"Grasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... last words of the letter, a dozen times over to her and she seemed to take hold of them as a drowning man would grasp a board that floated by him—then without movement, with her eyes shut, she seemed to be sleeping, but every once in a while she appeared ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... worker—some unethical promoter willing to stoop to devious methods—might pass at any moment and grasp the possibilities, have Miss Francis signed up before I'd even got the deal straight in my mind. How could he miss, seeing this lawn? Splendid, magnificent, beautiful. No one would ever call this stuff devilgrass—angelgrass ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... a beetle-browed look as he sat down between Auerbach and me, but at least he was cooeperative to the extent that he placed both his hands on top of the table. If Auerbach and I reached for them, we would be permitted to grasp them. ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... witnesses, has repeatedly seen this done with his eyes—in private houses, for instance, where there could be no machinery—and he himself and his brother have held by the legs of a table to prevent the motion—the medium sitting some yards away—and that table has been wrenched from their grasp and lifted into the air. My husband's sister, who has admirable sense and excessive scepticism on all matters of the kind, was present the other day at the house of a friend of ours in Paris, where ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... coloring a still deeper scarlet from the knowledge that he was blushing, and that they were all looking at him, Derrick barely touched the tips of the little fingers held out to him. Then thinking that this perhaps seemed rude, he made another attempt to grasp the offered hand more heartily, but it was so quickly withdrawn that this time he did not touch it at all, whereupon everybody ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... partly across the canoe, which was floating past the heap on which I had taken refuge, and only a few yards from where I was standing. I immediately plucked a long stick from the brush-heap, and swam near enough to the lad for him to grasp one end of the pole, bidding him leave the canoe, which I told him would be carried over the dam to a certainty, and him with it, if he did not abandon his hold. He, with apparent reluctance, followed my directions, but I had a hard struggle to regain my former place of refuge, with the boy's ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... 'utterances' have been corrupted. But, leaving you to discuss that point, if you like, with my uncle here, I must deny that the mistake, supposing it one, makes any thing in relation to our present discussion. You say that the Apostles did well and naturally to inculcate a light grasp on the world, on the supposition that it was about to pass away; and therefore, I suppose, you (under a similar impression) would do the same; if so, ought you not still to do it? for can it make any conceivable difference to the wisdom or the folly of such exhortations, whether ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... enough. They proposed sending a man to me who was neither a musician nor a singer. If I could make my meaning clear enough for him to understand, it was likely the girl from a little Western town could grasp it. ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... not have a chance to use his rifle again. The wolves seemed to rush him from all sides, and a huge gray fellow leaped against him, knocking the rifle from the lad's grasp and rolling him over and over, half ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... Queen only excepted) wish'd for two Kings of Babylon. At last, their Horses being tired, and both their Lances broke, Zadig made use of the following Stratagem, which his Antagonist wasn't any ways appriz'd of. He got artfully behind him, and shooting with a Spring on his Horses Buttocks, grasp'd him close, threw him headlong on the Sand, then jump'd into his Seat, and wheel'd round Prince Hottam, while he lay sprawling on the Ground. All the Spectators in general, with loud Acclamations, cried out, Victory! Victory! in favour of the Champion in white. Hottam, incens'd to the last ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... at this time on the question of preparedness. No matter what the character of the information is that you are receiving, I have it from all sources that there is no enthusiasm on the "hill" for preparedness, and that the country itself is indifferent because of its apparent inability to grasp the importance and full significance of this question. This indifference arises out of two things: first, the attitude of the pacifists whose feelings have been nurtured by the preachings of Mr. Bryan; second, ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... Asiatic character is further illustrated during the afternoon in the case of a caravan leader whom I meet on an unridable stretch of road. "Bin! bin!" says this person, as soon as his mental faculties grasp the idea that the bicycle is something to ride on. "Mimlcin, deyil; fenna yole; duz yolo lazim " (impossible; bad road; good road necessary), I reply, airing my limited stock of Turkish. Nothing daunted by this answer, the man blandly requests me to turn about and follow his ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... of surpassing interest, not merely as a service to native criticism but as a revelation of Holliday's ability to follow through a sustained intellectual task with the same grasp and grace that he afterward showed in the memoir of Kilmer in which his heart was so deeply engaged. Of a truth, Mr. Holliday's success in putting himself within Tarkington's dashing checked kuppenheimers is a fine achievement of projected psychology. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... it in setting it down, so that some of the fat was spilled upon the table-cloth. Mrs. Jackson seized her and slapped her hard, several times, on both sides of her head. The frightened child tried to escape, as soon as she was released from her grasp, but, being ordered to remain and wait upon table, she stood behind her mistress, carefully suppressing her sobs, though unable to keep back the tears that trickled down her cheeks. The traveller was hungry; but this sight was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... I can't tell you. What was once very clear to me has for the most part become vague and formless. When my mind tries to grasp it, it slips away. It was another life to this, quite a different life; and there was a great story in it of which I think what we have been going through is either a sequel or a prologue. I see, or saw, cities and temples with people moving about them, George and ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... was somewhat moth-eaten, and the odd hat would have seemed very much out of date if it had not recalled such precious memories. But Napoleon liked to recall that eventful day when he had managed to grasp victory when apparently beaten. After the manoeuvres he solemnly laid the corner-stone of a monument to the memory of Desaix and the other brave men who ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... hoarse and swift, checked the forward movement of the engineers. He plunged to his knees before the rope and reached clutchingly, as if he wanted to grasp ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... a single and fixed resolve, finger by finger, sinew by sinew; something that was at once he and not he—at once within and without him;—the shutting of some miniature valve in his brain, which a single manly thought should suffice to open—and the grasp of an external fate ineluctable as gravity. To any man there may come at times a consciousness that there blows, through all the articulations of his body, the wind of a spirit not wholly his; that his mind rebels; that another girds him ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... wonders 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 ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... hands round the thick neck, bore him to his knees and bent back his head over the rail. There was a convulsive struggle, a hard flinging of arms, a straining wrestle, and then Willetts was in a dreadful position. Shefford held him in iron grasp. ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... every natural longing to be and to have, took in all the more of what was possible; for God had given her this glorious insight, this imagination, wherewith we fill up life's scanty outline, and grasp at all that might be, or that elsewhere, is. In her, as in us all, it was often—nay, daily—a discontent; yet a noble discontent, and curbed with a grand, unconscious patience. She scoured her knives; she shuffled along the streets on hasty errands; she went up and down the house in ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... corridor that their prisoner might stretch his legs. Some evening papers from Rome were handed into the carriage. Rossi put out his hand to pay for them, and to his surprise it was seized with an eager grasp. The newsman, who was also carrying a tray of coffee, was a huge creature, with a white apron and ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... come," he cried, seizing that boastful man by the arm, in such a grasp that Rais turned pale with alarm. "I can't stop here. Let's git away. Sure it's divls they must ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... him; in fact, we did swear by him, for ten long years he was our oracle. Never shall we forget the first, the only time our faith was shaken. We gazed upon and loved his honest face; we reciprocated the firm pressure of his manly grasp; our eyes descended in admiration even unto the ground on which he stood, and there, upon that very ground—the ground whose upward growth of five feet eight seemed Heaven's boast, an "honest man"—we saw what struck us sightless to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... 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
... The world lay at his feet. He would use it well; he would do all things honourably. Ease, travel, a political career, wide influence, the possession of beautiful things—in a very short time they would all be in his grasp; for Melrose was near his end. Some difficulty first, but not too much; the struggle ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sorceress!" cried the seneschal, and, with a grasp like that of Hercules, he seized the cow by the tail and dragged her out of ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... moment could think of nothing further to say. The thing was incomprehensible to her, appalling, yet strangely touching. This twenty-year-old girl, groping her way toward safety, that refuge of the middle-aged, as eagerly as other young things grasp at happiness, at romance!—She recalled phrases spoken by another startled mother to another girl quite as headstrong: "You are only a child! He is twice your age! You ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... brooding over a certain idea for her wedding-dress, which she had altogether failed in the attempt to convey to her London couturiere; and it had come into her head to try whether Mary might not grasp her idea, and help her to make it intelligible. Mary listened and thought, questioned, and desired explanations—at length, begged she would allow her to ponder the thing a little: she could hardly at once venture ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... through their local Assemblies, had the right to will away their land to England. Spain, at least, could not say them nay; but none the less she longed to see her flag float once more over the western districts which had slipped from her grasp. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Beneath him the depths. Not a point of support. He thinks of the gloomy adventures of the corpse in the limitless shadow. The bottomless cold paralyzes him. His hands contract convulsively; they close, and grasp nothingness. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, gusts, useless stars! What is to be done? The desperate man gives up; he is weary, he chooses the alternative of death; he resists not; he lets himself go; he abandons his grip; and ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... shared her disappointment. On the contrary, he assured her they were making splendid progress, and he was delighted with her grasp of detail and her knowledge of business essentials. At his word all Nuevo Pueblo bowed and scraped to her, she was treated with impressive formality, and even the military guards at the various headquarters presented arms when she passed. The general's official business ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... Clarke's own explanation of nothing. Indeed, is not the human mind obliged by its very nature to join limited quantities to other quantities, which it can only conceive as limited, in order to form to itself a sort of confused idea of something beyond its own grasp, without ever reaching the point of infinity, which eludes every attempt at definition? Then it would appear that it is an abstraction, a mere ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... in the melee; and between temper and dread he was hardly controllable, and bearing hard against the curb in a wild desire to rush off. In fact, I fully expected at any moment to be shaken from my grasp, as, oddly enough, even in that time of peril, I recalled the gymnastic sport of giant strides of my schooldays, and held on; but I was certain we were now too late, and that it was only a matter of moments ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... doubts from the minds of the South Americans. For the downfall of Spain was now patent to all, as well as her impotence, not only to maintain communication with her colonies, but to move hand or foot to free herself from the grasp of ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... the society!" Mrs. Swiggs replies with a languishing sigh, mistaking the head of the cat for her Milton, and apologizing for her error as that venerable animal, having got well squeezed, sputters and springs from her grasp, shaking his head, "elected solely on ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... and firm of purpose, she intently watched its coming on, until it was very near; then, with a touch unshipped her sculls, and crept aft in the boat, between kneeling and crouching. Once, she let the body evade her, not being sure of her grasp. Twice, and she had seized ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... post-office the bishop of Wyoming met him and greeted him. His lonely heart throbbed at the warm, firm grasp of this friend's hand. The bishop saw his eyes glow suddenly, as if tears were close. But none came, and no word more open than, "I'm glad ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... slowly over this sad ruin, however, a horrible and startling spectacle came in view. Two bodies were seen, within a few feet of the surface of the water, one grasped in the arms of the other, in the gripe of despair. The man held in the grasp, was kept beneath the water solely by the death-lock of his companion, who was himself held where he floated, by the circumstance that one of his feet was entangled in a rope. The struggle could not have been long over, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... with mind the bulk of Humanity who were still without the spark, yet so feebly burned the light all through the Atlantean days that few could be said to have attained to the powers of abstract thought. On the other hand the functioning of the mind on concrete things came well within their grasp, and as we have seen it was in the practical concerns of their every-day life, especially when their psychic faculties were directed towards the same objects, that they achieved such ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... our friends, the critics, would grasp this simple truth, and leave off clamoring for the impossible, and being shocked because they do not get it. When a new book is written, the high-class critic opens it with feelings of faint hope, ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... with a merchant ship's gun. He is invulnerable in everything. His words, like Jupiter's bolts, come down upon you in such fury that your escape is as likely as that of a gnat thrown into a caldron of flaming oil. Hercules crushing an infant in his grasp is a difficult task compared to the ease with which this giant talker grasps and crushes his opponent. In every mode of hostility he meets you as Goliath met David—with lips of scorn and words of contempt—to presume to stand before him in contradiction. Your logic is weak; ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... the immensity of such a thought—"the first time since the world was made." I think the next sensation was one of extreme happiness; it seemed such a privilege to be allowed to hold the initial Christmas service. I had to grasp this idea very tight to keep down the terrible home-sickness which I felt all day for almost the first time. There are moments when no advantages or privileges can repress what Aytoun calls "the deep, unutterable woe which ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... of war o'er our forest is scowling, Soft peace spreads her wings and flies weeping away, The infants affrighted cling close to their mothers, The youths grasp their swords, and for combat prepare; While beauty weeps fathers, and lovers, and brothers, Who are gone ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... wish every word he uttered had been written down": but he does not quote a single sentence of all the poet said;[G] and a writer in the "Quarterly Review" expresses his belief that "nothing is too high for the grasp of his conversation, nothing too low: it glanced from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, with a speed and a splendor, an ease and a power, that almost seemed inspired." (Nor did I ever find him incoherent, as some have pretended; but I agree with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... as he did, was that he might embarrass the government, and take advantage of some favourable crisis to drive a profitable bargain; or that, during some convulsion that would be likely to lead to a change, the expiring executive would be glad to grasp at his offer, and thereby a claim would be established on the country, which the United States would not readily relinquish. The policy of the British government suffering the Mexican republic to be bullied out of this province would be very questionable indeed, ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... a just one," said Jaska softly. "'Apparently,' indeed! You will note now that, though men of the Gens of Dalis swarm all about the aircars, and even clamber atop them, no more are dying in the grasp of those tentacles? Is Dalis arranging a treacherous ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... by a hundred years of almost constant warfare with the English and with the savage nations on their frontiers, saw as clearly as the Governor that the key of French dominion hung inside the walls of Quebec, and that for an enemy to grasp it was to lose all they valued as subjects of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... in having a woman stand before him in the defensive, stating her case. Upon her first appearance he had concealed his surprise and rallied nobly to the courtesies of the occasion; it was sufficient that he was in the presence of the fair. Having heard enough to get the facts of her adventure and grasp her present situation, it was hardly in him to play the part of the unconvinced and give her a hearing through the corroborating details—it was too inquisitorial for him. Suspicion? He would have felt vitally impeached. He could not stand judicially; he would have ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... committed on the pilgrims and on the sacred shrines venerated by all Christendom. Such stories, which lost nothing in the telling, aroused a storm of indignation throughout Europe and awakened the desire to rescue the Holy Land from the grasp ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... that persistence in this course must surely lead to a violent separation from the mother-country, and it is interesting to note in this, the first instance when he was called upon to consider a political question of great magnitude, his clearness of vision and grasp of mind. In what he wrote there is no trace of the ambitious schemer, no threatening nor blustering, no undue despondency nor excited hopes. But there is a calm understanding of all the conditions, an entire freedom ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... burned and reviled by the great foe to liberty—the foe that strangled it before Egypt's theocracy, aye! before the day of sun-worshippers invoking their round, burning god, riding naked in the blue. Baruch pondered these things, and had almost lost his grasp on time and space when something ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... bright afternoon when love was first revealed to me. Ah, what a different love was this which was firing my blood, and making dizzy my brain! That child-love had softened my heart in its deep distress, and widened my soul. This new and mighty passion in whose grasp I was, this irresistible power that had seized and possessed my entire being, wrought my soul in quite a different sort, concentrating and narrowing my horizon till the human life outside the circle of our love seemed far, far away, as though I were gazing through the wrong end of a ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... sings out Pappy, 'there's the biggest little hoss ever you saw! Don't look at him—any of you fellahs that wants a yellah dawg to win a cheap race with! He ain't in that class. Step forwahd, you breeders, an' grasp a golden opportunity! Send the best brood mares you've got to this little hoss . . . he's a giant! You hear me—a giant! Ed Tumble, I'm talkin' to you! I'm talkin' to you, Bill Masters—an' Harry Scott there . . . an' Judge Dillon . . . an' all you big breeders! ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... of those officers who seemed never to grasp an order at first hand. Even when it came in writing, clear, brief, and explicit, he often required explanations. "I don't think I understand, sir," he began, but Warren ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... 'I need you,' went across the continent, and brought the ready response, 'coming on the wings of the wind.' It was Judge St. Claire who wrote to Harold, for Jerrie's nerveless fingers could not grasp the pen, and she could only dictate what she wished the ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... her threat would hold true. At every leap Barnacle made, he seemed about to tear the rope from her grasp. ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... fashion of clumsy wrestlers. The thud of hard fists against yielding flesh was a new and terrifying experience. Pegrani was game, though, and he flailed about with his powerful arms, endeavoring to get his opponent in his grasp. Sidestepping to avoid one of his rushes, Blaine brought up a terrible uppercut that ended flush upon the Llott's jaw. His head snapped back and his knees gave way beneath him. Down he went in a flabby heap. Suddenly ashamed, the young ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... quite mixed with Colston's line, still pressed on, and between Hooker's headquarters and his elated foe there was scarce an organized regiment. Hooker's fatal inability to grasp the situation, and his ordering an advance of all troops on Howard's left as far as the Second Corps, had made him almost defenceless. The troops which should have been available to stem this adverse tide were blindly ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... a long stick and Grandfather Goosey-Gander held it out, so the little boy duck could grasp it in his bill, but the stick broke, and every one said it was too bad! Then, just as Jimmie was almost to the edge of the falls, if Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy didn't call out: "Stand aside, everybody! I am a good swimmer and I will ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis
... rushed to the shore and plunged into the water. He stood there on the end of the high spring-board, conspicuous against the blue sky, with his eyes fixed upon the swimmer. He saw the struggle in the water, saw the frantic arms clutch at Garry, watched him as he extricated himself from that insane grasp, saw him catch the struggling figure with the "neck grip" as the only means of saving both lives, and watched him as he swam toward shore with his now almost unconscious burden. What he thought, how he felt, no human being knew. He stood motionless like a statue until ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... the lower courts.[364] Miss Hulett had reason to expect that since she was unmarried, this decision would not prejudice her case. Just on the threshold of her chosen profession, the rewards of youthful aspirations and earnest study apparently within her grasp, her dismay may be imagined when no response whatever was vouchsafed her petition. A fainter heart would have accepted the situation. To battle successfully with old prejudices, entrenched in the strongholds of the law, required not only marked ability, but also a courage which ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... 