"Futile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doom lay on me. I had made the initial submission. Any attempt at resistance after that was futile. I was helpless. Out of my hatred of beauty in any shape or form came the desire to obtain the most beautiful things I could find to enjoy the mad ecstasy of shattering them. I had all the morbid secret longing to induce attacks of my own madness—to enjoy the awful exaltation, ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... top of futility, a week of inaction, thanks to that flesh wound in his leg. Futility seemed to haunt, yes, and torture him! Even his rehabilitation of Larry the Bat, with all its attendant risk and danger, had been futile as far as she was concerned. And he had counted so much on that! And that had failed, and nothing was left to him but to pursue again the one possible chance of success, the hope that somewhere in the innermost depths ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... his exposition. Briefly expressed, the difference is that, where he thinks there is no mystery, the doctrine he combats recognizes a mystery. Speaking for myself only, I may say that, agreeing entirely with Mr. Martineau in repudiating the materialistic interpretation as utterly futile, I differ from him simply in this, that while he says he has found another interpretation, I confess that I cannot find any interpretation; while he holds that he can understand the Power which is manifested in things, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... secrete abundantly the fluid peculiar to them, the copulative organ remains paralyzed. This is the impotence which is brought on by old age, and which Ariosto has so forcibly described in the following lines, wherein he relates the futile attempts made ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... was answer enough. The whole of the English army now stood upon the north bank of the Somme, watching, with shouts of triumph and gestures of defiance, the futile efforts of the French to plunge over the ford. The tide was again flowing. The water was deep and rapid. In a moment they knew themselves to be too late, and a few well-aimed shafts from English longbows showed them how futile was now any effort in pursuit of ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... up this method almost to ridicule when He said, "Which of you by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature?" Put down that method forever as being futile. ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... rushed to the main gateway, overpowered the guard, and flung open the huge iron- studded gates. The British column now poured in, and before drum had rolled or bugle rung had reached the central quadrangle. The garrison awoke from slumber only to a futile struggle with an exasperated foe, and after a short resistance were compelled to surrender. In this assault the loss of the victors was only six men—a circumstance almost unparalleled in military annals—that of the vanquished ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... state of the weather—and was on the jump all day long to keep out of the way of the energetic workmen. He had seen Marceline at the Hippodrome on one memorable occasion. Somehow he reminded himself of the futile but nimble clown, who was always in the way and whose good intentions ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... wonders, are distinguished from the true, not by the intellect, but by the moral sense, which finds in them something immoral, or ostentatious, or futile, leading to nothing. Origen says the miracles of Moses issued in a Jewish polity; those of our Lord in a Christian Church. But what fruits have the miracles of Apollonius ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... are also enabled to realise how futile, how misplaced, and how mischievous it is to raise the cry of "Race-suicide." It is futile because no outcry can affect a world-wide movement of civilisation. It is misplaced because the rise and fall of the population ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... one gigantic sunset, casting sinister glares in ceaseless succession upon the heavy mist. Roar upon roar, blending, echoing and re-echoing like unto the roll of countless mighty drums, throbbed in one great deafening crescendo. It was futile to count explosions: they all merged one into another. But words are fatuously inadequate ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... that was possessing her Joan spoke hesitatingly. It seemed pitifully futile and untruthful; but her own thought was to get ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... their significance. Only little children mated rightly with her divine infancy; only the mute glories of nature satisfied for a moment her brooding soul. The celestial impulses within her beat their wings in futile longing for freedom, and with inexpressible anguish she uttered her griefs aloud, or sung them to such plaintive strains that all who heard wept in sympathy. Yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... consciously part of that which was universal. Her personality grew dim; she stood, as it seemed, face to face with Nature, divided from the ultimate truth by only a thin veil, to temper the splendour and the terror. Then the tension of personal feeling was loosened. She saw how entirely vain and futile were the things of life that we grieve ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... only by the ticking of the clock-work 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 her hand ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... in the air, gathering with the gathering darkness. The light was fading out of the west, and the early autumnal dusk was at hand. Lillian was sensible of an accession of lassitude, a realization of defeat in a cause which she felt now it was futile to have essayed. Why should he forgive? How was reparation possible? She could not call back the Past—she could not assuage griefs that time had worn out long ago, searing over the wounds. She was quite silent as she ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... ineffectual hands That with every futile pass Made the great tree seem as a little bird Before the mystery ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... effect; and then proceeded to consider Lord Glenelg's suggestions of the course which it was advisable to adopt in the present emergency. His lordship treated the suggestion of another ordinance, banishing from the province the eight persons who had been sent to Bermuda, as futile; and stated that he had strong objections to the suspension of the habeas corpus. He remarked:—"Men's notions of right and freedom would be more shocked at such an universal violation of every man's dearest rights, than by any summary process adopted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... he wrote after his first expedition, that dogs do not greatly increase the radius of action is absurd; to pretend that they can be worked to this end without pain, suffering, and death, is equally futile. The question is whether the latter can be justified by the gain, and I think that logically it may be; [Page 96] but the introduction of such sordid necessity must and does rob sledge-traveling of much of its glory. In my mind no journey ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... were saved, but there was despair among the survivors, who were unable to get word from husbands and fathers who were caught on the east side and unable to cross after bridges were destroyed. Efforts to get lines across the river were futile. ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... of my poem is so very unfair and partial. You would say the conception was really null. It does not console me at all that I should be praised and over-praised, the idea given of the poem remaining so absolutely futile. Even the outside shell of the plan is but half given, and the double action of the metaphysical intention entirely ignored. I protest against it. Still, Robert thinks the article not likely to do harm. Perhaps not. Only one hates ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... loop of her husband's music it suddenly became insipid, futile, and lacking in those enchantments for which she yearned. Her eyes dropped to the shapely hands meekly folded in her lap, dropped because the bold, interrogative expression on Rentgen's face disturbed her. She knew, as any woman would have ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... mistook the facts in the case. There is no hope for you! 'Tis futile you try—the poem is not for you! I take every thing back!—all back! You shall not once try! You have grasp' the advantage! You got no business, you little rascal! You dare venture to attempt making love in my school! Claude St. Pierre, you are dismiss' the school! Mutiny! mutiny! Claude St. ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... was groping about with her hands in the bottom of the boat The lower part of her body, which was temporarily, owing to her position, the upper part, was outside the boat. Her feet beat the air with futile vigour. She wriggled convulsively and after a time her legs followed her head and shoulders into the boat. She rose on her knees, very red in the face, a good ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... cried that young gentleman, looking up at the Captain, who, leaning on his stick, stood near, watching his futile endeavours to restrain the vivacious, side-walking, unwieldy little animals that seemed gifted with such indomitable energy, and equal perseverance to that of Bruce's ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the aristocracy in the Army and made the Emperor the idol of the soldiers, so that from that time forward every effort of the aristocracy to oppose the Emperor in giving to the country a Government by the people was futile for the Army supported him with a force that was irresistible. He ordered the districts laid out according to latitude and longitude, making due allowance for population, the smallest district being one degree ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... and deprive him of the half pay (which in a great measure accrued to him from purchase,) without accusation, arbitrarily, and on secret and suborned information of having; merited the inflicted contumely. But futile has been the effort of malevolence; Sir Robert Wilson's half pay was L460 per annum, and the subscriptions in indemnification of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... death of the Prince Consort, even the private secretary occasionally saw a face he knew, although he made no more effort of any kind, but silently waited the end. Whatever might be the advantages of social relations to his father and mother, to him the whole business of diplomacy and society was futile. He meant to ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... capacity for business, above all in the support of the Church and the confidence of the royalist and orthodox House of Commons. To the Commons and the Church he was only bound the closer by the hatred of Catholics and Nonconformists or by the futile attempts at impeachment which were made by the Catholic Earl of Bristol in the summer of 1663. The "Declaration" indeed had strengthened Clarendon's position. It had identified his policy of persecution with the maintenance of constitutional liberty, and had thrown on Ashley ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... preach, according to Luke iv: 18-20, and xvi: 16. And then in another place quote Col. ii: 8-17, for the same point of time. How could Christ annul any law twice. First, at his preaching and second at his death, three and a half years apart. Your argument is groundless and futile; therefore the uncalled for blasphemous language of yours, that the Jews were right in killing him (the Son of God) as a notorious Sabbath breaker, will fall on your guilty head. Hear the proof: ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... must not hope to combat such formidable rivals as walking-sticks, chamois gloves, and EYES. My business arguments are futile compared to those." ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... painter? There was something in the shape of his hands (he was descended on his mother's side from a family of the greatest antiquity and deepest obscurity) which indicated taste. Then his mouth—but surely, of all futile occupations this of cataloguing features is the worst. One word is sufficient. But if one cannot ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... 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 ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... provincial assemblies, else it will cease to be property. 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 ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the detectives and questioned, with swift sternness, it was his own questions that demanded answer—and got it. The men gathered in the library, baffled by the search, and asking futile, dreary questions, learned to wait in amusement for the quick, searching gestures flung at them and the eager face that seemed to drink their words. Gradually they came to understand—the Greek was learning the science of kidnapping—its methods and devices and the probable ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... dishonorable—it was impossible—and yet it was; it was, as nothing in his own personal experience had ever been. He seemed hitherto to have been living by proxy, in a vision, in reflection—to have been an echo, a shadow, a futile attempt; but this at last was life itself, this was a fact, this was reality. For these things one lived; these were the things that people had died for. Love had been a fable before this—doubtless a very pretty one; and passion had been a literary phrase—employed obviously with ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... most, my lord,'" quoted the manager, and passed quickly on with his tin pot, in a futile effort to evade the outstretched hand of ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... leaders resolve to retreat from the futile fight and to call Achilles from the mingled chase of love ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... like to live with it?'—is here, as in most other cases, irrelevant. One is reminded that there is more in life than intrigues and cynical comments on them. And one is inclined to put the questions in answer: 'Does a man who really feels the sorrowful things of life, its futile endeavours and piteous separations, find relief in seeing his emotions mimicked on the stage in a 'wholesome' play of sentiment with a happy ending? Is he not rather comforted by the distractions of cheerful ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... which are merely attempts to reform machinery are futile, they can produce only passing and superficial results. There is only one medicine for the disease of the world, and that medicine is the Blood of Christ. Ultimately, one believes, that will be applied; but evidently it will not ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... several futile efforts he succeeded in writing a few words. Then he folded up the note, and ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... slight commotion on board, as if some of our shipmates rebelled at the idea of leaving us behind, while they sailed homeward; but this intervention on our behalf was futile, for the skipper brandished his revolver, as we could easily see from the top of the cliff, to which we had now climbed, in order to make our voices better heard on board, and after a momentary pause the sails ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... my power. As to writing now, I have totally forsworn the profession, for two solid reasons. One I have already told you; and it is, that I know my own writings are trifling and of no depth. The other is, that, light and futile as they were, I am sensible they are better than I could compose now. I am aware of the decay of the middling parts I had, and others may be still more sensible of it. How do I know but I am superannuated? nobody will be so coarse as to tell me so; but if I published ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... made by religious men to bring the Scripture miracles within the scope of the order of nature, but all such attempts are rejected by Mr. Mozley as utterly futile and wide of the mark. Regarding miracles as a necessary accompaniment of a revelation, their evidential value in his eyes depends entirely upon their deviation from the order of nature. Thus deviating, they suggest and illustrate a power higher than nature, a 'personal will;' and ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... evening, the hours of night that followed, passed for Clara in bet tumult of heart and brain. The news of Grace Rudd had flashed upon her as revelation of a clear possibility where hitherto she had seen only mocking phantoms of futile desire. Grace was an actress; no matter by what course, to this she had attained. This man, Scawthorne, spoke of the theatrical life as one to whom all its details were familiar; acquaintance with him of a sudden bridged ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... overwhelmed him with a storm of reproaches, gibes, and flattery, interspersed with quotations from tradition and the sayings of the Fathers, granting the Reformer no opportunity to speak. Seeing that the conference, thus continued, would be utterly futile, Luther finally obtained a reluctant permission to ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... so much to learn, and pored over his crooked maps, comparing them with those that are written in my memory, who of late have had no time for the study of such little matters. Also I have weighed and pondered your reports of the races of this world; their various follies, their futile struggling for wealth and small supremacies, and I have determined that it would be wise and kind to weld them to one whole, setting ourselves at the head of them to direct their destinies, and cause wars, sickness, and poverty to cease, so that these creatures ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... drawn out into its filaments and then woven into a fabric of new form but of the same old material. Knowledge did not start from actual things; it did not intend to change actual things; and the shelves of the libraries groan with the burden of that endless and largely futile cogitation. Then the new knowledge began from the observation of things as they really are and from the use of that observation for the purposes of human life. Once a lad, seventeen years old, went into the cathedral at ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... an impulse—but it isn't. It's a pose. A cold, conscious, systematic pose. So deadly artificial; and so futile, if they did but know. After all, the individual is ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... time to see the beast break into a rapid charge. His hand leaped 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 overwhelming numbers of ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... only in this corner of a downtrodden land was its greatness even a memory—she was chastened for it now! She suffered for it now! She could have wept tears of shame. And yet, so plain was the collapse of the man before her, and so futile words, that she did not think of reproach; even had she found heart to chide him, knowing that her words might send ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... the least reassured, but considerably aroused in all his instincts by these further developments of a night already full of mysterious transactions, Garrison, after a futile watch for his neighbor, once more plunged into a study of the case in which he found ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... possessed also an admirable talent of mimickry. He was always jealous that Johnson spoke lightly of him[956]. I recollect his exhibiting him to me one day, as if saying, 'Davy has some convivial pleasantry about him, but 'tis a futile fellow[957];' which he uttered perfectly with the tone ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... occasionally rains. The heroes who endured their angers and jests and tragic loves are delicately veiled allusions to the sun—surely, a very harmless topic of conversation, even in Greece; and the monsters, 'Gorgons and Hydras and Chimaeras dire,' their grisly offspring, their futile opponents, are but personified frosts. Mythology—the poet's necessity, the fertile mother of his inventions—has become a series of atmospheric phenomena, and the labours of Hercules prove to be a ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... without success. In this effort, they were supported by Democratic Senators and Representatives, but the "Old Guard" controlled such a pronounced majority in both Houses as to render the opposing efforts futile, fierce though they were. So general was this conflict that in many matters the Progressives soon established a faction of their own. There were many skirmishes all along the line. Their divergence from the views of Regular Republicanism was indicated not on the tariff alone, but on ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... Decimus Saxon, puffing sedately at the long pipe which was ever his comfort in moments of difficulty. Beneath him, at the base of the monolith, as our learned men call them, the two great bloodhounds were rearing and springing, clambering over each other's backs in their frenzied and futile eagerness to reach the impassive figure perched above them, while they gave vent to their rage and disappointment in the hideous uproar which had suggested such terrible thoughts to ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the beck; and there, sure enough, shone my darling's candle, close as close against the diamond panes of her narrow, lofty window! It brought those ready tears back to my foolish, fevered eyes. But for sentiment there was no time, and every other emotion was either futile or premature. So I mastered my full heart, I steeled, my wretched nerves, and braced my limp muscles for the task that lay ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... going on, for each man is doing his best with soap, water, razor, brush, and garments, to make himself spruce. Salamander is there, before a circular looking-glass three inches in diameter in the lid of a soap-box, making a complicated mess of a neck-tie in futile attempts to produce the sailor's knot. Blondin is there, before a similar glass, carefully scraping the bristles round a frostbite on his chin with a blunt razor. Henri Coppet, having already dressed, is smoking his pipe and quizzing Marcelle Dumont—who is also shaving—one of his ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... with greater care, begin to have doubts about their intellect as well, whether it can work as briskly as it used to do. And the mind, falling under this discouragement of doubt, asserts itself amiss, in making futile strokes, even as a gardener can never work his best while conscious of suspicious glances through the window-blinds. Geoffrey Mordacks told himself that it could not be the self it used to be, in the days when no mistakes were made, but everything was evident at half a glance, and carried ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... 