"Stumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and stumble-over-things age! Piano-stools, rugs, anything that comes in his way. And the impressions wouldn't do him a bit of good. They might, in fact, do him harm," and she laughed merrily and spread her fingers to the ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... under Maurice's racquet; she saw the flecks of sunshine on the moss—she heard him say he "hadn't played the game with Eleanor." Oh, he hadn't, he hadn't! Then she thought of the Dale woman. The accident on the river. The stumble at the gate and of Maurice's child in Lily's arms. "Oh, poor Eleanor! poor Eleanor! ... All the same, she is wicked, to be so cruel to him. She is taking her revenge. Jealousy has made her wicked. But, oh, I wish I hadn't hurt her in the garden! But how could Maurice—that little, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... neay carrion can kill a craw." "It's a good horse that duz never stumble, And a good wife that duz never grumble." "Neare is my sarke, but nearer is my skin." "It's an ill-made bargain whore beath parties rue." "A curst cow hes short horns." "Wilfull fowkes duz never want weay." "For change of pastures macks ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... streak in me also. But what I can't understand is why you return and put your head in the lion's mouth. The police will stumble on something. I tell you frankly that if you are arrested I could do little or nothing for you. The United States protects only harmless political outcasts. Yours is a crime such as nullifies your citizenship, and any government would be compelled, ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... tin, and old wooden houses that made Tweipans, belonged to Lady Hannah then. Accompanied by Trudi, whose quality of being what I have heard called "deaf-nosed" with regard to noisy smells, she arrived at the pitch of envying, she would stumble up and down amongst the rubbish, or wade through the slush if it had been wet, and stop at favourable points to search with her night-glass for the greenish-blue glow-worm twinkles of distant Gueldersdorp, and wonder whether anybody there was thinking of her ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... balourdise^; botch, botchery^; bad job, sad work. sprat sent out to catch a whale, much ado about nothing, wild- goose chase. bungler &c 701; fool &c 501. V. be unskillful &c adj.; not see an inch beyond one's nose; blunder, bungle, boggle, fumble, botch, bitch, flounder, stumble, trip; hobble &c 275; put one's foot in it; make a mess of, make hash of, make sad work of; overshoot the mark. play tricks with, play Puck, mismanage, misconduct, misdirect, misapply, missend. stultify oneself, make a fool of oneself, commit oneself; act foolishly; play the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to keep out of the way of the purser and succeeded until nightfall. But then, when he was carrying an extra heavy trunk, Peter Polk got in his way and made him stumble and drop the piece of baggage. The trunk was split open at one end and some of the contents fell on the deck. It was a lady's trunk, filled with feminine wearing apparel, and a good ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... insisted on completing the task by washing the dishes, putting all to rights in the camp; then mended a rent in his coat which he had got from a stumble in the dark the night before. He laughed, but her ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... translators. Pravriddha is not (as Mr. Davies renders it) "old" or "very old," but swelling or fully developed. Then again, Mr. Davies commits a ludicrous blunder in rendering Rite twam as "Except thee." This is one of those idioms at which a foreigner is sure to stumble who has only the lexicons for his guide. What Krishna says is not that all would perish save Arjuna, but that without Arjuna (i.e., even if he did not fight) all ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... me. But so it is. I know it by experience to be true. I warn you that you will find it true one day; that all spite, passion, prejudice, suspicion, hard judgments, contempt, self-conceit, blind a man's reason, and heart, and soul, and make him stumble and fall into mistakes, even in worldly matters, just as surely as shutting our eyes makes us stumble in broad daylight. He who gives way to such passions is asleep, while he fancies himself broad awake. ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... heaven to visit us; but in this case the gods are departing from their usual practice, for hitherto they have made themselves perfectly clear to us when we have been offering them hecatombs. They come and sit at our feasts just like one of our selves, and if any solitary wayfarer happens to stumble upon some one or other of them, they affect no concealment, for we are as near of kin to the gods as the Cyclopes and the savage giants ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... time my wife could teach you. Her figure is squat, round, her nose is clumsy, and her eyes stumble over it; but her cooking, ah—(He blows a kiss) it is a thing to dream about. She cooks as naturally as the angels sing. The delicate flavors of her concoctions float over the palate like the perfumes of a thousand ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... buried in the bogs of Wolmer-forest is not yet all exhausted, for the peat-cutters now and then stumble upon a log. I have just seen a piece which was sent by a labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this village, this was the butt-end of a small oak, about five feet long, and about five inches in diameter. It had apparently been severed ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... no light in the corridor except that which streamed through the reddish globes of the chandelier above the dining table. If only the man did not stumble on his way up, ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... or whatever power it be that wills the nature of the end of man, turned aside the death with which he already seemed to grapple. At the very moment when the flash rose from the havoc-dealing gun, he chanced to stumble over the dead body of a soldier, and fell flat upon his face. Scarcely had he touched the ground when he was again upon his feet; but even in that short space of time he alone, of those who had entered the ditch, had been left unscathed. Before him came bellying ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... so, perhaps, than you yourself will believe, or than even I, or other partial friends, can fairly allow to your merit. You stand high,—do not rashly attempt to climb higher, and incur the risk of a fall; for, depend upon it, a favourite will not be permitted even to stumble with impunity." I replied to this affectionate expostulation in the words ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... mood, in short every phase of happiness and unhappiness, are endocrine episodes in the life history of the individual, the sphere of applications is as long and broad and deep as life itself. Not only do the internal secretions open up before us the great hope—that Life at last will cease to stumble and grope and blunder, manacled by the iron chains of inexorable cause and effect. They provide tools, concrete and measurable, that can be handled and moved, weighed and seen, for the management of the problems ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... sentimental scenes) Thus I begin: "All is not gold that glitters, "Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters. "When Ignorance enters, Folly is at hand: "Learning is better far than house and land. "Let not your virtue trip; who trips may stumble, "And virtue is not ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... pains—and His life, so full of sorrows; also, by rejoicing in the contemplation of His works, of His greatness, and of the love that He bears us. Many other considerations there are which he who really desires to make progress will often stumble on, though he may not be very much on the watch for them. If with this there be a little love, the soul is comforted, the heart is softened, and tears flow. Sometimes it seems that we do violence to ourselves and weep; at other times, our Lord seems to do so, ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... was so narrow that two could seldom come up abreast, and so steep that the enemy had much ado to struggle and stumble upwards. The men seemed half unwilling to proceed, and hung back more than once; but Amyas could hear an authoritative voice behind, and presently there emerged to the front, sword in hand, a figure at which Amyas and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... sensibility to being laid hold of unexpectedly by prisoners who have run away from French soldiers. Men are born with antipathies; I myself can't abide the smell of mint. Tito was born with an antipathy to old prisoners who stumble and ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... background of streaming furs and glistening feathers. The only time they are forbidden to enter the kasgi is when the shaman is performing certain secret rites. They also have secret meetings of their own when all men are banished.[3] I happened to stumble on to one of these one time when they were performing certain rites over a pregnant woman, but being a white man, and therefore unaccountable, I was greeted with a good-natured laugh and ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... the saying is, "Bernardus non vidit omnia". Had the learned Dr. Heylin (that is Hoelin, little Howell) had a little knowledge of his ancestors' Welsh, he would not have made such a stumble, and so forced these etymologies; but would easily have found that Cricklad comes from kerig, stones; and glad, a country; which two words give a true description of the nature of the country on that side of Cricklad, which is, ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... and devoted much time to it; but nobody knew how to play very well yet, except Harry Foster and Julia Picknell, and they were the most difficult ones to catch for an idle afternoon. George Max could play, and one or two others could stumble through a game and like it pretty well; but as for Mary Beck, her shoes were too small for much agility, and she liked to wear her clothes so tight that she was very clumsy with a racket. Betty's light little gowns looked prim and plain to the Tideshead girls, who thought their colors very strange, ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... distinguished the horns. They may have struck a soft track or level, or rounded the buttress of the hill higher up, but before they had time to reach or round the foot of the spur, blurs, whispers, stumble and clatter of hoofs, jingle of bridle rings, and the occasional clank together of stirrup irons, seemed shut off as suddenly and completely as though a great sound-proof door had ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... air. He shook himself presently, and set Mutineer at a sharp canter round the larger circle of the bridle path. But before they had half swung the circle, he was deep in thought again, and Mutineer was taking his own pace. Peter deserved to get a stumble and a broken neck or leg, but he didn't. He was saved from it by an incident which never won any credit for its good results to Peter, however ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... of the Treasury, was the messenger, and was Cook's firm friend till the day of his death. Cook had been a short time at school under the instruction of Smothers and Prout, but when he entered the Land Office his education was at most only the ability to stumble along a little in a primary reading-book. He, however, now gave himself in all his leisure moments, early and late, to study. Mr. Wilson remembers his indefatigable application, and affirms that it was a matter of astonishment at the time, and that ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... first: Under its power the sea will stretch itself out dead, the white foam on the lip, in its crystal sarcophagus, and the mountains will stagger and reel and stumble, and fall into the valleys never to rise. Under one puff of that last cyclone all the candles of the sky will be blown out. The ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... the fustian of thy book, The witty ancient you enrobe, You make the graceful Horace look As pitiful as Tom M'Lobe.[1] Ye Muses, guard your sacred mount, And Helicon, for if this log Should stumble once into the fount, He'll make it muddy as ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... unfeeling people, ugliness. They were also deaf, as I have said, and they were scrofulous; one of them was disfigured by the small pox; they had glimmering eyes, red, like the eyes of ferrets, and scarcely half open; and they did not walk so much as stumble along. There, you have the worst of them. Now, hear something on the other side. What first won my pity was, their affection for each other, united to their constant sadness; secondly, a notion which had crept into my head, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... courage, in which one cannot fight unless clad in a strong armour of indifference impervious to the attacks of fools and the envious, in which one must not, if one would not stumble on the road, quit for a single moment that pride in oneself which serves as a leaning staff; a charming and a terrible life, which has conquerors and its martyrs, and on which one should not enter save in resigning oneself in advance ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... I became cautious again; I did n't want to risk a collision with the etagere. What must I do, however, but stumble against the topmost step and plunge head foremost right ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... Gilbert lay down some way farther off from the fire than usual, and Fenton, pretending to stumble as he passed, threw himself down by his side. Their guards, taking no notice of this, allowed them to remain where they were, while they set themselves to cooking part of a deer they had shot during the day. ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... her in. The custom of lifting the bride over the threshold, probably to avert an ill-omened stumble, has prevailed among the most diverse races. For the anointing of the doorposts Brand quotes Langley's translation of Polydore Vergil: "The bryde anoynted the poostes of the doores with swynes' grease, because she thought ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... up and make for me and I make for the door! It was dark, all 'cepting the light from the chimney, and I fumble all up and down the door jamb before I find de latch pin. The old man shorely git me if he hadn't stumble over the eating table and whop his hand right down in de dish of fresh made butter. That make him so mad he jest stand and ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... and from the spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the truth—against which all seekers sooner or later stumble—that our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... pass, then," said his second resignedly. "Gentlemen, are you read—Ods blood! my lord, I had not noticed the roses upon your lordship's shoes! They are so large and have such a fall that they sweep the ground on either side your foot; you might stumble in all that dangling ribbon and lace. Allow me to ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... death struggle, with bloodshot eyes, with foaming, gnashing mouths. They attack and kill one another and try to mangle each other. I leap to my feet. I race out into the night and tread on quaking flesh, step on hard heads, and stumble over weapons and helmets. Something is clutching at my feet like hands, so that I race away like a hunted deer with the hounds at his heels—and ever over more bodies—breathless... out of one field into another. Horror is crooning over my head. Horror is crooning beneath my feet. And nothing ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... two champing tigers driven: Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven, Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements, Laughing they roll or meet ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... ever need. How could one man, or two or three in a team, hope to compete with them? For the independent miner, the only hope was the Big Strike, the single lode that could make him rich. He might work all his life without finding it, and then stumble upon ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... rambles frequently ended in a visit to the schoolmaster; out of curiosity he examined the books, and as he knew some of the letters, the schoolmaster's daughter amused herself by teaching him to spell. The boy would purposely stumble over his words so that she should correct him and touch his shoulder to point out ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... constantly stumble upon is a lame, totally inadmissible application of certain one-sided systems as of a formal code of laws. But it is never difficult to show the one-sidedness of such systems, and this only requires to be done once to throw discredit for ever on critical ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... bees, stupidly staring after the flying child. Then he stirred himself into pursuit, crying, "Stay, fool, stay!" but desisted instantly, for the girl was as fleet as a fawn, and could run surely where his feet would stumble. Already she was out of sight in the ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... "Perhaps. What do any of us know about it, one way or the other? Ticklish business! We poke a little too far beyond our ken and get a shock that withers our souls. Cosmic force! We stumble forward, bleating for comfort, and fall over a charged cable. It may have been put there to ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... that the blind, thus led by the blind, should stumble. The transactions of the French Revolution, in some measure, took their character from these works. Without the assistance of these works, indeed, a revolution would have taken place,—a revolution productive of much good and much evil, tremendous ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and I sent for you immediately! Let us read it again—we'll make another attempt to decipher this incomprehensible name. Confound the fellow! why couldn't he write so that some one besides himself could read it! We must stumble through it," said he, as he again ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... form from them a conclusion concerning him who did them. One aid he offered to the imprisoned prophet,—a word from the Book of Isaiah (xxxv. 5f., lxi. 1f.),—and added a blessing for such as "should find nothing to stumble at in him." Here Jesus emphasized his works, and allowed his message to speak for itself; but he frankly indicated that he expected people to pass from wonder at his ministry to an opinion about ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... slave!— Up, work, look sharp about it!" Bounding a foot and fast retiring from her, I stoop for stones strewn thick about the sand, Aim them, fling them, And, as my idle arm resumes the knack, Score a hit and laugh To see her stumble hurt, behind the pine trunks. "Unless you work, I throw again, To it and steady at it. Mark me, drab, we Camilli Mean what we say." Stone after stone still flies, But aimed to knock chips from the pine-boles now; For she is busy gathering sticks, increasing Her distance as she ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... figures swung down High School Street together, talking and laughing in low voices. The smallest of the six appeared to stumble over her feet, and once tumbled in the road. Her friends gayly helped her up, when it was disclosed that she wore a pair of boy's shoes much too large ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... maples, and ferny groups—it would crush them by and by, poor trusting things—then it would stumble against a rock or pile of loose stones, wake up and repeat the strain it had learned at its mother's breast, far up in the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... a kind of mystery about him; but, besides that, he learnt things in those bitter hours that are not taught in any school. He learnt to suffer with all the great company of those who bear heavy and unseen burdens, who move in the grip of fears and stumble under the load of dark necessities. He grew more tender and more strong. He found in his hand the key to many hearts. Before this he had cared little about the thoughts of other men; but now he found himself for ever wondering what the inner thoughts of the hearts of others were, ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... never slips off! It is contrary to a mule's religion and politics, and all his traditions and precedents, to slip off. He may slide a little and stumble once in a while, and he may, with malice aforethought, try to scrape you off against the outjutting shoulders of the trail; but he positively will not slip off. It is not because he is interested ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... second point, he admitted that Anjou had gained little honor by his recent course; and that it would be a mistake on their part to stumble a second time over the same stone. He foresaw, nevertheless, that the Duke—irritated as he was by the loss of so many of his nobles, and by the downfall of all his hopes in the Netherlands—would be likely to inflict great ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the bent form of the toiling Ottoman in front. Over the bridge they went, the carriers executing a double shuffle diagonally down the steep descent. The passenger opened her mouth and gave a scream that made the Turk in front stumble as he bent his head to see what was wrong. Then she screamed harder, frightening a flock of sea-gulls off the island and bringing a Columbian guard on a run from the north entrance of the Horticultural building to see what was the matter. Then she insisted on getting out, and she was ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... will cherish you there In the nest you will make so pure. I will hold you and guard you safe from the snares of the stony streets. Be at peace, little maid, and lie in trust; For though my feet may stumble, and I may fall, The corner that houses you ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... one of them yields, and is ruined; the other resists, and is raised and strengthened. As Jesus Christ, so all things have a double operation. They are 'either a savour of life unto life or a savour of death unto death.' There is the stone. You may build upon it, or you may stumble over it: you take your choice. Here is the adverse circumstance. You may rule it, or you may let it rule you. Circumstances and outward temptations are the fool's masters, and the wise man's servants. It all depends ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... heard him stumble as they came down, and his movements were slow and hesitating. "Come in with me," said Isbister, "and try some cigarettes and the blessed gift of alcohol. ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... he has to enforce the regulations. But don't you suppose, fellows, that officer was hazed, and did some hazing on his own account, when he was a cadet midshipman here years ago? Of course! And that's why the officer didn't question us any more closely than he did. He was afraid he might stumble on something that would oblige him to report the whole crowd for hazing. He didn't want to do it. That officer, I'm certain, knew that, if he questioned us too closely, he'd find a lot more beneath the surface that he simply didn't ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... of science must necessarily precede the period of unanimity.—TORRENS, Essay on the Production of Wealth, 1821, p. xiii. Even the spread of an error is part of the wide-world process by which we stumble into mere approximations to truth.—L. STEPHEN, Apology of an Agnostic, 81. Errors, to be dangerous, must have a great deal of truth mingled with them; it is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation.—S. SMITH, Moral Philosophy, ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... cases no writer would grumble, But give you his hearty permission, When two correspondents on one mark should stumble, To make ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... turning toward the men. They shook their heads and were silent, gazing curiously at the boy, of whom it was said that he had "bumped off" two T-Bar-T boys in a raid some years ago. Young Pete felt his ground firmer beneath him. The men had ceased laughing. If it had not been for that unfortunate stumble . ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... with wisdom has he done this, and chosen unto himself the kingdom of Egypt. For this is the manner of all the Hebrews, to deceive kings and their magnates, to do all things cunningly in order to make the kings of the earth and their men to stumble. ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... now leads through a thicket. The horses stumble frequently, for the stones are loose, and the footing consequently uncertain. Crouch has a fall, and ere he can remount the lady is gone. It is useless to hurry after her, and he is proceeding slowly, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of a horse's action, I compare him not with other horses, but with animals of a different species. Did you ever know a fox stumble, or a cat make a false step? I guess not; but haven't you seen a bear when chased and tired go head over heels? A dog in a general way is a sure-footed critter, but he trips now and then, and if he was as big as a horse, would throw his rider sometimes. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... person to see him alive was one Baptista Colonna, a page in the service of a Neapolitan captain. This lad, with an extra helmet swung over his shoulder, found himself close to the duke. He saw him surrounded by troops, noticed his horse stumble, was sure that the rider fell. The next moment, Colonna's attention was diverted to himself. He was taken prisoner and knew no more of the day's events. The figure of Charles of Burgundy disappears from the view of man. A curtain ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... had stipulated that the pocketbook should first be felt for, and, if not there, the matter should go no farther. So Edward made a stumble and fell against Mr. Hardie and felt his left breast: the pocket-book was there:—"Yes," he whispered: and Mr. Hardie, in the act of remonstrating at his clumsiness, was pinned behind, and his arms strapped with wonderful rapidity and dexterity. Then first he seemed to awake to his hunger, and uttered ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... in groups and sit on the top of the bank in the growing dusk. We can just see a suggestion of their gay colours and the gleam of their cheroots. G. and I go ashore and stumble along a deep, sandy road; on either side are little and big trees with open cottages behind them, made of neatly woven bamboo matting, lit with oil crusies. We come to a pagoda, and tall white griffins at its entrance staring up into the sky, strange, grotesque beasts—the white-wash ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... inspired to do so by a false belief regarding the rightful transmission of such knowledge; or, by a false modesty, or prudery, they are kept from telling to anyone else what they have discovered or found to be the truth in these matters. And so the people stumble along in ignorance of these vital affairs in life, generation after generation, repeating the errors of their predecessors, and no positive progress being made as the years go by. Because of this state of affairs millions of human beings die every generation, and other millions suffer the ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... daughters of music," the tongue that expresses and the ears that are charmed with it, are "brought low;" they are "afraid of that which is high, and fears are in the way," alarmed at every step they take, lest they should stumble at the slightest obstacle, and especially apprehensive of the difficulties of any ascent. At that age their gray hairs thicken like the white flowers of the "almond tree" when it "flourishes," and even the very "grasshopper is a burden," for they cannot bear the slightest inconvenience, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... I take things to heart that belong to the head alone, while father says that, to his mind, feeling is much more of a need to-day than logic; so what can I do but still stumble along according ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... supposed the islanders avoided us, perhaps from distaste, perhaps by order; and those whom we met we took generally by surprise. The surface of the isle is diversified with palm groves, thickets, and romantic dingles four feet deep, relics of old taro plantation; and it is thus possible to stumble unawares on folk resting or hiding from their work. About pistol- shot from our township there lay a pond in the bottom of a jungle; here the maids of the isle came to bathe, and were several times alarmed by our intrusion. Not for them are the bright cold rivers of Tahiti or ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I should stumble on you in this manner, when I have been looking for you all over the country," continued the gentleman, fumbling his pockets for ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... had the good fortune to stumble on a trail that was evidently used by Indians or other dwellers in the wilderness, probably by men portaging the length of bad water down the river. It was a rough enough path, yet it made his task immeasurably easier. But even with its unexpected aid, the ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... dearest friends. Consider the amorous and lascivious, in the height of their fury they dare violate a Vestal. For custom is very powerful to draw the temper of the body to anything that is suitable to it; and he that is apt to fall will stumble at everything that lies in his way. So it is no wonder that those that have raised in themselves an envious and bewitching habit, if according to the peculiarity of their passion they are carried on to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... it is to be found in an inability to hang together in our play, and an incapacity for comprehending the said fact. Set either instrumentalist by himself, and he will manage to stumble through a tune; but put the whole orchestra together, and the result usually falls short of what should be harmony. The hornist is our feeblest musician. He has not yet succeeded in eliciting more than two notes and a half out ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... begin our investigation in Aristotle's way, and look at the [Greek: phainomena] of the subject, we shall immediately stumble over a maxim which is in everybody's mouth, and which, as it is understood in practice, is true and useful, as it is usually applied in argument, false and misleading. "General truths are more important than particular ones." Often, when in conversation, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... from his door. For she was coming there, nay, possibly had come, since his departure from home, and learning his whereabouts, had followed on to the Academy of Music, leaving her baggage where he should stumble over it ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... better manners than any of you," cried Hervey, laughing; but remember, though I've lost this bet, I don't give up my pedestrian fame.—Sir Philip, there are no women to throw golden apples in my way now, and no children for me to stumble over: I dare you to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... animal in its lair, adjusted anew about him the blanket and the painted coat and luxuriated. At intervals he heard the warriors calling in the valley, and once the sound of footsteps not more than twenty yards away reached him, but he was not disturbed. The chance that they would stumble upon him was still only ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... mare round, set his heels into her sides and, before anyone could move, the horse and its rider sprang for the window, dashed clear through it on to the roadway and away at a gallop, without so much as a stop or a stumble; leaving a shower of broken glass and ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... just now was to assure the safety of the prisoners in the other camp, and he made his way across the island hurriedly, lest by accident Sam should happen to stumble ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... my thoughts: "Men become accustomed to live from youth up as it were in a cage, and when they are once in the open air they dare not venture to use their wings, fearing, if they fly, that they may stumble against everything." ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... (at four o'clock this afternoon) to copy out seven or eight apophthegms of Bacon, in which I have detected such blunders as a school-boy might detect rather than commit. Such are the sages! What must they be, when such as I can stumble on their mistakes or misstatements? I will go to bed, for I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... dance. 'Yes.' 'No,' had not fall'n with half the force. She was fulfill'd with gentleness, And I with measureless remorse; And, ere I slept, on bended knee I own'd myself, with many a tear, Unseasonable, disorderly, And a deranger of love's sphere; Gave thanks that, when we stumble and fall, We hurt ourselves, and not the truth; And, rising, found its brightness all The brighter ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... Church may retire into "chambers of imagery" erected by her own folly; and there, with the light shut out from her, may sink into a slumber disturbed only, now and then, by some dream of superstition; or, with the light still shining on her, her eye may be dim or disordered, and she may stumble at noonday. But the light is as pure as in the days of the apostles; and, if we have eyes to profit by it, we may "understand more than the ancients." The art of printing has supplied us with facilities for the study of the Scriptures which were denied to the fathers ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... be second and not first; All cannot be the first of all: Is not this, too, but vanity? I stumble like to fall. ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... smelt the hounds"; his eyes said, "We looked for the shortest way"; his ears said, "We listened for the breathing of the hounds"; and his legs said, "We ran away with you." Then he asked his tail what it had done, and it said, "Why, I got caught in the bushes or made your leg stumble; that is all I could do." So, as a punishment, the Fox stuck his tail out of his den, and the hounds saw it and caught hold of it, and dragged the Fox out of his den by it and ate him all up. So that was the ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... a signal for him to strap on his pack and stumble onward, he knew not where. He was not concerned with the land of little sticks, nor with Bill and the cache under the upturned canoe by the river Dease. He was mastered by the verb "to eat." He was hunger-mad. He took ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... said Christie, gravely. "I am not wise about such things. I know there are some who make this a stone to stumble over—that we can do nothing, and we must just wait. But don't you remember how it is said, 'Seek ye the Lord while He may be found; call ye upon Him when He is near.' 'They that seek Me early shall find Me.' And in the New Testament, 'Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find.' ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... with two-inch feet stumble by, their calcimined faces streaked with tears and fright. Gray-haired old men shiver with terror and try to hide in any small corner. Lost children and deserted ones, frantic with fear, cling to any passer-by, only to be shoved into the street and often trampled underfoot. And ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... and Mike for the first time inspected the wound inflicted by Gerald Buxton with his shotgun. Little as the lad knew of such things, he saw the hurt was not serious. With the removal of the leaden pellets went the cause of irritation. The stumble in the woods had aggravated the wound temporarily, but a rest for even a day would render it safe for the young man ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... lines as I have, you wouldn't stumble over that," said Ford, falling back, as he commonly did, upon the things he knew. "We shall broaden the Plug Mountain without straightening a curve or throwing a shovelful of earth on the embankment, from beginning to end. On the other hand, the Green ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... characteristic of Russian civilisation, which is a strange conglomeration of products belonging to very different periods. The enquirer who undertakes the study of it will sometimes be scarcely less surprised than would be the naturalist who should unexpectedly stumble upon antediluvian megatheria grazing tranquilly in the same field with prize Southdowns. He will discover the most primitive institutions side by side with the latest products of French doctrinairism, and the most childish superstitions ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... draws near, when you are to leave Saxony and go to Berlin. Berlin will be entirely a new scene to you, and I look upon it, in a manner, as your first step into the great world; take care that step be not a false one, and that you do not stumble at the threshold. You will there be in more company than you have yet been; manners and attentions ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... knew that this intense feeling of energy could not last, that he was rapidly growing weaker, and that ere many minutes had elapsed he would once more stumble and fall, and this time the power to rise ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... was very steep; the Siberian pines swayed their boughs in his face; stones that lay in his path, unseen in the gloom, made him stumble. Now and then a large bird of the night flew by with a rushing sound: the air grew so cold that all Martinswand might have been turning to one huge glacier. All at once he heard through the stillness—for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... more than a great, gaping grave, on the brink of which we walk with wild courage," said the king, softly. "There is no moment that some one does not stumble at our side and fall into the abyss, and we have the courage to continue in the path until our strength fails and we sink, making room for another. Almost all of those who formerly occupied these rooms have vanished. How long will it be ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... June. It is the sweet solstice in life's early summer, which puts forth the fragrant bud and blossom of sin e'er its bitter fruits ripen and turn to ashes on the lips of age. It is the happy transition period, when long legs, and loose joints, and verdant awkwardness, first stumble on the vestibule of manhood. Did you never observe him shaving and scraping his pimpled face till it resembled a featherless goose, reaping nothing but lather, and dirt, and a little intangible fuzz? That is the first symptom of love. Did you never observe him wrestling with ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... study of his subject—the witness—before the trial. In subtle ways with which experience has made him familiar, he studies his man, his life, his character, his habits, his strength, his weakness, his foibles. He divines when he will hesitate, when he will stumble, and he is ready to pounce upon him and force his hesitation into an attempt at concealment, his stumble ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... guide; "pass the word back for 'em to look out they don't stumble, for things are ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... rate, you'll listen to my reasons. There's been time, on both sides, to think them over since——" He caught himself back and hung helpless on the "since": whatever words he chose, he seemed to stumble among reminders of ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... experience, I 'ave. Jesus don't only look after you on a Sunday but six days a week, my friends, six days a week. Fix your eye on Him and He'll keep His eye on you—that's all your part of it. I don't mean to say I don't stumble an' fall into sin. There's times when the Devil will get the upper 'and, but oh, my friends, I ask you each an' every one of you, is that the fault of Jesus? No, it is not 'is fault, it is the fault of the person. The person 'as been forgetting ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... and offers at least a comparison of how a lofty gable looks when it lacks towers of an appropriate height. At the right of this low tower of the facade, hidden behind a wall, is a thoroughly Pagan doorway, which might well pass unobserved, did one not actually stumble upon it unawares. It is a curious reminder of other days and other ways, and how it became an adjunct of this mediaeval church the local records fail to state. The three main portals of the facade, as that of the transept, are somewhat bare of ornament, though the ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... of searching garish light reflected from its surface are pitilessly flashed into the dark places of the earth, which have been wrapped around by the old-time dim religious light, since first the world began. The people in whose eyes these rays beat so mercilessly, reel and stumble blindly on in their march through life, taking wrong turnings at every step, and going woefully astray. Let us hope that succeeding generations will become used to the new conditions, and will fight their way back to a truer path; ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... to apartments "which were a box of boudoirs, as compact as a Chinese toy." "There were carpets on every floor, chairs that were moveable, mirrors that reflected, sofas to sink on, footstools to stumble over; in a word, all the incommodious commodities of my own cabin in Kildare street." Poor Miladi! this was really too provoking, to have all the trouble and expense of journeying from Dublin to see just what was to be seen there; but no matter, it will serve for the subject of some twenty pages ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... of course," replied the stranger. "For instance, this 'notion,' as you call it, will never do. It isn't the thing at all; but see here, Judge, examine this hub. There's a 'notion' in that worth something. I tell you what it is, any boy who can stumble on such an idea, even by accident, has got good stuff ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of St. Augustine there were developed, in every field, theological views of science which have never led to a single truth—which, without exception, have forced mankind away from the truth, and have caused Christendom to stumble for centuries into abysses of error and sorrow. In meteorology, as in every other science with which he dealt, Augustine based everything upon the letter of the sacred text; and it is characteristic of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... know how happy it makes me to be here where I first knew you, to live over every event of those days. Your movable shack is almost as it used to be, though there is no absurd steel boat outside for me to stumble into. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... made the journey before morning, by carrying little Judie a part of the way. As it was, they had to go through the thickest woods to avoid Indians, and must move cautiously all the time, as they could never know when they might stumble upon a party of savages around a camp-fire, or sleeping under a tree. Those of my readers who live in the far South know what thick woods are in that part of the country, but others may not. The trees grow as close together ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... track, the roses Are backed by sharpest thorns; While berries always nourish, And the violet but adorns;— You will stumble into sluices, And what is worse than all, Your self-respect and conscience Grow weak with ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... a brown thrasher's nest; it is not a nest you are likely to stumble upon in your walk; it is hidden as a miser hides his gold, and watched as jealously. The male pours out his rich and triumphant song from the tallest tree he can find, and fairly challenges you to come and look for his treasures in his vicinity. But ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Bonaparte's invitation, he would have been one of the members of the Government. But Gohier acted the part of the stern republican. He placed himself, according to the common phrase of the time, astride of the Constitution of the year III.; and as his steed made a sad stumble, he fell ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Monkey! Away leaped the Jack who lived in a Box. At the far end of the toy counter the Bold Tin Soldier and his men had placed some sofa cushions from the upholstery department. That was in case either of the three might stumble ...
— The Story of a Lamb on Wheels • Laura Lee Hope
... such little child in My name receiveth Me, but whoso shall cause one of these little ones to stumble, it is more profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck and that he should be sunk in the depths of the sea." ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... of his country as he really thought, Dr. Johnson might have attacked it. Johnson was very courteous to Lady Margaret Macdonald. 'Madam, (said he,) when I was in the Isle of Sky, I heard of the people running to take the stones off the road, lest Lady Margaret's horse should stumble[1163].' ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... If the paramount idea of beneficence becomes a national conviction, we may stumble and err, we may at times sin, or be betrayed by unworthy representatives; but we shall advance unfailingly. I have been asked to contribute to the discussion of this matter something from my own usual point of view; which is, of course, the bearing ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... children found more nests and eggs until the basket was quite full. Now arose a dispute between Flossie and Freddie, for each one wanted to carry the basket. Nan was afraid either of the little twins might stumble and ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope
... of our modern historians on the other. But they are all three of them saying the same thing, each in his own way. It is a pity that we teach our children that the sublimest thing about them—their simplicity—is a thing of which they need to be ashamed. And the way in which their tiny tongues stumble over the great word seems to show that, following a true instinct, they do not take kindly to that clause in ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... not stunned. Apparently gaining courage by his success, he seemed to redouble his attacks, and for a time kept me wholly on the defensive. Making a sudden dash at him with the hope of plunging my knife into him, he so cleverly, with one of his wings, knocked aside my knife that in my stumble I found I had awkwardly cut the noose that bound him. As I knew that his talons were now free I presumed he would at once avail himself of his liberty and fly away. But he had now no such idea. His blood was up, and so with a scream of defiance, or triumph, ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young |
