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Grasp   Listen
noun
Grasp  n.  
1.
A gripe or seizure of the hand; a seizure by embrace, or infolding in the arms. "The grasps of love."
2.
Reach of the arms; hence, the power of seizing and holding; as, it was beyond his grasp.
3.
Forcible possession; hold. "The whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp."
4.
Wide-reaching power of intellect to comprehend subjects and hold them under survey. "The foremost minds of the next... era were not, in power of grasp, equal to their predecessors."
5.
The handle of a sword or of an oar.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Grasp" Quotes from Famous Books



... strength of John Owen's book have all combined to make it one of the acknowledged masterpieces of the great Puritan school. Had John Owen's style been at all equal to his great learning, to the depth and the grasp of his mind, and to the lofty holiness of his life, John Owen would have stood in the very foremost and selectest rank of apostolical and evangelical theologians. But in all his books Owen labours under the fatal drawback ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... man with his moustache brushed up the wrong way alighted at Basingstoke station and enquired for the refreshment-room. This leads me to believe that a dastardly attempt is about to be made to wrest the supremacy of the air from our grasp!" Immediately ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... seen it from blossoming to fruitage, people began to wonder that no poet had ever tried to do this kind of work. It seemed eminently fitted for a poet's hand, full of subjects alluring to the penetrative imagination. It needed, of course, some scholarship, for it demanded accuracy in its grasp of the main ideas of the time to be represented; but that being given, immense opportunities remained for pictures of human life, full of colour, thought and passions; for subtle and brilliant representations of the eternal desires and thinkings of human ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... fragile mortals. With respect to things of the higher life—of the supernatural world—we, of ourselves, shall always remain as helpless and frail as infants. Not less unable is the babe of yesterday to traverse unaided and explore the material world, than the wisest of men would be to know and grasp by his natural powers the unrevealed good of the immortal human spirit. And as, in our natural state, we could not know the true end of our existence, without a divine revelation, so likewise, we could not pursue and ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... days had not a good time, nor, indeed, had the Boltons generally. Mrs. Bolton, though prone to grasp at power on every side, was apt, like some other women who are equally grasping, to expect almost omnipotence from the men around her when she was desirous that something should be done by them in accordance with her own bidding. Knowing her husband ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... observed my aged companion, as he eyed me narrowly, pausing in the interesting Colonel Sterett's relation concerning his family, and becoming doubly impressive with an uplifted fore-finger, "thar's one thing I desires you to fully grasp. As I reels off this yere chronicle, you-all is not to consider me as repeatin' the Colonel's words exact. I ain't gifted like the Colonel, an' my English ain't a marker to his. The Colonel carries the language quiled up an' hangin' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... in our course we go To where sweetest flow'rs are hanging low We stretch our hand their stems to clasp But ah! they're crush'd within our grasp, While forward th' rushing stream flows fast And soon the beauteous ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... was robed in light; and trod A brilliant track before him, He gazed with ardour, like a god, And grasp'd at heaven o'er him; The meteor's flash his beaming eye, The trumpet's shriek ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various

... first secrets of numeration—we, too, should wait; not coldly, but rather making the child feel that we contain a rich material which is at his disposal, ready to be taken as soon as he stretches out his hand to grasp it. Our "response" to the child should be as full, as prompt and as complete as that of the objects which he may manipulate, but which at every touch give an upward impetus to the intellectual life of ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... 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

... back to a consciousness of pain and illness, unable at once to realize where I was, or feel any true sense of personality. I seemed to be floating through the air, aware dimly of suffering, but helplessly in the grasp of some power beyond all struggling against. Then slowly I comprehended that I rested in a boat, tossed about by a fairly heavy sea; that it was night and there were stars visible in the sky overhead. I stared at these, vacant of thought, wondering ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... see Laocoon's torture 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 ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... air, water, sound, and light, are absolutely necessary, if the children are to grasp with any degree of clearness the principles of respiration and ventilation, and the phenomena of hearing ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... first time. Previously to this, if any one had been rash enough to attempt to take any notes, an official would pounce upon him, and, with an air of offended dignity well befitting that august assembly, strike the offending pencil from his grasp! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... easy to be absolutely philosophic. Something of his old anger revived towards Miss St. Quentin. He shuffled forward a step or two, and, steadying himself with one hand on the arm of the sofa, reached down to pick up his crutches. But his grasp was not very sure just then. He secured one. To his intense annoyance the other escaped him, falling back on the floor with a rattle. Then, instantly, before he could make effort to recover it, Honoria's white figure swept down on one knee in front of him. She laid hold of the crutch, gave ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... Birting stretch'd, Plac'd the hilt within his grasp: "Strong of hand and valiant stand, That thy foes before ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... a play she had recently seen. As she spoke, it was inevitable that she should come up close to the lounge. As she did so, her fingers touched my quilt, her bare, sturdy arms paralyzing my attention. The temptation to grasp them was tightening its grip on me. I decided to begin by taking hold of her hand. I warned myself that it must be done gently, with romance in my touch. "I shall just caress her hand," I decided, not hearing a word of what ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... Lloyd George absorbed the wrongs of his people and they were many. The Welsh had a double bondage: the grasp of the Landlord and the Thrall of the Church. All about him quivered the aspiration for a free land, a free people and a free religion. In those days Wales was like another Ireland with all the ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... whirling water-wheel, Like rolling pearls,— Yet how are these worthy to be named? They are but illustrations for fools. There is the mighty axis of Earth, The never-resting pole of Heaven; Let us grasp their clue, And with them be blended in One, Beyond the bounds of thought, Circling for ever in the great Void, An orbit of a thousand years,— Yes, this is the key ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles

... naturally hard for Hugo to grasp the grounds on which she rejected a mere deferment of painful discussion till to-morrow morning (for he reduced his proposal to that), or even to see why, though opposed herself, she would not readily be guided in so small a matter by his wishes. The soft ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... and sweep the golden pieces into a small brown canvas bag. Then, as he turned to leave the room, the captain seized him by the wrist, imploring him, by the memory of their mother, to have mercy upon him; and I loved my master as I saw him drag his sleeve from the grasp of the clutching fingers, and leave the stricken ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... in arms, we stand ten score, Embattled on the castle green; We grasp our firelocks tight, for war Is threatening, ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... the least of it! Old Giles Corey be not a deep man. I trow he hath had a somewhat hard skull, but when a man draws in sight of death he hath a better grasp at his wits than he hath dreamed of. This be verily a mightier work than ye think. It shall be not only old Giles Corey that lies pressed to death under the stones, but the backbone of this great evil in the land shall be broke by the same weight. ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... heart, that Holy Scripture rightly understood solves these confusing riddles. I believe that a more sound and Scriptural grasp of what will be the future of each of us after death, the restoration of a right belief in an Intermediate State, will go far to correct these unworthy and most un-Christian fears. But it is said, at times, that nothing can be really known about this Intermediate ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson

... next Tool?— Oh! 'tis here in a trice— This implement, Ge'mmen, at first was a Vice; (A tenacious and close sort of tool that will let Nothing out of its grasp it once happens to get;) But it since has received a new coating of Tin, Bright enough for a Prince to behold himself in. Come, what shall we say for it? briskly! bid on, We'll the sooner get rid of it—going—quite gone. God be with it, such tools, if not quickly knockt down, Might at ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... was to reconcile France and England, in order that the concentrated powers of the faithful in Europe might be turned against the heretics in the north; and, when they were exterminated, then that the same forces might proceed to crush the infidel, and rescue the lands of the faithful from his grasp. The ecclesiastical historian,[242] who records the letters of the Sovereign Pontiff, assures us that Henry, King of England, had been repeatedly admonished by "the vicar of Christ to make peace with the French, and to dedicate to Christ his skill in war against the Turks, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... 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

... a strong grasp and walked away toward the little square of the village, where the troops were encamped for the present. Dick sprang upon a horse which Bill Petty was holding for him. Whitley was already up, and the three rode swiftly toward ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the old man's age. No matter that he had wasted the best part of his life in a vain hunt for gold. His dream had been realized at last. There was a fortune in his grasp, and he felt again the thrill that had coursed through his veins when, as a young man, heart high with aspirations, he had ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope

... upheaving the soil of the forest, or in rending the clouds with the might of the storm. We may here trace the revelation of a bond of union, linking together the visible world and that higher spiritual world which escapes the grasp of the senses. The two become unconsciously blended together, developing in the mind of man, as a simple product of ideal conception and independently of the aid of observation, the first germ of a 'Philosophy ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... little slits in an armored conning-tower of life, out at the stupendous vibratory battles of the cosmos. Other creatures, in other planets, no doubt have other sense-organs to absorb other vibratory ranges. Their life-experiences are so different from ours that we could not possibly grasp them, any more than a blind ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... kept his eyes steadily fixed on his father's face, and what he saw there did not supply encouragement to proceed in the genial tone with which he had begun. Mr. Athel frowned, not angrily, but as if not quite able to grasp what had been told him. He ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... me, and gripped my shoulder for a moment before loosening his grasp and holding his right ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... "jealousy" cited by Westermarck (117-122) are all negatived by the same property argument; to which he indeed alludes, but the full significance of which he failed to grasp. It is a pity that language should be so crude as to use the same word jealousy to denote three such entirely different things as rage at a rival, revenge for stolen property, and anguish at the knowledge or suspicion of violated chastity and outraged conjugal affection. Anthropologists ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... be obtained at any chemist's, and as they are kept in spirits, they will require a little soaking in warm water, and gentle washing, before being tied securely, by means of fine twine, round the neck of the bottle, just sufficient being left projecting for the child to grasp freely in its lips; for if left the full length, or over long, it will be drawn too far into the mouth, and possibly make the infant heave. When once properly adjusted, the nipple need never be removed till replaced by a new one, which will hardly be necessary oftener than once a fortnight, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... again. As he wheeled back, a musket-ball struck him in the thigh and gave him a mortal wound. The horse he was riding was not trained to battle, and, taking fright at the din about him, became utterly unmanageable to Sidney's weakening grasp. The terror-stricken animal struggled out of the press and dashed, with his almost fainting rider, back ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... to the Romanists of his day, who corrupted religion in order that the public "might be more generally accommodated." Bunyan's phraseology is homely, but Bunyan's celestializing imagination kept his "familiar grasp of things divine" from being an irreverent pawing of things divine. Mr. Spurgeon's nature works on a low level of influence. Deficient in imagination, and with a mind coarse and unspiritualized, though ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... itself the first chapter of God's revelation of Himself to man, and has long occupied the attention and study of the most godly and profound. Here, for the first time, it was being read by a company of poor Indians just emerging from paganism. But they were sharp and keen, and able to grasp a new truth; and so when the verse first opened before them with its wondrous meaning, great was ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... Saxons, and Normans, were Celts, and remained Celts. People speak indeed of blood, and intermingling of blood, as determining the nationality of a people; but what is meant by blood? It is one of those scientific idols, that crumble to dust as soon as we try to define or grasp them; it is a vague, hollow, treacherous term, which, for the present at least, ought to be banished from the dictionary of every true man of science. We can give a scientific definition of a Celtic language; but no one has yet given a definition of Celtic blood, or a Celtic skull. It is quite ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... the curse of large districts in the United States, sowing its evil seeds broadcast in our land, and daily closing its iron grasp upon its victims, who could wish for the extermination of so useful an insect ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... with his own pistol, instead of pushing the muzzle against the man's body and pulling the trigger. He struck a flailing blow, and his hand and the weapon struck a metal brace. The blow cut his knuckles and paralyzed his fingers. Despairingly he felt the pistol slipping from his grasp. Then his assailant brought up his knee viciously, but it hit Joe's thigh instead of his groin, and Joe flung his weight furiously forward and they toppled ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... comment on a passing trifle, eloquent enunciation of some truth, or pregnant remark on some lofty subject, down to petty gossip, so delivered as to authorize a doubt whether it might not possibly be an awkward effort at observing something outside of himself, or at getting a grasp of something that he supposed actual. That he should have so supposed was his weakness, and the retribution for the peculiar intemperance which depraved his nature and alienated from their proper use powers which should have made him one of the first philosophers of his age. His singular organization ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... their lusty brows And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet, These are the men that have taken vows, These are the hardy, the flower, the elite, — These are the men that are moved no more By the will to traffic and grasp and store And ring with pleasure and wealth and love The circles that self is the center of; But they are moved by the powers that force The sea forever to ebb and rise, That hold Arcturus in his course, ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... sort; The nobles of his princely court: Whate'er was said, whate'er decreed, Each time they sate each plan and deed: For holy thought and fervent rite Had so refined his keener sight That by his sanctity his view The present, past, and future knew, And he with mental eye could grasp, Like fruit within his fingers clasp, The life of Rama, great and good, Roaming with Sita in the wood. He told, with secret-piercing eyes, The tale of Rama's high emprise, Each listening ear that shall entice, A sea of pearls of highest price. Thus ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... vulva pads are placed between the legs, and hot water bottles are put to her feet, as usually at this stage there is a slight tendency toward chilliness. She should now settle down for rest. Fresh air should be admitted into the room. There may be some hemorrhage, and if it is excessive, grasp the lower abdomen and begin to knead it until you distinctly feel a change in the uterus from the soft mass to a hard ball about the size of a large grape fruit; thus contraction has been brought about which causes the hemorrhage to decrease. If the doctor has not yet arrived put the ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... hundred years,—yea, with the architecture, commerce, geographical science, and all the arts then known. All these principalities and powers and institutions and enterprises were affected by them, so that at their termination a new era in civilization began. Grasp the Crusades, and you comprehend one of the forces which undermined the institutions of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... nothing particularly impressive in it; and so it failed to impress his contemporaries. It is only when we contrast the loathsomeness and danger of smallpox with the mildness and safety of vaccinia and varioloid that we grasp the greatness of the work which Jenner did for mankind. The very simplicity of vaccination detracts from its impressiveness unless its results are viewed through the vista of the centuries. We need the proper historical perspective in this ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... moment the prodigal son fell on his knees and wept, he made his having wasted his substance with harlots, his swine- herding and hungering for the husks they ate, beautiful and holy moments in his life. It is difficult for most people to grasp the idea. I dare say one has to go to prison to understand it. If so, it may be worth ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... violence follow these words, but the Cuban only moved restlessly under the insult; the Englishman smiled. It was a pleasant smile, but Stuart was keen enough to grasp that a man who smiles when he is insulted must either be a craven or a dangerous man with an inordinate gift of self-control. Cecil could not be a coward, or such men as Manuel and Leborge would not so evidently fear him, therefore the ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... clear-sighted as Your Majesty; but, were I the King of England, I should look upon the matter in this wise: I have promised my Queen, let us say, that for forty days the cunningest rogue in all England shall have freedom to come and go; but, lo! I find this outlaw in my grasp; shall I, then, foolishly cling to a promise so hastily given? Suppose that I had promised to do Her Majesty's bidding, whereupon she bade me to slay myself; should I, then, shut mine eyes and run blindly upon my sword? Thus would I argue within myself. Moreover, I would say unto myself, ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but the desire to find those causes is implanted in man's soul. And without considering the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, he snatches ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... and see us eat breakfast," said Pennoyer, throwing open the door of the den. Wrinkles, in his shirt, was making coffee. Grief sat in a chair trying to loosen the grasp of sleep. "Why, Billie ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane

... with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied himself with his servant Aminadab, attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana's heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorably resolved to cut or ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... murderers, and, in like manner, ladies of every degree, from the queen and the abbess, down to the starving beggar, were each represented as grappled with, and carried off by the crowned skeleton. There was no truckling to greatness. The bishop and abbot writhed and struggled in the grasp of Death, while the miser clutched at his gold, and if there were some nuns, and some poor ploughmen who willingly clasped his bony fingers and obeyed his summons joyfully, there were countesses and prioresses who tried to beat him off, or implored him to wait. The infant smiled in his ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Mississippi is secured, that gives to this interesting cession its greatest value, and will render it in every view of immense benefit to our country. By this cession we hereafter shall hold within our own grasp, what we have heretofore enjoyed only by the uncertain tenure of a treaty, which might be broken at the pleasure of another, and (governed as we now are) with perfect impunity. Provided therefore we have not purchased it too dear, there is all the reason for exultation ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... I am convinced their predictions in my case will be literally fulfilled, for when this terrible disease of the heart once lays its hold upon a man, it never relaxes its deadly grasp. But,' said he, raising himself to a sitting posture, 'but I will not die, I must live. One fixed purpose, one great aim sustains me, and I feel that till I have accomplished this, the thread of life, frail as I ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... not the blood-dyed coat of England, can emancipate you from the natural law that binds your allegiance to Ireland, to liberty, to right, to justice. To the friends of Ireland, of freedom, of humanity, of the people, we offer the olive branch of peace and the honest grasp of friendship. Take it Irishmen, Frenchmen, American, take it all and trust it... We wish to meet with friends; we are prepared to meet with enemies. We shall endeavor to merit the confidence of the former, and the latter can expect from us but the leniency of a determined ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... doctor have explored those monastic treasures which De Bury found hid in locis tenebrosis, antique Bibles, rare Fathers, rich Classics or gems of monkish lore, enough to fire the brain of the most lymphatic bibliophile, were within the grasp of the industrious and eager Richard de Bury—that old "Amator Librorum," like his imitators of the present day, cared not whither he went to collect his books—dust and dirt were no barriers to him; at every nook ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather

... an evening! What a wonderful day! I can hardly grasp that a new life has begun. Think only: the manager believes that I may count on no less than one hundred thousand francs. I'll spend twenty thousand on a villa outside the city. That leaves me eighty thousand. I won't be able to take it all in until to-morrow, for I am tired, tired, ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... most extraordinary risks were run, and feats of activity displayed. Here might be seen individuals clambering up perpendicular buildings, by the aid of ledges and projections which appeared far too narrow to afford either grasp or foot-hold; further on, some herculean gondolier or peasant served as base to a sort of human column, composed of five or six men, who, scrambling over each other's shoulders, attained in this manner some seemingly inaccessible position. The seafaring habits of the Venetian ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... first-rate cricketer. He possessed strength, activity, eye, and judgment, all essential requisites to make a good player. Great things were therefore expected from him. He, of course wished to do his best. He quietly took up the bat, weighed it for a moment, and finding that he had a proper grasp, threw himself into the position ready for the ball. His first hit was a telling one. Often had he and Buttar played together, and they well knew what each could do. They ran three without risk. They looked ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... preached and continue to do so in the future, that Russia and the United States should join hands, know and love each other, the sooner the better. Russia needs the active spirit, the practical grasp of the things, which the people of the United States possess. Nothing will help and inspire an average Russian more than the sincere democratic hand of an American. A dose of American optimism and active spirit is the best toxin for free Russia. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... his paw and gave me a grasp so cordial that, were it not for the shame of it, I would have ...
— Michael McGrath, Postmaster • Ralph Connor

... half-articulated cry, Handsome pitched forward and fell into the grasp of Patsy, who was ready for him; and then, when he would have struggled, other arms—Nick's—seized him from behind, and another blow fell upon him, striking him behind the ear, and rendering him half dazed ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter

... gentle—the sweet laugh Of children, Girlhood's kiss, and Friendship's clasp, The boy that sporteth with the old man's staff, The baby, and the breast its fingers grasp— All that exalts the grounds of happiness, All griefs that hallow, and all ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... in life it should be yours to teach, because it should be yours to know and to act. Men are better than they seem, and the hidden virtues of life appear when men have learned how to translate them into action. Men grasp and hoard material things because in their poverty of soul they know of nothing else to do. It is lack of training and lack of imagination, rather than total depravity, which gives our social life its sordid aspect. When a plant has learned the secret of flowers and fruit, ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... but I am different, and do not hate the white race as he does. He is a fierce warrior, while I wish but to live in peace, to have you for my wife." The Indian drew nearer to Millicent. His dark hand stretched forth to grasp her slender white wrist, his black eyes flashing with entreaty. "I am not like the others of my tribe you see about here; I am more civilized; I speak your language; I have the last year embraced your religion. I ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various

... bowed hung long, muscular arms, sometimes, perhaps, dangling a little ungracefully, but always under the command of their owner, and ready for any effort, however violent. These were terminated by broad, bony hands, which looked like grapnels; their grasp, indeed, bore no faint resemblance to the hold of those symmetrical instruments. Large feet, whose toes were usually turned in, like those of the Indian, were wielded by limbs whose vigor and activity were in keeping with the figure they supported. Imagine, with these peculiarities, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... you mean to suffer this, I won't. Out of my way, you." Scattering the rest before him like a flock of sheep, he seized Mackworth with his strong hands, shook him violently by both shoulders, and then tearing the cane out of his grasp, he demanded, "Was ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... after dinner to take a look at him and to my immense amusement found that he was lying flat on his back in bed saying his prayers, while Mademoiselle was kneeling down. It took me a moment or two to grasp the fact that good Mademoiselle wished to impress on him that it was not right to say his prayers unless he knelt down, and as that in this case he could not kneel down she would do it ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt

... it, pa!" Goldie exclaims, her momentary enthusiasm extinguished at the thought of long lessons indefinitely prolonged. Goldie was a restless little thing who could not sit long over her geography book. She wriggled out of her mother's grasp now, and made for the door, throwing a "back-hand" as she went, without losing a single jackstone. "I hate long lessons," she said. "When I graduate grammar school next year I'm going to work in Jordan-Marsh's big store, and get ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... are works of art, many of them appearing for the first time. The author's style, though condensed, is singularly clear, so that it is never necessary to re-read a sentence in order to grasp the meaning. As a true model of what a modern text-book on obstetrics should be, we feel justified in affirming that Dr. Hirst's ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... and a long hairy paw, with black, gleaming claws shot past my cheek. I gave a great gasp of anguish, and with all the pent-up force of despair clutched at the branch overhead. My finger-tips just curled over it; I tightened them, but, at the most, it was a very feeble, puny grasp, and totally insufficient to enable me to swing my body out of reach of the tiger. I immediately gave myself up as lost, and was endeavouring to reconcile myself to the idea of being slowly chewed alive, when an extraordinary thing happened. The wer-tiger gave a low growl ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... suddenly to reach for something that had slipped from her grasp, and in the act she hit her elbow against the box setting on the corner of her trunk, and knocked ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... Intoxicated by prosperity, he stole nectar and ambrosia from the table of the gods, and revealed their secrets, for which he was punished in the under world by perpetual hunger and thirst, yet placed with fruit and water near him, which eluded his grasp when he attempted to touch them. He had two children, Pelops and Niobe. The latter was blessed with seven sons and seven daughters, which so inflamed her with pride that she claimed equality with the goddesses Latona ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... an astonishing flower appeared from the sky-light, which increased in size as I gazed upon it; I wished to seize it with my hands, but as I stretched them towards it, it ascended [and eluded my grasp]. I, having become astonished, was looking steadfastly at it, when the sound of a loud laugh reached my ear; I raised my head to look [towards the dome from which the noise proceeded]. Then I saw that a face, resplendent as the full moon, having rent the felt, continued ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... cutlass in air, he was about to bring it down upon one of the cowards he berated, when suddenly he was seized by two powerful hands, which pinned his arms behind him. With a scream of rage, he turned his head and found that he was in the grasp of ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... To him it seemed to be impossible that the Coalition should exist without him. He too had had moments of high-vaulting ambition, in which he had almost felt himself to be the great man required by the country, the one ruler who could gather together in his grasp the reins of government and drive the State coach single-handed safe through its difficulties for the next half-dozen years. There are men who cannot conceive of themselves that anything should be difficult for them, and again others who cannot bring themselves so to ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... was sleeping under the nut-trees in the garden, one warm morning in September; he had been collecting nuts to carry home, but being tired, he laid down to repose himself in the sun, and unfortunately fell asleep, nor did he wake till he found himself in the grasp of the merciless black cat, who springing upon her defenceless prey, strangled him in an instant. There was no fond Downy near, nor affectionate Velvet, to receive his last sighs, nor give him aid. The evening came, but no Silket returned to the disconsolate ...
— Little Downy - The History of A Field-Mouse • Catharine Parr Traill

... there a moment; then he turned, and drawing it into his own tremulous fingers, pressed it silently, with a clinging helpless grasp that drew the tears ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... strove to disengage his weapon, but Hordle John bent his arm slowly back until, with a sharp crack, like a breaking stave, it turned limp in his grasp, and the mace dropped from the nerveless fingers. In vain he tried to pluck it up with the other hand. Back and back still his foeman bent him, until, with a roar of pain and of fury, the giant clanged his full length upon ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... to supply the place of a reluctant Eros by the gilded, grinning Mammon-figure which we try to consider as superior to any silver-pinioned god that ever descended in his rainbow car to sing heavenly songs to mortals; but it is an unlovely substitute,—a hideous idol at best; and grasp its golden knees and worship it as we will, it gives us little or no comfort in the hours of strong temptation or trouble. We have made a mistake—we, in our progressive generation,—we have banished the old sweetnesses, triumphs and delights of life, and we have got in exchange steam and electricity. ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... sudden. The potations which had swelled and bloated his carcase had already weakened the springs of energy. One more huge effort, that came near to overpower me, and in which the pistol happily exploded, and I felt his grasp slacken and weakness come on his joints; his legs succumbed under his weight, and he grovelled on his knees on the stone floor. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... turned his looks in the direction of his officer, and was making another feeble effort towards extending his hand. As Wilder placed the member within the grasp of the dying negro, the latter succeeded in laying it on his lips, and then, flourishing with a convulsive movement that herculean arm which he had so lately and so successfully brandished in defence of his master, the limb stiffened and fell, though the eyes still continued their ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... she lived, unnoting the many and great changes that took place from year to year in Nueva California—San Gabriel losing its greatness and power, ceasing, even, together with all the others, its life as a mission, and the province itself torn from the grasp of Mexico, to become a member of the greatest republic in the world—her unheeding mind knew nothing of all this. Her favorite pastime, after the railroad was built through the little town of San Gabriel, was to wander down ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... grasp, and he had now to hold her safe with one arm, thus having only one with which to struggle against the suffocating, swirling waters. In a very few minutes he realised that the fight was dead against ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... thanks; but failing, put out a hand impulsively to speak for her; and his enfolding grasp made her feel less lonely, less desperate than she had felt since the awful moment when her husband vanished into space. The fact that he was in Desmond's hands seemed a guarantee that all would go well with him. There was no logic in the conclusion; and she knew it. But ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... him just a little, only a hint, of my new attitude towards his sex, and before he had had time even to grasp the ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... paper. Soames's handwriting was characteristically dim. It and the noisome spelling and my excitement made me all the slower to grasp what T. K. Nupton was ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm

... meanwhile, until he cleared himself, he should be kept in not dishonourable durance, and every regard had for his name, and the services of his honourable grandfather. With this assurance, and with a warm grasp of the hand, the Prince left old General de Magny that night; and the veteran retired to rest almost consoled, and confident in Maxime's ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... difficulty is the same as that felt by so many geologists, when Lyell first insisted that long lines of inland cliffs had been formed, and great valleys excavated, by the agencies which we still see at work. The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of the term of even a million years; it cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... I seemed to see, even the Road by which souls travel from There to Here and from Here to There, and the Gates that were burned away, and the City of the Mansions that descended, were but signs and symbols of mysteries which as yet we cannot grasp or understand. ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... know you wanted me to," said the man. "I'll make up for lost time now." As he spoke he grasped the hand which extended from George's right sleeve and as George at that same moment turned quickly away, the astonished handshaker stood holding in his grasp an arm which had apparently come from the ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay

... Now a grasp of fear and wonder rose from all who heard this bold and treasonable speech, and Tua, reddening to the eyes, bent forward as though to answer. But before ever a word had passed her lips Pharaoh sprang from his seat transformed with rage. All his patient gentleness ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... satisfy his legitimate desires, contribute to the growth of his soul. It is not for me to judge whether this is luxury or want. There is no merit in riches nor in poverty. There is merit in that simplicity of life which seeks to grasp no more than is necessary for the development and enjoyment of the individual. Most of us, in all conditions; are weighted down with superfluities or worried to acquire them. Simplicity is making the journey of this ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Hemmed in—cut off—cleft down—and trampled o'er, But each strikes singly, silently, and home, And sinks outwearied rather than o'ercome, His last faint quittance rendering with his breath, Till the blade glimmers in the grasp of death." ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... the partners looked upon their chief with stupefaction, incredulous surprise their only feeling. Tommy was the first to grasp the consequences. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... years which held Richter in the grasp of their miseries and perplexities had passed away. Bravely had he struggled through temptations which at all times and in all places beset young men, added to such as are peculiar to one of the highest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... he was saying; "mark his bitter scowl! There goes Marcus Marcellus, the consular. There drives the chariot of Lucius Domitius, Caesar's great enemy." And Agias stopped, for his friend had seized his arm with a sudden grasp, crushing as iron. "Why, by all the gods, Demetrius, why are you staring at ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... turned towards the door. She saw the men upon the threshold. She uttered a bellow of rage. There is no other word to describe the sound. It was not a human cry; it was the bellow of an angry animal. She reached out her hand towards the flask, but before she could grasp it Hanaud seized her. She burst into a torrent of foul oaths. Hanaud flung her across to Lemerre's officer, who dragged her ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... obliging, Miss Vere, when it happens to suit you to be dutiful," said her unrelenting father, forcing himself at the same time from the affectionate grasp of her hand; "but henceforward, child, I shall save myself the trouble of offering you unpleasant advice on any topic. You ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... was not given, for no sooner did the front men grasp the peril into which they were galloping, than they raised a loud yell of warning, wheeled off to right and left, wheeled again, and scattered in wild flight, leaving us to pursue our way in peace, ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... Philadelphia that Boston had been cannonaded by the British. It produced a strong sensation; and when Congress met on the following morning (7th), the effect was visible in every countenance. The delegates from the east were greeted with a warmer grasp of the hand by their associates from ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... benevolent Readings, princely largess into the coffers of charities or of institutions in which he happened to be interested, he was to realise, what must otherwise have remained for him wholly unsuspected, that he had, so to speak, but to stretch forth his hand to grasp a fortune. ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... a while till he had grown so strong that the Bear was nothing in his grasp. One day they wrestled as they ever did, and then the woman, with a vigorous blow, strengthened by hate and famishing desire of freedom and a better human life, laid him in death upon the ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... trail of the gods led out on that side? It never entered his head. Later on, when he had travelled more and grown older and wiser and come to know more of trails and rivers, it might be that he could grasp and apprehend such a possibility. But that mental power was yet in the future. Just now he ran blindly, his own bank of the Mackenzie alone ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... of life burns at his heart it will illuminate his mind, and enable the brain to see clear; it will develop his spiritual powers of perception, and cause him to perceive things which no amount of intellectual brain-labor can grasp. It will penetrate even the physical body, and cause the soul therein to assume shape and to ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various

... The rock is smitten and the waters gush forth, a bright and living stream, to refresh and fertilize the thirsty soul. The heart of the poor mourner was touched; she bowed down her head upon the hand that held her so kindly in its sisterly grasp, and wept soft sweet human tears full of grateful love, while she whispered, in her own low plaintive voice, "My white sister, I kiss you in my heart; I will love the God of my white ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... lacking, as in the case of the Fuegians. So also a growing child is substantially egoistic, and it must be taught by precept and example that the rights of others can be safeguarded only by the altruistic correction of personal action, long before the child can grasp the higher conceptions of ethics. If a human being never learns to do so, and becomes a criminal through force of heredity or circumstances, the machinery of the law automatically comes into operation to conserve the welfare of the community. ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... powerful hold of the red man's feelings. Doubtless he understood little of the scene in which, for the first time, he mingled; but a potent influence went along with it, and so affected was he, that his hand sought Tom's, and he held it in a strong, tender grasp till the meeting closed, his frame trembling with emotion. And yet Tom could not converse with him afterwards; and what the nature of the emotion was that shook him so,—what thoughts were stirred, and with what result for eternity in the bosom of that silent son of the prairie, who, for the first ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... that even if not wholly intended for display are primarily and principally projected for its sake. It is a well-known fact that few, even among gifted players, can sit down to play chamber music and do it justice. This is not because they cannot grasp or understand it; or because their technic is insufficient. It is because their whole violinistic education has been along the line of solo playing; they have literally been brought up, not to play with others, but to be ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens

... it came rushing by and succeeded in grasping the reins, and holding fast to them she was dragged to within two or three yards of the gate, when the horse was brought to a standstill, whereupon her grasp relaxed and she fell to the ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... chiefly from an obsolete theology, with some vague knowledge of the English followers of Locke, his mind never expanded itself freely. Yet, even after making allowance for his secluded life, we are astonished at the powerful grasp which Calvinism, in its expiring age, had laid upon so penetrating an intellect. The framework of dogma was so powerful, that the explosive force of Edwards' speculations, instead of destroying his early principles by its recoil, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... "but do not have any illusions. That will come at its own hour, it has me in its grasp. It is only you who are holding it back, but one day it will be ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... generous, citizen. My conscience tells me it would be base to do as you urge. After plucking life's blossoms as an aristocrat I must grasp ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... "large herds of cattle." Ochagach, an old Indian, drew maps on birch bark showing rivers that emptied into the Western Sea. De la Verendrye's smouldering ambitions kindled. He hurried to Michilimackinac. There the traders and Indians told the same story. Glory seemed suddenly within De la Verendrye's grasp. Carried away with the passion for discovery that ruled his age, he took passage in the canoes bound for Quebec. The Marquis Charles de Beauharnois had become governor. His brother Claude had taken part in the exploration of the Mississippi. The governor favored ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... doing were privileged to fashion a future which they might not enter and possess. Complain indeed! Why, their progeny had a good ten, twenty, or fifty years' life of it, as the case might be,—and here about us are men of greater enterprise and grasp doomed to work off paragraphs that perish on the day of printing. Well, no earnest soul can fail to modify the character of his age, and thus of all ages. So, if our generation demands ministry in newspapers instead of folios, a man may still win an honest immortality ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... my father shake his head dismally over the soggy bread and the underdone beef. Whether or not he ever realised that it was my mother's hand that had kept him above the surface of life, I shall never know; but when that strong grasp was relaxed, he went hopelessly, irretrievably, and unresistingly under. In the beginning there was merely a general wildness and disorder in his appearance,—first one button, then two, then three dropped from his ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... the situation, the correspondents failed to grasp. How could they? since they got their wisdom in the ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... talk of his Fuel Commission to a young woman whose interests in fuel were even greater than his own. He found that she was very much better read than he was in the recent literature of socialism, and that she had what he considered to be a most unfeminine grasp of economic ideas. He thought her attitude towards socialism a very sane one because it was also his own. So far as socialism involved the idea of a scientific control of natural resources as a common property administered in the common ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... student. It included also Harriet Martineau, that woman who, perhaps more than any other person in this age, had contributed to place the last half century in Europe in a clear light, by her admirable History, and shown in her treatise on Political Economy, a grasp and clearness which few men attain. It included also the name of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that woman of rarest genius, of whom her husband, himself the greatest of England's living poets, had said that his wife's heart, which few knew, was greater than her intellect, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... understand' was absolutely cut off by an imperative grasp and hush from Miss Hacket the elder; Aunt Jane was suffocating with laughter, Lady Merrifield, between that and a certain shame for womanhood, which made her begin to talk at random about anything or ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not yet surrender the field. They made one more energetic effort to snatch the victory which seemed already in the grasp of their adversaries. But their counsels were divided. One element proposed to try heroic surgery and cut off the diseased member. While the echoes of the October verdict were still resounding, the New-York World, the leading Metropolitan organ of the Democratic party, in a series ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... us stay here!" said Vaninka, holding her back with a grasp of almost masculine strength. "Let us stay until the house falls in on them, so that we may be certain that ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... grasp on his stick, was just going to fell the pig, when the latter, tearing itself from Top's teeth, by which it was only held by the tip of its ear, uttered a vigorous grunt, rushed upon Herbert, almost overthrew him, and disappeared in ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... shadow. Can it be, That evil hearts throb near a scene like this? And yet how soon comes the Medusa, Thought, To chill the heart's blood of sweet fantasy! For, O bright orb! That glid'st along the fringe of those tall trees, Where a child's thought might grasp thee, Art thou not This night in thousand places hideous? To think Where thy pale beams may revel—on the brow Of ghastly wanderers, with the frozen breast And grating laugh, in murder's rolling eye, On death, corruption, ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... hand on his, but a gust of wind took that opportunity of getting under her cloak and sending it fluttering over her back, so that he had to catch it and return it to her grasp. ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... campaign in Palestine of 1917-1918, we must first summarize, as shortly as possible, the modern history of Egypt. That country had for many centuries formed an integral part of the Turkish Empire. But she had been rapidly slipping from the grasp of the Turk. Early in the nineteenth century Mohamed Ali had effectually thrown off the Turkish yoke. True, the Turkish suzerainty remained; but that authority was little more than nominal and was represented by an annual money tribute paid to the Porte by the Khedive out ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock

... been for some of our very goot and excellent friends, that would be putting their spoon into other folk's dish, I should have been asking you a civil question myself, how you came to dine with us, with all that mud and mire which Mr. Tyrrel's grasp has left upon the collar of your coat—you understand me.—But it is much better as it is, and I will go to the man with all the speed of light; and though, to be sure, it should have been sooner ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... his liberty and the means of pursuing investigation. Had it been otherwise we may fairly believe that the "admirable Doctor," as he was called, would have been the first to show mankind how to navigate the air. His ideas are perfectly easy to grasp. He conceived that the air was a true fluid, and as such must have an upper limit, and it would be on this upper surface, he supposed, as on the bosom of the ocean, that man would sail his air-ship. A fine, bold guess truly. He would watch the cirrus clouds ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... of us loved—she was there ... invisibly and near at hand. Yet another moment and lo! her eyes would beam forth, her smile would blossom out.... Her hand would grasp thy hand, and draw thee after her into an ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... he dipped his arm into the water, and actually did grasp the fish by its tail, but dropped it again instantly—to the shrieking delight of the urchin and Kathy,—for the tail was armed with a series of sharp spines which ran into his hand ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... wainscot. I paused a moment at the landing to look back, 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 ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand

... was extreme. I never shall forget the impression that it made upon me! It was not, however, the agitation of indecision; but of ardent, animated patriotism, panting for glory, which had appeared within his reach, and was vanishing from his grasp. The Edgar, at last, led in. I shall not attempt to describe the scene that ensued, for language has not the power. We were received with the fire of more than a thousand guns! No sooner had all the ships got into ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... as 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 pressed around the colonel, and ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... minds of naturalists. In the actual working out of Darwin's great theory it is impossible to overestimate the influence of Lyell. This is made abundantly clear in Darwin's letters, and it must never be forgotten that Darwin himself was a geologist. His training in this science enabled him to grasp the import of the facts so ably marshalled by Lyell in the "Principles of Geology," a work which, as Professor Judd has clearly shown,* contributed greatly to the advancement of evolutionary theory in general. (* Judd "The Coming of Evolution" ("Cambridge Manuals of Science ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... was done, the old man went quietly to sleep, and dreamed of a radiant jewel, glorious as he had never seen jewel, ever within yet ever eluding his grasp. ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... Singapore still use these sweeps. (J. Ind. Arch. II. 607.) Ibn Batuta puts a much larger number of men to each. It will be seen from his account below that great ropes were attached to the oars to pull by, the bulk of timber being too large to grasp; as in the old French galleys wooden manettes or grips, were attached to the oar for ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... simple thought, which required no reach of mind whatever to grasp,—and yet an hour spent with little Buchubai made it tell upon me more powerfully than ever before,—that there is in reality but one human nature on the face of the earth. Had I simply read of Buchubai Hormazdji corresponding with her father Hormazdji Pestonji, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... 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

... her going away with the child, and cut her with a knife that such people always carry. That's why the blood was on her cheek, and on Rosa's dress. And then, in the struggle to get Rosa away, he broke her little arm with his rough grasp; so she had it "in a sling." Perhaps they might not have got away at all, had not a police-man heard their screams and helped them off. The man in whose house they had been, was sent to "The Tombs" (a place in New York for such people,) and then he was sentenced to the Penitentiary; ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... dear father!" said Charley, as he loosened his grasp, and, still holding him by both hands, looked earnestly into his face ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... try hard," said her father, "try very hard to be good. Don't let goodness go. Grasp it tight with both hands and never let it go. So may God indeed help you." Ogilvie said these words in a strained voice. Then he covered her up in bed, drew down the ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... engineers has the Potomac Army altogether in its grasp, and has reduced and perverted the spirit of the noble children of the people. Oh, the sooner this army shall be torn from the hands of the clique the nearer and surer will be the salvation of ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... foot is a hand; the first toe is shorter than the others, and its free motion is unrestricted as in the thumb of the hand. These animals usually possess a long tail which they can use as a prehensile organ, curling it about the branch of a tree with hand-like ease and grasp. When they run on all fours, they plant the palms and soles flat upon the ground. The feature of primary importance in a comparative sense is the advanced structure of the skull. These anthropoids are much more intelligent than the lower forms, which is a correlate of their larger ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... and bringing her face close to his. "Don't look like that. I tell you I wasn't drowned. I am alive: feel me! feel me! I am Hetty;" and she knelt before him, and laid her arms across his knees. The touch, the grasp, the warmth of her strong flesh, penetrated his inmost consciousness, and brought back the tottering senses. His eyes lost their terrifying and ghastly expression, and took on one searching and half-stern. "You were not drowned!" he said. "You have not been dead all these ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... I yet remain, and how mighty is my grasp,' he added, shaking my hand in the English fashion with a strength that buried my rings in the ...
— The Mummy's Foot • Theophile Gautier

... carried her, struggling and fighting and striking blindly at his face, to the side of the trail. When he set her down he pinned her arms to her sides. He did not speak, and she was entirely helpless in his grasp, but when he released his grasp of her arms and tried to leave her she seized the collar of his vest. With a grim laugh he slipped out of the garment, leaving it dangling from ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... View," [Footnote: Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltburgerlicher Absicht.] and the other, "Metaphysical Elements of Jurisprudence." [Footnote: Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Rechtslehre.] His grasp was complete. A treaty of peace which tacitly acknowledges the right to wage war, as all treaties now do, according to Kant is nothing more than a truce. An individual war may be ended, but not the state of war; so that, even after cessation of hostilities, there will be constant ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... Harvester dropped his load with a crash and ran in leaping bounds, but the dog was before him. Half way to the house, Ruth Jameson swayed in the grip of her uncle. One hand clutched his coat front in a spasmodic grasp, and with the other she covered ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... often witnessed in the tremendous earthquakes which devastate whole cities, states, and empires; in the tornados which pass, like the genius of evil, over the land, levelling whatever is found in its course; or in the waterspouts and maelstroms which prove the grave of all that comes within their grasp. ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... violently after the package and over the hand, at the same moment jumping from her seat and on to the footboard, to grope wildly for the switch. Her heart was leaping like a fish just flung into a basket, and every inch of her body winced from an expected grasp upon it. She flung herself over the side and into the seat of the car, found the switch ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... with a desperate grasp, ere it is too late, on Freedom, on Tranquility, on Greatness of soul! Lift up thy head, as one escaped from slavery; dare to look up to God, and say:—"Deal with me henceforth as Thou wilt; Thou and I are of one mind. I am Thine: I refuse nothing that seeeth good to Thee; lead on whither Thou ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... countrymen, he carries an exceedingly long knife, which he frequently unsheaths and brandishes in the faces of those who are unfortunate enough to awaken his choler. It is only a few days since that I rescued the maid-servant of the house from his grasp, whom otherwise he would undoubtedly have killed, and all because she too much burnt a red herring which he had given her to cook. You perhaps wonder that I retain a person of this description, but, bad as he is, he is the best servant I can obtain; he is very honest, a virtue ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... lay trying to grasp the full significance of the little bank-book in his pocket. He wondered who would stop him if he were to walk out of the hospital that evening or the next morning, and leave town. He got up and strode nervously back and forth, fighting a recurrent ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... that no practice and no station can give men qualities in which they are wholly deficient; but these advantages can bring out in the best light all the qualities they do possess. The glow of a generous imagination, the grasp of a profound statesmanship, the enthusiasm of a noble nature,—these no practice could educe from the eloquence of Lumley Lord Vargrave, for he had them not; but bold wit, fluent and vigorous sentences, effective arrangement of parliamentary logic, readiness of ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... astonishment, as a sign that he had been pleasantly surprised by the presentation of her drawing to his new pupil. Mrs. Blyth felt the hand which she still held in hers, and which had hitherto trembled a little from time to time, grow steady and warm in her grasp, and dropped it. There was no fear that Madonna would now leave the side of the couch and steal away by herself to ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins



Words linked to "Grasp" :   clench, hold, clutches, catch on, hang, savvy, wrestling hold, get wise, apprehend, compass, capability, potentiality, grasping, get it, embracing, reach, ken, digest, cotton on, figure, choke hold, grip, twig, understand, apprehension, intuit, influence, sense



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