"Grope" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... people—well, and what about them? Their greediness is immense, and yet they purposely whirl about in business that they might not see themselves. They hide themselves, the devils. Try to free them from this bustle—what will happen? Like blind men they will grope about hither and thither; they'll lose their mind—they'll go mad! I know it! Do you think that business brings happiness into man? No, that's not so—something else is missing here. This is not everything yet! The river flows that men may sail on it; the tree ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... written in a language that we don't understand. One must read in the different strata, in the pebble-stones, for each separate period. Yes, it is a romance, a very wonderful romance, and we all have our place in it. We grope and ferret about, and yet remain where we are, but the ball keeps turning, without emptying the ocean over us; the clod on which we move about, holds, and does not let us through. And then it's a story that has been acting ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... whirling round and round in a lascivious mixture of bullet and cancan. It is all done in an instant, and with a bang the music stops. Several of the girls have already fallen exhausted on the floor. The lights go out in a twinkling. In the smoky cloud we have just enough daylight to grope our way out. The big policeman stands in the doorway. Billy McGlory himself is at the bar, to the left of the entrance, and we go and take a look at the man. He is a typical New York saloon-keeper—nothing more, and nothing less. ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... up in bed and began to grope for the matchbox. But this passed away. The face of Death grew mild, and then seemed to smile. He lay down on his side, his face turned from the open window, composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and fell softly into the ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... reapers singing go Into God's harvest; I, that might With them have chosen, here below Grope shuddering at the gates ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... 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 off on the floor, where you ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... 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 ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... self-education that was continued for years afterwards. Of course, the system was a very imperfect one. There was no one to select books for me, nor to direct my mind in its search after knowledge. I was an humble apprentice boy, inclined from habit to shrink from observation, and preferring to grope about in the dark for what I was in search off, rather than intrude my wants and wishes upon others. Day after day I worked and thought, and night after night I read and studied, while other boys were ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... of the Lord God of Israel light on the man who has informed against us. May he be smitten with madness and blindness and astonishment of heart. May he grope at the noonday as the blind gropeth in the darkness. May his life hang in doubt before him. May he fear day and night, and have none assurance of his life. May he say in the morning—'Would God it were even! And at even—'Would God it were morning!' for the fear of his heart wherewith ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... by her shoes, which, being extremely large and slipshod, flew off every now and then, and were difficult to find again, among the crowd of passengers. Indeed, the poor little creature experienced so much trouble and delay from having to grope for these articles of dress in mud and kennel, and suffered in these researches so much jostling, pushing, squeezing and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she reached the street in which the notary lived, she was fairly ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... his hat on the flat top indicated, his silhouette cutting vigorously into the dimness, particularly the rather heavy double wave to his hair causing Lilly to grope with a vague sense of having seen him before. It was merely a rather remote resemblance to the remote Horace Lindsley, but not for days did she stumble ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... fire. The tree in the corner of the room flashes its tinselry in the dying light. A cinder tinkles on the hearth. Their thoughts are one. "He would be nine years old, if he had lived," murmurs the mother. Their hands grope for each other, meet and clasp. Something aches in their throats. The red coals swell and blur ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... eyes toward Mr. Bernard, and let them rest upon him, without a thought, 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... visage faded away, as if all the lingering fire of his soul were extinguished. Just then, too, a lamp upon the mantelpiece threw out a dying gleam, which vanished as speedily as it shot upward, compelling our eyes to grope for one another's features by the dim glow of the hearth. With such a lingering fire, methought, with such a dying gleam, had the glory of the ancient system vanished from the province-house when ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... like dinner," thought Jack with a chuckle, as he also dipped his hand to grope for the finny delicacies. He had less than a minute to wait when something cold and smooth touched his fingers. He made a desperate clutch, sinking his arm to his elbow, but the fish was too quick, and darted beyond his reach, just as Ogallah ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... reason after which he did not grope the half sneer of the words stung Kendric into a ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... kids in the open; I suppose the terrific influence of Sorolla has me in bondage for the moment." He laughed easily: "But don't worry; it will leave nothing except clean inspiration behind it. I'll think out my own way—grope it out through Pantheon and living maze. All I've really got to say in paint can be said only in my own way. I know that, even when realising that I've ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... again with more transcendent sense, Hearing unchecked, and unimpeded sight. If we who walk now, then should wing the air, Who stammer now, then should discard the voice, Who grope now, then should see with other sight, And send new ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... immediately, whether the halt was that of the brigade in advance, or only of these stragglers, and when forced to move on, they would go off at a gallop. A great gap would be thus opened between the rear of one brigade and the advance of the other, and we who were behind were forced to grope our way as we best could. When we would come to one of the many junctions of roads which occur in the suburbs of a large city, we would be compelled to consult all sorts of indications in order to hit upon the right road. The night was intensely dark, and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... no doubt, be a good thing for those who now grope, but I have groped so long that I have formed the habit and prefer it. Let me go right on groping. Those who desire to win the affections of the opposite sex at one sitting, will do well to send ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... 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 ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and worn the club colors in his buttonhole to be admired by the girls and envied by the other fellows. But now there was none of that charmed fellowship for him. He nourished his feeling of bitterness and hatred until his scheming mind began to grope for some way of spoiling the success of the play. As usual, he turned to his friend, Abraham Goldstein, who was about the only one who had not shown any coolness. Together they watched their chance. The play progressed toward perfection, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... you have just as good means of ascertaining these points as I," said Septimius; "all the certainty that can be had lies on the surface, as it should, and equally accessible to every man or woman. If we try to grope deeper, we labor for naught, and get less wise while we try to be more so. If life were long enough to enable us thoroughly to sift these matters, then, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... knew he, two or three, That he had learned out of some decree; No wonder is, he heard it all the day. And eke ye knowen well, how that a jay Can clepen* "Wat," as well as can the Pope. *call But whoso would in other thing him grope*, *search Then had he spent all his philosophy, Aye, Questio ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... "Therefore for our iniquities is justice far from us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind; we stumble at noon day as in the night: we are in ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... mother. If either you or my father know any reason why I should be treated differently from other sons, you ought to tell me; not leave me to grope about in ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... not from any bravery or presence of mind, but from utter annihilation of both qualities in the shock and surprise of it all. At last I began trying to grope my way toward the door. I found it. Some people—I heard and felt rather than saw—were standing about the battered-in door, and there was the sound of water hurrying past the door-way. The Rhine was rushing down ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... 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, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... pleasant work in the heavy sea there was running having to grope about in the dark for a craft manned probably by desperadoes, who would be too happy to cut our throats if they had the opportunity. I had a brace of pistols, and a few cutlasses had been thrown into ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... man schemed it is my hope - Yea, that it fell by will and scope Of That Which some enthrone, And for whose meaning myriads grope. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... over and she came out from under the opiate, she lay for a while, open-eyed but unseeing, too inert to grope for the lost thread of memory. She felt a stirring in the bed beside her, the movement of some living thing. She looked and there, squeezed into the edge of the pillow was a miniature head of a little old man—wrinkled, copperish. Yet the face was fat—ludicrously fat. A painfully ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... a saint or a madonna; she had fallen from her pedestal so low that he could not find the way to descend and grope after the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... sinister-looking men, robed entirely in black, in whom he recognized, not without a shudder, the dreaded familiars of the Holy Office, the officials of the Inquisitorial Tribune. His first impulse was to grope for his arms; but his sword and pistols had been removed. A rough voice bade him arise and follow, and he had no choice but to obey the mandate. Preceded and followed by the familiars, who were all armed, as he judged by the clash of steel that attended each footstep, though no weapons were apparent, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... to the "savage" as his can be to us. Nevertheless, it is true to say that as civilization advances, and especially where the position of women improves, the movement has been towards a more stable and exclusive form of marriage. We grope uncertainly towards it: we fail atrociously. Yet we do not abandon an ideal which asks so much of human nature that human nature is continually invoked to ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... string Dangle and dance in the same ring. Tom, of your piping I've heard said And seen—that you can rouse the dead, Dead-drunken men awash who lie In stinking gutters hear your cry, I've seen them twitch, draw breath, grope, sigh, Heave up, sway, stand; grotesquely then You set them dancing, these dead men. They stamp and prance with sobbing breath, Victims of wine or love or death, In ragged time they jump, they shake Their heads, sweating to overtake The impetuous tune flying ahead. They flounder ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... oh! "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' upwards And on through the heavenly dome, With my longin' soul singin' and sobbin' The words "Do They ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... stumbled uncertainly down the trail into the canon, the bottom of which was still black as night from a heavy growth of young aspens that shut out the light. There was a fairly well-worn path leading up the gulch, so that he could grope his way forward slowly. His feet moved reluctantly. It seemed to him that his nerves, his brain, and even his muscles were in revolt against the moral compulsion that drove him on. He could feel his heart beating against his ribs. Every sound startled ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... wished to spare me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks I am not suited for, and which I really don't know myself that I AM suited for; and isn't she up early and late, and going to and fro continually—and doesn't she do all sorts of things, and grope into all sorts of places, coal-holes and pantries and I don't know where, that can't be very agreeable—and do you mean to insinuate that there is not a sort ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... with him somehow, and think his thoughts. I have heard her say once that it is just as though a high wall separated them. 'I cannot see him or hear him, but I know he is just the other side of the wall; only he has all the sunshine, and I have to grope alone in the shadows.'" ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... calling, to him; and saying to himself 'God help me. Let me go up to 'em. I feel as if I were going to die in despair—of a broken heart; let me die among the bells that have been a comfort to me!'—will grope his way up into the tower; and fall down in a kind of swoon among them. Then the third quarter, or in other words the beginning of the second half of the book, will open with the Goblin part of the thing: the bells ringing, and innumerable spirits (the sound or ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... had already reached Alexandria with the last of his troops, but by the acts of the ubiquitous Jackson his lines of communication were cut and the Federal commander had to grope his way in the dark for fear of running foul of his ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... and the thief made a gallant effort to recover it, but King was too strong for him. He seized the knife himself, slipped it in his own bosom and resumed his hold before the native guessed what he was after. Then he kept a tight grip while Hyde knelt to grope for his missing property. The major found both the thief's bags, and held ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... dark night, and the woods were so profoundly obscured, that Roy had to grope about for some time before he found a suitable tree. Cutting it down with the axe which always hung at his girdle, he returned to camp with it on his shoulder, and cut off the small soft branches, which Nelly spread over the ground to the depth of nearly half a foot. ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... as men who through a fen Of filthy darkness grope: We did not dare to breathe a prayer, Or to give our anguish scope: Something was dead in each of us, And what was ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... briskly upon the understanding, and strikes my ear and apprehension with a smarter and more pleasing effect. As to the natural parts I have, of which this is the essay, I find them to bow under the burden; my fancy and judgment do but grope in the dark, tripping and stumbling in the way; and when I have gone as far as I can, I am in no degree satisfied; I discover still a new and greater extent of land before me, with a troubled and imperfect sight and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... convinced that the Ashantis will not venture to return, tonight, whatever they may do tomorrow. With three torches—one at the head, one in the middle of the line, and one in the rear—we should be able to travel through the paths better than if we had to grope ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... and, as they struggled, encircled one huge paw. The Indian jerked it tight, and they were bound together. But now his only weapon was down at the bottom and the water all muddied. He could not see, but plunged to grope for the tomahawk. The snapper gave a great lurch to escape, releasing the injured hand, but jerking the man off his legs. Then, finding itself held by a forepaw, it turned with gaping, hissing jaws, and sprang on the foe that struggled in ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... old giants grope about, for they did not know the God who was revealed unto the more spiritual sense of Abraham, Moses, David, and Isaiah. And yet with all their errors they were the greatest benefactors of the ancient world. They gave dignity to intellectual inquiries, while by their ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... vanities, All things for which men grasp and grope! The precious things in heavenly eyes Are love, and truth, and ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... and the Dusarian warrior who had been detailed to duty upon the Thuria. Carthoris walked close to the left side of the latter. Now they came to the dense shadow under the side of the Thuria. It was very dark there, so that they had to grope for the ladder. ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the history of the earth has been one of law in all past time, as it is now. Nor need we shrink back affrighted at the vastness of the conception—the vaster for its very vagueness—that we are thus compelled to form as to the duration of geological time. As we grope our way backward through the dark labyrinth of the ages, epoch succeeds to epoch, and period to period, each looming more gigantic in its outlines and more shadowy in its features, as it rises, dimly revealed, from the mist and vapour ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... hand commenced to grope. It stole into his own and lay there quietly. "Because I couldn't bear to see you hurt. You're so good. In some ways you're so strong; in others you're just as tiny as my Eric. I felt you needed me for ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... he paused and rested, striving vainly to garner some clue to his bearings. Inexorably the blackness forbade that. He might have failed ere dawn to grope a way out of that trap had not the disappearance of the submarine been discovered ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... man the position was well-nigh tragic. Had he not experience of the terror of a northern blizzard? Had he not many a time had to grope his way along a life-line lest the slightest deviation in direction should carry him out into the storm to perish of cold, blinded and lost? Oh, yes. This understanding was ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... north winds have left their icy caves To growl and grope for prey Upon the murky sea; The lonely sea-gull skims the sullen waves All ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... 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 ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... 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 and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... great and vitalizing love—a love where intellect, spirit and sex find their perfect mate. Love is the great enlightener. And in my own mind I am fully persuaded that comparatively few mortals ever experience this rebirth that a great love gives. We grope our way through life. Nature's first thought is for reproduction of the species; she has so overloaded physical passion that men and women marry when the blood is warm and intellect callow. Girls marry for life the first man that offers, and forever put behind them the possibilities ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... meant much to each of them; down town by arrangement in a cafe, or once or twice for dinner; and once for a day in the country, though not alone; and he was always the same. Sometimes, on night duty, she would grope for an adjective to fit him, and could only think of "tender." He was that. And she hated it, or all but hated it. She did not want tenderness from him, for it seemed to her that tenderness meant that he was, as it were, standing aloof from her, considering, ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... we may know how to instruct and direct those (if such we should meet with) who are being afflicted and tormented by such thoughts of the devil to tempt God, when he entices them to search the devious ways of God outside of revelation, and to grope about trying to fathom what God plans for them—whereby they are led into such doubt and despair that they know not how they will survive. Such people must be reminded of these words [Rom. 11], and be rebuked ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... I felt rather than saw it. "How could I see in the dark?" sleepily, 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 were open now, I felt sure. I couldn't be dreaming this. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... right. At different times the same oracles delivered different opinions: thus he had nothing, steady; nothing permanent, whereby to guide his steps; like a blind man left to himself in the streets, he was obliged to grope his way at the peril of his existence. This will serve to shew the urgent necessity there is for truth to throw its radiant lustre on systems big with so much importance; that are so calculated to corroborate the animosities, to confirm the bitterness of soul, between those whom ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... than they had found it on their previous visit. Jeremy and his father had to grope in the pitchy blackness for the coins that Bob held out to them. Their pockets were about half-full when there came a whispered exclamation from the ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... me," he said. "Look here, Henri, grope about for a stone—a brick—anything that's hard and will hurt, and can be thrown easily. Ah! here's one—a big 'un too; you try the same, Jules, and get ready to heave at that sentry. When I bash my fist against the fellow below, you throw your stones ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... than what we have. It begins sufficiently well, but the author has hardly enunciated his preliminary apophthegms, when he conducts into an obscurity where we can hardly grope our way, and when we emerge from that, it is to be bewildered by his gorgeous but unsubstantial pictures of sagely perfection. He has eminently contributed to nourish the pride of his countrymen. He has exalted their sages above all that is called God or ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... subject for study. Probably no exhaustive solution is possible. One wanders off into the mystery of human nature, loses his way in the dimness of that which can be felt but cannot be expressed, and becomes aware of even dimmer regions beyond in which it is vain to grope. It is well known that the coarse and rough side of life among the pioneers had its reaction in a reserved and at times morose habit, nearly akin to sadness, at least in those who frequented the wilderness; it was the expression of the influence ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... as blue as the heavens, may even be my silent consolation in all the sufferings of earth. Here are some sweet-peas with small delicate leaves, half white, half red. The plant grows and winds itself around a support, that it may not grope in the dust. And while it balances itself above the earth it displays its flowers, which might be taken for butterflies' wings. In this way I will cling to God and by His help raise myself above the miseries of this earth. ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... after the magnates of applied science in public estimation, but of equal economic importance, I would place the Captains of Industry. Without their grasp of human necessity and desire and their organizing and directing ability, Labor would grope blindly in the dark by wasteful methods to the production of insufficient quantities of undesirable products. The Marxian[2] conception of an economic surplus wrongfully withheld from Labor which produces it is the disordered fancy of a fine intellect hopelessly warped by the contemplation ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... concerned with ourselves are ended. There is no way now of escaping from the wheels of fate, no way now of turning aside from fatigue and cold, disgust and pain. Forward! The world's hurricane drives straight before them these terribly blind who grope with ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... dark we grope along, And if we go amiss We learn at least which path is wrong, And there is gain ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... shelter of the gateway, he was admitted and did see Captain 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
... hard on my Chateau, cousin, to locate it on the road to Hell. But we will let it pass. For, between us, it is a good road and an easy; and they, who travel it, are a finer lot than the superstitious dreamers who grope, in darkness, along the bleak and stony path they fancy leads upward ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... was right, and Peter, hearing his opinion, volunteered again to do down and grope about until he could discover it. The same precautions were taken to ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... was repeated, only this time, as it was being dashed against the wall, the bird crew. Again Donat replaced it, examining the hen-house thoroughly and finding it quite perfect; as he was so engaged the wind puffed out his light, and he must grope back to the door a good deal shaken. Yet a third time the bird was dashed upon the wall; a third time Donat set it, now near dead, beside its mates; and he was scarce returned before there came a rush, like that of a furious strong man, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... less sceptical than his, sees no folly in questing for the beautiful, and if we expect no marvels, nor any sleight of faery, however desirous we are, we do not hold it time lost to plunge into the enchanted forest and in its magic half-gloom grope for, and perchance grasp, dryad draperies, or be trapped in the filmy webs of fancy which are spun in these shadows for ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... no sooner had begun About the beast to grope, Than, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, "I see," quoth he, "the elephant Is ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... cardinals, they say, do grope At t'other end the new made Pope" Part I. canto iii. l. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... sunny piazza, and out along the street for daily-increasing distances. For Charlie, all this was like coming back into life once more. In spite of the darkness of his room, he could yet see the dim outlines of objects in his narrow line of vision, and grope his way about without being dependent upon his cousins for his every need; and after a month of perfect helplessness, even this was a relief, and ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... our immortality allures yet baffles us. No fleshly implement of logic or cunning tact of brain can reach to the solution. That secret lies in a tissueless realm whereof no nerve can report beforehand. We must wait a little. Soon we shall grope and guess no more, but grasp and know. Meanwhile, shall we not be magnanimous to forgive and help, diligent to study and achieve, trustful and content to abide the invisible issue? In some happier age, when the human race shall have forgotten, in philanthropic ministries ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... you grope With your half-blind periscope, Lo, your hateful trail we mark, Send you to your kin, ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... 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
... the rocks, in flurries so violent as, at moments, to confound all the senses of the young man. He was resolute, however, and bent on an object of humanity, as well as of good fellowship. Living or dead, Daggett must be somewhere on his present level; and he began to grope his way among the fragments of rock, eager and solicitous. The roaring of the wind almost prevented his hearing other sounds; though once or twice he heard; or fancied that he heard, the shouts of Stimson from above. Suddenly, the wind ceased, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... sanctuaries in the sacred studies which God has not willed that we should probe, and if we try to penetrate there, we grope in ever deeper darkness the farther we proceed, so that we recognize, in this manner, too, the inscrutable majesty of divine wisdom and ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... to attain to certainties in the consideration of an age so remote as this. We are, as it were, crawling upon our hands and knees into the dark cavern of an abysmal past; we know not whether that which we encounter is a stone or a bone; we can only grope our way. I feel, however, that it is proper to present such facts as I possess touching ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... together, as red as wine-sap apples, and grope for each other's hand through our big lamb's-wool mittens, and warm our hearts with the laughter in each other's eyes. One evening she feigned to be mounted on guard, pacing to and fro inside the gate, against which rested an enormous icicle. When ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... succeeded in freeing himself from his bonds. He then essayed to examine and explore the dismal pit into which he had been thrown—which, in the intense darkness that prevailed, was a task of no little danger. However, he cautiously began to grope about, and soon became satisfied that the place was ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... the first time I had heard the roar of the tiger in his own domain, and I must confess that my sensations were not altogether pleasant. We set about collecting sticks and what roots of grass we could find, but on the sand-flats everything was wet, and it was so dark that we had to grope about on our hands and knees, and pick up whatever ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... heart at his hearth grew cold, And he shrank from the tawny wizard boasts, And the hovering shadows seemed full of ghosts, And above, below, and on every side, The fear of his creed seemed verified;— And think, if his lot were now thine own, To grope with terrors nor named nor known, How laxer muscle and weaker nerve And a feebler faith thy need might serve; And own to thyself the wonder more That the snake had two ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... figure! He had the same bright, piercing eye, that looked straight into mine; the same lean, square jaws and resolute mouth; the same waving hair, the same low, cool, steady voice—such a resemblance as to dull my senses, and make me wonder and grope to understand how my friend could thus come back to me, still young ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... "Be true to thyself," because it is a prerequisite to it. But if it takes a literary genius to reveal our thoughts to us, as it often does, certainly the average person will not discover his own characteristics alone. Even with firm intentions he will merely grope about, and from blindness and want of skill will stifle a good portion ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... servitude. When I conceive a democratic society of this kind, I fancy myself in one of those low, close, and gloomy abodes, where the light which breaks in from without soon faints and fades away. A sudden heaviness overpowers me, and I grope through the surrounding darkness, to find the aperture which will restore me to daylight and ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... went to see Mr. Gresham, I was directed to an unfashionable part of the town, to one of the dark old streets of the city; and from all appearance I thought I was going to grope my way into some strange dismal den, like many of the ancient houses in that quarter of the town. But, to my surprise, after passing through a court, and up an unpromising staircase, I found myself in a spacious ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... than mine of long ago. How could we know?—) For who should guess The shock and smiting of that perfectness?— The lily-thrust of those ecstatic feet Unpityingly sweet?— Sweet beyond all the blurred blind dreams that grope The upward paths of hope? And who could guess The dulcet holiness, The lilt and gladness of those jocund feet, Unpityingly sweet? Ah, for your coolness that shall change and stir With every glee of her!— Under the fresh amaze That drips and glistens from her wiles and ways; ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... Horoscope Until my dream-enamoured Senses grope Towards the Light, where in her opal Shrine Smiles Hopefulness, ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... said 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 ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... We're all for love," the violins said. "Of what avail the rigorous tale Of bill 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, least ecstasy?" Then, with a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling, All the mightier strings assembling Ranged them on the violins' side ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... 