"Grope" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his thoughts of existence with the spiritual and works only as God works, 263:9 he will no longer grope in the dark and cling to earth because he has not tasted heaven. Carnal beliefs defraud us. They make man an involun- 263:12 tary hypocrite, - producing evil when he would create good, forming deformity ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... difference in the credit attached to them. There is no newspaper published in Aix, and the prefect, who is a person much suspected, has taken no steps to give the public correct information, but allows them to grope, in the dark; they have invented accordingly the most ridiculous stories, converting hundreds into thousands, and a few fishing boats and other small craft, into first a squadron of Neapolitans, and then a fleet of ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... fear, young woman!" I answered; "but I confess that it is so ingeniously concealed that I doubt whether anyone ignorant of its existence would find it, except by the most extraordinary accident." And therewith I proceeded to grope and feel about in the various fissures and cavities with which the rocky walls of the small cavern were honeycombed, but without success. At length, to my great chagrin, I was obliged to abandon the search and confess ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... train up the steep grade, go past. These three puffing, smoke-emitting monsters fill every nook and corner of the tunnel with dense smoke, which creates a darkness by the side of which the natural darkness of the tunnel is daylight in comparison. Here is a darkness that can be felt; I have to grope my way forward, inch by inch; afraid to set my foot down until I have felt the place, for fear of blundering into a culvert; at the same time never knowing whether there is room, just where I am, to get out of the way of a train. A cyclometer ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the 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 ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... unbroken veil of steely gray swinging from the zenith, the white foam rebounding as the masses of water struck the earth. The camp equipage, tents and wagons succumbed beneath the fury of the tempest, and, indeed, the hunters had much ado to saddle their horses and grope their way along the bridle-path that led ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... secretions hiding a foreign body should be removed with the aspirating tube (Fig. 9) rather than by swabbing or sponge-pumping, when the bronchoscopic tube-mouth is close to the foreign body. It is inadvisable, however, to insert a forceps into a mass of granulations to grope blindly for a foreign body, with no knowledge of the presentation, the forceps spaces, or the location of branch-bronchial orifices into which one blade of the forceps may go. Dilatation of a stricture may be necessary, and may be accomplished by the ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... tenderly pitied children who had griefs; then they need our care more than the grown children, who feel God's love and wisdom. But these little ones grope in a kind of darkness. Suffering is a mystery to them; they can perceive no cause or end for it; they only know ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... hand commenced to grope. It stole into his own and lay there quietly. "Because I couldn't bear to see you hurt. You're so good. In some ways you're so strong; in others you're just as tiny as my Eric. I felt you needed me ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... utterly, desolately alone. Perhaps some day she will reach me in spite of my little faith. People who resort to mediums and the automatic writing craze are beyond me: though the temptation I understand. You may remember a sentence of Maeterlinck——' We have to grope timidly and make sure of every footstep, as we cross the threshold. And even when the threshold is crossed, where shall certainty be found——? One cannot speak of these things—the solitude is too great.' That is my own ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... ruined fosse, which was always liable to be shelled unexpectedly? In cellars beneath the unwholesome and dilapidated town our men found billets. They were really quite comfortable, but at night when the place was as black as pitch, and one had to grope one's way in the darkness along debris-covered streets, shaken every now and then by the German missiles from the sky, one longed for Canada and the well-lighted pavements ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... very young man) were slightly jolly, too. They (George's father and George's father's friend) were to sleep in the same room, but in different beds. They took the candle, and went up. The candle lurched up against the wall when they got into the room, and went out, and they had to undress and grope into bed in the dark. This they did; but, instead of getting into separate beds, as they thought they were doing, they both climbed into the same one without knowing it - one getting in with his head at the top, and the other crawling in from the opposite side ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... that they are bad; irredeemably bad. In this state of mind, he will fancy that the Chimes are calling, to him; and saying to himself 'God help me. Let me go up to 'em. I feel as if I were going to die in despair—of a broken heart; let me die among the bells that have been a comfort to me!'—will grope his way up into the tower; and fall down in a kind of swoon among them. Then the third quarter, or in other words the beginning of the second half of the book, will open with the Goblin part of the thing: the bells ringing, and innumerable spirits (the sound or vibration of them) flitting and tearing ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... towards evening, and Falkenberg was still tuning, I took a bit of something to eat in my pocket and went off for a walk, to be out of the way so they should not ask me in to supper. There was a moon, and the stars were out, but I liked best to grope my way into the dense part of the wood and sit down in the dark. It was more sheltered there, too. How quiet the earth and air seemed now! The cold is beginning, there is rime on the ground; now and again ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... before I waxed old, The blynd boy, Venus baby, For want of cunning, made me bold In bitter hyve to grope for honny: But when he saw me stung and cry, He tooke his wings and ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... 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
... of blindness—poverty. We can only grope through life when we are poor, hitting and maiming ourselves against ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... 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 lost ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... the hypocrisy of this Society in bold relief. It pretends to be anxious to evangelize benighted Africa, and stop the slave trade; but only assure it that the blacks may be safely colonized nearer home, and Africa might still continue to grope in darkness, and the slave trade to increase in enormity, and its bowels of compassion would speedily cease to yearn!—Hence it is that the rapid enlargement of the Wilberforce Settlement in Upper Canada so disturbs the repose of the advocates of African colonization; and many ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... that he is still quite a good walker, but that a blind man finds it very troublesome to go anywhere; for at every step he is obliged to grope about, so that he may feel sure of his ground before he firmly plants his foot ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... LORD shall smite thee with the boil of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart: and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled alway, and there shall be none to save thee. Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... has enough to do to live, whence it cannot move to obtain what it wants or likes, but must stretch its unfortunate arms here and there for bare breath and light, and split its way among rocks, and grope for sustenance in unkindly soil; it would be hard upon the plant, I say, if under all these disadvantages, it were made answerable for its appearance, and found fault with because it was not a fine plant of the kind. And so we find it ordained that in order that no ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... a timely flash of lightning showed me was a column, standing in exactly the opposite direction from my own house. I could now locate myself correctly, and the lightning becoming every moment more vivid, I was enabled to grope my way by slow degrees to the mess, where I expected to find someone to show me my way home, but the servants, who knew from experience the probable effects of a cyclone, had already closed the outside Venetian ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... had begun About the beast to grope, Than, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, "I see," quoth he, "the elephant Is ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... most of the cafe chantants are situated, is bright with electric light, the back streets of the city are lit by flickering oil-lamps, and here the stranger must almost grope his way about after dark. If wise he will stay at home, for robbery and even murder are of frequent occurrence. A large proportion of the population here consists of time-expired convicts, many of whom haunt the night-houses in quest ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... has hitherto dealt strictly with the physical; it 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 are ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... thought and wish are formed in us. I answer you that I have not the remotest idea. I do not know how ideas are made any more than how the world was made. All that is given to us is to grope for what passes ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... and complex civilisation of to-day. The thought of early man on the problems of his being—for after all his superstitions reveal thought—deserve respect, for in his efforts to think he was trying to grope ...
— Celtic Religion - in Pre-Christian Times • Edward Anwyl
... advancement of Learning" and as such "are but preparatives towards that perfection which wee may exspect by the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ, wherein the Communion of Saints, by the graces of the Spirit, will swallow up all these poor Rudiments of knowledg, which wee now grope after by so manie helps" ...
— The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650) • John Dury
... our day, and asked in reference to that general spirit of reform and progress of society which seems to characterize our age, and in relation to which, just in proportion as men forget to listen to the Word of God, they grope about in the darkness of their ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... right. Twenty feet away a thin bar of light shone from a room that I knew was Captain Rudstone's, and beyond that lay some empty apartments. My own room was one of the first. I slipped into it, put my boots on the floor and began to grope for a light. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... would lift her eyes toward Mr. Bernard, and let them rest upon him, without a thought, seemingly, that she herself was the subject of observation or remark. Then they seemed to lose their cold glitter, and soften into a strange, dreamy tenderness. The deep instincts of womanhood were striving to grope their way to the surface of her being through all the alien influences which overlaid them. She could be secret and cunning in working out any of her dangerous impulses, but she did not know how to mask the unwonted feeling ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... courtyard, huge, and surrounded with stone arcades, indistinct amidst the gloom. However, they came to a narrow passage without a door, and he let go her hand. She could hear him trying to strike some matches, and swearing. They were all damp. It was necessary for them to grope their way upstairs. ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... thus will 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 lashes ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... reply and passed on. He made his way out into the gardens. The darkness now was a little more sombre, and he had to grope his way to the palings. Soon he stood before the dark outline of the adjoining house. In the window towards which he was making his way a single candle in a silver candlestick was burning. He paused underneath and listened. Then he took a pine cone which he had picked up on his way and ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... beheld one that sat by the wayside—a man who crouched 'neath a dusty cloak and kept his white head down-bent and who now reached out a hand to grope and grope for the staff that lay near; wherefore Beltane took hold upon this hand and raised the white-haired traveller, and thereafter put the cudgel ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... I was suppliant for these two brothers, And I said: Your land has need: Half-awakened and blindly we grope in the great world.... What strength may we take from our Past, What promise hold for ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... grope with uncertain purpose among these imperfect rays, and she is never confused by them. To each she freely gives credit for what it is or has been; but all fade at last before the unspeakable brightness of the rising sun. She discerns the dawn of that day when all our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... gone almost straight to that cleft, steering my course by the sea rocks I had noted from the window. But in the dark it was different. I could only grope along in hope, with many a stop to wonder where I had got to, and many a stumble and many a bruise. Stark darkness is akin to blindness, and blindness in a strange land, and that a land of rocks and chasms, is ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... grope for me in vain In hollows under the mangrove root, Or where, in apple-scented rain, The silver wasp-nests ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie
... 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 ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... and in blindness And in sorrow still we grope, Yet in man's increasing kindness Lies the world's stupendous hope; For our darkest hour of errors Is as radiant as the dawn, Set beside the awful terrors Of the ages ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 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 whole palm? Because ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... love to decipher illegible inscriptions, to contemplate a throttled centaur on a dilapidated frieze, or a carved acanthus on a fallen capital, grope over the Acropolis and invoke Athenian Pallas," said Mike; "but for me these painted seraglios and terraced, bower-canopied gardens, vocal with nightingales and seeming to impregnate the very air with the pleasures of desire, justify the decision of ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... slammed the door in the faces of her visitors, and left them to grope their way in the dark down the steep stairway. It was highly characteristic, both of the senior and the junior Hahn, that without a word of explanation they drove home amicably in the ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... hu-olo-olo, for example, which is translated in several different ways in the poem, is of such generic and comprehensive meaning that one word fails to express its meaning. It is, by the way, not a word to be found in any dictionary. The author had to grope his way to its meaning by following the trail of some Hawaiian pathfinder who, after beating about the bush, finally had to acknowledge that the path had become so much overgrown since he last went that way that ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... darkly furtive had 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 ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... moment a child is born, the face is alive. And the face communicates direct with both planes of primary consciousness. The moment a child is born, it begins to grope for the breast. And suddenly a new great circuit is established, the four poles all working at once, as the child sucks. There is the profound desirousness of the lower center of sympathy, and the superior avidity of the center of ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... day they make more history in Secessia than here. Jeff. Davis overshadows Lincoln. Jeff. Davis and his gang of malefactors are pushed into the whirlpool of action by the nature of their crime; here, our leaders dread action, and grope. The rebels have a clear, decisive, almost palpable aim; ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... he would be surrounded by friends. With an answering shout of "One and all!" he sprang to meet his assailants, and, realizing their danger, they fled before him. At the same instant the lamp on their car disappeared, and in the utter darkness that followed Trefethen could only grope his way back ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... never knew.— (O never, more than 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 from her wiles and ways; When the endearing ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... stumbled uncertainly down the trail into the canon, the bottom of which was still black as night from a heavy growth of young aspens that shut out the light. There was a fairly well-worn path leading up the gulch, so that he could grope his way forward slowly. His feet moved reluctantly. It seemed to him that his nerves, his brain, and even his muscles were in revolt against the moral compulsion that drove him on. He could feel his heart beating against his ribs. Every ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... 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 whatever we ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... there with bound hands in the thick gloom, he seemed to catch a slow and sighing sound, as of troubled breathing. Again he called. No answer. Then he understood the truth. And, unable to grope with his hands, he swung one foot slowly, gently, in the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... reply in the affirmative, and the three boys proceeded to grope their way along in silence, until the broad archway of the tunnel's mouth appeared through a fog of ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... like a 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 ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... my fallen brother, as I cannot speak to the foolish people who grope in this miasma of delusion. Silly women, yielding to the natural vanity of their sex, may mistake hysterics for inspiration. Vacillating and vacant men may seek a new sensation by encouraging a revival of the demoniacal epidemics of heathendom. But you, who have been a preacher of the gospel, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... horrifying to the "savage" as his can be to us. Nevertheless, it is true to say that as civilization advances, and especially where the position of women improves, the movement has been towards a more stable and exclusive form of marriage. We grope uncertainly towards it: we fail atrociously. Yet we do not abandon an ideal which asks so much of human nature that human nature is continually invoked ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... tub, and a pitcher of cold water that stood near, but it was not so easy for him to grope his way upstairs. The staircase was narrow and dark, and seemed specially contrived that the uninitiated might bump and bruise themselves. Coomber, in his boat-home, having no such convenience or inconvenience in general ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... 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 dangling from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... into sympathy with his position and, in the technical phrase, create his character. A historian confronted with some ambiguous politician, or an actor charged with a part, have but one pre- occupation; they must search all round and upon every side, and grope for some central conception which is to explain and justify the most extreme details; until that is found, the politician is an enigma, or perhaps a quack, and the part a tissue of fustian sentiment and big words; but once that is found, all enters into a plan, a human nature appears, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from inside his greatcoat, with much care, three or four matches. By lighting, first one and then the others, he was able to grope around until he found the hearth of the cabin. Cold ashes marked the remains of a fire long since extinguished. His foot struck against something which proved to be a small piece of dry pine-wood. With the flame from his last ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... reached me in the melee that they also were at work. By this time Barraclough and Jackson and the Prince had arrived on the scene, the last with a lantern which he swung over his head. Barraclough joined me, and Jackson was despatched to grope his way into the saloon to assist Ellison. The Prince himself took his station with Lane, and I heard the noise of his weapon several times. My door had not yet given way, but I was afraid of those swinging blows, and ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... purpose, take us nowhither. We loiter in musty waiting-rooms, are frustrated by mobs, and foiled by an eternal clamour. We have forgotten the feast and occupy ourselves in all manner of foolish and irrelevant ways. Only now and again, struck by the absurdity of our occupations, we grope after our lost consciousness and feel somehow that somewhere out beyond is our real destination, that somewhere out there a feast is proceeding, that a cover is laid for us and dishes served, that though we are absent the master calls a toast to us and ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... mind. It is the Sun of Suns, around which wind The Heavens and all the worlds. Such is its blaze, That had it not, at intervals, a haze, Grading both Angel and the Human-kind, The bright Arch-angel would be stricken blind, To grope in Heaven, a ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... ayucari, or red cedar; and the cuamara, laden with tonka beans. So thick was their foliage overhead that one by one Van Hielen watched the stars disappear; and the path ahead of him darkened till it was as much as he could do to grope along. Still he was not afraid. The thought of that elfish little maiden with the luminous eyes crawling along in front of him inspired him with extraordinary confidence and he plunged on, anxious only to catch ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... humanity-freighted vessel in its voyage over an uncertain sea, yet, as we trust, toward lands of perpetual security and peace. All are voyagers on the sea of life. Some, with the knowledge of ancient days only, grope their way by headlands, or trust themselves occasionally to the guidance of the sun or the stars; while others, with the chart and compass of the Christian era, move confidently on their course, attracted by the Source and Centre of all good. And it is a blessing of this state of existence, though ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... turn aside from laws and statutes and consider the ordinary life and social intercourse of the Negro, we shall find more than one contradiction, for in the colonial era codes affecting slaves and free Negroes had to grope their way to uniformity. Especially is it necessary to distinguish between the earlier and the later years of the period, for as early as 1760 the liberalism of the Revolutionary era began to be felt. If we consider what was strictly the colonial epoch, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... Boats Act, in accordance with the plan I have laid down, and embodying the suggestions herein contained, the Government will complete the educational system and bring under the educational and sanitary laws the lowest dregs of society, which have hitherto been left out in the cold, to grope about in the dark as their inclinations ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... Springbok steamed down the Channel on an errand inspired by love, not reason; to cross one mighty ocean, and grope for a lost daughter ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... others were at work he knew by the sound, and by the fact that he sometimes collided with them; otherwise they might as well not have been there, for in the blinding dust storm a man could not see six feet in front of his face. When he had filled one cart he had to grope around him until another came, and if there was none on hand he continued to grope till one arrived. In five minutes he was, of course, a mass of fertilizer from head to feet; they gave him a sponge to tie ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Misfortune and Guilt Their children have gathered, their city have built; Where Hunger and Vice, like twin beasts of prey, Have hunted their victims to gloom and despair; Raise the rich, dainty dress, and the fine broidered skirt, Pick your delicate way through the dampness and dirt. Grope through the dark dens, climb the rickety stair To the garret, where wretches, the young and the old, Half starved and half naked, lie crouched from the cold; See those skeleton limbs, those frost-bitten feet, All bleeding and bruised by the stones of ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... from 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 mark of ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... and, jerking off his left glove, commenced to grope among the boulders. Somewhere near at his feet the flashlight must be lying. Hoping against hope that its fall had not shattered the bulb, he ran his fingers over the cold, damp stones, every instant expecting to feel the clutch of the unseen monster. How tiny, how puny he was! All ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... Such instances (and some a loss to know, Which steadfast reticence will shield from those, Debased or garrulous, whose hearts corrupt, But learn the gloomy secrets of their kind To poison-tip their wit, or grope and grin With pharisaic laughter at disgrace)— Such instances as these demand no guide To thrid the dismal issues from their source! But others are there, lying fast concealed, Dark, hopeless, and unutterably sad, Which have not been, and ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... by a piece of 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 ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... foreshadowed with varying degrees of distinctness in present society, and the light of experience illumines the pathway before us. It is when we come to the methods of organization and management, the spirit of the economic organization of the future state, that the light fails and we must grope our way into the great unknown with imagination and our sense of ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... no one grasped what had happened, only there was Norton who seemed to grope strangely among the graves. Black spots danced before his eyes, the little group by the church merged into the distance—always receding, always more remote, as he, stumbled helplessly over the moss and the thick dank ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... dressing bag, his own present. There must, then, be some mistake. What bag had she taken? He went to the bell to summon Bilson, but remembered in time that he must assume knowledge of where Irene had gone, take it all as a matter of course, and grope out the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... may acquire much skill in interpreting the shadows. Turn these men suddenly to the true light, and they will be dazzled and blinded. They will feel as though they had lost the realities, and been plunged into dreams. And in pain and sorrow they will be tempted to grope back again ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... how long it was after my senses had gone when I began to grope for them on the warmest of heaving soft pillows, and lost the slight hold I had on them with the effort. Then came a series of climbings and fallings, risings to the surface and sinkings fathoms below. Any attempt to speculate pitched me back into ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... houses, and have 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 ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... has arisen and gloriously flowered like an architectural shrine. The lowest is a crypt, dark as a sepulcher, into which the visitors descend with torches; pilgrims keep close to the dripping walls and grope along in order to reach ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... 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 ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... man schemed it is my hope - Yea, that it fell by will and scope Of That Which some enthrone, And for whose meaning myriads grope. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... talk as freely and fluently as anybody. I do not hesitate in the least. For years, I have not even known what it is to grope mentally for a word. I speak in public as well as in private conversation. I have no difficulty in talking over the telephone and in fact do not know the difference. In my work, I lecture to students and am invited to address scientific bodies, societies and educational gatherings, all of which ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... to distinguish such a process from the state of war? In such international—or, I should say, interparochial—differences, the nearest we can come towards understanding is to appreciate the cloud of ambiguity in which all parties grope— ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... every temple I see those who see thee, and, in every tongue that is spoken, thou art praised. Polytheism and Islam grope after thee, Each religion says, 'Thou art one, without equal,' Be it mosque, men murmur holy prayer; or church, the bells ring, for love of thee; Awhile I frequent the Christian cloister, anon the mosque: But thee only I seek from fane to fane. Thine elect ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... that what men have hitherto attributed to the gods are nothing but the ideals they value and grope for in themselves. The ideal of the freethinker, the conception that places the supreme worth of human life in the expanding horizon of man's usefulness to man, is forever menaced by the supernaturalism of the theist which manifests itself in the multifarious religious sects that are the most active ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... you to say, my boy," retorted the yeoman. "Pray God he never has, and never may. Slow work this, however! I should really be glad to find something! Pshaw! What a notion that is, when the only good luck would be to paddle, and drift, and poke, and grope, hereabouts, till morning, and have our labor for our pains! For my part, I shouldn't wonder if the creature had only lost her shoe in the mud, and saved her soul alive, after all. My stars! how she will ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... we all missed her: it seemed to me now that I had undervalued her. True, she had not been a congenial companion to me in my dark days; but even then I had wronged her. Why should I have expected her to grope among the shadows with me, instead of following her into the sunshine? Sara could not act contrary to her nature. Sad things depressed her. She wanted to cause every one ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... can a mortal weak, Pin faith on what he cannot comprehend? We grope for light,—but all in vain we seek, Oblivion seems poor mortal's truest friend. Like bats at noonday, blindly on we ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... invasion. The tide of seeming knowledge which is poured over one generation, retires and leaves another naked and barren; the sudden meteors of intelligence which for a while appear to shoot their beams into the regions of obscurity, on a sudden withdraw their lustre, and leave mortals again to grope their way. ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... proceeded a short distance, however, when they got on to a sandbank, where they were obliged to remain for two hours, feeling the gravest anxiety all the time. At last the tide floated them off again, and they endeavoured to grope their way through the fog, passing several vessels, which were only visible when quite close upon them. Mr Montefiore was standing near the bow of the ship, when suddenly a steamer was seen to be ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... if they remember through the long Estrangement of their exile, twice accursed If they forget and join the accursed throng. How doth my heart that is so wrung not burst When I remember that my way was plain, And that God's candle lit me at the first, Whilst now I grope in darkness, grope in vain, Desiring but to find Him Who is lost, To find him once again, but once again! His wrath came on us to the uttermost, His covenanted and most righteous wrath. Yet this is He of Whom we made ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... at the same time. Some book might give us help—a fine play, or some form of athletics will start us to thinking. Self-analysis teaches us to see ourselves in a true light without embellishments or undue optimism. We can gauge our chances in no better way. If we grope in the darkness we haven't much of a chance. "Taking stock" throws a searchlight on the dark spots and points the way out of the ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... when "deep calleth unto deep," have no such "strong consolation" to enable them to ride out the storm; who, when sorrow and bereavement overtake them—the lowering shadows of the dark and cloudy day—have still to grope after an unknown Christ; and, amid the hollowness of earthly and counterfeit comforts, have to seek, for the first ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... gospel according to Jonesy. You can't dam up the tributaries of the heart. Some day you must come to me. That much is immutably written. For God's sake come now while the road is still clear. Otherwise we shall grope our ways to each other, even if it be through ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... On the remains of an amusement park Between jagged buildings— Burning flower... shining sea... Toes and hands Reach out into emptiness. Longing tears the weeping body to pieces. The little moon glides above me. Eyes grope Gently into the deep world, Sunken ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... it may yet be time! You must not, you shall not be deaf to my supplications longer!" My struggling Conscience showed sudden signs of weariness! "Oh, promise me you will throw off this hateful slavery of tobacco!" My Conscience began to reel drowsily, and grope with his hands—enchanting spectacle! "I beg you, I beseech you, I implore you! Your reason is deserting you! There is madness in your eye! It flames with frenzy! Oh, hear me, hear me, and be saved! See, I plead with you on my very knees!" As she sank before me my Conscience reeled again, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 goes ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... companions keeping a steady strain upon the rope. With his chisel he had but little difficulty in prising open the casement. His companions were not long in joining him. Once inside the house they made their way with great caution. They had no means of striking a light, and were forced to grope about with their swords in front of them to prevent their touching any piece of furniture, till at last they discovered the door. It was not fastened, and passing through, and, as before, feeling the floor carefully as they went, they presently ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... lumps against the moon: they were the houses of a little town. A sort of gulf, winding like a river gorge, and narrower than a column of men, was the street that brought us in. But just as we feared that we should have to grope our way to find companionship we saw that great surprise of modern mountain villages (but not of our own England)—a little row of electric lamps hanging from walls of an ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... tears? The babe weeps in its cot, The mother singing; at her marriage bell The bride weeps; and before the oracle Of high-faned hills, the poet has forgot Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace, Ye who weep only! If, as some have done, Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place, And touch but tombs,—look up! Those tears will run Soon in long rivers down the lifted face, And leave the vision clear for stars ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... the Father strutted and bow'd, And smiled to himself, and laugh'd aloud, To think of his heiress and daughter— And then in his pockets he made a grope, And then, in the fulness of joy and hope, Seem'd washing his hands with ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... But it does not grope and it succeeds very well. Its gallery is still contained within one plane, the first condition of the minimum of labour. Moreover, of the different vertical planes that can pass through the eccentric starting-point, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... I was anxious to push on and grope our way beneath the clouds as best we could, in case worse weather should come; but Charley was ill at ease, and wanted one of the seal-hunters to go with us, for the place was much changed. I promised to pay well for a guide, and in order to lighten the canoe proposed to leave most of our heavy ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... his eyes, and, depending on the sense of feeling alone, which in truth was his reliance from the first, he toiled steadily upward. Sometimes he had to grope with his hands for a minute or two before daring to leave the support on which his feet rested, but one of his causes for astonishment and thankfulness was that such aids seemed never ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... Boy caught it, and went into the water, feeling very carefully before him, lest he should unguardedly go beyond his depth; at length he reached the blind man, took him very carefully by the hand, and led him out. The blind man then gave him a thousand blessings, and told him he could grope out his way home; and the little Boy ran on as hard as he could, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... More glorious than that Creation saw, When, from abeyance to primeval law, There burst the dawn from out the womb of night; Yet are all things unchanged around them,—these, The ancient hills, the town, the quiet trees, The household presences through which they grope Blind to all else but to each other's eyes, Wherein, transforming heaven and earth, there lies Sublime effulgence ...
— The Angel of Thought and Other Poems - Impressions from Old Masters • Ethel Allen Murphy
... from accumulations of sewerage, refuse scattered in all directions, and often flowing beneath your feet; courts, many of them, which the sun never penetrates, which are never visited by a breath of fresh air. You have to ascend rotten stair-cases, grope your way along dark and filthy passages swarming with vermin. Then, if you are not driven back by the intolerable stench, you may gain admittance into the dens in which these thousands of beings herd together. Eight feet square! ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... didn't make myself what I am. Prison did it. Go and try ten years yourself, and you'll find you will have to grope about for your fine emotions. Are you coming ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... situated in a romantic spot on a branch of 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 our entertainers ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... grope between light and darkness only with the help of the uncertain guidance offered it by analogy. It has reduced to fact and mathematical precision the physical motion and the paths of the heavenly bodies, and—no more. So far, it has been unable to discover with ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... every form of manifestation. As unalloyed Life and Intelligence it can be no other than good, it can entertain no intention of evil, and thus all intentional evil must put us in opposition to it, and so deprive us of the consciousness of its guidance and strengthening and thus leave us to grope our own way and fight our own battle single-handed against the universe, odds which at last will surely prove too great for us. But remember that the opposition can never be on the part of the Universal Mind, for in itself it is sub-conscious ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... when the spirit went out of it to continue its existence elsewhere, but that those who hated the thought of such change could, by taking thought, prolong life and live for a thousand years, like the adder and tortoise or for ever. But no, he would not leave the poor boy to grope alone and blindly after that hidden knowledge he was burning to possess. He pitied him too much. The means were simple and near to hand, the earth teemed with the virtue that would save him from the dissolution which so appalled him. He would be startled to hear in how ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... said a brief while ago that mine was work without glory, ye said truly. But consider that in this confused and dark world, in which we grope our way like shepherds in a mist, we have to do what lies to our hand, and ask no questions—and the weariness of it is that in the darkness we strike ane another. We know not which be right, and shall not know till the day breaks: we maun just do our duty, and mine, by every ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... naked and scalped, with bullet and hatchet wounds all over their bodies, lay his comrades of the morning, dead among the rushes. Radisson was too far out to get back to the woods. Stooping, he tried to grope to the hiding of the rushes. As he bent, half a hundred heads rose from the grasses, peering which way he might go. They were behind, before, on all sides—his only hope was a dash for the cane-grown river, where he might hide by diving and wading, till darkness gave a chance for ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... disturb him," she replied. "Nature may know best; it may be Nature that cries to be alone; and we grope in the dark. O yes, I would ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... will remember that during all this time I knew nothing of the experience of James Martin with this afflicted trio, but had been compelled to grope my way blindly. As the doctor and son-in-law went out my son came in. He had overheard something about the writing, and said, excitedly: "Don't write, mother; there is no sick man here. That tall man is Elsie's master, and they ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... development of the nations of Europe is so tragic as this. That two peoples should, within the space of nine months, abjure their friendly relations and furiously grapple in a life and death struggle over questions of secondary importance leads the dazed beholder at first to grope after the old Greek idea of ate or Nemesis. In reality the case does not call for supernatural agency. The story is pitiably human, if the student will but master its complex details. It may be well to close our study with a few general observations, though they almost ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... shattering of window panes. A violent storm had suddenly blown up and the wind was working havoc with unfastened blinds and shutters. There was no use thinking of holding a candle or a lamp. Besides, the lightning flashed so brightly that I was able to grope my way through the long line of empty rooms, tighten the fastenings, and shut the windows. I had reached the second story without mishap and without hearing the slightest footstep within doors. All my little ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... no one in the sleeping mews; and doubling back noiselessly through the passage, I took up my station beside the one low window which opened upon it from the blank back premises of the house. Even with the glimmer of snow to help me, I had to grope for the window-sill to make sure of my bearings. The minutes crawled by, and the only sound came from a stall where one of the horses had kicked through his thin straw bedding and was shuffling an uneasy hoof upon the cobbles. Then just as I too had ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the glimmering window, feeling very humble. She felt that she had let him down, somehow, in not being more wise. And yet she knew very certainly that she was going to grope and grope now, hurting herself and him ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... win, Than wold he speken no word but Latin. A fewe termes coude he, two or three, That he had lerned out of some decree; No wonder is, he herd it all the day. And eke ye knowen wel, how that a jay Can clepen watte, as well as can the pope. But who so wolde in other thing him grope, Than hadde he spent all his philosophie, Ay, Questio quid juris ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... any sharp enough—stones I mean," Betty went on, "we might use them as a sort of shovel and try to dig our way out. Of course," she added, as the girls began to grope eagerly among the dirt and debris at their feet for stones sharp enough to answer the purpose, "the mouth of the cave may be choked up too solidly with dirt and underbrush and things for us to get through. But in that case we'd just have to think up ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... at dusk, when all was mud, mist, and darkness, out of doors, and a good deal of fog had even got into the family parlor. To say the truth, the parlor was on no occasion fog-proof, and had, at divers notable times, been so misty as to cause the whole Bull family to grope about, in a most confused manner, and make the strangest mistakes. But, there was an excellent ventilator over the family fire-place (not one of Dr. Arnott's, though it was of the same class, being an excellent invention, called Common Sense), and hence, though the fog was apt to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... and rested, striving vainly to garner some clue to his bearings. Inexorably the blackness forbade that. He might have failed ere dawn to grope a way out of that trap had not the disappearance of the submarine ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... ordeal, which borrows its more striking features from the department of natural history, is that in which the prisoner or witness is required to grope about for a trinket or small coin in a basket or jar already occupied by a lively cobra. Should the groper not be bitten, our courtly friend, Asirvadam, is satisfied there has been some mistake here, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... recognized. In the 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 telescope ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... saw an immense black mass looming over the water. Then a sharp scratching 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 ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... several times with an air of discretion, then assured Miss Haldin that she did not mind in the least. The trying part of it was to have the secret of the composition laid bare before her; to see the great author of the revolutionary gospels grope for words as if he were in the dark as to ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad |
