"Stagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... laughing, stumbling, staggering, yet saved alive by that man of the moment Mandeville, until half-way down the shed and the long box-car train they brought up on a pile of ordnance stores and clung like drift in a flood. And at every twist and stagger Anna said in her heart a speech she had been saying over and over ever since the start from Callender House; a poor commonplace speech that must be spoken though she perished for shame of it; that must be darted out just at the right last instant if such an instant ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... the sand ridge, the Ranger a little ahead, oblivious of the livid blue of the old man's lips and the drag on the bridle rope till a quick jerk ripped the line from his loose hold; and he glanced back to see the other's horse stagger, flounder up again, waver and sink with a sucking groan. Wayland sprang just in time to catch the old frontiersman. He tore the saddle from the fallen broncho and cinched it on his own horse. Then he lifted Matthews, protesting, to the fresh mount, "till we reach the next rest place," ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... Now Lucy, let me tell you something funny. This will stagger you. Because it's gospel truth, I swear.... Rustler you call your dad. What's that? It means a cowman who has appropriated cattle not his own. He has driven off unbranded stock and branded it. There's no difference. Lucy, my ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... old Temple anecdotes relating to that learned disciple of Bacchus, Porson. Many a time (says Mr. Timbs), at early morn, did Porson stagger from his old haunt, the "Cider Cellars" in Maiden Lane, where he scarcely ever failed to pass some hours, after spending the evening elsewhere. It is related of him, upon better authority than most of the stories ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... their drunken state, drag by the hand each other, and girls like the one whom I saw taken to the station-house; they drag with them cabmen, and they ride and they walk from one tavern to another; and they curse and stagger, and say they themselves know not what. I had previously seen such unsteady gait on the part of factory-hands, and had turned aside in disgust, and had been on the point of rebuking them; but ever since I have been in the ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... say so, Marcus, when you are yourself," said Ormond. "Oh! how dreadful to come to one's senses all at once, as I did—the moment after I had fired that fatal shot—the moment I saw the poor fellow stagger and fall—" ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... he became more and more certain that there had been cruel neglect, the very gentleness and compassion of his nature fired and glowed against him who had taken her from her home, vowed to cherish her, and forsaken her at such a time. However, he was softened by seeing him stagger against the wall, perfectly stunned, then gathering breath, rush ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... compelled to come to the political bosses almost hat in hand. That time was past, never to return. But still a competent political agent was even harder to find than a competent business manager—and was far more necessary; for, while a big business might stagger along under poor financial or organizing management within, it could not live at all without political favors, immunities, and licenses. A band of pickpockets might as well try to work a town without having ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... judging for himself was Adlerstein Wildschloss that all this did not stagger him; for, even if he had believed more than he did of the old lady's story, there would have been no sense of intrusion or impropriety in such a visit to the mother. Indeed, had Christina been living in the civilized world, her chamber would have been hung ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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, it must be one that, intellectually, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... 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 smoke clouds ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... reeling with our passions and 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 their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... Another half-hour is then employed in creeping like snakes through the wet bushes. At length, as we reach the edge of the swamp, the great animal rises directly facing us, gazing steadily towards us. We fire. A headlong stagger follows the report; and the creature, turning round, is hidden from sight behind a clump of bushes. The Indian at the same time fires at a large cow moose who has, unknown to us, been lying close to the bull. We dash forward a few paces. On the other side the great bull suddenly ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... it was occasionally observed, after all, for there were a few who had been overcome by the heat of the bibulatory conflict, and who had relapsed into partial helplessness in chairs around the walls; and there were others who began to stagger and talk thickly at the counter, growing obscure and maudlin in their oaths, and shaking hands altogether too often, indicating the sleepy stage as very ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... The stagger of footsteps; OLIVIA stands in the doorway to the sun-room. She has been running through the forest; her clothes are wild, her hair has fallen about her shoulders, and she is no longer wearing her spectacles. She looks nearly beautiful. Her manner is quiet, almost dazed. He ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... prospector. You know it's no onusual fact to see prospectors in these parts. What made me think twice about this one was how big he seemed, how he filled up that door. He looked round the saloon, an' when he spotted Rojas he sorta jerked up. Then he pulled his slouch hat lopsided an' began to stagger down, down the steps. First off I made shore he was drunk. But I remembered he didn't seem drunk before. It was some queer. So I watched ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... English perfume, Victoria's Essence, and rejoiced like a child when Marya Dmitrievna consented to accept it as a gift; she wept at the remembrance of the feeling she had experienced when, for the first time, she had heard the Russian bells;—"so profoundly did they stagger my ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... to have all important Parliamentary debates filmed. It will be essential, of course, to provide some comic relief, and we are relying confidently on certain Members to practise the wearing of mobile moustaches and to take lessons in the stagger, the butter slide, the business with the cane and the quick ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... not think I am a bear, or a hawk, ready to swallow the darling little beauty alive! I would not have him lose a feather for the world; but I should like the fun of seeing him stagger and wheel over and over, and tumble off the limb, so that I might run and catch him in my apron. Do you think I would give him to our matron to make a pie? No, you might take off my fingers first!" And the little elf snapped them emphatically in ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... the lady on the first floor, here is no place for plunder! if you are robbed, it is your misfortune. For should you make a hundred thousand complaints, you would not recover a sou—you would gain nothing by it, I tell you—believe me. Well," cried the receiver, seeing Madame de Fermont stagger, "what's the matter? You turn pale? Take care of your mother, she is sick," added he, advancing in time to save her from falling. The fictitious energy which had so long sustained her gave ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... doctrine, even in the faith of this doctrine which I have held forth unto thee, thou wilt not be taken with any other doctrine whatsoever. What is the reason I pray you, that there are so many giddy-headed professors in these days, that do stagger to and fro like a company of drunkards, but this, They were never sealed in the doctrine of the Father, and the Son? They were never enabled to believe that that child that was born of the virgin Mary, was the mighty God (Isa 9:6). No, saith ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... below, Now mounted up to heaven again, They reel and stagger to and fro, At their ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Beau" counted, "One—two—three"—Edgar gently inflated his lungs, expanding his chest to its fullest extent, and then, at the moment of receiving the blow, exhaled the air. He did not stagger or flinch, though his antagonist struck straight from the shoulder, with ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... 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 ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the bend of the stairs; then Howard, who had discreetly gone on, turned to go back to him. But as he came up with a word of wonder and repeated congratulations, he saw Stafford put his hand to his forehead, and, as it seemed to Howard, almost stagger. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... every morning. She was just pulling into the station this morning as I was unlocking the office door, and I heard a chugging behind me. I looked up, and here came the car with only one man in it. He pulls up short, picks up a bag, which was very heavy, for it was all he could do to stagger along ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... vulgar and all-surfeiting it is, loading the air around it with its sickening imitation of sweetness, so that even the bees stagger as they pass through it and disdain to stop and shovel, for the mere asking, its ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... Willie's game Is like the game life's playing: At first we wonder how we came Around here to be staying; And then we find the game is worth The stakes that humans stagger, And anxious are to win the earth With "home run" ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... clear waters of the Wabash held as yet no faintest evening flush. There were yet two good hours of working time before him, when the quick shooting of a pain, like the running of a knife through his heart, caused him to stagger in the furrow. Fleety stopped of her own accord, and looked pityingly back. He sat down beside the plough to gather up his courage a little. A strange sensation that he could not explain had taken possession ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... bed and crawled, scrambling toward the door. The twisting and writhing appeared to increase. The air was oppressive. I seemed to be saying to myself, will it never, never stop? I wrenched the lock; the door of the room swung back against my shoulder. Just then the building seemed to breathe, stagger ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... desire in you, then you will indeed want to be free. You will begin early, and, as a boy, desire to be a man; and, as a man, think yourself as good as every other. You will choose freely to eat, freely to drink, freely to stagger and fall, freely, at last, to curse yourself and die. Death is the only real freedom possible to us; and that is consummate freedom, permission for every particle in the rotting body to leave its neighbor particle, and shift for itself. You call it "corruption" ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... the mouth of the creek, while my pursuer, who by this time had sufficiently recovered to stagger to his feet, waded dismally back to the shore. Here he was joined by his two companions, who had evidently been following ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... a bad one. The bullet struck the polar bear in the side of the head, causing him to stagger back ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty
... provocation. Opposite to him was his wife, a Roman-nosed lady, with an imperious manner, and a Colonel-subduing way of curling her lip. On my left was the funny man. As usual he was of a sea-green colour, and might be expected at any moment to stagger to a porthole and call faintly for the steward. Further down the table sat two young nincompoops, brought on board specially in order that they might fulfil their destiny, and fill out my story, by falling in love ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... 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 our station, was ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... 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, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... people's pockets; every dollar the people pay into the liquor traffic that gives a few cents into the treasury, is costin' the people ten times that dollar in the loss intemperance entails, loss of labor, by the inability of drunken men to do anything but wobble and stagger, loss of wealth by the enormous losses of property and taxation, of alms-houses, mad-houses, jails, police forces, paupers' coffins, and the diggin' of thousands and thousands of graves that are filled yearly by them that reel into 'em." Sez I, "Wouldn't ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... bus, directly under the driver's box—a lady sat opposite me. She handed me her money, which was right. But, Lord! a St. Louis lady would think herself ruined if she should be so familiar with a stranger. In St. Louis a man will sit in the front end of the stage, and see a lady stagger from the far end to pay ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... which 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 him to ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... the greater part of our provisions, but to plunge at once into impenetrable thickets and to desert what little guidance we still had—the course of the river. Each stuck his pistols in his belt, shouldered an axe, made a pack of his treasure and as much food as he could stagger under; and deserting the rest of our possessions, even to our swords, which would have much embarrassed us among the woods, we set forth on this deplorable adventure. The labours of Hercules, so finely described by Homer, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... diamonds was brought down into the hall just as they were about to depart. The tall London footman again brought it down, and deposited it on one of the oak hall-chairs, as though it were a thing so heavy that he could hardly stagger along with it. How Lizzie did hate the man as she watched him, and regret that she had not attempted to carry it down herself. She had been with her diamonds that morning, and had seen them out of ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... carpet and was taken in prayer. And in Sydney, in Melbourne, in New Zealand, the thing was a fog in the afternoon, that scattered the crowd on race-courses and cricket-fields, and stopped the unloading of shipping and brought men out from their afternoon rest to stagger and litter the ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... Spriggs William Springer Alexander Sproat Thomas Sproat Gideon Spry Long Sprywood Nathaniel Spur Joshua Squibb David Squire John St. Clair Francisco St. Domingo John St. Thomas John Staagers Thomas Stacy Thomas Stacey Christian Stafford Conrad Stagger Edward Stagger Samuel Stalkweather John Standard Lemuel Standard Butler Stanford Richard Stanford Robert Stanford John Stanhope William Stannard Daniel Stanton Nathaniel Stanton (2) William Stanton Joseph Stanley Peter Stanley Starkweather Stanley W Stanley William Stanley Abijah Stapler Timothy ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... stagger doggedly past me, where I sat on the parapet, his poor cheeks shaking and the tail of his bath robe wrapping itself around his legs. Yes, he ran in the bath robe in deference to me. It seems there isn't much ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... eleven all the neighbours turn out their dogs to bark, and the dogs waken the cats, which scream like demoniacs. Then the public houses close, and the people who have been inebriated, if not cheered, stagger howling by. Stragglers yell and swear, and use foul language till about four in the morning, without attracting the unfavourable notice of the police. Two or three half drunken men and women bellow and blaspheme ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... the younger Racer boy had snatched it from his pocket. "Whew! Yes, this is it!" he cried, holding his nose as he handed the gaudy linen back. "How did it happen, Chet? Did you drop it somewhere? It's awful!" and he pretended to stagger back. "Better have ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... 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 ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... which had been bowed down in deep abstraction, to look in the direction indicated. A figure was approaching them. It looked like a woman. She walked very slowly, and appeared rather to stagger than to walk. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... wild-fowl sanctuary of great size, and of great value to the whole Mississippi Valley. Now that all duck-shooting therein has been stopped, it is safe to predict that they shortly will be inhabited by a wild-fowl population that will really stagger ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... little exercise in the South, but that he will probably get over it if allowed to run every day. But I do not like the very idea of the dog having anything the matter with his heart. It was so pathetic to have him stagger to the tent and drop at my feet, dumbly confident that I ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the gospel makes him fly before thee; but thou must do it steadfast in the faith; every waverer giveth him advantage. And, indeed, this is the reason that the godly are so foiled with his assaults, they do not resist him steadfast in the faith; they often stagger through unbelief. Now, at every stagger he recovereth lost ground again, and giveth battle another time. Besides, by this and the other stagger he taketh heart to attempt by other means, and so doubleth ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... this posture that, 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 ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... replied with a smile, "that you are sprinkled with. And yet in my sleep I thought my own throat was being cut, and felt some pain in my neck, and fancied that my very heart was being plucked out. Even now I am quite faint; my knees tremble; I stagger as I go, and feel in want of some food to hearten ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... papers are such as almost stagger belief, even in the most credulous. They not only go to prove the existence of a league of villany, but also laid open the machinery by which their wickedness was concealed; still, from many incidents of my own life, and from what I have learned ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... right field fence, makin' it two runs. Well, before it was three out they had got four more and the only guy connected with the St. Looey team that didn't get a hit was the owner. They only quit slammin' the pill because they had batted themselves sick and could no longer stagger up to ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... some laugh, some 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 said, a pitying ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... called; and the pugilists, who had, by dint of sponging, been made somewhat cleaner, rose with mechanical promptitude at the sound, Cashel had hardly advanced two steps when, though his adversary seemed far out of his reach, he struck him on the forehead with such force as to stagger him, and then jumped back laughing. Paradise rushed forward; but Cashel eluded him, and fled round the ring, looking back derisively over his shoulder. Paradise now dropped all pretence of good-humor. With an expression of reckless ferocity, ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Hardships! Do you know what it is to lead the Grand March, surrounded by 800 Assegai-Throwers, Harpooners and Cannibal Queens, who are pointing you out as the Wife of the Malefactor who is about to the Tried in the Federal Courts! Did you ever Stagger around all Evening with $100,000 worth of Tiffany Merchandise fastened on to you—expecting every Minute to be hit in the Coiffure by some Raffles? Did you ever, during a Formal Dinner, hear the Door Bell tinkle and find in the Hallway a Reporter from a Morning Paper who wishes to ask your Husband ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... woods and the utter darkness of nature impenetrable. Let the exaltation leave him, the sights fade utterly, the dismal abyss of the nether world close him in. Awake him from these again and let him reel up and stagger on and believe that he is sinking down to the eternal sleep. Such sensations Ken's Island will give him until at last he shall fall; and lying trance-bound for the rain to beat upon his face, or the sun to scorch him, ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... this consequence is involved in the fundamental principle of Augustine's theory, the good father could not but reel and stagger under it. "Respecting the sins of the other parents," says he, "the progenitors from Adam down to one's own immediate father, it may not improperly be debated, whether the child is implicated in the evil acts and multiplied original faults of all, so that each one is the worse in ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... black and blue all over his head and body. At last, when the fiddler was nearly dead, the little wretch left off, and shoved the poor fellow out of the iron gate which he had entered in such good spirits a few hours before. The fresh air revived him a little, and in a short time he was able to stagger with aching limbs back to the inn where his companions were staying. It was night when he reached the place, and the other two musicians were fast asleep. The next morning they were much astonished at finding the fiddler in bed beside them, and overwhelmed ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... Bill,' said Bob. 'Bill, I'm hongry,' and he began to stagger and cry like a baby. I got hold of his rifle and Ed caught him just ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... by the confraternit of the parish, with blue capes over their white dresses, and all holding torches. Then follows a huge wooden cross, garlanded with golden ivy-leaves, and also upheld by the confraternit, who stagger under its weight. Next come two crucifixes, covered, as the body of Christ always is during Lent and until Resurrection-Day, with cloth of purple, (the color of passion,) and followed by the frati of the church in black, carrying candles and dolorously chanting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... no questioning 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 ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... 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 had just thrown the Ethiop down into the mud, and were about to divide their booty, ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... 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 ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves 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 are they glad ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... reluctant admission: Drennen had done two things which no other man had ever done before him; he had kept his feet against the smashing drive of that big fist in his face and he had made George stagger. For the moment it looked as ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... rising from the ground, Weary of sitting on her russet clothing, And looking round Where rest was to be found, There was no house—no villa there—no nothing! No house! The change was quite amazing; It made her senses stagger for a minute, The riddle's explication seemed to harden; But soon her superannuated nous Explain'd the horrid mystery;—and raising Her hand to heaven, with the cabbage in it, On which she meant to sup,— "Well! this is Fairy work! I'll ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... after him, as he sat there so broad-shouldered in the wagon, while the horse, impatient for home, hurried on unurged by Lars, who only gave loose rein. It was a picture of his power; this man drove toward the mark! He, Canute, felt as if thrown out of his wagon to stagger along there in ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... that their charge is sacred; that the 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 ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... has its origin in my contemplation of the character of the President. You know that when a heavy sleet falls upon the Kentucky forest, the great trees crack and split, or groan and stagger, with branches snapped off or trailing. In adversity it is often so with men. But he is a vast mountain-peak, always calm, always lofty, always resting upon a base that nothing can shake; never higher, ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... the only prominent writer that ever lived who persistently affirmed that life is an evil—existence a curse. Yet every man who has ever lived has at times thought so; but to proclaim the thought—or even entertain it long—would stagger sanity, befog the intellect and make mind lose ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... opens up cool and cloudy, the pebble pathway is wider and better than yesterday, for it is now the thoroughfare along which thousands of coolies stagger daily with heavy loads of merchandise to the commencement of river navigation at Nam-hung. The district is populous and productive; bales of paper, bags of rice and peanuts, bales of tobacco, bamboo ware, and all sorts of things ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... assistance to Miss Smith. She had an unpleasant experience—fell and gave her head such a nasty bump, that it made her faint. I'm afraid I splashed her a bit when I was trying to revive her. I thought best to bring her here and give her a stimulant. She didn't want to stagger home and alarm the whole ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... ungrateful and stubborn and all sorts of things. And I, bein' a Hammond, with some of the Hammond balkiness in me, I set my foot down as hard as his. And we had it until—until—well, until I saw him stagger and tremble so that I actually got scared and feared he was goin' to keel ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... him approach the spot where the Colonel lay; they saw him bend over the fallen man, shielding him from the shot with his own body. Then he was seen to stagger suddenly, as if from a blow; but the next moment he had the Colonel in his arms, and was struggling back over the shot-torn ground, through the dying and the dead. Twice he stopped short, as if unable to go farther; ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... that I was 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
... messengers killed horses on all the roads of Cho-Sen. It was my luck to see his messenger arrive at Keijo. At twilight, as I rode out through the great gate of the capital, I saw the jaded horse fall and the exhausted rider stagger in on foot; and I little dreamed that that man carried my destiny with him ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... brightened to see me—was delighted to find a through-journey companion who would take him on terms of greatness. In the railway carriage, divested of troublesome bags that imparted anxiety to his small face and a stagger to his walk, he swelled ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... sprained his foot, and hurt his toe, On the rough road near Buffalo. It quite distresses him to stagger a- Long the sharp rocks of famed Niagara. So thus he's doomed to drink the measure Of pain, in lieu of that of pleasure. On Hope's delusive pinions borne He came for wool, and goes back shorn. N.B.—Here he alludes to nothing but Th' adventure of his toe and foot; Save this,—he sees all that ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... his case must have been a very aggravated one. They admonished him to "walk more correctly in future;" the inference to be drawn from which is that the amount of milk-punch, outside of which Rev. SMYTHE had placed himself, was sufficient to impart a stagger to his gait. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... his hands against his head; porters, cabmen, and the detective saw him stagger and fall heavily. And the next moment the ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... chronometers getting tipsy, and the sun keeping himself rolled up in a blanket. You could'nt, he said, get a ship to look the wind in the eye when all the elements were tipsy. He was a lucky mariner who could get round Cape Horn without being tossed off his feet for a month—everything seemed to stagger so. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... screen, she had leaned on him and fallen fast asleep. Her head was on her son's shoulder when they reached home, and Orion's anxiety for the mother he truly loved was enhanced when he found it difficult to rouse her. He felt her stagger like a drunken creature, and he led her not into the fountain-room but to her bed-chamber, where she only begged to lie down; and hardly had she done so when she was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... us. It is a pleasure to live. What then should be the pleasure to think there is a place for us—a duty beneficently made that gives us rights with our fellow-creatures? What though the duty may try your soul and stagger your capabilities? "Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests." Bear up with patient courage—"the bird that flutters least is longest on the wing." "Duty is the stern daughter ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... and the oath was at once followed up by a desperate cut. The young man's wounded hand fell helpless; and a second blow his father levelled at him must undoubtedly have been at once fatal, had not a well-aimed stone struck the Swede in the face at the critical moment and made him stagger back. Before he could recover himself, a musket-ball struck him in the chest, and he fell to rise no more. This fortunate shot, with a volley of others that now greeted the Swedes, was fired by a party of men approaching at a rapid ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... to communicate with him. The symptoms are known by the cow getting restless, lifting her legs and setting them down again, a wild appearance, and attempting to poke her keeper: then succeeds a quick motion in the flank; she begins to stagger, falls, but recovers herself again. This is repeated several times, till she is at length no longer able to rise. Her head will be turned to one side; she loses the sense of feeling, and although pricked with a sharp ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... was pleasant to see the supple vigor and radiant health that were manifested in the poise of their bodies, the lightness of their eyes, the freshness of their lips and the bloom upon their cheeks. But Oh! it was so sad to see how soon the manly gait would change to the drunkard's stagger. To see eyes once bright with intelligence growing vacant and confused and giving place to the drunkard's leer. In many cases lassitude supplanted vigor, and sickness overmastered health. But the ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... of the selectmen whose terms expired. In his dual capacity as selectman and town clerk Asaph felt himself to be a very important personage. To elect some one else in his place would be, he was certain, a calamity which would stagger the township. Therefore he was a busy man and made many calls upon his fellow citizens, not to influence their votes—he was careful to explain that—but just, as he said, "to see how they was gettin' along," and because ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... increased, and the vanishing inches struck panic into our philosophic breasts. Could Tempest but hold out these few yards, we were safe. He would! No! Yes! No, they're all but level another six yards. Then suddenly we saw Tempest fling his hand behind and reel forward with a blind stagger over the tape, and as the simultaneous report proclaimed a dead heat, fall sprawling and helpless on ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... frequently from the houses, and a large proportion of the inhabitants and guests appear on the road in various degrees of intoxication. Some of these vow eternal affection to their friends, or with flaccid gestures and in incoherent tones harangue invisible audiences; others stagger about aimlessly in besotted self-contentment, till they drop down in a state of complete unconsciousness. There they will lie tranquilly till they are picked up by their less intoxicated friends, or more probably till they awake of their ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... borne down, truth condemned, and enemies, in their opposition to his work, prospering in all their wicked attempts. This is a very trying dispensation, as we see it was to the holy penman of Psalm lxxiii. for it made him to stagger, so that his feet were almost gone, and his steps had well nigh slipt; yea he was almost repenting of his being a godly person, saying, ver. 13, "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency." It was something like this, which made Jeremiah say, chap. viii. ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... the Church goes to Ruin with dangerous Factions. Christ's seamless Coat is rent asunder on all Sides. God's Vineyard is spoiled by more Boars than one. The Authority of the Clergy with their Tythes, the Dignity of Divines, the Majesty of Monks is in Danger: Confession nods, Vows stagger, the Pope's Constitutions go to decay, the Eucharist is call'd in Question, and Antichrist is expected every Day, and the whole World seems to be in Travail to bring forth I know not what Mischief. In the mean Time ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... day, everything is in confusion—the door-bell is never silent. Crowds of young men, in various stages of intoxication, rush into the lighted parlors, leer at the hostess in the vain effort to offer their respects, call for liquor, drink it, and stagger out, to repeat the scene at some other house. Frequently, they are unable to recognize the residences of their friends, and stagger into the wrong house. Some fall early in the day, and are put to bed by their friends; ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... that an organ so perfect as the eye could have been formed by natural selection, is more than enough to stagger any one; yet in the case of any organ, if we know of a long series of gradations in complexity, each good for its possessor, then, under changing conditions of life there is no logical impossibility in the acquirement of any conceivable degree of perfection through natural selection. ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... ruin; and one never feels very comfortable under such offers, at any time or in any country. The reckless lies which this man gets adventurers at Cawnpore to write for him, and careless or corrupt editors to publish, are apt to stagger those who do not know the vile character of the individual, or the true nature of the ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... 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." Says I, "Wouldn't it be better for the ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... fall asleep. On one of these occasions you find unexpectedly that the velvet-gray night has become steel-gray dawn, and that the kindly old quartermaster is bending over you. Sleepily, very sleepily, you stagger to your feet and collapse into the nearest chair. Then to the swish of water, as the sailors sluice the decks all around and under you, you fall ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... 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 the most stubborn ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... rehearsing the children's part in the dedication services of our chapel. Do you know that small Sue can really sing? The rest stagger well but Susan sings. It is delicious. It is going to be hard on you women folks to hear her chant her responses to me on that great day." And as he spoke he looked beyond me over to his beautiful shimmering gray chapel and there was not a glint in his eyes that showed ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess |
