"Unsuccessful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that Lincoln made his unsuccessful canvass for the Illinois Assembly. The election over, he began to look for work. One of his friends, an admirer of his physical strength, advised him to become a blacksmith, but it was a trade which would afford little leisure for study, and for meeting and talking with men; ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... work, was his migration to Ireland, and his settlement there for the greater part of the remaining eighteen years of his life. We know little more than the main facts of this change from the court and the growing intellectual activity of England, to the fierce and narrow interests of a cruel and unsuccessful struggle for colonization, in a country which was to England much what Algeria was to France some thirty years ago. Ireland, always unquiet, had became a serious danger to Elizabeth's Government. It was its ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... had not that keen and far-sighted intellect nor that grandeur of purpose which afterward distinguished the military founder of another soldiery that became formidable to kings. The Templars were unintelligent and therefore unsuccessful Jesuits. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... John was afraid for himself, since his treachery had proved unsuccessful. So he took the armed men that were about him, and removed from Tiberias to Gischala, and wrote to me to apologize for himself concerning What had been done, as if it had been done without his approbation, and desired me to have no suspicion of him to his disadvantage. ...
— The Life of Flavius Josephus • Flavius Josephus
... two weeks the Union army had to live from the enemy's country, and then after all to fall back to Holly Springs. Meanwhile Sherman, ignorant of his superior's ill fortune, descended the Mississippi, and with a force of 30,000 made during the last days of the year an unsuccessful ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... throne."—"I by no means look with tranquillity on the war that is preparing. I cannot think of it without alarm. If Napoleon prove victorious, it is possible, that success may turn our brains, and inspire us anew with the desire of revisiting Vienna and Berlin. If he be unsuccessful, it is to be feared, that our defeats will animate the people with rage and despair, and that the nobles and royalists will be massacred."—"The prospect is no doubt extremely distressing; but I have already told you, and I repeat it, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... following fortnight Alan made many trips to the shore—and he always went by the branch road to the Four Winds point. He did not attempt to conceal from himself that he hoped to meet Lynde Oliver again. In this he was unsuccessful. Sometimes he saw her at a distance along the shore but she always disappeared as soon as seen. Occasionally as he crossed the point he saw her working in her garden but he never went very near the house, feeling that he had no right to spy on it or her in any way. He soon ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... is taken to Boston from Portland, after two unsuccessful attempts to obtain a writ of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... needs of man in every form?—made him the idol of England. Henry II had to live to see the man who had refused him the old accustomed obedience, reverenced among his people with almost divine honours as one of the greatest saints that had ever lived. The great Hohenstaufen in the unsuccessful struggle with the Papacy was at last brought to declare that all he had hitherto done rested on an error; and in like manner, but one far more humiliating and painful, Henry II had to do penance, and receive the discipline of the scourge, ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... illustrious rank. She would have raised the poet to equal rank beside her had she possessed the power. She could and did defy the Family, and subdue her worshipping father, the most noble prince, to a form of paralysis of acquiescence—if I make myself understood. But she was unsuccessful in her application for the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... as all writers use, told the little world of readers his secret hopes and aspirations, the fancies which had pleased him and which he could not bear to let die without trying to please others with them? I have a great sympathy with authors, most of all with unsuccessful ones. If one had a dozen lives or so, it would all be very well, but to have only a single ticket in the great lottery, and have that drawn a blank, is a rather sad sort of thing. So I was pleased to see the affectionate kind ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fight began, Lidgerwood observed Hallock closely, trying to discover if there were any secret signs of the satisfaction which the revolt of the rank and file might be supposed to awaken in an unsuccessful candidate for the official headship of the Red Butte Western. There were none. Hallock's gaunt face, with the loose lips and the straggling, unkempt beard, was a blank; and the worst wreck of the three which promptly ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... promises were made only to be broken, other insurrections soon sprang up among the colonists. One of the most important revolutionary movements of those days was led by Narciso Lopez, a Venezuelan. This was in 1848. He was unsuccessful, but escaped with many of his followers to New York, where he found many sympathizers and practical aid. The United States government frustrated his attempt in 1849 to return to Cuba with a small invading force. A year later he reached the island with six hundred ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... charcoal was at first used universally for smelting iron, anthracite coal being considered unfit for the purpose. In 1820 an unsuccessful attempt to use it was made at Mauch Chunk. In 1833, Frederick W. Geisenhainer of Schuylkill obtained a patent for the use of the hot blast with anthracite, and in 1835 produced the first iron made with this process. In ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... had been told me of the unsuccessful attempt of the French to appropriate the water springs of Sidi Mansur, near Gafsa, I asked Dufresnoy whether the Arabs had not contested the action of ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... but I suppose that his ear was crushed in this disaster, and the pearl disappeared somewhere or other. This pearl the Roman Emperor then made every effort to buy from the Ephthalitae, but was utterly unsuccessful. For the barbarians were not able to find it although they sought it with great labour. However, they say that the Ephthalitae found it later and sold ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... woman blames, never herself, but either the outrageous meretriciousness of her rival, or the blindness of the man she loses. From which it may once more be deduced that The unsuccessful woman blames, never herself, but either the outrageous meretricousness of her rival, or the blindness of the man she loses. From which it may once more be deduced that Men are won by more primitive means than are women. And, alas for men (alas ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... is sinful or indicates the existence of sin, but I do mean to insist very strongly that the successful man needs to be a very spiritually watchful man. He is quite apt to think that he may take all sorts of liberties with the laws of God. There are, no doubt, evident dangers to the unsuccessful man, but the Holy Scriptures have not thought it worth while to spend much time in denouncing him. It has a good deal to say of the danger, not so much of wealth, as of prosperity in general: "Behold, this ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... thinking of to do anything of the sort. I will not keep the appointment with that person. The only possible intercourse I could have with him would be to order groceries at his shop. The idea of a man who has moved in the best society of the South, who has been engaged in great if unsuccessful enterprises, who has led the picked chivalry of his oppressed land against the Northern hordes—the idea of a gentleman of this kidney meekly simmering down into a factotum to a Yankee dealer in canned goods! No, sir; I reckon I can ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... advantageous to the Roman state, unless from time to time he showed them an army under arms close at hand, and by frightening them with the name of the emperor, recalled them from their mischievous eagerness for fighting. The ambassadors retired unsuccessful, having been looked on as ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... persons bearing Orders in the English Church. ("O my soul, come not thou into their secret!") The case is not altered: for the requirements of Physical Science are still the plea; and Divines, in no sense, these men are, however unsuccessful they may prove in establishing their claim to the title of philosophers either. Nay, Sirs,—suffer one of yourselves to ask you, whether these disgraceful developments are not the lawful result of your own incredible system, of sending forth, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... they'll send back the papers, they can keep the horse, as much as I like Prince," Spoke Will, as he started home to tell his sister and the girls the details of the unsuccessful trip. He had already briefly telephoned ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... niggard stars that gift refuse, Concealment is the only boon I claim; Obscure be still the unsuccessful Muse, Who cannot raise, but would not ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... in the case of the Montijos: this fellow Alvaros has somehow managed to work himself into a position of very considerable power, and I have little doubt that he, and he only, is responsible for the whole shameful business, which, in my opinion, has been neither more nor less than a determined but unsuccessful attempt to force the unhappy Senorita Isolda into a ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... advanced day by day—sometimes in sunshine, sometimes in rain, now successful in hunting and now unsuccessful—until they reached the Zulu country and the ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... political economy, was a Scotchman by birth. He wrote on economical questions, and lectured on banking at Cambridge (1877) and at King's College, London (1878). He was a free lance in his field, and was not considered orthodox by the majority of economists of his time. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the chairs of political economy at Cambridge (1863), Edinburgh ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... peace, or, if that could not be reached, to effect an exchange of prisoners. Among the commissioners was Regulus, who since his capture, five years before, had been held a prisoner in Africa. Before setting out from Carthage he had promised to return if the embassy were unsuccessful. For the sake of his own release, the Carthaginians supposed he would counsel peace, or at least urge an exchange of prisoners. But it is related, that upon arrival at Rome, he counselled war instead of peace, at the same ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... Mr. Sarrasin, that you are the only one in London to-day who looks upon me as a man much to be envied. London, if it thinks of me at all, thinks of me only as a disastrous failure, as an unsuccessful exile—a man of ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... the French commissioner, had been equally unsuccessful in inducing the dusky monarch to affix his signature to the French treaty, and the ambassadors of the rival nations were both encamped near the village, waiting for the Ju-Ju festivities to reach their ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... naturally unsuccessful. The South was impoverished. Weak from the wounds of war, and the deeper enervation of a system that had poisoned her life for generations, she had not yet begun to rally. There was not enough business in the city for the slow and nerveless hands of its citizens, therefore there was little ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... life. She began to be impatient for her return home, that she might introduce her to those household employments, the knowledge of which is of such unspeakable importance to every lady. In this she was far from being unsuccessful; for while Jane continued to dream in accordance with the encouragement of her father, she also cordially recognized the good sense of her mother's counsels, and held herself ever in readiness to co-operate with her ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... the part of any of the three of Undine's returning with them; and after she had conveyed them to their steamer, and seen their vaguely relieved faces merged in the handkerchief-waving throng along the taffrail, she had returned alone to Paris and made her unsuccessful attempt to enlist ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... a fish under the ice, never having enough food and sleep—cringing, worrying, wearing himself to exhaustion, fretting over every farthing, with genuine 'innocence' suffering in the service, and dying at last in either a garret or a cellar, in the unsuccessful struggle to gain for himself or his children a crust of dry bread. Fate had hunted him down ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... III. came to the throne, thirteen prosperous American Colonies were a source of handsome revenue to the mother country, by whom they were regarded as receptacles for surplus population, and a good field for unsuccessful men and adventurers. These children were frequently reminded that they owed England a great debt of gratitude. They had cost her expensive Indian and French wars for which she should expect them to reimburse her as ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... last irruption into the Pyrenees, Sir Thomas Graham had made an unsuccessful attempt to carry St. Sebastian by storm, and having, ever since, been prosecuting the siege with unremitting vigour, the works were now reduced to such a state as to justify a second attempt, and our division sent forth their three hundred volunteers to join the storming party.[3] ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... the earth, there is no single instance of so large a country as New Holland, not possessing at least one great navigable river. To ascertain this point has been one of the leading objects of Governor Macquarie's administration, ever since the discovery of the pass across the mountains. Several unsuccessful expeditions have been fitted out with this view from Sydney, both by sea and land. The last of which we have learned the result, was conducted by Mr. Oxley, the surveyor-general, and is most worthy of notice, as well from the extent of country which he traversed, as ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... may happen, however, and often does, that this first injection of an antiseptic is unsuccessful in preventing organismal infection of the wound. In this case grave constitutional disturbance and other untoward symptoms such as we have already described quickly ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... conspicuous one being the cable slung between two rocks, and Queen Victoria and the President standing, looking very much astonished at each other from either side. The absurdity of all this was, that the cable had really by this time come to grief: at least, on the morning after our landing, an unsuccessful attempt was made to transmit the news of our arrival to our friends in England. It was rather absurd to see the credit the Americans took to themselves for the success, such as it was, of ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... Samuel as found so far. (9) The value of a trusting soul as seen in Ruth. (10) The main element in their religion. (11) The condition of Israel at the beginning and at the end of this period. (12) The subject of good and successful parents with bad and unsuccessful children. The importance they attached to the Ark of ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... with military matters. This commission I duly executed. Another which he intrusted to me I found greater difficulty in performing. It was to procure information concerning Bertha de Bellechasse. After some unsuccessful attempts, I at last ascertained that she had been for some days confined to her bed by indisposition. This was sad news for Oakley, and I was loth to convey them to him, but I had promised him the exact truth. Fortunately I was able ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... ensued. Although the Grand Duke would not force his daughter's wishes and oblige her to marry Count Rodolph, at the same time he would not consent to her espousals with the Marquis Albert. Count Rodolph had discovered the intimacy between Viola and the Marquis of Salerno, and had made more than one unsuccessful attempt to get rid of his rival by assassination. After some time, a private marriage with the marquis had been consented to by Viola; and a year afterwards the Lady Viola retired to the country, and without the ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... definition of Anglo-Saxon, charges Mexicans (not with bayonets but) with improprieties. Calhoun, Hon. J.C., his cow-bell curfew, light of the nineteenth century to be extinguished at sound of, cannot let go apron-string of the Past, his unsuccessful tilt at Spirit of the Age, the Sir Kay of modern chivalry, his anchor made of a crooked pin, mentioned. Calyboosus, carcer. Cambridge Platform, use discovered for. Canaan in quarterly instalments. Canary Islands. Candidate, presidential, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Asclepiodorus that her search had been unsuccessful, she felt prompted once more to talk with her friend, the anchorite; but before she had gone far enough even to see his cell, the high-priest's scribe once more stood in her way, and desired her to follow him to the temple. There ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Isle. The death of companions was the principal change in their dreary, monotonous life, varied also by the addition from time to time of others doomed to share their fate. Efforts to escape were not always unsuccessful. At one time eight men burned spots on their faces and hands with hot wire, and then sprinkled the spots with black pepper. When the doctor came round, they feigned illness, and he ordered these cases of small-pox to be taken to the pestilence-house ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... people who suddenly decided to drive all the way back to Paris from Lacville after an evening's successful or, for the matter of that, unsuccessful play. He had been very much relieved to see his two gentlemen come back from the chalet and to leave the gendarmes behind. He had no wish to get mixed up in a fracas, no wish, that is, to have any embarrassments ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... too chilly," he says, smiling, "so I came on here. Having been unsuccessful all the afternoon and morning, I knew I should ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... lessen that gentleman's dignity by telling any one that the attache's salary was to be five hundred dollars a year. His own salary was only fifteen hundred dollars; and though his brother-in-law, Senator Rainsford, tried his best to get the amount raised, he was unsuccessful. The consulship to Opeki was instituted early in the '50's, to get rid of and reward a third or fourth cousin of the President's, whose services during the campaign were important, but whose after-presence was embarrassing. ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... and dinner, went to Scarborough for his summer holidays, sat on his wife, took his daughters out in a boat and was never sick. One felt that he went to church every Sunday morning, looked upwards as he moved through life, disliked the unsuccessful, and expanded with his second glass of wine. But then a clear look into his well-clothed face and red-brown eyes would give the feeling: 'There's something fulvous here; he might be a bit too foxy.' A third look brought the thought: 'He's certainly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a full hour while composing his answer. Brief though it was, it cost him very considerable effort and several unsuccessful attempts. In the end this is what ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... want to go on no cruise that threatens danger," cried Ben, hoping in this way to elicit something as to the nature of Barr's plans, but he was unsuccessful. The other merely shrugged his ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... they never shall be able to regain what they now have purchased and may enjoy, or to free themselves from any yoke imposed upon them. Nor will they dare to go about it,—utterly disheartened for the future, if these their highest attempts prove unsuccessful: which will be the triumph of all Tyrants hereafter over any People that shall resist oppression; and their song will then be to others How sped the Rebellious English?, to our posterity How sped the ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... to the end of the room and back. He was known in Riverbank as the unsuccessful competitor against Attorney Mullen for the City Attorneyship, and was supposed to be the counselor ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... in the Letter to Mr. Dundas, has entered fully into his own views of the Slave Trade, and has thereby rendered any further explanation on that subject at present unnecessary. With respect to the Code itself, an unsuccessful attempt was made to procure the copy of it transmitted to Mr. Dundas. It was not to be found amongst his papers. The Editor has therefore been obliged to have recourse to a rough draft of it in Mr. Burke's own handwriting; from which he hopes he has succeeded in making ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... counsel he had received, he said: "When thou desiredst to take my life and my wife, thou didst mar the look of thy fair example. Only the sword has the right to decide between us." Then Gotar attacked the fleet of the Danes; he was unsuccessful in the engagement, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... news which first greeted Governor Stuyvesant when he returned, not a little dispirited, from his unsuccessful mission to Boston. He was fully aware that he could bring forward no physical power which could resist the encroachments of his unscrupulous neighbors. He had no weapon to which he could resort but diplomatic skill. He accordingly immediately sent a deputation of four of his principal men ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... Evidently, however the translator is prepared to hear this charge brought against his labour of love. Indeed, there is a tinge of melancholy pervading the preface in which the Editor refers to his "unsuccessful professional life," and to the knowledge of which his country has cared so little to avail itself. * * * * * Even in the recent Egyptian troubles—which are referred to somewhat bitterly— his wisdom was not utilised, though, after the death of Major Morice, there was not an English official ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... as my experiment proceeded, to find that it was by no means unsuccessful. His austerity appreciably relaxed, and the kindly tone into which his few, but intelligent observations gradually fell, was accompanied by an encouraging smile, when the drift of our talk was light. Then I spoke of his child, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... selling a handsome repeater and a gold snuff-box so as to enable me to go to Marseilles, whence I thought of going to Constantinople and trying my fortune there without turning renegade. Doubtless, I should have found the plan unsuccessful, for I was attaining an age when Fortune flies. I had no reason, however, to complain of Fortune, for she had been lavish in her gifts to me, and I in my turn had ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... unostentatious sort. Dickie had tried not a few desperate adventures, had conformed his thought and action to not a few glaring patterns, rushing to violences of extreme colour, extreme white and black. All that had proved preeminently unsuccessful, a most poisonous harvest of Dead Sea fruit. What, he began to ask himself, if he made an effort to conform it to the pattern actually presented to him—mellow, sun-visited, with the brave red of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... into the Mysteries of Isis. After his return to Greece, Pythagoras is said to have been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries and attempted to found a secret society in Samos; but this proving unsuccessful, he journeyed on to Crotona in Italy, where he collected around him a great number of disciples and finally established his sect. This was divided into two classes of Initiates—the first admitted only into the exoteric doctrines of the master, with whom they were not allowed to speak until ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... found in the dead bodies of many of the old men and women, and of the very young children and infants; also the bodies of a few of the warriors. All these had been speared, chiefly through the back. Still they were unsuccessful in finding the bodies of the chief or ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... was driving off. The lawyer stood still, amazedly looking after him. Then he went into the house and spent the next quarter of an hour trying to call the Twin-Lights by telephone. As the northeast wind had finished what the northwest one had begun and the wire was down, his attempt was unsuccessful. He gave it up after a time and sat down to discuss the astonishing affair with his ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... skull and removing the parasite, an operation which requires a skillful operator and is frequently unsuccessful. Unless the parasite is removed affected cattle almost ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... others; but at Niagara one place is just as good as another, for the reason that the fish do not bite anywhere, and so there is no use in your walking five miles to fish, when you can depend of being just as unsuccessful nearer home. The advantages of this state of things have never heretofore been properly placed ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... "power of the air," was found in great processions bearing statues, relics, and holy emblems through the streets. Yet even these were not always immediately effective. One at Liege, in the thirteenth century, thrice proved unsuccessful in bringing rain, when at last it was found that the image of the Virgin had been forgotten! A new procession was at once formed, the Salve Regina sung, and the rain came down in such torrents as to drive the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... heard so too," replied Swinton; "at all events, up to the present time they have been unsuccessful. It is an animal of most unamiable disposition, that is certain; and I would rather encounter ten lions, if all that they say of it is true. But it is time for us to go to bed. Those fires are getting rather ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... combat; but since he neither killed nor took him, he had no right to the prize. For he did not conquer him, if we may guess by what he said when he expostulated with Jove and bewailed his unsuccessful attempt:— ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... for a week without the least sign of the peculiar action of mercury being produced. We only know that such is the fact; and were we to search for the reason, with all the appliances which modern science could bring to our aid, we should be entirely unsuccessful. According to Begin's idea, we should expect to see some remarkable development of the absorbent system in the one case, with slight development in the other; but, even were such the case, it would not explain the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... circumstances: and he remained for a long time altogether doubtful and unsettled as to his future plan of life. During part of the year 1799 he appears to have been engaged in a negotiation with government (which finally proved unsuccessful) relative to some public appointment in the colony of New South Wales. At another time he had partly determined to look out for a farm; and at last came, somewhat reluctantly, to the determination of practising his profession, to which he was perhaps at no ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... friendship seems to have been close and sincere. Subsequently, Madame Recamier was able, through her political influence, to serve Hortense in many ways. She also took an interest in her son Louis Napoleon, and visited him in prison after his unsuccessful attempt at Strasbourg, which kindness he afterwards acknowledged in several notes preserved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to prove the historical existence of Robin Hood have been unsuccessful. His story has come down to us in a group of old folk ballads, about forty in number, dating from about the beginning of the fifteenth century. One of these old ballads is given below. They were sung to a recurrent melody, which was as much a part of them as the words ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... industry, is also important. The economy continues to have a high unemployment rate of 30% because of an overdependence on the weather-plagued banana crop as a major export earner. Government progress toward diversifying into new industries has been relatively unsuccessful. ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... hope will bring that man that has it, and exercises it, to heaven, when leviathan is pulled out of the sea with a hook; or when his jaw is bored through with a thorn: but as he that thinks to do this, hopeth in vain; so, even so, will the hope of the other be as unsuccessful; 'So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish; whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web. He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand; he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure' (Job 8:13-15, 41:1-9). This is the hope ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... I was not wholly unsuccessful, and every time I raised my eyes, I was sure to find those of Monsieur de Chavannes riveted on my face with a deep, earnest gaze, which, though it was instantly averted even before our glances met, showed that ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... he was admonishing the Council by letter of the imminent danger of a Spanish invasion of England from Brittany. Disasters themselves favoured his advice and projects. An expedition conducted by Hawkins and Drake against Panama had been unsuccessful. The commanders died, Hawkins in November, 1595, Drake in the next January; both, Ralegh has written, broken-hearted from disappointment and vexation. Spain was encouraged by the failure. A Spanish ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... auction for L1,320, by Colonel Jacob Wendell, whose descendents have earned lasting honor for the family name. Philip Livingston, of Albany, and John Stoddard, through older claims, became associated with him as joint proprietors. The terms of the grant were not strictly complied with, and, after an unsuccessful attempt to bring in Dutchmen, a company of forty settlers from Westfield purchased and took possession of the greater part of the township. Difficulties with the Indians soon drove them back. The first permanent settlement was made in 1749, ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... "Caesar can give you money and honor, but he can't make you an orator." Favorinus was about to bring a case before the emperor in regard to exemption from taxes, a privilege which he desired to secure in his native city. Suspecting, however, that he should be unsuccessful and be insulted in addition he entered the courtroom, to be sure, but made no other statement save: "My teacher stood this night in a dream by my side and bade me do service for my country, since I have ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... in time, she would stand over him and oblige him to eat it,— every mouthful of it. It was no fault of hers that he was what I saw him; and so great was his sense of gratitude for her efforts, though unsuccessful, that he determined, when the voyage should end, to embark for home with all the wages he should get, to spend with and for his mother, if perchance ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... warlike character of the parent stock. They fought successfully with the Catawbas, Cowetas, and the Cherokees, and thought to exterminate by one decisive blow, all of the white inhabitants within their borders. Unsuccessful in the attempt, pressed sorely by the whites, who resisted the attack, and unwilling themselves to submit, they removed to the north, and through sympathy, similarity of taste, manners, or language, or from the stronger ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... of our line of breastworks was Fort Harrison, which was feebly garrisoned by reserves. This force had been overpowered and the Fort taken by the Federals. Two days later, and after it had been completely manned with infantry and artillery, an unsuccessful attempt was made to recapture it, of which we had a full view. The attack was made by Colquitt's and Anderson's brigades, while General Lee stood on the parapet of Fort Gilmore with field-glass in hand, waving his hat and cheering lustily. Of course our loss in killed, wounded, and captured was ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... recommending the whole paper as very agreeably written, with some shrewd criticism. "Mr. Planche had in one portion of the extravaganza put into the mouth of one of the characters for the moment a few lines of burlesque upon Macbeth, and we remember Mr. Dickens's unsuccessful attempts to teach the performer how to imitate Macready, whom he (the performer) had never seen! And after the performance, when we were restored to our evening-party costumes, and the school-room was cleared for dancing, still a stray 'property' or two had escaped the vigilant eye of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... character of the people. The Swati is priest-ridden and treacherous. Even his courage has been denied, probably unjustly. Swati fanaticism has been a source of much trouble on the Peshawar border. The last serious outbreak was in 1897, when a determined, but unsuccessful, attack was made on our posts at Chakdarra and the Malakand Pass. The Swatis are Yusafzai Pathans of the Akozai clan, and are divided into five sections, one of ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... excessively proud, and thinks herself good enough to occupy the highest station in the world; but she knows that her mother talks nonsense, and that even a beautiful girl may look awkward in making unsuccessful advances. So she remains superbly indifferent, and lets her mother take the risks. If the prince is secured, so much the better; if he is not, she need never confess to herself that even a ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... these wilds would have appeared to another at least as formidable as the perils of the journey. But Simon's knowledge of the manners and language of the people assured him on this point also. An appeal to the hospitality of the wildest Gael was never unsuccessful; and the kerne, that in other circumstances would have taken a man's life for the silver button of his cloak, would deprive himself of a meal to relieve the traveller who implored hospitality at the door of his bothy. The art of travelling in the Highlands was to ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... sort of fleecy, hairy goat, With an indolent expression and an undulating throat, Like an unsuccessful literary man. And I know the place he lives in (or at least I think I do) It is Ecuador, Brazil or Chile—possibly Peru; You must find it in ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... its discordant movements are as mysterious, as miraculous, we might truly say, as those which give shape and order to the confused materials out of which habitable worlds are evolved. It is too late now to be sensitive over this unsuccessful attempt as a story and unconscious success as a self-portraiture. The first sketches of Paul Veronese, the first patterns of the Gobelin tapestry, are not to be criticised for the sake of pointing out their inevitable and too manifest imperfections. They are to be carefully ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the floor, where they went at it hammer and tongs. What happened after this is a blur in most of our memories. All that is certain is that there was an uproar in the congregation, especially the younger portion; that the Deacon began making unsuccessful dives for his poultry; that the organist struck up "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and that the minister waved us away without a benediction amid loud shouts of, "Shoo!" "I swanny!" and, "Drat the pesky ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... these early and unsuccessful inventors is John Fitch, who, was a Connecticut clockmaker living in Philadelphia. He was eccentric and irregular in his habits and quite ignorant of the steam engine. But he conceived the idea of a steamboat and set to work to make one. ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... everyone possesses and actively uses this power, although he may not be aware of it. One's character is largely the result of the quality of thoughts held in the mind, and of the mental pictures or ideals entertained by the person. The man who constantly sees and thinks of himself as unsuccessful and down-trodden is very apt to grow ideals of thought forms of these things until his whole nature is dominated by them, and his every act works toward the objectification of the thoughts. On the contrary, the man who makes an ideal of success and accomplishment ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... more certainly than in this, that in the case of some men cross-accidents are always marring them, and the effect they would fain produce. The system of things is against them. They are not in every case unsuccessful, but whatever success they attain is got by brave fighting against wind and tide. At college they carried off many honours, but no such luck ever befel them as that some wealthy person should offer during their days some special medal ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... suitors, whereas ladies accept the position with something almost of triumph. The lady perhaps regards herself as the successful angler, whereas the gentleman is conscious of some similitude to the unsuccessful fish. Mr. Gibson, though he was not yet gasping in the basket, had some presentiment of this feeling, which made his present seat of honour unpleasant to him. Brooke Burgess, at the other end of the table, was as gay as a lark. Mrs. MacHugh sat on one side of ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... feel bound to give a man all he pays for, in the hope that out of a multitude of remedies some may chance to suit his case. The foreign residents of Shanghai aver that the doctors take contracts to cure their patients in a certain time, and if unsuccessful at the stipulated day, their patients relieve their minds by a little elegant abuse of their physician, and take the contract to the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that evokes such perfect music from the instrument has often failed in its touch, and bungled among the keys. And if a man derives skill from his own failures, so does he from the failures of other men. Every unsuccessful attempt is, for him, so much work done; for he will not go over that ground again, but seek some new way. Every disappointed effort fences in and indicates the only possible path of success, and makes it easier to find. We should ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... that century of Kalpas, he passes through four other regions named Mahar, Jana, Tapas, and Satya. Now, this is the end of such a Yogin, who, of course, belongs to the sixth colour which is White, and who is freed from attachments and who is unsuccessful though successful, i.e., who has achieved Yoga-success but who has not still been able to achieve that success which consists in beholding Brahma or Brahma-sakshatkara. By anisah in this verse is meant that Yogin who is incapable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... trial, which takes place at daybreak, prove unsuccessful, the shaman and his client fast until just before sunset. They then eat and remain awake until midnight, when the ceremony is repeated, and if still unsuccessful it may be repeated four times before daybreak (or the following noon?), ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... had been exploring the neighborhood in the hope of finding some trace of Kit, but thus far had been unsuccessful. He was very much perplexed, having absolutely no clew, and was thinking of starting for Groveton, where the circus was billed to appear that evening. He was walking in an undecided way, and never thought of noticing the little girl who stood staring at him. Indeed he was so ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... him through Picard to Henriette—an unsuccessful attempt to escape; a glimpse of the still handsomely frizzed and powdered head gazing through trefoil Gothic window on the outer sunshine and liberty:—such is all that we may see of de Vaudrey's strangely trussed up life during ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... very utilitarian age. Start almost any subject, propose almost any scheme, adventure, or investment, and the question is asked, "Will it pay?" The multitude are cautious; the lower stratum, the unsuccessful—the poor and the oppressed—are envious and often bitter and resentful; the successful are often reckless, dissipated, ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... passage here omitted deals with Buckingham's unsuccessful journey to Spain with Prince Charles, and with ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... B-B-Bucket observes, in the Proverbs of Sol'mon's songs." Mr. Strap, after having delivered these sentiments, in what might have been called a sotto voice, to an imaginary Mr. Brown (for the reality had withdrawn to bed), performs an unsuccessful backward movement upon his heels—as if to survey his victim,—coming to the ground; where he lay until borne off by John, who thinks him ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... and John Ellis Wool. In a very short time the fort was taken and the heights occupied by the Americans. The enemy took refuge in a stone house, from which they opened a destructive fire and made two unsuccessful attempts to recapture the lost ground. General Brock rallied his men and led them on, but while moving at the head of the Forty-ninth Grenadiers he fell mortally wounded. General Van Rensselaer recrossed the river and assumed command, but hastening ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... the UK and the sale of postage stamps and coins. Rich stocks of fish in the surrounding waters are not presently exploited by the islanders. So far, efforts to establish a domestic fishing industry have been unsuccessful. The economy has diversified since 1987 when the government began selling fishing licenses to foreign trawlers operating within the Falklands exclusive fishing zone. These license fees total more than $40 million per year ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... replied. 'And so you will not have his death?' I asked. 'Bigot wishes it,' he replied, 'for no other reason than that Madame Cournal has spoken nice words for the good-looking captain, and because that unsuccessful duel gave Vaudreuil an advantage over himself. Vaudreuil wishes it because he thinks it will sound well in France, and also because he really believes the man a spy. The Council do not care much; they follow the Governor ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... general government was in league with the savages, and broke through treaties, and destroyed so far as they could the national policy. St. Clair was hissed and jeered as he traveled home, but a wakeful opposition turned from the unsuccessful general to a vain attempt to prove that ambushed savages and sleeping sentries were due to a weak war department and a corrupt and inefficient treasury. The mass of moderate people, no doubt, desired tranquillity on the frontier, and sustained ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... The unsuccessful men are all around us; and among them are those who confound all distinctions set up by society, and illustrate the great law of compensation set up by God, cutting society at right angles, and obtuse ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... treacherously bought of his brother Esau. Rebekah, their mother, was favorable to the contract, and laid the plan for its successful completion. Esau had been unsuccessful in his pursuit of game, and soon found himself in a famishing condition. Jacob took advantage of this, and proposed to purchase the birthright. He said to Esau: "Sell me this day thy birthright." And Esau said: "Behold, I am at the point ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... investigation proved unsuccessful. At the first establishment he visited, the stable boys, who were not yet up, swore at him roundly. In the second, he found the grooms at work, but none of the drivers had as yet put in an appearance. Moreover, the owner refused ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... another enterprise. My wife had long regretted that she had not been able to make butter. She had attempted to beat her cream in a vessel, but either the heat of the climate, or her want of patience, rendered her trials unsuccessful. I felt that I had not skill enough to make a churn; but I fancied that by some simple method, like that used by the Hottentots, who put their cream in a skin and shake it till they produce butter, we might ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... from the late Michael Turley's kinsman in Montreal and the question of the legacy. This was deliberate on his part. He wanted an excuse to visit Tralee and see its mistress with his own eyes. He had attempted to pluck many flowers in his day, and had not been unsuccessful. Out at Tralee was evidently a rare orchid ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and proclaimed; when the child has once uttered his first cry he is born, there he is, he is made so, neither father nor mother can do anything, he belongs to the air and to the sun, let him live or die, such as he is. Has your book been a failure? So much the worse. Add no chapters to an unsuccessful book. Is it incomplete? You should have completed it when you conceived it. Is your tree crooked? You cannot straighten it up. Is your romance consumptive? Is your romance not capable of living? You cannot supply it with the breath which it lacks. Has your ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... shown by the English troops on this occasion, a valour never surpassed in the long annals of the British army. Had they received the slightest assistance from their cowardly allies the victory must have been theirs. As it was, although unsuccessful, the glory and honour of the day rested with them, rather than with the victorious army of France. More than half the column had fallen in the desperate engagement, but the loss of the victors was even greater, and comprised many belonging to the ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... brief shake of his head, Thayer went striding away up the Avenue towards Miss Gannion's house. As he went, he was half-consciously applying Arlt's words to the question of his own future. It was true enough that he must work out his own real purpose for himself; and, in one sense the unsuccessful boy was happier by far than the successful man. Arlt's purpose was single. Thayer's was two-fold, and as yet he could not determine which of them would prove to be the dominant ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray |
