"Grasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the wide grasp of the all-absorbing metropolis, we may adduce the horror of the Pentonvillians at the proposed new cattle-market. How many years ago is it since Copenhagen Fields were almost beyond the regions of civilisation, known only as a prairie lying between London and the Copenhagen Tea-gardens? ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... ships and a handful of men. To Venice had been preserved the valuable island which guards the entrance to the Dardanelles, and to her it was to remain for years, although the Genoese tried many times and oft to wrest it from her grasp. ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... men soon learned, under Jimmie, the value of discipline; it meant their safety when under fire, and it meant freedom from military punishments. They were quick to grasp the fact that any negligence on their part might mean death to the aviator who flew in the neglected aeroplane. Flagrant neglect they soon learned might cause other deaths than those suffered by the ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... religious troubles of the Reformation, these two were the writers who first realized to Englishmen the ideas of a high literary perfection. These ideas vaguely filled many minds; but no one had yet shown the genius and the strength to grasp and exhibit them in a way to challenge comparison with what had been accomplished by the poetry and prose of Greece, Rome, and Italy. There had been poets in England since Chaucer, and prose writers since Wycliffe ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... influence a possible buyer of your best capabilities. You are continually within sight and hearing of people whose impressions of you might affect your chances to succeed in life. Therefore always be alert to grasp every sales opportunity within ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... clothed them in a skin which seems several times too large, a fact that is often the means of saving their lives. The claws of the hawk had caught only in the flabby, loose flesh, and with a sudden twist the big muskrat pulled himself loose from the cruel grasp just as they passed over a woodland stream. Fortunately for the rat, his captor was flying low and before the hawk could again secure its prey the muskrat had fallen into the stream. He sank like lead to the bottom and hid under an overhanging bank. As for the hawk, with ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... fingers, like hot, stinging arrows in his flesh, pierced Neale's mind and made him realize what his stunned faculties had failed to grasp. It seemed to loosen the vise-like hold upon his ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... one side, now on the other, and then with a crash down it sunk into the boiling ocean. I thought that I had been holding on securely, but at that instant a sea swept by, catching the end to which I clung. I felt myself torn from my grasp, and was carried far away off amid the ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... answer was a sudden attempt at a blow, but Harold struck down his hand in time and held it. Leonard, though a fairly strong man, was powerless in that iron grasp. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... limitation of the one Self) the distinction of objects of activity and of agents may be practically assumed, as long as we have not learned—from the passage, 'That art thou'—that the Self is one only. As soon, however, as we grasp the truth that there is only one universal Self, there is an end to the whole practical view of the world with its distinction of bondage, final release, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... She drew back from the window, her figure tense. "When it comes within my grasp, I will do everything, everything, and nothing shall ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... were amazed at a man's thus calmly refusing a fortune that was within his easy grasp, for they did not doubt that Nils, with his entirely unconventional manner of playing, and yet with that extraordinary moving quality in his play, would become the rage both in Europe and America, as a kind of heaven-born, untutored genius, and fill both his ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... fearfully at this unexpected plan of Sam Brewster's, and her grasp on the soup ladle relaxed so that it fell to the floor with a ringing echo. But she paid no attention to it: she stood with mouth open staring at the master ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... opening and felt about. Presently I felt something hard, like a bundle of sticks, and with a tug drew them through the opening, only to drop them the next minute with a cry of horror, for it was a skeleton's hand that came to view in my grasp. ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... the contest. The young man attempted to free himself from the grasp of his opponent; now they strove to seize each other by the throat; now his antagonist bore back the chief by making a desperate spring as his feet for a moment touched the ground; but if the older man allowed himself to retreat, ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... off to the front and the fighting. Then the time came when none were left save the "Confederate Guards," old gray-haired men, judges, bankers, merchants, gentlemen of every degree, too old for active service at the front, but too young not to burn for the grasp of a gun or sword while they knew that their sons and grandsons were fighting on the bloodstained soil of Virginia ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... shoes wet. Remembering the fisherman's bare brown feet, this can be interpreted as nothing but a very strong symbolization of a drop from a cultured and successful circle to a low and unsuccessful one. I grasp a fish bigger than myself and struggle with it, but am compelled to give it up. Another symbol: my work is plainly too big for me; this question is too much for me to handle, and this thesis will ultimately have ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... until she had seen Altamont House, and knew its accommodations, she could fix nothing; and Lady Juliana was fain to solace herself with this dim perspective, instead of the brilliant reality her imagination had placed within her grasp. She felt, too, without comprehending, the imperfectness of all earthly felicity. As she witnessed the magnificent preparations for her daughter's marriage, it recalled the bitter remembrance of her own—and many a sigh burst from her heart as he thought, "Such as Adelaide is, I ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... aimed not at independence. But there's a Divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the Declaration? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own life and his own honor? Are not you, Sir, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... appearance. When he spoke at last, there was a certain constraint in voice and manner, as though back of his apparent cordiality there lurked sundry misgivings as to the wisdom of his present course, and a sense of irritation at the failure of his own nature to grasp completely the subtile organization of his companion. "Do you always choose such an early hour as this for your daily rambles?" he asked, studying with a half-tender scrutiny the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... prophesying that politics would be absorbed by economics.[35] Fourier, we also know, applied the principle of evolution to society. He divided the history of society into four great epochs—savagery, barbarism, the patriarchate, and civilization.[36] But just as Saint-Simon failed to grasp the significance of the class conflict, and its relation to the fundamental character of economic institutions, which he dimly perceived, so Fourier failed to grasp the significance of the evolutionary ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... in her uncle's grasp and clutched him, staring down. Something shining and dark, brave with brass and flashing lamps, stood on the rocky way beneath, and purred like a great cat in the broad sunlight of noon—Gray Stoddard's motor car! The two, clinging to each other on the steep above it, gazed half incredulous, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... credulous &c. adj.; jurare in verba magistri[Lat]; follow implicitly; swallow, gulp down; take on trust; take for granted, take for gospel; run away with a notion, run away with an idea; jump to a conclusion, rush to a conclusion; think the moon is made of green cheese; take for granted, grasp the shadow for the substance; catch at straws, grasp at straws. impose upon &c. (deceive) 545. Adj. credulous, gullible; easily deceived &c. 545; simple, green, soft, childish, silly, stupid; easily convinced; over-credulous, over confident, over trustful; infatuated, superstitious; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... grasp anything,—even if there had been anything to grasp on the level sand,—we were both taken at once off our feet and thrown violently to the ground. I had felt the force of water before, but never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... Savages have keener senses than we have, but their intellect and emotions are blunt and untrained. An Australian cannot count above ten, and Galton says (132) that Damaras in counting "puzzle very much after five, because no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required for units." Spix and Martins (384) found it very difficult to get any information from the Brazilian (Coroado) because "scarcely has one begun to question him about ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... upon it. (Not that Mr. Casaubon called the future volumes a tomb; he called them the Key to all Mythologies.) But the months gained on him and left his plans belated: he had only had time to ask for that promise by which he sought to keep his cold grasp ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... years' absence from Rome was, I think, to deprive him of the power of judging clearly of the course of events. He had constant intelligence and excellent correspondents—especially Caelius—still he could not really grasp what was going on under the surface: and when he returned to find the civil war on the point of breaking out, he was, after all, taken by surprise, and had no plan of action ready. This, as well as his government ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... about a quarter of an hour they saw them returning and presently joined them. The comte, perspiring, his face red, but smiling, happy and triumphant, was holding his wife's trembling horse in his iron grasp. Gilberte was pale, her face sad and drawn, and she was leaning one hand on her husband's shoulder as if she were going to faint. Jeanne understood now that the comte loved ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... helping and raising mankind out of base conditions, or in scientific investigation of the miraculous constitution of nature. It has a hundred forms and energies; but the one feature of it is the sense of some vast and mysterious Power, which holds the world in its grasp—a Power which can be dimly apprehended and even communicated with. Prayer is one manifestation of this sense, though prayer is but a formulation of one's desires for ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... gone on increasing, consequently there has been more unhappiness. People are asking themselves daily, "is life worth living," and most persons answer in the negative. Are there any who grasp the prize for which they have struggled? If there are a few who succeed in reaching to the height to which they aspire, they find happiness is just as much beyond their reach as when they first started in ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... would know what joy and fulness a woman's life may hold, and perhaps I am not too much fool to understand. But one cannot teach me from whom I shrink with every breath I draw. These things I cannot understand. When I would think and question, there is something just beyond me, which I cannot grasp,—" she raised a hand, groping,—"something which escapes me, and when I think I have it, lo! it vanishes, and I wander in the dark. Birds I can understand, and trees, and little flowers, and clouds, and sunlight, and rippling brooks; but men and women I cannot understand; they all ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... red weapon descended Kelly shot up his hand and caught it. He twisted on the oar to wrest it from Denny's grasp, and the two suddenly went to the floor, ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... filled with water, and in these the young people were soon "bobbing for apples." On the apples were pinned papers on which were written various names, and the merry guests strove to grasp an apple with their teeth, either by its stem or by biting into the fruit itself. This proved to be more difficult than it seemed, and it was soon abandoned for the game of apple-parings. After an apple was pared in one ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... exceptions, and the experience has been rather widely gathered all over the country, that this interest—or call it what you will—has been entirely without spite or bitterness, rather the delight of a child in a fairy story. For people are rarely envious of things far removed from their grasp. You will find that a woman who is bitter because her neighbor has a girl "help" or a more comfortable cottage, rarely feels envy towards the owners of opera-boxes or yachts. Such heart-burnings (let us hope they are few) are among a class ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... mid-Victorian literature, and which would hold their own in the literature of revolt that followed. It cannot be said that these scenes and situations are tackled with a master-hand. But there is a certain grasp in Anne's treatment, and an astonishing lucidity. Her knowledge of the seamy side of life was not exhaustive. But her diagnosis of certain states, her realization of certain motives, suggests Balzac ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... scatter rascalities of this kind amongst the public, under the pretended name of the very man who is slandered, is the sport of divines. For he wishes to appear a divine when his matter cries out that he does not grasp a straw of theological science. I have no doubt but that yonder thief imposed with his lies upon his starved printer; for I do not think there is a man so mad as to be willing knowingly to print such ignorant trash. I ceased to wonder at the incorrigible ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... knocking in our trenches in places but never getting any of my guns or men. Then there is a tremendous fire of machine guns from Fritz's trench no man could live through. The bullets are just singing through the air. But our men are quick to grasp the game and get into some shell holes and wait until it gets a little dark and then crawl back to our own line. We have quite a few wounded and some killed. Nothing though when you look at the resistance. ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis
... draw back and pluck my arm from the dying man's grasp. I could not do so without using a force that would have been inhuman. His lips drew nearer ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... open to the rich, autumn sunlight that sifted through the woods and over the pasture till it lay in golden sheens across the fence and the yard and rested on his window-sill, rich enough almost to grasp with his hand, should he reach out for it. There was a little colour in his face—he had eaten one good meal that day, and his long fight with the fever was won. He did not know that in his delirium he had spoken of Judith—Judith—Judith—and this day and that had ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... withdrawal: "It is evident that were the throat of this animal similar to that of other mammals, this could not be accomplished, as the insertion of a body, such as the trunk, so far into the pharynx as to enable the constrictor muscles of that organ to grasp it, would at once give rise to a paroxysm of coughing; or, were the trunk merely inserted into the mouth, it would be requisite that this cavity be kept constantly filled with water, at the same time that the lips closely encircled ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... faithful Fox did not leave him: it came and leapt down to him, and upbraided him for having forgotten its advice. "But yet I cannot give it up so," he said; "I will help you up again into daylight." He bade him grasp his tail and keep tight hold of it; and then he pulled ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... star-finding; it was the most profoundly philosophical astronomical work ever performed, except perhaps Newton's and Laplace's. Among astronomers proper there has been none distinguished by such breadth of grasp, such wide conceptions, and such perfect clearness of view as the ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... command in a strange language; so strange, indeed, that the soldiers with him failed to entirely grasp his meaning, and one shouldered his rifle, while the other brought ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... out that it is the only way to interpret the Bible. When God says: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him he shall bring it to pass," I believe that to be the way to act. My faith does not at all times grasp this or other promises, but there are times when I can appropriate them and make them mine; there are times when I can pray with faith, believing that I have the things I pray for, other ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... haggard, wild-eyed man, whom he scarcely recognised as his old friend. Djama did not speak; he simply caught hold of the sleeve of his coat with a nervous, trembling grasp, drew him in, shut the door, and led him to a corner of the room where there was a little camp bed, curtained all round with thin, transparent muslin, through which he could see the shape of a man lying under ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... and he lost the throne and ended the dynasty which Henry IV. had started in business with such good prospects. In the picture we see him sad and weary and downcast, with the scepter falling from his nerveless grasp. It is a pathetic quenching of a sun which had risen ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... To thoroughly grasp the methods of the New South African Republic, it may be interesting to study some of "the Articles" of a Grondwet or Constitution, which superseded those originally adopted by the Potchefstroom Raad. The Grondwet was started in 1857, and was framed entirely to suit the then condition of ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... deteckative," he said, "I don't see anything into these letters yet that would fetch the writer into the grasp of the law. Are they ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... that in this correspondence the Kaiser was either guilty of insincerity or he betrayed a fatal incapacity to grasp the essentials of the quarrel. I prefer the latter construction of his conduct. Against the bellicose efforts of his Foreign Office and his General Staff, I believe that for dynastic reasons he strove for a time to adjust the difficulty, but his egomania and his ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... the kind," she retorted, trying to break from his grasp. "Do you suppose you can kill me, too, without being found out? There is a detective here now, and Sir David Southern is not at hand to lay the blame on. You coward! How dare ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... grasp Duane held to the rifle-barrel. He had grasped it with his left hand, and he gave such a pull that he swung the crazed woman off the floor. But he could not loose her grip. She was as strong ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... sinister; Northwick thought how easily the man might murder him on that lonely road and make off with the money in his belt; how probably he would do it if he dreamed such wealth was within his grasp. But the man did not notice him after their journey began, except once to turn round and say, "Look out you' nose. You' goin' freeze him." For the rest he talked to his horse, which was lazy, and which he kept urging forward with "Marche donc! Marche donc!" finally shortened to "'Ch' ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... To grasp the revolver it was necessary to stretch his arm full length, and he tried to do that slowly and imperceptibly, but his anxiety overcame his prudence and he made a movement that the watchful Grizzly detected. Instantly the bear pinned the arm with one paw, placed the other upon Brannan's ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... wrenched herself away from the woman's grasp. The breath entered its lungs with an awful long hoarse sound and the poor little ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... friendship to lose all its value; by moderation have we given up commerce to the rapacity of an enemy, formidable only for his perseverance, and suffered our merchants to be ruined, and our sailors to be enslaved. By moderation have we permitted the French to grasp again at general dominion, to overrun Germany with their armies, and to endanger again the liberties of mankind; and by continuing, for a very few years, the same laudable moderation, we shall probably encourage them to shut up our ships in our harbour, and demand a tribute ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... coat upon the wall. It is worn, a little. The barrels of the old gun are worn; and the stock of the rifle, broken in the mountains long ago, is mended but rudely; and the tip of the old rod is broken, and the silk is fraying in the lashings, and upon the hand-grasp the cord is loose. The silver cord will loosen and break in the best of men in time; wherefore, I beseech you, mock not at these belongings, though your own may far surpass them. You are welcome to anything ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... proved by his well-known canzone that he was free from monastic Quixotism, and took a practical view of the value of worldly wealth.[127] His homely humour saved him from the exaltation and the childishness that formed the weakness of the Franciscan revival. By the same firm grasp upon reality he created more than mere abstractions in his chiaroscuro figures of the virtues and vices at Padua. Fortitude and Justice, Faith and Envy, are gifted by him with a real corporeal existence. They seem fit to play ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... the mill-owner in their grasp, having evidently dragged him out of his dining-room. His coat was half torn off, as if there had been a struggle. Marks of bloody fingers stained his collar. His face was white, and his eyes filled with the fear of death. ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... in England. Soon he was off with his regiment to Sicily, at this period garrisoned by British troops, and saved by a strip of inviolate sea from the grasp of the master of Italy. The sojourn in Sicily must have been dull. He was stationed at Syracuse, but his school training had not gone deep enough to interest him in Thucydides's marvellous story of the siege of that place or in the antiquities of Sicily. The chief surviving record ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... amuse or forget himself he had caroused far more nights in succession in Alexandria, why should he not keep awake when the object in question was to wrest a young life from the grasp of death? This man and his life were now his highest goal, and he had never yet repented his foolish eccentricity of imposing discomforts upon himself to help ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... before had she so desired to create an impression. Yet she had given Julian her most solemn promise, and she intended to keep it. As she slowly attired herself, however, she wondered very much why he was so set upon denuding her of her accustomed magnificence. Her mind was entirely unable to grasp his conception of beauty and of attractiveness. She thought all men preferred the peony to the violet. To-night it was very certain that she would be no peony, scarcely even a violet. Her new gown had been expensive, but it was terribly simple, and the skirt hung beautifully, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... If he proved obdurate there was but one course left open to her. She would deliver him up to the justice he had outraged. Hour after hour went by, and Beverly suffered more than she could have told. The damage was done, and the chance to undo it was slipping farther and farther out of her grasp. She began to look upon herself as the vilest of traitors. There was no silver among the clouds that marred ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits—and then Re-mold it ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam
... powers that do not belong to it, and an infraction of rights secured to the States. It is a sword, whose handle is at the National Capital, and whose point is everywhere in the States. A weapon so terrible to personal liberty the nation has no power to grasp. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... and collapsed; the individual features sharp and thin, but earnest and stamped with traces of alarm; his brows, too, which were slightly knit, gave to his whole countenance a character of keen and painful determination. But that which struck those who were present, most, was the unyielding grasp with which he clung even in his insensibility to the ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... was deep, the words were light, The hands upheld were small and white,— Such hands as strong men love to grasp And crush ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... general statement of the relation which the old English tongue bears to the kindred Teutonic dialects, and of the main differences which mark it off from our modern simplified and modified speech. All that can be attempted here is such a broad outline as may enable the general reader to grasp the true connexion between modern English and so-called Anglo-Saxon, on the one hand, as well as between Anglo-Saxon itself and the parent Teutonic language on the other. Any full investigation of grammatical or etymological ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... him—though he concealed it—to see how tenaciously her feminine egotism held to the idea that she was the important person. And, when women of experience thus deluded themselves, it was not at all strange that this girl should be unable to grasp the essential truth as to the relations of men and women—that, while a woman who makes her sex her profession must give to a man, to some man, a dominant place in her life, a man need give a woman—at least, any one ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... Raven Tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazardous: so the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... remains, Which the illustrious spouse of heaven-favor'd lord Through many a year doth earn of prudent governance. Since that, now recognized, thy ancient place as queen, And mistress of the house, once more thou dost resume, The long-time loosen'd reins grasp thou; be ruler here, And in possession take the treasures, us with them! Me before all protect, who am the elder-born, From this young brood, who seem, thy swan-like beauty near, But as a basely winged flock ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... decades Russia has been extending her influence into North Mongolia, patiently and persistently, and now through trade and employment she has the country in her grasp. Almost the only foreign people the Mongol knows are the Russians, and as a rule he seems to get on with them rather well, although a Russian official told me he doubted if there was much to choose between ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... seized the taa-taa from my nerveless grasp. Half closing it, she swam directly toward the monster into whose widening throat she thrust the sharp-pointed instrument, in, in, until I thought she herself would follow it. And then, as she had intended, the point ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... influences. He was wholly Northern; he had not so much as guessed at what Italy might be. The decrepit University had given him, as best she could, the dregs of her palsied philosophy and something of Latin. He grew learned as do those men who grasp quickly the major lines of their study, but who, in details, will only be moved by curiosity or by some special affection. There was nothing patient in him, and nothing applied, and in all this, in the matter of his scholarship as in his acquirement of it, he is of the dying ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... before the grandeur of the Creative Conception as a whole, there breaks from it such lightness of fancy, such richness of invention, such variety and vividness of color, nay, even the ripple of mirthfulness,—for Nature has its humorous side also,—that we lose our grasp of its completeness in wonder at its details, and our sense of its unity is clouded by its marvellous fertility. There may seem to be an irreverence in thus characterizing the Creative Thought by epithets which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... his, but though absorbed in his own joyful feelings, he could not help remarking that the young girl was trembling in his grasp. He even fancied that there was a suspicious, tearful glitter ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... parasol had a knot of yellow ribbon at one side, to match the tint of her sash. Her long tan gloves and the Marechal Niel roses at her neck were finishing touches of the picture which Sydney was incompetent to grasp in detail, although he felt its charm on a whole. The sweet, delicate face, with its refined features and great dark eyes, was one which might well cause a man to barter all the world for love; and, in Sydney's case, it happened that to gain its owner meant to gain the world ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... having such a lot of correspondence to get through. The men who relieved us on Friday afternoon said they had good news, and then gave it to us in these magic words: "The mails are in!" "Thirteen bags!" At first I could hardly believe or grasp it. The mails were in! I never expected to see a letter again. The other companies had been receiving their's for the last fortnight or more, but our whereabouts seemed unknown to the postal authorities. At last, however, we had got them. We ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... first victims, and with them it was permitted to deal unchecked by the power of the state. But the movements of this power were in darkness and secrecy. From the moment when the Inquisition laid its grasp on the object of its suspicions to that of his execution, no voice was heard to issue from its cells. The very witnesses it summoned were punished with death if they revealed the secrets of its dread tribunals; and ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... offence and defence, might, not seeing the expense or consequences of such a measure, be approved by our people, if nothing in the mean time, done on your part, should prevent it. But they will continue to grasp at their desperate sovereignty, till every benefit short of that is for ever out of their reach. I wish my domestic situation had rendered it possible for me to join you in the very honorable charge confided to you. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... some of its simple cadences, the tears came quietly into Kenyon's eyes. They welled up slowly from his heart, which was thrilling with an emotion more delightful than he had often felt before, but which he forbore to analyze, lest, if he seized it, it should at once perish in his grasp. ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mutinous lock of hair fell on the side of her face, almost touching the crimson lips. There was so much magnetism in her beauty, such a heaven in the unconquered warmth of her impetuous being, that Selwyn gripped the arms of his chair to help to restrain the mad impulse to grasp her in his arms and smother those lips and the flushed, satin cheeks in a tempest ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... felt it so earnestly, that he turned quite rational, and positively interdicted any further allusion to Walter's adventures for some days to come. Captain Cuttle then became sufficiently composed to relieve himself of the toast in his hat, and to take his place at the tea-board; but finding Walter's grasp upon his shoulder, on one side, and Florence whispering her tearful congratulations on the other, the Captain suddenly bolted again, and was missing ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... characteristics-courage, hardihood, the stiff-necked pride of the freeman, vigilance, wariness, sense of locality,[1169] keen powers of observation stimulated by the monotonous, featureless environment, and the consequent capacity to grasp every detail.[1170] Though robbery abroad is honorable and marauder a term with which to crown a hero, theft at home is summarily dealt with among most nomads. The property of the unlocked tent and the far-ranging herd must be safeguarded.[1171] The Tartars maintained ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... while yet a child. He soon saw that his scientific baggage was but small; he felt that something unknown, something infinite, barred his passage, so soon as he strove to approach the goal which, in an outburst of joy, he fancied within his grasp. What hand would guide him to enter on the dazzling career which he had dimly foreseen? Where should he get ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... the Great Universe of God! How can we with our limited mental vision expect to grasp and comprehend them! Infinite SPACE, stretching out from us every way, without limit: infinite TIME, without beginning or end; and WE, HERE, and NOW, in the centre of each! An infinity of suns, the nearest of which only diminish ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... McDonald! You surely are not—" Sarah gasped, clutching at the dress, which her mistress took from her grasp, saying: ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... to withdraw it from his pocket, but he took the little hand in an iron grasp, saying "don't be ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... The ritual had been his guide before, and his genius, set free to soar as it would, fluttered wildly without direction. His visions were troubled with glamours of the old conventional forms; his idea tantalized him with glimpses of its perfect self too fleeting for him to grasp. The sensation was not new to him. During his maturer years he had tried to remember his mother's face with the same yearning and heart-hurting disappointment. But this time he groped after attributes which should shape the features—he ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... in front of the house at Abbotsford, he suddenly roused himself, threw off the plaids which covered him, and exclaimed, "This is sad idleness. Take me to my own room, and fetch the keys of my desk." They wheeled him into his study, and put pens and paper before him. But he could not grasp the pen; he could not write; and the tears rolled down his cheeks. His spirit was not conquered, but his bodily powers were exhausted and shattered; and when at length he died, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... he was even ready to risk all in a dumb brute impulse to gather up the remnants of his strength of heart and brain, and be the center of some widespread catastrophe; to put his fear in her soul just as it was in his own. How was she ever to comprehend the horror that held him in its cruel grasp, the thousand subtle shades of thought and feeling that had led up to this thing, from the memory of which he revolted! He turned his bloodshot eyes upon her, something of the old light was there along with the new; he had indeed loved her, ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... of Beauty also he can only dimly grasp. If he seeks to explain it in terms of sexual selection, or any other small conception which he has recently been able to form in connection with vital procedure on this planet, he is explaining nothing: ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... the wall, and stumbling against the stone bench, whose existence he had forgotten, pitched head forward to the table, and sent the four-day loaf rolling on the floor. He made an ineffectual grasp after the loaf, fearing it might fall into the stream and be lost to him, but he could not find it, and now his designs for measuring the cell gave place to the desire of finding that loaf. He got down on his hands and knees, and felt the stone ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... dragon slipped out of the Prince's grasp, plunged into the water, and disappeared. The Prince waited for him but he didn't show his scaly head again ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... abandonment of all claim of our citizens for indemnification and submissive acquiescence in national indignity. It would have encouraged in these lawless men a spirit of insolence and rapine most dangerous to the lives and property of our citizens at Punta Arenas, and probably emboldened them to grasp at the treasures and valuable merchandise continually passing over the Nicaragua route. It certainly would have been most satisfactory to me if the objects of the Cyane's mission could have been consummated without any act of public force, but the arrogant contumacy of the offenders ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... you have suffered, and we consider the persecution with which you have been pursued by a venal Court and an imperious and uncharitable priesthood, as an illustrious proof of your personal merit, and a lasting reproach to that Government from the grasp of whose tyranny you are ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... be stopped," said Kelly carelessly. "He's the worst enemy the labor element has had in my time." He rose. "Well, Mr. Hastings, I must be going." He extended his heavy, strong hand, which Hastings rose to grasp. "I'm glad we're working together again without any hitches. You won't forget about that ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... turn, and said, "You must not stand Longer, young ladies, in this open door. The air is heavy with a cold damp chill. We shall have rain to-morrow, or before. Good night." He vanished in the darkling shade; And so the dreaded evening found an end, That saw me grasp the conscience-whetted blade, And strike a blow for honor and ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... where I saw her, and oh! how I rushed to snatch a grip o' her before she was carried ower the rocks! But it was in vain—a moment sooner, and I might hae saved her; but she was hurled ower the precipice when I was within an arm's length, and making a grasp at her bit frock! My poor little Jeannie was baith felled and drowned. I plunged into the wheel below the linn, and got her out in my arms. I ran wi' her to the house, and I laid my drowned bairn on her mother's knee. Everything that could be ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... forward steps have been summarized by Barbara Ward and Rene Dubos (Only One World N.Y. Nostrom 1972 pages 28-29). "In every case the needed steps take us away from division, from single shot interventions, separatist tendencies and driving ambitions and greeds. We have to grasp and foster more fully the truly integrative aspects of science. We have to revise our economic management of incomes, of environments, of cities. We have to place what is useable in nationalism within the framework of a political world order that is morally and socially responsible ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... together. My hands and eyes are eager to know what I have become possessed of. I owe to you my liberation from prejudices and conventions. Ideas are passed on. We learn more from each other than from books. I was unconsciously affected by your example. You dared to stretch out both hands to life and grasp it; you accepted the spontaneous natural living wisdom of your instincts when I was rolled up like a dormouse in the dead wisdom of codes and formulas, dogmas and opinions. I never told you how I became a priest. I did not know until quite lately. ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... towards the water. They must strike upon that—and then! ....It seemed an eternity ere they touched the masonry.... The Amal was undermost.... She saw his fair floating locks dash against the cruel stone. His grasp suddenly loosened, his limbs collapsed; two distinct plunges broke the dark sullen water; and then all was still but the awakened ripple, lapping ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... is, Captain; please read it, and see if you can believe what I told you to be the truth," and Jack thrust the paper into the other's grasp. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... opposite the murderer, and confronted by him with a look so dark, wild and malignant, that he could not doubt the intention that lay behind those scowling eyes. Luiz Sebastian, still with the murderer's arm in his grasp, gave him a peculiar look which he could not translate. In the background he saw Trail's sinister face peering over the shoulder ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... so intelligent, and at the same time such a good fellow. There were little peculiarities in the earl, too, that struck him very forcibly; they seemed to recall some faint, vague memory, a something that he could never grasp, that was always eluding him, yet that was perfectly clear; and ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... function towards the general scheme of the nation, as being in a sense designed to take the crude young male of the more or less responsible class, to correct his harsh egotisms, broaden his outlook, give him a grasp of the contemporary developments he will presently be called upon to influence and control, and send him on to the university to be made a leading and ruling social man. It is easy enough to carp at schoolmasters and set up for an Educational ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... stakes. I hear you've been ill, Mr. Derek. You do look pale. Were you very bad?" And her eyes opened as though the very thought of illness was difficult for her to grasp. "I saw your young lady up in London. She's very pretty. Wish you happiness, Mr. Derek. Grandfather, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... were a Papist, father, and this the Inquisition,' said Netta, growing learned under the torture of her father's grasp, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... strong eddies, and in hauling the boat around a bend her bow was pushed into one, her slight keel momentarily preventing her from heading up stream again, and the rush of the water bore her under. At the same time Cary was carried from his footing and just managed to grasp the line as he came up and escape being borne down the stream. When things were collected and an inventory taken of the loss, it was found to include about one-fourth of the provisions, the barometer and chronometer rendered useless and practically ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... dignifying pain— A father's love and mortal's agony With an immortal's patience blending:—Vain The struggle: vain against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench, the long envenom'd chain Rivets the living links,—the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... became an inferno of whipping and lashing movements, of whitish fibers and spearing thrusts of a glistening black electric body. Unquestionably the eel was using its numbing electric shock on its foe. Time and time again Phil felt the amoeba grasp him, searingly, only to be wrenched free by the force of the currents the combat stirred up. Once he thudded into the bottom of the river, and his lungs seemed about to burst before he was again shot to the top and managed to get a breath. At last the water quieted somewhat, ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... clever imp looked out of Laura's eyes. "Do you know," she said, "it makes me feel as if I had millions and millions of intoxicated brains, all trying to grasp something, and all reeling, and I can't tell whether it's you who are intoxicated, or I. And I want to know how ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... on her hand. But the millionaire walked directly towards her with his usual frankness of conscious but restrained power, and she felt, as she always did, perfectly at her ease in his presence. Even as she took his outstretched hand, its straightforward grasp seemed to endow her ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... said, and this time he was only too sure that he did see. Then: "What is it you want me to do for you, Mr. Hathaway? You have told me once, but I'm afraid I didn't grasp it fully." ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... human philosophy are inadequate to grasp the Principle of Christian Science, or to demonstrate it. Revelation shows this Principle, and will rescue reason from the thrall of error. Revelation must subdue the sophistry of intellect, and spiritualize consciousness with the dictum and ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... again the dense darkness lit up by a vivid flash of lightning; the deck appears for the moment peopled by phantoms combined with the fury of the elements to bring destruction on the noble little vessel with its precious freight struggling and trembling in their grasp. ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... Joe had called again, and we were listening for moose, we heard come faintly echoing, or creeping from far, through the moss-clad aisles, a dull, dry, rushing sound, with a solid core to it, yet as if half smothered under the grasp of the luxuriant and fungus-like forest, like the shutting of a door in some distant entry of the damp and shaggy wilderness. If we had not been there, no mortal had heard it. When we asked Joe in a whisper what it was, he answered,— "Tree fall." There is something singularly grand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the girl halted, pale and rigid, and her heart seemed to cease its beating; then, as she passed with averted head, Rosalie caught Duane's wrists in her jewelled grasp and ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... a thorough grasp of the leading characteristics as well as the minutiae of the industry, and gives a lucid description of its chief departments.... As a text-book in technical schools where this branch of industrial education is taught, the book is valuable, or it may be perused ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... old verities, as in producing new ones from the mint of one's invention. As Emerson has remarked, valuable originality does not consist in mere novelty or unlikeness to other men, but in range and extent of grasp and insight. This is a fact, too, which Mr Helps has noted. 'A suggestion,' says he, 'may be ever so old; but it is not exhausted until it is acted upon, or rejected on sufficient reason.' He has, therefore, no fastidious dread ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... but I could see nothing in the dark pit of the hall below us. Was it possible I could remember it alight with candles, whose flames made soft halos on the polished floor? Brutus touched my shoulder, and the brusque grasp of his hand turned me a ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... gave up all effort to grasp or even to understand reality. The Greek mind thought it could arrive at reality through the intellect. But two thousand years of philosophic study and evolution drove philosophy into the absurd positions of absolute subjective idealism on the one hand and sensationalism ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... substance should count much more than the form. Of the points that count in judging the substance of the debate the instructions may note keenness of analysis, power of exposition, thoroughness of preparation, judgment in the selection of evidence, readiness and effectiveness in rebuttal, and grasp of the subject as a whole. For form the instructions may mention bearing, ease and appropriateness of gesture, quality and expressiveness of voice, enunciation and pronunciation, and general effectiveness of delivery. ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... expecting something of the sort, for he seized the arm of the young man, weakened by dissipation, and turned the pistol upward as if it had been in the grasp of a mere child. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... with all his mighty strength, but the powerful brute seized it in those terrible hands, and tearing it from Clayton's grasp hurled it far to ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... valuables into as small a compass as possible, and talked more than ever of her plans for giving her daughter either to the Archduke Matthias, or to some great noble, as if the English crown were already within her grasp. Anxious, curious, and feeling injured by the want of confidence, yet not daring to complain, Cicely felt almost fretful at her mother's buoyancy, but she had been taught a good many lessons in the past year, and one of ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... woful place. Before us, as before them, lay the peril of hunger and of thirst, the death-sleep or the greater mercy. And who should ask them to accept it without a last supreme attempt, a final assault, which should mend all or end all? Driven to the last point, to the last point would they go to grasp that foothold of the seas and to drive us from the rock whereon life might ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... political economy, and elaborates the conditions of material prosperity in an agricultural realm. With the correctness of the definitions and principles of economic science as laid down by these writers, we have here nothing to do. Their peculiar distinction in the present connection is the grasp which they had of the principle of there being a natural, and therefore a scientific, order in the conditions of a society; that order being natural in the sense that they attached to the term, which from the circumstances of the case is ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... ask ourselves at this point what the Incarnation means, because our estimate of Blessed Mary as the chosen instrument of God's grace will be influenced by our estimate of that which she was chosen to do. One feels the failure to grasp her position in the work of our redemption often displays a weak hold upon that which is the very heart of God's work—the fact of God made man. The moment of the Annunciation is the moment of the Incarnation: God in His infinite love for ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... my knees and stretched my arms above my head, crying aloud as women cry with gasps and chokings in sudden bereavement. Nebulous memories twisted all around me and I could grasp nothing. I raged for what had been mine—for some high estate out of which I had fallen into degradation. I clawed the ground in what must have seemed convulsions to the girl. Her poppet ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... window, having the good sense to utter no exclamation, waited till Joel was up far enough for her to grasp his arm. Then she couldn't help it as she ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... and just kept on as before. Fonske had not been able to catch one yet and his fat legs were turning blue with the cold. In front of him stood Bertje, stooping and peering into the water, with his hands ready to grasp; and Fonske saw such a lovely little runnel from his neck to halfway down his back, all bare skin. He carefully scooped his hands full of water and let it trickle gently inside Bertje's shirt. The boy growled; and Fonske, screaming ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... daring to raise his head. It passed beyond the limits of the Seed ranch, and entered the shade at the foot of the hill below him. Would it come farther than this? Here it had always stopped hitherto, stopped for a moment, and then, in spite of his efforts, had slipped from his grasp and faded back into the night. But now he wondered if he had been willing to put forth his utmost strength, after all. Had there not always been an element of dread in the thought of beholding the mystery face to face? Had he not even allowed the Vision to dissolve, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... more, and already two masked corpses had fallen from the wall into the courtyard, daring climbers shot by Rostafel as they tried to drop. Sickened by the sight of blood, dazed by shots and the sharp "ping" of bullets, frenzied with horror at the sight of Victoria struggling in the grasp of Maieddine, Saidee sank down unconscious as Stephen beat ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... eight and waited contentedly in converse with her aunt until Jane came down. "I didn't bring the car," he said. "I thought we'd like to walk." When they reached the sidewalk he lifted her right forearm in a warm, moist grasp and held it firmly close against him. "The car's too quick, Janey," he said, huskily. "Gets us there ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... sacrifice and strain his connection with the hospital involved. He endowed a medical tutorship, also scholarships for students. Students, nurses, etc., would eagerly listen to his informal expositions in the wards, as he invariably showed a grasp of the subject that was equally minute and comprehensive. "He would start from some particular point and work his way point by point down to the minutest detail, not bewildering by a multiplicity of facts, but keeping them all in ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... as to be able to stand with the help of something which he could grasp, a board about a foot and a half high was placed across the lower part of the open door to prevent ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... all after they've dined! Saint Moses! It will be a sort of 'first appearance in England.' A good test, too, because all the English eat nearly to bursting before they go to the opera. No wonder they never can grasp what the music is about, or who's who! It's all salmon and chicken and lobster and champagne with them—not Beethoven or Wagner or Rossini. Good old Gigue! His spirits are irrepressible! How he is laughing! Mr. Walden looks very serious—almost tragic—I ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... A distant kinsman bore the orphan to lands more secure from persecution; and the art with which the Jews concealed their wealth, scattering it over various cities, had secured to Almamen the treasures the tyrant of Granada had failed to grasp. ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thank you! I knew I shouldn't have to ask twice when I called upon Henry Peyton. It always does me good to grasp the hand of such a man as ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... dealt Arthur a great blow; but this the King shunned, and rushing upon his foe, smote him so fiercely on the head with the pommel of his broken sword that the knight swayed and let slip his own weapon. With a bound, Arthur was upon the sword, and no sooner had he it within his grasp than he knew it, of a truth, to be his own sword Excalibur. Then he scanned more closely his enemy, and saw the scabbard that he wore was none other than the magic scabbard of Excalibur; and forthwith, ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... the audience was over, the struggle was, who should be most attentive to the colonel. He was surrounded, congratulated, embraced, and pulled about. Each of his old comrades wished to carry him off, and his hands were not enough to grasp all those extended to him. General Savary, who that very evening had added to the fright of Marshal Moncey, by being astonished that any one could have the audacity to brave the Emperor, extended his arm over the shoulders of those who ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the Italian language sufficiently to grasp Calli's meaning, flushed angrily, but I touched his arm and he turned his back upon the fellow. Then I spoke in tones that Calli could ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... is this prize that the trembling Venetia holds almost convulsively in her grasp, apparently without daring even to examine it? Is this the serene and light-hearted girl, whose face was like the cloudless splendour of a sunny day? Why is she so pallid and perturbed? What strong impulse fills her frame? She clutches ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Talbot, you are leaning over in your saddle! Miss Lettice, your elbows again! Miss Wright, you must learn not to grasp the pommel. Don't drag the rein! Miss Latimer, keep a light hand! What, tired already? Well, I won't work you too hard just ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... loss of her crew, drifted out again into the wild wide ocean, and was sometimes found in the helpless guidance of one or two infirm or ignorant sailors; sometimes such vessels were never heard of more. The men thus pressed were taken from the near grasp of parents or wives, and were often deprived of the hard earnings of years, which remained in the hands of the masters of the merchantman in which they had served, subject to all the chances of honesty or dishonesty, life or death. Now ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... dared no longer grasp at for herself she yearned now to pour lavishly, quickly, into Lucy's hands. Only so—such is our mingled life!—could she altogether still, violently and by force, a sort of upward surge of the soul which terrified her now and then. A mystical casuistry, bred in her naturally simple nature by ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the consequence of attending to the minutiae, where art (or imposture, as the ill-mannered would call it) is designed—your linen rumpled and soily, when you wait upon her—easy terms these—just come to town—remember (as formerly) to loll, to throw out your legs, to stroke and grasp down your ruffles, as if of significance enough to be careless. What though the presence of a fine lady would require a different behaviour, are you not of years to dispense with politeness? You can have no design upon her, you know. You are a father yourself of daughters as old as she. Evermore ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... said that drowning men will grasp at straws. This elegant stranger, who had emerged from mystery to disturb the Christmas day of a humble organist, now leaned on the friendly arm of the little man, walking along with him, not as he once sauntered through the promenade, a butterfly disdaining all but the brightest of sunbeams, ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... the Duke of Richmond then moved for returns of the army and navy, both in America and Ireland. Chatham now made another speech, in which he expressed great alarm as to the actual state of those two important fortresses, Gibraltar and Minorca; contending that they were not secure from the grasp of France and Spain. He also took occasion again to extol the Americans, and to plead their cause, still justifying their opposition to the mother country. The motion was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to leave here. Stern resolution. Grasp the world. Then I found that the Village Virus had me, absolute: I didn't want to face new streets and younger men—real competition. It was too easy to go on making out conveyances and arguing ditching cases. So——That's all ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... efforts to pause for futile reckonings. There will be time enough for that when the war is won, and won it shall be, no matter what the cost. It requires no great perspicacity to realize that our total national debt will be a sum which rolls so easily on its ciphers that it eludes the grasp of the average mind. It is going to cost a lot even to keep the wheels greased at five and one-half per cent. from year to year. Everybody knows it. ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... a pretty place; and the only way to keep a footing in it is to fight it on its own terms—and above all, my dear, not alone!" Mrs. Fisher gathered up her floating implications in a resolute grasp. "You've told me so little that I can only guess what has been happening; but in the rush we all live in there's no time to keep on hating any one without a cause, and if Bertha is still nasty enough to want to injure you with other people it must be because she's still afraid of you. From her ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... give me, Colonel Harris," said Hugh Searles, as he gave each person a quick hand-shake, thinking that to be an American he must grasp hands cordially. ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton |
