"Staggering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was given all hands tumbled up to the hatchway and began swarming down the iron ladder. It was a swaying, staggering crowd. When you stand on a wet deck at an angle of forty-five degrees one way and thirty degrees another and constantly shifting both angles, with nothing but a rope lashed athwart the ship to catch hold of, your mind is pretty well concentrated ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... that? No, she did not want him to be ridiculous; and as he spoke she recalled the staggering, impotent figure of last night, in its unmanly feebleness and senseless idiocy. A sense of the difficulty of her task and the vanity of her representations came over Dolly; it gave her new food for tears, but the present effect was to make her ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... they had with drunken Gundling. He has staggered out in a drunk state, and found, or not clearly FOUND till the morrow, young bears lying in his bed;—has found his room-door walled up; been obliged to grope about, staggering from door to door and from port to port, and land ultimately in the big Bears' den, who hugged and squeezed him inhumanly there. Once at Wusterhausen, staggering blind-drunk out of the Schloss towards his lair, the sentries at the Bridge (instigated to it by the Houyhnhnms, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... anyhow!" said Tom, as he sent one of his adversaries staggering back for a few yards, to fall heavily, when the other retreated, but only for both to out with a knife each, and again ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... she, "nobody ever comes now. The outside of the house is quite enough to warn them off. Mores the pity, as I say. It used to keep me in spirits, staggering 'em all, one after another, with the frightful high rent—specially the women, drat 'em. 'What's the rent of this house?'—'Hundred and twenty pound a-year!'—'Hundred and twenty? why, there ain't a house in the street as lets for more than ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... done was for Harold to mount, and Paul to lean against the saddle, while the pony walked. When they had to separate at the ford, poor Paul's walk across the bridge was so feeble and staggering, that Harold feared every moment that he would fall where the rail was broken away, but was right glad to put his arm on his shoulder again to help to hold him up. The moving brought a little more life back to the poor boy's limbs, and he walked a little better, and managed ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bundle was on his right shoulder. Like a curtain the dark snapped shut behind him again, but I urged on with a wild hallo, my blood all a-tingle with the exultation of the chase. I gained—he must have been a lamentable runner, for my poor little pony was staggering under my tumultuous weight. I could hear him pant and sob a few yards in advance; then he came into sight, a dim, loping whiteness ahead. Suddenly the bundle left his shoulder; something rolled along the ground under my horse's hoofs—and I was standing on my head in a soft, oozy place. ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... Thus saying, he drew his brazen faulchion keen Of double edge, and with a dreadful cry 90 Sprang on him; but Ulysses with a shaft In that same moment through his bosom driv'n Transfix'd his liver, and down dropp'd his sword. He, staggering around his table, fell Convolv'd in agonies, and overturn'd Both food and wine; his forehead smote the floor; Woe fill'd his heart, and spurning with his heels His vacant seat, he shook it till he died. Then, with his faulchion drawn, Amphinomus Advanced to drive Ulysses from the door, 100 ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... till he looked very uncomfortable indeed. Thereupon I gravely bowed to them, and, leaving them in dumb astonishment, walked on over the bridge. They probably thought I was rating them in Manchu, the language of the Emperor. Two boys staggering under loads of firewood did not escape so easily, but were detained and a log squeezed from each wherewith ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... school Is [29] distant three short miles, and in the time Of storm and thaw, when every water-course And unbridged stream, such as you may have noticed 265 Crossing our roads at every hundred steps, Was swoln into a noisy rivulet Would Leonard then, when elder boys remained At home, go staggering through the slippery fords, [30] Bearing his brother on his back. I have [31] seen him, 270 On windy days, in one of those stray brooks, Ay, more than once I have [31] seen him, mid-leg deep, Their two books lying both on a dry stone, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... my fine lady," he hissed between his teeth; "and, if I do not repay your gentle words with interest, my name is not George Caresfoot;" and then, staggering like a drunken man, he ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... so staggering that he went rigid with awe as he regarded it, all power of motion utterly numbed for the moment. The vibration ceased. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... her, and the great bay horse, after staggering for a moment like a drunken man, fell over dead. She scarcely glanced at him. The officer, who knew her, rapidly transferred her saddle to ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... Once he came staggering into the yard. His eyes wandered aimlessly and he breathed heavily; he laughed and cried, and said something in a kind of frenzy, and through his thickly uttered words I could only hear: "My mother? Where is my mother?" and he wailed like a child crying, because ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... It was staggering, this revelation. The young pilot could not conceive of a completely enclosed world with inhabitants forever shut off from the light of the sun by day and from the beauties of the heavens by night. Yet here it was, drawing ever nearer, a colossal monument ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... retire from business straightway. Yesterday morning, New Year's day, when I walked into my little workroom after breakfast, and was looking out of window at the snow in the garden,—not seeing it particularly well in consequence of some staggering suggestions of last night, whereby I was beset,—the postman came to the door with a knock, for which I denounced him from my heart. Seeing your hand upon the cover of a letter which he brought, I immediately blessed him, presented him with a glass of whiskey, inquired after his family (they ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... account of "Frolics with the Hutchinsons," it was necessary to hunt him up, from public-house to public-house, early in the morning. It is because these things are universally known,—because he was seen staggering in the road, and spoken of by drivers and lax artisans as an alehouse comrade, that I speak of him here, in order that I may testify how he was beloved and cherished by the best people in his neighborhood. I can hardly speak of him myself as a personal acquaintance; for I could not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... were half-closed again, and he saw outlines of strong ragged men staggering down to a lonely cove at night, with their marble burden, and he heard the autumn gale howling among the rocks, and the soft thud of the baled statue as it was laid in the bottom of the little fishing craft; and then, because the men feared the weather, ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... finding staggering procession down Mrs. Coblenz' face, her hovering arms completely encircling the slight ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... seized the stick as he attempted to raise it again. They struggled for possession of it, staggering all over the teepee, falling against the poles, trampling in and out of the embers. Loseis shielded the pan of dough with her body. Bela finally wrenched the stick from Charley and in her ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... should come up for consideration. They did not; but the man himself had an experience that may have helped to keep his thoughts from brooding too much on his unfulfilled ambition. Years afterwards, when far away on lonely seas, amid the squalor of a little ship and the staggering buffets of a gale, there would surely sometimes leap into his memory a brightly coloured picture of this scene in the fertile valley of Malaga: the silken pavilions of the Court, the great encampment of nobility with its arms and ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... minister of the country parish was sorely in need of the generous fee Romeo pressed upon him in advance, the arrangements were pitifully easy. He was at the trysting place fully ten minutes before she came in sight, staggering under the unaccustomed burden of ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... forth a pint bottle of brandy. With repugnance written on his face, he took several swallows of the fiery liquor. It ran through his veins like fire. Shoving the bottle into his pocket, he succeeded in staggering to his feet and slowly pulled himself up on one of the mangrove's roots, and, pausing frequently to rest, gradually worked his way to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... betrayed him, slackening first, then running, because running was easier than walking, for a change. Then dragging. Then being dragged between Anne and Jerrold (for he refused to be carried). Then staggering, stumbling, stopping dead; his ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... leaning heavily for support upon two privates of Company G, Hawthorn and Stewart (boys). He was crying in a maudlin way, "You just take me to a place and I'll drink soft stuff." They entreated him to return at once to the regimental quarters, even begged him, but he cast them aside and went staggering down the road to the line, where he met the grave-faced deputy face to face. The latter looked in the white of his eyes and said: ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... for pulling my hat over my eyes," and Paul, suiting the action to the word, dealt Mike a staggering blow in the face. ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... lamp on the table. They looked at the wall. "Oh, my God," gasped Mrs. Brigham, "there are—there are TWO—shadows." The sisters stood clutching each other, staring at the awful things on the wall. Then Rebecca came in, staggering, with a telegram in her hand. "Here is—a telegram," ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... finished her answer, Halfdan had already run his sword through the bridegroom. Not content with having killed one man, he massacred most of the guests. Staggering tipsily backwards, the Saxons ran at him, but his servants came up and slaughtered them. After this HALFDAN took Gurid to wife. But finding in her the fault of barrenness, and desiring much to have offspring, he went to Upsala in order to procure fruitfulness for her; and being told ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the horses and game for the men had been fired off the face of the earth by those active foemen before the drenching wintry rain set in and chilled to the marrow the shelterless forms of starving trooper and staggering steed. ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... him, the wailing, passionate music that came trembling out among the heavy dew-wet foliage, the dark, calm earth about him, and the light and color and giddy motion that filled the gleaming square before him, struck in on his senses with staggering force; and then she swayed out of his sight, and Mrs. Morris came forward with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... decanter of Scotch and a glass, placing them on the table by Iff's elbow, then turned away to get a siphon of charged water from the icebox. But by the time he was back a staggering amount of whiskey had disappeared from the decanter, a moist but empty glass stood beside it, and Mr. Iff was stroking smiling lips with his delicate, claw-like fingers. He discontinued this occupation long enough to ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... schooner's very low bulwark. Sighting the piece carefully, I brought it to bear immediately on the spot where I thought I had seen the face, and then waited patiently for its reappearance. But minute after minute passed and nothing appeared; and presently Cunningham and the carpenter came up the beach staggering under a load of timber that promised to be amply sufficient for all our needs. I began to think that I must have been mistaken, and was about to lay aside the gun and descend to the beach again, when the boatswain, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... of his right arm he sent Thurston staggering against the wall, and then, stepping forward without an instant's hesitation, he dealt each of the other marauders a swinging ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... Staggering with weakness, he had lived for two days in momentary dread of arrest for drunkenness. Then just when it seemed that he could go no farther, a former acquaintance from the West, of whose presence in the ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... becomes a reproach. It is different with beans. Beans keep, and, hot or cold or warmed over, they are never to be despised. The heaping platters of corn and the bowls of beans that our family could destroy after a morning of hearty exercise were rather staggering. Then presently the cantaloups came—fragrant, juicy ones, and all the salads, and—oh, well, never mind the list—I have heard of living like a lord, but I can't imagine any lord ever living as near to the sap and savor of ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, Which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; Thou hast drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering, and drained it. ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... to reflect upon the most staggering and tragic cataclysm of Nature that has been visited upon our country since first our forefathers won it from the Indian—the unprecedented succession of tornadoes, floods, storms and blizzards, which in March, 1913, devastated ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... grumbles have meant less than nothing. You will find, too, that behind the apparent slackness of every arrangement and every individual are powers of adaptability to facts, elasticity, practical genius, a latent spirit of competition and a determination that are staggering. Before this war began it was the fashion among a number of English to lament the decadence of the race. These very grumblers are now foremost in praising, and quite rightly, the spirit shown in every part of their country. Their lamentations, which plentifully deceived the outside ear, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... We look at the rise of Christianity, and conceive it as a rise of self-abnegation and almost of pessimism. It does not occur to us that the mere assertion that this raging and confounding universe is governed by justice and mercy is a piece of staggering optimism fit to set all men capering. The detail over which these monks went mad with joy was the universe itself; the only thing really worthy of enjoyment. The white daylight shone over all the ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... was a summons to a sailor; Mayo came staggering out of the stateroom. He looked neither to right nor left nor at either of the men in the saloon. He stumbled toward the companionway, reaching his hands in front of him after the fashion in which a man gropes in ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... came up from the beach pale and staggering from exhaustion. He went into his chamber and was about to cast himself on the bed, when, lo! that face on the pillow met his gaze, ghastly and cold. The heavy dropping of the water struck upon his ear like the fall of leaden bullets. He stood paralyzed yet fascinated. A shudder colder than spray ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... paths. Just before high tide I walked along the lower path which, although fifty feet above the sea, was soaked with salt spray from the roaring coamers breaking below. The wind was so laden with spray that it was difficult to face it while staggering along the rugged cliff path; but presently I arrived at the point opposite the "Yellow Boy," and was glad to see her still there, although she was sadly buffeted by the waves, which continually leapt up to lick her ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... recover instantly from this staggering jolt, and a clock somewhere in the great hall nearby ticked a dozen strokes before he ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... "Staggering blind through the storm-whirl, stumbling mad through the snow, Frozen stiff in the ice-pack, brittle and bent like a bow; Featureless, formless, forsaken, scented by wolves in their flight, Left for the wind to make music through ribs that are glittering ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... round the waist of the terrified blonde, the trooper rudely attempted to terminate his sentence in a practical manner; but before his lips could touch her face he received a blow from his comrade that sent him staggering against a neighbouring tree. ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... supper and that I wanted to be let alone—to be let ALONE—until I saw fit to show myself. But these memories are all foggy and mixed with dreams and nightmares. As I say, the next thing that I remember distinctly after staggering from the Colton library is Dorinda's knocking at the door of ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... staggering and heaving, got to its knees in just the same way as Taffadaln had done over twenty years ago; just as the camel will do twenty centuries hence, if it has not become extinct through some button, or wire, or wave, or ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... to his folly," muttered Caesar; and then the door jerked open, and Pete came staggering into the room. Every pipe shank was lowered in an instant, and Grannie's ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... asked Doctor Chord,—and the words were hardly out of his mouth when Paddy hit him one in the right eye that sent him staggering across ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... the court been more dazzling with its glittering uniforms, gorgeous dresses, and sumptuous pomp. The Emperor in his gala dress, the Empress in her Imperial splendor, the Princesses vying in luxury, the new Queen of Naples staggering under her load of precious stones, the Princess Louis covered with turquoises set in diamonds. Princess Caroline Murat decked with a thousand rubies, Princess Pauline with all the Borghese diamonds besides her own, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... night. It fell chill, I had only a sheet, and had to make a light and range the house for a cover - I found one in the hall, a macintosh. So back to my sleepless bed, and to lie there till dawn. In the morning I had a longish ride to take in a day of a blinding, staggering sun, and got home by eleven, our luncheon hour, with my head rather swimmy; the only time I have FEARED the sun since I was in Samoa. However, I got no harm, but did not go to the club, lay off, lazied, played the pipe, and read - a novel by James Payn - sometimes quite interesting, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... loving whales, Mr. Barnum has again invested untold heaps of money in a tremendous water-monster. The great tank has again a tenant, and the great public have huge amphibious matter for their wonderment. The new curiosity comes to us staggering under the unwieldy name of Hippo-potamus. He is a comely gentleman, fair and beauteous to look upon; and the strange loveliness of his countenance cannot fail to captivate the crowd. His youth, too, gives him a special claim to the consideration ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... went up in sighing To God's ear: 'And Thou dost know, High and Holy! men are devils, Earth, like hell, is drowned in woe?' Came an answer: 'Hark! my war-blast Dealing sin a staggering blow!' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... you won your wager, my noble Captain!" exclaimed Middlemore, putting his hand to his chest, and staggering from the effect of a shot he had that instant received. "You are indeed the BETTER man," (he continued excited beyond his usual calm by the circumstances in which he found himself placed, yet unable to resist ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... independence less clearly express when he speaks of his deformity. Being but the deformity of a body which he despised, he spoke of himself as "an ethereal existence staggering under the burden of a corpse." In his admirable chapter on Contentment, he very forcibly lays down that topic of consolation which is derived from the sense that "the universe is not made for our individual satisfaction." "Must my leg be lame?" he supposes some ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... they were yet staggering from the blast of the mine which sprung them from their beds; they lean as if ready to tumble down the steep sides of the hill, and appear as if a child's finger would roll them headlong. The ruins are in the possession of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... not to be left. He pushed past Mac and, staggering down the steps, laid his hand on ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... the bulging window of that old shop examining the wonderful collection of beautiful old things, and staggering about on piles of andirons and copper warming pans, old Ombos watching me all the time with ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... down to a skeleton, her lips compressed, as if in agony, her dark hair thrown back upon her shoulders, while her cheeks were pale as the marble so soon to be raised in her memory, which, with the glimmering of the lights, served to make it a too dismal scene. Staggering forward to a chair, she sat down quickly, but in the agitation there was a slight noise—it awakened the sleeper; a moment passed—they were in each others arms. When the first wild burst of joy ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... was upon her, striking the telephone from her grasp with one swift blow and seizing her savagely by the wrist. As the instrument clattered and pounded on the floor she was sent reeling and staggering ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... to come, in many homes in Zanzibar, there will be told the great story of our journey, and the actors in it will be heroes among their kilt and kin. For me too they are heroes, these poor, ignorant children of Africa, for, from the first deadly struggle in savage Ituru to the last staggering rush into Embomma, they had rallied to my voice like veterans, and in the hour of need they had never failed me. And thus, aided by their willing hands and by their loyal hearts, the expedition had been successful, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... dirty uniform, a soft kernel inside of the rude, unpromising husk. His family were on the car; and as he sat in a lounging attitude, conversing with his comrade (they had both been discharged, I heard them say, from the '6th New York'), a little girl came staggering along the passage way, holding herself up by the seats on either side. As she neared him, she sprang to him, and placed herself between his knees; and the coarse, weather-beaten face beamed down upon her with such a smile—so full of warm, tender, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... touching each other, the little finger having its side toward the ground. Move the hand right and left then forward, several times; then turn it over suddenly, letting it fall toward the earth. (Ojibwa V; Omaha I.) "An animal wounded, but staggering a little ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... aim for a very long while. The next day, March 5th, Lincoln had letters from Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor. Major Anderson was besieged there by the batteries of secession, was being starved out, might hold on a month longer, needed help. Through staggering complications and embarrassments, which were presently to be outstaggered by worse ones, Lincoln by the end of March saw his path clear. "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not mine, is the momentous issue of civil war." The clew to the path ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... stop it with an obstruction; or to get aboard and mingle with the train crew, then to halt the train, kill any one who opposed them, and force the opening of the express agent's safe, became a matter of routine with them in time, and the amount of cash they thus obtained was staggering in the total. The most noted train robberies in which members of the James-Younger bands were engaged were the Rock Island train robbery near Council Bluffs, Iowa, July 21, 1873, in which engineer Rafferty was killed in the wreck, and but small booty secured; the Gad's ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... search, Teddy suddenly encountered an Indian, staggering along with a jug in his hand. The savage manifested a friendly disposition, and the two were soon seated upon the ground, discussing the fiery contents of the vessel and exchanging vows of eternal friendship. When they separated it was with the understanding that they were to meet again ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... moment's breathless silence. Then the door was softly opened. Violet Brown went staggering back like a woman who sees a ghost. She bit her lips till the blood came. It was Peter Ruff who stood looking in upon them—Peter Ruff, carefully dressed in evening clothes, his silk hat at exactly the correct angle, his coat and white kid ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... other subalterns what they ought to do and received counter inquiries by way of reply. Sergeants stormed blasphemously at men who had disappeared in search of tea. Staff officers, red tabbed and glorious, tried to preserve an appearance of dignity while their own servants staggering under the weight of kit bags, bumped into them. Hilarious men, going home on leave, shouted sudden snatches of song. A decrepit Frenchman, patient in the performance of duty, blew feeble blasts on a small horn. Thompson, alert and ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... replied, staggering back half a dozen paces—"let me tell you, my fine fellow, that this thing is thoroughly impossible and impracticable; Mr. Talbot is not ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... deaf, with a sense of the water constantly getting up and stopping me, whatever I wanted to do, when I felt myself laid hold of by the leg, dragged under water, and a moment after landed safe on the bank. Almost the same moment I heard a plunge, and getting up, staggering and bewildered, saw, as through the haze of a dream, a boy swimming after the boat, which had gone down with the slow current. I saw him overtake it, scramble into it in midstream, and handle the oars as to the manner born. When he had brought it back to the spot where I stood, I knew that Peter ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... an honest man has nothing to fear from it. I hate a man that wishes to be a deist; but I fear, every fair, unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a sceptic. It is not that there are any very staggering arguments against the immortality of man; but, like electricity, phlogiston, etc., the subject is so involved in darkness, that we want data to go upon. One thing frightens me much: that we are to live for ever seems too ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... gasping men who all day plied Their oars in plunging seas, with hands Grown stiff, and arms, like twisted bands Drawn numbly, as they rose outspent, And staggering from their benches went The sail napped quarrelling, and drank The wind in broken gasps, and sank With sullen pride upon the boards, And smote the mast and shook ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... papers, and, in the distance, a disappearing hat. Its disappearance, however, was not final; after an interval of minutes they saw it again, much larger and closer, like a white panama, towering up into the heavens like a balloon, staggering to and fro for an instant like a stricken kite, and then settling in the centre of their own lawn as falteringly as ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... the unknown God in piteous protest at the inexorable laws of inexplicable miseries and mysteries. But because such suffering was thus universal, therefore he almost ceased to feel pity for it; of the two he pitied the beasts far more than the human kind:—the horse staggering beneath the lash in all the feebleness of hunger, lameness, and old age; the ox bleeding from the goad on the hard furrows, or stumbling through the hooting crowd, blind, footsore, and shivering, to its last home in the slaughter-house; ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... to shut out the daylight, and when a sudden flash of lightning cleft the low-hanging clouds overhead the effect was perfectly staggering. ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... quarry. There I had him in full sight, and knew that he could not escape me. He ran well, it is true—ran as a coward runs when his life is the stake. But I ran as Destiny runs when it gets behind a man's heels. Yard by yard I drew in upon him. He was rolling and staggering. I could hear the rasping and crackling of his breath. The great gulf of the quarry suddenly yawned in front of his path, and glancing at me over his shoulder, he gave a shriek of despair. The next instant he ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... jumble of mental impulses which seemed to lead her always back to the harrowing realization that she had lost her father. That was the gigantic axis around which her whole mental structure revolved. It was staggering, stupefying, and ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... eyes were set upon me eloquently as I knelt on the path and made my examination—an examination which that first glimpse when Forsyth came staggering out from the trees had rendered useless—a mere ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... who introduced themselves and each other to me and asked if I would not eat ices and drink punch, but I was dropping with fatigue and even my handsome friend who was full of congratulations, could not prevent me from staggering off ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... strained hearing detected what I had been listening for all the time. There was a faint but audible rustling in the shrubs overgrowing the wall on my left. I made a quick dash forward, tripped against some invisible obstacle stretched across the lane, and went staggering sideways, struggling to preserve my balance. Almost at the same moment two dark forms dropped from the shelter of the shrubs on to the lane by my side. I felt the soft splash of a wet cloth upon ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... class of painters, where he ranks the third after RAPHAEL and TITIAN. He is inferior to them in design and composition; however the scarceness of his pictures frequently gives them a superior value. Poor CORREGGIO! It grieves one to recollect that he lost his life, in consequence of the fatigue of staggering home under a load of copper coin, which avaricious monks had given him for pictures now become so valuable that they are not to be purchased for their ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... laughed bitterly to recall how often he had treated the dear sister's practical common-sense with contempt because she was only a girl. Now how gladly would he listen to her advice! It was pretty evident that his self-conceit had received a staggering blow, and that self-reliance would be thankful for the backing ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden, And the apple-trees covered with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road; And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern, whence he had lately risen, And the schoolmistress that passed on her way to the school, And the friendly boys that passed, and the quarrelsome boys, And the tidy and fresh-cheeked girls, and the barefoot negro boy and girl, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... bow, breaking upon the deck with such force that all the men were swept from their feet and several were injured. The anchor was lost and only the quickness of the carpenter saved the cable, which he cut with an ax as it was running over the side. Staggering in the heavy sea the Discovery sailed northward, for Hudson had at last become convinced that no passage led to ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... because of his legend. Verlaine over again! The etchings were classic when they were born. We wonder they did not appeal immediately. To-day, if you are lucky enough to come across one, you are asked a staggering price. They sold for a song—when they did sell—during the lifetime of the artist. Louis Napoleon and Baron Haussmann destroyed picturesque Paris to the consternation of Meryon, who to the eye of an archaeologist united the soul of an artist. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... silently selected one of those clumsy and original missives, directed in a staggering, round hand, on paper oddly shaped and thick, such as mixes not naturally with the aristocratic fabric, on which crests and ciphers are impressed, and placed it ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... with tears. She thought of the old man staggering alone up the dusty hill under his ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it said: "I shall stay in town a few days longer. It is delightfully cool here. Dear old Miranda is at the Ritz with me and we are having a fine spree. Don't worry about money. I find I have a staggering balance in the bank. The cashier showed me where I had made a mistake in subtraction of an even ten thousand. I was amazed to find what a big difference a little figure makes. Have made no definite plans but will write Mother to-night. Please give my ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... as to render the result of the contest extremely doubtful. But as they drew near the end of the coarse, and the horse, by the renewed incentives of his rider, began to gain on her, she suddenly flounced, broke into a gallop, shot by the horse, giving him a staggering kick in the chops as she passed, and, in spite of the apparent efforts of her rider, to bring her up at the goal, plunged on directly towards the fence that had been ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... contributed his only shovel, for which act he was enthusiastically cursed and liberally treated at the bar, while the shovel was promptly sold at auction to the highest bidder, who presented it, with a staggering slap between the shoulders, to its original owner. The remaining non-legal tenders were then converted into gold-dust, and the whole dispatched by express, with a grim note from Pentecost, to the society's ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... freezing fingers, but remembered that that was the surest way to add to the nip of the cold in a blast which condensed the breath from his mouth into icicles before it had time to get away from his moustache. Staggering to his feet, he stumbled on toward the Hunter house, trying as hard as his fast benumbing senses would permit to bear toward the wind and the cornfield at the right. He had not picked up the package—had forgotten ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... fall. No, he did not fall! I had stabbed him; and he remained standing! I saw him from the terrace, to which I had returned. He had hung his jacket over his shoulders, evidently to hide his wound, and he moved away without staggering ... or staggering so little that I alone was able to perceive it. He even spoke to some friends who were playing cards. Then he went to his cabin and disappeared.... In a few moments, I came back indoors. ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... rode with Captain R. Brooke, 7th Hussars, to Spion Kop, to find out what the true situation was. We passed through the ambulance village, and leaving our horses climbed up the spur. Streams of wounded met us and obstructed the path. Men were staggering along alone, or supported by comrades, or crawling on hands and knees, or carried on stretchers. Corpses lay here and there. Many of the wounds were of a horrible nature. The splinters and fragments of the shell had torn and mutilated in the most ghastly manner. I passed about two ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... brought back the previous year by the relief ship of the detention of the Discovery and certain outbreaks of scurvy which had occurred both on the ship and on sledge journeys. To make sure of relief two ships had been sent. That was nothing to worry about, but the orders they brought were staggering to sailors who had come to love their ship "with a depth of sentiment which cannot be surprising when it is remembered what we had been through in her and what a comfortable home she had proved."[21] Scott was ordered to abandon the Discovery if she could not be freed in time ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... on it becoming evident that the Christian States were driving back the Turks: "This is a staggering blow to all the Turks—those of England and Prussia as well as those ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... The Kitchenmaid is a short, fat, rosy, brisk little girl. The Cooklet is a lanky, lazy, sentimental-looking girl. The Kitchenmaid carries pasteboard, with pie-disk, rolling-pin, basin of pastry, mince meat, etc., and enters staggering under her burden. The Cooklet carries a small basin with three apples and a knife, and eats apples as she ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... pitiless rain dragged our way through the bad-lands, meeting and fighting the Sioux two lively days among the rocks of Slim Buttes, subsisting meantime partly on what game we could pick up, but mainly upon our poor, famished, worn-out, staggering horses. It is hard truth for cavalryman to tell, but the choice lay between them and our boots and most of us had no boots left by the time we sighted the Black Hills. Once there, we found provisions and plenty; but never, I venture to say, never was civilized army ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... staggering breeze. We could now perceive that we were chasing a large corvette, though from the end-on view we had of her, we could not count her ports. The Eos seemed to fly ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the cuirassier horses, which had more to carry than the others, though weaker, as the largest horses in general are, and which required more food; hence their great carcasses were worn down to skeletons, their flanks collapsed, they crawled rather than walked, and every moment one was seen staggering, and another falling under his rider, who ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... and she was there before she had time to recover from the staggering effect of Lady Clifton-Wyatt's bludgeon-like snub. As timidly as the waif and estray that she was, she ventured into the crowded, gorgeous lobby with its lofty and ornate ceiling on its big columns. At one side a long corridor ran brokenly ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... centre, put forth all its strength, and seemed to cover the sea with a navy like the legendary navy of Xerxes. It bore down on the doomed island with the weight and solemnity of a day of judgment; sailors or pirates struck at it with small ships staggering under large cannon, fought it with mere masses of flaming rubbish, and in that last hour of grapple a great storm arose out of the sea and swept round the island, and the gigantic fleet was seen no more. The uncanny completeness and abrupt silence that swallowed ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... staggering world, and the one man who has its secret is shaken to despair about himself. Yet the Word with which he is charged not only fulfils itself in event after event but holds its distracted prophet fast to the end of his ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... couldn't stay in the room; I felt it was overpowering me. I was thankful to come out, safe and sound, into the open air. People stared at me as I walked along the street, and one man said I was drunk. I was staggering about from one side of the pavement to the other, and it was as much as I could do to take the key back to the agent and get home. I was in bed for a week, suffering from what my doctor called nervous shock and exhaustion. One of ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... shield and sword, ever at point against him, made him mad. He could never reach his adroit enemy, it seemed. For a supreme effort he feigned, drew back, then made a rush. Prosper parried, recovered, and let in with a staggering head-cut which for the time dizzied his opponent. Galors lowered his head under his shield, made another desperate blind rush, and got to close quarters. The two men struggled together, fighting as much with shields as swords, and more with legs and arms than anything else. They ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... in a street lined with small frame houses stumbled a man far gone in drink, by whose side walked a boy, and Sam's mind leaped back to those first years he had spent in the city and of the staggering old man he had left behind him ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... minute the pupils of the eyes were dilated and the respiration was laborious. " 2-1/2 do. vomiting and staggering. " 4 do. evacuations; the cries continued, the voice hoarse and unnatural. " 5 do. repeated attempts at vomiting. " 7 do. ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey
... door opened and Henery Walker came staggering in. He was as white as a sheet, his 'at was knocked on one side of his 'ead, and there was two or three nasty-looking scratches on 'is cheek. He came straight to Bill Chambers's mug—wot 'ad just been filled—and emptied it, and then 'e ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... words of each sentence of a sermon growing faint, like Marathon runners staggering feebly towards the goal, and the final word dropping completely under, that sermon, no matter how beautiful its conception or eloquent its composition, is ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... rung, an order given, and presently appeared an eight-year old boy, so excessively Scotch in his costume that he looked like an animated checkerboard; and a little girl, who presented the appearance of a miniature opera-dancer staggering under the weight ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... You see how idle I am; but I have so enjoyed your letter that you must forgive me. With respect to migration during the glacial period: I think Lyell quite comprehends, for he has given me a supporting fact. But, perhaps, he unconsciously hates (do not say so to him) the view as slightly staggering him on his favourite theory of all changes of climate being due to changes in the relative position ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... went a staggering step forward. "You mean that?" he said in a harsh, incredulous whisper. "You—you're ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... suggest a trip to the High Cliff House. He went out again, to walk along the path and think over what he had just heard. It was interesting, as showing the attitude of one of the contracting parties toward the "engagement," the announcement of which had been such a staggering finish to the "big day" ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped three-leggedly along, too, feeling proud, for any attention shown to the puppy was a pleasure to me, of course. They discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the puppy shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went staggering around, with his head all bloody, and the master clapped his hands ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sake Leagued with one spirit and single-hearted strength To break thy foes in pieces, who shall meet The wind's whole soul and might of the main sea Full in their face of battle, and become 1700 A laughter to thee; like a shower of leaves Shall their long galleys rank by staggering rank Be dashed adrift on ruin, and in thy sight The sea deride them, and that lord of the air Who took by violent hand thy child to wife With his loud lips bemock them, by his breath Swept out of ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... knuckles. This, however, could not save, soon he was on his back, striking his head; but when he saw that the object was to rifle his pockets, letting be, he managed to steal out the punal from his breast, and presently with a sudden upheaving and scattering rage, was staggering to his legs. Before he could be stopped, he was making for the gate, but close upon him ran one of the five—a slim man, masked—who fired Hogarth's own pistol at his legs, but missed: whereupon, Hogarth, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... was holding on by the railings of the Square. He had apparently been hesitating for some time whether he could reach the road, and, just as Baruch and Clara came up to him, he made a lurch towards it, and nearly fell over them. Clara instinctively seized Baruch's arm in order to avoid the poor, staggering mortal; they went once more to the right, and began to complete another circuit. Somehow her arm had been drawn into Baruch's, ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... exposed himself to rough usage for doing so. Luckily one of the mob themselves at length suggested the additional experiment of weighing the witch against the church Bible. The friend of humanity caught at this means of escape, supporting the proposal by the staggering argument that the Scripture, being the work of God himself, must outweigh necessarily all the operations or vassals of the devil. The reasoning was received as conclusive, the more readily as it promised a new species of amusement. The woman was then weighed against a church Bible of twelve ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... to Cerceris tuberculata, whom I see engaged on that slant, storing her Cleonus [a large species of weevil]. As I saw her then, so I see her now: the same staggering attempts to hoist the prey to the mouth of the burrow; the same brawls between males watching in the brushwood of the kermes oak. The sight of them sends a younger blood coursing through my veins; I receive as it were the breath of ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... girls applauded, fetched the wine, filled the glasses of their old father and the young officer until the wine was exhausted. It was midnight, and very cold. De Lisle was a dreamer; his heart was moved, his head heated. The cold seized on him, and he went staggering to his lonely chamber, endeavouring, by degrees, to find inspiration in the palpitations of his citizen heart; and on his small clavicord, now composing the air before the words, and now the words before the air, combined them so intimately in his mind, that he could never ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... hand in his powerful fist and whispered: "Rot! you are certain to do everything for us. My heart is set on winning this and staggering the school." ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... attempt to evade intellectualism ends in intellectualism, and therefore in death. The sortie has failed. The wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void. Nietzsche scales staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately in Tibet. He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and Nirvana. They are both helpless—one because he must not grasp anything, and the other because he must not let go of anything. ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... through his teeth, "no, it's not over." And after stumbling a few staggering steps right up to the saber, he sank on the snow beside it. His left hand was bloody; he wiped it on his coat and supported himself with it. His frowning face ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... this time the other clients were gone, and the whole family had gathered to the spot, centering their attention on the marvelous Jacob: the father, mother, and grandmother behind the counter, with baby held staggering thereon, and the little girl in front leaning at her brother's elbow to assist him ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... horse which seemed endowed with supernatural strength, for when, eventually, the Castle was relieved, the horse, which had been shut up without forage, was found, after eight or ten days of abstinence, alive, and "wildly staggering about" in its confinement. It was afterwards sent as a present by Captain Wentworth, to whom it belonged, to his sister ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... vantage—in the Champagne, the Argonne, at Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, Les Eparges, Hartmannsweilerkopf, Metzeral, Souchez—but they have resulted in only a local effect, although they have been accompanied in almost every case by losses that have been staggering. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... pounds over the intervening ground, and, using the momentum of the stride to help, I put the flat of my hand against the shoulder of the man and gave him a shove. There are three or four Harvard men who can tell what that means and they were braced for it, which this fellow wasn't. He went staggering back as if struck by a cow-catcher, and lay down on the ground a good fifteen feet away. His having his arm around Miss Cullen's waist unsteadied her so that she would have fallen too if I hadn't put my hand against ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... fortune still may juggle on, For her minions blindly look around,— Man now totter on his staggering throne, And in dreary puddles now be found! Blest art thou, within thy narrow cell! To this stir of tragi-comedy, To these fortune-waves that madly swell, To this vain and childish lottery, To this busy crowd effecting naught, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... strip out all the milk possible from the bag, then insert the teat tube that is connected to the syringe in each teat, filling them well with air, and repeat this treatment every hour until the cow stops staggering, or if lying down, stands on her feet. It is necessary to strip the milk from the bag before giving an injection of air. If the cow is lying flat on her side, prop her up by placing bags of hay or straw against her side, ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... rude workmanship has taken a dull polish from use) in a puddle; the hair of the cow, against which the head is placed, is wet; the wind blows the rain into the nape of the neck behind, the position being stooping. Staggering under the heavy yoke homewards, the boots sink deep into the slush and mire in the gateways, the weight carried sinking them well in. The teams do not usually work in very wet weather, and most of the ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... metal open-work was put in its place, and fitted together, forming a frame of coral branches intermingled with dolphins, Nereids, and Tritons. Four gigantic Cyclops then approached, staggering under the weight of a circular slab of green marble, polished to a perfect mirror, which they placed on the framework. The Graces wreathed its circumference with garlands of sea-weed, shells, and corallines, and the mimic sea ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... grasp, he motioned to the cab driver to pull up at the curb and carried her into the cab. When Vickers closed the door, the driver without further orders whipped up his horse and drove into a side street, leaving the group on the pavement staring at them and at Conry, who was staggering ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... while living in the palace at Helsingfors, I overheard a conversation between the Governor-General and his son, which revealed to me a staggering truth that I had never suspected. It was Oberg himself who had denounced my mother to the Minister of the Interior, and had made those cruel, baseless charges against her! Then I discerned the reason. She being exiled, her fortune, as well as that of my ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... hundred times in his daylight rounds. The saving circumstance was that he kept dropping them in his ardor for still other treasures his blind feet stumbled on. I followed in his wake and I know, for half a dozen times his discards got under my feet and sent me staggering. Once, moved by some bizarre, thousandth chance of curiosity, I bent and caught ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... his returns to London, and in the absence of the head of the firm in China, he discovered a defalcation of staggering proportions. A man connected with the firm had lost in speculation over a million dollars obtained from friends and clients of the firm, by the issuance and sale of false stock. Technically the operations of the defaulter were of such a character ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... but a deplorable sort of goat-path or gutter running down the side of the hill, when we saw Dr. Grant coming down from Sammy's house, and the old fisherman was remonstrating with him. My dear Jennie, it gave me the shock of my life! The young man was actually staggering, and I immediately decided that he was drunker than ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... told you then I'd be the same to you as Kraill was, didn't I? I worshipped you; I wanted you; you were my saviour, and I'd have picked up the Great Pyramid and walked off staggering with it if you'd asked me. That was the path that carried me over my particular messy morass (that, and my acquisitive spirit that objected to giving up part of my goods and chattels!) And now—listen here, old lady! It's a thing a chap couldn't say to most of his wives. I can say it to you and know ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... slave-songs, led the Welsh in their singing, listened to the Scotch, ordered great music festivals in all England, wrote for Beerbohm Tree, took on another music professorship, promised a trip to Germany, and at last, staggering home one night, on his way to his wife and little boy and girl, fell in his tracks and in four days was dead, at the age of thirty-seven. They say that in his death-throe he arose and facing some great, ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... seated on the bench, plunged in frightful melancholy, I saw a belated workman staggering along the street. He muttered a few words in a dazed manner and then began to sing. He was so much under the influence of liquor that he walked at times on one side of the gutter and then on the other. Finally he fell on a bench facing another house opposite me. ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... "feminine endings" in Shakespeare's verse, and writing elaborate theses upon the sources of the Spenserian legends. Upon his excursions into the country some of these young men would tramp with him—threshing out, student-fashion, the problems of the universe; and how staggering it was to meet a man who was about to receive a master's degree in literature—and who regarded Arthur Hugh Clough as a "dangerous" poet, and Tennyson's "Two Voices" as containing vital thought, and T. H. Green as ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... the plants up in order to make any interest on their investments; or, rather, not interest on their investments, because that is an incorrect word,—on their alleged capitalization. Here we have a lot of giants staggering along under an almost intolerable weight of artificial burdens, which they have put on their own backs, and constantly looking about lest some little pigmy with a round stone in a sling may ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... indistinct perception of inability to sustain himself erect, and a belief he would feel better in a recumbent attitude, he gropes his way back to the glade, where, staggering about for a while, he at length settles down, dead drunk. In ten seconds he is asleep, in slumber so profound, that a cannon shot—even the voice of ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... he stepped into the lapping flow of fire. Dio swore viciously, but he followed. They started toward the cave mouth, staggering in the rush of ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... astonished voice, and next moment the fainting girl was caught up in powerful arms and borne into the inn kitchen, I staggering after. ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... was seen issuing from a box of ammunition. In an instant the cry of fire went up, and soldiers and negro roustabouts piled over each other in their scramble for safety. McGee, however, rushed toward the box, picked it up, and was staggering in the direction of the river, some distance away, when Lieutenant Parker, who had heard the warning cry, came to his assistance. Together they carried the smoking box until it was possible to throw it into ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... "A staggering box on the ear with a heavy slipper flung from across the room sent the unfortunate messenger whimpering out of the door; while the priest, honest man, stormed up and down the room until the housekeeper entered with a waiter, on which ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... outward-bound steamer from Hong-Kong bursts into the unwieldy Chinaman, goes crunching through her like ripping pasteboard; tears her open; snarls through steamy nostrils and cindery fiery mouth, and growls over her wreck. And the sodden, stupefied merchantman, as if drunk with opium, goes yelling and staggering with her sleepy drugs to the bottom, and stays ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... for he could pass without incongruity from some unforeseen swift stroke of wit to elaborate reverie. I heard him say a few nights later: 'Give me "The Winter's Tale," "Daffodils that come before the swallow dare" but not "King Lear." What is "King Lear" but poor life staggering in the fog?' and the slow cadence, modulated with so great precision, sounded natural to my ears. That first night he praised Walter Pater's 'Essays on the Renaissance:' 'It is my golden book; I never travel anywhere without ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... hard all night. Passed the Dinka hill at 3.30 A.M. Obliged to take in sail, as it buried the head of the vessel and we shipped much water. Staggering along under bare poles at about five miles an hour. The true banks of the river are about five hundred yards distant from the actual stream, this space being a mass of floating water-plants, decayed ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... under the stinging blows of a whip, only afterwards recognized as such, however. I sprung staggering to my feet, and rushed at the dim form of an assailant, with such a sudden and, I suppose, unexpected assault, that he fell under me. Had he not fallen I should have had little chance with him, for, as I now learned by his voice, it was Sir ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... big practice hike through the wilderness who that saw him staggering along, choked with alkali dust, knouted by the sun, stabbed by the cactus, carrying two rifles belonging to worn-out soldiers in addition to his own load, looking forward to the privilege of throwing himself down by the roadside for ten minutes' respite, ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... enterprise was just as staggering as her success. Fancy her deliberately going out that Saturday morning, after her mother's definite decision, to enlist ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... street-door, and ran downstairs; the bold Toots tumbled staggering out into the street, with Diogenes holding on to one leg of his pantaloons, as if Burgess and Co. were his cooks, and had provided that dainty morsel for his holiday entertainment; Diogenes shaken off, rolled ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... had seen it; staggering she fell back upon a chair; she gazed fixedly at the window, even after the fearful phantom had disappeared. Her lips were open, as if for a cry which had been silenced by horror. She did not weep, she did not complain, and even the caresses of the children, the gentle ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... their closed ranks, striking down dozens at a time, but still, urged on by their officers—who, to give them their due, fought with the most heroic bravery—they advanced close up to our lines. Here they were met by pistols, pikes, and spears, and then, staggering, they broke and fled, followed by showers of missiles, until ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... heard these tidings with a grave concern. It all seemed like another weight added to the load under which he was already staggering. He debated with himself on the subject of this proposed new household: where was it to be established, of whom was it to be composed, by whom (above all) was it to be supported? Marshall, in his most prosperous and least careworn days, had never acquired ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... was, Mendoza sprang forward in pursuit when he saw her figure in the dimness, flying before him, but as she reached the light of the lamp he stopped himself, staggering one or two steps and then reeling against the wall. He had recognized Dolores' dress and hood, and there was not the slightest doubt in his mind but that it was herself. In that same dress he had seen her in the late afternoon, she had been wearing it when he had locked her ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... part was eager for a little talk between themselves. That staggering fact had appalled, as well as angered, him. Why should their particular plane have been selected for such treacherous work, among all the scores connected with the air service in that sector of the ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... company resumed their places at the banquet. But lady Feng was conscious that the wine she had primed herself with was mounting to her head, so abruptly staggering to the upper end, she meant to betake herself home to lie down, when seeing the jugglers arrive, "Get the tips ready!" she shouted to Mrs. Yu. "I'm off to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... movement, the crowd of men, two vague, black forms lifting another one, which appeared heavy and inert, out of the coach, and carrying it staggering up ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... the horrified onlookers it was only too clear that nothing could stop his career in time. He was already within a yard or two of the luckless boy when Reginald made a sudden dash into the road, charging at him with a violence that sent him staggering forward two paces and then brought him to the earth. Reginald fell too, on the top of him, and as the cab dashed past it just grazed the sole of his boot ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... world-wide popularity as a humorist, he would find that secret, primarily, in the universality and humanity of his humour. Mark Twain is a master in the art of broad contrast; incongruity lurks on the surface of his humour; and there is about it a staggering and cyclopean surprise. But these are mere surface qualities, more or less common, though at lower power, to all forms of humour. Nor is his international vogue as a humorist to be attributed to any tricks of style, to any breadth of knowledge, or even to any depth of ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... sunk into the covert; but, what was their mortification to perceive the traveller, though without any true command over his steed, by an adroit use of the broker bridle, so wheel him round as to bring him, in a few leaps, over the very ground of the strife, and before the staggering robber had yet fully arisen from the path. By this manoeuvre he placed himself in advance of the now approaching banditti. Driving his spurs resolutely and unsparingly into the flanks of his horse, while encouraging him with well known words of cheer, he rushed over the scene of his ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... half the village collected on the long sloping point of down below. Sailors wrapped in pilot-cloth, oil-skinned coast-guardsmen, women with their gowns turned over their heads, staggering restlessly up and down, and in and out, while every moment some fresh comer stumbles down the slope, thrusting himself into his clothes as he goes, and asks, "Where's the wreck!" and gets no answer, but a ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... memory of giving any thought to the matter. My reaction must have been both immediate and automatic. I don't think I even intended to bunt my husband in the short-ribs the way I did, for the impact of my body half twisted him about and sent him staggering back several steps. All I know is that holster and belt came tumbling down as I sprang and caught at the Colt handle. And I was back at the door before I had even shaken the revolver free. I was back just in time to ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... seaweed and rugged in form are not easy to walk over; a fact which was soon proved by Swankie staggering violently once or twice, and by Spink falling flat on his back. Neither paid attention to his comrade's misfortunes in this way. Each scrambled about actively, searching with care among the crevices of the rocks, and from time to time picking up articles ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... took my hands and kissed them as if they had belonged to a prince, cried, nearly fainted, embraced Rivet and even kissed Madame Morin, who gave him such a push as to send him staggering back into his chair; but he never got over the blow; his mind had been too much upset. In all the country round, moreover, he was called nothing but 'that pig of a Morin,' and that epithet went through him like a sword-thrust ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant |
