"Stagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these appeals, the danger increased every minute, and we may well imagine the agony of the little crew. The intrepid Columbus, who had accomplished a marvelous thing, a feat which would stagger all Europe, seemed destined to go down in mid-ocean with his great discovery! Here was the Pinta sunk and the Nina likely to follow her any minute! Europe would never know that land lay west of her across the Atlantic! And all those timid, doubting men in Spain, who had opposed ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... and as he climbed out of his machine, helped by orderlies and others who rushed up, he was seen to stagger. ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... foot-sore, with their noses stuck full of cactus joints, their tongues swollen from the envenomed thorns, their stomachs afire from thirst and the burden of bitter stalks, the wild cattle from the ridges would stagger down to the river and drink until their flanks bulged out and their bellies hung heavy with water. Then, overcome with fatigue and heat, they would sink down in the shade and lie dreaming; their limbs would stiffen and cramp beneath ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... the war with Russia came about by his will, and the horrors that occurred did not stagger his soul. He boldly took the whole responsibility for what happened, and his darkened mind found justification in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands who perished there were fewer ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... produce its effect. A scuffling noise followed upon the gravel, a chair was overset, and then Francis saw the father and daughter stagger across the walk and disappear under the verandah, bearing the inanimate body of Mr. Rolles embraced about the knees and shoulders. The young clergyman was limp and pallid, and his head rolled upon his shoulders ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... arms around Jason's neck; and, lifting her from the ground, he stepped boldly into the raging and foamy current, and began to stagger away from the shore. As for the peacock, it alighted on the old dame's shoulder. Jason's two spears, one in each hand, kept him from stumbling and enabled him to feel his way among the hidden rocks; although every instant he expected that ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... side of the ship opposite Poppy, and, clutching the shrouds, beamed on her amiably. The girl gave one rapid glance at him and then, as he tottered to the wheel and hung on by the spokes, turned her head away. What it cost the well-bred Mr. Green to stagger as he came by her again and then roll helplessly at her feet, will never be known, and he groaned in spirit as the girl, with one scornful glance in his direction, rose ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... also called aural or auditory vertigo. The salient symptom is vertigo, and this varies somewhat in degree according to the portions of the ear affected. If the disease is in the labyrinth, the patient is supposed to stagger to one side, and the vertigo is paroxysmal, varying to such a degree as to cause simple reeling, or falling as if shot. Gray reports the history of a patient with this sensational record: He had been a peasant in Ireland, and ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... are fellows by the dozens Who are always in the skies, And forever capture fortunes Of the most gigantic size; But we stagger from their presence And their glories that repel, For the quiet-spoken persons Who are "doing ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... once. All round me were little ripples, combing over with a sharp, bristling sound and slightly phosphorescent. The HISPANIOLA herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss a little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, I made sure she also ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been led to contemplate it in the light of a simple offer on the one side, and a simple acceptance on the other. It is just saying to one and all of us, There is forgiveness through the blood of My Son: Take it, and whoever believes the reality of the offer takes it.... We are apt to stagger at the greatness of the unmerited offer and cannot attach faith to it till we have made up some title of our own. This leads to two mischievous consequences: It keeps alive the presumption of one class who will still be thinking that it is something in themselves and of themselves which confers ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... than they do in another. From the real Incomprehensibility of God, just Arguments must be drawn for believing of Mysteries that surpass our Capacities. But when a Man has good Reason to suspect, that he who instructed him in these Mysteries, does not believe them himself, it must stagger and obstruct his Faith, tho' he had no Scruples before, and the Things he had been made to believe, are no Ways clashing with his Reason. It is not difficult for a Protestant Divine to make a Man of Sense see the many Absurdities that are taught by the ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... mile when I noticed that my thoat was commencing to stumble and stagger in a most pitiful manner, although we had not attempted to force them out of a walk since about noon of the preceding day. Suddenly he lurched wildly to one side and pitched violently to the ground. Dejah Thoris and I were thrown clear of him and fell upon the soft moss ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... some mistake, as "the Colossus in question had been destroyed long since;" to whose opinion, delivered with all modesty, our hero was obliging enough to concede thus much, that "the figure was indeed a little damaged." This was the only opposition he met with, and it did not at all seem to stagger him, for he proceeded with his fables, which the same youth appeared to swallow with still more complacency than ever,—confirmed, as it were, by the extreme candour of that concession. With these ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... to go for the four hours that still remained until daybreak, Pierre offered him a bed of straw in the stable. Michel accepted. The two friends went back arm-in-arm; Pierre staggering, Michel pretending to stagger. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... what 'blind drunk' means," he replied musingly. "In Manitou when men get drunk, the people get astigmatism and can't see the tangledfooted stagger." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a sight to stagger any man, and would have made me swoon perhaps, but that there was no time, for we were at the end of the under-cliff, and Elzevir set me down for a minute, before he buckled to his task. And 'twas a task that might cow the bravest, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... Beau" counted, "One—two—three"—Edgar gently inflated his lungs, expanding his chest to its fullest extent, and then, at the moment of receiving the blow, exhaled the air. He did not stagger or flinch, though his antagonist struck straight from the shoulder, with a ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... lord Chamberlain, the very man who had set the crown on Henry's head in Bosworth field, and own brother to earl of Derby, the then actual husband of Henry's mother, of being in the conspiracy? This was indeed essential to Henry to know; but what did it proclaim to the nation? What could stagger the allegiance of such trust and such connexions, but the firm persuation that Perkin was the true duke of York? A spirit of faction and disgust has even in later times hurried men into treasonable combinations; but however Sir William Stanley might be dissatisfied, ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... sing. Among them you see what appear to be women; they are in fact what once were women, with human semblance. They are caressed and insulted; no one knows who they are or what their names. They float and stagger under the flaming torches in an intoxication that thinks of nothing, and over which, it is ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... eggs, discovering the spring of water, building the hut—housekeeping, Melisande. . . . Or take Robinson Crusoe. When Man Friday came along and left his footprint in the sand, why did Robinson Crusoe stagger back in amazement? Because he said to himself, like a good housekeeper, "By Jove, I'm on the track of a servant at last." There's ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... platform people walk up and down, up and down; certain among them taking a marked interest in the old-fashioned, wheezing locomotives which seem fairly to stagger beneath the long train of antiquated ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... as a vise; resistance would have been vain; but Desmond knew better than to resist. He bent to the cruel blows without a wince or a murmur. Only, his face was very pale when, the bully's arm being tired and his breath spent, he was flung away and permitted to stagger to the house. He crawled painfully up the wainscoted staircase and into the dark corridor leading to his bedroom. Halfway down this he paused, felt with his hand along the wall, and, discovering by this means that a door was ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... charge they had prepared, fired by Crane at a great stump a full hundred yards away from the bare, flat-topped knoll that had afforded them a landing-place, tore it bodily from the ground and reduced it to splinters, while the force of the explosion made the two men stagger. ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... there in that look that went so home to the heart of the stern father—in those loving, broken words of the poor abused boy? If they did not stagger the conviction of his guilt, they made him feel most unhappy. Had he acted well, or wisely, or like a Christian? Was the punishment that he had inflicted—so harsh and degrading to a sensitive mind—likely to produce the desired effect? He could not answer the question in a manner at all satisfactory ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... wall.... They crept nearer and nearer, and then our officers gave the word. A sheet of flame flickered along the line of trenches and a stream of bullets tore through the advancing mass of Germans. They seemed to stagger like a drunken man hit between the eyes, after which they made a run for us.... Halfway across the open another volley tore through their ranks, and by this time our artillery began dropping shells around them. Then an officer gave an order and they broke into open formation, rushing ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... moment a strong wind suddenly blows the flame away from Godfrey's tower and back upon the infidels, who stagger and retreat from the fiery blast. Now is the Christians' opportunity. One mighty effort, and the tower is within reach of the wall. The bridge of the tower falls with a crash, and the Christian knights spring upon it. A brief, fierce struggle,—and ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... Solemn was the face with which the little boy lifted the mug by the handle, putting his other hand to steady the expected weight of coppers; but there was at once a frown, a little cry of horror. Toby came up so light in his hand, that all his great effort was thrown away, and only made him stagger back in dismay, falling backward from the chair, and poor Toby crashing to pieces on the floor as he fell, while out ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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
... only fifteen," replied Edward, "but I am strong enough, and so are you. I think if I had a fair cut at a man's head I would make him stagger under it, were he as big as a buffalo. As young as I have been to the wars, that I know well; and I recollect my father promising me that I should go with him as soon ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... foremost of the crew, Then, laughing, pell-mell leapt on other two. The fourth rogue's thrust, Duke Joc'lyn blithely parried Right featly with the quarter-staff he carried. Then 'neath the fellow's guard did nimbly slip And caught him in a cunning wrestler's grip. Now did they reel and stagger to and fro, And on the ling each other strove ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... undeniable situation, and excessive splendour." That he loved it well is shown by the passage in a letter which he addressed to Forster, "in full view of Genoa's perfect bay," when about to commence The Chimes (1844); he says:—"Never did I stagger so upon a threshold before. I seem as if I had plucked myself out of my proper soil when I left Devonshire Terrace, and could take root no more until I return to it. . . . Did I tell you how many fountains we have here? No matter. ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... evidence; and every time he was compelled to press hard upon the proofs against her she shrunk, and seemed to stagger with the deadly blow; writhed under the weight of his minute justice, more than from the ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... wise men live at ease Fades from our unregretful eyes, And blind, across uncharted seas, We stagger on our enterprise.' ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... sober man and hardly a sober woman was within miles of her. When the villagers came home from a drunken bout the chief men would rouse her up and demand why she had not risen to receive them. At all hours of the day and night they would stagger into the hut, and lie down and fall asleep. Her power, then, was not strong enough to prevent them—but the ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... the Miami got into the full reach of the storm, halted, gave a convulsive stagger, than plunged into the smother. For a minute or two no one on deck could have told what had happened. The shriek of the hurricane through her cordage, the harsh roaring of the tempest-whipped sea, and the vengeful boom of the waves as they threw their tons ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... one against whom the deceased was supposed to have had a grudge, to pretend that the coffin will not pass by, and in the present case, when they came opposite to where we stood, they began to wheel round and round, and to stagger under their load, while the choristers shouted at ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... commenced to back in an uncertain way, bellowing with pain. I forgot all my fever in the excitement, and rushing upon the beast with my tomahawk, I dealt him a blow on the side of the head that made him stagger. I brought him to the earth with two or three more blows, and a few minutes later had administered the coup-de-grace. No sooner was the big bull dead than I determined to test the efficacy of a very popular native remedy for fever—for shivering fits still continued to come upon me at most ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... this before you get clear of the court." With these words he threw a footstool at him, and hit him on the right shoulder blade near the top of his back. Ulysses stood firm as a rock and the blow did not even stagger him, but he shook his head in silence as he brooded on his revenge. Then he went back to the threshold and sat down there, laying his well filled ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... easterly gale. In a few hours there was a tremendous sea, and the wind rapidly rose to a hurricane. The "Little Sophy" steamed after the helpless craft and got as near to her as possible; but as she lowered her lifeboat, she saw the yacht stagger, stop, and then founder. The tops of her masts seemed to meet, she had broken her back, and the seas flew sheer ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... quarters in my brother, Knox Van de Lear's house, on Queen Street nearly opposite your place of lodging. If Mars crosses the orbit of Venus to-night, as I expect—there being signs of it in the milky way,—you will assist me in an observation that will stagger you on account of its results. Do not come out until dark, and ask at ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... your question would stagger me, if I did not know that Nature often skips a generation, and produces some older ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... stagger doggedly past me, where I sat on the parapet, his poor cheeks shaking and the tail of his bath robe wrapping itself around his legs. Yes, he ran in the bath robe in deference to me. It seems there isn't much to a ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... can stande All'erta 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 if all aright. Alunno for his foster-children ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... intoxication, I wonder, permanent among the natives? and may we not account for the ten thousand frantic freaks of these people by the peculiar influence of French air and sun? The philosophers are from night to morning drunk, the politicians are drunk, the literary men reel and stagger from one absurdity to another, and how shall we understand their vagaries? Let us suppose, charitably, that Madame Sand had inhaled a more than ordinary quantity of this laughing gas when she wrote for us this precious manuscript of ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... remember it as you go to bed; if you are as soft as you ought to be you may not rest so well as usual. But for old men of sixty, seventy, and eighty, ill-fed, with neither meat nor blood, to greet the dawn unrefreshed, and to stagger through the day in mad search for crusts, with relentless night rushing down upon them again, and to do this five nights and days—O dear, soft people, full of meat and blood, how can ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... the showman thought he would make one more stagger at it, anyway, though his confidence was beginning to get mighty shaky. The supes started the panorama grinding along again, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Simon was attacked at back and front, as he stumbled back over the bodies; a great knife was thrust into his back, even as he faced a rogue before his face, and I saw the old faithful soul fall forward, and making a kind of stagger with his arms up, ere he fell, drop into the pool below. So, according to his prayer, he died in the sea, and nobly, as any knight of great fame, ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... combined to disturb his fancy and raise strange spectres in his imagination. The shrill hooting of an owl, as it rustled overhead, caused him an unprecedented shock, and the great rush of blood to his head made him stagger and clutch hold of the nearest object for support. He had barely recovered from this alarm when his eyes almost started out of their sockets with fright as he caught sight of a queer shape gliding silently from tree to tree; and shortly ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... of vast Niagara, Those gulfs of foam a-shine, Whose mighty roar would stagger a More prosy bean than mine; And as the hours I idly spend Against a greasy wall, I know that green the waters bend And ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... aft if he waits long," said Jack, draining the rest of his rum. And picking me up as easily as did Weld he rushed out of the door, and after him as many of his mates as could walk or stagger thither. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... notice that he took of me when I was a little puppy, just able to stagger about, was to give me a kick that sent me into a corner of the stable. He used to beat and starve my mother. I have seen him use his heavy whip to punish her till her body was covered with blood. When I got older I asked her why she did not run away. ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... an animal gets through most work in the day if he carries 4/9 of the greatest load he could just stagger under; in which case he will be able to travel 1/3 of the distance he could walk if he carried no load at all. (Machinery requires no repose; and therefore d, the distance per day, is convertible into v, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... the pleading on Archer's lips: it seemed to come from depths of experience beyond his reach. The slow advance of the ferry-boat had ceased, and her bows bumped against the piles of the slip with a violence that made the brougham stagger, and flung Archer and Madame Olenska against each other. The young man, trembling, felt the pressure of her shoulder, and passed ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... doctrine, even in the faith of this doctrine which I have held forth unto thee, thou wilt not be taken with any other doctrine whatsoever. What is the reason I pray you, that there are so many giddy-headed professors in these days, that do stagger to and fro like a company of drunkards, but this, They were never sealed in the doctrine of the Father, and the Son? They were never enabled to believe that that child that was born of the virgin Mary, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the whole bunch rehearsing the children's part in the dedication services of our chapel. Do you know that small Sue can really sing? The rest stagger well but Susan sings. It is delicious. It is going to be hard on you women folks to hear her chant her responses to me on that great day." And as he spoke he looked beyond me over to his beautiful shimmering gray ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... William Henry, left their canoes, and, with their prisoners, began their march for the nearest Mohawk town. Each bore his share of the plunder. Even Jogues, though his lacerated hands were in a frightful condition and his body covered with bruises, was forced to stagger on with the rest under a heavy load. He with his fellow-prisoners, and indeed the whole party, were half starved, subsisting chiefly on wild berries. They crossed the upper Hudson, and, in thirteen ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... Collecting my thoughts, I blew out my lamp. I saw a man running rapidly along the street, followed by a great crowd shouting, 'Down with the Englishman.' The man ran so quickly that he distanced all his pursuers, and I already thought that he was saved, when I saw him stagger and fall. In a moment his pursuers were upon him, a loud cry was heard, and the next moment the unfortunate man was thrown into the river. Not long after all was still again. I lighted my lamp again and was about to continue my work, when I heard a slight ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... all now in the piping mood. The wooden-legged sailor, Jack, our old friend, would have given them "Rude Boreas," but only stiff Mr. Grog would not let him; and, after one or two ineffectual attempts to clear his throat was persuaded to stagger off to his berth above stairs, respectably propped on one side by his mate, a gemman rather top heavy, and his noble timber supporter on ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... 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 ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... there, it was pleasant to see the supple vigor and radiant health that were manifested in the poise of their bodies, the lightness of their eyes, the freshness of their lips and the bloom upon their cheeks. But Oh! it was so sad to see how soon the manly gait would change to the drunkard's stagger. To see eyes once bright with intelligence growing vacant and confused and giving place to the drunkard's leer. In many cases lassitude supplanted vigor, and sickness overmastered health. But the saddest thing was the fearful power that appetite had gained over ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... evidently was much 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 • Frederick Marryat
... learned to read after a fashion, and as for arithmetic, I seemed to understand that naturally. I was a poor writer, though; and until I was grown I never could actually write much more than my name. I could always make a stagger at a letter when I had to by printing with a pen or pencil, and when I did not see my mother all day on account of her work and mine, I used to print out a letter sometimes and leave it in a hollow apple-tree which stood before the house. We called this our post-office. I am not ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... and forwards, borne by the confraternit of the parish, with blue capes over their white dresses, and all holding torches. Then follows a huge wooden cross, garlanded with golden ivy-leaves, and also upheld by the confraternit, who stagger under its weight. Next come two crucifixes, covered, as the body of Christ always is during Lent and until Resurrection-Day, with cloth of purple, (the color of passion,) and followed by the frati of the church ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... like tremendous ruins, and came rolling, fringed with devouring fire; and each wave as it charged them, curled up to an incredible height and dashed down on the doomed ship—solid to crush, liquid to drown —with a ponderous stroke that made the poor souls stagger, and sent a sheet of water so clean over her that part fell to leeward, and only part came down on deck, foretaste of a watery death; and each of these fearful blows drove the groaning, trembling vessel farther on the sand, bumping her along as ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... his rifle. This was the signal for us to commence the battle, but it did not last long; the Americans answered the shout, returning our fire, and at the first discharge of their guns, I saw Tecumseh stagger forwards over a fallen tree, near which he was standing, letting his rifle drop at his feet. As soon as the Indians discovered that he was killed, a sudden fear came over them, and thinking the Great Spirit was angry, they fought no longer, and were quickly put to flight. That night ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... so marked a character that he 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... her resolution, profited nothing when the poor frail flesh was so weak. Yet, in spite of all this, her soul was strong; and that soul, by its indomitable purpose, roused up once more the shattered forces of the body. A week passed away, but at the end of that week she arose to stagger forward. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... he had stuck his blade into his enemy as a gardener that he has stuck his spade into the ground. Yet the Marquis sprang back from the stroke without a stagger, and Syme stood staring at his own sword-point like an idiot. There was no blood on it ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... the front, who had talked so big the day before, began to stagger; and the soldiers frequently looked behind them, a certain sign in a soldier that he is just ready to run away. My old pilot was of my mind; and being near me, called out, "Seignior Inglese, these fellows must be encouraged, or they will ruin us all; for if the Tartars come on they will never stand ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... to see the result of it, and saw the man with the silver face drop his rifle, stagger to the side of the canon, ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... like this the boys found very prevalent all through their journey. The Belgians seemed to believe the English were getting a wonderful surprise ready with which to stagger the enemy. If they could have only known how an army had to be built up step by step in the great island country, they might have felt less confidence, and perhaps shown more ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... of wine, which he presents to Frauenlob as a drink of reconciliation. The Emperor handing the goblet to Hildegund, bids her drink to her lover. Testing it, she at once feels its deadly effect. Frauenlob, seeing his love stagger, snatches the cup from her emptying it at one draught. He dies, still praising the Emperor and women, breathing the name of his bride with his last breath. Servazio is captured, and while Hildegund's body is strewn with roses, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... those who yield to sin? "They meet with darkness in the day-time, and grope in the noon-day as in the night" (Job V, 14). And further on: "They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man" (Job XII, 25). I read these beautiful passages over and over ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... of common sense or with the severely literal meaning of some Scripture text. They were therefore easily justified either to reason or to the eye of faith, but the results of their application were often startling, and it was facts, not theories, that chiefly caused Susannah to stagger. ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... slime and biting fog; so drawing their breath once more, to go out again, without lament, from between the two skeletons of pier-heads, vocal with wash of under wave, into the grey troughs of tumbling brine; there, as they can, with slacked rope, and patched sail, and leaky hull, again to roll and stagger far away amidst the wind and salt sleet, from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn, winning day by day their daily bread; and for last reward, when their old hands, on some winter night, lose feeling along the frozen ropes, and their old eyes miss mark of the lighthouse quenched in foam, the so-long impossible ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... sort cannot by any means be arranged on the instant, and certainly they cannot be arranged so as to suit the case of the Hopeless Poor. Shall I tell you, dear sentimentalist, that the Hopeless brigade would not accept your kindness if they could? I shall stagger many people when I say that the Hopeless division like the free abominable life of the rookery, and that any kind of restraint would only send them swarming off to some other centre from which they would have to be dislodged ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... our dismay. We both screamed, for we thought our time had come, for sure. My legs were so weak that Beth had to drag me away and her face was white as a sheet and full of terror. Somehow we managed to stagger into the street, where a dozen men caught us and hurried us away. I hardly thought we were in a safe place when the big workman cried: 'There, young ladies; that will do. Your expression was simply immense ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... distinctions, preceded him by a few seconds, and then he entered himself—so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was the very embodiment of self-possession and solidity. And yet his first action, when the door had closed behind him, was to stagger against the table, whence he slipped down upon the floor, and there was that majestic figure prostrate and insensible ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 to ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... I stagger to my feet. Faint light through the hatch; B's head. I hold out the Andite stick and she turns and shouts; and a panel slides open in the wall so that the ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... further remark but led the way back to the point where the main river rolled by in full sight. Both banks of the creek were rank with lush jungle; great, warped trees seemed to stagger, so gnarled were their trunks; while immense beards of moss depended from their hideous branches almost to the water. A sullen, ominous splash under the bank was ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... source of leakage in the American Church. They are not 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
... masts bend, the ship begins to stagger along, groaning and creaking in every joint, under the severe pressure. The topsails are close-reefed to meet the increased wind; but still, as before, she is under quite as much canvas as she can ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... will tell me next, that the invention of wine is very much to his credit; though you see for yourself how drunken men stagger about and misbehave themselves; one would think the liquor had made them mad. Look at Icarius, the first to whom he gave the vine: beaten to death with mattocks by his ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... slept in the warm sand. It was an hour later that some other living thing stirred at the far end of Au Fer reef. A scorched and weakened steer came on through salt pools to stagger and fall. Presently another, and then a slow line of them. They crossed the higher ridge to huddle about a sink that might have made them remember the dry drinking holes of their arid home plains. Tired, gaunt cattle mooing lonesomely, when the man came about them to dig with his bloody ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... into steam and made to work for us—multiplied a million times. If, instead of that energy just oozing away and the uranium disintegrating infinitesimally each year, it could be exploded at a given moment you could drive an ocean liner with a handful of it. You could make the old globe stagger round and turn upside down! Mankind could just lay off and take a holiday. ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... gentlemen; tickets, gentlemen." like he was conductor on a train of cars. This little episode would be over, and then would commence the same tramp, tramp, tramp, all night long. Step by step, step by step, we continued to plod and nod and stagger and march, tramp, tramp, tramp. After a while we would see the morning star rise in the east, and then after a while the dim gray twilight, and finally we could discover the outlines of our file leader, and after a while could ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... it and saw Maggie stagger toward the door, with her hand pressed upon her heart, as the policeman went away down the street. On the ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... otherwise. His mode of progression was rather that of an intoxicated snake, or an over-fed turtle on dry land; but he managed to stagger along as far as the foster's muzzle, and swayed there on his little haunches within reach of her warm breath. Instinct guided the pup so far, and left him ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... trembling effort to stagger across the passage, and to pluck at Marie's gown. When he spoke, his voice quavered ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... undertone, as though he did not wish the others to hear him; to tell the truth, he felt as though he could not stagger on much further over that rough trail, and carry the heavy pack in the bargain, as well as the new bag containing his ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... family owns a dog. Some of those we saw while passing through Chinese villages were nauseating in their unsightliness, for at least thirty per cent of them were more or less diseased. Barely able to walk, they would stagger across the street or lie in the gutter in indescribable filth. One longed to put them out of their misery with a bullet but, although they seemed to belong to nobody, if one was killed an owner appeared like magic to quarrel over ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... gasping sigh she pitched forward and lay still, huddled on the stairs. Then Paul heard a second shot rap out from behind his back, and saw Michael stagger on the landing. The man reeled for a couple of paces and ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... pedantry of expressing that in another language which we have sufficient terms for in our own. So in plain English I very much wish you to give your vote to-morrow at Clerkenwell, instead of Saturday. It would clear up the brows of my favourite candidate, and stagger the hands of the opposite party. It commences at nine. How easy, as you come from Kensington (a propos, how is your excellent family?) to turn down Bloomsbury, through Leather Lane (avoiding Lay Stall St. for the disagreeableness of the name). Why, it brings you in four minutes and a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... eager suggestions for her comfort, but the girl was firm in her assertion, that she was now quite well, so that, having no sisters and being ignorant that a healthy young woman does not, any more than a healthy young man, go white and stagger without reason, he yielded, and they ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... eyes. "He'll be so lame it would stagger a cowboy to back him ten feet—and never be hurt a mite, ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... be a task to frighten and stagger many a person, but it only kindled Mrs. Carey's love and courage to ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... for the highest; And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow-crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... direction) know that a corrobboree is to begin before sundown, the setting sun being represented by the broad arrow, which seems to dip over the end of the stick. The guests are expected to bring rum to produce a bewildering, unsteady effect upon the whole camp—none, big or little, but will stagger about in all directions and finally lie down. On the other hand the guests are not to bring "one fella" policeman with handcuffs (the cross), otherwise all will decamp—the two last are seen vanishing into space. By a rare coincidence this very free interpretation ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... who had discreetly gone on, turned to go back to him. But as he came up with a word of wonder and repeated congratulations, he saw Stafford put his hand to his forehead, and, as it seemed to Howard, almost stagger. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... bag till the heir of the Deerings closed his masterful fist upon it. "There—my Chelsea'ssafe!" Lizzie smiled, setting her boy on the floor, and watchinghim stagger away with ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... world, but which have taxed the utmost powers of their authors. You can read in a few minutes or a few hours a poem or a book with only pleasure and delight, but the days and months of weary plodding over details and dreary drudgery often required to produce it would stagger belief. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... hundreds of parties of savages to proceed to other portions of the English settlements, shoot down the settlers when at work at their crops, seize their wives and children, load them with packs of plunder from their own homes, and drive them before them into the wilderness. When no longer able to stagger under their burdens, they were murdered, and their scalps torn off, and exhibited to their masters, and for such trophies bounties were paid. The French government in Paris paid bounties for the scalps of women and children, as Connecticut did for those of wolves, and it not only fitted ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... sanctuary of great size, and of great value to the whole Mississippi Valley. Now that all duck-shooting therein has been stopped, it is safe to predict that they shortly will be inhabited by a wild-fowl population that will really stagger the imagination. ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... hath made this great king stagger, Reel, and shriek—"unclean, unclean!" Thunderbolt, or flash of dagger? Nay, 'twas but ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... intoxication. We are hustled into maturity reeling with our passions and imaginations, and we have drifted far away from port before we awake out of our illusions. But to carry us out of maturity into old age, without our knowing where we are going, she drugs us with strong opiates, and so we stagger along with wide open eyes that see nothing until snow enough has fallen on our heads to rouse our comatose brains out of their ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... after day and year after year, when a simple mechanical contrivance, moved by water, or weights and pulleys, would save us from all these heavy burdens. Think of the bruised knuckles, the trembling limbs that stagger along with the upper end of a Saratoga 'cottage,' the broken plastering at the sides, the paper patched with bright new pieces that look 'almost worse' than the uncovered rents, and the ugly marks of ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... to a close, when all become so intoxicated they can neither tell story nor sing song. Then some stagger to their tents, others dropping over where they sit, and falling ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... rags, a battered old hat crushed down on his dirty face, his great round paunch stuffed with straw, represented the disreputable old rake who, after a long course of dissipation, was now about to suffer for his sins. Hoisted on the shoulders of a sturdy fellow, who pretended to stagger under the burden, this popular personification of the Carnival promenaded the streets for the last time in a manner the reverse of triumphal. Preceded by a drummer and accompanied by a jeering rabble, among whom the urchins and all the tag-rag and bobtail of the town mustered in ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... better form than I, and I knew that he would catch me in time. And what then? He was a large fellow, but since the struggle must come, I would better let it come ere I should be utterly exhausted. So I pretended to stagger and lurch forward, and presently came to my knees and then prone upon the ground. With a grunt of triumph, the man rushed up to me, caught me by the collar of my doublet, and raised me from the ground. ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Albert staggered, too, from excitement and nervousness, but he remembered to take aim and fire again and again with his heavy repeater. In his heat and haste he did not hear a shout behind him, but he did see the great bull stagger, then reel and fall on his side, after which ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... He started to stagger, trailing an empty cuff behind him, flailing his arms wildly. Ahead of him he could see a big cop with an upraised billy. Malone tried to alter his course, but it was too late. He skidded helplessly into the cop, who jerked round and swung the billy automatically. Malone said: ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of his narrative, its apparent truthfulness and its circumstantiality went nigh to stagger Mr. Hooker; but a glance at Bascombe's face, with its half-amused smile, instantly set him right again, and he thought with dismay how near he had been to letting himself be fooled ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... a letter could arrive from Ireland, one came with the most profuse thanks, and enclosing, as he said, a 20 pound Bank of England note, but no note was enclosed. I asked my father whether this did not stagger him, but he answered 'not in the least.' On the next day another letter came with many apologies for having forgotten (like a true Irishman) to put the note into his letter of the day before...(A gentleman) brought his nephew, who was insane ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... the English kneeling on the ground, Extend their hands vp to the glorious skyes; Then from the earth as though they did rebound, Actiue as fire immediatly they rise: And such a shrill showt from their throats they sent, As made the French to stagger as ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... of some who "are drunken, but not with wine; who stagger, but not with strong drink." I fancy I hear someone in the congregation say: "I guess they must have taken laurel." Precisely so, friend! They took the very laurel that has been the ruin of thousands of the Lord's sheep and lambs. Let me tell ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... by a flame streak that started from where Lawler stood, and the air of the cabin rocked with a deafening roar. She saw Link go down in a heap, and before she could draw a breath another lancelike flame darted from the point where Lawler stood. She saw Givens stagger; heard the heavy piece of cordwood thud to the floor; saw Givens plunge backward through the door to land in the ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... was that the river of joy which flows from the Throne flowed through my heart as never before. It was a new experience—a quintessence of joy. The shouts of burning martyrs were no longer a mystery. I stagger no more at the account of the saints who took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. My soul is bathed in an ocean of balm and ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... hands, and the gesture was lifeless. She fixed her eyes on no one; she merely gazed about. She had a habit of shaking her bracelet in a way that aroused sympathy. And after making a lewd remark she would turn her head to one side, and thereby stagger even the most hardened frequenter of this sort of places. Her complexion had been ruined by rouge, but underneath the skin there was something that glimmered like water ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... shirt, seizing part of it in her teeth to aid her to keep her hold of him. He struck at her head, at her arms, at her body, anywhere, so long as he hit her, in his efforts to throw her off. But she held him, and at last, mad with fear, he tried to stagger out of the ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... 