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 sleeve of ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... located in Rondebosch, a suburb about nine miles from Capetown. In the open country that he loves, and in an environment that breathed the romance and performance of England's greatest empire-builder, I caught something of the man's kindling vision and realized his ripe grasp ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... down the drawing-room, studying her taste in the least details. He admired Mme de Langeais herself in the objects of her choosing; they revealed her life before he could grasp her personality and ideas. About an hour later the Duchess came noiselessly out of her chamber. Montriveau turned, saw her flit like a shadow across the room, and trembled. She came up to him, not with a bourgeoise's enquiry, "How do I look?" She ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... got my exchange all right: it is on that account I have eight days' leave; but next Monday, November 21st, before midday, I must report to my new regiment. But this regiment, the 257th Infantry, is in garrison at Verdun!... You grasp it?" ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... was received with such warm acclamation, is inferior to those that followed. He seems to have been partly aware of this himself, and speaks of the "concise and superficial narrative from Commodus to Alexander." But the whole volume lacks the grasp and easy mastery which distinguish its successors. No doubt the subject-matter was comparatively meagre and ungrateful. The century between Commodus and Diocletian was one long spasm of anarchy and violence, which was, as Niebuhr said, incapable ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... on the bank and, occasionally, a shot was fired over his head. He felt sure, however, that he was still unseen; and determined to float quietly, till the course of the current changed, and brought him back to the side from which he started. He felt the Sikh's grasp relaxing, and threw his arms round the ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... 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 religiously impressed, he animalizes his creed in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Grinder, and was about to bring the cane down with all force when Tom caught it from behind and wrenched it from his grasp. ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... so long and arduous as this. Strange it seemed to them, after going so far, and doing and suffering so much, that they should end the campaign where they had begun it. Yet they had done much: wrenching the larger and richer half of Spain out of the grasp of the French, and changing their possession of the country to a mere ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... has happened to you?" he exclaimed. "For a long time I tried to teach you with all my patience, and you were not even able to grasp the letters, but now that I had given you up as hopeless, you have not only learnt how to spell, but even to read. How did ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... trail of every cloud. If you should see a fellow man with trouble's flag unfurled, And lookin' like he didn't have a friend in all the world, Go up and slap him on the back and holler, "How'd you do?" And grasp his hand so warm he'll know he has a friend in you, An' ask him what's a-hurtin' him, and laugh his cares away, An' tell him that the darkest hour is just before the day. Don't talk in graveyard palaver, but say it right out loud, That God will ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... little fellow, about as big as I am. You could soon manage poor Francois; he would be a mere child in the grasp of such ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... dark, brother," answered she, withdrawing her hand somewhat hastily from his grasp. "You must look your last at me by the ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... would not make him keep opening his eyes to look at things he could not see; and every other moment would start and grasp tight hold of her, as some fresh pang of terror shot ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... seems to bid us rest content with what we have won. That is, he bids us leave superstition, with all its brood of lies and wrongs, in possession of the schools, the universities, the churches, the hospitals, the workhouses, and every other institution. He bids us leave it with its large grasp on the private and public life of the community, and go on with our constructive work in face of all this overwhelming frustration. No doubt he means well, but we are not foolish enough to take his advice. We tell Dr. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... hotel, and went into a darkened room with a cement floor which had the thick dampness of an interior saturated with spilled acid wine. There he found a man, not different from those outside, who, incapable of understanding English, managed to grasp the fact that Lee wished to see Daniel Randon immediately. The proprietor assented, and urged them up a stair. "I won't have you wait out here," Lee told Savina; "it will be only for an hour or so." The room into which they were ushered had, at least, the advantage of bareness: there ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and that is to spend some time over a desert island or Robinson Crusoe stage. Some children can do without it, but all enjoy it, and the duller children find it difficult to imagine a time when "you could buy it in a shop" does not fit all difficulties. They can easily grasp the idea of sailing away to a land "where no man had ever been before," and playing at desert island has always ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... boy, whom Mary hoped would win, drove a pig into a corner, and as the crowd watched he managed to grasp it by a fore and hind leg and held it close ...
— A Day at the County Fair • Alice Hale Burnett
... the blow—but just then there came on a blast, a horrible roaring wind bearing night upon its wings, snow, and sleet, and hail. Bagg says he had the fellow by the throat quite fast, as he thought, but suddenly he became bewildered, and knew not where he was; and the man seemed to melt away from his grasp, and the wind howled more and more, and the night poured down darker and darker; the snow and the sleet thicker and more blinding. "Lord have mercy upon ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... enterprising young men to "go West." Many a tract thus bought for fifty dollars has turned out to be a soil upon which princely fortunes have grown. A tract of forty acres represents to-day in Chicago or Minneapolis an amount of wealth difficult for the imagination to grasp. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... foretelling an eclipse. It was a study of the nature of the heavens, an attempt to penetrate the construction of the material universe. So with geometry. It might begin as an investigation of the relations of particular triangles, squares, and oblongs, but it developed into an attempt to grasp the nature of space relations and to understand them as depending on simple common principles. This is to say that in the hands of the Greeks these subjects first became sciences. But a still greater ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... fearfully at this unexpected plan of Sam Brewster's, and her grasp on the soup ladle relaxed so that it fell to the floor with a ringing echo. But she paid no attention to it: she stood with mouth open staring at the master of ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... took my hand into his slender, but very powerful grasp, that man had the impertinence to laugh into my eyes at my parent's double-entendre, which he had intended ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... quality; yet behold him now waging a contest in which a man wastes money, time, comfort, and self-respect, that he may wrest from real sorrow and discomfiture the shadow of a happiness which he cannot grasp when he has reached it. There is much wisdom in the opinion expressed by a certain fox concerning grapes hanging out of distance; but it is a wisdom seldom acquired till the limbs are too stiff to stretch for an effort—till there is scarce a tooth left in the mumbling ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... her, so to speak. His genius must not be hidden from her.... Perhaps he had formed a very exaggerated estimate of Sofya Matveyevna, but he had already chosen her. He could not exist without a woman. He saw clearly from her face that she hardly understood him, and could not grasp even the most essential part. "Ce n'est rien, nous attendrons, and meanwhile she can feel it intuitively.... My friend, I need nothing but your heart!" he exclaimed, interrupting his narrative, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... wooden apron of the cab, stretching out her hands instinctively as if to grasp the space, the airy darkness of the ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... his followers reached the cluster of merchantmen, they found their torches so far burned out as to be useless. Failure stared them in the face then, when success was almost within their grasp. Jones, however, was not to be balked of his prey. Running his boat ashore, he hastened to a neighboring house, where he demanded candles. With these he returned, led his men aboard a large ship from which the crew fled, and deliberately built a fire ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... actual case of any two species, or even of any two races, is adduced—and one is asked, have these two originally descended from the same parent womb? I believe it is because we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps. The mind cannot grasp the full meaning of the term of a million or hundred million years, and cannot consequently add up and perceive the full effects of small successive variations accumulated during almost infinitely many generations. The difficulty is the ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... had had three weeks—and in a neighbourhood not a quarter of a mile from the avenue. It was three weeks since Skiddles had disappeared. That this dog was Skiddles was of course most improbable, and yet the philanthropist was ready to grasp at any clue which might lead to ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... to entrap his dim chilly affections had somewhat lowered his estimate of female delicacy; and possessing the flattering assurance that no fair hand was held too high for his grasp, should he choose to claim it, he had grown rather arrogant. Of coquetry he was entirely innocent; it seemed too contemptible even for mere sport, and he scorned the thought of feeding his ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... his wings, shook the small black boy's grasp from his tail, and with a mighty swoop alighted on the roof of the very last car as it passed; and in a moment more Jericho Bob's Thanksgiving dinner had vanished, like a beautiful dream, ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... two men. Manston was the taller, but there was in Edward much hard tough muscle which the delicate flesh of the steward lacked. They flew together like the jaws of a gin. In a minute they were both on the floor, rolling over and over, locked in each other's grasp as tightly as if they had been one organic being at war with itself—Edward trying to secure Manston's arms with a small thong he had drawn from his pocket, Manston trying ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... which, in the full-grown animal, are eighteen inches in length; and they are armed with sharp and powerful claws five inches long, and so extremely sharp, that they cut into the flesh like knives. He can also use them separately like fingers, so that he can grasp a dry clod of earth and crumble it to dust as a human being could do with his hand. He can also, with them, dig into the ground; and when the weight of his body is not too great, they enable him to climb trees, although not with the speed of ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... give me your knife." Patsy at once responded by placing his hunting-knife in Doug's left hand. Dic saw his imminent danger and with his right hand clasped Doug's left wrist in a grasp that could not be loosened. After several futile attempts to free his wrist, Doug tossed the knife over to his right side. It fell a few inches beyond his reach, and he tried to grasp it. Rita saw that very soon ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... her head, but except for this she did not move, and it was a relief when after a few disjointed remarks his voice died away. She was moved to pity, but for a few moments she had quivered in the grasp of another emotion. It was obvious that Dick did not altogether know what he was saying, but he had shown her plainly the place she had in his mind, and she knew she would not like ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... dispense with the higher instincts of the industrious, laborious, and useful bee, but whether the superior creature could content itself with the insipid and objectless pursuits of the lower one. The mind requires more to fill it in proportion to the largeness of its grasp: hope not, therefore, that you could find either their peace or their satisfaction in the purse-netting, embroidering lives of your thoughtless companions. Even to them, be sure, hours of deep weariness must come: no human being, whatever her degree on the scale of mind, is capable of being entirely ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... seat during the violent throes and tossings to and fro of the wagon, was even more difficult; for Mr. Poletiss's mildness of voice was surpassed by his mildness of manner, and he was far too timid to grasp at the side of the wagon by placing his arm behind the fair Miss Morkin, lest it should be supposed that he was assuming the privileged position of a partner in a valse. Mr. Poletiss, therefore, whenever they jolted through ruts or brooks, held on to his hay hassock, ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... and controls us, for the most part unconsciously and without protest on our part. We are in the main its willing adherents. The imagination of the most radically-minded cannot transcend any great part of the ideas and customs transmitted to him. When once we grasp this truth, we shall, according to our mood, humbly congratulate ourselves that ... we are permitted to stand on the giant's shoulders, and enjoy an outlook that would be quite hidden to us, if we ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... Charley,' one of the escaped prisoners, who, it will be remembered, was drummed out of his tribe and sentenced by the courts for the murder of a white settler last spring. Small outlying settlements will rejoice when this body of hardened desperate men are once more in the grasp of the law." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... with the utmost clearness and the utmost naturalness: simply that! When you have accomplished so much, you have accomplished good style. In no sense is style of the nature of embroidery, an ornament superimposed: this is what the beginner fails to grasp; she somehow cannot rid herself of the superstition that after the meaning is precisely expressed, something further remains to ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... He was of a restless temperament, which showed itself in continual self-imposed changes. He would not, or could not, permit his reputation to grow steadily, by residing long in one place, but as soon as fame was within his grasp, he sacrificed the work of years by removing to an entirely new ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... hold of her hand; and she let it remain in his grasp; but her quiescence did not mean yielding, and ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... not! Duane—I—" Pain made her faint; her grasp on his arm tightened convulsively; with a supreme effort she struck the flask out of his hand and ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... turned back to the sick man. Loosening the grasp of his hand, he carried him to a little mound at ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... about the settlement of the public. He told them in words that he was ready to lose his life for the honor of the senate, but desired them to consider what was for their advantage, without any regard to what was most agreeable to them; for that those who grasp at government will stand in need of weapons and soldiers to guard them, unless they will set up without any preparation for it, and so fall into danger. And when the senate replied that they would bring in weapons in abundance, and money, and ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... word-drills is to secure instantaneous automatic word recognition with rapidity and promptness as the foundations of success; while the sentence drills, if properly conducted, will train pupils to grasp instantly the total meaning of ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... could tell what awaited him. If the man could change like this, might he not take on some shape too hideous to bear in the silence? St. George stood still, suddenly clenching his hands, trying to reach out through the dark and to grasp—himself, the self that seemed slipping away from him. But was he mad already, he wondered angrily, and hurried back to the far flickering light, stumbling, panting, not daring to look at the figure on the floor, ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... of New England was a result of the aggregate efforts of a busy multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achievement of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain attempt. Long and valiantly her chiefs upheld their cause, leading to battle a vassal population, warlike as themselves. Borne down by numbers from without, wasted by corruption from within, New France fell at last; and out of her fall ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... matter—none at all. I was simply bored. This I attribute to two things: first, my preponderating interest in the romantic side of things; secondly (and this bears with it a strong moral), the feeling that the knowledge lay always within my grasp kept me from that curiosity which so oft consumes those who think it is hidden away ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... no less a person than "Old Batterbones" himself; and from the manner in which he shook his prisoner, he seemed determined to make good his title to the sobriquet the boys had given him. The person who held Sandy in his grasp was the farmer's foreman, who fully sympathized with his employer in his views ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... rested slightly against his shoulder; her breath fanned his cheek; her eyes, soft and lustrous, sought his. But he looked away gloomy and defiant, and she felt his grasp tighten vise-like around her. "I shall not affect any concealment of the feelings which she has recognized so often, nor shall I ask any favors," he thought. "There," he said, as he placed her in his boat, "you are safe enough now. Now go aft while ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... influence, as the criticisms had no influence on his theory of heredity. Critics and physiologists attacked him ofttimes with an arsenal of irrefutable arguments. It did not do any good. They affirmed in vain that the theory of heredity is not proved by any science, and above all it is difficult to grasp it and show it by facts; they pointed in vain that physiology cannot be fantastical and its laws cannot depend on the free conception of an author. Zola listened, continued to write, and in the last volume he gave a genealogical tree of the family of Rougon-Macquart, with such ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... life. The ears listen, and want more: the eyes are gratified with gazing, and desire yet further; the nostrils are filled with the sweet odours of flower and sap. The touch, too, has its pleasures, dallying with leaf and flower. Can you not almost grasp the odour-laden air and hold it in the ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... have been his to say in his daily walks and from the pulpit of his Salem, had he not been thus hampered, confined, and dominated. Hitherto he had hardly gained a single soul from under Mr. Fenwick's grasp,—had indeed on the balance lost his grasp on souls, and was beginning to be aware that this was so because of the cabbages and the peaches. He told himself that though he had not hankered after these flesh-pots, ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... merchant has locked his office-door and gone fishing! The American temperament needs at this moment nothing so much as that wholesome training of semi-rural life which reared Hampden and Cromwell to assume at one grasp the sovereignty of England, and which has ever since served as the foundation of England's greatest ability. The best thoughts and purposes seem ordained to come to human beings beneath the open sky, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... made a quick rush forward. For a moment Bessie did not know what to do. She wondered if, when it came to the test, she would really be able to use the knife; to try to cut or stab this man. He was getting nearer each moment, and, just as she was almost within his grasp she darted back and aimed a blow at ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... against the bulkhead by the impact but managed to stay on his feet. Desperately he tore the paralo-ray rifle from his shoulder, but before he could level it, Astro was upon him, wrenching it out of his grasp. Pushing Ross away, he calmly broke it in two and threw the pieces to one side. Then he faced the ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... sets, the cubes, the prisms, and the rods, cause the child to move about and to handle and carry objects which are difficult for him to grasp with his little hand. Again, by their use, he repeats the training of the eye to the recognition of differences of size between similar objects. The exercise would seem easier, from the sensory point of view, than the other with ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... made answer in his turn—"Mother has just been here. She was crying. She said—'Bo[u], the parting is for long. Never again will the mother be seen. Grow up, Bo[u]; grow up to be a fine man.' Then she cried more than ever." A hand seemed to grasp the heart of Sampei—"Mother here, Bo[u]chan!" Surely the child could not lie, even make up the story at this age, so fitting into his own uneasy vision. Continued the little fellow mid his tears—"It was not ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... his father's grasp, and who knew that his father would certainly search him, to find out what he had brought to sell, thought it most prudent to produce the diamond cross. His father could but just see its lustre by the light of a dim lamp, which hung over their heads in the gloomy ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... himself from her grasp, but he was powerless. Nevertheless he got a little nearer to the door. Forrest came swiftly across the room. Engleton struck at him with a chair, but the blow ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... utilized for seats, and conveyances drawn up outside of windows and filled with listeners. People came thirty, forty and fifty miles in buggies and wagons to shake hands with the pioneer suffragist. Grizzly-headed opposers succumbed to Miss Anthony's logic and came up to grasp her hand and say God bless her, and proved the depth of their fervor by generous financial aid to the cause she so ably represents. It is seldom that the beginner of a great reform lives to see such ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... cordial words in so strong and musical a voice—all felt at once they were in the presence of the natural leader of the county. The enthusiasm of the hunting-field burst forth. They gave him three ringing cheers, and jostled their horses forward, that they might grasp his hand. ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... knew of the ampulla the answer would have been intelligible to her. As it was, her face betrayed nothing. "I guess I'll hurry on over alone, then," she added. She extended a hand to each of us. Her grasp was warm and friendly and frank. "So long, and—and ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... towards the American colonies as a whole. They came dangerously near repeating, in their feeling towards their younger brethren on the Ohio, the very blunder committed in reference to themselves by their elder brethren in Britain. For some time they seemed, like the British, unable to grasp the grandeur of their race's imperial destiny. They hesitated to throw themselves with hearty enthusiasm into the task of building a nation with a continent as its base. They rather shrank from the idea as implying a lesser weight of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt |