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 ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... her whole body; at another, like a rustling of her garments; at a third, like a slow scraping of her hands over the table on the other side of her, and of her feet over the floor. She had summoned courage enough at last to move, and to grope her way out—he knew it as he listened. He heard her touch the edge of the half-opened door; he heard the still sound of her first footfall on the stone passage outside; then the noise of her hand drawn along the wall; then ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... think," she said, "that Catholics had no spiritual life; but now it seems to me that in comparison we Puritans have none. You know so much about the soul, as to what is from God and what from the Evil One; and we have to grope for ourselves. And yet our Saviour said that His sheep should know His voice. I do not understand it." And she turned towards Mistress Margaret who had laid down her work and ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... was so pitch dark that he had almost to grope his way, for it was impossible to see a hand's breadth in front of him. Some night-birds flying across the road from one hedge to the other brushed Pinocchio's nose with their wings as they passed, which caused him so ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... our Southern sun O'erthrown in battle and despoiled of hope, Their drums all silent and their cause undone, And they all left to grope ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... of course, every one was very ignorant of the work to be done in establishing a telegraph across the ocean. Submarine telegraphy was in its infancy, and aerial telegraphy had scarcely outgrown its swaddling-clothes. We had to grope our way in the dark. It was only by repeated experiments and repeated failures that we were able to find out all the conditions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... attracted to her. I longed to know her uncommon well, to win her regard, to do something for her that should make her eyes rest very kindly on me. In short, as is the way of young men, I was beginning to grope blindly for that affection and sympathy which are the forerunners ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... when I feel Prometheus wake up in my heart and beat his puissant wings against the stone which confines him,—oh! then, in prey to a frenzy without a name, to a despair without bounds, I invoke the unknown master and friend who might illumine my spirit and set free my tongue; but I grope in darkness, and my tired arms grasp nothing save delusive shadows. And for ten thousand years, as the sole answer to my cries, as the sole comfort in my agony, I hear astir, over this earth accurst, the despairing sob of impotent agony. For ten thousand ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... I must go home," she said. "Will you find the car? No, I am not ill. I—" She paused, seemed to grope for words, stopped, and suddenly a bewildered look came into her face. Her eyes dilated. She gave a sharp gasp. Tudor caught ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... grown over That seemed so firm and white. The deep black forests have covered them. How should I walk aright? How should I thread these tangled mazes, Or grope to that far off light? I stumble round the thickets, and they turn me Back to the thickets ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... knew how to suffer. He will remain a figure for the legends of the future for, running to transmit an order, he received a bullet in the eyes which shattered his optic nerve. He was completely blinded. Nevertheless, he continued to advance, trying to grope his way through the night that had fallen upon him. He encountered something lying on the ground—a something that was a man just as badly wounded. The blind ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... and shaking in his hand. Ezra, breathing hard and short, accepted it, and began to grope in his pockets for his spectacle-case. After a while he found it, and tremblingly setting his glasses astride his nose, began to unfold the paper, which crackled ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... comfort, of defence, and hope, To mortals crushed by sorrow and by error. And though thy feet through shadowy paths may grope, Thou shalt not walk in loneliness ...
— New Thought Pastels • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... pertinacity; his desire to be an architect and to live the imaginative life, thwarted by his grim old father; and the manner in which Hilda dawned upon him, entered into his experience in a brief rapture of passion, and disappeared, leaving Clayhanger to grope again with the commonplaces. And in this new story we see the life of the girl, the woman; she, too, groping among the commonplaces, with her heart set upon a wider experience, till a moment comes when her story coincides with and is complementary to that of Clayhanger. ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... in 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 took up, without effort, the interrupted tale ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Satan! Already has the Incarnation of goodness appeared to mankind, and, though the world be moved to virtue only slowly and with reluctance, mark how mighty has been his influence! What think you, then, would be the power of a Christ of evil, showing to men the path they already grope for? I tell you, the human race would be his only; Hell, full to bursting with their hurrying souls, would outweigh Heaven in the balance; the teller of the secret ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... could scarcely see the vessels at all. The morning after this particular time to which I allude, was darker than any which had gone before it; absolutely you could not see the breadth of the ship from you; and as we had not taken the sun for five days, we had to grope our way ahnost entirely by the lead. I had the forenoon watch, during the whole of which we were amongst a little fleet of fishing—boats, although we could scarcely see them, but being unwilling to lose ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... tactility; feeling; palpation, palpability; contrectation^; manipulation; massage. [Organ of touch] hand, finger, forefinger, thumb, paw, feeler, antenna; palpus^. V. touch, feel, handle, finger, thumb, paw, fumble, grope, grabble; twiddle, tweedle; pass the fingers over, run the fingers over; manipulate, wield; throw out a feeler. Adj. tactual, tactile; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget |
