"Not at all silly," said I, losing my temper; "here for example, I take this Square," and, at the word, I grasped a moveable Square, which was lying at hand -- "and I move it, you see, not Northward but -- yes, I move it Upward -- that is to say, not Northward, but I move it somewhere -- not exactly like this, but somehow --" Here I brought my sentence to an inane conclusion, shaking the Square about in a
purposeless manner, much to the amusement of my Grandson, who burst out laughing louder than ever, and declared that I was not teaching him, but joking with him; and so saying he unlocked the door and ran out of the room.
The full recognition of the futility of their infatuation, from a social point of view; its
purposeless beginning; its self-bounded outlook; its lack of everything to justify its existence in the eye of civilization (while lacking nothing in the eye of Nature); the one fact that it did exist, ecstasizing them to a killing joy; all this imparted to them a resignation, a dignity, which a practical and sordid expectation of winning him as a husband would have destroyed.
A tasteless and barbaric display, a vulgar generosity, an ignorant and
purposeless prodigality.
"This way of living that you speak of," she said, "sounds so futile and
purposeless. Haven't you any work to do in the world that might interest you more?"
A disabled, drunken creature, barely able to preserve her sitting posture by steadying herself with one begrimed hand on the floor, while the other was so
purposeless in trying to push away her tangled hair from her face, that it only blinded her the more with the dirt upon it.
More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began to gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they themselves became so excited at such seemingly
purposeless questions.
No doubt the exquisite beauty of the buildings I saw was the outcome of the last surgings of the now
purposeless energy of mankind before it settled down into perfect harmony with the conditions under which it lived--the flourish of that triumph which began the last great peace.
By apparently careless and
purposeless questioning I learned from my gossipy landlady that the young woman's bedroom adjoined my own, a party-wall between.
It would furnish another reason for Wrayburn's
purposeless walks, and it might be.
Nevertheless, after a moment's pause, they deliberately turned again, and, facing each other with frightful calmness, left the room by
purposeless and deliberate exits other than those they had contemplated--a crushing abnegation of self, that, to some extent, relieved their surcharged feelings.
Some of the people of the chateau, and some of those of the posting-house, and all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded on the other side of the little street in a
purposeless way, that was highly fraught with nothing.
Another item had been added to that constant and apparently
purposeless series of small mysteries which had succeeded each other so rapidly.