Attempt

We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt.

It is the attempt plus the failure that is fatal.

Joan threw herself at the King’s feet and embraced his knees, saying: “Noble Dauphin, prithee hold no more of these long and numerous councils, but come, and come quickly, to Rheims and receive your crown.” Christophe d’Harcourt asked: “Is it your Voices that command you to say that to the King?” “Yes, and urgently.” “Then will you not tell us in the King’s presence in what way the Voices communicate with you?” It was another sly attempt to trap Joan into indiscreet admissions and dangerous pretensions.

My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.” “I shall not say that you are mistaken,” he replied, “because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own.” Elizabeth laughed heartily at this picture of herself, and said to Colonel Fitzwilliam, “Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of me, and teach you not to believe a word I say.

Give these ones rams, and we will batter down these gates or die in the attempt.” “You would die,” said Brown Ben.

What manner I mean, will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished.

But the most amazing example of the ineffectiveness of the orders given by the authorities at that time was Napoleon’s attempt to stop the looting and reestablish discipline.

He escaped a brilliant assassination attempt by inches.

Oliver looked very worn and shadowy from sickness, and made an ineffectual attempt to stand up, out of respect to his benefactor, which terminated in his sinking back into the chair again; and the fact is, if the truth must be told, that Mr. Brownlow’s heart, being large enough for any six ordinary old gentlemen of humane disposition, forced a supply of tears into his eyes, by some hydraulic process which we are not sufficiently philosophical to be in a condition to explain.

“They tried and died.” = = = = = = To attempt an understanding of Muad’Dib without understanding his mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood.

“Our job’s to deliver him safely to headquarters and if we die in the attempt —” “No one’s going to die,” said Kingsley Shacklebolt in his deep, calming voice.

Rebekka is bundled up and carted away within the hour, and if there’s a service for the poor thing, or if anyone makes any attempt to inform whatever scrag ends of family she might have back in Friesland, Iris never learns about it.

It was just as well for them, for the mere attempt to stand upright upon our planet would have broken every bone in their bodies.

I could not accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested; so, with an attempt to argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said:— “She may have been placed here since last night.” “Indeed?

He was no sooner in Milan than the Pope had soldiers from him for the attempt on the Romagna, which yielded to him on the reputation of the king.

The cause of the panic had been the attempt of a policeman to arrest a drunken man in a saloon next door, which had drawn a crowd at the hour the people were on their way to work, and so started the “run.” About this time Jurgis and Ona also began a bank-account.

Young Pallas, when he saw the chief advance Within due distance of his flying lance, Prepares to charge him first, resolv’d to try If fortune would his want of force supply; And thus to Heav’n and Hercules address’d: “Alcides, once on earth Evander’s guest, His son adjures you by those holy rites, That hospitable board, those genial nights; Assist my great attempt to gain this prize, And let proud Turnus view, with dying eyes, His ravish’d spoils.” ’Twas heard, the vain request; Alcides mourn’d, and stifled sighs within his breast.

I want you to make the attempt to reach--” “I want to be with something living.” Mike explained, “The ground is living.

But who would attempt to express accurately what all these masters of new modes of speech could not express distinctly?

In short, only a moron or a movie star would attempt the use of such a gun; it was like trying to shoot someone with a pneumatic drill.

That to attempt it, would be inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity.

None of the bulls came near him, and he did not attempt to join the herd.

It is in vain that we attempt to impose upon nature, for nature will have her course, and the religion that tortures all her social ties is a false religion.

He flipped the coin down at him with a smile, but the stableboy made no attempt to catch it.

Unable to have me for your wife, you will content yourself with having me for your friend and sister; and besides,” she added, her eyes troubled and moistened with tears, “wait, wait, Fernand; you said just now that the sea was treacherous, and he has been gone four months, and during these four months there have been some terrible storms.” Fernand made no reply, nor did he attempt to check the tears which flowed down the cheeks of Mercédès, although for each of these tears he would have shed his heart’s blood; but these tears flowed for another.

Laurie was a young lover, but he was in earnest, and meant to “have it out,” if he died in the attempt; so he plunged into the subject with characteristic impetuosity, saying in a voice that would get choky now and then, in spite of manful efforts to keep it steady— “I’ve loved you ever since I’ve known you, Jo; couldn’t help it, you’ve been so good to me.

He had sufficient insight to understand that she valued nothing in the world—herself least of all—and he made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was a coward in some respects.

Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt proved a failure.

To attempt, to brave, to persist, to persevere, to be faithful to one’s self, to grasp fate bodily, to astound catastrophe by the small amount of fear that it occasions us, now to affront unjust power, again to insult drunken victory, to hold one’s position, to stand one’s ground; that is the example which nations need, that is the light which electrifies them.

Unaware of the tragedy being enacted above, Peter had continued, for a little time after the children left, to play gaily on his pipes: no doubt rather a forlorn attempt to prove to himself that he did not care.

If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in years past, it would probably surprise those of my readers who are somewhat acquainted with its actual history; it would certainly astonish those who know nothing about it.

The written work is simply an attempt to express emotion, which is in itself inexpressible, in terms of intellect and logic.

Ever since what might be call’d thought, or the budding of thought, fairly began in my youthful mind, I had had a desire to attempt some worthy record of that entire faith and acceptance (“to justify the ways of God to men” is Milton’s well-known and ambitious phrase) which is the foundation of moral America.

They play her death in full, the spearing, my failed rescue attempt, my arrow through the boy from District 1’s throat, Rue drawing her last breath in my arms.

I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler organization; but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man.

Kendo is to real samurai sword fighting what fencing is to real swashbuckling: an attempt to take a highly disorganized, chaotic, violent, and brutal conflict and turn it into a cute game.

He says this, a censor of morals, a very pelican in his piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the ties of nature, to attempt illicit intercourse with a female domestic drawn from the lowest strata of society.

‘ ‘It was a deliberate attempt to humiliate you.

There had never been any adventure, since our beginning, too dangerous for Ali to attempt, nor a disaster too deep for him to face with his high yell of a laugh.

As much as I struggled to understand this complex, great man—and I made significant strides on that journey—I came to realize that he was always a step beyond any attempt to describe him, to capture him on the page.

First, because I have been made to learn that the doom and burden of our life is bound forever on man’s shoulders, and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure.

Whatever changes I have made are but an attempt to express better what I thought and felt when I was a very young man.

It would be most unwise on your part to attempt to silence me as you silenced M. Ackroyd.

With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls, For stony limits cannot hold love out, And what love can do, that dares love attempt: Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

To attempt to compare members of distinct types in the scale of highness seems hopeless; who will decide whether a cuttlefish be higher than a bee—that insect which the great Von Baer believed to be “in fact more highly organised than a fish, although upon another type?” In the complex struggle for life it is quite credible that crustaceans, not very high in their own class, might beat cephalopods, the highest molluscs; and such crustaceans, though not highly developed, would stand very high in the scale of invertebrate animals, if judged by the most decisive of all trials—the law of battle.

Thus every attempt to appreciate anyone feature is beaten down by the overwhelming influence of all the others.

I will kill him, or I will die in the attempt.” Her eyes shone as she spoke of her prey.

If however any man by using force stands in thy way, betake thyself to contentment and tranquility, and at the same time employ the hindrance towards the exercise of some other virtue; and remember that thy attempt was with a reservation, that thou didst not desire to do impossibilities.

But whatever cause there might be to blame his machines in a philosophical or religious view, they are so perfect in the poetic, that mankind have been ever since contented to follow them: none have been able to enlarge the sphere of poetry beyond the limits he has set: every attempt of this nature has proved unsuccessful; and after all the various changes of times and religions, his gods continue to this day the gods of poetry.

But we will march, and we will free Winterfell … or die in the attempt.” Whatever doubts his lords might nurse, the common men seemed to have faith in their king.

There is at least the mystery of why so big a man should attempt so big a blow with so little a hammer.” “Oh, never mind that,” cried Gibbs, in a fever.

As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements, that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table—the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.

Emma was secretly pleased that she had reached at a first attempt the rare ideal of pale lives, never attained by mediocre hearts.

They ferry over this Lethean sound Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment, And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe, All in one moment, and so near the brink; But Fate withstands, and, to oppose the attempt, Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards The ford, and of itself the water flies All taste of living wight, as once it fled The lip of Tantalus.

But is it not a strange thing to see how readily this unhappy gentleman believes all these figments and lies, simply because they are in the style and manner of the absurdities of his books?” “So it is,” said Cardenio; “and so uncommon and unexampled, that were one to attempt to invent and concoct it in fiction, I doubt if there be any wit keen enough to imagine it.” “But another strange thing about it,” said the curate, “is that, apart from the silly things which this worthy gentleman says in connection with his craze, when other subjects are dealt with, he can discuss them in a perfectly rational manner, showing that his mind is quite clear and composed; so that, provided his chivalry is not touched upon, no one would take him to be anything but a man of thoroughly sound understanding.” While they were holding this conversation Don Quixote continued his with Sancho, saying: “Friend Panza, let us forgive and forget as to our quarrels, and tell me now, dismissing anger and irritation, where, how, and when didst thou find Dulcinea?

He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive.

“If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all these accomplishments, and discovering a calling which needs them all,” I said to myself, “I may as well give up the attempt at once.” I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin.

The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.