"Groping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the floor. A flash of lightning put a photograph on his staring eye that he never got rid of to his dying day. The prison walls were cracked and falling, the doors were down and the dazed prisoners were groping about. ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... with having said that a metaphysician resembled a blind man groping in a dark room for a black hat that was not there. The comparison might almost have been applied to the Foreign Minister of the Dual Empire, vainly seeking for a coherent policy among the mists and cross-currents of rival nationalities. The charge to be made against the foreign policy ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... seemed not to see her, though he looked at her. He sat glooming, like a man dumb in high fever, working his lower jaw, screwing and unscrewing his hands. Afterwards she believed that he had been groping for the cruellest thing he could say, and was goaded into what he did say by the sense that he could ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... kept on, hand over hand, and foot after foot, till he at length stood upon the topmost round of the unfinished ladder. Being almost as tall as Saloo himself, he easily got his arm into the cavity that contained the nest, and commenced groping all over it. He could find no other bird, nor yet an egg. Only the dried-up ordure of the denizens that had lately occupied the prison cell, along with some bits of the shell out of which the young hornbill had been but ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... home now, dear," sighed his guardian angel. "Look at the pretty—" She hesitated, groping vaguely for some object to which she ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... artillery and munitions of war. Tone was in the Indomptable, 80 guns, commanded by a Canadian, named Bedout; Hoche and the Admiral in the frigate Fraternite; Grouchy, so memorable for the part he played then and afterwards, was second in command. On the third morning, after groping about and losing each other in Atlantic fog, one-half the fleet (with the fatal exception of the Fraternite) found themselves close in with the coast of Kerry. They entered Bantry Bay, and came to anchor, ten ships of war, and "a long line of ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... breasting oceans and groping through darkness after his wife until he was ready to die. Then, while he lay helpless, she came to him and lifted him up in her arms. There was perfect and unearthly union between them. His happiness became awful. He woke up shaken by it as by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... thing surprises us in those Old Pamphlets," says my Constitutional Friend: "How the phrase, 'Cause of Liberty' ever and anon turns up, with great though extinct emphasis, evidently sincere. After groping, one is astonished to find it means Support of the House of Austria; keeping of the Hapsburgs entire in their old Possessions among mankind! That, to our great-grandfathers, was the 'Cause of Liberty;'—said 'Cause' being, with us again, Electoral Suffrage and other things; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... at this reception of her suggestion. When she spoke, she was merely groping for an idea. But Miss Ladd's approval woke her up to a realization that she had unwittingly hit the ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... at the evolution of life on a grand scale, nature seems to feel her way, like a blind man, groping, hesitating, trying this road and then that. In some cases the line of evolution seems to end in a cul de sac beyond which no progress is possible. The forms thus cornered soon become extinct. The mystery, the unaccountable thing, is the appearance ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... again—whatever it is is inside the tent with him. He hears it creeping close to him—now it is beside him. He closes his eyes and waits for the mighty paw. Upon his upturned face falls the gentle touch of a soft hand groping in the dark, and then a girl's voice in a scarcely audible whisper ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Groping with my hands, as far as the bandages would permit, and receiving the assistance of some occasional glances of the moonlight, I became aware that the carriage in which I was transported was one of the light carts of the country, called TUMBLERS, and that ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... dawn pushed pale thin fingers above the flattened sea, Groping blind white fingers that clawed the shroud of night; 'Till from the straining eddies the pale forms turned to flee, And a million tongues of madness rose singing ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... French restaurant knife is like and something sane within him made him give up the sudden project of cutting my heart out where I sat. For it could have been nothing but a sudden impulse. His settled purpose was quite other. It was not my heart that he was after. His fingers indeed were groping amongst the knife handles by the side of his plate but what captivated my attention for a moment were his red lips which were formed into an odd, sly, insinuating smile. Heard! To be sure he had heard! The chief of the great arms ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... from the past her dreams went groping out into the future, becoming dimmer, and shaping themselves into unreal forms. Scattered visions came drifting through her mind,—of herself in romantic adventures, and of Dan—always of Dan—appearing like the prince in the fairy tale, at the ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... was driven by Juno to fall in love with Minos, her father's enemy; and, to win his love, she yields to the temptation of betraying her father to Minos. The picture of the girl when she had decided to cut the charmed lock of hair, groping her way in the dark, tiptoe, faltering, rushing, terrified at the fluttering of her own heart, is an interesting attempt at ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... steamer was moored alongside the wharf. When I awoke, I lay quite still for a moment, vaguely conscious of impending evil. I could hear someone breathe in the darkness—stealthy steps—then a hand groping lightly about feeling for my throat. It rested there for a moment. There was a momentary tightening of the fingers. Should I keep still, or make an effort? I kept still, trying to breathe naturally. The fingers left my throat, and fumbled under the pillow as if searching for something, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... in plurality. It knows, as Plato would say, a horse, but not "horsedom." If we wish to say that the perceiving self is present in animals as in men, there is no objection, though in all such, questions relating to animals we are always groping in the dark. But the fact remains that the step, whether small or vast, that leads from the individual to the general, from the concrete to the abstract, from perceiving (that is, being acted upon) to conceiving, thinking, speaking, that is, to acting, is for the animal impossible. ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... generation did not believe to exist—a visible world reduced by positive science to the invisible world of philosophy. They confront not a quantitative universe, but a qualitative. They almost begin at the very spirit of man; they cannot advance far before they find themselves groping in the unseen, and using, not the senses given to us by action, but the eyes and ears of the understanding by which alone the soul of man can apprehend reality. Even the Germans have ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... in question. I hopped off before we came to the door, and strolled down the street in an easy, lounging way. I saw the cab pull up. The driver jumped down, and I saw him open the door and stand expectantly. Nothing came out though. When I reached him he was groping about frantically in the empty cab, and giving vent to the finest assorted collection of oaths that ever I listened to. There was no sign or trace of his passenger, and I fear it will be some time before he gets his fare. On inquiring ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... however, was of short duration. The persistent foe, scaling my intrenchments, soon returned to the assault with redoubled vigor, and in utter despair I finally fled. Groping my way through the hall, and out of the street-door, I departed. The Sable Brother—alias the Son of Ham—alias the Image of GOD carved in Ebony—alias the Oppressed Type—alias the Contraband—alias the ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... his unwieldy gestures and contortions remind one of a seal on shore. The eyes being of small use, he must touch with his hands. Those hands are the most distinctive feature of his person; they are full of expression; tenderly groping hands, that hesitate and fumble in wistful fashion like the feelers of some sensitive creature of night. There is trouble, too, in that obese and sluggish body; trouble to which the unhealthy complexion testifies. He may drink only milk, because wine, which he dearly loves—"and such ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... Indeed, so often and so glibly has the quotation been made that it is well-nigh axiomatic and altogether trite. But we still await any clear explanation of what is meant by complete living. On this point we are still groping, with no prophetic voice to tell us the way. By implication we have had hints, and much has been said on the negative side, but the positive side still lies fallow. When asked for an explanation, those who give the quotation resort to circumlocution and, at ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... sublime truth marks a notable epoch in the history of the gradual development of the human intellect. No doubt, other philosophers, in groping after knowledge, may have set forth certain assertions that are more or less equivalent to this fundamental truth. It is to Ptolemy we must give credit, however, not only for announcing this doctrine, but for demonstrating it by clear and logical argument. We cannot easily project our minds ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... was changed, and I was not less so. I could not be sad when I saw Mariechen's tear-stained eyes. I guessed that something terrible had occurred; but I was groping in the dark till I got the truth out of that good Andreae. Then I wept for grief that your happiness was blighted; and I wept for joy that you were now wholly mine. For ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... any obstacle in the chasm? Did some precipice or abyss hold him in its gloomy depths? Had—and at the thought he fancied that his heart had stopped beating—Had some gulf swallowed the lad when he was groping his way ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... prophetic floral forms of crystals become, after disintegration, instinct with organic vegetable germs,—and the Sphinx Life—blur-eyed—deaf, blind, sets forth on her slow evolutionary journey through the wastes of aeons; mounting finally into that throne of rest fore-ordained through groping ages, crowned with the soul of Shakspeare, sceptred ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Henri grabbed the big stone which Stuart thrust into his hand, and, groping about, quickly secured another. Then he slowly raised himself into a kneeling position, ready to spring to his feet and carry out the duty Stuart had given him. Nor was it likely to be a very difficult matter to strike the sentry at that moment hammering ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... her voice, which he recognized instantly, stirred him to the core. Astonished that she should be in the mine and in trouble, he dashed forward, and his candle went out in the rush. Groping in the darkness her hands encountered his. His arms closed round her, and in her need of protection that brushed aside conventions and non-essentials, the need that had spoken in her cry of relief, in ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... Mother Toulouche went groping in a dark corner. She searched for, and found, a blacksmith's hammer. She lifted it with trembling hands, and planting herself in front of the victim, more dead than alive, she said ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... the night, the dark, dark night, The night with never a star. When the stars are veiled and the moon has sailed Beyond the horizon's bar. When thought grows weary of groping its way Through darkness dense and deep, And buries its head in oblivion's bed, Wrapped warm in the ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... pray Heaven the Rogue is safe, for all my Quarrel to him. [As Belvile is groping about, enter an Officer ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... of pulmonary disease,' Madeline said. She forced the words from her lips and carefully looked away, taking this second key to the situation mechanically, and for a moment groping with it. ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... fun. But I want you to help me, mother, no one else can, if you can't. I don't seem to be able to pray any. Why should I pray, if there isn't any super-human, nothing but a force somewhere? I am just groping in the dark and it's awful dark. And I don't know a soul here to help me any. Bauer—well—I never said a word to him on religious matters. I don't know whether he is a Catholic or what he is. And I don't know any minister in Burrton well ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... silence of luminous, unsounded depths concealing that in the mind which has never been spoken or even taken form. Jack's garden of words had dried up, as his ranch would dry up for want of water. He rose to go, groping for something that should express proper contrition for wasted years, but it refused to come. He picked up the rose and the hat, while the father regarded him with stony wonder which said: "Are you mine, or are you not? What is the nature of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Is it necessary that he should be a dolt in order to be fitted for his vocation? Will ignorance and bad husbandry increase his crops or enable him to find a better market for his products? Or, will his enjoyment, in his daily round of toil, be any greater because unconscious that he is groping his way along in the dark? No! For however that may have been in the past it is certainly not the case now. And although "ignorance," as it is said, may be "bliss," yet in these days, at least, it must be a ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... garret, stooping Carefully over the creaking boards, Old Maid Dorothy goes a-groping Among its dusty and cobwebbed hoards; Seeking some bundle of patches, hid Far under the eaves, or bunch of sage, Or satchel hung on its nail, amid The ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... out of the mysterious, impenetrable mist; the steamer for Richmond was groping her way up the river. To be sure, anchored as we were so far inshore of the channel, we were well clear of the steamer's course; but in such heavy fogs the river boats often go astray. As succeeding blasts sounded nearer, the Commodore became anxious and, ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... which made it wearisome to listen to his ordinary speech, of groping after the most suitable word, and trying one synonym after another till he got that which suited him best. "Why is it, Mr. Chairman, that there has gathered, congregated, this great number of inhabitants, dwellers, here; that these roads, avenues, routes of travel, highways, converge, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... particular, is no longer possible; the thunderbolts of retribution have been long since launched by other hands; and yet still it happens that at times I do—I must—I shall perhaps to the hour of death, rise in maniac fury, and seek, in the very impotence of vindictive madness, groping as it were in blindness of heart, for that tiger from hell-gates that tore away my darling from my heart. Let me pause, and interrupt this painful strain, to say a word or two upon what she was—and how far worthy of a love more honorable to her (that was ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... God help me to forget Some day the frozen awful eyes of one Who, fearing neither hell nor heaven, has met That ultimate weapon of the gods, the face And serpent-tresses that turn flesh to stone— Stukeley stumbled, groping his way out, Blindly, past me, into ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, And there's never a leaf nor a blade ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... civilities be strictly paid: The wall surrender to the hooded maid, Nor let thy sturdy elbow's hasty rage Jostle the feeble steps of trembling age; And when the porter bends beneath his load, And pants for breath, clear thou the crowded road; But, above all, the groping blind direct, And from the pressing throng the lame protect. You'll sometimes meet a fop, of nicest tread, Whose mantling peruke veils his empty head; At every step he dreads the wall to lose And risks, to save a coach, his red-heeled shoes: Him, like ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... fumbling and groping he succeeded fairly well in securing his load. He felt for his whip, and found it on the snow at the rear of the komatik, where he had dropped it after compelling the dogs to ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... Indeed, with all those who have not yet learned to distinguish between exterior and moral destiny. They are like a little bewildered stream that I chanced to espy one evening as I stood on the hillside. I beheld it far down in the valley, staggering, struggling, climbing, falling: blindly groping its way to the great lake that slumbered, the other side of the forest, in the peace of the dawn. Here it was a block of basalt that forced the streamlet to wind round and about four times; there, the roots of a hoary tree; further on still, ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... forward, myself in the lead, and feeling blindly in the darkness for the loosened shutter previously located. At last my groping hand touched it, and drawing the bottom outward as far as possible by mere grip of the fingers, I inserted the stout oaken bar within the aperture, and, after listening intently to detect any presence close at hand, exerted my strength ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... the drum and the stentorian voice of the gallant chief calling to arms mingled together. Aroused to duty, and groping their way through the darkness, the troops ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... he whispered to himself. "Methinks it is surely some human thing. Rats can make strange sounds, I know, but not such sounds as these. A human being, and within the thickness of the wall! How can such a thing be? I never heard the like before. It comes nearer—I hear the groping of hands close beside mine ear. Heaven send it be not a spirit from the other world! I fear no mortal arm, of flesh and blood, but I desire not to see a visitor from ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... it is broad daylight on the surface, with the sun shining brightly, the submarine boat, when a few fathoms below, is simply a blinded, groping monster. There is no way of illuming the depths of the ocean. Naval officers have suggested the placing of a powerful electric light at the bow of the submarine craft, but, when tried, it has been found quite useless. The light will not ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... drawers of the dresser, to be kept for Mary. He wondered if it was there yet, and with a strange curiosity he got up to feel for it; for the fire by this time was well nigh out, and candle he had none. His groping hand fell on the piled-up tea-things, which at his desire she had left unwashed till morning—they were all so tired. He was reminded of one of the daily little actions, which acquire such power when they have been performed ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... apprehension he consulted his watch under the last street-lamp he passed, to find comfort in assuring himself it was only ten minutes after ten. He let himself in with his latch-key, hung up his hat and overcoat by the sense of touch, and, groping his way upstairs, opened the door of the first ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... those areas which furnish these deposits and thus be subject to the restraints of local interest and public opinion in those areas. To some degree, however, this movement of chain or group banking is a groping for stronger support to the banks and a more secure ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Herbert Hoover • Herbert Hoover
... the window, and sought to lay hold of him, which was not the work of a moment in the darkness, the neophyte broke from his antagonists and sprang to one side, avoiding the oncoming couple from the window. While the men were shouting and swearing, groping this way and that to find their prey, Pomponio slid softly to the window, jumped through it, and set off, at his utmost speed, for the open plain and not far distant forest. During the fray Father Altimira had remained somewhat apart, outside the ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... joyous at heart, warm in temperature, and excited in mind, was groping on his knees on the damp grass outside the drawing- room window, fixing his two threepenny Roman candles in reversed flower pots, and planting his starlights, crackers, and Catherine-wheels in advantageous positions in the vicinity, casting now and again a ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... Pete followed, groping his way into The Spider's room. He started back as a match flared. The Spider lighted a lamp. In the sudden soft glow Pete beheld a veritable storehouse of plunder: gorgeous serapes from Old Mexico—blankets from Tehuantepec and Oaxaca, rebosas of woven silk and linen and wool, the cruder ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... our brook's run out of song and speed. Sought for much after that, it will be found Either to have gone groping underground (And taken with it all the Hyla breed That shouted in the mist a month ago, Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)— Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed, Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent Even against the way its waters ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... suppressed every spontaneous impulse of her nature had suddenly been removed and left her free at last to be herself. Until now she had not realized how tired she was,—not alone physically tired but tired of groping her way to avoid the constant friction which life ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... wonderful result at which he aimed should be achieved, Bones had the hut artificially darkened, and they sat in a hot and sticky blackness, whilst he knocked over bottles and swore softly at the instruments his groping hand could not discover. And the end of the experiment was ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... despair echoed through the house, making the women downstairs draw nearer to each other in fear. He was inconsolable, beside himself—the priest came and laid his hand upon his shoulder and whispered to him, but he heard not a sound. He was gone away himself, stumbling through the shadows, and groping after ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... she has hit me with one of those things," he said, groping about his feet for the hat. "Here, stop that boy ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... idea of this dried-up pedant, this elaborator of small explanations about as important as the surplus stock of false antiquities kept in a vendor's back chamber, having first got this adorable young creature to marry him, and then passing his honeymoon away from her, groping after his mouldy futilities (Will was given to hyperbole)—this sudden picture stirred him with a sort of comic disgust: he was divided between the impulse to laugh aloud and the equally unseasonable impulse to burst into ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... When he catches one, he must guess by touching the hair, dress, etc., whom he has caught. If he guesses correctly, the player changes places with him. If incorrectly, he must go on with his search. The players may resort to any reasonable devices for escaping the hands of the groping blind man, such as stooping or dodging, so long as they do not take more than three steps. When caught, a player may try to disguise his identity by ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... received a terrible wound. The blood flew to his head, the room swam round, and he seemed to feel the veins in his temples swell almost to bursting. The subsequent words of his mother fell unheeded on his ears, and turning round he went slowly to the door, groping his way as one half asleep or stupefied ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... plantations, but found no apples. After midnight, I passed near a large house, with fruit trees around it. I searched under, and climbed up and shook several of them to no purpose. At last I found a tree on which there were a few apples. On shaking it, half a dozen fell. I got down, and went groping and feeling about for them in the grass, but could find only two, the rest were devoured by several hogs who were there on the same errand with myself. I pursued my way until day was about breaking, when I passed another house. The feeling of extreme hunger was here so intense, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... crept back to the stairs; she caught at the newel post, and stood, gasping; then, somehow, she climbed up to her room. There, lifting Bingo into his basket, she sank on her bed, groping blindly for the damp handkerchief to put across her forehead. "Mary will give notice," she said. After a while, as the throbbing grew less acute, she said, "He's their age." Bingo, crawling out of his basket, scrabbled up on to the bed; she felt his little loving cold nose against ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... sergeant, till daylight. It's no use groping about in the dark. For anything we know we may be going exactly in the wrong direction. The men can of course sit down if they like; and they may as well eat a piece of bread and try their water-bottles. But tell them not to eat more than half their ration. We may be longer before we get out of ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... twenty-eight fathoms. Weather threatening a gale. At six, double-reefed the topsails, and sounded in twenty-five fathoms. I shall endeavour to feel my way around the Cape, and gradually bear up for the westward. The bank is apparently clean and safe, but still groping one's way in the dark in strange waters is ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... asseveration touching the Major's unenviable preeminence as a Man of Sin. Also, he remarked that the Major's manner at such moments was a thing to dazzle the eye, like the reflection of the summer sun on the surface of burnished metal. But beneath the polished exterior, the groping perceptions of the boy would touch a thing repellent; a thing to stir a slow current of ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... review of these interesting essays we may be permitted to quote a few of Mr. Mill's admissions, which, taken together, almost amount to a confession of faith in the Christian system, and which leave upon the mind the impression that this painful groping of an earnest inquirer after the truth, and the closer approximation he continually made to Christian dogma, would have resulted, had he lived longer, in his adoption of that faith as offering the hypothesis that best explains the perplexing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... that you spoke of yourself as failing in landscape, 'probably from want of natural ability,' which I cannot believe. My method of getting memoranda, which you inquire about, is to study as closely as I can; to watch and observe and make notes and drawings, also studies in color, and patient groping after what I wish to learn, are my only methods. I feel unable to enter into details, so much would need be said on the subject. I believe I am much indebted to my long education as a figure-painter ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... Lee was already in Pennsylvania, sweeping northward toward Harrisburg and Philadelphia, and even threatening New York. Hooker, in the field, and Halleck, in Washington, were squabbling as to what should be done, and the Union army was groping blindly after the invaders without any leadership worthy of ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... many men mad: to be the inmate of a narrow cell, without a ray of light, groping in one corner for a rotten bed of straw, groping in the other for a water jug and loaf of black bread, feeling unclean insects and reptiles struggle beneath ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... his friend's expressions of faith, so strangely jumbled with calculated purpose, he sat at the table groping helplessly. Suppose—suppose that faith were to be shattered. What then? His mind was concerned, deeply concerned. And he dared not ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... Creation. The struggle for existence. Fighting.... Fighting.... Fighting.... Everybody groping and fighting.... Fraulein.... Some said it was true... some not. They could not both be right. It was probably true... only old-fashioned people thought it was not. It was true. Just that—monkeys fighting. But who began it? Who made Fraulein? Tough ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... self-deceived when they imagine that they are leaving students to judge for themselves among various opinions or to find their way inductively to their own conclusions. The recitation, in truth, becomes the simple game of "hot and cold." The teacher has in mind what he considers the right answer; the groping student tries to guess it; and as he ventures this or that inexpert or lucky opinion he is either gently chided or encouraged. At length some bright pupil wins the game by agreeing with the teacher's theretofore skilfully concealed opinion. This is called teaching ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... they lie along the sands;, Look where the sky against the sea-rim clings: Foot stretches out to foot, and groping hands Have languors soft ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... tottering limbs could scarcely support them, going about in the bitterest November winds, with clothing too scant to cover their wrinkled bodies, and so ragged and filthy that you would have shrunk from touching it—I have seen such groping about among heaps of filth that the very dogs looked at and turned away ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... hesitated to praise him. Certain lucky circumstances, however, favored the beginning of his work. One of his relatives, at the start, offered him a position on a magazine which she was then editing. This was a wonderful opportunity for him, for usually at his age the more gifted writers are still groping around for light. But merit alone seldom suffices to form the basis of literary fame. Scandal is often necessary to consecrate, as one might say, a growing reputation. Kuprin, without seeking to start a scandal, did so, in spite of himself, when he published "The Duel," a study of ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... from the thought that, as I now was in the broad trail, my remains would be found, and my friends relieved of doubt as to my fate. Once only the thought flashed across my mind that I should be saved, and I seemed to hear a whispered command to "Struggle on." Groping along the side of a hill, I became suddenly sensible of a sharp reflection, as of burnished steel. Looking up, through half-closed eyes, two rough, but kindly faces met ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... less than to hoist these German blokes with their own petard, so to speak. We were going to fool them by giving them signals in their own code. Well, after stumbling and groping about for half an hour," McNab continued, "we arrived at the spot near where we ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... shriek, broke from the lips of Milly. The woman he held struggled from his arms and stared at him wildly in the veiling twilight. A strange horror fell upon him, and for several seconds he remained motionless, leaning over the back of the sofa. Then, groping towards the wall, he switched on the electric light. He saw it plainly, the white mask of a woman smitten ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... friend," urged McPherson. "I'm entirely serious. I'll make the promise and I want you to make it, too. Understand, I'm no so-called Spiritist. I'm just a groping seeker ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... struggle was growing deadlier, month by month, each side groping for the stranglehold, looking for the edge that would give domination of space, or make all-out war a good risk. They hadn't found it yet, but it was getting bloodier out here all the time. For a while, it had been a supreme achievement just to get a ship out and back, but gradually, ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... to say," he began, groping for words that would make his meaning plain without telling too much. "I hope you won't mind my telling you. You were kinda out of your head when I found you, and you said something about seeing a man ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... Savor, blindly groping to share in whatever cheat had been practised on the child, "just as soon as the cars starts. Here, William, you take her out and show her the pretty coop you be'n makin' the pigeons, to ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... so long since the States-General had been convoked that the very forms and ceremonies incidental to or essential to its convocation had passed out of living memory, and had to be painfully ascertained by much groping after authority and precedent. In the end, however, authority and precedent were ascertained, and the States-General, composed of representatives of the three estates of the realm—the Church, the Nobility, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... in heaven there would be a great hush amongst the white-robed throng as they bent their heads to catch the first breathings of a child's soul upwards. And oh, the bursts of hallelujahs as the trusting words floated to the throne of grace, and told of a young heart groping in the darkness for the strong, firm clasp of a ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... was about to perform, a short "talk" was usually given before the curtain rose, explaining the way in which the Sheep put the egg on the shelf at the back of the little shop, and how Alice went groping along to it. And then, just as the explanation had reached the opening of the chapter on Humpty Dumpty, the curtain rose, and Humpty was discovered, sitting on the wall, and gazing into vacancy. As soon as the audience had had time to recover, Alice entered, and the conversation was carried ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... my wife. Where's my wife?" he raved and groping till he found the candlestick knocked on the floor with it. She ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... stood in the very doorway and fought. Our five swords held him back for a long time, but at last he pushed in, and his men poured after him. We ran back and hid behind some tubs in a dark corner. The king's men went groping about and calling, but they did not find us. The room was full of shouting and running and sword-clashing; for in the dark and the noise the men could not tell their own soldiers. More than one fell by his friend's sword. When it was less crowded ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall
... hand groping for her then, and, leaning forward, she was borne to the ground. He guided her to a little depression and made her understand that she was to sit down. He had removed his saddle-blanket and spread it on the earth, forming ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... raise the extinguisher, while the spiral approaches the wick and lights it. It is well to actuate these extinguishing-lighters, which may be located at a distance, not by a contact button, but by some pulling arrangement, which is always much more easy to find in the dark without much groping about. There might be used for such a purpose the very motion of the front door, when opened, for lighting the hall; but that would offer the inconvenience of operating likewise in the daytime, and of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... said, and left her groping for the ridiculous little gossamer handkerchief to dry the tears of pride and gratitude that were tumbling ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... her first? Long had I lain Groping my way to life through fevered gloom. Sudden the cloud of darkness left my brain; A velvet bar of sunshine pierced the room, And in that mellow glory aureoled She stood, she stood, all golden in ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... scepticism, or no-belief, with its attendant misery, commences—for although Dagon has been but little honoured in the time of his strength, in his downfall he is much regretted. Then comes that long, weary groping after some firm, reliable basis of belief: but heaven and earth appear for the time to conspire against the seeker; an intellectual flood has drowned out the old order of things; not even a mountain peak appears in the wide waste of desolation as assurance ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... yet there was evidence in her manner that she was groping for an answer. Presently to a second demand she made a reply that ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... Groping wildly, Yancy reached his rifle and faced about. His scalp lay open where Slosson's treacherous blow had fallen and his face was covered with blood; even as his fingers stiffened they found the hammer, but Murrell, springing forward, kicked the gun out of his hands. Dashing the blood ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... to that light all he saw was an opening just wide enough for him to creep into. The moment he was inside thick darkness fell upon him. He could find his way neither in nor out; but on groping around he at last came upon a staircase, up which he climbed and found himself in a passage-way. Through this passage-way he went for a long, long time, until at last he stumbled upon a door. He opened the door and stepped into a room, but it was pitch dark there ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... chop and change about, groping in the dark: but the only distinction is, that all changes made by the faculty are orthodox; but any alteration proposed out of the pale of MD, is an ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... between my arrival and the perturbing catastrophe referred to, it is only necessary to add that if you enter from the main route from Hazebrouck you will find just off the road a convoy of some sixty dear things seeing as much life as can be beheld while groping into the insides of the Red Cross motor ambulance which it is their job to feed, wash, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... a sort of temporary wooden staircase, leading absolutely to nothing; or, rather, to a dark void space. I happened to be foremost in ascending, yet groping in the dark—with the guide luckily close behind me. Having reached the topmost step, I was raising my foot to a supposed higher or succeeding step—but there was none. A depth of eighteen feet at least was below me. The guide caught my coat, as I was about to lose my balance, and roared out, "Wait—Stop!" ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... deeds, through guesses Anede trylle, Beheld, are delighting, Men i Mulm de sig hylle, But mist possesses De gamle Skrifter. The ancient writing. Blikket stirrer, The eye-ball fixed is, Sig Tanken forvirrer, The thought perplexed is; I Taage de famle. In darkness they're groping "I gamle, gamle, Their mouths they're op'ing: Forsvundne Dage! "Ye days long past, Da det straalte paa Jorden, When the North was uplighted, Da Osten var i Norden, And with earth heav'n united, Giver Glimt tilbage!" ...
— The Gold Horns • Adam Gottlob Oehlenschlager
... a nicety the limits of his brother's musical accomplishment, noticed that he was leaving the beaten track, and beginning to wander among the keys; and presently he was horrified to find that Hans was groping after that unhappy "Hope's clad in April green." But fortunately he could not hit upon it, so he confined himself to humming the song half aloud, while he threw in the ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... figure. An expression as of amazed radiance came into the fast-dimming eyes—into those large, brown, childlike eyes which had seen so little of the gorgeousness of earth. His hand stirred a very little—enough, for Evelyn quickly moved the gleaming satin train of the doll under the groping fingers. The eyes lifted to Evelyn's face and the smile in them was that of a prisoner who suddenly sees the gate of his prison opened and the fields of home beyond. It mattered little, one may believe, to the welcoming hosts of heaven that the angel at the gate of release for the ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... long past eight at night; and though the late twilight of the north still lingered in the streets, in the passage it was already groping dark. The man led Challoner directly to a parlour looking on the garden to the back. Here he had apparently been supping; for by the light of a tallow dip the table was seen to be covered with a napkin, and set out with a quart of bottled ale and the heel of a Gouda cheese. The room, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... careless passer-by. This, again, is Nature's way, randomly and tirelessly seeking her ends. When we look over a large section of history, we see that it is man's way, too, or Nature's way in man. His progress has been a blind groping, the result of endless experimentation, and all his failures and mistakes could not be written in a book. How he has tumbled about with his ball, seeking the right place for it, and how many times has he come to grief! All his successes have been lucky hits: steam, electricity, representative ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... bolted over the wound for a length of twenty-five feet before she was allowed to go outside. At the same time that the Manassas rammed she fired her single gun, the shot lodging in the sand bags protecting the steam-drum. Groping on by the flash of the guns and the light of the burning rafts, the Brooklyn, just clearing a thirteen-foot shoal, found herself close under St. Philip, from whose exposed barbette guns the ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... man! that seekest name mongst earthly men Devoid of God and all good virtuous lere; Who groping in the dark do nothing ken But mad; with griping care their souls do tear, Or burst with hatred or with envie pine Or burn with rage or melt out at ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... black hair falling about his well-shaped head and bright, intelligent eyes—Tarzan of the apes, little primitive man, presented a picture filled, at once, with pathos and with promise—an allegorical figure of the primordial groping through the black night of ignorance toward the ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... then to put an idea that strikes me from German or Italian into English; but think of my painful groping with a dictionary, before the cramped and crippled idea can reach my mind! I am the translator most in need of condolence, ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... supporting the roof which joined the wall below the window had not intercepted what little light came into that horrid garret. After making the tour of my sad abode, my head lowered, as the cell was not more than five and a half feet high, I found by groping along that it formed three-quarters of a square of twelve feet. The fourth quarter was a kind of recess, which would have held a bed; but there was neither bed, nor table, nor chair, nor any furniture whatever, except a bucket—the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... her desire, To reach, with groping arms outstretched in prayer, Something to cling to, to uplift her higher From this low world of coward fear and care, Above disaster, that her will may be At one ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... and men of the world as they are, they know that they must have a Religion. They have read the story of the French revolution, and the shadow of the guillotine is always over their thoughts; they see the giant of labor, restless in his torment, groping as in a nightmare for the throat of his enemy. Who can blind the eyes of this giant, who can chain him to his couch of slumber? There is but one agent, without rival—the Keeper of the Holy Secrets, the Deputy ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... green garden sloping From the south-east side of the mountain-ledge; And the earliest tint of the dawn came groping Down through its paths, from the day's dim edge. The bluest skies and the reddest roses Arched and varied its velvet sod; And the glad birds sang, as the soul supposes The angels sing ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to the pool through the rough and crooked streets would be difficult now for a man with good sight," remarked one of the tourists, "how much more so would it be to a blind man groping his way." ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... map of the floor of the cavern as I had last seen it. Alas! the bearings which had impressed themselves upon my mind were high on the wall, and not to be found by touch. Still, I remembered in a general way how the sides were situated, and I hoped that by groping my way along them I should at last come to the opening of the Roman tunnel. Moving very slowly, and continually striking against the rocks, I set ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sweet voice," said the blind girl, putting out her hand and groping till she touched Fly's shoulder. "I ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... stupified state during her stay with the little caravan. But when Robert mentioned the dark circles in the child's face, and her crying behind the tent, the lady turned white and leaned back, closing her eyes and groping for a small yellow bottle in her pocket. Having smelled of ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... referred to in the origi- nal act of Congress, the second—specified under the vague name of "Mechanic Arts''—went better, though there was at first much groping to find just what ought to be done. First of all, there was a danger which demanded delicate handling. This danger lay in Mr. Cornell's wish to establish, in vital connection with the university, great factories ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... de Villefort, who shuddered and dropped the curtain. Immediately afterwards the light expired, and the room was plunged in frightful obscurity, while the clock at that minute struck half-past four. Overpowered with agitation, the poisoner succeeded in groping her way to the door, and reached her room in an agony ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... things were brought. Afterwards they locked the door. Cecil went to a drawer and took out a couple of electric torches, one of which he handed to Forrest. Then he went to the wall, and after a few minutes' groping, found the spring. The door swung open, and a rush of unwholesome air streamed into the room. They made their way silently along the passage until at last they reached the sunken chamber. Cecil took a key from his ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... but an interminable time as they gauged it. Nor could Calvin Gray afterward recall just how it came to an end. He vaguely remembered Buddy Briskow weaving loosely, rocking forward upon uncertain legs, blindly groping for him—the memory was like that of a figure seen dimly through a mist of dreams—then he remembered calling up his last reserve of failing vigor. Even as he launched the blow he knew it was a knockout. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... no oak-tree for this strait. Jerome, after a minute of that blind groping and feeling, as of the whole body and soul, with which one strives to find some other way to an end than a hard and repugnant one, gave it up. He went up the avenue, holding his head up, digging his toes into the pine-needles, with an air of stubborn boyish bravado, yet all the time the ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... they who witness those things before mentioned shaken and removed walks in peace not seen and discerned by them who walks in those things unremoved and not shaken."—A Warning to the World that are Groping in the Dark, by G. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... wall had come to seem a separate world of existence which was all that he would ever know, a vertical plane to which he clung with dim determination, hardly knowing why any longer ... at last, he reached the top. His groping hand reached up and found the edge of the wall; his fingers grasped it gratefully and he pulled himself up to hang by both hands and survey the ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... erected between the classes artificial barriers and now did not even look over the top of them. I remember how when my mother started a settlement in South London the head worker told us she often saw women groping in the dirt under the fish barrows for the heads and tails of fishes to boil for their children. The settlement began to give the children dinners of dumplings or rice pudding and treacle, and many well-to-do friends would give my mother a pound or so to help ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the confined space was now shoulder-deep. The corporal could hear the stout bulkhead groaning under the pressure. Fixing the lantern on a bracket he dived, groping with both hands for the keys. At length he found them, and threw open ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... was overcome at that moment and fainted. Protracted torture, want of nourishment, fatigue of the road, swept him from his feet. The tenth day had now passed since he left, groping his way, erring and feeling his way with his stick, hungry, fatigued and not knowing where he was going, unable to ask the way, during the daytime he turned toward the warm rays of the sun, the night he passed in the ditches along the road. When he happened to pass ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... They were groping forward on their hands and knees, and were in total darkness; still, as they looked back, there was a faint glimmer of light, which appeared round the corner of the rock, and this would enable them to find their way back again. Hitherto they ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... room was likewise locked, but to make assurance doubly sure Durkin slid a second inside bolt, for already his quick eye had caught the gleam of its polished brass, just below the door-knob of the ordinary mortised lock. Then, groping his way to the little switchboard, he touched a button, and the room was flooded with light. He first looked about, carefully but quickly, and then glanced at his watch. He had at least two hours in ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... and always perform these steps, and in the same order each time. If you have a different method of procedure for every battery, you will never be successful. Without a definite, tangible method of procedure for your work you will be working in the dark, and groping around like a blind man, never becoming a battery expert, never knowing why you did a certain thing, never gaining ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... on the mountain top, And some within a mine; The widow in her notion shop Expects its sun to shine. The tramp that seeks new roads to fare, Is one with king and millionaire In this that each is groping On different roads, in different ways, To come to glad, contented days, And shares the common hoping. The sound of martial fife and drum Is born ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... unbattered go now about our work with cooler, more critical eyes, but mostly with lips closed against our three or four years' experience. Khaki has disappeared; the war is over; let us forget it. If there is a people to be pitied, swarming and groping on this tormented earth, we say, it is the German people; but that seems an insufficient reason for hating them in saecula saeculorum. A German is a human being, and very likely Mr. Bottomley is one too, and not a big-head in a pantomime; such also may be Mrs. Partington's nephew ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... Myrover's painstaking instruction, could read this sign very distinctly. In fact, she had often read it before. For Sophy was a child who loved beauty, in a blind, groping sort of way, and had sometimes stood by the fence of the cemetery and looked through at the green mounds and shaded walks and blooming flowers within, and wished that she could walk among them. She knew, too, that the little sign on the gate, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... of discovery are most wondrous—yet who will dare to say they take precedence over the wondrous ways of the stomach? And the ways are ironic; is it not conceivable that the two should align in devious fruition? For Gral found answer, not in his groping hands, but tangled about his ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... at her, and swiftly left the room. He overtook Wentworth in the hall, groping blindly ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... panted, not seeming to hear, still with his eyes upturned to the ceiling of his narrow cell. They scanned it as if feebly groping ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... these objects into the very middle of the room, facing the entrance door. I made my bed over again as best I could at some distance from the suspected bedstead and the corner which had filled me with such anxiety. Then, I extinguished all the candles, and, groping my way, I slipped under ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... last she quivered up to her knees as if lashed to action. It seemed that first kiss of Isbel's, cool and gentle and timid, was on her lips. And her eyes closed and hot tears welled from under her lids. Her groping hands found only the dead twigs and the pine boughs of the trees. Had she reached out to clasp him? Then hard and violent on her mouth and cheek and neck burned those other kisses of Isbel's, and with the flashing, stinging memory came the truth that now she would have bartered her soul ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... by the power of the marshal or the sheriff, having behind him the irresistible power of the nation—passing from such arguments to the discussion that proceeds between the foreign offices of independent powers, I found myself groping about to find some sanction for the rules of right conduct which we endeavor to ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... seat, her wrap falling away from her shoulders. Her tears were done, and a white look of intense feeling showed the despair that she felt. All the isolation which tortured her, that pain which souls like hers, blind, groping, and helpless, are least able to bear, had left its stamp upon her. Perhaps even her sin had been a desperate and only half-conscious attempt once more to draw in sympathy really near a human heart. She ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... we may point out four varying decades of work in Southern education since the Civil War. From the close of the war until 1876, was the period of uncertain groping and temporary relief. There were army schools, mission schools, and schools of the Freedmen's Bureau in chaotic disarrangement seeking system and co-operation. Then followed ten years of constructive ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... waste indeed. Doubtless in that waste, intellect had at different times put forth sundry barren shoots, such as a vigorous plant can make in the absence of the sun, but also like them immature, unsound, and groping vainly after the light in which alone they could expand and perfect themselves; ripening no seed for a future and richer growth. And flowers the wilderness had none. The affections were ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... now I've thrown him away," I sobbed to myself. Then, as I sat listening, I heard the faltering steps come out into the hall above, descend the steps one by one, go through the dark dining room groping pitifully, and down the side steps out into the beloved garden. Silently I watched the tall figure with the white hair silvered radiantly by the moonlight go slowly down the path, past the old graybeard poplars, ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... increased by physical conditions, which not only retarded colonisation and development, but powerfully affected the character and the mutual relations of the European settlers. Portuguese mariners, after more than half a century of painful groping downward along the West African coast in search of a sea route to India that vague tradition asserted could there be found, in 1486 rounded the Cape of Good Hope, which then received the despondent name of {p.003} the Cape of Storms from its first discoverer, ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... days renewed its strength in mercantile and industrial prosperity. There are ugly evidences of the prosperity in the windy, dusty avenues and streets of the more modern town; but there are lanes and alleys enough, groping for the churches and monuments in suddenly opening squares, to console the sentimental tourist for the havoc which enterprise has made. The mind readily goes back through these to the palmy prehistoric times from which the town emerged to mention in Ptolemy, and then begins to work forward ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... Groping hands will ever find thee In the night with loads of chains! Lift thy fetters and unbind thee, Cast thee on the midnight plains: Shapes of vision all-providing— Famished cheeks and hungry cries! Sound of crystal waters sliding— ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... to shut out the sight of it. But still it was there, the crumpled heap of tattered clothing and human remains, the awry, heavy shoes still shielding the fleshless bones of the feet. He turned blindly, his hands groping before him. ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... "In preparing to begin the work of reconstructing the grandest of human governments, shattered for a time by treason, and in endeavoring to ascertain what we should do, and how and when it should be done, I have consulted no popular impulse. Groping my way through the murky political atmosphere that has prevailed for more than thirty years, I have seated myself at the feet of the fathers of our country, that I might, as far as my suggestions would go, make them in ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... staircase for that groping work; so low and narrow, that his groping hand was always touching something; and it often felt so like a man or ghostly figure standing up erect and making room for him to pass without discovery, that he would rub the smooth wall upward searching for its face, and downward ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... general way, therefore, the life of the tree might be defined as an unceasing effort to restore a disturbed equilibrium. In the building of crystals Nature makes her first structural effort; we have here the earliest groping of the so-called 'vital force,' and the manifestations of this force in plants and animals, though, as already stated, indefinitely more complex, are to be regarded of the same mechanical quality as those concerned in ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... up first. Groping in the dark, he inserted first the big door-key and then the latch-key. Both turned easily in their locks, the door opened and the ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... groping toward his home, Hearing the feet of youth From dark to dark that sadly roam The suburbs of ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... very touching, there is also something very encouraging. God was their God as well as ours—their Creator, their Preserver, who left not Himself without witness among them; who, as they blindly felt after Him, suffered their groping hands to grasp the hem of His robe; who sent them rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with joy and gladness. And His Spirit was with them, dwelling in them, though unseen and unknown, purifying and sanctifying the temple of their hearts, sending gleams of illuminating ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... more than an hour groping our way from the station," said Raeburn; "and cabs were unattainable." Then, turning to the link-boy, "Come in, you are as cold and hungry as I am. Have you ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Japanese earthquake—"grope for analogies" between the text which follows and the fifteenth and sixteenth books of the Odyssey, which you have, doubtless, by heart. But, if I know you at all, you are more likely to be groping for analogies between the characters in Petronius and those you will come across in the first months of your new London life. Quartilla you will hardly escape, or Tryphoena either; Fortunata will ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... at a similar time of perplexity, when there were none to counsel, hardly one to sympathize, and when the conflicting wishes of so many whom I loved pressed the aching heart on every side, after months of groping and fruitless thought, the merest trifle precipitated the whole mass; all became clear as crystal, and I saw of what use the tedious preparation had been, by the deep content I felt ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... text: "Fa tarak-hu Muus am' dir yaltash f 'l-Tark." Latash has the meaning of beating, tapping; I therefore think the passage means: "hereupon Muus left him, blind as he was, tramping and groping his way" (feeling it with his ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... of it before?" she cried, and then the two of us were on our knees and groping under the table. It was a massive piece of furniture in its way, with a large cross-piece running from side to side underneath. And on this cross-piece, so tied with string that it could not slip off, was a ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... one armchair, he the other, and she noticed that all his frame was quivering now—his hands always in restless, groping movement, as though with palsy. A moment later the butler came with a decanter, ice, mineral water and a tall glass. There was also a box of cigars on the ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers |
