"Stumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stood, and the white marble steps were heaped with snow. A great mass of the snow was dislodged by the movement of the door and fell in clouds over Towsley's big hat and fine costume; also the tight shoes upon his feet seemed to make him stumble and stagger sadly; but he was not to be deterred by such trifles as these. The cold breath of the wind was delightful to him, the rush of outer ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... also, by rejoicing in the contemplation of His works, of His greatness, and of the love that He bears us. Many other considerations there are which he who really desires to make progress will often stumble on, though he may not be very much on the watch for them. If with this there be a little love, the soul is comforted, the heart is softened, and tears flow. Sometimes it seems that we do violence to ourselves and weep; at other times, our Lord seems to do so, ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... bad; the cause of my enemies is sometimes good. It is droll. I love directness, yet I have ever been the slave of complication. I delight in following my reason, yet I have been of the motes that stumble in the sunlight. I have enough cruelty in me, enough selfishness and will, to be a ruler, and yet I have never held an office in my life. I love true diplomacy, yet I have been comrade to the official liar, and am ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... on! if once and twice thy feet Slip back and stumble, harder try; From him who never dreads to meet Danger and death, they're sure to fly. To coward ranks the bullet speeds; While on their breasts who never quail, Gleams, guardian of chivalric deeds, Bright courage, like a coat ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... still further into that past, I would stumble into American nights—nights with old friends, established there or passing through and run across by chance—nights of joy in being with my own people again, of hearing not English, but my native tongue and ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... arts of debate, the influence of the press, are startling novelties to him. Surrounded on every side by new machines and new tactics, he is as much bewildered as Hannibal would have been at Waterloo, or Themistocles at Trafalgar. His very acuteness deludes him. His very vigor causes him to stumble. The more correct his maxims, when applied to the state of society to which he is accustomed, the more certain they are to lead him astray. This was strikingly the case with Hastings. In India he had a bad hand; but he was master of the game, and he won every stake. In England he held excellent ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... rather the stumble home, proved to be the worst part of the expedition. Not a ray of starlight had we to guide us,—nothing but inky blackness around and over us. We tried to make Nettle go first, intending to follow his lead, and trusting to his keeping the track; ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... fancy, as we stare at them, that to Lavater we owe the discovery. Those ubiquitous emperors Hadrian, Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Gordianus ditto, on whom as on other boring acquaintance you are sure to stumble in every gallery at Rome till you almost yawn in their faces, are here of course. Besides these, by way of novelty, we fall in with the grave, much-bearded, long-faced bust, Epicurus underwritten on the pedestal. If it be that sage, then has not his face any vestige of the jovial "live ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... He had no choice but to wait and see if either of his acquaintances returned. For a few minutes he sat on the staircase, but as at any moment some one might stumble over him, he went down to the backdoor, which was open, like that in front, and passed out into the stone-paved yard. Here he seated himself on the ground, leaning against a corner of the wall, He was ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... know how the Swiss Confederation came to be, you can not do better than take the train to the top of the Rigi. You might stumble through many a volume, and not learn so thoroughly the essential causes ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... possibility of their being so, as they were ignorant of Christ and His commandments, and placed their hope of salvation on outward forms and superstitious observances, which were the invention of Satan, who wished to keep them in darkness that at last they might stumble into the pit which he had dug for them. I said repeatedly that the Pope, whom they revered, was an arch deceiver, and the head minister of Satan here on earth, and that the monks and friars, whose absence they so deplored, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... teaching of the Scriptures on the wine question, there is one thing about which there is no question, and that is the consent of the Bible to total-abstinence for anyone who desires and "dares to be a Daniel." I would rather search my Bible for permission to give up that over which my brother may stumble into ruin, than to see how far I can go in the use of it without committing sin. Marriage feasts in Cana of Galilee two thousand years ago do not concern me so much as the social feasts of the present age where "wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging," ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... should see my hand—cut to ribbons. Now I want to do my path up the Vaituliga single-handed, and I want it to burst on the public complete. Hence, with devilish ingenuity, I begin it at different places; so that if you stumble on one section, you may not even then suspect the fulness of my labours. Accordingly, I started in a new place, below the wire, and hoping to work up to it. It was perhaps lucky I had so bad a cutlass, and my smarting hand bid me stay before I had got up to the wire, but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sleep until Philippe came in; she listened for his step, she had learned the inflections of his voice, the variations of his walk, the very language of his cane as it touched the pavement. Nothing escaped her. She knew the degree of drunkenness he had reached, she trembled as she heard him stumble on the stairs; one night she picked up some pieces of gold at the spot where he had fallen. When he had drunk and won, his voice was gruff and his cane dragged; but when he had lost, his step had something sharp, short and angry about ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... blind man who sat by the wayside with a lantern near him. When he was asked what he had a lantern for, as he could not see the light, he said it was that people should not stumble ever him. I believe more people stumble over the inconsistencies of professed Christians than from any other cause. What is doing more harm to the cause of Christ than all the scepticism in the world is this cold, dead formalism, this ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... squeaking, and, to his dismay, he made out a confused mass of something in active motion about the precious biscuit that he had left beside his fireplace. With a loud cry he sprang in that direction, only to stumble and fall over a small pile of what he took to be rocks ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... ye that have subscribed your covenant, take heed to your garments; for blyth will your adversaries be, to see any spot on them. And therefore, for the Lord's sake, study to be holy; otherwise papists will rejoice at it, and the weak will stumble at it: and so ye will wound and bore the sweet side of Christ. And therefore put on your wedding garment, hold it on, and hold it clean; walk ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... was, of course, impassable for the pony—Lionel had to separate from his companions and ford the river, following up the other side. Fortunately there was not much water in the stream; old Maggie knew her way well enough; and with nothing more than an occasional stumble among the slippery boulders and loose stones they reached the opposite bank in safety. About a mile farther up the return crossing had to be made; but this second ford was shallow and easy; and thenceforward the united party went on ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... widen. The eager impulse to disregard self and to serve God with love and praise and joy, will be found horridly at variance with a natural and rooted impulse towards self-devotion and indulgence. The worship and praise of God, not only in thought and word but in deed, will stumble and fall short of its goal—and then the tears of tragic failure will start and the cry of despair ring out. It was so with Peter in the porch and Paul beaten down in bondage under the Law. "Who shall deliver us from the body of ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... threshold force her in. The custom of lifting the bride over the threshold, probably to avert an ill-omened stumble, has prevailed among the most diverse races. For the anointing of the doorposts Brand quotes Langley's translation of Polydore Vergil: "The bryde anoynted the poostes of the doores with swynes' grease, because she thought by that meanes to dryve awaye ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... and a cornelian seal which had disappeared on previous occasions, proving that a system of robbery had been carried on by one and the same person—evidently a member of the Luttrell household. The spoil was concealed with great care in a locked box on a shelf, and but for an accidental stumble by which Luttrell had brought down the whole shelf and broken the box itself, it would probably have remained there undisturbed. No one would ever have dreamt of seeking for Luttrell's pocket-book in ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the air. He shook himself presently, and set Mutineer at a sharp canter round the larger circle of the bridle path. But before they had half swung the circle, he was deep in thought again, and Mutineer was taking his own pace. Peter deserved to get a stumble and a broken neck or leg, but he didn't. He was saved from it by an incident which never won any credit for its good results to Peter, however much credit it ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... and whose finger-prints are on their records. I don't know what his game is nor what he's after yet, but I will inside of a week. I've an idea; but it's so wild a thing I'm almost afraid to trust myself to believe it possible until I stumble over something that points the same way. Now, go home with Lady Chepstow, and begin ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... disciples, likewise, prone here as so often to make a literal and material interpretation of his statements, said one to another: "This is a hard saying; who can hear him?" Or according to our idiom—who can understand him? Jesus asked them squarely if what he had just said caused them to stumble, and in order to be sure that they might not miss his real meaning and therefore teaching, said: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... el inconveniente, inconvenience ladrillos refractarios, firebricks lastima, pity, compassion nivel, level principal, principal, chief, leading quejarse (de), to complain responsable, responsible rizados, crespolinas, crimps tio, uncle, also a coarse fellow[184] *tropezar, to stumble ufano, proud, full of dignity velero, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... where she is in her house and garden, and mistress of the creatures, even of the small butterfly with painted wings, there, sir, I hunt no animal. Nor will my dogs chase any animal there. That is what I meant when I said that if an animal should stumble against their legs, they would lift up their noses and pass on without seeing it. For in that wood there is one law, the law that Rima imposes, and outside ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... Catholic Church. Its laws are so binding, its teachings so direct, its discipline so perfect, that one cannot stray away blindly. The obedient child who would be pained not to do the Father's will is kept in the straight and narrow way, the light is held steadily before his eyes; if he stumble or turn aside he is brought back, and if he become restive and the 'fetters,' grateful to the loving child, bind too galling he throws them off, more willing to be lost than bear self-denial for the present. For myself, Hubert, I have started for heaven, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... a man, you will be said to have killed him; if he reappears on the scene, it will be positive that you have secured the present at the cost of the future. If he is not dead, he will die. Stumble, and you fall! Invent anything of any kind and claim your rights, you will be crotchety, cunning, ill-disposed to ...
— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac
... scenes had been filmed to make the action of the story, as revised, more plausible, Russ moved his camera near the bog hole, ready to get views of Mr. Bunn, when he should stumble into it, and also Mr. Towne, when the latter came ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... have everybody listening to what they said. By the way, mother," she continued, as she stood before the glass, "if Mr. Hastings can attend the concert, suppose you go home at half-past six. You don't care for singing, you know, and besides that, you stumble so in the dark, that it will be so much pleasanter for Mr. Hastings to have ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... his gritted teeth, some malignant god made him misstep, stumble. He fell between the hard furrows, bruising his face and hands. After a moment he rose, but rose to sink back again with keen pain shooting through an ankle. He had turned it. For an instant he sat motionless, taking breath, then ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... before the moth so that it would climb upon her fingers. Then they started back to the cabin, Elnora and Philip leading the way; Mrs. Comstock followed slowly, stepping with great care lest she stumble and injure the moth. Her face wore a look of comprehension, in her eyes was an exalted light. On she came to the blue-bordered pool lying beside ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... handle; only a chump will use his best axe to cut roots or sticks lying flat on the ground where he is liable to strike stones and other objects and take the edge off the blade. Only a chump will leave an axe lying around on the ground for people to stumble over; if there is a stump handy at your camp and you are through using the axe, strike the blade into the top of the stump and leave the axe sticking there, where it will be ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... characteristic. Fleeming believed we had only to make a virtue cheap and easy, and then all would practise it; that for an end unquestionably good, men would not grudge a little trouble and a little money, though they might stumble at laborious pains and generous sacrifices. He could not believe in any resolute badness. 'I cannot quite say,' he wrote in his young manhood, 'that I think there is no sin or misery. This I can say: I do not remember one single malicious act done to myself. ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... heredity. We learn as our experience deepens and our horizon widens to regard such collapses with a compassionate sympathy and a humbled consciousness of our own unfitness to judge and condemn. Whether we create our individuality or only bring it to light—is the question that makes us stumble! But while we move in the midst of uncertainties in this realm, there is another in which we walk in the glare of noonday. We know beyond the peradventure of a doubt that whatever may be the origin of such weakness as that of the young mystic, the results are always inevitable! ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... feels surest of them and has most need of them. In refusing to see what is right, he loses the power of seeing what is prudent and safe. He who persists in such a course will inevitably be drawn into signal lapses of judgment, however richly nature may have endowed him with that faculty: he will stumble over his own self-love; his very assurance will be tripping him when he least expects it. And so Falstaff's conceit and egotism, working together, as they do, with his greed and lust, have the effect of ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... what was to be done, a hackney coachman, driving softly along, and perceiving us standing by the kennel, came up close to us, and calling, "A coach, master!" by a dexterous management of the reins made his horses stumble in the wet, and bedaub us all over with mud. After which exploit he drove on, applauding himself with a hearty laugh, in which several people joined, to my great mortification; but one, more compassionate than the rest, seeing us strangers, advised me to go into an alehouse, and ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... standing a pace within her door, and thinking such thoughts when a foot stumbled heavily on the stairs. She recognised it for James's footstep—she had heard him stumble on those stairs before—and she laid her hand on the latch. She had never had a real quarrel with him until now, and, bitterly as he had disappointed her, ruthlessly as he had destroyed her illusions about him, outrageously as he had treated her, she could not bear to sleep without making ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... extramacular portions of the retina are subject to a pigmentary degeneration that renders them insensitive to light, and patients so afflicted are consequently incapable of seeing at night as well as others. They stumble and run against objects easily ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Lavardens did fall back upon Mrs. Scott, but the next day was surprised to stumble upon Jean, who had taken to placing himself very regularly in Mrs. Scott's particular circle, for like Bettina she had also her little court. But what Jean sought there was a ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... answered, as he walked along looking carefully where he put down his feet, for he did not want to stumble and spill the water in ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... here? I looked around me, in utter amazement. Even now that I had come to the battery I could not understand how it was that I had been deceived—how that battery had been so marvelously concealed that, if one did not know of its existence and of its exact location, one might literally stumble over it in ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... and so thought there was no danger of her little ruse being discovered. But when the cable message came saying no money would be sent her, a different complexion was put upon the whole affair, for she did not know but if the police were given plenty of time they might stumble ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... upon her tears, her hurry, and her charming person; till coming to a stand of coaches, a coachman plied her; was accepted; alighted; opened the coach-door in a hurry, seeing her hurry; and in it she stumbled for haste; and, as the fellow believed, hurt her shin with the stumble.' ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... looked round upon Turks, clowns, Indians, the tinselled, sequined, beaded, ragged flutter of the room, then from the coloured and composite clothing of a footballer, clown or jockey grinned the round face and owlish eyes of little Duval, who flew to her at once to whisper compliments and stumble on the swelling fortress of her white skirt. She realised dimly from him that her dress was as beautiful as she had hoped it might be, but what was the use of its beauty if Julien should be missing? And, looking over Duval's head, she tried to ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... secret of dealing with present evils. His imagination, taking the intervening obstacles at a bound, arrived at once at the general axiom to which such inductions pointed; and if he afterward learned that human development follows no such direct line of advance, but must painfully stumble across the wastes of error, prejudice and ignorance, while the theoriser traverses the same distance with a stroke of his speculative pinions; yet the influence of these teachings tempered his judgments with charity and dignified his very ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... have bled freely. Had they quarrelled, or what? He went out into the yard with a hand-lamp, trembling lest he should come upon one or more corpses; but the place was bare, and he then remembered having heard them stumble and flounder over ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... the Romans. Yet, though there seemed no reasonable hope of flight, where all paths were so difficult, and where there were deep marshes and steep rocks, which looked as if they were ready to receive those who should stumble, the fugitives, nevertheless, crowding and pressing together. In the narrow passages, destroyed even one another in their terror of the swords and blows of the enemy. Cato (as it plainly appears) was never oversparing of his own praises, and seldom shunned boasting of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... have no business hirin' a man thet can't ride," he said. "Why thet there Brazos pony never did stumble, an' if he'd of stumbled he'd a-stood aroun' a year waitin' to be caught up agin. I jest cain't figger it out no ways how thet there tenderfoot bookkeeper lost him. He must a-shooed him away with a stick. An' saddle an' bridle an' all ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths, And he would stumble after, Bewildered by my laughter. I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes. I would choose To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths, A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover, Till he caught me in the shade, And the buttons of his waistcoat ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... fox, using all its gifts to avoid an enemy, was employed exactly as Nature had enjoined. It would be as just to compare a human being impaled alive on a stake with another overburdened with his world's task. The overburdened man might stumble and fall, and so perish. Things would have been hard to him. But not, therefore, could you compare his sufferings with the excruciating agonies of the poor wretch who had been left to linger and starve ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... transpirar transpire, appear. trapo m. rag, sails; a todo —— all sails set. tras prep. behind, after; —— de behind. traslado m. likeness, imitation. trasmontar sink beyond, set. trasparente adj. transparent, clear. traspasar pierce. traspi m. slip, stumble; dar ——s stumble, reel. trastornar disorder, confuse, upset. trastorno m. disorder, confusion, disturbance. trasunto m. likeness, copy. trato m. agreement, bargain, treatment. trecho m. distance. tregua f. truce, respite. tremendo, -a awful, terrible. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... a strange conglomeration of products belonging to very different periods. The enquirer who undertakes the study of it will sometimes be scarcely less surprised than would be the naturalist who should unexpectedly stumble upon antediluvian megatheria grazing tranquilly in the same field with prize Southdowns. He will discover the most primitive institutions side by side with the latest products of French doctrinairism, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... are neglectful and careless of our higher spiritual obligations, to mistake the false for the true, evil for good, the creature for the Creator. In the midst of the world and its allurements, it behooves us to be ever watching, if we are never to stumble and to fall. Had our nature never been corrupted by original unfaithfulness, had our first parents never turned away from God and transgressed His sacred precept, all our present ills would never have existed. But now it is different. We are born into ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... pleasantly said the priest, recognizing her nationality; and taking her to a little door he conducted her up a stone staircase, at the top of which he showed her the long blind story over the aisle arches which led round to where the light was. Cautioning her not to stumble over the uneven floor, he left her and descended. His words had signified that Somerset ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... who seemed to admire her and make much of her, as if she were one of them. Before, she had escaped from the toils of that folly of the past by disowning it; but now, she had voluntarily made it hers. She had wilfully entangled herself in its toils; they seemed to trip her steps, and make her stumble on the stairs as if they were tangible things. She had knowingly suffered such a man as that, whose commonness of soul she had always instinctively felt, to come back into her life, and she could never banish him again. She could ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... them; but recollecting the fate of John Smith, he would not allow his female companion to take hold of his hands. In the midst of their gambols they came close to the hillock where the shepherd's bonnet lay,—he affected to stumble, fell upon his bonnet, which he immediately seized, clapping it on his head, when the whole troop instantly vanished. This exorcism was produced by the talismanic power of a Catechism containing the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed, which the shepherd most fortunately ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... and forgotten—and still they would hurry to their task by dangerous short cuts, would use methods that were quicker and more effective in spite of the fact that they were also risky. His fourth day at his work Jurgis saw a man stumble while running in front of a car, and have his foot mashed off, and before he had been there three weeks he was witness of a yet more dreadful accident. There was a row of brick furnaces, shining white ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... pet cat, startled from sleep on the kitchen hearth, at the same instant ran wildly up stairs; there was a start—a stumble—and then down came the candle, the ewer, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... businesses, than when they are mixed with some harm to others; and it is his best play in this game to strike off and lie in the place: Successful commonly in these undertakings, because he passes smoothly those rubs which others stumble at, as conscience and the like; and gratulates himself much in this advantage. Oaths and falshood he counts the nearest way, and loves not by any means to go about. He has many fine quips at this folly of plain ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... chief o' the forenoon, I was fayn to rest in the pavilion, when, entering therein, whom shoulde I stumble upon but William, layd at length on y^e floor, with his arms under his head, and his book on y^e ground. I was withdrawing brisklie enow, when he called out, "Don't goe away, since you are here," in a tone soe rough, soe unlike his usual key, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... about A.D. 545, happened to stumble upon an anonymous Harmony or Digest of the Gospels [286:1], and began in consequence to investigate the authorship. He found two notices in Eusebius of such Harmonies; one in the Epistle to Carpianus ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... opens again, and Pentuere comes out staggering. He looks vacantly round, and tries to walk away; but his legs refuse to carry him, and, after a stumble or two, he falls in a heap and lies in the road, a pitiful sight. The passers-by jeer and laugh at him as he lies helpless; but one decent-looking man points him out to his young son, and says: "See ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... objected. "And we might, just might, you know, stumble into a situation where we would ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... before we sank with thirst and exhaustion. A number of poplars grew in a hollow. "Let us dig here; it is a long distance to the woods"; but the spade again slipped out of our hands, and we could only stumble and crawl on eastwards. ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... Esquimaux, the despised Skroeling—or they may have amalgamated with them—or conceivably they might have held their own. Very little is known yet of that portion of the coast. It would be strange if some Nansen or Peary were to stumble upon the remains of the old colony, and find possibly in that antiseptic atmosphere a complete mummy of ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lucky lot, I tell you, fellows, to stumble on such a fine snug hole in the nick of time!" declared Tom Betts, as he rubbed his hands together, before giving his place in the front rank to another scout ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... who is not a lawyer, groped in utter darkness thereafter, until he finally stumbled into the arms of Eddie Wolfe and Frank Leavitt and Jere Burke, when the final vote on the railroad bills was taken. It was Walker's only stumble of the session. But for his unfortunate vote against the Stetson bill and for the Wright bill, Walker would have made an exceptionally ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... Edith. 'By-the-bye, when I consented that the melancholy Jaques should be one of my aides-de-camp I expected him to maintain his reputation, not only for gloom but wit. I think you had better go back to the forest, Lord Eugene, and see if you cannot stumble upon a fool who may drill you in repartee. How do you do, Lady Riddlesworth?' and she bowed to two ladies who seemed inclined to stop, but Edith added, 'I heard great applications for you this ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... coming to a stone wall I flung myself down under it, and almost thought that I should give up the ghost. After some time, however, I recovered, and getting up tried to find my way out of the anialwch. Sheer good fortune caused me to stumble upon a path, by following which I came to a lone farm-house, where a good-natured woman gave me certain directions by means of which I at last got out of the hot stony wilderness, for such it was, upon a ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... attempt to walk the path of life alone that stumble. I shall not offend your manhood if I ask, do you ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... the hounds"; his eyes said, "We looked for the shortest way"; his ears said, "We listened for the breathing of the hounds"; and his legs said, "We ran away with you." Then he asked his tail what it had done, and it said, "Why, I got caught in the bushes or made your leg stumble; that is all I could do." So, as a punishment, the Fox stuck his tail out of his den, and the hounds saw it and caught hold of it, and dragged the Fox out of his den by it and ate him all up. So that was the end of Master Reynard, and well he deserved it. Don't ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... through the influence of bad and malignant passions. An ignorant man is incapable of judging correctly, however anxious he may be to do so. He gropes in the dark, like a blind man; and if he should happen to stumble on the right path, it is more by accident than from any correct idea which has been formed in his mind ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... It beat even Dink Stover's famous Sleep Prolonger, the Alarm Clock, which automatically closed the window and opened the hot air register at the designated hour. And out of the world, out of the whole human race, present and past, he, John C. Bedelle, was the first to stumble upon this revolutionary fact! An accident? Perhaps—but so was Galileo's discovery of the telescope an accident. When the gnawing appetite had been placated (somewhat placated, but not convinced), the Skippy Bedelle who descended Laloo's steps, with grave and thoughtful face, had emerged ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... Here followed a stumble, the clatter of stones down the mountain-side, and an oath so very human and undignified that it at once relieved the bowlders of any complicity of expression. The voices, too, were close together now, and ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... step, or you'll stumble! Care for your coat, or you'll crock it! Down with your crown, man! Be humble! Put your head into your pocket, Else something or other will knock it. Don't hit that jar of cucumbers Standing an the broad-stair! They have not waked from their ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... at once, as they stared into each other's eyes, Barnabas leaning forward, strong and compelling, Barrymaine upon his knees clinging weakly to the table, sudden and sharp upon the stillness broke a sound—an ominous sound, the stumble of a ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... change when evening gray Curtained a cloudy sky, And languid, I retraced the way My feet could scarce descry! By rugged care my heart was bruised, Hope's rainbow tints were gone; To this world's watch and ward unused, I could but stumble on. ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... possible, fearing lest he might stumble over some article, and by the noise betray ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... but good-natured, like the Italian rabble, with their plaster confectionery, at a carnival. Women and girls would run down the long green slope together, which it is said the cockneys believe to be the highest land in the world, after Richmond Hill; and many of them stumble and slip and roll to the bottom, screaming and laughing as they go. This I understand to be a favorite pastime with people who are big enough to know better; for a part of the fun, and that which all seem to enjoy most, is in tripping one another up. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... a swift fall, and that white surface would be broken by a black shapeless heap. A policeman would find it on his next round, or some drunken reveler would stumble over it, or the good people on their way to early mass—ah! The seamed countenance lit up ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... with Budd the ranger drifted around to the kitchen in time to intercept Hop Ling casually as he came out after finishing his evening's work. The girl was satisfied Flatray could not have any suspicion of the truth. Nevertheless, she wished he would let the help alone. He might accidentally stumble on something that would set ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... him. Surrounded on every side by new machines and new tactics, he is as much bewildered as Hannibal would have been at Waterloo, or Themistocles at Trafalgar. His very acuteness deludes him. His very vigour causes him to stumble. The more correct his maxims, when applied to the state of society to which he is accustomed, the more certain they are to lead him astray. This was strikingly the case with Hastings. In India he had a bad hand; but he was master of the game, and he won every stake. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... have a warning from the wise man, that when a rich man speaketh every man holdeth his tongue, and, look, what he saith, they extol it to the clouds; but if a poor man speak, they say, What fellow is this? And if he stumble, they will help to overthrow him.[122] Therefore may my words be undervalued and my errors aggravated, if I offer to speak of kings; but not by thee, O my God, because I speak of them as they are in thee, and of thee as thou art in them. Certainly those men prepare a way of speaking negligently ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... animal by means of a number of breakages; a defect that brought our landlady on the scene. The enchantment of my father's companionship caused me to suffer proportionately in his absence. During that period of solitude, my nursemaid had to order me to play, and I would stumble about and squat in the middle of the floor, struck suddenly by the marvel of the difference between my present and my other home. My father entered into arrangements with a Punch and Judy man for him to pay me regular morning visits opposite ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... necessity; but the latter does not contain the bishop's reply, nor the author's rejoinder. Mr. Hobbes argues on this subject with his usual wit and subtlety; but it is a pity that in both the one and the other we stumble upon petty tricks, such as arise in excitement over the game. The bishop speaks with much vehemence and behaves somewhat arrogantly. Mr. Hobbes for his part is not disposed to spare the other, and manifests rather too much scorn for theology, and for the terminology of ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... lost their footing and fell over the precipice, and it is the general opinion that they were killed long before they reached the golden palace of the Plumerian Thetis. I was a little alarmed at first, for fear my horse would stumble, in which case I should have shared the fate of the unhappy beeves, but soon forgot all fear in the enchanting display of flowers which each opening in the shrubs displayed to me. Earth's firmament was starred with daphnes, irises, ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... my metal in this reeling world (here and there), as the sway of my affection carries me, and perhaps stumble upon a yeoman-feuterer, as I do now; or one of fortune's mules, laden with treasure, and an empty cloak-bag, following him, gaping when ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... luminous mist of loveliness over her plain unfinished features. Already had they begun to change in the direction of beauty. Christina's eyes burned; in Mercy's shone something of the light by which a soul may walk and not stumble. In the eyes of both was expectation, in the eyes of the one confident, in the ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... work is done as in America. Half-trained medical students perform bungling operations, and butcher their patients, because they are not willing to take time for thorough preparation. Half-trained lawyers stumble through their cases, and make their clients pay for experience which the law school should have given. Half-trained clergymen bungle away in the pulpit, and disgust their intelligent and cultured parishioners. Many an American youth is willing to stumble through life half prepared ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... him betides; He met an Ant, which he bestrides, And post thereon away he rides, Which with his haste doth stumble, And came full over on her snout; Her heels so threw the dirt about, For she by no means could get out, But over him ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... have set eyes on it. So perseveringly as she did babble about this one thing! The box, the box, and nothing but the box! It seemed as if the box were bewitched, and as if the cottage were not big enough to hold it, without Pandora's continually stumbling over it, and making Epimetheus stumble over it likewise, and bruising ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the meal she insisted on completing the task by washing the dishes, putting all to rights in the camp; then mended a rent in his coat which he had got from a stumble in the dark the night before. He ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... gallop, longing for the rhinoceros to give up his hunt of the hunters, but the huge beast came thundering along in the most persistent way, close at their heels, but now, to the delight of the boys, not gaining upon them. The only thing they had to fear then was a slip or a stumble, or that in its pertinacious hunt the rhinoceros ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... acquainted with the road, but towards the close of our journey we could hear the river running near us for miles in the pitch darkness, and although my brother walked bravely on in front, I knew he was afraid of the water, and no doubt in fear that he might stumble into it in the dark. We were walking in Indian file, for there was no room to walk abreast in safety, while in places we had absolutely to grope our way. We ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Alicia's head against my knee, a light, swift footstep sounded overhead in the attic, followed by a sort of stumble, as if somebody had slipped on one of those unexpected steps. Alicia ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... it with the lake behind him. He did not walk in a straight line. He was too near exhaustion to forge ahead as was his custom. Now he was picking his way carefully so as to shun the washes out of which he must climb, and the rock patches where he would stumble, and the thick brush that would claw at him. He would have given five dollars for a drink of water, but there would be water at the car, he told himself. People were rather particular about carrying plenty of water when they traveled ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... kill a craw." "It's a good horse that duz never stumble, And a good wife that duz never grumble." "Neare is my sarke, but nearer is my skin." "It's an ill-made bargain whore beath parties rue." "A curst cow hes short horns." "Wilfull fowkes duz never want weay." "For change of pastures macks fat cawves, it's said, But ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... that radiant plain? I stumble now in miry ways; Dark clouds drift landward, big with rain, And lonely moors their summits raise. On, on with hurrying feet I range, And left and right in the dumb hillside Grey gorges open, drear and strange, And so I ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... very little load for those we have, still the load is all such poor weak fellows ought to bear. Old Crump was not thus favored by a gradually lightened load. He bore the same four children every day, faithfully, carefully, with never a stumble nor fall, as though fully aware of the precious ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... it was not pretense. It was something or other else—it was a dangerous reality. She liked Susan; in her intelligence and physical charm were the possibilities of getting far up in the world; it seemed a pity that she was thus handicapped. Still, perhaps Susan would stumble upon some worth while man who, attempting to possess her without marriage and failing, would pay the heavy price. There was always that chance—a small chance, smaller even than finding by loose living ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... tell in the most incidental way of something that had happened during the day, and then, in his sliding, slipping, repetitious, back-stitching fashion, would move round from one indifferent topic to another until he managed at last to stumble over Smith Westcott's name. ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... Zeus; about the feet of the bound sun king in Pheroe and over the calm serene mockery of Hermes' smile the grey nets of the spiders' webs had been woven to and fro, across and across, with the lacing of a million threads, as Fate weaves round the limbs and covers the eyes of mortals as they stumble blindly from their birthplace to their grave. All things, the damp and the dust, the frost and the scorch, the newts and the rats, the fret of the flooded waters, and the stealing sure inroad of the mosses that everywhere grew from the dews and the fogs, had taken and eaten, in hunger or sport, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... that—as in Judea of old—Christ would meet men with all consideration and courtesy. He would not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. He would not strive, nor cry, nor let His voice be heard in the streets. He would not cause any of God's little ones to offend, to stumble. In plain words, He would not shock and repel them by any conduct of His. Therefore, as in Judea of old, He would be careful of, even indulgent to, the usages of society, as long as they were innocent. He would never outrage the code of manners, however imperfect, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... never used here, and such traffic as is carried on must be done by means of pack-ponies, whose loads are so contrived that, should they stumble on their rugged path, they can easily free themselves ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... recurred what Media had declared about my shrine in Odo. Was this it? Self- sacrilegious demigod that I was, was I going to gluttonize on the very offerings, laid before me in my own sacred fane? Give heed to thy ways, oh Taji, lest thou stumble ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... with eagerness till we sweep by. It leaps monstrously across the blackness, alights on the precise tip of our nose, pirouettes there an instant, and swings off. Our roaring bow sinks as though that light were lead—sinks and recovers to lurch and stumble again beneath the next blow-out. Tim's fingers on the lift-shunt strike chords of numbers—1:4:7:—2:4:6:—7:5:3, and so on; for he is running by his tanks only, lifting or lowering her against the uneasy air. All three engines ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... said Malcourt, with careless good-humour, "but one has to be so careful in dealing the top card, Herby. You stumble over your own fingers; they're too long; or perhaps ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... like to go anywhere? There is the park, and there must be pictures somewhere. I wish there was a matinee, only it might not be right to go"; and he secretly anathematizes his own ignorance of polite and well-bred circles. But he learns the whereabouts of two galleries, and they stumble over some bric-a-brac that is quite enchanting. Violet has been trained on correct principles. She knows the names and eras of china, and has discrimination. Her little bit of French is well pronounced. She is not so well posted in modern painters, but she has the o'd ones, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... a good Genius guide you; for you are alone, alone; and have a steep pilgrimage to make,— leading high, if you do not slip or stumble! ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... down the steep rock another piercing shriek broke forth immediately below me, and glancing down I saw one of our black companions who had dropped from one ledge to the next lose his footing, stumble, and fall headlong into the great chasm. Cries of horror escaped us as we saw him strike a rugged ledge of rock far below, rebound, and then fall head foremost to the rock's base, his skull already ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... the world, Mr. Hand," she tossed back. "You'd stumble and break Parson Thayer's best china that I've washed for seventeen years and only broke the handle of one cup. She wouldn't drink her coffee this morning outer the second-best cups; went to the buttery before breakfast and ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... he tried to shout, but found, as the spent runner usually does, that he was almost voiceless. A feeble call was all he could manage, and on the contrary wind and noise of the storm, this was quite inadequate. He could only stumble on, borne up by his indomitable will. He was weakening and he ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... or even younger, not as if it was a grisly warning, but with a simple childlike pleasure at having outlived someone else; and when a draught might puff them out like a fluttering candle, or a bit of a stumble shatter them like so much glass, their old hearts keep sound and unaffrighted, and they go on, bubbling with laughter, through years of man's age compared to which the valley at Balaclava[6] was as safe and peaceful as a village cricket-green on Sunday. It may fairly ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are," whispered the guide; "pass the word back for 'em to look out they don't stumble, for things are rough ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... the lot are camped right now in our back yard!" said Toby, filled with such a sense of importance that he neglected to stumble over a single ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... by disastrous knowledge and urge that Doria's love should be unshaken likewise; she could apply all the healing remedies of which she only has the secret—but she could not leave the poor soul to stumble ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... any of our old herbalists, one would imagine that serpents (and those of the worst kind) abounded in "Merrie Englande," and that they were the greatest bane of our lives. It is {40} hard to stumble on a plant that is not an antidote to the bite of serpents. Our old herbals were compiled, however, almost entirely from the writings of the ancients, and from foreign sources. The ancients had a curious notion relative to the plant Basil (Oscimum basilicum), viz., "That there is a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... pleasure, the reverence, and the intelligence with which you read: and, believe me, it is wiser and holier, by the fire of your own faith to kindle the ashes of expired religions, than to let your soul shiver and stumble among their graves, through the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... conversion to his conception of her beauty. But Don Quixote was determined that they were intolerant blasphemers who simply had to be thrashed. So he suddenly charged with such vehemence and fury that, if luck had not interfered and made his gentle steed stumble, the trader might have been killed. As Rocinante went down, our gallant hero went over his head, and after he had struck the ground he rolled for some distance. But when he tried to rise he could not: he was so ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... turned his face to the cliff. A light was shining half-way up it—that must come from the window of Rufus's cottage. He took it as a beacon, and began to stumble through the howling darkness towards it. He knew the cliff-path. He had come down it only that night to make sure that there was no one spying upon them. The cottage had been shut and dark then, the little garden empty. He had concluded that ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... and oppressive priesthood must perish, for false prophets in the present as in the past stumble onward to their doom; while their tabernacles crumble with dry rot. "God is not mocked," and "the word of our God ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... habit is noticeable in the case of some of our very commonest plants. After the golden-rods and asters have had their day, late in October or well into November, when witch-hazel, yarrow, and clover are almost the only blossoms left us, you will stumble here and there upon a solitary dandelion reflecting the sun, or a violet giving back the color of the sky. And even so, you may find, once in a while, an old man in whom imaginative impulses have sprung up anew, now that all the prosaic activities ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... sure, they keep it to themselves, inspired to do so by a false belief regarding the rightful transmission of such knowledge; or, by a false modesty, or prudery, they are kept from telling to anyone else what they have discovered or found to be the truth in these matters. And so the people stumble along in ignorance of these vital affairs in life, generation after generation, repeating the errors of their predecessors, and no positive progress being made as the years go by. Because of this state of affairs millions of human beings die every generation, and other millions suffer ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... bones of the fathers rest, here where the crown has been torn from thy brow, come and recall thy wandering children. Behold thy flock scattered upon the mountain—these sheep, what have they done! Gather them, gather them, O good shepherd, for their feet stumble ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... wood buried in the bogs of Wolmer Forest is not yet all exhausted, for the peat-cutters now and then stumble upon a log. I have just seen a piece which was sent by a labourer of Oak Hanger to a carpenter of this village; this was the butt-end of a small oak, about five feet long, and about five inches in diameter. It had apparently been severed from the ground by an axe, was very ponderous, and ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... her house. But with care she succeeded in getting around these, and soon she knew by the lessened force of the wind that she was near, if not directly under, the high fence upon which she depended for guidance. A few bushes—another unexpected obstacle, followed by a bad stumble—separated her from the contact for which she had reached; then by a final effort her fingers found the boards and she went eagerly on, dragging herself through the wet without knowing it, and only stopping with a sense of shock, when her hand, sliding from the boards, ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... one else; for aren't we told to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things? And don't dirtiness and untidiness in Christians bring a reproach on religion? And then, if things are out of their place—all sixes and sevens—why, it's just setting a trap for your feet. You'll stumble, and lose your temper and your time, and fuss the life out of other people too, if things aren't in their proper places, and you can't lay hold of a thing just when you want it. It's waste of precious ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... placed, of the atmosphere in which they lived. Certain details, which seem to us inexplicable in some of these buildings, were, no doubt, imperatively required by the position and needs of the surroundings. In fact, we stumble, we feel our way—but we ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... tended the store and Kie spent days at a time drifting around the canyons and hoping that he would stumble upon a clue that would reveal the ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... can not find it! Those words that came as a trumpet-clash, burning your very flesh—that melody that melted your whole being to tears—they are gone—you can not find them! You search and you search—but you can not find them. And so you stumble on, in despair and agony; and still you dare not rest. You dare not ever rest in this until the thing is done—done and over—until you have nailed it fast. So you go back again, though perhaps ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... Loskiel, even in the wilderness somehow I always have contrived to discover a sweetheart of some sort or other—yes, even in the Iroquois country, cleared or bush, somehow or other, sooner or later, I stumble on some pretty maid who flutters up in the very wilderness like a ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... it had to the minister. A darkness, which the obscurity of the night faintly typified, closed round him, pierced by one ray only, and from this he tried to turn his face. It was the gleam that lights up every labyrinth where our feet wander and stumble, but it is not always easy to know it from those false lights of feeble-hearted pity, of mock-sacrifice, of sick conscience, which dance before us to ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... far to go, and, though it entailed an occasional stumble, he endeavoured to look about him. He was progressing along the side of the wonderful Fraser gorge, which is the great channel clearly provided by Nature for the commerce of the mountain province, and he was impressed by the ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... was always best, and that he was leading them by wise safe paths, even when they seemed thorny and toilsome; but it is not so. I can tell you of a Shepherd who not only went through many painful dark desolate places, so that his flock might not stumble and fall when they came to follow, but ended by laying down his life for his sheep. And yet these very sheep do not always listen to his voice, nor follow the safe narrow paths which he has tracked out for them, through the wilderness, to the happy fold. I think you must both have heard ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... the azalea walk; and no one likes to stumble upon their own name when they are not expecting the sound or sight of it. No; she has turned off towards the cedars, and does not see us. As to her likes and dislikes, there is nothing this side of heaven that will content her; and you might have ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... under the strange delusion that I was a wonderful child. I don't know why, unless it was because I did n't know anything of life, and I could repeat a little Latin, stumble through a sentence of Greek, and, after having solved a problem seventy-six thousand times to show my wonderful precociousness, could do it again when called upon. Perhaps I'm extravagant. It was n't more than half that number of times. At any rate, sir, I was thought ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... that the mere weight of the reins is felt on the bit, and the directions are indicated by a turn of the wrist rather than by a pull; the horses are guided and encouraged, and only pulled up when they exceed their intended pace, or in the event of a stumble; for there is a strong though gentle ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... all right. "Westover got his arm under Lynde's elbow, and, with the man going before for them to fall upon jointly in case they should stumble, he got him down the dark and twisting stairs and through the basement hall, which was vaguely haunted by the dispossessed women servants of the family, and so out upon the pavement of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... my ears open, and it was the same story all over the village. There was hardly a young man among all the ghosts of Fairfield who didn't roll home in the small hours of the morning the worse for liquor. I used to wake up in the night and hear them stumble past my house, singing outrageous songs. The worst of it was that we couldn't keep the scandal to ourselves, and the folk at Greenhill began to talk of "sodden Fairfield" and taught their children to sing ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough |
