"Grasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boy, everything. I know more about putting up tents than you do about science, or whatever you teach. Now, Hiram, my boy, you cut me some stakes about two feet long—stout ones. Here, professor, throw off that coat and nglig manner, and grasp this spade. I want ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... really sees she does not see, and that what is unreal is reality: to make her, to the amusement of the spectators, continually stretch out her hand to snatch the visionary good that for ever eludes her grasp, or changes, on near approach, to ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... thrust mightily against the hammer's handle as it fell. Sideways it glanced from the old man's grasp, and the black stone, striking on the altar's edge, split in twain. A shout of awe and joy rolled along the living circle. The branches of the oak shivered. The flames leaped higher. As the shout died away the people saw the lady Irma, with her arms clasped round ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... that Kelley's music flags in no wise behind the divine progress of the words. The lute idea dictates an arpeggiated accompaniment, whose harmonic beauty and courage is beyond description and beyond the grasp of the mind at the first hearing. The bravery of the climax follows the weird and opiate harmonies of the middle part with tremendous effect. The song is, in my fervent belief, a masterwork of absolute genius, one of the very greatest lyrics ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... the terminology of mathematics. Almost all the standard terms are Greek or Latin translations from the Greek, and, although the mathematician may be taught their meaning without knowing Greek, he will certainly grasp their significance better if he knows them as they arise and as part of the living language of the men who invented them. Take the word isosceles; a schoolboy can be shown what an isosceles triangle is, but, if he knows nothing of the derivation, he will wonder why such an apparently ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... essential part of the course of religious study prescribed at Oxford, and they had engaged from an early period a large share of my attention. Each treatise on the subject, taken by itself, appeared to me to have great argumentative force; but when I tried to grasp them all together in a higher act of thought, I was sensible of a certain confusion, and inability to reconcile their fundamental assumptions. One either formally stated, or virtually assumed, that the ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... in our modern life. The evils of our modern Christianity, the low tone of religion, the small grasp of Christian truth, the irreligious ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the value of any writer's work you must take his range into consideration. Kipling stretches, in emotion, from deep seriousness to exuberant laughter; and his grasp of character is quite firm and sure, whether he deal with Mrs. Hawksbee or with Dinah Shadd; with a field officer or with Mulvaney, Ortheris, and Learoyd; with the Inspector of Forests or with Mowgli. He knows the ways of thinking of them all, and he knows the tricks ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... beside it, excitedly asking: 'Who in the name of wonder are you?' He answered, 'I am King, sir.' For the moment I did not grasp the thought that the object of our search was attained, for King being only one of the undistinguished members of the party, his name was unfamiliar ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... shrieked the colonel, writhing in the grasp of the men who held him, "are you going to allow a senseless, wounded man to be murdered before your eyes? Oh, how could anybody ever mistake you for a gentleman for an instant?" he added, with withering contempt; and then turning his head ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... that matter of ancestral dignity, it gave me no trouble. Such a possession comes, I think, to little harm while a man keeps it in his own hands, and only falls to pieces when it gets into the grasp of a bad woman. Have we not seen half a dozen, nay, a dozen, such debacles in our own time? And I contend that the degenerate scion of a great house who goes to the wrong side of the footlights for his wife is a criminal, and deserves all that may befall him. I bade ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... as she greeted him. Yet a subtle smile on her face showed that she was not surprised by the visit. Shirley quickly outlined the occurrences of the dinner hour. When he asked her opinion, for he had learned to place a growing trust in her quick grasp of things, she walked ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... fortune offers another chance to a military leader who has once failed to gather the rich harvest which she has put into his grasp. Yet the German Emperor presents, together with his great General Staff, one of the few instances in history of a Commander-in-Chief so soon being given a splendid opportunity to retrieve such mistakes as those of ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... then, all that the Kingdom and People had, even to their Skins, has hardly been thought sufficient for their Kings." An awakening Caution to Americans! Lest by tamely submitting to be plundered, they encourage their Plunderers to grasp at all ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... and other healing agents. We expect him not only to diagnose the disease—to tell us exactly what is the matter—but also to be able to predict with, some degree of certainty the course of the malady. Even the nurse of the day must show some grasp of the principles ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... That's the way I feel about that. If you want to go around whittling up our educational institutions you can do so; but you will have to purchase them afterward yourself. I don't propose to buy any more damaged school furniture. You probably grasp my meaning, do you not? I send you to school to acquire an education, not to acquire liabilities, so that you can come around and make an assessment on me. I feel a great interest in you, Willie, but I do not feel as though it should be ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... intimation of her father's marriage which she had received, and reeling backward, she would have fallen had not Walter supported her. Quickly rallying, she advanced toward her father, who came to meet her, and whose hand trembled in her grasp. After greeting each of his children he turned to present them to his wife, wisely taking Carrie first. She was not prejudiced, like Mag, and returned her stepmother's salutation with something like affection, for which Lenora rewarded her by terming ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... the huge prison ship maneuver into position and sink noiselessly to the ground. It gleamed dully in the afternoon sun, tangible proof of Earth's long reach and powerful grasp. A hatch opened, and a landing stage was let down. The prisoners, flanked by guards, marched down ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... of Hayes was, on the whole, an admirable one. The problems which he faced were varied and difficult, but most of them were met sensibly and with success. To be sure, he did not grasp the social and economic forces behind the monetary agitation; nor did he have the insight and originality necessary for attacking the problem of industrial unrest as it appeared in the strike of 1877. But neither did his associates, nor his successors in the presidency ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... to have you talk, as in your latest letter, of the making of yourself. It seems so much more possible than that I could do the same. But I am a miserable groping creature, cast on a sea of doubt, rejecting one spar to grasp another, and crying all the time against the storm, for help. I do not know another man who has tortured himself so insistently with the problems that are unsolvable. You are firmer in your grasp, and when you get something ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... number of portraits; and while she painted comparatively few subject pictures, she arranged her models in so picturesque a fashion that, as in the example here given, her portraits have great charm of composition. With a virile grasp of form, tempered though it be with grace, Madame Lebrun offers an interesting example of woman's work in art; and, while she has nothing to concede to the painters of her time, is no less interesting as showing that by force of native talent the woman of the early part of the century ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... more usual, if a narrower—sense of the historical method; and here, too, Carlyle was a pioneer. He was among the first in our country to grasp the importance of studying the literature of a nation, as a whole, and from its earliest monuments, its mythological and heroic legends, downwards to the present. The year 1831—a turning-point in the mental history of Carlyle, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... Po I-k'ao of having brought the animal into the palace with the object of making an attempt on the lives of the King and herself. But the Prince explained that the monkey, being only an animal, could not grasp even the first idea of ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... hence must be a materialized Spirit. The trick is simple and highly deceptive, as any one can prove for himself by requesting a blindfolded friend to bare the left arm to the elbow, then let the experimenter grasp this bared arm, near the wrist, with the third and fourth fingers of his left hand, closing them around it tightly, and as he does so, asking the owner of the arm to note that this is his left hand, then let the experimenter, without relaxing this hold, stretch the remaining fingers and thumb ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... chattels, I could not help interposing somewhat of my authority in the affair. "Hold, hold, son!" says I, "these things are all mine; but as I have several of you who will all be equally pleased with them, though, as the first finder, you may be entitled to the best share, you are not to grasp the whole, you must all have something like an equality; and as to some things which may be equally useful to us all, they must be set up to be used upon occasion, and are to be considered as mine and your ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... us. With us, O Soul! Of this brief utt'rance canst thou grasp the whole?— Nay, comprehend one attribute of God, The Maker, Sovereign, Him who at a nod Can hurl all worlds to wreck, and with a breath Can wake a Universe from night and death, And clothe in Beauty's robes of richest bloom Ten thousand worlds ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... the sapphire out of her grasp; and yet she could not wear it on her hand. She had thought of the tear-shaped pouch of gold which it was her custom to wear; but the slender length of chain that linked it to her neck was too frail for such a precious weight. At last she had fastened it around her neck on the strongest ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... flapper saved him from that. She came in, quiet but businesslike, and in a low yet distinct voices aid she wished it to be perfectly over at once. She did not relax her grasp of Bean's arm after she approached him, and he presently knew that something solemn was going on in which he was ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... when the future looms up before him he shrinks back from the contemplation, for the sins of the past throw their shadow over the future. He has houses, money and land, but he is a pauper in his soul, and a bankrupt in his character. In his eager selfish grasp for gold, he has shriveled his intellect and hardened and dried up his heart, and in so doing he has cut himself off from the richest sources of human enjoyment. He has wasted life's best opportunities, and there never was an angel, however bright, ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... never would have happened but for Palus' instantaneous grasp of the situation and lightning decision. Any other charioteer would have reined in or tried to swing round to the right; he lashed his team and guided them so perfectly that, with not a hand's- breadth to spare anywhere, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... panelling he could advance without seeing into the corridor. He was within a foot of the opening. Convulsed with fear, he put out his hand quickly and tried to pull the heavy oak on its hinges by the projecting bevel, but it was too heavy—he must look out in order to grasp the handle. The cold drops trickled down from his brow and he breathed hard, but he could not go back and leave the door unclosed. With a suppressed sob of agony he thrust out his head and arm. In a moment it was ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... enter into some more profitable, though perhaps less pretentious, employment than that of either soldiering or sailoring; that they would toil—with their hands, if need be—until they should accumulate a sufficient sum to return and recover the ancestral estate from the grasp of the avaricious usurper. They did not know how it was to be done; but, young, strong, and hopeful, they believed it might be done,—with time, patience, and industry to ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... of surprise escaped the father, nor was any question asked, or reply given, for several minutes; each appearing to await the moment when he might speak, without betraying womanish curiosity or childish impatience. The white man seemed to take counsel from their customs, and, relinquishing his grasp of the rifle, he also remained silent and reserved. At length Chingachgook turned his eyes slowly toward his ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... the wording of some of these sermons is beyond the grasp of the children for whom it was intended. Two things are to be noted in this connection. First, a child resents being talked down to. He soon detects a condescending smile and mock affability in a speaker. And when he detects these he closes ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... sun-burst of Les Chouans after this darkness-that-can-be-felt of the early melodramas. Not that Les Chouans is by any means a perfect novel, or even a great one. Its narrative drags, in some cases, almost intolerably; the grasp of character, though visible, is inchoate; the plot is rather a polyptych of separate scenes than a connected action; you see at once that the author has changed his model to Sir Walter and think how much better Sir Walter would have done the thing. But there is a strange air ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... not seen any at the weapon's flash, but his question was answered a moment later, for there arose from within and without the hut a chorus of wild yells. At the same time Tom felt small arms grasp ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... charioteer, "Spake then for nought those wise and holy men Who cast the stars and bade us wait the time When King Suddhodana's great son should rule Realms upon realms, and be a Lord of lords? Wilt thou ride hence and let the rich world slip Out of thy grasp, to hold a beggar's bowl? Wilt thou go forth into the friendless waste That hast this ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... and large, Mr. Ridgway is the most capable, energetic, and far-sighted business man I have ever known. He has a bigger grasp of things than almost any financier in the country. I think you'll find he will go far," he said, choosing his words with care to say as much for Waring ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... during which the Guardian had conducted its sane and conservative business life, it had gathered into its grasp a great many desirable adjuncts and aids to the smooth and proper operation of a first-class fire insurance company. Its agency plant, while not one of the largest, was second to none in the character and ability of the agents themselves; its force of office and field ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... Vidler's foot, which was most fortunate both for him and myself, for it was my weight that prevented him from being thrown, and, holding on for dear life, I was dragged clear of danger. The suddenness of the movement jerked my gun from my grasp, and as Vidler possessed no weapon we were defenceless, and it would have been madness to think of ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... basque trimmed with silver buttons, and the high brown moccasins so dear to feminine Navajos. The orchestra was vocal, the bucks again furnishing the music. After circling around the spectators a few times the squaw decided on the man she wanted and with one hand took a firm grasp of his shirt just above the belt. Then she galloped backward around him while he was dragged helplessly about with her, looking as sheepish as the mutton simmering in the kettle. Other squaws picked ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... we have such divergent ideas on this subject is that so many people write about it who have had no experience in farming, while on the other hand there are few farmers who can state the case so the public can grasp the most ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... master's ancient friend, And always known the favorite of the duke, And, as I know, our lady's treacherous lord! Oh, Holy Mother, that to villain hawks Our dove should fall a prey! poor gentle dear! Now if I had their throats within my grasp— No matter—if my master be himself, Nor time nor place shall bind up his revenge. He's not a man to spend his wrath in noise, But when his mind is made, with even pace He walks up to the deed and does his will. In fancy I can ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... warmth of the greeting, and Dick smiled with gratification as he extricated himself from their grasp and tried to shake hands ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... to the desire of the villain in the purple, now that his father, by showing himself to the people in the 'toga pretexta', had set the seal to their basest suspicions. The thought that henceforth he could never hope to feel the grasp of an honest man's ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a distance were now heard. "They are coming," said she to Brown; "you are a dead man." He was about to rush out, when the gipsy seized him with a strong grasp. "Here," she said, "here, be still, and you are safe; stir not, whatever you see or hear, and nothing ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... from the preconceived opinion that the conception of Right must be a positive one, and then attempts to define it, will fail; for he is trying to grasp a shadow, to pursue a spectre, to search for what does not exist. The conception of Right is a negative one, like the conception of Freedom; its content is mere negation. It is the conception of Wrong which is positive; Wrong has the same significance ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... generous disposition, and won the honest liking of men who had always looked with suspicion upon aristocratic, to say nothing of Royal, efforts in their behalf. This was another illustration of the difference between Heirs Apparent to the Throne. Imagination fails to grasp the thought of the Stuarts or the Georges, when holding that position, trying to help the poor or uplift the labourer! Speaking at a meeting in London on January 12th, 1887, Lord Mayor, Sir Reginald Hanson, said: "All those who have been engaged in this scheme (the Imperial ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... his wonderful success in the post of Inspector of Target Practice in the United States Navy. That success was due not only to his intimate knowledge of gunnery, but also to his attractive personality, charm of manner, keen sense of humour, and quick and accurate grasp of any problem with which he was confronted. It was fortunate indeed for the Allied cause that Admiral Sims should have been selected to command the United States forces in European waters, for to the qualities mentioned above he added a habit of speaking ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... seems so far away," murmured Katy. "Why don't Albert come and save us?" and she held on to Smith with a grasp yet more violent, and he seemed more and more ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... his prey; and as Concini, absorbed in his occupation, still read on, he felt the grasp of a strong hand upon his arm, and on looking up he saw the Captain of the Guard standing at his side. Before he had time to inquire the meaning of this affront, De Vitry had already uttered the ominous words, "I arrest ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... this appeal was made, swore a dreadful oath, and had cocked the pistol, when Toby, striking it from his grasp, placed his hand upon the boy's mouth, and dragged him to ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... end, and the knot by which we had connected the two lines had caught in some crevice. Try as I might I could not loosen it; yet I was not certain that its hold was firm enough for me to venture climbing up again by the portion of the rope that I held in my grasp. ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... high prize, Friendship,—and all that charm'd us in the eyes Of yet unutter'd Love.—So pleasures past, That in thy crystal prism thus glow sublime, Beam on the gloom'd and disappointed Mind When Youth and Health, in the chill'd grasp of Time, Shudder and fade;—and cypress buds we find Ordain'd Life's blighted roses to supply, While but reflected shine ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... aspire. Her resources appeared to be without limit; she knew every language to which music is sung, every style in which music can be written with equal fluency. All schools, whether ancient or modern, severe or florid, sacred or profane, severely composed or gayly fantastic, were easily within her grasp. Like Malibran, she was a profoundly scientific musician, and possessed creative genius. Several volumes of songs attest her inventive skill in composition, and the instances of her musical improvisation on the stage are alike curious and interesting. Such unique and lavish qualities ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... beyond description to look at, and sat down in the entrances of the wooden houses, and stretched themselves on the floors and spat upon the door-handles. It was no use, the fell disease held them in a grasp from which there was no escape, and just six weeks before my arrival the living remnant fled ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... one was a veritable giant, swarthy of skin, hairy-chested. His great hands were extended to grasp or to parry—his head lowered with a ferocious scowl—and across his forehead swayed a tuft of black, shaggy hair. He might have stood for one of those northern barbarians whom the Romans loved to pit against their native champions in the arena. He was the greater because of ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... an awful fear shakes the body of Don Giovanni, and a cry of horror is forced out of his lips. "Repent, while there is yet time," admonishes the visitor again and again, and still again. Don Giovanni remains unshaken in his wicked fortitude. At length he wrests his hand out of the stony grasp and at the moment hears his doom from the stony lips, "Ah! the time for you is past!" Darkness enwraps him; the earth trembles; supernatural voices proclaim his punishment in chorus; a pit opens before him, from which demons emerge and drag him ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... advantage over its rivals, but the inability of Pittsburgh Base Ball patrons to comprehend the lack of success on the part of their team existed in the fact that they had but few opportunities, comparatively speaking, to watch the New York players and found it difficult to grasp the true import of that one great factor of speed, which had been so insistently demanded by the New York manager of the men who were under ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... helpless hands I grasp'd The sacred mirror's[147] sphere; And round my shoulder I my garments clasp'd, And prayed with ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... the paper was a half-page picture of the Rockford bank building with the flames curling up against its west wall, and underneath it a caption that he read over and over before he could grasp what it meant to him. The White Elephant had not burned; in fact, at the last it had turned into a good elephant, for it had not only not burned but it had stopped the progress of what threatened to be a very disastrous conflagration, according to a jubilant despatch from Rockford. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to hunt some buffaloe, and was now returning to find his master. They had been obliged to escape so rapidly that captain Clarke lost his compass and umbrella. Chaboneau left his gun, shotpouch, and tomahawk, and the Indian woman had just time to grasp her child, before the net in which it lay at her feet was carried down the current. He now relinquished his intention of going up the river and returned to the camp at Willowrun. Here he found that the party ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... filled with the lovely blossoms, and she was reaching out to grasp an especially pretty one, when a strangely familiar ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... at my wits' end to know what to do. I had dared so much, all had gone so surprisingly well, that it was heartbreaking to be foiled with liberty almost within my grasp. A great wave of disappointment swept over me until I felt my very heart sicken. Then I heard footsteps and hope ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... in my change of costume, my cropped hair, and my whiskerless cheeks, I kept well away from the coach-window, when the dinner at the inn was over and the passengers were called to take their places again. Thus far—thanks to the strength of my grasp on his neck, which had left him too weak to be an outside passenger—Screw had certainly not seen me; and, if I played my cards properly, there was no reason why he should see me before we got to ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... Christendom, through the imputation of degrading all things high and noble to the rank of the low and vulgar, of casting the pearls of a lofty and ennobled class before the swinish multitude, of throwing open the doors of the treasury, that creatures of low, plebeian blood might grasp the crown jewels which had for ages been kept sacred to the patrician few; in a word, we had to take upon ourselves all the odium of a despised democracy—a moral agrarianism which should make common property of all blessings ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... arises a man in history who, without distinction of birth or other advantages, is strong enough by sheer ability to grasp the opportunity, vault into power, and then stem the tide of events. Such a man was Godwin, father of Harold, last Saxon King; in England; and such a man was Boris Godunof, a boyar, who had so faithfully served the terrible Ivan that he leaned upon him and at last confided ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... the former. In fact, it seems to have been doubtful whether, at the time, the colony could by any device meet its obligations as they became due. The force of these observations must be frankly conceded; but it may still be doubted whether a less desperate remedy was not within the grasp of resourceful statesmanship. In his first telegram, sent on March 2nd, 1898, Mr Chamberlain called attention to the ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... restoration were assembled, did he feel manhood restored. If, however, he tried to keep a vow of silence in the chair of execution, he paid a heavy price; for Berry had his own methods of punishment. A little tighter grasp of the nose; a little rougher scrape of the razor, and some sharp, stinging liquid suddenly slapped with a cold palm on the excoriated spot, with the devilish hypocrisy of healing it; a longer smothering-period under the towel, when the corners of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "You may not grasp the connection of ideas—I don't the very least see how you should, and I've no extra special wish that you should. But you must just take my word for it that's one way of thickening the dust, in my particular case, and not half a ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... listened with distaste, but perforce (for what else could he do in the grasp of a man of twice his power?), to a brilliant and convincing summary of his character, terminating in a withering sketch of ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... back, but was held by Emma's encouraging arm. Halsey stayed perforce, for the prophet's grasp had tightened convulsively ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... With a warm grasp of his hand Betty flew to the telegraph office and three days later she saw for the first time the broken-hearted mother. The resemblance was so startling between the mother and both sons she couldn't resist the impulse to throw her arms ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... cold water. The place to be selected for opening the windpipe is that part which is found, upon examination, to be least covered with muscles, about 5 or 6 inches below the throat. Right here, then, is the place to cut through. Have an assistant hold the animal's head still. Grasp your knife firmly in the right hand, select the spot and make the cut from above to below directly on the median line on the anterior surface of the windpipe. Make the cut about 2 inches long in the windpipe; this necessitates ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... the echo in his memory of Walther's song. "I feel it," he meditates, lending ear to the persistent voice in his brain, "and cannot understand it. I cannot retain it—nor yet can forget it! And if for a moment I grasp it, to measure it is beyond me. But how should I hope to grasp that which struck me as illimitable? No rule fitted it, and yet it had not one fault! It sounded so old, and was yet so new,—like the song of birds in the sweet May-time. One who should hear ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... would imply a more exquisite excision than he would care to make; rather he reached out, in the fashion of his time, and pulled with both hands from the dish before him, the very largest and fattest chunk of life that he could grasp. "You never saw a man," he said of himself, "who would more love to be king or to be rich than I would, so that I could live richly and not work and not worry, and that I might enrich all my friends and all good, wise people." Like Whitman he was so in love ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... it will be harder—longer." Then she stretched out her hand, and closed and opened it slowly. The most obtuse could not have failed to read the old simile of the steel in the velvet. "I shall win because it is my nature—and my power—to hold what I grasp." ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... Anne was lifted down from the steed it was with no grasp of common courtesy, and her hand was not relinquished till it had been ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could spit! Unfortunately he spit too far, and hit Miss Julia's pink muslin. In an instant her white, slender fingers were buried in his wool. His screams soon brought Aunt Dilsey to the rescue. Upon learning the dreadful crime of which Jack had been guilty, she snatched him from Julia's grasp, and hurried him into the house without a word. From that time Dilsey was Julia's sworn enemy, and Jack was taught to make up faces at her, whenever he could ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... longer Isabelle tried to ignore the coming fact, to put it out of her mind, and grasp as much of her own life as she could before the life within her should deprive her of freedom. As Lane's new duties would not begin until the summer, it was arranged that Isabelle should spend the hot weeks at the Grafton farm with her mother, and then return to ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... pressure bore so hard upon him as an individual. He began to see that getting on in the world called for complete concentration of his efforts upon his own well-being. A pauper cannot be a philanthropist. One cannot take nothing from nothing and make something. To be of use to others he must first grasp ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the Captain that Richard's grasp was needlessly protracted and severe. "What a grip the poor fellow has!" he thought. "Good by," he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... reached the Choctaw Chief a little too late. They know nothing of Borlasse, or how he has baffled them. They but believe, that, for the second time, the assassin of Charles Clancy has eluded the grasp ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... village or kindred: and the whole course of early English history consists of a long and tedious effort at increased national unity, which was never fully realised till the Norman conquerors bound the whole nation together in the firm grasp of ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... of those drivers who start off with a jerk. Had she been such a one, Miss Bannister might have been pulled against the side of the phaeton, for the grasp ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... two lads could only think of their attempt with a shudder, for their efforts, though they did not quite grasp the narrowness of their escape from death, had resulted in a peculiar shock to their system, one effect of which was to make then disinclined to do anything more than sit and lie in the darkness watching the faint suggestion of dawn in the direction ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... skin—those pretty features. Look at the delicate creature! and would you have thought that she would have dared what no man dared to do—that she would have defied those elements raging in their might, and have snatched their prey from their very grasp? Did I ever imagine, when I brought her as a helpless baby on shore, that she would ever have repaid the debt with such interest, or that such a weak instrument should have been chosen by the Lord to save one who otherwise must have perished? But His ways are not our ways, and ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... of fashionable society with its cliques and sets and every political history with its cabals and inner cabinets, witness to the struggle that goes on in the minds of men to adjust themselves to a body larger indeed than themselves, but which still does not strain and escape their imaginative grasp. ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... another's power May grasp the prize for which I pine, And others now may pluck the flower I cherished for this heart of mine! No more, no more! The hand forsaking, The lute must fall, and shivered lie In silence: and my heart thus breaking, Responds not even to ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... the crocodiles don't eat you," warned the other and, seizing the box in a firmer grasp, walked out of ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... these largest divisions of the animal kingdom are based, but simply upon the general structural idea. Striking as this statement was, it was coldly received at first by contemporary naturalists: they could hardly grasp Cuvier's wide generalizations, and perhaps there was also some jealousy of the grandeur of his views. Whatever the cause, his principle of classification was not fully appreciated; but it opened a new road for study, and gave us the keynote to the natural affinities among animals. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... condition, moved hastily back toward him from whom just now she had escaped. They glanced toward the sound; they saw at the window the puckered and perplexed face of the "judge"; they were just in time to see a big hand grasp him by the shoulder and yank him out of sight. They heard Summerling expostulate; they heard Jim Spalding's far from gentle voice ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... though they will not enable you to produce a good picture, they will often assist you to set forth what goodness may be in your work in a more telling way than you could have done otherwise; and by tracing them in the work of good composers, you may better understand the grasp of their imagination, and the power it possesses over their materials. I shall briefly state the chief ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... had not been sufficiently proved by me, this favorable opportunity[119] would have occurred to no purpose; mighty hopes, absolute power, would in vain be within our grasp; nor should I, depending on irresolution or ficklemindedness, pursue contingencies instead of certainties. But as I have, on many remarkable occasions, experienced your bravery and attachment to me, I have ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... no longer grasp at for herself she yearned now to pour lavishly, quickly, into Lucy's hands. Only so—such is our mingled life!—could she altogether still, violently and by force, a sort of upward surge of the soul which terrified her now and then. A mystical casuistry, bred in her naturally simple nature ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... he stopped, and continued in his brooding way: "It is peculiar that a man can die by inches in a living body; that a man can have the feeling that he's no longer a part of the present; and that he can no longer play his role, keep up with his own people, grasp what is going on about him, or know whether what is to come is good or evil. It is fearful when a ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... full pride of sight and beauty, you have had consideration for Blind Bertha, even when we two were children, or when Bertha was as much a child as ever blindness can be! Every blessing on your head! Light upon your happy course! Not the less, my dear May;' and she drew towards her, in a closer grasp; 'not the less, my bird, because, to-day, the knowledge that you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost to breaking! Father, May, Mary! oh forgive me that it is so, for the sake of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark life: and for the sake of the belief ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... waist, and compressed his embroidered belt. He adjusted his white silk roll-up stockings with great exactness; tied up the flowing curls of his wig with a white ribbon, placed a scarlet feather in his hat, and then took his sword. The edge and point of the blade, the shell and pommel, grasp and guard of the hilt were all examined with scrupulous care for the last time; he drew on his gloves with care, and giving to the landlord the reckoning, which he might never return to pay, Lemercier called for his horse and rode through the main ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... of the United States, and then, perhaps, some impeachment hunters will have a chance to impeach him. They will if he does not obey." He rebuked the gentlemen "who, when any measure comes here that seems almost to grasp our purpose, resist and tell us that it is a surrender of liberty. I remember that this was done to us at the last session, when everybody knows that if the Republican party lived, it must live by the strength of the Constitutional amendment, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... womanhood of to-day. Countries as well as individuals pass through periods of adolescence, of stress and strain and the pains of growth, when the old is merging in the new. The student generation of India is passing through that phase to-day, and no one who fails to grasp that fact can hope to understand the psychology of the present ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... two leaders, who, besides exhibiting rare personal prowess and quick-eyed military genius on fields of vast breadth, and in performances of unwonted magnitude and momentousness, were, moreover, by their great, brave deeds, most palpably saving England, saving Europe, from the grasp of an inexorable despot. Surely these were heroes of a stature to have strained to its utmost the reverence and the love of a genuine hero-worshipper. On the ten thousand luminous pages of Mr. Carlyle they find no place. Not ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... that, by inscrutable decree of the Almighty Powers, I am undergoing punishment for an old unregenerate point of view, being doomed to wear my detested motley for all eternity, to stretch out my hand for ever to grasp realities and find I can do nought but beat the air with my bladder; to listen with strained ear perpetually expectant of the music of the spheres, and catch nothing but the mocking jingle of the bells on my ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... and down the veranda continued, but she was in the grasp of her old enemy. A terrible fear and an agony of desire seized her. She wanted to go out into the bright sunlight with him, but she could neither move nor whisper. All her resolution, her hope, fell away, and ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... the arms of the washer, G, which, through the narrowness of the recesses, are allowed only just enough play to compensate for slight changes in the jaw. As the above device is applied to every jaw, it follows that any one of them may be nicely adjusted from the outside, so that all are caused to grasp the tool accurately. The spindle, instead of being solid as represented, may be made hollow. Patented to J.H. Vinton, August 18, 1874. For further information, address the manufacturer, Mr. F. ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... doctrines. I see what is meant by them. There is no obscurity in the assertion that God foreknows everything, nor in the other assertion that man is a free agent. I can see clearly what is implied in both statements, although my mind cannot grasp both, and bring them together, and show the way in which they may be reconciled. So, too, infinity is a mystery. We cannot comprehend it. Our mind cannot go round it, grasp it, sustain it. Our thought ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... unsay to yon mutinous gentlemen what I have already said; but what you judge it right to promise in my name to them or to the insurgents, I will not suppose that mime honour will refuse to concede. But go not hence, O noblest friend that ever stood by a king's throne!—go not hence till the grasp of your hand assures me that all past unkindness is gone and buried; yea, and by this hand, and while its pressure is warm in mine, bear not too hard on thy king's affection for his ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to drag him out by the collar of his long cloak, calling, "Come with us—you are our prisoner." "I will not fly, you detestable fellow," was Becket's reply, roused to his usual vehemence, and wrenching the cloak out of Fitzurse's grasp. The three knights struggled violently to put him on Tracy's shoulders. Becket set his back against the pillar, and resisted with all his might, whilst Grim, vehemently remonstrating, threw his arms around him to aid his efforts. In the scuffle, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... causes, combined with an atmosphere so dense from fog and smoke as to make it impossible to distinguish friend from foe, produced a retreat in our army at the moment when victory seemed to be within its grasp. ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... slightest approach to condescension, or that writing down to the meaner capacity which must always offend an adult student; while the first principles of the science discussed are stated with such lucidity, that his capacity must be mean indeed who cannot grasp them, and they are illustrated by statistics which will remain always interesting, even to the best informed. Probably the particular charm of the book arises from its having been written currente calamo. The information had been all previously ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... hands clenched; he dies with his hands wide open. Entering life he desires to grasp everything; leaving the world, all that he possessed ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... contentment; how few extract from the present that good with which it is ever supplied! We read the fable of the dog and the shadow, and smile at the folly of the poor animal; while, though instructed by reason, we cast aside the substance of to-day in our efforts to grasp the shadowy future. We are always looking for the blessing to come; but when the time of arrival is at hand, what seemed so beautiful in the hazy distance is shorn of its chief attraction, or dwarfed into nothingness through contrast ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... shot within the confined space, a fall, and then, in the half darkness, he saw two powerful figures writhing to and fro. One was Henry and the other a mighty Shawnee warrior, naked to the waist, and striving to use a tomahawk that he held in a hand whose wrist was clenched in the iron grasp of his foe. Lying almost at their feet was the body of ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Wohlfart, no other is likely to do much good. Show me an embarrassed man who has strength to grasp an offered hand, and bid me help him, and for the sake of all I owe you, I will not refuse to do so. I think you are convinced ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... The which customers, seemingly well used to the sight of drunken waiters tottering to and fro with towers of plates, sat down at a table and waited calmly for attention. The popular audience, with that quick mental grasp for which popular audiences are so renowned, soon perceived that the table was in close proximity to a lofty sideboard, and that on either hand of the sideboard were two chairs, upon which the two waiters were trying to climb in order to deposit their plates ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... sleeping under the nut-trees in the garden, one warm morning in September; he had been collecting nuts to carry home, but being tired, he laid down to repose himself in the sun, and unfortunately fell asleep, nor did he wake till he found himself in the grasp of the merciless black cat, who springing upon her defenceless prey, strangled him in an instant. There was no fond Downy near, nor affectionate Velvet, to receive his last sighs, nor give him aid. The evening came, but no Silket returned ...
— Little Downy - The History of A Field-Mouse • Catharine Parr Traill
... ribbon to her champion, who caught it as it skimmed through the air, pressed it to his lips and thrust it into the bosom of his jerkin. In another moment Katherine had disappeared and Villon found himself roughly held in the strong grasp of two soldiers, while the captain of the watch surveyed the scene with some astonishment, and the rogues were overawed by the ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... lectures at an informal tea given in the palm room of the B. & O. Depot and then calls on the President. The ninth Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the first aide-de-camp of the Blue Room and an unidentified colored man are waiting there to grasp her by the hands—and feet. They carry her out to S.W. B. street and leave her on a cellar door. That ends it. The next time we hear of her she is writing postcards to the Chinese Minister asking him to get Arthur a job ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... that she had been permitted to win her spurs. For the threatening cutlas was caught in mid air by a huge bare hand, wrenched from its owner's grasp, and returned point first into the assailant's breast. And Milo's deep ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... tremendous prize to offer, and served to stimulate both teams to the uttermost. We had a rope with us which easily stretched across the dell, and admitted the twenty pairs of hands on either side to grasp it. Tempest carefully saw that neither side started with the least advantage, and waited till we were all ready before ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... sins, yet even honest persons, if they be of unripe age, should not foolishly court them. By foolishly acting in that way I have today been placed in a frightful situation. Indeed, I have been placed entirely within the grasp of this deity. Ye how can I do what is sinful by taking it on myself to surrender my person ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was the work of a moment only to dash forward and seize him, to find himself engaged in a sharp wrestle, to half draw his pistol as he struggled with his captive in the open. But once in the clearer light, he started, his grasp of the stranger relaxed, and he fell back ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... "upon a doubtful quest: whether I discover my daughter, and succeed in bearing her in safety from their contaminating grasp, or whether I fall into their snares and perish, there is an equal chance that I may return no more to Granada. Should this be so, you will be heir to such wealth as I leave in these places I know that your age will be consoled for the lack of children when your ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book IV. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... happens with the lowest forms of superstition among ourselves, to lead to a recrudescence of the practice, especially among the rude soldiery on the outskirts of the empire over whom the once iron hand of Rome was beginning to relax its grasp. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... say, devices such as these are subject to the drawback that the mirrors employed sap a certain proportion of the rays of light. It will be remembered that we made allusion to loss of light in this way, when pointing out the advantage in light grasp of the Herschelian form of telescope, where only one reflection takes place, over the Newtonian in which there ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... for a weapon. To render it more harmless, the top had been cut square off. The edge, however, had been assiduously sharpened against a stone, as was evident from the markings upon it, so that it was still a dangerous implement in the grasp of ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thought someone must have gone beyond his depth. I went out and looked around, saw nobody, but still heard the calling. I finally looked at a pile of logs near the Falls and there saw a man who was calling for help. I threw a rope to him several times which he finally was able to grasp and I hauled him in hand over hand. His clothing was all wet and bedraggled, but a straw hat was still on his head although it was so wet that the green band had run into the straw. No trace of his boat was ever found. As soon as he landed, ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... unusual combination of faculties defined a man broader and more profound than his broad achievement - one of the rare personalities in our Art, the most this exponent that sculpture has known in this land. In the initial stages of planning, his fiery initiative and amazing grasp of detail commanded attention, speedily resulting in the first general plan of the sculpture of the buildings and grounds; while later his tenacity and generosity assured the completed unity, as it now stands. Forty-four sculptors ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... grasp, he leaped upon the bulwarks and suddenly sprang far out amid the seething waves. The Count uttered a cry of horror that was echoed by the captain. As for the crew, so utterly stupefied were they that they did not seem to comprehend the suicidal act. For an instant Monte-Cristo and Giacomo ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... geological research. The vastness of distances and periods always impressed him. He had no head for figures, but he would labor for hours over scientific calculations, trying to compass them and to grasp their gigantic import. I remember once finding him highly elated over the fact that he had figured out for himself the length in hours and minutes of a "light year." He showed me the pages covered with figures, and was more proud of them than if they had been ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Jubal A. Early was not the man for such an enterprise. Washington was at his mercy, but fortunately for us he did not know it, and let the opportunity slip. Even had he known it, I am of opinion that he lacked the nerve to grasp the advantages of the opportunity. On that Tuesday morning, Early was at Silver Springs, enjoying the luxuries of a spacious headquarters, and within sight of the grand old dome of the Capitol. What strange emotions the sight of this dome must ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... speculative or theoretical histories are of so much the less value whenever they are deficient in that closer research which can be obtained only in one way; not the most agreeable to those literary adventurers, for such they are, however high they rank in the class of genius, who grasp at early celebrity, and depend more on themselves than on ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... remembered, was drummed out of his tribe and sentenced by the courts for the murder of a white settler last spring. Small outlying settlements will rejoice when this body of hardened desperate men are once more in the grasp of the law." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... clogged and chilled by a present fear. And so the days passed on: I witnessed Bertha's engagement and heard her marriage discussed as if I were under a conscious nightmare—knowing it was a dream that would vanish, but feeling stifled under the grasp ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... symmetry; her lips Apart; her voice that clove through all the din, As a lute pierceth through the cymbal's clash, Jarred but not drowned by the loud brattling; her Waved arms, more dazzling with their own born whiteness Than the steel her hand held, which she caught up From a dead soldier's grasp;—all these things made Her seem unto the troops a prophetess Of victory, or Victory herself, Come down to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... the doctor, laughing. He was more than delighted—brimming over with happiness, in fact—but not over his mother's news; it was the letter held tight in his grasp that was sending electric thrills through him. "A fine old fellow is Dr. Pencoyd—known him for years," he continued; "I attended his lectures before I went abroad. Lives in a musty old house on Chestnut Street, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... la France!" rushed upon the enemy. The sword if small was sharp, and stabbed the poor toad would most undoubtedly have been, but for a sudden check received by the valiant little nobleman. It came in the shape of a large heavy hand that seized Monsieur the Viscount with the grasp of a giant, while a voice which could only have belonged to the owner of such a hand said in slow ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... Delsarte by this cruel trick instantly gave way before the reflection that success was a matter of life and death with him, and that perhaps his last chance lay within his grasp. He forgot his rags; every nerve became iron; and when the curtain was rung up, a beggar with the bearing of a prince advanced to the foot-lights, was received with derisive laughter by some, with glances of surprise and indignation by others, and, with a sad and patient smile on ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... a continuance of the morning struggle, unable to see far enough ahead to distinguish the country beyond. One moment they were in the grasp of the jungle, the next they had broken through and stood panting and wide-eyed on the edge of a realized paradise of dreams. It was a tiny lake bordered by a small, grass-grown prairie dotted with small clean clumps of palmetto, pine and cypress. The water of the lakelet was clear ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... earth was great, down where they were, and it made the passageway muggy and odorous. Fitful shadows were flung by widely separated oil lamps as they pressed forward—grotesque splotches of black that half a dozen times tightened the American's grasp on his sword, sure that a guard had come upon them. He knew that their margin of time in which to effect escape was small, and he gradually quickened their pace, sacrificing caution for speed. Taia's hand was in his left; and he had just turned to her to ask if they were ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... trial, I promise you, most confidently, that you will find Symbolic Logic to be one of the most, if not the most, fascinating of mental recreations! In this First Part, I have carefully avoided all difficulties which seemed to me to be beyond the grasp of an intelligent child of (say) twelve or fourteen years of age. I have myself taught most of its contents, viva voce, to many children, and have found them take a real intelligent interest ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll
... voice: "O Love, wilt have my gift?" I stretched my glad hands eagerly to grasp The heaven-blown bird, gold-hued, and longed to clasp It close and know it mine. Ere I might lift The shining thing and hold it to my breast Again I heard thy ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... removing all those hindrances that stand in the way of the free realisation of the individual will guided by a wise self-interest. So much the more necessary was it to give right direction to this sovereign will, and to offer to self-interest every assistance towards obtaining a correct and speedy grasp of ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... and over again we hear the same story about the beautiful time in the future, which he saw coming nearer and nearer, but which always evaded his grasp at the last. Very often, when he appears grasping and dictatorial in his business dealings, we may trace his want of urbanity to some pressing pecuniary anxiety, which he was too proud to reveal. No doubt these ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... both down on their feet, saying, "Run before the next wave comes." Ten yards farther and they were beyond the reach of the sea. Harold was with them, and directed those who had got ashore to form lines, taking hold of each other's hands, and so to advance far into the surf and grasp their comrades as they were swept up. Many were saved in this way, although some of the rescuers were badly hurt by floating pieces of wreckage, for the vessel had entirely broken up immediately after ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... himself first in his hands and feet, then in his clothes, and then in his rooms or in his house, and then on the ground about him; the very hills grow like him, and the ground in the fields becomes his countenance; and now, last and furthest of all, requiring the liveliest and noblest grasp of his soul, the finest circulation of will of all, he begins expressing himself in his vast machines, in his three-thousand-mile railways, in his vast, cold-looking looms and dull steel hammers. With telescopes for Mars-eyes for his spirit, ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various strange superstitions and customs".(1) Now, accepting Mr. Darwin's theory that early man had "high mental faculties," the conception of a Maker of things does not seem beyond his grasp. Man himself made plenty of things, and could probably conceive of a being who made the world and the objects in it. "Certainly there must be some Being who made all these things. He must be very good too," said an Eskimo to a missionary.(2) The goodness is inferred by the Eskimo ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... to my eyes; for a few moments I was unable to speak, and could only once more grasp his ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... great importance for anyone who would comprehend the general story of Europe, to grasp the nature of those half-hidden centuries. They may be compared to a lake into which the activities of the old world flowed and stirred and then were still, and from which in good time the activities of the Middle Ages, properly so called, ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... one of the boat's crew, and crossing the bay one day with a commissariat-officer, the boat was capsized by a sudden squall. In attempting to save the life of the officer, he was seized by his dying grasp, and almost perished with him; but extricating himself, he swam back to the boat. Seeing the drowning man exhausted, and sinking, he dashed forward again, diving after him, and happily succeeded in saving his life. For this honorable act, he would have received a remission of sentence; ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... wound. She to the dust Fell headlong,—and, its work of slaughter done, The gallant sword dropp'd fast a gory dew. Instant, as though heaven's glorious torch had shone, Light was upon the gloom,—all radiant light From that dark mansion's inmost cave burst forth. With hardier grasp the thane of Higelac press'd His weapon's hilt, and furious in his might Paced the wide confines ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... gentleman to gentleman. Then, as the bitter remembrance of the difference in rank and station between them flashed on his memory, he was raising it proudly, deferentially, in the salute of a subordinate to his superior, when Chanrellon's grasp closed on it readily. The victim of Coeur d'Acier was of as gallant a temper as ever blent the reckless condottiere ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... in wanting audacity, as Napoleon supposed. It was not a military but a political error—immense and irreparable. He might have crushed Turenne, and ought to have attempted it, but he let him slip from his grasp. The opportunity once lost did not return. Turenne until then was only second in rank; by a glorious resistance he acquired from that moment, and it was forced upon him to maintain, the importance of a rival of Conde. Mazarin grew from day to ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... within them, by deciphering the law written on their own consciences, however much its letters may have been obliterated or dimmed, Plato, and Cicero, and Seneca, and Epictetus, and Aurelius were enabled to grasp and to enunciate a multitude of great and memorable truths; yet they themselves would have been the first to admit the wavering uncertainty of their hopes and speculations, and the absolute necessity of a further illumination. So strong did that ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... and thou canst not plough go away!" However, as he was afraid of this great man, he left go of the plough, stepped back and stood at one side of the piece of land. Then the youth took the plough, and just pressed it with one hand, but his grasp was so strong that the plough went deep into the earth. The farmer could not bear to see that, and called to him, "If thou art determined to plough, thou must not press so hard on it, that makes bad work." The youth, however, unharnessed the horses, and drew the plough himself, saying, "Just ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... aspect of the street calmed her. The bleak air set her coughing; she slammed the door to, and returned to the kitchen to make fresh tea for Constant, who could only be in a deep sleep. But the canister trembled in her grasp. She did not know whether she dropped it or threw it down, but there was nothing in the hand that battered again a moment later at the bedroom door. No sound within answered the clamour without. She rained blow upon blow in a sort of spasm of frenzy, scarce remembering that ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... thoughtful man," answered the voice, modestly parrying the question. "But I assure you that only a man of intellect—of genius—has in him the intelligence, the sublime reach of soul, which could attain the full solution of the problem; they who merely blunder into it would fail to grasp the grand significance ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the game, into which Cardinal D'Amboise had entered with such prospects of success, been snatched from his grasp by the superior address of his Italian rivals, and the election of Pius the Third been publicly announced, than the French army was permitted to resume its march on Naples, after the loss,—an irreparable loss,—of more than a month. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... would have contained less faithful, information than his private correspondence; while, with all the penetration he assuredly possessed, it may be doubted if his diffuse and graceful style was adapted for the deep and condensed thoughts and the grasp of facts and events which are the chief excellences ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... is but one "right" way to hold the knife or fork. When the knife and fork are used together, grasp the handle of the knife or fork with the first finger and the thumb so that the end of the handle touches the center of the palm of the hand. The hands should almost cover the handle, but the first finger ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... however, even with the confident expectation of untold wealth being now almost within his grasp, not one of the party had forgotten the parting threat of Rising Cloud, and his warning that, ere many months were over, the camp at Minturne Creek would be assailed by the ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... treatment—a rival who was neither compeer nor subaltern, and who affected to be his censor—a functionary of a purely anomalous character, sheltering himself under his abnegation of an authority which he had not dared to assume, and criticising measures which he was not competent to grasp;—such was the Duke of Medina ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... shouted the Allah Acbar, "God is victorious!" and in the tumult of a nocturnal battle, he was heard to repeat four hundred times that tremendous exclamation. The prince of Damascus already meditated his flight; but the certain victory was snatched from the grasp of Ali by the disobedience and enthusiasm of his troops. Their conscience was awed by the solemn appeal to the books of the Koran which Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances; and Ali was compelled to yield to a disgraceful truce and an insidious ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... titters of embarrassment were stilled, and mothers tightened their grasp on little hands, to emphasize the change of scene from light to graver hue. Some of the men looked lowering; one or two strode out of doors. They loved Parson True, but the Cattle-Show was all their own, and they resented even a ministerial innovation. The parson ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... oligarchy,—that is, the control of public affairs fell into the hands of a few persons. There was an evident tendency, however, towards the union of all the functions of governmental authority in the person of a single man, whenever one should be found of sufficient strength to grasp them. The younger Gracchus had exercised almost supreme control, and Marius, Cinna, and Sulla had followed him; but their power had perished with them, leaving no relics in the fundamental principles of the government, except as it marked stages in the general progress. Now other strong men ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... did—as a branch of his course on natural jurisprudence, a discussion of contracts requiring him to examine the principles of value, interest, currency, etc., and these lectures, though fragmentary, are remarkable for showing a grasp of economic questions before his time, and presenting, with a clear view of their importance, some of Smith's most characteristic positions. He is free from the then prevailing mercantilist fallacies about money. His remarks on value contain what reads like a first draft of Smith's ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae |
