"Grope" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dark we grope along, And if we go amiss We learn at least which path is wrong, And there ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Intelligence it can be no other than good, it can entertain no intention of evil, and thus all intentional evil must put us in opposition to it, and so deprive us of the consciousness of its guidance and strengthening and thus leave us to grope our own way and fight our own battle single-handed against the universe, odds which at last will surely prove too great for us. But remember that the opposition can never be on the part of the Universal Mind, for in ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... for your bed, leddie," said Bob Tubbs, the old man whose acquaintance I had so unceremoniously formed. "Ye'll find it there, for'ard, if ye'll grope your way. It's not over airy, but it's all ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... read over Arthur's poems again. Now that she was so near to him they impressed her less with a sense of fear and anxiety than with one of pity and of love. He was her child, and therefore to be protected and caressed. She found it difficult not to leave her room in the night, and grope her way along the creaking corridors to the room in which she knew he was sleeping. She wanted to kiss him and hold him in her arms. She placed the poems on the table at her bedside and blew out the candle. It was unfortunate for her bewilderment that Arthur had not left ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... existence elsewhere, but that those who hated the thought of such change could, by taking thought, prolong life and live for a thousand years, like the adder and tortoise or for ever. But no, he would not leave the poor boy to grope alone and blindly after that hidden knowledge he was burning to possess. He pitied him too much. The means were simple and near to hand, the earth teemed with the virtue that would save him from the dissolution which so appalled ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... the flat top indicated, his silhouette cutting vigorously into the dimness, particularly the rather heavy double wave to his hair causing Lilly to grope with a vague sense of having seen him before. It was merely a rather remote resemblance to the remote Horace Lindsley, but not for days did she stumble ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... they ascended to the Staked Plain, and are now nearly across it. Guided by the traitor, they had no need to grope their way, and have made quick time. In a few hours more they will pounce upon the prey for which they have ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... reached the upper hall, when the ruling passion burning even through his fever had led him to grope about for the electric switch. His last remaining energy had been expended for an economy and he ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... in profound darkness when he landed, and the moon having gone behind a bank of cloud, he had to grope his way to Mrs. Prettyman's cottage, shouldering the axe. The isolated position of the house alone made the adventure possible, he reflected; he could not have cut down a tree in the hearing of neighbours, and as to old ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... blackened nuts and some of the dry moss he had put there were lying on the ground at its roots. He could not remember whether they were there when he had last visited the spot. He began to grope in the cavity with both hands. His fingers struck against the sharp angles of a flat paper packet: a thrill of joy ran through them and stopped his beating heart; he drew out the hidden object, ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... her assigned, Truth fled the earth; and men were fain to grope In utter darkness. Blindly they blundered, And were long distraught, till on the horizon rose A luminosity, and in its midst A form. They cried, "'Tis Truth! fair Truth returned!' And though the light seemed dim, the form but faint To that of ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... shifts, clearing away the ash. Ashore the conditions were equally terrifying and all night long the bell of the Russian Church boomed out in the blackness. There were few of its followers who did not grope their way to the building at some time ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... few minutes the fugitive remained motionless, then, hearing no sounds from above he started to grope about his retreat. Upon two sides were blank, circular walls, upon the other two circular openings about four feet in diameter. It was through these openings that the tiny ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... lane, and in a minute she was at the gate and his eyes were laughing in hers. They walked back through the long grass, and pushed open the door behind the house. The room at first seemed quite dark and they had to grope their way in hand in hand. Through the window-frame the sky looked light by contrast, and above the black mass of asters in the earthen jar one white star ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... almost beneath, both of us gazing upward, my companion unwittingly stumbled against a lady who was standing silently looking up at this light, and who had failed to notice our approach. The contact was severe enough to dislodge from her hand her folded parasol, for which I began to grope. ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... a hawser!" I heard the commodore shout, and saw the sailing-master slide down the ladder and grope among the dead and wounded and mass of broken spars and tackles, and finally pick up a smeared rope's end, which I helped him drag to the poop. There we found the commodore himself taking skilful turns around the mizzen with the severed stays and shrouds dangling from the bowsprit, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... curtained back From my exploring eye, And I seemed left to grope in night, And there at last ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... in terms of hope And speak of it with words of praise, And tell the joy it is to grope Along the new, untrodden ways! Let's break this habit of despair And cheerfully our task regard; The road to happiness lies there: Why think or speak ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... snapped, "you do not vish to learn. You care not'ing for science. You are romantic, you grope, you change, you are unformed. In a vord, you are a voman. You haf industry—mine Gott, yes!— and you vill learn of me because I am a man and because you haf not'ing better to do. And by-and-by behold Prince Charming—and you vill meet and marry and ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... grope my way back, I heard the murmur of voices. I made my way in the direction of these sounds to seek for assistance. Suddenly, there fell upon my ears the notes of a piano and a woman's ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... inn it was so pitch dark that he had almost to grope his way, for it was impossible to see a hand's breadth in front of him. Some night-birds flying across the road from one hedge to the other brushed Pinocchio's nose with their wings as they passed, which caused him so much terror that, springing back, he shouted: "Who goes there?" and ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... rare-bit I had eaten had disagreed with me. I had been in a nightmare. I made my way back to my state-room, and entered it with an effort. The whole place smelled of stagnant sea-water, as it had when I had waked on the previous evening. It required my utmost strength to go in and grope among my things for a box of wax lights. As I lighted a railway reading lantern which I always carry in case I want to read after the lamps are out, I perceived that the porthole was again open, and a sort of ...
— The Upper Berth • Francis Marion Crawford
... he were all blind of wit, might see the solution of this reason; and though he were blind he might grope the solution, but if his feeling him failed. For if this reason were aught worth, by such manner arguing men might prove that the three score and ten interpreters, and Aquila, Symachus, Theodocion, and Origines ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... long it was after my senses had gone when I began to grope for them on the warmest of heaving soft pillows, and lost the slight hold I had on them with the effort. Then came a series of climbings and fallings, risings to the surface and sinkings fathoms below. Any attempt to speculate pitched me back into ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... helpful to us as the water of the oasis mirage is to the lost dying of thirst in the desert. The outcries of the wretched and miserable, the gray-and-dreary lived din an unmanageable tinnitus in our ears. Like God, it may be but a large, vague idea toward which we grope to snuggle up against. It seems implicit in the doctrines of evolution. But how do we know that in man the spiral of life has not reached its apex, and that now, even now, the vortices of its descent are not beginning? How do we know that ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... to have a shave," said Dennis; "and I say, Wetherby, you might grope in the kit-bag and put a refill in that spare torch of mine. I've got an idea it may be useful to-night. Oh, ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... not grope without touching. It is not only 'unto the seed of Jacob' that God has never said, 'Seek ye Me in vain.' The story has a message of hope to all such seekers, and sheds precious light on dark problems in regard to the relation of such souls in heathen lands to the light and love of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... our scope, As blindly on through life we grope, So much we cannot understand, However wisely we have planned, That all who walk this earth about Are constantly beset ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... building we entered faced a narrow street. The hallway was as dark as the air was foul or the walls filthy. Not a ray or shimmer of light fell through transoms or skylight. The stairs were narrow and worn. By the aid of matches we were able to grope our way along, and also to observe more than was pleasant to behold. It was apparent that the hallways or stairs were seldom surprised by water, while pure, fresh air was evidently as much a stranger as fresh paint. After ascending several flights, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... through the house. There was not a thing in it to change the deserted appearance of the first floor. At last it occurred to Craig to grope his way down cellar. There was nothing there, either, except a bin, as innocent of coal as Mother Hubbard's cupboard was of food. For several minutes we hunted about without ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... for a daring policy, had undertaken to attack the Danish defences with a squadron of twelve seventy-fours, and the frigates and bomb-vessels of the fleet. He determined to shun the open way of King's Channel, grope through the uncertain passage called the Dutch Deep, at the back of the Middle Ground, and forcing his way up the narrow channel in front of the shallows, repeat on the anchored batteries and battleships of the Danes the exploit of the ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated—I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess: but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached the wall. I replied to the yells ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... manifold miracles which the Saviour wrought may be taken as parabolical. You and I grope in darkness as the blind. You and I have ears deaf to hear, and lips dumb to speak, the praises and the love and the word of God. We are lame in the powers of mind and spirit to run in the way of His commandments, and to walk unfainting in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... what did I tell you? You look fagged to death, and as cross as two sticks. Five shillings wasted on taxis, and nothing for it but getting thoroughly upset. Next time I hope you will take my advice!" said Cecil, and took up her candle to grope her way up the ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... they hands that crush heartlessly? Are they hands that drag downward? Are they hands that pull backward? Are they hands that strike in cruelty? Are they hands that slap insultingly? Are they hands that tear pitilessly? Are they hands that grope into the dark places and do more harm than good? ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... the middle of the floor; And, trembling at each breath of air that stirr'd, He grope'd down stairs, and open'd the street door, While Toby was ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... threshold of the disused farm-kitchen, holding the little wooden box carefully in both his dogskin-gloved hands. He crossed to the hearth, stubbing his toe against a jutting floor-brick, and as he did so he caught his breath. Then he stepped down under the yawning gape of the chimney, and seemed to grope and fumble at the back of the hearth. He raised himself then, stepped back, and called ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... and all the boat's lights revealed was a yellow circle of fog that traveled with us. Wet and chilled, we two stood at the wheel together, in such hard conditions that no navigator and no pilot could have done much more than grope. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... Questions of mighty import to the state Which I must quickly and with wisdom solve Without the bell mare's chime to charm mine ear. On whose sound judgment dare I now rely? Whose honor, on grave issues, can I trust? Shall I use Quezox blindly as a staff On which to lean, as on my path I grope? Or shall I ope' mine ear to those entrenched Behind official desks, with knowledge armed And primed for combat, when I shall disclose The policy profound, by wisdom sired? Alas, I find that I must war with friends, Who seem enamored with the tricky ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... sun looks dull to me this morning. I have come from such a riotous dream. All last night I walked in a realm of such golden splendor, that I think even in our fullest noon I shall only see enough light to grope by for days ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... through Nature and the soul and mind. It is the Sun of Suns, around which wind The Heavens and all the worlds. Such is its blaze, That had it not, at intervals, a haze, Grading both Angel and the Human-kind, The bright Arch-angel would be stricken blind, To grope in Heaven, a ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... Man's Land and into the German trenches. He had been expecting us, and led me along a duck board over the morass, to where one of these leviathans was awaiting us. You crawl through a greasy hole in the bottom, and the inside is as full of machinery as the turret of the Pennsylvania, and you grope your way to the seat in front beside that of the captain and conductor, looking out through a slot in the armour over a waste of water and mud. From here you are supposed to operate a machine gun. Behind you two mechanics have started the engines with a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... hand smote his forehead. "I grow blind; hands! stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... despair nor despond, Though I grope in the dark for the dawn: Birth and laughter, and bubbles of breath, And tears, and the blank void of death, Round each its penumbra is drawn,— I touch ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... you, my fallen brother, as I cannot speak to the foolish people who grope in this miasma of delusion. Silly women, yielding to the natural vanity of their sex, may mistake hysterics for inspiration. Vacillating and vacant men may seek a new sensation by encouraging a revival of the demoniacal epidemics of heathendom. But you, who have been a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... not grope and it succeeds very well. Its gallery is still contained within one plane, the first condition of the minimum of labour. Moreover, of the different vertical planes that can pass through the eccentric starting-point, one, the plane which passes through the axis of the tree, corresponds ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... thought, seemingly, that she herself was the subject of observation or remark. Then they seemed to lose their cold glitter, and soften into a strange, dreamy tenderness. The deep instincts of womanhood were striving to grope their way to the surface of her being through all the alien influences which overlaid them. She could be secret and cunning in working out any of her dangerous impulses, but she did not know how to mask the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... find my way to the top of the stairs which I saw led down into the vaults below," he said to himself, "and I can easily grope my way down-stairs, and find out what these ghosts ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... that evening a memorandum of that historical circumstance; and for some months this book existed only in the form of that memorandum. Then, through, as it were, this wholly isolated window, I began to grope at "the book about Manuel,"—of whom I had hitherto learned only, from my other romances, who were his children, and who had been the sole witness of Dom Manuel's death, inasmuch as I had read about that also, with some interest, in the fourth chapter of "Jurgen"; and from the unclosing of this ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... three, That he had lerned out of some decree; No wonder is, he herd it all the day. And eke ye knowen wel, how that a jay Can clepen watte, as well as can the pope. But who so wolde in other thing him grope, Than hadde he spent all his philosophie, Ay, Questio quid juris ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... huge, and surrounded with stone arcades, indistinct amidst the gloom. However, they came to a narrow passage without a door, and he let go her hand. She could hear him trying to strike some matches, and swearing. They were all damp. It was necessary for them to grope ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... blow. ... Mr. Wright pulled himself to his feet, and with one shaking hand on the table felt his way around until he stood directly in front of her; he put his face close to hers and stared into her eyes, his lower lip opening and closing in silence. Then, without speaking, he began to grope about on the table ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... work from the first line of it! It seems as if he came into the full possession of himself and of his material at one bound,—never had to grope for his way and experiment, as most men do. What apprenticeship he served, or with whom he served it, we get no hint. He has come to his own, and is in easy, joyful possession of it, when he first ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... cannot be, I am sure, without Sir G. Carteret's accounts be better understood than they are. He seems to have a great esteem of me and my opinion and thoughts of things. After we had spent an houre thus discoursing and vexed that we do but grope so in the darke as we do, because the people, that should enlighten us, do not helpe us, we resolved fitting some things for another meeting, and so broke up. He shewed me his house, which is yet all unhung, but will be a very noble house indeed. Thence by coach calling at my bookseller's ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... how to suffer. He will remain a figure for the legends of the future for, running to transmit an order, he received a bullet in the eyes which shattered his optic nerve. He was completely blinded. Nevertheless, he continued to advance, trying to grope his way through the night that had fallen upon him. He encountered something lying on the ground—a something that was a man just as badly wounded. The blind man ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... those who, when "deep calleth unto deep," have no such "strong consolation" to enable them to ride out the storm; who, when sorrow and bereavement overtake them—the lowering shadows of the dark and cloudy day—have still to grope after an unknown Christ; and, amid the hollowness of earthly and counterfeit comforts, have to seek, for the first time, the only ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... book might give us help—a fine play, or some form of athletics will start us to thinking. Self-analysis teaches us to see ourselves in a true light without embellishments or undue optimism. We can gauge our chances in no better way. If we grope in the darkness we haven't much of a chance. "Taking stock" throws a searchlight on the dark spots and points the way out of the ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... towards evening, and Falkenberg was still tuning, I took a bit of something to eat in my pocket and went off for a walk, to be out of the way so they should not ask me in to supper. There was a moon, and the stars were out, but I liked best to grope my way into the dense part of the wood and sit down in the dark. It was more sheltered there, too. How quiet the earth and air seemed now! The cold is beginning, there is rime on the ground; now and again a stalk of grass creaks faintly, ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... he had just before examined, would come across his memory; and many a tale of the fierceness and cunning of the jaguar would not be forgotten. Suddenly he found his feet in water, and then he had to grope for a narrow bridge it was necessary to cross. Of its height above the water, or the depth of the stream, he was utterly ignorant. To walk along a plank four inches wide, under such circumstances, was a nervous ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... regard as ever living and absorbed in prayer at the bottom of an inaccessible cave, the edifice has arisen and gloriously flowered like an architectural shrine. The lowest is a crypt, dark as a sepulcher, into which the visitors descend with torches; pilgrims keep close to the dripping walls and grope along in ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... Captain Jules, who dropped down on her hands and knees to grope for the captain's lost ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... is actually coming to Europe next year," he explained. "He is, without doubt, the most accomplished of men in the dreadful science of detecting crime and, were he here, he could assuredly read into these abominations a meaning for which we grope in vain. Do not think," he added to Jenny, "that I undervalue the labours of Mr. Brendon and the police, but they have come to naught, for there are strange forces of evil moving here deeper than the plummet of their ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... Lane, built of brick in 1618 by William Rowley, is now a warehouse. Butcher Row has some old houses with projecting storeys, including a fine specimen of a medieval shop. Some of the houses in Grope Lane lean together from opposite sides of the road, so that people in the highest storey can almost shake hands with their neighbours across the way. You can see the "Olde House" in which Mary Tudor is said to have stayed, and the mansion of the Owens, built in 1592 as an ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... stairs, heedful of a false footing on the trembling boards, and grope your way with me into this wolfish den, where neither ray of light nor breath of air, appears to come. A negro lad, startled from his sleep by the officer's voice - he knows it well - but comforted by his assurance that he has not come on business, officiously bestirs ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... her hand commenced to grope. It stole into his own and lay there quietly. "Because I couldn't bear to see you hurt. You're so good. In some ways you're so strong; in others you're just as tiny as my Eric. I felt you needed ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... seen them: they'd slipped death's clutches, But sadder a sight you will rarely find; One had a leg off and walked on crutches, The other, a bit of a boy, was blind. And they both sat down, and the lad was trying To grope his way as a blind man tries; And half of the women around were crying, And some of the men had tears ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... him to the ground, but the man heaved him away with a mighty kick. Chester fell sprawling on the ground, and his opponent turned to grope for his revolver. ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... he rose, and crept along the floor, Into the passage humming with their snore; As narrow was it as a drum or tub, And like a beetle doth he grope and grub, Feeling his way, with darkness in his hands. Till at the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... strong, sulphurous smell, which was soon accounted for by the flight of an incredible number of small bats, which were roosting in the bottom of the cave, and had been disturbed at our approach. We attempted to grope our way to the bottom, but not having a light, were soon obliged to give up its further examination. . . . From the summit of this place a set of bearings were obtained, particularly of the islands to the northward and westward, and Mr. Cunningham secured here specimens of eighteen ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... descend into the valley for water and grass; and we were obliged to grope our way in the darkness down a very steep, bad mountain, reaching the river at about ten o'clock. It was late before our animals were gathered into the camp, several of those which were very weak being ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... revel in bliss. I taste of each lip, and melt in each kiss. I'm an egotist's pride, though in silence I reign; And, through free from sorrow, I'm always in pain. Though in laughter ne'er seen, in mirth I delight; In blindness I grope, though perfect in sight. In foolishness, Wisdom, and wit I've a place; Though dwelling in virtue I live in disgrace. Though frost knows me not, with winter I blend; And always to ice I'm a capital friend. I'm never in heat, though I live in the fire. Though never in want, I'm ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... smiled. "Have all that, and grope my way through it like a blind cave fish? What a question! But the sense that it's always the blind fish that live in that kind of aquarium is what makes anarchists, sir!" He looked back from the corner of the square, where we had paused while he ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... pass an old log cabin about which there hangs a ghostly superstition. At a certain hour in the night, during the time the bark is loose on the hemlock, a female form is said to steal from it and grope its way into the wilderness. The tradition runs that her lover, who was a bark-peeler and wielded the spud, was killed by his rival, who felled a tree upon him while they were at work. The girl, who helped her mother cook for the 'hands,' was crazed by the shock, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... Cap'n, but they ain't no blessed good, an' I bet my head on that. See, if you drives all them plugs well through her, and they sticks out good an' proper outside, it ain't so hard to grope around under the mud an' grab a holt on 'em. Then 'tain't very hard, genelmen, to paddle away a bit o' mud about each bunch o' plugs, an' when that's done, 'tis about all done. I'll lash a wire to them long plugs, and ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... her to consciousness. She tells him that she suffers from consumption. Rudolph is struck by her beauty and her delicate hands. She notices that she has lost her key and whilst they search for it their candles are extinguished. As they grope on the floor in the dark, Rudolph finds the key and puts it in his pocket. Their hands meet and Rudolph tries to warm her hands and tells her all about his life. Mimi confides her struggles to him and their conversation soon turns upon their love ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... the result of his mission we must not grope our way, step by step, through the darkness in which the Abbe Bernier wrapped his ambitious projects, but we must join him later at the village of Muzillac, between Ambon and Guernic, six miles above the little bay into which the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Watchman! what of the night? The night is stormy and dark; men's hearts are failing them for fear; those who see clearly in the day time, now grope helplessly in the dark; the blind are leading the blind; society is at a stand still, waiting and watching for the coming day. Yet afar off in the east the patriot's eye may even now see the first faint streaks of that light which shall usher ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... ever did poor Henry grope his way up into the cold garret that night, with but one thought and one image in his mind, the thought of home and the image of his mother. He dreamed of her all night. He was at home. Her tender voice was in his ear, and his head rested on her bosom. She clothed ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... uproar around him with something of the affrighted compassion that a stranger in Hell might be supposed to feel when hearkening to the ceaseless plaints of the self-tortured wicked. He endeavored to grope his way to Sah-luma's side,—and just then lights appeared, . . lights that were not of earth's kindling, . . strange, wandering flames that danced and flitted along the tapestried walls like will-o'-the- wisps on a dark morass, and flung a ghastly blue glare on the pale, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... than they know. Ah, me! Thought surges upon thought, and has its will, Care, gnawing upon care, my soul must kill; Love—hate—fear—pain: I am of each the prey, I grope for light, but never find the day! Oh, what I suffer thou canst not conceive, Each passion rages, but can ne'er relieve; For I have noble thoughts that die still-born, And I have thoughts so base my soul I scorn. I love ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... The hand which drew from the mud can fling into the ditch, you who answer me with an 'if.' And, by God! I'll do it! An 'if'? We say 'ifs' to fools. Was I a fool to turn the lickshoe of Charles the Bully into the Prince of Talmont? Was I a fool to grope in the mud for a Seneschal of Poitou? Am I a fool now—I, who have held the strings of all Europe in my hand for thirty years, and loosed or ravelled them as suited the greatness of France? God be my witness, all has been for the greatness of France! France ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... Paul when he says that God "made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth... that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him." But while man, unaided by direct revelation, can grope in the dark and feel after God, and can invent systems of religion based on experience that are better than none, any man that accepts facts and testimony will soon discover that God has not thus ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... carrying it in his hand at the moment of the catastrophe. . . . He sat down on the pebbled path beside the basin, flung himself upon his stomach and, leaning over the brink as far as he dared, began to grope in the mud. After some minutes he recovered his shoe, but by and by was forced to abandon the search for the key as hopeless. He had no ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... it. The movement by us through Snake-Creek Gap was a total surprise to him. My army about doubled his in size, but he had all the advantages of natural positions, of artificial forts and roads, and of concentrated action. We were compelled to grope our way through forests, across mountains, with a large army, necessarily more or less dispersed. Of course, I was disappointed not to have crippled his, army more at that particular stage of the game; but, as it resulted, these rapid successes ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... branch of the Lee. We experienced much difficulty, and narrowly escaped detection, in entering this village, which is surrounded by beautiful country seats, through the grounds of some of which we were obliged to grope our way. We obtained lodgings, after one or two fruitless trials, in a very comfortable house kept by a farmer. The young family seemed to be rather tastefully educated, and we soon became fast friends. We passed as whimsical ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... as he slept, or did the thing which he thought he saw actually occur! Some stones slipped from off the mound and, to his eyes looking down into the grave, it seemed that Strangeways' hand began to grope frantically after the locket which had been about his neck, and that, finding it missing, his face became angry and he strove to rise, causing the stones to fall and ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... neighbourhood. He gave one last desperate lunge as a parting remembrance, and felt that his weapon had made a hit. Something fell on the floor, but the light was extinguished in the scuffle, and in vain he attempted to grope out this trophy ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... God, in every temple I see those who see thee, and, in every tongue that is spoken, thou art praised. Polytheism and Islam grope after thee, Each religion says, 'Thou art one, without equal,' Be it mosque, men murmur holy prayer; or church, the bells ring, for love of thee; Awhile I frequent the Christian cloister, anon the mosque: But thee only I seek from fane to fane. Thine elect know ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... saw him," he said with a sigh, "was at Holmes's seventieth-birthday breakfast, in Boston. But then his mind was like a splendid bridge with one span missing; he had—what is it you doctors call it?—aphasia, yes, that is it—he had to grope for his words. But what a serene, godlike air! He was like a plucked eagle tarrying in the midst of a group of lesser birds. He would sweep the assembly with that searching glance, as much as to say, 'What is all this buzzing and ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... a moment where I had fallen, half-buried and blind. I was neither stunned nor hurt; and I began to grope around me, for as yet I could see nothing. My eyes were full of sand, and pained me exceedingly. Throwing out my arms, I felt for my horse; I called him by name. A low whimper answered me. I staggered towards the spot, and laid my hands ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... tied to a particular spot, where it is indeed much wanted, and is a great blessing, but where it has enough to do to live, whence it cannot move to obtain what it wants or likes, but must stretch its unfortunate arms here and there for bare breath and light, and split its way among rocks, and grope for sustenance in unkindly soil; it would be hard upon the plant, I say, if under all these disadvantages, it were made answerable for its appearance, and found fault with because it was not a fine plant of the kind. ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... heads, so many sentences! No, you all grope and blunder off the line. Each simile's at fault; I'll tell you mine;— You're free to turn and wrest it as you please. [Rises as if to make a speech. In the remotest east there grows a plant;(4) And the sun's ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... should unguardedly go beyond his depth; at length he reached the blind man, took him very carefully by the hand, and led him out. The blind man then gave him a thousand blessings, and told him he could grope out his way home; and the little Boy ran on as hard as he could, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... dark and narrow that the hero soon found himself obliged to creep on all fours, and to grope his way. At last he perceived a faint light at a distance, and the cavern enlarged so much that he could now stand ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... me," he said. "Look here, Henri, grope about for a stone—a brick—anything that's hard and will hurt, and can be thrown easily. Ah! here's one—a big 'un too; you try the same, Jules, and get ready to heave at that sentry. When I bash my fist against the fellow below, you throw your stones as hard as you can at the German inside ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Till the settler's heart at his hearth grew cold, And he shrank from the tawny wizard's boasts, And the hovering shadows seemed full of ghosts, And above, below, and on every side, The fear of his creed seemed verified;— And think, if his lot were now thine own, To grope with terrors nor named nor known, How laxer muscle and weaker nerve And a feebler faith thy need might serve; And own to thyself the wonder more That the snake had two heads and not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... where I was born, The lips that gape give back, the hands that grope, And noise and blood and suffocating scorn An eddy of ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... continued to grope his way almost in darkness, but soon a light began to shine before him, which grew bigger and bigger as he advanced, and he perceived that he was coming to another mouth of the cave, leading to an open, but very rough country. The Prince was very glad indeed to ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... was only for a second. His strong nerves soon restored him, and he stooped and picked up the baby, although he was so blinded with glad tears that he had to grope for ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... outlet other than that by which Fred had entered? Was the flow even or irregular? Were there pitfalls and abysses about him, making it too perilous to attempt to grope about ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... ends stick out from both sides. In these coffins also various articles were buried with the dead, sometimes valuable ones. The Arabs know this; they dig in the sand with their hands, break the coffins open with their spears, and grope in them for booty. The consequence is that it is extremely difficult to procure an entire coffin. Loftus succeeded, however, in sending some to the British Museum, having first pasted around them several layers of thick ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... idea that I should miss her so much! Indeed, we all missed her: it seemed to me now that I had undervalued her. True, she had not been a congenial companion to me in my dark days; but even then I had wronged her. Why should I have expected her to grope among the shadows with me, instead of following her into the sunshine? Sara could not act contrary to her nature. Sad things depressed her. She wanted to cause every ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... treasure. And she's my own! I can watch her little body grow and help to make it strong and beautiful! I can help mould her little mind—see it opening up, one chamber of wonder after another! I can teach her all the things I have had to grope ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... like magic, and hurried before the lash of the wind. Then, with a darkening swoop, came the snowstorm, hurled along on wide wings; the last remnants of light fled; the vessel was shut in, and the devoted company on board could only grope in the murk on deck. No one would stay below, for the sudden, unexampled assault of the hurricane had touched ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... Partitions blood-stained have a reddened smear, And Terror unrelieved is master here. One feels the place has secret histories Replete with dreadful murderous mysteries, And that this sepulchre, forgot to-day, Is home of trailing ghosts that grope their way Along the walls where spectre reptiles crawl. "Our fathers fashioned for us after all Some useful things," said Joss; then Zeno spoke: "I know what Corbus hides beneath its cloak, I and the osprey know the castle old, And what in bygone ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... this day they make more history in Secessia than here. Jeff. Davis overshadows Lincoln. Jeff. Davis and his gang of malefactors are pushed into the whirlpool of action by the nature of their crime; here, our leaders dread action, and grope. The rebels have a clear, decisive, almost palpable ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... process from the state of war? In such international—or, I should say, interparochial—differences, the nearest we can come towards understanding is to appreciate the cloud of ambiguity in which all parties grope— ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... (Alexias, l. iii. p. 93, 94, 95) well deserves to be read. There is one expression which Ducange does not understand. I have endeavored to grope out a tolerable meaning: The first word is a golden crown; the second is explained by Simon Portius, (in Lexico Graeco-Barbar.,) by ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... forbid! Then how was I, a man, to interpret the world to women? Truly, I had been an owl of the night, and blind to the honest light of truth when I yielded to the counsel of ambition, that I had no time for courtship and marriage. In my stupid haste I would try to grope my way through subjects beyond a man's ken, rather than seek some such guide as yonder maiden, whose intuitions would be unerring when the light of reason failed. In theory, I held the doctrine that there was ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... aware Of the angels in the air. All your softly gracious ways Make an island in my days Where my thoughts fly back to be Sheltered from too strong a sea. All your luminous delight Shines before me in the night When I grope for sleep and find Only shadows ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... rustling and shaking in his hand. Ezra, breathing hard and short, accepted it, and began to grope in his pockets for his spectacle-case. After a while he found it, and tremblingly setting his glasses astride his nose, began to unfold the paper, which crackled noisily in ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... expression may be so audacious that it plucks an idea from its shroud or places within us an emotion still quivering and warm. Sustained discourse may unflaggingly clarify or animate. But such triumphs are beyond the reach of those, whether speakers or writers, who are constantly pausing to grope for words. This does not mean that scrutiny of individual words is wasted effort. Such scrutiny becomes the basis indeed of the more venturesome and inspired achievement. We must serve our apprenticeship to language. We must ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... would never make me calm, This bowl my grief would never drown. For grief like mine there is no balm In Gilead, or in Tilbury Town. And if I see what I can see, I know not any way to blind it; Nor more if any way may be For you to grope ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... mighty intellect has not yet comprehended the philosophy of religion. Oratorically you soar like the condor when its shadow falls upon the highest peaks of the Andes, but logically you grope among the pestilential shadows of an intellectual Dismal Swamp, ever mistaking shadow for substance. You are frittering away your mighty intellectual strength with the idiosyncrasies of creeds and the clumsy detail of cults, instead of considering the psychological phenomena of religion in its entirety. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... some other door," said Rose after they had screamed themselves hoarse. "We must not be frightened, Anne, for father is sure to look for us. Let's go round the room and try and find a door. We can feel along the wall," so the two girls began to grope their way from ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... lives whilst they remain there, and to avoid being actually hurled off into space they are constrained to go down upon their hands and knees. To add to their difficulties the darkness is so intense that they can see absolutely nothing; they have to grope their way like blind men, relying solely upon their remembrance of localities for guidance. And, search as they will, they cannot find the exterior ladder by which to descend to the ground outside. It has doubtless been blown away. This misfortune, however, is soon remedied by the substitution ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... one or the other. Early in the trip this might have taken place had it not been for an unwonted accident. At the end of this day they made a bleak and miserable camp on the shore of Lake Le Barge. Driving snow, a wind that cut like a white-hot knife, and darkness had forced them to grope for a camping place. They could hardly have fared worse. At their backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock, and Perrault and Francois were compelled to make their fire and spread their sleeping robes on the ice of ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... first the next morning to open his eyes, to grope his way through the tent opening and stand for a moment alone, watching the alabaster skies. Away eastwards, the faint curve of the blood-red sun seemed to be rising out of the limitless sea of sand. The light around him was pearly, almost opalescent, fading eastwards into pink. The shadows ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be cheerfully admitted, while he has so many other things that are his own. There may be none of those flashes of lightning in his verse that make day for a moment in this dim cavern of consciousness where we grope; but there is an equable sunshine that touches the landscape of life with a new charm, and lures us out into healthier air. If he fall short of the highest reaches of imagination, he is none the less a master within his own sphere—all the more so, ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... shall be none to fray them away. The LORD shall smite thee with the boil of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart: and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled alway, and there shall be none to save thee. Thou shalt betroth a wife, and ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... to theory, and play with edged tools long before we know what knives mean. For, like Hop-o'-my-Thumb and his brothers, we are driven out early in the morning to the edge of the forest, and are obliged to grope our way back to the little house whence we come, by the crumbs dropped on the road. Alack! how often the birds have eaten our bread, and we are captured by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... Arbor, in 1893. High strung and sensitive, with a driving energy and ambition to have part in the larger work of the world, be suffered during the early part of his course all the agonies that come to those of such a nature while they grope in the dark for that which they are fitted to do. He reached out in many directions in his effort to provide the needful money to enable him to take his course, but without a sense of special fitness in any. It came however with his earliest attempts in journalistic work. The discovery ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... yet no tree, nor grass, nor anything that would serve for food, in this gloomy abyss. But when the Giant Ymir began to grope around for something to satisfy his hunger, he heard a sound as of some animal chewing the cud; and there among the ice-hills he saw a gigantic cow, from whose udder flowed four great streams of milk, and with this his ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... time I had heard the roar of the tiger in his own domain, and I must confess that my sensations were not altogether pleasant. We set about collecting sticks and what roots of grass we could find, but on the sand-flats everything was wet, and it was so dark that we had to grope about on our hands and knees, and pick ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... mother sank down in her chair and began to grope for a handkerchief. Keith saw that her eyes were lustrous ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... in fair characters, all that men ought to know or believe of him; all that they ought to do in obedience to his will; and that he hath given them a will and affections conformable to it. This, no doubt, every one will think better for men, than that they should, in the dark, grope after knowledge, as St. Paul tells us all nations did after God (Acts xvii. 27); than that their wills should clash with their understandings, and their appetites cross their duty. The Romanists say it is best for men, and so suitable to the ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... attic room, the air was stifling, and the sloping roof, from which dim cobwebs were draped, seemed to press toward the dark shapes of discarded furniture as though to guard some fearful secret. It took all our courage to grope our way to the low casement, and it was a struggle to dislodge the rusty bolt, and press the window out on its unused hinges. It creaked so loudly that we held our breath for a moment, but we drew it again with ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... let him draw her hand through his arm as they began to grope their way down the road. "You wanted to ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... herself in the shade. She had waited till the crowd left the square. Michael, abandoned as a wretched being from whom nothing was to be feared, was alone. She saw him draw himself towards his mother, bend over her, kiss her forehead, then rise and grope his ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... that perhaps he would be different from that time forth. Just what he was going to do, or how to commence doing it, he didn't know; but the story, to which he had seemed not to listen at all, had crept into his heart, had commenced its work; very dimly was it working, very blindly he might grope for a while, but the seed sown ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... as compared with instinct, it is a power which acts in clearly denned, isolated, intermittent movements, each one of which has a definite beginning and a definite end. As compared with imagination, intuition is passive and receptive; as compared with instinct it does not fumble and grope forward, steadily and tenaciously, among the roots of things; but it suspends itself, mirror-like, upon the surface of the unfathomable waters, and suspended there reflects in swift sudden glimpses the mysterious movements of the ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys |
