"Staggering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and broke into a staggering run to the pile of broken planks that seconds ago had been the tractor shed. As he crossed the yard, a great gust of wind whipped back from the north, pumping clouds of dry, dusty earth before it. The force of the wind almost knocked the bruised and shaken Johnny from his feet once again as ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... she unconscious? I tried to think of all the things which caused a state of unconsciousness. Suppose she should die before I could think of what the trouble was, and before I could do anything to save her life! The thought was staggering! And then as I looked down at the patient again I realized, alas, that my chance of making a diagnosis to give to the family and then to proudly repeat it to Dr. Janeway, had vanished—for at that moment ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... Staggering like a drunken man, he followed her to the door, and stood looking out after her as she went. Then the night mist seemed to rise all about him, swallowing up everything in its ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... doors; but they could not get out, and soon attempted to make a sally by assaulting the wall. And the Angles, when they saw that it was tottering under the stout attack of the Danes, began to shove against it on their side, and to prop the staggering pile by the application of large blocks on the outside, to prevent the wall being shattered and releasing the prisoners. But at last it yielded to the stronger hand of the Danes, whose efforts ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... possession of us five Englishmen, and some thirty Frenchmen, the whole of whom were more or less helplessly drunk. And, this being the state of things on board the schooner, it would have been a comparatively easy matter for us five to have overpowered the Frenchmen, who were lying or staggering about the decks, and to have made off with the vessel; but not even to secure our liberty did I consider that I should have been justified in leaving Renouf and the bulk of his ruffians on board the Santa Theresa, to wreak his vengeance ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... was thinking of nothing save his own individual sufferings and terror—unable to see with any degree of certainty, they must be staggering this way and that, colliding with each other and then one by one either falling into the water or else jumping aboard the speedboat ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... want thee, Messire Beltane who art Duke of Pentavalon! Ho! Arnulf—a halter for his ducal throat!" So, when they had cast a noose about his neck, they dragged Beltane, choking, to his feet, and led him away gasping and staggering through the green; and having eyes, he saw not, and having ears, he heard not, being very spent ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... went out—and after a little moment, one saw Cinderella, stripped of her finery, staggering up the stairs. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... hinder her, she chattered and laughed and teased her ladies, till Guy's heart was stolen from him and he quite forgot the duties he was sent to fulfil, and when he left her presence he sought his room, staggering ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... heart to see how the little ponies were used, straining along with heavy loads or staggering under heavy blows from some low, cruel boy. Once I saw a little gray pony with a thick mane and a pretty head, and so much like Merrylegs that if I had not been in harness I should have neighed to him. He was doing his best to pull a heavy cart, while a strong rough ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... Madame Carson contemplated the effect she had produced with a kind of pride for a few moments, and then, with a slight but peremptory wave of her hand, motioned him to follow her out of the sacred edifice. M. de Veron hastily, though with staggering steps, obeyed; Edouard le Blanc crossing the church and reaching the street just soon enough to see them both driven off in M. de ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... strip out all the milk possible from the bag, then insert the teat tube that is connected to the syringe in each teat, filling them well with air, and repeat this treatment every hour until the cow stops staggering, or if lying down, stands on her feet. It is necessary to strip the milk from the bag before giving an injection of air. If the cow is lying flat on her side, prop her up by placing bags of hay or straw against ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... my doom I owe, Demons accursed, dire ministers of woe! My feet, through wine unfaithful to their weight, Betray'd me tumbling from a towery height: Staggering I reel'd, and as I reel'd I fell, Lux'd the neck-joint—my soul descends to hell. But lend me aid, I now conjure thee lend, By the soft tie and sacred name of friend! By thy fond consort! by thy father's cares! By loved Telemachus' blooming years? For ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... forth with her unsoftened terrors, And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay; And Hope is nothing but a false delay, The sick man's lightening half an hour ere death, When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain, And apathy of limb, the dull beginning Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning, Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away; Yet so relieving the o'er-tortured clay, To him appears renewal of his breath, And freedom the mere numbness of his chain; And then he talks of life, and how again He feels his spirits soaring—albeit weak, And of the ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... surrounded by a crowd, eager to see and to hear how he would receive the news; and the work of sobering him up was at once commenced. It took a long time to make him comprehend their meaning, but after a while the name of his sister, coupled with that of John Burrill, brought him staggering to his feet, and a few moments later, a plain statement of the facts, hurled bluntly at him by one of the loungers, sobered him completely. In an instant he had laid his informant sprawling in the saloon sawdust. He declared it a calumny, as you did, and declared war upon the lot of them. ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... sword. Together, then, we made at him, two to one, as needs must be, for this was no gentle passage of arms, but open battle. One sweep of his sword I made shift to avoid, but the next lighting on my salade, drove me staggering back for more yards than two or three, and I reeled and fell on my hands. When I rose, Alphonse de Partada was falling beneath a sword-stroke, and I was for running forward again; but lo! the great English knight leaped in the air, and so, turning, fell on his face, his hands grasping at the ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... heavens they mount amain, Now sink to dreadful deeps again; What strange affrights young sailors feel, And like a staggering drunkard reel! ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... squire were now contemplating in a sorry mood the disastrous outcome of their encounter with the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. As they were staggering along on their decrepit mounts, the squire summed up the thoughts of his master Samson in this question: "I'd like to know now which is the madder, he who is so because he can not help it, or he who is so of ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... himself as the mirror of the community: what passes in our minds infallibly seems to us a history of the universe. Every man is like the drunkard who reports an earthquake, because he feels himself staggering. ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... that the married Women might come out with what they could bring along with them. Immediately the City-Gates flew open, and a Female Procession appeared. Multitudes of the Sex following one another in a row, and staggering under their respective Burdens. I took my Stand upon an Eminence in the Enemies Camp, which was appointed for the general Rendezvous of these Female Carriers, being very desirous to look into their several Ladings. The first ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... order was not obeyed with sufficient promptitude, he lifted the man up by the collar, like a kitten, and sent him staggering against the tree with a violence that astounded him. Calling off the dog, he gave a similar order to the second robber, who displayed much greater ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... summit of a rise. Up this, but at a considerable distance, Jane was toiling, with feeble hops to the right, and staggering steps to the left, ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... remembered the day when, all anxious and full of hope, she had entered beneath this large nave, that had opened out before her, less profound than her love; and she walked on weeping beneath her veil, giddy, staggering, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... Paynim forward came so fierce, And full of wrath, that with his sharp-head speare, Through vainly crossed shield[*] he quite did pierce, And had his staggering steede not shrunke for feare, 310 Through shield and bodie eke he should him beare: Yet so great was the puissance of his push, That from his saddle quite he did him beare: He tombling rudely downe to ground did rush, And from his gored wound a well ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... moved toward Sarah, and once more he received a staggering blow—this time on the shoulder. It was only by a great effort of will that he did not cry out in pain. He concluded he must have been seized by some sudden illness, but after a moment he felt better and bravely tried ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... hard which brought him to the realization that he must lessen the force of his advance or perhaps have his life dashed out upon a rocky shore; and presently he was staggering forward, brushing his hair away from his eyes, wondering where he was, and scarcely sensible of anything—his head throbbing, his whole body ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... in and seized the stick as he attempted to raise it again. They struggled for possession of it, staggering all over the teepee, falling against the poles, trampling in and out of the embers. Loseis shielded the pan of dough with her body. Bela finally wrenched the stick from Charley and in ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... were carrying Anne now, while Jessica was half staggering, assisted by Nora and Reddy. Hippy, the perspiration pouring from his face, brought up the rear, and they had scarcely pulled him in and barred the door before the wolves had reached the hut and were leaping against the walls howling ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... my hat to Cerceris tuberculata, whom I see engaged on that slant, storing her Cleonus [a large species of weevil]. As I saw her then, so I see her now: the same staggering attempts to hoist the prey to the mouth of the burrow; the same brawls between males watching in the brushwood of the kermes oak. The sight of them sends a younger blood coursing through my veins; I receive as it were the breath of a ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... billet of wood, and as the man came staggering back with his burden, she attacked him. He backed towards the dug-out, holding Clare's body in front of him as a shield. But under Mary's attacks he was finally compelled to drop Clare. She must have fainted, for she lay without moving. ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... already. The Red Cross men were kept busy, staggering away downhill with stretchers laden with the wounded. There was no possibility of returning the enemy's fire, and in the darkness the ships could not help. All the Colonials could do was to crouch as low as possible, flattening ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... 'The rebellion,' wrote Waterhouse, 'is the most perilous that ever began in Ireland. Nothing is to be looked for but a general revolt.' Malby took the command against them, joined by one of the Burkes, Theobald, who when he saw Fitzmaurice struck by a ball and staggering in his saddle, rode at him and cut him down. The Papal standard was unfolded in this battle. Malby then burnt the Desmonds' country, killing all the human beings he met, up to the walls of Askeaton. When opportunity ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... with his hand, that her exclamations might not be heard. She was led into the street, filled with assassins thirsting for the blood of the Royalists, and had advanced but a few steps, when a journeyman barber, staggering with intoxication and infuriated with carnage, endeavored, in a kind of brutal jesting, to strike her cap from her head with his long pike. The blow fell upon her forehead, cutting a deep gash, and the blood ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... he asked. It was a casual question, with no real meaning behind it as it was uttered. No sooner had it left his lips, however, than a new and rather staggering idea entered his mind,—a small thing at first but one that grew with ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... a still more mortal blow for his distressed benefactor. His lady and he had an entire ascendant over the family of Prince George of Denmark; and the time now appeared seasonable for overwhelming the unhappy king, who was already staggering with the violent shocks which he had received. Andover was the first stage of James's retreat towards London; and there Prince George together with the young duke of Ormond,[*] Sir George Huet, and some other persons of distinction, deserted him in the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... century comes Schenck of Grafenberg, staggering under his monstrous volume of "Casus Rariores,"—ready to fall fainting by the wayside, when lo! the shining ones meet him too, and lift him and lighten him with the utterance of these fifty-one distinct poems which we see hung up on so many votive tablets at the entrance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... had her four of gin, and came reeling out into his arms. Shaking herself free she stared at him, and when he was fully recognized, cursed him for his damned interference. She could now scarcely stand straight on her legs, and, after staggering a few yards further, fell ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... fluttered on the ground at his feet like a shot bird. The clumsy movement made by Vronsky had broken her back. But that he only knew much later. At that moment he knew only that Mahotin had flown swiftly by, while he stood staggering alone on the muddy, motionless ground, and Frou-Frou lay gasping before him, bending her head back and gazing at him with her exquisite eyes. Still unable to realize what had happened, Vronsky tugged at his mare's reins. Again she struggled all over like a fish, and her shoulders setting the saddle ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... that last staggering rise the sergeant was vaguely aware that just beyond some trees under him was an open space of some kind. Could he make that open space? The front enemy trenches and the line where the vanished gas bags had swung ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... the rest of the men were retreating to leave the room, when those nearest the door were suddenly thrust back. Staggering, furious passion blazing in his scratched and pain-twisted face, Rupert burst across ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... to be done was for Harold to mount, and Paul to lean against the saddle, while the pony walked. When they had to separate at the ford, poor Paul's walk across the bridge was so feeble and staggering, that Harold feared every moment that he would fall where the rail was broken away, but was right glad to put his arm on his shoulder again to help to hold him up. The moving brought a little more life back to the poor boy's limbs, and he walked a little better, and ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... didn't see any good in scaring the fellows, so when my trick was over I told them the skipper was a real beauty. Just then there was a roar from the poop, 'Relieve the wheel'; and the man who had relieved me came staggering forrard with his face smothered in blood. He had let her run off a quarter of a point or so, and the skipper, without saying a word, struck him right between the eyes with the end of his brass telescope, cutting his nose and forehead in great gashes. ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... advance-guard of the reform party in the United States. It was the capital of Progress, where social systems and raspberries grew miraculously together. Thither hied every man who had any indictment against the age, or who had invented an inch-rule of a theory which was to bring the staggering old world into shape. Woman-Suffrage, Free-Love, Spiritualism, off-shoots from Orthodoxy in every sect, had there food and shelter. Radical New England held the new enterprise dear as the apple of her eye: Western New York stretched toward it hands of benediction. As Catharine looked out, not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... and misery from the world—in his impatience of the smallest error or injustice, he would have sacrificed himself and the existing generation (a holocaust) to his devotion to the right cause. But when he once believed after many staggering doubts and painful struggles, that this was no longer possible, when his chimeras and golden dreams of human perfectibility vanished from him, he turned suddenly round, and maintained that "whatever is, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... the order was given all hands tumbled up to the hatchway and began swarming down the iron ladder. It was a swaying, staggering crowd. When you stand on a wet deck at an angle of forty-five degrees one way and thirty degrees another and constantly shifting both angles, with nothing but a rope lashed athwart the ship to catch hold of, your mind is pretty well ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... Staggering, groping, his hands strained to him to hold in the life that was passing, Meriwether Lewis had left the room where he had received his wounds, and had stepped out into the air, into the night. All the resolution of his soul was bent upon one purpose. ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... time, betwixt the Englishman and the soldier, he forced the latter to quit the hold he had on his person. In an instant Philipson was again mounted, when, seizing a battle-axe which hung at the saddle-bow of his new steed, he struck down the staggering sentinel, who was endeavouring again to seize upon him. The whole troop then rode off at a gallop, for the alarm began to grow general in the village; some soldiers were seen coming out of their quarters, and others were beginning to get on horseback. Before Schreckenwald and his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... its habit of looking through the integument of things to see if there might be anything inside, he felt that they regarded it as the real adversary—the eternal foe to all the little fat 'facts,' who, dressed up in blue and yellow, were swaggering and staggering, calling each other names, wiping each other's eyes, blooding each other's noses. To these little solemn delicious creatures, all front and no behind, the philosophic eye, with its habit of looking round the corner, was clearly detestable. The very yellow and very blue bodies of these ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... as the trader came with the kegs, while the young warriors gathered about the door, each with skins on his arm. Soon every male Indian was staggering and whooping and the squaws with the children ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... Staggering, they passed along the alley-way into a broad subdivision that extended completely athwartships. It was one of the two broadside torpedo-rooms, and contained two tubes of slightly greater diameter ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... fine!" retorted young Jack. "But not half as good as this," he continued, and, with a sudden spring, he landed one blow on Andy's chest and another on his shoulder which sent Tom's son staggering half-way across ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... a plain, hard-working man the home is not the one tame place in the world of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set tasks. The home is the one place where he can put the carpet on the ceiling or the slates on the floor if he wants to. When a man spends every night staggering from bar to bar or from music-hall to music-hall, we say that he is living an irregular life. But he is not; he is living a highly regular life, under the dull, and often oppressive, laws of such places. Some times he is not allowed even ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... was cataclysmic in its way. The lounger took three staggering lurches toward Winton, brushed the messenger boy aside, and burst out in ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... shouted Dennis, seizing the end of a large settee. "Hawke, Davis, Johnson, bring all the heavy stuff you can find in that room behind us!" And as they dragged the settee across the head of the staircase, volunteers rushed into the adjoining rooms, staggering out again with chairs and tables to add ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... all that my staggering consciousness could realize was an immensity, an immeasurable uprearing that brought with it the same throat-gripping vertigo as comes from gazing downward from some great height—then a blur of white faces—intolerable shinings of hundreds upon thousands of eyes. Huge, ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... windows shortly before dawn on the night that you gave your dance, early in the season. You saw her, I think?—a woman who staggered a little, and had some words with the policeman at the corner: but, after all, a staggering woman in London is no such memorable sight. All day long she was seeking work, work, work; and after dark she sought forgetfulness. She found the one, in small quantities, and out of it she managed to buy the other, now and ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... contentedly firing a volley of bullets against the steel vault wall until the bank officials were alarmed and an armed guard was sent scurrying about to investigate. And with the timely arrival of Tiernan and that armed guard came an end to the most audacious and staggering ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... us spring for it." The two youths jumped with all their strength to reach the departing galley. Ford's feet reached the edge of the bulwarks, and his hand clutching a rope he swung himself on board. Terlake fell short, crashed in among the oars, and bounded off into the sea. Alleyne, staggering to the side, was about to hurl himself after him, but Hordle John dragged him ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... book, for it contained all my notes of the journey. The thought of its being deposited on a rock washed by a rapid stream into which it might easily slip and be carried away kept me in a state of suspense. At last a staggering figure approached; it was Chanden Sing waving the book triumphantly in the air. He had run the distance of many miles down to the river and back so quickly that when he reached me he was utterly exhausted. He handed me the book, and once more we started, followed by Walter and the whole ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... hall the day I came staggering in from my visit to the grotto. No words passed, but our eyes met and from that hour I have seen death in his countenance and he has seen it in mine, like two opponents, each struck to the heart, who stand facing each other with simulated smiles till they fall. My father will drop ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... outwardly to the things which outside of it are true, I recognized my not false errors. My Leader, who could see me do like a man who looses himself from slumber, said, "What ails thee, that thou canst not support thyself? but art come more than a half league veiling thine eyes, and with thy legs staggering like one whom wine or slumber bends." "O sweet Father mine, if thou harkenest to me I will tell thee," said I, "what appeared to me when my legs were thus taken from me." And he, "If thou hadst a hundred masks upon thy face, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... consigned to Master Bates, who appeared to consider his share in the proceedings, a piece of unexampled pleasantry: were not long in producing the desired effect. The girl gradually recovered her senses; and, staggering to a chair by the bedside, hid her face upon the pillow: leaving Mr. Sikes to confront the new comers, in some astonishment ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... indistinct bundle was on his right shoulder. Like a curtain the dark snapped shut behind him again, but I urged on with a wild hallo, my blood all a-tingle with the exultation of the chase. I gained—he must have been a lamentable runner, for my poor little pony was staggering under my tumultuous weight. I could hear him pant and sob a few yards in advance; then he came into sight, a dim, loping whiteness ahead. Suddenly the bundle left his shoulder; something rolled along the ground ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... how much more blue there was in the sea the next day, how the evergreens glistened, and how beautiful and picturesque the old house grew; and when I went out in the morning sunshine, for once, inclined to admit some beauty in the staggering black-legged and visaged lambs, and meditating a walk to the village, I saw Dermot coming across the yard, so wearily and breathlessly, that I could only say, ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... glistened in the morning sun. While this opening cannonade was proceeding Baden-Powell found useful work to do. With a few native scouts he started off on his own account and soon found a large body of the enemy elsewhere enjoying a bombastic war-dance, which plainly portended the staggering of humanity and the driving of the British into the sea. Thinking that Colonel Plumer ought not to miss this performance, Baden-Powell sent back word of it, and calling together the Native Levy proceeded to attack the dancers. ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... well as Michael Angelo. His prefaces are a complete log of his life, and the habit of writing them was a useful one to him, for it forced him to think with a pen in his hand, which, according to Goethe, "if it do no other good, keeps the mind from staggering about." In these prefaces we see his taste gradually rising from Du Bartas to Spenser, from Cowley to Milton, from Corneille to Shakespeare. "I remember when I was a boy," he says in his dedication of ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... got straightened out in this last place when I was attacked by Cheatham's'division, which, notwithstanding the staggering blows it had previously received from Sill and Roberts, now again moved forward in conjunction with the wheeling movement under the immediate command of Hardee. One of the most sanguinary contests of the day now took place. In fulfillment of Bragg's original design no doubt, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... soft kernel inside of the rude, unpromising husk. His family were on the car; and as he sat in a lounging attitude, conversing with his comrade (they had both been discharged, I heard them say, from the '6th New York'), a little girl came staggering along the passage way, holding herself up by the seats on either side. As she neared him, she sprang to him, and placed herself between his knees; and the coarse, weather-beaten face beamed down upon her with such a smile—so ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... further, but at this moment the world came to an end. At least, that was how it sounded. Somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood something went off with a vast explosion, shattering the glass in the window, peeling the plaster from the ceiling, and sending him staggering into the inhospitable ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... preserved her children,' said Glaucus, staggering to his feet. 'Blessed be the dread convulsion! Let us worship the providence of the gods!' He assisted Apaecides to rise, and then turned upward the face of Arbaces; it seemed locked as in death; blood gushed from the Egyptian's ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... few seconds he had whipped out from one pocket, with the skill almost of a juggler, a vicious-looking life-preserver, and from the other a pocket-handkerchief soaked with chloroform. Laverick, quick and resourceful, feeling his left arm sink helpless, struck at the man with his right and sent him staggering against the wall. The handkerchief, with its load of sickening odor, fell to the pavement. The man was obviously worsted. Laverick sprang at him. They were almost unobserved, for the crowd was all intent upon the accident in the roadway. With wonderful ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a coach containing the company was really crawling and staggering up the spurs of the menacing mountain range. Between Ezza's cheery denial of the danger and Muscari's boisterous defiance of it, the financial family were firm in their original purpose; and Muscari made his mountain journey coincide with theirs. A more surprising feature was the appearance ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... God." While she was wailing and weeping for this boon, I cast my eye towards the cabin we had just left, and a sight met my view which made me shudder with horror. The husband of the dead woman came staggering out with her body upon his shoulder, slightly covered with a piece of rotten canvass. I will not dwell upon the details of this spectacle. Painfully and slowly he bore the remains of the late companion of his misery to the cart. We ...
— A Journal of a Visit of Three Days to Skibbereen, and its Neighbourhood • Elihu Burritt
... said Rose in a soft little voice when the man had led the staggering calf away. "Don't mind if he did call you sonny. I guess he thinks you are pretty smart just the same. Anyway, ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... same time the woman grasped the handle of the heavy kettle, lifted it from the jack, displaying in her bared arms the muscles of a man, and, staggering beneath the load, bore it steaming to the table. Amid the subsequent confusion, the gipsy held aloof from the demolition of the rabbit, and, seating herself at the foot of the table, began moodily once more ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... about him, had caught sight of a shapeless lump lying motionless in front, there loomed across the snow-choked gulf through the white riot of the storm a gigantic figure forging, doggedly forward, his great head down to meet the hurricane. And close behind, buffeted and bruised, stiff and staggering, a little dauntless figure holding stubbornly on, clutching with one hand at the gale; and a shrill voice, whirled away on the trumpet tones of ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... along the path and think over what he had just heard. It was interesting, as showing the attitude of one of the contracting parties toward the "engagement," the announcement of which had been such a staggering finish to the "big day" of the ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Tymolus, and Pactolus; although it was not golden at that time, nor to be coveted for its precious sands. The usual throng, {both} Satyrs and Bacchanals, surround him, but Silenus is away. The Phrygian rustics took him, as he was staggering with age and wine, and, bound with garlands, they led him to {their} king, Midas, to whom, together with the Cecropian Eumolpus,[8] the Thracian Orpheus had intrusted the {mysterious} orgies {of Bacchus}. Soon as he recognized this ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... violent or rapid, more or less in this direction or that, more or less alarming or sickening. But a man subject to vertigo may gradually learn to co-ordinate his felt motion with his real position and that of other things, and intellectualize it enough to succeed at last in walking without staggering. The mathematical mind similarly organizes motion in its way, putting it into a logical definition: motion is now conceived as 'the occupancy of serially successive points of space at serially successive instants of time.' With such a definition ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... could. But there was a constraint unlike the old times. When under the influence of liquor, he would pass me in the streets with his head down, a deeper flush mantling his cheek as he hurried by with unsteady step. Sometimes I met him staggering homeward through a back street, hiding from the gaze of men. He was at first shy of me when sober, but gradually the constraint wore off, and he seemed disposed to draw nearer to me, as in the old days. His struggle went on, days of drunkenness following ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... It was a staggering blow, under which the most stoical man with the longest purse might well have reeled; but the Marquess met it with a smile of indifference; and when, a few minutes later, he drove off the course, with his friends, in a barouche ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... about me, in order to save my life. Curiously enough, I found that the simplest wrestling tricks I tried I had not the power for; even in this swift minute, loss of blood was telling on me. A ferocious last effort I made to swing and hurl him, and, instead, went staggering down into the ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... were dead. At last they were reduced to such extremity, that they proposed to cast lots for one to be killed to support the others; they turned back on their route, that they might find the dead bodies of their companions for food. Finally, out of the whole crew, three or four, purblind and staggering from exhaustion, craving for death, arrived at the borders of the colony, where they were kindly ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... her old-time energy to do what she could for their relief. She literally went from house to house, and from store to store, presenting her plea so touchingly that few could refuse her. Many barrels of clothing were in this way gathered, and she often returned home staggering beneath the weight of bundles she had carried perhaps for a mile. She also wrote to friends at a distance, on whose generosity she felt she could depend, and collected from them a considerable sum of money, which, went far to keep the suffering from starvation until new crops could be gathered. ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... the evening contest, and Gunther, Hagen and Dankwart trembled when they saw four men staggering under the weight of Brunhild's shield and three more staggering under the weight of her spear. Siegfried, meantime, had donned his magic cloud cloak and bade Gunther ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... cheer, the line crawled over a long hill, icy, unwooded, swept by the shrieking wind. Stafford in passing exchanged greetings with several of the mounted officers. These were in as bad case as their men, nigh frozen themselves, distressed for the horses beneath them, and for the staggering ranks, striving for anger with the many stragglers and finding only compunction, in blank ignorance as to where they were going and for what, knowing only that whereas they had made seventeen miles the day before, they were not likely ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... gay Christmas mood into tune with sorrow and loss. Sally's beautiful Elizabeth was one of the Christmas angels in the play to-night, and Sally's pride was almost too great to bear. Billy was sturdily dashing about selling popcorn balls, and Jim was staggering to and fro flirting with admiring Sodality girls. The young Hawkeses were at their handsome best, and women on all ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... he was at least no coward: here the events he had suffered well sufficed to whip his blood to action. He sprang to his feet, was upon them as George, sideways to him, came round the arm of the seat; lunged furiously and landed a crack upon the cheekbone that spun George staggering up ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... the frontispiece contained a picture of seven large mules staggering up a mountain trail under a load of bullion protected by guards ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... alarm. But it was only some belated lodger, staggering on the stairs. She examined the lock on her door and resolved to get a new one. Then she looked behind the curtains ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... of these dear young goodies, and if you had seen the weather for the next four hours you would have agreed that the devil must have had a hand in it! Up came a wave over the after quarter and down went the passengers below decks, staggering and screaming like brewery rats, and then on we came like the Israelites out of Egypt on eagles' wings! Having lost my own sea legs a little I thought it prudent to go down too, with my doggie tucked under my ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... and fired swiftly at him. The room filled with smoke, and Dawson, staggering unhurt, but with his face stung with powder, did not see the man fall. As the German drew the revolver clear, the woman knifed him in the neck, and he collapsed on his face, belching blood upon the boards of the floor. The woman stood ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... of sand and wreckage, across little inlets made by the waves, in the face of blinding sleet and staggering wind, the life-savers dragged the beach wagon on ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... if drunk, staggering from one side of the street to the other. Meanwhile something changed in that monstrous conflagration which had embraced the giant city. Everything which till then had only glimmered, burst forth visibly into one sea of flame; the wind had ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... noxious wild beast. Among the terrible facts of life none is indeed more terrible than this. Every believer in the wise government of the world must have sometimes realised with a crushing or at least a staggering force the appalling injustices of life as shown in the enormous differences in the distribution of unmerited happiness and misery. But the disparity of moral circumstances is not less. It has shaken the faith of many. It has ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... the theater Carl sat with him in a room which had calico-like wall-paper, a sunken bed with a comforter out of which oozed a bit of its soiled cotton entrails, a cracked water-pitcher on a staggering wash-stand, and a beautiful new cuspidor of white china hand-painted with pink moss-roses tied ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... our way to the steamer and mount to the first-class deck and look down on the whirl of turbans and red fezes (also called tarbooshes) below. The perpetual chatter, the long low cries, the beating shout of men staggering under heavy loads make up a resounding din. Clamped boxes, camp-chairs, enamel basins, dispatch-boxes, helmet-cases are carried swinging up the gangway. Here is a man wildly waving a gun-case which a non-commissioned officer wrenches from him; another is struggling under a folded tent, the end ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... know—I don't know!" the president quavered, staggering to the grille and clutching the wires with both hands in order to steady himself. He was palpably, unmistakably stricken with a fear ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... For I came home before the busines Was fully ended: Yet I might perceive, Ere I departed, a great likelihood Of both their pardons: For Hipolita, And faire-eyd Emilie, upon their knees Begd with such hansom pitty, that the Duke Me thought stood staggering, whether he should follow His rash oth, or the sweet compassion Of those two Ladies; and to second them, That truely noble Prince Perithous, Halfe his owne heart, set in too, that I hope All shall be well: Neither heard I one question Of your name ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... dived into the recesses say the fruit is as savoury as the husk is repulsive. The windowless houses with their backs grudgingly turned to the thoroughfares are low for the most part, and the thoroughfares are—oh! so crooked—zigzag, up and down, staggering in a drunken way over hard cobble-stones and leading nowhere. There are mosques and stores entered by horse-shoe arches, a bazaar dotted over with squatting women, cowled with dirty blankets, selling warm griddle-cakes; moving here and ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... His head, crowned with white hair, as seen from behind looked bigger than a head ought to be. The ears that stood out from it looked larger than human ears. He was enlarged terribly to scale; and this sense of size was so staggering, that when Syme saw him all the other figures seemed quite suddenly to dwindle and become dwarfish. They were still sitting there as before with their flowers and frock-coats, but now it looked as if the big man was entertaining five ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... the miserable islanders lived to complain of their wounds. My Mexicans, having rallied, seized upon Fonseca, and destroyed many of the pirates in their beastly state of intoxication. Only a few attempted to fight, the greater number staggering towards the beach to seek shelter in their boats. But the Apaches had already performed their duty; the smallest boats they had dragged on shore, the largest they had scuttled and sunk. Charging upon the miserable fugitives, they transfixed them with ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... occasion is past, when Mr. Cass might, had he been empowered to act as Mr. Rush did in France, have morally strengthened the staggering republic, which would have found sympathy where alone it is of permanent value, on the basis of principle. Had it been in vain, what then? America would have acted honorably; as to our being compromised thereby with the Papal government, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... received a letter that for once gravely disturbed that vain man and neglectful father. Saul was dead. The scene at Frank's burial had been very distressing. The day was awful in blackness and wind: the bearers, staggering blindly along under the flapping black pall, found it a hard job, when they emerged from the porch of the minster, to make their way to the grave. Mrs. Ashton was in her room—women did not then go to their kinsfolk's funerals—but Saul was there, draped in the mourning cloak of the time, and ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... understands, with the scar on his temple and body still marked from the drunkard's blows that no one can rule except by fear, so he speeds up Charley with slaps of the reins, and after unhitching at the terminal chases him up the incline and into the stall with a stick. "Never let me see you staggering or sitting down on the job," he warns in kindly caution, so that Charley may save himself some of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... into contact with the local police and sometimes with His Worship Signor Malipizzo. Greatly to the surprise of Mr. Parker, the magistrate was observed to take a lenient view of the case. None the less, she had passed several nights in the local gaol. Staggering about the lanes of Nepenthe in the silent hours before dawn, she was liable to be driven, at the bidding of some dark primeval impulse, to divest herself of her raiment—a singularity which perturbed even the hardiest of social night-birds who had the misfortune ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... a "view halloo," the steed bearing the unfortunate man was started in real earnest; and the foresters sent staggering by after it ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... it and pressed it hard and went out into the street, staggering under the weight of the ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... power of radically staggering one (incidentally this was the talent of the Jews in the Old Testament), makes up for this by the things which were his own, that is to say: freedom within the law, and noble emotions kept within ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... and the gaoler and Diccon with him, I returned to the window. The runaway in the pillory was released, and went away homewards, staggering beside his master's stirrup. Passers-by grew more and more infrequent, and up the street came faint sounds of laughter and hurrahing,—the bear must be making good sport. I could see the half-moon, and the guns, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Leicester were, as Dorothy says, "in great disorder" at this time, it is impossible to say. Lady Leicester is said to have been of a warm and irritable temper, and Lord Leicester is described by Clarendon as "staggering and irresolute in his nature." However, nothing is said of their quarrels; but, on the other hand, there is a very pathetic account in Lord Leicester's journal of his wife's death in 1659, which shows that, ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... inflicts a blow on a part of his body, over which his clothes are tightly drawn. As the day drew on, the wind increased. Dickey Snookes having been properly cobbed, we all hurried on deck. As we looked through our glasses, we saw that the schooner was staggering along under as much canvas as she could carry; while the frigate glided on with becoming dignity, we having decidedly the advantage in a strong wind. I asked Sommers what he thought about the matter. "We are coming up with her, lad, hand over hand, and if the wind holds she ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... pelting, pitiless rain dragged our way through the bad-lands, meeting and fighting the Sioux two lively days among the rocks of Slim Buttes, subsisting meantime partly on what game we could pick up, but mainly upon our poor, famished, worn-out, staggering horses. It is hard truth for cavalryman to tell, but the choice lay between them and our boots; and most of us had no boots left by the time we sighted the Black Hills. Once there, we found provisions and plenty; but never, I venture to say, never was civilized ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... at being lagged by Cotton so early in the term, just at the moment, too, when he had caught sight of Wilson staggering along with a heavy hat-box, etc., seized Jim's and Gus's effects. Todd's modest douceur, however, took off the ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... and staggering limb, Visage marred, eyes growing dim, Tongue all parched, faint at heart, Bruised and ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... was staggering to Henrietta. She had been so engrossed in her own trouble that she had observed nothing of what was going on around her. Mrs. Waters, a widow, who had lately settled in the neighbourhood, had been several times to their house and had entertained them at hers, but that she should be anything ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor |