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, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... arm was battered so fearfully that it required an effort to hold it in front of his body. Blood streamed into his eyes and down his breast, his arms grew weak, his blows were feeble, his knees trembled, and he was ready to drop. Twice he went to his knees only to stagger to his feet again. Three times Pootoo's mighty club beat down warriors who were about to ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even .. more loathsome than terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or shark. Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God's great, unflattering ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... want to be untidy!" Mrs. Ladybug cried. "And if you aren't going to brush that dust off, I shall do it myself!" And grasping a small Indian paint-brush, the weight of which she could scarcely stagger under, Mrs. Ladybug advanced upon Betsy Butterfly with a determined ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... potent, for Dick, thanks to the warning glances of the professor, had drank but little, yet he could scarcely keep awake; whilst Junes and Grosman were snoring like pigs, and could scarcely be awakened sufficiently to enable them to stagger to their tent. Dick barely managed to get to his own before sleep overcame him too, and his last hazy thought was: "That wine was drugged, the professor ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... the fury 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, ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... one or more of the occupants of the house. But a repetition of the cry, coming as I am ready to swear from the farthest room on the parlor floor, together with a sharp remembrance of the wandering eye and drawn countenance of the young man whom I had seen stagger hence a moment before, with an almost fainting woman in his arms, drew me on in spite of my feminine instincts; and before I knew it, I was in the circular study and before the prostrate form of a seemingly dying man. He was lying as you probably found ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... not have shouted, for the wind was swift to carry all sounds from his lips to O'Shea; but the latter's voice, as it came back to him, seemed to stagger against the force of the ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... February the remainder of the expedition reached Prospect Hill more dead than alive. Wilson alone had kept heart, and managed to sustain the flagging spirits of his companions sufficiently to enable them to stagger in to ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... will happen when, in heaven, one of these selfless mothers is led in triumph to a solid gold throne, all lined with eider-down cushions, where she can take the rest she never had on earth. Won't she stagger back against the glittering walls of the New Jerusalem and say, "Not for me. Not for me. Surely it must be for my husband?" But there, where places are appointed, she will not be allowed to give it up—which may make her ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... few moments this seemed to stagger the group that had gathered about him. Fifteen dollars was a lot of money, and it seemed doubtful if any other individual in the crowd, with the possible exception of Eliot, could raise as much—and Eliot ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... a warning cry behind, a joyous shout before: "The current's strong,—the way is long,—they'll never reach the shore! See, see! they stagger in the midst, they waver in their line! Fire on the madmen! break their ranks, and whelm them ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... I got from a pistol butt (Lucky my head's not a hazel nut); The horse they raced, and scudded and swore; There were Leicestershire gantlemen, seventy score; Up came the "Lobsters," covered with steel— Down we went with a stagger and reel; Smash at the flag, I tore it to rag. And carried it ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Eat lots of it. Yes, eat too much of it. Eat till you can just stagger across the room with it and prop it up against a sofa cushion. Eat everything that you like until you can't eat any more. The only test is, can you pay for it? If you can't pay for it, don't eat it. And listen—don't worry as to whether your food contains starch, or albumen, or gluten, ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... tremble upon your lips; but then, oh! the delight of giving up to it; going the whole, the entire, the unclipt, the blind-folded, the universal; 'ha! ha! come to my heart, my beauties!' and with open arms you stagger to their embraces. But in that long, long, kiss, with the hot breath of passion, and the bounding blood and brain reeling to madness, there is the bitterness of death. Dust and ashes!—take them away. . . . THE drop too much in all this is, that you get no sympathy from others; ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... was as Jem saw a fine-looking young Maori, who was defending a rather open portion of the stockade, deliver a thrust, and then draw back, drop his spear, throw up his arms, and then reel and stagger forward, to ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... with reference to an isolated transaction. There are many, very many others of a similar character that I might mention, but I will not. The unwritten and secret history of our border would amaze the civilized world, and would stagger the faith of the most credulous. In the case just mentioned, we find an old man who had passed his threescore and ten, and a youth who had not yet reached his score, falling victims to this thirsty ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones |
