vain attempt

It is my vain attempt to keep a part of me going long after I am gone.

But it was a vain attempt; he'd heard the sound.

I read these articles in a vain attempt to understand far right thinking.

She would want him to escape and not risk his life in a vain attempt to be sure of her.

"Go on without me," she said after two vain attempts.

For twenty years I have been in vain attempting it.

I arch my back in a vain attempt to reach someone, something.

He made several vain attempts to win the lost prestige.

I say with him as a vain attempt at status."

After these vain attempts he decided to go over the "obstruction".

Joan thought he was making a vain attempt to break his bonds.

A vain attempt: for this some near, clear, fixed point was required.

He even confesses in a vain attempt to save himself.

Already he had made two spectacular, vain attempts on our trap.

She looked down into the blackness in a vain attempt to see where the cotton had gone.

Search parties were still out, in what would be a vain attempt to retrieve her body.

She turned away and made a vain attempt to confess one of her sins.

I do not mean you to die in a vain attempt to avenge me.

Sherman told him of his vain attempts to reach Maria.

He cupped his eyes in a vain attempt to make out some detail.

He often did this, in a vain attempt to fathom its meaning.

She wore a Russian magazine on her head in a vain attempt to keep cool.

Kirk blew on his hands in a vain attempt to warm them.

Her eyes were blind, even before she shut them in a vain attempt to hold back the tears.

A vain attempt: nor could he back her off.