"Grappling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sybil; you had a dream, and your dream had every feature of nightmare in it—the deep, death-like, yet half-conscious and much disturbed sleep; the sense of heavy oppression; the apparition hanging over you; the inability to awake; even the grappling at your throat, and the swift disappearance of the vision immediately upon your full awakening—all well-known features of incubus," replied Mr. Berners. But again he thought of the shadow he had seen; now, however, only to dismiss the subject as ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... impediments, has to contend with the difficulty of financing his own tours in a country whose settled policy is to see that Natives do not make any money. His position in his own country approximates to that of an Englishman, grappling single-handed with complicated problems, on foreign soil, without the aid of ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... that table! Don't sit there like a music box," said Pennoyer, grappling the eggs and ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... for the sake of sweet Chris, whose victory over him he acknowledged and nursed in secret with a wealth of feeling that amazed him, with a passion he had never dreamed himself capable of. He fought this wish furiously, as if it had been a tangible thing: grappling with it, choking it in his heart, and stirring up in his soul a wilder ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... his trust, as being not merely the promise of God—which in David's case may be the specific promise conveyed by his designation to the throne—but the God who promises, the inmost nature of that confidence as being a living union with God, the power of it as grappling with his dread, and enabling him now to say, "I do ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... seconds, muttering, slipping, grappling, the two figures waltzed grotesquely about in the falling snow. Then the mayor's feet slid from under him on the treacherous white carpet, and the two went down together. As Mr. Magee swooped down upon them he saw the hand of the stranger find the mayor's pocket, ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... known men to change their minds, and in order to prevent any such misfortune he despatched the letter by special messenger early in the evening. Gorham had returned late and betook himself to the library immediately after dinner to consider the new business complications with great care before grappling with the situation on the following day. He was still meditating when he was surprised to see Eleanor enter the room, with an expression on her face which at once made him ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... analyse them and present them in their true aspect to my young friend. She has set me down in the thick of events—and not events such as the smiling philosopher is in the habit of dealing with, but lunatic, fantastic occurrences with which no system of philosophy invented by man is capable of grappling. I can just keep my head, that is all, and note down what happens more or less day by day, so that when the doings of dwarfs and captains, and horse-tamers and youthful Members of Parliament concern me no more, Dale Kynnersley can have a bald but veracious ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... the slack. "Stiff!" he kept ejaculating "stiff! Yes, by gad! and I can make a pretty good guess who that stiff is! . . . Burke'll have all the evidence he wants—now. You beat it, Reddy, as soon as you're fit and get him. A run'll warm you up. The grappling-irons are back of the stable. And say! tell him to bring a good long rope. Lord, I hope Doctor Cox hasn't left yet. I'll stay ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... look up in despair, but none towards Christ; others seem to have grown idiots with horror:—a few gaze, as if fascinated, into the gulf of fire towards which the whole mass of misery are being urged by the ministers of doom—the flames bite them, the devils fish for and catch them with long grappling-hooks:—in sad contrast to the group on the opposite side, a queen, condemned herself but self-forgetful, vainly struggles to rescue her daughter from a demon who has caught her by the gown and is dragging her backwards into the abyss—her sister, wringing her hands, looks on in agony—it ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... extent, forming a cross with the body, and exhibiting the axillae ornamented with eyes vaguely resembling those of the peacock's tail, part of the panoply of war, concealed upon ordinary occasions. These are only exhibited when the creature makes itself terrible and superb for battle. Then the two grappling-hooks are thrown; the fangs strike, the double scythes close together and hold the victim as ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... grappling with the evils of the insurance trust, I hesitated a long time. I realized my words would cause terror or distrust among policy-holders and perhaps induce some misguided ones to abandon their insurance. After long consideration, however, I became convinced that what I had to say would in the long ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... that his quiet deferential bearing to all these grey-heads was the supreme effort of stoicism, that the man was engaged in keeping a sinister watch on his tortures lest his strength should fail him. As before, when grappling with other forces of nature, he could find in himself all sorts of courage except the courage ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... weakness, I had occasion to notice a disreputable attorney in London, who showed me some attentions, partly on my own account as a boy of some expectations, but much more with the purpose of fastening his professional grappling-hooks upon the young Earl of A——t, my former companion, and my present correspondent. This man's house was slightly described, and, with more minuteness, I had exposed some interesting traits in his household economy. A question, therefore, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... were heard on all sides. At times the soldiers could not see on account of the sweat and blood pouring from their faces; the very air was foul from the steam from the living and the dead. They could not breathe; a sort of vertigo overpowered them, and they only kept their feet by grappling with the enemy. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... about two miles below Floresta) he told me that he was walking at a good rate on the narrow path of the estrada when he was attracted by a growling and snarling in the thicket. He stopped and saw a black jaguar grappling with a full-grown buck in a small opening between the trees. The jaguar had felled the buck by jumping on its back from the branches of a tree, and, with claws deeply imbedded in the neck, broke its spine and opened its throat, when Francisco drew the bead ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... upon his antagonist. Hugh stood warily upon the defensive, and parried Mark's blows with admirable skill; he had not the muscle nor the endurance of the young blacksmith, but he had considerable skill in boxing, and was perfectly cool; and though Mark finally succeeded in grappling and hurling to the ground his lithe and resolute foe, it was not until he had been pretty severely pommelled himself, especially in his face. Mark set his knee on the breast of his adversary and waited to hear "Enough." Hugh ground his teeth, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... peaceable Man in his Profession. If the former was too furious, this was too sheepish, for his Part; insomuch that after a short modest Walk upon the Stage, he would fall at the first Touch of 'Hydaspes', without grappling with him, and giving him an Opportunity of showing his Variety of 'Italian' Tripps: It is said, indeed, that he once gave him a Ripp in his flesh-colour Doublet, but this was only to make work for himself, in his private Character of a Taylor. I must not omit that it was this second ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... came too late, for two Spanish galleons ranged alongside and swung grappling irons into his rigging in order to close with the moving vessel. The Englishmen struck at them with oars and hand-spikes, knocking the tentacles of the on-coming octopus aside, and, with sails flying and shots rattling, the Judith bore towards ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... towards evening, I found that the expression of her sick face—the weary, exhausted look of one grappling with a stronger power—had passed away, and, in exchange, there was peace, and even happiness. She began herself to say, "When you told me this forenoon that I could not live, it surprised me; but I have come to it now, and it is all right. Every thing is settled. I ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... she had thought that the one for whom she waited would be found immediately the dragging was begun. But such was not the case. Day after day a couple of patient old fishermen worked with grappling hooks and dragnets, without finding a trace ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... the prismatic aureole, as though the ardour of their joy could scarcely be repressed; while the everlasting light of God sheds radiance from above, and far below, lies earth with diminished sun and moon. The boldness of conception in this singular fresco reveals a genius capable of grappling with such problems as Tintoretto solved. Fra Filippo died at Spoleto, and left his work unfinished, to the care of his assistant, the Fra Diamante. Over his tomb Lorenzo de' Medici caused a monument to be erected, and Poliziano ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... done, when lo! with a thundering bound, the clumsy box was torn from its fastenings, and banging from side to side, flew toward the scuttle. Here it jammed; and thinking that Bob, who was as strong as a windlass, was grappling a beam and trying to cut the line, the jokers on deck strained away furiously. On a sudden, the chest went aloft, and striking against the mast, flew open, raining down on the heads of a party the merciless shower of ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... moving on wheels, and of enormous strength and dimensions, were constructed and placed on the walls at the spot where it was expected the sow would make its approach. In addition to this, they fixed a crane upon the rampart, armed with iron chains and grappling hooks, and large masses of combustibles and fire-faggots, shaped like tuns, and composed of pitch and flax, bound strongly together with tar ropes, were piled up in readiness for the attack. At different intervals on the walls were fixed the espringalds for the discharge of their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... professions or prejudices. Her respect for Lydia remained so great that she never complained to her of Cashel save on one occasion, when he had shown a bishop, whose house had been recently broken into and robbed, how to break a burglar's back in the act of grappling with him. ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... somehow I had not the strength of mind to leave for the West Indies, or elsewhere. On the other hand, my adventurous pursuit kept me in contact with the sea where I found occupation, protection, consolation, the mental relief of grappling with concrete problems, the sanity one acquires from close contact with simple mankind, a little self-confidence born from the dealings with the elemental powers of nature. I couldn't give all that up. And besides all this was related to Dona Rita. I had, ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... advanced against their walls, they fixed grappling irons and scythes to joists or beams; then, straining their catapultas—an enormous kind of crossbow—they laid those great pieces of timber upon them instead of arrows, and shot them off on a sudden ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... previous history,—the experiences of the recent past to reinforce or to modify those of the remoter past; for under superficial diversity, due to differences of conditions, there often rests fundamental identity, the recognition of which equips the mind, quickens it, and strengthens it for grappling with the problems of the present and the future. The value of history to us is as a record of human experience; ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... the heavens fill with shouting, And there rained a ghastly dew From the nations airy navies, Grappling in the ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... heart, which must needs be uttered, but because the pen is the only tool you can handle, your only means of earning bread! Year after year the number of you is multiplied; you crowd the doors of publishers and editors, hustling, grappling, exchanging maledictions. Oh, sorry spectacle, ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... ever had bolder and firmer champions. Under cover of the panic of 1857, which drew men's minds away from politics, a group of them were already planning a most daring last attempt to bring Kansas into the Union as a slave State. In the grappling there, freedom had shown itself stronger than slavery. Robert J. Walker, a slaveholder, whom Buchanan and Douglas had persuaded to accept the governorship, reported that the Free-Soilers outnumbered their adversaries three to one. The legislature ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... and as they came the Danes crowded above them, manning their towers and lining the whole long length with savage faces and gleaming weapons. They howled at us as we drew near, and as the bows of the leading ships almost touched the piles, they hove grappling irons into them from above, holding them fast. Whereat Eadmund thanked them for saving trouble, while the arrows ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... all over again, raising additional funds for a new start. The Great Eastern had proved entirely satisfactory, and it was hoped that with improvements in the grappling-gear the cable might be recovered. The old company gave way before a new organization known as the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. It was decided to lay an entirely new cable, and then to endeavor to complete the one ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... Alfred Dubois was grappling with our hands again; but his onset was less ferocious, because he had to loose us every now and then to slap me on the back ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... shovels and battle-gear, Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire. Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, They leave their trenches, going over the top, While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, Flounders in mud. O Jesu, make ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... means used for its propagation, the methods it employed in grappling with and overcoming the evils that it found existing in the world, in the relations it established between the sexes, in its teaching with regard to the respective duties of the civil and spiritual powers, and, above all, in its redeeming character, ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... philosophy; call me Providence, and you talk religion. Die? My, that is what man is made for; we are full of mortal parts; we are all as good as dead already, we hang so close upon the brink: touch a button, and the strongest falls in dissolution. Now, see how easy: I take you - (GRAPPLING HIM.) ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... swaying fiddle bow! And to think that Mrs. Clarke's own father had hidden away here all these years, utterly friendless except for the children, poor to the point of starvation, sick to the point of death, grappling with his great weakness in heroic silence, and going down to utter oblivion rather than obtrude his misfortune upon ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... on," murmured Mr. Lavender, once more identifying himself with the journal, "grappling with the intricacies of this enormous problem; happy in the thought that nothing—not even reason itself—is too precious to sacrifice on the altar of his duty to his country. The public may rest confident ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his rifle drop! It was gone hopelessly. The shock steadied him for some minutes. Well, he had his knife. After all, that was the more important of the two. He ploughed onward, once more keenly awake, and grappling ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the Astorian Library on a par with the Imperial? Well, perhaps some quick and cheap way will be found of righting it all when the Aerial Navigation Company issues its time-bills, and news come of battles "from the nation's airy navies grappling in the central blue." ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... be waste words to describe here the varying fortunes of the grappling armies during the next few months. The newspapers and current periodicals and countless self-appointed historians have attended to that. It is all recorded, so that one must run to read it all. It is as terribly vivid to us now as it was distant and shadowy then—a madness of slaughter ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... expense of manlier qualities. The ancients and our own Elizabethans, ere spiritual megrims had become fashionable, perhaps made more out of life by taking a frank delight in its action and passion and by grappling with the facts of this world, rather than muddling themselves over the insoluble problems of another. If they had not discovered the picturesque, as we understand it, they found surprisingly fine scenery in man and his destiny, and would have seen something ludicrous, it may be suspected, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... vigorous preparations which were being made to receive them. Bearing down on the crippled vessel at full speed, in spite of the bellowing discharge from the great gun, and a well-delivered volley of small shot, which stretched many of them on the deck, they ran straight against her, threw grappling-irons into the rigging, and sprang on board with ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... the background of your mind all the time you are writing. It will be always intruding and pushing in its face, and you will be able to give only half your mind to your subject. But frankly and naturally use the I, and the remembrance of yourself vanishes. You are grappling with the subject; you are thinking of it, and of nothing else. You use the readiest and most unaffected mode of speech to set out your thoughts of it. You have written I a dozen times, but you have not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... ordered that the ships should have tall masts, and that on their tops there should be a spar fixed [Footnote 6: Compare No. 1115.] of 40 feet long and one third of a foot thick. At one end of this was a small grappling iron and at the other a counterpoise; and there was also attached 12 feet of chain; and, at the end of this chain, as much rope as would reach from the chain to the base of the top, where it was fixed with a small rope; from this base it ran down to the bottom of the mast where a very strong ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Italian delegation to Paris various fresh combinations were devised for the purpose of grappling with the Adriatic problem. One commended itself to the Italians as a possible basis for discussion. In principle it was accepted. A declaration to this effect was made by Signor Orlando and taken cognizance ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... problem. The products of such a method are certain to be interesting and valuable. Whether we agree with the author's conclusions or not, we can at least see whence he derives them and feel the stimulus which always comes from the spectacle of a powerful mind grappling in deadly earnest with momentous questions ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... thrust," the doctor replied. "My idea is that the two men were grappling together, and that as Mr. Thorndyke was a very powerful man, his assailant, who probably was approaching the bed with the dagger in his hand, plunged it into him; had he struck at him I should certainly have expected the course of the wound to ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... Globe,[2] in discussing this committee and its work, declared that 'a very free interchange of opinion took place. In the course of the discussions it appeared probable that a union of parties might be effected for the purpose of grappling with the constitutional difficulties.' Macdonald voted against the committee's report. Brown was thoroughly in earnest, and the desperate nature of the political situation gave him an opportunity to prove his sincerity and ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... each, he placed the natives of Syracuse in the middle, with the stoutest mercenaries he had about his own person; and, waiting a little to observe the action of his horse, when he saw they were not only hindered from grappling with the Carthaginians by the armed chariots that ran to and fro before the army, but forced continually to wheel about to escape having their ranks broken, and so to repeat their charges anew, he took his buckler in his hand, and crying out to the foot that they should follow him with ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... was grappling with the problem as to what he should do in order to continue this method of assisting to lighten the many burdens that had fallen on the ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... is there to stay. Education has come—good, bad, and indifferent. English University training is bringing forward a host of acute thinkers of native blood. But the forces of Western infidelity are also there, grappling with Western Christianity on Indian soil, and before the eyes of the conquered and still sullen people. The vilest of English books and the worst of French novels in English translations are in the markets. All the worst phases of European commerce are exhibited. The opium ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... don't know as how he'd like it. He's been that upset these last few days. I——" He hesitated. Visibly an idea had visited him with which he was grappling. "You're not from Miss Austen, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... behind caught him. Straightening himself up, and grappling the panther with all his strength as he would a man, he turned with it and bent it over the sharp edge of the ponderous desk, lower, lower, trying to break its back. One of the fore feet was beginning to tear through his ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... covering it from attack, while his two assistants who were left proceeded quickly to lay hold of it. They had raised it, laid it on the bier, and were setting off by an unusual track across the waste, while Agellius, Aspar, and the third were grappling with some ruffians who had rushed upon them. Few, however, were there as yet to take part against them, but their cries of alarm were bringing others up, and the Christians were in growing danger of being worsted and ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... At the same time I saw, or thought I saw, that by crossing the face of the cliff for a few yards I should regain the ordinary route. The first step or two was easy; then came a long stride, in which I had to throw out one hand by way of grappling-iron to a jutting rock above. The rock was reeking with moisture, and as I threw my weight upon it my hand slipped, and before I had time to look round I was slithering downwards without a single point of support. Below ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... had served Ibrahim Mahmud so would he serve any man who injured a hair of the head of his body-servant. And Moussa Isa clave to my brother yet the more, and when a great Sidi slave entered the room of my brother by night, doubtless hired by Ibrahim Mahmud to slay him, Moussa Isa, grappling with him, tore out his throat with his teeth, though stabbed many times by the Sidi, ere my brother could light torch or wick to tell friend from foe. Whether he were thief or hired murderer, none could say—least ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... Randolph had been most anxious that the thieves should be captured without alarming the ladies. And now in the darkness, pursuers and pursued were scattered in different directions. John sprang after the young man who had raised the pistol, and succeeded in grappling with him before he could mount the fence. The clouds were now dispersed, and there was light enough for one to recognise another. Randolph could not doubt; the intended murderer was Mark Rothwell. Fiercely did ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... under obligatory initials. He paid it, ostentatiously drawing out one of his fifties. Up came another, with a similar strip of paper. "You don't want me to change this, do you?" said Algernon; and heard a tale of domestic needs—and a grappling landlady. He groaned inwardly: "Odd that I must pay for his landlady being a vixen!" The note was changed; the debt liquidated. On the door-step, as he was going to lunch, old Anthony waylaid him, and was almost noisily ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was not getting painfully dark, and the Wanyoro were stealing on us, as we could hear, though nothing could be seen. Presently the shade-seeking boat was attacked, spears were thrown, fortunately into the river instead of into our men, and grappling-hooks were used to link the boats together. My men cried, "Help, Bana! they are killing us;" whilst I roared to my crew, "Go in, go in, and the victory will be ours;" but not a soul would—they were spell-bound to the place; we might have been cut up in detail, it was all the same ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... reached the canal jumped in, swam across the 60 feet of water, and climbed the opposite bank by using grappling hooks. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... spent the most part of the previous day trying different plans for grappling the skip, but the fast currents and smooth side of the big steel bucket had baffled him. His efforts had cost time and money, and he began to realize that he must give it up or try dangerous means. The chain ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... ancestress!' I exclaimed, 'you had strange baptismal names; but no matter, I thank you. You are going to serve me as a grappling iron; I shall be very unskilful if at the very first meeting the ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... touching the earth with its feet, but keeping about a foot above it—the shroud fluttering after it. When it had come up with the sportsman, it made a rush at him; but the dog seized hold of it by its bare calves, and began a tussle with it. When the moujik saw his dog and the corpse grappling with each other, he was delighted that things had turned out so well for himself, and he set off running home with all his might. The dog kept up the struggle until cock-crow, when the corpse fell motionless to the ground. Then the dog ran off in pursuit of its master, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... story off. There are hundreds and hundreds of pages alter this. They show Edward Endless grappling in the fight for clean politics. The last hundred pages deal with religion. Edward finds it after a big fight. But no one reads these pages. There are no women in them. Our staff cut them out and merely show ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... gun-shot in the old man's ears. There was a whirr of wheels, a patter of feet grappling with dirt and throwing it all over him—another whirr and flutter and buzz as of a covey flushed, and the field was ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... cannot manage it, write me word how you wish the article altered, and I will do it. I confess, however, that I think, as a preliminary attack upon abuses which will require closer and more detailed grappling with hereafter, it had ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... "Grappling with the affairs of state affords unique opportunities for growth, while the honor of having served the state operates as a magnifying glass enlarging the inspirational force of individuals so honored. Thus a race having the privilege of committing great trusts to its members ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... The grappling was only incidental. The flyers seemed destined to be scouts and rangefinders, rather than fighters. Such pitched combats as there were took rather the form of duels, conducted with something of the formality of the days of chivalry. The aviator intent upon ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... are the chances of war! But half an hour before he and I were engaged in mortal combat, and our prisoner was all but my conqueror. Grappling with Cambaceres, whom I knocked from his horse, and was about to despatch, I felt a lunge behind, which luckily was parried by my sabretache; a herculean grasp was at the next instant at my throat—I was on the ground—my ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... way, with Kay riding beside him. From time to time she stole a sidelong glance at him, riding with his chin on his breast, apparently oblivious of her presence. She knew that he was not in a mood to be entertaining to-day, to be a carefree squire of dames; his mind was busy grappling with problems that threatened not only him but everything in life that he held ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... of the awful winter it had passed through, when dead and dying had lain about the streets. Typhus, relapsing fever, and typhoid had gripped the town. Lady Paget's staff, while grappling with the trouble, had paid a heavy toll, as their hospital lay deep on the unhealthy part of the city. For a time the citadel was in the hands of an English unit. Before they were there it was a Serbian hospital, and the staff threw all the dirty, ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... never pant For all that beauty sighs to grant, With half the fervor hate bestows Upon the last embrace of foes, When grappling in the fight, they fold Those arms that ne'er shall lose their hold; Friends meet to part; love laughs at faith: True foes, once met, are joined ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... the horse, whether through some wild caprice of its own, or some touch of its dying rider, circled back, galloping down the long slope toward the man who had come to help Hall adjust his differences with these contemptible sheepmen. Hall's hat fell off as his head sank forward; he bent, grappling his horse's mane. So for a little way he rode, then slipped from the saddle, one ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... three miles, and reached the edge of the ice, which extended far out from the promontory. Here we landed, and secured the boat by means of a small grappling-iron, which we thrust into the ice. We then walked toward the promontory for about a mile, and here we found a multitude of seals. These animals were so fearless that they made not the slightest movement as we came up, but stared at ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... the Catamaran was within reach of his boat-hook, and, leaning forwards with the long shaft extended, he struck its grappling-iron into her ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... that the incapacity of teachers is the weak point in the London schools. But what is to be expected when a man accepts a lectureship in a medical school simply as a grappling-iron by which he may hold on until he ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... Palmerston made a mistake in not grappling with it from the first, and using all the power the Crown had entrusted to him, even ostentatiously, for the purpose. Now it might be most difficult—but it ought not to pass without a solemn protest on the part of the men who were not connected with the Government, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... both sides with parapets, and had space for two men in front. When the enemy's vessel was sailing up to strike the Roman one, or was lying alongside of it after the thrust had been evaded, the bridge on deck was suddenly lowered and fastened to its opponent by means of a grappling- iron: this not only prevented the running down, but enabled the Roman marines to pass along the bridge to the enemy's deck and to carry it by assault as in a conflict on land. No distinct body of marines was formed, but land troops were employed, when required, for ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... be the hitherto unknown law of development which is supposed to regulate and determine the progress of humanity from primeval Fetishism to ultimate Atheism; and it takes away Theology, with all its ennobling beliefs and blessed hopes, not by grappling with and solving, but by merely discarding the problem both of the origin and ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... ran alongside, and grappling-irons were tossed aboard the ill-fated merchantman. The Pirate Captain, standing in the stern of his vessel, surveyed ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... come back again, not knowing how far it might oblige me to go out to sea, and, above all, doubting how I should get back again; so I came to an anchor; for I had made me a kind of an anchor with a piece of a broken grappling which I got out of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... not some carnal creatures Mixed with the pure and clean, When we meet those gospel-haters, We might pass and not be seen; But the smell of kindred senses Brings them on us fair broadside, Then the grappling work commences— They must have a ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... the tug this moment had been foreseen and prepared for. Two small anchors had been got ready to serve as grappling-irons, and each man had been told off for special duty. The regular crew of four men had been materially strengthened by the addition of the two passengers; but, as the engineer must be left on board under all circumstances, the available fighting force was reduced to five. ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... through the town and through the ranks of the warriors who were waiting for him. Instantly the whole place was in motion. Samba tried to check his steed, but he might as well have sought to stop the wind, and it seemed no more than a few minutes before they were grappling hand to hand ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... was among the citizens an aggressive public spirit, which made it the rival in commercial life of the older cities, Savannah and Augusta; before the War it was a more important city than Atlanta. It was one of the first towns to push the building of railroads; it became "the keystone of the roads grappling with the ocean at the east and with the waters beyond the mountains at the west." The richer planters and merchants lived on the hills above the city — in their costly mansions with luxuriant flower gardens — while the professional men and the middle classes lived in the lower part ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... a play affair. He had long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle. Such would be no more, he had said. Men were better, or more timid. Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... a man drawing his breath low and short, after he hath spent many hours and days in prayer to the Lord, grappling with his corruptions, and striving to pull down his base lusts, after he hath waited upon the Lord in a constant course of obedience. Take but such a man, and ask him, now his conscience is opened, whether the ways of holiness and sincerity be not irksome ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... [Greek: analphabetos], unacquainted with the first rudiments of the given language, he had made his parting bows to his coach brethren (secretly returning thanks to them for their stupidity), in a condition for grappling with any common book in that dialect. One of the polyglot Old or New Testaments published by Bagster, would be a perfect Encyclopaedia, or Panorganon, for such a scheme of coach discipline, upon dull roads and in dull company. As respects the ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... one word that does not point out, or clinch home the action. Here action speaks louder than words. Furthermore, in the speed of bodily movement there is actually no time for words. If two men are grappling in a life and death struggle they can't stop ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... had other unique family characteristics, as peculiar to themselves as their choice of time for grappling with their correspondence, which Aunt Aggie was never tired of quoting. "Bellairs are always late for breakfast. It is no kind of use finding fault with Bessie about it. I was just the ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... every nerve to send him succour from the Ligurian sea; in vain that the lords of Padua kept opening communications with him from the mainland. From the 1st of January 1380 till the 21st of June the Venetians pressed the blockade ever closer, grappling their foemen in a grip that if relaxed one moment would have hurled him at their throats. The long and breathless struggle ended in the capitulation at Chioggia of what remained of Doria's forty-eight ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the gun team of some Austrian howitzer, struggling madly at a bridge, gave us a bit of a tussle. Everything flitted past me like smoke, or like the mad finale of a dream just before waking. I knew the living movement under me, and the companionship of men, but all dimly, for at heart I was alone, grappling with the realization of a new world. I felt the shadows of the Palantuken glen fading, and the great burst of light as we emerged on the wider valley. Somewhere before us was a pall of smoke seamed with red flames, and beyond the darkness of still higher hills. ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... little. You have studied long and deeply—you have worked hard at problems which puzzle the strongest man's brain, and you have succeeded in many things because you have kept what most men manage to lose when grappling with Science,—Faith. You have always studied with an uplifted heart—uplifted towards the things unseen and eternal. But it has been a lonely heart, too,—as ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... smiling posterior to full view, stretching himself face downward on the earth, and burying his head, with the grappling pole, in the well. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... fallen was weak and poor. The man who demands his life is rich and powerful. You are the judge between them. The man who fell stood alone grappling Death and Hell, fought and lost his battle once. I appeal, your honour, to the higher law of the soul within you, within me, within this prisoner, within the breast even of his enemy—through struggle alone we triumph at last! I ask for a heartbroken man another ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... all of you, who have not forgotten how to obey orders, to follow." The water party was immediately sent out, and its return was watched for. He and Ralston, without the help of a third, made the mistake of personally grappling with the floor sentry, a brave, strong, red-headed fellow, and they tackled him a moment too soon. He stoutly resisted. They wrested his musket from him. He yelled. They tried to stop his mouth. Instantly the door began to swing ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... to his full height, and dashed it down on the head of the sleeping man. Just at that moment Corney's nodding head chanced to fall forward, and the brick only hit the comb of his helmet, knocking it over his eyes. Next moment he was grappling with Gorman. ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... to realize, when they were called upon, that Rebecca's absence would make everything come wrong, and the blow descended with crushing force when the Jebusites and Amorites, the Girgashites, Hivites, and Perizzites had to be pronounced by the persons of all others least capable of grappling with them. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... quick shouts and the rebound of bodies falling and rolling upon the hard, smooth beach. The thing had not been a farce, after all. This was fighting at last, and there within arm's length were men grappling and gripping and hitting one another, each honestly striving to kill his fellow—Chinamen all, fighting in barbarous Oriental fashion with nails and teeth when the knife or hatchet failed. What did he, clubman and college man, in that hideous trouble that wrought itself ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... into the fire, the girl was unaware that she was grappling with a big moral problem: that her personal perplexity was a part of the old problem of evil: that what daunted her was the old paradox that has confronted mankind since before the time of Job. She understood dimly that the ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... the castle, and was, therefore, familiar with its interior arrangement. He found means to gain over, by cash and promises, a sergeant and two privates, who agreed that, when on duty as sentinels on the walls over the precipice to the north, they would draw up rope-ladders, and fasten them by grappling-irons at their top to the battlements of the castle. This done, it would be easy for an armed party to scale the walls and make themselves masters of the stronghold. Arthur's plan did not end with the mere capture of the fortress. He ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... action. And in this healthy reaction the philosophers fared no better than the poets, with whom, indeed, they had much in common. Shutting their eyes to the visible world around them, they had busied themselves with burrowing in the mysterious depths of Absolute Being, grappling with the ego and the non-ego, constructing the great world, visible and invisible, out of their own puny internal self-consciousness, endeavouring to appropriate all departments of human thought, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... morning they set to work diligently. As much snow had fallen since the previous evening, they were very much hampered in their efforts; and, although a large number of men, with snow shovels, axes and grappling irons sought carefully in many places for the remains, several days passed, and they were still unsuccessful in ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... gallantly, even when on the ground seizing the pikes with their naked hands, and, with the wonderful agility that still characterizes the Oriental swordsmen, springing to their feet and regaining their arms when seemingly overcome, wresting away their enemies' shields, and grappling with ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... three Batavian and two Tungrian [121] cohorts to fall in and come to close quarters; a method of fighting familiar to these veteran soldiers, but embarrassing to the enemy from the nature of their armor; for the enormous British swords, blunt at the point, are unfit for close grappling, and engaging in a confined space. When the Batavians; therefore, began to redouble their blows, to strike with the bosses of their shields, and mangle the faces of the enemy; and, bearing down all those who resisted them on the plain, were advancing their lines up the ascent; ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... addition, that there were great numbers of people on shore, who they were apprehensive would come off to them. The only excuse the officer could allege was, that the tide had hurried him away, and he forgot in his fright that he had a grappling in the boat, with which he might have anchored till the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... wheelbarrows. do. " pitchforks. do. " posts. do. " beams. do. " bolts. do. " bars. do. " hinges. do. " pokers. do. " saucepans. do. " mallets. do. " hammers. do. " saws. do. " chisels. do. " ropes. do. " chains. do. " grappling irons. together with a miscellaneous collection of articles snatched up at a moment's warning by an excited multitude, men, women, and children, headed by Frank, who wielded triumphantly an old fowling-piece, loaded with ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... damage done by the combination of politics with big business. In this matter I was not behind the rest of my friends; indeed, I was ahead of them, for no serious leader in political life then appreciated the prime need of grappling with these questions. One partial reason—not an excuse or a justification, but a partial reason—for my slowness in grasping the importance of action in these matters was the corrupt and unattractive nature of so many of the men who championed popular reforms, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... in a rapture. "In every way—and always—as long as you live? Do you mean it?" He had caught her hand to his breast and was grappling it tight there and drawing ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... wondering, each in our own fashion, how in the name of natural law the place could have caught fire or smoked at all. And each was silent—myself from sheer incapacity and befuddlement, the Colonel from the quiet pluck that faces all things yet speaks little, and John Silence from the intense mental grappling with this latest manifestation of a profound problem that called for concentration of thought rather than ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... best friend, but I cannot withhold the admission that he has some grave faults, and one or two incurable disabilities. Grappling, forthwith, with the most obstinate of these last—I name it boldly. John is not—he never can be—and would not be if he could—a woman. Taking into consideration the incontrovertible truth that nobody but a woman ever understood ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... open windows, from whose parapets I saw the village and the valley spread beneath. The fierce wind hurried through it, charged with snow, and its narrow space was thronged with men. Men on the platform, men on the window-sills, men grappling the bells with iron arms, men brushing by to reach the stairs, crossing, recrossing, shouldering their mates, drinking red wine from gigantic beakers, exploding crackers, firing squibs, shouting and yelling in corybantic chorus. They yelled ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... which could be lowered in front or on either side. It was furnished on both sides with parapets, and had space for two men in front. On coming to close quarters with the enemy, this stage was quickly lowered and fastened to the opposing ship by means of grappling irons; thus the Roman marines were enabled to board with ease their opponents' ship, and fight ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... streets, but all seemed quiet without. The doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure of the pursuers. Gawtrey flung the rope across the street to the opposite parapet; after two or three efforts, the grappling-hook caught firm hold—the ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... situation with a series of pen-and-ink drawings, in which Katy was depicted as prone in her berth, refusing with horror to go to dinner, looking longingly backward toward the quarter where the United States was supposed to be, and fishing out of her port-hole with a crooked pin in hopes of grappling the submarine cable and sending a message to her family to come out at once and take her home. It ended with this short "poem," over which Katy laughed till Mrs. Ashe called feebly across the entry to ask ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... even after the messages were sent, that Boylan spoke very little of himself. He was grappling with a certain final disposal. His talk was colored with desire. In fact, within an hour he had reached the critical part of his narrative, and was becoming more glib momentarily as ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... finished, he stood motionless. So did the rest of us, waiting for the plunge. The boat dipped by the bow, darted forward, and in a trice we were in the midst of a deafening turmoil of boiling waters and crashing breakers. The breakers laid violent hands upon us, grappling at the frail gunwale and coming in part aboard, and then, as we slipped from their grasp, impotently flung their spray in our faces, and with a growl dropped astern. The boat trembled like a leaf, and was trembling yet, when, with nightmare speed, the thing had slipped into ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... steamship Adria from Key West, a week ago, has attracted a good deal of comment; it is said that she had on board many miles of submarine cable, together with the necessary appliances for grappling, splicing, and laying, and telegraphic instruments for use on shore. It is believed that the purpose is to cut the cable off shore, splice a piece to it, and carry it to some unfrequented spot and there establish a cable station; this would enable our authorities to communicate quickly with ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 23, June 9, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the facts with the child and by giving him the benefit of a broader experience, than by leaving him to face the situation alone in the light of but part of the facts. The problems with which the child at this time is grappling are so similar in character to those of the race during the early periods of its development that they afford the child a rich background of experience suited to his own needs. The successful solution of these problems is ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... and we have only to continue the process. Where the vehicle for the transmission of things past is poetry, then we have them presented in that succession, and with that modification of force, a resilient plasticity, now advancing, now recoiling, insinuating and grappling, that ere this material and mental warfare is over, we find the facts thus transmitted are incorporated with our psychical existence. And in tradition is it otherwise?—Every man tells the tale in his own way; and the merits of the story itself, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... "Listen, Ardan!" cried Barbican, grappling with the Frenchman, and with some difficulty restraining him from flying at M'Nicholl's throat; "You ought to tell him! It is only your duty! One day you found us both in St. Helena woods, where we had no more idea of going to the Moon than ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... she stripped the cover off the first of the books the half-back had picked out for her, and really went to work. She bit down, angrily, the yawns that blinded her eyes with tears; she made desperate efforts to flog her mind into grappling with the endless succession of meaningless pages spread out before her, to find a germ of meaning somewhere in it that would bring the dead verbiage to life. She tried to recall the thrill in Rodney's voice when ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Presently a lantern flashed out, and spots of light shifted over them as they slaved—pounding tent-pegs, and scraping stones away from places where our blankets were to be spread, hacking and hewing among the wet willows, and grappling with stovepipes and tent-poles; and the harder they worked the better their spirits ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... puma's delight had broken out in wildest motion. He sprang to the roof of his cage, and grappling there, looked down with retorted neck, and saw the dog. Poor Abdiel immediately raised his head, and in hope of propitiation all but forlorn, began a little dance his ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... Now they came to a stop, and then began moving in tight, guided circles; one by one, the worker robots still able to heed them were brought to ground and turned off. That left the swarm at the door. The worker-robots under direct control of the power-plant supervisors went after them, grappling them and hauling them down to where Anse and Jerry Rivas and Captain Nichols could turn them ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... onset of battle, A grim grappling, if Grendel thou darest 30 For the space of a night near-by ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... down in a gymnasium develops the body. The mind remains inactive, in a sort of indolent revery, wandering here and there, without focusing anywhere. Such reading takes the spring and snap out of the mental faculties, weakens the intellect, and makes the brain torpid and incapable of grappling with great principles and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Carthaginians were inferior to his own in stoutness and size, but excelled in the quickness of their rowing and variety of movement. Therefore he fitted out his triremes with mechanical devices,—anchors and grappling irons with long spikes and other such things,—in order that by laying hold of the hostile ships with these they might pin them fast to their own vessels; then by crossing over into them they might have a hand to hand conflict with the Carthaginians and engage them just as in an infantry battle. ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... the original French and a translation—he had read Voltaire's tales, a great deal of the Encyclopaedia, a certain amount of Diderot, for whom he cherished a passionate admiration, and a much smaller smattering of Rousseau. At the present moment he was grappling with the 'Dictionnaire Philosophique,' and the 'Systeme de la Nature,' fortified in both cases by ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of privileged Catalonians, groaned under all the oppressiveness of militarism, with none of its power. Plagued by Carlism and anarchy at home, she was grappling, at tremendous outlay, with two rebellions abroad. Yet all her many parties cried for war. Popular subscriptions were taken to aid the impoverished treasury; reserves were called out; in Cuba, Blanco summoned all able-bodied men. The navy was ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... it, against the bulkhead, and a foot higher than the bulkhead. There is a large notch cut in the top of each of these stanchions big enough for a small hawser or rope to lie in; one end of which is fastened to a post ashore, and the other to a grappling or anchor lying a pretty way off at sea: this rope serves to haul the boat in and out, and the stanchions serve to keep her fast, so that she cannot swing to either side when the rope is hauled tight: for ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... Turgot. Grimm calls them "the pietists of philosophy," and Hume, bantering Morellet, wonders how a man like Turgot could herd with such cattle, "the most chimerical and the most arrogant that now exist since the annihilation of the Sorbonne." But they were grappling with living problems, and seeing into the real situation so much further than their contemporaries, that an historian like de Tocqueville thinks the best key to the Revolution is to be found in their writings. ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... stand no more. Pushing my guards aside with my shoulders, I endeavoured to get to the poor wretch, and had nearly reached him when the soldiers who stood by sprang upon me, grappling me, and lifting me bodily off my feet. They threw me on the ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Goat, like the crack of a whip, and they froze in the moment of their grappling. Sheepishly, they parted and stood side by ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... opening for his ridicule. I shall tell him simply that you are going to be married, and that you wish it kept secret. Unluckily, you need neither mother nor sister for your bridal evening. We are in October now; like a brave woman, you are grappling with winter first. If it were not a question of marriage, I should say you were taking the bull by the horns. In any case, you will have in me the most discreet and intelligent of friends. That mysterious region, known as the centre of Africa, has swallowed up many travelers, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... but the grip on his ear lobe was emphatic, and in his one short struggle for freedom he felt as if he were grappling with the great poppet-legs at the Silver Stream. Summers paused ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... coloured handkerchief, which the unfortunate man had worn round his neck, did not present the usual appearance, but was much loosened, and the knot displaced and dragged extremely tight: the folds were also compressed, as if it had been used as a means of grappling the deceased, and dragging him perhaps ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... ship came in contact with the side of the Confederate. The grappling irons were cast, and in an incredibly short space of time the two vessels were firmly attached to each other. The supreme moment had come, as all thought, but for some reason not apparent, the command to board was withheld. Captain Breaker who stood on the quarter deck with Christy, appeared to ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... him on the journey to New York. He had had one of those sudden flashes of illumination vouchsafed to all men who are dominated by a strong and beloved woman, which show them a world of harder men, more fiercely trained and grappling with the abstractions of thought and war. In that world the arms of Gloria would exist only as the hot embrace of a chance mistress, coolly sought and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... overcome him. He feared not for himself, nor did he dread the dragon's war-craft. For with his valor and his skill Beowulf had succeeded many a time. He had been victorious in many a tumult of battle since that day when a young man and a warrior prosperous in victory, he had cleansed Hart Hall by grappling with Grendel and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... Valentia, was selected as the new Irish terminus by the company. Although the most anxious care was exercised in every detail, yet, when 1,186 miles had been laid, the cable parted in 11,000 feet of water, and although thrice it was grappled and brought toward the surface, thrice it slipped off the grappling hooks and escaped to the ocean floor. Mr. Field was obliged to return to England and face as best he might the men whose capital lay at the bottom of the sea—perchance as worthless as so much Atlantic ooze. With heroic persistence he argued that ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... that no nasty man was present, and that it was papa, not Louey, whom he was grappling, he still nestled as close as possible, while he was only pacified in recurring frights by listening to a story. Never good at story-telling, the only one that, for the nonce, his father could put together was that of Joseph, and this ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not venture out, while Howard swept the Channel, and sought them in their ports. Brest was blockaded. A squadron of Mediterranean galleys coming to its relief anchored in the shallow water off Conquet. Howard determined to cut them out; he grappled and boarded their admiral's galley. The grappling was cut away, his boat swept out in the tide, and Howard, left unsupported, was thrust overboard by the Frenchmen's pikes.[129] His death was regarded as a national disaster, but he had retrieved England's reputation ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... other way! Again and again, insidiously grappling with his revulsion, with the horror that the impulse to murder inspired, came that other thought—there was no other way. If the man who posed as Henry LaSalle were DEAD! If he were dead! If he were dead! See, now, what would happen if that man were dead! How clear his brain was on ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... down on the deck, that nothing might be seen which could intimate any purpose of resistance. In a quarter of an hour De Longueville's vessel ran on board that of the Champion, and the Red Rover, casting out grappling irons to make sure of his prize, jumped on the deck in complete armour, followed by his men, who gave a terrible shout, as if victory had been already secured. But the armed Scots started up at once, and the rover found himself unexpectedly engaged with men accustomed to consider victory as secure ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... controversy thus excited we are indebted for the illumination of one or two poems relinquished by the critics as hopelessly, if not intentionally, obscure. Ulalume, for example, held by some to be a mere experiment on the jingling capacity of words and the taste of readers for grappling with insoluble puzzles, is pronounced by one familiar with his most intimate feelings at the time of its composition a sublimated but distinct reflex of them and of the circumstances which gave ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... but with a rapidity equal to that of his assailant, he bent aside his head, and the ball passed harmlessly on. The yell that followed was terrific; and while it was yet swelling into fulness, Captain de Haldimar felt an iron hand furiously grappling his throat, and, ere the grasp was relinquished, he again stood the bound and passive victim of the warrior of ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... cramp, cramp iron; ratchet, detent, larigo[obs3], pawl; terret[obs3], treenail, screw, button, buckle; clasp, hasp, hinge, hank, catch, latch, bolt, latchet[obs3], tag; tooth; hook, hook and eye; lock, holdfast[obs3], padlock, rivet; anchor, grappling iron, trennel[obs3], stake, post. cement, glue, gum, paste, size, wafer, solder, lute, putty, birdlime, mortar, stucco, plaster, grout; viscum[obs3]. shackle, rein &c. (means of restraint) 752; prop &c. (support) 215. V. bridge over, span; connect ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... brink, they will clutch the side of the boat until their finger-nails, blood-tipped, will pierce the wood, and then, with white cheek and agonized stare, and the horrors of the lost soul lifting the very hair from the scalp, they will plunge down where no grappling hooks can ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... officers; for then the grog has been served out for the day, and it is supposed to have been all consumed. The captain, of course, came on the quarter-deck to quarters, making tack and half tack, till he fairly threw out his starboard grappling-iron, and moored himself to one of the belaying pins ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... brighter visions. My eyes rarely left his face; I hung on his talk, which was interspersed with native humour, though he did not always join in the laughter, sometimes gazing at the fire, as though his keen mind were grappling with a problem suggested. I noted the respect in which his opinions were held, and my imagination was fired by an impression of the power to be achieved by successful men of his profession, by the evidence of their indispensability to capital itself.... At last when the gentlemen ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the ninth day, the waters began to give up their dead. Stony Creek first showed their white faces and lifeless bodies floating on the surface, and men in skiffs went after them with their grappling rods. Several of them were taken ashore during the afternoon and carried to the Presbyterian Church morgue, which was the nearest. Then, too, the dead among the wreckage on shore came to light just the same as on other days. Their exhumation excites no notice here now. Dr. Beale, keeper of the ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... the channel that run up from the sea, before it was dark; and we pulled hard to reach the ship, but meeting the flood, and a strong breeze at N.N.W. with showers of rain, we were obliged to desist; and about midnight, we run under the land, and came to a grappling, where we took such rest as our situation would admit. At break of day, we set forward again, and it was past seven o'clock before we reached the ship. We were all extremely tired, but thought ourselves happy to be on board; for before nine it blew so hard ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... dusky monarch was seen flying about above them. Presently he began to hover over them, after the manner of a hawk watching for mice. He then with extended legs let himself slowly down upon them, actually grappling the backs of the young cattle, and frightening the creatures so that they rushed about the field in great consternation; and finally, as he grew bolder and more frequent in his descents, the whole herd broke over the fence, and came tearing ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... (trampling out in many instances the little sparks of life which might have been rekindled), only to add their own bodies to the horrid pile, and to be trampled in their turn by comrades who sought to avenge them; of soldiers on both sides, grappling hand to hand, tearing open each other's wound, drenched with each other's blood, dying locked in a fierce embrace. It turns me sick even now when I remember the terrible things I then heard, the awful wounds I then saw. During the whole period of my service, I never had ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... office, thought deeply for a long while, pacing to and fro, grappling with a life-decision. To and fro, from door to windows, from windows to door, he paced, until the narrow confines of the office thrust at him subconsciously and drove him to ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... had read the signs aright; it was to be a hard winter. There came a wind storm that lasted without cessation for three days; the branches of the cedars about the house tossed like long arms grappling with an unseen foe; here and there a dead limb was wrenched from a tree trunk and hurled far out to be buried in the snow which began to fall in small, hard flakes almost congealed to hail. Then, the three days gone, the wind died down suddenly, the flakes grew larger, softer, the ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... the lever that moves him. In this it plants all its stings; here it sinks its hot irons; cuts its deep gashes; flings its burning embers, and dashes its boiling brine and liquid fire: into this it strikes its cold flesh hooks, grappling irons, and instruments of nameless torture; and by it drags him shrieking to the end of his pilgrimage. The fact that the master inflicts pain upon the slave not merely as an end to gratify passion, but constantly as a means ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... six strong spikes, a multiple ploughshare, eminently adapted for burrowing in the soil. A double row of hooks surmounts the dorsal ring of the four front segments of the abdomen. These are so many grappling-irons, with whose assistance the creature is enabled to progress in the narrow gallery dug by the snout. Lastly, a sheaf of sharp points forms the armour of the hinder-part. If we examine attentively the surface of the vertical wall which contains the various nests, it ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... death-watch set going, and be cast adrift within hail of the enemy's line. Then as soon as it came across their mooring cables, its duty was to slide for a little way along them in a friendly manner, lay hold of them kindly with its long tail, which consisted of a series of grappling-hooks buoyed with cork, and then bringing up smartly alongside of the gun-boats, blow itself up, and carry them up with it. How many there were of these catamarans is not quite certain, but perhaps about a score, the intention being ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... so frail and perishable, while the species is eternal in the existing economy of nature. Imperceptible forests of timber scarcely tinge their inert masses of gneiss and granite, into which they anchor their roots; grappling with substances which, when struck with steel, tear up the tempered grain, and dash out the spark." This may be an enthusiastic, but is doubtless the faithful, impression of our tourist; and in descriptions of sublime ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... how, when he was twenty-one, these lines of the artist had seemed to him a fitting explanation of the mound of earth heaped over the dead at Marathon. He had long ago learned to laugh at the fervour of youth's first grappling with ideas, and had come to see that the part of a sensible man was to select judiciously here and there, from all the schools, enough reasonable tenets to enable him to preserve a straight course of personal conduct. ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... of all things in the world, least likely to make him support slavery or apologize for it. The man who did most to work into his mind ideas of moral and political science was Dr. William Small, a liberal Scotchman; the man who did most to direct his studies in law, and his grappling with social problems, was George Wythe. To both of these Jefferson confessed the deepest debt for their efforts to strengthen his mind and make his footing firm. Now, of all men in this country at that time, these two were least likely to support ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... that final day, should ride within the elephant, and move his trunk? The Crane boy contended passionately that he held the right of possession. Had he not been selected first? Others wept at home and argued the case abroad, until it became a common thing to see two young scions of Tiverton grappling in dusty roadways, or stoning each other from afar. The public accommodated itself to such spectacles, and grown-up relatives, when they came upon little sons rolling over and over, or sitting triumphantly, the one upon another's chest, would ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... at all, however, as to the strain and stress of the general struggle to live in the valley, the sheer wear and tear of temper and spirits involved in the daily grappling with that problem. Everywhere one comes across symptoms of it—partial evidences—but the most complete exposition that I have had was given, some years ago now, by a woman who had no intention of complaining. ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt |
