Probably the unsuccessfulness of her efforts provoked her, and incited her to conquer at any price my real or feigned coldness.
"The Dead Lake and Other Tales"
Paul Heyse
Whoever considers the revolutions of learning, and the various questions of greater or less importance, upon which wit and reason have exercised their powers, must lament the unsuccessfulness of enquiry, and the slow advances of truth, when he reflects, that great part of the labour of every writer is only the destruction of those that went before him.
"Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare"
D. Nichol Smith
"You are not," said she, "to confound impatience with resentment, or to suppose that I charge you with negligence because I repine at your unsuccessfulness.
"Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia"
Samuel Johnson