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Grapple   /grˈæpəl/   Listen
Grapple

noun
1.
A tool consisting of several hooks for grasping and holding; often thrown with a rope.  Synonyms: grapnel, grappler, grappling hook, grappling iron.
2.
A dredging bucket with hinges like the shell of a clam.  Synonym: clamshell.
3.
The act of engaging in close hand-to-hand combat.  Synonyms: grappling, hand-to-hand struggle, wrestle, wrestling.  "We watched his grappling and wrestling with the bully"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Grapple" Quotes from Famous Books



... great deal teaming, working desperately to get something laid up for the winter. The summer excursion, with its laughter, its careless irresponsibility, had become a deadly grapple with the implacable forces of winter. The land of the straddle-bug had become a menacing desert, hard ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland

... these hints of University Reform, well aware of the opposition such views must encounter in deep-rooted prejudice and fixed routine; aware also of the rashness of attempting, within the limits of such an occasion, to grapple with such a theme; but strong in my conviction of the pressing need of a more emancipated scheme of instruction and discipline, based on the facts of the present and the real wants of American life. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... Wexford property of Mr. George Brooke of Dublin. The agent of Mr. Brooke's estate, Captain Hamilton, is the honorary director of the Property Defence Association, so that we have here obviously a grapple between the National League doing the work, consciously or unconsciously, of the agrarian revolutionists, and a combination of landed proprietors fighting for the rights of property as ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... strength only in fall back to its Earth,—he is the master, in a word, of all such kind of persons as have been writing lately about the "interests of England." He is, therefore, the Power invoked by Dante to place Virgil and him in the lowest circle of Hell;—"Alcides whilom felt,—that grapple, straitened sore," etc. The Antaus in the sculpture is very grand; but the authorship puzzles me, as of the next piece, by the same hand. I believe ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... have the last word! Charity that supplied the place of justice was not thanked Courage to grapple with his pride and open his heart was wanting Deeds only are the title Detested titles, invented by the English He did not vastly respect beautiful women Look backward only to correct an error of conduct in future Meditations upon the errors of ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger

... towards him, and thinketh to strike him above in the midst of his head, but Chaos swerved aside from him; howbeit Perceval reached him and caught his right arm and cutteth it sheer from his side, sword and all, and sendeth it flying to the ground, and Chaos runneth upon him, thinking to grapple him with his left arm, but his force was waning; nathless right gladly would he have avenged himself and he might. Howbeit, Perceval setteth on him again that loved him not in his heart, and smiteth him again above on the head, and dealeth him such a buffet as ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown

... stampeded. The atmosphere of the business world is a reality even when the views which produce it are wrong. To face a panic one must first of all realise the intrinsic facts, and then allow for the misreading of others. It is the plastic and ingenious mind which will best grapple with these unusual circumstances. It will invent weapons and expedients with which to face each new phase of the position. "Whenever you meet an abnormal situation," said the sage, "deal with it in an abnormal manner." That is ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook

... Socrates does not have recourse to the ordinary methods adopted by orators on similar occasions. He prefers to stand upon his own integrity and innocence, uninfluenced by the fear of that imaginary evil, death. He, therefore, does not firmly grapple with either of the charges preferred against him. He neither denies nor confesses the first accusation, but shows that in several instances he conformed to the religious customs of his country, and that he believes in God more than he fears man. The second ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato

... coming evil to the present necessity. I counselled with him whether it might not be safer to take in sail and drift along. But from this he dissented. Time enough to take in sail when we knew what shore we were coming to. He had no kedge or grapple or cord, indeed, that would pretend to hold this boat against this gale. We would beach her, if it pleased the Virgin; and if we could not,—shaking his head,—why, that would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... It is that of an Independent Magazine, which shall be open to the first intellects of the land, and which shall treat the issues presented, and to be presented to the country, in a tone no way tempered by partisanship, or influenced by fear, favor, or the hope of reward; which shall seize and grapple with the momentous subjects that the present disturbed state of affairs heave to the surface, and which CAN NOT be laid aside ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... dissembling—no sword thrusts intended to be parried, no machiavelian hits nor disguises. The fight is close, desperate, deadly; it is yard arm to yard arm; it is heart seeking for naked heart, flashing eye to eye, visor down, and hot breath mingling with hot breath, as the foes close in the last grapple. The other idea is embodied in the principles of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and is represented by the Federal authority. The South, then, is taken to mean the one, and the North, its opposite. On one side barbarism, slavery, injustice, ignorance, despotism, the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Grapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will speak of this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the exercise of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward—but back. I am burning with anxiety to hear the details of that stupendous event ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... we go forth against the enemy. Lord Christ, Thou hast said, "I am with thee in the hour of need; I will pull thee out, and place thee in an honourable place." Bethink Thee, Lord, of Thy word, and remember Thy promise. Come to our aid when we are sore pressed, when the close grapple is imminent, when the enemy overmatches us, and we have been surrounded by them. Stand by us in need, for the aid of man is of no avail. Through Thee we will vanquish our enemies, and in Thy name we will tread under the foot those who have set themselves in array against us. ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... is forbidden to walk over the growing grain." As we passed through the rolling land of Belgium under the brow of "The Scherpenberg," with Mount Kemmel over to the right honeycombed with dugouts, it was difficult to believe that, locked in a death grapple, not three miles away, were thousands of soldiers living underground like moles, and that at any moment the air might be filled with shells carrying ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... the other. The truce was of. Why should he wait? Cataracts seemed to thunder in his brain, and yet he stood there, his hand in his coat-pocket, clutching the grip of a magazine pistol. Samson South the old, and Samson South the new, were writhing in the life-and-death grapple of two codes. Then, before decision came, he heard a sharp report inside, and the heavy fall of a ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... those in command that presently there would be a powerful attack by infantry, for which the cannonade was supposed to have paved the way with death and disorder, and it was necessary that the pieces should be kept cool in order to be in efficient condition to grapple with and suppress this attack. Sometimes a regiment, stung to a frenzy of courage by bullets and the death of comrades, will rise from its trench without the volition of its officers, and go frantically forward against overwhelming odds. A different effect of an almost identical psychological ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris

... may be said, and much I think may justly be said, in favour of the former, they were not men of genius. Capable of conducting, and willing upon the whole to conduct with loyalty and propriety the affairs of their country, while they kept within the beaten channel, they were not born to grapple with arduous situations. They had not that commanding spirit of adventure, which leads a man into the path of supererogation and voluntary service: they had not that firm and collected fortitude which induces a man ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... awl—and renegades from the lowest handicraft employments, be a match for the cool and sedate controversies they will have to encounter should the Brahmans condescend to enter into the arena against the maimed and crippled gladiators that presume to grapple with their faith? What can be apprehended but the disgrace and discomfiture of whole hosts of ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... spy, he could grapple with him and throw him. The gypsey took a step forward towards the other step, and all of a sudden two bodies came together, grappling, wrestling. Two cries went up, the one loud, the ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... three devoured be, That could not with him grapple; And at one sup he eat them up, As a man would ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... as that so often brought against the stock American novel, that it prefers the gloss of easy sentiment to the rough, true fact, that it does not grapple direct with things as they are in America, but looks at them through optimist's glasses that obscure and soften the scene. Nevertheless, I very much prefer the sentimentalized animal story to the sentimentalized man story. The first, as narrative, may be romantic ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... several years, and was, because of it, to some extent acquainted with the grim realities of life. She did not know that while there are certainly hard men in Canada, the small farmers and ranchers of the West—and, perhaps above all, the fearless free lances who build railroads and grapple with giant trees in the forests of the Pacific slope—are, as a rule, distinguished by a splendid charity. With them the sick or worn-out stranger is very seldom turned away. Still, watching her companion covertly, she understood that this man whom she had seen for the first time three days ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... the anchor resembles a body with six legs, like a fly—three on either side. Each leg has a crook at the end, which will grapple firmly wherever the least hold can ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... cut the cable as a war measure," said Rear Admiral Sampson, when the selection had been made. "You will proceed cautiously toward shore and grapple for the cable. If you find it, cut it. If not, you must go ashore and locate the landing place of the wire. Are you ready ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair

... scale," continued Mr. Fyshe, "it's the same sort of thing. As for the difficulties of it, I needn't remind you of the much greater difficulties we had to grapple with in the rum merger. There, you remember, a number of the women held out as a matter of principle. It was not mere business with them. Church union is different. In fact it is one of the ideas of ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... wounds. Sometimes, one side of a bush would shrivel first, causing it to double up like a creature agonizing. Some crouched like strange beasts watching to spring. Others thrust themselves ominously forward with projected arms, as if ready to grapple. Some brandished their flat leaves as the painter Wiertz, in his famous picture of Napoleon in Hell, made wives and mothers brandish their menacing fists at the man who had robbed them of their loved ones. All wore a look that suggested both agony and revenge. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... about three occasions. And, what was worse, if I tried a second time, I could not even get it to agree with what I had made it myself the first time. Thank Heaven, I've no difficulties of that sort to grapple with now! Everything's paid for the moment it comes in. If the butcher hands a leg of mutton to the cook over the airey railings, the cook hands him back six and nine—or whatever it is—and takes his bill and receipt. I eat my dinners now, with the blessed conviction ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... son Antaeus ... in Irassa strove With Jove's Alcides, and oft foiled, still rose, Receiving from his mother earth new strength, Fresh from his fall, and fiercer grapple joined, Throttled at length in the air, expired ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... Congressional affairs, and had sense enough to be aware that it was not best for him to attempt to speak upon subjects of which he was entirely ignorant. He made one of his funny speeches, very short and entirely non-committal. Colonel Alexander followed, endeavoring to grapple with the great questions of tariffs, finance, and internal improvements, which were ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... of mind that baffles description. He was a modest man; he had never conceived an overweening notion of his own powers; he knew himself unfit to write a book, turn a table napkin-ring, entertain a Christmas party with legerdemain—grapple (in short) any of those conspicuous accomplishments that are usually classed under the head of genius. He knew—he admitted—his parts to be pedestrian, but he had considered them (until quite lately) fully equal to the demands of life. And to-day he owned himself defeated: life had the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... lariat at length Might safely noose this splendid thing That so defies all conquering! Ho! but to see it whirl and reel— The sands spurt forward—and to feel The quivering tension of the thong That throned me high, with shriek and song! To grapple tufts of tossing mane— To spurn it to its feet again, And then, sans saddle, rein or bit, To lash the ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley

... very edge of the wood, the column staggered, quailed, fell into disorder, and then fell back. Some of the more desperate dashed singly into the thicket, bayoneting their enemies, and falling in turn in the fierce grapple. Others of the Confederates ran from the wood, and engaged hand to hand with antagonists, and, in places, a score of combatants met sturdily upon the plain, lunging with knife and sabre bayonet, striking with clubbed musket, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... partly for the purpose of increasing its powers of defence and attack. Then it was found that further progress was blocked by a great obstacle, the existence of serfage: and Alexander II. showed that, unlike his father, he meant to grapple boldly with the difficult and dangerous problem. Taking advantage of a petition presented by the Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian provinces, praying that their relations with the serfs might be regulated in a more satisfactory way—meaning in a way more satisfactory ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... a dead cinch to haul off to the smelters. All a space tug had to do was latch on to one of them with a magnetic grapple and start hauling. There was no such simple ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett

... towards us another vessel, the Luisa, which suddenly executed a very extraordinary tack; and in a minute or two its crew sent up a loud shout of joy, having succeeded in stealing a fishbox which the fishermen of Marinduque had sunk in the sea. They had lowered a hook, and been clever enough to grapple the rope of the floating buoy. Our captain was beside himself with envy of ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... his birth's invidious bar And grasp the skirts of happy chance, And breast the blows of circumstance, And grapple with his ...
— The Conservation of Races - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 2 • W. E. Burghardt Du Bois

... has much the best of it, and I was surprised to find with what tenacity the Duke clings to his cherished prejudices, and how he shuts his eyes to the signs of the times and the real state of the country. With the point at issue he never would grapple. Wharncliffe argued for concession, because they have not the means of resistance, and that they are in fact at the mercy of their opponents. The Duke admitted the force against them, but thought it would be possible to govern the country without Reform 'if the King was ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... few precepts in thy memory See thou character—Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in, Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks

... and, indeed, all Christian lands everywhere, from the thin moribund and watery, but appallingly extensive nuisance of conventional poetry—by putting something really alive and substantial in its place—I have undertaken to grapple with, and argue, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... infinite labor and repeated failures, the brave men who undertook the work accomplished it. A year before, their third cable had broken in mid-ocean, and it was now proposed to "grapple" for it. The "Great Eastern" was fitted out with apparatus, which may be likened to an enormous fishing-hook and line, and was sent to the spot where the treasure had been lost. The line was of hemp interwoven with wire. Page 328 shows a section of it. Twice ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various

... would die twice over sooner than let them be taken. Good! but remember, too, that those colours are a sign to you that Christ is with you, ready to give you courage, coolness, and right judgment, in the charge and in the death grapple, just as much as He is with those ministering angels who will nurse and tend your wounds in hospital. God's blessing is on them; but do you never forget that your colours are a sign to you that Christ's blessing is ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... limits of human endeavor. It is comparatively easy to run a tilt against a fellow-mortal, or an external evil; but to set our lance in rest against a cherished sin, a habit that has become our second nature, and remorselessly ride it down—to grapple with a secret fault in the solitude of our own soul, with no applauding hands to spur us on, and fight and wrestle for weary months—years perhaps—this does require heroism of the highest order, and the man who can do ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... up to the trenches, and some even leaping over the redoubt, to grapple hand to hand with those who ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow

... spread I shall be on the spot to grapple with it," said Dr. Marshall.—"What an excellent plan, Mrs. Brett, and how exactly like you!—Now then, young ladies, the sooner you pack up the better. You needn't take a great many things; they can be sent to you afterwards. The great thing is to get ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... and deafened as well, the girl dashed the rain from her eyes and strove to recollect her wits and grapple sanely with ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... not be merely a spasmodic effort coping with the misery of to-day; it must be established on a durable footing, so as to go on dealing with the misery of tomorrow and the day after, so long as there is misery left in the world with which to grapple. ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... not a mood with which the ocean cannot link itself, nor a problem to which it cannot hint, albeit darkly, a solution. To attempt a description of its external phenomena were a hardy task—much more to grapple with its protean influences ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... intense desire that he might grapple with his young foe in the death struggle. Willingly would he have accepted such a decision between their rival claims; but he was alone, wounded, exhausted, a faithful dog his sole friend. He felt that the day of vengeance must ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... sir?" said Anthony desperately. He was trying instinctively to grapple with a situation which had put him upon ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... skirmish, from which SHABRACK the hussar extricated us with but little loss, that which we desired came to pass. It was a terrible spectacle. In a moment both these magnificent animals, their bristles erect, and all their tusks flashing fiercely in the lamp-light, were locked in the death-grapple. Every detail of the memorable struggle is indelibly burnt into my brain. Even at this distance of time, I can remember how we all looked on, silent, awestruck, fascinated, as the dreadful fight proceeded to its inevitable close. For the benefit of others, let me attempt to describe ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various

... he knew not how, struggling in a wild grapple with the dark, black water. A woman was clinging to him—clinging for dear life. But he couldn't have told you himself that minute how it all took place. He was too ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... were completed; the prisoner, unbound, stood between two watchful guards, who attitudinised as though ready to pounce and grapple him upon the least movement. "Now," commanded Jovannic, "take him in and feed him. And for the rest ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... and stood ready to meet the wolf, and, if need were, grapple with it. But the animal, startled at the sound made by the sliding sword, ran off towards the shore and quickly disappeared among ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... deliberate excess of degradation. But gradually the mist cleared away from her bewildered mind, and she recognized the reality of what had befallen her. Still, however, her thoughts could not at once grapple with the overwhelming sense of the indignity and suffering cast upon her. She could not doubt that she had been expelled from her lord's house—cast out unprotected and friendless in the midst of night, with undeserved reproaches. But, for all that, a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... related the poor woman's trouble to her husband just before the entrance of Gaudissart, and at the first words of the famous traveller Vernier determined that he should be made to grapple with Margaritis. ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... force. They made their own flying school, and established their own factory for the output of aircraft. They organized an air service with naval and military wings. They formed advisory and consultative committees to grapple with the difficulties of organization and construction. They investigated the comparative merits and drawbacks of airships and aeroplanes. The airships, because they seemed fitter for reconnaissance over the sea, were eventually assigned ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... thinker in this age. Caesar himself was probably more suited by nature to reason on facts immediately before him than to speculate on abstract principles. Varro, the rough sensible scholar of Sabine descent, was a diligent collector of facts and traditions, but no more able to grapple hard with problems of philosophy or theology than any other Roman of his time. The life of the average wealthy man was too comfortable, too changeable, to suggest the desirability of ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... Ferry, where he remained long after the protecting force of the Confederate army retired, had probably undermined a constitution so vigorous that, in the face of a great exigency, no labor seemed too great or too long for him to grapple with and endure. So, like a ship which, after having weathered the storm, goes down in the calm, the master armorer, soon after he took his quiet post at Fayetteville, was "found dead ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... and stood. But Satan smitten with amazement fell As when Earths Son Antaeus (to compare Small things with greatest) in Irassa strove With Joves Alcides and oft foil'd still rose, Receiving from his mother Earth new strength, Fresh from his fall, and fiercer grapple joyn'd, Throttl'd at length in the Air, expir'd and fell; So after many a foil the Tempter proud, Renewing fresh assaults, amidst his pride 570 Fell whence he stood to see his Victor fall. And as that Theban Monster that propos'd Her riddle, and him, who solv'd it not, devour'd; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... after, Not heedless of valor, but mindful of glory, Was Higelac's kinsman; the hero-chief angry Cast then his carved-sword covered with jewels That it lay on earth, hard and steel-pointed; He hoped in his strength, his hand-grapple sturdy. So any must act whenever he thinketh To gain him in battle glory unending, And is reckless of living. The lord of the War-Geats (He shrank not from battle) seized by the shoulder The mother of Grendel; then mighty in struggle Swung he his enemy, since his anger was kindled, That she fell ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... to support themselves or families, frequently awaken faculties that might otherwise have lain for ever dormant, and it has been commonly remarked that new and extraordinary situations generally create minds adequate to grapple with the difficulties in which ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... copper band, Lay the rudder on the sand, That, like a thought, should have control Over the movement of the whole; And near it the anchor, whose giant hand Would reach down and grapple with the land, And immovable and fast Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast! And at the bows an image stood, By a cunning artist carved in wood, With robes of white, that far behind Seemed to be fluttering in the wind. It was not shaped in a ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow

... many may be led by the facts here presented, to grapple with the monster and to thus promote his ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... you that throw some day, friend," he was saying. "Had I not known the trick of it, you had mauled me sadly. I had liefer grapple ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... opinion now prevailing as to the significance of words in such familiar use. But, in truth, we can come to no agreement as to such definitions, unless we have previously made up our minds on some of the most momentous of all the enigmas with which the human intellect ever attempted to grapple. ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... more familiar, intimate, and discursive—that ultimately held the Rector's thoughts as he kept his watch. For in those letters were contained almost all the objections that a sensitive mind and heart had had to grapple with before determining on the course to which the Rector of Upcote was now committed. They were the voice of the "adversary," the "accuser." Crude or conventional, as the form of the argument might be, it yet represented the "powers and principalities" to be reckoned with. If the ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and was, no doubt, crouching in the dark, ready to shoot. He tried again to find the pistol, and then with an effort pulled himself together. The next move might draw a shot, but he must risk that and not lie there helpless. Besides, if the fellow missed, he might grapple with and disarm him, and ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss

... jester. The former held the fool at a decided disadvantage, as he had sprung upon the back of the jester and was also unweakened by previous efforts. But still the fool contended fiercely, striving to turn so as to grapple with his assailant, and wonderingly the free baron for a moment watched that exhibition of virility and endurance. During the wrestling the jester's doublet had been torn open and suddenly the gaze of the king's guest fell, as if fascinated, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... having told him how he must answer the Stadic if he would get off, she succeeded in obtaining preaudience of the Stadic; who, seeing that the baggage was lusty and mettlesome, was minded before he heard her to grapple her with the hook, to which she was by no means averse, knowing that such a preliminary would secure her a better hearing. When she had undergone the operation and was risen:—"Sir," said she, "you have here Ruggieri ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... breathing heavy draughts of the fresh morning air. The man would not die, he thought. Grey would never be free. No. Yet, since he was a child, before he began to grapple his way through the world, he had never known such a cheerful quiet as that which filled his eyes with tears now; for, if the fight had been hard, Paul ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... carried on a discussion thus, what agreement was possible between them? Yet where, upon the Christian side, was the attempt to grapple with the real difficulties now felt by unbelievers? Simply nowhere. All that had been done hitherto was antiquated. Modern Christianity seemed to shrink from grappling with modern Rationalism, and displayed a timidity which could not ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... thinkest that I shall love thee less if this immense sacrifice be consummated, that I shall look upon thee with loathing. No, not so: and to convince thee that mine is a soul endowed with an iron will, that mine is an energy which can grapple even with remorse, I will reveal to thee a secret which thou hast perhaps never even suspected. Fernand!" she exclaimed, now becoming absolutely terrible with the excitement that animated her; "Fernand!" she repeated, "'twas I ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... circumstance. But most of all he was incensed and shamed by this indignity. He could not trust himself to speak, he would break down. Something was wrong, everything was wrong, fate was against him, he could not grapple with the situation. If he spoke, he would say too much and lose his temper in that solemn hall of justice. And what would happen to ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... RULES THE WAVES German and British Squadrons Grapple off the Chilean Coast—Germany Wins the First Round—England Comes Back with Terrific Force—Graphic Picture of the Destruction of the German Squadron off Falkland Islands—English Coast Towns Bombarded for the First Time in ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... school. He learned to write his beautiful copper-plate hand, and knocked the bottom out of arithmetic and geography. Then came sheer erudition—the nature of chemical elements, stars in their courses, kings of England with their Magna Chartas and habeas corpuses. Nor content even then, he must needs grapple with Roman emperors and Greek republics, and master the fabled lore concerning gods and goddesses, cloven-footed satyrs, and naked nymphs of the grove. But he understood that, in spite of all this culture, in spite, too, of his greater care ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... She was a mighty pretty, innocent, plump little thing, and we'd rather have had most anything than that she should stand there cryin'. But we were all hung by the feet and wandering in our minds. The simple life of the cow-puncher doesn't fit him to grapple with ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips

... of the moment was in my heart, as in every other heart there. It was a horrid, oppressive fear. I retired to a quiet corner to grapple with it. I was not given to weeping, but I must think things out in words. I repeated to myself that the trouble was all about money. Somebody wanted money from our tenant, who had none to give. Our furniture was going to be sold to make ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... strong to do and dare: If a host had withstood him there, He had braved a host with little care In his lusty youth and his pride, Tough to grapple though weak to snare. He comes, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... it wuz a worthy object, and she would love to help it along, but they had so many expenses of their own to grapple with, that she didn't see her way clear to promise to do anything. She said the girls had got to have some new velvet suits, and some sealskin sacques this winter, and they had got to new furnish the parlors, and send their oldest boy to college, and the girls ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley

... English shot. For all that the English admiral would not permit his people to board their ships, because they had such a number of soldiers on board, which he had not; their ships were many in number, and greater, and higher, that if they had come to grapple, as many would have had it, the English being much lower than the Spanish ships, must needs have had the worst of them that fought from the higher ships. And if the English had been overcome, the loss would have been greater than the victory ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... the South. Yet Dr. Le Grand was both unassuming and undemonstrative. He looked for and expected a clashing of races on election day in Wilmington, but that which took place on the 10th of November was far more than he was prepared to grapple with. The dawn of that fatal day found the streets of Wilmington crowded with armed men and boys, who had sprung, as it were, by magic from the earth. Aroused by loud noises in the neighborhood of his residence, the minister arose ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... of War seemed to be the one member of the Administration who was prepared to grapple with reality and who had the courage of his convictions. While Jefferson was warning him that it was nonsense to talk about a regular army, Monroe told Congress flatly that no reliance could be pled in the militia and that a permanent force of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... Negroes was one of terror. And as for civilization it was beaten down by the red hand of violence. The blacks during these years were crushed between two irreconcilable forces, two antagonistic governments which were locked in a death grapple for possession of that section. The one government was open and regular, while the other was secret and lawless. The first was supported by a few native and Northern whites and by the great body of the blacks, and the second was upheld by the ...
— The Ultimate Criminal - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 17 • Archibald H. Grimke

... of that, the philosophy of ready-made clothes applies as much to unbelief as to faith. Now and then one meets a mind distracted by genuine doubt, and it is refreshing and stimulating to grapple with its problems. One respects the doubter because the doubt fits him like the elastic silk; it seems a part and parcel of his personality. But at other times one can see at a glance that the doubter is all togged out in ready-made ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... had mutilated the bodies they had passed on the road; it was she who had killed and half-eaten their driver; it was she—but he could think no more, it was all too horrible, and the revulsion of his feelings towards her clogged his brain. He longed to grapple with her, strangle her, and he could do nothing. The bare touch of those fingers—those cool, white, tapering fingers, with their long, shining filbert nails, all ready and eager to tear and rend his flesh to pieces—had taken all the life from his limbs, and he could only gaze feebly at her ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... courage that never failed. But the spectacle of widespread popular demoralization, of selfish scrambles for plunder, and of feeble administration at the centre of government weighed upon him heavily. It was not the general's business to build up Congress and grapple with finance, but Washington addressed himself to the new task with his usual persistent courage. It was slow and painful work. He seemed to make no progress, and then it was that his spirits sank at the prospect of ruin and defeat, not coming on the field of battle, but from our own vices ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... the eerie darkness, something had launched itself at him—something silent and terrible, that had flown to the Missourian's aid. Down with a crash went the German, on his back. He rolled against the Missourian, who promptly sought to grapple with him. ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... and mankind at large: it will be news to us all." Then he continued—"But, after all, the earth is beautiful, and the sun does shine: we have our own happiness to rejoice in, our own sorrows to bear, the suffering that is near to us to grapple with. For the rest, for this blackness of evil which surrounds us, and which we can do nothing to lighten, it will soon, thank God, become vague and far off to you as it is to others: your feeling of it will be dulled, and, except at ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... it is often used without a definite reference to any antecedent, and is sometimes a mere expletive, and sometimes the representative of an action expressed afterwards by a verb; as, "Whether she grapple it with the pride of philosophy."—Chalmers. "Seeking to lord it over God's heritage."—The Friend, vii, 253. "It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink."—Prov., xxxi, 4. "Having no ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... me as if she were helpless to grapple with his meaning, and, for fear of worse, I thought best to evade it. I said: "I don't believe that anybody is troubled by those distinctions. We are used to them, and everybody acquiesces in them, which is a proof that they ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells

... gone in June to the South Brooklyn waterfront and had taken a room in a tenement near the end of a dock peninsula which jutted out into the bay. For I wanted to live in the very heart of the big port's confusion, to grapple alone with the chaos out of which Dillon's engineers were striving to bring order. Here I lived for weeks by myself, taking my meals in a ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... hitherto woman had had no entrance into the inner chambers of his thoughts. And this beautiful stranger, nameless and homeless, had almost wrested the door of his heart from its hinges, without even an attempt thereat, and the young man was trying to grapple with the new ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... and just as the two were about to grapple he pushed himself between them and began ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... vain! Such mockery now to me! She was the sole reality of this universe to my heart! I grapple with shadows unceasingly. There is not on the face of this globe a more desolate wretch. You understand this! You feel for me, you do not deride me! You know how perfect, how spiritual she was! You loved her well—I saw it in your eyes, your manner—and for that, if nothing ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... resurrection. [194:20] When the apostles surveyed the humble individual with whom they were in daily intercourse, it is not extraordinary that their faith faltered, and that their powers of apprehension failed, as they pondered the prophecies relating to His advent. When they attempted closely to grapple with the amazing truths there presented to their contemplation, and thought of "the Word made flesh," well might they be overwhelmed with a feeling of giddy and dubious wonder. Even after the resurrection ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... blue banner close behind, and forward leapt those hardy foresters where the enemy's reeling line strove desperately to stand and re-form. So waxed the fight closer, fiercer; griping hands fumbled at mailed throats and men, locked in desperate grapple, fell and were lost 'neath the press; but forward went the tattered banner, on and on until, checking, it reeled dizzily, dipped, swayed and vanished; but Roger had seen and sprang in ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... torrent surges, to drive through the dyke as a spear, Eagled-eyed e'en in his blindness, our chief sets his double array, Making the fleet two spears, to thrust at the foe, any way, . . . 'Anyhow!—without orders, each captain his Frenchman may grapple perforce: Collingwood first' (yet the Victory ne'er a whit slacken'd her course) 'Signal for action! Farewell! we shall win, but we meet not again!' —Then a low thunder of readiness ran from the decks o'er the main, And on,—as the message from masthead to masthead flew out like a flame, ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... and the first touch of the cool night air, the first glance up and down the noisy street, brought Keith to himself, his mind ready to grapple with the problem of Hope's disappearance. It seemed to him he had already looked everywhere, yet there was nothing to do except to continue the search, only more systematically. The sheriff assumed control—clear headed, and accustomed to that sort of thing—calling in Hickock ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... some teaching work was offered him at Merton, and by Mr. Grey's advice he accepted it, thus postponing for a while that London curacy and that stout grapple with human need at its sorest for which his soul was pining. 'Stay here a year or two,' Grey said bluntly; 'you are at the beginning of your best learning time, and you are not one of the natures ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... will really try to grapple with this problem of the cross will find very soon the same thing. The first thing that we need to learn, if our criticism of Jesus is to be sound, is that we are not at all so near him as we have imagined. He ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover

... to breast, Or the race prize to wrest, were but effort in vain; On the message of death pours an Egypt of wrath,[127] The fever's hot breath, the dart-shot of pain. Ah, desolate eld! the wretch that is held By thy grapple, must yield thee his dearest supplies; The friends of our love at thy call must remove,— What boots how they strove from thy bands to arise? They leave us, deplore as it wills us,—our store, Our strength at the core, and our vigour of mind; Remembrance ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... first to one side and then to the other. Assaults and counter-assaults were the order of the day. From Ostend, on the North Sea, now in the hands of the Germans, to the southern extremity of Alsace-Lorraine, the mighty hosts were locked in a death grapple; but, in spite of the fearful execution of the weapons of modern warfare, there had been no really decisive engagement. Neither side had suffered a ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... its utmost stretch, it is best that you should be alone. Even when the studious man comes to have a wife and children, he finds it needful that he should have his chamber to which he may retire when he is to grapple with his task of head-work; and he finds it needful, as a general rule, to suffer no one to enter that chamber while he is at work. It is not without meaning that this solitary chamber is called a study: the word reminds us that hard mental ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... seems the great Avenger; History's lessons but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'Twixt old systems and the Word; Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne; Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... deep-chested, strong-limbed, and so compact of bone and muscle, that in a ship of the line, in which he afterwards sailed, there was not, among five hundred able-bodied seamen, a man who could lift so great a weight, or grapple with him on equal terms. His education had been but indifferently cared for at home: he had, however, been taught to read by a female cousin, a niece of his mother's, who, like her too, was both the daughter ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... of little things in gold and silver. He was engaged in bursting open certain boxes to get at the jewels he had noticed, when my dog jumped upon him, and put him to much trouble to defend himself with his sword. The dog, unable to grapple with an armed man, ran several times through the house, and rushed into the rooms of the journeymen, which had been left open because of the great heat. When he found they paid no heed to his loud barking, he dragged ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... because of the current laws of the colony. But instructions to the royal Governor was one thing; putting these instructions into effect was quite another. Neither the Council nor the Burgesses were willing to grapple directly with land reform and no action was taken by the two bodies to implement the recommendations of the Board of Trade. Governor Nicholson on his own ordered that no more headrights be issued for the importation of ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.

... and the street cars begin their clatter and clang. All this comes floating up to you on the still morning air, until an ever-increasing crescendo of sounds is borne in upon you, telling that the town has awakened from its nap, stretched itself like a drowsy giant, and is ready once more to grapple with its various problems. ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson

... time afterwards, however, he had to grapple with his partner's work in real earnest. For the first time in his life the genial shipbroker was laid up with a rather serious illness. A chill caught while bathing was going the round of certain unsuspected weak ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... flattering; he was complimented warmly by some of the speakers on his own side; but it must be confessed that his debut was more showy than promising. It lacked weight in metal, as was observed at the time, and the mode of delivery was more like a schoolboy's recital than a masculine grapple with an argument. It was, moreover, full of rhetorical exaggerations, and disfigured with conceits. Still it scintillated with talent, and justified the opinion that he was an extraordinary young man, probably destined to distinction, though he ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... of encyclopaedias—not even walls of Bibles shall save us, nor miles of Carnegie-library. Empty and hasty and cowardly living does not get itself protected from the laws of nature by tons of paper and ink. The only way out for civilisation is through the practical men in it—men who grapple daily with ideals, who keep office hours with their souls, who keep hold of life with books, who take enough time out of hurrahing ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... coolly as if they had been the pieces on a chessboard. He was fate to the Confederacy, upon whose throat he placed his iron grasp, never relaxed until life was extinct. In May, 1864, he quietly crossed the Rapidan for the death-grapple. He took the most direct route for Richmond, ignoring all obstacles and the fate of his predecessors. To think that General Grant wished to fight the battle of the Wilderness is pure idiocy. One would almost as soon choose the Dismal Swamp for a battleground. ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... twelve" any more likely to please a boy of twelve than a modern novel is likely to please a man of thirty-seven; even if the novel be described truly as "suitable for a man of thirty-seven"? I confess that I cannot grapple with ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne

... Incensed to find his vast empire perpetually harassed by foes so lawless and in numbers so puny, Charles the Emperor resolved to put down the Corsairs' trade once and for ever. He had subdued Tunis in 1535, but piracy still went on. Now he would grapple the head and front of the ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... another tumbler of wine before I can grapple with these chaps," said he, eyeing them, and looking into Madame de Genlis's book: "'Garsoon, donnez-moi un verre de vin,'" holding up the book and pointing to the sentence. He again set to and "went a good one" at both mutton and ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... learned the rudiments of Wolf life: that the way to fight Dogs is to run, and to fight as you run, never grapple, but snap, snap, snap, and make for the rough country where Horses cannot bring ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... passions," is this that he has spread under her for a footcloth or hung behind her for a curtain! The descendant of that other his ancestral Alcides, late offshoot of the god whom he loved and who so long was loth to leave him, is here as in history the visible one man revealed who could grapple for a second with very Rome and seem to throw it, more lightly than he could cope with Cleopatra. And not the Roman Landor himself could see or make us see more clearly than has his fellow provincial of Warwickshire that first ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... sixteenth-century Paris—as I learned afterwards when they reappeared in the New Arabian Nights—I would not have bidden him good-bye as to an 'unfledged comrade,' but would have wished indeed to 'grapple him to my soul with hooks ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... Mrs. Gaylord, whom Bartley had led to her chair and placed on her cushion, "'t he had a headache when he first came in," and she appealed to him for corroboration, while she vainly endeavored to gather force to grapple again with the larger fact that he and Marcia were just engaged ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... Avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;[29] Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,— Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... remember the writer you mean, my dear young lady," returned Mr. Truck, quite innocently; "but he was a sensible fellow, for I believe Vattel has never yet dared to grapple with the winds. There are people who fancy the weather is foretold in the almanack; but, according to my opinion, it is safer to trust a rheumatis' of two or three years' standing. A good, well-established, old-fashioned rheumatis'—I ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... plaster after a fashion, and it will hide the solution of continuity that lies beneath. But let bad weather come, and soon the bricks gape apart as before. And so, as soon as we get down below the surface of things and grapple with the real, deep-lying, and formative principles of a life, we come to antagonism, just as they used to come to it long ago, though the form of it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... trying very hard, all his life's training against sudden unbridling of his bridled passions, to grapple his mind back from its wild and passionate desires and from its amazed coursings upon the immense prairies, teeming with hazards, fears, enchantments, hopes, dismays, that broke before this hour as breaks upon the hunter's gaze, ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... tomahawk in hand, pursued the captain close. Captain Mason sensed the lifted hatchet poised to split his head. He was too weak to run farther—he whirled, to grapple. He had not noticed that the sergeant's rifle was loaded. By a vigorous shove he pushed the Indian backward, down hill, and the tomahawk blade was buried in the ground. The gun! It was loaded and capped! He ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... deep for Freddy, and he takes a bite of sweet-cake in sign that he does not think of solving it. Frank looks at him gloomily for a moment, and then determines that he can grapple with the difficulty more successfully after he has had tea. "Send up the supper, Bridget. I think, my dear," he says, after they have sat down, "we'd better all question our lost child ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... since become a commonplace of dramatic criticism. But, so far as I know, no one has yet realised the main reason for this, which is, simply, that characters are interesting to a crowd only in those crises of emotion that bring them to the grapple. A single individual, like the reader of an essay or a novel, may be interested intellectually in those gentle influences beneath which a character unfolds itself as mildly as a water-lily; but to what Thackeray called "that savage child, the crowd," a character does not appeal ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... counted on Bug? He had watched this fearful grapple, motionless and terror-stricken, and now with a child's vision he saw what Gresh meant to do. Springing up, he caught the heavy coat on which he had been sitting and flung it on the fire, smothering the embers and putting ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... Fisher felt better prepared to grapple with Rapperschwyll for the possession of the secret. For five days he lay in wait for the Swiss physician. On the sixth day the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... that he could toy with the Potomac army no longer, and this was more than ever impossible after Grant took command. Then Greek met Greek, and the death grapple began. At the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania, and most mercilessly of all at Cold Harbor, Grant drove his colossal battering-ram against Lee's gray wall, only to find ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... father's own all the money the freedman had made. Hrut heard this, and he and his sons liked it very ill. They were most of them grown up, and the band of kinsmen was deemed a most forbidding one to grapple with. Hrut fell back on the law as to how this ought to turn out, and when the matter was searched into by lawyers, Hrut and his son stood at but little advantage, for it was held a matter of great weight that Hrut had set the freedman down without ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... Errand," and he is welcome to it; that is, he is welcome to fourteen of its twenty stanzas,—the other six do not belong to him. Give him also, painstaking man! due laudation for his version of the "Divine Du Bartas," of which formidable work anyone who has the courage to grapple with its six hundred and fifty-odd folio pages may know where ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... Congress than this of the regulation of interstate business. This country can not afford to sit supine on the plea that under our peculiar system of government we are helpless in the presence of the new conditions, and unable to grapple with them or to cut out whatever of evil has arisen in connection with them. The power of the Congress to regulate interstate commerce is an absolute and unqualified grant, and without limitations other than those prescribed by the Constitution. The Congress has constitutional authority to make ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... admirable coolness, the promptness, the cheerful patience, the heroic ardor, the intelligence, the tough experience of campaigning, the profound conviction that the cause was in truth "the good old cause," which was now to come to the death-grapple with its old enemy, Justice against Injustice, Order against Anarchy,—all these should now have their turn, and the wanderer and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... artfully array'd, Boldly by battery besieg'd Belgrade; Cossack commanders cannonading come, Dealing destruction's devastating doom, Every endeavour engineers essay, For fame, for fortune, forming furious fray. Gaunt gunners grapple, giving gashes good, Heaves high his head heroic hardihood; Ibraham, Islam, Ismael, imps in ill, Jostle John Jarovlitz, Jem, Joe, Jack, Jill. Kick kindling Kutusoff, king's kinsmen kill; Labour low levels loftiest, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various

... not going well there. When the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed, Sumner exultantly exclaimed: "It sets freedom and slavery face to face, and bids them grapple." Nebraska was conceded to freedom, but the day Kansas, the southern Territory, was thrown open to settlement, a long, confused, confusing struggle began. The whole country was drawn into it. Blue lodges in the South, emigrant aid societies in the North, ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... executive officer for determination and vigour is the surest way to make him popular. Calling Mr. Forster "Buckshot" Forster did him no harm. On the contrary, the epithet might have helped him to success had not Mr. Gladstone given way behind him at the most critical moment of his grapple with the revolutionary organisation in Ireland. We hear a great deal about resistance to tyrants being obedience to God, but I fear that obedience to God is not the strongest natural passion of the human heart, and I doubt whether resistance to tyrants can often be ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... grown into a mammoth institution, celebrated throughout Europe, and scattering the seeds of truth into all lands.[26] It became a living proof that Pietism was not only able to combat the religious errors of the times but also to grapple with the grave wants of common life. Is not that a good and safe theology, which, in addition to teaching truth, can also clothe the naked and feed the hungry? Francke's prayer, so often offered in some secluded corner of the field or the woods, was answered even before ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... yet been taken to bring the proportion more nearly to the requirements of modern warfare. The supply of trench guns and mortars, with their ammunition, hand-grenades, and other most necessary munitions of war, was almost negligible, nor was there any active attempt to understand and grapple vitally with the new problems calling for the application of modern science to the character of warfare ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres

... cloud again disappeared. Henry VII. sat too insecurely on his throne to venture on a resolute reform, even if his feelings had inclined him towards it, which they did not. Morton durst not resolutely grapple with the evil. He rebuked and remonstrated; but punishment would have caused a public scandal. He would not invite the inspection of the laity into a disease which, without their assistance, he had not the strength to encounter; and his incipient reformation died away ineffectually ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... her extravagances amused Ben exceedingly, and by keeping to a line of questioning he drew from her nearly all her salient experiences—excepting, of course, her grapple with ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... heard so Mrs. Rossitur told me; but I fear, pardon me, you do not look fit to grapple with such a ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... were smitten hard By fourfold wind and rain; 'twas he who slew The liars at the altars of the gods, And, at the very threshold of a throne, Heaped curses on its impious lord; 'twas he Jehovah raised to grapple Sin that stalked, Arrayed about with kingship; and to strike Through gold and purple, to the heart of it. And therefore Falsehood quaked before his face, And Tyranny grew dumb at sight of him, And Lust and Murder raged abroad no more; But where these were ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... reached the aft hatchway as the soldier who was on guard turned to complete his walk, and passing his arm round his neck, pulled him down before he could utter a cry. In the confusion of the moment the man loosed his grip of the musket to grapple with his unseen antagonist, and Fair, snatching up the weapon, swore to blow out his brains if he raised a finger. Seeing the sentry thus secured, Cheshire, as if in pursuance of a preconcerted plan, leapt down the after ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... long run changeable; and second, which is more important, that each individual form is a self-fertilising hermaphrodite, so that each hair-breadth variation is not lost by intercrossing. Your manner of putting the case would be even more striking than it is if the mind could grapple with such numbers—it is grappling with eternity—think of each of a thousand seeds bringing forth its plant, and then each a thousand. A globe stretching to the furthest fixed star would very soon be covered. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... (p. 344,) Mr. Jowett professes to grapple with the phenomenon of Inspiration. His method is instructive. He begins by inadvertently advancing a direct untruth: for he asserts that for none "of the higher or supernatural views of Inspiration is there any foundation in the Gospels ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... by illness, the voyager, of course, has a ravenous appetite; such being the case, what can be more exasperating than having to grapple with a sort of dioramic dinner, where the dishes represent a series of dissolving views—mutton and beef of mature age, leaping about with a playfulness only becoming living lambs and calves—while the proverb of "cup and lip" becomes a truism from perpetual illustration? ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... me fall on my face, For methinks 'tis you are my father, And for fear lest men of Eire should see Me retreating from your fierce grapple." ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... Besides, people who, like the Athenians in the present instance, are tempted by pride of strength to attack their neighbours, usually march most confidently against those who keep still, and only defend themselves in their own country, but think twice before they grapple with those who meet them outside their frontier and strike the first blow if opportunity offers. The Athenians have shown us this themselves; the defeat which we inflicted upon them at Coronea, at the time when our quarrels had allowed ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... foppish, would be appropriate as applied to his oratory. He was no admirer of O'Leary, and the feeling of dislike was as mutual as could well be conceived. Him, therefore, O'Leary selected as the opponent with whom he meant to grapple. Those to whom he communicated his intention, and who knew his powers, looked forward with expectation "on tiptoe" for a scene of enjoyment that no anticipation could exaggerate. Disappointment was, however, their lot. The ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... the world and bends to its chosen toil. The grand, patient, hopeful people, how they grasp blind brute nature, and tame her, and use her at their word! How they challenge and defeat in the death grapple the grim giants of the waste and the storm—fever, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... to his conscience leal, Conceived that God had chosen him With Treason's sophistries to deal, And grapple with the Anakim Whose menace ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... unequal to the difficulties of such a position as that in which he found himself. Raised to the throne after the victory of Chaeroneia had placed Philip at the head of Greece, and when a portion of the Macedonian forces had already passed into Asia, he was called upon to grapple at once with a danger of the most formidable kind, and had but little time for preparation. It is true that Philip's death soon after his own accession gave him a short breathing-space: but at the same time it threw him off his guard. The military talents of Alexander were untried, and of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... sometimes to the bravest—dormant sense impressions, running back to the cave age and beyond, become active, harry the mind with subtle, unreasoning qualms—and she was a girl, brave enough, but out of the only environment she knew how to grapple with. All the fearsome tales of forest beasts she had ever heard rose up to harass her. She had not lifted up her voice while it was light because she was not the timid soul that cries in the face of a threatened danger. Also because she would ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... are just the sort of things with which self-government was really supposed to grapple. People were supposed to be able to indicate whether they wished to live in town or country, to be represented by a gentleman or a cad. I do not presume to prejudge their decision; perhaps they would prefer the cad; perhaps he is really preferable. I say that ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... sin, is the object of the wrath of God. How dreadful therefore must his case be who continues in sin; for who can bear and grapple ...
— Miscellaneous Pieces • John Bunyan

... a word Touching my mother's death was spoke and heard, Till Phoebus rose to save me. Even lay The votes of Death and Life; when, lo, a sway Of Pallas' arm, and free at last I stood From that death grapple. But the Shapes of Blood— Some did accept the judgment, and of grace Consent to make their house beneath that place In darkness. Others still consented not, But clove to me the more, like bloodhounds hot On the dying; till to Phoebus' house once more ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides

... a bad heart and a clear head. I am irresolute, full of most excellent intentions, and in effect as bad as she without the redeeming features of extraordinary cleverness. I am to play the role of a young maiden with an object in life. I am to be full of a new desire to grapple with the weighty problems of the moment. I am to be carefully coached for each club meeting; I am to be veneered with a thin skin of glittering knowledge. I am, indeed, bewildered, startled. I am made to read all of the book notices worth the reading. I am made to ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.

... must have been, so the metaphysician, according to Hegel, sees, from any one piece of reality, what the whole of reality must be—at least in its large outlines. Every apparently separate piece of reality has, as it were, hooks which grapple it to the next piece; the next piece, in turn, has fresh hooks, and so on, until the whole universe is reconstructed. This essential incompleteness appears, according to Hegel, equally in the world of thought and in the ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell

... each other like Japanese wrestlers before the grapple. Their eyes were slits as they put up the ante of five packets each. O Lalala opened the pot for five packets and Kivi, nudged by his backers, feverishly balanced them. He took three cards, O Lalala but one. Standing behind the Tahitian, I saw ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien



Words linked to "Grapple" :   wrestling, clutch, move, extemporize, scrape along, rub along, meet, prehend, manage, hack, tool, squeak by, scratch along, improvise, make do, act, seize, cope with, scrape by, cut, crampoon, struggle, make out, squeeze by, grappling hook, match, crampon, claw, fend, hook, dredging bucket



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