"Grope" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beginning of vine-planting is like the beginning of mining for the precious metals: the wine-grower also "prospects." One corner of land after another is tried with one kind of grape after another. This is a failure; that is better; a third best. So, bit by bit, they grope about for their Clos Vougeot and Lafitte. Those lodes and pockets of earth, more precious than the precious ores, that yield inimitable fragrance and soft fire; those virtuous Bonanzas, where the soil has sublimated ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... calls and speaks Till sots and lovers from one string Dangle and dance in the same ring. Tom, of your piping I've heard said And seen—that you can rouse the dead, Dead-drunken men awash who lie In stinking gutters hear your cry, I've seen them twitch, draw breath, grope, sigh, Heave up, sway, stand; grotesquely then You set them dancing, these dead men. They stamp and prance with sobbing breath, Victims of wine or love or death, In ragged time they jump, they shake Their heads, sweating to overtake The impetuous tune ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... learned from his videttes that a force of the enemy were in front, and that several men had been observed going into the woods on the right. A search was made of the bush, but as the shades of night had fallen fast it was impossible to grope through the woods, and fearing an ambuscade Col. Peacocke resolved to halt his column for the night. In the meantime he had sent two companies of the 16th Regiment to scour the woods, but owing to the darkness ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... windows went the obscene crew, with such hideous screeches as startled the whole neighbourhood. He gave one last desperate lunge as a parting remembrance, and felt that his weapon had made a hit. Something fell on the floor, but the light was extinguished in the scuffle, and in vain he attempted to grope out ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... connected thought that Mackenzie enjoyed after coming out of his shock was that somebody was smoking near at hand; the next that the sun was in his eyes. But these were indifferent things, drowned in a flood of pain. He put them aside, not to grope after the cause of his discomfort, for that was apart from him entirely, but to lie, throbbing in every nerve, indifferent either to ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... but, with submission, your chronicles are more wild than my cantos. I deal in pure conceits of my own; which have a shapeliness and a unity, however unsubstantial; but you, Braid-Beard, deal in mangled realities. In all your chapters, you yourself grope in the dark. Much truth is not in thee, historian. Besides, Mohi: my songs perpetuate many things which you sage scribes entirely overlook. Have you not oftentimes come to me, and my ever dewy ballads for information, in which you and your ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... looked up to say epigrammatically, 'Well, young muster, what Ned is, I was. And what I am, Ned will be! There! D'ye take my meaning? 'Cos I, when a b'y, was like Ned, free as any lark in the air, so when I came to be a man without no book-larnin' in the pockets o' my brain, I had to grope my way about in the world. Many's the time it's bin all dark, round and round, 'cept in the faces of other folk where I seed the light o' understanding shinin' about them things as I couldn't make out. 'Tain't so to say ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... who were free to do beautiful things, free to be curious about the others, free to follow clues of greatness, free to go up the streams of Society to the still, faint little springs and beginnings of things. It would soon be a memorable city. A world would watch it, and other cities would grope toward it. Instead of this we have these big, hollow, unmanned libraries of Mr. Carnegie's everywhere, with no people practically to go with them, no great hive of happy living men and women in and out all ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... and you to us? I have seen individual specimens of nearly all the races differing from our own, except the primeval savages who dwell in the most desolate and remote recesses of uncultivated nature, unacquainted with other light than that they obtain from volcanic fires, and contented to grope their way in the dark, as do many creeping, crawling and flying things. But certainly you cannot be a member of those barbarous tribes, nor, on the other hand, do you seem to ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... discovered in the obscurest recesses of monasteries; they were not always imprisoned in libraries, but rotting in dark unfrequented corners with rubbish. It required not less ingenuity to find out places where to grope in, than to understand the value of the acquisition. An universal ignorance then prevailed in the knowledge of ancient writers. A scholar of those times gave the first rank among the Latin writers to one Valerius, whether he ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... incredible ill-luck seemed to dog his footsteps, compelling him to grope about at random, without permitting him to use the elements of success which his own persistency or the very force of things placed within his grasp. Gilbert gave him the crystal stopper. Gilbert sent him a letter. And both had disappeared at ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... you to say, my boy," retorted the yeoman. "Pray God he never has, and never may. Slow work this, however! I should really be glad to find something! Pshaw! What a notion that is, when the only good luck would be to paddle, and drift, and poke, and grope, hereabouts, till morning, and have our labor for our pains! For my part, I shouldn't wonder if the creature had only lost her shoe in the mud, and saved her soul alive, after all. My stars! how she will ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... loose on that bad night. The sea jumped up like magic, and hurried before the lash of the wind. Then, with a darkening swoop, came the snowstorm, hurled along on wide wings; the last remnants of light fled; the vessel was shut in, and the devoted company on board could only grope in the murk on deck. No one would stay below, for the sudden, unexampled assault of the hurricane had touched ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... which was always liable to be shelled unexpectedly? In cellars beneath the unwholesome and dilapidated town our men found billets. They were really quite comfortable, but at night when the place was as black as pitch, and one had to grope one's way in the darkness along debris-covered streets, shaken every now and then by the German missiles from the sky, one longed for Canada and the well-lighted pavements ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... to the top of the stairs which I saw led down into the vaults below," he said to himself, "and I can easily grope my way down-stairs, and find out what these ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... heartlessly? Are they hands that drag downward? Are they hands that pull backward? Are they hands that strike in cruelty? Are they hands that slap insultingly? Are they hands that tear pitilessly? Are they hands that grope into the dark places and do more harm than good? Think ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... aspirating tube (Fig. 9) rather than by swabbing or sponge-pumping, when the bronchoscopic tube-mouth is close to the foreign body. It is inadvisable, however, to insert a forceps into a mass of granulations to grope blindly for a foreign body, with no knowledge of the presentation, the forceps spaces, or the location of branch-bronchial orifices into which one blade of the forceps may go. Dilatation of a stricture may be necessary, and may be accomplished by the forms of ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... see Mr. Gresham, I was directed to an unfashionable part of the town, to one of the dark old streets of the city; and from all appearance I thought I was going to grope my way into some strange dismal den, like many of the ancient houses in that quarter of the town. But, to my surprise, after passing through a court, and up an unpromising staircase, I found myself in a spacious apartment. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... arcades, indistinct amidst the gloom. However, they came to a narrow passage without a door, and he let go her hand. She could hear him trying to strike some matches, and swearing. They were all damp. It was necessary for them to grope their way upstairs. ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... again, that on this account she wished to spare me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks I am not suited for, and which I really don't know myself that I AM suited for; and isn't she up early and late, and going to and fro continually—and doesn't she do all sorts of things, and grope into all sorts of places, coal-holes and pantries and I don't know where, that can't be very agreeable—and do you mean to insinuate that there is not a ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... I waxed old, The blynd boy, Venus baby, For want of cunning, made me bold In bitter hyve to grope for honny: But when he saw me stung and cry, He tooke his wings and away ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough; for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... was right, and Peter, hearing his opinion, volunteered again to do down and grope about until he could discover it. The same precautions were taken to save ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... dark we grope along, And if we go amiss We learn at least which path is wrong, And there is ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... blind, giddy, and confused, listened to the uproar around him with something of the affrighted compassion that a stranger in Hell might be supposed to feel when hearkening to the ceaseless plaints of the self-tortured wicked. He endeavored to grope his way to Sah-luma's side,—and just then lights appeared, . . lights that were not of earth's kindling, . . strange, wandering flames that danced and flitted along the tapestried walls like will-o'-the- wisps on a dark morass, and flung a ghastly blue glare on the pale, uneasy faces of the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... in a spot so vital that you die in a few minutes. You throw up your hands, you stagger against the mantel-shelf, you tear open your collar and then grope at nothing; you press your hands on your wound and take two reeling steps forward; you call feebly for help and stumble against the sofa which you fall upon, and finally, still groping wildly, you roll off on the floor, where you kick out once or twice; ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... this day they make more history in Secessia than here. Jeff. Davis overshadows Lincoln. Jeff. Davis and his gang of malefactors are pushed into the whirlpool of action by the nature of their crime; here, our leaders dread action, and grope. The rebels have a clear, decisive, almost palpable aim; but ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... financial sceptre, either mix the dulcet cocktail, swing the pick, or else light with the miner's candle the Aladdin caves to which they grope and burrow in daily danger, deep hidden from public view. These "silver kings" ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... tone. Julian began to look doubtful. Could it be that all was changed, that there was only danger in this act, that to grope thus in the darkness for lost hope, lost safety, a lost Valentine, with love, trust, beauty, still clinging about him, was to stumble further into a deepening night? It might be ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... greatcoat, with much care, three or four matches. By lighting, first one and then the others, he was able to grope around until he found the hearth of the cabin. Cold ashes marked the remains of a fire long since extinguished. His foot struck against something which proved to be a small piece of dry pine-wood. With the flame from his last match Watson succeeded in lighting this remnant of kindling. He carefully ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... other door," said Rose after they had screamed themselves hoarse. "We must not be frightened, Anne, for father is sure to look for us. Let's go round the room and try and find a door. We can feel along the wall," so the two girls began to grope their ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... as yet no tree, nor grass, nor anything that would serve for food, in this gloomy abyss. But when the Giant Ymir began to grope around for something to satisfy his hunger, he heard a sound as of some animal chewing the cud; and there among the ice-hills he saw a gigantic cow, from whose udder flowed four great streams of milk, and with this his craving ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... felt his way around until he stood directly in front of her; he put his face close to hers and stared into her eyes, his lower lip opening and closing in silence. Then, without speaking, he began to grope about on the table ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... was, not Captain Jules, who dropped down on her hands and knees to grope for the ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... bit on his coat and panted and breathed foul air. 'Twas dark as a wolf's mouth, of course, and he didn't know from Adam what dangers lay around him; but he couldn't bide still long and so rose up and began to grope with feet and hands. He kicked a few of the big stones that Ernest Gregory had thrown down, as he thought atop of him; and then he found the bottom of the hole was bigger than he guessed. And then he kicked a soft object and a great wonder happened. Kneeling to see what it might be, ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... all appearance, untenanted. He drew a long breath. Here he was, home again in safety, and this should be his last folly as certainly as it had been his first. The matches stood on a little table by the bed, and he began to grope his way in that direction. As he moved, his apprehensions grew upon him once more, and he was pleased, when his foot encountered an obstacle, to find it nothing more alarming than a chair. At last he touched curtains. From the position of the window, which was faintly visible, he knew he ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... heroism, she was surprised to find herself rather faint when she finished her ironing. However, she took heart to believe that the clothes looked better, in spite of one or two scorched places; and she carried them upstairs to her husband's room before increasing blindness forced her to grope for the nearest chair. Then, trying to rise and walk, without having sufficiently recovered, she had to sit down again; but after a little while she was able to get upon her feet; and, keeping her hand against the wall, moved successfully to the door of her own room. Here she wavered; ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... laughed, and the laugh sounded merry and sweet, and the voice said: "Hast thou no flint and fire-steel?" "No," said Ralph. "But I have," said the voice, "and I am fain to see thee, for thy voice soundeth pleasant to me. Abide till I grope about for ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... caught us in the face, and the boat stopped. To our questions the owner replied that we were on an island covered with willows and poplars, of which the flood had nearly reached the top. We had to grope about with our hatchets to clear a passage through the branches, and when we had succeeded in passing the obstacle, we found the stream much less furious than in the middle of the river, and finally reached the left bank ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... and science grope when they would explain to us the strange adventures of our immaterial selves when wandering in the realm of "Death's twin brother, Sleep." This story will not attempt to be illuminative; it is no ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... piazza, and out along the street for daily-increasing distances. For Charlie, all this was like coming back into life once more. In spite of the darkness of his room, he could yet see the dim outlines of objects in his narrow line of vision, and grope his way about without being dependent upon his cousins for his every need; and after a month of perfect helplessness, even this was a relief, and he accepted ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... of the money, and he will be ready for it, which cannot be, I am sure, without Sir G. Carteret's accounts be better understood than they are. He seems to have a great esteem of me and my opinion and thoughts of things. After we had spent an houre thus discoursing and vexed that we do but grope so in the darke as we do, because the people, that should enlighten us, do not helpe us, we resolved fitting some things for another meeting, and so broke up. He shewed me his house, which is yet all unhung, but will be a ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... degrees of distinctness in present society, and the light of experience illumines the pathway before us. It is when we come to the methods of organization and management, the spirit of the economic organization of the future state, that the light fails and we must grope our way into the great unknown with imagination and our sense ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... found a veranda, destitute of chairs and furnishings, but dry and evidently roofed. It was better than the terrace, and so, by groping along the wall, I tried to make my way to Hotchkiss. That was how I found the open window. I had passed perhaps six, all closed, and to have my hand grope for the next one, and to find instead the soft drapery of an inner curtain, was ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... hand, mine hands grope up and down, And cannot find thee; I am wondrous sick: Have I thy hand Amintor? Amint. Thou greatest blessing of the ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... and the woods were so profoundly obscured, that Roy had to grope about for some time before he found a suitable tree. Cutting it down with the axe which always hung at his girdle, he returned to camp with it on his shoulder, and cut off the small soft branches, which Nelly ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... and cried vehemently, "No, no!" then stretched his lips in a very ghastly grin and turned to take the can from the oven, but his hand missed it, and he appeared to grope as if he were blind, though he looked at the can all the time. Then he catched it and brought it to his mouth, but trembled so much that he spilt as much as he drank, and after putting the can back sat shaking his beard and stroking ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... get hold of ourselves at the same time. Some book might give us help—a fine play, or some form of athletics will start us to thinking. Self-analysis teaches us to see ourselves in a true light without embellishments or undue optimism. We can gauge our chances in no better way. If we grope in the darkness we haven't much of a chance. "Taking stock" throws a searchlight on the dark spots and points the way out ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... — N. touch; tact, taction^, tactility; feeling; palpation, palpability; contrectation^; manipulation; massage. [Organ of touch] hand, finger, forefinger, thumb, paw, feeler, antenna; palpus^. V. touch, feel, handle, finger, thumb, paw, fumble, grope, grabble; twiddle, tweedle; pass the fingers over, run the fingers over; manipulate, wield; throw out a feeler. Adj. tactual, tactile; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... blessing, but where it has enough to do to live, whence it cannot move to obtain what it wants or likes, but must stretch its unfortunate arms here and there for bare breath and light, and split its way among rocks, and grope for sustenance in unkindly soil; it would be hard upon the plant, I say, if under all these disadvantages, it were made answerable for its appearance, and found fault with because it was not a fine plant of the kind. And so we find ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... very carefully before him, lest he should unguardedly go beyond his depth; at length he reached the blind man, took him very carefully by the hand, and led him out. The blind man then gave him a thousand blessings, and told him he could grope out his way home; and the little Boy ran on as hard as he could, to ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... will remember that during all this time I knew nothing of the experience of James Martin with this afflicted trio, but had been compelled to grope my way blindly. As the doctor and son-in-law went out my son came in. He had overheard something about the writing, and said, excitedly: "Don't write, mother; there is no sick man here. That tall man is Elsie's master, and they threatened James's life when ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... desired information, and left to grope for light wherever it might be found, your committee did not deem it either advisable or safe to adopt, without further examination, the suggestions of the President, more especially as he had not deemed it expedient to remove the military force, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... and starting to throw a leg over," Tubby exclaimed in evident rapture. "And if there is a child inside that room, our chum will find it. If it was me now, I'd be so blind with the smoke I'd have to just grope my way around, and p'raps ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... alone caught with his haughty eye the characteristic lineaments of this catastrophe of human genius contending with divine chance. All the other historians suffer from a certain bedazzlement in which they grope about. It was a flashing day, in truth the overthrow of the military monarchy which, to the great stupor of the kings, has dragged down all kingdoms, the downfall of strength and the rout ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... What does this mean? My wife has vanished! it is nearly daybreak and she does not return! Wanting to relieve myself, lo! I awake and hunt in the darkness for my shoes and my cloak; but grope where I will, I cannot find them. Meanwhile my need grew each moment more urgent and I had only just time to seize my wife's little mantle and her Persian slippers. But where shall I find a spot suitable for my purpose. Bah! One place is as good as another at night-time, for no ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... he is still quite a good walker, but that a blind man finds it very troublesome to go anywhere; for at every step he is obliged to grope about, so that he may feel sure of his ground before he firmly plants his foot ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... how to suffer. He will remain a figure for the legends of the future for, running to transmit an order, he received a bullet in the eyes which shattered his optic nerve. He was completely blinded. Nevertheless, he continued to advance, trying to grope his way through the night that had fallen upon him. He encountered something lying on the ground—a something that was a man just as badly wounded. The blind man besought him ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... the edge of the rug, overflowing horror galvanised her into movement, and catching the corners of the rug she threw it violently after the package and over the hand, at the same moment jumping from her seat and on to the footboard, to grope wildly for the switch. Her heart was leaping like a fish just flung into a basket, and every inch of her body winced from an expected grasp upon it. She flung herself over the side and into the seat of the car, found the switch and ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... ghosts, according to the old sense of the word, and I could grope with comfort through any amount of dark old rooms, or midnight aisles, or over churchyards, between sunset and cock-crow. I can face a spectre. Being at one time troubled with illusions, I have myself crushed a hobgoblin by sitting on its lap. Nevertheless, I do believe that ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... only worm his way among them, testing each before he trusted it, and finding at times monsters become but mediocre when his hand was on them. More than once he had to rest his hands on cautiously-tried ledges and swing his legs forward and grope with his feet for foothold, and whether the space below was trifling, or whether it ran to incredible depth, ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... of matter? And in place of cultivating the literae humaniores, which is the true cultivation of the mind, and sets a man, mark you, on a level with princes, to stoop to handle virgin milk and dragon's blood, as they style their vile mixtures; or else grope in dead men's bodies for the thing which killed them. Which is a pure handicraft and cheirergon, unworthy a scholar, who stoops of right to naught but ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... grown blind to grope Over them all, and for three days aloud Call'd on them who were dead. Then fasting got The mastery of grief." Thus ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... aerial cope, With eyes enkindled as the sun's own sphere, Hope from the front of youth in godlike cheer Looks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope, And makes for joy the very darkness dear That gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that fear At noon may rise and pierce the heart of hope. Then, when the soul leaves off to dream and yearn, ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... you, my fallen brother, as I cannot speak to the foolish people who grope in this miasma of delusion. Silly women, yielding to the natural vanity of their sex, may mistake hysterics for inspiration. Vacillating and vacant men may seek a new sensation by encouraging a revival of the demoniacal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... to recognize the faces round him; not even his favorite Erle, or the daughter who fed and soothed him like an infant; and yet in a dim sort of way he seemed conscious of her presence. He would wail after her if she left him, and his withered hands would grope upon the coverlet in a feeble, restless way, but never once did ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... present are. Let our spirits stretch out all their powers to the better things beyond, as the plants grown in darkness will send out pale shoots that feel blindly towards the light, or the seed sown on the top of a rock will grope down the bare stone for the earth by which it must be fed. Let the sense of our own weakness ever lead to a buoyant confidence in what we, even we, may become if we will only take the grace we have. To ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... greediness is immense, and yet they purposely whirl about in business that they might not see themselves. They hide themselves, the devils. Try to free them from this bustle—what will happen? Like blind men they will grope about hither and thither; they'll lose their mind—they'll go mad! I know it! Do you think that business brings happiness into man? No, that's not so—something else is missing here. This is not everything yet! ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... fixed that—nor a castle. It's just a dungeon—that'll do very well, and it's great fun at night when we put out the candles and grope about in the dark. And gaoler will do very well for Miss Burton—some are quite kind, ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... passenger climbed out on the wing and then upon the running gear. To trust yourself two thousand feet in mid-air with your feet on one piano wire, and one hand clutching another, while with the other hand you grope blindly for a bomb charged with high explosive, is an experience for which few men would yearn. But in this case it was successful. The bombs fell—nobody cared where—and the two imperilled aviators came ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... crowding through a gap in a stone fence descended upon the Rockbridge battery. Four regiments of the Stonewall brigade clung desperately to the great uneven field which marked the centre. The musket barrels were burningly hot to the touch of the men, their fingers must grope for the cartridges rattling in the cartridge boxes, their weariness was horrible, their eyes were glazed, their lips baked with thirst. Long ago they had fought in a great, bright, glaring daytime; then again, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... But we grope in darkness! The most ancient Greek book that has come down to us is the Iliad, with its tale of the great war against Troy.[14] Critics will not permit us to call the Iliad a history, because it was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... had begun About the beast to grope, Than, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, "I see," quoth he, "the elephant ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... most of the cafe chantants are situated, is bright with electric light, the back streets of the city are lit by flickering oil-lamps, and here the stranger must almost grope his way about after dark. If wise he will stay at home, for robbery and even murder are of frequent occurrence. A large proportion of the population here consists of time-expired convicts, many of whom haunt the night-houses in quest of prey. During our short ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... from heaven his jovial lot has birth; Nor needs he to strive or toil. The peasant may grope in the bowels of earth, And for treasure may greedily moil He digs and he delves through life for the pelf, And digs till he grubs out ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... place," cautioned Lindsay. The passage smelled dank and close. The air in it had probably been unstirred for many years. The faint light which entered it from the treasure room was soon lost, and they were obliged to grope their way by feeling along the walls. On and on they went for what appeared to be a considerable distance, sometimes turning sharp corners, and sometimes going up or down ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... herein contained, the Government will complete the educational system and bring under the educational and sanitary laws the lowest dregs of society, which have hitherto been left out in the cold, to grope about in the dark as their ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... sacred remnants of our wide domain— With tamp'rings, and delirious feasts of fire, The fruit of your thrice-cursed stills of death, Which make our good men bad, our bad men worse, Aye! blind them till they grope in open day, And stumble into miserable graves. Oh, it is piteous, for none will hear! There is no hand to help, no heart to feel, No tongue to plead for us in all your land. But every hand aims death, and every heart, Ulcered ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... The many kindly burn up for the few; for the minority is selfish and the majority generous. The minority has ruled the world for physical reasons. The physical reasons are being removed by this "converting culture." Webster will not much longer have to grope for the mind of his constituency. The majority—the people—will need no intermediary. Governments will pass from the representative to the direct. The hog-mind is the principal thing that is making this transition slow. The biggest prop ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... A fewe termes knew he, two or three, That he had learned out of some decree; No wonder is, he heard it all the day. And eke ye knowen well, how that a jay Can clepen* "Wat," as well as can the Pope. *call But whoso would in other thing him grope*, *search Then had he spent all his philosophy, Aye, Questio quid juris, would ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... daring policy, had undertaken to attack the Danish defences with a squadron of twelve seventy-fours, and the frigates and bomb-vessels of the fleet. He determined to shun the open way of King's Channel, grope through the uncertain passage called the Dutch Deep, at the back of the Middle Ground, and forcing his way up the narrow channel in front of the shallows, repeat on the anchored batteries and battleships of the Danes the exploit of the Nile. He spent the ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... that I may have written; And you, poor woman that I made my wife, You have had more of loneliness, I fear, Than I — though I have been the most alone, Even when the most attended. So it was God set the mark of his inscrutable Necessity on one that was to grope, And serve, and suffer, and withal be glad For what was his, and is, and is to be, When his old bones, that are a burden now, Are saying what the man who carried them Had not the power to say. Bones in a grave, Cover them as they will with choking earth, May shout the truth to men who put them there, ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... the interesting little bits of architectural antiquity, which are so numerous in Paris, the visit must be performed on foot, as it is sometimes requisite to go into little courts and alleys where no carriage can possibly enter; besides an antiquarian must peep and grope about in places where a vehicle would only be ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... knew.— (O never, more than mine of long ago. How could we know?—) For who should guess The shock and smiting of that perfectness?— The lily-thrust of those ecstatic feet Unpityingly sweet?— Sweet beyond all the blurred blind dreams that grope The upward paths of hope? And who could guess The dulcet holiness, The lilt and gladness of those jocund feet, Unpityingly sweet? Ah, for your coolness that shall change and stir With every glee of her!— Under the fresh amaze That drips and glistens from her wiles ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... reads the riddle right; And we who grope in constant night But serve His will; And when sometime the doubt is gone, And darkness blossoms into dawn,— "God keeps the good," we then will say: " 'Tis but the dross ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... Mr. Stacey, a hawser!" I heard the commodore shout, and saw the sailing-master slide down the ladder and grope among the dead and wounded and mass of broken spars and tackles, and finally pick up a smeared rope's end, which I helped him drag to the poop. There we found the commodore himself taking skilful turns around the mizzen with the severed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for the only realities, and they may acquire much skill in interpreting the shadows. Turn these men suddenly to the true light, and they will be dazzled and blinded. They will feel as though they had lost the realities, and been plunged into dreams. And in pain and sorrow they will be tempted to grope back ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... ascended to the Staked Plain, and are now nearly across it. Guided by the traitor, they had no need to grope their way, and have made quick time. In a few hours more they will pounce upon the prey for which ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... the left, again to the right, and then again to the left on arriving at the entrance on the lower side. Such is its peculiar form, that an observer, standing at a point about midway of its subterranean course, is completely excluded from a view of either entrance, and is left to grope in the dark through a distance of about twenty yards, occupying an intermediate portion of the tunnel. When the sun is near the meridian, and his rays fall upon both entrances, the light reflected from both extremities of the tunnel contributes to mollify the darkness of this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... religious services in his chapel. In the vaulting near the entrance is a small opening communicating with a narrow passage, by means of which Montaigne could leave his bedroom and hear mass without showing himself; but in order to do so he had to grope along his rabbit's burrow almost on hands and knees. To reach his bedroom from the ground, he climbed up the spiral staircase as the visitor does today. The steps are much worn in places, and the boots of the essayist must have had something to do with this, for he probably ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... from arithmetic to geometry, from observation to science, from practice to theory, and play with edged tools long before we know what knives mean. For, like Hop-o'-my-Thumb and his brothers, we are driven out early in the morning to the edge of the forest, and are obliged to grope our way back to the little house whence we come, by the crumbs dropped on the road. Alack! how often the birds have eaten our bread, and we are captured by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... any idea of how stultifying it can be to be forced into school under the supervision of teachers who cannot understand, and among classmates whose grasp of any subject is no stronger than a feeble grope in the ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... storehouse below? She never comes out in a pink head-dress or a yellow gown. No, she always selects what will make the blue. It shows that it has life, intelligence, or else it couldn't think, way down under the ground, and grope in the dark, but always gropin' jest right, always a thinkin' the right thing, never, never in the hundreds and thousands of years makin' a mistake. Why, you couldn't do it, Josiah Allen, nor ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... gases, the shock, the fire, what they had endured and what they had escaped—all these had distracted them. They danced, sang, wept, laughed, shouted in a sort of maudlin frenzy, spun about deliriously until they dropped. They were deafened, and some of them could not see but had to grope their way. I remember one man who sat down and pulled off his boots and socks and threw them away and then hobbled on in his bare feet until he cut the bottoms of them to pieces. I don't care to see anything like that again—even if it is my enemies ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... child is born, the face is alive. And the face communicates direct with both planes of primary consciousness. The moment a child is born, it begins to grope for the breast. And suddenly a new great circuit is established, the four poles all working at once, as the child sucks. There is the profound desirousness of the lower center of sympathy, and the superior avidity of the center of will, and at the same time, the cleaving yearning to the ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... tribute to the great Christian doctrine of a divine and human mediator: they have given striking evidence of a felt want in all humanity of a God with men. If it was a deeply conscious want of the human heart which led the heathen of distant India to grope their way from the cheerless service of remorseless deities to one who could be touched with a feeling of their infirmities, and could walk these earthly paths as a counsellor by their side, how striking is the analogy to essential ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... hands that longing grope And straining eyes that search to pierce the doom, I creep the path-ways of my only Hope, And seek the Loved One passed ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... with pygmy hands, Not in those earliest days when men ran wild And gashed each other with their knives of stone, When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy brows And their flat hands were callous in the palm With walking in the fashion of their sires, Grope as they might to find a cruel god To work their will on such as human wrath Had wrought its worst to torture, and had left With rage unsated, white and stark and cold, Could hate have shaped a demon more malign Than him the dead men mummied ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... not dare disturb him," she replied. "Nature may know best; it may be Nature that cries to be alone; and we grope in the dark. O yes, I would ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as Chief Pontiff, such is not at all the case. I feel a fumbler, a bungler. I grope. I suspect that the judgment of my advisers is better than mine. What is worse, I know that they think so. I am surrounded by men pre-eminent in their specialties, who look on me as a green boy placed by mere chance in a position which I fail to fill adequately. They watch me like hawks, they ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... light grows dim, the vision fades, Myself seems to myself a distant goal, I grope among the bodies' drowsy shades, Once more the Old Illusion rocks ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... praiseworthy deeds. Thousands have plunged into atheism. Of those who have not gone this length, the great body are dissatisfied, ill at ease, without confidence in the doctrines of Rome, but ignorant of a more excellent way. Straitly shut up, they grope blindfolded round the walls of their prison-house, wistfully turning their eyes to any ray of light that strikes in through its crevices. How this state of things may end is known only to God;—whether in the gradual spread of Gospel light, and the peaceful fall of that system which ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... beginning to shimmer in moonlight. But he could not, for a time, get himself beyond the pounding of that name in his brain. It was not merely that he had heard the name before. There was something significant about it. Something that made him grope back in his memory of things. Boulain! He whispered it to himself, his eyes on the slender figure of the woman ahead of him, swaying gently to the steady sweep of the paddle in her hands. Yet he could think of nothing. A feeling of irritation ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... country Jack's towering height really became of great use, enabling him frequently to walk along with his head above the surrounding herbage, while we were compelled to grope along, ignorant of all that was around us save the tall grass at our sides. Occasionally, however, we came upon more open ground, where the grass was short, and then we enjoyed the lovely scenery to the full. We met with a great variety of new plants and trees in this ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... were a Satan! Already has the Incarnation of goodness appeared to mankind, and, though the world be moved to virtue only slowly and with reluctance, mark how mighty has been his influence! What think you, then, would be the power of a Christ of evil, showing to men the path they already grope for? I tell you, the human race would be his only; Hell, full to bursting with their hurrying souls, would outweigh Heaven in the balance; the teller of the secret would ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... tapping with a stick. He could not think. He could attend to things; he could notice things; he could perform necessary actions; but "Effie is dead." "Effie has killed herself." "Effie has killed herself and her child—now what?" In pursuit of these his mind could only grope with outstretched hands; these, in the dark room of his calamity, eluded his mind. He groped and stumbled after them. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... as he had appeared, and with this solemn warning ringing in his ears, the Baron found himself in inky darkness again. This time he did not hesitate to grope madly for the door, but hardly had he reached it, when, with a fresh sensation of horror, he stumbled upon a writhing form that seemed to be pawing the panels. He was, fortunately; as quickly reassured by hearing the voice of Mr. Gallosh exclaim in ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... a saint or a madonna; she had fallen from her pedestal so low that he could not find the way to descend and grope after ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... remembering the shock experienced by a suddenly awakened somnambulist, and remembering that the Chinese ladder hung from the window at my feet, I changed my mind. Checking the cry upon my lips, I got astride of the window ledge, and began to grope for the bamboo rungs beneath me. I had found the first of these, and, turning, ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... providence, The very notion of a state of probation has darkness in it. The All-knower has no need of satisfying his eyes by seeing what we will do, when he knows before what we will do. Methinks we might be condemned before commission. In these things we grope and flounder; and if we can pick up a little human comfort that the child taken is snatched from vice (no great compliment to it, by the by), let us take it. And as to where an untried child goes, whether to join the assembly of its elders who have ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... shall never turn grey, Never. We will never doubt the world and shut our eyes to ponder. Never. We will not grope in the maze of our mind. We flow with the flood of things, from the mountain to the sea, We will never be lost in ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore
... began to grope with the toe of her right pump for the slight bulge under the rug which indicated the position of the bell used for summoning the maid ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... find the meaning out That lies in wrong and pain and strife; I know not why we grope through grief, Tear-blind, to ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... answer, he began to grope around for the other assailant. But no sign of him could he find. He had evidently been able to get away, and Douglas was thankful that he had not killed him, no matter how much he ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... these things in these terms. He found himself becoming involved in a maze of speculation, in which he could only grope feebly for words to define the unrest that was ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... all the boat's lights revealed was a yellow circle of fog that traveled with us. Wet and chilled, we two stood at the wheel together, in such hard conditions that no navigator and no pilot could have done much more than grope. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... who seemed to be a little bolder than the others, went with him for some distance as his guide with a lighted lantern. As the sky was cloudy, and it was quite dark, the barn-keeper was obliged to grope his way. The whistling of the wind and the screeching of the owls were terrible to hear, but could not frighten his bold heart. As soon as he was able to strike a light under the shelter of the masonry, he lit a splinter and looked about ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... not crawl away; far from it. The man in the reptile house, who "looked puzzled" and grinned, and had to grope about the sand at the bottom of the case to find the snake for the edification of the Westminster Gazette interviewer, did not grin to that purpose for long. Never before in the history of the Zoo was the reptile house so crowded. Day after ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... own good providence or his arbitrary will. How grand the description of this magnificent universe written by the Omnipotent hand! Of man it should set forth his relations to other living beings, his place among them, his privileges, and responsibilities. It should not leave him to grope his way through the vestiges of Greek philosophy, and to miss the truth at last; but it should teach him wherein true knowledge consists, anticipating the physical science, physical power, and physical well-being of our own times, nay, even unfolding for our benefit ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... aside, that he nearly tripped her up; and he almost tore her arm from her body as he tried to assist her over the brooks. Their joy was great when they came to the three other streams. The first flowed over a bed of pebbles, between two rows of willows, so closely planted that they had to grope between the branches with the risk of falling into some deep part of the water. It only rose to Serge's knees, however, and having caught Albine in his arms he carried her to the opposite bank, to save her from a wetting. The next stream flowed black with shade beneath a lofty canopy of ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... motley wanderers seek, Pilgrims of life upon the field of scorn, Mocking and mock'd; with plague and hunger weak, And haggard faces bleach'd as those who mourn, And footsteps redden'd with the trodden thorn; Blind stretching hands that grope for truth in vain, Across a ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... shuts the sight, We should no more admire, perchance, That these found truth out at a glance, Than marvel how the bat discerns Some pitch-dark cavern's fifty turns, Led by a finer tact, a gift He boasts, which other birds must shift Without, and grope as best they can." No, freely I would praise the man,— Nor one whit more, if he contended That gift of his, from God descended. Ah friend, what gift of man's does not? No nearer something, by a jot, Rise an infinity of nothings ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... in the kitchen. It was dangerous to grope about in the dark, for some article of furniture might be overturned, and that would probably create an alarm which would be fatal to their plans. The first thing, therefore, was ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... Sara. I had no idea that I should miss her so much! Indeed, we all missed her: it seemed to me now that I had undervalued her. True, she had not been a congenial companion to me in my dark days; but even then I had wronged her. Why should I have expected her to grope among the shadows with me, instead of following her into the sunshine? Sara could not act contrary to her nature. Sad things depressed her. She wanted to cause every one to ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... beyond recovery. Still, he felt convinced that he was in the immediate neighbourhood of the spot where the cave had been, and, bidding Flora to sit down and rest while he further investigated, he began to grope about here and there among the confused mass of rocks, studying them intently as he did so. For upwards of two hours Leslie searched and toiled in vain; but at length he came upon a piece of rock face that seemed familiar to him, and upon removing ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... hoarded letters, that have been preserved only to blast the memory of the dead! What precious words, again, have been destroyed, that might have lightened for a whole heavy lifetime the doubt and anguish of the living! In this, as in all we do, we grope about in darkness, and the one and the other course must often enough have been bitterly lamented by those who "did for the best" in keeping or destroying ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... monstrous inequality with which the penal codes of slave states treat slaves and their masters. When we consider that guilt is in proportion to intelligence, and that these masters have by law doomed their slaves to ignorance, and then, as they darkle and grope along their blind way, inflict penalties upon them for a variety of acts regarded as praise worthy in whites; killing them for crimes, when whites are only fined or imprisoned—to call such a 'public opinion' inhuman, savage, murderous, diabolical, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... deep, and he was wondering whether his old cap were worth wading for, and had almost decided to abandon it, when he saw a skinny yellow arm, like a frog's leg, stretch up through the water, and a hand that dripped with slime grope for his cap. With three strides he was in the pond, and he caught the cap and the hand together in his fist. The hand writhed in his, but Hobb was too strong for it; and with a mighty tug he dragged first the shoulder ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon |
