"Vainly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a ring, she explained to the astonished girls, was a badge of servitude to which no self-respecting woman should submit, and she wore in its place a gold locket, bearing strange cabalistic signs, the meaning of which the beholders vainly yearned to discover. ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... cry out; but after he had struggled vainly to get up the rock, and found no other support for foot or hand than the one projection just above him, by which he held, he looked toward her as he clung there out of breath, and saw her eagerly watching him from the water's edge. And her voice showed the stress of her feeling, though ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... were taking the pepper on a stage, having vainly attempted to get on board to the assistance of their comrades, were compelled to leap into the sea. One of them, Charles Converse, of Salem, being severely wounded, succeeded in swimming to the bobstays, to which ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... upon her couch, with tears streaming down her cheeks, and sighs heaved from the very bottom of her breast—as she listens to the kind voices vainly essaying to console her—she herself says not a word. Her sorrow is too deep, too absorbing, to find expression in speech. But in her thoughts are two men—before, her distracted fancy two faces—one of a murdered man, the other his murderer—the ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... assembling already around Paardeberg before Cronje surrendered, seeking to relieve him, and Roberts on his march to Bloemfontein fought not only them but others from Colesberg and Stormberg, and generally from the regions over which French and Gatacre had vainly striven to advance. How far this helped Buller in his actual fighting before Ladysmith cannot certainly be said. The comparative ease with which Hlangwane Hill was carried was probably due chiefly to the correct direction given to the attack, while ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... enough to think of the nature of the ground, she might have known that he could not have returned upon her so quickly. He must have come back up the steep hill-side which she had seen him descend. No;—he had gone away altogether, across the fells towards Bampton, and was at this moment vainly buttoning his coat across his breast, in his unconscious attempt to keep out the wet. The Fury was driving him on, and he himself was not ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... into view. "Stop, stop!" he shouted, "don't come a step further. I am sinking a foot a minute. The ground is rotten here. I guess it's up to me to say good-bye, chums," he continued in a voice he strove vainly to make steady. "You can't help me, and I'm sinking ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to return Gibson's crossfire of charges against the administration. He was deserted, except for a few loyal supporters, who struggled vainly to stem the tide of popular favor as it swung ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... checked—a thing not rare, In modern times at least, among the FAIR. 'Tis true, as I've already said, with such Sighs naught avail, and promises not much; Without a purse, who wishes should express, Would vainly hope to gain a soft caress. The god of love no other charm employs, Then cards, and dress, and pleasure's cheering joys; From whose gay shops more cuckolds we behold, Than heroes sallied from Troy's ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... stalk about and gaze down at the scattered men who stooped or knelt in the water. Passing each busy prospector, Lin would read on every broad, upturned pair of overalls the same label, "Levi Strauss, No. 2," with a picture of two lusty horses hitched to one of these garments and vainly struggling to split them asunder. Lin remembered he was wearing a label just like that too, and when he considered all things he laughed to himself. Then, having stretched the ache out of his long legs, he would return to his ditch. As autumn wore ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... middle of the Third Century, he was hailed rightly enough by the surname of Gothicus; but when at the beginning of the Fifth Century the feeble Emperors Arcadius and Honorius wished to celebrate a victory which, as they vainly hoped, had effectually broken the power of the Goths, the words which they inscribed upon the Arch of Triumph were 'Quod Getarum nationem in omne aevum docuere extingui.' In the poems of Claudian, and generally in all the contemporary literature of the time, the ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... had vainly endeavored to show wherein the promise of God given by Haggai, had been fulfilled; yet pride and unbelief blinded their minds to the true meaning of the prophet's words. The second temple was not honored with the cloud of Jehovah's glory, but with ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... here, and great on earth Art mean in heaven? Ah! vainly in thy prayer Thou criest, "Let the heart be lifted up!" 'T ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... happier conditions at dear old St. Dunstan's. At Boulogne, I was given a thorough examination, and the doctors concluded that an absolutely useless member of the body was an unnecessary burden to the bearer, and so they removed what remained of my left eye. I was still vainly hoping that my right eye, which was remote from my wound, might recover its sight; but as the days crept by while the blackness of night hung about me I grew alarmed, and one day I asked the O.C. ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... woes, The bleeding phantom of each martial form Dim in the cloud, or darkling in the storm; While sad, she chants the solitary song, The soft lament for him who tarries long— For him, whose distant relics vainly crave The coronach's ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... as I saw it, by any one going up Monbroso [Footnote: I have vainly enquired of every available authority for a solution of the mystery as to what mountain is intended by the name Monboso (Comp. Vol. I Nos. 300 and 301). It seems most obvious to refer it to Monte Rosa. ROSA derived from the Keltic ROS which survives in Breton and in Gaelic, meaning, in its first ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... long time he lay wondering confusedly. At last he opened his eyes wide, felt his bandaged head, and called for a drink of water in a voice which he vainly strove to make sound natural. To his surprise he was answered by Rosy-Lilly, so promptly that it was as if she had been listening for his voice. She came carrying the tin of water in both little hands, and, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... less. Then tell us what is Fame, where shall we search for it? Look where exalted Virtue and Religion sit, Enthroned with heavenly Wit! Look where you see The greatest scorn of learned vanity! (And then how much a nothing is mankind! Whose reason is weigh'd down by popular air, Who, by that, vainly talks of baffling death; And hopes to lengthen life by a transfusion of breath, Which yet whoe'er examines right will find To be an art as vain as bottling up of wind!) And when you find out these, believe true Fame is there, Far above all reward, yet to which all is due: And this, ye great unknown! ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... often melted with inexpressible sorrow; for they frequently found skeletons lying across the trunks of fallen trees, a mournful proof to their imaginations that the men who sat there, had perished of hunger, in vainly attempting to find their way to the plantations. Sometimes their feelings were raised to the utmost pitch of horror by the sight of sculls and bones scattered on the ground—a certain indication that the bodies had been devoured by wild beasts; and in other places ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... "I am not so neglectful of myself. Another home woos you, Audley. He whom you long so vainly sought to reconcile to life, exchanging mournful dreams for happy duties,—he, too, presents you to his bride. Love her for my sake,—for your own. She it is, not I, who presides over this hallowed reunion. But for her, I should have ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... flame, and we live by an invisible sum within us. A small fire sufficeth for life, great flames seemed too little after death, while men vainly affected precious pyres, and to burn like Sardanapalus; but wisdom of funeral laws found the folly of prodigal blazes, and reduced undoing fires unto the rule of sober obsequies, wherein few could be so mean as not to provide wood, pitch, a mourner, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... mere illusion, and the true self neither soul nor body, but the union of the two in the 'I' which is above them? And is death the assertion of this individuality in the higher nature, and the falling away into nothingness of the lower? Or are we vainly attempting to pass the boundaries of human thought? The body and the soul seem to be inseparable, not only in fact, but in our conceptions of them; and any philosophy which too closely unites them, or too widely separates them, ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... the door, there came through the house from behind a blast of cold wind: there was an open outer door in that direction! The girl must have slipped through the house, and out by that door, leaving her squire to cool himself, vainly expectant, in the street! If she had found another admirer, as probably she imagined, his polite attentions were ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... of those that were shut in being heard in answer from the cave, caused Hercules to turn round. And when Cacus attempted to prevent him by force as he was advancing toward the cave, he was struck with a club and slain, while vainly calling upon the shepherds to assist him. At that time Evander, who was an exile from the Peloponnesus, governed the country more by his personal ascendancy than by absolute sway. He was a man held in reverence on account of the wonderful art of writing, an entirely new discovery to men ignorant ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... dint, and no blow of spear could scratch; and he had sent a challenge to all other smiths, both in the Rhine country and elsewhere, to equal that piece of workmanship, or else acknowledge themselves his underlings and vassals. For many days had Mimer himself toiled, alone and vainly, trying to forge a sword whose edge the boasted armor of Amilias could not foil; and now, in despair, he came to ask the help of his pupils ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... that, of all things, his life was dearest to Humayun, as Humayun's was to him; that his life, therefore, he most cheerfully devoted as a sacrifice for that of his son; and prayed the Most High to vouchsafe to accept it.' Vainly did his courtiers remonstrate. He persisted, we are told, in his resolution; walked thrice round the dying prince, a solemnity similar to that used by the Muhammadans in sacrifices, and, retiring, prayed earnestly. After a time he was heard ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... have said, and slender, had a long, narrow head, which she carried on a neck too long, had very red cheeks, small snapping black eyes, very thin hair, of which she wore in front two very meagre curls done in cork-screw style, held her broad shoulders high, as if vainly striving to get them far as possible from her long, ant-like waist—well, this is enough, for at the very first glance Philip St. Leger turned away his ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... welfare tender, then no more; Let Love's strong magic charm thy trivial phrase, Wasted as vainly as to gripe the Sun: Augment not then more answers; lock thy lips, Unless thy wisdom suite me with disguise, ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow; From my books, surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore— Nameless here ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the nineteenth century has not yet witnessed. Still farther would the triumphs of inventive genius be found to have been carried, when the later deposits, now assigned to the ages of bronze and iron, were formed. Vainly should we be straining our imaginations to guess the possible uses and meaning of such relics—machines, perhaps, for navigating the air or exploring the depths of the ocean, or for calculating arithmetical problems beyond the ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... the afternoon. Rain since morning and a gray sky low enough to be reached with an umbrella; the close weather which sticks. Mess, mud, nothing but mud, in heavy puddles, in shining trails in the gutters, vainly chased by the street-scrapers and the scavengers, heaved into enormous carts which carry it slowly towards Montreuil—promenading it in triumph through the streets, always moving, and always springing up again, growing ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... and Adrian poled it into the fortress; and all was going well until the coldness of the night set the soldiers coughing. All were affected, but chiefly Lieutenant Hells, who, vainly attempting to be silent, at last implored his comrades to kill him lest he ruin the enterprise. Adrian, however, prevented this grim necessity by pumping very hard and ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... Sieur de Lery, the King's engineer, charged with the fortification of the Colony, a man of Vauban's genius in the art of defence. Had the schemes which he projected, and vainly urged upon the heedless Court of Versailles, been carried into effect, the conquest of New France would have been ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... generally fill the antichamber of a man of quality, except one, who is supposed to be a poet, and has written some panegyric on the person whose levee he attends, and who waits for that approbation he already vainly anticipates. Upon the whole, the general tenor of this scene is to teach us, that the man of fashion is too often exposed to the rapacity of his fellow creatures, and is commonly a dupe to the more knowing part of ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... surges through the door, bringing much wreckage with it. In a moment the place is so full that another cupful could not find standing room. Some slippery ones are squeezed upwards and remain aloft as warnings. JOHN has jumped on to the stair, and harangues the flood vainly like another Canute. It is something about freedom and noble minds, and, though unheard, goes to all heads, including the speaker's. By the time he is audible sentiment ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... was travelling by rail from Breslau to Oppeln and found himself alone with a lady in a second-class compartment. He vainly endeavoured to enter into conversation with the other occupant of the carriage; her answers were invariably curt and snappish. Baffled in his attempts, he proceeded to light a cigar to while away the time. Then the lady said to him: "I suppose you have never ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... scan The source of evil hidden still from man; Revive Arabian tales, and vainly hope To rival St. John, and his scholar Pope: Though metaphysicks spread the gloom of night, By reason's star he guides our aching sight; The bounds of knowledge marks, and points the way To pathless wastes, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... of secondary batteries has been so ably treated by Professor Silvanus Thompson and Dr. Oliver Lodge, in this room, that I should vainly attempt to give you a more complete idea of their nature. The improvements which are being made from time to time mostly concern mechanical details, and although important, a description will scarcely ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... down abruptly and commenced to weep and wail her woe aloud, while Jane sought vainly to comfort her. Elizabeth bore the news with extreme fortitude; with unexpected tact she took her father by the arm and steered him outside and along the terrace walk where the agonized sobs and moans of her mother could not be heard—for ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... paragon's lips, the arm of Mr. Fennessy fell from her waist; the circle of servants, tinkers, and country people vainly tried to efface themselves ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... she had spoken vainly, and went back weeping to the gazelle. And when the gazelle saw her it said, 'Mother, what is it, and why do you cry? If it be good, give me the answer; and if it be bad, give ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... did not read his own speech: he had a sore throat for the occasion, and only with his ears did he swallow the bitter pill of that foreshadowed scheme which he had so long and vainly resisted; for now he was bound by his own promise, and could no ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... that point about sundown had announced the safe arrival of the party from Camp Sandy. The answer, sent at ten o'clock, broke up the game of whist at the quarters of the inspector general. Byrne, the recipient, gravely read it, backed from the table, and vainly strove not to see the anxious inquiry in the eyes of Major Plume, his guest. But Plume ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... But before long she fell a prey to an anguish far more cruel than her regret; and she struggled vainly to drive forth a terrible fear which forced its way into her mind. She felt that she loved him less as the suspicion rose in her heart that he was less worthy than she had ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... 'twill not be your best advice: 'Twill only give me pains of writing twice. You know you must obey me, soon or late: Why should you vainly struggle ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... a raised recess, very apt for a bust of Pallas. It had space for bookcases. And then, on the windowsill, we found the dead and desiccated corpse of a swallow. It must have flown in through a broken pane on the ground floor long ago and swooped vainly about the empty house. It lay, pathetically, close against the shut pane. Like a forgotten and un-uttered beauty in the mind of a poet, it ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... swiftest cruiser out of England! As to his figure, I have heard little good of it. 'Tis said, he is some soured officer of better days, who has quitted the intercourse of honest men, because roguery is so plainly written on his face, that he vainly tries ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Terror carried his point, with the result that two evenings later they were in the wood above the trout-stream, stretched at full length in the bracken, peering through the hedge of the wood at Sir James Morgan so patiently and vainly fishing the stream below. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... thee to this day, And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey?" Then Lamia breath'd death breath; the sophist's eye, Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly, 300 Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging: she, as well As her weak hand could any meaning tell, Motion'd him to be silent; vainly so, He look'd and look'd again a level—No! "A Serpent!" echoed he; no sooner said, Than with a frightful scream she vanished: And Lycius' arms were empty of delight, As were his limbs of life, from that same night. On the high ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... seemingly a phantom of imagination, a vision born from sea and cloud. Yet I knew I was not deceived. Where the craft could be bound; for what secret purpose it was afloat; who were aboard, were but so many unanswerable questions arising in my mind. I stared vainly into the darkness, puzzled and uncertain, impressed alone by the one controlling thought, that some mysterious object, some hidden purpose alone could account for that swift, silent passage. Where could they have come from, unless from that ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... sights, those pleasant sights, recur again: The little township that was all the world I knew of then— The meeting-house upon the hill, the tavern just beyond, Old deacon Packard's general store, the sawmill by the pond, The village elms I vainly sought to conquer in my quest Of that surpassing trophy, the golden oriole's nest. And, last of all those visions that come back from long ago, The pretty face that thrilled my soul when ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... by the newspapers, and said that while justice was rendered to his courage, insinuations were thrown out that he might have neglected or disobeyed the signals of his superior. He concluded by asserting that he had vainly sought an explanation from Keppel, before appealing to the public with a detail of facts, by which he would stand or fall; by denying that he had refused to obey signals; and by declaring that he feared ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... that shabby rascal, rose up before me to pass quickly away, and once more I was face to face with that lovely mystery Margarita. In imagination I put forth my hands to take hers, and drew her towards me so as to look more closely into her eyes, vainly questioning them as to their pure sapphire hue. Then I imagined or dreamt that with trembling fingers I unbraided her hair to let it fall like a splendid golden mantle over her mean dress, and asked her how she came to possess that garment of glory. The sweet, grave, child lips ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... state of stupor in which the departure of the funeral procession had left her, had asked for brandy, which had been given her, and had then, of her own accord, swallowed a couple of opium pills, which the doctor had so far vainly prescribed for her, and was ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... whimsical sense of humor which made him quickly famous. Shortly before his death he called on the cashier of a New York publishing house, after vainly writing several times for a check which had been promised as an advance on ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... fowler's, feathers of birds wafted towards him from his house, and saw the smoke of his home rising far off from his ancestral roof-tree. If he saw this with his eyes, he saw even further than Ulysses prayed and yearned to see. For Ulysses spent years in gazing vainly from the shore to see the smoke rising from his home, while Crassus during a few months' absence from home succeeded, without the least difficulty, in seeing this same smoke as he sat in a wine-shop! If, on the other hand, it was his nose discerned the smoke, he surpasses hounds and vultures ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... River Tigris in triumph, from the mountains of Armenia to the Persian Gulf. He enjoyed the honor of being the first, as he was the last, of the Roman generals, who ever navigated that remote sea. His fleets ravaged the coast of Arabia; and Trajan vainly flattered himself that he was approaching towards the confines of India. [20] Every day the astonished senate received the intelligence of new names and new nations, that acknowledged his sway. They were informed that the kings of Bosphorus, Colchos, Iberia, Albania, Osrhoene, and even ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... eye upon Lord Mountclere. Soon, to her amazement, there was that in his face which told her that he knew the story and its heroine quite well. When she delivered the sentence ending with the professedly fictitious words: 'I thus was reduced to great distress, and vainly cast about me for directions what to do,' Lord Mountclere's manner became so excited and anxious that it acted reciprocally upon Ethelberta; her voice trembled, she moved her lips but uttered nothing. To bring the story up to the date of that very evening had been her intent, but it was beyond her ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... chewed cautiously and with camel-like precision. The Boarder, having had long practice in the art, craunched at railway speed. The older boys munched steadily and easily, while Bud and Bobby pecked intermittently in short nibbles. Amarilly had the "star method," which they all vainly tried to emulate. At short and regular intervals a torpedo-like report issued from the gum as she snapped her teeth down upon it. Cory kept hers strung out elastically from her mouth, occasionally rolling ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... my soul, of all attempts to try, or triumph over, my devotion to her. More than once, during that night of anguish, I almost imagined the scene of the day actually passing again before my eyes. I saw her sorrows, and vainly endeavoured to subdue them; I heard her convulsive tones, and attempted to calm them; I reasoned with her, talked of our common helplessness, acknowledged the dignity and the delicacy of her conduct, and even gave her lip the kiss of peace and sorrow as I bade her farewell. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... led into a dark alley where the others set upon him. He seizes a cudgel from one of them, lays about him with a will, flings one of them into a court, and vanishes, leaving the discomfited assailants to nurse their wounds and trail along home, after vainly waiting for him ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... companion took their way to Osaka. On the other hand, Honda Masanobu and the priest, Tengai, were instructed to inform Katsumoto that the umbrage of Ieyasu was deeply roused, and that some very strong measure would be necessary to restore the Bakufu's confidence in Hideyori. Katsumoto vainly sought some definite statement as to the nature of the reparation required. He was merely told to answer the question himself. He accordingly proposed one of three courses, namely, that the lady Yodo should be sent ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... At all events, he who undertakes it will meet with little sympathy, and will find few to help him. And let him toil as he may, the sun and noontide of his life shall pass by, the evening of his days shall overtake him, and he himself have to quit the scene, leaving that unfinished which he had vainly hoped to complete. He may lay the foundation; it will be for his successors to raise the edifice. Their hands will give the last touch; they will reap the glory; their names will be remembered when ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... superb successor Of the earth's mistress, as thou vainly speakest, Stands midst these ages as, on the wide ocean, The last spared fragment, of a spacious land, That in some grand and awful ministration Of mighty nature has engulfed been, Doth lift aloft its dark and rocky cliffs O'er the wild waste around, and sadly ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... bore. Remembrance shudders at this scene of fears, Still in my view, some tyrant chief appears, Some base-born Hessian slave walks threatening by, Some servile Scot with murder in his eye, Still haunts my sight, as vainly they bemoan Rebellions managed so unlike their own. O may I never feel the poignant pain To live subjected to such fiends again! Stewards and mates that hostile Britain bore, Cut from the gallows on their native ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... monastery, as a rule, no amount of money spent, no amount of lavish ornament or splendour of decoration, was grudged. Sculpture and painting, jewels and gold, gorgeous hangings, and stained-glass that the moderns vainly attempt to imitate, the purple and fine linen of the priestly vestments, embroidery that to this hour remains unapproachable in its delicacy of finish and in the perfect harmony of colours—all these were to be found in almost incredible profusion in our monastic ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... house was always well supplied. As Rua grew up he was called at last to go a-fishing with this fortunate parent. They rowed into the lagoon at dusk, to an unlikely place, and the boy lay down in the stern, and the father began vainly to cast his line over the bows. It is to be supposed that Rua slept; and when he awoke there was the figure of another beside his father, and his father was pulling in the fish hand over hand. "Who is that man, father?" Rua asked. "It is none of your business," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and Indian queens. In the stern were the servants and attendants, travestied in the most grotesque and ludicrous style. This magnificent and unwieldly car had by some chance lost its place in the procession, and vainly endeavoured to whip in; as it is a point of honour among the charioteers not to yield the pas. Our coachman, however, was ordered (though most unwilling) to draw up and make way for it; and this little civility was acknowledged, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... done with the evils of opium, even if our hands were washed of this traffic to-day. China in her desperation has invoked Satan to cast out Satan. She now grows her own opium, vainly dreaming that, if the Indian supply lapse, she can then deal with this rapidly growing evil. But Satan is not divided against himself; he means his kingdom to stand. Opium-growing will not destroy opium-smoking." (Missionary Conference of 1888, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... the writer: "A poet while living is seldom an object sufficiently great to attract much attention.... When his fame is increased by time, it is then too late to investigate the peculiarities of his disposition; the dews of morning are past, and we vainly try to continue the chase by the meridian splendor." The bustle of American life certainly does away with "the dews of morning" very promptly; and it is not quite a simple matter to reproduce the first growth of a life which began almost with ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... were counsel together in a case in which it was sought to prove that the heir of an estate was of low capacity, and therefore incapable of administrating his affairs. Jeffrey had vainly attempted to make a country witness understand his meaning as he spoke of the mental imbecility and impaired intellect of the party. Cockburn rose to his relief, and was successful at once. "D'ye ken ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... inviolable character of all private correspondence. In our humble view, not only is the seal of a letter a lock more impregnable to the hand of honor than the strongest bank safe which the expert Mr. Hobbs might vainly have tried to open; but even when that seal has already been rightfully broken and the contents of the letter exposed, those contents are to the eye of delicacy as unreadable as if written in that Bass language which Adam and Eve are said to have spoken while in the garden of Eden, and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... rarely, if ever, been reprinted, except in the two great editions of his collected works; while the original poem has been and continues to be in such demand, that the most diligent bibliographer might vainly attempt to enumerate all the editions ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... have risen to seek them out but, in the act of doing so, caught one of his spurs in the rug, and strove vainly to release himself, for try how he would he might not reach down so far because of the pain of ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... searched his papers, vainly, for a scrap Whereon some dropped memento might record His inner nature; but he nothing left— Nothing of that deep life whose wondrous light Guided him onward through the realms of sense, And in a world of practical self-need Sustained him ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... consequence, this home of art had an effect of indescribable coldness and bareness, and there were at first some tempestuous scenes which Cornelia witnessed between Charmian and her mother, when the girl vainly protested: ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... gave the woods a lively and spring-like appearance. On the open plain might any day be seen a regiment of Lancers, wheeling and charging in their brilliant evolutions, their long lances with bright red pennons adding greatly to the beauty of the display, and, as we at that time vainly believed, to the efficacy ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... latter-day Ceres! Quidnuncs and their queries will hardly restore her her loved long-lost daughter, (Fair Profits) whom Pluto ("the Foreigner") stole. Vainly landlords and farmers breathe forth fire and slaughter At Free Trade—that Circe on whom they've no mercy,—and howl down the speeches of those she's enchanted. The one "Missing Word" may sound wholly absurd to cool sense, but to them 'tis the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... never felt what it was to hold your being upon the breath of another. You can reason calmly, because you cannot know the extent of feeling you are vainly endeavouring to combat." ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... her sister Janet acknowledged at least the possibility of her theory. But if confidence is contagious, so also is panic; and Lady Walsingham experienced a sinking of the heart which she dared not confess to her sister, and vainly ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... vainly through this "tohu- bohu"' (that's one of his names for the Archimandrite, Mr. Pyecroft), 'for a place whence they shall not be dislodged. The captain, heavy with drink, rolls himself from his hammock. He would have his people fire the ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... me," said he to Hardy, as he was trying vainly to entertain him; "but if you knew—" Here he stopped short, for the bell for evening prayer rang, and they all took their places, and knelt down. After prayers, as they were going to bed, Loveit stopped Tarlton,—"WELL!" asked he, in an inquiring ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... sorry to see my Augusta his wife, for whoever he marries will be a perfect slave to him. His fortune would be a nice thing if he did not live long; but even for that my Augusta shall not be sacrificed," returned the other matron whose Augusta had vainly tried to captivate "P. F.," and revenged herself by calling him "a wreck, my dear, a ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... words—the result of later investigation—as to the actors in the events of this ride to Cambridge. When Bowden and Clarke had attested their loyalty by horsewhipping young Wiswell, they took him in charge to Cambridge, and vainly tried to persuade Nathaniel Hancock, the constable, to carry him before a magistrate. This refusal brought him into difficulty with Council; but his humble submission was finally accepted and he was discharged on payment of costs, on the plea that upon the change ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... disbanded at Appomattox, when only eight thousand hungry men remained with arms in their hands, and they, defiant, and fighting still, when the white flags began to pass. They surrendered then only because General Lee said they must, because he would not vainly sacrifice another man; and they wept like broken-hearted children when they heard his orders. They would have fought on till the last man dropped, but General Lee said: "No, you, my men, go home and serve your country in peace as ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... began to appear which of our corporals were corporals indeed. Some squads were little Babels, each man uttering forth his voice, with the poor squad-leader either vainly trying to make himself heard, or silently trying to make his own ideas square with the contradictions of the other seven. Other squads may have been repressed volcanoes, but still they were repressed, with the corporal making his mistakes in his own way, but learning by blundering ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... remember that an income tax was wanted. After many vicissitudes, a measure embodying that idea was passed by both Houses of Congress and was signed by the Executive. But that did not give to us an income tax. The Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional, and we have been vainly struggling since to ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... at the point, we found a family of ptarmigan. When we appeared the mother bird tried vainly to hurry her flock away to a place of safety. Her mate flew across to an island a short distance north, leaving her alone to her task, but she and her little ones were all taken. Here the first wolf tracks we had seen ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... good. Distrust is a stage to confidence. How has it proved in our interview? But your voice is husky; I have let you talk too much. You hold your cure; I will leave you. But stay—when I hear that health is yours, I will not, like some I know, vainly make boasts; but, giving glory where all glory is due, say, with the devout herb-doctor, Japus in Virgil, when, in the unseen but efficacious presence of Venus, he with simples healed ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... people. At Lierre we were very hungry and searched vainly for an inn or a grocery. At last in one of the streets we saw a little baker-shop. The upper story was riddled and broken. But the shop was untouched, the window-shade half up, and underneath we could see two loaves of bread. We went in. The ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... let me show you.' The Deer accompanied him, and found the field, and afterwards went every day there to eat the green corn, till at last the owner of the ground spied him and set a snare. The Deer came again very shortly, and was caught in it, and (after vainly struggling) exclaimed, 'I am fast in the net, and it will be a net of death to me if no friend comes to rescue me!' Presently Small-wit, the Jackal, who had been lurking near, made his appearance, and standing still, he said to himself, with a chuckle, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... till death, And shape a falsehood with my latest breath. Parrhasius never more did pity lack, The while his model writhed upon the rack, Than I for my collaborator's pain, Who, stabbed with fibs again and yet again, Would vainly seek to move my stubborn heart If slander were, and wit were not, an art. The ill-bred and illiterate can lie As fast as you, and faster far than I. Shall I compete, then, in a strife accurst Where Allen Forman is an easy first, And where the second prize is rightly flung ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... stout Diomedes: "Bow-puller, jiber, thy bow for thy glorying, spyer at virgins! If that thou dared'st face me here out in the open with weapons, Nothing then would avail thee thy bow and thy thick shot of arrows. Now thou plumest thee vainly because of a graze of my footsole; Reck I as were that stroke from a woman or some pettish infant. Aye flies blunted the dart of the man that's emasculate, noughtworth! Otherwise hits, forth flying from me, and but strikes it the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... many hours agone were now cold and cramped in the agony of death, alas! Sad bruised eyes glared out from disfigured faces under torn-open breasts, appearing to look up to where the stars only so recently twinkled down, vainly asking Providence why it had put the lightning into the hands of man for so fell a purpose! Rows of infantry lay dead in perfect order, as if on parade, where the mitrailleuse had mowed them down; whole squadrons of hussars and lancers were heaped up in mass; and, in some ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Barbara next day; and he searched "The Times" vainly for her name. Lunching with George Oakleigh, he met Deganway who had neither news to impart nor questions to ask; at dinner Mrs. Shelley observed with sublime innocence: "You must have been disappointed not to be able to come the other night. Barbara was there, and it was she who told ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... direction towards the sources of the Clyde, he laid his finger on Cauldstaneslap and two other neighbouring farms, Kingsmuirs and Polintarf. But it was difficult to advance farther. With his rod for a pretext, he vainly visited each of them in turn; nothing was to be seen suspicious about this trinity of moorland settlements. He would have tried to follow Archie, had it been the least possible, but the nature of the land precluded the idea. He did the next best, ensconced himself in a quiet corner, and pursued ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with entire unselfishness and boundless patience, who conceived that he had a mission to settle this tremendous problem that had been rendered only the more keen by forty-two Acts of the Imperial Parliament that had been vainly passed for its settlement. It is surely one of the strangest chances of history that where generations of statesmen and parliaments had failed the via media for a final arrangement should have been made by an unknown officer who prosecuted his purpose to such effect that he ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... was quick too. Like a flash, he grabbed one of the boy's ankles, so that the beautiful dive was spoiled; and there was the boy, hanging by an imprisoned leg over the ship's side, a helpless captive—his arms in the water and his leg struggling vainly to get free. But he might as well have struggled against the grip of Hercules. In another moment Charlie had him hauled aboard again, his eyes full of tears ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... was! The abrupt liberation of sound! As he timed it with his watch, Bassett likened it to the trump of an archangel. Walls of cities, he meditated, might well fall down before so vast and compelling a summons. For the thousandth time vainly he tried to analyse the tone-quality of that enormous peal that dominated the land far into the strong-holds of the surrounding tribes. The mountain gorge which was its source rang to the rising tide of it until it brimmed over and flooded earth and sky and air. With the wantonness ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... journeyed far and nigh. On dawn-lit mountain-tops thy soul did yearn To hear His trailing garments wander by; And where 'mid thunderous glooms great sunsets burn, Vainly thou sought'st His shadow on sea and sky; Or gazing up, at noontide, could'st discern Only a neutral heaven's indifferent ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... shrugged. "Lacking the moon he vainly cried for, the child learns to content himself with a ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various |
