"Stagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fired from the trees, caused some of his fur to fly off; and he was seen to stagger, as if about to fall. The hunters raised a shout of triumph, thinking they had been successful; but their satisfaction was short-lived: for, before the echoes of their voices died along the cliff, the bear seemed once more to recover ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... mountains look down from roseate heights of vanishing snow upon plains of waving grain. The hedges have put on their best draperies of leaves and flowers, and, girdled in at their waist by double osier bands, stagger luxuriantly along the road like a drunken Bacchanal procession, crowned with festive ivy, and holding aloft their snowy clusters of elder-blossoms like thyrsi. Among their green robes may be seen thousands of beautiful wild-flowers,—the sweet-scented laurustinus, all sorts of running vetches ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... brown fellows of the forest, anticipating my every wish. When once or twice in the night I tried to walk a few steps from the fire to relieve my nausea, their faces and actions showed plainly their concern. That I might not stagger into the fire, they would rise to stand between it and me. One of them remained awake all night, to keep the fire going and to help me should ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... in the rear of the storm, and as the air-ship headed across that track of destruction, it gave a drunken stagger, casting down its inmates, from whose parching lips burst ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... headquarters at a tavern conveniently near, and tried to learn Pratinas's habits, and whether he ever took any visitors home with him. All this came to little purpose till one morning he observed an old Ethiop, who was tugging a heavy provision basket, stagger up the street, through the nondescript crowd. The old slave was being assailed by a mob of street gamins and low pedlers who saw in the contents of the hamper so much fair plunder. These vagabonds ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... me! my days are numbered. If it should indeed be this incarnate,—forgive the thought!—we are all dead creatures. The very horses and kine stagger, and fall into fits at times, when they come home, and it is all along of 'em having seen or smelt the brimstone from the pit. Davy had two died last week, and he was sure they had either seen the deil or his deputy,—this same grey man of the woods. Woe's ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... of our terrestrial individuality in the cosmos. She is the declaration of our existence in separateness. Save for the intense white recoil of the moon, the earth would stagger towards the sun. The moon holds us to our own cosmic individuality, as a world individual in space. She is the fierce center of retraction, of frictional withdrawal into separateness. She it is who sullenly stands with her back to us, and refuses to ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... forecastle being close by her, we fired a mat on her beak head, which more and more kindled, and ran from thence to the mat on the bow-sprit, and from the mat vp to the wood of the bow-sprit, and thence to the top saile yard, which fire made the Portugals abaft in the ship to stagger, and to make shew of parle. But they that had the charge before encouraged them, making shew, that it might easily be put out, and that it was nothing. Whereupon againe they stood stifly to their defence. Anone the fire ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... sing. Among them you see what appear to be women; they are in fact what once were women, with human semblance. They are caressed and insulted; no one knows who they are or what their names. They float and stagger under the flaming torches in an intoxication that thinks of nothing, and over which, it is ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... potato, and a bun. If you are a lady the bun is indispensable; for if there is one faith implanted firmly in the feminine breast, it is that which accepts the penny bun as a form of nutrition not to be equalled. Thrones totter and fall, dynasties stagger and pass away, but the devotion of Woman to the Penny Bun stands firm amidst the cataclysms of nature and nations. This substantial lunch costs sixpence. On Sundays, you dine sumptuously at home on a chop, or eggs and bacon, cooked over ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... to stagger our friend, who evidently prided himself on knowing every family worth knowing. The Marquis de Gallifet, seeing his chance, hurried to tell the story of the d'Albe family, which the crestfallen Baron drank in with open mouth and swallowed whole. As the Duke d'Albe was there himself, listening attentively ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... cat—the damnable, hated cat. The effect was magical. A wave of the most terrific, the most ungovernable fury surged through me. I struck out blindly, and one of my fists alighting on the would-be murderer's face made him stagger back and drop the knife. In an instant the weapon was mine, and ere he could draw his six-shooter—for the suddenness of the encounter and my blow had considerably dazed him—I had hurled myself upon him, and brought him to ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... lay there in a state of collapse, until she gradually recovered so far as to be able to rise, moaning and groaning, and stagger out of the kitchen into the yard. There she ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... his willingness to let the shadow of any man adopting his course obscure him, and of the simplicity of his attachment. If a bitter experience showed that frequently, indeed generally, they travelled scarce a tottering stagger farther than they were precipitated, the wretched consolation afforded by a side glance at a more enlightened passion, solitary in its depth, was Rockney's. Others perchance might equal his love, none the wisdom of it; actually none ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... through the first act. And they're not like that in real life, any more than we are. We aren't continually making goo-goo eyes, nor are they. I'm going to write a play one of these days that will stagger the civilised world, I tell you! It'll be bung full of women but it won't have a word of slop ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... rest, stood open, and the eye could scan Through length of porch and lake and boundless hall, Part of a throne of fiery flame, wherefrom The snowy skirting of a garment hung, And glimpse of multitudes of multitudes That minister'd around it—if I saw These things distinctly, for my human brain Stagger'd beneath the vision, and thick night Came down upon ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... start after the magnificent escape from the morass of the moribund father-in-law and the moribund school and the moribund Devonshire town proved to be but a stagger down into morass heavier and more devastating of ambition. He always jumped blindly and wildly into things. Blindly and wildly into the Church, blindly and wildly into marriage, blindly and wildly into the school, blindly and wildly, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... moment, snapped my left barrel at him, when with the crack down he dropped, and spurring forward in the belief that I had given him his coup-de-grace, I was not a little surprised to see him again stagger to his feet, ready to receive me on his two short black horns, curved in the best possible shape for the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... in another language which we have sufficient terms for in our own. So in plain English I very much wish you to give your vote to-morrow at Clerkenwell, instead of Saturday. It would clear up the brows of my favourite candidate, and stagger the hands of the opposite party. It commences at nine. How easy, as you come from Kensington (a propos, how is your excellent family?) to turn down Bloomsbury, through Leather Lane (avoiding Lay Stall St. for the disagreeableness ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... keeping on the upper side of the road. Jonas went behind, taking hold of the back part of the sleigh, so as to hold it in case it should tip down too far. They went on thus for some distance tolerably well. The horse sometimes got in pretty far, and for a moment would plunge and stagger, as if he could hardly get along; but then he would work his way out, and go on a ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... a sharp breath and both his hands clutched at his own breast. He did not stagger and fall in the ordinary manner, but seemed to bend at the knees and waist and literally crumple ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... one of those men who pull themselves together in a bad cause, as they stagger from the blow. But he wanted to ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... cities there are many thousand Ransomes, more or less confined in mahogany cages, but John Randall Fulleymore stands for all of them. He was one of those who, in a cold twilight on a Saturday afternoon, stagger from the trampled field, hot-eyed under their wild hair, whose garments are stained from the torn grass and uptrodden earth, with here and there a rent and the white gleam of a shoulder or a thigh; whose vivid, virile odor has a tang of earth in ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... suffer reproach and vilification for my testimony, then it was that the river of joy which flows from the Throne flowed through my heart as never before. It was a new experience—a quintessence of joy. The shouts of burning martyrs were no longer a mystery. I stagger no more at the account of the saints who took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. My soul is bathed in an ocean of balm and ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... determined by your permission to beg an interest in your prayers—to ask you to animate my drooping spirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for if you but speak I shall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger like Olympus shakes. And though earth and sea may tremble, and the charioteer of the sun may forget his dashing steed, yet I am assured that it is only to arm me with divine weapons which will enable me ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... at Bartley for his approval, "and I've always thought that, if I ever got run clean ashore, high and dry, I'd make a stagger to write it out and do something with it. Do you suppose ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... necessary insist upon others following the philosophic example. On this account they are 'ugly customers' to Priests, who, with exceptions, much dislike being called upon to explain their idealess language. Ask one to define the word God and you stagger him. If he do not fly into a passion deem yourself fortunate, but as to an intelligible definition, look for nothing of the sort. He can't furnish such definition however disposed to do so. The incomprehensible is not to be defined. It is difficult to give an intelligible account of an 'Immense ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... conceived of human powers. Perhaps you have chosen the part which, all things considered, may serve your purpose best; though I think more moderation would be more conciliating. The exterior of innocence will, I grant, stagger the persons who may have the direction of your fate, but it will never be able to prevail against plain and incontrovertible facts. But I have done with you. I see in you a new instance of that abuse which is so generally made of talents, the admiration of an undiscerning public. ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... time the Frenchman, losing his balance, was seen to stagger, and then sink suddenly downwards; not into a prostrate position, but perpendicularly,—as if his legs had penetrated between the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... starting up in uncontrollable emotion, which changed into a burst of anger as he gave Walter a box on the ear which sounded all over the room, and made the boy stagger back to his place. But the flash of rage was gone in an instant; and the next moment Mr Paton, afraid of trusting himself any longer, left his desk and hurried out, anxious to recover in solitude the calmness of mind and action which had been so ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... woman's loveliness hath never Fettered even for a second's space my eyes, Much less my heart: I mean the loveliness Of living women. And now a daub or so, Cast on a canvas by some colour-grinder, Will stagger me, you ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... happened to do something not altogether to the farmer's mind. It was a matter of no consequence—only cleaning that side of one of the cow-houses first which was usually cleaned last. He gave him a box on the ear that made him stagger, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... Dyed with the chewing she could not survive; The very worms from her will turn away, To seek some anti-chewer for their prey. Ye chewers! be ye pilgrims to her tomb; Lament with us o'er her untimely doom. Awhile she stood the anti-chewer's butt, Till scythe-arm'd Time gave her an "ugly cut." She stagger'd to her death, and feebly cried, And sneezed, "Achew! ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... better form than I, and I knew that he would catch me in time. And what then? He was a large fellow, but since the struggle must come, I would better let it come ere I should be utterly exhausted. So I pretended to stagger and lurch forward, and presently came to my knees and then prone upon the ground. With a grunt of triumph, the man rushed up to me, caught me by the collar of my doublet, and raised me from the ground. Hanging limp, and apparently senseless, I put ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... shirt, seizing part of it in her teeth to aid her to keep her hold of him. He struck at her head, at her arms, at her body, anywhere, so long as he hit her, in his efforts to throw her off. But she held him, and at last, mad with fear, he tried to stagger out of the ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... Linstocke[211] gives you fire: shall then that strumpet And bastard breathe quicke vengeance in my face, Making my kingdome reele, my subjects stagger In their obedience, ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... the Cornish tin-mines. You may pick the Welsh emigrants, Cornish miners, out of the throng passing the windows, any day. They are a trifle more filthy; their muscles are not so brawny; they stoop more. When they are drunk, they neither yell, nor shout, nor stagger, but skulk along like beaten hounds. A pure, unmixed blood, I fancy: shows itself in the slight angular bodies and sharply-cut facial lines. It is nearly thirty years since the Wolfes lived here. Their lives were like those of their class: incessant labor, sleeping in kennel-like rooms, eating ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... of such a known man as Bill Dozier. The six went rattling up the valley at a smart pace. Yet Andy's change of horses at Sullivan's place changed the entire problem. He had ridden his first mount to a stagger at full speed, and it was to be expected that, having built up a comfortable lead, he would settle his second horse to a steady pace and ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... 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 were about ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... had conquered, he looked like one sorely sick. He was just able to stagger to a couch that stood by the wall, and there he fell and lay, without breath or motion, like one dead, and as white ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... gold he'd have come to ye and said: 'Behold, mother, I have found gold in the highways and byways; rejoice and be exceedin' glad!' and hev poured it inter yer lap. Yes," continued Mr. Staples aggressively to the boy, as he saw him stagger back with his pail in hand, "yes, sir, THAT would have been the ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... following me down stairs, entered the carriage. As we drove along, I inquired as to the fate of my valise, my clothes, and my horse; which latter, especially, I described in a way that appeared to stagger him. They were all, he said, in the magistrate's custody, and I should hear more of them, and doubtless recover them, if they were mine, when my claim was decided on. We found the important functionary at supper. I requested a private ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... 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 out of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... they didn't call me 'Moddam,'" said Norah. "'Shoes, Moddam? Certainly, Moddam; first to the right, second to the left, lift Number fifteen, fifth floor and the attendant will direct you!' Then you stagger into space, wishing for a wet ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... 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
... 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 ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Bousquier, who saw her stagger, sprang forward and received her in his arms; some one opened the door and allowed him to pass out with his enormous burden. The fiery republican, instructed by Josette, found strength to carry the old maid to her bedroom, where he laid her out on the ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... looks at 'er, "I don't quite foller you," I says,—which I didn't. "I saw him come in," she says, "and then, a few minutes back, I see 'im go again, with a great bundle on 'is 'ead he couldn't 'ardly stagger under!" "Oh," I says, "that's news to me, I didn't know 'e'd gone, nor see him neither—-" which I didn't. So, up I comes again, and, sure enough, the door was open, and it seems to me that the room was empty, till I come upon this pore young ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... amazed and wonder, people of Israel; stagger and stumble, and be drunken, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep. He will close your eyes; He will cover your princes and your prophets that have visions." (Daniel xii: "The wicked shall not understand, but the ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... along, plenty of room." "All right, Tom; we'll get in here," they would shout. And they would run along, carrying heavy bags, and fight round the door to get in first. And one would open the door and mount the steps, and stagger back into the arms of the man behind him; and they would all come and have a sniff, and then droop off and squeeze into other carriages, or pay the ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... like American Indians, and thus encumbered perform field labor or domestic work, without seeming in the least to realize their double task. The elder children carry the younger ones in the same manner, going about their play with a load on their backs that would stagger a Yankee child. This we found to be a universal custom both in town and country, while the great multiplicity of young children was a constant subject of surprise. The married women shave off their eyebrows and blacken ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... labour has become a burden to her, she will struggle on, striving to get bread for the children and the rent for the landlord. She knows that as evening comes on, instead of sitting down to rest, her duty will be to go down to the public-house and wait till it pleases her lord and master to try to stagger home, and then to guide his clumsy steps to the threshold. Of course there are wives who become as bad as their husbands, who drink, or do worse, and neglect their homes, but they are the exception. As a rule, the woman, once married, does her best ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... fire-ball had traversed the sky, showering abroad, a sulphurous glamour over the snow-landscape. Before the intenser blue of its momentary shine had passed away, I saw Wilson stagger forward, and drop. And him and his lantern I buried deep there ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... one, and any sane man would think that gigantic efforts would be made to keep him amply supplied with food for his soldiers. But such is not the case. The men are absolutely starving. Many of the infantrymen are so weak that they can barely stagger along under the weight of their soldierly equipment. They are worn to shadows, and move with weary, listless footsteps on the march. People high up in authority may deny this, but he who denies it sullies the truth. This is what the soldiers get to eat, ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... donkeys are also much in use, but the lower classes of both sexes universally carry heavy burdens upon their backs from early youth. Some of the Indian women are seen bearing loads of pottery or jars of water upon their shoulders with seeming ease, under which an ordinary Irish laborer would stagger. Comparatively few wheeled vehicles are in use, and these are of the rudest character, the wheel being composed of three pieces of timber, so secured together as to form a circle, but having no spokes or tire, very like the ancient African and Egyptian models. ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... in cold climates, and she had much difficulty in preventing him from falling into that sleep which, if indulged in, is indeed the sleep of death. By persevering, however, she succeeded in rousing him so far as to creep a short distance, now and then, on his hands and knees—sometimes to stagger a few paces forward; and at length, long after the cold moon had arisen on the scene, they reached ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... coach he had just encountered. He had scarce called for a quartern of brandy when the robbed passengers thronged into the kitchen; and the fright gave him enough sobriety to leave his glass untasted, and stagger to his horse. In a wild fury of arrogance and terror, of conflicting vice and virtue, he pressed on to Hockcliffe, where he took refuge from the rain, and presently, fuddled with more brandy, he fell asleep over the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... feather. Upon that one would have thought that his purpose was to carry the position by storm; for, whether moved by the influence of spring, or whether moved by a push from behind, he pressed forward with such desperate resolution that his elbow caused the Commissioner of Taxes to stagger on his feet, and would have caused him to lose his balance altogether but for the supporting row of guests in the rear. Likewise the Postmaster was made to give ground; whereupon he turned and eyed Chichikov with mingled ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... times, in those three weeks of torture, he would fix his eye on a tree ten feet away, up the steep trail. And to himself he would say, "I'll struggle, somehow, as far as that tree, and then die under it." And he would stagger another ten feet, his heart pounding in the unaccustomed altitude, his lungs bursting, his lips parted, his breath coming sobbingly, his eyes starting from his head. Leaping lightly ahead of him, around the bend, was Jessie, always. She had a way of calling ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... the forecastle, where the tars were singing and swearing. "There," said he, "when you hear them swearing, you may know there is no danger." He went back feeling better, but the storm increased his alarm. Disconsolate and unassisted, he managed to stagger to the forecastle again. The ancient mariners were swearing as ever. "Mary," he said to his sympathetic wife, as he crawled into his berth after tacking across a wet deck, "Mary, thank God ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... Department, to the effect that Lord Ripon intended to commence negotiations with the captive Yakoob, and Mr (now Sir) Mortimer Durand, then assistant secretary in that branch of the service, was at once sent from Simla to remonstrate against a proceeding which "would stagger every one in India." Lord Ripon was influenced by these representations, and agreed to at least suspend his overtures to Yakoob Khan, but his secretary was not convinced by either the arguments or the ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... him. He replied with a small pale smile, 'Is she so, indeed, sir? Really?' and almost immediately called for a candle, and went to bed, as if he were not quite safe anywhere else. He did not actually stagger under the negus; but I should think his placid little pulse must have made two or three more beats in a minute, than it had done since the great night of my aunt's disappointment, when she struck ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... steam-boats on the rivers of France, and on the lakes of Switzerland and Italy. We embarked in one, after passing two delectable nights at the Hotel d'Angleterre. The boat was a frail-looking thing, and so loaded with passengers, that it appeared actually to stagger under its freight. The Seine has a wide mouth, and a long ground-swell was setting in from the Channel. Our Parisian cockneys, of whom there were several on board, stood aghast. "Nous voici en pleine mer!" one muttered ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to 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 trifle too ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... virgin birth need not stagger us. The abundance of historical evidence in its favor should lead to its acceptance. All the manuscripts in all the ancient versions contain the record of it. All the traditions of the early church recognize it. Mention of it is made in the earliest ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... lightning, so was the weight of the rain. Ringan cried to us to stand to our places, for now was the likely occasion for attack; but no human being could have fought in such weather. Indeed, we could not hear him, and he had to stagger round and shout his command into each several ear. The might of the deluge almost pressed me to the earth, I carried Elspeth into her bower, but the roof of branches was speedily beaten down, and it was no better than ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... returned the fire. Two Mexicans dropped to the street, one shot through the head; the other wounded in the chest. Other Mexicans had been seen to stagger, and were probably hit. Thereafter a dozen seamen constantly watched the roofs close at hand, occasionally ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... only way 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 sitting ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... of their finances appears to stagger the most desperate democrats in the States, and may possibly delay the commencement of direct hostilities; but should France and England continue the contest much longer, it appears to me absolutely impossible for the United States to avoid making their election; and the unfriendly ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even .. more loathsome than terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or shark. Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God's great, unflattering laureate, Nature. .. Most ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... they had already endured. Indeed, two who had been in the rear guard, taking advantage of their position, had deserted and returned to the lodges of the Nez Perces. The prospect ahead was enough to stagger the stoutest heart. They were in the dead of winter. As far as the eye could reach the wild landscape was wrapped in snow, which was evidently deepening as they advanced. Over this they would have to toil, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... the pallid sky the sun descends With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb Uncertain wanders, stained; red fiery streaks Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet Which master to obey; while rising slow, Blank in the leaden-coloured east, the moon Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. Seen through the turbid fluctuating air, The stars obtuse emit a shivering ray; Or frequent seem to shoot, athwart the ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... look to thyself, and keep thee well from me," cried out Sir Accolon. But King Arthur answered not, and gave him such a buffet on the helm as made him stagger and nigh fall upon the ground. Then Sir Accolon withdrew a little, and came on with Excalibur on high, and smote King Arthur in return with such a mighty stroke as almost felled him; and both being now in hottest wrath, they gave each other grievous and savage ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... to see the wild, haggard men stagger in, and to witness their despair when they received nothing to eat but such lily-roots and ground-nuts as we could find and boil. There was but little ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... stinging powder-smoke she saw him stagger backwards as if to flee from what he thought he had done. His foot went down over the sharp edge. He flung up his hands and ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... death in the dripping bush. The price of provisions at times went to fabulous heights, as much as L150 being paid for a ton of flour, and a shilling apiece for candles. What did prices matter to men who were getting from 1 oz. to 1 lb. weight of gold-dust a day, or who could stagger the gold-buyers sent to their camps by the bankers by pouring out washed gold by the pannikin? So rich was the wash-dirt in many of the valleys, and the black sand on many of the sea-beaches, that for years L8 to L10 a week was regarded as only a fair living wage. In ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... spite of her unquestioning readiness to shoulder burdens, Prescott would run to relieve her. Liosha has assured me that Jaffery did the same—and indeed I cannot conceive Jaffery allowing a female companion to stagger along under a load which he could swing onto his huge back and carry like a walnut. To go further—she maintains that the two quarrelled dreadfully over the alleviation of her labours, so much so, that often before they had ended their quarrel, she had performed the ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... feel the deadly ball pierce his body! Before he could more than formulate this he heard the bullet pass him with a screech, and strike somewhere with a plainly sharp slap. Turning his head he saw the leading Rebel stagger and fall. Harry thre his gun up, with the readiness acquired in old hunting days, and fired at the next of his foes, who also fell! The other Rebels, as they came up, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... dashing down the receiver and seizing the lantern which Japhet had just succeeded in re-lighting; "come on, there's murder being done," and he sprang to the doorway, only to stagger back again from the great stone ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... was terrific, coming in deafening gusts, and more than once making Dick stagger. In fact if he had set off to run inland it would have almost carried ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... the midst of the moats and the grey walls, where dwell the Emperor and the Spirit of the Race. It is a mongrel city, a vast congeries of native wooden huts, hastily equipped with a few modern conveniences. Drunken poles stagger down the streets, waving their cobwebs of electric wires. Rickety trams jolt past, crowded to overflowing, so crowded that humanity clings to the steps and platforms in clots, like flies clinging to some sweet ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... going with it, still half blind I stagger'd after, a great sense of awe At every step kept gathering on my mind, Thereat I have no marvel, for ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... Neptune, I, for my part, while I am yet alive, arise up and depart out of this sacred place; though Antipater and the Macedonians have not left so much as thy temple unpolluted." After he had thus spoken and desired to be held up, because already he began to tremble and stagger, as he was going forward, and passing by the altar, he fell down, and with a ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... take her hand, but his touch roused her from her lethargy; and springing at him, like a wild-cat, she gave him a blow in the face that made him stagger,—so powerful was it, in the vehemence of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... to be slipping down the stairway, also. Then Frank saw him lift himself and try to stagger to his feet. Without taking further note of this, Merriwell promptly closed with the other burglar ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... books—quite romantic names. She called them the Montmorencys when she did not call them the Large Family. The fat, fair baby with the lace cap was Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency; the next baby was Violet Cholmondeley Montmorency; the little boy who could just stagger and who had such round legs was Sydney Cecil Vivian Montmorency; and then came Lilian Evangeline Maud Marion, Rosalind Gladys, Guy Clarence, Veronica ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... temperament of Louis XIV, the vigor of his body, the extraordinary firmness of his nerves, the strength of his digestion, and the regularity of his habits; his successors who come after him grow weary or stagger under the same load. But they cannot throw it off; an incessant, daily performance is inseparable from their position and it is imposed on them like a heavy, gilded, ceremonial coat. The king is expected to keep the entire aristocracy busy, consequently ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... morning-glories climbing as they got a chance,—these were the features by which the Rockland-born children remembered the farm-house, when they had grown to be men. Such are the recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape; and such are the flitting images that make the eyes of old country-born merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm with the after-dinner flush of the red wave out of which Memory arises, as Aphrodite arose from the green ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... almost terrifying, the storm broke over the ocean about three o'clock that morning. There was a terrific clap of thunder, a flash of lighting, and a deluge of rain that fairly made the staunch Falcon stagger, high in the ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... in the world, so that, wherever civilized man was to be found, there his name was known as "Monk, who invented that marvellous machine, the aerophone." Lastly, there was no more need for him, as for most of us, to stagger down his road beneath a never lessening burden of daily labour. His work was done; a great conception completed after half a score of years of toil and experiment had crowned it with unquestionable ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 away. . . . THE drop too much in all this is, that you ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... (who was affectionately known to her intimates as 'Clem'), as she watched Jane stagger back from the blow, and hide her face in silent endurance of pain. 'That's just a morsel to stay your appetite, my lady! You didn't expect me back 'ome at this time, did you? You thought as you was goin' to have the kitchen to yourself ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... continually devouring souls, will not make an Out-cry? But above all, when we see sin, sinful sin, a swallowing up a Nation, sinking of a Nation, and bringing its Inhabitants to temporal, spiritual, and eternal ruine, shall we not cry out, and cry, They are drunk, but not with Wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink; they are intoxicated with the deadly poyson of sin, which will, if its malignity be not by wholsom means allayed, bring Soul and Body, and Estate and Countrey, and all, ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... struggled through the long years that lead to culture and scholarship, can be found to give enemies of the race an opportunity for assault from that quarter. Figures will not lie, though they sometimes may stagger one; and statistics show us that the college-bred Negro is far from ...
— The Educated Negro and His Mission - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 8 • W. S. Scarborough
... gutter. You learn to control your temper when it is on the high speed, with the throttle jerked wide open and buzzing like a hornet convention. You learn, by having it told you, just how small and foolish and insignificant you are, and how well this earth could stagger along without you if some one were to take a fly-killer and mash you with it. And you learn all this at the time of life when your head is swelling up until you mistake it for a planet, and regard whatever you say ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... Maren Le Moyne, straining every muscle of her young body to save the man she loved, looked swiftly back, having left the defile to stagger, stumbling, southward to where Mowbray's men waited with ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... sniffin' round the bloomin' locus' trees; And the clover in the pastur is a big day fer the bees, And they been a-swiggin' honey, above board and on the sly, Tel they stutter in theyr buzzin' and stagger as they fly. The flicker on the fence-rail 'pears to jest spit on his wings And roll up his feathers, by the sassy way he sings; And the hoss-fly is a-whettin'-up his forelegs fer biz, And the off-mare is a-switchin' all of ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... of men sinking to hasty death in the grip of pain. The brig was in sore distress, her timbers creaking, snapping, quivering, like one being beaten to death, his bones cracking, his muscles pulping under heavy blows. We were above water-line there in the cockpit; we could feel her flinch and stagger. On her side there came suddenly a crushing blow, as if some great hammer, swung far in the sky, had come down upon her. I could hear the split and break of heavy timbers; I could see splinters flying over me in a rush of smoke, and the legs of a man go bumping ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... to make up for that now. You're going to have so much home life from now on, that you can hardly stagger under it. And I'm going to ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... support, had crested the bank up to the road, and struck the brigand king heavily on the shoulder, causing him to stagger and swing round. Montano also had his cutlass unsheathed, and Muscari, without further speech, sent a slash at his head which he was compelled to catch and parry. But even as the two short blades crossed and clashed ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... with her husband. His resolution had begun to stagger. He considered that there were strong reasons against the deed. In the first place, he was not only a subject, but a near kinsman to the king; and he had been his host and entertainer that day, whose duty, by the laws of hospitality, it was to shut the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... Louise went back to the cabin, slowly, with shaking legs and a heart that fluttered and stopped, fluttered and jumped and stopped, and made her stagger as she walked. She reached the doorstep and stood there with her palms pressing hard against her cheeks again. "You've got to do it. You've got to!" she whispered to ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... man 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 ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... turned about. He had a muffler loose about his neck and chin. I thought he seemed shy and irresolute, and the tall man gave him a great jolt with his elbow, which made him stagger, and I fancied a little angry, for he said, as it seemed, a sulky word ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... stooped down, and taking a small quantity between his fingers, threw it into the Wallachian's pipe, which immediately exploded, causing him to stagger backwards, and the next instant he stood with a blackened visage, sans beard and moustache, amidst the jeers ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... almost naked to the almost naked lady (of fashion, of course.) "Oh crikey, Bill," roared a chimney-sweep in high glee. The villain turned a pirouette in his rags, and in the centre mall of the Garden too; he finished it awkwardly, made a stagger, and recovered himself against—what?—"Animus meminisse horret"—against a lady's white gown! But he apologized. Oh, ye gods! his apology was so sincere, his manner was so sincere, that the true and thorough gentleman was in his every act and word. (Mem. merely as a corroboration, the lady ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... trembling effort to stagger across the passage, and to pluck at Marie's gown. When he spoke, his ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... "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 curl ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... frankly revolutionary, is for beginning anew in politics, and starting society all over again. If the state of things is bad enough, he may get into power, as he did in France at the Revolution, and for a time the world will stagger at his doings. But there is no beginning de novo in politics, and the revolutions wrought by men who would give the world an entirely fresh start (to be distinguished from mere changes of dynasty, such as our English ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... wanted some information. He recalled the Browning case very well, and tried hard to smile when I asked for the name of the cemetery and its location, that I might visit the grave. I thought that might stagger him, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... the rum!" cried Mr Brymer, and he drew his pistol, but only gave a stagger, and caught about in the air to try and save himself from falling. "Help—Frewen—something—give me something," he panted, and Mr Frewen came to him, feeling his way with his arms stretched out just as if he ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... in a dark prison for a long time, you had better keep him there, because it would be such a shock to him suddenly to face the light. Undoubtedly, it would be a shock. Undoubtedly, it would trouble and stagger people for a little while to be told the simple truth; but how is the world ever to get ahead, if you keep on, as a matter of policy, lying to it for ages? How is it ever going to find the truth? Shall I lie for the glory of God, the supposed ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... ordinary doing better than common men's best, his parentheses of thought richer than other men's paragraphs and volumes. And he left on record for us promises of greater works than these, at which we stagger through unbelief. We should not; for men who have lived by the evidence of things not seen, and sought a city that received Jesus out of sight, have found that "God is not ashamed to be called their God." They have wrought marvels that men tell over ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... Carewe such length of time to peruse a little note. But perhaps the great gentleman was ill, for it appeared to the boy that he lurched several times, once so far that he would have gone over if he had not saved himself by a lucky stagger. And once, except for the fact that the face that had turned away had worn an expression of such genial humor, the boy would have believed that from it issued a sound like ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... all through the dance; advance and retire; both hands to your partner, bow and courtesy, corkscrew, thread the needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig "cut"—cut so deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger. ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... would be completely wiped out, one by one, without inflicting a single death upon their enemy. But yet, with the persistent avariciousness of the white man, the Arabs clung to their loot, and when morning came forced the demoralized Manyuema to take up their burdens of death and stagger on into ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... gray, worn, unwashed, and old; one of 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 sunset ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... stagger, trailing an empty cuff behind him, flailing his arms wildly. Ahead of him he could see a big cop with an upraised billy. Malone tried to alter his course, but it was too late. He skidded helplessly into the cop, who jerked round and swung the billy automatically. ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... last. The British lost no time in following up their success. It had been said that they would never venture down these precipitous heights, but, like all other prophecies about this surprising war—except Kruger's, that he would stagger humanity—it turned out false, for down into the infernal mountain pits the enemy thronged after us, with a courage that made ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... fixed her eyes on no one; she merely gazed about. She had a habit of shaking her bracelet in a way that aroused sympathy. And after making a lewd remark she would turn her head to one side, and thereby stagger even the most hardened frequenter of this sort of places. Her complexion had been ruined by rouge, but underneath the skin there was something that glimmered like water ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... know what to say," he said. "You stagger me. How long are you going to hide behind this youthfulness? When are you going to be old enough to be honest? Men have patience only up to a point. At any rate, you didn't claim youth when Gray asked you to marry him—though you may have done so ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... name and rank, too, and is wearing an R.A.M.C. uniform—rank, Captain. As he passes me on his way to the Sub's dug-out I happens to catch sight of his face, and it give me quite a shock. I was took ill immediate. I manages to stagger to the dug-out, and I mutters hoarsely, 'Sir, I'm sick. I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... 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, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... how crooked some of my lines are? Don't you see how some of the letters stagger more than others?—That is when this interview is more in my head ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... his rattle throne; The staggering peer, to midnight revel prone; The slow-tongued bishop, and the deacon sly, The humble pensioner, and gownsman dry; The proud, the mean, the selfish, and the great, Swell the dull throng, and stagger into state. Lo! proud Flaminius at the splendid board, The easy chaplain of an atheist lord, Quaffs the bright juice, with all the gust of sense, And clouds his brain in torpid elegance; In china ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... destined to come across not only an Englishman but a personal friend. The meeting, on both sides, was totally unexpected, and as on the evening of our arrival I watched a sleigh drive up through the blinding storm and a shapeless bundle of furs emerge from it and stagger into the post-house, I little dreamt that the newcomer was one with whom I had passed many a pleasant hour in the realms of civilisation. The recognition was not mutual, for a week of real Siberian travel will render any man unrecognisable. "Pardon, ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt |
