1 The general and colonel looked sternly and significantly at one another like two fighting cocks preparing for battle, each vainly trying to detect signs of cowardice in the other.
2 He examined his hand carefully, vainly trying to find blood on it.
3 Princess Mary was sitting alone in her room, vainly trying to master her agitation.
4 And Nicholas, who had vainly suffered all the dread that precedes a battle and had spent that happy day in inactivity, was all the more depressed.
5 I caught myself harboring a feeling of hatred toward him which I vainly tried to overcome.
6 The thought that her best days, which she would have employed in loving him, were being vainly wasted, with no advantage to anyone, tormented her incessantly.
7 The princess, looking excited and nervous, her face flushed in patches, ran in to meet the visitors, treading heavily, and vainly trying to appear cordial and at ease.
8 When Pierre returned home after vainly hunting all over Moscow, his valet informed him that Prince Anatole was with the countess.
9 When Grekov returned, Count Orlov-Denisov, excited both by the abandoned attempt and by vainly awaiting the infantry columns that still did not appear, as well as by the proximity of the enemy, resolved to advance.
10 "I know I ain't anything like as smart as I ought to be," she went on, while he vainly struggled for expression.
11 Now they were battles, battles desperately, vainly fought as Johnston fell back toward Atlanta.
12 They were trying vainly by whispered pleas and jerks at her skirt to make the old lady sit down on the brick wall.
13 She raised the troubled loveliness of her face to Mrs. Peniston, vainly hoping that a sight so moving to the other sex might not be without effect upon her own.
14 "All 'dention," said the old black, with both hands placed as desired, vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at one and the same time.'
15 So have I seen a bird with clipped wing making affrighted broken circles in the air, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContext Highlight In CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin.