"Stagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have drifted far away from port before we awake out of our illusions. But to carry us out of maturity into old age, without our knowing where we are going, she drugs us with strong opiates, and so we stagger along with wide open eyes that see nothing until snow enough has fallen on our heads to rouse our comatose brains ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... 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. ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... stand, I could walk a short way, but the weight of this great rifle, sixteen pounds or more, which I had never felt before, now seemed to crush me down. I saw that I was starved, that the sap was gone from my muscles. I could stagger but a few yards before I was obliged to stop and put down the rifle. She came and put her arm about me firmly, her face frowning and eager. But a tall man can ill be aided by a woman ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... of these hellish bands, some of which appeared to me wholly composed of blind men, Jesus was as much wounded and bruised as if their blows had been real. I saw him stagger from side to side, sometimes raising himself up, and sometimes falling again, while the serpent, in the midst of the crowds whom it was unceasingly leading forward against Jesus, struck the ground with its tail, and tore to pieces ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... motionless men and women, who lean upon the supporting barrier, and rapt children who hold by their skirts and hands. There is not the eager New England neatness about these homes; now and then they have rather a sloven air, which does not discord with their air of comfort; and very, very rarely they stagger drunkenly in a ruinous neglect. Except where a log cabin has hardily survived the pioneer period, the houses are nearly all of one pattern; their facades front the river, and low chimneys point either gable, where a half-story forms the attic of the two stories below. Gardens of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... armed, desperate, escaped murderers. Their attitude towards the hunters, together with scraps of conversation they had uttered, had bred in Charley's active mind a theory for their actions and object, a theory involving a crime so vile and atrocious as to stagger belief. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... and said: 'Behold, mother, I have found gold in the highways and byways; rejoice and be exceedin' glad!' and hev poured it inter yer lap. Yes," continued Mr. Staples aggressively to the boy, as he saw him stagger back with his pail in hand, "yes, sir, THAT would have been the course of ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... The stagger, the sense of one's unpardonable heaviness.... I slipped on her hand as on a piece of orange-peel, and, jumping like a chamois, sent the next pail all over the heels ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... a bed at his sister's, no matter at what hour of day or night he chose to stagger in; but the large family combined efforts to prevent the contretemps of a meeting between him and Ruth. Their promise to her mother was too sacred for trifling, and they loved the girl too well to risk ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... who saw her stagger, sprang forward and received her in his arms; some one opened the door and allowed him to pass out with his enormous burden. The fiery republican, instructed by Josette, found strength to carry ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... to confirm Martin in his detestable principles, to stagger Candide more than ever, and to puzzle Pangloss, was that one day they saw Paquette and Friar Giroflee land at the farm in extreme misery. They had soon squandered their three thousand piastres, parted, were reconciled, quarrelled again, ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... whose mind is all at sea because of its existence. What, O man with a soul, is all the world else to thee? Christianity, whatever be its broad way of pretences, is but in reality a narrow path: be satisfied with the day of small things, stagger not at the inconsistencies, conflicting words, and hateful strifes of those who say they are Christians, but "are not, but are of the synagogue of Satan." Judge truth, neither by her foes nor by her ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... slays the body and who robs the purse, Is he who strives to kill the mind's belief And rob it of its hope Of life beyond this little pain-filled span. God has no curse Quite dark enough to punish such a man, Who, seeing how souls grope And suffer in this world of mighty losses, And how hearts stagger on beneath life's crosses, Yet strives to rob them of their staff of faith And make them think dark death Ends all existence; think the worshipped child Cold in its mother's arms is but a clod And has not gone to God; That souls united by love undefiled ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... girls being paid for their work. It is to the interest of the school and its day-students that fewer work their way through school, and the time has come to teach this fact. The boy or girl for a time will stagger in the attempt to gain education, but will be all the more able, later, to reach the ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... silence of the Place de L'Etoile was broken by a terrible cry: "To arms! To arms! The Prussians!" And the four Uhlans[275-1] at the head of the column could see up there on the balcony a tall old man stagger and fall. This time ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... Terrible Spenders. Talk about 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 ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... looking at Bartley for his approval, "and I've always thought that, if I ever got run clean ashore, high and dry, I'd make a stagger to write it out and do something with it. Do you ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... able to answer the most ordinary objections, and they have not moral strength to withstand the shafts of ridicule. In the fierce cross-currents of unbelief, he is poorly able to keep his foothold. Many stagger; ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... parentheses above. The exigencies of English grammar as also of perspicuity have obliged me to use, even in the portions unenclosed, more words than what occur in the original Sanskrit. All these verses are cruces intended to stagger Ganesa. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... you!" cried Dick Rover. And beside himself with righteous anger, he sprang forward and planted a blow on Carson Davenport's chin that made the oil well promoter stagger back and fall flat. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... body and mind while he is becoming more and more powerless; and everything appears rose-colored at the time when he is in a most critical state. He believes himself possessed of great muscular strength when paralysis makes him stagger, ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... sentences with two-second waits between each word. For that reason he 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 ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... almost terrifying, the storm broke over the ocean about three o'clock that morning. There was a terrific clap of thunder, a flash of lighting, and a deluge of rain that fairly made the staunch Falcon stagger, high in ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... Baker. "Son, White Oaks raises raisins and peaches and apricots and figs and such things in quantities to stagger you. It is a nice, well-built city, and well conducted, and full of real estate boards and chambers of commerce. But it is not framed up for tourists, and it knows it. Not at 100 degrees Fahrenheit 'most all summer, and a chill and solemn land fog ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... pistol-shot, and very near me—not thirty feet away. I turned and saw a man stagger and fall to the pavement. Then the streets began to grow dark with people hurrying toward the scene of the tragedy. I fled in fright; I had had my fill of horrors. The pistol-shot was familiar enough: it punctuated the hours of day and night out yonder. But ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... you fire: shall then that strumpet And bastard breathe quicke vengeance in my face, Making my kingdome reele, my subjects stagger In their obedience, ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... writes Chaplin, "I don't want anyone to try to make me out a 'poet'—because I'm not. I don't think much of these esthetic creatures who condescend to stoop to our level that we may have the blessings of culture. We'll manage to make our own—do it in our own way, and stagger through somehow. . . . These are tremendous times, and sooner or later someone will come along big enough to sound the right note, and it will be a rebel note." It is that note which Chaplin has sought to strike, and that he has succeeded ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... master had conquered, he looked like one sorely sick. He was just able to stagger to a couch that stood by the wall, and there he fell and lay, without breath or motion, like one dead, and as ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... said Mrs. Bennet, continuing her story, "was my lord departed, than Mrs. Ellison came to me. She behaved in such a manner, when she became acquainted with what had past, that, though I was at first satisfied of her guilt, she began to stagger my opinion, and at length prevailed upon me entirely to acquit her. She raved like a mad woman against my lord, swore he should not stay a moment in her house, and that she would never speak to him more. In short, had she been the most innocent woman ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Beck's errand; From the bailiffs cramp speech, That makes man a thrall, I charm thee from each, And I charm thee from all. Thy freedom's complete As a Blade of the Huff, To be cheated and cheat, To be cuff'd and to cuff; To stride, swear, and swagger, To drink till you stagger, To stare and to stab, And to brandish your dagger In the cause of your drab; To walk wool-ward in winter, Drink brandy, and smoke, And go fresco in summer For want of a cloak; To eke out your living By the wag of your elbow, By fulham and gourd, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... badly, till we got sick of it. Pieces such as "Apres le Bal" and "Simple Aveu" were hurled at us every night. A statement of the number of times that Nicolai's overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor has been played in the theatres would stagger people; Gounod's Faust music and Edward German's charming dances from Henry VIII., and one or two overtures by Suppe and the Stradella music, have ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... 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 own ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... that moment Maren Le Moyne, straining every muscle of her young body to save the man she loved, looked swiftly back, having left the defile to stagger, stumbling, southward to where Mowbray's men waited ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... trip. I recognized the 'Sea Monster' a long way off, but I must say I was surprised when I saw Jerry's shirt signaling so distressfully. Of course I knew who you were at once, when you called the place the 'Sea Monster,' but Christine did stagger me for a minute." ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... journey from San Miguel. The accounts he heard of the opulence and power of that monarch, and of his great southern capital, perfectly corresponded with the general rumors before received; and contained, therefore, something to stagger the confidence, as well as to stimulate the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... such a fight Would be a huge reclame for Hundom; That Earth would stagger at the sight Of Gulielmus contra Mundum; That WILLIAM, facing awful odds, Should prove a spectacle for ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... while day and night Chong Mong-ju's 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 ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... usual period for Aztec fighting. It was this alone that saved the lives of the remaining few for, having seen Alvarado stagger to freedom along the causeway, the Aztecs concluded that they had done enough and returned to the city rejoicing. They took back with them many Spaniards and Tlascalans as captives for sacrifice and the ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the corner of the inn, and up the lane. The colonel, with Silas and Sheppard, followed in more leisurely fashion. At a shout from some one they turned to see a dusty, bloody figure, with ragged clothes, stagger ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... Mr. Courtlandt told her and told Captain Forrest that it should make no difference; but she is self-willed and obstinate, and nothing would do but she must quit his roof forever and come to be a burden on her brother, who has quite enough to stagger under already." ("Hum!" thought Bayard at this juncture, "how little she realizes the truth of that assertion!") "Mr. Courtlandt had been devoted to her from her childhood, had lavished everything on her, had educated her, sent her abroad, provided for her in every way, and—she rewarded him ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... in each other's embrace, stagger to their feet. Corrigan's head was wabbling. He was trying to hold the other to him that he might escape the lashing blows that were driven at his head. The girl saw his hold broken, and as he reeled, catching another blow in the mouth, he swung ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... 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
... during the years when he is old enough to be cautious about accepting new ideas and young enough to be enthusiastic concerning them after careful consideration, when he is so mature as not to desire to stagger the orthodox by the impudence of his opinions, and sufficiently youthful to be willing to shock the conservative by the audacity of his views. He may then seem jaded because he is not easily moved, ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... and the tundra that lay between, in search of the lost copper mines of the Indians; the mines that lured Hearne into the North in 1771, and which Hearne forgot in the discovery of a fur empire so vast as to stagger belief. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... best horses up north there, and all over, see? And they harness their mounts with pure hammered silver. But us? Oh hell, we've got to ride plugs, that's all, and not one of them good enough to stagger round a water well. You see, don't you, partner? You see what I mean? You know, the men on the other side-they get shiny new silver coins while we get only lousy paper money printed in that murderer's factory, that's what we get, yes, that's ours, I ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... it ought to be kept concentrated to fight the enemy's cavalry. Heretofore, the commander of the Cavalry Corps had been, virtually, but an adjunct at army headquarters—a sort of chief of cavalry—and my proposition seemed to stagger General Meade not a little. I knew that it would be difficult to overcome the recognized custom of using the cavalry for the protection of trains and the establishment of cordons around the infantry corps, and so far subordinating its operations to the movements of the main army that in name ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... well, no more! I am proud of my 'Monk-King,' Whoever named me; and, brother, Holy Church May rock, but will not wreck, nor our Archbishop Stagger on the slope decks for any rough sea Blown by the breath of kings. We do forgive you For aught you wrought against us. [HENRY holds up his hand. Nay, I pray you, Do not defend yourself. You will do much To rake out all old dying heats, if you, ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the globe of Mars. The geometrical perfection of the lines, their straightness, their absolute parallelism when doubled, their remarkable tendency to radiate from definite centers, lent strength to the hypothesis of an artificial origin. But their enormous size, length, and number tended to stagger belief in the ability of the inhabitants of any world to ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... was paid with careless liberality, and Lord Polperro ran up the stairs to his flat. More strictly speaking, he ran for a few yards, when breath failed him, and it was all he could do to stagger with loud pantings up the rest of the ascent. Arrived in his sitting-room he sank exhausted on to the nearest chair. Gammon saw that he pointed feebly to the drink cupboard, and heard a gasp that ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... 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 the Turks over-run all where-e'er they come, and are ready to ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... splendid sight to watch the birds sailing in the high winds of Adelie Land. In winds of fifty to seventy miles per hour, when with good crampons one had to stagger warily along the ice-foot, the snow petrels and Antarctic petrels were in their element. Wheeling, swinging, sinking, planing and soaring, they were radiant with life—the wild spirits of the tempest. Even in moderate drift, when through swirling snow the vistas of sea whitened under ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... would have attracted attention in almost any assemblage. Cautious, careful of consequences, and watchful of danger, he was at the same time bold, fearless, and ever ready to undertake enterprises which would stagger men of fewer mental resources. So exactly was he fitted to the time and the circumstances in which he was placed, that the conclusion is irresistible that he was a providential man, especially appointed to his work by a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... leaguing himself with the mixed-breed natives or cameroons, he waylaid a guarded mule-train bearing treasure across the Isthmus, securing 15 tons of silver which he buried, and as much gold as his men could stagger away under. It was on this foray that he first saw the Pacific from a height of the Cordilleras, and resolved to steer an English squadron into this hitherto ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... by the advance of the terrific world-balance, or when the electric power, though diffused and turned by Yva's insulated body, struck the great gyroscope's travelling foot with sufficient strength, not to shift it indeed on to the right-hand path as Oro had designed, but still to cause it to stagger and even perhaps to halt for the fraction of a second. Even this pause may have been enough to cause convulsions of the earth above; indeed, I gathered from Marama and other Orofenans that such convulsions had occurred on and around ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... Bueno! attend me now." He closed the door, and walked back to the table. "I have sit here and write when the earthquake arrive. I have feel the shock, the grind of the walls on themselves, the tremor, the stagger, and—that—door—he ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... while chatting of the affair on the previous night, that this birthday binge of his was to be on a scale calculated to stagger humanity, and I must say I have participated in less fruity functions. It was well after four when I got home, and by that time I was about ready to turn in. I can just remember groping for the bed and crawling into it, and it seemed to me that the lemon had scarcely touched the pillow before ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... did he stagger with his burden out into the night. As the wind drove in through the open door the flames seemed to burst in a sudden explosion and the cabin was a seething snarl of flame. It burst through the window and out of the chimney and Philip's path to the open gate was illumined by ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... had been fulfilled. Barrington Cowles was leaning against the railings outside with his face sunk upon his breast, and his whole attitude expressive of the most intense despondency. As he passed in he gave a stagger, and would have fallen had I not thrown my left arm around him. Supporting him with this, and holding the lamp in my other hand, I led him slowly upstairs into our sitting-room. He sank down upon the sofa without a word. Now that I could get a good view of him, I was horrified ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for the best Italian, heereof sometimes may rise some use: since, have he the memorie of Themistocles, of Seneca, of Scaliger yet is it not infinite, in so finite a bodie. And I have seene the best, yea naturall Italians, not onely stagger, but even sticke fast in the myre, and at last give it over, or give their verdict with An ignoramus, Boccace is prettie hard, yet understood: Petrarche harder, but explaned: Dante hardest, but commented. Some doubt ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... revolver promptly presented to his face by the steady hand of the young man caused him to stagger back with a snarl of baffled rage. Taking a couple of steps forward, which motion Derrick followed, and standing in full view of all the Mollies, with the revolver still held in his hand where it could be plainly seen, the mine ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... was his agonized cry, as he saw at the same moment the little figure stagger and fall. Then, forgetting his weakness and lack of physical strength, he dashed out of the house, and in another instant was standing ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... 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
... hitherto held out well, but suddenly Mike's began to stagger, and, almost before he could throw himself from its back, down the poor animal fell. What had been the cause of the horse's death we had not knowledge sufficient to ascertain; only one thing was ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... slipping down the stairway, also. Then Frank saw him lift himself and try to stagger to his feet. Without taking further note of this, Merriwell promptly closed with the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... the whip-lash formed of three rushes that excited him most violently. He pointed his finger at it, began to stagger where he stood and ended by beating the air with his arms, like a drowning man, and fainting ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... frenzy, covering canvas by the acre and striking whole armies of statues into serried ranks of stone. Men fought with swords that weaker generations can with difficulty flourish in the air; they wore armour that would make a cart-horse stagger. Quarrels, duels, riots, rapes, drinking-bouts, gallantries, and murders followed one another in a hot succession that takes away the breath of modern strait-laced commentators. Life that came easily into the world was spent as recklessly, and blood flowed as plentifully ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... clean enough to rest in, so I sat on a stone and thought about the people for over an hour. Children with scald-head, scabies, and sore eyes swarmed. Every woman carried a baby on her back, and every child who could stagger under one carried one too. Not one woman wore anything but cotton trousers. One woman reeled about "drunk and disorderly." Ito sat on a stone hiding his face in his hands, and when I asked him if he were ill, he replied in a most lamentable voice, "I don't ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... 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
... the bungalow was divided by two passages crossing each other in the middle. At that point Heemskirk, by turning his head slightly to the left as he passed, secured the evidence of "carrying on" so irreconcilable with old Nelson's assurances that it made him stagger, with a rush of blood to his head. Two white figures, distinct against the light, stood in an unmistakable attitude. Freya's arms were round Jasper's neck. Their faces were characteristically superimposed on each other, and Heemskirk went ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... 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 ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... 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 ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... is too often mistaken for permanent and regular tranquillity; yet I have determined by your permission to beg an interest in your prayers—to ask you to animate my drooping spirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for if you but speak I shall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger like Olympus shakes. And though earth and sea may tremble, and the charioteer of the sun may forget his dashing steed, yet I am assured that it is only to arm me with divine weapons which will enable me ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... saw a fine-looking young Maori, who was defending a rather open portion of the stockade, deliver a thrust, and then draw back, drop his spear, throw up his arms, and then reel and stagger forward, to fall upon ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... so loudly that his cousin Jasper Jay heard him half a mile away and came hurrying up to see what was going on. He arrived just in time to see Nimble and Dodger stagger back from another ...
— The Tale of Nimble Deer - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the depths below, Now mounted up to heaven again, They reel and stagger to and fro, At their ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... went up because of Dick's heroic action, but this was instantly hushed as George was seen to stagger back and fall as if dead. Instantly Mr. Strong picked the boy up in his arms and ran ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... poor suffering men?' and the answer was, 'Yes, by God's help we will!' The first thing was to give them something like a comfortable bed, and, Sunday though it was, we went to work to run up our sheets into bed-sacks. Every man that had strength enough to stagger was pressed into the service, and by night most of them had something softer than a tarpaulin to sleep on. 'Oh, I am so comfortable now!' some of them said; 'I think I can sleep to-night,' exclaimed one little fellow, half-laughing ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... and pain answered the reports. They saw the gorilla stagger, then drop to all fours, and lunge ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... This seemed to stagger her for a moment, then she drew herself up scornfully and turning on me, with her eyes fairly blazing, ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... frame. His head sank into his hands, and he looked and felt like one utterly crushed by a fate from which there was no escape. His ever-recurring thought was, "I have but one life, and it's lost, worse than lost. Why should I stagger on beneath the burden of an intolerable existence, which will only grow heavier as the forces of ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... George, who very decently volunteered to stagger along with me, and we hopped into a taxi. We sat around at the police-station for a bit on a wooden bench in a sort of ante-room, and presently a policeman appeared, ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... presto! the trays of watches and diamonds vanish in a twinkling, and you find yourself looking into the door, or your delighted eyes suddenly bring up against a brick wall, disenchanted so quickly that you almost stagger. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... do as his jaded fancy might suggest, the battalion adjutant, returning from his quest, came slowly to the major's side. "I've picked out nine, sir. It was simply impossible to find another in the whole two hundred. Some of these look barely able to stagger as it is." ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... aim. The bullet struck one of the front wheels of Conniston's wagon. Almost at the same second Conniston fired. Fired and missed, and fired again. With the second report came a shrill cry from the man with the revolver, and Conniston saw him stagger, drop his gun, wheel half around, and fall. And where he fell he lay, writhing and calling out ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... shining like moons, who, after going through all the intricacies of the country dance, bow, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to your place, cut—"cut so deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger!" The very Fiddler, who "went up to the lofty desk and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches!" Master Peter Cratchit, again, arrayed in his father's shirt collars, who, rejoicing to find himself so gallantly attired, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... to Billy, his eyes like a madman's. Billy swayed dizzily. He laughed, even as he crumpled down in the snow. As if in a dream he saw Brokaw stagger off on the frozen trail. He saw him disappear in his hopeless effort to reach the Indian's shack. And then a strange darkness closed him in, and in that darkness he heard still the sweet voice of his wife. It spoke his name again and again, and it urged ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... exhausted and approached but slowly, they soon had the satisfaction of seeing him pass through the surf, which, even at this time, was not heavy in the cove, and, with the water pouring from his shaggy coat, stagger towards them, bearing in his mouth his burden, which he laid down at Forster's feet, and then shook off the accumulation of moisture from his skin. Forster took up the object of the animal's solicitude—it was the body of an infant, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... set foot on the shores of vast inland seas, but who, with the simple appliances of his bodily stature for a sounding pole and his stalwart stride for a measuring tape, lays down new rivers by the hundreds, is a task calculated to stagger him. It may be provoking to find Livingstone busily engaged in bargaining for a canoe upon the shores of Bangweolo, much as he would have secured a boat on his own native Clyde; but it was not in his nature to be subject to those paroxysms ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... up, and with a great effort managed to drag the bicycle to the side of the road. Then, clutching the rail that bounded the plantation, I began to stagger slowly forward along the slightly raised path. I think I had a sort of vague notion that there might be something to ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... a revelation calculated to stagger any man, how much more, then, one who had so relied upon his moral powers as to take upon himself the sacred name of minister. But this was not all. I had not only found myself to be a coward, but I had shown myself such to another's eyes. By the searching ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... seizing part of it in her teeth to aid her to keep her hold of him. He struck at her head, at her arms, at her body, anywhere, so long as he hit her, in his efforts to throw her off. But she held him, and at last, mad with fear, he tried to stagger out of the hut, ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... The horses were ready to fall foul on one another, when the Duke of Nemours, for fear of hurting the King, retreated abruptly, and ran back his horse against a pillar with so much violence that the shock of it made him stagger. The company ran up to him, and he was thought considerably hurt; but the Princess of Cleves thought the hurt much greater than anyone else. The interest she had in it gave her an apprehension and concern which she took no care to conceal; ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... but the lower classes of both sexes universally carry heavy burdens upon their backs from early youth. Some of the Indian women are seen bearing loads of pottery or jars of water upon their shoulders with seeming ease, under which an ordinary Irish laborer would stagger. Comparatively few wheeled vehicles are in use, and these are of the rudest character, the wheel being composed of three pieces of timber, so secured together as to form a circle, but having no spokes ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... when he entered the shack. Seconds must have passed while he stood staring from the threshold, for Fat Joe came puffing back from his fruitless chase in time to see him bend and lift a black-robed, lifelessly limp body from the floor and stagger with it toward a bunk. Fat Joe's steady flow of profanity, oddly, double vicious in his thin, complaining voice, was checked short. He, too, stood and stared from the doorway—stood and ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... trembling effort to stagger across the passage, and to pluck at Marie's gown. When he spoke, ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... a tone of voice that made Scrivington stagger back, and for a moment drew the eyes of the whole street upon us. ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... the wood begins. It runs close to the fence on their left for a hundred yards, and beyond it they see white tents gleaming. They are half-way past the forest, when, sharp and loud, a volley of musketry bursts upon the head of the column; horses stagger, riders reel and fall, but the troop presses forward undismayed. The farther corner of the wood is reached, and Zagonyi beholds the terrible array. Amazed, he involuntarily cheeks his horse. The Rebels are not surprised. There to his left they stand crowning ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... was made of tough fiber and the extreme shock that would leave some men stunned and prostrate only made him stagger a little. His revolver was spitting an intermittent stream of fire and it continued this after a second slug through his lungs had forced him to his knees. He sank down fighting and got his third fatal wound ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... spot is the campo santo of San Gabriel; rather desolate, and very dusty. The ramshackle wooden crosses stagger wildly on the shapeless mounds; the dilapidated whitewashed railings, cracked and blistered by the sun, look much as though they might be bleached bones, tossed carelessly about; and the badly painted, misspelled inscriptions yield up their brief announcements only to a very patient ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... lark is but a bumpkin fowl, He sleeps in his nest till morn; But my blessing upon the jolly owl, That all night blows his horn. Then up with your cup till you stagger in speech, And match me this catch till you swagger and screech, And drink till you wink, my merry men each; For, though hours be late and weather be foul, We'll drink to the health of ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... by endeavouring to expose and confute what they look upon as an absurdity in the other, join in contributing to render the truth of the whole suspected, and not only give a handle to the avowed enemies, of depreciating and ridiculing all the sacred mysteries of religion, but also stagger the faith of a great many well-meaning people, and afford but a too plausible pretence for that sceptism which goes by the name of free-thinking, and is of late so much ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... eyes, for they were back of me somewhere, moving the barrels and boxes around. There was a lantern standing on the ground near my head, and the thought came to me that if I could knock it over and put it out I might make a stagger for the outside and get clear of them. So I ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... on 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 ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... together the living elements that serve the gun. I barely escaped being knocked down one day by an artillery horse galloping furiously over the veldt. He had got badly torn by a shell; wild with the pain, he raced around until exhausted, and then, managing to stagger up to a gun, fell dead, with his head against ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... occasion on 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 promenade ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... course; fresh biscuit without butter, very salt boiled beef, and some canned vegetables, which were poor enough in those days. Pies made from preserved peaches or plums generally followed this delectable course. Chinamen, as we all know, can make pies under conditions that would stagger most chefs. They may have no marble pastry-slab, and the lard may run like oil, still they can make pies that taste good to ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... love at first sight. What was it anyway? How did one feel? Was it like a blow between the eyes, a ball in the breast? Did one stagger and have to lie down, with a pulse coursing up to one hundred and five? What was it? When Tom first looked at Nancy in the costume closet he wondered if he were to be brought face to face with the answer. Certainly, ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... have to happen.... Several times lately Olga had, so to speak, run full-tilt into Lucia, and had passed on leaving a staggering form behind her. And in each case, so Georgie clearly perceived, Olga had not intended to butt into or stagger anybody. Each time, she had knocked Lucia down purely by accident, but if these accidents occurred with such awful frequency, it was to be expected that Lucia would find another name for them: they would have to be christened. With all his Riseholme ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... fumble with the door on her side, open it, and stagger out of his sight. Then she reappeared round the car. Bareheaded, disheveled, white as chalk, with burning eyes and bleeding lips, she gazed at Kurt as if to make ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... writes a novel exhibiting the badness of our meat supply. Men become excited. Men take action. Men legislate. The great meat industries stagger under the shock, recover, and go on smiling. Before this meanwhile, and afterwards, the meat went into out kitchens ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... mighty abrupt. For a minute I can't make out what has happened; but when I sees the mast stagger and go lurchin' overboard, sail and all, I thought it was a case of ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... him to stagger backward until he leaned against the body of the tree under which the novel man-trap had been arranged. He was breathing hard, but seemed to be recovering from his panic; at least his cries had utterly ceased, ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Wall Street, then the result, being a natural product, is good and wholesome. But the inquiry at once arises whether it is valid logic to suppose that what men do is right, simply because they do it. The affirmative of such a proposition would make Aristotle stagger. It amounts to this, that whatever is is right; therefore, let ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... I found I must decide at once upon the course to pursue. My horse seemed about to fall. At every stroke of the spur he groaned piteously, and his limp had become a stagger. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... you'd like to trot and trip, To stop and stagger, slide and slip, Pulled up affrighted, Urged madly on, then checked once more, Whilst from some omnibus's door Some ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... Rockland-born children remembered the farm-house, when they had grown to be men. Such are the recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape; and such are the flitting images that make the eyes of old country-born merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm with the after-dinner flush of the red wave ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... unfortunate causes, the clerk's ink is scarce off of your fingers." In the same drama, making much play with the green bag, Wycherley indicates the Widow Blackacre's quarrelsome disposition by decorating her with an enormous green reticule, and makes her son the law-student, stagger about the stage in a gown, and under a heavy burden ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... though his burden made him stagger, he did not fall. As he started for the open doorway, there was a crash, and the stairway became a thing of the past. The young major had missed death ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... became evident that the leading horse could barely stagger another fifty yards, notwithstanding the inhuman efforts of the cocchiere to make the most of the poor brute's failing energies. At last the animal stumbled and fell, nearly pulling the driver off his perch. It was sad, but he had more ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... back to Black Star he saw the horse stagger on shaking legs into the sage and go down in a heap. Upon reaching him Venters removed the saddle and bridle. Black Star had been killed on his legs, Venters thought. He had no hope for the stricken horse. ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... got to the open air he would save himself yet. My heart softened to him, but again the thought of his treasure turned me hard and bitter. I cast my firelock between his legs as he raced past, and he rolled twice over like a shot rabbit. Ere he could stagger to his feet the Sikh was upon him, and buried his knife twice in his side. The man never uttered moan nor moved muscle, but lay were he had fallen. I think myself that he may have broken his neck with the fall. You see, gentlemen, that I am keeping my promise. ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Squire went on, with serenity. "I'm saying that when he uses that inventive genius of his on his own jumping gear he'll leap ahead and make good. For instance, son, here's an example. Joe invented an anti-stagger shoe—a star-shaped shoe—to be let out at saloons and city clubs like they lend umbrellas for a fee—and then the reformers went and passed that prohibition law. Always a little behind with a grand notion—that's the trouble ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... This stagger'd me. If it didn't take place, I only lost a situation, for master had but just enough money to pay his detts; and it wooden soot my book to serve ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that, wherever civilized man was to be found, there his name was known as "Monk, who invented that marvellous machine, the aerophone." Lastly, there was no more need for him, as for most of us, to stagger down his road beneath a never lessening burden of daily labour. His work was done; a great conception completed after half a score of years of toil and experiment had crowned it with unquestionable success. Now he could sit at ease ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... drew his revolver and opened fire on the officer, firing three or four shots. The third shot struck Mora in the right hip, and was subsequently found to have taken an upward course. Although badly wounded, Mora drew his pistol and returned the fire. At his third shot the Negro was noticed to stagger, but he did not fall. He continued his flight. At this moment Sergeant Aucoin seized the other Negro, who proved to be a youth, Leon Pierce. As soon as Officer Mora was shot he sank to the sidewalk, and the other ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... that Mr. Balfour and Lord Lansdowne would personally subscribe large sums to found a literary paper for him to edit, on condition that he promised never to write another line of advice to their party. The Telegraph would bleed copiously; the Observer would expire; the Fortnightly Review would stagger in its heavy stride, but there would be hope for Tories!... In the meantime, five thousand copies of the English translation of "Marie Claire" were sold within a week of publication. It is improbable ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... liquid run through her fingers, Olga uttered la cry of baffled rage of despair, and struck the girl a heavy blow in the face that made her stagger; but almost frantic with terror Regina improved the opportunity afforded by the withdrawal of one of the large hands, to tighten her own grasp, and in the renewed struggle succeeded in wrenching away the vial. The next instant, she hurled it against the marble mantlepiece, and saw it splintered ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... chicken is; it lived to get fat without acquiring any useless knowledge or desire of life; it became a capon in tender years, and then a pipe was introduced into its mouth and it was fed by machinery until it could hardly walk, until it could only stagger to its bed, and there it lay in happy digestion until the hour came for it to be crammed again. So did it grow up without knowledge or sensation or feeling of life, moving gradually, peacefully towards its predestined end—a delicious repast! What better end, what greater glory than ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... already alluded to the perverting tendencies of alcoholic stimulants. Their peculiar influence upon the cerebellum causes the subject to reel and stagger, as though a portion of that organ were removed; the group of energetic faculties is stupefied, and mental as well as corporeal lethargy is the result. The reaction, which inevitably follows, is almost unbearable, and relief is sought by repeating and increasing the poisonous draughts, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... to speak now that she was on her guard? He had not time to ascertain, for the door suddenly opened, and Vantrasson appeared on the threshold. He was scarcely sober when he left the shop, but now he was fairly drunk; his heavy shamble had become a stagger. "Oh, you wretch, you brigand!" howled his wife; "you've been ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Flat, he contrived to give offence in sundry ways: he was irreligious—an infidel, his neighbours had it—and of a Sabbath would scour his premises or hoe potatoes rather than attend church or chapel. Though not a confirmed drunkard, he had been seen to stagger in the street, and be unable to answer when spoken to. Also, the woman with whom he lived was not generally believed to be his lawful wife. Hence the public fought shy of his nostrums; and it was a standing riddle how he managed to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... colossal one, and any sane man would think that gigantic efforts would be made to keep him amply supplied with food for his soldiers. But such is not the case. The men are absolutely starving. Many of the infantrymen are so weak that they can barely stagger along under the weight of their soldierly equipment. They are worn to shadows, and move with weary, listless footsteps on the march. People high up in authority may deny this, but he who denies it sullies the truth. This is what the soldiers get to eat, what they have been getting ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... Clare happened to do something not altogether to the farmer's mind. It was a matter of no consequence—only cleaning that side of one of the cow-houses first which was usually cleaned last. He gave him a box on the ear that made him stagger, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... head it wor well nigh a splitten, And I stagger'd and stagger'd, as weak as a kitten; But the wust of it all wor the dressin' I got From Polly—oh, worn't it main spicy ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling |
