"Stagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not long on the terrace. It was not a night on which you could stroll and talk; there was a wind against which you had to stagger, holding your hat on tightly, and shouting such remarks as might occur to you. Against that wind acquaintance could make no headway. Yet I see now that despite that wind, or, rather, because of it, I ought already to have known Pethel a little better than I did when we presently sat down ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... drew back with his clinched fist and gave the tramp a stinging blow between the eyes, which caused the much surprised individual to let go his hold and stagger ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... onusual fact to see prospectors in these parts. What made me think twice about this one was how big he seemed, how he filled up that door. He looked round the saloon, an' when he spotted Rojas he sorta jerked up. Then he pulled his slouch hat lopsided an' began to stagger down, down the steps. First off I made shore he was drunk. But I remembered he didn't seem drunk before. It was some queer. So I watched ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... did he stagger with his burden out into the night. As the wind drove in through the open door the flames seemed to burst in a sudden explosion and the cabin was a seething snarl of flame. It burst through the window and out of the chimney and Philip's path to the ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... to the library table; he heard the rustle of the sheet of paper as it was drawn out of the envelope. Then silence again, and the clamor of the clock. He turned round, in time to see David stagger slightly and drop into a chair; perspiration had burst out on his forehead. He was so white around his lips that Robert Ferguson knew that for a moment his body shared the awful astonishment of his soul. "There's some whiskey over there," he said, nodding toward ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... stage. She did not think it a nice place for herself; but for a brat like Lily, Lord, it was quite different! And she ought to have tried to please her Pa and Ma. Mrs. Clifton, though she never voiced the wish, had visions of a trip to London, to stagger some relations, a sister-in-law she had there, and sneer at the old country, in the usual colonial fashion, and show them what the new countries can do, countries where you make a fortune in less than no time! And, little ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... they were caught in a heavy, 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 ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... for there was several barrels of pork and biscuits among the lot we had landed, and we were free to take as much as we wanted. The other bales and boxes were all broken open and the contents made up into packets, and Tom and I and about sixty niggers, each with as much as he could stagger under, started away from the shore. It wasn't a long march, for their village lay only about six miles away. We knew it could not be far, because the women and children had come down to the beach two or three hours after the fight was over. We stopped here about a month, ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... him by the arm and led him down to the forecastle, where the tars were singing and swearing. "There," said he, "when you hear them swearing, you may know there is no danger." He went back feeling better, but the storm increased his alarm. Disconsolate and unassisted, he managed to stagger to the forecastle again. The ancient mariners were swearing as ever. "Mary," he said to his sympathetic wife, as he crawled into his berth after tacking across a wet deck, "Mary, thank God they're ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... age, and to so great an extent, is this custom of provoking thirst, then quenching it with a stunting drink, observed, that brine pap has already superseded the use of tops-and-bottoms; and wet-nurses, previously free from any kind of reproach, have been seen to stagger in the streets: owing, sir, to the quantity of gin introduced into their systems, with a view to its gradual and natural conversion into the fluid I have ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... Rhynas declared he would make a master of the foil. Hugh Bascomb, with a pugilist's thick neck and round head, was spending all his spare time boxing, and it was said that he could strike a blow that would stagger an ox. His admirers declared it was a beautiful sight to see him hammer the punching-bag, and they assured him over and over that he was certain to make another Sullivan. Naturally, this gave Bascomb the "swelled head," and he got an idea into his brain ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... hath a thousand floors; And some toil slowly upward, stair by stair, And stagger and halt and faint upon the way; Others, more fortunate, achieve the top At one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... stagger forth with Comrade Windsor. While he is loading up that basket, we will be collecting our hats. . . . I am not half sure, Comrade Jackson," he added, as they walked out, "that Comrade Windsor may not prove to be the genial spirit for whom I have been searching. If you could give ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the Harman Beck's errand; From the bailiffs cramp speech, That makes man a thrall, I charm thee from each, And I charm thee from all. Thy freedom's complete As a Blade of the Huff, To be cheated and cheat, To be cuff'd and to cuff; To stride, swear, and swagger, To drink till you stagger, To stare and to stab, And to brandish your dagger In the cause of your drab; To walk wool-ward in winter, Drink brandy, and smoke, And go fresco in summer For want of a cloak; To eke out your living By the wag of your elbow, By fulham and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Tess watched him stagger along the shore through the rain, the shadows of the weeping-willow trees at last ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... himself rolled up in a blanket. You could'nt, he said, get a ship to look the wind in the eye when all the elements were tipsy. He was a lucky mariner who could get round Cape Horn without being tossed off his feet for a month—everything seemed to stagger so. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... Paul points out, how much more so in the expressing of the Eternal Life through endless ages and limitless space! Once we grasp this idea of the unity and progressiveness of Life going on ad infinitum, what boundless vistas of possibility open before us. It would be enough to stagger the imagination were it not for our old friends, the Law and the Word. But these will always accompany us, and we may rely upon them in all worlds and under all conditions. This Law of Unity is what in natural science is known as the ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... faint groans of the wounded unto death. Wolfe was hit, but he did not heed it; Montcalm has received a musket ball, but he cannot yet die. The English battle does not yield; it advances, the light of victory is upon it. Backward stagger the French; Montcalm strives to check the fatal movement, but the flying death has torn its way through his body, and he can no more. Wolfe, even as the day was won, got his death wound in the breast, but "Support me—don't ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... enclosure from which they had come and the hill where Gahan of Gathol lay watching, and then suddenly the smaller figure struck its companion full in the face. Gahan, horrified, saw the latter's head topple from its body, saw the body stagger and fall to the ground. The man half rose from his concealment the better to view the happening in the valley below. The creature that had felled its companion was dashing madly in the direction of the hill upon which he was ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... got fairly round—his head and forepart were over dry land—the three guns were pointed—the eyes of the three hunters were about to glance through the sights of their pieces, when all at once he was seen to rock and stagger,—and then roll over! With a loud plash, his vast body subsided into the water, sending great waves to ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... enough, without going about to authorise it by events: for the people being accustomed to such plausible arguments as these and so proper to their taste, it is to be feared, lest when they fail of success they should also stagger in their faith: as in the war wherein we are now engaged upon the account of religion, those who had the better in the business of Rochelabeille,—[May 1569.]—making great brags of that success as an infallible approbation ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the 5th October last, the immense sum of L.5,052,000. As far, therefore, as concerns the direct financial effects of the new tariff and its counterbalancing income-tax, the results of Sir Robert Peel's policy are such as may stagger and confound the boldest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... me that it would be wise to break ground while you are still away. Of course I need not say that I will see anybody or do anything—even to the calling together of the actors—if you should ever deem it desirable. My opinion is that our respected and valued friend Mr. —— will stagger through another season, if he don't rot first. I understand he is in a partial state of decomposition at this minute. He was very ill, but got better. How is it that —— always do get better, and strong hearts ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... to do something not altogether to the farmer's mind. It was a matter of no consequence—only cleaning that side of one of the cow-houses first which was usually cleaned last. He gave him a box on the ear that made him stagger, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... way without difficulty; but the cub, in a few moments, began to find himself terribly hampered. His fur collected the mud. His little paws sank easily, but at each step it grew harder to withdraw them. At last, chancing to stagger aside from his mother's spacious tracks, he sank to his belly in the rim of ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... felt certain that the story was a true one. As soon as 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 but quite gentle, to my father; and the young ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... But I must say I laugh with some uncertainty. I don't know whether you intended that for a joke or for a staggerer. You should provide your conversation with a series of printed instructions for the listener. Get a lot of cards, and have printed on one, "Please laugh"; on another, "Please stagger"; on another, "Kindly appear confused." Then when you mean to be jocose hand over the laughter card, and so ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... roar sent a couple of shot after the chase. It was getting dark, but I felt sure that one had struck her counter. Still she held on, and we continued in chase, she carrying as much sail as she could stagger under. ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... deck a surprising sensation. It is as if your feet had been caught in an imponderable snare; you feel the balance of your body threatened, and the steady poise of your mind is destroyed at once. This sensation lasts only a second, for even while you stagger something seems to turn over in your head, bringing uppermost the mental exclamation, full of astonishment and dismay, "By Jove! ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... in a knickerbocker suit with arrows on it (such as can always be borrowed from a friend), and, to judge from the noises which he emits, is not in the best of training. The lights go on suddenly; and, he should seize this moment to stagger to the door and turn on the switch. This done, he sinks into the nearest chair and ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... know that I was stone broke, 'cause it didn't seem the thing in a business man; but I did tell him that I hardly ever et quite so much as I had that night. Still, he wouldn't take any chances, so I took my blankets an' went on. I was purty sleepy after my meal, an' it was just all I could do to stagger up an' down the hills, before I found a place to flop in. It was under a little tree in a big yard, an' I got out at sun-up 'cause I didn't want any one to see a business man occupyin' such quarters as that. I didn't miss breakfast much that day, an' I went about my work singin' an' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... any true measure according to their real content and significance, the most extreme intellectual and moral outrage that could be inflicted upon us. Properly understood, or even superficially understood, they would wound and shock and stagger and perplex every one of our most sacred prejudices. They would conflict with the whole method and aim of the education which we have received, an education of which the professed object is to fit us for an active, successful and energetic life in the sphere of industrial or commercial or ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... 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 ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... slowly up the sand ridge, the Ranger a little ahead, oblivious of the livid blue of the old man's lips and the drag on the bridle rope till a quick jerk ripped the line from his loose hold; and he glanced back to see the other's horse stagger, flounder up again, waver and sink with a sucking groan. Wayland sprang just in time to catch the old frontiersman. He tore the saddle from the fallen broncho and cinched it on his own horse. Then ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... thanksgiving weeping women rushed upon the saint and began to kiss whatever part of the image was within reach—the handles of the litter, the decorations of the pedestal, the bronze body itself. The tottering structure of wood and metal began to stagger and reel like a frail bark tossing over a sea of shrieking heads and extended arms ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... different. Such, for instance, might be a square, smoothly wrapped box of cigars, candy, or books. Also, a gentleman might carry flowers, or a basket of fruit, or, in fact, any package that looks tempting. He might even stagger under bags and suitcases, or a small trunk—but carry a "bundle"? Not twice! And yet, many an unknowing woman, sometimes a very young and pretty one, too, has asked a relative, a neighbor, or an admirer, to carry something ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... entered the tall woods to the east of Fochabers. The rain ceased for a time; and I met in the woods an old pensioner, who had been evidently weather-bound in some public-house, and had now taken the opportunity of the fair interval to stagger to his dwelling. He was eminently, exuberantly happy,—there could not be two opinions on that head,—full of all manner of bright sunshiny thoughts and imaginations, rendered just a little tremulous and uncertain by the summer-heat ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... blows, for boxing had been his favourite amusement at Sandhurst where he was a middleweight champion. The first caught Sir John upon his thick lips which were badly cut against the teeth, causing him to stagger; while the second, that with the right, landed on the bridge of his nose and blacked both his eyes. This, so strong and heavy was it, notwithstanding Sir John's great weight, knocked him clean off his feet. Back he went, ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... others. Yet, if taken aback by an outrage, or an act of gross stupidity, which even the perpetrator himself had to suffer for, he would momentarily lose his patience, and rap out an objurgation that would stagger the straiter-laced gentlemen of his own cloth, or an outsider who knew less of him than - ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... in the depths below, Now mounted up to heaven again, They reel and stagger to and fro, At their wit's end, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... hail-storm and darkness, and never once until late in the autumn could they again come within striking distance. By that time the jaunty riders of the early spring-tide were worn to skeletons; the mettlesome horses—those that were left—barely able to stagger through weakness, exhaustion, and starvation. Then like prairie wolves the warriors closed once more about the jaded flanks, waiting, watching every chance of picking off the stragglers. Just one day did Differs's ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... midnight the wine-shop closed, and Michel having nowhere 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
... are such as almost stagger belief, even in the most credulous. They not only go to prove the existence of a league of villany, but also laid open the machinery by which their wickedness was concealed; still, from many incidents ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... flat-topped dresser a few feet from the bed and pulled open a drawer. From it he took a bottle of whisky. Pretending that the cork was stuck he worked with it fumblingly to get time in which to think. He would take a drink, feign that it choked him, stagger to the head of the bed, stumble on to the pillow and then come up with the revolver in his hand. Then ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... meanwhile, however. certain, certain, assured. cesser, to cease. chacun, each. chagrin, m., grief, gloom. Chalde, f., Chaldaea. Chalden, m., Chaldee. chaleur, f., heat, warmth. chambre, f., chamber, room. champ, m., field. chanceler, to stagger, waver. chant, m., song. chanter, to sing. chaque, each, every, charmant, delightful. charmer, to charm, soothe. chasser, to chase, drive away. chtier, to chastise, punish. chtiment, m., punishment. chef, m., ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... was endeavouring to stagger back with her in his arms; but the waves were too strong for him, and they both fell, and were lost to sight in an enormous breaker, while everyone held their breath. As the wave dispersed three forms could be seen struggling forwards; and, amid the wildest ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... the door has decayed, and the long nose of a greyhound is thrust out sniffing through a hole. Dickon, the said son, is delighted to undo the padlock for a visitor who is 'square.' In an instant the long hounds leap up, half a dozen at a time, and I stagger backwards, forced by the sheer vigour of their caresses against the doorpost. Dickon cannot quell the uproarious pack: he kicks the door open, and away they scamper round and round the paddock ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... had rung and the lights glowed dim as in a hospital ward at night. I hurried silently along, shut in by enclosing walls and the lowering ceiling of the street. From everywhere I seemed to feel upon me the beseeching, haunting grey eyes of Frau Matilda. My soul was troubled, for it seemed to stagger beneath the burden of its realization of a lost humanity. And with me walked grey shadows of other men, felt-footed through the gloom, and they walked hurriedly as men fleeing from a ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... tucked her great thighs under her, and swept on over heath and rabbit burrow, over rush and fen, sound ground and rotten all alike to that enormous stride, to that keen bright eye which foresaw every footfall, to that raking shoulder which picked her up again at every stagger? ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... on her cheek, Her bodice rose and fell, Her pretty speech, like drunken men, Did stagger pitiful. ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... attract the attention of the antique ferryman, who is invariably at the other side of the river and generally asleep at the bottom of his boat. If you are strong-lunged and can prance and shout for a long time, he may eventually stagger to his feet, come across for you and row you over. Otherwise you will stand but little chance of arousing him from his slumbers, and you will stop where you are, unless you choose to walk round by the bridge at Coton, ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... like a torrent. I was conscious of but one strong desire, to bear myself decently in my terrors, and whatever should happen to my life, preserve my character: as the captain said, we are a queer kind of beasts. Breakfast time came, and I made shift to swallow some hot tea. Then I must stagger below to take the time, reading the chronometer with dizzy eyes, and marvelling the while what value there could be in observations taken in a ship launched (as ours then was) like a missile among flying seas. The forenoon dragged on ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Howard, who had discreetly gone on, turned to go back to him. But as he came up with a word of wonder and repeated congratulations, he saw Stafford put his hand to his forehead, and, as it seemed to Howard, almost stagger. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... returned to the vessel. 'Lo! we are here,' says Opheltes, my chief mate; and having found, as he thought, a prize in the lonely fields, he was leading along the shore, a boy with {all} the beauty of a girl. He, heavy with wine and sleep, seemed to stagger, and to follow with difficulty. I examined his dress, his looks, and his gait, {and} I saw nothing there which could be taken to be mortal. I both was sensible of it, and I said to my companions, 'I am in doubt what Deity is in that body; but in that body a Deity there is. Whoever thou ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... persons in the world, so that, wherever civilized man was to be found, there his name was known as "Monk, who invented that marvellous machine, the aerophone." Lastly, there was no more need for him, as for most of us, to stagger down his road beneath a never lessening burden of daily labour. His work was done; a great conception completed after half a score of years of toil and experiment had crowned it with unquestionable success. Now he could sit at ease and watch the ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 fall upon ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... leveled his wonderful electric rifle at the big stretch of canvas. He pressed the lever, a streak of blue flame shot out through an opened port, and, an instant later, the small craft of the smugglers was seen to stagger about, dipping to ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... to watch the birds sailing in the high winds of Adelie Land. In winds of fifty to seventy miles per hour, when with good crampons one had to stagger warily along the ice-foot, the snow petrels and Antarctic petrels were in their element. Wheeling, swinging, sinking, planing and soaring, they were radiant with life—the wild spirits of the tempest. Even in moderate drift, when through swirling ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... is thus our shepherds sometimes feed them. Poultry are killed by very small quantities of the preparation being mixed with their grain; the fowls sometimes take up two or three grains not impregnated with the material, but as soon as the smallest particle is swallowed they stagger and fall. It is interesting to see this, the effect is so instantaneous. The ingredient used does not in any way injure the meat and is indeed considered beneficial, even to the human system, when administered in small quantities, since the torpor it causes ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... seas, and that as grotesque a fate might come to be their own. Another bottle was broached to drink to a pleasant voyage, and the Governor would drink just one other on the top of it, so that the seamen were glad at last to stagger off—the one to his watch, and the other to his bunk. But when, after his four hours' spell, the mate came down again, he was amazed to see the Governor, in his Ramillies wig, his glasses, and his powdering-gown, still seated sedately at the lonely table with ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the cabin, slowly, with shaking legs and a heart that fluttered and stopped, fluttered and jumped and stopped, and made her stagger as she walked. She reached the doorstep and stood there with her palms pressing hard against her cheeks again. "You've got to do it. You've got to!" ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... came up to the mark less promptly than his big antagonist, but whether it was from weakness or lack of sight, he seemed uncertain in his movements, and the hearts of his backers sank as they saw him stagger rather than ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... ground; Arizona's snarling, panting face bent over her. In the very midst of that fury she felt Arizona stiffen and freeze; the snarling stopped; his nerveless arm fell away, and she was allowed to stagger to her feet. She found him staring at ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... the sea in ships, Who do business in great waters, They see the works of the Lord, And his wonders in the great deep. When he speaks, the tempest rises, And tosses the waves on high. Up to heaven, then down they go, Their courage melts at the danger, They stagger and reel like drunkards, And their skill is all exhausted. Then they cry to the Lord in their trouble, And he saves them from their distresses. He makes the tempest a calm, And the waves of the sea are still. They are glad when the ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness, Doth womanish and fearful mankind live! Let worthy minds ne'er stagger in distrust To suffer death or shame for ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... generations by the females alone in some of these tribes, tends to the probability of the greater continuity of existence; and the subdivisions of life by cuttings (even in animal life), at any rate, must stagger the ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... wasn't so gloomy inside as he appeared on the surface. He was polite enough; and he exuded a number of sounds that made a fair stagger at arranging themselves into language. It was English he aimed at, and when his system of syntax reached your mind it wasn't past you to understand it. If you took a college professor's magazine essay and a Chinese laundryman's ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... were terms of weight, "Such as we may perceive, amaz'd them all, "And stagger'd many who receives them right, "Had need from head to foot well understand, "Not understood, this gift they have besides, "To shew us when ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... of our War Office, the silly vapourings of the Spaniards, and the insane quarrels of their provincial juntas about precedence and the sharing of English subsidies, the summer of 1808 saw Napoleon's power stagger under terrible blows. Not only did he lose Spain and Portugal and the subsidies which they had meekly paid, but most of the 15,000 Spanish troops which had served him on the shores of the Baltic found means to slip away on British ships and put a backbone into the patriotic ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... over-careful of his personal appearance, he was a man of 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
... Daily Record missed being the first to give out certain information that was to stagger the world. The dispatch, which had evidently outrun an earlier one, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... dressed, and Settimia carried out his instructions with taste and wisdom. Regina had arrived in Paris with one box of modest dimensions; she left with four more, of a size that made the railway porters stagger. ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... the parentheses above. The exigencies of English grammar as also of perspicuity have obliged me to use, even in the portions unenclosed, more words than what occur in the original Sanskrit. All these verses are cruces intended to stagger Ganesa. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... he—and the plutocracy generally—were compelled to come to the political bosses almost hat in hand. That time was past, never to return. But still a competent political agent was even harder to find than a competent business manager—and was far more necessary; for, while a big business might stagger along under poor financial or organizing management within, it could not live at all without political favors, immunities, and licenses. A band of pickpockets might as well try to work a town without having first "squared" the police. Not that Mr. Hastings and his friends THEMSELVES ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... enable us and our charges to get well clear of the Channel and to the southward of Ushant before it changed, and then it gradually veered round until it came out strong from the north-west, when away we all went for Madeira, the slowest ships carrying every rag of canvas that they could stagger under, while the faster craft were unwillingly compelled to shorten down in order that all might keep together, while as for ourselves and the Astarte, the utmost that we could show, without running ahead of ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... troubled by a demon, who set it on fire at various times, and was continually throwing things about. The clergy of the neighborhood held a day of fasting and prayer in consequence. A maid-servant was afterwards detected as the cause of the missiles. But this did not in the least stagger Mr. Bennet, minister of the parish, who merely says: "There was a seeming blur cast, though not on the whole, yet upon some part of it, for their servant-girl was at last found throwing some things," and goes off into a eulogium on the ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... What his position logically must be—what, on other occasions, he clearly avows it to be—is plain enough. It is essentially that of a man confronted by one Incomprehensible, not confronted by two. But, looked at in certain ways, or rather looked from in certain ways, this position seems to stagger him. The problem of existence reels and grows dim before him, and he fancies that he detects the presence of two Incomprehensibles, when he has really, in his state of mental insobriety, only seen one Incomprehensible double. If this be not the case, it must be one that, intellectually, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... men were so beat that if they tripped and fell, they lay like dead things. The enemy were almost in worse plight and so we took prisoners, but as soon as we came up against nerveless, tireless machine guns we had to stagger back to our trenches. ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... the pike, had sustained the attack of the whole of Kershaw's rebel division, which came up in compact order to within very close range. The gallant brigade received the onset with full volleys, which caused the right of the rebel line to stagger back, and the whole line was, almost at the same moment, repulsed by the corps. The cavalry on our flank—and never braver men than the cavalry of our little army mounted saddles—were doing their best to protect the pike leading to Winchester, ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... in silence to a boat entangled amongst the reeds, through which an attempt had evidently been made to force it. The stranger had now arrived within a few paces of the shore, when he began to stagger, and Canondah, who hurried to his assistance, was but just in time to prevent his falling back into the water. Supporting him in her arms she assisted him to the bank, and the cause of his weakness became apparent, in a stream of blood that flowed from his leg, severely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... fearing none, I reached Stevenage, where, being night, I got over a gate, and crossed the corner of a green paddock. Seeing a pond or hollow in the corner, I was forced to stay off a respectable distance to keep from falling into it. My legs were nearly knocked up and began to stagger. I scaled over some old rotten palings into the yard, and then had higher palings to clamber over, to get into the shed or hovel; which I did with difficulty, being rather weak. To my good luck, I found some trusses of clover piled up, ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... have all important Parliamentary debates filmed. It will be essential, of course, to provide some comic relief, and we are relying confidently on certain Members to practise the wearing of mobile moustaches and to take lessons in the stagger, the butter slide, the business with the cane and the quick reversal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... Who says that I am ill? I am not ill! I am not weak! The trance, the swoon, the dream, is o'er! I feel the chill of death no more! At length, I stand renewed in all my strength Beneath me I can feel The great earth stagger and reel, As if the feet of a descending God Upon its surface trod, And like a pebble it rolled beneath his heel! This, O brave physician! this Is ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the corner of the inn, and up the lane. The colonel, with Silas and Sheppard, followed in more leisurely fashion. At a shout from some one they turned to see a dusty, bloody figure, with ragged clothes, stagger up ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... of another life! The fact made me grave and thoughtful. And yet, if my fear and not my hope were realized, what a burden was imposed upon me with the life that disease had spared! Had I even Mrs. Yocomb's faith, I knew it would be a weight under which I would often stagger ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... in the sense of the words. She gasped twice, as if her breath had gone, and then, with a stagger and a shiver, fell heavily ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... if that could be?" he was muttering, so that even Fred began to see that Bristles had struck some sort of clue calculated to stagger him more or less. ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... variety as could be desired; figures sitting at ease, mariners, and those who, riding upon donkeys or in waggons, look after their farms; fishermen, snarers of birds, hunters and vine-dressers; also swampy passages before beautiful villas, and women borne by men who stagger under their burdens, and other witty things of this nature; finally, views of sea-ports, everything charming and suitable":—a fairly long and comprehensive list of subjects, truly, from which a patron might pick and choose, or an artist ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... proudly launched a few years before was careening into anarchy. "The facts of our peace and independence," wrote a friend of Washington, "do not at present wear so promising an appearance as I had fondly painted in my mind. The prejudices, jealousies, and turbulence of the people at times almost stagger my confidence in our political establishments; and almost occasion me to think that they will show themselves unworthy of the noble prize ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... from behind, and we saw the two tall pillars that supported it stagger, snap like two sticks, and bend forwards, looking suddenly queer and corpulent in their fore-shortening; then they parted and fell, bringing down the whole front ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... each taken a pint or two of beer at the "Blue Lion" on their way home, uttering many curses on "that there Gobbleall." Captain Carbonel did not hear those same curses, but as he rode home he saw the two men stagger out of the "Blue Lion," refreshed not only by their own pints, but by those of sympathisers. And the sight did not make him sorry for what he had done, knowing well that George Hewlett, Cox the cobbler, and Mrs Holly, the widow with a small shop, were almost borne down with the rates, and ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the railway stations the luggage and freight is carried the same way. The necks and backs of the natives are developed at a very early age. If a porter can get assistance to hoist it to the top of his head he will stagger along under any burden all right. I have seen eight men under a grand piano and two men under a big American roller top desk, and in Calcutta, where one of the street railway companies was extending its tracks, I saw the workmen carry the ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... prospectuses or advertisements come their way, for that matter. Casey Town boomed with some bona-fide strikes that sent Keith's stocks soaring high. The porphyry dyke at the Molly Mine began to yield rich results almost from the first and dividends were paid in such quantities as to stagger the Three Star outfit who saw themselves in a fair way to become rich. All over the barren hills, where the first futile shafts had been driven and abandoned, buildings sprang up like mushrooms, housing machinery, sending up plumes of white smoke that ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Waterloo. Ideals were here at stake—the dreams of one man as opposed perhaps to the ultimate dreams of a city or state or nation—the grovelings and wallowings of a democracy slowly, blindly trying to stagger to its feet. In this conflict—taking place in an inland cottage-dotted state where men were clowns and churls, dancing fiddlers at country fairs—were opposed, as the governor saw it, the ideals of one man and the ideals ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... ruin, would avoid him; and Rivers and Porter, and the other tavern-keepers, would turn him out on the street, as they did many others, in order to demonstrate that the Dunkin Act was a failure. At such times he would stagger home if he was able, which was not always the case; and once or twice he nearly perished from cold and exposure. Eddie frequently had to search through the groggeries to find him and ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... tried to speak coherently, tried to pick up the iron-shod staff he had let fall; failing to touch it, tried to stagger on without its aid. All in vain, all in vain! He stumbled, and fell heavily forward on the brink of ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... places called Phiditia were wont to bring forth two or three Helots drunken and full of wine, that the young men, seeing what drunkenness was, might learn to keep sobriety. But in human life there are many such examples of vice. For there is not any one sober to virtue; but we all stagger up and down, acting shamefully and living miserably. Thus does reason inebriate us, and with so much trouble and madness does it fill us, that we fall in nothing short of those dogs of whom Aesop says, that seeing certain skins swimming in the water, they endeavored to gulp ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... is scarce, very scarce, yet harpies grow rich by lending the inhabitants small sums from a shilling up to a pound at a rate of interest that would stagger and paralyse the commercial world. Doctors must needs to content with a miserable remuneration for their skilled and devoted services, when paid at all! but burial societies accumulate millions from a weekly collection of ill-spared coppers. Strangest of all, undertakers thrive exceedingly, but ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... out onto the brackets, turns a sharp curve, an' she begins to wabble an' stagger like a drunken man, floppin' back an' forth, an' the strings an' things inside ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... to them, does Kant state, by contradistinction, the value and the nature of his own procedure. He first, according to his own representation, thought of applying his investigation to the mind itself. Here was a passage which for years (I may say) continued to stagger and confound me. What! he, Kant, in the latter end of the 18th century, about the year 1787—he the first who had investigated the mind! This was not arrogance so much as it was insanity. Had he ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... torrents about our ears. As the vividness of the lightning, so was the weight of the rain. Ringan cried to us to stand to our places, for now was the likely occasion for attack; but no human being could have fought in such weather. Indeed, we could not hear him, and he had to stagger round and shout his command into each several ear. The might of the deluge almost pressed me to the earth, I carried Elspeth into her bower, but the roof of branches was speedily beaten down, and it was no better than ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... may be acquired either by sexual selection or by other unknown causes. There are, however, difficulties in the very wide application you give to sexual selection which at present stagger me, though no one was or is more ready than myself to admit the perfect truth of the principle or the immense importance and great variety of its applications. Your chapters on Man are of intense interest, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... the point of the jaw that sent him tumbling over on his back. By this time I think Jubal had gone mad with hate, for no sane man would have come back for more as many times as he did. Time after time I bowled him over as fast as he could stagger up, until toward the last he lay longer on the ground between blows, and each time came ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Pet, I would give my right arm to make you happy." He would be out until late every night. I never closed my eyes. His sign in front of the door on the street would creak in the wind, and I would sit by the window waiting to hear his footsteps. I never saw him stagger. He would lock himself up in the "Masonic Lodge" and allow no one to see him. People would call for him in case of sickness, but he ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... could scarcely be blamed for availing themselves of such hospitality, though to drink intoxicants on the march is suicidal. Men "fell out," first by ones and twos, then by whole half-dozens and dozens. The Subaltern himself was scarcely strong enough to stagger up the long hills at the back of the town, let alone worrying about his men. The Colonel was aghast, and very furious. He couldn't understand it. ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... am I to do? I do not believe. It is living truth to you: to me, upon my conscience, only folk-lore. I do not believe there is any form of words under heaven by which I can lift the burthen from my shoulders. I must stagger on to the end with the pack of my responsibility; I cannot shift it; do you suppose I would not if I thought I could? I cannot—cannot—cannot—and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... about her own sex, kept her eye on the two girls with more anxiety than she cared to confess. If any new disaster should happen, the prospect would be desperate, and it was useless to deny that she had taken risks heavy enough to stagger a professional gambler. The breakfast table looked gay and happy enough, and so did the rapids which sparkled ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... Bill,' said Bob. 'Bill, I'm hongry,' and he began to stagger and cry like a baby. I got hold of his rifle and Ed caught ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... railroad tracks again, the good air and my unwonted freedom made me stagger, so that several negroes laughed at me heartily, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... from under his arm where my lance had scraped him. I rode straight at him, meaning to ride him down, but the horse swerved a little and got a long wiping stroke from the Potawatami's knife, from which, in a minute more, he began to stagger. By this time the other men had got their guns and begun shooting. Suh-tai's bow had been shot in two, and Red Morning had a graze that laid his cheek open. So we got on our own ponies ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... hand above her heart. "Such a relief!" she declared intensely—"you'll never know!" Then she jumped up and wheeled about to the door with petticoats professionally a-swirl. "Well, if I'm goin' to do a stagger in society to-night, it's me to go doll myself up to the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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
... confusion—the door-bell is never silent. Crowds of young men, in various stages of intoxication, rush into the lighted parlors, leer at the hostess in the vain effort to offer their respects, call for liquor, drink it, and stagger out, to repeat the scene at some other house. Frequently, they are unable to recognize the residences of their friends, and stagger into the wrong house. Some fall early in the day, and are put to bed by their friends; others sink down helpless at the feet ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... man's mount was seen to stagger slightly. It was sufficient to pitch Ashby, who was not ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... breeze freshening, and the top-gallant-sail was furled. The Josephine then had all she could carry, for Mr. Fluxion was not a fair-weather sailor, and always crowded on all the vessel would stagger under. The wind was more to the eastward than when the schooner left Brest, which still kept it fair. At eight bells in the evening, the first part of the starboard watch took the deck; and the night wore away without any exciting incident ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... hindrance in the way of one whose mind is all at sea because of its existence. What, O man with a soul, is all the world else to thee? Christianity, whatever be its broad way of pretences, is but in reality a narrow path: be satisfied with the day of small things, stagger not at the inconsistencies, conflicting words, and hateful strifes of those who say they are Christians, but "are not, but are of the synagogue of Satan." Judge truth, neither by her foes nor by her friends but by herself. There was one who said (and I never heard that any writer, from Julian ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... had actually happened, a very great shout went up all round below, and made him stagger with excitement. Tu-Kila-Kila was awake, and had started up, all intent, mad with wrath and kava. Glaring about him wildly, and brandishing his great spear in his stalwart hands, he screamed aloud, ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... weight of lead. The atmosphere was warm, but not unbearably so—not hotter than it had been at noon in the ship. Steam crawled up from every pore, like the drainings of smoke from damp straw, but it did not add to the distress of my breathing. I made shift to stagger onward till I had gone about fifty feet from the wash of the sea. Nature then broke down; my knees gave way, I stumbled and fell—whether in a swoon or whether in a death-like slumber, I cannot say; all I can tell is that when I awoke, or recovered my senses, the sun stood fifteen degrees ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... came on with a rush, their leader first. A long arm and a long sword are, however, great advantages in affairs of this kind, and I took him on the riposte. A cry and a gasp, a sword clattered on to the pavement, and the stricken man spun round and, holding his hand to his side, tried to stagger off, but after stumbling a few steps he fell in a ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... fumble with the door on her side, open it, and stagger out of his sight. Then she reappeared round the car. Bareheaded, disheveled, white as chalk, with burning eyes and bleeding lips, she gazed at Kurt as if to make ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... labor or domestic work, without seeming in the least to realize their double task. The elder children carry the younger ones in the same manner, going about their play with a load on their backs that would stagger a Yankee child. This we found to be a universal custom both in town and country, while the great multiplicity of young children was a constant subject of surprise. The married women shave off their eyebrows ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... ready to break and defy the law. And so it is clear enough that they were. In a single year, the year 1285, in the hundred of North Erpingham, containing thirty- two parishes, the catalogue of crime is so ghastly as positively to stagger one. Without taking any account of what in those days must have been looked upon as quite minor offences—such as simple theft, sheep-stealing, fraud, extortion, or harbouring felons—there were ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... Regardless of the Play (a Mark of Wit) Bow to some Lewd Companion in the Pit. Take Snuff, fling round, in the Side-Box be seen, Whisper a Mask, and then Retire again, To some Lov'd Tavern, where's their chief Delight, } There in Debaucheries they spend the Night, } Then Stagger homeward by ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... mind whether he has or not; I won't do it and I told him so. He got red hot in a jiffy. I was ungrateful and stubborn and all sorts of things. And I, bein' a Hammond, with some of the Hammond balkiness in me, I set my foot down as hard as his. And we had it until—until—well, until I saw him stagger and tremble so that I actually got scared and feared he was goin' to keel over ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... ridges and mountains, and the tundra that lay between, in search of the lost copper mines of the Indians; the mines that lured Hearne into the North in 1771, and which Hearne forgot in the discovery of a fur empire so vast as to stagger belief. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... the breathing of Satan, the stagger was gone from his walk; with each instant he grew perceptibly larger as they approached the border of the wood. It fell off to a scattering thicket with the Grizzly Peaks stepping swiftly up to the sky. This was their magic instant in all the day, ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... furrow, we confronted the gentleman, tree and all, standing before us in a weak and fainting condition. He had struggled until he had uprooted the whole business, and was so used up in consequence, that he could hardly stagger, much less go into his usual hysterics over Nell. She looked as amazed as we did, and I've no doubt gave him a sound curtain lecture on his folly ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... could locate under the law, but this claim's located a'ready." He waved a hand toward the monument, a few rods up the canyon. "And Casey Ryan ain't spreadin' no rich gold vein wide open for every prowlin' desert rat to pack off all he kin stagger under. I'm callin' it the Devil's Lantern. You c'n call a mine any name yuh darn want to. And if it wasn't fer the Devil's Lantern, I wouldn't be here. That name won't mean nothin' to 'em. Let 'em come." His eyes turned ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower |
