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Grasp   Listen
verb
Grasp  v. i.  To effect a grasp; to make the motion of grasping; to clutch; to struggle; to strive. "As one that grasped And tugged for life and was by strength subdued."
To grasp at, to catch at; to try to seize; as, Alexander grasped at universal empire,






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Grasp" Quotes from Famous Books



... her hands in a hard grasp and searched her face and her eyes—eyes clear and sweet, though filled with misery. "Yes, that will do," he said. "It's all nonsense that you can't be engaged to me. You are engaged to me, and you are going to marry me. If you love me—and you say you do,—there's ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... 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 gradually learn to believe that the sin is in being found out. "Women mind not what only ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... the valley beyond the hills, and as they sat before a little fire where cooked a wild pig that had fallen to one of Tarzan's arrows, the latter sat lost in speculation. He seemed continually to be trying to grasp some mental image ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... is stated of our first cousin, once removed, the orang-outang, that in the adult state he is aroused only for the snatching of food, and then "relapses into repose." His reach does not exceed his grasp, and one need not preach contentment to him. But we, the latest and highest products of the struggle for existence, we are strugglers by constitution; and when we relapse into repose we degenerate. Only on condition of living for the ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... find his master. They had been obliged to escape so rapidly that captain Clarke lost his compass and umbrella. Chaboneau left his gun, shotpouch, and tomahawk, and the Indian woman had just time to grasp her child, before the net in which it lay at her feet was carried down the current. He now relinquished his intention of going up the river and returned to the camp at Willowrun. Here he found that ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... outside of those with which he chanced at the moment to be engrossed:—'Can you not wait? Is it necessary to consider now?' That was part of his concentration. Nor did he fly at a piece of business, deal with it, then let it fall from his grasp. It became part of him. If circumstances brought it again into his vicinity, they found him instantly ready, with a prompt continuity that is no small element of power in ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... the burgess body who showed his enterprise and patriotism by the performance of this great public service. If the State had a partiality, it was probably for the richer and more powerful classes of its citizens. They could embrace a greater quantity of land in their grasp, and so save the trouble which attended an estimate of the returns of a great number of small holdings; they possessed more effective means of reclaiming waste or devastated land, for they had a greater control of capital and labour; lastly, through their large ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... and tactful teacher, and be made immediately and obviously practical. All this is nothing more or less than conscience-building. The old superstition that children have innate faculties of such a finished sort that they flash up and grasp the principle of things by a rapid sort of first "intellection," an error that made all departments of education so trivial, assumptive and dogmatic for centuries before Comenius, Basedow and Pestalozzi, has been banished everywhere save ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... he said; "you don't grasp it, but to be a boy, sir, is the grandest thing in the world. Never be discontented because you have no ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... thus they played, and some lithe maids Upreached white arms to grasp the berried ash, And, plucking the bright bunches, shed them wide By red ripe handfuls, not far off I saw With long stride making down the beechy glade, Clear-eyed, with firm lips laughing, at his heels The clamor of his fifty deep-tongued hounds, ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts

... an ENJOYMENT different from that which the physicists of today offer us—and likewise the Darwinists and anti-teleologists among the physiological workers, with their principle of the "smallest possible effort," and the greatest possible blunder. "Where there is nothing more to see or to grasp, there is also nothing more for men to do"—that is certainly an imperative different from the Platonic one, but it may notwithstanding be the right imperative for a hardy, laborious race of machinists and bridge-builders of the future, who ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... I like to tramp, it seems like old times, and I know you're tired. Just forget all this I've been saying, and go on as before. Thank you, boys! thank you," and with a grasp of the two hands extended to him, he strode away along the path already worn ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... he pushed it softly open, and saw the unfortunate man upon his knees, the pistol in his hand, his eyes looking up to heaven. Clarence was in one moment behind him; and, seizing hold of the pistol, he snatched it from Vincent's grasp with so much calm presence of mind and dexterity, that, although the pistol was cocked, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... high and noble to the rank of the low and vulgar, of casting the pearls of a lofty and ennobled class before the swinish multitude, of throwing open the doors of the treasury, that creatures of low, plebeian blood might grasp the crown jewels which had for ages been kept sacred to the patrician few; in a word, we had to take upon ourselves all the odium of a despised democracy—a moral agrarianism which should make common property of all blessings and privileges, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... known in Falmouth and pretty generally held in awe. At sight of him advancing, the throng fell back and gave us passage in a sudden lull which reached even to where Nat Fiennes struggled in the grasp of a dozen longshoremen who were hailing him to the quay's edge, to fling him over. He broke loose, and before they could seize him again came staggering ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... questions and learned rapidly. D'Arnot taught him many of the refinements of civilization—even to the use of knife and fork; but sometimes Tarzan would drop them in disgust and grasp his food in his strong brown hands, tearing it with his molars ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... drankest as one that comes from a desert, Thou spiltest the nectar heedless, like mad; Yet I cursed not, nor shed tears; But loved thee, longed to live for thy love. Alas! thy tears grew salt, thy love thy self's greedy grasp,— O, it is the end; let us part! The morning of indifference wings the gray sky; The bird-song of the other dawns the raven's shriek now,— Shed no more tears, I tire of my drink; Break not thy heart; thy soul? Let it be still! Beyond ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji

... class are not likely to assist in the positive reconstruction of society. They shrink from the irrational methods of modern polities, and, further, they are so restricted in their narrow horizons that they are unable to grasp the wide generalisations ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... 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 not ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... motive, he enjoyed the sense of leadership which these gatherings gave him. If he was not a real leader now, he intended to become one. He listened to what men said, watched them, and said little himself. He was quick to grasp the fact that a reputation for shrewdness and wisdom is made by the simple method of keeping the ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson

... cried, 'Silenzio!' in a voice I can never forget. To-night he was gambling, and he lost heavily. He was furious; his friends began to chatter, and he cried that word again! I would know it a thousand years hence. I saw it all in a flash. I saw other things I had failed to grasp—his size, his appearance. I tell you he ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... narrow hallway connecting the four rooms on which the social regeneration of her village depended, she caught the sweet low thrum of a guitar and a too familiarly seductive voice burst forth into a chant, whose literal significance she was unable to grasp, owing to lack of familiarity with the language in which it was couched, but whose general tenor no one could mistake, so tender and ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam

... the giants sprang. But all that brood thou hast removed far off, And set by Ocean's utmost marge to dwell; But Hela into Niflheim thou threw'st, And gav'st her nine unlighted worlds to rule, A queen, and empire over all the dead. That empire wilt thou now invade, light up Her darkness, from her grasp a subject tear?— Try it; but I, for one, will not applaud. Nor do I merit, Odin, thou should'st slight Me and my words, though thou be first in Heaven; For I too am a Goddess, born of thee, Thine eldest, and of me the Gods are sprung; And all that is to come I know, but lock In ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... which he was aroused, by a repetition of the noises of rushing waters in his ears; and the sensation of the horrors of a mundane dissolution filled his mind. At that moment, his head came in violent contact with some object; which, on the impulse of the moment, he clutched with a drowning grasp; while with the friendly aid of the pendent branch of a tree, he had an indistinct recollection of drawing himself from the water, and alighting on the ground; where he sank in a state of utter insensibility. How long he remained in ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... for itself than for something else which it promises. The moments of good experience we expand till they fill all infinity; the intervening tracts of indifferent or bad we simply forget or ignore. Life is good, we say, because the universe is good; and this goodness we expect to grasp in its entirety, not to-day, perhaps, nor to-morrow, but at least the day after. And so, like the proverbial ass, we are lured on by a wisp of hay. But being, at bottom, intelligent brutes, we begin, in time, to reflect; we ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... passion for giving: that shall be poured forth to God—spent out for man: that shall be consecrated "for the hardest work and the darkest sinners." But how are we to enter in? How are we to escape from the self-life that holds us, even after the sin-life has loosed its grasp? ...
— Parables of the Cross • I. Lilias Trotter

... strip of coast up to the rear of Calais, (you Frenchmen have enough better harbors, anyway;) we terminate, of our own accord, this war which, now that we have safeguarded our honor, can bring us no other gains; we now return to the joy of fruitful work, and will grasp the sword again only if you attempt to crowd us out of that which we have won with our blood. Of a solemn peace conference, with haggling over terms, parchment, and seal, we have no need. The prisoners are to be freed. You can ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... was between them, what a friendship, what a secret! How many storms had both those old trees encountered since God first threw them together! The old elm had shaken, bent, and groaned under the violent grasp of the tempest, which hundreds of times had swept across that common. But it still stood, patiently and bravely waiting, amid the rolling years, for the end. Brave old elm! There is no sympathy in a tree, or this ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell

... the remaining passengers sought shelter from the encroaching dangers, by retreating to the passage, on the lee side of the boat, that leads from the after to the forward deck, as if to be as far as possible from the grasp of death. It may not be improper here to remark, that the destruction of the boat, and loss of life, was, doubtless, much more rapid than it otherwise would have been, from the circumstance of the boat heeling to windward, and the deck, which was nearly level with the water, forming, in consequence, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... hand in her dark, flowing tresses; already his dreadful weapon was brandished in the air, when it was crossed by the bright Toledo blade of the young cavalier, and flew from his grasp, clanging ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... has some charms for me," he replied smilingly, as though to indicate that sainthood was not yet quite within his grasp. ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... novel of this species that we happen to have before us is "The Old Grey Church." It is utterly tame and feeble; there is no one set of objects on which the writer seems to have a stronger grasp than on any other; and we should be entirely at a loss to conjecture among what phases of life her experience has been gained, but for certain vulgarisms of style which sufficiently indicate that she ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... good kindergarten gives the young human plants an impulse toward eager, vigorous growth. Love's warmth surrounds them on every side, wooing their sweetest possibilities into life. Roots take a firmer grasp, buds form, and flowers bloom where, under more unfriendly conditions, bare stalks or pale leaves would greet the eye,—pathetic, unfulfilled promises,—souls no happier for having lived in the world, the world no happier because of their living. "Virtue ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... Veath began his anguished remonstrance the ship gave a tremendous lurch, an overpowering wave hurled itself upon the frail shell and Hugh Ridgeway's frenzied grasp on the rail was broken. When he saw that he was going, he threw both arms about the girl he had brought to this awful fate, and, murmuring a prayer, whirled away with the waters over the battered deck-house and into the ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... late the damage to repair? Distance, forsooth, from my weak grasp hath reft The empty husk, and clutched the useless tare, But in my hands the wheat ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... the university doctors under my grasp, I must, before I die, reproach them with the extreme severity which they use towards their patients. As soon as one has the misfortune to fall into their hands, he must undergo a whole litany of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... question of life seemed settled for Hitty; her father admitted no nursing but hers. Month after month rolled away, and the numb grasp gradually loosed its hold on flesh and sense, but still Judge Hyde was bedridden. Year after year passed by, and no change for better or worse ensued. Hitty's life was spent between the two parlors and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... tear-stained lines fell from his grasp. Then he caught it up again and looked carefully at the signature. It was his wife's without doubt. Then he studied the rest of the writing and compared it with that of the note which had been thrust into his hands earlier in the day. There was no difference ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... aback, but he did not show it. The cool brain that had manufactured the income of a millionaire was fully alert now, not so much because he did not wish to be taken unawares, but because Carew interested him beyond most men, and he wanted to try and grasp the working of ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... we can reach is this: Life changes. And what is more enthralling to the human mind than this splendid, boundless, coloured mutability!—life in the making? How strange it is, then, that we should be contented to take such small parts of it as we can grasp, and to say, "This is the true explanation." By such devices we seek to bring infinite existence within our finite egoistic grasp. We solidify and define where solidification means loss of interest; and loss of interest, not ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... work mouthed over by the entirely ignorant and incompetent, it is equally reviving to hear what you have written discussed and analysed by a critic who is master of his subject—by one whose heart feels, whose powers grasp the matter he undertakes to handle. Such refreshment Eugene Forcade has given me. Were I to see that man, my impulse would be to say, "Monsieur, you know me, I shall deem it ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... returned to her blood. Her brain cleared, and she was able to think, to grasp at the probable significance of his action in deserting New York and his coveted opportunities. Something whispered to her that he was going away because of his own sufferings and not those of the poor wretches at the front. Her heart swelled ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... clothes of their history. But I know, at the same time, that some of the most important crises in my own history (by which word history I mean my growth towards the right conditions of existence) have been beyond the grasp and interpretation of my intellect. They have passed, as it were, without my consciousness being awake enough to lay hold of their phenomena. The wind had been blowing; I had heard the sound of it, but knew not whence it came ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... typical hut to grasp the significance of its work, in order that we may realize what is going on in the fifteen hundred similar centers. We are on the great Salisbury Plain, in the midst of thirty miles square of weltering mud during ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy

... opposition, and so does not present the facts in a convincing manner or he himself may have such a confused idea of the factors in the case that he cannot state them clearly. The prospective client may have a remarkably quick, keen comprehension of the essential factors of any plan, but may be unable to grasp details, while, on the other hand, the solicitor, not knowing this, may present his proposition in such minute detail as to confuse. Or the situation may be exactly reversed. The client's mind may be very slow in action and demand the presentation of a few essential facts ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... Charley,' one of the escaped prisoners, who, it will be remembered, was drummed out of his tribe and sentenced by the courts for the murder of a white settler last spring. Small outlying settlements will rejoice when this body of hardened desperate men are once more in the grasp of the law." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... have not accomplished more than a fraction of the good done by this munificence of 1857. This gift brooded charities all over the land. This mothered educational institutions. This gave glorious suggestion to many whose large fortune was hitherto under the iron grasp of selfishness. If the ancestral line of many an asylum or infirmary or college or university were traced back far enough, you would learn that Peter Cooper was the illustrious progenitor. Who can estimate the ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... of Red Perris he saw all his hopes eluding his grasp. With Red Jim escaped and his promise to the rancher unfulfilled, what would become of his permanent hold on Oliver Jordan? Ay, and Red Jim, once more in safety and mounted on that matchless horse, would swoop down on the Valley of the Eagles and strike ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... peered within. Abruptly Rador was between them. One dropped his hilt and gripped him—the green dwarf's poniard flashed and was buried in his throat. Down upon Rador's head swept the second blade. A flame leaped from O'Keefe's hand and the sword seemed to fling itself from its wielder's grasp—another flash and the soldier crumpled. Rador threw himself into the shell, darted to the high seat—and straight between the pillars of the ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... never thought of what comes after death. A soldier's life does not demand much thinking. Those who cannot understand the lofty political ends involved and the interests of nation and nation; who cannot grasp political schemes as well as plans of campaign and combine the science of the tactician with that of the administrator, are bound to live in a state of ignorance; the most boorish peasant in the most backward district in France is scarcely ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... king? While the dread notes echo from mountain to mountain, the most of them are in caves, hidden—like Obadiah's prophets. Three, only three, step forward. These lions of the Covenant are Cameron, Cargill, and Douglass. They grasp the old battle-banner, and carrying it to the new position call upon the Covenanted sons of freedom to rally under its floating folds. The "remnant" gave ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... intenseness of the compliments conveyed in Olga's Dream, as written by NORLEY CHESTER, illustrated by Messrs. FURNISS AND MONTAGU (the illustrations will carry the book), and published by Messrs. SKEFFINGTON. It would be a preternaturally wise child who could quite grasp some of the jokes and up-to-date allusions. However, the real original Alice (in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-glass) with the great Master's, JOHN TENNIEL'S, illustrations, is still, as Mr. Sam Weller said of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various

... flushed and glowed with passion as he read! The martyrs of old could forgive their enemies for the tortures inflicted on them; but could they also pardon the inhumanity shown to their loved ones? Manasseh crumpled the paper in his hand with vindictive energy, as if he had held in his grasp the authors of that detestable plot. Yet what right had he now to take vengeance on a man whom he had refrained from punishing on Anna's behalf? Anna was his own sister, and as such a beloved being. Her life ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... their fulfillment, and without the previous knowledge of Parliament. Mr. Gladstone's speech during this debate is described as "a long and eloquent address, unsurpassable for its comprehensive grasp of the subject, its lucidity, point, and the high tone which animated it throughout." Mr. Gladstone denied that his strictures upon the Government in a speech made out of Parliament could be construed as ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... Morton's early life remind one of certain processes in the budding of a flower. They indicate a tendency to some object which perhaps was not at the time wholly clear to the man himself. Impelled by the humanitarian spirit of the age, he moved forward with a clear eye and firm hand to grasp the opportunity when it arrived,—nor was ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... masses of men will not thus abdicate human weakness, and their reason ever remains far in the rear of their necessity. All that preserved or restored to the ancient possessors of privilege a gleam of hope, urged and tempted them to grasp it. The Restoration could not fail to produce this effect. The fall of privilege had entrained the subversion of the throne; it might be hoped that the throne would restore privilege with its own re-establishment. ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... vacuity of any sterling quality, a deliquescence of the moral nature, a frivolity and inconsequence of purpose that mark the nearly perfect fruit of a decadent age. He has a worthless smattering of many subjects, but a grasp of none. "I soon weary of a pursuit," he said to me, laughing; it would almost appear as if he took a pride in his incapacity and lack of moral courage. The results of his dilettanteism are to be seen in every field; he is a bad fencer, a second-rate horseman, dancer, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... off into deep water again by the merciless undertow. The first time I dug my fingers, knees, and the toes of my boots into the pebbles, in the hope of bringing myself and my senseless charge to an anchor; but I might as well have attempted to grasp the air. The whole of that portion of the beach which was exposed to the action of the sea was a vast moving mass, the shingle being alternately thrown up and sucked back again in tons, as the water hurled itself high upon the beach ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... creature. I am a loathsome, poisonous reptile, and you ought to put your foot on my neck and keep it there forever and ever. Now I know why I have been so mean to you. It is because I love you so much. You cannot grasp that, can you? You could if ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... both the idea centers and the power of willing. We at once create for him the positive idea motor-form, and if his conscious mind is too weak to receive the impulse, we project it into his psychic mind, helping him hold on to the new idea until his own mind is able to grasp it, and it ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... had seen Nancy play before; but she forgot her own part of the game in sheer amazement at the way Mr. Dennison managed his long body, which seemed to go where there was no room for it, and vanish into air just when the grasp of some grasping "blind man" was ready to fasten upon him. And when he was blinded, he seemed to know by instinct where the walls were, and keeping clear of them, he would swoop like a hawk from one end of the room to the ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... reformed his line, disentangled his guns, brought forward fresh ammunition and prepared for the great combat which he knew was coming. Bragg, as he noticed the advance of the short winter day, resolved upon the utmost effort to crush his enemy. Victory had seemed wholly in his grasp in the morning, but he had been checked at the last moment. He would make good ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler

... turnkey, that the sound of the hammer in the erection of the gallows had put him almost distracted, and precipitated the execution of the purpose, which he had wished to delay till after the arrival of the mail. I had little doubt that he might now be kept from the grasp of the death-stupor for the remaining three quarters of an hour; but, alas! what would be my triumph? Every minute added to the certainty that I was only preparing for him and his relations greater pain; for, in any view, he could not walk to the fatal spot without as much aid as ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... about this home to which he and his family were to grow as trees grasp the soil. Already it seemed better to him than the one he had left. There would be new playmates, new landscapes, new meadows to run in, new neighbors, new prospects. The home, so distant during the journey that he had scarcely thought about it at all, now ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... the snow were wide stains of blood. His wound would certainly make the bear more savage, and might not have much weakened him. Still, forgetting the risk they were running, they all three made a rush at him with their spears. He attempted to get up, seizing Charley's spear from his grasp, and biting furiously at it, but Philip's and Harry's pinned him to the bank. Still his strength was great, and it was not till Philip was able to get a blow at his head with his axe that ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston

... of the marriage between Catherine and Prince Henry. Henry VII. was equally averse from the consummation of the match. Now that he was scheming with Charles's other grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian, to wrest the government of Castile from Ferdinand's grasp, the alliance of the King of Aragon had lost its attraction, and it was possible that the Prince of Wales might find elsewhere a more desirable bride. Henry's marriage with Catherine was to have been accomplished ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... coachman the night they were robbed on Hounslow Heath. There were the stories also told by the wayfaring old soldier with the wooden leg, and fifty others, up to this more than half disregarded, but which now seized on the popular belief with a startling grasp. ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... fights the daily battle without fear; Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust That God is God; that somehow, true and just, His plans work out for mortals; not a tear Is shed when fortune, which the world holds dear, Falls from his grasp: better, with love, a crust Than living in dishonor: envies not, Nor loses faith in man; but does his best, Nor ever murmurs at his humbler lot, But, with a smile and words of hope, gives zest To every toiler: he alone is great Who by ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... have done it," said Bond. "I admire some of your things so much. Your instinct for realities, your sturdy central grasp—" ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... Campbell," said Alan, and then; catching sight of Sandy and the Twins hanging back behind their father, what did he do but pucker up his lips and whistle the pewit call? The Clan was too overcome then even to attempt a pucker, and Alan, springing forward, tried to grasp three hands at once and introduced them to his mother as his ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... red weapon descended Kelly shot up his hand and caught it. He twisted on the oar to wrest it from Denny's grasp, and the two suddenly went to the floor, ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose

... George, as he instinctively gave the grasp of greeting—"your brother that was lost? Upon my word," as the matter dawned fully on him, and he became eager, "I am very glad to see you. I never was more rejoiced ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... long time the deadly fire, poured in on all sides, began to tell upon Breyman's solid battalions. Our marksmen harassed his flanks. His front was hard pressed, and there were no signs of Baum. Enraged by the thought of having victory torn from their grasp, the Americans gave ground foot by foot, and inch by inch. At last the combatants were firing in each other's faces; so close was the encounter, so deadly the strife, that Breyman's men were falling round him by scores, under the close and accurate aim of their assailants. Darkness was closing ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake

... was trim, dapper, in spite of the fact that his standing collar was a size or two too large; in spite, too, of the tiny, well-trimmed goatee. He looked like a faun in trouble. With a shadow of distress crossing his face, he gave ground and backed away, the lamp tipping perilously in his grasp. Joe sprang forward and rescued it, setting ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... and modern philosophic theories is useful as showing how impossible it is, for even the greatest thinkers of any age, to grasp the Absolute with our understanding or to measure the Infinite with our finite units. The propounders of all these theories seem to me to be, without exception, looking in the wrong direction for the "Reality of Being"; ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein

... top, where, though the way might be rough and strong winds blow, she would get a wider outlook over the broad earth, and be nearer the serene blue sky. For the first time in her life religion seemed a visible and vital thing; a power that she could grasp and feel, take into her life and make her daily bread. Not a vague, vast idea floating before her, now beautiful, now terrible, always ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... hand away from the grasp of Asti, the tiny sun and its planets followed, spinning now above her palm as they had above the statue's. But out of the cowled figure some virtue had departed with the going of the miniature solar system; it was now but a carving of stone. ...
— The Gifts of Asti • Andre Alice Norton

... valley: thus in the following instant it seemed to me that I saw a certain thing, as it might be a shadow, move on the outer borders of the firelight. Now the man who had kept watch before me had left his spear stuck upright in the sand convenient to my grasp, and, seeing something moving, I seized the weapon and hurled it with all my strength in its direction; but there came no answering cry to tell that I had struck anything living, and immediately afterwards there fell once more a great silence upon the island, being ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... 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 without a ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade

... dollars every day to know that one sentence, You cannot get something for nothing. Life just begins to get juicy when you know it. Today when I open a newspaper and see a big ad, "Grasp a Fortune Now!" I will not do it! I stop my subscription to that paper. I simply will not take a paper with that ad in it, for I have ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette

... betrayal by the gleams from the shutter-chinks and the latch-hole. The rain and darkness had got thicker, and he was glad of it; though it was awkward walking with both hands filled, so that it was as much as he could do to grasp his whip along with one of the bags. But when he had gone a yard or two, he might take his time. So he ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... passion of the queen prevailed. When all was accurately combined, and the Swiss troops were on the march to the rendezvous, the king revoked his orders, and on July 10 the Feuillant ministry resigned, and the Girondins saw power once more within their grasp. They had vehemently denounced the king as the cause of all the troubles of the State, and on July 6 the assault had been interrupted for a moment by a scene of emotion, when the bishop of Lyons obtained ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... O'Hallaghans being driven to the church-yard, they were at a mighty great inconvenience for weapons. Most of them had lost their sticks, it being a usage in fights of this kind to twist the cudgels from the grasp of the beaten men, to prevent them from rallying. They soon, however, furnished themselves with the best they could find, videlicet, the skull, leg, thigh, and arm bones, which they found lying about the grave-yard. This was a new species of weapon, for which the majority of the O'Callaghans ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... with the management of things for eternity, and man denies us ability to judge of the present, or to know from our feelings the experience that will make us happy. "You can discern," they say, "objects distant and remote, but cannot perceive those within your grasp. Let us have the distribution of present goods, and cut out and manage as you please the interests of futurity." This day, I trust, the reign of political protestantism will commence. We have explored the temple of royalty, and found that the idol we have bowed down to has eyes which see ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... only officers who accompanied him. It is satisfactory to know that from the moment of the earl's departure misfortune and disaster fell upon the fortunes of King Charles, and that the crown which he had received from the English earl was wrested from his unworthy grasp. Peterborough had gone but a short distance when he heard that all his baggage, consisting of eight wagon loads and of the value of eight thousand pounds sterling, had fallen into the hands of the enemy. When he left Valencia to extricate the king from his difficulties ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... Manston was the taller, but there was in Edward much hard tough muscle which the delicate flesh of the steward lacked. They flew together like the jaws of a gin. In a minute they were both on the floor, rolling over and over, locked in each other's grasp as tightly as if they had been one organic being at war with itself—Edward trying to secure Manston's arms with a small thong he had drawn from his pocket, Manston trying ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... then reached out to seize her by the shoulders, but she eluded his grasp and went speeding off across the lawn with him in pursuit. They reached the tennis court, laughing and flushed, Della still in the lead. There Della beckoned the other girl to ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... these things in my heart, I felt the grasp of a hand upon my shoulder. I turned with a shriek; it was my aunt seeking me. 'What are you doing here?' she said, ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... world to understand all this, he must yet visualize our social system more clearly perhaps than most of us see it, if he would know why so many of our love poems are addressed to the woman we have not yet met. When we begin to sympathize with him in his efforts to grasp the meaning of our literature, we are at last awakened ourselves to some notion of what our civilization means, and as Hearn guides us through the discipline, we realize an exotic quality in things which ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... looked at the figure by the stove, and then back at Matilda. The little girl finished her sweeping and came back, to receive a warm grasp of the hand from her minister; one of the things Matilda liked ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner

... effect of his almost two years' absence from Rome was, I think, to deprive him of the power of judging clearly of the course of events. He had constant intelligence and excellent correspondents—especially Caelius—still he could not really grasp what was going on under the surface: and when he returned to find the civil war on the point of breaking out, he was, after all, taken by surprise, and had no plan of action ready. This, as well as his ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... her eyes as she spoke. And the enormity of those tidings, coming as they did on the top of my dejection, benumbed me. All they meant was yet far away from my grasp, but the one supreme result that was first up to me brought me near to fainting in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Seine makes round the verge of the Chatou woods. His Majesty, who observes every thing, noticed two bathers in the river, who apparently were trying to teach their much younger companion, a lad of fourteen or fifteen, to swim; doubtless, they had hurt him, for he got away from their grasp, and escaped to the river-bank, to reach his clothes and dress himself. They tried to coax him back into the water, but he did not relish such treatment; by his gestures it was plain that he desired no further ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... had wandered over the island in search of food until we were nearly starved, when she discovered us, and told us that our efforts would be useless unless we consulted with her father. 'If thou canst ensnare him and hold him in thy grasp,' she said, 'he will tell thee how to reach thy home. He is a seer, and can tell thee all that has taken place there during thy absence. At noon-tide he comes out from the ocean caves covered with brine, and lies down among the sea-calves, rank with the smell of salt. ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... double stimulus may only add a small pleasure or convert it into agony. These and other difficulties imply the hopelessness of searching for this chimerical unit of 'utility' when considered as a separate thing. It shifts and escapes from our hands directly we grasp it. Ricardo discusses some of these points in his interesting chapter on 'Value and Riches.' Gold, he says, may cost two thousand times more than iron, but it is certainly not two thousand times as useful.[326] Suppose, again, that some invention enables you to ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... a dodge that will bring them all into my grasp, if you'll only let me take a labourer's place with that peasant. But I can't explain what it ...
— The First Distiller • Leo Tolstoy

... are from each other. The same illusion is produced by the stars, which are millions of miles apart, and yet appear so thick in the sky, that your brother Emile was regretting, the other night, that he was not tall enough to grasp a handful ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... that God, in 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 ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... sojourner as I am in the land, though for me no social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its doors, nor the warm grasp of friendship welcome me at the threshold, yet I feel the influence of the season beaming into my soul from the happy looks of those around me. Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven, and every countenance, bright with ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... deal with things, not theories; hence, the abstract treatment of civil government is deferred until the pupil's mind is able to grasp it. ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman

... to his wife if he would keep her love and respect. He should confide his business to her as far as she, in her inexperience, is able to grasp it, and he should teach her the things about it which it is important for her to know. Through his conversation alone she can get the rudiments of a good business training, and she will at least be able to comprehend the changes he may make or the difficulties ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway

... five paces, and that there, too, are the feeble of the race around which his genius has shed a halo like that of Homer's own heros?' I was fresh from 'The Mohicans,' and my hand trembled as it met the cordial grasp of the man to whom I owed so many pleasing hours. I asked about the Indians. 'They are poor specimens,' said he; 'fourth-rate at best in their own woods, and ten-times worse for the lives they are leading here.'" Later, Mr. ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... intuitively, as the days wore on, that he was growing cold toward her. It was pitiful to see her grasp the hands of the little maid that had been engaged to take care of her, and hear her beg her to dress her prettily, and to see that every curl was in place, and the lace at her throat ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... The next instant the kangaroo was upon Shanter, grasping him with its forepaws and hugging him tightly against its chest, in spite of the black's desperate struggles and efforts to trip his assailant up. There he looked almost like a child in the grasp of a strong man, and to make matters worse, the black had no weapon left, not even a knife, and he could not reach the ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn

... you, my man. Just put those things down, and get out of this as fast as you can,' I exclaimed, walking up to him. He tried to grasp the things, and to make a bolt with them, but I was too quick for him; and while I sung out at the top of my voice, he let the things fall, and made a dart out of the room. I followed him as fast as I could run, and had I not unfortunately slipped, I should have ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... number of cakes. It was at this juncture that Clara Belle and Susan Simpson consulted Rebecca, who threw herself solidly and wholeheartedly into the enterprise, promising her help and that of Emma Jane Perkins. The premiums within their possible grasp were three: a bookcase, a plush reclining chair, and a banquet lamp. Of course the Simpsons had no books, and casting aside, without thought or pang, the plush chair, which might have been of some use in a family of ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... when the name of a thing was made plain to him, he seemed to grasp it immediately and never forgot it. This expedited matters wonderfully, for I liked to talk to him and observe his efforts to repeat what I said, so there was ample conversation, though somewhat one-sided, going on in our ancient dwelling. I marveled ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various

... the old gentleman, extending his hand and giving the youth a grasp worthy of one of the old Cornish giants; "do you know I was thinking, as I saw you leap over the stile, that you would make ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... ethnic types of the two races that are here brought together, the problem becomes one of the gravest intricacy that has ever taxed human wisdom and human patience for solution. This situation makes it necessary for the Negro as a race to grasp firmly ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... suffered our friendship to lose all its value; by moderation have we given up commerce to the rapacity of an enemy, formidable only for his perseverance, and suffered our merchants to be ruined, and our sailors to be enslaved. By moderation have we permitted the French to grasp again at general dominion, to overrun Germany with their armies, and to endanger again the liberties of mankind; and by continuing, for a very few years, the same laudable moderation, we shall probably encourage them to shut up our ships in our harbour, and demand a tribute ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... worked his rifle in cold fury. He aimed at no man, but the propelling grids were large. For a one-man ship they were five feet in diameter, and for the big freight ships, they were circles fifteen feet across. They were perfect targets, and Aten seemed to grasp the necessary tactics almost instantly. Dead ahead or from straight astern, Tommy could not miss a shot. The fleet of Rahn went fluttering downward. Fifteen of the biggest were down, and six of the two-man planes. ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... one or two regular pupils who accompanied the jurisconsult, attended carefully to his words, and committed them assiduously to memory or writing. Cicero himself did this for the younger Scaevola, and thus laid the foundation of that clear grasp on the civil law which was so great a help to him in his more difficult speeches. It was not necessary that the pupil should himself intend to become a consultus; it was enough that he desired to acquire the knowledge for public purposes, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... I wouldn't turn my head, if I were you, though that big hat she's got on, with the wreath of wild roses, is very becoming. She ought always to wear white. She is inside the gate now." His hand was given a quick warm grasp. "Boy—boy—I've been young. If she needs you I ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... arms around Ben, and lift him from the ground, which would enable him to throw him with greater ease. But Ben was wary, and experienced in this mode of warfare, having often had scuffles in fun with his school-fellows. He evaded Tim's grasp, therefore, and dealt him a blow in the breast, which made Tim stagger back. He began to realize that Ben, though a smaller boy, was a formidable opponent, and regretted that he had undertaken a contest with him. He was constrained to appeal to his ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

... break cover, at such a moment, and under such circumstances; but it was absolutely necessary to incur its risks. My first leap carried me half-way down the declivity, and I was soon on the level land. In my front were two men, one of whom seemed to me to be in the grasp of the other. As they were moving, though slowly, in the direction of the house, I ventured to ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... carrying on a conversation. This magic zither has been hidden for three hundred centuries in an old bureau drawer, guarded by the Iron Duck, and, although many have attempted to rescue it, all have died of a strange ailment just as success was within their grasp. ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... swift fairy,— A pearl-shallop airy! I am caught, quick as thought! fleece-muffled and hairy, Her grim boatman tightens His grasp, till it frightens Me, half, as we sail to the east where it brightens, ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... Edward leaves his resting place And Sarsfield's face is glad and fierce. See Emmet leap from troubled sleep To grasp the hand ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer

... Volaski was put under the influence of chloroform, and the operation was performed. His youth and vigorous constitution bore him safely through the trying ordeal, but could not save him from the terrible irritative fever that set in and held him in its fiery grasp for ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... the great morning that transformed him into Don Cristobal Colon, Admiral and Viceroy under their Highnesses, the king and queen of Spain. Let us hope that he did not think too much about these titles, for we ourselves don't think about them at all. We are only trying to grasp the joy it must have given him to know that he had been true to his grand purpose; that he had waited and suffered for it; and that now, after declaring he could find lands in the unknown ocean, he had found ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley

... hurriedly, and delivered a handful of envelopes into Grandfather Cornelius's grasp. The old gentleman scanned them at ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... blank, without emotions. There was a barely sensed surge and return that must have been neural impulses on a basic level—the automatic adjustments of nerve and muscle that keep an organism alive. Nothing more. Brion reached for other sensations, but there was nothing there to grasp. Either these men were without emotions, or they were able to block them from his detection; it was impossible ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... by name, and when he had answered, "Here am I," God's words were revealed to him, and every commandment as a special revelation. God always allowed a pause to take place between the different laws to be imparted, that Moses might have time rightly to grasp what was told ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... lie. Yes, I love you, Rorie; but I love your honour, and my own, better than the chance of a happiness that might fade and wither before we could grasp it. I know that your mother had a very poor opinion of me while she was alive; I should like her to know, if the dead know anything, that she was mistaken, and that I am not quite unworthy of her respect. ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... sorrow, whose life is interwoven with the ills of the earth! | | Could I but speak to you in the language of the truth or had I but | | room to draw the picture as it is, I think your reason would revolt at | | its use, and break its chains, bidding defiance to the deadly grasp of | | its seditious habits. | | | | ——When you become satisfied that tobacco is injurious to you. If you | | have not courage to divorce the habit at once and had rather steal | | away from its grasp unconsciously and ...
— Vanity, All Is Vanity - A Lecture on Tobacco and its effects • Anonymous

... to wreck her happiness. He could not know all that hung upon it. Her happiness! She shivered suddenly in the chill of the morning air. Could it be that happiness—the greatest of all—had been actually within her grasp, and she had let it slip unheeded? Sharply she turned her thoughts back. No, she must not—must not ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... with giddiness, and the hair rose on my head; but my strong will still reigned supreme over all the terror and disquietude. I gained the water, and at once plunged into it, holding on by one hand, while I immersed the other and seized the dear letter, which, alas! came in two in my grasp. I concealed the two fragments in my body-coat, and helping myself with my feet against the side of the pit, and clinging on with my hands, agile and vigorous as I was, and, above all, pressed for time, I regained the brink, drenching it as I touched it with the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... laid hold of by Jesus Christ.' That is how Paul thinks of what we call his conversion. He would never have 'turned' unless a hand had been laid upon him. A strong loving grasp had gripped him in the midst of his career of persecution, and all that he had done was to yield to the grip, and not to wriggle out of it. The strong expression suggests, as it seems to me, the suddenness of the incident. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Probabilism, that a doubtful law has no binding power. It will be observed that this is a reflex principle. For objectively nothing is doubtful, but everything is or is not in point of fact. To a mind that had a full grasp of the objective order of things, there would be no doubtful law: such a mind would discern the law in every case as holding or not holding. But no human mind is so perfect. Every man has to take account of his own limitations of vision ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... sportsman and the skill of the surgeon, did not equally excite them to meditate on the labours of the builder and the ploughman, I can only answer that what we see in its remote cause is always more feebly felt than that which presents to our immediate grasp both ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... controls us, for the most part unconsciously and without protest on our part. We are in the main its willing adherents. The imagination of the most radically-minded cannot transcend any great part of the ideas and customs transmitted to him. When once we grasp this truth, we shall, according to our mood, humbly congratulate ourselves that ... we are permitted to stand on the giant's shoulders, and enjoy an outlook that would be quite hidden to us, if we had to trust to our own short legs; or we may resentfully chafe at our ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... adhered to him and fought by his 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 ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... with Dutch gable ends toward the street. Having made sure of its identity, and having reddened a little at the gaze of Madge and me, the young stranger set down his bag with perceptible signs of physical relief, and, keeping in his grasp the basket with the cat, knocked with a seemingly forced boldness—as if he were conscious of timidity ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... his sword, and pricked him, when he sank down to the bottom and lay still. Then Scarlett seemed to come out of the hole and reproach him for being a coward and a rebel, seizing him at last and shaking him severely, and all the while, though he struggled hard, he could not free himself from his grasp. So tight was his hold that he felt helpless and half strangled, the painful sensation of inability to move increasing till he seemed to make one terrible effort, seized the hands which held him, looked fiercely in his assailant's eyes, and ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... genuine humility and contrition evinced by her in the last scene of an unsullied life, furnished the best evidence of her guiltlessness even of a wish to resume the sceptre which paternal authority had once forced on her reluctant grasp; and few could witness the piteous spectacle of her violent and untimely end, without a thrill of indignant horror, and secret imprecations against the barbarity of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... sister Mary. Suffice it that we rushed up the stair which led direct to the Captain's room, and there we found him lying with the bone gleaming white through his throat. A hunting-knife lay in the room- -and the knife was Lord Avon's. A lace ruffle was found in the dead man's grasp—and the ruffle was Lord Avon's. Some papers were found charred in the grate—and the papers were Lord Avon's. Oh, my poor friend, in what moment of madness did you come ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... could not do, and as her weight was considerable, he gravely seated himself on the floor, and implored Katie and Dolores to help him. This they did, and their united efforts succeeded in loosening Mrs. Russell's grasp. The stricken lady gave a gasp and raised her head, but "His Majesty" was too nimble for her. By a desperate movement he withdrew from her reach, and stood for a moment at ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... themselves by watching the gambols and antics of a pretty tiny monkey in the trees close by. The Prince presently became so fascinated by it that he sprang up and tried to catch it, but it eluded his grasp and kept just out of arm's reach, until it had made him promise to follow wherever it led him, and then it sprang upon his shoulder and ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... are incapable of telling the exact truth. The unfortunate part of the law is that this is not officially recognized. There is a hypocrisy in not recognizing the inadequacy of human eyes and ears to grasp even simple concrete facts. A timidity exists that will not allow ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... were heard by Mr. Rollins, who, ready to grasp at a floating straw, in his extremity, even as might a drowning man, ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... difficulties I am liable to encounter. The human heart, which will be the subject of my letters, presents so many contrasts, that whoever lays it bare must fall into a flood of contradictions. You think you have something stable in your grasp, but find you have seized a shadow. It is indeed a chameleon, which, viewed from different aspects, presents a variety of opposite colors, and even they are constantly shifting. You may expect to read many strange things in what I shall say upon this subject. I will, however, give ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

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

... jerked into the light before he had a chance to reply. "More bums!" growled the voice; and Samuel, terrified, saw that he was in the grasp of a policeman. ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair

... your master that he is not my master!" He seized the valet de chambre by the collar. He was at least a head shorter than his adversary, but his grasp was like iron; and in spite of appearances, great Fritz proved but a weak and nerveless body, and greatly surprised at this unexpected attack, he could only open his large mouth and utter some inarticulate sounds. Gilbert had already dragged him to the top of the staircase. Then Fritz, recovering ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... desire to govern yourself, you must let God govern you. If you desire to be firm, you must draw your firmness from the unchangingness of that divine nature which you grasp. How can a willow be stiffened into an iron pillar? Only—if I might use such a violent metaphor—when it receives into its substance the iron particles that it draws from the soil in which it is rooted. How can ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... knots in it," Desmond said. "They will help us to avoid sliding down too rapidly. If it was a thick rope, I think we could manage without them; but, not being sailors, I do not think that we could grasp this tightly enough." ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty

... 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

... more with us conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, Once more with us to-night, old Fitz, once more Remould it nearer to the ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... stay indefinitely; what availed it then that the prejudice and ambition which had exiled him were now annihilated? The eagerly coveted-prize for which he would have sacrificed his daughter's peace, had turned to ashes in his grasp. ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... becoming crooked. On this account, the arm on which they rest should be often changed. Nor should they be grasped too firmly. A skilful mother will hold a child quite loosely, with the most perfect safety; while an inexperienced one will grasp him so hard as to expose the soft bones to be bent out of their place, and yet be quite as liable to let him fall as she who handles him with more ease ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... the disadvantages of this force or quality in a commonwealth are apparent, for the weakness and disadvantages of something extraneous to ourselves are never difficult to grasp. What is of more moment for us is to understand, with whatever difficulty, the strength which such a quality conveys. Not to have understood that strength, nay, not to have appreciated the existence of the force of which I speak, has made nearly all the English histories of France worthless. French ...
— On Something • H. Belloc



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