1 But, up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain.
2 He would have released himself, but strove in vain to do so.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XVII. THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER 3 It may be that my remedies, so long administered in vain, begin now to take due effect.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XX.THE MINISTER IN A MAZE 4 Madame Hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid their heads together in vain.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In III. THE RECOGNITION 5 Therefore, as a man who has not thought and philosophised in vain, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee.
6 And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XII. THE MINISTER'S VIGIL 7 For several days, however, she vainly sought an opportunity of addressing him in some of the meditative walks which she knew him to be in the habit of taking along the shores of the Peninsula, or on the wooded hills of the neighbouring country.
8 Hester felt herself, in some indistinct and tantalizing manner, estranged from Pearl, as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly seeking to return to it.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XIX. THE CHILD AT THE BROOKSIDE 9 There was a fascination for the minister in the company of the man of science, in whom he recognised an intellectual cultivation of no moderate depth or scope; together with a range and freedom of ideas, that he would have vainly looked for among the members of his own profession.
10 Earlier in life, Hester had vainly imagined that she herself might be the destined prophetess, but had long since recognised the impossibility that any mission of divine and mysterious truth should be confided to a woman stained with sin, bowed down with shame, or even burdened with a life-long sorrow.