"Grasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kingdom in Northern Italy would at once compensate Ferdinand for his abandonment of this heritage and extend the Austrian supremacy over the Peninsula, for Rome and Central Italy would be helpless in the grasp of the power which ruled at both Naples and Milan. A war alone could drive France from the Milanese, but such a war might be waged by a league of European powers which would remain as a check upon France, should she attempt ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... the mucous membrane of one cheek, near the corner of the mouth, as a dark, ragged, sloughing ulcer and spreads for two or three days before the substance of the cheek is infected. If you grasp the cheek between the thumb and finger you can then feel a hard and sensitive lump. The cheek may be eaten through by the third day, though a week generally passes before this happens. There is a burning watery discharge from the unhealthy wound. The breath smells terribly and ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... sphere of influence of the league of civilized nations. It was a part of this problem to enter the equation with such deliberate caution as to upset no part of the nicely calculated adjustments of white to darker peoples. And it was also a part of his problem that he should not relinquish his grasp upon the factors that led to honor, recognition ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... spectacle, that almost froze my blood. In the skeleton gripe of the right hand, interlaced within the clenched bones, gleamed the wide-mouthed vial which was the object of our mutual visit. Graham fell upon his knees, and attempted to withdraw the prize from the grasp of its dead possessor. But the bones were firm, and when he finally succeeded in securing the bottle, by a sudden wrench, I heard the skeleton fingers ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... a strange language; so strange, indeed, that the soldiers with him failed to entirely grasp his meaning, and one shouldered his rifle, while the other brought ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... connection, for though it was to be a long engagement and a great secret, everybody found it out. Lucas had long made up his mind that so it would end, and told his mother that it was a relief the crisis had come. He put a good face on it, wrung his cousin's hand with the grasp of a Hercules, observed "Well done, old Monk," and then made the work for his final examination a plea for being so incessantly occupied as to avoid all private outpourings. And if he had very little flesh on his bones, it was hard work ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... (meno mosso), to murmuring strings (where the theme of striving can possibly be caught) the blissful melody sings in full song, undisturbed save by the former figure that rises as if to grasp,—sings later, too, in close sequence of voices. After a short intervening verse—leicht bewegt—where the first vision appears for a moment, the song is resumed, still in a kind of shadowy chase of slow flitting voices, ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... through the inner recesses of his being like a gusty wind through an open door. He had grown to manhood with nothing but a cold, passionless tolerance in his attitude toward women. Technically he was aware of sex, advised as to its pitfalls and temptations; actually he could grasp nothing of the sort. A very small child is incapable of associating pain with a hot iron until the hot iron has burned him. Even then he can scarcely correlate cause and effect. Neither could ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the wonders I seemed to see, even the Road by which souls travel from There to Here and from Here to There, and the Gates that were burned away, and the City of the Mansions that descended, were but signs and symbols of mysteries which as yet we cannot grasp ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... first Huguenot war, though the revolt was successful, was the means of France remaining a Catholic country. It gave colour to the assertions of the Guises and their friends that the movement was a political one, and that the Protestants intended to grasp all power, and to overthrow the throne of France. It also afforded an excuse for the cruel persecutions which followed, and rallied to the Catholic cause numbers of those who were, at heart, indifferent ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... America more especially, very greatly increased the writer's fame. The pathetic vein it had opened was perhaps mainly the cause of this, but opinion at home continued still to turn on the old characteristics,—the freshness of humor of which the pathos was but another form and product, the grasp of reality with which character had again been seized, the discernment of good under its least attractive forms and of evil in its most captivating disguises, the cordial wisdom and sound heart, the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... community to watch and experts are always ready and interested to judge them. But nobody is interested in examination papers, and school children and especially captains should not be taxed with more than the absolute necessity of proving a candidate's fair grasp ...
— The Girl Scouts Their History and Practice • Anonymous
... intelligible statement in regard to his affairs. In the wish of the latter for an assignment, he passively acquiesced, and permitted all his effects to be taken from his hands. And so he was thrown upon the world, with his family, helpless, penniless, crushed in spirit, and weak as a child in the strong grasp of an over-mastering appetite, which had long been gathering strength ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... it?" She drew back from the window, her figure tense. "When it comes within my grasp, I will do everything, everything, and nothing shall ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... except in the fashion of clumsy wrestlers. The thud of hard fists against yielding flesh was a new and terrifying experience. Pegrani was game, though, and he flailed about with his powerful arms, endeavoring to get his opponent in his grasp. Sidestepping to avoid one of his rushes, Blaine brought up a terrible uppercut that ended flush upon the Llott's jaw. His head snapped back and his knees gave way beneath him. Down he went in a flabby heap. Suddenly ashamed, the young pilot turned ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... been attended with the same results elsewhere. In despotic countries, where the will of the monarch has been strongly expressed and vigorously supported, a diminution of the evil has for a time resulted, but only to be increased again, when death relaxed the iron grasp, and a successor appeared of less decided opinions on the subject. This was the case in Prussia, under the great Frederick, of whose aversion to duelling a popular anecdote is recorded. It is stated of him that he permitted duelling in his army, but only upon the condition ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... reality soon to be grasped by his willing hands? His heart grew buoyant with hope; the lightness of his heart gave elasticity to his step and sent the blood rejoicingly through his veins. Freedom was almost in his grasp, and the future was growing rose-tinted and rainbow-hued. All the ties which bound him to his home were as ropes of sand, now that ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... Almamen, "upon a doubtful quest: whether I discover my daughter, and succeed in bearing her in safety from their contaminating grasp, or whether I fall into their snares and perish, there is an equal chance that I may return no more to Granada. Should this be so, you will be heir to such wealth as I leave in these places I know that your ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an thou return to thy country and kingdom, thou wilt be distracted from me and forget the love of me; or that thy father will not further thy wishes in this matter and I shall die. Meseems the better rede were that thou abide with me and in my hand-grasp, I looking on thy face, and thou on mine, till I devise some plan, whereby we may escape together some night and flee to thy country; for I have cut off my hopes from my own people and I despair of them." He rejoined, "I hear and obey;" and they fell again to their carousal and conversing. He tarried ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... to stay. These are my quarters, and I recognize your right to come here in search of me, since I was not at reveille; but I want a witness here to bear me out. I'm too amazed yet—too confounded by this intrusion of Captain Chester's to grasp the situation. I never heard of such a thing as this. ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... when toiling in the grasp of Care Amid the eager throng, A votive seer, her greetings thou ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... flashes of color, darting like elfin wings here and there as Georgina twisted the ribbon, pleased Aunt Elspeth as if she were a child. She lifted a thin, shriveled hand to catch at them and gave a weak little laugh each time they eluded her grasp. It was such a thin hand, almost transparent, with thick, purplish veins standing out on it. Georgina glanced at her own and wondered if Aunt Elspeth's ever could have been dimpled and soft like hers. It did not seem possible ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... now an evil start has been made in the direction of applying them to the choice by the States of electors of President and Vice-President. If this is accomplished, we shall then have the three great departments of the Government in the grasp of the "gerrymander," the legislative and executive directly and the judiciary indirectly through the power ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... needed assistance came so consciously that I almost exulted in the assurance of coming victory. Springing up, I shouted out, "I know where all your children are, who are not among the living! I know, yes, I do know most certainly where all the children are, whom Death has taken in his cold grasp from among us, the children of the good and of the bad, of the whites and of the Indians, I know where all ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... cold chill of the blackness creep into his marrow. He had to move. He wanted to move, to find the right place, moving with the infinity of possible bodies. A stream of consciousness was all he could grasp, for the blackness enclosed everything. A sort of death, but he knew he was not dead. Blackness was around him, and in him, ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... have persuaded me that, in the utter absence of criminating evidence, I should not be detained long; I forbore to argue, but my opinion remained always the same. I had heard how tenacious was the grasp of Federal officials, unless loosened by more golden oil than I could then command. I had heard, too, how slowly aid or intercession from the free outer world could penetrate these mock-bastilles, and how reluctantly the authorities would grant the supreme favor of a hearing, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... in Venezuela, Im Thurn's in Guiana, those of Ehrenreich, von den Steinen, Meyer in Brazil, or of Bandolier, Bastian, Bruhl, Middendorf, von Tschudi in Peru, afford the historian of comparative sociology ample groundwork for a comprehensive grasp of South American tribes. In all parts of the western hemisphere society was organized on cognate kinship, real or artificial, the unit being the clan. There were tribes where the basis of kinship was agnate, but these were the exceptions. The headship of the clan was sometimes hereditary, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... when he had so well manipulated the district delegates that he was sure of nomination in the convention, Senator Sprague had hurried home from Washington and defeated him just as the prize was in his grasp. The Senator made a speech to the delegates, in which he pointedly declared that it was men of honor and brains, not men of money, that should be chosen ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... cup which the astrologer had handed to him, and which contained not wine, but distilled spirits. He swore half an oath, dropped the empty cup from his grasp, laid his hand on his sword without being able to draw it, reeled, and fell without sense or motion into the arms of the domestic, who dragged him off to his chamber, and ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... just finished one letter and was starting the next when of a sudden he found himself taught from behind. His arms were pinned to his side, his pistol wrenched from his grasp, and a hand that was not overly clean was clapped ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... come in. Of these, 9 are right, 16 partially right, and 2 wrong. The 16 give the distance correctly, but they have failed to grasp the fact that the top of the hill might have been reached at any moment between ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... caribou raised their heads, stared in stiffened wonder for a few seconds, offering a steady mark for the smoking rifle if it had been in the grasp of a butcher. Then, as though propelled by one shock, they cut for ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... that this prince, observing the gradual decay of the monarchy, tried to restore its vigour, and that his first thought was to hold with a firm grasp, even before assuming the Imperial crown, the cluster of nationalities, mutually hostile and always discontented, that go to make up the Dual Empire. So far as foreign relations are concerned, we may assume ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... are anxious to learn the subject from its simplest form to the more complex details, and he has therefore made a thoroughly useful book. Few people realize the delight of using a microscope intelligently, nor do they grasp the true value of even the simple pocket forms of this invaluable little instrument. If they did properly appreciate the microscope, every boy would carry a two or three loop lens, and find it as useful almost as the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 23, June 9, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... child, the baby hardly able to toddle and clinging to the mother's skirts. There was the young brother, the little fellow, whimpering a little perhaps at the noise and confusion and terror which his tiny brain could not grasp. There was the baby, the baby which used to be plump and smiling and round and pinky white, now held convulsively by the mother to her breast, its little form thin and worn ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... of history. Looking at human history comprehensively, seeing clearly that there had been a hitherto unrecognized regularity of march amid the confusion of the past, and that it was possible to grasp the history of the progress of man as a whole, he saw and stated the possibility of society to improve itself through intelligent government, and the need for wise laws and general education to enable ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... by the shoulders and bent her backwards to kiss her, and held her up above the earth in his arms, waving her this way and that, till she felt how little and light she was in his grasp, though she was no puny woman; then he set her on her feet again, and laughed in her face, and said: "Sweetling, let to-morrow bring counsel. But now let it all be: thou hast said it, thou art weary; so now will I dight thee a bed of our ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... O my friends, to lose the latest grasp— To feel the last hope slipping from its hold— To feel the one fond hand within your clasp Fall slack, and loosen with a touch so cold Its pressure may not warm you as of old Before the light of love had thus expired— To know your tears are worthless, though they ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... hesitated, as though endeavoring to rearrange the idea in his own mind, and possibly doubtful of how much to confide to his companion. When he finally replied his words came forth so swiftly I could scarcely grasp their meaning with my slight knowledge ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... grasp of hands some time sooner, she touched his fingers but lightly when he went out now. He had hardly gone from the door when, with a dissatisfied look, she jumped on a form and opened the iron casement of a window beneath which he was passing in the path without. "When do you leave here to catch your ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... has the grand note of sincerity. What he desired he in no small measure achieved—that his readers should be arrested and feel themselves face to face with reality. His startling intuition, his intellectual uprightness, his grasp upon things as they are, his passion for what ought to be, made a great impression upon his age. It was in itself a religious influence. Here was a mind of giant force, of sternest truthfulness. His untruths were those of exaggeration. His injustices were those of prejudice. He invested many questions ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... directly accuse himself; he had done as well as he could; he blamed "things," and said to himself, "it's my luck," by which he meant to express a profound feeling of dejection and weakness as of one in the grasp of inimical powers. By the working of unfriendly forces he was lying there under the pines, hungry, tired, chilled, and lone as a wolf. Jack was far away, Mary lost forever to him, and the officers of the law again on his ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... concussion of their bodies as they came together. I think the eagle must have been crippled, so that it could not fly up again, for the fight from that time was carried on upon the ground. The lynx seemed anxious to grasp some part of his antagonist's body—and at times I thought he had succeeded—but then he was beaten off again by the bird, that fought furiously with wings, beak, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... Austen is the best example in the whole range of English literature of the wisdom of knowing your limitations and cultivating your own special plot of ground. She offers a permanent rebuke to those who (because of youth or a failure to grasp the meaning of life) fancy that the only thing worth while lies on the other side of the Pyrenees; when all the while at one's own back-door blooms the miracle. She had a clear-eyed comprehension of her own restrictions; and possessed ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... What Man can range From such Seraphic Pleasure? 'Tis want of Charms that make us change, To grasp the Fury, Treasure. What Man of Sense wou'd quit a certain Bliss, For Hopes ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... man. Frank came in yesterday afternoon, and after he had glanced at the paper, he said: "By the way, Crettell's dead." I did not grasp it at first. He repeated: "Crettell—he's dead." I burst into tears. I couldn't help it. And, besides, I forgot. Frank asked me very roughly what I was crying for. You know, Frank has much changed these last few months. ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... the blight of the spirit of this present world is the failure to perceive the need of missionary spirit for a full grasp of scriptural truth. Though the Bible was given to a peculiar people, self- centered and exclusive, it nevertheless abounds in suggestions that its content can be appreciated the full only by those whose sympathies run out ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... trembled in his grasp. She had turned from his pleading glance, but when he ceased, she raised her head and struggled to speak. A smile, beautiful, holy in its beauty, appeared struggling with tears, and a faint flush had risen to her cheek, but voice she had none, and for one moment ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... grasp the nature of the abnormality better if we reflect on the development of the sexes and on the latent organic bisexuality in each sex. At an early stage of development the sexes are indistinguishable, and throughout life the traces of this early ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... so with Ina Klosking. The day she just missed Edward Severne, and he seemed to melt away from her very grasp into the wide world again, she could drag herself to the theater and sing angelically, with a dull and aching heart. But next day her heart entered on sharper suffering. She was irritated, exasperated; chained to the theater, to Homburg, yet wild to follow Severne ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... spoke to them, and they instantly rushed upon us like tigers. They seized Dr. Lobdell's hat, threw it into the air, and began to beat him. One ruffian seized me by the throat. By main strength I loosed his grasp, and was moving off, when two men tried to wrest my cane from me, but did not succeed. We retreated as last as possible, but when we got out of the reach of their hands, they resorted to throwing stones, some of them weighing two or three pounds. One hit ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... The face was, as it were, the picture of all. Henry Ward Beecher was emphatically a large man. The blood was positive; the circulation good. The digestion was perfect, and the man enjoyed good food. Especially the length from the ear to the front of the eyebrows denoted intellectual grasp. There was not much will power. Whatever he had done (and Mr. Burns emphatically disclaimed passing any judgment on the "scandal") he had not done of determination, but had rather "slid into it." He was no planner. He gathered people round him by the "solar" force of his mind. If he had been a designing ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... conditioned in part by this type of genius. Creative genius must always compel our admiration and our respect. It may create a world epic, a matchless symphony of tones or pigments, a scientific theory of tremendous grasp and limitless scope; or it may create a vast industrial system, a commercial enterprise of gigantic proportions, a powerful organization of capital. Genius is pretty much the same wherever we find it, and everywhere we of the common ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... this kind it is perilous to grasp too hastily at absolute results. We might fancy, for example, that the feeling of educated men towards the relics of the saints would be a key by which some chambers of their religious consciousness might be opened. And in fact, some difference of degree may be demonstrable, ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... amusing to see how they minded her contemptuous orders; how these black-bearded fire-eaters, the terror of the country, each one of whom could have crushed her in his grasp as a wolf crushes a lamb, slunk back, silenced and obedient, before the imperious bidding of the little vivandiere. They had heeded her and let her rule over them almost as much when she had been seven years ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... As often as he smote a rebel, he shouted the Allah Acbar, "God is victorious!" and in the tumult of a nocturnal battle, he was heard to repeat four hundred times that tremendous exclamation. The prince of Damascus already meditated his flight; but the certain victory was snatched from the grasp of Ali by the disobedience and enthusiasm of his troops. Their conscience was awed by the solemn appeal to the books of the Koran which Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances; and Ali was compelled to yield to a disgraceful truce and an insidious compromise. He retreated with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... proud my friendship to proclaim, And Europe gazed, where'er her hero came! I grasp'd the laurels of heroic strife, The thousand perils of a soldier's life; Obedient in the ranks each toilful day! Though heroes ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... of the present and the earnest laborers of the years to come. But it is a doctrine which cannot be shaken. The constant and universal action of variation, the struggle for existence, and the "survival of the fittest," few who are competent to grasp will have the temerity to doubt. And to many, that lies within it as a doctrine, and forms the fibre of its fabric, is the existence of a continuity, an unbroken stream of unity running from the base to the apex of the entire ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... soul with the dissolution of its organs: on empirical grounds, the assertion of it is therefore unwarranted. But though no amount of obscurity enveloping the subject, no extent of ignorance disabling us now to grasp the secret, is a legitimate basis of disbelief, yet actually, there can be no doubt, in multitudes of instances, the effectual cause of disbelief in immortality is the impossibility of vividly conceiving its ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... subtle smile on her face showed that she was not surprised by the visit. Shirley quickly outlined the occurrences of the dinner hour. When he asked her opinion, for he had learned to place a growing trust in her quick grasp of things, she walked silently ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... his heel. You fell, but you are of the kind that bounds, and to-day you are once more upon a pinnacle. You vegetated for years, until the moment came when you could once more seize fortune in your grasp. You are no longer Danglars the bankrupt and thief—you are Laisangy, respected and trusted. Know then that I have it in my power to throw you back into the mire from which you have struggled. I am ready to be your enemy or your accomplice, the ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... your spider!" shouted Skeleton, throwing himself on Germain so that he could neither make a movement nor utter a cry. His voice died under the formidable grasp of the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... they had crossed to the other side of the river, for we should have been obliged, before we could reach the bridge, to traverse a vast open expanse which they could have kept under the fire of their artillery. My Chasseurs, prompt to grasp the reason of things, scrutinised the opposite bank no less intently than I. No movement could be seen; nothing suggested the presence of troops among the russet thickets which covered the sides of the silent hill. ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... In response to an almost imperative gesture from the nurse, Anna laid her hand upon his. He fell back upon the pillows with a little moan, clutching the slim white fingers fiercely. In a moment his grasp grew weaker. The perspiration stood out upon his forehead. His ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... an observer who was surprised to find that he had the power of reading, as they run, the revelations of the wire. I had the hope that he was about to explain to the public the more general use of this instrument,—which, with a stupid fatuity, the public has, as yet, failed to grasp. Because its signals have been first applied by means of electro-magnetism, and afterwards by means of the chemical power of electricity, the many-headed people refuses to avail itself, as it might ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... it when 'tis wildest." Orators have appeared who have rivaled the great masters of antiquity. The doors of the American Parthenon are ever open to invite the humble but aspiring youth to enter and fill the loftiest niche. The highest dignity is within the grasp of all; for the lowly boy, born and reared in our own sweet valley of Cumberland, shall, when the spring comes round again, be clothed by the people with the first of mortal honors—that of guiding for a time the American republic upon her highway ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... he seemed to grasp it now in a manner peculiarly menacing. But La Boulaye was nothing daunted. Lost he already accounted himself, and on the strength of the logic that if a man must hang, a sheep as well as a lamb may be the cause of it, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... trip came to an end all too soon, and, because they were so near the landing side, they were crowded off the broad deck before Glory was quite ready and, in the onrush of hurrying passengers, Bonny Angel's hand was wrested from her grasp. ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... madam she was, passed on as quietly, as mechanically even, as if I had not raised my voice, and, before I could grasp the fact that she was melting from before me, flitted through the hall to the front door and so out, leaving behind on the palm of my hand the "feel" of her wool dress, which I had just managed ...
— The Gray Madam - 1899 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... her head and held her breath to listen; and sure enough, from within the convent came the sound of the voices of the nuns at their evening prayers. She listened breathlessly, a change came over her face, a light into her eyes, and she tightened her grasp of Graham's hand. The melancholy voices rising and falling in unison, seemed a pathetic, melodious interpretation of the inarticulate ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... because you were selfish, because you knew I must accept them from you, were almost unbearable. The touch of your thief-trained hands to steal from everything its beauty and self-respect has galled me beyond all endurance. My body has received its last vile grasp ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... nominally accomplished its purpose; but, judging from the report submitted to the Governor of Quebec, its chief result was a painful revelation. It was shown that, in spite of an expensive chain of fortified posts, the great West was fast slipping from the martial grasp of New France, and passing under the stronger influence of English trade. The huge, unwieldy empire was clearly falling to pieces, and La Jonquiere's arrival in Quebec brought no improvement to the situation. Of high merit as a naval officer, the new Governor had less distinction ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... of the way. Elizabeth didn't want the handkerchief tied over her eyes, but she submitted meekly, at a look from Olga. Half a dozen girls flung themselves in her way, and the one on whom her limp grasp fell ignored the fact that Elizabeth could not name her, and gaily held up the handkerchief to be tied over her own eyes in turn. Nobody caught Olga again. She was as quick as a flash and as slippery as an eel. Elizabeth's eyes followed her constantly, ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... in, hissing, grinding, and bumping, to the side of the dusty platform, did Ben's keen eyes catch sight of two herdsmen's horses—cow ponies—tethered back of the shanty beside the saloon, and up went the lid of his box at the instant, in went his right hand, and then out it came full grasp on a brown-barrelled six-shooter. ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... message of infinity. Neither of us would speak at such times. Harry had a turn for emotional sentiment, I knew, but I too could feel that it was good to lie there motionless and silent, and try to grasp its meaning. Then the strained sense of expectancy would fade at the sight of the approaching homestead, or a bronco blundering into a badger-hole would call us back to ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... lives to plotting against governments, and who formed, in their community of interest and purpose, a sort of obverse of the Holy Alliance, a federation of kings' enemies, a league of principle and creed, in which liberty and human right stood towards established rule as light to darkness. As the grasp of authority closed everywhere more tightly upon its baffled foes, more and more of these men passed into exile. Among them was the Genoese Mazzini, who, after suffering imprisonment in 1831, withdrew to Marseilles, and there, in combination with various secret societies, planned an incursion ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... pardon,' he said, as he gave a cousinly grasp, 'and I think you will try kindly to ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Davenport later noted, Gordon Gray was a lawyer, not a personnel expert, and he failed to grasp the full implications of the Army staff's recommendations.[14-116] Davenport was speaking from firsthand knowledge because Gray, after belatedly learning of his experience and influence with the committee, sent for him. Politely but explicitly ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... counties; and wherever his power had reached, he had used it on a great scale for the destruction of his forests. Woods-slayer, field-maker; working to bring in the period on the Shield when the hand of a man began to grasp the plough instead of the rifle, when the stallion had replaced the stag, and bellowing cattle wound fatly down into the pastures of the bison. This man had the face of his caste—the countenance of the Southern slave-holding feudal lord. Not the American ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... in spite of the illiberality, of his scruples about the particular use of it under discussion didn't efface the ugliness of his demand that they should buy a good house with it. Then, as for his alienation, he didn't, pardonably enough, grasp the lift Frank Saltram had given her interest in life. If a mere spectator could ask that last question, with what rage in his heart the man himself might! He wasn't, like her, I was to see, too proud to show me why he ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... battle-line with the Tyrrhene forces, are marching down by the Tiber river and filling the plain. Immediately spirits are stirred and hearts shaken and wrath roused in fierce excitement among the crowd. Hurrying hands grasp at arms; for arms their young men clamour; the fathers shed tears and mutter gloomily. With that a great noise rises aloft in diverse contention, even as when flocks of birds haply settle on a lofty ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... had not been clever enough, when he had been far, far too clever already. He always thought that Dame Fortune was a capricious and fastidious dame, a sort of Elizabeth of Austria or Alexandra, Princess of Wales, elegant beyond his grasp. Whereas Dame Fortune, even in London or Vienna, let alone in Woodhouse, was a vulgar woman of the middle and lower middle-class, ready to put her heavy foot on anything that was not vulgar, machine-made, and appropriate to the ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... unreliability. A secret private code is often employed, necessitating the elimination or transposition of certain words, figures or letters before the whole will become intelligible and useful. If by any chance an uninitiated hand should attempt to grasp such veiled directions, failure would be certain. We confess to have employed at an early stage of our own career this same strategy and time-honored camouflage to protect a precious lot of recipes. Promptly we lost this unctuous ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... mind made up to grasp any desperate chance, with a courage utterly reckless, that Martin disembarked on the volcanic ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... patriarchate of Constantinople—Eutychius, who was already patriarch when the council assembled; and when he twice tears Formosus from his grave to parade him in his vestments about Rome,—we may suspect that the perfect grasp of documentary history from the twelfth century does not reach backwards in ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... he could have expected. He felt assured that at last he floated on the stream destined to bear him to the sea. The key to the river system of the south-east portion of the continent was in his grasp, and all former fallacies and fanciful theories were answered for good. The voyage down the Murray, as this river was named, after Sir George Murray, then the bead of the Colonial Department, now continued free from some of the difficulties that had beset them in the Morumbidgee. The natives ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... mixed with Colston's line, still pressed on, and between Hooker's headquarters and his elated foe there was scarce an organized regiment. Hooker's fatal inability to grasp the situation, and his ordering an advance of all troops on Howard's left as far as the Second Corps, had made him almost defenceless. The troops which should have been available to stem this adverse tide were blindly groping in the woods, two miles ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... was not wilfully and deliberately following the course that was to separate us, that she was taking it with hesitations and regrets. Yet she spoke plainly enough, she spoke with a manifest sincerity of feeling. And while I had neither the grasp nor the subtlety to get behind her mind I perceive now as I think things out that Lady Ladislaw had both watched and acted, had determined her daughter's ideas, sown her mind with suggestions, imposed upon her a conception of her situation that now ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... left alone, dazed and tremulous at the fortune now hovering within his grasp, laid upon the altar of his gods his first fruits of success.—Long, long after, when the chimera had become a form radiantly real, Ivan looked back upon this night as perhaps the happiest of his life. That it should be spent in solitude, seemed to him most natural. ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... the purple of the laticlave below. And in this red parody of kingship the Christ stood, unmoved as a phantom, but in his face and eyes there was a projecting light so luminous, so intangible, and yet so real, that the skeptical procurator started, the staff of office pendent in his grasp. ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... they call for the best thought that the man confronted by them can muster; the perils hidden in a wrong decision overcome even the clamors of vanity. It is in such situations that the superior mental grasp of women is of obvious utility, and has to be admitted. It is here that they rise above the insignificant sentimentalities, superstitions and formulae of men, and apply to the business their singular talent for separating the appearance from the substance, and so exercise ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... news came that Mithridates had defeated Fabius,[417] and was marching against Sornatius and Triarius, through very shame the soldiers followed Lucullus. Triarius, being ambitious to snatch the victory which he thought was in his grasp, before Lucullus, who was near, should arrive, was defeated in a great battle. It is said that above seven thousand Romans fell, among whom were a hundred and fifty centurions, and twenty-four tribunes; and Mithridates ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... so much as we were. The General's grasp has relaxed, and he does not hold us with a tight reign and stiff bit ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... of rain-spoilt hay. He stood and looked while one might count five, and then without a word or cry rushed up from the water, straight on Ursula, who was riding first of the three lingerers, and in the twinkling of an eye tore her from off her horse; and she was in his grasp as the cushat in the claws of the kite. Then he cast her to earth, and stood over her, shaking a great club, but or ever he brought it down he turned his head over his shoulder toward the cliff and the cave therein, and in ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... three of the great green leaves, put the handsome flower in his hand with so much good-will that he felt as if he had received a very precious gift. Then he said good-night so gratefully that Merry's hand quite tingled with the grasp of his, and went away, often looking backward through the darkness to where the light burned brightly on the hill-top—the beacon kindled by an unconscious Hero for a young Leander swimming gallantly against wind and tide toward the ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... moment they cease to obey this rule. Every Jacobin, like every African monarch or pasha, must it that he may be and remain at the head of his band.—That is the reason why the chiefs of the party, its natural and pre-determined leaders, are theoreticians able to grasp its principle and logicians capable of drawing its consequences. They are, however, so inept as to be unable to understand that their enterprise exceeds both their own and all other human resources, but shrewd enough to see that brutal force ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... had the hardest blow of his life. He knew at last what he wanted, but in finding it out it seemed that he had put it forever beyond his grasp. He reached home in misery, dropped into an armchair without even removing his overcoat, and sat there for over an hour, his mind racing the paths of fruitless and wretched self-absorption. She had sent him away! That was the reiterated burden of his despair. Instead of seizing the girl and holding ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the fundamental questions concerning the races, the next point for consideration is the policy to be adopted under present circumstances, in order to increase the amount of good which is within our grasp and lessen the evil which we may avert. This ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... to my confusion, a strange, sweet blankness, an expression I failed to give a meaning to until, without delay, I felt on my arm, directed to it as if instantly to efface the effect of her start, the grasp of the hand she had impulsively snatched from me. It was the irrepressible question in this grasp that stopped on my lips all sound of salutation. She had mistaken my entrance for that of another person, a ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... prompted these quite unpremeditated words, and as Klea—while he spoke them with quivering lips—had attempted with the exertion of all her strength, which was by no means contemptible, to wrench her hands from his grasp, he forced her—angry as he still was, but nevertheless with due regard for her womanliness—forced her by a gentle and yet irresistible pressure on her arms to bend before him, and compelled her slowly to sink down ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Tommy 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. A sixteenth and seventeenth flashed ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the national and central one sends down an iron arm, clasping them all by a firm bond to itself and to each other. And in each, the grasp of this arm is riveted and double riveted, above and below, by these two comprehensive, unmistakable articles, without which the others had else been valueless; and for which the framers of this great instrument are entitled to our lasting gratitude ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the exorcism. In the north-east of Scotland, for example, where a beggar, who had diagnosed a changeling, was allowed to try his hand at disposing of it, he made a large fire on the hearth and held a black hen over it till she struggled, and finally escaped from his grasp, flying out by the "lum." More minute directions are given by the cunning man in a Glamorganshire tale. After poring over his big book, he told his distracted client to find a black hen without a single feather of any other colour. This she was to bake ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... matter of fact," replied Tom, "Koku will merely hold to the fellow until we get there. But my giant's strength is enormous, and he does not always know the strength of his grasp. He might hurt the fellow. Come on," and Tom leaped from the doorway of ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... that it became the fashion in Paris to sit for one's picture with a crook in one's hand, as Alexis or Daphne. Just as liberty was fast dying out of Greece, and the successors of Alexander were founding their monarchies, and Rome was growing up to crush in its iron grasp all States save its own, Plato withdraws his eyes from the world, to open them in his dreamy "Atlantis." Just in the grimmest period of English history, with the axe hanging over his head, Sir Thomas More gives you his "Utopia." Just ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... when he awakened next morning. The tent was saturated, the fire ill to light, and that day was spent in unremitting toil. The stream ran strong against them, and Seaforth's wet hands grew blistered from the grasp of the paddle and his knees raw from the rasp of the craft's bottom as he swung with the weary blade. Hour by hour the rain beat on them, and the pines that crawled out of it went very slowly by, while it was almost a relief to stand upright now and then, and with ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... claimed the major part of my thoughts, and when I went to sleep it was with her scornful words ringing in my ears. I awoke in the darkness—perhaps it was in but a few minutes—with the confused dream that Luella Knapp was seized in the grasp of the snake-eyed Terrill, and I was struggling to come to her assistance and seize him by his hateful throat. But, becoming calm from this exciting vision, I slept soundly until the morning sun peeped into the room with the cheerful announcement ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... brought down his battle-axe with such a strong blow that the private's spear was shattered and knocked from his grasp, and he was helpless ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... chief was a ready listener now, and was unusually quick to grasp a situation, although he could not learn the ethics of the white man. The Professor had him present at one of the trials for theft of a petty nature, which occurred a few days ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay |
