"Grope" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... large enough to hide me, I could command a view of the bridge, and I could fairly count on detecting her, if she returned to the river, while there was a ray of light to see her by. It was not easy walking in the obscurity of the plantation: I had almost to grope my way to the nearest tree that suited ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... even fretfully, I asked myself. And yet, was the tent dark?...It had been, I remembered that. I remembered that Anthony had got to bed first, and I had extinguished the two candles on the washhand-stand. Afterward, I had had to grope my way to the bed. Now, however, there was a light...a very faint, rather curious light. There seemed to be only a square of it, a square sloped off at the top. It was opposite my eyes, which really ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... seemingly, that she herself was the subject of observation or remark. Then they seemed to lose their cold glitter, and soften into a strange, dreamy tenderness. The deep instincts of womanhood were striving to grope their way to the surface of her being through all the alien influences which overlaid them. She could be secret and cunning in working out any of her dangerous impulses, but she did not know how to mask the unwonted feeling which fixed her eyes and her ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... cry out. Then, remembering the shock experienced by a suddenly awakened somnambulist, and remembering that the Chinese ladder hung from the window at my feet, I changed my mind. Checking the cry upon my lips, I got astride of the window ledge, and began to grope for the bamboo rungs beneath me. I had found the first of these, and, turning, ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... in what direction I was going, whether to the north or south, and although I occasionally got a glimpse of one amid the boughs, it could not thus seen serve as a guide to me. I pictured to myself the danger of thus wandering through the forest by myself, for although I might grope my way amid the trees, yet I might be pursued by a leopard or lion, or I might tread on some venomous snake or get into the presence unexpectedly of a herd of elephants. For some time I was afraid of shouting or firing my rifle, lest I ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... James. "Neither of you—nor Martha—have any idea of how stultifying it can be to be forced into school under the supervision of teachers who cannot understand, and among classmates whose grasp of any subject is no stronger than a feeble grope in ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... situated. His theory was a sound one; he argued that the natural and proper place for such a switch in such a room would be immediately inside the door, so that one entering could ignite the lamp without having to grope in the darkness. He was encouraged, furthermore, by the fact that at a point some four feet to the left of this switch there was a gap in the bookcases, running from floor to ceiling; a gap no more ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... Opt. Max. of these idols and quacks Is now thrust in a corner for children to flout, And the red thunder-brand he still grasps in his hand. Lights not Jupiter Tonans to grope ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... do?" the woman rejoined. He encountered her eyes, saw them widen into a stare, saw them grope over his mangled face, and then quickly turn in another direction, as if she could not bear the sight. He wanted to stop, but he noticed her lips quiver and heard a murmured "Jesus, son of Mary," as if he were the devil incarnate. And he ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... the tools were kept he remained much longer than he had intended. At first there was scarcely any light at all up here, and, having stupidly forgotten to bring a box of matches, he had to grope about fumblingly; but gradually the light improved. He found a saw, and, attaching it to a light cord, slung it round his neck in the approved woodman fashion. The saw would be carried merely for the sake of appearances. Then he hunted for the ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... the beacon-light rose, Where echoed thy slogan, or gather'd thy foes, Whilst forth rush'd thy heroic sons to the fight, Opposing the stranger who came in his might. I love through thy time-fretted castles to stray, The mould'ring halls of thy chiefs to survey; To grope through the keep, and the turret explore, Where waved the blue flag ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,—of Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning. Oh, I will believe that Mr. Gabriel hadn't any need to grope as we do, but that suddenly he saw the Heavenly Arm and clung to it, and the grasp closed round him, and death and hell can have no power over him now. Dan, poor boy, is it better to lie in the earth with the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... myself, I note how thin A plank of station, chance, or prosperous fate, Doth fence me from the clutching waves of sin; In my own heart I find the worst man's mate, And see not dimly the smooth-hinged gate That opes to those abysses Where ye grope darkly,—ye who never knew On your young hearts love's consecrating dew, Or felt a mother's kisses, Or home's restraining tendrils round you curled; Ah, side by side with heart's-ease in this world The fatal nightshade grows ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... and almost went out, the darkness seeming to swoop in upon its defeat. The woman examined it, found that it was all but done, and glanced nervously over her shoulder. Then she made anxious haste to empty and replace the last of the birchen cups before she should be left in darkness to grope her way back ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... brak And hath him be the bridel sesed, And seide: "O thou, which hast desesed 3010 The Court of France be thi wrong, Now schalt thou singe an other song: Thin enterdit and thi sentence Ayein thin oghne conscience Hierafter thou schalt fiele and grope. We pleigne noght ayein the Pope, For thilke name is honourable, Bot thou, which hast be deceivable And tricherous in al thi werk, Thou Bonefas, thou proude clerk, 3020 Misledere of the Papacie, Thi false bodi schal abye And soffre ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... been treated so considerately and given the liberty of the house. Since he was not banished to the courtyard or turned over to a porter's care, she was willing to climb a dozen spiral stairways, or grope her way through the semi-darkness of a candle-lighted bedroom every night while they were in France, for the sake of having Hero free to come and go as ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... face and hands horribly. I scrambled out, however, almost directly, animated by a fiery instinct of self preservation, and pulling out from my flesh the thorns that hurt me most, I recommenced, blood-stained and unnerved, to grope my way in ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... and glad it is That men who hear it madden and their eyes are wet and blind, For the lowlands and the highlands Of the unforgotten islands, For the Islands of the Blessed and the rest they cannot find As they grope in dreams to England and the love they left in England; Little feet that danced to meet them And the lips that used to greet them, And the watcher at the window in ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... hideous screeches as startled the whole neighbourhood. He gave one last desperate lunge as a parting remembrance, and felt that his weapon had made a hit. Something fell on the floor, but the light was extinguished in the scuffle, and in vain he attempted to grope out ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... much wanted, and is a great blessing, but where it has enough to do to live, whence it cannot move to obtain what it wants or likes, but must stretch its unfortunate arms here and there for bare breath and light, and split its way among rocks, and grope for sustenance in unkindly soil; it would be hard upon the plant, I say, if under all these disadvantages, it were made answerable for its appearance, and found fault with because it was not a fine plant of the kind. And so we find it ordained that in order that no unkind comparisons ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... took a bit of something to eat in my pocket and went off for a walk, to be out of the way so they should not ask me in to supper. There was a moon, and the stars were out, but I liked best to grope my way into the dense part of the wood and sit down in the dark. It was more sheltered there, too. How quiet the earth and air seemed now! The cold is beginning, there is rime on the ground; now and again ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... my eye the New Year's Day before last," he remarked, in a sort of sullen self-commiseration, after we had sat in silence for a minute. "I could n't see to catch a horse; and it took me about six hours to grope my way along the fences to Dick Templeton's hut. I thought ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... in bliss. I taste of each lip, and melt in each kiss. I'm an egotist's pride, though in silence I reign; And, through free from sorrow, I'm always in pain. Though in laughter ne'er seen, in mirth I delight; In blindness I grope, though perfect in sight. In foolishness, Wisdom, and wit I've a place; Though dwelling in virtue I live in disgrace. Though frost knows me not, with winter I blend; And always to ice I'm a capital friend. I'm never in heat, though I live in the fire. Though never in want, I'm in every ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... to our modified consciousness. There is for the moment no hope of solving it; but we are free to grope in its darkness, which is not perhaps equally dense ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the forces let loose on that bad night. The sea jumped up like magic, and hurried before the lash of the wind. Then, with a darkening swoop, came the snowstorm, hurled along on wide wings; the last remnants of light fled; the vessel was shut in, and the devoted company on board could only grope in the murk on deck. No one would stay below, for the sudden, unexampled assault of the hurricane had touched the nerve of ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... away. The LORD shall smite thee with the boil of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart: and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled alway, and there shall be none to save thee. Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... that burthens me a good deal in my patriotic garrulage, and that is the black ignorance in which I grope about everything, as, for example, when I gave yesterday a full and, I fancy, a startlingly incorrect account of Scotch education to a very stolid German on a garden bench: he sat and perspired under it, however with much composure. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... indignation of the family would, he knew, be terrible, he resolved to conform himself to his circumstances, trusting to absence for that diminution of affection which it often produces. Having settled these points in his mind, he began to grope that part of his head which had come in contact with Owen Connor's cudgel. He had strong surmises that a bump existed, and on examining, he found that a powerful organ of ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... what I am. Prison did it. Go and try ten years yourself, and you'll find you will have to grope about for your fine emotions. Are you coming to America ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... She stabs you in a spot so vital that you die in a few minutes. You throw up your hands, you stagger against the mantel-shelf, you tear open your collar and then grope at nothing; you press your hands on your wound and take two reeling steps forward; you call feebly for help and stumble against the sofa which you fall upon, and finally, still groping wildly, you roll ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... about the depths of His nature and the divine character, things about the relation between God's love and God's righteousness, things about the meaning of all this dreadful mystery in which we grope our way. These and a hundred other questionings suggest to us that it would have been so easy for Him to have lifted a little corner of the veil, and let a little more of the light shine out. He holds all in His ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... the sufferers, upon whom the earth is shovelled and stamped down by thousands of cruel fanatics, who dance and jump upon the loose mould so as to form it into a compact mass; through which the victims of this horrid sacrifice cannot grope their way, the precaution having been taken to break the bones of their arms and legs. At length the mangled mass is buried and trodden down beneath a tumulus of earth, and all is still. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... me my mind and sperit loved to grope around more and find out things to praise and blame by rote and not by note, and Dorothy and Robert ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... began to grope wistfully about as if they sought something—she had been blind some hours. The end was come; all knew it. With a great sob Hester gathered her to her breast, crying, "Oh, my child, my darling!" A rapturous light broke in the dying girl's face, for it was mercifully vouchsafed her to mistake ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... than this: I strive to grope, with dull, earthy sense, at her freed life in that earnest land where souls forget to hunger or to hope, and learn to be. And so thinking, the certainty of her aim and work and love yonder comes with a new, vital reality, beside which the story of the yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... of an anabasis. By that we are to understand a forward movement in a moral or religious sense. The most intensive exemplar of the anabasis (whatever this may be) is mysticism. I can but grope about in the psychology of mysticism; I trust I may have more confidence at that point where I look at its symbolism from the ethical point ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... grown blind to grope Over them all, and for three days aloud Call'd on them who were dead. Then fasting got The mastery ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... I was suppliant for these two brothers, And I said: Your land has need: Half-awakened and blindly we grope in the great world.... What strength may we take from our Past, What promise hold ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... nations of Europe is so tragic as this. That two peoples should, within the space of nine months, abjure their friendly relations and furiously grapple in a life and death struggle over questions of secondary importance leads the dazed beholder at first to grope after the old Greek idea of ate or Nemesis. In reality the case does not call for supernatural agency. The story is pitiably human, if the student will but master its complex details. It may be well to close our study with a few general observations, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... road, they entered the house and began to grope their way up the narrow, winding staircase. They could make only slow progress, not only because of the absence of light, but owing to the rotten condition of the stairs. Indescribably filthy and littered with all sorts of rubbish and broken glass, in some places the boards had broken ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... introduced the high-sounding words of Schweigaard, 'One might thus certainly assume,' etc., and hurried down the left page, with unabated vigour down the right, reached the monkey, dashed past him, began to grope and fumble, and then I found I could not write a ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... in the Press astonished the land. They were these: "Medical World is Baffled by the 'Flu'."—"Exhaustive Experiments Leave Doctors Mystified."—"Every Test a Failure."—"Explosion of Accepted Theories Causes Science to Grope for Light." ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... finished her ironing. However, she took heart to believe that the clothes looked better, in spite of one or two scorched places; and she carried them upstairs to her husband's room before increasing blindness forced her to grope for the nearest chair. Then, trying to rise and walk, without having sufficiently recovered, she had to sit down again; but after a little while she was able to get upon her feet; and, keeping her hand against the wall, moved successfully to the door of her own room. ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... of dawn's aerial cope, With eyes enkindled as the sun's own sphere, Hope from the front of youth in godlike cheer Looks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope, And makes for joy the very darkness dear That gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that fear At noon may rise and pierce the heart of hope. Then, when the soul leaves ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... tinkling gyves: Accurst if they remember through the long Estrangement of their exile, twice accursed If they forget and join the accursed throng. 60 How doth my heart that is so wrung not burst When I remember that my way was plain, And that God's candle lit me at the first, Whilst now I grope in darkness, grope in vain, Desiring but to find Him Who is lost, To find Him once again, but once again. His wrath came on us to the uttermost, His covenanted and most righteous wrath: Yet this is He of Whom we made our boast, Who lit the ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... her lovers, and warmeth and brighteneth them. But if any shut their eyes, and will not behold the light thereof, not for that must the sun be blamed, or scorned by others: still less shall the glory of his brightness be dishonoured through their silliness. But while they, self-deprived of light, grope like blind men along a wall, and fall into many a ditch, and scratch out their eyes on many a bramble bush, the sun, firmly established on his own glory, shall illuminate them that gaze upon his beams with unveiled face. Even so shineth the light of Christ on all ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... "They's a chord in the music That's missed when her voice is away!" Though I listen from midnight 'tel morning, And dawn, 'tel the dusk of the day; And I grope through the dark, lookin' up'ards And on through the heavenly dome, With my longin' soul singin' and sobbin' The words, "Do ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... years many ships were lost in consequence of the masters not knowing their exact position. In the present day the coast is much better lighted than formerly. The character of every part of the bottom of the Channel is well-known, so that a ship may grope her way up with the lead going, the mud, sand, or shells, which are brought up sticking to the grease in a little hollow at the end of the lead, showing whereabouts she is. Then the quadrants, chronometers, and other nautical instruments ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... Surely there were saints and seers of the olden time who were worthy to be media of such a communication. And surely the generations of the past needed such a spiritual uplift as much as we do to-day. Yet for ages and ages the revelation was not given. Men had to grope in the twilight for centuries, until at length the illumination dawned on a few souls. But the reputed wise men of the world did not hail with joy the new illumination, but generally treated it as a new presumption. And however agreeable with reason and with ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... Both psychology and science grope when they would explain to us the strange adventures of our immaterial selves when wandering in the realm of "Death's twin brother, Sleep." This story will not attempt to be illuminative; it is no more than a record of Murray's dream. One of the most ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... well lighted, and the guest has not to third his way through knotty sentences, past perilous punctuation-points, to reach the table, nor to grope in the dark for the dainties when he has found it. We imagine that it is this charm of perfect clearness and accessibility which attracts popular liking to Mr. Aldrich's poetry; afterwards, its other qualities easily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... is all this you say? I sense but vaguely what I fail to grasp; I glimpse mysterious, strangely clouded visions,— But can not understand. I grope in darkness! ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... tells you that beauty is the manifestation of God to the senses, you wish you might understand him, you grope for a deep truth in his obscurity, you honour him for his elevation of mind, and your respect may even induce you to assent to what he says as to an intelligible proposition. Your thought may in consequence be dominated ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... make more history in Secessia than here. Jeff. Davis overshadows Lincoln. Jeff. Davis and his gang of malefactors are pushed into the whirlpool of action by the nature of their crime; here, our leaders dread action, and grope. The rebels have a clear, decisive, almost palpable ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... doors and the shattering of window panes. A violent storm had suddenly blown up and the wind was working havoc with unfastened blinds and shutters. There was no use thinking of holding a candle or a lamp. Besides, the lightning flashed so brightly that I was able to grope my way through the long line of empty rooms, tighten the fastenings, and shut the windows. I had reached the second story without mishap and without hearing the slightest footstep within doors. All my ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... thou wert dead! The age needs heart—'tis tired of head. We're all for love," the violins said. "Of what avail the rigorous tale Of coin for coin and box for bale? Grant thee, O Trade! thine uttermost hope, Level red gold with blue sky-slope, And base it deep as devils grope, When all's done what hast thou won Of the only sweet that's under the sun? Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh Of true love's least, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... unalloyed Life and Intelligence it can be no other than good, it can entertain no intention of evil, and thus all intentional evil must put us in opposition to it, and so deprive us of the consciousness of its guidance and strengthening and thus leave us to grope our own way and fight our own battle single-handed against the universe, odds which at last will surely prove too great for us. But remember that the opposition can never be on the part of the Universal Mind, for ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... it, and so it will go on ever growing and growing with your disgrace, that ye will never get rid of it until ye bring yourselves into a strait, and have to fight your way out with weapons; but in that there is a long and weary night in which ye will have to grope ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... the love of Christ, first of all, that love must purify your souls. But then you must keep your souls pure, assured of this, that only the single eye is full of light, and that they who are not 'saints' grope in the dark even at midday, and whilst drenched by the sunshine of His love, are unconscious of it altogether. And so we get that miserable and mysterious tragedy of men and women walking through life, as many of you are doing, in the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... the dark. His awakening was simple, easy, without movement save for the eyes that opened and made him aware of darkness. Unlike most, who must feel and grope and listen to, and contact with, the world about them, he knew himself on the moment of awakening, instantly identifying himself in time and place and personality. After the lapsed hours of sleep he ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... ... Mr. Wright pulled himself to his feet, and with one shaking hand on the table felt his way around until he stood directly in front of her; he put his face close to hers and stared into her eyes, his lower lip opening and closing in silence. Then, without speaking, he began to grope about on the table for ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... courage! I have got, within the last twelve months, actually, as it were, to see that this Cromwell was one of the greatest souls ever born of the English kin; a great amorphous semi-articulate Baresark; very interesting to me. I grope in the dark vacuity of Baxters, Neales; thankful for here a glimpse and there a glimpse. This is to be ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... grope in darkest night, Of what men call a world of ills, The closer concentration fills My inmost ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... temple I see those who see thee, and, in every tongue that is spoken, thou art praised. Polytheism and Islam grope after thee, Each religion says, 'Thou art one, without equal,' Be it mosque, men murmur holy prayer; or church, the bells ring, for love of thee; Awhile I frequent the Christian cloister, anon the mosque: But thee only I seek from fane to fane. Thine ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... up for the few; for the minority is selfish and the majority generous. The minority has ruled the world for physical reasons. The physical reasons are being removed by this "converting culture." Webster will not much longer have to grope for the mind of his constituency. The majority—the people—will need no intermediary. Governments will pass from the representative to the direct. The hog-mind is the principal thing that is making this transition slow. The biggest prop ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... as he made his way through the thickest of the brambles, nettles and ivy, was lucky enough to find a cavity full of dry leaves, in which he buried himself to the chin. The rain had already drenched him, and after slipping down the muddy slope, he had frequently been obliged to grope his way upon all fours. So those dry leaves proved a boon such as he had not dared to hope for. They dried him somewhat, serving as a blanket in which he coiled himself after his wild race through the dank darkness. The rain still fell, but he ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... And so on till the whole falls in, and has Not any likeness,—face, and hand, and tree, All gone. So with the mind: thought follows thought, This hastening, and that pressing upon this, A mighty crowd within so narrow room: And then at length heavy-eyed slumbers come, The drowsy fancies grope about, and miss Their way, and what ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... remember that during all this time I knew nothing of the experience of James Martin with this afflicted trio, but had been compelled to grope my way blindly. As the doctor and son-in-law went out my son came in. He had overheard something about the writing, and said, excitedly: "Don't write, mother; there is no sick man here. That tall man is Elsie's master, and they threatened ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... desire that is certain to be fulfilled. In some measure the same thing is true of us all. For surely, surely, if only you saw realities, and things as they are, some of you would not be content to continue as you are—without this water of life. Blind, blind, blind, are the men who grope at noon-day as in the dark and turn away from Jesus. If you knew, not with the head only, but with the whole nature, if you knew the thirst of your soul, the sweetness of the water, the readiness of the Giver, and the dry ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... The epistle itself (Alexias, l. iii. p. 93, 94, 95) well deserves to be read. There is one expression which Ducange does not understand. I have endeavored to grope out a tolerable meaning: The first word is a golden crown; the second is explained by Simon Portius, (in Lexico Graeco-Barbar.,) by a flash ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... the crowd left the square. Michael, abandoned as a wretched being from whom nothing was to be feared, was alone. She saw him draw himself towards his mother, bend over her, kiss her forehead, then rise and grope his way ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... the animal to its feet; but the poor thing either could not or would not move. It was clear that I must leave it, and though hating to do so, I walked a few paces down the narrow path. The fall had shaken me considerably. My head ached, and I had much ado to grope my way along. Three several times in the course of a short distance I stumbled, and the third time fell heavily to the ground, twisting my left foot underneath me. I tried to rise, but could not. Now, what should I do? I dared not call for help, lest the ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... could have gone almost straight to that cleft, steering my course by the sea rocks I had noted from the window. But in the dark it was different. I could only grope along in hope, with many a stop to wonder where I had got to, and many a stumble and many a bruise. Stark darkness is akin to blindness, and blindness in a strange land, and that a land of rocks and chasms, is a vast ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... darkness. Then somebody remembered that when Farragut advanced upon Port Hudson on a dark night—and did not wish to assist the aim of the Confederate gunners—he carried no battle-lanterns, but painted the decks of his ships white, and thus created a dim but valuable light, which enabled his own men to grope their way around with considerable facility. At this point the war got the floor again—the ten minutes ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sailor yarns, and Lois stood ready to serve his punch, or pass to the fat, smooth-faced, cheerful Minuit the pieces of mechanism: brass gimbals, chronometer-boxes, wheels and springs, ship-glasses, compasses, the manifold parts of little things by which men grope their way out of sight of land, hung between a human watch and the crystal shell of the embossed heaven. Chronometers were with Minuit attractive and yet awe-giving subjects. The legend of his childhood, well ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... of a false footing on the trembling boards, and grope your way with me into this wolfish den, where neither ray of light nor breath of air, appears to come. A negro lad, startled from his sleep by the officer's voice - he knows it well - but comforted by his assurance that he has not come on business, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... They only wonder "some folks" do not starve! The grave, sage hern thus easy picks his frog, And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog. When disappointment snaps the thread of Hope, When, thro' disastrous night, they darkling grope, With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear, And just conclude that "fools are Fortune's care:" So, heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks, Strong on the sign-post stands the ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... darkness and terror, When I would grope nearer to God, With my back to a record of error And the highway of sin I have trod, There come to me shapes I would banish— The shapes of the deeds I have done; And I pray and I plead till they vanish— All vanish and leave ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... myriad lines, an unbroken veil of steely gray swinging from the zenith, the white foam rebounding as the masses of water struck the earth. The camp equipage, tents and wagons succumbed beneath the fury of the tempest, and, indeed, the hunters had much ado to saddle their horses and grope their way along the bridle-path that ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... grow more and more bewildered. Your observations are wholly incomprehensible to me. Cannot you simplify them in some way? At first I thought perhaps I understood you, but I grope now. Would it not expedite matters if you restricted yourself to categorical statements of fact unencumbered with obstructing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... disappoint her? She did not yet know that those who are most sincere find it more difficult than the others to say what they think. Words, in their souls, are like climbing plants which, sown by chance in the middle of a roadway, waver and grope, send out tendrils here and there in despair and end by entangling themselves with one another. Whereas most people, just as we provide supports for flowers, bestow certainties and truths upon their words to which they cling, ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... there. "I will not repair the hole in the window and I will train myself to come here at night and sit in the presence of this woman without raising my eyes. I will not be defeated in this thing. The Lord has devised this temptation as a test of my soul and I will grope my way out of darkness ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... of dreams! And all earth's common goals and gifts have been But fuel to flame. O strange and piteous heart! O credulous and visionary heart! Desirous of the infinite—from defeat Arising still to grope again for light And the high word of vision! And in vain! Till, not having found, its bitterness corrodes Inward—like one betrayed by ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... growing realization of the events of the past twenty-four hours, but without a shock. She was alone here, but safe still, and every hour added to her chances of ultimate escape. She remembered to have seen a candle among the articles on the shelf, and she began to grope her way toward the matches. Suddenly she stopped. What ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... by eavesdropping is practised in the Isle of Man in much the same way as in Scotland. You go out with your mouth full of water and your hands full of salt and listen at a neighbour's door, and the first name you hear will be the name of your husband. Again, Manx maids bandage their eyes and grope about the room till they dip their hands in vessels full of clean or dirty water, and so on; and from the thing they touch they draw corresponding omens. But some people in the Isle of Man observe these auguries, not on Hallowe'en or Hollantide Eve, as they call it, which ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... minutes the fugitive remained motionless, then, hearing no sounds from above he started to grope about his retreat. Upon two sides were blank, circular walls, upon the other two circular openings about four feet in diameter. It was through these openings that the tiny ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... him. He longed to escape from his prison, and began to think that Max must have forgotten him altogether. At length he again fell asleep. He was awakened by three heavy knocks above his head, Max's promised signal. He waited the time agreed on, and then began to crawl out, and grope his way upwards. At last he saw daylight above him, and scrambling along, he reached the foot of a ladder. Climbing up with uncomfortable feelings at his heart as to the reception he might meet with, ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston
... these Indians have long lost faith in paganism, and in their hours of peril, or in the presence of death even, many of them who have learned but little about Christianity cling to those who have some knowledge of the great salvation and strive to grope into the way. ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... does not grope with uncertain purpose among these imperfect rays, and she is never confused by them. To each she freely gives credit for what it is or has been; but all fade at last before the unspeakable brightness of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... and heavy seas are not dangerous, whilst it is not wise to grope one's way between two coasts. One is sure to be detained for some time in the strait, but this delay is not time wholly lost. One meets with water in abundance, wood and shell-fish, and occasionally very good fish. And I am decidedly ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... exceedingly muddy, and as it seemed to Hobb rather deep, and he was wondering whether his old cap were worth wading for, and had almost decided to abandon it, when he saw a skinny yellow arm, like a frog's leg, stretch up through the water, and a hand that dripped with slime grope for his cap. With three strides he was in the pond, and he caught the cap and the hand together in his fist. The hand writhed in his, but Hobb was too strong for it; and with a mighty tug he dragged ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... Lee. We experienced much difficulty, and narrowly escaped detection, in entering this village, which is surrounded by beautiful country seats, through the grounds of some of which we were obliged to grope our way. We obtained lodgings, after one or two fruitless trials, in a very comfortable house kept by a farmer. The young family seemed to be rather tastefully educated, and we soon became fast friends. We passed as whimsical tourists, and ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... build to mimic life with pygmy hands, Not in those earliest days when men ran wild And gashed each other with their knives of stone, When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy brows And their flat hands were callous in the palm With walking in the fashion of their sires, Grope as they might to find a cruel god To work their will on such as human wrath Had wrought its worst to torture, and had left With rage unsated, white and stark and cold, Could hate have shaped a demon more malign Than him the dead men mummied in their ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... useless, Cap'n, but they ain't no blessed good, an' I bet my head on that. See, if you drives all them plugs well through her, and they sticks out good an' proper outside, it ain't so hard to grope around under the mud an' grab a holt on 'em. Then 'tain't very hard, genelmen, to paddle away a bit o' mud about each bunch o' plugs, an' when that's done, 'tis about all done. I'll lash a wire to them long plugs, and stretch her right ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... blue mountains," or of the "far-off snow-peaks outlined against the horizon," and the fiction proves hardly worth sifting for so little fact. Plainly the Pyrenees lack the voluminous literature of the Alps. Plainly we shall have, in part, to grope our way. The grooves of Anglo-Saxon travel are many and deep, lined increasingly with English speech and customs; but they have not yet been cut into these ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... taking the various directions of the coasts and rivers, and very perplexing to strangers. Unfortunately, there was no one on board who had ever been here before, and not having been able to procure a pilot, we were compelled to grope our way, both by night and by day, with only a rough sketch of a chart ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... spirit went out of it to continue its existence elsewhere, but that those who hated the thought of such change could, by taking thought, prolong life and live for a thousand years, like the adder and tortoise or for ever. But no, he would not leave the poor boy to grope alone and blindly after that hidden knowledge he was burning to possess. He pitied him too much. The means were simple and near to hand, the earth teemed with the virtue that would save him from the dissolution which so appalled him. He would be startled to hear in how small a thing and in how ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... obstructed our progress. The tortuous course of the river was such that it was only by pursuing a direction parallel to the general course we could hope to make sufficient progress. But in exploring the general course only of rivers the traveller must still grope his way occasionally; for here, after turning the lagoon, we again encountered the river taking such a bend southward that we were compelled to travel towards the east, and even northward of east, to avoid the furrowed ground on ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... let stocks go up or downward, and let politicians wrangle, Let the parsons and philosophers grope in a wordy tangle, Let those who want them scramble for their dignities or dollars, Be millionnaires or magnates, ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... plunder of reserves— The sacred remnants of our wide domain— With tamp'rings, and delirious feasts of fire, The fruit of your thrice-cursed stills of death, Which make our good men bad, our bad men worse, Aye! blind them till they grope in open day, And stumble into miserable graves. Oh, it is piteous, for none will hear! There is no hand to help, no heart to feel, No tongue to plead for us in all your land. But every hand aims death, and every heart, Ulcered with hate, resents our presence here; And every ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... of the windows, holding the light to ascertain if there was anybody near, and, satisfied with her scrutiny, she then opened the door, and calling down the saints to protect me, shook hands with me, and I quitted the house. It was a dark, cloudy night, and when I first went out, I was obliged to grope, for I could distinguish nothing. I walked along with a pistol loaded in each hand, and gained, as I thought, the high road to E——, but I made a sad mistake; and puzzled by the utter darkness ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... sword, O Mother, and its hilts are come to hand, And look that thou whet it duly; for the Norns are departed now; From the blood of our foster-brother no branch of bale shall grow; Hoodwinked are the Gods of heaven, their sleep-dazed eyes are blind; They shall peer and grope through the darkness, and nought therein shall find, Save the red right hand of Guttorm, and his lips that never swore; At the young man's deed shall they wonder, and all shall be covered o'er: Ho, Guttorm, enter, and hearken to the ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... Praxagora). What does this mean? My wife has vanished! it is nearly daybreak and she does not return! Wanting to relieve myself, lo! I awake and hunt in the darkness for my shoes and my cloak; but grope where I will, I cannot find them. Meanwhile my need grew each moment more urgent and I had only just time to seize my wife's little mantle and her Persian slippers. But where shall I find a spot suitable for my purpose. Bah! One place is as good as another at night-time, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... things, free to be curious about the others, free to follow clues of greatness, free to go up the streams of Society to the still, faint little springs and beginnings of things. It would soon be a memorable city. A world would watch it, and other cities would grope toward it. Instead of this we have these big, hollow, unmanned libraries of Mr. Carnegie's everywhere, with no people practically to go with them, no great hive of happy living men and women in and out all day cross-fertilizing boys ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... poking, wondered if the girl would let me; arguing to myself, he gives her money—my girls never wanted money,—why should his? He had been dinning into my ears, that all women would let men for money, or presents, or else from lust. "Kiss and grope, and if they don't cry out, show them your prick and go at them." These maxims ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... to grope my way; and it is a hard people, as you say, to deal with. But I have no fear, sir; I shall overcome all Flamborough, unless—unless, what I fear to think of, there ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... furnishings, but dry and evidently roofed. It was better than the terrace, and so, by groping along the wall, I tried to make my way to Hotchkiss. That was how I found the open window. I had passed perhaps six, all closed, and to have my hand grope for the next one, and to find instead the soft drapery of an inner curtain, was startling, ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... murks my Horoscope Until my dream-enamoured Senses grope Towards the Light, where in her opal Shrine Smiles Hopefulness, the great Reward ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... distance that separates one's own soul from the soul of the person sitting in the next chair. I am speaking of comparative strangers, people who are forced to stay a certain time by the eccentricities of trains, and in whose presence you grope about after common interests and shrink back into your shell on finding that you have none. Then a frost slowly settles down on me and I grow each minute more benumbed and speechless, and the babies feel the frost in the air and ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... arriving at the entrance on the lower side. Such is its peculiar form, that an observer, standing at a point about midway of its subterranean course, is completely excluded from a view of either entrance, and is left to grope in the dark through a distance of about twenty yards, occupying an intermediate portion of the tunnel. When the sun is near the meridian, and his rays fall upon both entrances, the light reflected from both extremities of the tunnel contributes to mollify the darkness of this interior ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... Scotchman, and so I call things by old-fashioned names. That is what we call a three or four-pronged fork in my country. The word comes from the same root as the German greifen, and our own grip, and gripe, and grope, and grab—and grub too!" he added, "which in the present case ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... forget the road up to it, and the corner near the ruined fosse, which was always liable to be shelled unexpectedly? In cellars beneath the unwholesome and dilapidated town our men found billets. They were really quite comfortable, but at night when the place was as black as pitch, and one had to grope one's way in the darkness along debris-covered streets, shaken every now and then by the German missiles from the sky, one longed for Canada and the well-lighted pavements of ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... Bowerman, but only to find him sitting sulkily with about a dozen strange officers, who were evidently his masters for the moment, and prevented his being in the least communicative. Nothing was left for the Colonel but to grope his way back to Newport. It was near midnight when, with his clothes drenched with wet, he reached the King's lodgings; and there, what a change! Guards all round the house; guards at every window; sentinels in the passages, and up to the very door of the King's chamber, armed ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... to feel less dizzy, and having paused for a moment on the landing, she succeeded in getting her coat on. Then she closed the door as quietly as possible, and clutching the handrail began to grope her way downstairs. There was only one flight, she remembered, and a short passage leading to the street door. She reached the passage without mishap, and saw a ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... carefully before him, lest he should unguardedly go beyond his depth; at length he reached the blind man, took him very carefully by the hand, and led him out. The blind man then gave him a thousand blessings, and told him he could grope out his way home; and the little Boy ran on as hard as he could, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... all that resist it. Fill her with the prophets' scorn of tyranny, and with a Christ-like tenderness for the heavy-laden and down-trodden. Give her faith to espouse the cause of the people, and in their hands that grope after freedom and light to recognize the bleeding hands of the Christ. Bid her cease from seeking her own life, lest she lose it. Make her valiant to give up her life to humanity, that like her crucified Lord she may mount by the path of ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... wherever you begin to dig a trench, the narrow ends stick out from both sides. In these coffins also various articles were buried with the dead, sometimes valuable ones. The Arabs know this; they dig in the sand with their hands, break the coffins open with their spears, and grope in them for booty. The consequence is that it is extremely difficult to procure an entire coffin. Loftus succeeded, however, in sending some to the British Museum, having first pasted around them several layers of thick paper, without which precaution ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin |
