"Stagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Al Memor of the synagogue. When they learned that it bore the homage of repentant Jerusalem, their joy was tumultuous to the point of tears. Sabbatai threw twenty silver crowns on a salver for the messenger, and invited others to do the same, so that the happy envoy could scarce stagger away with his reward. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a great volley of flying mist went out before it and whelmed the scene; the wind stormed with a sudden fierceness that carried away the minister's voice and twitched his tails and made him stagger, and turned the congregation for a moment into a mere pother of blowing plaid-ends and prancing horses; and the rain followed and was dashed straight into their faces. Men and women panted aloud ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the captain. But they had scarcely charged the animal with this double load than he began to stagger, then, with a great effort, walked a few minutes, then staggered again, and sank down dead by the side of the black horse, which he had just managed to come ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... stretch her body to its extreme length, and, lying upon her side, pound the floor with her head as if it were a maul. Then like a flash she would leap to her feet, and whirl round and round until from very giddiness she would stagger and fall. She would lay hold of the straw with her teeth, and shake it as a dog shakes a struggling woodchuck; then dashing it from her mouth, she would seize hold of her own sides, and send herself. Springing up, she would rush against the end of the car, falling all ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray
... Venturesome, indeed, would be the prophet who would attempt to predict the developments in the field of botany in the next century in the way of providing food, shelter, and clothing for the race. The possibilities stagger the imagination and the prophet stands bewildered as he faces this ever-widening field. But botany, vast as it is seen to be, is only one of the ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... very might and strength of God to attain to salvation: that they be the foundations of the Prophets and Apostles, whereupon is built the Church of God: that they be the very sure and infallible rule, whereby may be tried, whether the Church do stagger, or err, and whereunto all ecclesiastical doctrine ought to be called to account: and that against these Scriptures neither law, nor ordinance, nor any custom ought to be heard: no, though Paul his own ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... don't, you can't come it,' tremble upon your lips; but then, oh! the delight of giving up to it; going the whole, the entire, the unclipt, the blind-folded, the universal; 'ha! ha! come to my heart, my beauties!' and with open arms you stagger to their embraces. But in that long, long, kiss, with the hot breath of passion, and the bounding blood and brain reeling to madness, there is the bitterness of death. Dust and ashes!—take them ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... we to be first in extend- ing a helping hand to those who stagger in the mires of infamy; to speak the first words of hope and warning to those emerging into the sunlight of morality! Who can tell what numbers, ad- vancing just far enough to hear a cold welcome and join in the reserved converse of professed reformers, disappointed, disheartened, have ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... still provincial oddities wonderfully quizzical; and the newspapers are constantly expressing the popular amazement at 'Mr. Dickens's extraordinary composure.' They seem to take it ill that I don't stagger on to the platform overpowered by the spectacle before me, and the national greatness. They are all so accustomed to do public things with a flourish of trumpets, that the notion of my coming in to read without somebody first flying up and delivering an 'Oration' about me, and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... distributing them to the several brigades which we overhauled and passed, we ran a distance of forty miles and made no less than fifteen portages. The carrying or portaging power of the Indian is very remarkable. A young boy will trot away under a load which would stagger a strong European unaccustomed to such labour. The portages and the falls which they avoid bear names which seem strange and un meaning but which have their origin in some long-forgotten incident connected ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... fat without acquiring any useless knowledge or desire of life; it became a capon in tender years, and then a pipe was introduced into its mouth and it was fed by machinery until it could hardly walk, until it could only stagger to its bed, and there it lay in happy digestion until the hour came for it to be crammed again. So did it grow up without knowledge or sensation or feeling of life, moving gradually, peacefully towards its predestined end—a delicious repast! What better end, what greater glory ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... astronomy has not yet appeared. The atom itself is an invention of science. To get the mystery of vitality reduced to the atom is getting it in very close quarters, but it is a very big mystery still. Just how the dead becomes alive, even in the atom, is mystery enough to stagger any scientific mind. It is not the volume of the change; it is the quality or kind. Chemistry and mechanics we have always known, and they always remain chemistry and mechanics. They go into our laboratories and through our ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... planted by John Smith still grows. The voice of John Smith still lives. That voice has been swelled into the mighty chorus of 60,000,000 Americans singing the song of United States. We look forward to a future whose possibilities stagger all conjecture, to a common ruler of John Smith's ancient dominions; to a common destiny, such as he mapped out for us. And with devout and heartfelt gratitude to him, a reunited land proclaims, "Whom God hath joined together, let no man ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... in which he could use his fists from the manner in which he was being held; so Tom struck sharply upwards, his blows taking effect upon Pete's lower jaw, and jerking his head sharply, making him loose his hold and stagger back, to go down in a ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... simply definitions of the type of this: "Foolish are they who trust women or good luck, as both like a young serpent creep hither and thither," or this: "Men who are rich are like those who are drunk; in walking they are helped by others, they stagger on smooth roads and talk confusedly." It cannot be said that any psychological observations of the fool's or of the rich man's mind are recorded here. If I sift those maxims more carefully, I cannot find more than two score which, stripped of their picturesque phrasing, could really enter ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... could bring themselves to understand the meaning of Sam's words both the sufferers were revived by the excitement sufficiently to stagger to an upright position, but as only at intervals was the cheering sound heard, fatigue soon overpowered them again, and once more ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... mad fits had been on him for some days before the arrival of March Marston and his friends. He had recovered sufficiently to be able to stagger out of his room just at the time the buffalo hunters, as above described, entered the square of the fort. As he strode forward, with nothing on but his shirt and trousers, his eyes bloodshot, his hair matted and ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Jem saw a fine-looking young Maori, who was defending a rather open portion of the stockade, deliver a thrust, and then draw back, drop his spear, throw up his arms, and then reel and stagger forward, ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... mount was seen to stagger slightly. It was sufficient to pitch Ashby, who was not on ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... on the front, who had talked so big the day before, began to stagger, and the soldiers frequently looked behind them; which is a certain sign in a soldier, that he is just ready to run away. My old pilot was of my mind; and being near me, he called out: "Seignior Inglese," said he, "those fellows must be encouraged, or they will ruin ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... too. You will be more ready to offer up your lives for your country, for it will be better worth dying for; every citizen will be a brother; every ruler a brother; it will be like dying for your own little household. If you would see Rome flourish, she must become more pure. She can stagger along not much longer under this mountain weight of iniquity that presses her into the dust. She needs a new Hercules to cleanse her foul chambers. Christ is he; and if you will invite him, he will come and sweep away these abominations, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... healthy balance other than God, let the world find it. Does the world find it? Cut the world loose," he cried with a savage gesture. "Does the world stand on its own end? Does it stand, or does it stagger?" ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... general melee, when the bull and several picadors were in a tangled mass at one side of the ring, I saw one of these horses, terribly wounded, with its life pouring from it, emerge from the conflict and stagger ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through [stagger] To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee. [fluttering] His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnilie, [fire] His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, [worry] An' ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... he felt the dagger, He reel'd his wonted bottle swagger, But yet he drew the mortal trigger Wi' weel-aim'd heed; "L—d, five!" he cry'd, an' owre did stagger; Tam Samson's dead! ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the Lord, and his Wonders in the Deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy Wind, which lifteth up the Waters thereof. They mount up to the Heaven, they go down again to the Depths, their Soul is melted because of Trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken Man, and are at their Wits End. Then they cry unto the Lord in their Trouble, and he bringeth them out of their Distresses. He maketh the Storm a Calm, so that the Waves thereof are still. Then they are glad because they be quiet, so he bringeth ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... alighted, the same impressions were invariably conveyed to it, namely, whiteness and rotundity. Corinthian capitals were rendered, if possible, more ornate than ever by snow; equestrian statues were laden with it so heavily, that the horses appeared to stagger beneath their trappings and the riders, having white tips to their noses, white lumps on their heads and shoulders, and white patches on their cheek-bones and chins, looked ineffably ridiculous, and miserably cold. Everything, in fact, was covered ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... fearfully that it required an effort to hold it in front of his body. Blood streamed into his eyes and down his breast, his arms grew weak, his blows were feeble, his knees trembled, and he was ready to drop. Twice he went to his knees only to stagger to his feet again. Three times Pootoo's mighty club beat down warriors who ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... will at length discover again, emerging from these dismal bewilderments in which the modern Ages reel and stagger this long while, that to them also, as to the most ancient men, all Pictures that cannot be credited are—Pictures of an idle nature; to be mostly swept out of doors. Such veritably, were it never so forgotten, is the law! Mistakes enough, lies enough will insinuate themselves ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... pay into the liquor-traffic, that they may give a few cents of it into the Treasury, is costin' the people three times that dollar, in the loss that intemperance entails,— loss of labor, by the inability of drunken men to do any thing but wobble and stagger round; loss of wealth, by all the enormous losses of property and of taxation, of almshouses and madhouses, jails, police forces, paupers' coffins, and the digging of the thousands and thousands of graves that are filled yearly by them that reel into 'em." ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... is that so many live, that in spite of rags and want, in spite of tenement and gutter, of filth and pain, they limp and stagger and crawl beneath their burdens to the natural end. The wonder is that so few of the miserable are brave enough to die—that so many are terrified by the "something after death"—by the specters ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... charges to get well clear of the Channel and to the southward of Ushant before it changed, and then it gradually veered round until it came out strong from the north-west, when away we all went for Madeira, the slowest ships carrying every rag of canvas that they could stagger under, while the faster craft were unwillingly compelled to shorten down in order that all might keep together, while as for ourselves and the Astarte, the utmost that we could show, without running ahead of ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... an undertone, as though he did not wish the others to hear him; to tell the truth, he felt as though he could not stagger on much further over that rough trail, and carry the heavy pack in the bargain, as well as the new bag containing ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... the earth's disinherited who believed that he had come into his rood of land at last. Now the driving shadow of his restless fate was on him again. Macdonald could see that it was heavy in his mind to hitch up and stagger on into the west, which was already red with ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... swallowed and coughing it out of his lungs as well. Then Frobisher completed his work of restoration by administering a sip or two of brandy from the cup belonging to his emergency flask, and a few more moments later Ling was able to stagger to ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... a great stagger behind her, and a pitiful moan, and Sir Charles fell heavily, striking his head against the edge of the sofa. She looked round—as she knelt, and saw him, black in the face, rolling his eyeballs fearfully, while his teeth gnashed awfully, and a little jet of foam flew through ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... Most unseemly woe Thou sufferest, and dost stagger from the sense Bewildered! like a bad leech falling sick, Thou art faint at soul, and canst not find the ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... old house, so much so that Lord Strepp turned back among them and appeared to be urging them to make haste. However, their slow progress may be explained by the fact that a certain number of them were carrying a huge piece of timber, so heavy that they had to stagger along cautiously. ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... times lately Olga had, so to speak, run full-tilt into Lucia, and had passed on leaving a staggering form behind her. And in each case, so Georgie clearly perceived, Olga had not intended to butt into or stagger anybody. Each time, she had knocked Lucia down purely by accident, but if these accidents occurred with such awful frequency, it was to be expected that Lucia would find another name for them: they would have to be christened. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... gave a little dinner; and I own, Led by a wish with style to stamp the fete, Palmed off, as though a butler of our own, A skilled Greengrocer we had in "to wait."— I thought he seemed to sway beneath the fish— And stagger with a half familiar smile, When, lo! he fell, remarking blandly, "Thish All comes of tryin' to do the thing in shtyle!" I thundered, "Leave the room!" He saw my fix, And but retorted, "'Ere, you ain't a Duke! I'm not ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... escaped murderers. Their attitude towards the hunters, together with scraps of conversation they had uttered, had bred in Charley's active mind a theory for their actions and object, a theory involving a crime so vile and atrocious as to stagger belief. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... can imagine our dismay. We both screamed, for we thought our time had come, for sure. My legs were so weak that Beth had to drag me away and her face was white as a sheet and full of terror. Somehow we managed to stagger into the street, where a dozen men caught us and hurried us away. I hardly thought we were in a safe place when the big workman cried: 'There, young ladies; that will do. Your expression was simply immense and if this doesn't turn out to be the best film of the year, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... the walls that rankly grow and grow as from his life's blood, will only lay down his load when he feels the mortal glare of the sun blaze in upon heart and brain; the plethoric millionaire for whom he toils will plot and plan in his office till he swoons at the desk; the trembling beast must stagger forward while the flame-faced tormentor on the box has strength to lash him on; in all those vast palaces of commerce there are ceaseless sale and purchase, packing and unpacking, lifting up and laying ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... stumble, did not stagger back, did not change his stride. But he could not prevent himself from exclaiming: "What?" The Assistant Commissioner did not repeat his statement. "You know him," he went on in the ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Johnny's down-hanging legs tingled with cramp and excitement. Why didn't they begin? What were they waiting for? What if it were interrupted, or—terrible thought—made up at the last moment? Would they "holler" out when they were hit, or stagger round convulsively as they did at the "cirkiss"? Would they all run away afterwards and leave Johnny alone to tell the tale? And—horrible thought!—would any body believe him? Would Rupert? Rupert, had he "on'y knowed this," he wouldn't ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... of such people and their victims. We look upon a face under whose steady gaze we stagger; there are eyes we cannot encounter in a full unflinching look; there are hands whose touch thrills and weakens us, there are voices which sink into our souls, and mesmerize us at their will. Let the circumstances be what they may, we cannot forget the ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... fight circled his flanks. But Lindley was so fascinated by the brilliancy of the lad's fighting that he had no thought of the outcome of the fray until he heard a sudden sharp outcry. Then he saw Johan stagger back, but he saw at the same instant that the highwayman had fallen, doubled over in a heap, upon the ground. He saw, too, that Johan's sword, trailing on the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... thou knowest not how far the arch-enemy of mankind may be permitted to afflict bodily our guilty race. I could tell thee such tales of yonder creature as would stagger even ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... with a smile that she knew would stagger his fond eyes. She drugged his ear with a low-voiced greeting. ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... drenched to the skin. Their hands were bruised and cut by slipping wrenches and hammers. Their faces were covered with black grease, dirt and oil. But still they labored on. The storm grew worse, and it was all the Abaris could do to stagger ahead, handicapped as she ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... made of tough fiber and the extreme shock that would leave some men stunned and prostrate only made him stagger a little. His revolver was spitting an intermittent stream of fire and it continued this after a second slug through his lungs had forced him to his knees. He sank down fighting and got his third fatal wound before ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... from the captive, so as to keep the thong tensely stretched between his neck and the peak of the saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was of no use with a halter round his windpipe, and he very soon began to tremble and stagger,—blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears as of a thousand battle-trumpets,—at any rate, subdued and helpless. That was enough. Dick loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it like a pet snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Indians, and shouts of execration from the soldiers, mingled faintly together. At that moment the arm of the second warrior was raised, and a blade was seen to glitter in the sunshine. His arm descended, and Wacousta was observed to stagger forward and fall heavily into the abyss into which his victim had the instant before been precipitated. Another loud yell, but of disappointment and anger, was heard drowning that of exultation pealed by the triumphant ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... own son, felt great contempt for him when he thus disgraced himself; and once when he saw his father stagger and fall after one of his orgies, he scornfully exclaimed, "See! here is a man who is getting ready to cross from Europe to Asia, and yet he cannot step safely from ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... wing, uplifted silently, Sweeps thro' the steadfast depths of the mind's heaven, Like the fixed splendor of the morning star— Nearer and nearer to the wasteless flame That in the centres of the universe Burns through the o'erlapping centuries of time. And shall it stagger midway on its path, And sink its radiance low as the dull dust, For the death-flutter of a fledgling hope? Or, with the headlong phrensy of a fiend, Front the keen arrows of Love's sunken sun, For that, with nearer vision it discerns ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... Eat lots of it. Yes, eat too much of it. Eat till you can just stagger across the room with it and prop it up against a sofa cushion. Eat everything that you like until you can't eat any more. The only test is, can you pay for it? If you can't pay for it, don't eat it. And listen—don't ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... to multiply this result by 10,000,000,000 which still shows that the theory has less than one chance in a million to be true. Darwin himself says, "The belief that an organ so perfect as the eye could have been formed by natural selection, is more than enough to STAGGER ANY ONE." Yet he and his followers refuse to be "staggered," and proceed to argue as if this unanswerable objection had little or no weight. Any hypothesis is weakened or damaged by every support that is an uncertain guess. Gravitation has no ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... that schooner's driven deck Last night as reefed and shuddering she hove Into the twilight and all desperate drove From wave to angrier wave that sought her wreck? Who labored at her helm and watched the wind Stagger the sea with all his stunning might, Until in dimness dwindling from our sight She vanished in the wrack that rode behind? We know not, you and I, but our two souls That followed as storm-petrels o'er the waves Felt all the might of Him who sinks or saves, And ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... not seeming to aim. The bullet struck one of the front wheels of Conniston's wagon. Almost at the same second Conniston fired. Fired and missed, and fired again. With the second report came a shrill cry from the man with the revolver, and Conniston saw him stagger, drop his gun, wheel half around, and fall. And where he fell he lay, writhing and calling ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... made a snatch and caught the jewel from his hand, when, light as the action was, it was sufficient to make his now exhausted visitor stagger. He would have fallen but for the King's strong arm, which saved him, and helped him to the ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... walked up to the head of the table and laid down a cheque for a hundred dollars conditional on the fund reaching one hundred thousand the room was in an uproar. A hundred thousand dollars! Just think of it! The figures fairly stagger one. To think of a hundred thousand dollars raised in five minutes in a ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... enough of the truth to make a powerful impression upon the man he had gone so far to see, and that if he was not altogether given over to the service of this band of bad men, he could state facts enough, which the old gentleman knew were profound secrets, to stagger his mind and arouse his conscience. After an interview of less than an hour this detective, by an art of which we cannot conceive, and by a magnetism and eloquence that no other man of my acquaintance ever possessed a tithe of, actually induced ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... their Trumpets, 'tis too late to stagger, Give me the head, and be you confident: Hail Conquerour, and head of all the world, Now ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the fate that overtakes those who yield to sin? "They meet with darkness in the day-time, and grope in the noon-day as in the night" (Job V, 14). And further on: "They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man" (Job XII, 25). I read these beautiful passages over and over again. ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... infer from what you're read That Richard awoke with an aching head; For nerves like his resisted With wonderful ease what we might deem Enough to stagger a Polypheme, And his spirits would never more than seem A ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... for a little brandy to calm her nerves, went down to Cox's. Mrs. Maroney offered some brandy to the Madam, which she politely declined to take, but this did not in the least abash her, for she gulped down enough to stagger an old toper. Josh. was not at home, and so very little ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... to hurting anything in the world; but he saw that there was only one way of preventing the cargo from being safely carried inland. It went sorely against him to take an innocent life; but just as the horse passed him, he fired, aiming a little behind the near shoulder. The horse gave a convulsive stagger and fell dead in the shafts. There was then left one man with a pistol against four, who might or might not be armed. Luckily it happened that the smugglers only carried bludgeons. The coastguard saw that he could not ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... said the Comte stiffly, "I really must ask you to think sometimes before you speak. Of a truth you make suggestions and comments at times which literally stagger one." ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... writes a novel exhibiting the badness of our meat supply. Men become excited. Men take action. Men legislate. The great meat industries stagger under the shock, recover, and go on smiling. Before this meanwhile, and afterwards, the meat went into out kitchens and we ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... about fifteen minits ago and father said we have been here about as long as that and i dident see the scoundrel. how did he look Isak, and Ike said i coodent see him very well George but he was a big man and he had a awfu deep voice and father said did he stagger enny and Ike said i coodent see wether he did or not but i cood tell he was drunk by his voice. so old Swain and old Kize went down behind the school house and off thru the carrige shop yard to see if they cood find ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... and saw Maggie stagger toward the door, with her hand pressed upon her heart, as the policeman went away down the street. On the threshold she ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... continuing her story, "was my lord departed, than Mrs. Ellison came to me. She behaved in such a manner, when she became acquainted with what had past, that, though I was at first satisfied of her guilt, she began to stagger my opinion, and at length prevailed upon me entirely to acquit her. She raved like a mad woman against my lord, swore he should not stay a moment in her house, and that she would never speak to him more. In short, had she been ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... "Not at first anyway. The woman there says she was out here in her garden, feeding her fowls, when she saw him stagger round the corner of the wood there, and make for her. He fell across the bank where he's lying in a dead faint, and she ran for water. Just then we came along in the trap, saw what was happening and jumped out. Fortunately, when we set off, Mr. Cazalette insisted ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... assured me, while chatting of the affair on the previous night, that this birthday binge of his was to be on a scale calculated to stagger humanity, and I must say I have participated in less fruity functions. It was well after four when I got home, and by that time I was about ready to turn in. I can just remember groping for the bed and crawling into it, and it seemed to me that the lemon had scarcely touched the pillow ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... turned it back Plato-ward—to the Moslems: through Avicenna, who Aristotelianized, to Averroes, who Platonized it again; and from him to Europe; where Bacon presently gave it another twist to out-Aristotle Aristotle (as someone said) to stagger the Stagirite—and passed it on as the scientific method of today. According to Coleridge, every man is by nature either a Platonist or an Aristotelian; and there is ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... from the master was enough to stagger a stronger man than Abe, and certainly he felt a little troubled at what he had heard, but he could put his trust ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... was inexhaustible, his information astonishing. Pleasant as he was, even as an antagonist, he would occasionally lose his temper and use very emphatic language. I was once sitting next to him when I heard him stagger his neighbor, a young lady, by bursting out with, "But, madam, I do not accept your major premise!" Poor thing, she evidently was not accustomed to such language, and not acquainted with that terrible term. She collapsed, evidently quite ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... time to see him stagger back into the arms of Mrs. Chump, whose supplication was for the female ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and a long sword are, however, great advantages in affairs of this kind, and I took him on the riposte. A cry and a gasp, a sword clattered on to the pavement, and the stricken man spun round and, holding his hand to his side, tried to stagger off, but after stumbling a few steps he fell in a ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... raving. I could hear it now whilst I was talking. My madness was a delirium of weakness and prostration, but I was not out of my senses. All at once the thought darted through my brain that I was insane. Seized with terror, I spring out of bed again, I stagger to the door, which I try to open, fling myself against it a couple of times to burst it, strike my head against the wall, bewail loudly, bite my fingers, cry ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... sheets he has produced are impossible to replace. High words. Abrupt re-opening of the front door. Struggling humanity projected on to the pavement. Three persons—my scribe in the middle, an emissary on either side—stagger strangely past me. The scribe enters the purple night only under the stony compulsion ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... gentlemen thus met and created Wall Street, then the result, being a natural product, is good and wholesome. But the inquiry at once arises whether it is valid logic to suppose that what men do is right, simply because they do it. The affirmative of such a proposition would make Aristotle stagger. It amounts to this, that whatever is is ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... man so's he could locate under the law, but this claim's located a'ready." He waved a hand toward the monument, a few rods up the canyon. "And Casey Ryan ain't spreadin' no rich gold vein wide open for every prowlin' desert rat to pack off all he kin stagger under. I'm callin' it the Devil's Lantern. You c'n call a mine any name yuh darn want to. And if it wasn't fer the Devil's Lantern, I wouldn't be here. That name won't mean nothin' to 'em. Let 'em come." His eyes turned toward the hidden richness and dwelt ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... imaginations, and we have drifted far away from port before we awake out of our illusions. But to carry us out of maturity into old age, without our knowing where we are going, she drugs us with strong opiates, and so we stagger along with wide open eyes that see nothing until snow enough has fallen on our heads to rouse our comatose brains ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... a stripper and He bagged it with a bagger; The bags were all so lumpy that They made the lumper stagger. ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... the cannon-roar down by Stone River? Saw ye the bleeding braves stagger and quiver? Heard ye the shout and the roar and the rattle? And saw ye the desperate surging of battle? Volley on volley and steel upon steel— Breast unto breast—how they lunge and they reel! Lo—torn by the shot and begrimed by the powder, The ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... it.' 'One day is with the Lord as a thousand years' in respect of the magnitude of the changes which may be wrought by the instantaneous operation of His hand when the appointed hour shall strike, and therefore it should not strain our patience nor stagger our faith that 'a thousand years' should be 'as one day,' in respect of the visible approximation achieved in them, towards the establishment of His purpose. The world was prepared for man through countless millenniums. Man was prepared for the advent of Christ through long centuries. Nineteen hundred ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... and Jim watched his painful gait. Once he thought he saw him stagger, but, as he continued to hobble on, he turned again to the injured man. One glance at his face showed him the extent of his handiwork. He was ripped open right along the jaw, and the ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... his air, His voice was frozen by his cold despair; Slow, like a ghost, he mov'd with solemn pace; A dying paleness sat upon his face. Back she recoil'd, she smote her lovely breast, Her eyes the anguish of her heart confess'd; Struck to the soul, she stagger'd with the wound, And sunk, a breathless image, to the ground. Thus the fair lily, when the sky's o'ercast, At first but shudders in the feeble blast; But when the winds and weighty rains descend, The fair and upright stem is forc'd to bend; Till broke at length, its snowy leaves are ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... enormous three spans thick was the shield, If all be true they tell us, that Brunhild bore in field. Of steel and gold compacted all gorgeously it glow'd. Four chamberlains, that bore it, stagger'd beneath the load. ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... raised his Remington, as the creature hobbled past, and sent a bullet through its brain. The wounded man flew forwards out of the high saddle, and fell heavily upon the hard track. His companions in misfortune, looking back, saw him stagger to his feet with a dazed face. At the same instant a Baggara slipped down from his camel with a sword in ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... buried in the depths below, Now mounted up to heaven again, They reel and stagger to and fro, At their wit's end, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... logically must be—what, on other occasions, he clearly avows it to be—is plain enough. It is essentially that of a man confronted by one Incomprehensible, not confronted by two. But, looked at in certain ways, or rather looked from in certain ways, this position seems to stagger him. The problem of existence reels and grows dim before him, and he fancies that he detects the presence of two Incomprehensibles, when he has really, in his state of mental insobriety, only seen one Incomprehensible double. If this be not the case, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... breath, his hands falling helplessly at his sides. In a way he appeared suddenly bowed; the great frame of bone and sinew seemed in some strange, indefinable manner to shrink, to stagger under the sudden assumption of an intolerable burden—a burden that was never ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... anything which was not desirable for the child to do either in public or private. Why should any man who walks upright, with his head pointing to the stars, be permitted to profane the name of Deity, to stagger under the influence of liquor, to puff at a cigar, to gamble, to run a disorderly resort or show, to enrich himself through the manufacture and sale of poisons, or to do anything else that corrupts the community and destroys her children? Surely in our ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... and, though a trifle dizzy yet from the blow of his unseen foe, was able to stagger into the house. There Trusia, with a woman's tender solicitude for those for whom she cares, without the intervention of servants poured from a near-by decanter, and forced Carter to drain, a goblet of wine. Under the stimulant his ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... to say, sir, you're a fool," Return'd the bragger. Language like this no man can suffer cool: It made the listener stagger; So, thunder-stricken, he at once replied, "The traveler lied Who had the impudence to tell it you;" "Zounds! then d'ye mean to swear before my face That anchovies don't grow like cloves and mace?" ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... his hand to his head with an inarticulate cry of bewilderment. Then, with one supreme effort, he began to stagger hastily but noiselessly about the room. The servants of the house were already astir, and the day would soon be here. He put his sacred letters carefully away, and destroyed all worthless ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... earnestly for the faith delivered to the saints, and to have these contradicted truths so impressed in their life upon our souls, that the pen of the most subtle pleader for this perversion of the gospel may neither delete these, nor be able to stagger us, but we may, from the efficacious working of these, have the witness in ourselves, and know the men who teach otherways not to be of God; 3d, It should be our ambition, when the all of religion is cried down, and a painted shadow, a putrid, however ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... no more than that there ought to have been. "I don't see how he could stagger through with that load on his conscience. I'm not sure I like his being ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... my belief!" said Joe Crouch, turning to address his chum. He got no reply; for, at that instant, as the other happened to look round, he saw his cousin stagger and sink down upon the sand. In an instant Jack had sprung to his assistance; but this time it was no false alarm. The bullet had done too well its cruel work. For a moment Valentine seemed to recognize him, and looking up, with his ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... father felt certain that the story was a true one. As soon as a letter could arrive from Ireland, one came with the most profuse thanks, and enclosing, as he said, a 20 pound Bank of England note, but no note was enclosed. I asked my father whether this did not stagger him, but he answered 'not in the least.' On the next day another letter came with many apologies for having forgotten (like a true Irishman) to put the note into his letter of the day before...(A gentleman) brought his nephew, who was insane but quite gentle, to my father; and the ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... beat so hard against his little jacket that he could only stagger back to the basket, where Rags and Lady Gay were snuggled together, fast asleep. He anxiously scanned Gay's face; moistened his rag of a handkerchief at the only available source of supply; scrubbed an atrocious dirt spot from the tip of her spirited nose; and then, dragging the basket ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Rembrandtesque, usually, in a clean house; but is presently obtainable of that quality in a dirty one. And without denying the pleasantness of the mode of progression which Mr. Hazlitt, perhaps too enthusiastically, describes as attainable in a background of Rembrandt's—"You stagger from one abyss of obscurity to another"—I cannot feel it an entirely glorious speciality to be distinguished, as Rembrandt was, from other great painters, chiefly by the liveliness of his darkness, and the dullness of his light. Glorious, or inglorious, the speciality itself is ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... workshop; the injury to health and the risks that spring from employment in dangerous trades; poor wages further reduced by fines and deductions; the employment of children often sent to work at too early an age, to stagger under loads too heavy for them to bear; the liability to accident consequent on long hours of labour—these were the themes brought forward on the Home Office Vote, not for rhetorical display, but as arguments tending to a practical conclusion, such as the inadequacy of ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... energy which is one. They are all species of the one, but it is convenient and even necessary for our limited intellects to consider them separately, for the indefinite number of the facts and also their intricacy and complexity stagger and overwhelm us unless we do; and indeed they stagger us even when we try to treat them and take them up separately for consideration and examination. But now for the proof of A.A. ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... determined men with rifles or shotguns, ostensibly intending to go hunting after they had voted, gathered around the polls. An occasional random shot might kick up the dust near an approaching negro. Men actually or apparently the worse for liquor might stagger around, seeking an excuse for a fight. It is not surprising that among the negroes the impression that it was unwise to attempt to ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... "The fruits of our peace and independence do not at present wear so promising an appearance as I had fondly painted to my mind. The prejudices, the jealousies, and turbulence of the people, at times, almost stagger my confidence in our political establishments; and almost occasion me to think that they will show themselves unworthy of the noble prize for which we have contended, and which, I had pleased myself with the hope, we were so near ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Courtlandt told her and told Captain Forrest that it should make no difference; but she is self-willed and obstinate, and nothing would do but she must quit his roof forever and come to be a burden on her brother, who has quite enough to stagger under already." ("Hum!" thought Bayard at this juncture, "how little she realizes the truth of that assertion!") "Mr. Courtlandt had been devoted to her from her childhood, had lavished everything on her, ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... fierce struggle for the lead, which ended with the weakening of both Beatty and Jetting. Beatty weakened first, however, and fell back, but Jetting was seen to stagger a bit, recover and ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... herself, as Robert had advised, and immediately a pain shot through her back which seemed to snap it in two. The whole place seemed to be rushing round in a mad whirl, the roof of the shed coming down, and the floor rushing up, when with a stagger Mysie fell full length upon a "bing" of stones, bruising her cheek, and cutting her little hands worse than ever. This was what usually happened to all beginners at ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... these light things which the wind carries away, or the waters bear above, and tosses hither and thither, yet he apprehends some solid and real worth in himself, and would impose that apprehension upon others. And truly this is a drunkenness of mind, which makes a man light and vain, to stagger to and fro. It is a giddiness of spirit, that makes him inconstant and reeling, but insensible of it. Though he be born as stupid and void of any real wisdom and excellency, as a wild ass's colt, yet he hath this madness and folly superadded to ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... chyle, be it observed, is the same color as the blood of insects, and may also be considered blood in its apprenticeship. By what magic, then, is this raw, imperfectly-formed steward, who seems altogether stationary, enabled to accomplish exploits which would stagger his higher-bred compeers, agile and perfected as they are? Where does he pick up the oxygen necessary for such repeated movements, it being an established fact that no animal can move at all without consuming oxygen, and that the quantity consumed is in proportion ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... master said we didn't do work enough. 'How came there was no more work done that day?' said master to me. I told him I did work. In a more stormy manner he 'peated the question. I then spoke up and said: 'Massa, I don't know what to say.' At once massa plunged his knife into my neck causing me to stagger. Massa was drunk. He then drove me down to the black folk's houses (cabins of the slaves). He then got his gun, called the overseer, and told him to get some ropes. While he was gone I said, 'Massa, now you are going to tie me up and cut me all ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... and the files are slowly moving through the woods, they renew their morbid broodings, and ask themselves: How long is this to last? Is the joy of life to end thus? Must we jog on day after day in this cheerless gloom and this joyless duskiness, until we stagger and fall and rot among the toads? Then they disappear into the woods by twos, and threes, and sixes; and after the caravan has passed they return by the trail, some to reach Yambuya and upset the young officers with their tales of woe and war; some ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... locked 'em all in a room and put 'em on the carpet one by one. They was scared stiff, too stiff to talk. All but old Vincenzo, the white-haired old pirate the count had left in charge. He was a lovely peagreen under the gills, but he made a stagger at putting up a game of talk. No, he hadn't seen no one. He had been watching their excellencies in their little affair of honor. Still, he couldn't swear that we hadn't seen some one. Folks did see things at the castle; he had seen sights himself, though generally after dark. He ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... academic distinctions, preceded him by a few seconds, and then he entered himself—so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was the very embodiment of self-possession and solidity. And yet his first action when the door had closed behind him was to stagger against the table, whence he slipped down upon the floor, and there was that majestic figure prostrate and insensible upon our ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hitting them. It was like butting your head against a stone wall.... They crept nearer and nearer, and then our officers gave the word. A sheet of flame flickered along the line of trenches and a stream of bullets tore through the advancing mass of Germans. They seemed to stagger like a drunken man hit between the eyes, after which they made a run for us.... Halfway across the open another volley tore through their ranks, and by this time our artillery began dropping shells around them. Then an officer gave an order and they broke into open formation, rushing ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... of inactivity, for when she tried to get to her feet she found that her limbs were powerless. But she moved her knees up and down, suffering keenly as the blood took up its course, and after a time managed to scramble to her feet, and stagger to the opening in ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... or pine. The leafy boughs and twigs of the underbrush enlace themselves before you, so that you must stoop your head to pass under, or thrust yourself through amain, while they sweep against your face, and perhaps knock off your hat. There are rocks mossy and slippery; sometimes you stagger, with a great rustling of branches, against a clump of bushes, and into the midst of it. From end to end of all this tangled shade goes a pathway scarcely worn, for the leaves are not trodden through, yet plain enough to the eye, winding gently to avoid tree-trunks and rocks and little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... not yet inside the fort, and the delayed ascent of the third and last escarpment is now made. It is steeper than either. The first was a surface to walk up, the second to stagger up, the third can only be ascended on the hands and toes. On the summit obtrudes the first evidence which has been met with in these precincts that the time is really the nineteenth century; it is in the form of a white notice-board on a post, and the wording can just be discerned ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... income-tax realized, in the year ending on the 5th October last, the immense sum of L.5,052,000. As far, therefore, as concerns the direct financial effects of the new tariff and its counterbalancing income-tax, the results of Sir Robert Peel's policy are such as may stagger and confound the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Lamb is there. And then from day to day they hear more of the soft voices as the new Lambs come to live with the flock. Such queer little creatures as the Lambs are when they first come—so weak and awkward! They can hardly stand alone, and stagger and wobble around the little rooms or pens where they are with their mothers. You can just imagine how hard it must be to learn to manage four legs all ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... train rolled out of the Union Station. The difference between strong natures and weak is not that the strong are free from cowardice and faint-heartedness, from doubt and foreboding, from love and affection, but that they do not stay down when they are crushed down, stagger up ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... her comfort, but the girl was firm in her assertion, that she was now quite well, so that, having no sisters and being ignorant that a healthy young woman does not, any more than a healthy young man, go white and stagger without reason, he yielded, and ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... would read his hymn, and nod at me to commence. I would at times do so; at others, I would not. My non-compliance would almost always produce much confusion. To show himself independent of me, he would start and stagger through with his hymn in the most discordant manner. In this state of mind, he prayed with more than ordinary spirit. Poor man! such was his disposition, and success at deceiving, I do verily believe that he sometimes deceived himself into the solemn belief, that ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... with the instinct of the born and perfect actress, she looked wildly from her son's face to the straight, still length that lay beneath the pall. She raised one hand to her forehead, pressing back her golden hair with a gesture half mad, half dazed, then seemed to stagger forward two steps, and fell upon the body, in ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... fell upon the miser, he sent forth a wild, ringing scream—the soul's cry of desolation. Then in his grief he rushed into the rain and the wild night, and wandered on and on, stupefied with pain. Not until morning came did he stagger in out of the storm. Entering, he saw the glint of yellow by his hearth. With a wild cry he sprang forward and clutched it. But it was not gold; it was something better—it was the yellow locks of a sleeping child. ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... main town was now practically at an end; and as Dick ran hither and thither, seeking the commander, the streets were thick with wandering soldiers, some laden with more booty than they could well stagger under, others shouting drunk. None of them, when questioned, had the least notion of the duke's whereabouts; and, at last, it was by sheer good fortune that Dick found him, where he sat in the saddle, directing operations to dislodge the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... drinking-houses even in Paris, and more in some sections of Germany, but even those sent few or no drunk men upon the streets. A fellow that would stagger upon the pavement would be conducted to the station house at once. I did not see a single drunk person in Paris in half a month's stay, and only several in the rest of my tour through Europe. It is an encouraging sign of the times, that the cafe is ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... tiny tongues of flame forth from the ruins burst. No water! God! what shall we do to slake their quenchless thirst? The shocks have broken all the mains! "Use wine!" the people cry. The red flames laugh like drunken fiends; they stagger as to die, Then up again in fury spring, on high their crimson draperies fling; From block to block they leap and swing, and ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... his arms and his extended fingers, and bending down his eyes, as men do when shading them from a glare of lightning, the stranger stagger'd from the door, and, in a moment further, dash'd madly through the passage which led through the kitchen into the outer road. The old man heard the noise of his falling footsteps, sounding fainter ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... heretic of the sect of the Hieracites, called so from Hierax, who in the reign of Dioclesian denied the resurrection of the dead, had, by his sophisms, caused some to stagger in their faith. St. Macarius, to confirm them in the truth, raised a dead man to life, as Socrates, Sozomen, Palladius, and Rufinus relate. Cassian says, that he only made a dead corpse to speak for that purpose; then bade it rest till the resurrection. Lucius, the Arian ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... drank up from the ground. I cut down the bladder as fast as I could, and saved about half a pint in the bottom of it, which I tasted, and could not distinguish it from the best mountain wine. I drank it all, and found myself greatly refreshed. By this time the eagles began to stagger against the shrubs. I endeavored to keep my seat, but was soon thrown to some distance among the bushes. In attempting to rise, I put my hand upon a large hedgehog, which happened to lie among the grass upon its back; it instantly ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... flinging a glance across the room, I saw the Captain's sword describe a small circle of light, and next moment, with a sharp cry, Anthony caught at the blade, and stagger'd against the wall, pinn'd through ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... kingdom than to have written a piece according to regulation. This being so, I doubt not that the gentlemen of the Academy will find themselves much hampered in delivering a judgment on your case, and that, on the one hand, your arguments will stagger them, whilst, on the other, the public approbation will keep them in check. You have the best of it in the closet; he has the advantage on the stage. If the Cid be guilty, it is of a crime which has met with reward; if he be punished, it will be after having triumphed; if Plato ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the man, at that moment working himself into a frenzy, was plainly as dangerous as a mad dog. Drunk though he undoubtedly was, he did not stagger as he stepped to and fro with cat-like activity, his gun levelled at the policemen's heads. It was an ugly situation. Slavin and his men taken utterly by surprise hesitated, as well they might; for a single attempt to draw their ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... don't squeal or whine. He starts in to make the best of it by riggin' himself out like an English Squire and makin' a stagger at the country gentleman act. He takes a real int'rest in keepin' up the grounds and managin' the help, which DeLancey had never been able to ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... and summer, to the exploration of rivers and lakes, rock ridges and mountains, and the tundra that lay between, in search of the lost copper mines of the Indians; the mines that lured Hearne into the North in 1771, and which Hearne forgot in the discovery of a fur empire so vast as to stagger belief. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... opposite Rue du Croissant, an unfortunate itinerant vender of cocoa, with his tin can on his back, stagger, then gradually sink in a heap, and fall dead before a shop. Armed only with his bell, he had received all by himself the honour of being fired at by a ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... Record missed being the first to give out certain information that was to stagger the world. The dispatch, which had evidently outrun an ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... the girl fumble with the door on her side, open it, and stagger out of his sight. Then she reappeared round the car. Bareheaded, disheveled, white as chalk, with burning eyes and bleeding lips, she gazed at Kurt as if to make sure of ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... endless ages and limitless space! Once we grasp this idea of the unity and progressiveness of Life going on ad infinitum, what boundless vistas of possibility open before us. It would be enough to stagger the imagination were it not for our old friends, the Law and the Word. But these will always accompany us, and we may rely upon them in all worlds and under all conditions. This Law of Unity is what in natural science is ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... the street I led thee, dearest, Though the veil hid thy face divine, They who beheld thy graceful motion Would stagger as ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... "Doesn't it stagger Mrs. Wrandall somewhat to reconcile my pedigree to the position I occupy in Sara's household—that of companion, so to say?" asked Hetty, a slight ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... the captain displayed his infirmity was rather a laughable one. He came up from the cabin about three o'clock in the afternoon so full that he was forced to stagger as he walked. Directly in front of him the young dude, Montgomery Clinton, was pacing the deck, carrying in his hand a rattan cane such as he used on shore. As he overhauled him, Captain Hill, with the instinct of a drunken man, locked arms with the young man, and forced ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... took a lump of formless clay, and beneath the cunning of his hand there grew a great symbol of life. He called it Earthbound. An old man is bowed beneath the sorrow of the world. Under the weight of burdens that seemingly they cannot escape, a younger man and his faithful mate stagger with bent forms. Between them is a little child. Instead of a body supple and straight and instinct with freedom and vigor, the child's body yields to the weight of heredity and environment, whose crushing influence ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... sounds of horrible strugglings within it. And the girls lie awake, sick with fear, listening, till their ears grow heavy and dull, for the report of their father's pistol. At morning, the drunkard will stagger out, and look perhaps into this glass, that gives him back more than all his despair. "The poor old man and I have had a terrible night of it," he stammers; "he does his best—the poor old man! but it's all ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... beacon fires of Troy, that thundered eternally in the horses' hoofs at Arbela and in the guns at Waterloo. Ideals were here at stake—the dreams of one man as opposed perhaps to the ultimate dreams of a city or state or nation—the grovelings and wallowings of a democracy slowly, blindly trying to stagger to its feet. In this conflict—taking place in an inland cottage-dotted state where men were clowns and churls, dancing fiddlers at country fairs—were opposed, as the governor saw it, the ideals of one man and the ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... somehow you're sick of the highway, with its noise and its easy needs, And you seek the risk of the by-way, and you reck not where it leads. And sometimes it leads to the desert, and the tongue swells out of the mouth, And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking drouth. And sometimes it leads to the mountain, to the light of the lone camp-fire, And you gnaw your belt in the anguish of hunger-goaded desire. And sometimes it leads to the Southland, to the swamp where ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... he, and taking the lanthorn went aft very quietly, but with a certain stagger in his walk, which I should have put down to the wine if it was not that his behaviour was free from all symptoms of ebriation. The change in him surprised me, but not so greatly as you might suppose; indeed, it excited my suspicions rather than my wonder. Fear worked in him unquestionably, ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... the brain Unnourished wane; 10 Faith asks her daily bread, And Fancy must be fed! Now so it chanced—from wet or dry, It boots not how—I know not why— She missed her wonted food; and quickly 15 Poor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly. Then came a restless state, 'twixt yea and nay, His faith was fix'd, his heart all ebb and flow; Or like a bark, in some half-shelter'd bay, Above its anchor driving to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... would have lost his seat, so sharply did the horse wheel to avoid the animal's horns. The buffalo at once resumed its course behind the herd; but Frank was soon alongside again, and as he fired the last shot of his revolver had the satisfaction of seeing the great beast stagger and then fall prostrate. He at once reined in his horse and looked round. His companions were all some distance in the rear, having brought down their game with less expenditure of lead, knowing exactly the right spot where a wound ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... out of him. Oysters garrulous and tombs chatty in comparison. Absolutely. All I know is that he popped one into the officer's waistband. What led up to it is more than I can tell you. How would it be to stagger to the ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... causing all the pleasing sensations that might be experienced on the removal of a tail by the roots. Brown rushes wildly to the window, opening the casement; and, upon looking into the pitch-dark night, he receives a blow from without, that causes him to stagger and reel backwards, falling to the floor, with a noise that makes Mrs. Brown rise in a fright, obtain a light, and severely reprimand her lord as a drunken fool—capable of ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner |
