"Grasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time he is two years old he has gained maturity and grasp enough to play many little educational games with his mother and his little brothers and sisters, or playmates. These games should be calculated to develop his various faculties, his powers of observation, memory, and concentration. To develop a faculty is really to train the brain. ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... his strong grasp the asp would have been torn from Lawrence's failing grasp, for he was evidently growing giddy and faint, when, placing his knife as close to the neck as he could get it, Yussuf gave one bold upward cut and divided the reptile, Mr Preston throwing ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... pleasure in announcing to his troops that victory and success are now within their grasp; and the commanding general feels proud and gratified that in every attack and assault the enemy have been repulsed; and the commanding general will further say to his noble and gallant troops, 'Be of good cheer—all is well.' "GENERAL ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... maiden! Lo, I am thy friend! Dearer far than life I hold thee. List, thou beauty-laden, To these prayers attend: Flee not, let my arms enfold thee! Neither wolf nor bear will grasp thee: That I am thy friend I've told thee: Stay thy course then; let me clasp thee!— Since thou'rt deaf and wilt not heed me, Since thou'rt still before me flying, While I follow panting, dying, Lend me wings, Love, wings to ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... conceded, fatally for the state, as Polybius tells us, a short time before to the people, that Hannibal could rely on no assistance on his own government. Though he brought the Romans to the very brink of ruin, and placed final victory within the grasp, as it were, of his country, yet they would not put out their hand to snatch it. They were more jealous of him than afraid of their enemies. Though he descended to the southern extremity of Italy, and drew near to Sicily, in order to obtain from the African shores the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... but raised not his eye to meet the looks of either the magistrate or the priests; the color also left his face, as with shrinking lips he touched the Word of God in deliberate falsehood. Having then laid it down, Anthony received it with a firm grasp, and whilst his eye turned boldly in contemptuous mockery upon those who presented it, he impressed it with the kiss of a man whose depraved conscience seemed to goad him only to evil. After "clearing" himself, he laid the Bible upon the table with ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... desperately to the tree with the other arm. In a moment he knew he would be dragged off and thrown to the ground, yet felt less fear now than he had before. He clutched for the revolver with the left hand, but it found only the fur of the Lynx, and the revolver dropped from his grasp. Now he was indeed without hope, and dark fear fell on him. But the beast was severely wounded. Its hind quarters were growing heavy. It loosed its hold of Yan and struggled to get on the limb. A kick from his right foot upset its balance; ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... rather than the idea which fascinates. Professor Walker, speaking of the most exquisitely harmonious lyric ever written in English, or perhaps in any other language,[31] says with great truth: "The reader of Lycidas rises from it ready to grasp the 'two-handed engine' and smite; though he may be doubtful what the engine is, and ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... blind. Then attempting to raise the hand which hung down, he perceived it was fixed in all the rigidity of catalepsy. In hopes of recalling his senses or his power of motion, Mr. Percy determined to try to draw the letter from his grasp; the moment the letter was touched, Lord Oldborough started—his eyes darting fiercely ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... exercised in his mind as to my position in various unwelcome parochial offices, but I was completely mystified when he told me that he had read in history of a King Alfred, but had never heard of a King Arthur. I did not grasp the force of his remark, possibly because King Arthur was a familiar character to me, until I was nearly at my own door, when it dawned upon me to my intense enjoyment. If the reader fails, like me, to see the point, let him turn to the title-page ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... that you might have slept between its encounters. You did sleep. These men were strong men, and knew what they wanted. It is tremendous to watch the struggle of such resolves. They had their purpose in their grasp, their teeth were set, their will was iron. ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... arrangement of the two joints, particularly to the fact that the head of the femur is included in a bony cup, into the hollow of which it is accurately fixed by the resilient cotyloid fibro-cartilage. The latter by its firm grasp of the head allows of little play in the joint; hence vibrations are conveyed directly to the acetabulum in continuous waves, and rocking of the articular surfaces is prevented. Beyond this no doubt the difficulty of detecting ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... quagmire of reptiles, dinosaurs, and dense vegetation reaching as high as the gleaming towers of Venusport and Atom City. Huge trees that spread their branches over an area of a thousand feet soared skyward, limbs and trunks wrapped in jungle creepers. Now and then Alfie would grasp Tom or Astro by the arm and point a wavering finger at a moving animal below, then gasp and fall back white-faced into his seat. While Tom was inclined to share Alfie's reactions, Astro took it in stride, having been exposed to the dangers of wild ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... rid of all undesirable stock; power and responsibility of a sort were given him freely, for Daly was no Puritan, and felt himself amply capable of managing any number of Simpsons; so here were numberless advantages within the man's grasp, and ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... instantly killed him. McClure in his turn shot the Indian. There was now one Indian and two white men. But the Indian had the loaded rifle. McClure's was discharged and Davis' missed fire. The Indian, springing from the grasp of his dying antagonist, presented his rifle at Davis, who immediately fled, hotly pursued by the Indian. McClure, stopping only to reload his gun, followed after them. Soon he lost sight of both. Davis was never heard of afterwards. Doubtless ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... in the Throat.—If the foreign body is in the upper part of the throat and can be seen it may be removed with any instrument that can grasp it. The child may be immediately held up by its feet when the article may be shaken out. If it is further back or in the air passages the child should be made to vomit by tickling the throat with a feather or with the finger held in the throat ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... enfeebled the minds of her countrywomen! For here was the severe, strong-minded Mrs. Markham actually preoccupied, like Mrs. Brimmer, with utterly irrelevant particulars, and apparently powerless to grasp the fact that they were abandoned on a half hostile strand, and cut off by half a century from the rest of ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... to Mr. Gresham. He had given up everything in the world with the view of getting into office; and now that the opportunity had come,—an opportunity which if allowed to slip could hardly return again in time to be of service to him,—the prize was to elude his grasp! ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... consequences of legislative tyranny, rather than tyranny itself; and I am not sure that political jurisdiction, as it is constituted in the United States, is not the most formidable which has ever been placed in the rude grasp of a popular majority. When the American republics begin to degenerate, it will be easy to verify the truth of this observation, by remarking whether the number of ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... for Conquest at the Bar Contend as Fierce and Loud as Chiefs in War; Would you Amaze and Charm the list'ning Court? First to this Spring of Eloquence resort: Then boldly launch on Tully's flowing Seas, And grasp ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... that was the road which caught me. No wonder, for it was a broad road, in the sense that his whole being was a romance. He saw things beneath a radiant light, and he saw many which to others would have been invisible. Nor, was his grasp of them less accurate, because he strained his eye most earnestly for what was most beautiful. The romantic element in his outlook gave colour, vividness, meaning to the unconsidered trifles—in fine, you had ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... break occurred in our Michigan tour. A rapid journey brought us to Lake City in time to spend one day at the Minnesota State Association—just to grasp the hands of our Minnesota friends and be assured of their continued helpfulness. The Woman's Home Missionary Society voted that at the next annual meeting the constitution should be reconsidered, with a view to enlarging its borders and including ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 01, January, 1884 • Various
... authority, and rest satisfied with explanations, and realize, and be content and full? To no such terminus does the greatest poet bring—he brings neither cessation nor shelter'd fatness and ease. The touch of him, like Nature, tells in action. Whom he takes he takes with firm sure grasp into live regions previously unattain'd—thenceforward is no rest—they see the space and ineffable sheen that turn the old spots and lights into dead vacuums. Now there shall be a man cohered out of tumult and chaos ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... fell silent—and the silence stayed. The vague thrill of a tragedy they could hardly grasp laid a spell upon the children. It made Roy feel as he did in Church, when the deepest notes of the organ quivered through him; and it brought a lump in his throat, which must be manfully swallowed down on account of being ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... lack of dogmatism vastly relieves her. I have been trying to explain to her that the scientific mind can have nothing to do with materialism. The new order of ideas is of course very difficult for her to grasp; but in time, ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... filled with a knowledge of these humdrum commonplaces, should I know aught of that enthusiasm which thrills the being who, after many and long years of weary hoping and waiting, sees the object of his desires just within his grasp? Should Moses just in sight of the promised land be expected to give the dimensions of that delectable spot, and to locate it and bound it and map it off with the accuracy of a Rand & McNally ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... had heard these reasonings, Simonides replied: O Hiero, there is a potent force, it would appear, the name of which is honour, so attractive that human beings strain to grasp it, (1) and in the effort they will undergo all pains, endure all perils. It would further seem that even you, you tyrants, in spite of all that sea of trouble which a tyranny involves, rush headlong in pursuit ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... foot wide, while a niche in the cliff just above it gave it a rude resemblance to one of the hollow-backed chairs used by our ancestors. I made no doubt that here was the 'devil's seat' alluded to in the MS., and now I seemed to grasp the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... that he had not finished. "I am an old man and I speak from understanding. It be good to be strong and grasp for power. It be better to forego power that good come out of it. In the old days I sat at thy shoulder, Tantlatch, and my voice was heard over all in the council, and my advice taken in affairs of moment. And I was strong and held power. Under Tantlatch I was the greatest man. Then ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... hostages, and he at once said that it was an excellent idea. The English and French were very cruel—if now they chose to bombard. ... "If a man throws a penny into the sea," he said, "he loses the penny. It isn't the pocket-book that's hurt." I did not quite grasp this proverb, but remarked that after all they were civilians and had done nothing. "That is true," he said, "but the English and French have been very unjust to our civilians. They force us ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... party descended. Now and then one of the lads slipped, but there was always a rock or a sapling at hand which they could grasp to steady themselves and no ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... Freedom is the gift of God; Liberty, the creature of society. Liberty may be taken away from a man; but, on whatsoever soul Freedom may alight, the course of that soul is thenceforth onward and upward; society, customs, laws, armies, are but as wythes in its giant grasp, if they oppose, instruments to work its will, if they assent. Human kind welcome the birth of a free soul with reverence and shoutings, rejoicing in the advent of a fresh off-shoot of the Divine Whole, of which this ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... true, primordial, and only adequate greeting for him is to declare that he is. In that existence we really have no part here, for every mortal being, situated between birth and destruction, merely manifests an appearance, a feeble and uncertain image of itself. If we try to grasp it with our understanding, it is as when water is tightly compressed and runs over merely through the pressure, spoiling what it touches. For the understanding, pursuing a too definite conception of each being that is subject to accidents and change, loses its way, now ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... the same revelation. To neither could it be imparted in Europe, but only in the virgin solitudes of an untrodden continent. There man, already civilized, was enabled to perceive the inefficiency and distortion of his civilization, and to grasp the cure. Hudson, an Englishman, but at the moment in Dutch service, opened the gates to the Netherlanders, and thus enabled their emigrants to perfect the work of emancipation which had been brought to the highest stage it could reach at home. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... had not seen her since she left the table. I feared that she was feeling ill, and, of course, lover-like, I evolved all sorts of dread possibilities from this. I had in mind, besides, another and more vague cause of anxiety, which was as yet too intangible to grasp. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... animal in pain, and fought with hands, feet, teeth even, against the infliction of the stinging blows; but he fought in vain. His cousin's superior strength mastered him from the beginning; he felt like an infant in Richard's powerful grasp. Not until the storm of furious imprecations in which the lad at first vented his impotent rage had died away into stifled moans and sobs of pain, did Richard's vengeance come to an end. He flung the boy from him, ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... influence and splendour. It yielded precedence only to St Albans, and the abbot was said never to travel abroad with a retinue of less than 100 retainers. Such wealth was not likely to elude the comprehensive grasp of Henry VIII. Glastonbury was involved in the general ruin of the monasteries. The fate of its last abbot, Richard Whiting, is one of the tragic stories of the time. Though a "weak man and ailing," he refused to surrender the property of his abbey. But Thomas ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... arrangements, Louis lost no time in mustering his forces, which, descending like a torrent on the fair plains of Lombardy, effected the conquest of the entire duchy in little more than a fortnight; and, although the prize was snatched for a moment from his grasp, yet French valor and Swiss perfidy soon restored it. The miserable Sforza, the dupe of arts which he had so long practised, was transported into France, where he lingered out the remainder of his days in doleful captivity. He had first called ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... since Bacchus and Apollo grasp me by the hand, That all the maidens you have heard Should hang ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... Granary grenejo. Grand belega. Grandfather avo. Grandson nepo. Granite granito. Grant permesi. Grape vinbero. Grapeshot kugletajxo. Graphite grafito. Grapnel ankreto. Grapple ekkapti. Grasp premi. Grass herbo. Grass-plot herbejo. Grasshopper akrido. Grate fajrujo. Grate raspi, froti. Grateful dankema. Grater raspilo. Gratification kontentigo. Grating krado. Grating noise akra sono. Gratis senpage. Gratitude dankeco. Gratuitous senpaga. Gratuitously ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... a great tracker. I compare tracking to reading a letter written in a good business hand. You must'nt look at what's under your eye; you must see a lot at once, and keep a general grasp of what's on ahead, besides spotting each track you pass. Otherwise, you'll be always turning back for a fresh race at it. And you must no more confine yourself to actual tracks than you would expect to find each letter correctly formed. You must ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... court was full of women—I told you the case had attracted a lot of attention—but thank God they were rendered miserable by their presence there in the end. When she heard her sentence—eighteen months in the second division—she couldn't grasp it at first—and then just as I was beginning to feel I must do something or I should go mad, she fainted clean away and was ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... transportation. He was sent to Port Arthur, there employed as one of the boat's crew, and crossing the bay one day with a commissariat-officer, the boat was capsized by a sudden squall. In attempting to save the life of the officer, he was seized by his dying grasp, and almost perished with him; but extricating himself, he swam back to the boat. Seeing the drowning man exhausted, and sinking, he dashed forward again, diving after him, and happily succeeded in saving his life. For this honorable ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... our more considerable poets. Chaucer has a perfect hold of the homeliest phases of life, but he wants the lyric element, and the charm of his language has largely faded from untutored ears. Shakespeare, indeed, has at once a loftier vision and a wider grasp; for he sings of "Thebes and Pelops line," of Agincourt and Philippi, as of Falstaff, and Snug the joiner, and the "meanest flower that blows." But not even Shakespeare has put more thought into poetry ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... our father's a capitalist, a millionaire. You will have to struggle with us," said Laptev, rubbing his forehead with his hand. "Struggle with me is an idea I cannot grasp. I am rich, but what has money given me so far? What has this power given me? In what way am I happier than you? My childhood was slavery, and money did not save me from the birch. When Nina was ill and died, my money did ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... experience of capitals, the sage is saddened with the knowledge that comeliness, at best, is but an exquisite hypocrisy. I have striven also, vainly, for contentment in the luxuries of voluptuous living. The talisman of Epicurus has evaded my grasp—the glittering bauble![5] The ravishing ideal JOY, has been to me not as the statue to Pygmalion: I have grovelled down in adoration at its feet, and have found it the same immobile, relentless, unresponsive image. Youth is yet mine, but it is a youth hoary ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... what is health, if the possessor be a slave, and hold his possessions at the will of another, or others; as he must do if destitute of the right to a share in the making of the laws? What is competence, what is health, if both can, at any moment, be snatched away by the grasp or the dungeon of a master; and his master he is who makes the laws without his participation or assent? And, as to character, as to fair fame, when the white slave puts forward pretensions to those, let him no longer affect to commiserate the state of his sleek and fat brethren ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... political society in the western hemisphere. Though small in their mere dimensions, the events here summarized were in a remarkable degree germinal events, fraught with more tremendous alternatives of future welfare or misery for mankind than it is easy for the imagination to grasp. As we now stand upon the threshold of that mighty future, in the light of which all events of the past are clearly destined to seem dwindled in dimensions and significant only in the ratio of their potency ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... so," she replied in halting apology—"at least, I believe you. But be a little patient with me. It is all so new and strange, what you tell me, it's hard at first to grasp, there's so much I must accept on faith alone, so much I don't ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... the human mind is the (divine) idea of a certain individual creature actually existing.[19] Here, perhaps, modern speculations about the constitution of matter may help us—if we use them with due reserve—to grasp Spinoza's notion of a "res singularis in actu"—or as it might be rendered freely, "a creature of individual functions," for what is called the "vortex theory," though as old as Cartesian philosophy, has recently flashed into sudden prominence. And whether or no the speculation be only a ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton
... from Miss Annabel's grasp, her eyes and cheeks blazing. "Anna Baldwin is crazy about him herself!" she cried violently. "And she's made a fool of herself more times than I can tell! And his father is far better than your father ever was, or mine either!" She stopped as some one looked at her ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... encounter Dean was having with the pigmy, who was still half buried amongst the bushes. Dean had given a haul at one leg which he grasped just above the ankle, but had to drop it directly, for it saluted him with a tremendous series of kicks. He fared no better when he managed to grasp the other, and then as he was driven back, every advance was greeted with a display of kicks, which enraged him at first, till he awoke to the fact that he was helping to create a perfect exhibition. ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... Eden when you reach the top of the Persian Gulf, unless the sun be that Flaming Sword which turns every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life. Of cherubim we could see no signs. We lay motionless awaiting orders by wireless. Of the country before us we knew next to nothing. We did not grasp that the great river at whose mouth we lay was called the Shatt-el-Arab and not the Tigris; and I do not think that a single one of us possessed a copy of the "Arabian Nights." Few of us knew anything about the gun-running troubles in the Persian Gulf of recent ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... notice of her whereabouts, and the troop fled. Moreover, even when she succeeded—as she soon did—in herding someone into a corner, the prospective victim, a man, managed to slip past her out of danger, being favoured by the fact that to grasp him with one of her fettered hands she must turn entirely about. So he was able to wriggle out of peril and her clutching fingers ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... as to the elimination of classical studies from our schools, for he believed that in those stores of antiquity our modern mind found a great deal of its strength, and were this study abolished our mental grasp and vigour would be greatly lessened. What Canada required was the greater development of our universities. In this way would science be most benefited, for we would have a greater number of men able to devote themselves entirely to ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... great shout from the other side of the cabin, and in the gloom she saw something spring up and come towards her. Something which caught her in a mighty grasp and crushed her soft face against a long, stiff beard. Laughing and crying together she put her arms about its neck ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... to the lamp, she eagerly read and reread the paper which shook like an aspen in her nervous grasp; then she looked long and searchingly into the grave face beside her, and a sudden light broke over ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... slid silently into Dodge's room. Carefully putting on rubber gloves and avoiding touching the register, he wrenched the telephone from the grasp of the dead man, replacing it in its normal position. Only for a second did he pause to look at his victim as he destroyed the evidence ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... could bind together the far-flung Dominion. But the building of this railway, and still more its operation, would be a task to daunt all but the most fearless, and to those who undertook it generous terms were a necessity. In their clear understanding and courageous grasp of the facts, and in their persistent support of the company through all the dark days until the railway was completed, Macdonald and Tupper and Pope deserved well of their country. Yet it is equally clear now that in many ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... qualities, as cunning, deceit, letting all his nobler qualities shrivel and die? Has he a right to select a vocation that will develop only the beast within him instead of the man? which will call out the bulldog qualities only, the qualities which overreach and grasp, the qualities which get and never give, which develop long-headedness only, while ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... was delivered just as we reached Thirty-second Street. Like an eel I slipped from his grasp, and whirling about, I said as rapidly as I could speak, "I'm almost home now. I can see the light from here, and I can't take you any farther out of your way," and I ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... to ride to the old plantation to-day?" he was asked. His vitality was almost too low for him to grasp ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... Harrigan held out his hand and was gratified to encounter a man's grasp. "So you're Edward Courtlandt? Now, what do you think of that! Why, your father was the best sportsman I ever met. Square as they make 'em. Not a kink anywhere in his make-up. He used to come to the bouts in his plug hat and dress suit; always had a seat ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... whilst those of Agesilaus assumed a bolder front. On all side embassies from the surrounding nations came to make terms of friendship, and numbers even came over to him, stretching out eager arms to grasp at freedom. So that Agesilaus was now no longer the chosen captain of the Hellenes only, but of ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon
... these purely benevolent Readings, princely largess into the coffers of charities or of institutions in which he happened to be interested, he was to realise, what must otherwise have remained for him wholly unsuspected, that he had, so to speak, but to stretch forth his hand to grasp a fortune. ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... thought even of the financial difficulties which harassed him, and had caused this very mood, with that same sense of aloofness. When Anna wondered where Charlotte had gone to walk, and Mrs. Carroll remarked on the possibility of their overtaking her, his mind made an actual effort to grasp that simple idea. He was running so deep, and with such awful swiftness, in his own groove of personal tragedy, that the daughter whom he loved, and had seen only a few moments ago, seemed almost left out of sight of his memory. However, all the while the usual trivialities of his life and the ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... alarm of those whom the stranger next approached, so that confusion gradually spread itself through the whole train. Here and there was to be found a soldier bold enough to address the figure, and attempt to drive her away; but she always eluded their grasp, and the next moment reappeared among the rest, moving along with slow and solemn step. At length, when the attendants had all fallen back, she found herself close behind Bertalda, and now slackened her pace to the very slowest measure, so that ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... you are Phil; I like to tramp, it seems like old times, and I know you're tired. Just forget all this I've been saying, and go on as before. Thank you, boys! thank you!" and with a grasp of the two hands extended to him, he strode away along the path already worn by ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... picturesque and productive darkness! Rome fell, but the Carlovingian family arose, and with it the great nations of Western Europe, to give us, especially in France, another supreme flowering of interior decoration. Britain was torn from the grasp of Rome by the Saxons, Danes and Normans, and as a result the great Anglo-Saxon race was born to create art periods. Mahomet appeared and scored as an epoch-maker, recording a remarkable life and a spiritual cycle. The Moors conquered Spain, but in so doing enriched ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... These incidents may be trifles; nor should we record them here had not John Herschel himself, though singularly reticent about his personal emotions, recorded them as having made a strong impression on his mind. Beyond all doubt we can trace therein, first, that grasp and grouping of many things in one, implied in the stone as the oldest of things; and, secondly, that fine and subtle discrimination of each thing out of many like things as forming the main features which characterized the habit of our venerated ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... instant all the room seemed to swim round with him. The blood rushed to his brow. He shut his eyes, and a nervous crispation caused the fingers of his hands to close themselves with such force, that the grasp of that which held ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... second he had her in his grasp; held her writhing and twisting; and, through the confused trample and heavy breathing, he noticed a curious crackling noise as though the clothing she ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... life ambitions, had often before waited upon his footsteps when the thing desired seemed ready to his grasp. Yet, seeing his ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... scrutinized Perry's face sharply. Had the reporter gone insane too? The pupils of the eyes had taken on a sort of queer contraction, a fixed quality that was almost ludicrous. He looked like a man under hypnosis. He had gone limp in their grasp, but now suddenly he stiffened. The eyes underwent another startling change, this time glowing undoubtedly with the look of reason. Bland was mystified and waited for Perry to explain his queer conduct. The latter seemed finally to come to. Simultaneously he realized ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... of will, body and intellect—whose desire to unite the two parts of Egypt in your sole possession cannot fail, if you strike and grasp boldly, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... if, after what they had gone through, there could ever be anything to mind. It seemed to him that things would always henceforth be insubstantial, and events utterly unimportant. He tried with an immense effort to grasp this event of Jane's appearance and ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... away for France!" he yelled. There was no danger of his not being able to shout this time! And then, before anyone there could collect his senses, the officers of justice saw their prisoner whisked away from out of their very grasp, and John was in France long before the executioner and the chaplain, the jailers and the crowd, had ceased ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... 4, indriya@ni hayanahu@h vi@sayate@sugocaran. The senses are the horses and whatever they grasp are their objects. Maitr. 2. 6. Karmendriya@nyasya haya@h the conative senses are ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... solidly, Jacqueline leaped forward, shouting, like a man, words of hope and rescue; Pierre caught her barely in time—a precarious grasp on the wrist from which she nearly wrenched herself free and gained the entrance to the fire. But the jerk threw her off balance for the least fraction of an instant, and the next moment she was safe in ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... the papers behind her; his arm slipped around her, after them, strove to grasp them, to hold and restrain her, but there was a strength in her tall, firm young body which matched his own; she resisted, turned, twisted, confronted him with high colour, and lips compressed, and they came to a deadlock, ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... wear—to disenchant it out of the realm of the ideal into that of the actual. It began to look as if I had known every corner of it for twenty years; and when, soon after, the dame came and fetched me to partake of their early supper, the grasp of his great hand, and the harvest-moon of his benevolent face, which was needed to light up the rotundity of the globe beneath it, produced such a reaction in me, that, for a moment, I could hardly believe that there was a Fairy Land; and that all I had passed ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... battle-equipments, Cared little for life; inlaid and most ample, The hand-woven corslet which could cover his body, 60 Must the wave-deeps explore, that war might be powerless To harm the great hero, and the hating one's grasp might Not peril his safety; his head was protected By the light-flashing helmet that should mix with the bottoms, Trying the eddies, treasure-emblazoned, 65 Encircled with jewels, as in seasons long past The weapon-smith worked it, wondrously made it, With swine-bodies fashioned it, that thenceforward ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... screamed, trying to wrest himself from my grasp and measuring the distance across the ledge with his eye. "I will not go away. This is my home. I want to live here in peace. I want my wheel! Monsieur, give me my wheel. I have perfected a system. Listen!" ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... brooding way: "It is peculiar that a man can die by inches in a living body; that a man can have the feeling that he's no longer a part of the present; and that he can no longer play his role, keep up with his own people, grasp what is going on about him, or know whether what is to come is good or evil. It is fearful when a man reaches that ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... would appall me by its dense gloom. All at once, while gazing at a frightful creation of my distempered mind, I seemed struck with sudden blindness. I knew a candle was burning in the room but I could not see it, all was so pitchy dark. I lost the sense of feeling, too, for I endeavored to grasp my arm in one hand, but consciousness was gone. I put my hand to my side, my head, but felt nothing, and still I knew my limbs and frame were there. And then the scene would change! I was falling—falling swiftly as an arrow—far down into some terrible abyss; and so like reality ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... my sword! May my right hand be withered ere it forget to grasp its hilt! One blow for freedom. Freedom—sweet as was the lip—Yes! I'll revenge ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... printing-telegraph operator, saw that there were unexhausted possibilities in the idea, and his foresight and inventiveness made him the father of the "ticker," in connection with which he was thus, like Laws, one of the first to grasp and exploit the underlying principle of the "central station" as a universal source of supply. The genesis of his invention Mr. Callahan has told in an interesting way: "In 1867, on the site of the present Mills Building on Broad Street, opposite the Stock Exchange of today, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone; but let me find the grasp of your hand in ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... grasping him with its forepaws and hugging him tightly against its chest, in spite of the black's desperate struggles and efforts to trip his assailant up. There he looked almost like a child in the grasp of a strong man, and to make matters worse, the black had no weapon left, not even a knife, and he could not reach ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... trait of the Asiatic character is further illustrated during the afternoon in the case of a caravan leader whom I meet on an unridable stretch of road. "Bin! bin!" says this person, as soon as his mental faculties grasp the idea that the bicycle is something to ride on. "Mimlcin, deyil; fenna yole; duz yolo lazim " (impossible; bad road; good road necessary), I reply, airing my limited stock of Turkish. Nothing daunted by this answer, the man blandly requests me to turn about and follow his caravan ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... not in having recorded my honest convictions, nor in the fact that these records fell into the hands of those who eagerly grasp every opportunity to attack their common enemy, the Church. It lies rather in my weak resistance to those influences which in early life combined to force upon me a career to which I was by temperament and instinct utterly disinclined. It lies in my having ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... rather hurriedly on the quay, each of us having his own pressing business to attend to. I would have been very much cut up had I known that this hurried grasp of the hand with "So long, old boy. Good luck to you!" was ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... friends he continued his unswerving career. It was he who was chosen to write the address from Ajaccio to Paoli, although the two men did not meet until somewhat later. With the arrival of the great liberator the grasp of the old officials on the island relaxed, and the bluster of the few who had grown rich in the royal service ceased. The Assembly was finally triumphant; this new department was at last to be organized like those of the adoptive mother. It was high time, for the public order was seriously endangered ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... author carries this attempt into the field of special customs and religious rites, he goes too far. Nevertheless his work is uncommonly stimulating and deserves the careful attention of the reader who would gain a broad grasp of the relation of geography to the history ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... upon thee, for true words are the best words. And although before I had been anxious for thy destruction, whenas I heard thy repenting and thy vows of amending should Allah vouchsafe to save thee, I felt bound to free thee from this thy present plight. So I let down my tail, that thou mightest grasp it and be saved. Yet wouldest thou not quit thy wonted violence and habit of brutality; nor soughtest thou to save thyself by fair means, but thou gavest me a tug which I thought would sever body from soul, so that thou and I are fallen into the same place of distress and death. And now there is ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... The Tahitians have curious variations of European and American airs, of which they adapt many, carrying the thread of them, but differentiating enough to cause the hearer curiously mixed emotions. It was as if one heard a familiar voice, and, advancing to grasp a friendly hand, found oneself ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Nothing strikes me much more than this, when I talk of the better mind of India—there are subtle elements, religious, spiritual, mystical, traditional, historical in what we may call for the moment the Indian mind, which are very hard for the most candid and patient to grasp or to realise in their full force. But our duty, and it is a splendid duty, is to try. I always remember a little passage in the life of a great Anglo-Indian, Sir Henry Lawrence, a very simple passage, and it is this, "No one ever ate at Sir Henry Lawrence's ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... gone to Castle Richmond. Years were stealing over her. Ah, yes. She knew that full well. All her youth and the pride of her days she had given up for that countess-ship which she now wore so gloomily—given up for pieces of gold which had turned to stone and slate and dirt within her grasp. Years, alas! were fast stealing over her. But nevertheless she had something to give. Her woman's beauty was not all faded; and she had a heart which was as yet virgin—which had hitherto loved no other man. Might not that suffice to cover a ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... and the Nipe had tried to arrive at a meeting of minds, and just when it would seem within grasp, it would fade away into mist. It was nearly a month before the Russian psychologists and psychiatrists realized that the reason the Nipe had come to them was because he had thought that they were the ruling body of ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... her hand relaxed its grasp upon the pencil. (If there was anything she enjoyed, it was the sensation of being a pioneer in any movement.) Presently she ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... by and answered it a dozen times while threading the forest, with the belief that it was a friendly signal. It was the screech of a mountain lion, so alarmingly near as to cause every nerve to thrill with terror. To yell in return, seize with convulsive grasp the limbs of the friendly tree, and swing myself into it, was the work of a moment. Scrambling hurriedly from limb to limb, I was soon as near the top as safety would permit. The savage beast was snuffing and growling below apparently on the very spot I had just abandoned. I answered every growl ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... being now three despots among the partisans of Caesar, who sought to grasp his sceptre, Which should prevail? Antonius was the greatest general; Octavius was the greatest man; Lepidus was the tool of both. The real rivalry was between Octavius and Antonius. But they did not at once quarrel. Antonius undertook ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... to live in books, in past mystifications, in useless theories, in foolish and unprofitable discussions, in ancient ideas and customs, and grasp the living present with all the richness, fullness and beauty of its life. The chemistry of nature, the work of her great laboratory, should be the study of youth as of age, instead of dead languages and the vain and foolish mythology ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... child-nation to take its own political status in the world has never yet been done by Great Britain. I cannot remember that such has ever been done by any great power with reference to its dependency; by any power that was powerful enough to keep such dependency within its grasp. But a man thinking on these matters cannot but hope that a time will come when such amicable severance may be effected. Great Britain cannot think that through all coming ages she is to be the mistress of the vast continent of Australia, lying ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... skate in the ice and clasped the flowing mane of the steed with a grasp of iron. With one strong swing of his arm he brought horse and sleigh ...
— Northland Heroes • Florence Holbrook
... with his fashion of taking her chastisement, returned his grasp. 'Yes,' she said, 'you couldn't go on as you were. But all the same, I'm sorry ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... through which they have to pass. The path of self-indulgence seems so obviously the path to happiness; self-denial is so hard and self-control so difficult. "The struggle of the instinct that enjoys and the more noble instinct that aspires" is ever there. The young soul reaches out after good, but its grasp is weak. It needs much enlightenment, much encouragement, much inspiration, much patient tolerance of its faults, much hopeful sympathy with its strivings, if it is ever to attain the good it seeks. In the past it has met, without light or ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... traveled alone several days before. But actually this was the first chance the girls had for talking over Nona's experiences together. True, they shared the same bedroom, so that on her return Nona had given a brief report. But really they had been too tired at night to grasp the situation. ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... In a minute she had reached the fort. A shout of enthusiastic welcome went up. As the gate closed behind her, and she let fall the valuable prize from her unnerved arms, every hand was stretched to grasp hers, and a chorus of praise and congratulation filled ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... a moment with a fixed gaze. I was more astonished than alarmed; for owing to the state of stupor from which I had been aroused, I had not time to be aware of the peril in which we were placed. Fortunately, when I lay down, I had taken my pistol from my belt, and placed it by my side, ready to grasp it at a moment's warning. My first impulse was to seize it; and while the jaguar still stood apparently considering whether he should spring upon me and carry me off to the mountains to serve him ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston |
