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Grasp   /græsp/   Listen
Grasp

noun
1.
Understanding of the nature or meaning or quality or magnitude of something.  Synonyms: appreciation, hold.
2.
The limit of capability.  Synonyms: compass, range, reach.
3.
An intellectual hold or understanding.  Synonym: grip.  "They kept a firm grip on the two top priorities" , "He was in the grip of a powerful emotion" , "A terrible power had her in its grasp"
4.
The act of grasping.  Synonyms: clasp, clench, clutch, clutches, grip, hold.  "He has a strong grip for an old man" , "She kept a firm hold on the railing"



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"Grasp" Quotes from Famous Books



... dainty befrilled pinafores and light shoes were regarded as great swells by the other scholars. They for the most part were the children of very poor farmers, whose farm earnings were augmented by road-work, wood-carting, or any such labour which came within their grasp. All the boys went barefooted, also a moiety of the girls. The school was situated on a wild scrubby hill, and the teacher boarded with a resident a mile from it. He was a man addicted to drink, and the parents of his scholars lived in daily ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... came close, catching in his strong grasp her writhing hands. But she stopped him with a look like a flashing sword—a look as poignant as though they had been lovers for years and now must love no longer. And so, in fact, they had been, heart drawn to heart ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... children should not be allowed to dramatize stories of a kind so poetic, so delicate, or so potentially valuable that the material is in danger of losing future beauty to the pupils through its present crude handling. Mother Goose is a hardy old lady, and will not suffer from the grasp of the seven-year-old; and the familiar fables and tales of the "Goldilocks" variety have a firmness of surface which does not let the glamour rub off; but stories in which there is a hint of the beauty just beyond the palpable—or of a dignity suggestive ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... though it befitted his other features, was too coarsely and strongly formed to be the handsomest of its class. His mouth was like no other that I ever saw; the lips firm and the under jaw seeming to grasp the upper with force, as if its muscles were in full action ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... weak of understanding and a fool. Walk softly and wait, and we will grasp it all. But grasp now, and we grasp little, and in the end it will be nothing. Thou art a child in the way of the white man's wisdom. Hold thy tongue and watch, and I will show you the way my brothers do overseas, and, so doing, gather to themselves the riches of the earth. It is what ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... tears in his eyes was starting to grasp his hand, Skippy's foot tripped over a step and he rolled ignominiously down the terrace and fetched up in a heap ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... no longer. She wrenched herself free from the grasp of the princess, who, with pitying heart, understood all now. ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... combining a scientific education of a very high standard with the education which is necessary for becoming an excellent skilled laborer. It has proved, moreover, that the best means for producing really good skilled laborers is to seize the bull by the horns, and to grasp the educational problem in its great features, instead of trying to give some special skill in some handicraft, together with a few scraps of knowledge in a certain branch of some science. And it has shown also what can be obtained, without over-pressure, if a rational economy ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... of horror and of rage at such sacrilege, the guards pounced upon the girl archer, and would have dragged her away. But with the same quick motion that had saved her from the Tartar robbers, she sprang from their grasp and, standing full before the royal ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks

... St. Quentin and Amiens and down to Creil and Compiegne, flinging away human life as though it were but rubbish for deathpits. The prize of Paris, Paris the great and beautiful, seemed to be within their grasp. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... and seething crowd. Randolph managed, however, to force a way for her to an angle of the paddle box, where they were comparatively alone although still exposed to the rain. She recognized their enforced companionship by dropping her grasp of the umbrella, which she had hitherto been holding over him with a singular kind of mature superiority very like—as Randolph felt—her manner ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... or what I desire is of small account. We are both in the grasp of the invisible forces, making for the happiness of the race. She can't refuse to go on. It is her duty. There are millions of other women to sing, to dance, to amuse men—there is only one Viola Lambert in the world. Nothing in the annals of the occult exceeds her wonderful ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... was his one living link to the country he admired as the conqueror of the world, and imaginatively delighted in as the seat of pleasures, and he could not discard the feeling of some love for Tinman without losing his grasp of the reason why, he had longed so fervently and travelled so breathlessly to return hither. In the days of their youth, Van Diemen had been Tinman's cordial spirit, at whom he sipped for cheerful visions ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... bold headlines the following day. Immediately patrons who wanted telephones began to pop up right and left like so many mushrooms. But alas, where was the money to come from that should enable Mr. Bell and his associates to branch out and grasp the opportunities that now beckoned them? The inventor's own resources were at a low ebb; Watson, like many another young man, had more brains than fortune; and neither Mr. Hubbard nor Mr. Saunders felt they could provide the necessary capital. Already the Western Union ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... to have fought a pitched battle, except that one which gained him his first triumph, while Perikles set up nine trophies for victories by sea and land. But again, there is no action of Perikles which can be compared to that of Fabius when he snatched away Minucius from the grasp of Hannibal, and saved an entire Roman army from destruction. That was an exploit glorious for the courage, generalship, and kindness of heart displayed by Fabius; but, on the other hand Perikles, made no such blunder as did Fabius, when out-generalled by Hannibal with the cattle. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... warning he lowered his head, fastening his lips to the curve of her throat; and discovered suddenly and definitely his error. In a twinkling it was a savage animal he held in his arms, and before he knew what was happening she had broken his grasp and he was reeling back with a head that rang from the impact of an open hand upon ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... Randy his face changed color and he wanted to run away, but Jones grabbed him and so did Malloy. As both were powerful men, Hosker was as a kitten in their grasp. ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.

... ill treatment—a rival who was neither compeer nor subaltern, and who affected to be his censor—a functionary of a purely anomalous character, sheltering himself under his abnegation of an authority which he had not dared to assume, and criticising measures which he was not competent to grasp;—such was the Duke of Medina Coeli ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... removed far off, And set by Ocean's utmost marge to dwell; But Hela into Niflheim thou threw'st, And gav'st her nine unlighted worlds to rule, A queen, and empire over all the dead. That empire wilt thou now invade, light up Her darkness, from her grasp a subject tear?— Try it; but I, for one, will not applaud. Nor do I merit, Odin, thou should'st slight Me and my words, though thou be first in Heaven; For I too am a Goddess, born of thee, Thine eldest, and of me the Gods ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... showing a working crack at 30 paces. I couldn't understand how Scott could do such a thing, and it was only the next day that I found out that Scott had remained behind and had sent Bowers in charge of this pony party. Bowers, having had no experience of the kind, did not grasp the situation for some time, and as we watched him and his party—or as we thought Captain Scott and his party—of ponies we saw them all suddenly realise that they were getting into trouble and the whole ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... a manner so clear and definite that they can easily be fixed in the memory, and then work out the best way in which the troops can be thoroughly grounded in their application. Finally, we must acquire a quite distinct grasp of what can be practised over country, and from what points of view such exercises are to be undertaken in order to make them of direct utility in the solution of the problems modern Warfare will ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... very first minds of England; but, among all with whom this experience brought her in connection, there was none who impressed her so strongly as Lady Byron. There was an almost supernatural power of moral divination, a grasp of the very highest and most comprehensive things, that made her lightest opinions singularly impressive. No doubt, this result was wrought out in a great degree from the anguish and conflict of these two years, when, ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... sake of Womanhood, don't run away! Stay at your post. You mustn't run away. You must not. If you do, you admit everything. Everything. You must fight in your home. It's your home. That is the great principle you must grasp,—it's not his. It's there your duty lies. And there are your children—your children, your little ones! Think if you go—there may be a fearful fuss—proceedings. Lawyers—a search. Very probably he will take all sorts of proceedings. ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... as the days wore on, that he was growing cold toward her. It was pitiful to see her grasp the hands of the little maid that had been engaged to take care of her, and hear her beg her to dress her prettily, and to see that every curl was in place, and the lace at her throat ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... have mind and leisure to find companionship in books. Their knowledge of languages passed the common; in earlier years they had travelled, and their reminiscences fostered the liberality which was the natural tone of their minds. To converse familiarly with them was to discover their grasp of historical principles, their insight into philosophic systems, their large apprehension of world-problems. At the same time, they nurtured jealously their intellectual preferences, differing on such ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... brought a friend to see you," said Mr Harris, stepping forward. The sick man raised his head slowly, and, as his eyes fell on Amos, he trembled violently, and clutched his chair with a convulsive grasp. Then a fit of coughing came on, and all were silent. "I will leave you together, if you please," said the Scripture reader after a pause to Amos. "You know where to find me if I am wanted," and ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... middle of a lively conversation, he would suddenly stop, droop his head, and his bright eyes would be dimmed with a filling of tears; heavy sighs would seem to rend his breast; he would start up, his eyes sparkling with fury; he would grasp his dagger with a bitter smile, and then, as if vanquished by an invisible hand, he would fall into a deep reverie, from whence not even the caresses of his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... the awful purple wears. You tremble but to grasp the pen! But they Who dyed it thus, feared not to grip ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips

... influence taking hold of him to which he was resolved not to yield; he clutched with both hands a hickory sapling next which he was standing, to hold himself steady, but was whirled round and round, until the bark of the sapling peeled off under his grasp. But, as in the cases referred to by Dow, the attack was attended ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... covered with curds, and felt more disgusted than at any wound which Audun could have given him. Then they went for each other and wrestled pretty smartly. Grettir rushed at him, but Audun escaped his grasp. He saw, however, that Grettir had gained upon him. They drove up and down the room, overthrowing everything that was near them. Neither of them spared himself, but Grettir had the advantage, and at last Audun ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown

... her; he was even ready to risk all in a dumb brute impulse to gather up the remnants of his strength of heart and brain, and be the center of some widespread catastrophe; to put his fear in her soul just as it was in his own. How was she ever to comprehend the horror that held him in its cruel grasp, the thousand subtle shades of thought and feeling that had led up to this thing, from the memory of which he revolted! He turned his bloodshot eyes upon her, something of the old light was there along with the new; he had indeed loved her, but the fruit of this love had been rotten. He was ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... that ridiculous manner the fight continued for an hour or two. Now and then a Crow warrior, in an ecstasy of valour and vainglory, would scream forth his war-song, declare himself the bravest and greatest of all Indians, grasp his hatchet, strike it wildly upon the breastwork, and then, as he retreated to his companions, fall dead, riddled with arrows; yet no combined attack was made, the Blackfeet remaining secure in their intrenchment. At ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... of the chair to keep his bearings. "Hey! Where are you? Jenkins!" He tried to look around him but the bright, intense light revealed nothing. He swore to himself, extending his arms in front of him for something to grasp. As he groped for a solid, the light became more subdued and shifted from white into a ...
— Pleasant Journey • Richard F. Thieme

... which felt them to be akin to itself, did not go amiss; they were indeed akin to the new Rome with its new interest in trade and its increased interest in warfare, for the trader and the warrior have gone side by side in all ages of the world's history, whether it be a primitive instinct to grasp territory for commercial purposes or a more civilised endeavour to obtain ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter

... of reconstruction at the right end, and employs the right tools for its accomplishment. It begins at the point where Grant left off the work, at Appomattox Court-house, and it holds those revolted communities in the grasp of war until the rebellion shall have laid down its spirit, as two years ago it formally laid ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... at her silently a moment, then continued "Yes, you love life—the sunlight, the thoughts, the arts, the luxuries—everything that is beautiful, like yourself. Then, Mademoiselle Charlotte, all these are in your hands; why do you not grasp them?" ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... desire and resolution to suffer hardships and even to die for justice and the service of their king, the community would suffer less hurt today, for the governor would not be so daring. And he would not in that case have dared to arrest me, had not he had the consent of Licentiate Legaspi in his grasp; and whenever he needs it he is quite sure of it, in exchange for the advantages that, as everyone knows, the governor has given to him and his sons and retainers—from which I have tried many times to divert him, constraining him by the fidelity due ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various

... have been ground down to many facets and have lost much of their original bulk. Evidently the ice played fast and loose with a stone carried in its basal layers, now holding it fast and rubbing it against the rock beneath, now loosening its grasp and allowing ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... like a Utopian idea. It is probably one that may not or will not be realized either today or tomorrow. If and when this war is decided in favor of the Allies, it will at once come within the range, and, before long, within the grasp of European statesmanship. [Cheers.] I go back for a moment, if I am not keeping you too long, ["Go on,"] to the peculiar aspects of the actual case upon which I have dwelt, because it seems to me that they ought to make a special appeal to the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... apathetic, was hardly less attached to the interests of strong monarchy. It was only with the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty, in 1714, that the bulk of those powers of government which hitherto the crown had retained slipped inevitably into the grasp of the ministers and of Parliament. George I. (1714-1727) and George II. (1727-1760) were not the nonentities they have been painted, but, being alien alike to English speech, customs, and political institutions, they were in a position to defend ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... kind friend who has the cellar on the corner, where anti-prohibition folks may indulge their religion unmolested, that told me of the work. He spotted him for a crook first peep. Also he seemed to grasp the fact that these almost orthodox whiskers of mine had been cut in other ways. So we talked confidential. The barkeep liked Cactus and prohibition, and said he didn't want the people done dirt by a putty-faced ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... Nicholas," said Mr. Calhoun presently, "since that from Laramie, in the fall of eighteen forty-four. This is in the spring of eighteen forty-six! Meantime, we might all have been dead and buried and none of us the wiser. What a country! 'Tis more enormous than the mind of any of us can grasp." ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... groweth weak, and I am devoured with care, yet I desire to continue still to sing the deeds of yore, and to live upon ancient glories. Now am I stricken with years, my life is frozen within me, and all my joys are fleeting away. No more can my hand grasp the sword, nor mine arm hold the lance in rest. Among priests my last sad hour lengtheneth out, and psalms take now the place of songs of victory." "Let thy songs rest," says Patrick, "and dare not to compare thy Finn to the King of Kings, whose might knoweth no bounds: bend ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... escape is not in the King's thoughts. He casts one look around him, glances at his sword—broken like Einar's bow—draws a deep breath, and, holding his shield above his head, springs overboard. A shout—a rush! who shall first grasp that noble prisoner? Back, slaves! the shield that has brought him scathless through a hundred fights, shall ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... O Saviour! I have no time to stay; The goal tow'rd which I hasten Is now not far away. Another day—and haply The triumph I shall see, And grasp my crown of vic'try,— Then, I will call ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... are dear to us, has almost as much of sadness as of pleasure in it; for although it is consolatory to know that they are in life, and are not unmindful of us, still a closely written sheet of paper is but a poor substitute for the animated conversation, the cordial grasp of the hand, and the kind glance of the eye; and we become more sensible of the distance that divides us when letters written many days ago arrive, and we remember with dread that, since these very ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... himself, handed the book coldly back, and began to talk of something else. All this was highly significant to Godwin, who of course began the perusal of his prize in a suspicious mood. Nor was he long before he sympathised with Mr Gunnery's distaste. Though too young to grasp the arguments at issue, his prejudices were strongly excited by the conventional Theism which pervades Figuier's work. Already it was the habit of his mind to associate popular dogma with intellectual shallowness; herein, as at every ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... far as his hips, supporting himself by holding his elbows against the sides of the window. As soon as he had done so, I slid down the roof as before, and lying down on the dormer-roof with a firm grasp of the rope I told the monk not to be afraid but to let himself go. When he reached the floor of the loft he untied himself, and on drawing the rope back I found the fall was one of fifty feet-too dangerous ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... money-changers. How agreeably sounds the news—to all but his creditors—that the lawyer or the merchant has locked his office-door and gone fishing! The American temperament needs at this moment nothing so much as that wholesome training of semi-rural life which reared Hampden and Cromwell to assume at one grasp the sovereignty of England, and which has ever since served as the foundation of England's greatest ability. The best thoughts and purposes seem ordained to come to human beings beneath the open sky, as the ancients fabled that Pan found the goddess Ceres when he was engaged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... myself in my saddle, and got the reins in my grasp again," Huldbrand pursued, "when a wizard-like dwarf of a man was already standing at my side, diminutive and ugly beyond conception, his complexion of a brownish-yellow, and his nose scarcely smaller than the rest of him together. The fellow's mouth was slit almost ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... they had no slaves on board, should be seizable. It seemed to be the opinion, a little exaggerated, I think, that no prospect of future prevention of slave- trading could justify us in permitting for an instant the immediate benefit we had within our grasp. ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)

... the most populous one they had yet come to. The sufferers, gifted with supernatural might, kept eternally rolling round it, one against another, with terrific violence, and so dashing apart, and returning. "Why grasp?" cried the one—"Why throw away?" cried the other; and thus ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... friendship to proclaim, And Europe gazed, where'er her hero came! I grasp'd the laurels of heroic strife, The thousand perils of a soldier's life; Obedient in the ranks each toilful day! Though heroes soon command, they ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... later hour of reckoning, was making beseeching gestures of alarm, warning and reproof that were entirely inadequate to the situation, which was fast becoming acute, when the two tardy members arrived on the scene of action. It took Rose Mary one second to grasp the situation, and, motioning Everett to a chair beside the rocker, she seated herself quickly in the very midst of the scuffle. In a half-second Tobe's head was bowed in triumph on the arm of her chair, while the General's was ducked with equal triumph ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... all that we envy on the Earth—is as nothing compared with the unheard-of wonders scattered through Infinitude. There are so many that one does not know how to see them. The fascinated eye would fain grasp all at once. ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... intermission, so admirably that I wish every word he uttered had been written down": but he does not quote a single sentence of all the poet said;[G] and a writer in the "Quarterly Review" expresses his belief that "nothing is too high for the grasp of his conversation, nothing too low: it glanced from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, with a speed and a splendor, an ease and a power, that almost seemed inspired." (Nor did I ever find him incoherent, as some have pretended; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... Biff. "Don't put him out till you feed him all he's got coming." Thereupon he succeeded in extracting Mr. Trimmer from the grasp of Mr. Johnson and forced the former back upon a chair, where he began to fan him with a towel ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... there was dead silence—long enough for the professor to grasp the full significance of what had passed. Then he uttered ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... too soon to see his ideals realised, but he had sown the seed in the heart of at least one woman with brain to grasp and will to execute. As early as 1873 the Froebelians had established something more than the equivalent of the Montessori Children's Houses under the name of Free Kindergartens or People's Kindergartens. It will bring this out more clearly if, without referring here to any ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... to the boy he said: "Thank you so much for coming to see me. You must come over again while you are with the Alcotts. Good morning! Isn't it a beautiful day out?" he said, and as he shook the boy's hand there was a warm grasp in it, the fingers closed around those of the boy, and as Edward looked into those deep eyes they ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... with sparkling eyes, 'then you are a jolly old Ethel! Come along, then;' and he took her on his arm, ran down-stairs with her, and before she well knew where she was, or what was going on, she found herself in his great grasp passive as a doll, dragged off into the midst of a vehement polka that took her breath away. She trusted to him, and remained in a passive, half-frightened state, glad he was so happy; but in the first pause heartily wishing he would let her go, instead ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with joy. She escaped from her father's grasp; she laughed and tossed her arms in the air. At last they had come and come in time, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... came up, and recognising Costigan, said, "Don't you know me, Captain? Pendennis!" And he took off his hat and made a bow to the two ladies. "Me dear boy! Me dear friend!" cried the Captain, extending towards Pendennis the grasp of friendship; and he rapidly explained to the other what he called "a most unluckee conthratong." He had an order for Vauxhall, admitting two, from Mr. Hodgen, then within the Gardens, and singing (as he did at the Back Kitchen ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... observance of the law had not satisfied him. On the contrary, the more he strove to keep the law the more active became the motions of sin within him; his conscience was becoming more oppressed with the sense of guilt, and the peace of a soul at rest in God was a prize which eluded his grasp. ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... natures reality; they must hurt themselves against the solid ere they realize its solidity. Small reality, small positivity of existence has water to a dreaming soul, half consciously gazing through half shut eyes at the soft river floating away in the moonlight: Christina was shivering in its grasp on her person, its omnipresence to her skin; its cold made her gasp and choke; the push and tug of it threatened to sweep her away like a whelmed log! It is when we are most aware of the FACTITUDE of things, that we are most aware of our need of God, and most able to trust in him; when ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... so much less time wasted. Don't stretch out your hand to the worse when it may some day grasp the better," Peter continued. Mrs. Rooth raised her eyes at him as if recognising the force there might be in that, and he added: "Let her blaze out, let her look about her. Then you may talk to ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... unnecessary that he should employ the olfactory nerves, as no animal, however swift, can hope to escape from him in a fair race, when once near enough to be seen; though there are some that may elude his grasp by a "'ruse de guerre'" when too hardly pressed. ('Extracted from our essay in No. 1, vol. xvi, of the ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... at it stupidly. Some vague recollection floated elusively through his brain. He tried to grasp and fix it clearly in his mind. It was a recollection of something which had happened a long while ago, in England, when he was at school. Suddenly, he remembered. It was not something which had happened, but something he had read under the great elm trees ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... upon the road, therefore he kissed her and kept on kissing endlessly. He embraced her so strongly that she lost her breath. Yet she did not defend herself, at first from surprise and then, from faintness, so that were it not for Hlawa's powerful grasp she would have fallen to ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... other; and just then he opened his eyes, and looked at them with a smile, when in a moment I saw what was happening, for that poor fellow's last act was to get those two children's hands in his, as if he felt that he should like to let his last grasp in this world be upon something innocent; and then there was a deepening of that smile into a stern look, his lips moved, and all was over; while I was too far off ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn

... entertained the intention of restoring Jean Valjean to the law of which Jean Valjean was the captive, and of which he, Javert, was the slave. Not for a single instant while he held him in his grasp had he confessed to himself that he entertained the idea of releasing him. It was, in some sort, without his consciousness, that his hand had relaxed and had let ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... protection of all migratory birds by the national government is the most important measure ever placed before that body in behalf of wild life. A stranger to this proposition will need to pause for thought in order to grasp its full meaning, and appreciate ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... by men's blame Or their praise either. Somebody remarks Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken; what of that? or else, Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that? Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey Placid and perfect with my art: the worse! I know both what I want and what might gain, And yet how profitless to know, to sigh "Had I been two, another ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... save her rice the boat overset near Breakfast Point, and the two women and the child were drowned. If assistance could have been obtained upon the spot, the child might have been saved; for it was forced from the wretched mother's grasp just before she finally sunk, and brought on shore by the father; but for want of medical aid it expired. The parents of this child were noted in the colony for the general immorality of their conduct; they had been rioting ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... efforts and artifices, the reasons remained obscure. If one could believe that he had embraced Orthodoxy from conviction, as he said he had done, what was the nature and foundation of this conviction it was impossible to grasp from his words. It was equally impossible to assume that he had changed his religion from interested motives: his cheap shabby clothes, his going on living at the expense of the convent, and the ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... sensation of correct singing, as generally described, is a feeling of perfect poise and harmony of the whole body; this is accompanied by a sense of freedom about the throat and jaw, and firm grasp and control of the expiratory muscles. Attempts are frequently made to amplify this description, but the results are always very vague. A feeling of "absence of local effort" at the throat is much spoken of, or "perfect ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... "Much surprise," says Bianconi, "has often been expressed at the high order of men connected with my car establishment and at its popularity; but parties thus expressing themselves forget to look at Irish society with sufficient grasp. For my part, I cannot better compare it than to a man merging to convalescence from a serious attack of malignant fever, and requiring generous nutrition in place ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... blur Corrigan made in front of him. Something collided with him—a human form—and thinking it was Corrigan, clinching with him, he grasped it. The momentum of the object, and his own weakness, carried him back and down, and with the object in his grasp he fell, underneath, to the floor. He saw a face close to his—Braman's—and remembering that the banker had tripped him, he began to work his right ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... hopeless bewilderment, trying to grasp his master's meaning. "My no savvy, sah," he said, ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... smooth, gray color, trimmed with a shade of satin that neither matched it nor made a contrast. She had grown to be even taller than Betty, and she looked uncomfortable, and as if she had been forced to come. That was a silly, limp shake of the hand with which she returned Betty's warm grasp. Oh dear, it was evidently a dreadful thing to go to make a call! It had been an anxious, discouraged getting-ready, and Betty thought of the short, red-cheeked, friendly little Becky whom she used to play with, and was grieved ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

... fewer prayer-meetings in the corridors among pupils and teachers than in olden times, there was in the school more alertness of mind, a steadier, stronger ability to think, and, consequently, to study, and, therefore, judiciously used, more power to grasp, believe in, and love the great Christianity to whose service ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... banking, and commercial capital perpetually vex our politics? Why should not slave capital exert the same influence? Do they imagine that a hundred thousand men, possessed of two thousand millions of dollars, which they feel the spirit of the age is seeking to tear from their grasp, will not eagerly catch at all the support they can obtain by getting the control of the government? In a land where the dollar is almighty, "where the sin of not being rich is only atoned for by the effort to become so," do they doubt that such an oligarchy will generally succeed? ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... state—all expectation, except the feeble one of saving our individual lives from the wreck of the past. To preserve these we had quitted England—England, no more; for without her children, what name could that barren island claim? With tenacious grasp we clung to such rule and order as could best save us; trusting that, if a little colony could be preserved, that would suffice at some remoter period to restore ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... sound of his voice could have quite convinced her. But the unconsciously cruel pressure of his hands upon her convinced her absolutely. She felt as if it was his soul—the truth of his soul—which was grasping her—which was closing upon her. And she felt that only a thing that needed could grasp, could close ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... are like color and perfume for a woman, and Coralie in her happiness looked lovelier than ever. A looked-for delight which cannot elude the grasp possesses an immense charm for youth; perhaps in their eyes the secret of the attraction of a house of pleasure lies in the certainty of gratification; perhaps many a long fidelity is attributable to the same cause. Love for love's sake, first love indeed, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... jutted diagonally below him, fifteen feet down and twelve along the bellying curve. Darl measured the angle with a glance as he hung outstretched, then his body became a human pendulum over the sheer void. Back and forth, back and forth he swung, then, suddenly, his grasp loosened and a white arc ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat

... ever diminish my veneration for him who is the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of existence.... Your whole generation are not worth a canto of the Dunciad, or anything that is his." All the while he was himself writing prose and verse, in grasp if not in vigour as far beyond the stretch of Pope, as Pope is in "worth and wit and sense" removed above his mimics. The point of the paradox is not merely that he deserted, but that he sometimes imitated his model, and when he did so, failed. Macaulay's judgment, that "personal ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... Socialism. Anti-Socialism, as its name implies, is no alternative doctrine; it is a mental resistance, not a mental force. For the most part one is dealing with sheer intellectual incapacity; with people, muddle-headed perhaps, but quite well-meaning, who are really unable to grasp the quantitative element in things. They think with a simple flat certitude that if, for example, a doctor says quinine is good for a case it means that he wishes to put every ounce of quinine that can be procured into his patient, to focus all the quinine in the world upon ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... splendid prospect? And that martial air seems born with him. Why, it would be sinful to throw so much away when it is in his very grasp. I cannot ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... as a Church, in this patriotic and Christian enterprise. The Established Church has entered upon it with an ever-increasing earnestness, having come, mainly through the advocacy of the Chaplain-General, Rev. Dr. Edgehill, to grasp the situation, and to realize that for the men themselves and for the empire it is of paramount importance that this ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers

... his usual analytical grasp, seen the separable character of these various series of incidents. He, however, attempts to show that all of them, including the germ of the Swan Maidens, are to be found in the East, and is successful in affiliating ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... Hamilton's 'Lectures on Logic' (Lect. xvii. p. 320, 321; also Appendix to those Lectures, p. 361). He here distinguishes also formal induction from, material induction, which latter he brings under the grasp of syllogism, by an hypothesis in substance similar to that of Whately. There is, however, in Lecture xix. (p. 380), a passage in a very different spirit, which one might almost imagine to have been written by Mr Mill: 'In regard to simple syllogisms, it ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote

... a dying civilization, the descent of the Barbarians on Rome, the spread of Christianity, the Crusades, the rise of Mohammedanism,—through all the confused history of thirteen centuries, ending with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, in 1453. The mind that could grasp such vast and chaotic materials, arrange them in orderly sequence and resent them as in a gorgeous panorama, moves us to wonder. To be sure, there are many things to criticize in Gibbon's masterpiece,—the author's love ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... His hot displeasure against foolish men, That live an atheist life; involves the heaven In tempests; quits his grasp upon the winds, And gives them all their fury; bids a plague Kindle a fiery boil upon the shin, And putrefy the breath of blooming health. He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend Blows mildew from ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... indifferent as to whether it be discovered or not. Harrington said he could not pretend that even the sceptic was so favorably circumstanced as that. "For my part," he said, "I cannot honestly adopt this view, and always think it prudent to accept as large an armful of happiness as I can grasp, when truth and duty do ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... of the years of her first marriage had given her a grasp of essential facts and a breadth of outlook most unusual in women, and rare among men. She always correlated her own special work to that of the larger world. She found in the Women's Protective and Provident ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... betrays, it fell far short of that adopted in the former Parliament. Men had come to an opinion that certainly no money should be granted unless securities could be obtained for their ancient liberties; but at the same time that the King should not be induced to grasp directly at absolute power, for that this would lead at once to a rebellion of uncertain issue.[472] Men were resolved to avoid questions which could rouse old passions. This time it was not insisted that the penal laws against the Catholics ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... chains, into the presence of Mrs. Whitson and the most fashionable of the fashionable set. "So you've brought him along?" cried Mrs. Whitson. "Well, I congratulate you, Mr. Craig. It's very evident you have a shrewd eye for the prizes of life, and a strong, long reach to grasp them." ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... through the winter-time I sat before my flaming fire, And listened to the sleigh-bells chime, and watched the flames leap higher, To grasp at shadows, sombre-hued, ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster

... foreseen ruin, confides to his fellow-guest at the banquet that the bitterest pain which man can know is [Greek: polla phroneonta mdenoss krateein],—complete, but helpless, prescience. In the grasp of a more inexorable necessity, the champion of Greek freedom was borne onward to a more tremendous catastrophe than that which strewed the waters of Salamis with Persian wrecks and the field of Plataea with Persian dead; but to him, at least, it was given to proclaim aloud the clear ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... chef-d'oeuvre. Certainly it is his most intensely conceived work, the most thoroughly fused and logically developed; and is free from those elements of fantasy, mystery, and unreality which enter into his other romances. But its unrelieved gloom, and the author's unrelaxing grasp upon his theme, make it less characteristic than some of his inferior works; and I think he was right in preferring "The House of the Seven Gables," as more fully representing all sides of his genius. The ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers

... chance, submitted. He sat down quite boldly on our operating chair, but grew pale when I advanced with the instrument; when I tried to open his mouth, he began to whimper, and finally, struggling out of my grasp, fled. I afterwards gave him sixpence, however, for affording me, as I told ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... to the front of the house and by the steps he fastened on the long neck of his prisoner a grasp strong enough to keep him silent for a moment. Then he cut the rooster's breast deeply, shuddering as he ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... Then a great Angel past along the highest Crying 'the doom of England,' and at once He stood beside me, in his grasp a sword Of lightnings, wherewithal he cleft the tree From off the bearing trunk, and hurl'd it from him Three fields away, and then he dash'd and drench'd, He dyed, he soak'd the trunk with human blood, And brought the sunder'd tree ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... which I had no hesitation in obeying. Step by step I moved with a strange sense of happy reliance on my unseen companion—darkness or distance had no terrors for me. And as I Went onward with my hand held firmly in that close yet gentle grasp, my thoughts became as it were suddenly cleared into a heaven of comprehension—I looked back upon years of work spread out like an arid desert uncheered by any spring of sweet water—and I saw all that my life had lacked—all to which I had unconsciously pressed forward longingly without any ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... do not have any illusions. That will come at its own hour, it has me in its grasp. It is only you who are holding it back, but one day it will be stronger ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... the Roman Church and destined to be, more formidable in its control of the minds of men. He looked for its spread over the whole of Christendom, and throughout the winter he spent at Riverdale he was ready to meet all listeners more than half-way with his convictions of its powerful grasp of the average human desire to get something for nothing. The vacuous vulgarity of its texts was a perpetual joy to him, while he bowed with serious respect to the sagacity which built so securely upon the everlasting rock of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... or not?" demanded Madelon. Her black eyes flashed imperiously at Dexter Beers. Her small brown hand held the halter of the old white with a grasp like steel. ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... hospital involved. He endowed a medical tutorship, also scholarships for students. Students, nurses, etc., would eagerly listen to his informal expositions in the wards, as he invariably showed a grasp of the subject that was equally minute and comprehensive. "He would start from some particular point and work his way point by point down to the minutest detail, not bewildering by a multiplicity of facts, ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes

... the old laws for the collection of debts, and he baulked several legislative schemes to defraud creditors of their due by declaring the new laws unconstitutional. For the rest, his decisions have seemed to competent critics to show that he possessed unusual legal ability and grasp of principles and a corresponding power of statement, scant as his ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... fighting for his life, she pushed his hair back, and pressed her lips in one long kiss upon his forehead. A shiver ran through him, and the sense came back to his eyes. But though she held his hand, there was no more strength in it to grasp hers. He sighed the words ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... sat at ease on the stone margin of the well, leaning against the wrought iron support for the bucket, one knee clasped in his strong, heavily-veined hands. Dead he would be different. Martin's mind could hardly grasp the connection between this man full of latent energies, full of thoughts and desires, this man whose shoulder he would have liked to have put his arm round from friendliness, with whom he would have liked to go for long ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos

... or sullen and scowling-faced. In the latter case, he would come into the office where Denison worked (he had left the schooner of which he was supercargo, and was now "overseering" Solo-Solo) and try to grasp the muddled condition of his financial affairs. Then, with much variegated language, he would stride away, cursing the servants and the place and everything in general, mount his horse, and ride off again to the society of the loafers, gamblers, and flaunting ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... procession was formed. In advance moved the band and behind it was a huge hay wagon in which in great dignity were seated six of the seniors. The wagon itself was drawn by sixteen freshmen, all of whom had a tight grasp upon the ropes that had been fastened to the wagon tongue. Directly behind the wagon came Will Phelps and Foster Bennett and two of their classmates, all dressed in the garb of firemen, with red jackets and helmet hats of paper. In their hands was a huge rope at least two and a ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson

... moved before his eyes, and he could depict to himself without hindrance the sudden swing upwards of the dark sky-line, the sudden tilt up of the vast plain of the sea, the swift still rise, the brutal fling, the grasp of the abyss, the struggle without hope, the starlight closing over his head for ever like the vault of a tomb—the revolt of his young life—the black end. He could! By Jove! who couldn't? And you must remember he was a finished artist in that peculiar way, he ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... my very eyes by Professor Fries of Jena. It is a series of superficial conclusions, such as expositors and theorists have been guilty of for more than a century. I care to say nothing more in public about this; but write it I will. Some truthful mind will one day grasp it. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... nominated by the monarchs of that kingdom; and Alfonso de Burgos was accordingly translated to the see of Cuenca. [47] Isabella, on whom the duties of ecclesiastical preferment devolved, by the act of settlement, availed herself of the rights, thus wrested from the grasp of Rome, to exalt to the vacant sees persons of exemplary piety and learning, holding light, in comparison with the faithful discharge of this duty, every minor consideration of interest, and even the solicitations ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... "I think I grasp the idea, and will be sure to remember not to make your hair blow one way and the tails of your coat another, as a certain sculptor made those of a famous man," laughed Ralph, as the fallen hero scrambled ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... sacrifices, are about to be crowned with glory or scattered like a handful of dust down that green slope at his feet—it all hangs on a thread. Pale and motionless he stands there watching, the sabre trembling in his convulsive grasp. I am near him, my eye is upon his face, I feel and see and tremble with him, I live ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various

... prove my Propositions in detailed geometrical fashion, it is advisable to sketch them briefly in advance, so that everyone may more readily grasp my meaning. ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... hands when Ted was not with us. Ted was my exemplar; from him such knowledge and ability as I acquired were derived. But to his shrewd practicality I was able to add something, in the shape of theory evolved from my father's conversation; and thus presently I obtained a quite respectable grasp of bush domesticity. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... sure that if such considerations as these were laid before any American soldier who still smarted under that taunt in London streets, his good American sense, which is our best possession, would grasp and accept the thing in its true proportions. He wouldn't want to blot an Empire out because a handful of muckers called him names. Of this I am perfectly sure, because in Paris streets it was my happy lot four months after the Armistice to talk with many American soldiers, ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister

... on the Exposition grounds, there to hold a public reception. The crowds were as great as ever, but perfectly orderly, and filed in at one side of the building and out at the other, each person in turn being permitted to grasp the Chief Magistrate's hand. ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer

... you cannot understand it until you have some personal under-standing of the men who wrote it. Donne is Donne; Swift, Swift; Pope, Pope; Johnson, Johnson; Goldsmith, Goldsmith; Charles Lamb, Charles Lamb; Carlyle, Carlyle. Until you have grasped those men, as men, you cannot grasp their writings. That is the personal side of literary study, and ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch



Words linked to "Grasp" :   get onto, tumble, take hold, catch on, choke hold, wrestling hold, hang, embracement, cling, potentiality, savvy, cotton on, sense, get it, tentacle, figure, prehension, discernment, comprehend, embrace, ken, embracing, get the picture, twig, latch on, influence, capableness, seizing, chokehold, capability, sight, get wise, clutch, intuit, clasp, range, apprehension, understanding, taking hold, digest, understand



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