"Grasping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... longer than ever swathed in a blue painting-apron and grasping her palette and brushes. She had to apologize for not shaking hands with him, because her fingers were covered with paint that had been hastily but ineffectually wiped off on a rag before she ...
— Different Girls • Various
... were so totally altered, that he stood before me the living image of his sister, a likeness I had never perceived before. I was too much astonished to address him, and before I could frame words, he had sprung forward, with a burning flush on his cheek, and grasping my hand, wildly exclaimed, 'Do not shun me, Hamilton, I am not yet an utter reprobate. Tell me of my ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... are more patriotic than the hardy and brave men of the frontier, or more ready to obey the call of their country and to defend her rights and her honor whenever and by whatever enemy assailed. They should be protected from the grasping speculator and secured, at the minimum price of the public lands, in the humble homes which they have improved by their labor. With this end in view, all vexatious or unnecessary restrictions imposed upon them by the existing preemption laws should be repealed or ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... and Varhely's hussars held at the edge of the black opening resinous torches, which the wintry wind shook like scarlet plumes, and which stained the snow with great red spots of light. Erect, at the head of the ditch, his fingers grasping the hand of Yanski Varhely, young Prince Andras gazed upon the earthy bed, where, in his hussar's uniform, lay Prince Sandor, his long blond moustache falling over his closed mouth, his blood-stained hands crossed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... high mass in church and the hanging of the archbishop of Pisa from a window of the town hall by the exasperated people, wars, conspiracies, alliances, annulments of alliances, in short, all the acts that fill up the turbulent life of a crafty and grasping politician, are recorded for his administration. He did not scruple to employ the authority of his exalted office for the furtherance of his political schemes. Thus he excommunicated Venice and formed a warlike alliance against the ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... the fat off you; you're disgracefully out of condition,' said the Nilghai, making a plunge from the chair and grasping a handful of Dick generally over the right ribs. 'Soft as putty—pure tallow born of over-feeding. Train ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... hundreds of feet above the ground on a cloud of green and growing foliage, but from afar and above they were revealed in their true splendor, shooting up from the earth as if they were the arms of the ground itself, grasping huge clusters of leaves and branches far above in their tightened fists. Some way into the forest, the ground sprang up into mountains that were as fierce and behemoth as the trees that clothed them. They were terrible ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... more important. Many of the facts that you learn will be forgotten; many will be outlawed by time; but the habits of study you form will be permanent possessions. They will consist of such things as methods of grasping facts, methods of reasoning about facts, and of concentrating attention. In acquiring these habits you must have some material upon which you may concentrate your attention, and it will be supplied by the subjects of the curriculum. You will be asked, for instance, to write innumerable ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... custom which I very heartily dislike,' I answered. 'It seems to me that people here are always grasping. Look at the prices which the merchants ask, the way they bargain. They fight for each para as if it were their soul's salvation. They ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... persisted, grasping the handle; 'not yet, Edgar Linton: sit down; you shall not leave me in that temper. I should be miserable all night, and I won't ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... blood had been already drawn, and that the younger brother was only restrained from following up the first assault by the united force of all the females, who hung about him, while the older brother, grasping a heavy billet of wood, and pale with rage, stood awaiting his antagonist. Passing through the group of weeping and terrified women, Madame Ossoli made her way up to the younger brother and, laying her hand upon his shoulder, asked him to put down his weapon and listen ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... snow in their effort to keep the sleds from over-running the dogs. It was exciting work. The men throwing their utmost weight upon the lines sought every obstruction, swerving against trees, bracing against roots, grasping at branches, and floundering through bushes. Often they fell, and occasionally, when they failed to regain their footing, were mercilessly dragged downhill; the heavy sleds, gathering momentum, overtook the fleeing dogs, and their unfortunate masters were ploughed head-first through the snow. At ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... if it is their will that a house, not the least noble of their members, shall be stripped of their possessions, the reward of the patriotism of generations, as the pawn of a wretched mechanic becomes forfeit to the usurer the instant the hour of redemption has passed away. If they yield to the grasping severity of the creditor, and to the gnawing usury that eats into our lands as moths into a raiment, it will be of more evil consequence to them and their posterity than to Edgar Ravenswood. I shall still have my sword and my cloak, and can follow the profession of arms ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... the Star Gazer perceived a large lake, and on the shores of the lake twelve little boats with awnings, in which were seated twelve princes, who, grasping their oars, awaited ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... till another baboon caught and rent another. This went on till two of the swinging apes came within grasping distance of each other. At once they grappled, bit each other and fought till ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... grasping the fact that in their range they had an asset of value. Less than two months before, they were on the point of abandoning their home as worthless, not capable of sustaining life, the stone which the builders ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... saw them grasping each other's hands and blushing, her dream recurred to her with the force of an ominous prophecy. Hemstead, in his severe attack of diffidence, had not greeted any. one on his entrance, but had fallen helplessly into Miss ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... generally something ingenuous, responsive, eager, sweet, hopeful about a child—but though I admit that one does encounter beautiful natures that seem to flower very generously in the light of experience, yet most people grow dull, dreary, conventional, grasping, commonplace—they grow to think rather contemptuously of emotion and generosity—they think it weak to be amiable, unselfish, kind. They become fond of comfort and position and respect and money. They think such things the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... rather than be separated. The stern old man, deaf to her supplication, and disregarding her menace, ordered his followers to seize the fugitive. Warrior after warrior darted up the rock, but on reaching the platform, at the moment when they were grasping to clutch the young brave, the lovers, locked in ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... the enemies of the Covenant, and no friends but its friends. Whereas, far from keeping the oath he had called God and angels to witness, his first step, after his incoming into these kingdoms, was the fearful grasping at the prerogative of the Almighty, by that hideous Act of Supremacy, together with his expulsing, without summons, libel, or process of law, hundreds of famous faithful preachers, thereby wringing the bread of life out of the mouth ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... between President Colbrith and the determined young pace-setter was the lobby of the tar-paper-covered hotel, cleared now of the impromptu mining-stock exchange, which had moved into permanent quarters. The old man rose stiffly and stood grasping ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... responded Tom, grasping each of us by the hand. "That's why I so much wanted you fellows to come ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... more obvious though less peculiar merits—merits, I must add, which would seem far less extraordinary if it were not for the high plane of reality on which Giotto keeps us. Now what is back of this power of raising us to a higher plane of reality but a genius for grasping and communicating real significance? What is it to render the tactile values of an object but to communicate its material significance? A painter who, after generations of mere manufacturers of symbols, illustrations, and allegories had the power to ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... ashore, the boatswains whistle sounded, and the steersmen leapt to their niches in the stern, grasping the shafts of the great steering-oars. A second blast rang out, and down the gangway-deck came Vigitello and two of his mates, all three armed with long whips of bullock-hide, shouting to the slaves to make ready. And then, on the note of a third blast of Larocque's ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... that he had done worthily; he had none of his kin, or none fit to hold his dukedom after him; but that all he desired was that his people should be well ruled, and that he had determined that Robert should succeed him. "There will be envious and grasping hands," he said, "held out—but you are strong and wise, and the people will be content to be ruled by you," and then he showed him a paper that made him a prince in title, and that gave him the Dukedom on his ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... record of religious experience. It has but one central figure from Genesis to Revelation—God. But God is primarily in the experience, only secondarily in the record. All thought succeeds in grasping but a fraction of consciousness; thought is well symbolized in Rodin's statue, where out of a huge block of rough stone a small finely chiselled head emerges. With all their skill we cannot credit the men ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... Grasping, cowardly, and avaricious, the Leridans would lend themselves to any abomination for a sufficiency of money; but no money on earth would induce them to risk their own necks in the process. Marat had obviously held ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... would be that art which should again open the scenes which have vanished, and revivify the emotions which other impressions have effaced? But the faculty of memory, although perhaps the most manageable of all others, is considered a subordinate one; it seems only a grasping and accumulating power, and in the work of genius is imagined to produce nothing of itself; yet is memory the foundation of Genius, whenever this faculty is associated with imagination and passion; with ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... became convinced that his wife was an invalid, and he went into mourning as much as a man could mourn the loss of a joy that he had grasped for, and just missed in the grasping. He enjoyed the situation as much as a man could who had discovered that he had amalgamated himself with an hospital which was mortgaged for all it was worth to the family physician. Out of his salary of seventy-five dollars per month sixty-five was ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... far over the side of the boat, gazed rapturously into the water, announcing in shrill tones that he could see to the very bottom, an anxious elder sister grasping the back of his jersey meanwhile. A girl with a pigtail jumped about in a manner calculated to bring an abrupt and watery conclusion to the passage, till forcibly restrained by her melancholy-looking father. A young man announced that it was ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... the other, grasping Nestor by the hand. "We found your camp but you were not there, so we came on down to the place where the ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... between Althora and the nearest figures that stretched out grasping hands, and a red face went white under the smashing impact of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... desperado could recover his weapon, Arvina rallied and closed with him, grasping him by the throat, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... knife flashed downward, Stratton squirmed his body sidewise so that the blade merely grazed one shoulder. Grasping the slim wrist, he twisted it with brutal force, and the weapon clattered to the floor. An instant later he had gripped the fellow about the body and, exerting all his strength, hurled him across the table and straight through the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... children brought into the Juvenile Court in Chicago are the children of foreigners. The Germans are the greatest offenders, Polish next. Do their children suffer from the excess of virtue in those parents so eager to own a house and lot? One often sees a grasping parent in the court, utterly broken down when the Americanized youth who has been brought to grief clings as piteously to his peasant father as if he were still a frightened little boy ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... to dominion in France for the sake of making French influence subserve the conquest of the kingdom of Naples, the object of his ambition. The Duke of Berry was a mediocre, restless, prodigal, and grasping prince. The Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bold, the most able and the most powerful of the three, had been the favorite, first of his father, King John, and then of his brother, Charles V., who had confidence in him and readily adopted his counsels. His marriage, in 1369, with the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the town of Lincoln, where short speeches were made by the contestants, and dinner was served at the hotel; after which, as Mr. Lincoln came out on the plank-walk in front, I was formally presented to him. He saluted me with his natural cordiality, grasping my hand in both his large hands with a vice-like grip, and looking down into my face with his beaming, dark, full eyes, said: 'How do you do? I am glad to meet you. I have read of you in the papers. You are making a statue of Judge Douglas for Governor Matteson's new house.' 'Yes, sir,' I answered; ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... of evil; we are benevolent for the healing of misery. But it will be happiness, in the limit, as mathematicians speak, to wish well to all in a society where it is well with all, and to struggle with truth for its own sake, ever grasping, never mastering, as ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... daily, and sometimes even more frequently, I found the way somehow into his heart, and he would do almost anything for me and longed for my visits. When again the fit of self-destruction seized him, they sent for me; he held out his hand eagerly, and grasping mine said, "Put all these people out of the room, remain you with me; I will be quiet, I will ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... the eyes of those equally infallible judges who have been in dread procession towards us ever since we began to be—our posterity—judges who perhaps will doubt with a smile whether we even knew what love was, or ever had a dream of the grandeur they are on the point of grasping. But at least bethink yourselves, dear posterity: we have not ceased because you ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... eerie wind whined and sighed over us. We spoke little, having no breath to spare, for the ground was growing more steep and broken towards the second rise, up which we clambered, sliding and falling, grasping frozen heather till we reached the top. The hill was now a riddle of peat hags and binks, like a bee's skep, a place of treachery and slimy death, although the frost would have most of the sinking pools in its iron hand; but we never stopped the long stride that seemed ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... receive from her as a welcome legacy—to remain just so long as I am not a burden to you. Second childhood and first should understand one another. We will play delightful games together, the dear baby and I. So let the convent beckon. For the convent is perhaps, after all, but an impatient grasping at the rest of paradise, before that rest is fairly earned. I have a good hope that, after all, we give ourselves most acceptably to God in thus giving ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... will see presently; for when the bear saw his enemy gone, he comes back from the bough where he stood, but did it mighty leisurely, looking behind him every step, and coming backward till he got into the body of the tree; then with the same hinder end foremost, he came down the tree; grasping it with his claws, and moving one foot at a time, very leisurely. At this juncture, and just before he could set his hind feet upon the ground, Friday stepped close to him, clapped the muzzle of his piece into his ear, and shot him as dead as ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... had bought new for his honeymoon—into a palatial bedroom of the Liverpool hotel, he experienced, only with a thousand degrees more conviction, that sense of freedom from care which his wife was even then timidly grasping, far away in London. He was provided for handsomely and agreeably for three hundred ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... his theatre towards eight o'clock, when the piece in favor came on, and overtures and accompaniments needed the strict ruling of the baton; most minor theatres are lax in such matters, and Pons felt the more at ease because he himself had been by no means grasping in all his dealings with the management; and Schmucke, if need be, could take his place. Time went by, and Schmucke became an institution in the orchestra; the Illustrious Gaudissart said nothing, but ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... 51: We agree with Rhys Davids, Buddhism, pp. 111, 207, that Buddha himself was an atheist; but to the statement that Nirv[a]na was the "extinction of that sinful, grasping condition of mind and heart which would otherwise be the cause of renewed individual existences" should in our opinion be added "and therewith the extinction of individuality." Compare Rhys Davids' Hibbert ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... a female figure was but too true: it was Miss Betty Devine, who had been arranging that portion of her toilet which might endanger the free exercise of her right arm. This done, Miss Devine stood forward, and, grasping a certain utensil of more than ordinary proportions, with one bound, not only "returned its lining on the night," as Tom Moore says, but also on the head of the devoted serenader, who was so stunned by Betty's favor, that it was some time before he realized the nature of the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... I was enthralled by the strange story which my companion was whispering into my ear, while all the time his keen eyes were shooting in every direction and his hand grasping ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he resumed, "is beginning to make some rather shy, awkward advances, as if to secure my favor—a very futile endeavor as you can imagine. My views are changing in respect to remaining in his father's employ. The grasping old man would monopolize everything. I believe he would impoverish the entire South if he could, and I don't feel like remaining a part of ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... I was right in my prediction about these Garlands being swallowed up by some "hungry book-fish!" I saw them, a few days after, in the well-furnished library of ATTICUS: who exhibited them to me in triumph—grasping the whole of them between his finger and thumb! They are marvellous well-looking little volumes—clean, bright, and "rejoicing to the eye!"—many of them, moreover, are first editions! The severest winter cannot tarnish the ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... chance to escape to the shore; he was unarmed, with the exception of a spear which seemed altogether too insignificant an instrument to defend himself with against such a huge monster; yet in his dilemma it was the only chance he had. Grasping the spear with a hand rendered firm by despair, he awaited the right moment, and just as the animal was about to close its massive jaws to crush him and his frail kyak (aiming down the throat, his fright lending strength to the action) ...
— Short Sketches from Oldest America • John Driggs
... old chap, I congratulate you heartily," he said, grasping his brother by both shoulders. "If you go on like this you'll either go far, or you'll be very suddenly nipped in the bud. You mustn't take too many chances, Dennis, for the sake of the little mater at home. But this is ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... a still formidable fist, and grasping a rail, lurched to and fro unsteadily. "Lemme out 'fore I kill somebody. Claim rightsh of British citizensh," ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... old hunter, and assured him that we should always be glad to see him. After this invitation, Brian became a frequent guest. He would sit and listen with delight to Moodie while he described to him elephant-hunting at the Cape; grasping his rifle in a determined manner, and whistling an encouraging air to his dogs. I asked him one evening what made ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... endured and suffered were kind and helpful, their masters mean and rapacious. Everywhere was the same sordid grasping for the dollar. With my ideals and training nothing but discouragement and defeat would be my portion. Oh, it is so ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Socialism, he freely pleaded the cause of the poor before the magistrate of the eleventh or twelfth district. He occupied the third story of the Thuillier house on rue Saint-Dominique-d'Enfer. He fell into the hands of Dutocq and Cerizet and suffered under the pressure of these grasping creditors. Theodose now decided that he would marry M. Thuillier's natural daughter, Mademoiselle Celeste Colleville, but, with Felix Phellion's love to contend with, despite the combined support, gained with difficulty, of Madame Colleville ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... flow of words, as it likes to move around in a sort of perpetual circle, for all its members are connected with each other, by its slipping and gliding along from one subject to the next, just as men, strengthening their pace, hold and are held, by grasping each other by the hand. Whatever belongs to the demonstrative kind has freer and more flowing numbers. The judicial and deliberative, being varied in their matter, occasionally require ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... our steps, but now following the edge of that precipice out of which we had emerged. I had peremptorily insisted on carrying her. She put her arms round my neck and, to my uplifted heart, she weighed no heavier than a feather. Castro, grasping my arm, guided my steps and gave me ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... and grasping him by the shoulders, he sent him spinning along the hall-way, where he sank upon the bottom step of the stairs, to sit with his outstretched fingers extended before his face, and peering at us grotesquely through ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... hold of the pot, as if meaning to assist him in carrying it up; but on reaching the top of the bank he, in the same jocose way, held it fast, until a gin said something to him, upon which he relinquished the pot and seized the kettle with his left hand, and at the same time grasping his waddy or club in his right he immediately struck Joseph Jones senseless to the ground by a violent blow on the forehead. On seeing this the sailor Jones fired and wounded, in the thigh or groin, king ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... grasping at the air, the cry which broke from her lips harsh and unnatural. Before he could tell what was happening, she was ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... you a receipt for them with my own hand," cried the Elector, hastening with youthful speed to his writing table, and grasping paper and pen. With alacrity he dashed off a few words on the paper, moistened a great wafer, laid paper over it, and, pasting it beneath the writing, pressed his great signet ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... ill-luck, some of the Trojans who had safely passed the gate sometime before, heard the squealing, and ran back in time to see Odysseus shaken off upon the straw-heap, and Achilles in the act of grasping the pig by its tail. They broke into jeering laughter, shrill whistles, and witty speeches which stung the Grecian heroes into ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... as she spoke, her lover's body was carried past the window, with his father and mother on either side, supporting his limp arms and sobbing. Then Dolly arose, and with one hand grasping the selvage of the curtain, fixed one long gaze upon her father's corpse. There were no tears in her eyes, no sign of anguish in her face, no proof that she knew or felt what she had done. And without a word she ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... twelve years of age he could scarcely write his own name. But he knew the ways of the water; when still a youth he commenced ferrying passengers and freight between Staten Island and New York City. For books he cared nothing; the refinements of life he scorned. His one passion was money. He was grasping and enterprising, coarse and domineering. Of the real details of his early life little is known except what has been written by laudatory writers. We are informed that as he gradually made and saved ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... the shelter of the hill on purpose to avoid being caught in sight of the rest. Olof tore madly down the slope. The girl gave one glance round, turned vaguely with an instinct of defence; next moment she felt Olof's two hands grasping ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... open, and the water rush in to fill the vacuum in the india-rubber ventricle, to be again pressed forward by the next grasp of the hand; and thus—the fire (representing respiration) being kept up, and the alternate grasping and relaxing of the hand (representing the heart's regular impulse)—a perpetual circulation might be made to go on;[1] but not without another ...
— Theory of Circulation by Respiration - Synopsis of its Principles and History • Emma Willard
... because of this money-grasping, trade-compelling feature of England's dealings with my country, millions of wretched people of China have been made more miserable; stalwart men and women have been made paupers, vagrants, and the ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... rejecting every view which held that, in the Sacrament, the Body of Christ was present only in the subjective representation and the imagination, or that faith there rose up out of itself, so to speak, to the Lord, instead of merely grasping at what was offered, and thereby being quickened and made strong. But it is unmistakable, that Luther and Butzer conceived in different ways both the manner of the Presence and the manner of partaking,—each of these, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... is to be poor. She was dependent, frail, sensitive, conscientious. She was in the power of a hard, grasping, thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, who neither knew nor cared for a tender woman's sensibilities, but who paid her and meant to have his money's worth out of her brains, and as much ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... stronger, now, grew the desire I felt 115 To cleave unto this man; but when I prayed To share his enterprise, he hurried on Reckless of me: I followed, not unseen, For oftentimes he cast a backward look, Grasping his twofold treasure.—Lance in rest, 120 He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now He, to my fancy, had become the knight Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight, But was an Arab of the desert too; Of these was neither, and was both at once. 125 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... Nestor, throwing a lion's skin over his chiton, and grasping a spear. Much noise is made about the furs, such as this lion's pelt, which the heroes, in Book X., throw about their shoulders when suddenly aroused. That sportsmen like the heroes should keep ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... slightly modified. In the case of the water-ouzel, the acutest observer, by examining its dead body, would never have suspected its sub-aquatic habits; yet this bird, which is allied to the thrush family, subsists by diving,—using its wings under water and grasping stones with its feet. All the members of the great order of Hymenopterous insects are terrestrial, excepting the genus Proctotrupes, which Sir John Lubbock has discovered to be aquatic in its habits; it often enters the water and dives about by the ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... The boy, still grasping the hackamore in his left hand, with his right threw the saddle blanket over the animal's back. Stooping again, he seized the heavy stock saddle by the horn, flipped it high in the air, and brought it across the horse with so ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... understand you perfectly," answered the hanker slowly, grasping the lad's hand and ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... the fountain, under the shade of a broad-leaved palmetto, lay the Amal's mighty limbs, stretched out on cushions, his yellow hair crowned with vine-leaves, his hand grasping a golden cup, which had been won from Indian Rajahs by Parthian Chosroos, from Chosroos by Roman generals, from Roman generals by the heroes of sheepskin and horsehide; while Pelagia, by the side of the sleepy Hercules-Dionysos, lay leaning over the brink ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... with thinking that maybe Sylvia might come up, and my senses were so alert, my mind, eyes, ears so intently reaching toward her, that now I heard what was indeed a most unexpected sound: a piano. Grasping Tommy's arm I whispered this to him, and he nodded, saying in a ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... Michelotto," said Caesar, stepping towards him and grasping his hand; "and my only regret is that I did not think of it sooner; for if I had carried a sword at my side in stead of a crosier in my hand when the King of France was marching through Italy, I should now have been master of a fine domain. The pope is obviously anxious to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... comes out from the crevice is his trunk, and the moss and lichens which hang down on either side are his pendant ears; and see, he has a great tower on his back, wherein is seated a warrior in his ancient armor, grasping battle-axe and spear. Beyond, through that opening upon the bay, is a castle looming darkly against the sky, with massive towers and arched gateway. Such are the forms which fancy gives to these forest ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... your tooth!" cried he, in a voice trembling with rage, and tightly grasping La Chouette, who had thought to escape. "You crawl in the cellar," added he, more and more wandering, "but I am going to crush you, Screech-Owl. You waited, doubtless, the coming of the phantoms; my ears tingle, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... altogether forbidden; and if the prohibition, as in the case of railway porters and guards, is sometimes looked upon in the light of a dead letter, there is, I sincerely believe, no such thing as any grasping after a guerdon nor any neglect in a case where it is evident no guerdon is to be expected. There is an hospital I could name in which the nurses are prohibited from accepting from patients any more substantial recognition of their services than a nosegay of flowers. ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... landed him on the beach, and Diaz pointed without a word to the pile of stores, and then, grasping his steer-oar, motioned to his crew to ...
— The Trader's Wife - 1901 • Louis Becke
... once more to himself. Thinking she had waited as long as was requisite for the maintenance of her dignity as a non-inquisitive person, she transferred herself lightly to the arm of her father's chair, grasping his beard in her plump, slender hand, and turned his face up ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... the marriage, when Frances, being an only child, proved to be very rich for a trader's daughter. James had, however, to wait for the greater part of his fortune until the death of his father-in-law, for the latter was so grasping a man that he seemed to think one hand capable of robbing him of that which he ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... we met him. He came strolling along, his silk hat a little on the back of his head, a cigar in his mouth, his hands grasping his cane behind his back. "Bundercombe or Parker?" I inquired as we came to a ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the king," said the boy, and pulled his prisoner out of the buggy. The bound Gargoyle's arms extended far out beyond its head, so by grasping its wrists Zeb found the king made a very good club. The boy was strong for one of his years, having always worked upon a farm; so he was likely to prove more dangerous to ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... these—the greatest and, in fact, the mother of all the rest—is the sheer faculty, so often mentioned but not, alas! so invariably found, of telling the tale and holding the reader, not with any glittering eye or any enchantment, white or black, but with the pure grasping—or, as French admirably has it, "enfisting"—power of the tale itself. Round this there cluster—or, rather, in this necessarily abide—the subsidiary arts of managing the various parts of the story, of constructing characters sufficient to carry it on, of varnishing it with description, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... The little maid, grasping the jewel-case, trotted off beside the now pessimistic porter, who had started on this job under the impression that there was at least a bob's-worth in it. The remark about the sixpence had jarred the porter's faith in ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... to have taken with him on his flight securities to the amount of L1,200,000. Even so it is typical of the grasping nature of the man that he complained of having ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... the two young men, de Windt grasping Ivan by the arm, the Grand-Duchess turned, in time to hear their names announced. And after a moment, she summoned them to her, with a slight gesture. Then, breaking off her argument with Ivan's future biographer, she held out a hand for de Windt ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... said Irene, grasping the situation and explaining it truthfully. "You've been accustomed to be petted by everybody, and after all why should the other girls in your form pet you? You don't ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... of men, who, like the Scottish bankers, have not only established, but administered for such a long time, the monetary system of the country with stability, temperance, indulgence, and success, equally removed from weak facility and from grasping avidity of gain; we must, nevertheless, allow that the interests of the public are paramount to theirs, and that if it can be shown that the public will be gainers, although the bankers should be losers by the change, the sooner the metallic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... seems to have been every where the oldest systematized form of fetichistic religion. The reverence paid to the chieftain of the tribe while living was continued and exaggerated after his death The uncivilized man is everywhere incapable of grasping the idea of death as it is apprehended by civilized people. He cannot understand that a man should pass away so as to be no longer capable of communicating with his fellows. The image of his dead chief ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... with the "Man of the Sea" in his righteous indignation at the conduct of the greedy, grasping woman; and the moral of the story remained with me, as the story itself did. I think I understood dimly, even then, that mean avarice and self-seeking ambition always find their true level in muddy earth, ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... open and Mannaeus entered, holding at arm's length, grasping it by the hair, the head of Iaokanann. His appearance was greeted with a burst of applause, which filled him with ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert
... from the effects of her husband's cruelty and debauchery from drink she asked him to come to her bedside, and pleaded with him again for the sake of their children to drink no more. Grasping his hand with her thin, long fingers, she made him promise her: "Mary, I will drink no more till I take it out of this hand which I hold in mine." That very night he poured out a tumbler of brandy, stole into the room where she lay cold ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... dying; 115 Owl and eagle, crane and hen-hawk, And the cormorant, bird of magic; Headless men, that walk the heavens, Bodies lying pierced with arrows, Bloody hands of death uplifted, 120 Flags on graves, and great war-captains Grasping both the earth and heaven! Such as these the shapes they painted On the birch-bark and the deer-skin; Songs of war and songs of hunting, 125 Songs of medicine and of magic, All were written in these figures, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the same time to answer all my relations have wish for each of us. And surely I will not stand against such an accession to the family as may happen from marrying Mr. Solmes: since now a possibility is discovered, (which such a grasping mind as my brother's can easily turn into a probability,) that my grandfather's estate will revert to it, with a much more considerable one of the man's own. Instances of estates falling in, in cases far more unlikely than this, are insisted upon; and ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... my liege," replied the earl, in a tone of unaffected emotion. "My lord," he added, grasping Leonard's hand, "I sincerely congratulate you on your newly-acquired dignities, nor less in the happiness ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... them, bands of men had laboured and fought and struggled over these passes, deaf to all pity or mercy or justice, deaf to all but the clamour of greed within them that was driving them on, trampling down the weak and the old, crushing the fallen, each man clutching and grasping his own, hoarding his strength and even refusing a hand to his neighbour, starving the patient beasts of burden they had brought with them, friends who were willing to share their toil without sharing their reward, driving on the poor staggering strengthless brutes with open ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... that Nelson, writing in intimate confidence to his wife, summed up in bitter words his feelings upon the occasion; unconscious, apparently, of the great change they indicated, not merely in his opinions, but in his power of grasping, in well-ordered and rational sequence, the great outlines of the conditions amid which he, as an officer, was acting. "We are all preparing to leave the Mediterranean, a measure which I cannot approve. They at home do not know what this fleet is ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... hand, as he stood victorious and proud before him; after grasping the hand of Mr. Lorry, who came panting in breathless from his struggle against the waterspout of the Carmagnole; after kissing little Lucie, who was lifted up to clasp her arms round his neck; and after embracing the ever zealous and faithful Pross who lifted her; he took his wife in ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... complaining and fretting and puzzling because help seems to be out of human power, such a mind which is befogged and begrimed by the agitation of its own dust is not a cause in itself—it is an effect. The cause is the reaching and grasping, the unreasonable insistence on its own way of kicking, dust-raising self-will at the back of ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... Grasping the thread of this idea, he said to himself that, by forming a permanent group of laborers assorted with a view to his special purpose, he would produce more steadily, more abundantly, and at less cost. It is not ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... the seats of usurped power in their ephemeral confederacy, have succeeded in arousing and sustaining a considerable feeling of nationality and independence among the masses of their population. Grasping the sceptre of ill-gotten authority with great boldness, they have wielded it with a corresponding energy. Their early successes and their protracted resistance, sustained for more than two years by means ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Irishman, and there was no relationship between them. At the time the boys entered, one had climbed upon the other's shoulders, and was standing erect with folded arms. This was, of course, easy, but the next act was more difficult. By a quick movement he lowered his head, and grasping the uplifted hands of the lower acrobat, raised his feet and poised himself aloft, with his feet up in the air, sustained by the muscular ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... danger. Grasping his trusty revolver, he cried, "Good-bye, all," and ran through the house to pass out by the back way. Just as he reached the door, it was opened, and he fairly rushed into the arms of a soldier who was entering. So surprised were both that they could only stare ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... inhabitants, are the works of a bird; some of them are thirty feet long and about five feet high; they are always built near thick bushes in which they can take shelter, at the least alarm. The edifice is erected with the feet, which are remarkable both for size and strength, and a peculiar power of grasping; they are yellow while the body is brown. Nothing can be more curious than to see them hopping towards these piles on one foot, the other being filled with materials for building. Though much smaller in shape, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... had prevented his seeing the whole of the varying phases of the struggle; but the latter part was plain enough, and fully grasping the position and the emergency of the case, he sprang upon the contending couple just at the right moment, adding his weight, which from his position of vantage completely checked the gradual gliding movement in which Lennox was being drawn ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... Gilbert Pearson," said Cromwell, grasping his officer's hand, and strongly pressing it. "Be the half of this bold accompt thine, whether the reckoning ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... to the scene, howling his grief and beating his breast. Grasping a torch prepared for him, he set fire to the corners of the pile that covered the remains. The flames rose high in the air, and the attendants fed the fire by throwing on oil. Soon the body reappears, a ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... There was a sort of cord, with large knobs upon it, at different distances, which was hung like a bell cord from the back side of the berth. Rollo had observed this cord before, but he did not know what it was for. He now, however, discovered what it was for, as, by grasping these knobs in his hands, he found that the cord was an excellent thing for him to hold on by in a heavy sea. By means of this support, he found that he could moor himself, as it were, quite well, and keep himself steady when ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott |
