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Fruitlessly   /frˈutləsli/   Listen
Fruitlessly

adverb
1.
In an unproductive manner.  Synonyms: unproductively, unprofitably.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Fruitlessly" Quotes from Famous Books



... dismissed the two judges who had favoured the acquittal of the Bishops. He ordered the chancellor of each diocese to report the names of the clergy who had not read the Declaration of Indulgence. But his will broke fruitlessly against a sullen resistance which met him on every side. Not a chancellor made a return to the Commissioners, and the Commissioners were cowed into inaction by the temper of the nation. When the judges ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green

... many times. The fuelling of horrid anxiety under which they had been suffering always impelled them to press on; and no wonder they had lost all definite recollection of the distance they had gone, or the time thus fruitlessly spent. It had taken them a good while to get the ladder in place; and the first day had been far spent before they were ready to penetrate the cave. It was, therefore, quite probable that their first sleep ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... 'twas only in my dreams. Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve No less than nature's threatening voice, If aught unworthy be my choice, From THEE if I would swerve; Oh, let thy grace remind me of the light Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored; Which, at this moment, on my waking sight Appears to shine, by miracle restored: My soul, though yet confined to earth, Rejoices in a second birth! —'Tis past; the visionary splendour fades; And night ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... said, "I'm afraid none of these will do. Stay," he added suddenly, and turning his back, carried the bunch to the window. "No," he concluded, as he came back to the table and tried one of the keys fruitlessly. "No, I'm afraid none of those will do. Thank you, Mr. Foster. You don't happen to ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... the city I found myself at the entrance to Bevis Marks! I had just been making an application in reply to some advertisement—of course, fruitlessly; but what was that disappointment compared with the discovery of Bevis Marks! Here dwelt Mr. Brass and Sally and the Marchioness. Up and down the little street, this side and that, I went gazing and dreaming. No ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... perpetrated atrocious crimes, which, if discovered, he might expect to have all the world roused to revenge against him. Caleb Williams was the wife who, in spite of warning, persisted in his attempts to discover the forbidden secret; and, when he had succeeded, struggled as fruitlessly to escape the consequences, as the wife of Bluebeard in washing the key of the ensanguined chamber, who, as often as she cleared the stain of blood from the one side, found it showing itself with frightful distinctness ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... to tell them more. How his horses had been caught, and brought back to him by two Hussars, one of whom he chanced to have a speaking acquaintance with. From the soldier he had learnt all about the pursuit, after it had passed beyond him; how they had searched the chapparal, but fruitlessly; the latest reports being that the escapados had got ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... white spire from a knoll enclosed on three sides by beech woods. Behind an occasional wisp of smoke showed that a train was making its way between Achiet and Miraumont, whose supply depots were frequently visited by our bombarding squadrons. A mile to the south the hamlet of Serre, twice fruitlessly attacked next year, topped a barren and shell-blown ridge. About this point, notorious for frequent visits from the earth-shelling aerial torpedo, began the lines of the 4th Division, once again our neighbours. They were our sister division ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... sentence, whether just or unjust, there was then no appeal, except to the pope. The wretched man, in virtue of it, was no longer under the protection of the law, and was committed to the Tower, where he languished for three years, protesting, but protesting fruitlessly, against the tyranny which had crushed him, and clamouring for justice in the deaf ears of pedants who ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... River was very high and rising, and we began that system of canals on which we expended so much hard work fruitlessly: first, the canal at Young's plantation, opposite Vicksburg; second, that at Lake Providence; and third, at the Yazoo Pass, leading into the head-waters of the Yazoo River. Early in February the gunboats ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... night after night, to the old mill, where he had hunted long and fruitlessly? He, himself, could hardly have told. Possibly he felt somehow a sense as of security; that, so long as he was there, there could be nobody else on hand, to search; that he was guarding his property—against, he knew not what. And, if ever the ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... one remembers little things at such times) that, when first I heard of his going to Samoa, there came into my head (Heaven knows why) a trivial, almost ludicrous passage from his favorite, Sir Thomas Browne: a passage beginning "He was fruitlessly put in hope of advantage by change of Air, and imbibing the pure Aerial Nitre of those Parts; and therefore, being so far spent, he quickly found Sardinia in Tivoli, and the most healthful air of little effect, where Death had set her Broad ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Empress, but has agreed to accept her sole mediation. This is at present on foot. A Russian Minister has very lately gone, or will soon set off for Holland, to join Prince Gallitzin in this business, which I prognosticate will issue as fruitlessly as the general mediation has done. There is no peace to be had in Europe separate from that of our country, which already too sensibly affects the European systems to be overlooked or disregarded by those who have the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... Ghebers in Persia is taken from Sir John Chardin, not indeed the most learned, but the most judicious and inquisitive of our modern travellers, (Voyages en Perse, tom. ii. p. 109, 179-187, in 4to.) His brethren, Pietro della Valle, Olearius, Thevenot, Tavernier, &c., whom I have fruitlessly searched, had neither eyes nor attention for this ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... were embarked on what seemed to some a holiday excursion, and for others bid fair to realise unbounded dreams of ambition or avarice. Only a few were heavy-hearted; but the heaviest of all was the general who had vainly dissuaded his countrymen from the endeavour, and fruitlessly refused the command thrust upon him. That was 'the morning of a mighty day, a day of crisis' for the destinies of Athens. Of all that multitude, how few would come again; of the empire which they made so manifest in its pride of men and arms, how little but a shadow ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... Round-ringing. Now if you design to raise a Peal of Bells for Changes, you ought to raise them to a Set-pull, as the most proper for commanding the Notes, and he who is not well skilled to manage his Bell at a Set-pull, will be apt to drop or overturn it, be in a Wood, and fruitlessly toil and moil himself. Therefore in practising the Setting of a Bell, cast your Eye about the other Bell-Ropes, during your managing your own, that you may accustom your self to manage it according ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett

... all, if I carried my complaint directly to the king, having used every possible means to procure favour from the prince, and having already suffered beyond the patience of a free-born man; so that I must now be blameless by using rougher means, having already fruitlessly proved all smoother expedients. I therefore resolved to appeal for justice, by complaint to the king in person, yet as calmly and warily as possible. I feared to go to Asaph Khan on this occasion, lest he might oppose my purpose, yet thought my neglect of him might be displeasing; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... own dire distress reflected in the aspect of the objects surrounding him, and as his own fond desires seemed wasting fruitlessly in this protracted expectation, so the erotic essence, so to speak, of the room appeared to be evaporating and exhaling uselessly. In his eyes these apartments in which he had loved and also suffered so much had acquired ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... the Princess Hildegarde of Ehrenstein had been the sensation of Europe, as had been in the earlier days her remarkable abduction. For sixteen years the search had gone on fruitlessly. The cleverest adventuresses on the continent tried devious tricks to palm themselves off as the lost princess. From France they had come, from Prussia, Italy, Austria, Russia and England. But the duke and the chancellor held the secret, unknown to any one else—a locket. In a garret in Dresden ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... difficulties with which each scheme appeared to be attended, he bent up his mind to the strong effort of shaking off his love, "like dew-drops from the lion's mane," and resuming those studies and that career of life which his unrequited affection had so long and so fruitlessly interrupted. In this last resolution he endeavoured to fortify himself by every argument which pride, as well as reason, could suggest. "She shall not suppose," he said, "that, presuming on an accidental service to her or to her father, I am desirous ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... this decision, it is impossible not to feel considerable disappointment to the expectations formerly hoped to be realized in the conversion of some at least of the Aborigines in this part of the colony, and not to express concern that so many years of constant attention appear to have been fruitlessly expended. It is however, perfectly apparent that the termination of the mission has arisen solely from the Aborigines becoming extinct in these districts, and the very few that remain elsewhere are so scattered, that ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... Ambassador, addressed the French Government on their behalf, pointing out that the services of the Passionists were indispensable—but in vain. It is humiliating that the government of what is supposed to be a great Catholic nation like France should be appealed to in such a cause, fruitlessly, by the ambassador of ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... presence with the Court was rather political than military[80] in its utility, dependent upon the fears of their own subjects felt by the sovereigns. While these measures were being taken he endeavored, though fruitlessly, to bring matters to a conclusion at Alexandria and Malta, in order to release the ships there employed and fetch them to the coast of Naples. "The moment the Emperor moves," he wrote to St. Vincent, "I shall go ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... Putney that the Clock House was to be abandoned. The Clock House had been taken furnished for six months, of which half were not yet over; but there were other expenses of living there much greater than the rent, and go she would. Her mother sighed and assented; and Mrs. Crocket, having strongly but fruitlessly advised that the Clock House should be inhabited at any rate for the six months, promised her assistance. "It has been a bad business, Mrs. Crocket," said Priscilla; "and all we can do now is to get out of it as well as we can. Every mouthful I eat chokes ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... child should show Such heart, such love, and such fair loyalty; And fain would make the youth his thought forego, Whom he held passing dear: but fruitlessly Would move his steadfast purpose; for such woe Will neither comforted nor altered be. Medoro is disposed to meet his doom, Or to inclose his master ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... had been in the case of Semper Idem. The mystery of the man had not appealed to him, nor had his silence and the veiled romance which the yellow reporters had so sensationally and so fruitlessly exploited in divers Sunday editions. But Semper Idem's throat had been cut. That was the point. That was where his interest had centred. Cut from ear to ear, and not one surgeon in a thousand to give a snap of the fingers for his chance of recovery. But, thanks to the swift municipal ambulance ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... faint limbs, magic-stricken. There is rest, dismal and dreary, on the silent sea: most dismal quiet: for the viewless might of the keen frost-wind[14] crisps the curling waves, binding their motion with a clankless chain along the far horizon. Fruitlessly the imprisoned vessel writhes, until the gale, lulled in the embrace of evening, leaves its prey, to share the torpor of the lifeless waste, till earth awaken from her ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... title of its burgrave. In order to escape the greater evil she was compelled to consent to the second demand, however much against her inclination to entrust Antwerp to the prince. After allowing himself to be long and fruitlessly entreated, for he had all at once resolved to take no further share in public affairs, he yielded at last to the earnest persuasions of the regent and the boisterous wishes of the people. Brederode, with a ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... I beseech thee," entreated Erling, as his comrade struggled violently but fruitlessly to escape from his powerful embrace.—"Do listen, Ulf; ye will spoil all by inconsiderate haste. I have a plan: listen—these men are not devils, but Norsemen, and will not hurt the girls; they will take them before the King. Hear me, and ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... Silent still? Nay, Child, what profits silence? If 'tis ill This that I counsel, makes me see the wrong: If well, then yield to me. Nay, Child, I long For one kind word, one look! [PHAEDRA lies motionless. The NURSE rises.] Oh, woe is me! Women, we labour here all fruitlessly, All as far off as ever from her heart! She ever scorned me, and now hears no part Of all my prayers! [Turning to PHAEDRA again.] Nay, hear thou shalt, and be, If so thou will, more wild than the wild sea; But know, ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides

... an entire absence of dignity traversed all the ways of the city in the hope of finding the one who had defrauded him." Well does this person know the mercenary Ah-Ping, and the unyielding nature of his closed hand; for often, but always fruitlessly, he has entered his presence on affairs connected with the erecting of certain temples. Nevertheless, the matter is one which does not admit of any incapable faltering, to which end this one will seek out the obdurate Ah-Ping without delay, and endeavour ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... said he one evening in confidential discourse with his mother; "and I, for my part, never enjoyed life so much. I feel now that my studies will really mend, and that something can be made of me. And when I have studied for a whole day, and that not fruitlessly either, and then come of an evening to you and my sisters, and see all here so friendly, so bright and cheerful, life seems so agreeable! I feel myself so happy, and almost wish it might always remain as it ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... hills, seemed so majestic and admirable a thing. But the visible results—the humming of silly strangers round his sacred solitudes, the contaminating influence of commercial exploitation—made one fruitlessly and hopelessly melancholy. ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... often felt in making the dorsal incision so as exactly and at once to hit the joint; the most common mistake being, that the transverse incision is made too high, and the knife, instead of striking the joint, only saws fruitlessly at the neck of the bone above. To avoid this, the surgeon should take as a guide to the joint, not the well-marked and tempting-looking dorsal fold in the skin, but the palmar one, which exactly corresponds with the joint ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... One such opportunity was afforded, soon after the above-mentioned exculpation of the fathers, by the occurrence of a famine during an unusually severe winter. The streets of Rome presented the spectacle of hundreds of half-naked and starving wretches who fruitlessly implored aid or who silently expired unaided. Loyola and his colleagues, themselves subsisting from day to day on alms, felt often—we are told—the nip of hunger, yet they needed no incitement which these scenes of woe did not spontaneously supply. They ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... live in stirring times, and nothing ever will be the same again. So I gave him the light quite calmly and with great presence of mind said, "Vive la France!" Then he grasped my hand and thanked me for the presence of the English army in his country, the credit for which I endeavoured fruitlessly to disclaim, and we all stood up and bowed to each other severally and collectively, and resumed our ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various

... Castaneda, one of the eye-witnesses and chroniclers of Coronado's "march" in 1540. They told him that, five or six years (?) before the arrival of the Spaniards, a roaming tribe called the "Teyas" (Yutas) had ravaged the surroundings of their pueblo, and even, though fruitlessly, attempted to capture it.[141] This tribe was afterwards met by Coronado in the plains ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier

... Fruitlessly we may bewail In future, should our hearts relent: O! then let Mercy's voice prevail; Mercy we can ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield

... difficult for a single ship of war to find, and when found to deal effectually with, a body of vessels which on the one hand was large, and yet occupied but a small space relatively to the great expanse of ocean over which the pursuer might roam fruitlessly, missing continually the one moving spot he sought. For such a purpose a well-handled squadron, scattering within signal-distance from each other, or to meet at a rendezvous, was more likely to find, and, having found, could by concerted ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... East Stour, by the explanation that it had already happened in London; and it is not impossible that the entry of the marriage, too, may be hidden away in some obscure Metropolitan parish register, since those of Salisbury have been fruitlessly searched. At this distance of time, however, speculation is fruitless; and, in default of more definite information, the "spring of 1735," which Keightley gives, must be accepted as the probable date ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... to: the odd old Houses: the Quay: the really grand Inn (Duke's Head, in the Market place) and the civil, Norfolk-talking, People. I went to Hunstanton, which is rather dreary: one could see the Country at Sandringham was good. I enquired fruitlessly about those Sandringham Pictures, etc.: even the Auctioneer, whom I found in the Bar of the Inn, could tell nothing of where they ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... but one example of that "Spirit of the Perverse" pervading all things mundane, which we poor mortals are called upon to bear as best we may. Therefore I tossed aside the charred match, and having searched fruitlessly through my pockets for another, waited philosophically for some "good Samaritan" to come along. The bank I have mentioned sloped away gently on my left, thus affording an ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... Euripides is a singular example of poetic, or rather unpoetic obliquity; we should never have done were we to attempt to point out all its absurdities and contradictions. Why, for instance, does Orestes fruitlessly torment his sister by maintaining his incognito so long? The poet too, makes it a light matter to throw aside whatever stands in his way, as in the case of the peasant, of whom, after his departure to summon the old keeper, we have no farther ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... 'I will once more give thee thy son who was fruitlessly slain by the robbers, like an animal, slaughtered in sacrifice, taking him ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... prospect, and one by one they disappeared, until none were left on deck but the crew, the Sergeant, Cap, Pathfinder, the Quartermaster, and Mabel. There was a shade on the brow of the last, who had been made acquainted with the real state of things, and who had fruitlessly ventured an appeal in favor of Jasper's restoration to the command. A night's rest and a night's reflection appeared also to have confirmed the Pathfinder in his opinion of the young man's innocence; and he, too, had made a warm appeal on behalf of his friend, though ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... Lake, as it is related by the older chronicles, was the son of Ban, King of Benoit, in Brittany. Flying from his castle, then straitly besieged, the fugitive king saw it in flames, and soon after expired with grief. His queen, Helen, fruitlessly attempting to save his life, abandoned for a while her infant son Lancelot. Returning, she discovered him in the arms of the nymph Vivian, the mistress of Merlin, who on her approach sprung with the child into a deep lake and disappeared. This lake is held by ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... might live or whatever virtues or perfections he might attain. A restless feeling of guilt would always be present with him: he would confess and repent and be absolved, confess and repent again and be absolved again, fruitlessly. Perhaps that first hasty confession wrung from him by the fear of hell had not been good? Perhaps, concerned only for his imminent doom, he had not had sincere sorrow for his sin? But the surest sign that his confession had been good and that ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... The disappointment of their hopes, the quick breach of the pledges so solemnly given to them, drove the Catholics to despair. They gave fresh life to a conspiracy which a small knot of bigots had been fruitlessly striving to bring to an issue since the king's accession. Catesby, a Catholic zealot who had taken part in the rising of Essex, had busied himself during the last years of Elizabeth in preparing for a revolt at the Queen's death, and in seeking for his project the aid of Spain. ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... boasting, they made no haste to be enrolled. Whilst these men were indulging in such idle and vain-glorious talk, the few who had volunteered and taken the field, returned from Vicenza, which, during two days, had been bravely but fruitlessly defended. The forum warriors had only set out in time to meet their defeated and wounded fellow-countrymen, and give them the honors of an ovation on their return to the city. The war agitation was evidently nothing else than a weapon of ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... written by one who could himself guide the pencil with skill and feeling, and who, in the form of a mechanic's son, had even the felicity to discover the vigorous genius of Opie. The mock-heroic which invaded with success the sacred recesses of the palace, and which was fruitlessly menaced by Secretaries of State, proved a reckless intrepidity, which is apt to be popular with "the general." The powerful and the learned quailed beneath the lash with an affected contempt which scarcely veiled their tremor. In the meantime, as in the latter ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... did not obtain, nor indeed did he appear to expect, any answer to his inquiries. In the meanwhile, Rivers held possession of her arm, and she continued fruitlessly struggling for some moments in his grasp, referring at length to the speaker for that interference which he now appeared ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... a problem to all who knew him how he manages to get in and out of them. He sketches a little in water-colours; he writes verses; he is the most patient of fishermen, and spent long days at the bottom of the inn-garden fruitlessly dabbling a line in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... morning, when he woke, and remembered that it was the last time he would wake in her neighbourhood, he was seized with an unconquerable longing to see her again, however fruitlessly. He stole out softly, and walked to the Cottage. He knew that Lucia often worked among her flowers early, and guessed that that morning she would not be likely to sleep. He looked eagerly into the garden. She was not there, but ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... case from that very learned work of Tieckius—De rebus gestis Pollicilli. Their energies remain unimpaired; and although mine are gradually failing me, I enjoy the consolation of having spent them in pursuing incessantly one object, and that not fruitlessly. ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.

... consciously inconsistent, could not rid himself completely of that ancient, automatic, conception of religion which the Master condemned, but had on occasions attempted fruitlessly to unite the new with the old. And thus, for a long time, Christianity had been wrongly conceived as history, beginning with what to Paul and the Jews was an historical event, the allegory of the Garden of Eden, the fall of Adam, and ending with the Jewish conception of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... egg, but, after fruitlessly chipping at the shell throughout this conversation, put down her spoon and appeared to abandon the effort to commence her meal. Presently she broke silence, speaking ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... an historic glance it rouses other memories. Within its original walls more than two centuries ago a belaced Senhor kept Portuguese state. It was here that Frenchmen were encamped while their guns were fruitlessly hammering at the walls of Fort St. George. It was here that Lally lived sumptuously in prison, till he was sent to Europe—eventually to be executed in Paris for having failed to capture Madras. It was ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow

... gold, and the chivalrous enterprise of Hernando de Soto, to discover and conquer a second Mexico, the natives of Florida have been continually subjected to the invasions and encroachments of white men. They have resisted them perseveringly but fruitlessly, and are now battling amid swamps and morasses for the last foothold of their native soil, with all the ferocity of despair. Can we wonder at the bitterness of a hostility that has been handed down from father to son, for upward ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... his way through unknown seas and traces for him in the heavens an unerring path to his appointed haven. And had not mathematicians toiled for so long, and, to uninstructed observers, apparently so fruitlessly, over the abstract relations of lines and surfaces, it is probable that but few of our mechanical inventions would have ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... unfit; that they busied themselves devising pretexts for evasion; that their chief function was to perform fatigue-duty for local governors, and that to send such men into the field of battle would be to throw away their lives fruitlessly. The council recommended that indiscriminate conscription of peasants should be replaced by a system of selection, the choice being limited to men with some previous training; that the number taken should be in ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... afternoon, Miss St. Clair slept the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion, Harlan worked fruitlessly at The Quest of Lady Elaine, and Dorothy busied herself about her household tasks, singing with forced cheerfulness whenever she was within hearing of ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed

... to get you chose at Aldburgh, and may more easily get Mr. Jessop chose at another place. I can't believe but you may manage it in such a manner, Mr. Jessop himself would not be against it, nor would he have so much reason to take it ill, if he should not be chose, as you have after so much money fruitlessly spent. I dare say you may order it so that it may be so, if you talk to Lord Townshend about it, &c. I mention this, because I cannot think you can stand at York, or anywhere else, without a great expense. Lord ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... Sauzay writes that a regiment would be necessary to restrain the town. At Saint-Amand the insurrection breaks out violently, and is only put down by violence. At Saint-Etienne-en-Forez, Bertheas, a clerk in the excise office, falsely accused of monopolizing grain,[3236] is fruitlessly defended by the National Guard; he is put in prison, according to the usual custom, to save his life, and, for greater security, the crowd insist on his being fastened by an iron collar. But, suddenly changing ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... boots have not lost their virtues, as the very learned tome of Tieckius, De rebus gestis Pollicilli, gave me reason to apprehend. Their power is unbroken: but my strength is failing, though I have confidence I have applied them to their end, and not fruitlessly. I have learned more profoundly than any man before me, everything respecting the earth: its figure, heights, temperature; its atmosphere in all its changes; the appearance of its magnetic strength; its productions, especially of the vegetable world; ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso

... pony was sent for; and, after that, every day, when the weather would at all do, they took a long ride. By degrees, reading, and drawing, and all her studies, were added to the history, till Ellen's time was well filled with business again. Alice had endeavoured to bring this about before, but fruitlessly. What she asked of her, Ellen indeed tried to do; what John told her, was done. She grew a different creature. Appetite came back; the colour sprang again to her cheek; hope meek and sober as it was re-lighted her eye. In her eagerness to please ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... become more acquainted with him, and hanging assiduously and fixedly on his speech (for though in simple terms, it was vivid, lively, and earnest), when he had gathered by my discourse that I was given to the books of nativity-casters, he kindly and fatherly advised me to cast them away, and not fruitlessly bestow a care and diligence, necessary for useful things, upon these vanities; saying, that he had in his earliest years studied that art, so as to make it the profession whereby he should live, and that, understanding Hippocrates, he could soon have understood such a study ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... throughout the leisurely meal, Terry adding an occasional word whenever the flow of affectionate badgering lagged. Fanny, who had served them since they were children, bustled in and out, redfaced, wholesome, fruitlessly trying to press upon Terry an excess of the over-ample dinner. It was a sort of unwritten law in Crampville that the Sunday dinner should be sufficiently heavy to drive the menfolk ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... encourage his suit. De Stancy then led them a little further, where hung a portrait of the lover, one of his own family, who appeared in full panoply of plate mail, the pommel of his sword standing up under his elbow. The gallant captain then related how this personage of his line wooed the lady fruitlessly; how, after her marriage with another, she and her husband visited the parents of the disappointed lover, the then occupiers of the castle; how, in a fit of desperation at the sight of her, he retired to his room, where he composed some ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... say, thirty-one little boys expectorated surreptitiously but simultaneously in the pews, as the first words of the Litany were repeated. I think that we were all convinced that these were regularly appointed festivals of the Church of England. I know that I was, and I spent hours hunting fruitlessly through my Prayer Book to find some allusion to them. I found Sundays after Epiphany, Sundays in Lent, and Sundays after Trinity, but not one word could I discover, to my amazement, either about "Cock-hat Sunday" or "Spit-in-the-pew Sunday." What can have been the origin ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... the enemy, often took an active part in the battle. City after city was attacked by the barbarians, and the suburbs plundered. Ephesus, on account of the wealth it contained, formed their chief attraction, but their forces dashed themselves fruitlessly against its walls; they avenged themselves for their failure by setting on fire the temple of Artemis which stood in the outskirts. This act of sacrilege profoundly stirred the whole Hellenic world, and when the first fury of pillage was exhausted, the barbarians themselves seemed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... knew the sleigh had come. But whether it had continued straight down the valley or turned to the right along that same ridge which I had fruitlessly explored before, ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert

... addressed started, and as he turned hastily, as if to see who had presumed to dictate to him, slipped, and, clutching fruitlessly at Harry's outstretched arms, fell headlong into the sea. It was the work of a second, but in that second ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly

... thus fruitlessly engaged for some time, when we were recalled to the shore by a shout from one of our people, and, hastening down to the beach, we beheld, to our dismay, our own boat floating some way out in the ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... hulk—every man's hand against him—an Arab of society. As hopeless a case, my lord judge, as you ever had to deal with; and yet I think, my lord, that your big heart grows a little pitiful, when you see that handsome face before you, blank and careless, and you try, fruitlessly, to raise some blush of shame, or even anger ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... after, I selected just such a site for a shaft as that I had dreamt of, under a gum-tree, close by a creek; and there, new-chum like, I put in the drive at the wrong depth. But, one day, when I had got quite sick at fruitlessly working in the hole, on accidentally looking up, sure enough there was my nugget sticking up in the pipeclay, just as I had dreamt of it. I took out the gold, sat with it in my hand, and thought the thing over, but couldn't make it ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... as a fine likeness, yet never was the very thing rejected as a counterfeit. O! when I think of the inexhaustible mine of virgin treasure in our Shakespeare, that I have been almost daily reading him since I was ten years old,—that the thirty intervening years have been unintermittingly and not fruitlessly employed in the study of the Greek, Latin, English, Italian, Spanish, and German belle lettrists, and the last fifteen years in addition, far more intensely in the analysis of the laws of life and ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... Denny was simply fussing fruitlessly and absurdly with an ordinary "ant-hill," as he persisted in miscalling a termitary. Playing with bugs, that was all. Wasting his time poking into the affairs of termites—and acting, by George, as though those affairs ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst

... by this discovery, Racksole tried to find the exit from his place of concealment. He felt sure that there existed some way out into the State bathroom, but he sought for it fruitlessly, groping with both hands and feet. Then he decided that he must ascend the rope-ladder, make haste for the first-floor corridor, and intercept Rocco when he left the State apartments. It was a painful and difficult business to ascend that thin and yielding ladder in such a ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett

... view of that, the king ordained, by his decree of July 26, 1730, the suspension of everything enacted therein by that Audiencia—doing away, for the time being, with the foundation of the royal university; and saving the royal treasury more than ten thousand pesos per annum, which had been fruitlessly spent. Now, very recently, his Majesty, by a decree dated San Lorenzo, October 23, 1733, has determined that there shall be a chair of canons and another of institutes in the college of San Ignacio; and he also determines that there shall ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... Queen, who listened and smiled, listless and indifferent. But her smile filled him with such a passion of wonder and worship that he resolved to rest no more until he had found her heart, for he knew the tale. So he sought the whole world over in vain; and for years and years he roamed the world fruitlessly. At last one day in a far country he found a little bird in a trap and he set it free, and in return the bird promised him that he should find the Queen's heart. All he had to do was to go home and to seek the Queen's palace. ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... man may appear to have its ludicrous side, but the way in which the historic pyre and the mention of Solon are brought in without discrediting the hero is certainly ingenious. The Mandane-hunt is renewed, but fruitlessly. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury



Words linked to "Fruitlessly" :   fruitless, unproductively, unprofitably, fruitfully, profitably, productively



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