"Grasping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forward to witness the operation; but the fourth, standing idle, saw all at once the pupils of his eyes contract, and his lips set so ominously, that the words were in his mouth, "Hold him fast!" when Guy, exerting the full force of his arms, shook himself clear, and grasping a brass-candlestick within his reach, struck the executioner straight between the eyes. The effort of freeing himself to some extent broke the force of the blow, or the great Baines dynasty might have ended there and then; as it was, Buttons fell like a log, and, rolling once over on ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... bay. From ten to twelve miles is by no means an unusual run, and when thoroughly exhausted he makes a stand, either with his back against a tree, or in the water. In both of these positions he is no despicable adversary, and will do much damage to a pack of hounds, by grasping them in his short fore arms and ripping them open, if on land; or by seizing and holding them under, if in the water. Instances are on record of a despairing kangaroo dashing through the dogs on the approach of a dismounted ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... the earth enclasping, Like a babe upon thy knee, In thy cosmic cycle grasping All that hath been, or ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... the curve of that branch, and not in the whole, but in the soul that contemplates it, that of herself she has none, and that we her lovers have invested her with such golden charms. The universal wish to realize is only typified by the grasping gain. Most men live to acknowledge in heart the superiority of young dreams over old possessions; and the world feels that in the unshrinking aspirations of the youth lies the hope of the world. That is the lightning that purifies the dense atmosphere, ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... questioning hers. She could have cried out aloud, and falling on her knees have confessed everything, begging God's forgiveness and Angelo's and Mary's. But instead, because she clung to this one desperate hope of keeping Angelo, she sat erect and firm, her ice-cold hands tightly grasping the edge of the hammock, one on either side of her body. If she had let go or tried to stand up, she knew that she must have collapsed. Grasping the edge of the hammock seemed to lend strength and power of endurance not only to her body but ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... two grasping jehus, who, while quarrelling over a prospective fare, had so well succeeded in interlocking their respective wheels that a quarter-of-a-mile-long block resulted instantly. The officer, exasperated beyond endurance, was apoplectic in the face from the too sudden strain upon his temper. Starting ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... are different. Lassalle is aggressive, pushing, grasping—he has ego plus, and [With relaxing tension] all I want to say is that I am aweary of being accused of quoting Lassalle—that I do not know Lassalle, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... his men will fight; we'll all fight," Elise retorted, her hands grasping the arms of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... apostles seated around it, figures of marble, as large as life. The expression of each face is admirably given, especially those of John, who leans upon Jesus' bosom, and of Judas, seated the last in the group, and grasping the bag in his hand. It was so real and lifelike, that I could with difficulty understand that the genius of man had fashioned it out of cold ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... to occur to him at all. Certainly at this moment, angered at the impatient insolence of his adversary, the thought of danger was farthest from his mind. Stronger than his brother, he pushed the latter back with one hand, grasping as he did so the small-sword with which the latter was provided. With one leap he sprang from the carriage, leaving Will ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... grasping a shadowy bush above his head he growled that all this was possible, but that it was all in the bargain, and ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... retreat in which to devour it unmolested. In such conflicts they bite viciously, tear each other with their hooks, and scream incessantly, till, taking to flight, the persecuted one reaches some place of safety, where he hangs by one foot, and grasping the fruit he has secured in the claws and opposable thumb of the other, he hastily reduces it to lumps, with which he stuffs his cheek pouches till they become distended like those of a monkey; then suspended in safety, he commences to chew ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... even this relic from thy shrine, O holy Freedom! hath to me A potent power, a voice and sign To testify of thee; And, grasping it, methinks I feel A ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... forlorn lover!" he cried, grasping his visitor's hand, "I thought you were that rascally proctor, and was really preparing for a hand-to-hand ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... vertical, and resting in the hollow of the shoulder; the guard to the front, the arm hanging nearly at its full length near the body; the thumb and forefinger embracing the guard, the remaining fingers closed together, and grasping the swell of the stock just under the cock, which rests on the little finger." I simply could not execute the shoulder, or carry, with any precision, although the positions of support, right-shoulder-shift, present, and all the rest, gave me no trouble after they were reached; ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... boy!" exclaimed Reuben, coming forward and grasping his hand; "I telled Hannah to keep the tea back a spell, 'cause I knowed ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... boys! pull away!" she cried out. "We are not badly off as it is, but we shall be better still on dry land. We shall find the breeze, may be, a few miles ahead, and that will spin us along without the necessity of making your arms ache." Sometimes she would sit down, and grasping an oar, assist one of the younger seamen; she showed, indeed, that she could pull as good an oar as any one on board, and thus no one ventured to exhibit any signs of weariness. Thus the day wore on till supper time arrived, and a substantial meal, cooked ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... heard him to an end, she shook her garments, crying, 'O youth, son of my uncle, be comforted! for, if it is as I think, the readers of planets were right, and thou art thus early within reach of great things—nigh grasping them.