"Grasping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is the habit of so receiving and absorbing impressions or ideas that they or their representatives shall be ready for revival or recall whenever wanted. It is learning through relations—by thinking—from grasping the ideas or thoughts—the meaning and the comprehension of the subject matter. This mode of learning promotes attention ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... Polly, picking up the tub, and giving two or three quick sops to the floor. "Here you are, Pussy," grasping Phronsie, crying as she was, and carrying ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... come from him in which he asked to be sent at the same time a book on chemistry, a text-book of medicine, a novel, and some treatise on philosophy or theology. He read as though he were swimming in the sea among broken pieces of wreckage, and in his desire to save his life was eagerly grasping one ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... kind of joyful frenzy, and ran about the room, grasping at everything that happened to be in his way. He seized one of the bedposts, and it became immediately a fluted golden pillar. He pulled aside a window curtain, in order to admit a clear spectacle of the wonders which he was performing; and the tassel grew heavy ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... Michael had finished their breakfast and were playing together. Michael was standing up in the high window-seat, grasping a long pole with a curtain hook at the end of it, with which he made frantic but futile efforts to land Stella, who was dashing about in a perfectly break-neck fashion in a box ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Father Black, extending both hands and grasping Dr. Guide's hands warmly, "God bless you for the good ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... and exuberance with which the will to live pressed impetuously into existence under a million forms everywhere and at every moment, by means of fructification and of germs, nay, when these are wanting, by means of generatio aequivoca, seizing every opportunity, eagerly grasping for itself every material capable of life: and then again let him cast a glance at its fearful alarm and wild rebellion when in any particular phenomenon it must pass out of existence; especially when ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... same; I ought to have known you at once; and I am delighted to find you, old fellow. I am, by Jerico, Seaworth!" exclaimed the stranger, grasping me by the arm, and wringing it till he almost dislocated my shoulder in the ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... Science toils to make Nature their servant. Art portrays their life. Literature, once a clown at the feet of Fortune's fools, now writes of the people. Wealth lays its tribute at their feet. The millionaire, who dies to-day grasping his millions as his own, is hissed while he lives, openly cursed while he lies cold in death, and ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... used only for grasping, with the powerful hind limbs on which the animal stalked about. Some of the species of this group seem to have been able to progress by leaping in kangaroo fashion. Notice the sharp claws, the ponderous tail, and the skull set at right angles with the spinal column. The limb ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... find that when, on the shock of an earthquake, teachers and scholars alike rushed out of the schoolhouse, Harry Oddity was the boy sent back to fetch out caps and books." While not brilliant as a scholar, he was by no means dull. He was more ready in grasping the content than the form of the subject. Consequently all through life he never overcame his weakness in some of the ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... (jati) depends. But on what does the endless becoming itself depend? We seem here on the threshold of the deepest problems but the answer, though of wide consequences, brings us back to the strictly human and didactic sphere. Existence depends on Upadana. This word means literally grasping or clinging to and should be so translated here but it also means fuel and its use is coloured by this meaning, since Buddhist metaphor is fond of describing life as a flame. Existence cannot continue without the clinging to life, just ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... of terror the little girl fell all in a heap, grasping her scissors, shutting her eyes tight till all should be over. Then some one picked her up and asked if she was hurt, and slowly gaining courage she opened her eyes and looked into the kind face of Morgan, the cabinet-maker. At his side was Tiger, the great ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... think it's scandalous not to let the keeper tell about the beasteses," said the unfortunate matron, with a half turn towards the persecutors, and grasping her bag. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... land of the Cid Campeador! Sea-girdled mother of men! Spain, name of glory and power; Cradle of world-grasping Emperors, grave of the reckless invader, How art thou fallen, my Spain! how art ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... with it become the real teachers of men. The beloved disciple's last instruction to his dear children was the tender admonition to love one another. But why, oh, why are we bidden to love the fallen, sordid outcasts of this wicked world—the wretched, sinning pariahs—the greedy, grasping, self-centered mass of humanity that surges about us in such woeful confusion of good and evil? Because the wise Master did. Because he said that God was Love. Because he taught that he who loves not, knows ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... which had for its aim the fixing of agricultural property, shows, and as even tradition must have assumed, for it makes Servius the inventor of the balance. But in its origin the -mancipatio- must be far more ancient; for it primarily applies only to objects which are acquired by grasping with the hand, and must therefore in its earliest form have belonged to the epoch when property consisted essentially in slaves and cattle (-familia pecuniaque-). The enumeration of those objects ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... "that metaphysical people, from going to heaven in their true way instead of our true way"; and then comes the humorous sally,—"With a little oatmeal for food and a little sulphur for friction, allaying cutaneous irritation with one hand and grasping his Calvinistical creed with the other, Sawney ran away to the flinty hills, sung his psalm out of tune his own way, and listened to his sermon of two hours long, amid the rough and imposing melancholy of the tallest thistles." But from the graver historian, developing the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... moment above the fence line down the block a white straw hat appeared; then a youthful face becomingly flushed; then two dainty, gloved hands grasping the top of ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... most helpful to students and others in grasping details usually to be acquired only in ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... sufficiently to make it safe to get the others on board. The Major came aft along the gunwale and I helped him in, then Jack helped Jones. The oars, fortunately, had not come out of the locks, thanks to our excellent arrangement, and grasping them, without trying to haul in the bow line trailing a hundred feet in the water, we pulled hard for a slight eddy on the left where we perceived a footing on the rocks, and as soon as we were near enough I caught ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... architecture, dress, popular talk and scenery of the towns and country of Italy from the thirteenth century up to modern times. To every one of these details—such as are found in Sordello, in Fra Lippo Lippi, in the Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's Church—his vivid and grasping ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... in the doorway, which he almost wholly filled; his hands stretched above his head and grasping the architrave. He smiled when their eyes met, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fought and struggled over these passes, deaf to all pity or mercy or justice, deaf to all but the clamour of greed within them that was driving them on, trampling down the weak and the old, crushing the fallen, each man clutching and grasping his own, hoarding his strength and even refusing a hand to his neighbour, starving the patient beasts of burden they had brought with them, friends who were willing to share their toil without sharing their reward, driving ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... that night, so adaptable is youth and so masterful is nature. At times I was remotely aware of a threshing of rain and a humming of wind, with a nervous kicking of the little hull, and at one moment I dreamt I saw an apparition by candle-light of Davies, clad in pyjamas and huge top-boots, grasping a misty lantern of gigantic proportions. But the apparition mounted the ladder and disappeared, and I passed ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... to appear a boy, un petit garcon?" she inquired, gazing eagerly at Flo's long, slender frame. Her voice was old and thin, like the high quavering of an imperfect tuning fork, and her eyes were sharp as talons in their grasping glance. ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... was going to spring the new secret enterprise on him, so I moved off toward the house a bit, not wanting to be too near when his screams begun. It did seem kind of shameful, taking advantage of the old miser's grasping habits; still, I remembered a few neat things he'd done to me and I didn't slink too far into the background. Safety was standing by his horse with the boys all gathered close round him, and I heard Sandy say "Elephants—nothing but ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... commissionnaires absolutely rain upon you, you know not whence; they spring upon the jetty, throw themselves on the nearest vessel, and glide down upon you from the rigging. Seeing that your little craft is in danger of being capsized by their numbers, you think of self-preservation, and grasping hold of some green and slimy steps, you cling there, like Crusoe to his rock; then, after many efforts, having lost your hat, and scarified your knees, and torn your nails, you at length stand on the pier. So ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... for money—or, at least, I cannot bring myself to take an unnecessary penny of his money—for I know how hard a fight it is with him to keep the roof over our heads and pay for the modest little horse and trap which are as necessary to his trade as a goose is to a tailor. Foul fare the grasping taxman who wrings a couple of guineas from us on the plea that it is a luxury! We can just hold on, and I would not have him a pound the poorer for me. But you can understand, Bertie, that it is humiliating for a man of my age to have ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... venture made," whispered Mary to her daughter, who, in virtue of youth and lightness of foot, had kept close behind her. Grasping the girl's arm and smiling, she heard the young man's voice cry aloud to the echoes of the rock, "Cis!" then stoop forward and plunge face and head into the clear ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the steps he halted. The lights in the drawing-room had been switched on. The purpose that filled him now was so great that he waited long there, grasping the hand rail, striving to temper his new- found strength to the gentleness that was in his heart. The fight was over, and he had won—the man of him had won. She was in that room where the lights were,—waiting for him. The moment was not far off when she ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... practising the Indian method of diving—that in which the diver carries a weight with him, to facilitate his sinking, and keep him steadily at the bottom. I used to select an oblong-shaped stone, of sixteen or eighteen pounds' weight, but thin enough to be easily held in one hand; and after grasping it fast, and quitting the rock edge, I would in a second or two find myself on the grey pebble-strewed ooze beneath, some twelve or fifteen feet from the surface, where I found I could steadily remain, picking up any small objects I chanced to select, until, breath ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... stopped, then Paul leaned over the side, and flashed the light of the lantern on the water. There, to his great joy, was the missing letter, floating on the weeds. He cautiously leaned forward, and grasping the letter, returned it once more ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... of considerable size, and the openings in the planks had enabled the air to circulate freely, consequently there was no bad air. As Jack reached the water he looked eagerly round, and then gave a cry of joy. Above the water he saw a hand grasping ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... still full of my sojourn with the Bartensteins, of the pathetic, whimsical, hypothetical connection between little Elsa and myself, and of the chains that seemed to bind my life in bonds not of my making. These reflections went on in an undercurrent while I was bowing, saluting, grasping hands, listening and responding to appropriate observations. Suddenly I found the Count von Sempach before me. His name brought back my mind in an instant from its wanderings. The Countess was recalled very vividly to my recollection; I asked after her; Sempach, much gratified, ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... to practice the economy which they encourage, that the viands are profuse in quantity and wholesome in quality, that the attendance is quick and unsparing, and that travelers are never annoyed by that grasping, greedy hunger and thirst after francs and shillings which disgrace, in Europe, many English and many continental inns. All this is, as must be admitted, great praise; and yet I do not ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... last feeble hold upon the world of flesh and, with a force that shamed the strength of his words, drove home the truth that neither his praise nor his scorn could long endure. When he could again speak, he said, in his husky, rasping whisper,—while grasping the painter's hand in effusive cordiality,—"My dear fellow, I congratulate you. It is exquisite. It will create a sensation, sir, when it is exhibited. Your fame is assured. I must thank you for the honor you have done me in thus immortalizing the beauty and character ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... movements are preceded, not only by reflex, but also by "impulsive movements," the ceaseless activity of young infants being due to purposeless discharges of nervous energy. Reflex movements are followed by instinctive, and these by voluntary. The latter are first shown by grasping at objects, which took place in Preyer's child during the nineteenth week. The opposition of the thumb to the fingers, which in the ape is acquired during the first week, is very slowly acquired in the child, while, of course, the opposition ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... upwards, towards the hip. The blood will thus be propelled towards the heart, while the stimulus of rubbing is conveyed along the nerve trunks towards the foot. The squeezing should be done with a grasping movement of the hands, the limb being held encircled in both hands, thumbs upwards. Warm olive oil is used in this squeezing, and also, if the skin be hard and ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... too, dashed through the door way; then paused, grasping the edge of the door and shutting ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... and thrift distinguish from the populace, seem not to have any social life, in the American sense. They are wholly devoted to affairs, and partly from choice, and partly from necessity, are sordid and grasping. It is their class which has to fight hardest for life in Europe, and they give no quarter to those above or below them. The shop is their sole thought and interest, and they never, never sink it. But, since they have habits of diligence, and, as far as they are permitted, of ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... themselves; not, as vain people talk, of their triumphs, and grievances and diseases, but of what they have succeeded in grasping as their own out of all the floating wisdom of the world. In {200} a passage like this one almost hears Johnson reflecting aloud as he walks back in his old age to his lonely rooms after an evening at ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... his way up to him, and grasping the Maronite by the beard muttered in Arabic: "Thou dog! Go confess thy sins! For by the Holy Cross thou assuredly hast not ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... amazement heaved the frequent sigh, And almost froze the crimson current dry. Rustem, oppressed by Giw's desponding thought, Amidst his Chiefs the mournful Monarch sought; To him he told Sohrab's tremendous sway, The dire misfortunes of this luckless day; Told with what grasping force he tried, in vain, To hurl the wondrous stripling to the plain: "The whispering zephyr might as well aspire To shake a mountain—such his strength and fire. But night came on—and, by agreement, we Must meet again ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... Cardo and his father seated themselves in the light gig, which was the only carriage the Vicar affected, and when Betto had bid him a tearful good-bye, with all the farm-servants bobbing in the background, Gwynne Ellis, grasping his hand with ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... Grasping this forearm with all the strength he possessed, Jack swung it toward the near side, until locking the forward wheel on that side against the ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... his once more, grasping it firmly, and they moved forward again. They could see the moonlight glimmering on the water ahead, and in another yard or two the low-growing bush to which Hone had ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... to the surface, the man holding the Boy, the Boy grasping his dog, the coon fastened to the ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... so in our course round the World. We had a Dutch Squadron with us, who expected Convoy Rates, and all manner of Civilities from us, though there was now Peace, and we wanted nothing from 'em; but 'tis always the way with this Grasping and Avaricious People. Soon too we observed that the Dutch ships began to scrape and clean their sides, painting and polishing and beeswaxing 'em inside and out, bending new sails, and the very ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... one quick glance around her beautiful home were lay all the splendor that might have been hers, and grasping the ribbon firmly in her hands, she dropped from ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Jethro did not act like a discredited boss, as a keener man might have done. But if the Honorable Heth had been a keener man, he would not have been at that time a congressman. Mr. Sutton accused himself of having been stupid in not grasping at once that the tables were turned, and that now he was the one to dispense ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and Bathurst, grasping a heavy tulwar, went out into the courtyard. Keeping close to the house, he sauntered along until he reached the grated windows of the prison room. Three lamps were burning within, to enable the guard ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... to have been every where the oldest systematized form of fetichistic religion. The reverence paid to the chieftain of the tribe while living was continued and exaggerated after his death The uncivilized man is everywhere incapable of grasping the idea of death as it is apprehended by civilized people. He cannot understand that a man should pass away so as to be no longer capable of communicating with his fellows. The image of his dead chief or comrade remains in his mind, and ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... struck it again in her search, this time more squarely, and, grasping it hard in her hand, brought it out to the light, while an undefinable thrill, half of terror, half of joy, ran through her frame, as she held it ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... country political corruption and the grasping spirit of corporations are constantly affording the demagogue or the dreamer opportunity to preach the destruction of civil order with great plausibility, giving scope to reckless theorists who have so often, in ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Paul Kauvar; or, Anarchy • Steele Mackaye
... Lady," returned the Chevalier, warmly grasping her hand. "You out of place here? No! no! you are at home on the ramparts of Quebec, quite as much as in your own drawing-room at Tilly. The walls of Quebec without a Tilly and a Repentigny would be a bad omen indeed, worse ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... grasping round their waists a small boy and girl who had already clambered on his knees. "Let me inquire about my old friends first—and let me introduce my son to you—you've taken no notice of him yet! That's ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... them to have said: "We have learnt our need of Christianity." But is it not the same thing? In grasping the vast potentialities of the human spirit, and that is what this hunger for education means, have they not grasped an essential characteristic of the Christian religion and placed themselves at its very ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... see no other resource left—if we are to be ready by Christmas—than to try one of the local music-sellers in this town, who is said to be a speculating man. A private rehearsal at these lodgings, and a bargain which will fill the pockets of a grasping stranger—such are the sacrifices which dire necessity imposes on me at starting. Well! there is only one ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Mrs. Pumpelly, grasping the documents. "This is a little too much! 'Lulu' this time. Fictitious as usual. Who's Julius Aberthaw? He says I caused a certain rug to be shaken in such place and manner that certain particles of dust passed therefrom ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... Paul is not that which he would be, which he must be; but he, and all they who with him believe that the perfection of Christ is the sole worthy effort of a man's life, are in the region, though not yet at the centre, of perfection. They are, even now, not indeed grasping, but in the grasp of, that perfection. He tells them this is the one thing to mind, the one thing to go on desiring and labouring for, with all the earnestness of a God-born existence; but, if any one be at all otherwise minded,—that is, of a different opinion,—what ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... Quirinal without quarrelling with the Vatican. Son of an American woman, no longer having the pure Roman blood in his veins, he was a more supple politician than other aristocrats, and was also, folks said, extremely grasping, struggling to be one of the last to retain the wealth and power of olden times, which he realised were condemned to death. Yet it was in his family, renowned for its superb pride and its continued magnificence, that a love romance had ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... heavier than he had imagined. It scarcely moved and only by bracing his foot on the seat opposite was he able to upset its balance. Just a fraction of a second too soon the man turned. Conceivably he saw murder in Barraclough's eyes or else he was unusually quick at grasping a situation. He flashed his eyes upward at the moment the bag was toppling, realised it was too late to save himself, and dropped his head forward. He caught the weight of the bag on his massive shoulders and, as though it were a pillow, slewed sideways and heaved it straight ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... enlightenment from the divine omniscience, and the co-operative energy of the divine omnipotence, under which he becomes a seer and a master. On this higher plane of realised spiritual life in the flesh the mind acts with unfettered freedom and unbiassed vision, grasping truth at first hand, independent of all external sources of information. Approaching all beings and things from the divine side, they are seen in the light of the divine omniscience.[35] God's purpose in them, and so the truth concerning them, as it rests in ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... born for joy and gaiety; yet no dismal depth of misery and fear has been spared me! But all on account of my own act. I do not accuse God; I do not accuse man; I only accuse myself, and my thoughtless grasping after pleasure. ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... stage was War—under the guidance of a man whose whole character displayed the most prominent features of soldiership. From that moment, the republic bore the sole impress of war. France had placed at her head the most impetuous, subtle, ferocious, and all-grasping, of the monarchs of mankind. She instantly took the shape which, like the magicians of old commanding their familiar spirits, the great magician of our age commanded her to assume. Peace—the rights of man—the mutual ties of nations—the freedom of the serf and the slave—the subversion of all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... to the captain's room and here Maurice discovered a big man in a uniform, whose bearded face had a kindly look, and who at his entrance jumped up, stared at him a couple of seconds and then pounced upon him like a great grizzly bear, grasping both his ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... and dines in their honour when they are dead. But it goes on its way immovable, grinding the poor, enslaving the slave, admiring hideousness, adulating vulgarity for its wealth and insignificance for its pedigree. Grasping, pleasure-seeking, indifferent to reason, and enamoured of the lie, so it goes on, and the masters of the word might just as well have hushed their sweet or thunderous voices. For, though they speak with the tongue of men and angels, and have not action, what are ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... soil of the country was held by a few great proprietors—an immense portion in the dead-hand of an insatiate and ever-grasping church, and much of the remainder in vast entailed estates—it was nearly impossible for the masses of the people to become owners of any portion of the land. To be an agricultural day-labourer at ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... am afraid. Let me out. I'd rather walk," she cried, starting to her feet and grasping ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... sons of afflicted parents, husbands of weeping wives, brothers of sisters both ashamed and grieved; outlaws; the city's scum, the country's scourge, the harvest that shall yet be reaped for the jail, and leave gleanings for the gallows; abandoned creatures, linger;" and suddenly grasping Narcisse: "Sirrah," he cried, "here is your nightly haunt, these are your companions,—come with me, sir, come,—ah, will you resist your"—father he was about to say, but he recoiled from the word as from an adder, and, casting upon his son a look of ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... brought to a realization of her hazardous undertaking by a sudden roar of water, and the abrupt termination of the ridge in a deep gorge. Grasping a tree she leaned over to look down. It was fully an hundred feet deep, with impassable walls, green-stained and damp, at the bottom of which a brawling, brown brook rushed on its way. Fully twenty feet wide, it presented an insurmountable barrier to ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... by that, scoundrel!' exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins, grasping the gilt-knobbed dress-cane firmly in his right hand. 'What's the matter with you, you little humbug?' replied the whiskers. 'How dare you insult me and my friend?' inquired the friend's young man. 'You ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... in favour of continuing the war. In his comfortable sanctuary in Holland he had nothing to lose by urging those whom he had left behind to carry on the struggle. In view of the tentacles with which Great Britain was grasping South Africa and of the general situation, the decision of the Council of War was a morally courageous act. There was in it, moreover, a special as well as a general idea. Particular attention was to be given to the cultivation of the ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... dear, this pining solicitude continued after a reconciliation with relations as unworthy as implacable; whose wills are governed by an all-grasping brother, who finds his account in keeping the breach open? On this over-solicitude it is now plain to me, that the vilest of men built all his schemes. He saw that you thirsted after it beyond all reason for hope. The view, the hope, I own, extremely desirable, had your family ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... be extreme. Besides, the clearness as well as the definiteness of the Testimony of Nature to any Spiritual truth is of immense importance. Regeneration has not merely been an outstanding difficulty, but an overwhelming obscurity. Even to earnest minds the difficulty of grasping the truth at all has always proved extreme. Philosophically one scarcely sees either the necessity or the possibility of being born again. Why a virtuous man should not simply grow better and better until in his own right ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... wide field of German and foreign journalism over which the influences of the chancellor extended at the time, that he had a finger, not alone in the denunciation on the one hand of Empress Frederick as grasping, mercenary, and too much of an Englishwoman to be a patriotic German, but likewise in the abuse of Emperor William for unfilial conduct. Every act of his that could possibly be construed as such, was painted in the blackest of colors, especially in the English press, manifestly with the idea ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... nasty kitchen cat," said Nurse, much excited, and grasping her umbrella spitefully. "I'm not going to have it prowling about on my landing. An ugly thieving thing, as has no ...
— The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales • Amy Walton
... was adroit, and a life spent in eluding the law had made him quick-witted. He turned the tables upon Ben by turning round, grasping him firmly by the arm, and repeating in a voice ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... endeavor to get upon his knees, but when the Mid[-e]/ finally places the m[-i]/gis into his mouth again, he instantly falls upon the ground, as before. The Mid[-e]/ then take up the sacks, each grasping his own as before, and as they pass around the inanimate body they touch it at various points, which causes the candidate to "return to life." The chief priest then says to him, "[-O]/mishga'n"—"get up"—which he does; then indicating to the holder of the Mid[-e]/ drum ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... to himself, bearing the brunt of every hardship and every danger, demanding of others an equal constancy joined to an implicit deference, heeding no counsel but his own, attempting the impossible and grasping at what was too vast to hold—he contained in his own complex and painful nature the chief springs of his triumphs, his failures, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... has come over the inhabitants of Staithes since 1846, when Mr. Ord describes the fishermen as 'exceedingly civil and courteous to strangers, and altogether free from that low, grasping knavery peculiar to the larger class of fishing-towns.' Without wishing to be unreasonably hard on Staithes, I am inclined to believe that this character is infinitely better than these folk deserve, and even when Mr. Ord wrote of the place I have reason to doubt the ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... aeronautical surveys make possible to a general of to-day. While war has not changed, it is true that a commander of an army in modern campaign is compelled to review and to take into account a far larger group of factors. A modern general must be capable of grasping increased complexities, and must possess a synthetic mind to be able to reduce all these complicating factors into a single whole. The first factor of the battles of the Marne was the topographical factor, the consideration of the land over which ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... aside the curtains and half raised himself to see the cause of the disturbance. The brightly fullered gown of a candidate flashed before his eyes, and then he recognized Varro standing upon a silversmith's counter, smiling this way and that, grasping the hands of those nearest, kissing his own to the very outskirts of the mob, and all the while crying out, to the promptings of his nomenclator: "Greeting to you, Marcus!" "Health, Quintus!" "Commend me to your brother, my Caius—yes, to be sure—when he shall ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... important matter. This is no child's play." The subtle and criminal part of Benjamin's mind began to see that the affair would place his landlord and mortgagee in his power, and relieve him for evermore from financial pressure. To his peculiar conscience it was justifiable to overreach his grasping creditor, a right and proper thing to upset the shrewd Varnhagen's plans: a thought of the proposed breach of the law, statutory and moral, did not occur ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... sat, nearly thirty of them, on the rough benches, their faces shading from a pale cream to a deep brown, the little feet bare and swinging, the eyes full of expectation, with here and there a twinkle of mischief, and the hands grasping Webster's blue-back spelling-book. I loved my school, and the fine faith the children had in the wisdom of their teacher was truly marvelous. We read and spelled together, wrote a little, picked flowers, sang, and listened to stories of ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... the whole order, the special prehensile organ; the foot, however prehensile it may be, is predominantly a walking organ. And the opposability of the great toe is approached in some men, who have great mobility in this organ, and can use it for grasping. ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... that ever seems present to the mind of Reynard is suspicion. He does not need experience to teach him, but seems to know from the jump that there is such a thing as a trap, and that a trap has a way of grasping a fox's paw that is more frank than friendly. Cornered in a hole or a den, a trap can be set so that the poor creature has the desperate alternative of being caught or starving. He is generally caught, though not till he has braved hunger ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... so long been struggling to prove to one another had long ago, from the beginning of the argument, been known to both, but that they liked different things, and would not define what they liked for fear of its being attacked. He had often had the experience of suddenly in a discussion grasping what it was his opponent liked and at once liking it too, and immediately he found himself agreeing, and then all arguments fell away as useless. Sometimes, too, he had experienced the opposite, expressing at last what ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... unholier than thine. Thou rememberest not, I am sure; but ere we were professed, I was troth-plight unto a young noble, and always that life that I have lost flitteth afore me, as a bird that held a jewel in his beak might lure me on from flower to flower, ever following, never grasping the sweet illusion. Margaret, sister, despise me not for my confession! But thou wilt see I am no ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... infantry wavered, the stout old marshal snatched the colours from an ensign, and, waving them in the air, led back his regiment to the charge. Thus at seventy-two years of age he fell in the thickest battle, still grasping the standard which bears the black eagle on the field argent. The victory remained with the King; but it had been dearly purchased. Whole columns of his bravest warriors had fallen. He admitted that he had lost eighteen thousand men. Of the enemy, twenty-four thousand had been killed, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... rest the clambring yvie grew, Knitting his wanton armes with grasping hold, Least that the poplar happely should rew Her brothers strokes, whose boughes she doth enfold 220 With her lythe twigs, till they the top survew, And paint with pallid greene her buds of gold. Next did the myrtle tree to her approach, Not ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... bear had apparently grappled with his victim by seizing it near the loins and striking a disabling blow over the small of the back; in at least one instance he had jumped on the animal's head, grasping it with his fore-paws, while with his fangs he tore open the throat or crunched the neck bone. Some of his victims were slain far from the river, in winding, brushy coulies of the Bad Lands, where the broken ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... before they became "tuned up," we went down to the drawing-room, where I paid my respects to the host and hostess, who stood at the end of a beautiful room. As I approached the lady greeted me with a charming smile, extending her gloved hand almost on a direct line with her face, grasping it firmly, not shaking it, saying, "Very kind of you, ——. Delighted, I am sure. General"—turning to her husband—"you know the ——, of course," and the general shook my hand as he would a pump-handle, and whispered, "Our minister to Zanzibar treated you all right, eh?" ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... sake, who was your benefactor, spare me!" cried Edith, struggling to free herself from his grasp. But she struggled in vain. "I aim to save you," cried Braxley; and without uttering another word, bore her from the hut; and, still grasping her with an arm of iron, sprang upon a saddled horse,—the identical animal that had once sustained the weight of the unfortunate Pardon Dodge,—which stood under the elm-tree, trembling with fright at the scene of horror ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... "if it be any satisfaction to you to know it, I have not forgotten my relations, to whom I have left the legacies originally intended for them. I would have left it directly to Henry Woodward, were it not that his grasping mother sent him to another relation, from whom she calculated that he might have larger expectations; and I hope he may realize them. At all events, my relatives will find themselves in exactly the same position as if our ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Helen to Manon Lescaut, had grasped him with his wizard power. Poor Germain, thitherto so worthy and so well-intentioned, rose in the morning an adventurer—an adventurer, it is true, driven by desperation and anguish into his dangerous part, and grasping the hope of nevertheless yet winning by some forlorn good deed the forgiveness of her who was otherwise lost ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... desk looked round and then back at his book. His pen scratched upon the margin of a great volume. Katharine Howard was upon her knees grasping at the lady's hand to kiss it. But it ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... astonished woman probably never existed than Josephine Bhaer when her little ship came into port with flags flying, cannon that had been silent before now booming gaily, and, better than all, many kind faces rejoicing with her, many friendly hands grasping hers with cordial congratulations. After that it was plain sailing, and she merely had to load her ships and send them off on prosperous trips, to bring home stores of comfort for all ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... redeeming her glory, succouring her allies, and promoting her true interest, a shameful dislike to the service everywhere prevailed, and few seemed affected with any other zeal than that of aspiring to the highest posts, and grasping the largest salaries. The censure levelled at the commander in America was founded on mistake; the inactivity of that noble lord was not more disappointing to the ministry than disagreeable to his own inclination. He used his utmost ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... at a Council held in the autumn at Northampton. All urged him to submit; his very life was said to be in peril from the king's wrath. But in the presence of danger the courage of the man rose to its full height. Grasping his archiepiscopal cross he entered the royal court, forbade the nobles to condemn him, and appealed in the teeth of the Constitutions to the Papal See. Shouts of "Traitor!" followed him as he withdrew. The Primate turned fiercely at the word: "Were I a knight," he shouted back, "my ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... rope, well knotted. As soon as recess began, we divided into equal parties, one under cover and the other out, grasping the rope, and endeavoring each to drew the other party across the dividing line. "Greeks and Trojans" you will see the game called in English books. Little we knew of either; but we hardened our hands, toughened our muscles, ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... reach our ears, and clearly could we distinguish—"yammerschooner." But now, the more Fuegians the merrier; and very merry work it was. Both parties laughing, wondering, gaping at each other; we pitying them, for giving us good fish and crabs for rags, etc.; they grasping at the chance of finding people so foolish as to exchange such splendid ornaments for a good supper. It was most amusing to see the undisguised smile of satisfaction with which one young woman with her face painted black, tied several ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... rather grasping of you to want to make more money, Daddy, when you have got so much already?" broke in Mary, in a playful tone, yet with some underlying ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... grasping his hand] Ah, what an honor for me! What a triumph for our cause! Thank you, thank you. And now, my friend—I may call you so at last—could you not persuade HIM to take the place ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... of them together, and under the middle ram of each three he bound one of his men. For himself he kept the best ram of the flock, young and strong, and with a fleece wonderfully thick and shaggy. Underneath this ram Odysseus curled himself, and clung, face upwards, firmly grasping the wool with his hands. In this wise did he and his men wait patiently for ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... such darkness would have been madness. We clambered up in a line, first the guide, next the pony, with his nose as usual on his master's shoulder, of whom he seemed passionately fond, and I bringing up the rear, with my left hand grasping the animal's tail. We had many a stumble, and more than one fall: once, indeed, we were all rolling down the side of the hill together. In about twenty minutes we reached the summit, and looked around us, but no sea ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... day I saw Tama at the township, elaborately attired in black broadcloth and white linen and all the rest of it, looking a perfect picture of smug respectability and aged innocence. Now here he is, grasping a tomahawk in his sinewy hand, with a knife held between his teeth, and—albeit 'tis only a boar he is attacking—with a fire dancing in his eyes like that which shone there in his hot youth, when, here in these ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... helps the little girl up the steps, through the hall space, and the three stand in the parlour, where the young man prefers his request with such a daring that the elder man is almost dazed. Then the father holds out his arms as if he was grasping for something lost. She comes to them, and her head is on his breast, her hands reaching up to clasp ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... for with a half scream, half exclamation, she quitted Fleda's arms and fell back upon the pillows, turning from her and hiding her face there. Fleda prayed again for her confidence, as well as the weakness and the strength of fear could do; and Mrs. Rossitur presently grasping a paper that lay on the bed held it out to her, saying only as Fleda was about quitting the room, "Bring ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... headlong overboard. By the time he regained his balance the canoe had drifted some fifty yards down the river. He knelt in the bottom of his little craft and fought the current with long sweeps of the paddle. Almayer sat up in his hammock, grasping his feet and peering over the river with parted lips till he made out the shadowy form of man and canoe as they struggled past ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... a million others, was faced by the problem of the day's work. He wondered how the others looked at it—those gallant young knights in khaki who had followed the gleam. Were they, too, grasping at any job that would buy them bread and butter, pay their bills, keep them from living on the ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... suddenly rent the air, and made them all start. Emma Smith, waking from her heavy sleep, had heard the sound of voices, and looking cautiously out of the window, had caught sight of the policeman grasping her husband by the arm. Day and night for years she had been fearing this, and now it had actually happened! The shock was too much for her. Scream after scream pierced their ears, as she staggered out of the van and flung herself upon ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... with bales of merchandise. The horses moved along the edge of the crag as though they clung to it, their bodies aslant towards the wall of granite on their right, their legs moving with the precision of creatures feeling and grasping every step. Like deer they moved,— not like horses, and as they advanced, the carts they drew swayed behind them, and I thought every jolt would hurl them over the precipice. Fascinated I watched,—I could not choose but watch. At length came a grey horse, not drawing a cart, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... Seizing her by the shoulder, Sofya stood at her side, hatless, her jacket open, her other hand grasping a young, light-haired man, almost a boy. He held his hands to his bruised face, and he muttered with tremulous lips: ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... to have had a chance in his youth, but his father was the last man in the world to encourage out-of-the-way ambitions in his sons. Father and mother were alike—hard, grasping, and ungracious. The father, on the whole, was a pleasanter person than the mother, with her long, pale, horse-face and ready sneer; he was only uncompromisingly hard and ungenial to all ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... task? 2. Why was the mason blindfolded? 3. How long did it take him to complete the vault? 4. What was buried in it? 5. How did the mason find his way home? 6. Was the mason's poverty relieved by the pay he received from the stranger? 7. What work did the grasping landlord propose to the mason? 8. What stories had brought a bad name upon the landlord's house? 9. What was the "dreamy recollection"? 10. How did the mason show his quick wit? 11. Why did he say ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... side to the Strand; from the Strand to the Surrey side. It seems as if the poor had gone raiding the town, and now trapesed back to their own quarters, like beetles scurrying to their holes, for that old woman fairly hobbles towards Waterloo, grasping a shiny bag, as if she had been out into the light and now made off with some scraped chicken bones to her hovel underground. On the other hand, though the wind is rough and blowing in their faces, those girls there, striding hand in hand, shouting out a ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... theirs. "Good-byes" were waved to Mrs Inglis in the porch, and then away started the horse, with such a vigorous leap, that the two boys, Harry and Fred, who were behind, nearly rolled out of their places, and only held on by grasping the ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... said Sam shyly, grasping Michael's hand convulsively, "me an' Lizzie sort o' made it up as how we'd get tied, an' we thought we'd do it now whiles everybody's at it, an' things is all fixed Lizzie she wanted me to ask you ef you 'sposed ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... spasm crossed his face. He swayed from side to side. Then, grasping at the bench rails to steady himself, he came ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... he, grasping her tight. 'Listen to me. He didn't love yo' as I did. He had loved other women. I, yo'—yo' alone. He loved other girls before yo', and had left off loving 'em. I—I wish God would free my heart from the pang; but it will go on till I die, whether yo' love me or not. And then—where was ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that the role of intelligence consists in uniting or grasping the relations of things. An important question, therefore, to put, is, if we know whereof these relations consist, and what is the role of the mind in ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... think, as to the meaning of these words. If we regard them carefully, we shall not only see clearly the Psalmist's hope of immortal life, but shall discern the process by which he came to it, and almost his very act of grasping at it; for the first verse of our text is manifestly the foundation of the second; and the facts of the one are the basis of the hopes of the other. That is made plain by the 'therefore' which, in one of the intervening verses, links the concluding ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren |
