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Grope   Listen
verb
Grope  v. t.  
1.
To search out by feeling in the dark; as, we groped our way at midnight.
2.
To examine; to test; to sound. (Obs.) "Felix gropeth him, thinking to have a bribe."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Grope" Quotes from Famous Books



... grew metaphysical and tried to analyze the girl's mind. He sought to grope mentally his way back into the recesses of the soul, which had looked, acted, and spoken the previous evening. A strange little place he imagined it, and oddly furnished. It occurred to him that it bore a resemblance to her dressing room, ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... talented wonderfully enough, we are poor, unfriended, dyspeptical, bashful; nay what is worse than all, we are foolish. Thus, in a whole imbroglio of Capabilities, we go stupidly groping about, to grope which is ours, and often clutch the wrong one: in this mad work must several years of our small term be spent, till the purblind Youth, by practice, acquire notions of distance, and become a seeing Man. Nay, many so spend their whole term, and ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... Thus, though I grope in darkest night, Of what men call a world of ills, The closer concentration fills My inmost with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... as it was being dashed against the wall, the bird crew. Again Donat replaced it, examining the hen-house thoroughly and finding it quite perfect; as he was so engaged the wind puffed out his light, and he must grope back to the door a good deal shaken. Yet a third time the bird was dashed upon the wall; a third time Donat set it, now near dead, beside its mates; and he was scarce returned before there came a rush, like that of a furious strong man, against the door, and a whistle as loud as that of a railway ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... reads the riddle right; And we who grope in constant night But serve His will; And when sometime the doubt is gone, And darkness blossoms into dawn,— "God keeps the good," we then will say: " 'Tis but the dross He ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... looks upon the intents and motives of the heart, saw this poor, struggling soul trying to grope her way in the darkness, and determined to work out her own salvation, since she had no one to show her the true way. In His love and pity He had laid up a better inheritance for her, and in His ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen

... she walked rapidly to the big house at the south-west corner, noiselessly opened the door without the formality of ringing for admission, and in the gathering darkness of the hall-way within, where she had to grope a moment to find the banister-rail, she came face to face with ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... But it does 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 ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... their eyes had been dilated to the utmost in order to follow the movements of the apparition in the nearly complete darkness, and the first effect of the sudden blaze of gaslight was to dazzle them so completely that they had actually to grope their way to ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy

... she pleaded. "I'm talking as if I knew all about it. I don't really. I grope in the dark; and now and then—at least so it seems to me—I catch a glint of light. We are powerless in ourselves. It is only God working through us that enables us to be of any use. All we can do is to keep ourselves kind and clean ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... searching for him, but they described always the same circle and never met. And then, finally, after millions of years, an invisible hand clutched him and bore him upward onto a plane, hitherto unexplored, then left him to grope his way as he could. All was blackness and chaos. Around him, as he passed them, he saw that dark suns were burning, but there was nothing to conduct their light, and they shed no radiance on the horrors of their world. Below him was an abyss in which countless souls were struggling, ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... heard him come up against the wall of the cabin, give a grunt, grope around for the ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie

... hard to live alone in the dark, confusing the day and night; dropping to sleep through sheer weariness at mid-day, and rising restless in the chill of the dawn. At first Dick, on his awakenings, would grope along the corridors of the chambers till he heard some one snore. Then he would know that the day had not yet come, and return wearily to ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... as well hab a candle," she said, after a time. "Git yer knittin', chile, an' 'pear as ef ye didn't distrus' de Lord. What ef de wind is blowin'? what ef de sea is a-screamin'? Don't ye know whose wind and whose sea 'tis?" She got up to grope for a candle on the shelf ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord

... road, they entered the house and began to grope their way up the narrow, winding staircase. They could make only slow progress, not only because of the absence of light, but owing to the rotten condition of the stairs. Indescribably filthy and littered with all sorts of rubbish and broken ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... ready to reshape his course, prepared for any adventure, receptive, open-minded, and all willing to render his very life for what seemed good to do. Scientific reverence this, the willingness to experiment, to try, to test, and then, if the test failed, to grope for a new line of outlet, the readiness to reverse all he believed in in the face of a new and contradictory fact. He was a new ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... proved to be a rude scrap-iron rail, evidence that they carried out their ore by means of mules and a tram-car. A few yards farther this new tunnel began to ascend slightly, and he again mysteriously lost his view of the miners' lamps, and was compelled to grope his way more slowly, yet ever carefully counting his steps. The roof sank with the advance until it became so low he was compelled to stoop. The sound of picks smiting the rock was borne to him, made faint by distance, but constantly growing clearer. ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... Stacey, 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 ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the wretch liked air. Max hoped the fellow had gone to sleep, in which case there might be some chance of rest. Gently he unhooked the door and fastened it again in the same manner. A little light flittered through the thin curtain, enabling Max to grope his way about the tiny stateroom, and he determined not to rouse his companion by ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... If the Philanthus were guided in her operation solely by the question of vulnerability, it is here certainly that she ought to strike, instead of persistently seeking the narrow slit in the neck. The weapon would not need to hesitate and grope; it would obtain admission into the tissues off-hand. No, the stroke of the lancet is not forced upon it mechanically: the assassin scorns the large defect in the corselet and prefers the place under the chin, for eminently ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... Accurst if they remember through the long Estrangement of their exile, twice accursed If they forget and join the accursed throng. How doth my heart that is so wrung not burst When I remember that my way was plain, And that God's candle lit me at the first, Whilst now I grope in darkness, grope in vain, Desiring but to find Him Who is lost, To find him once again, but once again! His wrath came on us to the uttermost, His covenanted and most righteous wrath. Yet this is He of Whom we made our boast, Who lit the Fiery Pillar in our path, Who swept the Red Sea ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... less, she and the child's mother, than old school-friends—friends who had scarcely met for years but whom this unlooked-for chance had brought together with a rush. It was a relief, Miss Gostrey hinted, to feel herself no longer groping; she was unaccustomed to grope and as a general thing, he might well have seen, made straight enough for her clue. With the one she had now picked up in her hands there need be at least no waste of wonder. "She's coming to see me—that's for ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... darkness and the zigzag turns of the stairs, Wolf was so familiar with every corner of the old house that he did not even need to grope his way ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... and he bears with me. I cannot rid myself of my tiresome nature; it sticks to me like a Nessus shirt'—you know the old mythological story, Hatty—'but it is my cross, a horrid spiky one, so I will carry it as patiently as I can. If it is not always light, I will grope my way through the shadows; but my one prayer and my one effort shall be to prevent ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... 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 Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... waxed old, The blynd boy, Venus baby, For want of cunning, made me bold In bitter hyve to grope for honny: But when he saw me stung and cry, He tooke his wings ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... To grope in the valley of despair one moment and skip along the summit of beatitude the next was a little too ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... to grope at noontide as in the dark, and in all the blaze of Christ's revelation still to be left in the Cimmerian folds of midnight gloom. You can shut your eyes to the sunshine; have you opened your hearts ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... is always bright, while to others it is never free from clouds. There is to me a mystery in this—something that looks like a partial Providence—for those who grope sadly through life in darkened paths are, so far as human judgment can determine, often purer and less selfish than those who move gayly along in perpetual sunshine. Look at Mrs. Adair. It always gives ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... vainly I have striven To free them from the pit where they must dwell In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel. Love drives me back to grope with them through hell; And in their tortured eyes ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... the Press astonished the land. They were these: "Medical World is Baffled by the 'Flu'."—"Exhaustive Experiments Leave Doctors Mystified."—"Every Test a Failure."—"Explosion of Accepted Theories Causes Science to Grope for Light." ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... talk as freely and fluently as anybody. I do not hesitate in the least. For years, I have not even known what it is to grope mentally for a word. I speak in public as well as in private conversation. I have no difficulty in talking over the telephone and in fact do not know the difference. In my work, I lecture to students and am invited to address scientific bodies, societies and educational ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

... listened to; and to refer them to their books for the information which they need, and in general for the solution of all their doubts. But then the teacher must see that he does not set them to grope their way through a wilderness of absurdities. He must know that they have a book, which not only contains the requisite information, but arranges it so that every item of it may be readily found. That ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... of course, every one was very ignorant of the work to be done in establishing a telegraph across the ocean. Submarine telegraphy was in its infancy, and aerial telegraphy had scarcely outgrown its swaddling-clothes. We had to grope our way in the dark. It was only by repeated experiments and repeated failures that we were able to find out all the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various

... their fires be lighted. Therefore, when the dead are buried, Let a fire, as night approaches, Four times on the grave be kindled, That the soul upon its journey May not lack the cheerful firelight, May not grope about in darkness. "Farewell, noble Hiawatha! We have put you to the trial, To the proof have put your patience, By the insult of our presence, By the outrage of our actions. We have found you great and noble. Fail not in the greater trial, Faint not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... brought to light by chance, and has been rendered intelligible by close study and interpretation of fragmentary and widely separated facts, capable of being read only by one conversant with the text of human affairs, and who has the patience to grope through the trackless intervals of time, and the skill to supply the lost words and syllables of history by careful collation with those which are spared. How faithfully this accidentally found MS. typifies such a labor, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... "the first after Roman times to enrich architecture with a complete and well-ordinated system, which dominated wherever the Latin Church extended its influence."[78] So then, even if the early records of old Craft-masonry in England are confused, and often confusing, we are not left to grope our way from one dim tradition to another, having the history and monuments of this great order which spans the whole period, and links the fraternity of Free-masons with one of the noblest chapters in the annals ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... shake them off, 'no more of the quadruped man! You tempt him—may I tell you that? Why, now, this moment, at the snap of my fingers, what is to hinder our taking the short cut to happiness, centaur and nymph? One leap and a gallop, and we should be into the morning, leaving night to grope for us, parents and friends to run about for the wits they lose in running. But no! No more scandals. That silver moon invites us by its very spell of bright serenity, to be mad: just as, when you drink of a reverie, the more prolonged ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... 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 in every desire. ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... they were the houses of a little town. A sort of gulf, winding like a river gorge, and narrower than a column of men, was the street that brought us in. But just as we feared that we should have to grope our way to find companionship we saw that great surprise of modern mountain villages (but not of our own England)—a little row of electric lamps hanging from ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... wrinkled visage faded away, as if all the lingering fire of his soul were extinguished. Just then, too, a lamp upon the mantelpiece threw out a dying gleam, which vanished as speedily as it shot upward, compelling our eyes to grope for one another's features by the dim glow of the hearth. With such a lingering fire, methought, with such a dying gleam, had the glory of the ancient system vanished from the province-house when the spirit of old Esther ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... nice question," said the lawyer, as he edged his chair imperceptibly along and tried to grope behind himself, unperceived by his visitor, for the electric button, placed against the wall. "It is a nice question, and I would like to have time to consider it in all its bearings before ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... ourselves into sympathy with his position and, in the technical phrase, create his character. A historian confronted with some ambiguous politician, or an actor charged with a part, have but one pre- occupation; they must search all round and upon every side, and grope for some central conception which is to explain and justify the most extreme details; until that is found, the politician is an enigma, or perhaps a quack, and the part a tissue of fustian sentiment and big words; but once ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... out of these discussions—how much of that social sympathy and understanding which is the very tap-root of democracy. It's cheaper to put up a miserable shack of an addition. Why not do it? So we discuss architecture—blindly, it is true; we don't know the books on the subject—but we grope for the big true things, and by our own discussion we educate ourselves to know why a good building is better than a bad one. Heating and ventilation in their relation to health, the use of "fad studies"—how I have ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... sick and bewildered, indeed, that it was difficult to make them understand what had chanced, and when they learned the truth, the most of them could only groan. Still, a few were found strong enough in wit and body to grope their way through the darkness and the falling snow to Stangate Abbey, to Southminster, and to the houses of their neighbours, although of these there were none near, praying that every true man would arm ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... September 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 ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... estimating this distance. But I knew that the sun's rays, even in the clearest seas, could reach no deeper. So at precisely this point the darkness became profound. Not a single object was visible past ten paces. Consequently, I had begun to grope my way when suddenly I saw the glow of an intense white light. Captain Nemo had just activated his electric device. His companion did likewise. Conseil and I followed suit. By turning a switch, I established contact ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... people "are destroyed from morning to evening"; the cunning find their craft of no avail, but are taken; the counsel of the froward is carried headlong; the poor find safety in high places; and darkness comes in midday, so that the people grope their way; ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... sharp enough—stones I mean," Betty went on, "we might use them as a sort of shovel and try to dig our way out. Of course," she added, as the girls began to grope eagerly among the dirt and debris at their feet for stones sharp enough to answer the purpose, "the mouth of the cave may be choked up too solidly with dirt and underbrush and things for us to get through. But in that ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope

... by her child's disgrace. I came back here to a desolate, silent house;—bereft of wife and daughter; and in the grave of her mother, I buried every atom of love and tenderness I ever entertained for Ellice. When the sun is suddenly blotted out at noon, and the world turns black—black, we grope to and fro aimlessly; but after awhile, we accommodate ourselves to the darkness;—and so, I became a different man—very hard, and I dare say very bitter. The world soon learned that I would tolerate no illusion to my disgrace, and people respected my family cancer, and prudently refrained ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... mouth; and whilst the odoriferous Boer equivalent for the "divine weed" held out, food and drink were but minor considerations. But something must be done now, so, knocking out the ashes from his last whiff, and with one more futile grope in his capacious pocket, he stuck his empty pipe in his mouth, rose, stretched himself, and, glancing once more at the pageant of the western sky, turned back towards the contemptible collection of tin ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell

... pure-hearted common sense, generally speaking, at the very first sight decides the question for us without argument; but if we do not listen promptly to this secret monitor, its light goes out at once, and we are left to the mercy of mere conjecture, and grope about with but second-best guides. Then seeming arguments in favour of deceit and evil compliance with the world's wishes, or of disgraceful indolence, urge us, and either prevail, or at least so confuse us, that we do not know how to act. Alas! in ancient days ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... Lord. Help her to proclaim boldly the coming of the Kingdom of God and the doom of all that resist it. Fill her with the prophets' scorn of tyranny, and with a Christ-like tenderness for the heavy-laden and down-trodden. Give her faith to espouse the cause of the people, and in their hands that grope after freedom and light to recognize the bleeding hands of the Christ. Bid her cease from seeking her own life, lest she lose it. Make her valiant to give up her life to humanity, that like her crucified ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen

... his attention, and it was he also who arranged with the Chinese that one-tenth of the tonnage dues—afterwards raised to seven-tenths—should be devoted to port improvements and lighting the coasts. Until he took the matter in hand, vessels had been obliged to grope around the difficult China coast in total darkness; to-day, thanks to his foresight, lighthouses are dotted from Newchang in the north to Hainan in the south, and a little fleet of ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon

... oblivion drowsing love and pain Into dull slumber; still we can retell How young blithe valour broke the powers of hell; We grope for hands that will not stir again In ours, hear still in every carillon The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various

... we turn aside from laws and statutes and consider the ordinary life and social intercourse of the Negro, we shall find more than one contradiction, for in the colonial era codes affecting slaves and free Negroes had to grope their way to uniformity. Especially is it necessary to distinguish between the earlier and the later years of the period, for as early as 1760 the liberalism of the Revolutionary era began to be felt. If we consider what was strictly the ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... warning squeak I stopped. In the next room Maxine raised her voice—to cover the sound, I was sure. Then it had been worse even than I fancied! I dared not begin again. I would grope about once more, and see if I could hit upon some other way out, which possibly I ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... for, or required for the present session? No, they cannot, and here we are going on in the old way, voting money in the dark, with a thing for our guide called an 'estimate'—a sort of dark lantern with which we are to grope our way through the mazes of legislation. Where is the honourable member for Gloucester who talked so much about the good old rules of our forefathers? I am opposed to the present principle of voting away money; ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... 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 ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes

... name from a word that may signify the meadow of Eois, or high meadow. It has a history that goes back to grope about Ararat for the potsherds thrown out of the ark. It has a very old and famous round tower, used at some time as a place of sepulchre, for a great quantity of human bones have been found in it. In one stone ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... hard on my Chateau, cousin, to locate it on the road to Hell. But we will let it pass. For, between us, it is a good road and an easy; and they, who travel it, are a finer lot than the superstitious dreamers who grope, in darkness, along the bleak and stony path they fancy leads ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... a chopped worm, as he wriggled his way onward in the dusk, impelled from the rear, and reduced to grope after the main body. Frequent and deep counsel he took with a trusty flask suspended at his belt. It was no pleasant reflection that the rain would be down before he could build up anything like shelter for horse and man. Still sadder the necessity of selecting his post on strange ground, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... however! As I extended my hand to grope my way it was met by another hand, soft, slender, and cold, which insinuated itself gently into mine and drew me forward. Forward I went, nothing loath; the darkness was impenetrable, but I could hear the light rustle of a dress close to me, and ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne

... stand to-day beneath our Southern sun O'erthrown in battle and despoiled of hope, Their drums all silent and their cause undone, And they all left to grope ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope

... gambler's chance and spun a coin—heads for the north and tails for the west. The twirling half-dollar slipped from his fingers and rolled under one of the stationary seats in the waiting-room. Broffin got down on his hands and knees to grope for it, and while he was groping the chance to take the northbound "Limited" was lost. Moreover, when he finally found the coin it was standing upright in a ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... careful observation. If freedom from the terrors of damnation Lengthens the visage like a telescope, And lacrymation is a sign of hope, Then I'll continue, in my dreadful plight, To tread the dusky paths of sin, and grope Contentedly without your lantern's light; And though in many a bog beslubbered quite, Refuse to ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... last indefinitely. Apparently, though, it must be I who should break it. As quietly as possible, I brought my left hand forward to grope along that silken line which certainly must guide me to the intruder herself. My hand slipped along the smooth surface to the full reach of my arm; and encountered nothing. Check, for the first attempt! The candle and matches I had bought in the village were also beyond my reach, unless I released ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... the years. There is a hunger in my soul for which I can find no satisfying bread. I have tried many breads; I have tried nature, and art, and music, and literature, and I have tried human fellowship and social service. But my soul is hungry still! And the Lord Jesus comes to me, as I reverently grope in the vast temple, and He "satisfies the hungry soul" with good things. His "bread of life" is very wonderful; it lifts the soul into the restfulness of strength, and gives me a strange buoyancy, and "the glorious liberty of the ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... architecture, but it was excellent as to its facilities for scratching matches. She rubbed one of the two matches under the shelf on the rough surface, but it did not ignite. It evidently was a half-burned match. She took the other. It seemed to her that if that failed her, if she had to grope about the kitchen for more in this thick blackness—for even the street-light did not reach this room—she should die. She rubbed the last match against the marble, and it blazed directly. She shielded ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... you do?" the woman rejoined. He encountered her eyes, saw them widen into a stare, saw them grope over his mangled face, and then quickly turn in another direction, as if she could not bear the sight. He wanted to stop, but he noticed her lips quiver and heard a murmured "Jesus, son of Mary," as if he were the devil incarnate. And ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko

... little pleasure in trusting to this girl of the Abruzzo hills, but he and his men were lost upon these moors, and might grope all night, and miss the meeting, and fail to join his comrades and surprise those who gathered at it. He reckoned upon fear as a sure agent to keep her true, as it ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... he presses her closely to his breast. Leaning on each other, they grope cautiously along through the dark, desolate chamber to the divan at the upper end, and there, both locked in a happy embrace, they sink ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... 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 a great ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... when I determined to cry out. Then, remembering the shock experienced by a suddenly awakened somnambulist, and remembering that the Chinese ladder hung from the window at my feet, I changed my mind. Checking the cry upon my lips, I got astride of the window ledge, and began to grope for the bamboo rungs beneath me. I had found the first of these, and, turning, had ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... approaches were protected by guns and by a bodyguard, while inside there flitted to and fro a cloud of familiars, who have been compared by the enemies of the great Committee to the mutes of the court of the Grand Turk. Any one who had business with this awful body had to grope his way along gloomy corridors, that were dimly lighted by a single lamp at either end. The room in which the Committee sat round a table of green cloth was incongruously gay with the clocks, the bronzes, the mirrors, the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... seeming to swoop in upon its defeat. The woman examined it, found that it was all but done, and glanced nervously over her shoulder. Then she made anxious haste to empty and replace the last of the birchen cups before she should be left in darkness to grope her ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... self-complacency in Justine's eagerness to help. It was far easier for her to express it in action than in counsel, to grope for the path with her friend than to point the way to it; and when she had to speak she took refuge in figures to escape the pedantry of appearing to advise. But it was not only to Mrs. Dressel that her parables were dark, and the blank look in Bessy's ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... over and she came out from under the opiate, she lay for a while, open-eyed but unseeing, too inert to grope for the lost thread of memory. She felt a stirring in the bed beside her, the movement of some living thing. She looked and there, squeezed into the edge of the pillow was a miniature head of a little ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... drops had started on his brow, and were falling upon his beard, and upon his hands. These strong hands were quivering; they hovered above the signs on the rocks. The mystic letters, the inspired words, where were they? Grope as he might, he could not find them. Alas! doubt and denial had climbed the mountain—the awful limitations of the more finite human creature—and his inspiration and the finer enthusiasms of ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... is to bring forth cubs like a bear, then I had rather be a bear than a man; for the bear is not ashamed: he knows no better. If you are content, like the bear, I am not. Stay with the woman who gives you children: I will go to the woman who gives me dreams. Grope in the ground for your food: I will bring it from the skies with my arrows, or strike it down as it roams the earth in the pride of its life. If I must have food or die, I will at least have it at as far a remove from the earth as I can. The ox shall make it something nobler than grass before it ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw

... hear a murmur as of waves That grope their way through sunless caves, Like bodies struggling in their graves, Carolina! And now it deepens; slow and grand It swells, as rolling to the land, An ocean broke upon the strand, Carolina! Shout! let it reach the startled Huns! And roar with all thy festal guns! ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... his start. Beyond doubt he had winced as though stung, and was now striving to grope his way to the railing. She divined his purpose in an instant, and her slender hand was laid pleadingly ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... was sure; but the where was an unfindable thing. And she dared not strike forward without the track; she might get further and further from it, and never get home to breakfast at all! — There was nothing for it but to grope about seeking for indications; and Miss Haye's eyes were untrained to wood-work. The woodland was a mazy wilderness now indeed. Points of stone, beds of moss, cat-briar vines and huckleberry bushes, ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... object, which a timely flash of lightning showed me was a column, standing in exactly the opposite direction from my own house. I could now locate myself correctly, and the lightning becoming every moment more vivid, I was enabled to grope my way by slow degrees to the mess, where I expected to find some one to show me my way home; but the servants, who knew from experience the probable effects of a cyclone, had already closed the outside Venetian shutters and barred ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden

... 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 for his ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... faith in ghosts, according to the old sense of the word, and I could grope with comfort through any amount of dark old rooms, or midnight aisles, or over churchyards, between sunset and cock-crow. I can face a spectre. Being at one time troubled with illusions, I have myself crushed a hobgoblin by ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... sharp whistles from the water shrilly pierced the air and penetrated into the darkened room, and, while the tumult around Hermon gradually died away, he strove, tortured by burning pain, to grope his way toward the door; but here his foot struck against a human body, there against something hard, whose form he could not distinguish, and finally a large object which felt cool, and could be ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of trials—and over and over again if the trials are repeated often enough. For example, if a million grains of corn, of which a single one was red, were all placed in a pile, and a blindfolded person were required to grope in the pile, select a grain, and then put it back again, the chances would be a million to one against his drawing out the red grain. If drawing it meant he should die, a sensible person would give himself ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... into the forest, in unhesitating obedience to it. I did not guess, nor did I try to make any kind of calculation. I felt that I must go in a certain direction, and, as the darkness deepened, I had, literally, to grope my way, walk with my hands out before me, not to run against the trees, for, with little exception, the way lay through dense woodland, amidst which were scattered boulders and fallen tree trunks. I could not—and ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... courtyard, 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

... "Bolshaya," in which most of the cafe chantants are situated, is bright with electric light, the back streets of the city are lit by flickering oil-lamps, and here the stranger must almost grope his way about after dark. If wise he will stay at home, for robbery and even murder are of frequent occurrence. A large proportion of the population here consists of time-expired convicts, many of whom haunt the night-houses in quest of prey. During our short stay a woman was murdered ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... And hath him be the bridel sesed, And seide: "O thou, which hast desesed 3010 The Court of France be thi wrong, Now schalt thou singe an other song: Thin enterdit and thi sentence Ayein thin oghne conscience Hierafter thou schalt fiele and grope. We pleigne noght ayein the Pope, For thilke name is honourable, Bot thou, which hast be deceivable And tricherous in al thi werk, Thou Bonefas, thou proude clerk, 3020 Misledere of the Papacie, Thi false bodi schal abye And soffre that it hath deserved." Lo, thus the Supplantour was served; ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... Then Scott began to grope about on every side with his cramponed feet, but not until his struggles set him swinging did his leg suddenly strike a projection. At a glance he saw that by raising himself he could get a foothold on this, and after a short struggle he stood upon a thin ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... Perhaps if I had been born two hundred years ago, I might have been caught by some strong enthusiastic organisation and have been a private in a great army. A miserable time is this when each man has to grope his way unassisted, and all the incalculable toil of founders of churches goes for little or nothing. . . . I do not pray for any more pleasure: I ask only for strength to endure, till I can lie down and ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... impersonation in the Reading)—"Yes; first-floor. It's the door straight afore you when you get's to the top of the stairs"—with which the dirty slipshod in black cotton stockings disappeared with the candle down the kitchen stair-case, leaving the unfortunate arrivals to grope their way up as they best could. Welcomed rather dejectedly by Bob on the first-floor landing, where Mr. Pickwick put, not, as in the original work, his hat, but, in the Reading, "his foot" in the tray of glasses, they were very soon followed, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... 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

... me my mind and sperit loved to grope around more and find out things to praise and blame by rote and not by note, and Dorothy and Robert Strong ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... buttonhole to be admired by the girls and envied by the other fellows. But now there was none of that charmed fellowship for him. He nourished his feeling of bitterness and hatred until his scheming mind began to grope for some way of spoiling the success of the play. As usual, he turned to his friend, Abraham Goldstein, who was about the only one who had not shown any coolness. Together they watched their chance. The play progressed toward perfection, the dress rehearsal had been held, the day of the "First ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... the 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

... a small village called Crookstown, situated in a romantic spot on a 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

... way down a narrow dark alley, along which they had fairly to grope their way. It debouched, however, into the forgotten centre of the square. All the edges had been built close with brick stores, warehouses, and office buildings. But in the very middle had been left a waste piece of ground, occupied only by a garden and ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... 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)

... watching man, petrified with horror, saw within the gaping maw great sucking discs and beyond them a brilliant glow. The whole cavernous pit was aflame with phosphorescent light. Dimly he knew that this light explained the ability of the beastly arms to grope so surely in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... absolutely necessary to 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 necessarily left to pass the night on the ridge; and we sat down again to a midnight supper. ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... know that in scores they will pay at the doors—these millions in darkness who grope— For a glimpse of Mark Twain or a word from Hall Caine or a reading from Anthony Hope? We are ignorant here of the glorious career which conspicuous talent awaits: Not a master of style but is making his pile by the lectures he gives in ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley

... darkness, we grope for Somewhat far off, yet to hope for, That through some future repentance, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... had begun About the beast to grope, Than, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, "I see," quoth he, "the elephant Is very like ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... the conceited sophist Hippias, what is the meaning of the beautiful, the latter is at once ready with a superficial answer, but is afterwards compelled by the ironical objections of Socrates to give up his former definition, and to grope about him for other ideas, till, ashamed at last and irritated at the superiority of the sage who has convicted him of his ignorance, he is forced to quit the field: this dialogue is not merely philosophically instructive, but arrests the attention like a drama ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... woman and Kate Chanceller, who wore skirts and had the body of a woman, was in her nature a man. Kate and Clara spent many evenings together later and talked of many things not usually touched on by girl students. Kate was a bold, vigorous thinker and was striving to grope her way through her own problem in life and many times, as they walked along the street or sat together in the evening, she forgot her companion and talked of herself and the difficulties of her position in life. "It's absurd the way things are ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... was—a success; this means I must give it up. I'm strong in body and brain; this robs me of my usefulness. All my life I have prayed that I might some time love a woman; that time has come, but this means I must give her up and be lonely all my days. I must grope my way through the dark with never a ray of light to guide me. Do you know how awful the darkness is?" He clasped his hands tightly. "I must go hungering through the night, with a voiceless love to torture me. Just at the crowning point of my life I've been ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... other place," cautioned Lindsay. The passage smelled dank and close. The air in it had probably been unstirred for many years. The faint light which entered it from the treasure room was soon lost, and they were obliged to grope their way by feeling along the walls. On and on they went for what appeared to be a considerable distance, sometimes turning sharp corners, and sometimes going up or ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... to shimmer in moonlight. But he could not, for a time, get himself beyond the pounding of that name in his brain. It was not merely that he had heard the name before. There was something significant about it. Something that made him grope back in his memory of things. Boulain! He whispered it to himself, his eyes on the slender figure of the woman ahead of him, swaying gently to the steady sweep of the paddle in her hands. Yet he could think of nothing. A feeling of irritation swept over him, disgust at his own mental ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... 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 him. He would be startled to hear in how small ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... to know 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

... letters show that adult women, wives and mothers, still grope for the truth that lies plain to the eyes of any simple child—the truth that there is no such thing as clean and unclean, only use and misuse. Others, through love, and the splendid revelations that it makes, have risen so far above their former misconceptions that they fear to ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne

... not hopeless. I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it. We will now leave the dead American and proceed with my narrative. You can imagine that I could hardly come away from the Amazon without probing deeper into the matter. There were indications as to the direction from which the dead traveler ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... great mountains, have your lessons, ye Have mighty truths to teach the heart of man Of God's omnipotence and majesty, Which, if he will to learn from ye, he can. But many blindly grope upon their way, Refusing all the light of ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats

... when I saw an immense black mass looming over the water. Then a sharp scratching was heard, branches caught us in the face, and the boat stopped. To our questions the owner replied that we were on an island covered with willows and poplars, of which the flood had nearly reached the top. We had to grope about with our hatchets to clear a passage through the branches, and when we had succeeded in passing the obstacle, we found the stream much less furious than in the middle of the river, and finally reached the ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... complex civilisation of to-day. The thought of early man on the problems of his being—for after all his superstitions reveal thought—deserve respect, for in his efforts to think he was trying to grope ...
— Celtic Religion - in Pre-Christian Times • Edward Anwyl

... one person who deserves praise for his work in experimental philosophy for he does not care for the discourses of men and their wordy warfare, but quietly and diligently pursues the works of wisdom. Therefore what others grope after blindly, as bats in the evening twilight, this man contemplates in their brilliancy because he is a master of experiment. Hence, he knows all of natural science whether pertaining to medicine and alchemy, or to matters ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... hope. He got up, and turning his face away from Eleanore, said in a half-audible voice: "Let's have no argument, no cogency, no urgency. Not now! Not now when I am creeping along on the earth with such light as is left me, trying to grope my way out of the hole. A man doesn't give up the ghost so quickly as all that, Eleanore. The stomach is a ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... we do not entirely agree with him in all his appreciations, has alone caught with his haughty eye the characteristic lineaments of this catastrophe of human genius contending with divine chance. All the other historians suffer from a certain bedazzlement in which they grope about. It was a flashing day, in truth the overthrow of the military monarchy which, to the great stupor of the kings, has dragged down all kingdoms, the downfall of strength and the rout ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... Millain. When I found myself alone with him in the cabinet, through which we passed, I embraced him with an extreme pleasure. We had entered by the backstairs; we descended by the same, so as not to be observed. It was dark, so that on both occasions we were obliged to grope our way. Upon arriving at the bottom I could not refrain from again embracing Millain, so great was my pleasure, and we separated each ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... here (in the country) among the vast and noble scenes of Nature; we are there (in the town) among the pitiful shifts of policy. We walk here in the light and open ways of the divine bounty,—we grope therein the dark and confused labyrinths of human malice; our senses are here feasted with all the clear and genuine taste of their objects, which are all sophisticated there, and for the most part overwhelmed with their contraries: here pleasure, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... straightway and ran into the garden to fetch the lost property. It had grown suddenly very dusk, almost dark. The lime tree stood out tall and black by the side of the house, and the bushes were dense masses of shadow. Lettice had to grope for the basket, but found it at last, and began to retrace her steps along the hardly-discernible path. She was about twenty yards away from the lime tree when a slight noise made her look back, and she noticed the figure of a girl swinging ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... 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 the ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... at this spot, and reach the summit of the hill above, where there is more torch-work and more disappointment for those that go a Sybil-seeking with the sixth book of Virgil for a guide. Those who like it may also grope their way through Nero's prisons, and descend into the Piscina Mirabilis, that vast pilastered cellar like an underground dissenting chapel. They say the Roman fleet was supplied with water from this huge tank; but if this had been the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... to him with an air of badinage about his picture. And certainly it was plain enough. It was clear enough; only he would not see what was before his eyes, nor hear what was in his ears, and so had to grope a little further until Lawrence Newt suddenly struck a light and showed him where ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... be asking 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 the warmer ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... bed and began to grope for the matchbox. But this passed away. The face of Death grew mild, and then seemed to smile. He lay down on his side, his face turned from the open window, composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and fell softly into the ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... deeper spot of blackness when he shut off his intermittent ray. And when at last Julia found herself at the place where the path entered the woods, the blackness ahead seemed still more frightful. She had to grope, recognizing every deviation from the well-beaten path by the rustle of the dead leaves which lay, even in summer, half a foot deep upon the ground. The "fox-fire," rotting logs glowing with a faint luminosity, startled her several times, and the hooting-owl's shuddering bass—hoo! hoo! hoo-oo-ah-h! ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... them ebbing and flowing, Like tides with the full moon going; Spreading their generous largess free For hand to touch and for eye to see; In dust of the wayside growing, On rock-ribbed upland blowing, By meadow brooklets glancing, On barren fields a-dancing, Till the world forgets to burrow and grope, And rises aloft on the wings of hope; —Oh! of all posies, Lilies or roses, Sweetest or fairest, Richest or rarest, That earth in its joy to heaven upraises, Give ...
— Twilight Stories • Various

... that the horse had, as yet, disclosed only two faults, and these not the faults of the Irishman's horse in the weary yarn. One of them, we concluded, was to buck like a demon on being first mounted, and the other was to grope backward for the person who went to catch him after delivery ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... 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 besought ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne

... of illusions we grope eagerly for stays and foundations. There is none but a strict and faithful dealing at home, and a severe barring out of all duplicity or illusion there. Whatever games are played with us, we must play no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... prettily. The better of them felt their inferiority, but knew no remedy, and all worked busily, copying and distorting Giotto, until they and the public were heartily tired. A change at all costs became necessary, and it was very simple when it came. "Why grope about for the significant, when the obvious is at hand? Let me paint the obvious; the obvious always pleases," said some clever innovator. So he painted the obvious,—pretty clothes, pretty faces, and trivial action, with the results foreseen: he pleased then, ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... Maynooth; and as the shame, affliction, and indignation of the family would, he knew, be terrible, he resolved to conform himself to his circumstances, trusting to absence for that diminution of affection which it often produces. Having settled these points in his mind, he began to grope that part of his head which had come in contact with Owen Connor's cudgel. He had strong surmises that a bump existed, and on examining, he found that a powerful organ ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... connected thought that Mackenzie enjoyed after coming out of his shock was that somebody was smoking near at hand; the next that the sun was in his eyes. But these were indifferent things, drowned in a flood of pain. He put them aside, not to grope after the cause of his discomfort, for that was apart from him entirely, but to lie, throbbing in every nerve, indifferent either to life ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... misery and guilt may lie in the forgotten folds of hoarded letters, that have been preserved only to blast the memory of the dead! What precious words, again, have been destroyed, that might have lightened for a whole heavy lifetime the doubt and anguish of the living! In this, as in all we do, we grope about in darkness, and the one and the other course must often enough have been bitterly lamented by those who "did for the best" in keeping or destroying ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... nothing more than the usual assortment contained in the desk of a healthy schoolboy. The raised lid shut off the light from the window, and the desk's interior was rather dark. They had to grope in the corners, and occasionally their hands touched. Every time this happened Ralph thought of the decision that he must make ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... upon easily accessible shelves but are placed out of reach to be labored for, like the views one gets of the valley here only after paying the price in an exceedingly toilsome journey. He was content to grope in a dead past for glories ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... primeval law, There burst the dawn from out the womb of night; Yet are all things unchanged around them,—these, The ancient hills, the town, the quiet trees, The household presences through which they grope Blind to all else but to each other's eyes, Wherein, transforming heaven and earth, there lies Sublime ...
— The Angel of Thought and Other Poems - Impressions from Old Masters • Ethel Allen Murphy

... Max. of these idols and quacks Is now thrust in a corner for children to flout, And the red thunder-brand he still grasps in his hand. Lights not Jupiter Tonans to grope his way out. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various

... the remains of an amusement park Between jagged buildings— Burning flower... shining sea... Toes and hands Reach out into emptiness. Longing tears the weeping body to pieces. The little moon glides above me. Eyes grope Gently into the deep world, Sunken ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... jovial lot has birth; Nor needs he to strive or toil. The peasant may grope in the bowels of earth, And for treasure may greedily moil He digs and he delves through life for the pelf, And digs till he grubs out a ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... 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. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now, it is a fact, that ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... again. Her air was wild and frightened; her trembling hands were stained with mud, seen by the light of the lantern she bore, and which she again hung in its accustomed place, stealing quietly away into the darkened hall, to grope her way up-stairs. All this while the farce of sending for Dr. Craig was being enacted, and Morton was out on his fruitless mission in ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... five-thirty, till six, 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



Words linked to "Grope" :   look for, seek, grope for, caress, fumble, touching



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