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... enraged, who, expelled from a city of Etruria, was suffering exile as the punishment for a dreadful murder.[92] He, while I was resisting, seized hold of my throat with his youthful fist, and shaking me, had thrown me overboard into the sea, if I had not, although stunned, held fast by grasping a rope. The impious crew approved of the deed. Then at last Bacchus (for Bacchus it was), as though his sleep had been broken by the noise, and his sense was returning into his breast after {much} wine, said: ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... dry, and on this account it is a good thing to lay it on your coat and keep it there during all your day's mowing. The scythe you stand upright, with the blade pointing away from you, and you put your left hand firmly on the back of the blade, grasping it: then you pass the rubber first down one side of the blade edge and then down the other, beginning near the handle and going on to the point and working quickly and hard. When you first do this you will, perhaps, cut your hand; but it is only at first that such an accident ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... at the same time I heard sounds in the upper air, with a dull rustling. I looked up and beheld sweeping over me a fire-red cloud, from which these sounds issued, and in it movements, as it were, of men and horses; the men grasping bows, lances, and swords. This I saw, or thought I saw. Then there appeared a white cloud of like aspect; in it also I beheld armed horsemen, and these rushed against the former as one squadron of horse charges another. We were so terrified at this that we turned with humble ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... were surrounded by half-a-dozen pirogues, or boats, manned by Indians, who climbed up from all sides upon the deck to offer us fruit and shell-fish, but not as formerly for red rags or glass beads—such golden times for travellers are over. They demanded money, and were as grasping and cunning in their dealings as the most civilized Europeans. I offered one of them a small bronze ring; he took it, smelt it, shook his head, and gave me to understand that it was not gold. He remarked another ring on my finger, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... all the extries," replied the cabman, sitting down and grasping the decanter with the air of a man who means business. "Per'aps you wouldn't mind squirtin' out the soda, sir, bein' more used ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... his, then, grasping his fingers tightly, and her voice was trembling. "I didn't think there was anybody left like that," she said. "Tom, you aren't by yourself—remember that. No matter what happens, I'm with you all the way. I'm—I'm ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... for steal, theft, see Fig. 75, page 293, is but slightly different from that for bear, see Fig. 239, page 413, especially when the latter is made with one hand only. The distinction, however, is that the grasping in the latter sign is not followed by the idea of concealment in the former, which is executed by the right hand, after the motion of grasping, being brought toward and sometimes under ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... Emperor in again tonight? I think that's one of the reasons they have come here," said the showman, shrewdly grasping the least thing that would tend to ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... of the polypus, which, like all other operations, should be done by an expert when it is possible to obtain one. The operation is performed by grasping the base of the tumor with suitable forceps and twisting it round and round until it is torn from its attachment, or by cutting it off with a noose of wire. The resulting hemorrhage is checked by the use of an astringent lotion, such as a solution of the tincture of iron, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... moment, of being obliged to swim for his life, Lord Byron had already thrown off his coat, and, as Shelley was no swimmer, insisted upon endeavouring, by some means, to save him. This offer, however, Shelley positively refused; and seating himself quietly upon a locker, and grasping the rings at each end firmly in his hands, declared his determination to go down in that position, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... above all other things; though to frighten a grasping Hebrew may be as much of a duty as other matters. Are all thy ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sweeping around the point like a wild bird, amid a smother of spray, appeared the advance canoe. As it disappeared I could distinguish De Artigny at the stern, his coat off, his hands grasping a paddle. Above the point once more and in smoother water, I was aware that he turned and looked back, shading his eyes from the sun. I could not but wonder what he thought, what possible suspicion had come to him, regarding ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... with all my heart," said Dan, grasping the seaman's flipper, and giving it a hearty shake. "So now, I must look out for another best-man. Morel will do for me, I think, and you can have my brother Peter, no doubt. But could we not manage to have both weddings on ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... picked up the weapon and politely offered him the hilt, but he could not take it with his right hand, and grasping the blade itself with his left, he just managed to get it ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... further than I at first supposed. At last, losing patience at having to sit so long, I rose and went forward, as if about to look over the bows. I had stood there a minute, when I felt two hands grasping my shoulders. ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... were their stories. The eyes of the world are on the masses. Science toils to make Nature their servant. Art portrays their life. Literature, once a clown at the feet of Fortune's fools, now writes of the people. Wealth lays its tribute at their feet. The millionaire, who dies to-day grasping his millions as his own, is hissed while he lives, openly cursed while he lies cold in death, and ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... supposed the end, And went to sleep with one thought that, at least, {185} Though the whole earth should lie in wickedness, We had the truth, might leave the rest to God. Yet now I wake in such decrepitude As I had slidden down and fallen afar, Past even the presence of my former self, {190} Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap, Till I am found away from my own world, Feeling for foot-hold through a blank profound, Along with unborn people in strange lands, Who say—I hear said or conceive they say— {195} 'Was John at all, and did he say he saw? Assure ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... too fair a thing to be hidden in the grave, and wondered that an angel did not snatch up little Mary's coffin, and bear the slumbering babe to heaven, and bid her wake immortal. But when the sods were laid on little Mary, the heart of Rose was troubled. She shuddered at the fantasy, that, in grasping the child's cold fingers, her virgin hand had exchanged a first greeting with mortality, and could never lose the earthly taint. How many a greeting since! But as yet, she was a fair young girl, with the dewdrops of fresh feeling in her bosom; ...
— Edward Fane's Rosebud (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... especially necessary to step in the very centre of the boat; and be careful never to lean on any object—such as the edge of a wharf—outside of the boat, for this disturbs your balance and may capsize the canoe. Especially in getting out, put down your paddle first, and then, grasping the gunwale firmly in each hand, rise by putting your weight equally on both sides of the canoe. If your canoe should drift away sideways from the landing-place, when you are trying to land, place the blade of your paddle flat upon the water in the ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... country with Colonel Low, the then Resident, as I now ride with you, sir, he said, with a sigh, 'In this country of Oude what darkness prevails! No one seems to respect the right of another; and every one appears to be grasping at the possessions of his neighbour, without any fear of God or the King'—'True, sir,' said I; 'but do you not see that it is the necessary order of things, and must be ordained by Providence? Is not your Government going on ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... succeeded in reaching her side, and there found Sumner and Dunn clinging. When quiet water was again entered they attempted to right the craft, and in doing this Dunn lost his hold and went under, though at the critical moment, as he came up, Sumner succeeded in grasping him and drawing him to the boat. By this time, they had drifted a long way down and saw another rapid approaching. By swimming desperately, they avoided being carried into this in their awkward plight, and, ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... whole land two millions of human beings, exposed, defenceless, to every insult, and every injury short of maiming or death, which their fellow men may choose to inflict. They suffer all that can be inflicted by wanton caprice, by grasping avarice, by brutal lust, by malignant spite, and by insane anger. Their happiness is the sport of every whim, and the prey of every passion that may, occasionally, or habitually, infest the master's bosom. If we could calculate the amount ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... rotund visage of the man who had exchanged signs with him as he entered the house, appeared at the aperture. His finger was on his lips, and his small grey eyes gleamed with an unusual expression of decision and vigilance. One lynx-like glance he cast into the apartment, and then grasping the arm of Baltasar, he drew, almost dragged him through the opening. The pannel closed with as little noise ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... a young man, springing across the street and grasping Ralph's hand (all his student friends called him the Baroness), "in the name of this illustrious company, allow me to salute you. But why the deuce—what is the matter with you? If you have the Katzenjammer [Footnote: Katzenjammer is the sensation a man has the morning after ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... is no man to do things by halves. If he owned me at all, the lands would be mine again, and such a bait would be smelt out by Simon were he at the ends of the earth. Or if not, that poor child would be granted to any needy kinsman or grasping baron that Edward wanted to portion. My child shall be my own, and none other's. Better a beggar's brat than ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Agrafena Ivanovna. A grasping creature, Jewish indeed. He lent his sister money at interest, and Vassily Fomitch was her security. He had to pay for it ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... early years, his brain planned that systematic development of its slender resources that made it the one successful episode in America's beginnings. His treatment of the Indians was always firm but friendly; his dealings with the grasping "London adventurers," whose greed would have seriously crippled the colony had it not been for his restraining hand, were courteous but convincing; it was Bradford who led the colony from the unsatisfactory ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... inclination to run away, and the pet-loving nature of the writer prompted an irresistible desire to capture so pretty a creature. Encouraged by its gentle manner, he eagerly ran towards the tempting prize, and grasping it by the bushy tail, which the animal had raised perpendicularly, as if for a handle, the pretty creature was locked [Page 197] in the affectionate embrace of its youthful admirer. But alas! he soon repented ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... Napoleon had a share; and it was his boyhood of privation and his youth of discouragement that made him a man of purpose, of persistence and endeavor, raising him step by step, in the days when men needed leaders but found none, until this one finally proved himself a leader indeed, and, grasping the reins of command, advanced steadily from the barracks to a throne. All this is history; it is the story of the development and progress of the most remarkable man of modern times. You can read the story in ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... Still grasping her, and victoriously lifting Dame Meregrett, so that her feet swung clear of the floor, Sire Edward said, again with that queer touch of fanatic gravity: "My dear, you are perfectly right. I was tempted, ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... the world of flesh and, with a force that shamed the strength of his words, drove home the truth that neither his praise nor his scorn could long endure. When he could again speak, he said, in his husky, rasping whisper,—while grasping the painter's hand in effusive cordiality,—"My dear fellow, I congratulate you. It is exquisite. It will create a sensation, sir, when it is exhibited. Your fame is assured. I must thank you for the honor you have done me in thus immortalizing the beauty and character ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... read the letter almost without grasping its meaning. His hands commenced to tremble, and his eyes were staring. He went over and locked the office door, and read the letter once more. It was brief and to the point; it could not be misunderstood; she gave him back his "freedom." And there was the ring, wrapped in tissue-paper. No, he ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... Court in Chicago are the children of foreigners. The Germans are the greatest offenders, Polish next. Do their children suffer from the excess of virtue in those parents so eager to own a house and lot? One often sees a grasping parent in the court, utterly broken down when the Americanized youth who has been brought to grief clings as piteously to his peasant father as if he were still a frightened little ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... of his ankle and well—shaped foot on which he wore a small Spanish grass slipper, fitted with great nicety. He was at least six feet two in height, and such as I have described him; there he stood, with his hands grasping the rail before him and looking intently at a wigless lawyer who was opening the accusation, while he had one ear turned a little towards the sworn interpreter of the court, whose province it was, at every pause, to explain ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Anna did not stop to think of that now—this wonderful bit of organisation does not always work out quite well. Evil has been known to come from a wish-ticket, for a modest person is apt to ask too little, and then is bitterly disappointed at not getting more than he asks for, while the grasping ask too much, and ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... sun was hot, so a chair was arranged for to take me the seventeen miles to Anpien. It was to cost 320 cash (eightpence), but, just before leaving, the grasping coolies refused to carry me for less than 340 cash. "Walk on," said the missionary, "and teach them a Christian lesson," so I walked seventeen miles in the sun to rebuke them for their avarice and save one halfpenny. In the evening ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... into the Englishman's face with a gentle wonder in his eyes, which were shadowy with the fervour of his recent devotions. The two men were crouching low upon the deck, grasping the black rail with their left hands; the water washed backwards and forwards around ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... interest of the toilers and of the city's safety with such infinite pains. The courts were reluctant. Courts in such matters record rather than lead the state of the public mind, and now that the immediate danger of an epidemic was over, the public mind had a hard time grasping the fact that bettering the housing of the poor was simple protection for the community. When suit was brought against a bad landlord, judges demanded that the department must prove not only that a certain state of soil saturation, for instance, ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... mingled gore. (The self-same place beside Patroclus' pyre, Where late the slaughter'd victims fed the fire.) Besmear'd with filth, and blotted o'er with clay, Obscene to sight, the rueful racer lay; The well-fed bull (the second prize) he shared, And left the urn Ulysses' rich reward. Then, grasping by the horn the mighty beast, The baffled hero thus the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... actors now come upon the scene. And for the proper grasping of events we must go back an hour or two in time to notice ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... already discussed will have made my readers realise. Isolated, the Irish farmer is conservative, sceptical of innovations, a believer in routine and tradition. In union with his fellows, he is progressive, open to ideas, and wonderfully keen at grasping the essential features of any new proposal for his advancement. He was, then, himself eminently a subject for co-operative treatment, and his circumstances were equally so. The smallness of his holding, the lack of capital, and the backwardness of his methods made him helpless in competition ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... standing out on the man's ruddy forehead, and his grip on Bart's wrist was so hard it hurt. Bart, grasping at random for something to say, gabbled, "Too bad you couldn't get to my graduation. I made th-third in a class of ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... she was earning as much as her husband; and her fame was spreading so rapidly that not only women but also men, and men with a contempt for the "inferior mentality of the female," were coming to her from all sides. "You'll soon have a huge income," said Arthur. "Why, you'll be rich, you are so grasping." ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... for their delay, and this suggestion made him march in hastily. He found her standing drooping under the pitiless storm which Frau Kunigunde was pouring out at the highest pitch of her cracked, trembling voice, one hand uplifted and clenched, the other grasping the back of a chair, while her whole frame shook with rage too ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them, he feared it would be a long business to enlarge the hole sufficiently to let them through. At it he rushed, hitting vigorously at the edge with his mattock. At the very first blow came a splash from the water beneath, but ere he could heave a third, a creature like a tapir, only that the grasping point of its proboscis was hard as the steel of Curdie's hammer, pushed him gently aside, making room for another creature, with a head like a great club, which it began banging upon the floor with terrible force and noise. After about a minute of this battery, ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... if she remained where she was. It was horrible to go down alone in the darkness, it was more horrible to remain in that haunted room. So, gathering up all her courage, she jumped from the bed, and sought the door with her nervous, grasping hands. Her little feet turned to ice, as their naked soles scampered over the bare floor, but she did not mind that; she found the door, opened it, and entered a long, dark passage, leading to the stairway. Then she recollected that on the left of that passage ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... philosophy must yield to faith, Schelling, in the essay Religion and Philosophy, 1804, goes more deeply into the problem. The origin of the sense-world is conceivable only as a breaking away, a spring, a falling away, which consists in the soul's grasping itself in its selfhood, in its subordination of the infinite in itself to the finite, and in its thus ceasing to be in God. The procession of the world from the infinite is a free act, a fact which can only be described, not deduced as necessary. ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... down beside the bed, for the awful hush of this darkened room weighed heavily upon him. As in a terrible dream he saw the sorrowing forms of his younger brother and sister, crouching at his feet, poor Rose drooping in the doorway, his father's trembling hands grasping a post of the high, old-fashioned bedstead, and, on the other side of the bed a youthful stranger, whose black dress and very black hair divinely framed a face and throat of milky whiteness. These objects left but ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... sympathize with you,— No father when you stick, will kindly pull you through; Through years of grasping toil the wealth you gain, and fame, May vanish all, and leave you ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... underneath all this, like a vein of gold under the mountain, was the philosophy of Plato. Grasping the One from the many, Unity from the fantastic diversity, he came to the individual experience of the human soul and its conscious mastership over the body and the things ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... thinking how little those lovely creatures knew of tragedy and sorrow. Theirs was a world secure in beauty, unmarred by the things which man brings upon himself, and this was true because they knew nothing of avarice or grasping greed. Could it be that man, in all his pride, was one of the least sensible of ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... the truly savage attitude of the "corrobory" jump; the legs then stride to the utmost, the head is turned over one shoulder, the eyes glare, and are fixed with savage energy all in one direction; the arms also are raised, and inclined towards the head, the hands usually grasping some warlike weapons. The jump now keeps time with each beat; the dancers at every movement taking six inches to one side, all being in a connected line, led by the first, which line, however, is sometimes doubled or tripled, according to ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... at set of sun, With glorious peal of trumpets on his ear Proclaiming victory. So had he dreamed. And there, within an arch at the stair-top And screened behind a painted hanging-cloth Of coiled gold serpents ready to make spring, Ignoble Death stood, his convulsive hand Grasping a rapier part-way down the blade To deal the blow with deadly-jewelled hilt— Black Death, turned white with horror of himself. Straight on came he that sang the blithe sea-song; And now his step was on the stair, and now He neared the blazoned ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... under low-water mark, the crock digs in the yielding sand, straight into the bank, a roomy subterranean chamber. In this snug retreat he once was safe from all his enemies,—until the fatal day when his secret was discovered, and revealed to a grasping world. Since that time, the Alligator Joes of Palm Beach and Miami have made a business of personally conducting parties of northern visitors, at $50 per catch, to witness the adventure of catching a nine-foot crocodile alive. The dens are located by probing the ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... disaster, and the powers of Europe were waiting for one more Confederate victory in order to declare the blockade of Southern ports at an end, and to float a Southern loan. That a Confederate victory was to be feared, the presence in Northern territory of Lee, grasping the handle of a sword, whose splendid blade was seventy thousand men concentrated, testified. That Lee had lost the best finger of his right hand at Chancellorsville was but job's comfort to the threatened government at Washington. ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... This very grasping compound, formaldehyde, will attack almost anything, even molecules many times its size. Gelatinous and albuminous substances of all sorts are solidified by it. Glue, skimmed milk, blood, eggs, yeast, brewer's ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... that man of wisdom reside in those regions of felicity, subsisting upon the succulence of ambrosia and nectar. That man who having fasted for seventeen days eats only one meal on the eighteenth day, and bears himself in this way for a whole year, succeeds in grasping the seven regions, of which the universe consist, in his ken. While performing his journeys on his car he is always followed by a large train of cars producing the most agreeable rattle and ridden by celestial damsels blazing ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... her bright needle across a hole in Otto's sock. "She's not old, Jim, though I expect she seems old to you. No, I would n't mourn if she never came again. But, you see, a body never knows what traits poverty might bring out in 'em. It makes a woman grasping to see her children want for things. Now read me a chapter in 'The Prince of the House of David.' Let's forget ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... general and his staff. A glance revealed to the prisoner that Peter of Blentz had come, and with him Von Coblich and Maenck. At the same instant Peter's eyes met Barney's, and the former, white and wide-eyed came almost to a dead halt, grasping hurriedly at the arm of Maenck ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that blamed sunlight again," exclaimed Johnston, grasping his companion's arm, "don't you ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... great box in which all his hopes were being packed away. "There is first a question to settle between you and me," cried the doctor: "you shall not do it. No; I forbid it, Nettie. Because you are wilful," cried Edward Rider, hoarse and violent, grasping the hands tighter, with a strain in which other passions than love mingled, "am I to give up all the rights of a man? You are going away without even giving me just warning—without a word, without a sign; and you think I will permit ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Scots bargain for you! They must have thought me mean and grasping that day. But out they went. They worked for the money. It was but just a month after war had been declared, and money was still scarce and shy of peeping out and showing itself. But, bit by bit, they got the siller. A shilling at a time they raised, by subscription. But they got it all, ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... in turn, slowly grasping the meaning of the words. "And is that a good trade? Do you earn handsome wages? Not too handsome, eh! ... At any rate you are well educated, you and your sons; you can read and write and cipher? And here am I, not ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... later plays—so fast the images teem—he has to reach out among nouns, verbs, adverbs, with both strong hands, grasping what comes and packing it ere it can ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... moment's silence, in which Philip darted a look of inquiry at Maggie's face. He saw an answer there, in the pale, parted lips, and the terrified tension of the large eyes. Her imagination, always rushing extravagantly beyond an immediate impression, saw her tall, strong brother grasping the feeble Philip bodily, crushing him ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... at her table, grasping the fatal letter, still as death, and all but as cold. She yet wore the last dress of Belvedera, and was half enveloped by the black cloud of her dishevelled hair; but the simulated frenzy, which so late ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... his chum had disappeared. He swarmed up it like a monkey and dropped down on the other side. But no solid ground met his descending feet. Instead, he crashed through leafy boughs and landed in a tangled mass of vines. In the second before the vines gave way under his weight, Charley succeeded in grasping a limb and swinging himself in to the trunk of the tree where he found a safe resting-place between two branches. Below him yawned a gigantic pit, its edge hidden from ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... must reach Gersau to-day. Whatever grievances your rulers' pride And grasping avarice may yet inflict, Bear them in patience—soon a change may come. Another emperor may mount the throne. But Austria's once, and you are hers ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... not tell me why. Some persons told me to go by my ear; to get Cicero by heart; and then I should know how to turn my thoughts and marshal my words, nay, more, where to put subjunctive moods and where to put indicative. In consequence I had a vague, unsatisfied feeling on the subject, and kept grasping shadows, and had upon me something of the unpleasant sensation ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... been established, Somers took the microphone and stated their situation. The company official at the other end seemed to have trouble grasping it. ...
— Death Wish • Robert Sheckley
... detour around the carcass of the bear. He paused to survey it, his whole manner betraying great astonishment, as if he had never beheld anything of the kind. He walked around the body several times, punched it with his foot, and finally, grasping his twenty pounds of meat in his right hand, approached ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... sprang on to Surajah's back, and thence to his shoulder. Drawing his pistols, he put one between his teeth, grasping the ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... that proclaim themselves, absences from the presence whereof there is no flying; what other paradoxes can I adventure? Without power—no style. Without a possible humour,—no style. The weakling has no confidence in himself to keep him from grasping at words that he fancies hold within them the true passions of the race, ready for the uses of his egoism. And with a sense of humour a man will not steal from a shelf the precious treasure of the language and put it in ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... gathering up the bridle of the horse, and slightly touching him with the rowel, would have proceeded on his course; but the position of the outlaw now underwent a corresponding change, and, grasping the rein of the animal, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... mental. It sometimes seems as if the home had gone off on a vacation and left the school to do its work. Now, that statement implies a criticism of the home. On the other hand, it is frequently said by unfriendly critics of our public schools that the schools are all the time reaching out and, in a grasping way, more and more taking unto themselves the sacred rights and privileges of the home, even setting themselves up in authority over the home, aye, even alienating the affections of the children, making the home of none effect. Where does the truth lie? Has the home been so negligent ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... he told himself, than this brooding! A sudden almost reckless impulse called him back again into the streets, only to pass away the same moment with the vision of Ruth's pale face by his side, her eyes alternately gazing down the lighted way and seeking his, her fingers grasping his hand. His head sank forward into his ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... adversary laid it down. Two or three assistants stood at bay trying to answer a dozen questioners at once, and experienced bargain-hunters were turning over the contents of the drawers with one hand, and grasping four or five ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... bird has four digits, three in front and one reaching backward. The hind toe is called the hallux, and corresponds to the thumb of the human hand, so that in grasping an object it can be made to meet any of the other toes. But many birds are not provided with a quartet of digits. The ostrich has only two, the inner and hinder toes being wanting. However, this great fowl does not experience any lack, for its feet are ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... and said, "I gather, then, that you are unskilled in any of the many sports that men generally delight in. I suppose you are one of those grasping traders that go about in ships as captains or merchants, and who think of nothing but of their outward freights and homeward cargoes. There does not seem to be much of ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... there was no anger in my looks. Supposing her to have been the author of this stratagem, it awakened in me not resentment, but pity. I paused; but she made no answer to my expostulation. At length I resumed, with augmented earnestness, grasping ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... years later, at age of 17, was in a special class attempting sixth-grade work. Reported as doing "absolutely nothing" in that grade. Still sullen, indifferent, and slow in grasping directions, and lacking in play interests. "No apperception of anything, but has mastered such mechanical things as reading (calling the words) and the fundamentals ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... high, with bare legs, would try the mettle of most men—civilised as well as savage. The plan is simple. The native strips off a piece of tough bark from a branch, and therewith ties his feet together, leaving them, however, several inches apart, grasping the trunk with his arms he presses his feet against each side of the tree so that the piece of bark between them catches in the roughnesses of the stem; this gives him a purchase by which he is enabled to leap or ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... the scene was simply overwhelming. There was hardly a detail that was not new and unfamiliar. From where he stood on the upper deck, grasping the rail before him, his eyes looked out over a luminous city as lovely as fairyland. There were no chimneys, of course (these, he had just learnt, had altogether disappeared more than fifty years ago), but spires and towers and pinnacles rose before him like a dream, ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... the shade of one of the poplars. Friend Carter turned again, much moved, and, grasping the old man's hands in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... long as this state endures, she can only do this. She may change—Hell hath no fury, etc.—but the sacrificial, yielding, solicitous attitude is more often the outstanding characteristic of the mistress; and it is this very attitude in contradistinction to the grasping legality of established matrimony that has caused so many wounds in the defenses of the latter. The temperament of man, either male or female, cannot help falling down before and worshiping this nonseeking, sacrificial note. It approaches vast distinction ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... their visits were always a great pleasure to us. On this occasion I was particularly glad, because the birds had elected to settle on a tree close to where I was standing. But the blossoms thickly covering every twig annoyed the parrots, as they could not find space enough to grasp a twig without grasping its flower as well; so what did the birds do in their impatience but begin stripping the blossoms off the branches on which they were perched with their sharp beaks, so rapidly that the flowers came down in a pink shower, and in this way in half a minute every bird made ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... return he received four yards merikani and one dubuani, which Bombay settled, as the little Sheikh, ever done by the sultans, pleaded indisposition, to avoid the double fire he was always subjected to on these occasions, by the sultans grasping on the one side, and my resisting on the other; for I relied on my strength, and thought it very inadvisable to be generous with my cloth to the prejudice of future travellers, by decreasing the value of merchandise, and increasing proportionately the expectations of these negro chiefs. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... And fallen in war. Sighing, he sees them there, Glaucus, Thersilochus and Medon slain, Antenor's sons, three brethren past compare, And Polyphoetes, priest of Ceres' fane, And brave Idaeus, still grasping ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Grasping his spear, Souk shouted his war-whoop, and, ordering his men to charge, dashed down upon the enemy. Plunging his spear into the nearest foe, he drew his battle-axe and clove open the head of the one in the rear, and before his comrades could come ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... glaive flashed in air, and chopped sheer down on Werner's head. So shrewd a blow it was against a half-formed defence, that the Baron dropped without a word right on the edge of the board, and there hung, feebly grasping ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... express a species or kind by an individual, and portray a conception in a single case, we remove from fancy the chains which the understanding has placed upon her and give her the power to act as a creator. Always grasping at completely determinate images, the imagination obtains and exercises the right to complete according to her wish the image afforded to her, to animate it, to fashion it, to follow it in all the associations and transformations ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... concerned. We have a record of facades covered with spirited compositions and heraldic devices, of friezes with Bacchus and Mars, Venus and Mercury. Zanetti, in his seventeenth-century prints, has preserved a noble figure of "Fortitude" grasping an axe, but beyond a few fragments nothing has survived. Before he was thirty Giorgione was entrusted with the important commission of decorating the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. This building, which we hear of so often in connection with the artists of Venice, was the trading-house for German, ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... Eve's place in the Garden was a short lobster 'longside of it. Then, he said, he was took down with an incurable disease. He tried and tried to get along, but 'twas no go. He mortgaged the shanty to a grasping money lender—meanin' Poundberry—and that money was spent. Then his sister passed away and his heart broke; so they ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... neither rest, nor gratitude, nor commendation. One really sometimes feels inclined to regret that Abud or somebody else was not more relentless—to pray for a Sir Giles Overreach or a Shylock among the creditors. For such a one, by his apparently malevolent but really beneficent grasping, would have in effect liberated the bondsman, who, as it was, was compelled to toil at a hopeless task to his dying day, and to hasten that dying ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... stopped. The Mongol, his eyes red with a combination of vodka and bull-roaring rage, was charging toward him, his hands outflung and his fingers grasping at the air. "Warmonger!" he was shouting. "Capitalist slave-owner! Leprous and ancient cannibal without culture! You have begun a war you ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Fig. 90 will aid the boy in grasping the situation. A is the airship; B the path of its flight; a the course of the bomb after it leaves the airship; and D the earth. The question is how to determine the proper movement ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... coats off and have half an hour's practice before nightfall," says Harry, after thankfully grasping his ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... treasures at your feet. When a man has ceased to desire them, then all treasures pour down upon him, for he has become a channel through which all good gifts flow to those around him. Seek the good, give up grasping, and then everything will be yours. Cease to ask that your own little water tank may be filled, and you will become a pipe, joined to the living source of all waters, the source which never runs dry, the waters which spring up unfailingly. Renunciation means the power of unceasing ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... mighty blow Edmund had smitten full on his opponent's uplifted arm, and, striking it just above the elbow, the sword clove through flesh and bone, and the severed limb, still grasping the sword, fell ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... comrades, martyrized on far-off detachments, or vegetating with friends in the country; the more ambitious, after much private practice, strove to imitate his way of twisting his mustache as he stood before the fire, though with some, to whom nature had been niggard of hirsute honors, it was grasping a shadow and fighting ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... Anthony has grown slightly thinner since she was in Chicago attending the World's Fair Congresses, thinner and more spiritual-looking. As she sat last night with her transparent hands grasping the arms of her chair, her thin, hatchet face and white hair, with only her keen eyes flashing light and fire, she looked like Pope Leo XIII. The whole physical being is as nearly submerged as possible in a great mentality. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Christianity. Our allies, unfortunately, cannot see the slightest benefit in any measure that does not imply raising themselves up by thrusting others down. The official paper of the Lisbon Government has since let us know "that their policy was directed to frustrating the grasping designs of the British Government to the dominion of Eastern Africa." We, who were on the spot, and behind the scenes, knew that feelings of private benevolence had the chief share in the operations undertaken ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... of reawakened inspiration; she hastened to the piano; she opened her lips; but at that very moment Krespel pushed her away, grasped me by the shoulders, and with a shriek that rose up to a tenor pitch, cried, "My son—my son—my son!" And then he immediately went on, singing very softly, and grasping my hand with a bow that was the pink of politeness, "In very truth, my esteemed and honourable student-friend, in very truth it would be a violation of the codes of social intercourse, as well as of all good manners, were I to express aloud ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... turned his head so that he could watch every movement and guard against it, his hand being extended beneath his body in the most natural position possible, but grasping his loaded revolver. ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne |