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, ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... inner wall was constructed, behind which we carried the sick men. In the very center we buried two jars of water, to guard us against thirst. In addition we had ten petroleum cans full of water; all told, a supply for four days. Late in the evening Sami's wife came back from the futile negotiations, alone. She had unveiled for the first and only time on this day of the skirmish, had distributed ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... still held by their masters, were then allowed to peck at each other's combs until fully angered, when they were put into the ring a short distance apart, and while each owner held the tail feathers of his bird, the cocks made futile efforts to reach each other, giving vent the ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... have been pitiful to a later race of man. The beast would get down upon her knees and plow the dirt about the calf with her long horns. She would seek to get her snout beneath its body sidewise, and so lift it, though each effort was necessarily futile. There was no room for any leverage, the calf fitted the cavity. The boys clung to their perches in safety, but in perplexity. Hours passed, but the mother rhinoceros showed no inclination to depart. It was three o'clock in the afternoon when she went away to the wallow, returning ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... the forest again, and his shouts echoed in futile inquiry in its weird depths. About him there was no sign of life, no sound except the faint fluttering of falling snow. Under five feet of this snow the four-footed creatures of the wilderness were snugly buried; close against the trunks of the spruces, sheltered within their ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... rather wherein it has never been. Finally one does not see wherein the perfection of pure indifference lies: on the contrary, there is nothing more imperfect; it would render knowledge and goodness futile, and would reduce everything to chance, with no rules, and no measures that could be taken. There are, however, still some advantages adduced by our author which have not been discussed. He considers then ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... five years from this futile attempt the first court actually held within the bounds of Minnesota was presided over by Judge Dunn, then chief justice of the Territory of Wisconsin. The court convened at Stillwater in June, 1847, and is remembered not only as the first court ever held in Minnesota, but on account of the ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... held trembled in her hand. But at length, after many futile attempts, she penned the ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... Samuel, in discussing the theory, had applied it only to himself. But now he pictured himself going home to tell Mrs. Stedman that she must give up her futile effort, and take herself and her three children out of the way of the progress of the race. And he realized that he could never do it—he was not equal to the task. Doubtless, it was because he was one of the unfit. ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... and we came off. The men were complaining among themselves by then. I heard them talking to each other about chucking it. It was bound to come. This day they went aft in a body to Purdy. There stood Purdy, a little object in white against the gloom of the forest, and he looked about as futile as the last match in a wind at night. He stood fingering a beard he had grown. One of the men was beginning to talk truculently at him. Just then Jessie appeared from below, between me and the ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... saw through frame of honeysuckles the professor and wife standing beside the study table. They were clinging to each other, the woman weep silently with her cheek on his shoulder, thin, delicate, well-bred hands clasping arms, while the man comforted her awkward unhappily, with hopeless, futile caresses. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... pondering for hours. It was not grief he was feeling so much as an immeasurable loss. One grieves at death when it seems futile, when it robs youth or racks old age, when it devastates hopes or wrecks a vision. But death had not come so to his father. It had come as a fulfilment. Lewis knew instinctively that thus and thus only would his father have wished to ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... frightened the turtle, which made off up the creek, but the boy was on his trail and, after a few futile grabs, had the reptile ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... near him looked at one another significantly, in a 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 ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... juries and to give evidence. There is a manifest resulting duty that these witnesses shall be protected from injury on account of their testimony. The investigations of criminal offenses are often rendered futile and the punishment of crime impossible by the intimidation ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Ah! then how futile human skill and power,— "Save us! we perish in the o'erwhelming wave!" They cried, and found in that tremendous hour, "An eye to pity, and an arm to save." He spoke, and lo! obedient to His will, The raging waters, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... their freedom and independence above all other things; that we might have to suffer defeat; that we must meet with hardships, and probably death; and that, in the long run, all our efforts might be futile. ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... rise against their masters? Where should their forces come from? Faction would soon be put down, and the union be stronger than ever. It was what Averil had been hearing morning, noon, and night, so no wonder she believed it, and was ashamed of a futile ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are proof against such smiles, or the men who can produce them at will, and the remnants of Rosina's wrath faded completely as she saw its dawning. It seemed futile to try to be cross with any one who had such magic in his face, and so she returned the glance ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... to imagine the impossible. So far, indeed, did he go in this futile direction that, as others are wont to do, he constructed dialogues and scenes in which Grace had turned out to be the mistress of Hintock Manor-house, the mysterious Mrs. Charmond, particularly ready and willing ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... various nebulous thinkers around his throne; he also derived much of his crusade from the inspiration of a woman—Baroness von Kruedener, who is supposed to have owed her own conversion to the teaching of a pious cobbler. Even if we have to describe Alexander's dream as futile, we cannot afford to dismiss it as wholly inoperative. For it had as its fruit the so-called Holy Alliance, which was in a sense the direct ancestor of the peace programmes of the Hague, and, through a different chain of ideas, ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... whether they live nobly or ignobly, in the interval; but the interval absorbs them, as if it were to be eternity, and we see them rejoicing and suffering with an abandonment to the moment which intensifies the pathos of what we know is futile. Love, in Wagner, is so ecstatic and so terrible, because it must compass all its anguish and delight into an immortal moment, before which there is only a great darkness, and only a great darkness afterwards. Sorrow is so lofty ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... "rift within the lute," which up to this time had been avoided by the concentration of all men's thoughts upon the first necessity of securing the freedom of the preachings, becomes visible before this futile attempt at a siege. When the leaders of the Congregation, among whom on this occasion the contingent from the towns, and especially from Dundee, seems foremost, began to prepare for their expedition, they chose St. Giles's Church as the most convenient for the preparation ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... never even replied to Duke Frederick's acceptance. For months Castle Hapsburg was in a ferment of expectancy. A watch stood from dawn till dusk on the battlements of the keep, that the duke might be informed of the approach of the Burgundian messenger—that never came. After a year of futile waiting the watch was abandoned. Anger, for a time, took the place of expectancy; Duke Frederick each day drowned his ill-humor in a gallon of sour wine, and remained silent on the subject of ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... resumed his seat amidst storm of cheering, SPEAKER put the Question for leave to introduce the Bill. A mighty shout of "Ay!" responded, answered by futile cry ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... was streaming from his sides. Yet he had fought so gallantly that he had tossed and stamped to death dozens of the enemy. There could not have been fewer than fifty wolves round him; and they had just concluded another of many futile attacks when the hunters came up, for they were ranged in a circle round their huge adversary—some lying down, some sitting on their haunches to rest, and others sneaking about, lolling out their red tongues and licking their chops as if impatient to renew the combat. The poor ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... is really too strong to be effectually resisted. For example: In order to correct the evils resulting from the undue competition for land among the tenants, they limit the amount per acre which the outgoing tenant is permitted to receive; but the limitation is futile, because the tenants understand one another, and do what they believe to be right behind the landlord's back. The market price is, say, 20 l. an acre. The landlord allows 10 l.; the balance finds its way secretly ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... on demand he could set forth with fluency. The tone of current apologetics taught him that, by men even of cultivated intellect, such a position as he was now sketching was deemed tenable; yet to himself it sounded so futile, so nugatory, that he had to harden his forehead as he spoke. Trial more severe to his conscience lay in the perceptible solicitude with which Mr Warricombe weighed these disingenuous arguments. It was a hateful thing to practise ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... the time of Liszt. To play as Liszt did—that is, exactly as he did, as a mirror reflects an object—would not be possible to anyone unless he were endowed with an individuality and personality exactly like that of Liszt. Since no two people are exactly alike, it is futile to compare the playing of any modern pianist with that of Franz Liszt. To discuss accurately the playing of Liszt from the purely technical standpoint is also impossible because so much of his technic was self-made, and also a mere ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... responsible for its conduct. Though this was not what Greeley wanted for his type always prefers to tell others what to do—he sullenly accepted. He proceeded to Niagara to meet the reputed commissioners of the Confederacy. The details of the futile conference do not concern us. The Confederate agents were not empowered to treat for peace—at least not on any terms that would be considered at Washington. Their real purpose was far subtler. Appreciating the delicate balance in Northern politics, they aimed ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... 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 ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... leaped aloft, as the winch—that had been jammed by a trivial accident to the control—took hold of the steel cable. Up it soared, still pursued by dwindling screams of rage, by now futile rifle-fire. Before it had reached the trap in the lower gallery, the main propellers had begun to whicker into swift revolution, all gleaming in the afternoon sun. The gigantic shadow of the Eagle of the Sky began to slide athwart the hill-side streets ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... he stood upon the bank, watching the futile efforts which the animal was making to free itself, all the while talking to it, and taunting it with spiteful speeches—for Ossaroo had been particularly indignant at the loss of his skirt. When at length the last twelve inches of the elephant's trunk was all that remained above the ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... of water tossed about a cork ball. The ball would soar sometimes to the roof of the dome and would then topple over, sometimes to be caught midway upon the jet and sometimes to fall to the bottom, but always to be kept drenched and dancing in a melancholy futile way. I was comparing it with myself when a hand was clapped upon my shoulder and a jolly voice accosted me. The speaker was John Lovell, the president of the Press Association, which had its offices ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... furious protest, condemned to batter at its walls in a vain summons to the silent lips that should have voiced its every beat, remained mute in futile and impotent adoration of the miracle love had wrought ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... "we were together in the west. Colonel Mvddelton, whom I have striven hither to talk with, and I went through a campaign together; a futile campaign, I fear, with more of pursuit than pursuing, but for a high cause. I'faith, it seems my lot to be pursued. And you, fair lady (for, dark though it is, I know you are fair), are you Colonel ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... and gave him a rough reprimand (we may presume sotto voce) for having suffered him to go on so long. He then recovered himself with his habitual dexterity; said that he had stated all that could be urged against his client, and that he would then proceed to show how utterly futile was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... aloofness from the life of humanity? And, illogically blent with this questioning, and strengthening her recoil, was an obstinate conviction that there could never be happiness for her, a being of ignominious birth, without roots in life, futile, shadowy, out of relation to the tangible solidities of ordinary existence. To offer her a warm fireside seemed to be to tempt her to be false to something—she knew not what. Perhaps it was because the warm fireside was in the circle she had quitted, and her heart was yet bitter ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... to accept, for convenience sake, the fact of my social inferiority. Centuries of army tradition demanded it; and I discovered that it is absolutely futile for one inconsequential American to rebel against the unshakable fortress of English tradition. Nearly all of my comrades were used to clear-cut class distinctions in civilian life. It made little difference ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... which there is nothing, which has no Beyond at all. To set before oneself as an ideal of action what one certainly knows to be incapable of attainment or accomplishment, incapable of coming to an end—that is surely futile and vain. Without a best, better or better-and-better has no meaning, and when the best is reached Progress is ...
— Progress and History • Various
... matter of boundary, both Webster and Ashburton decided to give up the futile task of convincing each other as to the meaning of phrases which rested upon half-known facts reaching back into the misty period of first discovery and settlement. They abandoned interpretation and made compromise and division the basis of their ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... nearing dusk when the Emden finally gave up the chase of the Sylph as futile, and once more put about. Immediately also the Sylph's head came about, and she once more set out, to trail the German. Occasional messages were exchanged between Captain von Mueller ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... and still screaming for mercy. The old housekeeper had fallen on her haunches, and was looking up to heaven, while she wildly struck the ground with her hands; the poor page had made a last, but futile effort to escape with the aid of his heels, but he had been at once caught, and was now bound by his waist to a tree, which grew close to the road on which the wretched party were huddled; the poor boy had quite forgotten his attempt at manhood and ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... it was not until he had thoroughly convinced himself that the animal could not get through, that he stole out, and bending down, cautiously advanced nearer and nearer to the huge beast, which snorted, and grunted, and squealed in its futile efforts to get at ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... been acquitted. Nothing could be more absolutely futile than his accuser, Lentulus, and the backers of the indictment, or more corrupt than the jury. Yet, after all, had it not been for incredible exertions and entreaties on Pompey's part, and even an alarming rumour of a dictatorship, he would not have been ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... unexplained foolishness marring her otherwise strong and in many ways beautiful character which prevented my loving her completely and safely. Nevertheless, I cared for her enough to enter my feeble and futile protest; but it was waved aside with the superb effrontery of a woman who feels that she controls the situation with her head, and whose heart is not at liberty to make uncomfortable complications. I would rather argue with a woman who is desperately in love, to prevent her marrying the man ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... forecast to the day the sad descent into sanity, reactive, monotonous, unemotional, inevitable as the end of the road. But even with his conscience up in arms, he welcomed his surrender. Besides, rebellion, as he knew of old, was utterly futile. He must let ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... of course have been spy-subordinates (cf. the case of D'Artagnan and Belleisle), with secret commissions to meet and render futile his disobedience; but nothing of the sort ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... nothing but his idea and the person whom he addresses: ad rem et ad hominem. A man of conviction and doctrine, to write does not weary him; to be questioned does not annoy him. When approached, he cares only to know that your motive is not one of futile curiosity, but the love of truth; he assumes you to be serious, he replies, he examines your objections, sometimes verbally, sometimes in writing; for, as he remarks, 'if there be some points which correspondence can never settle, but which ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon |
