"Unavailing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to my utter surprise and consternation, I was called into the room appropriated for Edward and his pictures, and informed I was to sit to him for Mr. Crisp! Remonstrances were unavailing, and declarations of aversion to the design were only ridiculed; both daddies interfered, and, when I ran off, brought me back between them, and compelled my obedience;—and from that time to this, nothing has gone ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... or daughter; never felt a tugging of tiny hands at her voluminous calico skirts! Nora had burnt many candles before the statue of the blessed Virgin without remedying this deplorable condition. She had sent up unavailing prayers—she had, at times, wept hot tears of longing and loneliness. Sometimes in her sleep she dreamed that a wee form, warm and exquisitely soft, was pressed against her firm body, and that a hand with tiniest pink nails crept within ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done—of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired! There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... was, that in six months, the whole machinery on which they had placed their reliance was prostrate. At the very next election, Elisha Cook was chosen and Nathaniel Saltonstall rechosen, to the Council; and, ever after, the Mathers were driven to the wall, in desperate and unavailing self-defence. ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... pot to the destination of its purchaser. Probably to facilitate transportation, the boy removed his hat and placed the pot obliquely on the back part of his head, but a sudden movement caused it to slip forward and downward over the head. Unavailing efforts were made at the time and after he reached home, to remove the pot from his head, but in vain, and he continued all the night greatly prostrated by fright, hunger, and thirst, together with the efforts at removal. The next ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... hour, when Lyle, who was again seated in the porch, caught sight of her moon-shaped face peering around the corner of the house in frantic endeavors to attract Haight's attention. As he was facing in almost an opposite direction, her efforts were unavailing, and Lyle, who could with difficulty restrain a smile, added to her embarrassment by inquiring in the ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... heads of anti-Reform in the House of Lords) how dangerous it would be to reject this Bill, that all sorts of excesses would follow its rejection, that their persons and properties would be perilled, and resistance would be unavailing, for that they (the Reformers) were resolved to carry their point. Lord Wharncliffe asked whether if this was conceded they would be satisfied. Jones replied, 'Certainly not;' that they must go a great deal further, that an hereditary ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... pleased during these hours, as long as they did not leave the estate. But some of the boys had been seen in the village of Tunbrook after eight in the evening; and all efforts to discover who they were had been unavailing. The prohibition had been made to ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... gloomy indeed; but they do not idly dwell on them, or give way to utter despondency. That would be unavailing; besides, there is no time for it. Something must be done to meet the altered circumstances. But what? A question to which none of them makes an ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... the first ambitious officer who turned up succeeded in doing that with which the older Africanus had once threatened the government,(16) and procured for himself one of the principal military commands against the distinctly- expressed will of the governing body. Public opinion, unavailing in the hands of the so-called popular party, became an irresistible weapon in the hands of the future king of Rome. We do not mean to say that Marius intended to play the pretender, at least at the time when he canvassed the people for the supreme command in Africa; but, whether ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... year, after the death of his father, he went to Scotland to set his family affairs in order, and to redeem his house in Cromarty. But, in spite of another sojourn in foreign lands, his efforts to free himself from pecuniary embarrassments were unavailing. At the king's death his Scottish loyalty caused him to side with those who opposed the Parliament. Formally proscribed in 1649, taken prisoner at the defeat of Worcester in 1651, stripped of all his belongings, he was ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the boys, and the girls, too, to decipher the code, were unavailing. The queer paper held fast to its mystery, if indeed mystery it concealed. It did not give it up as had the box with ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... and sought health in different climates; but her nerves were not to be restored to their former state. She then retired to her house in the country, established manufactories, threw the estate into small farms; and continually employed herself this way to dissipate care, and banish unavailing regret. She visited the sick, supported the old, and ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... his room and made a systematic, though unavailing, search for Stephen's letter; thinking that by some chance he might have recovered it from ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... us, because we so desperately realize its transiency. Our knowledge of the inescapableness of death and failure will quiet our laments, leaving us at least serene and resigned where our struggles and protests would be unavailing. It is by thus generalizing the point of view of art so that we adopt it towards our own life that we secure the catharsis of tragedy. Instead of letting sorrow overwhelm us, we may win self-possession through the struggle against it; instead ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... endurance of his honour and prosperity in fairest language and made himself known saying, "O King, tidings have reached I me of what befel thee through that which is in thy person; and how the host of physicians have proved themselves unavailing to abate it; and lo! I can cure thee, O King; and yet will I not make thee drink of draught or anoint thee with ointment." Now when King Yunan heard his words he said in huge surprise, "How wilt thou do this? By Allah, if thou make me whole I will enrich thee even to thy son's son and I will give ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... "Equivocation will be alike unavailing," repeated Lucrezia. "And if you ask what you have done—you have dared to step with your ill-placed passion between my lord and the Lady Adelaide: you have brought discredit upon the long-upheld religion ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... it in employment alone; but full of its late sufferings it can endure no employment not connected with those sufferings. Forcibly to turn away our attention to other subjects is a painful and in general an unavailing effort. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... conjecture was unavailing, then and always thenceforth. Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next day, did tidings transpire of any such figure as the Stranger; nor could the Traveller, who had passed through the neighbouring Town in coach-and-four, be connected with this ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... direct, I was at last obliged to knock under. All the seats by Diligence or Mail on that route were taken ahead for a longer time than I could afford to wait; and offers to fill an extra coach if the proprietors would send one were utterly unavailing. Such a thing as Enterprise is utterly unknown south of Genoa, and the idea of any obligation on the part of proprietors of stage-lines to make extra efforts to accommodate an extra number of passengers is so queer that I doubt whether Italian could be found to express ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... the city who have power to move the Dey. There is one thing, however," here the Jew glanced pointedly at Mariano, "in regard to which I would give you most earnest counsel, namely, that you should at once dismiss all idea of rebellion. It will be utterly unavailing. You may, like the caged lion, if you will, dash yourselves to death against your prison bars, but you cannot break them. Countless thousands of bold and brave spirits have attempted this plan, with no good result, in time past. ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... certainly have shot him. Boss became so uneasy over the situation that he sent one of his slaves, a foreman, to Panola county, some seventy-five miles distant, to Mrs. McGee's father, to get her brother, a lawyer, to come and endeavor to effect a settlement. He came, but all his efforts were unavailing. The men met at a magistrate's office, but they came to no understanding. Our folks became dissatisfied, and did not care to remain longer in the place, so they began to look out for other quarters. Boss finally decided to buy a farm in Bolivar, Miss., and to remove his family to Memphis, where ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... Baltimore's feeling for her is merely friendship—the desire of a lonely man for some sympathetic companion—anything but love, has entered into her and crushed her. He would devote the rest of his life to her. She is sure of that—but always it would be a life filled with an unavailing regret. A horror of the whole situation has seized upon her. She will never be any more to him than a pleasant memory, while he to her must be an ever-growing pain. Oh! to be able to wrench ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... farmer-debtor had filed a petition in the federal bankruptcy court for a composition or extension of time to pay his debts.[1109] A State law governing fraudulent transfers was found to be compatible with the act of Congress,[1110] as was a statute which provided that a discharge in bankruptcy should be unavailing to terminate the suspension of the driver's license of a person who failed to pay a judgment rendered against him for damages resulting from his negligent operation of a motor vehicle.[1111] If a State desires to participate in the ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... indulgence in the feminine weakness was short, for it was measured by the time she devoted to thoughts of her own fortunes. Quickly, very quickly, she overcame her weakness; she stood up, she understood, and she extended her arms in rage and grief and unavailing passion. That rage which treachery arouses in the generous breast, that passion which an outrage upon hospitality kindles in the meanest, that grief which ruined plans and friends betrayed have bred a thousand times in Irish bosoms—she felt them all, and intensely. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... o' the Yerbys knowed B from bull-foot," remarked one of the unindividualized lumpish moonshiners, shadowy, indistinguishable in the circle about the rotund figure of the still. He yet retained acrid recollections of unavailing struggles with the alphabet, and was secretly of the opinion that education was a painful thing, and, like the yellow-fever or other deadly disease, not worth having. Nevertheless, since it was valued by others, the Yerbys should scathless make no unfounded claims. "Ef ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... his feet, and walked up and down the beach. "Ah, you hide your feelings well," he cried, and his laughter was a trifle unconvincing and a bit angry. "But it is unavailing with me. I know! I know the sick and impotent hatred of me that is seething in your heart; and I feel for you the pity you pretend to entertain toward me. Yes, I pity you. But what would you have? Frankly, while in many ways an estimable man, you ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... This consolation, however, proved unavailing at the time, and Specht, indignant at the treachery of his opponent, enjoyed at least the mournful satisfaction of having the whole counting-house on his side, and hearing Pix universally condemned as a hard-hearted, selfish fellow. But ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... unavailing search among Robert Turold's papers for proofs of his statement about his marriage. The lawyer believed that they existed, and his failure to find them brought with it a belated realization of the fact that he, too, had been cherishing hopes of Sisily's innocence. It was the memory of her ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Germans had been guilty and the government had still to be operated principally on the basis of Section 14. A provisional government under Dr. Wittek, at the close of 1899, was followed by the ministry of Dr. Koerber, established January 20, 1900; but all attempts at conciliation continued to be unavailing. In September, 1900, the Reichsrath was (p. 481) dissolved and the order for the new elections was accompanied by the ominous declaration of the Emperor that the present appeal to the nation would ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... of delegates, priests, and augurs having proved unavailing, that of women was next sought. A noble lady, Valeria by name, who with other suppliants had sought the Temple of Jupiter, was inspired by a sudden thought, which seemed sent by the god himself. Rising, and bidding the other noble ladies to accompany her, she ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... emigrate to a new and distant country, and any of the number sicken and die, we are apt to indulge in unavailing regret at the removal; whereas had the same afflictive event happened before removal, it would have been regarded in quite a different light. Let then, none come to Illinois who do not expect to ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... BELL—How delusive are the flatteries of fortune! The wealth that has been showered upon us, beyond all our hopes, has brought no pleasure to my heart, and I pour my unavailing sighs for your absence, when I would communicate the cause of my unhappiness. Captain Sabre has been most assiduous in his attentions, and I must confess to your sympathising bosom, that I do begin to find that he has an interest in mine. But my mother will ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... debasement. Still the king, by enormous taxation, succeeded in wresting from his wretched subjects an income to meet the expenses of his court, amounting to about four millions of our money. But the outlays were so enormous that even this income was quite unavailing, and innumerable measures of extortion were adopted to meet ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... then become furious, soundly rating everybody, and declare that the Naya herself should deal with the whole lot as mutineers; whereupon, seeing all excuses for further halt unavailing, loads would be taken up, and within a few moments the whole string of half-clad natives would go laughing and singing ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... and a Boston physician of high standing within a few months confided to the writer that he had made use of hypnotic methods, with gratifying success, in the case of a patient where ordinary remedies had proven unavailing, but he did not venture to make the results public, since his fellow doctors might be inclined to condemn his ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... books, sighs, and 'goes out.' The quiet gentleman is killed; a million men could not restore the life one man has taken. Society is distressed beyond expression; so is the murderer, who is all sorrow and tenderness for the departed. There is general weeping, and great unavailing regret, and much commiseration for the widow: and then a mock trial, and no end of speechifying, beautiful remorse on the part of the survivor, lovelier tributes to the memory of deceased, a verdict of not guilty, and a dismissal of the murderer and his accomplices into the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... at fault for a moment. He recognized the trouble lurking in the sweet brown eyes. And with all his might he pretended not to see. So, when his last effort to cheer had proved unavailing, he took his departure under the ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... height, only to be flung down again on the same spot. After three or four impacts the balloon is reported to have burst with a loud noise, when high in the air, the silk being blown about over the field, and the car and its occupants dashed to the ground. Help was unavailing till this final catastrophe, and when, at length, the labourers were able to extricate the party, Mr. Simmons was found with a fractured skull and ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... French prisoners; and no persuasion of ours could induce them to spare the lives of one of these unhappy people, whose cries and entreaties to the English to intercede for, or save them, were always unavailing. They were either stabbed before our faces, or dragged to the top of a hill commanding a view of some fortress occupied by the French, and, in sight of their countrymen, their throats were ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... capital city, than they would be in the country surrounded by one's family. There is something shocking in seeing the bustling, struggling crowd who care nothing for one another dead or alive: and they may say, so much the better, we are spared unavailing thought and anguish, and yet I would rather have the thought and even the anguish—for without pain there is no pleasure for the heart no prayer for Indifference for me! Every memento mori comes with some force to me at ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... and more frequently than we would like to think possible, resemble our own in many ways. For the possibility of this we are largely indebted originally to the scholars of the Renaissance. Without their work that of our investigators would have been quite unavailing. It is to be hoped, however, that our recovery of this period will not be followed by any further eclipse, though that seems to be almost the rule of human history, but that we shall continue to broaden our sympathetic ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... own share is light, and that the weight of the burden should fall on the shoulders of some one else. Meanwhile, there remain for the heroic men who died in harness without a murmur in the unflinching exercise of their duty, an undying name, a public funeral, and a national monument; the unavailing sympathy and respect which rear an obelisk instead of bestowing a ribbon or a pension; recorded honours to the unconscious dead, in place of encouraging rewards to the triumphant living. A reverse of the picture, had it been permitted, might have ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... three days—and the days which followed them—Grantline sent out searching parties. But it was unavailing. Miko, Moa and Coniston, with their five underlings, could ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... hardly extract a smile from her. She seemed to have made a determination to do all that Lucy or herself had ever done, and more too, and listened to no entreaties to spare herself. Commands were met with sullen resignation, entreaties were unavailing, and both in the sickroom and the parish, she insisted on working beyond her powers. It was a nightly battle to send her to bed, and Albinia suspected that she did not sleep. Meantime Lucy had sailed, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the baths should be administered daily, and should not be discarded as unavailing until at least a dozen have ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... vindicated the honour of medicine, by bidding defiance to danger; boldly and constantly assisting the affected, and disdaining the excuse of his colleagues, who held the Arabian notion, that medical aid was unavailing, and that the contagion justified flight. He saw the plague twice in Avignon, first in the year 1348, from January to August, and then twelve years later, in the autumn, when it returned from Germany, and for nine months ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... little deserted home concerning which he has inquired. But finally he explains that its owner, a lone Swede, had died of sunstroke two years before, and M. Gerbeau's best efforts to find, through the Swedish consul at New Orleans or otherwise, a successor to the little estate had been unavailing. Joseph could take the place if he would. He ended by generously forcing upon the father of Francoise and Suzanne the free use of his traveling-carriage and "two horses, as gentle as lambs and as swift as deer," ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... love, or domestic feeling, rather than by the ruder passions of pride, anger, and revenge. Their music all has a wild, strange sound to a foreign ear, but it conveys to the mind in some way a sense of sorrow, and vague, unavailing regret for something that has for ever passed away, like the emotion excited by a funeral dirge over the grave of a dear friend. As Ossian says of the music of Carryl, "it is like the memory of joys that are past—sweet, yet mournful to the soul." I ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... back to the house; but they found her not there. They continued their unavailing search till the moon setting left them in darkness, and they laid down to rest, but not to sleep. The first streak of dawn saw them again hurrying to and fro, calling in vain upon the name of the loved and lost companion ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... Divinity that you want. I will not discourse with you; but I leave with you this book, which I simply ask you to read.' I read it—and read it—again and again; and I am a Christian. As the Christian grew up within me, my pains were soothed, and days, once days of tears and unavailing complaints, are now days of calm and cheerful duty: ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... unavailing, and Judith rang the bell. During the pause which ensued she rested her elbow on the back of Bertie's easy-chair and covered her eyes with her hand. She was shaking from head to foot, but when the door opened she stood up and tried ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... long, sandy beard, and in his travels sported a soft, broad-brimmed hat. One day, while walking about the streets, he was arrested and taken to the Palais de Justice. Explanations and expostulations proved unavailing. The prisoner was declared to be a "red Republican," and, in those days, that was no joke. It was only after the production of a passport and the interference of the United States consul, that the authorities were induced ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... he seen her? For the hundredth time he asked himself that question, for amid these hectic surroundings that first haunting suggestion of familiarity had become more pronounced. But patient delving into the dark corners of his memory was unavailing, and her conversation afforded ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... withdrawal had not been entertained. Yet, almost immediately after General Coke's departure Colonel Thorneycroft issued an order, without reference to superior authority, which upset the whole plan of operations, and rendered unavailing the sacrifices which had already been made to carry it into effect." In face of this severe, and in the author's judgment merited, condemnation, it would be less than just not to quote also Lord Roberts' further words. "Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft appears to have behaved in a very ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... with pitying eyes, Like those faint stars, the first to glow Through cloudy winter skies. That they may never tire, Angels, by God's decree, Bear wings of snow and fire, — Passion and purity; Save one, all unavailing, (The Prophet saith), His wings are gray and trailing, Azrael, Angel of Death. And yet the souls that Azrael brings Across the dark and cold, Look up beneath those folded wings, And find ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... felt the silence and vacancy of the depriving day on which you vanished. How prone are our hearts perversely to quarrel with the friendly coercion of employment at the very instant in which it is clearing the torpid and injurious mists of unavailing melancholy!' Then follows a sprightly attack before which Johnson may have quailed indeed. 'Is the Fe-fa-fum of literature that snuffs afar the fame of his brother authors, and thirsts for its destruction, to be allowed to gallop unmolested over the fields of criticism? A few ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... our study of the laws of competition seems to show that the tendency of modern competition is to destroy itself by its own intensity. Certainly all the strenuous efforts to keep it alive by the force of legal enactment and public opinion have thus far proved unavailing. There are now, probably, at least a million persons in the United States who are directly or indirectly interested in unlawful contracts in restraint of competition; and among them are included many of the best financiers and most ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... she said, or what de Crucis answered, he could never afterward recall. He had a confused sense of having cried out a last unavailing protest, faintly, inarticulately, like a man struggling to make himself heard in a dream; then the room grew dark about him, and in its stead he saw the old chapel at Donnaz, with its dimly-gleaming shrine, and heard the voice of the chaplain, harsh and yet strangely shaken:—"My chief prayer for ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... which closely threatened us. This unfortunate affair was the most disastrous his Majesty had experienced during the whole campaign, since the roads leading to the capital had been left uncovered; and the prodigies of his genius and valor were unavailing against such overwhelming numbers. An instance which furnishes an excellent proof of the presence of mind which the Emperor preserved in the most critical positions was, that before evacuating Arcis he committed ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Ireland had first compelled the introduction of Mr Bryce's Bill. Then, indeed, when the battle was won, and there was only question of the booty, Mr Redmond made the public boast that he and Mr Dillon "were in almost daily communications with Mr Bryce upon the subject." The excuse was as unavailing as his plea that the finally revised terms of sale of his Wexford estate left him without a penny of profit. What concerned the country was the first announcement of 24-1/2 years' purchase authorised under his own hand which had 'given a headline' ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... agreed to make a raft. It consisted of a platform of planks, built across empty barrels; and was lashed together by the only rope at the station. A couple of natives took their places upon it, with long poles; but their efforts to push against the strong currents were quite unavailing. Then something went wrong with the rope and the raft gradually sank, the ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... Jacobins. Robespierre's Address. Its Effect. Danton's Oration. His Audacity and Venality. Address of the Assembly. The King's Arrest known. His Hopes. The Queen's Despair. The Royal Family depart for Paris. De Bouille's unavailing Efforts. Indignation of the Populace. Barnave's noble Interference. Barnave gained over. Drouet's Declaration. The Entrance into Paris. Arrival at the Tuileries. Barnave and Petion's report to the Assembly. La Fayette ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the court stated their willingness to hear the case themselves in the presence of the commissioners, who would thereby be enabled to understand its merits; but this proposition was at once rejected, and every effort towards reconciliation proved unavailing.[98] ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... bringing about this catastrophe. That misunderstanding was but a drop in the stream of fate, which was all too swift for her strength. He paused at the last turn of the road and rested, settling his burden more closely in his arms, drawing her to him in the unavailing embrace of regret. Another kind of life, he said,—some average marriage with children and home would have given her more fully the human modicum of joy. But his heart rejected also this reproach. In no other circumstance could he place her justly. She was so amply made for joy—so ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... chill, thorny way; To pine with famine's agony severe, And all the ling'ring forms of death to fear; Till by despair impell'd, the rival train 195 Rush to the haughty victor's glitt'ring fane; Swift on their foe with rage impetuous dart, And plunge their daggers in his guilty heart. How unavailing now the treasur'd ore That made Peruvia's rifled bosom poor! 200 He falls—no mourner near to breathe a sigh, Catch the last breath, and close the languid eye; Deserted, and refus'd the holy tear That warm affection sheds o'er virtue's bier; Denied those drops that stay the parting ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... will be unavailing in the future, as they have been in the past; and as I leave the Queen City to-morrow, old Defiance will fade from my sight though not from my memory, for a long, long time. So for the present ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... of the Solitary's friends to ward off the blow were unavailing, and the perseverance of the constable was crowned with success. Of course it was impossible for Holden to walk through the streets of Hillsdale with such a companion without attracting observation. Long before he reached the office, where he was to have his trial, a crowd of idle boys was ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Avenhorn; "for, to attempt to turn you from your purpose, I know would be unavailing. I am not punished for disobedience of orders, but for having, by my disobedience, pointed out to you your duty—a duty which you were forced to perform afterwards by necessity. Then be it so; let me perish on these black rocks, as I shall, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... as his rival was at large, Monk could not, except at imminent risk, have declared himself more decidedly. To do so would have aroused opposition that would have strengthened that rival's hands. But Lambert's efforts were unavailing. Had he been able to remain in London, Hyde thinks he might, in time, have organized an effective opposition. Instead of this he felt it needful to strike at once. He made his way to Buckinghamshire, and from that county and Warwickshire ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... women are under an obligation to obey, or that men are fit for government and women unfit, are on the affirmative side of the question, and that they are bound to show positive evidence for the assertions, or submit to their rejection. It is equally unavailing for me to say that those who deny to women any freedom or privilege rightly allowed to men, having the double presumption against them that they are opposing freedom and recommending partiality, must be held to the strictest proof of their case, and unless their success be such as to ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... hours. We suspected the cause of these peculiar manifestations at the outset, but every suggestion of the possibility of the suspected cause was met with a stout denial and a very deceptive appearance of innocent ignorance on the subject. All treatment was unavailing to check the disease. Though sometimes the symptoms seemed to be controlled, a speedy relapse occurred, so that no progress toward a cure was made. Finally our conviction that our first impression respecting the case was correct became so strong that we hesitated ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... down among the vines, and wept his unavailing tears. Little did the lad, reared in a pagan home, know of the sweetness of the Christian faith, for which Timokles had ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... broadly over two hills of the city, stopping at the wall of the garden on the eastern front of Blacherne. How it originated, how many houses were destroyed, how many of the people perished in the flames and in the battle waged to extinguish them, were subjects of unavailing inquiry through ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... I went again to the church a few doors off. On Monday, seeing that the sun was shining, I determined to make one more effort to see Dick or Jacintha before setting out to London. The walk to Colebrook Park, where I hung about for an hour or more, proved again entirely unavailing, however, and turning towards the railway station, I changed another sovereign for a ticket, and reached the platform ten minutes before the half-past eleven ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... may be wholly wrong—a picture of Reuben, looking in an agony of unavailing sorrow into the pit from which his brothers had drawn the boy they hated to sell him to the Midianites. I cannot recollect the details plainly, and little remains but a memory of dim-lit azure and ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the massy prison's mouldering courts, Fearless and free the ruddy children played, Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows With the green ivy and the red wall-flower, That mocks the dungeon's unavailing gloom; The ponderous chains and gratings of strong iron, There rusted amid heaps of broken stone That mingled slowly with their native earth. There the broad beam of day, which feebly once Lighted the cheek of lean captivity With a pale and sickly glare, then freely shone On the pure ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... necessary to practise other expedients for allaying the ferment of that nation. His ministers and their agents bestirred themselves so successfully, that the heats in parliament were entirely cooled, and the outcry of the people subsided into unavailing murmurs. The parliament resolved, that in consideration of their great deliverance by his majesty, and as next, under God, their safety and happiness wholly depended on his preservation and that of his government, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... am not seeking to penetrate what is to me, indeed, no secret; neither do I form the unavailing wish that our expired intercourse should revive. C'en est fait. A knot which has been loosened or untied may be formed again, but this knot has been cut. Accordingly, I neither address you by your name nor subscribe ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... a vice. His pain was great; but the pangs he felt were greater when he thought of home, and the death he seemed doomed to die. In this position he lay from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon; when, finding that all his efforts to extricate himself were unavailing, he tried several times, without effect, to get his knife out of his pocket ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... first instance, directed to express to Mr. Forsyth the sincere regret of Her Majesty's Government that the long-continued endeavors of both parties to come to a settlement of this important matter have hitherto been unavailing. Her Majesty's Government feel an undiminished desire to cooperate with the Cabinet of Washington for the attainment of an object of so much mutual interest, and they learn with satisfaction that their sentiments upon this ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... am thoroughly convinced that any settlement, or compromise, or plan of action which is inconsistent with the principles of the Constitution, will not only be unavailing, but mischievous; that it will but multiply the present evils instead of removing them. The Constitution, in its whole integrity and vigor, throughout the length and breadth of the land, is the best of all compromises. Besides, our duty ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... Ireland; the sister ship proceeded to Newfoundland, and was to meet her in mid-ocean. When the Niagara had run out 335 miles of her cable it snapped under a sudden increase of strain at the paying-out machinery; all attempts at recovery were unavailing, and the work for that year was abandoned. The next year it was resumed, a liberal supply of new cable having been manufactured to replace the lost section, and to meet any fresh emergency that might ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... drop, but somehow I could not help thinking about it, and wondering which of my fellow-passengers was referred to, and for the next day or two I watched to see whether any one of them exhibited more than ordinary cordiality to me; but it was quite unavailing; all were alike exceedingly cordial and friendly—except Miss Onslow, who still maintained her former attitude of frigid reserve—so, as it was, after all, a matter that only very slightly interested me, I soon ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... in his chair frowning. Washington was not a large city, yet under certain circumstances she could be lost in it—and stay lost, with all the efforts of the police quite unavailing to find her. It seemed improbable that she had been abducted; as Ranleigh had said, they had nothing to gain from her. She could neither advance their plans nor hinder them; she was purely a negative quantity. Spencer might be striking at him through Mrs. Clephane, intending to hold her surety ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... unavailing, and the whole party hurriedly set off at the best pace the horses were able to go. As they journeyed, a halt was made at each cabin and each plantation, and every white man found was summarily ordered by the captain to get his gun and join the party; while at each place ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... imprudently to wander into the woods at no great distance from their habitations, to gather flowers with which to adorn their rustic fire-places. They were suddenly surrounded by half a dozen Indians. Their shrieks and efforts to flee were alike unavailing. They were dragged rapidly beyond the power of making themselves heard. As soon as they were deemed to be beyond the danger of rescue, they were treated with the utmost ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... feet; then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear; more deep, more bitter, because unheard ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... are well aware that this protest will be altogether unavailing with the majority of this body. The blow has already fallen; and we are compelled to stand by, the mournful spectators of the ruin it ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... offered by the father of Nkiketas—at which all the possessions of the sacrificer were to be given to the priests—is drawing towards its close, the boy, feeling afraid that some deficiency on the part of the gifts might render the sacrifice unavailing, and dutifully wishing to render his father's sacrifice complete by giving his own person also, repeatedly asks his father, 'And to whom will you give me'? The father, irritated by the boy's persistent questioning, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... quiet tones of one too strong, controlled, and well-bred to give way violently to his intense anger, he said: "This is a different result from what you led me to expect. All your smiles end in these unavailing tears. Why did you smile so sweetly after you understood me, since you had nothing better in store? I was giving you the homage, the choice of my whole manhood, and you knew it. What were you giving me? Why did your eyes draw ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... Mandeville entered the house, as related at the close of the first chapter, he found Eveline lying on the floor of her room, in a state of insensibility. All his efforts to arouse her were unavailing, and leaving her in the care of the distracted housemaid, he hastened off for the doctor. When the stunning influence was removed, Eveline was still unconscious. A burning fever was in her veins, and delirium in her brain. All night long the ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... native Muskegon like damaged goods, and go the circuit of my father's acquaintance, cap in hand, and begging to sweep offices! No, by Napoleon! I would die at my chosen trade; and the two who had that day flouted me should live to envy my success, or to weep tears of unavailing penitence behind my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... considerably courted by Botham and her Prussian Majesty; Queen Caroline having signified from England, That they ought to gain that knave,—what price did he charge for himself? But this also proves quite unavailing; never came to PRICING. And so,—hear Hotham ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... the objection virtually assumes that the object of prayer is to inform God of what He did not know before, and that His omniscience is of itself sufficient to show that prayer from men or angels must needs be unavailing. When it is said, again, that God being immutable, His will cannot be affected or altered by the "petitions" of His creatures, this objection, like the former one, involves a great and important truth,—a truth which is also explicitly ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... his first inquiry of the merchants was whether they had heard anything of Mr. Royal. He received the news of his death with a whirl of emotions. How he longed for tidings concerning the daughters! But questions would of course be unavailing, since their existence was entirely unknown at the North. That Mr. Royal had died insolvent, and his property had been disposed of at auction, filled him with alarm. It instantly occurred to him how much power such circumstances ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... until a large body of Indians passing through the skirt of the marsh turned their left flank, which was composed of militia, and poured a heavy and most destructive fire on their rear. The word "retreat" was pronounced by some person and the efforts of the officers to check it were unavailing. The fate of the day was decided, and a flight commenced on the left which was soon followed by the right. As soon as the line was broken the Indians, throwing down their rifles and rushing upon them with the tomahawk, completed the confusion. The attempt of Colonel Butler ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... learned that the alligator had been first seen by the Burmese, who gave instant notice of his approach, as before described, and the warning was as quickly comprehended by the captain. All his exertions to escape were, however, unavailing, and he felt himself seized a little below the shoulder. By a convulsive effort he succeeded in shaking off his cruel antagonist, and again struck out. The animal, however, again advanced, and seizing him nearly by the same place, dragged him under the ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... is too late forevermore. Then with vague restlessness you visit the brook in which his trout-line drooped, you pluck a leaf from the elm that shaded his regal head, you walk in the graveyard that holds in its bosom his silent dust, only to feel with unavailing regret that no sunshine of his presence can gleam upon you. The life that stirred in his voice, shone in his eye, and fortressed itself in his unconscious bearing, can make to you no revelation. It is departed, none knows whither. He is as much a part of the past as if he had tended ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... heard of such experience, did not foresee the inevitable end, and, in so much, she was spared. The extra pain of forfeiting her dignity and self-respect did not touch her, for she made none of those most pitiful, unavailing efforts to hold him, to cling; did not even pretend indifference. She only drew gradually into herself, shrinking from her pain and from him as the cause of it; she only lost her glow of love-happiness, her face seemed dwindled, ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... at the door, owing to their ignorance of the class of inmates? Thus, although there were some ministers of God in the country, their number was so small, and they were so far distant from each other, that their labors were utterly unavailing for the great body of the Catholic immigrants, who would have rejoiced to throw themselves at their feet, and ease their hearts and purify ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... wolves' dens. In every part of India, a great number of children are every day murdered for the sake of their ornaments, and the fearful examples that come daily to the knowledge of parents, and the injunctions of the civil authorities are unavailing against this desire to see their young children decked out in gold ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... then in session; but when eleven o'clock, the hour for the meeting of the court, arrived, the speaker found himself without a house to do business. All his authority and that of his sergeant at arms were unavailing to keep the members in their seats: every consideration of public duty yielded to the anxiety which they felt, in common with the rest of their fellow citizens, to hear this great man on this truly great and extensively interesting question. Accordingly, when the court was ready to proceed to business, ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... filled up the measure of Sergius's wrath. To his excited fancy the actor bore upon his face an insultingly satisfied smirk of triumph, while the Rhodian appeared larger and stronger than ever. With an exclamation of unavailing anger, Sergius pushed open the door, and stood in ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... notary, "that during your absence the bond in question fell due. For many months De Vlierbeck made unavailing efforts to find money to honor it at maturity; but all his property was mortgaged, and no one would assist him. In order to escape the mortification of a forced sale, De Vlierbeck offered every thing at public auction, even down to his furniture and clothes! The sale produced about enough ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... moment a gust of whirling snow swept down upon her. There was a flounder, a mis-step, a fatal strain on the wrong rein, a fall, a few plucky but unavailing struggles, and both horse and rider slid ignominiously down toward the rocky shelf. Mrs. Rightbody screamed. Miss Alice, from a confused debris of snow and ice, uplifted a vexed and coloring face to the younger guide, a little the more angrily, perhaps, that she saw ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Costumer, and told him of the unavailing attempts that had been made to find him. There were a great many detectives out, ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... and wrote a long affectionate letter to me, blaming himself severely for having introduced Lewis into the family, or permitted him to confer an obligation, which had brought inevitable ruin on us all. He begged me, whatever might be the event of the ensuing morning, not to suffer regret or unavailing sorrow for his fate, to increase the anguish of my heart, which he greatly ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... through the night toiled back again, And as she went, she thought, "Ah! all is vain, For though once more I just escape indeed, Yet hath she many another wile at need; And to these days when I my life first learn, With unavailing longing shall I turn, When this that seemeth now so horrible Shall then seem but the threshold of her hell. Alas! what shall I do? for even now In sleep I see her pitiless white brow, And hear the ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... time of grace, the laws of nature were suspended, the sun rose in the west and set in the east. To the sinners God gave the dainties that await man in the future world, for the purpose of showing them what they were forfeiting.[19] But all this proved unavailing, and, Methuselah and the other pious men of the generation having departed this life, God brought the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... bound for Detroit. He had wounded a deer and had let it get away from him, to suffer, and probably to die a painful, lingering death. The whole day—the last of the hunting season and of his court recess—had been spent in an unavailing search; not merely because he wanted some venison and a pair of antlers to carry home with him, but because he wanted to put the Buck out of his misery. He had failed everywhere, and he felt sorry and ashamed, and wished he had ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... of tears because he had received only one-third more than his lawful fare, Jock and Mac passed by the sentries, through the cavernous mouth of the main gate into the inner precincts of the Citadel. How powerful a fortress in days gone by it must have been, they thought, but how short lived and unavailing it would prove before modern artillery. They came to a halt before the great Mosque of Mahommed Ali, and the fine, tapering minarets met with their deepest approval. At the entrance they assumed the apologetic sandals and ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... party, who were all killed or taken. Five times in this manner did the enemy advance to the charge; five times were their columns beaten back in the utmost confusion by a force one-sixth of their numbers; till (p. 221) at length finding the contest unavailing, they retired. At this point ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... appeased. She rattled her bit and mouthed it determinedly, grabbing at the side-bar with an evident desire to secure it in her teeth. The girl kept a tight rein and attempted to soothe her with the tender caress of her hand; but her efforts were unavailing. The ears were now turned backwards, and had assumed that curiously vicious inclination which in a horse is indicative of bad temper or equine terror. Kitty had no vice in her, and Prudence quickly understood the nature ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... Messer Musciatto; and there it so happened that he fell sick. The two brothers forthwith placed physicians and servants in attendance upon him, and omitted no means meet and apt for the restoration of his health. But all remedies proved unavailing; for being now old, and having led, as the physicians reported, a disorderly life, he went daily from bad to worse like one stricken with a mortal disease. This greatly disconcerted the two brothers; and one day, hard by the room in which Ser Ciappelletto ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... against him with such violence in the hall that he knocked his head against the wainscoting; he tripped him up on the stairs by means of canes and sticks; and he hired his partisans who sat behind Viggo to stick pins into him, while he recited his lessons. And when all these provocations proved unavailing he determined to dispense with any pretext, but simply thrash his enemy within an inch of his life at the first opportunity which presented itself. He grew to hate Viggo and was always ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... &c (impossible) 471. render useless &c adj.; dismantle, dismast, dismount, disqualify, disable; unrig; cripple, lame &c (injure) 659; spike guns, clip the wings; put out of gear. Adj. useless, inutile, inefficacious, futile, unavailing, bootless; inoperative &c 158; inadequate &c (insufficient) 640; inservient^, unsubservient; inept, inefficient &c (impotent) 158; of no avail &c (use) 644; ineffectual &c (failure) 732; incompetent &c (unskillful) 699; stale, flat and unprofitable; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... her which I think will deeply interest her," the gentleman returned. "If we should not be successful in the course of a few weeks, I will make a settlement upon her, to be left, with some other papers, in your hands for a reasonable period, in the event of my death. But if all your efforts prove unavailing, the money will eventually go, with the rest, to the institution ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... hoped that our unavailing exertions to accomplish a cordial good understanding on this interest will not have an unpropitious effect upon the other great topics of discussion between the two Governments. Our northeastern and northwestern boundaries are still unadjusted. The commissioners ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... drifted by, and they grew ever more dreary. For Barrow's efforts to find work for Tracy were unavailing. Always the first question asked was, "What Union ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the heavy hand of public necessity when General Wood began impressing machines. The sightseers were ordered from their cars and the latter were pressed into public service. Protests were unavailing. The more stubborn surrendered at the points of rifles, and gave up their cars "until released by order of the chairman," as the placards placed in ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... one have any success in spinifex-rat hunting. I have read in Giles's book, and Sir John Forrest has told me, that when he was in the bush the rats were easily secured. Possibly they were more numerous in the better country that he passed through, or larger and not so quick. All our efforts were unavailing, the only occasion on which we slaughtered a rat being when Val caught a young one; the full-grown ones were far too fast for her and too quick in turning round the ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... rang with her shrieks, and, with his blood boiling with indignation at the sight, Richard redoubled his exertions to burst through the window and fly to her assistance. But though Nicholas now lent his powerful aid to the task, their combined efforts to obtain liberation were unavailing; and with rage almost amounting to frenzy, Richard beheld the poor young woman borne shrieking away by her captors. Nor was Nicholas much less incensed, and he swore a deep oath when he did get at liberty that Master Potts should pay dearly for his ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with fingers of the blind, We are groping here to find What the hieroglyphics mean Of the Unseen in the seen, What the Thought which underlies Nature's masking and disguise, What it is that hides beneath Blight and bloom and birth and death. By past efforts unavailing, Doubt and error, loss and failing, Of our weakness made aware, On the threshold of our task Let us light and guidance ask, Let us pause ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the treatise, he learned that the allegorical drawings on the fourth and fifth leaves enshrined the secret of the philosopher's stone, without which all the fine Latin of the directions was utterly unavailing. He invited all the alchymists and learned men of Paris to come and examine them, but they all departed as wise as they came. Nobody could make any thing either of Nicholas or his pictures; and some even went so far as to say that his invaluable book was not worth a ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... range Or had evil in admixture or grew evil's self by change? Wisdom—that becoming wise meant making slow and sure advance From a knowledge proved in error to acknowledged ignorance? Power? 'tis just the main assumption reason most revolts at! power Unavailing for bestowment on its creature of an hour, Man, of so much proper action rightly aimed and reaching aim, So much passion,—no defect there, no excess, but still the same,— As what constitutes existence, pure perfection ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... a moment, but soon formed again; when a forward movement was made with such spirit and intrepidity as to render the feeble efforts of a handful of men, without the means of defence, unavailing; and they fled through an open space, in the rear of the redoubt, which had been left for a gateway. At this moment, the rear of the British column advanced round the angle of the redoubt, and threw in a galling flank-fire ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... her husband in 1774 as she obtained later, she might perhaps have overcome what seems to have been one of his strongest prejudices, and have brought Choiseul back to power, to the benefit of the country. But her efforts in that direction were unavailing. In her relations with the other ministers, Turgot, Malesherbes, and Necker, her voice was generally on the side of extravagance and the court, and against economy and the nation. This, far more ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... desolated the fleet not less than the city, and crippled all its efforts. Reenforced by fifty ships of war from Chios and Lesbos, the Athenians first landed near Epidaurus in Peloponnesus, ravaging the territory and making an unavailing attempt upon the city; next they made like incursions on the most southerly portions of the Argolic peninsula—Troezen, Halieis, and Hermione—and lastly attacked and captured Prasiae, on the eastern coast of Laconia. On returning to Athens, the same armament was immediately conducted under ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... on some errand, reached headquarters, and told of their admittance on this road. Meade ordered me to report the delinquent officer, which I did, giving all excuses I could for him, but they were unavailing. I was ordered to prefer charges against Colonel Townsend, "for disobedience of orders." A general court-martial was called for his trial, of which General D. B. Birney was President, and, notwithstanding I had preferred the charges, I was made a ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... cajoled, ridiculed, but all to no purpose. Jack painted a picture of the crowd in the Garden, the cat-calls, the jeers, imitated the introduction of past and present champions, and Jerry winced a little, but was not moved. Finding all else unavailing, I fell back upon our friendship, recalling all Jerry's old ideals and mine. He softened a little, but ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... devil. In all the moralities he was perfect. He was a married man, with a wife and six children, all of whom he brought up and educated on L250 a year. He never was in debt; he performed all his duties—such as they were—and passed his time in making rude and unavailing attempts to convert his poorer neighbours. There was a union,—or poor-house—in the neighbourhood, to which he would carry morsels of meat in his pocket on Friday, thinking that the poor wretches who had flown in the face of their priest by eating the unhallowed morsels, would then ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... the camp, I was informed of the particulars of the progress of the victorious son of the distinguished Meheromet Ali from Wady Haifa to Meroe. Before his march every thing had submitted or fallen. All attempts to arrest his progress had proved as unavailing as the obstacles opposed by the savage rocks of the Cataracts of the Nile to the powerful course of that beneficent and ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... worry and fret for half of my existence! Were anything to happen now to make you forsake me, upon whom will you have me depend?" And then after heaping reproaches upon herself for a time, break out afresh in lamentations for her, unavailing offspring, Chia Cheng was much cut up and felt conscious that he should not with his own hand have struck his son so ruthlessly as to bring him to this state, and he first and foremost directed his attention to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... own modest mite to a charitable object willingly—secret almsgiving suited her; but in public plans, on a large scale, she could take no part; as to originating them, that was out of the question. This Shirley knew, and therefore she did not trouble Mrs. Pryor by unavailing conferences, which could only remind her of her own deficiencies, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... ordinary process of scouring. Every one at all experienced in this art will remember that it is not always an easy matter for him, by scouring, to bring his plate to the desired lustre. All his efforts become unavailing; the more he rubs, the duller the surface of his plate appears; and although he renews his cotton repeatedly, still he is obliged to content himself with an ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... insanity; but, terrified by the alteration of his features, stood transfixed by the bedside. He grasped my shoulder convulsively, and, striking his breast with the other hand, made a desperate attempt to articulate. It was unavailing; he extended his arm towards them, and made another violent effort. There was a rattling noise in the throat—a glare of the eye—a short stifled ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... their scientific discovery; and, indeed, Morse in the New World of practicality and quick adaptations, was about to be rejected and cast out. The sorrows through which he passed need not here be recounted. They are sufficiently sad and sufficiently humiliating. His unavailing appeals to the American Congress are happily hidden in the rubbish of history, and are somewhat dimmed by the intervention of more than half a century. But his humiliation was extreme. Smart Congressmen, partisans, the ignorant flotsam of conventions and intrigues, heard the philosopher ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... soft brown hair, and the round outline of the averted cheek and chin, a thousand times in old Marlowe's cottage on the uplands, sitting in the red firelight as she was sitting now. All the intervening years were swept away in an instant—his bitter anguish and unavailing repentance—the long solitude and gnawing remorse—all was swept clean away from his mind. He felt the strength and freshness of his boyhood come back to him, as if the breeze of the uplands was blowing softly yet keenly across his throbbing and fevered temples. Even his voice caught back for ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... upon this so long as the man Adams remained with us; but when at length we had finished our breakfast, had reluctantly submitted to be trussed up again—because we could not help ourselves, and nothing could be gained by offering an unavailing resistance—and were once more shut in and left to ourselves, the skipper turned ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... corners of the State's temple, and there watch with advantage till the doors of Paradise should be re-opened to him. He was no Lucifer, who, having wilfully rebelled against the high majesty of Heaven, was doomed to suffer for ever in unavailing, but still proud misery, the penalties of his asserted independence; but a poor Peri, who had made a lapse and thus forfeited, for a while, celestial joys, and was now seeking for some welcome ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... fragrant lilies bring, Mixed with the purple roses of the Spring; Let me with funeral flowers his body strow, This gift which parents to their children owe, This unavailing gift at ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... Can dungeons, bolts, or bars confine thee? Or whips thy noble spirit tame? Too long the world has wept, bewailing That falsehood's dagger tyrants wield, But freedom is our sword and shield, And all their arts are unavailing. To arms! ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... as 'tawdry and fulsome.' To most it will seem a delightful extravagance. To contemporaries the extravagance itself would appear not very glaring. Elizabeth aroused both fascination and awe in her own period which justified high flights. After her goodness and wrath were become alike unavailing this is how a cynic like Harington spoke of her: 'When she smiled it was a pure sunshine that every one did choose to bask in if they could; but anon came a storm, and the thunder fell in wondrous manner ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... "If," said he, "we fly from the city to the country, what do we there behold? Fields abandoned; the hospitable mansions of our fathers deserted; agriculture drooping; our slaves, like their masters, working harder, and faring worse; the planter striving with unavailing efforts to avert the ruin which is before him." He drew a sad picture of the once thriving planter, reduced to despair, gathering up the small remnants of his broken fortune, and, with his wife and little ones, tearing himself from ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... into the plain, and allowed their enemy the opportunity of manoeuvering and of using his war chariots, their inferiority was marked. Cyaxares, now, if not previously, actual king, withdrew awhile from the war, and, convinced that all the valor of his Medes would be unavailing without discipline, set himself to organize the army on a new system, taking a pattern from the enemy, who had long possessed some knowledge of tactics. Hitherto, it would seem, each Median chief had brought into the field his band of followers, some mounted, some on foot, foot and horse alike ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... midnight, the cart with the food and liquor was ready. Adam's warnings were unavailing. Ruth resolutely insisted upon accompanying him, and he well knew what urged her to risk safety and life as freely as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... can not be held responsible. Upon England and Austria must rest all the guilt of that awful tragedy. Napoleon had done every thing he could do to stop the effusion of blood. He had sacrificed the instincts of pride, in pleading with a haughty foe for peace. His plea was unavailing. Three hundred thousand men were marching upon France to force upon her a detested King. It was not the duty of France to submit to such dictation. Drawing the sword in self-defense, Napoleon fought and conquered. ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... tenderly and profoundly on the souls committed to his charge? If parents were familiar with it, would they not teach it to their young ones at the fireside, both to insure reverence to their own gray hairs, and to protect the children from such unavailing regrets as Johnson bore upon his heart for fifty years? If the site were ascertained, would not the pavement thereabouts be worn with reverential footsteps? Would not every town-born child be able to direct the pilgrim thither? While waiting at the station, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... given to him, and the men were directed to bring his father, an old and faithful hunter, to the house, that he might have the comforts of nourishment and warmth. He was brought accordingly, but these attentions were unavailing as he died a few days afterwards. Two days before his death I was surprised to observe him sitting for nearly three hours, in a piercingly sharp day, in the saw-pit, employed in gathering the dust, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... I did so love? 0 my companions! O ye loved names Of friend, or playmate dear, gone are ye now. Gone divers ways; to honour and credit some: And some, I fear, to ignominy and shame! I only am left, with unavailing grief One parent dead to mourn, and see one live Of all life's joys bereft, and desolate: Am left, with a few friends, and one above The rest, found faithful in a length of years, Contented as I may, to bear me on, T' the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... received a report of the presence of the Boers. On the return of Barry, Mr. Schoeman endeavoured to obtain another messenger. Owing to the state of the country, which was infested with the enemy, his efforts proved unavailing. ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... seeing and deeper reasoning,—notably Edmund Burke,—came to Pitt's support, and the West India proprietors, largely resident in England, by their knowledge of details contributed much to elucidate the facts; but their efforts were unavailing. Their argument ran thus: "Only the American continent can furnish at reasonable rates the animals required for the agriculture of the islands, the food for the slaves, the lumber for buildings and for packing produce. ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan |
