"Grope for" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Then, remembering the shock experienced by a suddenly awakened somnambulist, and remembering that the Chinese ladder hung from the window at my feet, I changed my mind. Checking the cry upon my lips, I got astride of the window ledge, and began to grope for the bamboo rungs beneath me. I had found the first of these, and, turning, had ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... blessing, but where it has enough to do to live, whence it cannot move to obtain what it wants or likes, but must stretch its unfortunate arms here and there for bare breath and light, and split its way among rocks, and grope for sustenance in unkindly soil; it would be hard upon the plant, I say, if under all these disadvantages, it were made answerable for its appearance, and found fault with because it was not a fine plant of the kind. And so we find it ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... wasn't as sure about Fee as she pretended to be, and the hope that had come up in my heart died right out. My eyes got so blinded with tears that I just had to grope for my hat; but as I was opening the outer door, I heard something that brought me in ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... finger. M. Etienne let fall the bracelet he was holding, staring at her oblivious of aught else, his brows knotted in distress, his face afire with love and sympathy. He made a step forward; I thought him about to catch her in his arms, when he recollected himself and dropped on his knees to grope for the fallen trinket. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... promised love, immortal as a star. You promised true, yet how the truth can lie! For now we grope for hands where no hands are, And, deathless, still we cry, Nor hope for ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... hab a candle," she said, after a time. "Git yer knittin', chile, an' 'pear as ef ye didn't distrus' de Lord. What ef de wind is blowin'? what ef de sea is a-screamin'? Don't ye know whose wind and whose sea 'tis?" She got up to grope for a candle on the shelf ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... little doubt that there is a tendency on the part of men of science at the present day so to regard it. It should, of course, be frankly admitted that no one is in a position to prove that, from the cosmic mist, in which we grope for the beginnings of our universe, to the organized whole in which vegetable and animal bodies have their place, there is an unbroken series of changes all of which are explicable by a reference to mechanical laws. Chemistry, ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... the fumes of brandy, it dawned that he had absolutely no covering on him. Sleepily he felt with his hands this way and that, up and down. To no purpose. His blankets must certainly have fallen on the floor, but try as he might, no hand could he lay on them. Slipping out of bed to grope for flint and steel wherewith to strike a light, with soul-rending shock he ran his forehead full butt against the open door ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... first peering glance through the dimness reassured him on this point. The owner of the bag had taken the hint, and stowed himself in his own bunk. Max could just make out a huddled shape under bedclothes which had been drawn high for warmth. Then he knelt down to grope for the suitcase which he had pushed far under his own berth. Seeking it in the semi-darkness, a wave sent him sprawling. He heard from somewhere a shrill crash of glass, a sudden babble of excited voices, and decided it would not be worth while to undress ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... or sad, For youth and hope and health all keep me glad; But too bright sunlight, sometimes, makes us blind, And I do grope for heights I cannot find. Oh, thou must know my one supreme desire - Lean down and ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the jasper and crystal-stone; for indeed the end of Ezekiel's vision was to show us, that as when the glory of God departed from the city, it signified that he would take away from them the light of his Word, and their clearness of worship, suffering them to mourn for the loss of the one, and to grope for the want of the other; so at his return again he would give them both their former light of truth, and also the clearness of spirit to understand it, which also John doth show us ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday as ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... taught to think of all the notes of the scale in relation to the key-note. A very sensible objection is sometimes raised to this, i.e. that it must surely entail a great deal of detachment from the matter in hand if the mind has to grope for the key-note between every two consecutive notes of a melody. But this process becomes automatic very quickly. We are not conscious of references to the multiplication tables every time we do a sum, yet we could not do ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... then spun around so as to confuse his sense of direction. He then says, "Still pond; no more moving!" whereupon the other players must stand still, being allowed only three steps thereafter. The blindfolded player begins to grope for the others. When he catches one, he must guess by touching the hair, dress, etc., whom he has caught. If he guesses correctly, the player changes places with him. If incorrectly, he must go on with his search. The players may resort to any reasonable devices for escaping the ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... glad! And do not blindly grope For Truth that lies beyond our scope: A sober plot informeth all Of Life's uproarious carnival. Your day is such a little one, A gnat that lives from sun to sun; Yet gnat and you have parts to play — What ho! the ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... Already has the Incarnation of goodness appeared to mankind, and, though the world be moved to virtue only slowly and with reluctance, mark how mighty has been his influence! What think you, then, would be the power of a Christ of evil, showing to men the path they already grope for? I tell you, the human race would be his only; Hell, full to bursting with their hurrying souls, would outweigh Heaven in the balance; the teller of the secret would be king ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... must go home," she said. "Will you find the car? No, I am not ill. I—" She paused, seemed to grope for words, stopped, and suddenly a bewildered look came into her face. Her eyes dilated. She gave a sharp gasp. Tudor ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... boots And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down The stale despair of night, must now renew Their desolation in the truce of dawn, Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace. ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... ring from her, and it rolled under the cabinet. She knelt to grope for it, and, having found it, she shut the box. But, like Pandora, she had let out a whole army of evil fancies, and they continued ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... With reason greater than they know. Ah, me! Thought surges upon thought, and has its will, Care, gnawing upon care, my soul must kill; Love—hate—fear—pain: I am of each the prey, I grope for light, but never find the day! Oh, what I suffer thou canst not conceive, Each passion rages, but can ne'er relieve; For I have noble thoughts that die still-born, And I have thoughts so base my soul I scorn. I love the foolish wretch who is ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... enlarged his soul in riper years. For Nature gave him strength, and fire, to soar, On Fancy's wing above this vale of tears; Where dark cold-hearted sceptics, creeping, pore Through microscope of metaphysic lore: And much they grope for truth, but never hit. For why? their powers, inadequate before, This art preposterous renders more unfit; Yet deem they darkness light, and their ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... child is born, the face is alive. And the face communicates direct with both planes of primary consciousness. The moment a child is born, it begins to grope for the breast. And suddenly a new great circuit is established, the four poles all working at once, as the child sucks. There is the profound desirousness of the lower center of sympathy, and the superior avidity of the center of will, and at the same time, the cleaving yearning to ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... of how much she may think it necessary to remove, and thankful that you are sleeping peacefully through all the turmoil, I get up and grope for my shoes. ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... eight, in which we were all huddled together—terror and indignation overpowered me—and I roared for a light, before the cabin of the Tomtit became too mephitic for flame of any kind to exist in it. Uprose they then my Merry Merry Men, bewildered and grumbling, to grope for the match-box. It was found, the lantern was lit, the face of Mr. Migott appeared serenely over the side of his hammock, and the voice of Mr. Migott sweetly and sleepily ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... extremely large and slipshod, flew off every now and then, and were difficult to find again, among the crowd of passengers. Indeed, the poor little creature experienced so much trouble and delay from having to grope for these articles of dress in mud and kennel, and suffered in these researches so much jostling, pushing, squeezing and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she reached the street in which the notary lived, she was fairly ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Nietzschean education which declares: "The weak and helpless must go to the wall; and we shall help them go." All that made life humanly fair is hidden in the fetid clouds of war where savages (in terror and hysteria) grope for ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... of light shone from a room that I knew was Captain Rudstone's, and beyond that lay some empty apartments. My own room was one of the first. I slipped into it, put my boots on the floor and began to grope for a light. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon |
