"Grasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... promptness. Japan alone was within easy reach of the commotion. But Japan held back. She had fully fathomed the distrust with which the growth of her military strength had inspired some European nations, and she appreciated the wisdom of not seeming to grasp at an opportunity for armed display. In fact, she awaited a clear mandate from Europe and America, and, on receiving it, she rapidly sent a division (20,000 men) to Pehchili. Tientsin was relieved first, and then a column ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... reader, however young, who meets him gets very soon a sense that if he were in trouble, not necessarily medical, he would go to Dolittle and ask his advice about it. Dolittle seems to extend his hand from the page and grasp that of his reader, and I can see him going down the centuries a kind of Pied Piper with thousands of children at his heels. But not only is he a darling and alive and credible but his creator has also managed to invest ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... this, I won't. Out of my way, you." Scattering the rest before him like a flock of sheep, he seized Mackworth with his strong hands, shook him violently by both shoulders, and then tearing the cane out of his grasp, he demanded, "Was it you who ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... not strong enough. If you cannot leave your picture at any moment, cannot turn from it and go on with another while the color is drying, cannot work at any part of it you choose with equal contentment, you have not firm enough grasp of it. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... not hear and just kept on as before. Fonske had not been able to catch one yet and his fat legs were turning blue with the cold. In front of him stood Bertje, stooping and peering into the water, with his hands ready to grasp; and Fonske saw such a lovely little runnel from his neck to halfway down his back, all bare skin. He carefully scooped his hands full of water and let it trickle gently inside Bertje's shirt. The boy growled; and Fonske, screaming with ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... the case of the soldiers, whose hungry stomachs found the bazeen so good that they stuck fast to the bowl, and were obliged to receive the Irish hint of being pulled away by main force before they would relinquish their tenacious grasp. My taleb, as a matter of course, called upon me to go to the festa. I found the festive hall to be a smallish oblong room, the walls of which were garnished with a number of little looking-glasses, polished ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Spain and Portugal against the Moors, who had formerly expelled their ancestors from the greatest part of the peninsula, and with whom they had waged an incessant war of several centuries in recovering the country from their grasp. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... moment there was dead silence—long enough for the professor to grasp the full significance of what had passed. Then he uttered a single ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... after his exertions, during which time he pictured to himself the worthy citizen immersed in papers deeply engaged in the preparation of his France in three volumes, and wished that the first five minutes of their interview were over. At length he mustered courage to grasp a greasy-looking red tassel, and give a gentle tinkle to the bell. The door was quickly opened by Agamemnon in dirty loose trousers and slippers, and without a coat. He recognised his fellow-traveller, and in answer to his inquiry if Monsieur Jorrocks was at home, grinned, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... the full import of the term—or, in whatever extent the previous definitives allow. The distinction between these two senses, important as it is, is frequently made to depend solely upon the insertion or the omission of a comma. Thus, if I say, "Men who grasp after riches, are never satisfied;" the relative who is taken restrictively, and I am understood to speak only of the avaricious. But, if I say, "Men, who grasp after riches, are never satisfied;" by separating the terms men and who, I declare all men to be covetous and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... I was obliged to use force to retain it. They then made signs to Mr. Hunter to send his gun to the boat; this was of course refused, upon which one of them seized it, and it was only by wrenching it from his grasp that Mr. Hunter ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... fellow sticks his eight cartridges, without caring how: and so the poor devil fumbles and gropes about, and cannot get hold of any. But now, if the Officers would look to it that he place them all well together in the middle of the cartouche, he would never make a false grasp, and the loading would go as quick again. Only tell your Officers that I had made this observation, and I am sure they will gladly attend to it.'" [Anonymous (Kaltenborn), Briefe eines alten Preussischen ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... annihilated, by his intellect, which he valued far too highly, and by his vanity, which he dignified into a philosophy of self-sacrifice. He was aiming at what no man can reach, and though he knew his object to be beyond human grasp, he desired all possible credit for having madly dreamed of anything so high. In the sudden revulsion of her strong passion, she almost hated him, she almost felt the power to refute his theories, ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... long bondage, yearning for the boon of freedom, longing for the sun of liberty to rise, they kept their peace and left the result to God." Mr. Douglass, whom this same Bishop Gaines speaks of very inappropriately as a "half-breed," seemed able to grasp the feelings both of the slave and the freeman and said: "From the first, I for one, saw in this war the end of slavery, and truth requires me to say that my interest in the success of the North was largely due to this belief." Mr. Seward, the wise Secretary ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... the window, having the good sense to utter no exclamation, waited till Joel was up far enough for her to grasp his arm. Then she couldn't help it as ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... mental suicide. Once reoriented, the problems that make life intolerable are forgotten, your personality is changed, your grasp of everything is revised, your appreciation of all things comes from an entirely new angle. You are ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... longing for the Infinite is as strong now as it was when the first ology, aiming to grasp it, conceived its first myth, and comprehended something so far below what humanity itself now is or knows, that we use it, along with the more recent productions of Mrs. Goose, to amuse children. This persistent trait in human nature is truly noble, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... it with the woman who hastened to put out his eyes and deliberated not. All this was the doing of haste; wherefore it behoveth the king not to be hasty in putting me to death, for that I am under the grasp of his hand, and what time soever thou desirest my slaughter, it shall ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... method for getting into the bidding occurred to him. He might be peacemaker. He leaned over again, to separate them. Each long-fingered hand reached for a collar. Yet even as he caught hold one of his prizes went limp in his grasp. He pulled out the survivor, who proved to be a ragged Mexican with a knife. The other was a French sailor. Driscoll shook the native angrily, whereupon the little demon swung the knife with vicious intent. But Driscoll held ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Aunt Stanshy and Charlie hauling, while the man tried to grasp the sides of the steps; and so, out of the slime and the mist and the night, up into the light, and then into Aunt Stanshy's barn, came the face of—old ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... columns to an "Abstract of Mr Fielding's Enquiry"; and in the following month the Magazine again noticed the book, by printing a long anonymous letter in which Fielding is attacked as a 'trading author' and a 'trading justice,' and in which the writer shows his intellectual grasp by advocating in all seriousness a law prohibiting the sovereign ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... looking at him, with her eyes towards the company; then, after an instant, her mother, rising, pushed forward, with an interesting sigh, the chair on which she had been sitting. Mrs. Tarrant was provided with another seat, and Verena, relinquishing her father's grasp, placed herself in the chair, which Tarrant put in position for her. She sat there with closed eyes, and her father now rested his long, lean hands upon her head. Basil Ransom watched these proceedings with much interest, for the girl amused ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... debtors. He enforced the old laws for the collection of debts, and he baulked several legislative schemes to defraud creditors of their due by declaring the new laws unconstitutional. For the rest, his decisions have seemed to competent critics to show that he possessed unusual legal ability and grasp of principles and a corresponding power of statement, scant as ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... Early, to defend the crossing at Fredericksburg. The promptness of these movements of the Confederate commander is noticed by Northern writers. "Lee, with instant perception of the situation," says an able historian, "now seized the masses of his force, and, with the grasp of a Titan, swung them into position, as a giant might fling a mighty stone from a sling." [Footnote: Mr. Swinton, in "Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac." Whether the force under Lee could be ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... the couch, in the middle of an intimate and quite friendly conversation about her father, his health, their work together, Felicia felt as it were the chill of a gulf between herself and this man, then the brutal grasp of a faun. She beheld an unknown Jenkins, wild-looking, stammering with a besotted laugh and outraging hands. In the surprise, the unexpectedness of this bestial attack, any other than Felicia—a child of ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... splendor of the kindling day, The splendor of the setting sun, These move my soul to wend its way, And have done With all we grasp and ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... raised it about three inches, was fixed in a sound sleep in that constrained position. Dr. Elliotson pointed his finger at her, to discharge some more of the mesmeric fluid into her, when her hand immediately relaxed its grasp of the coin, and she re-awoke into the state of delirium, exclaiming, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... from his place in the House the ex-minister continued manfully to uphold the general who was doing England's work in Spain. There was need of all the support his genius could contribute to this task, for parliament was slow to grasp the deep purpose of the campaign, was impatient for results, and prone to grumble at the bill of expense. Yet in the end Canning enjoyed the satisfaction of pointing to the complete verification of his ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... large salon where I am. If I raise my eyebrows the secretary knows that I depend upon him to find out who the person is, and the name, if possible. He, therefore, gets the card and shows it to me by some magical twist. Sometimes he manages to whisper the name. Often I fail to grasp either the whisper or the card; then I am lost, and flounder hopelessly about without bearings of any kind, asking leading-questions, cautiously feeling my way, not knowing whether I am talking to a person of great importance or the contrary. When at last my extreme wariness and diplomacy ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... all what you want with us," said the younger one, who, under the iron grasp of Paul's fist, was not a little frightened. "We love your sisters; we have nothing to ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... advantage of the Spaniard's stupefaction, he raised the barrow by the shafts with his robust arms and prepared to fling it down, calling in thundering tones as it left his grasp, "Look ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... would further combat, though exceedingly weak, Sir Launcelot, upraised lance in hand by a swift stroke smote sword from out of his weakened grasp. ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... and pushed out upon the water. Forester taught Marco how to use the paddle. He gave him his seat in the stern of the boat, and directed him to grasp the lower end of the handle with the other hand. Then, by dipping the blade in the water and pushing the water back, the boat was propelled forward. He also explained to him how, by turning the blade of the paddle, one way or the other, ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... Vertebrata." These investigations are as much distinguished by a profound knowledge and careful working out of the wonderfully-extensive empirical materials for the subject, as by their critical acumen and philosophic grasp. At the same time they set in the clearest light the immeasurable value of the theory of descent in the causal explanation of the most difficult morphological problems. Gegenbaur might, therefore, with perfect right, ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... silver candle-sticks lay a horse-pistol. As the fingers approached it, their trembling increased. Twice they hesitated, craven flesh rebelling against a recreant will. They shook so frightfully upon encountering the butt that it seemed as if to grasp it were beyond their power. Once they had seized it, however, the trembling left them and passed ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... way for Liberty!" he cried, Then ran, with arms extended wide, As if his dearest friend to clasp; Ten spears he swept within his grasp. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... wonderfully comforting and consoling. She did not express the least surprise. She patted Alison on her cheek. She allowed the girl to grasp her painful right hand and swollen arm ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... who endeavors to adhere in all positions to the principles of Chess Strategy outlined in this chapter will rapidly improve his strength and acquire within a short time a much more intimate grasp of the game than others who have had years of practice without making clear to themselves the general laws which govern the outcome of every combination ...
— Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership • Edward Lasker
... first with unmixed exultation, but by-and-by he began to feel superstitious. Matters were now drawing to such a point that Little might very well arrive before the wedding-day, and just before it. Perhaps Heaven had that punishment in store for him; the cup was to be in his very grasp, and then ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... like a kraken huge and black, She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp! Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, With a sudden shudder of death, And the cannon's breath ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... life-buoy in his arms. Ignorant of this act the man near the stern saw something struggling in the water as the ship flew past. Without an instant's hesitation he also plunged into the sea with a life-buoy in his grasp. ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... hundred. I look at it with a soldier's somewhat direct view. Humanity went helpless and alone into a fiery furnace and came through holding on to God's hand. We have clung closely to that powerful grasp since. ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... taken placed us far in advance of the hound, whose bay I could not now hear. The struggles of the furious animal had become dreadful, and every moment I could feel his sharp hoofs cutting deep into my flesh; my grasp upon his antlers was growing less and less firm, and yet I relinquished not my hold. The struggle had brought us near a deep ditch, washed by the fall rains, and into this I endeavored to force my adversary, but my strength was unequal ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... attempting to interfere with Indian usages. But the instant the idea that it was Crusoe occurred to Varley he uttered a yell of anger, and sprang towards the woman with a bound that caused the three Indians to leap to their feet and grasp ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... 27, 1915, Sir Ian Hamilton looked over the positions. He found that, although he had several beaches securely in his grasp, he lacked room in which to maneuver. Also his force was beginning to suffer from lack of water. Accordingly he decided that an ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... in reply to either of them, I helped her gravely over the boat's side, within grasp of his outstretched hand, all about us the warm sunshine piercing the thick canes ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... pertain to Eternity alone; and thus, when by poetry or music, the most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find ourselves melted into tears, we are not moved through any excess of pleasure, but through an impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, those divine and rapturous joys of which, through the poem or through the music, we obtain but ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... "To grasp and snatch from mortal sight; Or else benignly turn away, And let us live our little day, And tremble ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Richmond then moved for returns of the army and navy, both in America and Ireland. Chatham now made another speech, in which he expressed great alarm as to the actual state of those two important fortresses, Gibraltar and Minorca; contending that they were not secure from the grasp of France and Spain. He also took occasion again to extol the Americans, and to plead their cause, still justifying their opposition to the mother country. The motion ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Admiral Montojo and his officers was almost sublime. All they asked was a fair chance at the "American pigs." They hoped that nothing would occur to prevent the coming of the fleet, for the Spaniards would never cease to mourn if the golden opportunity were allowed to slip from their grasp. They were ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... the ice and snow, in weather ranging from 30 to 70 degrees below zero, the average temperature probably being about 40 below. Because of the absolute lack of beaten trails—' I wonder," he broke off, "if any one who hasn't been there can grasp what it means!" ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... you of the terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines: My poor dear, dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a madhouse, from whence I hear she must be moved to an hospital. God has preserved to me my senses, I eat and drink and sleep, and have my judgment, I believe, very sound. My poor father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my aunt. ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... success and respect. He did not directly accuse himself; he had done as well as he could; he blamed "things," and said to himself, "it's my luck," by which he meant to express a profound feeling of dejection and weakness as of one in the grasp of inimical powers. By the working of unfriendly forces he was lying there under the pines, hungry, tired, chilled, and lone as a wolf. Jack was far away, Mary lost forever to him, and the officers of the law again on his trail. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... then squatted themselves down and held up their faces; my companion standing over them, one after another, placed the bridge of his nose at right angles to theirs, and commenced pressing. This lasted rather longer than a cordial shake of the hand with us, and as we vary the force of the grasp of the hand in shaking, so do they in pressing. During the process they uttered comfortable little grunts, very much in the same manner as two pigs do, when rubbing against each other. I noticed that the slave would press noses with any one he met, indifferently either ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... brought more wisdom, he went poaching for supper upon Welsh rabbits. That night all the ghastly time came back, and stood minute by minute before him. Every swing of his body, and sway of his head, and swell of his heart, was repeated, the buffet of the billows when the planks were gone, the numb grasp of the slippery oar, the sucking down of legs which seemed turning into sea-weed, the dashing of dollops of surf into mouth and nose closed ever so carefully, and then the last sense of having fought a good fight, but fallen away from ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... avenue of wealth and promenade of fashion, usually thronged with the pleasure-seeking denizens of the metropolis—was comparatively deserted, save by a few shivering mortals, who hurried on their way with rapid footsteps, anxious to escape from the relentless and iron grasp of hoary winter. And yet on that day, and in that street, there stood upon the pavement directly opposite the "Old South Church," a young girl of about the age of fourteen years, holding in her hand ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... Sabbath morning of October 18, 1889. I had a congregation of millions all over the world to appeal to. I stood before them, accredited in the religious course I had pursued, approved as a minister of the Gospel, upheld as a man and a preacher. The hand of Providence is always a mysterious grasp of life that confuses and dismays, but it always rebuilds, ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... escaped me for a while. I beat about most warily, and at length started him up again from the jaws of an obscene and broken catacomb. I gained on him at every step; heard the quick panting of his breath; stretched out my left to grasp him, while my right held unsheathed and ready the good stiletto that ne'er failed me. And now—now—by the great Jove! his tunic's hem was fluttering in my clutch, when my feet tripped over a prostrate column, that I was hurled five paces at the least in advance of the fugitive; and when I rose ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... pa!" Goldie exclaims, her momentary enthusiasm extinguished at the thought of long lessons indefinitely prolonged. Goldie was a restless little thing who could not sit long over her geography book. She wriggled out of her mother's grasp now, and made for the door, throwing a "back-hand" as she went, without losing a single jackstone. "I hate long lessons," she said. "When I graduate grammar school next year I'm going to work in Jordan-Marsh's big store, and get three dollars a week, and have lots of fun with the girls. I can't ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... print copies with a hand-press. Even that was better than nothing; anything being preferable to lowering the flag in the heat of battle. But alas! fate is stronger than gods or men. I was foiled at the last moment, just as victory seemed within my grasp; how I forbear to explain, although the incidents of that eventful day would form an interesting chapter of my Autobiography. Enough copies were pulled to constitute a legal issue of the paper, and one of ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... told me plainly that he entered into life again at war with his fellows. Where he could see an opportunity of doing evil, he meant to do it; where he could bring misery and suffering upon anyone with whom he came into contact, he meant to grasp the opportunity. I listened to him, but I never believed. I told myself that it would be interesting to watch his life, and to see the gradual, inevitable humanizing of the man. So I entered his service, and have remained ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... apologetically, "my subject is Medieval History; I don't pay much attention to what's going on in the contemporary world, and I didn't understand, really, what all this excitement was about. But he explained the whole thing to me, and did it in terms that I could grasp, drawing some excellent parallels with the Byzantine Empire and the Crusades. All about the revolt at Damascus, and the sack of Beirut, and the war between Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and how the Turkish army intervened, ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... screaming across him had apparently filled him with amazement. I saw his great eyes staring steadily at me. I had dropped the lantern when I seized the bars, but it still burned upon the floor, and I made a movement to grasp it, with some idea that its light might protect me. But the instant I moved, the beast gave a deep and menacing growl. I stopped and stood still, quivering with fear in every limb. The cat (if one may call so fearful a ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... diagonally below him, fifteen feet down and twelve along the bellying curve. Darl measured the angle with a glance as he hung outstretched, then his body became a human pendulum over the sheer void. Back and forth, back and forth he swung, then, suddenly, his grasp loosened and a white arc flashed ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... young men to "go West." Many a tract thus bought for fifty dollars has turned out to be a soil upon which princely fortunes have grown. A tract of forty acres represents to-day in Chicago or Minneapolis an amount of wealth difficult for the imagination to grasp. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... a robber and a spoiler of the poor; I know, in short, that he is an aristocrat, and as such I would have him annihilated, abolished from the face of the earth. I would that the aristocrats of France had but one neck, that with a grasp of my own hand, I might at once choke out their pernicious breath," and the republican laid upon the table his huge hand, and tightly clenched his fingers as though he held between them the imaginary throat ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... up' since you went away," he explained—"took a contract to produce a certain line of ornamental reliefs; it never pays to be mercenary. But there it is! I was greedy, I went out for money—now behold me in the grasp of a business agreement. Can't sleep, can't breathe country air—had to ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... that little physical help could be given. All that was possible was moral support; a firm, guiding grasp that would restore the shaken man's confidence, and the comfort of feeling there was somebody near who was not afraid. But a very slight push the wrong way, or even an unsteadiness in the hand that should have guided, might be fatal. Lawrence was at the mercy of a man who had plotted ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... that shelters his longing from any such surfeit. Yes, he is wiser that knows the shadow makes lovely the substance, wisely regarding the ways of that irresponsible shadow which, if you grasp at it, flees, and, when you avoid it, will follow, gilding all life with its glory, and keeping always one woman young and most fair and most wise, and unwon; and keeping you always never contented, ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... Wolf." [ 1 ] Thus, with the patience of saints, the courage of heroes, and an intent truly charitable, did the Fathers put forth a nimble-fingered adroitness that would have done credit to the profession of which the function is less to dispense the treasures of another world than to grasp those which ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... Man's firmer grasp upon his nose in this our day and generation is not altogether due to invention of the handkerchief. The genesis and development of his right to his own nose have been accompanied with a corresponding advance in the possessory rights all along ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... groped for the ropes which eluded his grasp. He gripped and missed, gripped and missed. Then he caught it and held on. He was holding firmly now with both hands. But how his arms ached! With his feet he began kicking for the ladder, which, swinging ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... the widow Margaret with a whirlwind kiss, threw little Sam high in the air and caught him as he came within half an inch of the ground, shook the old grandfather's readily extended hand with a sturdy grasp, and wound up, for a moment, with a great cuff on the side of the head with a roll of stuff for a new gown for Mopsey, saying as he delivered it, "Dere, what d'ye say to ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... impassioned, barbaric, foreign dance, be worth to a man on your Broadway? Eh? But obstacles! Obstacles! You have her not on Broadway. It is too many thousand miles, and you have no money. But see, if you were a man to grasp things, a man to 'hit the nail in the head,' to 'boost,' to 'go big'—then would not a man like me, who turns everything to gold—would he not say to you quickly enough, 'See here, my dear sir, but let me put so much money ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... these words his sword fell from out of his grasp, and he was shaken with dismay. And there broke from his heart a groan as of one whose heart was racked with anguish. And the earth became dark before his eyes, and he sank down lifeless beside his son. But when he had opened his eyes once more, he cried unto Sohrab in the agony of his ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... when the elder Jervase stole in on tiptoe, with a new cup of priceless beef-tea, he saw the two men lying there, with their faces turned to each other, as if they had been lovers, and hand holding hand. He took Polson by the wrist, and shook the grasp gently asunder. ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... of Hoffmann's individuality is not only one of the most characteristic of him, it is necessary to grasp it in order to understand his written works. These remarks will also serve to make more intelligible the sensation aroused in Hoffmann the evening he was at the Capuchin monastery. It is in the ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... grasp more than this, A cheerless tatter from the sacred veil Of thy good mother Fate, the veil embroidered With the star-spangled sky ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... style, and so we had gorgeous advertisement posters printed in three colours, which were to be stuck about London to beautify that great dreary city. Y. saw the back-hair of Fortune almost within our grasp. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... tyrant—greedy, cruel, and licentious. He had his own mother murdered because she opposed his plans, and some of our best and noblest citizens have been put to death, either because Nero was jealous of their popularity, or because he desired to grasp their possessions. It is horrible that Rome, which has conquered the world, should lie prostrate at the feet of a creature like this. It was because my father feared that some spy among the slaves might report what I said about Nero that caused him to send me out to Suetonius, who is ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... sigh broke from some of the others, as if words were incapable of expressing their feelings—as, indeed, they were! The skipper was standing by the companion-hatch at the moment with a handspike in his grasp. A deep-toned curse issued from his lips when the fish went down, and he dashed the handspike to ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... have to begin low down so as to get a grasp upon the details and technical points of the financial side of the business; but I'm willing to learn. Here comes the governor now; I ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... along the whole English line the soldiers, in stern silence, examined their flints, cleaned their locks and barrels, and then stretched themselves on the ground to rest, each with his firelock within his grasp." The single advantage of the British lay in their position. Busaco is a great hill, one of the loftiest and most rugged in Portugal, eight miles in breadth, and barring the road by which Massena was moving on Lisbon. "There are certainly," said Wellington, "many bad roads in ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... me, Betty," she directed. "I guess you're about all in. That's it, Amy; grasp my shoulder with your other hand. Get a good grip before you let go of Betty. That's the way. Now we're all right. Between us we'll have you in in a jiffy. All right, Betty? ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... shipmate, death, did not go over the side till he had marked yet another victim for his insatiate grasp; for, to-day, Mr. Scoble, one of our engineers, died. He, too, was buried at sea, though we were only a few hours from port. On the morn of this day, September 17th, we passed the strait of Bab-el-mandeb—Arabic ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... have held in their icy grasp the bleak land in which he yielded up his life for a principle, and the flowers of two summers have blossomed upon his grave, overlooking the Hudson. But it was only his body that we buried there. His ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... even sternly. He was bending down over her, and she caught the gleam of the firelight in his eyes and thought that they shone red. "I would do a good deal for you, Lady Carfax," he said, "but I can't do that. You ask the impossible." He paused a moment and she felt his grasp slowly tighten upon her hand. "You want to know what passed, and perhaps it is better that you should know even if it distresses you. I sent a messenger in the motor to Sir Giles last night to tell him of your accident and to beg him to return here with him. He came ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... stealing over her. Ah, yes. She knew that full well. All her youth and the pride of her days she had given up for that countess-ship which she now wore so gloomily—given up for pieces of gold which had turned to stone and slate and dirt within her grasp. Years, alas! were fast stealing over her. But nevertheless she had something to give. Her woman's beauty was not all faded; and she had a heart which was as yet virgin—which had hitherto loved no other man. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... the middle of a lively conversation, he would suddenly stop, droop his head, and his bright eyes would be dimmed with a filling of tears; heavy sighs would seem to rend his breast; he would start up, his eyes sparkling with fury; he would grasp his dagger with a bitter smile, and then, as if vanquished by an invisible hand, he would fall into a deep reverie, from whence not even the caresses of his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... of Christian chant, of which we may take for pure examples the 'Te Deum,' the 'Te Lucis Ante,' the 'Amor che nella mente,'[177] and the 'Chant de Roland,' are mingled songs of mourning, of Pagan origin (whether Greek or Danish), holding grasp still of the races that have once learned them, in times of suffering and sorrow; and songs of Christian humiliation or grief, regarding chiefly the sufferings of Christ, or the conditions of our own ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... attention to the lady. Happily an old man who works at the flat, who was sleeping on the premises at the time, was roused by the sound of the struggle, and succeeded in releasing the lady from the maniacal grasp of the intruder. The wounded burglar was removed to hospital and the lunatic was taken to the police station and was afterwards sent under a strong guard to the asylum from whence he had escaped. He made a rambling statement to the police to the effect that General Foch had assisted his escape ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... inherits physical traits from his ancestors, so he gets certain mental traits. The demand for food is the cry of the instinct for self-preservation. The grimace of the infant in response to the mother's smile is an expression of the instinct for imitation. The reaching out of its hand to grasp the sunshine is in obedience to the instinct for acquisition. All human association is due primarily to the instinct for sociability. These instincts are inborn. They cannot be eradicated, but they can ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... ask of Constantine To loose his grasp on Poland's throat; And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line To spare the struggling Suliote; Will not the scorching answer come From turbaned Turk, and scornful Russ "Go, loose your fettered slaves at home, Then turn, and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... without demur the most beloved of his fancies if it was unable to stand this test. If Kepler had burnt three-quarters of what he printed, we should in all probability have formed a higher opinion of his intellectual grasp and sobriety of judgment, but we should have lost to a great extent the impression of extraordinary enthusiasm and industry, and of almost unequalled intellectual honesty which we now get from a study ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... to avoid being precipitated below; and had I not casually met with a few shrubs to grasp, I should probably have been obliged to abandon my attempt, or have rolled down the cliff. The summit of the eastern peak consists of one enormous mass of granite, the smoothness of which is broken only by a few partial ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... in it was Paul Guidon, paddling with might and main, making straight for the drowning mother and her boy. In another minute he had the child grasped firmly in his long sinewy arms, and laying his breast and head over the stern of the canoe, he called to the mother to grasp at once his long hair as its ends fell into the water. He managed to get the child safely into his canoe, but he experienced great difficulty in saving its mother. She drifted fully one hundred yards, but all the distance holding stoutly to the Indian's locks. With all the strength of Paul Guidon ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... spoken, "It is the last time, good-by"; the loving and last farewell of the beloved Empress Augusta, the patron saint of the Red Cross; Bismarck and Moltke, in review, each with his Red Cross insignia; the cordial hand grasp and the farewell never repeated—and all of this attention to and interest in a subject that the country I had gone to represent scarcely realized had an existence beyond the receiving of some second-hand clothing, misfit shoes, and a little ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... open door of great sea-port cities there have poured during the years past steady streams of handicapped girls. They are poor, they are plunged into a life whose manners and customs they cannot grasp, they are handicapped by a language they do not understand and by great expectations ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... of teaching, and trained a corps of teachers and regular scholars at the same time. She took lessons of the Professor every evening when he had leisure, and studied half the night the branches she was to teach the next day, thus keeping ahead of her classes. Her intense earnestness and mental grasp, the readiness with which she turned from one subject to another, and her retentive memory of every rule and fact he gave her, was a constant surprise to ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... moment little Meg was terrified, for the girl seized her hands in a strong and painful grasp, and her red eyes flamed with anger; but she loosed her hold gradually, and then, in a choking voice, she said, 'Don't you never speak ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... perched on the edge of the bed, her soft blue dressing-gown trailing over the white night-dress, while her black and long-fringed eyes shone through the dimness of morning. She yielded gladly to my grasp, and I could fondle again the silken hair, the velvety brunette cheek, the plump, childish shoulders. Yet sleep still half held me, and when my cherub appeared to hold it a cherubic practice to begin the day ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... his back with a folded coat or sweater under his shoulders, and grasp his wrists or his arms straight up over his head as in ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... seventeenth into the eighteenth century. In all the changes of that long and eventful age one change is very memorable and significant. The position of the dynasty was very different when George the Fourth died from what it was when his great-great-grandfather came over unwillingly from Germany to grasp the sceptre. When the Elector of Hanover became King of England, the Stuart party was still a power in political life and the Stuart cause the dearest hope of a very large number of devoted Englishmen. It might well ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... soon felt that a new power had arisen. The Commissioner was not only a name but an actuality. Nothing was so trivial as to escape his attention; nothing too wide for him to grasp. He knew his men—it is said that he knows every man in the force, an exaggeration with a great deal of truth in it—and they ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... himself from the prince's grasp, pushed him so violently backwards that he staggered a few steps and then subsided ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... give me, Colonel Harris," said Hugh Searles, as he gave each person a quick hand-shake, thinking that to be an American he must grasp hands cordially. ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... into thoughts. I have no doubt, however, that they are just as real as those other feelings that in time, after much scratching, get into final form and become poetry. I know of course that a man's reach should exceed his grasp—it's hackneyed enough—but just for once I would like to pull down something when I have been up ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... was thick between them as they hastened on. Cadman Sahib stepped back suddenly, lifting his hand to grasp the other, but not quite soon enough. That instant Skag was flicked out of sight, taken into the folds of mother-earth and covered—the bleat of a kid presently identifying ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... and as I raised my hand to grasp his he uttered a fierce cry and pointed his spear at me once more, but I only laughed— very uncomfortably I own—and he lowered it slowly and doubtfully once again, peering into my eyes the while, his whole aspect seeming to say, "Are you ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... called forth her greatest aspirations; the striving after the unattainable; that comes to us all sometime or other, when we feel that truly life is worth living, and that there is something beyond, so great that we cannot grasp it, but we feel it is there producing a great speechless longing within us while our hearts throb and our pulses stir till we ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... melee of shouts and yells, of trampling hoofs and whirling colors, the first bands of the Crows came charging up in the attempt to carry away their dead of yesterday. Men stooped to grasp a stiffened wrist, a leg, a belt; the ponies squatted under ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... seemed pleased. Alone, the scene would have been dull and insipid: the participation of it with her gave it relish. Let the gloomy monk, sequestered from the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the bottom of his cell! Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness, while pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth! Their supreme wisdom is supreme folly: and they mistake for happiness the mere absence of pain. Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... side. His standard-bearer stood his ground, with the king's banner in his hand, until at last both his legs were cut off under him, and he fell to the earth; still he would not let the banner go, but clung to it with a convulsive grasp till ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... his displeasure, had withdrawn his soul from his body. This state of mind is said by some to have arisen from a nervous shock Browne had once received in finding a highwayman with whom he had grappled dead in his grasp. He believed his mind entirely gone, and his head to resemble a parrot's. At times his thoughts turned to self-destruction. He therefore abandoned his pulpit, and retired to Shepton Mallet to study. His "Defence" is dedicated to Queen ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... while the flag of old Spain, with its mingled hues of blood and gold, floated proudly above the battlements. The harbor was narrow at the entrance and widened further on, appearing in shape like the palm of one's hand. I felt so dazzled with the splendors around me, that I could not grasp at once the beauties of ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... asked his opinion about the settlement of the public. He told them in words that he was ready to lose his life for the honor of the senate, but desired them to consider what was for their advantage, without any regard to what was most agreeable to them; for that those who grasp at government will stand in need of weapons and soldiers to guard them, unless they will set up without any preparation for it, and so fall into danger. And when the senate replied that they would bring in weapons in abundance, and money, and that as to an army, a part of it was ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... a terrible lunge, he pierced Buckingham's arm, the sword passing between the two bones. Buckingham feeling his right arm paralyzed, stretched out his left, seized his sword, which was about falling from his nerveless grasp, and before De Wardes could resume his guard, he thrust him through the breast. De Wardes tottered, his knees gave way beneath him, and leaving his sword still fixed in the duke's arm, he fell into the water, which was soon crimsoned with a ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was armed with a British government rifle, although that is no criterion in that borderland of professional thieves where many a man has offered himself for enlistment with a stolen government rifle in his grasp. ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... in the same circle of conjecture, and so far as he could be glad, he was glad of this chance to face his calamity. He would go, but not at once; he would think it over; he would go to-morrow, when he had got some grasp of the matter. ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... foot wide, while a niche in the cliff just above it gave it a rude resemblance to one of the hollow-backed chairs used by our ancestors. I made no doubt that here was the 'devil's seat' alluded to in the MS., and now I seemed to grasp the ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... twitched, his eyes blinked fast, his hands reached out as if he were feeling for some other hand to grasp. The hands hesitated, groped, then one hand moved upward across his face as though to brush something away that kept him from seeing plainly. Those in the room ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... she snatched at and lifted the Holy Child that fitted into a stone socket on Our Lady's arm. It came away in her grasp, and she fled, ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... lash, and wives Rent with deadlier pangs than death—for shame survives, Naked, mad, starved, scourged, spurned, frozen, fallen, deflowered, Souls and bodies as by fangs of beasts devoured, Sounds that hell would hear not, sights no thought could shape, Limbs that feel as flame the ravenous grasp of rape, Filth of raging crime and shame that crime enjoys, Age made one with youth in torture, girls with boys, These, and worse if aught be worse than these things are, Prove thee regent, Russia—praise thy ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... each other to a fault, and foolishly prudent and squeamish with men. They are never for a moment unconscious of the difference of sex, and, in affecting the semblance of modesty, the true virtue escapes them altogether. In their neglect of what is for what seems, they lose the substance and grasp a shadow. This consideration of behavior, arbitrarily regulated, rather than of conduct ruled by truth, leads women to care much more for their reputation than for their actual chastity or virtue. They ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Now a grasp of fear and wonder rose from all who heard this bold and treasonable speech, and Tua, reddening to the eyes, bent forward as though to answer. But before ever a word had passed her lips Pharaoh sprang ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... in its surprising power of grip, and the careful experiments of Dr. Louis Robinson showed that an infant three weeks old could support its own weight for over two minutes, holding on to a horizontal bar. "In many cases no sign of distress is evinced and no cry uttered, until the grasp begins to give way." This persistent grasp probably points back to the time when the baby had to cling to its arboreal mother. The human tail is represented in the adult by a fusion of four or five vertebrae forming the "coccyx" ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... at the sun as if to assure himself that he was awake, then laughed hoarsely, foolishly. The wagon did not melt away. He could crawl that far, though in stretching forth his arm he might grasp but empty air. He began to crawl forward, but the wagon did not move. As it grew plainer in all its details, a new strength came to him. He strove to rise, and after several efforts, succeeded. He staggered forward till his hands grasped ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... themselves within her bosom—not two passions joined in common sympathy, but each one striving for itself, and both against the great citadel of her heart. One she recognised, that which drew her on like some great master mind beseeching her to grasp the key and unlock the great secrets of Nature's goddess. The other she knew not; it was a strange passion to her. It was wild, tumultuous, and then calm as a summer's eve—like a storm which bows down the lofty pines on Mount Coressus, and yet as gentle and melodious ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... Nan, crying. How she wished she had never pinned the dill and the verse over the door! So she set off for Dame Golding's husband. He came running in a great hurry; but when he had nearly reached his wife, and had his arms reached out to grasp her, he, too, stopped short. He had envied Dame Clementina for her beautiful white cows, and ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... spectra can we not be led to distinguish a particular quality, and grasp the idea of it? In short, can the Martians not impress that idea on ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... loop which projected about a foot from the walls, this Charlie made a spring at after the manner of a gymnast; he caught it, and although it came away in his grasp, yet it broke his fall, and what was of more importance, changed the direction of his course to the brickwork alongside the wheel, instead of the water under it. Once on the brickwork he jumped down into the garden, and went out into the lane, ...
— Legend of Moulin Huet • Lizzie A. Freeth
... out and grasped her by the shoulder. She shrank back, struggling with him, trying to grasp the butt of an ivory-handled revolver that swung at her right hip. The big man pinned her arms ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... knew, without question, that he was pouring into her ears all the evil he had ever heard of Le Maitre, all the detail of his present drunken condition. Caius did not move; he did not know whether the scene before him represented Satan with powerful grasp upon a soul that would otherwise have passed into some more heavenly region, or whether it was a wise and good man trying to save a woman from her own fanatical folly. The latter seemed to be the case when he looked ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... be here no question of physical heredity, like the lip of the Habsburg or the tainted blood of the Spanish Bourbons. It is a question of political environment, a question of dynastic tradition. Indeed, we must carefully study that Hohenzollern family tradition of politics if we want to grasp the full significance of the word, if we wish to understand how such a dynastic tradition may become a formidable power to European history. Maeterlinck in his "Life of the Bee" has an eloquent and profound chapter on the "Spirit of the Hive." In the domestic and international policy of the Prussian ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... January there are days of sudden relenting, when the frost's icy grasp upon nature seems to relax. Days that rightfully belong to spring drop down upon us with birds that have come before their time. But such days may end in a northeast snowstorm and the ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... for speculation is here opened up! With your scientific bent you will grasp the possibilities of the hereditary influence of my family on yours, supposing Edward Petherton to be a direct ancestor of your own. To me the unexpected result of my researches will give an added interest to our correspondence, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... barrels of the old gun are worn; and the stock of the rifle, broken in the mountains long ago, is mended but rudely; and the tip of the old rod is broken, and the silk is fraying in the lashings, and upon the hand-grasp the cord is loose. The silver cord will loosen and break in the best of men in time; wherefore, I beseech you, mock not at these belongings, though your own may far surpass them. You are welcome to ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... Furiously reared, and flung them to the plain In dust and shame; only Ardjuna held His seat awhile, and, bidding loose the chains, Lashed the black flank, and shook the bit, and held The proud jaws fast with grasp of master-hand, So that in storms of wrath and rage and fear The savage stallion circled once the plain Half-tamed; but sudden turned with naked teeth, Gripped by the foot Ardjuna, tore him down, And would have slain him, but the ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... who was very active, would manage to pull it off. When he got about half-way to the tree, however, he turned to see how far his pursuer was behind, and in doing so put his foot in a hole in the ground, and to my horror fell head over heels, his rifle flying from his grasp. I expected the great brute to be on him in a moment, but to my intense relief the old rhino stopped dead when he saw the catastrophe which had taken place, and then, failing (I suppose) to understand it, suddenly made off in the opposite direction as hard as he could go. ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... the quick response of the major. With a strong grasp he seized Benedetto, who was unprepared for the attack, and pushed him into the wardrobe. The ominous helmet encircled his head, and, despite his struggles, ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... was completed before Frederick stood so near to the throne. If his accession had seemed even a likely thing at the time, it would not have been sanctioned. I speak as the staunch friend of the lady whose cause is so dear to us, but I wish you to grasp ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... now, when no possible harm can come of it. If you will take my place on this raised grating, I shall be delighted to initiate you into the art. This side, please—the helmsman always stands on the weather side. That is right. Now grasp this spoke with your left hand, and this with your right, so—that is precisely the right attitude. Now, you feel a slight tremor in the wheel, do you not? That indicates that the water is pressing gently against ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... be sent back to Petrograd?" Nona also demanded, frowning a little in her effort to grasp the situation. "What reason was given; have we failed in any duty or service since our arrival at Grovno?" Nona went on, sitting up, while two spots of color appeared in her cheeks. "Please, Mildred, don't be mysterious. Tell us where you received your ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... an end in itself, and by preventing our seeing that it contains the idea that transcends its limits. That is why the wise man comes and says, "Set yourselves free from the avidya; know your true soul and be saved from the grasp of the self which ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... of force, of which she would at another time have thought herself incapable, the Countess freed herself from the profane and profaning grasp of the drunken debauchee, and retreated into the midst of her apartment where despair gave her ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... he fell back upon hauteur; he managed to frown, and walked proudly. At that they laughed the more, Wallace Banks rudely pointing again and again at William; and not till the oncoming sufferer reached a spot within twenty feet of these delighted people did he grasp the significance of Wallace's repeated gesture of pointing. Even then he understood only when the gesture was ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... Spacedrive could travel at speeds just slightly less than the top velocity of 186,000 miles per second. For the first time, the stars were within man's grasp. ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... Polly—and she flung her arms around her mother's neck and gave her a grasp that nearly choked Mrs. Pepper, "ain't I helpin' you some, mammy? Oh! I wish I could do something big for ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... and financial crises—than wrecks at sea; indeed, far less predictable, for I believe with the ex-mayor quoted by Bonamy Price, that finance is a subject which no man can understand in this world, or even in the next. The infinite ramifications, the endless actions and reactions, are beyond the grasp of any one but an impostor. The Professor just mentioned thought he had found the right thread of theory in the labyrinth of "Currency and Banking," and really did make a most sensible analysis of what actually went on in financial operations. Only ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... falling back to the southward toward Sterkstrom and Queenstown; thus abandoning railroad communication between East London, one of the sea bases, and the western theatre of war toward Naauwport and De Aar. Naauwport had also been quitted at about the same time, but the Boer grasp in that central quarter was never as firm as it was to the eastward and westward. General French was early established with his cavalry at Hanover Road, midway on the line from Naauwport to De Aar, and his ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan |
