"Stumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... steadily after my potations, and, having duly taken leave of Byrrhaena, guided my zigzag steps upon the homeward way. But at the very first corner we turned, a sudden gust of wind blew out the solitary torch on which we depended, and left us, plunged in the unforeseen blackness of night, to stumble wearily and painfully to our abode, bruising our feet on every stone ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... should be found a series of lines, or even a single line, in which the language, though naturally arranged, and according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of prose, there is a numerous class of critics, who, when they stumble upon these prosaisms, as they call them, imagine that they have made a notable discovery, and exult over the Poet as over a man ignorant of his own profession. Now these men would establish a canon of criticism which the Reader will conclude he must utterly reject, if he wishes to be pleased with ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... duty. What he did, he did for you. His courage was your courage; his kindness was your kindness. He was striving every minute to be worthy of you. I know of what I'm talking, for I did the same for Terry. Late at night one would stumble down greasy dug-out stairs, coming in from a patrol, to find him lost in thought and gazing at you. Or one would find him covering page after page of letters which he never sent. When he was dying, alone and far out in No Man's Land, he must have drawn out your portrait from next his heart. ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... instant after some unlucky stumble Has floored him and induced a howl of pain, He's clean forgotten all about his tumble And violently sets ...
— Bib Ballads • Ring W. Lardner
... and silver as I ran along the paths, And he would stumble after, Bewildered by my laughter. I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes. I would choose To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths, A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... of the decline was at times terrific. There were moments of impact with trees which left him bruised and beaten. There were moments when projecting roots threatened to hurl him headlong to invisible depths. Each buffet, each stumble, however, only hardened his resolve. These things were powerless ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... memoirs, legal documents, and popular narratives and books of anecdote, and you will find that there never was a time when these things were not reported just as abundantly as now. We college-bred gentry, who follow the stream of cosmopolitan culture exclusively, not infrequently stumble upon some old-established journal, or some voluminous native author, whose names are never heard of in our circle, but who number their readers by the quarter-million. It always gives us a little shock to find this ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... feet, and made for the door. The Japanese immediately set up a loud and threatening cry, but did not attempt to seize us, contenting themselves with throwing oars and blocks of wood in our way, in order that in running we might stumble over them and fall. When we had almost reached the entrance of the fort, they fired a volley at us, but fortunately hit no one, although the balls whistled most unpleasantly near to our heads. We were lucky enough to get out of the fort, and had almost reached our boat, when I saw ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... light of God's revelation. Where there is no vision the people perish intellectually. He who turns away his ears from the truth must be turned unto fables. "Hear ye and give ear, be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... 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. If ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... is for the most part swallowed up and made as though it had not been. The child who leaves school at the age of fourteen will have attended some 2,000 or 3,000 reading lessons in the course of his school life. From these, in far too many cases, he will have carried nothing away but the ability to stumble with tolerable correctness through printed matter of moderate difficulty. He will not have carried away from them either the power ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... by the spirit to the mind. Ever present as its art is, it is an art infinitely removed from that to which all the world at once responds and surrenders. It is not at first seen to be art at all. The verse which in truth dances so cunningly appears to the uninitiated to stumble and halt. The music, which the common ear is so slow to catch, makes us think of those Platonic mysteries of abstract number seen only in their perfection by some godlike mathematician who lives rapt above ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... tired of hearing you, I dare say," was the retort. "It seems to me you always stumble when you play to the doctor, and ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... and 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 ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... upon three things, simple enough but essential. I must keep in touch with Him so He has an open ear to talk into. I must delight to do His will, because it is His. The third thing needs special emphasis. Many who are right on the first two stumble here, and sometimes measure their length on the ground. His Word must be allowed to discipline my judgment as to Himself and His will. Many of us stumble on number one and on number two. And very many willing earnest men sprawl badly when it comes to number three. The ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death—the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... game. I smelled your smoke and out of curiosity hunted you up to see who our neighbors were. That's all there is to it. If you can get anything out of that you are welcome to it. I wish you luck in finding Taku Pass. If I should stumble on it, I'll look you up and let you know. We aren't looking ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... on some slippery weed as he advanced, and the chance stumble saved his life. For otherwise Hatteraick's second bullet, aimed coolly and steadily, would certainly have crashed through his skull. Before he could draw a third, Dandie Dinmont was upon him. Yet such was the giant ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... the youths who are led out, and carried home, or who stumble through the "German," this is a sober matter. My friend told us we should see the "best society." But he is a prodigious wag. Who make this country? From whom is its character of unparalleled enterprise, heroism and success derived? Who have given it its place ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... lie bathed in the weltering blood And the living are blent in the slippery flood, And the feet, as they reeling and sliding go, Stumble still on the corpses that sleep below. "What, Francis!" "Give Charlotte my last farewell." As the dying man murmurs, the thunders swell— "I'll give—Oh God! are their guns so near? Ho! comrades!—yon volley!—look sharp to the rear!— I'll give thy Charlotte thy last ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... invariably out of place. Open the door suddenly, and Mathew Mizzle is almost knocked down. Throw out a bucket of water at night, and Mathew Mizzle is there to receive its contents. Pass a stick through the key-hole, and it's Mizzle's eye that suffers the detriment. You stumble over him in dark entries—you find him lying perdu in the closet. Go where you will, there is Mizzle, if it be in the wrong place for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... Our experience never gets into our blood and bones. It always remains outside of us. That's why we look with wonder at the past. And this persists even when from practice and through growing callousness of fibre we come to the point when nothing that we meet in that rapid blinking stumble across a flick of sunshine—which our life is—nothing, I say, which we run against surprises us any more. Not at the time, I mean. If, later on, we recover the faculty with some such exclamation: 'Well! Well! I'll be hanged if I ever, . . . ' it is probably because this very ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... unarmed," he objected. "And we might, just might, you know, stumble into a situation where we would need to ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... introduce to you, Guru," she said without a stumble, "a great friend of mine. This is Mr Pillson, Guru; Guru, Mr Pillson. The Guru is coming to tiffin with me, Georgie. Cannot ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... David, Isaiah, failed to realize a doctrine (imperfectly it may be) which, as you truly affirm, has, in some shape or other, animated all forms of religion! that these brightest specimens of 'spiritual religion' in the ancient world somehow missed what many of the lowest savages have managed to stumble upon!" ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... warily and probing cautiously at every step, and earnestly peering about me, for after such a sight as that dead man I was never to know what new wonder I might stumble upon. About a quarter of a mile on my left—that is, on my left whilst I kept my face to the slope—there was the appearance of a ravine not discernible from where the boat lay. When I was within twenty feet of the summit of the cliff, the acclivity ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... Aurelia's private assistance, Eugene knew his lessons well enough for his excitement not to make him stumble so often as to prevent Betty's pronouncing him a good boy, and dispensing with his copy, sum, piece, and reading, until the evening. These last were very tough affairs, the recitation being from Shakespeare, and the reading from the Spectator. There were ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... first few rods of this frightful journey that a brakeman might appear on top of the train, whose attention he might attract before the speed became so great he could no longer maintain it, or a lurch or a stumble in the ditch at the trackside might throw him ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... journey of life, as we travel along To the mystical goal that is hidden from sight, You may stumble at times into Roadways of Wrong, Not seeing the sign-board that points to the right. Through caverns of sorrow your feet may be led, Where the noon of the day will like midnight appear. But no matter whither you wander or tread, Keep out of the ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... with the canteen and he seemed to recover from the blows quicker than I could get the swing to strike again. But I beat him down at last, though I saw that he had lots more life in him than I, with that devil of madness filling him. So, when I saw him stumble, then recover and begin that running again, I picked up the knife and leaped over the wall to settle the matter once and for all. It was an ugly thing to do, but it had to be done and done quickly. At the root of things ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... blow. It hit harder, as Jerome meant it should, than any verbal rallying. It sent the man back over his own life to the first stumble in it. ...
— Different Girls • Various
... lot are camped right now in our back yard!" said Toby, filled with such a sense of importance that he neglected to stumble over a single ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... so as not to trip, or to stumble over the sleeping soldiers, they went on, and Taffy, stopping and looking up beheld before him a great round table. Many warriors were sitting at it. Their splendid gold inlaid armor, glittering helmets and noble faces showed that they were no common men. Yet Taffy could see only a few ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... lifetime had gone since the day before, when he had first seen what he called to himself "the captive maid." He had never been so happy in his life; and yet he knew that he had not the faintest right to be happy. The girl who had so upset his self-control as to make him stumble on her doorstep was the wife of another man. It was, of course, silly to call him "another man," because he seemed a million miles away from any sphere in which Orlando lived. Yet he was another man; and he was also the husband of the girl who had made Orlando ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... A Policeman with a bull's-eye prevents my driver's energetic endeavours to drive through the Palace wall. I stumble into the large hall known as the Library. "Here," said I to myself, "is taking place the historic trial of the Bishop of LINCOLN." The weird scene strongly resembles the Dream Trial in The Bells, where the judges, counsel, and all concerned, are ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... 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 splintered wood ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... mule 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 in you. A tourist on the canyon's ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... think even in this mist we could hardly go over the rift, for I fancy that we could at least discover when we were getting close to it; but there are three or four old mines; we don't knew in the least where they lie exactly, and one might stumble over one of the ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... But we won't smash it yet awhile. I'm going to look up the subject of secret drawers—perhaps I'll stumble upon something ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... fighting at close range; but in the case of their opponents, who were in dread and employed cavalry and archers for the most part, it made it out of the question to see which way to shoot their arrows and caused them to stumble over one another, like men in the dark. Nevertheless Antiochus developed sufficient power, by means of his armored cavalry, to rout the antagonists directly confronting him and to advance in pursuit of them as far as their camp. Indeed, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... and more than once has given annoyance, especially last year, when he robbed a damson-tree of a brood of Baltimore orioles. This winter and spring his friendly interest in my birds has increased, and several times I have caught him skulking among the pines. Last night what should I stumble on but a trap, baited and sprung, under the cedar-tree in which the cardinal roosts. I was up before daybreak this morning. Awhile after the waking of the birds here comes my young bird-thief, creeping ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... the method in which I was compelled to spell the English language. It was severe, no doubt. We stood in a class of forty, and lost our places for the misfit of a syllable, a letter, a definition, or even a stumble in elocution. I remember once losing the head of the class for saying: L-u-ux—Lux. It was a terrible blow, and I think of it yet with burning mortification on ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... possibility of their being so, as they were ignorant of Christ and His commandments, and placed their hope of salvation on outward forms and superstitious observances, which were the invention of Satan, who wished to keep them in darkness that at last they might stumble into the pit which he had dug for them. I said repeatedly that the Pope, whom they revered, was an arch deceiver, and the head minister of Satan here on earth, and that the monks and friars, whose absence they ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... to identify it with him. I went on to the door of my room, and still a muffled step seemed to follow me,—first it had come from below, then it was much like some one going up stairs,—but where? In my own room I still heard steps, light, slow, but distinct. Again there was a stumble and a hurried recovery,—ghosts, I reflected, do ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... the woods and on the banks of streams in the country, it is not an uncommon thing to stumble against a contrivance resembling in general appearance our next illustration. Throughout New England, the "dead-fall," as this is called, has always been a most popular favorite among trappers, young ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... strange delusion that I was a wonderful child. I don't know why, unless it was because I did n't know anything of life, and I could repeat a little Latin, stumble through a sentence of Greek, and, after having solved a problem seventy-six thousand times to show my wonderful precociousness, could do it again when called upon. Perhaps I'm extravagant. It was n't more than half ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... allowing another youth in gray uniform to stumble inside. One of the guards in the corridor beyond shoved the newcomer forward, and Phillips' eyebrows twitched as he had a closer look. This last ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... totally different sort, I assure you. Captain Glossop, allow me to make you acquainted with a great friend of mine, Mr. George Headland. Mr. Headland is an amateur investigator of criminal matters, and he has taken a fancy to look into the details of this one. It may be that he will stumble upon something of importance—who knows? And in such an affair as this I deem it best to leave no stone ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... ragged flutter of the room, then from the coloured and composite clothing of a footballer, clown or jockey grinned the round face and owlish eyes of little Duval, who flew to her at once to whisper compliments and stumble on the swelling fortress of her white skirt. She realised dimly from him that her dress was as beautiful as she had hoped it might be, but what was the use of its beauty if Julien should be missing? And, looking over Duval's head, she tried ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... 21:21; Exo 24:10). All the visions were rich, but this the richest, that the floor of the house should be covered or overlaid with gold. The floor and street are walking-places, and how rich will our steps be then! Alas! here we sometimes fall into the mire, and then again stumble upon blocks and stones. Here we sometimes fall into holes, and have our heel oft catched in a snare; but there will be none of these. Gold! gold! all will be gold, and golden perfections, when we come into the holy place! Job at best took but his steps in butter, but ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Stratford," it is true; he knows it and confesses it; but nothing shows better how truly he belongs to the England of times gone, the half-French England of former days: he excuses himself and persists. "And if I stumble in my French, forgive me my mistakes; English I am; and beg on ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... bedroom was a counterpart of her own she knew where the light button would be. She might stumble over a chair or two, but in the end she would find the light. The fingers of one hand spread out before her and the other clutching the impossible automatic, she succeeded in navigating the uncharted ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... 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 ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... not laugh because we hear such pretty expressions, though it is indeed true that every one is disposed to laugh on seeing anybody stumble or on hearing any one utter an unfitting word, as often happens. The tongue will trip and cause one word to be used for another, even by the discreetest and most excellent speakers. But when you men talk viciously, not from ignorance, but by reason of your own wickedness, I know ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... are men of wrath and battle, according to theirs, I will not take it upon me to censure them,—nay, not even if they should feel themselves called upon by hard necessity to shed the blood of their Injun fellow-creatures,—who, it must be confessed, if we should stumble on the same, will do their best to make that necessity as strong as possible. But now let us away, and see what help there is for us; though whither to go, and what to do, there being Injuns ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... the sacrifice of generation to generation—of the perpetual immolation of age on the flowery altars of youth. Like most customs in which we are nurtured, it had seemed natural and pleasant enough until she had watched the hollows deepen in her mother's temples and the tireless knotted hands stumble at their work. Then a pang had seized her and she had pleaded earnestly to ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... anywhere and not find richness. To prove that this is true, I will open it at random and copy the page I happen to stumble upon. Here ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his feet in a safe place. Not taught this as from pulpit and platform, but by earnest, self-denying, sympathizing Christian men and women standing face to face with the poor repentant brother, and holding him tightly by the hand lest he stumble and fall in his first weak efforts to walk in a better way. And this is just the work that is now being done in our city by a Heaven-inspired institution not a year old, but with accomplished results that are a matter of wonder to all who ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... John to 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 himself. At Caesarea Philippi he showed to his disciples ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... her, she had resolved to let her chance of riches go. She came back to find an unexpected deliverer come to her. A strong, brave, practical man had appeared. This man was her own uncle—her beloved mother's brother. He knew how to act. While she alone must stumble in the dark, he would know what to do. He would—he could get her back her own. It seemed hard to reject such help; and yet her resolve was scarcely shaken, and the temptation, though severe, was not allowed to ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... home. Come!' and stooping low over the prostrate form he lifted her very carefully and holding her in a position the least painful for her, began again to battle with the storm, walking more carefully now and groping his way through the stony field lest he should stumble and fall and ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... or you will stumble against your vanity." Her glance roved toward the door. There was something of madness in the Chevalier's eyes. In his hands her mask had become a shapeless mass of silken cloth. "I did not come to Quebec because you were here, Monsieur; though I was perfectly aware of your presence here. That ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... scarcely a mile when I noticed that my thoat was commencing to stumble and stagger in a most pitiful manner, although we had not attempted to force them out of a walk since about noon of the preceding day. Suddenly he lurched wildly to one side and pitched violently to the ground. Dejah Thoris and I were thrown clear of him and fell upon the soft moss with scarcely ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... success. They had to accept peace at my hands as a favor. Ah, if they had guessed how much I needed it myself! But these men are obtuse; they cannot see any thing. They have no aim; they only live from minute to minute, and whenever they find a precipice on their route, they stumble over it, and are lost beyond redemption. My God, how scarce real men are! There are eighteen millions in Italy, and I have scarcely found two men among them. I want to save these two men, but the rest may fulfil their destiny. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... though to slaughter. Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water, What have they given your children in return? A heritage of servitude and woes, A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows. What! do not yet the red-hot plowshares burn, O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal, And deem this proof of loyalty the real; Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars, And glorying as you tread the glowing bars? All that your sires have left you, all that Time Bequeaths ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... What for?" returned the post commander, obviously nettled. "I fancy he'll not thank you for even searching his quarters. You may stumble over his big museum in the dark and smash things. No, let him alone. If he isn't here for dinner, I'll 'tend to ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... a vow, and he does not fulfil it in good time, he will stumble through three grave sins, idolatry, unchastity, and bloodshed. Jacob had been guilty of not accomplishing promptly the vow he had taken upon himself at Beth-el, and therefore punishment overtook him—his daughter ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... won their forbearance. We listened to her statements more than half disposed to credit them, yet we adhered to our original determination, nevertheless, of joining the first gypsy camp on which, during the course of our tour, we might stumble. ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... speaking through the facts of Christ's death and Resurrection and Ascension, has given to us the sure and certain hope of immortality, and has declared to us plainly the conditions upon which that immortality may be ours, and the woful loss and eclipse into the shadow of which we shall stumble darkling if it is not ours, then surely that is a reason for prizing and laying to heart, and living by the revelation so mercifully made. People do not usually kick over their telescopes, and neglect to look through them, because they are so powerful ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... you will be ruled by me, I'll tell you what you shall do. Mark what I say; for I'll teach you the way to come to heaven, if you stumble not—give all you have to the poor but one single penny, and with that penny buy you a good strong halter; and when you ha' done so, come to me, and I'll tell you what you ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... from one of the rearmost individuals talking to his bolder neighbour in front, when finding his own courage on the wane. Following for some time what appeared to be the traces of recent footsteps, I hoped, yet almost feared, that every moment I might stumble on the bleeding corpse. An attendant in the rear now gave the alarm,—something he saw moving on our left causing him to make a desperate struggle to get before his companions. This produced a universal uproar—each fighting ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... it was announced that a gentleman was asking for Mr. Winslow. Churlishness bade us despatch him to the office, but humanity prevailed to invite him previously to share our luncheon. Yet we doubted whether it had not been a cruel mercy when he entered, evidently unprepared to stumble on a young lady and a deformed man, and stammering piteously as he hoped there ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... roughly upturned crop-land, and every few hundred yards roll under a line of barbed wire about a foot from the ground, at the risk of reefing one's clothes and the certainty of dishevelment. To walk out on the main roads and stumble over the loose stones ankle-deep in the dust was torture. Some averred they had known no repairs for ten years, and that they were as good as they were, because to have been worse was impossible. Walking in ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... Alexyei Sergyeitch, she was very fond of praying; but as, according to her own words, she had not learned to recite prayers well, she kept for that purpose the widow of a deacon, who prayed so tastily! She would never stumble to all eternity! And, in fact, that deacon's widow understood how to utter prayerful words in an irrepressible sort of way, without a break even when she inhaled or exhaled her breath—and Malanya Pavlovna listened and melted with emotion. She had another widow also attached ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... to a very clever woman making a blunder and not retrieving it. Men are licensed to stumble, but a clever woman's mistake is outside the regular course of Nature and Providence; since all good people know that a woman is the only infallible thing in this world, except Government Paper of the '70 issue, bearing interest at four ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... cross the rivulet. Seguin was some paces in advance as we rode forward to it. I saw his horse suddenly baulk, stumble over the bank, and roll ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... nodding. "I called at the police station before I came here, on leaving the train. The detective is Al Howard, and he's a nice fellow but rather stupid. You mustn't expect any results from that source. To be sure, the department might stumble on a clew, but the chances are they ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... into the spurs with which she punished the side of the bay, and the tall horse responded with a high-tossed head and a burst of whirlwind speed. The result was finally a stumble over a loose rock that almost flung Mary over the pommel of the saddle and forced her ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... us its treasures, seeking to win our poor love. It is sometimes said that this is a state of probation. But that phrase suggests far too cold an idea. God does not set us here as on a knife edge, with abysses on either side ready to swallow us if we stumble, while He stands apart watching for our halting, and unhelpful to our tottering feebleness. He compasses us with His love and its gifts, He draws us to Himself, and desires that we should stand. He offers all the help of His angels to hold us up. 'He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; He that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... desp'rit agerny to git home that night I got onto Leony's father's old white mar', 't was feedin' along by the road, an' puttin' of 'er deown the hill, I'm dumed ef she didn't stumble and hove me ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... made a resolution to avoid the kitchen in future: I might at any moment stumble upon Mr. Hamilton. I had forgotten that he gave Nathaniel lessons sometimes in the evening. What a ubiquitous mortal this man appeared, here, there, and everywhere! It had given me rather a shock to see him so comfortably domiciled in Mrs. Barton's cosy kitchen; he looked as much at ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... see that Mr Horne's variations are all for the worse. How flat and tame "sweet April showers," in comparison with "April with his shoures sote." In Chaucer the month comes boldly on, in his own person—in Mr Horne he is diluted into his own showers. 'Tis ominous thus to stumble on the threshold. "Downward shoot" is very bad indeed in itself, and all unlike the natural strength of Chaucer. "Liquid power" is even worse and more unlike; and most tautological the "virtue of power." In Chaucer the virtue is in the "licour." "Rare" is poorly dropped in to fill up. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... pavilion of love! And for one thing is my earnest wish directed to Him, that, unable as I am to direct my own steps aright, He would provide a leader for me, and a willing heart within me, and grant me enough of His guidance to keep me in the way, and enough of a willingness to walk therein and not stumble. ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... of the house. The colonel's son had seen her run that way, and as he sounded the final challenge his voice had a victorious ring. He began a second mock hunt. But it was a short one, for, fearful that he might stumble upon one of the Dutchman's younger brood, he first penetrated the outer darkness to find a boy, and then ran round the house in the direction taken by ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... the short outline is soon given. Promptly at 4 p.m. the creeping barrage started. In a dazed way or lighting cigarettes the men, who had lost during the long wait all sense of their whereabouts, began to stumble forward up the hill. Our shrapnel barrage was not good. One of the earliest shells burst just behind the hole from which I stepped. It wounded Rowbotham and Baxter (my two signallers) and destroyed the basket of carrier pigeons. ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... dread, and He shall be to you for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and many among them shall stumble against that stone, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and perish. Hide my words, and cover ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... through which we retire is swept continually with fire. I climb up to the ridge. Now nothing further matters. Only not to fall alive in the hands of those over there! To die! I stumble over a ridge in the field. A few moments of unconsciousness. Then again the tacktack-tacktack of the machine guns. God, our Lord, Thou art our refuge forever and aye! I pray Thee, I pray Thee, let me die an honest soldier's death. ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... they had acquired sufficient confidence in her good will, they pressed up to the window. "There," cried Townsend, as he chanced to stumble over the carpenter's mitre box, which stood in the way, "there's a good omen for me. I've stumbled on the mitre box; I shall ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... concerning which opinions differed in Octavius. That it typified progress, and helped more than any other feature of the village to bring it up to date, no one indeed disputed. One might move about a great deal, in truth, and hear no other view expressed. But then again one might stumble into conversation with one small storekeeper after another, and learn that they united in resenting the existence of "Thurston's," as rival farmers might join to curse a protracted drought. Each had his special flaming grievance. The little dry-goods dealers asked mournfully how they could be expected ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... stain in a sheet of paper, and a half-finished signature, that the will by which Mr Lockhart intended to despoil Colonel Brentwood was a curiously-contrived forgery. As men in search of the true and beautiful frequently stumble by accident on truths for which they did not search, and beauties of which they had formed no conception, so our detective unearthed a considerable number of smaller crimes of which the lawyer had been guilty—to the satisfaction of all concerned ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... this creed, Hans not only never told his wife of the project of becoming Buergermeister of Rapps, but he did not even give her reason to suppose that he laid up a shilling; and that she might not happen to stumble upon his money, he took care to carry it always about him. It was his delight, when he got into a quiet corner, or as he came along a retired lane, from his errands, to take it out and count it; and calculate when it would amount to this and that sum, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... grabbed his gun and sprang out into sight again—and there, off to the right, was another deer. It was a huge buck, with wide-spreading antlers, rising out of the bushes where it stood. It saw Thyrsis, and started away; and in a flash he raised his gun and fired. He saw the deer stumble, and he fired the other barrel; and then he started in ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... as he expected it would, and this gave him confidence. On, on; the dull pounding of Pirate's feet, the flying sod, the wind in his face: and when he saw the barb-wire fence, fear entered into him. An inch too low, a stumble, and serious injuries might result. He ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... and without thanking you for your delightful letter. Oh! why don't you squeeze yourself sometimes into that funny little house opposite Miss Bailey's, and let me take a cup of tea off the cushions, or some other place where the books would allow it to be put? And why don't you allow me to stumble over my German? And why doesn't Rex, Esq. (for Rex is too familiar even for a Bishop) correct my musical efforts? How terrible this word past is! The past is at all events real, but the future is so shadowy, and like the ghosts of Ulysses ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... I didn't have no business hirin' a man thet can't ride," he said. "Why thet there Brazos pony never did stumble, an' if he'd of stumbled he'd a-stood aroun' a year waitin' to be caught up agin. I jest cain't figger it out no ways how thet there tenderfoot bookkeeper lost him. He must a-shooed him away with a stick. An' saddle an' bridle an' all gone too. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he, "an obstacle against which all stupid people stumble; it is the act of reasoning under the influence ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... were absolutely necessary or not it would be hard to say, for just as the boys discharged their various weapons the huge bear was seen to stumble and fall. He gave several convulsive shudders, and ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... were goin' westward, and travelled far with them. But they quarrelled and separated, I goin' with these that I liked best. One night though, I took my horse and left; for I knew there was evil in the heart of a man who sought me continually, and the thing drove me mad. I rode until my horse could stumble no farther, and then I took the saddle for a pillow and slept on the bare ground. And in the morning I got up and rode on, seein' no house nor human being for manny and manny a mile. When everything seemed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... another every week in the year. And yet with all the hard work that men can do, they can not boost the world's supply of bread so as to increase our two weeks' lead on the wolf of famine. The wolf is ever behind us only two weeks away. And if we stumble for a ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... her cry "Henry!" with the fierceness of a call for help, and saw her rush forward and stumble into the arms of the prisoner, and their two heads were bent ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... not only nod, but snore. Thus does Teufelsdroeckh, wandering in regions where he had little business, confound the old authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new, spurious, imaginary Historian of the Brittische Journalistik; and so stumble on perhaps the most egregious ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... 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 trumpet! ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... this serious subject, we began to wonder what Mr. Haines' dream might portend this time, and prepare our minds for the verse from the prophecies over which dear Uncle Pennyman had made his latest stumble. ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... teacher's presence was both stimulating and reassuring. After he turned back, however, with a final look at the bandages, reaction set in. The sufferer's cheerfulness relapsed into a wincing silence, broken occasionally by faint groans, when a stumble on the part of his bearers set loose all the various aches that ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... murder, (as they supposed,) and to rout out the smugglers; and the rascals were even talking about the prizes, having heard the place was full of riches; and they said they were sure that more than one thing brought his Highness such a journey. At every stumble their horses made, the psalm-singing scoundrels offered up an ejaculation. May I never reef a sail, captain, if they didn't pray more, going that length of road, than you, and I, and all the crew of the Fire-fly put together, have prayed during the last twelve, ay, twice twelve ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... "You can stumble along, working at your trade of farming, and only half knowing it all your life; that's what most farmers do, in fact. They are too lazy to take up the scientific side of ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... young 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
... thy lot! Two paths are offered; that, in velvet-flower, Slopes easily to every earthly prize. Follow the multitude and bind thine eyes, Thou and thy sons' sons shall have peace with power. This narrow track skirts the abysmal verge, Here shalt thou stumble, totter, weep and bleed, All men shall hate and hound thee and thy seed, Thy portion be the wound, the stripe, the scourge. But in thy hand I place my lamp for light, Thy blood shall be the witness of my Law, Choose now for all the ages!" Then I saw The ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... saw her very seldom, but when he was with her she reminded him of a catch in the voice. It was as if her life had reached breaking point and for one moment she would give him as divine gift a little poignant stumble before she regained the sure foothold of her calm courage. It was these precious moments that gave a burning spirit to his image of her. The legend ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... am active, cheerful, communicative, a natural talker and story-teller. I am not noisy, like the ocean, except occasionally when I am rudely interrupted, or when I stumble and get a fall. When I am silent you can still have pleasure in watching my changing features. My idlest babble, when I am toying with the trifles that fall in my way, if not very full of meaning, is at least musical. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... jump 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 ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... of Homer and Virgil. The speech of Jupiter is, on the other hand, majestic, and in form and style bears a complete resemblance to Shakspeare's sonnets. Nothing but incapacity to appreciate the views of the poet, and the perspective observed by him, could lead them to stumble at this passage. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... cross. After allowing the animal to quench its thirst, I applied spurs and urged it into the stream; it being averse from some cause to take the water. The stream was, however, deeper than I anticipated, and the horse immediately began to stumble and flounder in an alarming manner, showing that the river bed was uneven and rocky. About half-way across was a small island, that divided the stream, which after much difficulty he reached; resting here about a minute, I again urged him forward, but the animal seemed very reluctant ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... the town like a dog with your tongue hanging out, running and running and cursing life. From the clothier's to the chemist's, from the chemist's to the modiste's, from the modiste's to the pork butcher's, and then back again to the chemist's. In one place you stumble, in a second you lose your money, in a third you forget to pay and they raise a hue and cry after you, in a fourth you tread on the train of a lady's dress.... Tfoo! You get so shaken up from all this that your bones ache all night and you dream of crocodiles. ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... earth and air, 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 us nothing but results. She permits us, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... I renew Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found Long since to be but just one other mound Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew. And once again, and wiser in no wise, I chase your colored phantom on the air, And sob and curse and fall and weep and rise And stumble pitifully on to where, Miserable and lost, with stinging eyes, Once more I clasp,—and there ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... his heels follows a motley crowd, cheering and shouting. One bearer relieves another as each wearies of his burden. The first to shoulder the Clavie, which is esteemed an honour, is usually a man who has been lately married. Should the bearer stumble or fall, it is deemed a very ill omen for him and for the village. In bygone times it was thought necessary that one man should carry it all round the village; hence the strongest man was chosen for the purpose. Moreover it was customary to carry the burning Clavie ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... he was being whirled along. As the moon went down we had the additional effect of torchlight to the scene, three bearers having the special duty of running along to show the pathway to the rest. This seemed a service of some danger, and our torch-bearers at times verged upon places where a stumble would have apparently extinguished both themselves and their torches for ever. About half way we stopped for about an hour for the bearers to partake of a light entertainment of "ghee and chupatties" — otherwise, rancid butter ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... in the road of life until you stumble against a battery; nerved with the shock you are frantic, and rush along wildly until the current received is exhausted, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... for shore! Haply a Ghoul Sat in the churchyard under a frightened moon, A thighbone in his fist, and glared At supper with a Lady: she who took Her rice with tweezers grain by grain. Or you might stumble—there by the iron gates Of the Pump Room—underneath the limes - Upon Bedreddin in his shirt and drawers, Just as the civil Genie laid him down. Or those red-curtained panes, Whence a tame cornet tenored it throatily Of beer-pots ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... introduction to the next week's lesson. I stood and watched. The master called upon first one, then another, to read aloud a sentence or two out of the textbook with which each was provided; and one after another the boys stood up, shamefaced or dogged, to stumble through sentences which seemed to convey absolutely no meaning to them. If it had been only the hard words that floored them—such as "cotyledon" and "dicotyledon"—I should not have been surprised; but ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... English: "Good morning, my darling wife! I hope that you slept well, that you were undisturbed, that you will not rise too early, that you will not catch cold, nor stoop too much, nor overstrain yourself, nor scold your servants, nor stumble over the threshold of the adjoining room. Spare yourself all household worries till I come back. May no evil befall you! I shall be home ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... and all the troublous times which had ended at her death. And a leaden weight was falling on my heart, as I wondered if I was never again to hold my friend's hand in mine; when one day I chanced to stumble on news of him ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... the advance on Metammeh was continued, with the Hussars still in the van. On the following night there was a scene of wild disorder. It was very dark and camels began to stumble and lose their places in ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... digging the house, the doctor happened to stumble upon a small stove which had not been injured by the explosion, and with a piece of chimney that could be easily repaired: the doctor carried it away in triumph. At the end of three hours the house was inhabitable; the stove was set in and filled with pieces ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... trustful, waiting quiet oppressed, taunted him. It sent him back more mad against Destiny, his heart more bitter in its great pity. Let him go back into the great city, with its stifling gambling-hells, its negro-pens, its foul cellars. It is his place and work. If he stumble blindly against unconquerable ills, and die, others have so stumbled and so died. Do you think their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... And so here, in this forest, a knowledge of its greatness is for much in the effect produced. You reckon up the miles that lie between you and intrusion. You may walk before you all day long, and not fear to touch the barrier of your Eden, or stumble out of fairyland into the land of gin and steam-hammers. And there is an old tale enhances for the imagination the grandeur of the woods of France, and secures you in the thought of your seclusion. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... webbed like those of walkers in wet and soft places; they had tails, long or short, as they were old or young. Men crouched when they walked, or crawled along the ground like lizards. They feared to walk straight, but crouched as before time they had in their cave worlds, that they might not stumble or fall in ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... "When burro stumble I feel ouch and see desert and then I drift away up to sky again," answered Firio. "All right now, eh? Pretty soon you so strong I have to broil five—six—seven quail a ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... still further into that past, I would stumble into American nights—nights with old friends, established there or passing through and run across by chance—nights of joy in being with my own people again, of hearing not English, but my native tongue and having life readjusted to the American ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... top he 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 journey ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... The women must cook and scatter popcorn on the verandah every morning; so will the men be agile in their movements. The rooms must be kept very tidy, all boxes being placed near the walls; for if any one were to stumble over them, the absent husbands would fall and be at the mercy of the foe. At every meal a little rice must be left in the pot and put aside; so will the men far away always have something to eat and need never go hungry. On no account may the women sit at the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... crupper, and then let that twig fall; and after that to take another twig, and do in like manner to every one of the horses, as he should overtake them, enjoining the horseman strictly to watch when his own horse should stumble, and to throw down his cap on the spot. All these things did the youth fulfil, giving a blow to every one of the king's horses, and throwing down his cap on the spot where his horse stumbled. And to this spot Taliesin brought his master after his ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... got up with a stumble, His rider went sideways, but knew how to tumble, And got up and remounted, though the pain made him humble, And he rode fifty yards and ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... her steadily at it. Fortunately, she was a first-rate fencer, and knew her work capitally, as she proved in the present instance, by rising to the leap, clearing the fence in beautiful style, and dropping lightly into the lane beyond, without so much as a stumble, just as Clara and her attendant turned the corner of the road and came in sight. My sudden appearance frightened Clara's pony to a degree which justified me in riding up and assisting her to reduce it to order. Having accomplished this not very difficult task, I waited for a moment, hoping she would ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the Egyptians "dismayed and turned away back—their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back, since fear is round about them."[14215] He sees the "swift flee away," and the "mighty men" attempting to "escape;" but they "stumble and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates."[14216] "For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance, that He may avenge Him of His adversaries; and the sword devours, and it is satiate and made drunk with ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.(658) His disciple Beza relied mainly on 1 Pet. II, 7 sq.: "But to them that believe not, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner: and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of scandal, to them who stumble at the word, neither do believe, whereunto also they are set,"(659) i.e., according to Beza, predestined not to believe.(660) But this interpretation is obviously wrong. For we know from Is. VIII, 14(661) and Matth. XXI, 44,(662) that those who fall on this stone are ground to powder as a punishment ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... are," whispered the 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
... or not, it would neither be safe for him to raise an alarm, nor start to rush back to the bivouac—though this was not twenty yards from the spot. By making an attempt to retreat, he might draw the animal after him, or stumble upon it—not knowing its direction. It was to ascertain its whereabouts that he had stopped and stood listening. That once known, he might keep his place, or lake ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... in his being, and has grown to be rather a hump than a pack, so that there is no getting rid of it without tearing his whole structure to pieces. In my judgment, as he appears to be sufficiently comfortable under the mouldy accretion, he had better stumble on with it as long as he can. He presents a spectacle which is by no means without its charm for a ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... proposed the out-of-door club, and had started a tennis-court, 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 ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... down its length, the street of new brick and 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 under the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... come to Him, and meet Him, secretly and really as did the penitent Apostle, whom the message, that proclaimed the love of his Lord, emboldened to meet the Lord who loved, and by His own lips to be assured of forgiveness and friendship. It is possible to stumble at noontide, as in the dark. A man may starve, outside of barns filled with plenty, and his lips may be parched with thirst, though he is within sight of a broad river flowing in the sunshine. So a soul may stiffen into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... to stumble out of bed. Deputy lights a candle, draws back a bolt or two, and appears at the door. Deputy is a shivering shirt and trousers by no means clean, a yawning face, a shock head much confused externally ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... with me, and I'll take care of you," she said. "There is the step. Don't stumble. Here, steady yourself with the umbrella. We are almost there now." Her voice was cold and hard; but the words were those she might have used to Archibald had she been leading him ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... throw the book into the fire. Though I should weep from night till morn, would that prevent Destiny from having, in a fit of ill-humour, taken me out hunting, sent me astray in the woods, and made me stumble across a Mauprat, who led me to his den, where I escaped dishonour and perhaps death only by binding my life forever to that of a savage who had none of my principles, and who probably (and who undoubtedly, I should say) never will have them? All this ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... nothing 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 ere ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... sails; a todo —— all sails set. tras prep. behind, after; —— de behind. traslado m. likeness, imitation. trasmontar sink beyond, set. trasparente adj. transparent, clear. traspasar pierce. traspi m. slip, stumble; dar ——s stumble, reel. trastornar disorder, confuse, upset. trastorno m. disorder, confusion, disturbance. trasunto m. likeness, copy. trato m. agreement, bargain, treatment. trecho m. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... soft and sure as her own Hugh took Clara into his arms. A few minutes later they went up stairs and twice Hugh stumbled on the stairway. It did not matter. His long awkward body was a thing outside himself. It might stumble and fall many times but the new thing he had found, the thing inside himself that responded to the thing inside the shell that was Clara his wife, did not stumble. It flew like a bird out of darkness into the light. At ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... surprise he found the man had his back to them, and was retiring; but as he watched, Ramsden made an angry gesticulation, turned sharply and came on again, but seemed to catch his foot against a projecting piece of rock, stumble and fall forward, his cutlass flying two or three yards on before him ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... at all from where you are, Don Martin," advised the Capataz, earnestly. "You might stumble or displace something which would make a noise. The sweeps and the punting poles are lying about. Move not for your life. Por Dios, Don Martin," he went on in a keen but friendly whisper, "I am so desperate that if I didn't know your worship to be a man of courage, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... those we have, still the load is all such poor weak fellows ought to bear. Old Crump was not thus favored by a gradually lightened load. He bore the same four children every day, faithfully, carefully, with never a stumble nor fall, as though fully aware of the precious nature ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... Sleep Prolonger, the Alarm Clock, which automatically closed the window and opened the hot air register at the designated hour. And out of the world, out of the whole human race, present and past, he, John C. Bedelle, was the first to stumble upon this revolutionary fact! An accident? Perhaps—but so was Galileo's discovery of the telescope an accident. When the gnawing appetite had been placated (somewhat placated, but not convinced), the Skippy Bedelle who descended Laloo's steps, with grave and thoughtful face, had emerged from the ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson |
