"Grope" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... coward, but I think there is much more to be feared, Peter. The arm of the Pope is long, and the arm of the crafty Ferdinand is longer, and both of them grope for the throats and moneybags ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... tired of head. We're all for love," the violins said. "Of what avail the rigorous tale Of coin for coin and box for bale? Grant thee, O Trade! thine uttermost hope, Level red gold with blue sky-slope, And base it deep as devils grope, When all's done what hast thou won Of the only sweet that's under the sun? Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh Of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... 1500 infantry and 500 horsemen. The night was dark—the darkest, said Stuart, that he had ever known. Without a guide concerted action seemed impossible. The rain still fell in torrents, and the raiders, soaked to the skin, could only grope aimlessly in the gloom. But just at this moment a negro was captured who recognised Stuart, and who knew where Pope's baggage and horses were to be found. He was told to lead the way, and Colonel W. H. F. Lee, a son of the Commander-in-Chief, was ordered to follow with his regiment. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... of all the hope to climb? Only in the self we grope To the misty end of time, Truth has put an ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... mine of long ago. How could we know?—) For who should guess The shock and smiting of that perfectness?— The lily-thrust of those ecstatic feet Unpityingly sweet?— Sweet beyond all the blurred blind dreams that grope The upward paths of hope? And who could guess The dulcet holiness, The lilt and gladness of those jocund feet, Unpityingly sweet? Ah, for your coolness that shall change and stir With every glee of her!— Under the fresh amaze That drips and glistens ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... a clap of thunder sent her plunging in headlong. "Why, where—" for grope as she might, clear up to the end, among the clothes and the shoe-bag, no Miss Rhys was ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... somewhere beyond the dying embers of the day's funeral pyre?" No answer came from thee, only thine eyes smiled like the edge of a sunset cloud. It is night. Thy figure grows dim in the dark. Thy wind-blown hair flits on my cheek and thrills my sadness with its scent. My hands grope to touch the hem of thy robe, and I ask thee—"Is there thy garden of death beyond the stars, Lady of my Voyage, where thy silence blossoms into songs?" Thy smile shines in the heart of the hush like the star-mist ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... dropped his knife when we stumbled, and we were forced to grope round in that unspeakable mess for many minutes ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... in the dark, you see, and being only a flesh and blood human being, instead of a creation of one of you authors, I can only grope in the dark and look in every direction for the light. One person, two persons, three, even four may be engaged in this affair for all I know. Don't you be in a hurry, Mr. Beecot. I believe in that foreign chap's saying, 'Without haste ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... keen for a daring policy, had undertaken to attack the Danish defences with a squadron of twelve seventy-fours, and the frigates and bomb-vessels of the fleet. He determined to shun the open way of King's Channel, grope through the uncertain passage called the Dutch Deep, at the back of the Middle Ground, and forcing his way up the narrow channel in front of the shallows, repeat on the anchored batteries and battleships of the Danes the exploit of the Nile. He spent the nights of March 30 and 31 sounding ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... its pure rays through misery and strife; Soothes the lone bosom, as it pines in woe, And turns to heaven this barren world below? O, what were man, did not her hallowed ray Disperse, the clouds that thicken on his way! A weary pilgrim, left in cheerless gloom, To grope his midnight journey to the tomb; His life a tempest, death, a wreck forlorn, In sorrow dying, as ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... good impersonation in the Reading)—"Yes; first-floor. It's the door straight afore you when you get's to the top of the stairs"—with which the dirty slipshod in black cotton stockings disappeared with the candle down the kitchen stair-case, leaving the unfortunate arrivals to grope their way up as they best could. Welcomed rather dejectedly by Bob on the first-floor landing, where Mr. Pickwick put, not, as in the original work, his hat, but, in the Reading, "his foot" in the tray of glasses, they were very soon followed, one ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... it out rustling and shaking in his hand. Ezra, breathing hard and short, accepted it, and began to grope in his pockets for his spectacle-case. After a while he found it, and tremblingly setting his glasses astride his nose, began to unfold the paper, which crackled noisily ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... intellect, spirit and sex find their perfect mate. Love is the great enlightener. And in my own mind I am fully persuaded that comparatively few mortals ever experience this rebirth that a great love gives. We grope our way through life. Nature's first thought is for reproduction of the species; she has so overloaded physical passion that men and women marry when the blood is warm and intellect callow. Girls marry for life the first ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... this, and adds, "one kept in captivity preferred fruit, plantains, &c., as food, and refused all kinds of meat. Another would eat meat, fish, and used to burrow and grope under the walls of the bungalow for worms and shells." My idea is Balu-suar, or Sand-pig is the correct name, although Bhalu-suar or Bear-pig may hit off the appearance of the animal better, but its locality has always been pointed out to me by the Gonds in the sandy beds of rivers ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the result? Watchman! what of the night? The night is stormy and dark; men's hearts are failing them for fear; those who see clearly in the day time, now grope helplessly in the dark; the blind are leading the blind; society is at a stand still, waiting and watching for the coming day. Yet afar off in the east the patriot's eye may even now see the first faint streaks of that light which shall usher in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... history of Buddhism is that which follows the reign of Asoka, but the enquirer cannot grope for long in these dark ages without stumbling upon the word Mahayana. This is the name given to a movement which in its various phases may be regarded as a philosophical school, a sect and a church, and though ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... mental confusion,—blurring out thought.... Is the whole world taking fire?... The flaming azure of the sea dazzles and pains like a crucible-glow;—the green of the mornes flickers and blazes in some amazing way.... Then dizziness inexpressible: you grope with eyes shut fast—afraid to open them again in that stupefying torrefaction,—moving automatically,—vaguely knowing you must get out of the flaring and flashing,—somewhere, anywhere away from the white wrath of the sun, and the green fire of the hills, and the monstrous color ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... modernity, that it is very short-sighted to be indifferent to all that is historic. But it is as disastrously long-sighted to be interested only in what is prehistoric. And this disaster has befallen a large proportion of the learned who grope in the darkness of unrecorded epochs for the roots of their favourite race or races. The wars, the enslavements, the primitive marriage customs, the colossal migrations and massacres upon which their theories repose, are ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... between. Rolling had long ceased to be a pleasant figure of speech with me. How frail are all things here below, how false, and yet how fair! My mind is naturally picturesque. In the midst of my sadness the force of nature compelled me to grope after an illustration. I could only think that my own foothold was frail, that the Jane Moseley was false, that the Pretty Girl was fair. A dizziness of brain resulted from this rhetorical effort. I silently confided my sorrows to the sympathizing ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... as of waves That grope their way through sunless caves, Like bodies struggling in their graves, Carolina! And now it deepens; slow and grand It swells, as rolling to the land, An ocean broke upon the strand, Carolina! Shout! let it reach the startled Huns! And roar ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... new science of psycho-analysis he has already begun the work of bringing an infinity of subconsciousness into the light of day; it may be that in the evidence of telepathy which the psychic researchers are accumulating, he is beginning to grope his way into a universal consciousness, which may come to include the joys and griefs of the inhabitants of Mars, and of the dark stars which the spectroscope and the ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... will train myself to come here at night and sit in the presence of this woman without raising my eyes. I will not be defeated in this thing. The Lord has devised this temptation as a test of my soul and I will grope my way out of darkness into ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... not miss us even by grope. That big hollow that goes from Burg, and even from Potschappel,—it would have poured like a water-spout [or fire-spout] over us. You see, I am not so brave ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to be a saint or a madonna; she had fallen from her pedestal so low that he could not find the way to descend and grope after ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... one stranger salute another as he passes; and if not speedily rubbed with snow, the nose of the poor passenger is lost! Men's very eyes are sometimes frozen up, and they have no resource but to beg admission at the first door to which they can grope, to unthaw their glued ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... Resaca because his safety demanded it. The movement by us through Snake-Creek Gap was a total surprise to him. My army about doubled his in size, but he had all the advantages of natural positions, of artificial forts and roads, and of concentrated action. We were compelled to grope our way through forests, across mountains, with a large army, necessarily more or less dispersed. Of course, I was disappointed not to have crippled his, army more at that particular stage of the game; but, as it resulted, these rapid ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Indian path westward. She journeyed on, confused and irresolute, and tortured between terror and hunger. At length she approached Onondaga, a few miles from the present city of Syracuse, and hid herself in a dense thicket of spruce or cedar, whence she crept forth at night, to grope in the half-melted snow for a few ears of corn, left from the last year's harvest. She saw many Indians from her lurking-place, and once a tall savage, with an axe on his shoulder, advanced directly towards the spot where she lay: but, in the extremity of her fright, she ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... change of words, partly because the frolics were seldom heard by the stranger, and the music less often caught. Of nearly all the songs, however, the music is distinctly sorrowful. The ten master songs I have mentioned tell in word and music of trouble and exile, of strife and hiding; they grope toward some unseen power and sigh ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... light grows dim, the vision fades, Myself seems to myself a distant goal, I grope among the bodies' drowsy shades, Once more the Old ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... despond, Though I grope in the dark for the dawn: Birth and laughter, and bubbles of breath, And tears, and the blank void of death, Round each its penumbra is drawn,— I touch ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... feast is well lighted, and the guest has not to third his way through knotty sentences, past perilous punctuation-points, to reach the table, nor to grope in the dark for the dainties when he has found it. We imagine that it is this charm of perfect clearness and accessibility which attracts popular liking to Mr. Aldrich's poetry; afterwards, its other qualities easily hold the favor won. He is endowed with a singular richness of fancy, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... food for an evening meal. I have shown, however, that that was a matter of small account to him. There was more than enough for Whirlwind, who, leaving his master to himself, began edging up the pass, cropping the choicest grass on the way. The Shawanoe had to grope in many places before he collected enough fuel. He heaped a part against the cold bare face of the rock, several paces from the winding brook, whose waters were not only clear, but of ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... stunned nor bruised, and he began to grope about for the pistol which in the sudden descent had been knocked from his hand. The only light came from the open trap in the floor above. Something fell softly at his feet; he picked it up. It was a cloth, saturated with chloroform. He flung it from him, and ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... old battered briar rarely left his mouth; and whilst the odoriferous Boer equivalent for the "divine weed" held out, food and drink were but minor considerations. But something must be done now, so, knocking out the ashes from his last whiff, and with one more futile grope in his capacious pocket, he stuck his empty pipe in his mouth, rose, stretched himself, and, glancing once more at the pageant of the western sky, turned back towards the contemptible collection of tin ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... there and know what the place is, but no one but myself can ever realize what it was for me, still loving, still clinging to a wild inconsequent belief in my wife, to grope in that mouth of hell for the spring she had chattered about in her sleep, to find it, press it, and then to hear, down in the dark of the fearsome recess, the sound of something deadly strike against what I took to be the ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... wonder, when I grope my way through drawing-rooms crowded and jammed with chairs and sofas, why more women do not realize the advantages of stools and benches. A well-made stool is doubly useful: it may be used to sit upon or ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... went down, slow sailing from my sight, And left the stars to watch away the night. O stars, sweet stars, so changeless and serene! What depths of woe your pitying eyes have seen! The proud sun sets, and leaves us with our sorrow, To grope alone in darkness till the morrow. The languid moon, e'en if she deigns to rise, Soon seeks her couch, grown weary of our sighs; But from the early gloaming till the day Sends golden-liveried heralds forth to say ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... grope her way toward the door, holding out her white, expressive hands in front of her. It was pitiful and beautiful to see her, and my emotions welled up in my throat till ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... one to get in with ease. Madame de Venelle was so used to her trade of watching us, that she rose even in her sleep to see what we were doing. One night, as my sister lay asleep with her mouth open, Madame de Venelle, after her accustomed manner, coming, asleep as she was, to grope in the dark, happened to thrust her finger into her mouth so far that my sister, starting out of her sleep, made her teeth almost meet in her finger. Judge you the amazement they both were in to find themselves in this posture ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... conclusions of our old and modern oracles, priest and prophet, Israelite, German, and Swede, he says: "It must be conceded that these are half views of half men. The world still wants its poet-priest, who shall not trifle with Shakespeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... wrinkled visage faded away, as if all the lingering fire of his soul were extinguished. Just then, too, a lamp upon the mantelpiece threw out a dying gleam, which vanished as speedily as it shot upward, compelling our eyes to grope for one another's features by the dim glow of the hearth. With such a lingering fire, methought, with such a dying gleam, had the glory of the ancient system vanished from the province-house when the spirit of old Esther Dudley took its flight. And now, again, the clock of the Old ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... must grope who cannot see, The blade before the ear must be; As ye are feeling I have felt, And where ye ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... But we grope in darkness! The most ancient Greek book that has come down to us is the Iliad, with its tale of the great war against Troy.[14] Critics will not permit us to call the Iliad a history, because it was not composed, or at least not written down, until some centuries after the events of which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... vanities, All things for which men grasp and grope! The precious things in heavenly eyes Are love, and truth, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... string. The water for the most part was only two or three fathoms deep, but sometimes it would be as much as eight fathoms,—which was the greatest depth to which the men cared to go. When he reached the bottom, the diver would grope about for shells, and generally return to the surface with a couple, held in his left hand and hugged against his breast; the right hand was kept free and directed his movements in swimming. Each diver seldom remained under water more than one minute, and on coming to the surface he would ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... the Lee. We experienced much difficulty, and narrowly escaped detection, in entering this village, which is surrounded by beautiful country seats, through the grounds of some of which we were obliged to grope our way. We obtained lodgings, after one or two fruitless trials, in a very comfortable house kept by a farmer. The young family seemed to be rather tastefully educated, and we soon became fast friends. We passed as whimsical tourists, and delighted ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... blow. ... Mr. Wright pulled himself to his feet, and with one shaking hand on the table felt his way around until he stood directly in front of her; he put his face close to hers and stared into her eyes, his lower lip opening and closing in silence. Then, without speaking, he began to grope about on the table for his hat ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... no doubt, be a good thing for those who now grope, but I have groped so long that I have formed the habit and prefer it. Let me go right on groping. Those who desire to win the affections of the opposite sex at one sitting, will do well to send two bits for your great work, but I am in no hurry. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... outlet other than that by which Fred had entered? Was the flow even or irregular? Were there pitfalls and abysses about him, making it too perilous to attempt to grope about in ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... generally speaking, at the very first sight decides the question for us without argument; but if we do not listen promptly to this secret monitor, its light goes out at once, and we are left to the mercy of mere conjecture, and grope about with but second-best guides. Then seeming arguments in favour of deceit and evil compliance with the world's wishes, or of disgraceful indolence, urge us, and either prevail, or at least so confuse us, that we do not know how to act. Alas! in ancient days it happened in this way, ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... cadet I had a soldier-servant, what we call a "Bursche"; but there were periods when I was out of funds, and barely able to grope my way to the next quarter-day, and at these times I had but one meal a day, and obliged to draw my waist-belt pretty tight to make me feel I had eaten enough. A Bursche costs very little, but I could ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... loft where the tools were kept he remained much longer than he had intended. At first there was scarcely any light at all up here, and, having stupidly forgotten to bring a box of matches, he had to grope about fumblingly; but gradually the light improved. He found a saw, and, attaching it to a light cord, slung it round his neck in the approved woodman fashion. The saw would be carried merely for the sake of appearances. Then he hunted for the particular rope that he required for his purposes, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... has made almost no effort to test the claims of the spiritual. In fact, the highest of these claims, that of the existence of a deity, must lie forever beyond its reach. God may exist, and science grope for Him through eternity in vain. Finite facts can never gauge the infinite. Proofs and disproofs alike have been offered of the existence of an infinite deity, but the problem remains unsolved. None of these proofs or disproofs ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... attitude? At bottom, it is absolutely sceptical. Deep yawns below Deep; and if we cannot read "the writing upon the wall," the reason may be that there is no writing there. Having lifted a corner of the Veil of Isis, having glanced once into that Death-Kingdom where grope the roots of the Ash-Tree whose name is Fear, we return to the surface, from Nadir to Zenith, and ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... empty and the lights were out when they emerged from the dressing-room. They had to grope their way in darkness. It was still raining when they reached the street, and the only signs of life were a moist policeman and the distant glare of public-house lights down ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... morning?" replied Kaiber; "you are stone-headed. We shall be dead directly; wherefore ate you the mussels?" This was beyond what my patience in my present starved state could endure, so I got up and began to grope about for a stick or something to throw in the direction of the chattering blockhead; but he begged me to remain quiet, promising faithfully to make no more mention of the mussels. I therefore squatted down, in a state ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... not the luminous publicity in which he moved rendered the smallest of his mental processes so brilliantly overt. It was immediately plain to Adams that the jerky sentences were shot out at random in order that Perry's slow mind might gain a larger space in which to grope for the word he really wanted. There was something evidently behind it all, and until the situation should disclose itself they walked on in an embarrassed and waiting silence. In his top hat and his mink-lined overcoat Perry presented an ample dignity which his companion found almost ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... by Sow Nance; but, by a desperate effort, the old man succeeded in freeing himself from his bonds. He then essayed to examine and explore the dismal pit into which he had been thrown—which, in the intense darkness that prevailed, was a task of no little danger. However, he cautiously began to grope about, and soon became satisfied that the place was of ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... here in this. His heart is aching for grief, and mine because I don't know how to comfort him—and all because the glimmer of light that leads me on isn't strong enough. It's better than nothing; I don't deny that. I can grope my way by it when I might expect to be utterly bewildered—but, oh, mother ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... in bed and began to grope for the matchbox. But this passed away. The face of Death grew mild, and then seemed to smile. He lay down on his side, his face turned from the open window, composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and fell softly into the ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... immortality allures yet baffles us. No fleshly implement of logic or cunning tact of brain can reach to the solution. That secret lies in a tissueless realm whereof no nerve can report beforehand. We must wait a little. Soon we shall grope and guess no more, but grasp and know. Meanwhile, shall we not be magnanimous to forgive and help, diligent to study and achieve, trustful and content to abide the invisible issue? In some happier age, when the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... burthens me a good deal in my patriotic garrulage, and that is the black ignorance in which I grope about everything, as, for example, when I gave yesterday a full and, I fancy, a startlingly incorrect account of Scotch education to a very stolid German on a garden bench: he sat and perspired under it, however with much composure. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Latinity for the lower region of matter? And in place of cultivating the literae humaniores, which is the true cultivation of the mind, and sets a man, mark you, on a level with princes, to stoop to handle virgin milk and dragon's blood, as they style their vile mixtures; or else grope in dead men's bodies for the thing which killed them. Which is a pure handicraft and cheirergon, unworthy a scholar, who stoops of right to naught ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... offers no wider breach. If the Philanthus were guided in her operation solely by the question of vulnerability, it is here certainly that she ought to strike, instead of persistently seeking the narrow slit in the neck. The weapon would not need to hesitate and grope; it would obtain admission into the tissues off-hand. No, the stroke of the lancet is not forced upon it mechanically: the assassin scorns the large defect in the corselet and prefers the place under the chin, for eminently ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... holding the light to ascertain if there was anybody near, and, satisfied with her scrutiny, she then opened the door, and calling down the saints to protect me, shook hands with me, and I quitted the house. It was a dark, cloudy night, and when I first went out, I was obliged to grope, for I could distinguish nothing. I walked along with a pistol loaded in each hand, and gained, as I thought, the high road to E——, but I made a sad mistake; and puzzled by the utter darkness and turnings, I took, on the contrary, the road to Mount Castle. ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... almost dark when he entered, and he had to grope his way to the chapel steps. Under the momentary evocation of the sunset, the saint's figure emerged pale and swooning from the dusk, and the warm light gave a sensual tinge to her ecstasy. The flesh seemed to ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... stage door of the New Theatre, afterwards called the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, which it may be said in passing was not quite on the site of the present Haymarket Theatre. The entrance was small, the passage beyond was dark and they had to grope their way to the stage, which lighted as it was by half a dozen candles or so was gloomy enough. The daylight struggled into the audience part through a few small windows above the gallery. A rehearsal was going on, and a red faced man with a hoarse voice was stamping about and shouting ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... pitiable. His friends feared for his sanity, and had he not been closely watched it is quite possible that one grave would have held the lovers. He reproached himself for neglecting her. He cursed art and literature for having seduced him away from her, and thus allowed her to grope her way alone. He prophesied what she might have been had he only devoted himself to her as a teacher, and by encouragement allowed her soul to bloom and blossom. "I should have worked through her ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... cabinet, through which we passed, I embraced him with an extreme pleasure. We had entered by the backstairs; we descended by the same, so as not to be observed. It was dark, so that on both occasions we were obliged to grope our way. Upon arriving at the bottom I could not refrain from again embracing Millain, so great was my pleasure, and we separated ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... learn more about Jeroboam II., the last great ruler of Israel; while the conflict with the Assyrians and the fall of Samaria are despatched in a couple of verses which tell us scarcely anything at all. Sometimes a brilliant breaks in on the surrounding night (2Kings ix. x.), but after it we grope in the dark again. Only so much of the old tradition has been preserved as those of a later age held to be of religious value: it has lost its original centre of gravity, and assumed an attitude which it certainly had not at first. It may have been the case in Judah that the temple was of more ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... does not grow in us. It is a thing apart, we simply gather it. All truths, all discoveries, all inventions, they have not come to us from any one man. The time grows ripe for them, and from this corner of the earth and from that, hands, guided by some instinct, grope for and grasp them. Buddha and Christ seize hold of the morality needful to civilisation, and promulgate it, unknown to one another, the one on the shores of the Ganges, the other by the Jordan. A dozen forgotten explorers, feeling America, prepared the way for Columbus to discover it. ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... from a star Voices come o'er the line; Voices of ghosts afar, Not in this world of mine; Lives in whose loom I grope; Words in whose weft I hear Eager the thrill of hope, Awful the chill ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... Mr. Stacey, a hawser!" I heard the commodore shout, and saw the sailing-master slide down the ladder and grope among the dead and wounded and mass of broken spars and tackles, and finally pick up a smeared rope's end, which I helped him drag to the poop. There we found the commodore himself taking skilful turns around the mizzen with the severed stays and shrouds ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... outside and starting to throw a leg over," Tubby exclaimed in evident rapture. "And if there is a child inside that room, our chum will find it. If it was me now, I'd be so blind with the smoke I'd have to just grope my way around, and p'raps get ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... to the ground, but the man heaved him away with a mighty kick. Chester fell sprawling on the ground, and his opponent turned to grope for his revolver. ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... so fragile! just twenty— How mocking the bells sound to-night! She starved in this great land of plenty, When she tried to grope back to the light. Christ. are Thy disciples inhuman, Or only for men hast Thou died? No mercy is shown to a woman Who ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the angles of the rocks, in flurries so violent as, at moments, to confound all the senses of the young man. He was resolute, however, and bent on an object of humanity, as well as of good fellowship. Living or dead, Daggett must be somewhere on his present level; and he began to grope his way among the fragments of rock, eager and solicitous. The roaring of the wind almost prevented his hearing other sounds; though once or twice he heard; or fancied that he heard, the shouts of Stimson from above. ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... camp ground of the night before. It had been trampled by hundreds of feet. Our camp was small, and finding the spade by day might be easy enough. To grope in the dark and danger was another matter. Twenty-four hours before, I would not have dared to try. Nothing counted with me now. I had just risen from the stiffening body of a comrade whom I had been trying ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... should like to know, things about that dark future where some of our hearts live so constantly, things about the depths of His nature and the divine character, things about the relation between God's love and God's righteousness, things about the meaning of all this dreadful mystery in which we grope our way. These and a hundred other questionings suggest to us that it would have been so easy for Him to have lifted a little corner of the veil, and let a little more of the light shine out. He holds all in His hand. Why does He thus open one finger instead of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... was heard, branches caught us in the face, and the boat stopped. To our questions the owner replied that we were on an island covered with willows and poplars, of which the flood had nearly reached the top. We had to grope about with our hatchets to clear a passage through the branches, and when we had succeeded in passing the obstacle, we found the stream much less furious than in the middle of the river, and finally reached the left bank in front of the Austrian camp. This shore was bordered ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... some incomprehensible mischance. The priest beheld the purple gleam as it flashed from between the girl's fingers. Her high cap of coarse undyed French linen fell away from her black locks as she stooped to grope passionately in the ooze which had swallowed up her treasure. In a moment the comely picture of her dark blue sleeves, gray petticoat, and trim red stockings was sadly disfigured by the mud. The girl's ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... you mean one of those families that have worked down so far you can't find where they went in?"—that was the phrase in which he recognised the truth of the girl's grope. Delia's fixed eyes assented, and after a moment of cogitation George Flack broke out: "That's the kind of family we ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... are assailed at once. Each new day brings its conflicting interests and obligations. Now, whether we are aware of it or not, our constant effort is, out of the great variety of experience pressing in upon us, to select such details as make to a definite purpose and end. Instinctively we grope toward and attract to us that which is special and proper to our individual development. Our progress is toward harmony. By the adjustment of new material to the shaping principle of our experience, the circle of our individual ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... treasure. And she's my own! I can watch her little body grow and help to make it strong and beautiful! I can help mould her little mind—see it opening up, one chamber of wonder after another! I can teach her all the things I have had to grope so to ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... a word that may signify the meadow of Eois, or high meadow. It has a history that goes back to grope about Ararat for the potsherds thrown out of the ark. It has a very old and famous round tower, used at some time as a place of sepulchre, for a great quantity of human bones have been found in it. In one stone of this tower is the mark of two toes printed into the stone, or ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... memory, melodiously mute as it may be, While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of men's rapiers, resigned to the rod; Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the bliss-bringing bulk of a balm-breathing baby, As they grope through the grave-yard of creeds, under skies growing green at a groan for the grimness of God. Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding is blacker than bluer: Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews are the wine of the bloodshed of things: ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... allied to our modified consciousness. There is for the moment no hope of solving it; but we are free to grope in its darkness, which is not perhaps equally dense at ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... She stabs you in a spot so vital that you die in a few minutes. You throw up your hands, you stagger against the mantel-shelf, you tear open your collar and then grope at nothing; you press your hands on your wound and take two reeling steps forward; you call feebly for help and stumble against the sofa which you fall upon, and finally, still groping wildly, you roll off on the floor, where you kick out once or twice; your clinched hand ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... begun About the beast to grope, Than, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, "I see," quoth he, "the elephant Is very ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... with zeal increased, Blending, the while we strive and grope, Our paler festival of Hope ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... there he was, only scratched and torn a bit, and like a toad in a hole, he sat for a bit on his coat and panted and breathed foul air. 'Twas dark as a wolf's mouth, of course, and he didn't know from Adam what dangers lay around him; but he couldn't bide still long and so rose up and began to grope with feet and hands. He kicked a few of the big stones that Ernest Gregory had thrown down, as he thought atop of him; and then he found the bottom of the hole was bigger than he guessed. And then he kicked a soft object and a great wonder happened. Kneeling to see what it might be, he put ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... birds, In law, whose service only sets them free." Therefore it often leaps to the truth we seek, Clasping it, as a lover clasps his bride In darkness, ere the sage can light his lamp. And so, in music, men might find the road To truth, at many a point, where sages grope. One day, a greater Plato would arise To write a new philosophy, he said, Showing how music is the golden clue To all the windings of the world's dark maze. Himself had used it, partly proved it, too, In his own book,—the Harmonies of the World. 'All that the ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... High Street of Clovelly, at night, turned out to be a matter of more difficulty than we had anticipated. There was no such thing as a lamp in the whole village; and we had to grope our way in the darkness down steps of irregular sizes and heights, paved with slippery pebbles, and ornamented with nothing in the shape of a bannister, even at the most dangerous places. Half-way down, my friend and I had an argument in the dark—standing ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... obtained of the vault was from the sense of touch. I now determined to take a further survey, if so I could call it, of my prison, to start from a certain point to feel my way round, and reach as high as I could, to extend my arms, and to grope along the floor from one side to the other. One point I considered was to my advantage. My captors would suppose that I was shut up in the chest, and would therefore not have taken much trouble to secure the outlet to the vault. Probably, indeed, ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... is a hunger in my soul for which I can find no satisfying bread. I have tried many breads; I have tried nature, and art, and music, and literature, and I have tried human fellowship and social service. But my soul is hungry still! And the Lord Jesus comes to me, as I reverently grope in the vast temple, and He "satisfies the hungry soul" with good things. His "bread of life" is very wonderful; it lifts the soul into the restfulness of strength, and gives me a strange buoyancy, and "the glorious liberty of ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... Mexico. It was found that the work was not only very lucrative, but not at all difficult. Where Clive forded a deep water upon an unknown bottom, he left a bridge for his successors, over which the lame could hobble and the blind might grope their way. There was not at that time a knot of clerks in a counting-house, there was not a captain of a band of ragged topasses, that looked for anything less than the deposition of subahs and the sale of kingdoms. Accordingly, this revolution, which ought to have precluded other ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... below the slope, Where the women wash their webs at noon, A form like a shadow seems to grope, Doubtful under ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... very accurate rehearsals as the only condition on which they shall be listened to; and to refer them to their books for the information which they need, and in general for the solution of all their doubts. But then the teacher must see that he does not set them to grope their way through a wilderness of absurdities. He must know that they have a book, which not only contains the requisite information, but arranges it so that every item of it may be readily found. That knowledge may reasonably be required ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Rowley's mansion, in Hill's Lane, built of brick in 1618 by William Rowley, is now a warehouse. Butcher Row has some old houses with projecting storeys, including a fine specimen of a medieval shop. Some of the houses in Grope Lane lean together from opposite sides of the road, so that people in the highest storey can almost shake hands with their neighbours across the way. You can see the "Olde House" in which Mary Tudor is said ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... pearl-diver grope for the treasures of the deep with more eager intensity than did John Jarwin search for that lost tobacco. He remained under water until he became purple in the face, and, coming to the surface after each dive, ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... fearing that his treasure had been swallowed up beyond recovery. Still, he felt convinced that he was in the immediate neighbourhood of the spot where the cave had been, and, bidding Flora to sit down and rest while he further investigated, he began to grope about here and there among the confused mass of rocks, studying them intently as he did so. For upwards of two hours Leslie searched and toiled in vain; but at length he came upon a piece of rock face that seemed familiar to him, and upon removing a number of blocks of splintered ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... six, and all the boat's lights revealed was a yellow circle of fog that traveled with us. Wet and chilled, we two stood at the wheel together, in such hard conditions that no navigator and no pilot could have done much more than grope. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... mankind, and, though the world be moved to virtue only slowly and with reluctance, mark how mighty has been his influence! What think you, then, would be the power of a Christ of evil, showing to men the path they already grope for? I tell you, the human race would be his only; Hell, full to bursting with their hurrying souls, would outweigh Heaven in the balance; the teller of the secret ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... reader by comments on this monstrous inequality with which the penal codes of slave states treat slaves and their masters. When we consider that guilt is in proportion to intelligence, and that these masters have by law doomed their slaves to ignorance, and then, as they darkle and grope along their blind way, inflict penalties upon them for a variety of acts regarded as praise worthy in whites; killing them for crimes, when whites are only fined or imprisoned—to call such a 'public opinion' inhuman, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... midnight of darkness and terror, When I would grope nearer to God, With my back to a record of error And the highway of sin I have trod, There come to me shapes I would banish— The shapes of the deeds I have done; And I pray and I plead till they vanish— All vanish and ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... jovial lot has birth; Nor needs he to strive or toil. The peasant may grope in the bowels of earth, And for treasure may greedily moil He digs and he delves through life for the pelf, And digs till he grubs out ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... 1:29). 3. Because that thereby thou wilt be able through grace, to step over and turn aside from the several stumbling-blocks that Satan, together with his instruments, hath laid in our way, which otherwise thou wilt not be able to shun, but will certainly fall when others stand, and grope and stumble when others go upright, to the great prejudice of thy ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... born at Knaresborough in 1717, the son of poor working people. When only six years old he was seized with virulent small-pox, which totally destroyed his sight. The blind boy, when sufficiently recovered to go abroad, first learnt to grope from door to door along the walls on either side of his parents' dwelling. In about six months he was able to feel his way to the end of the street and back without a guide, and in three years he could go on a message to any part of the town. He grew strong and healthy, ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... work in terms of hope And speak of it with words of praise, And tell the joy it is to grope Along the new, untrodden ways! Let's break this habit of despair And cheerfully our task regard; The road to happiness lies there: Why think or speak of ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... Have evolved his best self, that pure atom of God, Which lies deep in each heart like a seed in the sod. 'Tis the world's over-virtuous women, ofttimes, Who drive men of weak will into sexual crimes. I pity him. (God knows I pity, each, all Of the poor striving souls who grope blindly and fall By the wayside of life.) But the love which unbidden Crept into my heart, and was guarded and hidden For years, that has vanished. It passed like a breath, In the gray Autumn morning when Roger faced death, As he thought, and uncovered ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... It was the first time I had heard the roar of the tiger in his own domain, and I must confess that my sensations were not altogether pleasant. We set about collecting sticks and what roots of grass we could find, but on the sand-flats everything was wet, and it was so dark that we had to grope about on our hands and knees, and pick up ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... may lie in the forgotten folds of hoarded letters, that have been preserved only to blast the memory of the dead! What precious words, again, have been destroyed, that might have lightened for a whole heavy lifetime the doubt and anguish of the living! In this, as in all we do, we grope about in darkness, and the one and the other course must often enough have been bitterly lamented by those who "did for the best" in keeping or destroying these chronicles ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... inn it was so pitch dark that he had almost to grope his way, for it was impossible to see a hand's breadth in front of him. Some night-birds flying across the road from one hedge to the other brushed Pinocchio's nose with their wings as they passed, which caused him so much terror that, springing back, he shouted: "Who ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... "Better that than grope among subterranean caverns, black and icy, as you are forever doing. You are even getting a weird, unearthly look. Sometimes, when I come in and find you, book in hand, with that far-off expression in your eyes, I really ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... I have to grope my way; and it is a hard people, as you say, to deal with. But I have no fear, sir; I shall overcome all Flamborough, unless—unless, what I fear to think of, there should happen ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... section, was to belittle as far as possible the general influence of European civilisation upon England; to exalt, for example, the Celtic missionaries and their work at the expense of St Augustine, to grope for shadowy political origins among the pirates of the North Sea, to trace every possible etymology to a barbaric root, and to make of Roman England and of early Medieval England—that is, of the two Englands which were most fully in touch with the general life of Europe—as small ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc |
