement or to the loss of opportunities of education and of economic independence. It is as futile as it is stupid to expect that in this matter history will go backward. To oppose measures already accomplished which are in the direction of democratic adjustment of social relations, even by those who think certain ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... vented their futile rage and terror in mass pyromania. Building after building, city after city was burned to the ground. But, according to the BBC, the murderous frenzy of the Continent was not duplicated. Inanimate things suffered; ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... endeavoured to arrange a peace after the first phase of the Balkan war met first in December 1913. I watched closely its deliberations, had several friends among the delegates, and was in a position to see at close hand the play of jealousies and ambitions which made its work futile. From the first the very desperation of Turkey raised a difficulty to quick peace negotiations. She had lost so much as to be practically bankrupt, and was in the position of a reckless man with no more possible losses to suffer, anxious ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... again, think there never can be any solution of the problem so long as the two races occupy the same territory, and they propose some mammoth scheme of colonization to take the blacks away to some quarter of the world where they can be by themselves. But these and other remedies are utterly futile, because they are in collision with God's plan, as indicated by certain manifest facts. Meantime, while men are so busy trying to get around the difficulty instead of solving it in a straightforward way, the problem gets a little bigger every year. The caste question ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... barely talk, but he drove himself and his companion relentlessly. He no longer troubled to look ahead in hope of beholding a change in the land. The weary futile task of placing one mat before the other occupied him entirely. And suddenly he found himself pushing head foremost into a hedgelike thicket of brush and ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... its deplorable habit, had been passing, and the glitter had died off the plain as the sun went on its way to make a futile attempt at purifying the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... which gave diurnal motion to the instrument. The stars moved on, the end of the telescope followed, but their tongues stood still. To expect that he was ever voluntarily going to end the pause by speech was apparently futile. She laid ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... trees, but he signified assent to the inevitable. The reserve, hurrying down from the wood, took the captured in charge. The attack swept on, tearing across the meadow to the Front Royal road, where the second company had made a moment's stand, as brave as futile. It fired two rounds, then broke and tore down the dusty road or through the bordering fields toward Front Royal. Cleave and his skirmishers gained. They were mountain men, long of limb; they went like Greek runners, and they tossed before them round messengers of death. The ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... is the futile effort of the plotter to get rid of a character armed with incriminating evidence. Again we quote Most. (573 ff.), where Tranio is conversing with Theopropides. The money-lender from whom young Philolaches has borrowed appears on the other side of the stage. ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... open doorway, and somehow his original furtiveness had returned to him. Here he paused as the voice of the twins reached and held him. They were still playing in the sun, banking up the sand and stones in their futile attempt at castle building. He breathed hard, as though summoning up all his decision. Then ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... was akin to that of falling through space— there seemed nothing to cling to, nothing by which to sustain himself. How utterly futile he was was borne in upon him! He could not resist. Protestation would only humiliate him. He turned slowly and walked into his own room, where he stood erect ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... a nurse came, and, as there was no telephone in her room, she could only wait—wait and think, and in this thinking she gave large space to the forester. Her apathy, her bitterness were both gone. She was no longer the recluse. The mood which had made her a hermit now seemed both futile and morbid—and yet she was not ready to return to her friends and relatives in the East. That life she had also put away. "What if I were to make a new home—somewhere in the West?" she said, and in this speculation the worshipful face of the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... piteously, and her eyes filled with tears. Aunt Sophy's words recurred to her mind; but they seemed feeble and futile in the light of his courage and steadfastness. Aunt Sophy had been wrong—so much was clear to Lesley; and truth was best under all ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... who preferred another and a better man, one against whom he had an unalterable grudge. He recognized in the Westerner an eager energy, a clean-cut resilience, and an abounding vitality he would have given a great deal to possess. His own early manhood had been frittered away in futile dissipations and he resented bitterly the contrast between himself and Lindsay that must continually be present in the mind of the girl who had promised to marry him. He had many adventitious things to offer her—such ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... their giant heads; when I saw the waters roll from their sinuous bodies in miniature waterfalls as they glided hither and thither, now upon the surface, now half submerged; as I saw them meet, open-mouthed, hissing and snorting, in their titanic and interminable warring I realized how futile is man's poor, weak imagination by comparison ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and to his friend Olympius who had implanted and cherished these feelings in his daughter. Constantine's endeavors to show her the beauty of his creed and to win her to Christianity were entirely futile; and the older they grew, and the less they agreed, the worse could each endure the dissent of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... soldiers manning the searchlights for the beams now swept restlessly across the eastern sky. To the eastward, two or three kilometers, an anti-aircraft battery opened fire, and from aloft came the dull pouf! of the exploding shells. Vain, futile effort! It was only the angry thundering of admitted helplessness. One chance in a million! The motors droned on, coming nearer and nearer. Excited townspeople, in wooden sabots, clattered down the streets ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... is so complete and victory is so swift, that an adversary's losses in both manpower and material could be relatively light, and yet the message is so unmistakable that resistance would be seen as futile. ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... way that implied their belief that Vanderhuyn was too much elated over his election. Little did they know that at that moment the presidency of the famous Hasheesh Club appeared to Charley the veriest bawble in the world. If he had not known how futile would be any attempt to gain an entrance to the smallpox hospital, he would have excused himself and started for the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... upon, who have played their parts and passed off the stage, as if the sole purpose was the entertainment of some unseen spectator. When we reach human history, what wasted effort, what failures, what blind groping, what futile undertakings!—war, famine, pestilence, delaying progress or bringing to naught the wisdom of generations of men! Those who live in this age are witnessing in the terrible European war something analogous to the ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... Minister of Foreign Affairs. [The Gondreville Mystery.] From 1824 to 1830, Corentin was pitted against the terrible Jacques Collin, alias Vautrin, whose friendly plans in behalf of Lucien de Rubempre he thwarted so cruelly. Corentin it was who rendered futile the contemplated marriage of the aspirant with Clotilde de Grandlieu, bringing about as a consequence the absolute ruin of the "distinguished provincial at Paris." He rusticated at Passy, rue des Vignes, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... leap across into the home-bound train and go back. He speculated upon what might have happened, until his brain reeled. And when would he get another telegram? And why had not Lawyer Ed told him more? He asked himself these futile questions over and over in wild impatience. The fever of the night before had returned, his head was hot, and ached as if it ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... to change this condition appeared to be futile, whether these attempts were of a friendly or of a hostile and oppressive nature. Legislature of any kind, as long as it affected racial questions, was not only unsuccessful in accomplishing its ends, but often resulted in bitter parliamentary discussions and hostilities. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... last-named treatise, and he would constantly rub his hands and say, "How plain it is that M. de Maistre is no theologian." All he cared for was theology, and he had a profound contempt for literature. He rarely failed to stigmatise as futile nonsense the highly-esteemed studies of the Nicolaites. For M. Dupanloup, whose principal dogma was that there is no salvation without a good literary education, he had little sympathy, and he generally avoided mention of ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... masters of fiction are apt to evoke. It is a story of a Danish national type—the conversational artist. In no country in the world is there such a conversational fury as in Denmark. A people has, of course, to do something with its surplus energy; and as political opposition is sure to prove futile, there is nothing left to do but to talk—not only politics, but art, poetry, religion, in fact, everything under the sun. At the time, however, when Albrecht, the hero of "Without a Centre," plied his nimble tongue, the country had a more liberal Government, and ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... skill and knowledge, and so produce results commensurate with the force of which he availed himself. There was, therefore, an unfailing zest in his work, and the majority of his labors had the character of experiments, which, nevertheless, were so guided by experience that they were rarely futile or unremunerative. On themes that accorded with his tastes and pursuits he would often talk earnestly and well, but his silence and preoccupation at other times proved that it is not best to be dominated by one idea, even though it ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... there has been no improvement upon it since his day. And this became to him the real organon of science. "He supposed it was not merely the instrument of thought, but the instrument of investigation." Hence it was futile for purposes of discovery, although important to aid the processes of thought. Induction and syllogism are the two great instruments of his logic. The one sets out from particulars already known to arrive at a conclusion; ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... gone Bassett fell into deep thought. So Maggie Donaldson had gone to the post office for ten years. He tried to visualize those faithful, wearisome journeys, through spring mud and winter snow, always futile and always hopeful. He did not for a moment believe that she had "gone off her head." She had been faithful to the end, as some women were, and in the end, too, as had happened before, ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his own futile proposals stared the young man in the face too forcibly for him to nurse the spark of resentment which was struck out in the turmoil of his bosom. He veered, as if to follow Agostino, and remained midway, his chest heaving, and his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of him that, having worked out his problem, he wasted no thought on futile regret or selfish repining at the fortune which had smiled on her. It should smile on him, too, and then, and not till then, he would go ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... As to the metaphysical refinements, attempting to show that the Americans are equally free from obedience and commercial restraints as from taxation of revenue, being unrepresented here, I pronounce them futile, frivolous, and groundless. Resistance to your acts was necessary as it was just; and your vain declaration of the omnipotence of parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally impotent to convince ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... at a loss to understand what is the meaning of all this futile discussion as to the respective merits of the various kinds of road pavement. There cannot be a moment's doubt, as to which is, far and away, the cheapest, the safest, and—in a word—the—best. Without any hesitation, I maintain that it is the Asphalte. And I do not speak without ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... it. Then, leaning down, he unbuckled the strap from the major's ankles. A wild hope that his incomprehensible captive might seize that moment to develop his real intent—that he might fly, fight, or in some way act up to his reckless reputation—sustained him for a moment, but in the next proved futile. The major only said, "Thank you, Tom," and stretched his ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... standing before a mirror with her hands to her throat, let them fall suddenly until they were clasped for an instant across her breast. But she gave no sign that she had heard, at breakfast an hour later, even when the boy cleared his throat, and after many futile efforts to bring the matter up, signalled across the table to ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... Robert and his hirelings, the revolt continued with unabated fury, and at last Gregory was constrained to return in person to Italy with the purpose of pacifying the turbulent forces. He entered Rome, January 17, 1377; but after a year of futile effort he died, leaving the confusion worse ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Mother, declare that I am not your eldest son: Yes, so; not otherwise, ever!" modestly but steadily persists the young man, whenever this expedient is proposed to him,—as perhaps it already sometimes is. Whereat the desperate Father can only snort indignantly futile. A case growing nearly desperate. Desperate, yes, on all hands: unless one had the "high mast" above alluded to, with two pulleys and ropes; and could see a certain Pair of Scoundrels mount rapidly thither, what hope is there for anybody? A violent crisis does not ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... see those signs? Scoundrel, puppy, foreign-born poacher, didn't you see my sign-boards?" And as she looked down at him—Richard's blood alive and red in a youthful and beautiful body: and she what she was—she fell into one of those futile and dreadful fits of rage to which the evil old are subject; and mumbled with her skinny bags of lips, and shook and nodded her deathly head, and waved her claw-like hands, screeching ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... whole thing was! I longed—I yearned to yell my disclosures against the man who like an octopus had now placed his tentacles around me. But I saw that it was futile to kick against the pricks. I had only to ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... form of a practicable seaworthy raft, big enough to accommodate all the family—with the one exception of Frank, who, as it were, grasped the edge of this life-saving apparatus of mine, and tested it suspiciously. His preliminary and perfectly futile opening to the effect that the moon had already set, was, however, smothered ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... hill, which was the signal for more trouble. The team started bravely up the incline, but soon stopped and then balked and all urging with whip and voice failed to make any impression. After several ineffectual attempts to proceed it was decided not to waste any more time in futile efforts. The horses were unhitched and the wagon partly unloaded, when all hands by a united pull and push succeeded in getting the wagon up the hill. After reloading no difficulty was experienced in making a fresh start on a down grade, but a little farther on a second ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... the presidential reception on the following evening would be of special dignity and splendour, and it was thought the part of duty by all who were of consequence in Richmond to attend and make a brave show before the world. Mr. Davis, at the futile peace conference in the preceding July, had sought to impress upon the Northern delegates the superior position of the South. "It was true," he said, "that Sherman was before Atlanta, but what matter if he took it? ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... of genius are usually futile enough on all grounds, even in the record of the simplest biological data, as in my own work I have had sad occasion to experience. But at no point are they so futile as in toning down, glozing over, or altogether ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... time," wrote Scott, "to make plans under such sudden circumstances, and for some minutes our efforts were rather futile. We could not get an inch on the main trace of the sledge or on the leading rope, which was binding Osman to the snow with a throttling pressure. Then thought became clearer. We unloaded our sledge, putting in safety our ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... quite beyond human effort. Fagged and famished beings are these trackers, whose life day after day, week in week out, is harder than that of the average costermonger's donkey. They throw up their hands in a dumb frenzy of protest and futile appeal to the presiding deity; and here on the river, depending entirely upon those men on the shore, slowly, inch by inch, the little craft, feeling her own weakness, forges ahead against the leaping current in the ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... told—told briefly—it was certainly not for marble. Shelley's death had no significance, except inasmuch as he died young. It was a detachable and disconnected incident. Ah, that was a frost of fancy and of the heart that used it so, dealing with an insignificant fact, and conferring a futile immortality. Those are ill- named biographers who seem to think that a betrayal of the ways of death is a part of their ordinary duty, and that if material enough for a last chapter does not lie to their hand they are to search it out. They, of all survivors, are ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... were done! Yet doth a rival hold My darling, and my futile prayers deride: For I dreamed madly of a life all gold, If she were ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... had all come back, and with a thrill of horror he realized that they were talking about him. They were discussing his fate as calmly and callously as if he had been a steer with a broken leg. A feeble protest trembled on his lips, but was choked back unuttered. He knew how futile any protest would ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... arrive on the next Limited. Mrs. Bates found Mr. Thurston's name in the telephone book and called his residence, but could get no answer. Now, Mr. Scovill had introduced himself to Genevieve and Antoinette as "Mr. Adams." They did not know his initials and attempts to get him on the wire were futile. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... the corporal came nearer; but the trooper decided he was a heavy sleeper and knew, moreover, that his whole form was well shielded by his grey blanket. As usual though, all this was futile, and no effort of will could persuade the corporal to pass unmolested his shrouded form. The blanket was pulled from over his face, and, with a slap on the thigh and "Come on, Mac!" shouted down to him, he could hardly, with decency, pretend to be asleep ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... that he couldn't hear well, and so forth and so forth; so that the poor girl, like a little bird flying about in the winter in search of food and not finding a single grain of corn, had been turned away empty-handed from one door after another. But any one who thinks that these futile efforts had plunged her into grief is mistaken, for nothing greatly disturbed her and she related the story of her irksome wanderings ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... well what it was to suffer an onset of desperate emotion, of longing, of reckless, helpless adoration. But in office hours these anguishes were as futile as prayers for the moon. Outside of office hours there were ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... in their lonely homes had been swooped down upon, scalped, their houses burnt, their wives and children tomahawked—the raid being so swift and sudden that defence and resistance had alike been futile. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was aware of an abysmal rage that filled me. It seemed like an abominable dream—the futile old man, the ruffians and their wenches below. And I had endured so much for Jacqueline, to find myself immeshed in such things in the end. I stepped forward and swept the entire heap of gold into the ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... awakened was momentarily lost in the spectacle before him. The bronzed and unearthly features of the image were brightly illuminated; and, while her eyes looked on him steadily, as if watching his smallest movement, her malign and speaking smile appeared to turn his futile effort into scorn! There was no need to bid the seaman at the oars to do his duty. No sooner did he catch the expression of that mysterious face, than the skiff whirled away from the spot, like a sea-fowl taking wing under alarm. Though Ludlow, at each moment, expected a shot, even the imminence ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... another occasion, under the pressure of annoyance, maddened with fear and insomnia, he sprang out of bed in his shirt and tried to throw himself into the sea off one of the quays in the harbor. Such performances were futile and ridiculous, and they belong only to his youth. It seems certain that he schooled himself to the suppression of such evidences of his anger, and that he did so largely by shutting up within his breast all the fire that ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... glided on safely with it, but in climbing up he was obliged to press his feet strongly downwards in order to gain his spring; and every time he did this, he found that the chalk kept giving way, exhausting him with futile efforts, filling his shoes with dust and pebbles, slipping into his clothes, and blinding his eyes. Every person who has climbed at all, whether in the Alps or elsewhere, knows that it is easy enough ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... against each other their hearts told what it was futile for their lips to attempt. They looked out through the window. Beyond that window, as far as the vision could reach, swept the barrens, over which Pierre had brought the little Jeanne. Something sobbing rose in the girl's throat. She lifted her eyes, swimming ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... futile he made all these appear when he declared the national bankruptcy. Could anything be more absurd than the assumption, by the individual, of a personal instead of a national guarantee of part of a national debt?—an ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... some futile, inarticulate attempts to prevent The PORTER from laying the case before THE CONDUCTOR, and then stands guiltily smiling, overwhelmed with the hopeless absurdity ...
— The Sleeping Car - A Farce • William D. Howells
... the brief news of her futile journey, when a knock at the front door made them turn from the stairs where they were standing. It was Sebastian's knock. His hours had been less regular of late. He came ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... destruction—which is the essence of the revolutionary spirit, aided by democratic jealousies, and political speculators—was openly pursuing its destructive work, unopposed and unfettered save by empty verbiage and futile restrictions, the healthy appearance of the daily social life of the capital seemed unchanged. The peaceful regime of 1830, which had been fortunate enough to endow France with her first railways, and which was extending ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... dwelt in her heart, although curbed (to a greater extent even than she was aware) by the difference in their stations, and checked by her plighted word to Ombreval. At last, abandoning a purpose which his countenance told her would be futile: ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... from a futile search for Tarzan, saw him step into the firelight. Ah! there was the devil-god again, up to his old trick. Did he think he could twice fool the men of Mbonga, the chief, the same way in so short a time? They ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... make of this misfortune a stepping-stone to better things rested on no greater security than his pride and yet it would not be wholly conquered. He spent a long morning by the riverside planning schemes so futile that even the boy's mind rejected them. The old copybook maxims recurred to him and were treated with derision. He knew that he would never become Lord Mayor of London—after a prosperous career in a dingy office which he had formerly swept out ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... present aspect of the sun the light streamed down through the door-way as our lantern had done, throwing a flood of light upon the damp grass beyond. There was a strange suggestion in the open door,—so futile, a kind of emblem of vanity: all free around, so that you could go where you pleased, and yet that semblance of an enclosure,—that way of entrance, unnecessary, leading to nothing. And why any creature should pray and weep to get in—to nothing, ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... Provincials showed their 'prentice hands to genuine disadvantage was in their absurdly solemn and utterly futile councils of war. No schoolboys' debating club could well have done worse than the council held to consider du Chambon's stereotyped answer to the usual summons sent in at the beginning of a siege. The formula that 'his cannon would answer for him' provoked a tremendous storm in the council's teacup ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... which she held trembled in her hand. But at length, after many futile attempts, she ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... spoiled members of the great European aristocracies towards petty islanders. One of the most intolerable forms of the arrogance of the Knights during their last years at Malta was their disgusting behaviour towards the womenfolk of the natives; complaint was dangerous and futile. When the British captured the island in October, 1800, the mere proposal to restore the Order raised such a storm of protest from the Maltese as to prove conclusively to all how hated had been the domination of ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... with a voluntary blindness not uncommon in parents, refusing to recognize that these superficial differences were only the outward expression of a fundamental alienation within. At all events, it was futile to speculate about the matter, since the width of the continent and her son's intense distaste for letter-writing separated them. She had come, therefore, to turn all her attention and proud ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... back the ball was snapped to him. In a flash he passed it to Bardwell, who started as though to circle Shadduck at right end. And then that trick, so often worked, so effective when it comes out right, and so futile when it does not, was tried. Bardwell passed the ball to Banghardt on the run, and the left-half started for the ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... strangest delight and relief in the disappearance of the old marriage service. It was like the dropping of a weight to which our shoulders had become so accustomed that we hardly realized it till it was gone. Instead of pompous and futile absurdity—as in the existing exhortation, and homily—beautiful and fitting quotation from the unused treasures of the Bible. Instead of the brutal speech, the crudely physical outlook of an earlier day, the just reticence and nobler perceptions ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were futile for the most part, although dauntless spirits like Bill Witt and Mike Mowrey turned in as usual and dozed away as peacefully as though no danger existed. Midnight and high tide kindled fresh hopes as "Little Mack" steeled himself for a last try with the Dewey's hardworked engines. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... the sky, and the men; upon the immobility of landscape and people. Hassim and Immada, standing out clearly by the side of the chief, raised their arms in a last salutation; and the distant gesture appeared sad, futile, lost in space, like a sign of distress made by castaways in the vain hope of an ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... of Taine and of Grosse have been called sociological. Seeing that any true definition of sociology as a science is impossible, for it is composed of psychological elements, which are for ever varying, we do not delay to criticize the futile attempts at definition, but pass at once to the objective results attained by the sociologists. This superstition, like the naturalistic, takes various forms in practical life. We have, for instance, Proudhon (1875), who would ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... stupendously, throw up great ridges, and shatter one another mercilessly. The ridges, or hedgerows, marking the pressure-lines that border the fast- diminishing pieces of smooth floe-ice, are enormous. The ice moves majestically, irresistibly. Human effort is not futile, but man fights against the giant forces of Nature in a spirit of humility. One has a sense of dependence on the higher Power. To-day two seals, a Weddell and a crabeater, came close to the camp and were shot. Four others ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... of machinery has universally caused the workers to revolt. Much futile denunciation has been poured upon the blind, stupid resistance of the workers, but in view of the misery and poverty which they have suffered, it is impossible to judge them harshly. Their passionate, futile resistance ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... conduct of life. His extreme distaste for anything that appeared to him like idle speculation or unprofitable controversy, often blinded him in a very remarkable degree to the evident fact, that the very same mysterious truths which have given occasion to many futile speculations, many profitless disputes, are also, in every Christian communion, rich in their supply of Christian motives and practical ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... within a month an abortive attempt at a rising was made by the partisans of the exiled Obrenovich family, a troop of whom, disguised as Austrian hussars, entered Shabatz, and shot the good collector dead as he issued from his house to enquire the cause of the disturbance. The attempt, however, was futile, and the whole party were taken ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... War, the United States was compelled to issue its notes and to make them a legal tender. Without this the effort to preserve the Union would have utterly failed. With such a lesson before us it is futile to attempt to conduct the business of a great country like ours with coin alone. Gold can only be a measure or standard of value, but cannot be the current money of the country. Silver also can only be used as ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... that when Buller mounted his horse after his futile visit to the lawyer, he found Hickory Sam holding the street with his guns. The fusillade that followed was without result, which disappointing termination is accounted for by the fact that Sam was exceedingly drunk at the time, and the ranchman was out of practice. Seldom ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... the sore subject of Mary's unreasonable stand, and many were the plans proposed by which they might soften her stony little heart, but none of them were carried out. They were voiced, only to be laid aside as futile. ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... library, he worked at his most ungrateful task with unflagging industry. When he died, three numbers out of eight had been published by subscription; and are now, I fear, unknown, and buried in the midst of that huge pile of futile literature, the building up of which ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... in spite of himself,' said Diaz, when he had finished. 'He assigned definite and precise ideas to all those melodies. Nothing could be more futile. I shall not label them for you. But perhaps you can guess the love-motive ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... directed to ascertain what places there were, what fragments under feudal tenure, to which that retrospective principle applied. They were called chambers, or courts, of reunion, and they enumerated certain small districts, which the French troops accordingly occupied. All this was futile skirmishing. The real object was Strasburg. Alsace was French, but Strasburg, the capital, that is, the capital of Lower Alsace, was imperial. It was the most important place on the road between Paris and Vienna, for it commanded the passage of the only river which crossed and barred the ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... Duvall was thus flying toward Boulogne, racking his brains in a futile attempt to discover the reasons for his sudden and unexpected dispatch to London, Grace, his wife, equally mystified, was proceeding in the ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... Dudley was thus basking in the smiles of his Sovereign, the Lady Amy was eating her heart out in loneliness and a futile jealousy in Norfolk. Her husband, it is true, paid her a duty visit now and then, and kept her purse well supplied for dresses she had not the heart to wear. She knew she had lost his love, if, indeed, she had ever ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... still glowing hearth. A shudder ran through him as he knelt, bending over her. The new wound had effaced all the traces of Timothy's blow. How long was it since she had stood there before him pointing to it? The features were already rigid. No one felt the smallest hope. Yet, with that futile tenderness all can show to the dead, everything was tried. Mary Anne Waller came—white and speechless—and her deft, gentle hands did whatever the village doctor told her. And there were many other women, too, who did their best. Some of them, had Bessie dared ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... FAIL TO BUILD.—In the second place, we must not fail to build. For it is futile to gather a large supply of images if we let the material lie unused. How many people there are who put in all their time gathering material for their structure, and never take time to do the building! They look and listen and read, and are so ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... to the gossip of the club till he was nauseated. He went home at length with a headache, and, having carefully avoided contact with Buncombe or Mrs Handover, made an effort to absorb himself in a volume of Gregorovius, which was at present his study. The attempt was futile. Talk still seemed to buzz about him; his temples throbbed; his thoughts wandered far and wide. Driven to bed long before his accustomed hour, he heard raucous voices rending the night, bellowing in hideous ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... to the hilt of his long-sword, but he did not draw, for in the same instant he saw the futility of armed resistance, since behind the first banth came a herd of at least a dozen others. There was but a single alternative to a futile stand and that he grasped in the instant that he saw the ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Ideal Loveliness. On that pure shrine that has too long ignored The gifts that once I brought so frequently I lay this votive offering, to record How sweet your quiet beauty seemed to me. Enchanting girl, my faith is not a thing By futile prayers and vapid psalm-singing To vent in crowded nave and public pew. My creed is simple: that the world is fair, And beauty the best thing to worship there, And I confess it ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... is the tragedy: losing or winning Who profits a copper? Who garners the fruit? From bloodiest ending to futile beginning Ours is the blood, and the sorrow to boot. Muster your music, flutter your flags, Ours are the hunger, the wounds, and the rags. Say, can ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... close to the first: The man must enthrone his will to rule over his thought, his feelings, and all his physical powers, so that the outer self may give perfect, unhampered expression to the inner. It is futile, we assert, to lay down systems of rules for voice culture, intonation, gesture, and what not, unless these two principles of having something to say and making the will sovereign have at least begun to make ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... of one," said he, dissembling his amusement. "Professions—don't they all more or less involve sitting shut up in stuffy offices, among pigeon-holes full of dusty and futile papers, doing tiresome tasks for the greater glory of other people, like a slave in the hold of a galley? No, if I'm to work, I must work at something that will keep me above decks—something that will keep me out of doors, in touch with the air and the earth. I ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... during that futile journey westward and back? Poussette vouchsafed no reply, no solution. He avoided the puzzled stare of the other man, and after giving some orders in French to Crabbe and the other guide, Martin, a very decent Indian, quickly ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... each person according to his rank in the State, or the fortune which he could prove. But this law had the fate of all such enactments, and was either easily evaded, or was only partially enforced, and that with great difficulty. Another futile attempt to put it in practice was made in 1306, when the splendour of dress, of equipages, and of table had become still greater and more ruinous, and had descended progressively to ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... moments in silent thought, one small foot tapping nervously the while, a sure sign of irritation with her. At last she said, slowly, and with an undertone of sarcasm, that she made a futile ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... himself, despite his utmost efforts, forced nearer and nearer to the goal that he knew meant his vanquishment. Inch by inch he fought the way with his invisible enemy to the very bedside. Even there, with his last ounce of strength, he made a final, futile effort to break away from his intangible captor. Then he flung up his arms and covered his face and with a long "oh-h-h," that was half a rageful, hysterical cry and half a moan of despair, he sank ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... man of British birth can read the last words, 'Now mark this, if the Expeditionary Force—and I ask for no more than two hundred men—does not come within ten days, the town may fall; and I have done my best for the honour of our country. Good-bye,' without being thrilled with vain regrets and futile resolutions. And then the account stops short. Nor will the silence ever be broken. The sixth instalment of the Journals was despatched on the 14th of December; and when it is finished the reader, separated suddenly from the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... the swoon, and so futile the usual methods of restoration, that the prisoner was carried into the small ante-room, and laid upon a wooden bench; where a physician, who chanced to be in the audience, was summoned to attend her. Finding restoratives ineffectual, he took ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... it faced about, and the preparations for the war of 1866 were beginning. I only remember a meeting of the Prussian cabinet which took place in Regensburg in 1865 with a view to procuring the necessary money, but which was rendered futile by the agreement of Gastein. In 1866, however, the war broke out in full force, as you know. A circumspect use of events alone enabled us to ward off the existing danger of turning this duel between Prussia and Austria into a fierce European ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... to fall to the ground, all are equally futile as means of escape. Extermination is all that will stay ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... father. In looking through his effects last night, I came across indubitable evidence of his Celtic blood. Following the futile pursuit of an enemy for a quarter of a century, he died and left the unfinished job to me. Had he been all Spanish, he would have wearied of the pursuit ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... to incise so vital a structure as the trachea. Students are taught different short skin incisions for these two operations, and it is no wonder that they, as did their predecessors, find tracheotomy a difficult, bloody, and often futile operation. The trachea is searched for at the bottom of a short, deep wound filled with blood, the source of which is difficult to find ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... was burning; her mild eyes gleamed. She had pleaded her little cause like a Webster; she had ranged from severity to pathos; but her opponent employed that obstinate silence which makes eloquence futile with mocking echoes. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... add to it; and I wish Joe and Howells were here to make it perfect; I can't make all the rightful blunders myself—it takes all three of us to do justice to an opportunity like this. I would just like to see Howells get down to his work and explain, and lie, and work his futile and inventionless subterfuges when that princess comes raging in here and wanting to know." But Livy could not hear fun—it was not a time to be trying to be funny—we were in a most miserable and shameful ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of misery and futile rage she went from the room, her footsteps uneven, her head bent. One of the open letters she carried dropped from her hand onto the floor of the hall outside. She did not notice it. But as she passed inside her door a shadowy figure at the end of the hall watched ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the Roman aristocracy were at times strong fortifications from which war of the most ferocious and unscrupulous character was waged. Christendom was steeped in violence; only a gentle saint or bishop here and there caught a futile vision of a world of peace. Every man was armed against possible trouble with his neighbour; every noble had his retainers and kept them well exercised; every prince was free, as far as the spiritual authorities were concerned, to covet and bloodily exact the lands of his neighbour. ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... Mo'tassim founded Samarra, and for fifty-eight years caliph and court deserted Bagdad (see CALIPHATE, sect. C). Then, in A.D. 865, Mosta'in, attempting to escape from the tyranny of the Turkish guard, fled back again to Bagdad. The attempt was futile, Bagdad was besieged and taken, and from that time until their final downfall the Abbasid caliphs were mere puppets, while the real rulers were successively the Turkish guard, the Buyids and the Seljuks. But during all this period ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... scaffolding right from the summit of some vast hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a knife and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to try and do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to fall. And I could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile thing, for not only would the man be unrecognizably dead in three seconds, but the very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of his name he had time for was certain to be burnt in a few ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... survey of what electricity has done and may yet do—futile expectation dismissed—has shown it the creator of a thousand material resources, the perfector of that communication of things, of power, of thought, which in every prior stage of advancement has marked the successive lifts of humanity. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... nails with such good effect to the thighs of the old lady who held her down, that the latter was compelled to release her grasp, and the poor girl got up, vowing she would not have another incision made. Of course all resistance would have been futile, or probably have only brought down a fearful chastisement upon her if she had been alone with her tribe in the bush; but she took advantage of my presence, and escaped with nearly one-third of the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... company, I boarded a steamer, bound for Morris' Island, intending, if possible, to avoid the guard. In this I was foiled. But after making several futile attempts, I fell in with an officer of the First South Carolina Regiment, who promised to pilot me over. On reaching the landing, at Cummings Point, I was to follow his lead, as he had a passport, but in going down the gang plank we were met by ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... deliberation of mind and act took the place of his late panic. He smoothed the sheet where he had grasped her hand in the futile endeavor to instil into her some of his warmth. He gazed at her for a moment, at the shadows like pools of ink poured into the caverns of her eyes, at a glint of teeth no whiter than the rest, at the dark plait ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... high-sounding doctrine, or omitted from it in obedience to a prevalent and temporary extravagance of protest some fundamental truth like that of the Christian character of their government and laws. If there be anywhere a Christian Protestant state it is the United States; if any futile invention were ever incorporated in a written charter it was that of the electoral college. The addition of a vague theory or the omission of essential national qualities in the document of the constitution has affected ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... from the man whose duck he had stolen. This only increased his despair, for he knew his neighbor to be one of the laughter-loving kind, who would not go to the length of reproof, though he lost a thousand ducks. After sundry futile attempts to swindle his neighbor out of the needed admonition, our friend was compelled to divulge, not only the theft, but also the means of cure, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... and it is profoundly true that morals are a matter of taste. My child, I could wish that the Academy of Moral Science thought as sanely as you. Yes. You are quite right. As regards the instincts which you attribute to your fellow-actress, it is as futile to blame her for them as to blame lactic acid for being an ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... for peace, without raising such a storm at home as might have upset the Ministry. With both fleets sunk, and those of their men not slain, prisoners of war, there was no alternative policy but peace. Captain Concas Palan claims for his chief and the comrades who fell in this futile and disastrous affair "a right to the legitimate defence which our country expects from us, though it is against the interested silence which those who were the cause of our misfortunes would fain impose ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... never contemplated by him at the time the treaty had been made. Again, provisions may have been inserted, with a view to prevent injury to the publishers, or to the public, that would be found in practice to be utterly futile, or even to augment the difficulty instead of remedying it. That such result would follow the adoption of some of those whose insertion has been urged, I can positively assert. In this state of things, it would seem to be proper that we should know whether the provisions ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... bewilderment, and then, roused to a sense of her position by a renewed gurgling from the skipper's chair, set to work to try and thump that misguided man into a more serious frame of mind. Failing in this, she sat down, and, after a futile struggle, began to laugh herself, and that so heartily that Master Jones, smiling sympathetically, closed the door and came boldly into ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... use it to carve some sort of foothold in the rock. The idea of cutting the granite was out of the question, but there might be strata of softer stone which he could dig into. It was a forlorn hope, in a forlorn cause, and it proved futile. At his first effort the knife's single blade snapped off short, and he ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... the Busters were generally beaten, which possibly accounted for the fact that most of the villages round Oxford said they were a splendid eleven. No team which contained Lambert could help being splendid, but as regards cricket we were the most futile side it is possible to imagine, and Bagshaw, who was a really good sort, was also exactly the ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... solve the mystery of Perpetual Motion, and contrived several model machines with the object of embodying his ideas in a practical working shape. He afterwards used to lament the time he had lost in these futile efforts, and said that if he had enjoyed the opportunity which most young men now have, of learning from books what previous experimenters had accomplished, he would have been spared much labour and mortification. Not being acquainted with what other ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... for two kinds of cricket: boy cricket, which is real cricket with a bat, and girl cricket, which is with a racquet and the governess. Girls can't really play cricket, and when you are watching their futile efforts you make funny sounds at them. Nevertheless, there was a very disagreeable incident one day when some forward girls challenged David's team, and a disturbing creature called Angela Clare sent down so many yorkers that—However, instead of telling you the result of that ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... were much more sensible, but that whole blessed time is wrapped in rosy mists with streaks of moonlight to the tune of heavenly music, so it 's futile to try to recall just what did happen. I ought to have gone to another hotel, but the chain of memory was too ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... lasting twenty-six years, eventually broke down. Durham's fear of French disloyalty proved to be as groundless as his ideal of complete anglicization was futile. It was neither necessary, sensible, nor possible to extinguish French sentiment, and human nature triumphed over this half-hearted effort to apply in dilution the medicine of Fitzgibbonism to the Colonies. Little harm was done, because the ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... theories there expounded, and soon afterward vowed eternal war against the Demon of Chicane. He struggled against narrow means and obscurity until he made the acquaintance of Lord Shelburne, through whom he became acquainted with other leading statesmen, and with Miss Caroline Fox, to whom he made a futile proposal of marriage some years later. At Bowood he also met Dumont, and thereby formed his connection with the French jurists, though in his old age he declared that Dumont, his chief interpreter abroad, 'did not understand a word of his meaning'; ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... a lively interest in this gifted plebeian, and offered to bear the cost of publishing his poems, regarding him as a new Koltzoff. Count Tolstoy has since arrived at the conclusion that all poetry is futile and an unnecessary waste of time, as the same ideas can be much better expressed in prose, and with less labor ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... is fighting a hopeless fight as I previously explained when I stated that one-half of the total effort of one-third of the race, is expended in combating conditions against which no successful effort is possible. Even her prayers are futile, because the wrong is implanted in the constitution of the child and the remedy is beyond her power to find. These are the tragedies of life, which no words may adequately describe, and compared to which the incidental troubles of the world at ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague |
