"Staggering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... place, but the native servant, before he fled screaming from the house, saw his master fling himself upon the living serpent and grasp it with his hands, and when, later on, others burst into the room and caught him staggering in their arms, they found the second python with its ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... Thistle, and as a consequence his studies were neglected. Not that there was much outward difference in him; he still remained fairly sober, although on more than one occasion he was seen leaving the Thorn and Thistle at closing time with staggering footsteps; it never caused him to lose ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... eyes of song sparrows sitting on spotted eggs Peer restlessly through the light and shadow Of all Springs. Lilacs in dooryards Holding quiet conversations with an early moon; Lilacs watching a deserted house Settling sideways into the grass of an old road; Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom Above a cellar dug into a hill. You are everywhere. You were everywhere. You tapped the window when the preacher preached his sermon, And ran along the road beside the boy going to school. You stood by pasture-bars to give the cows good milking, ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... were passing through her mind Glory had been staggering forward as swiftly as the wind and the burden she carried would allow and she reached the shelter none too soon. The very instant she passed within, the rain came down in torrents and the tiny structure swayed dizzily ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... 1814 the kingdom recovered from the depression into which by its loss of territory and its staggering indebtedness it had been plunged, and with the recovery came a revived political spirit as well as a fresh economic stimulus. The sixteen years between the Treaty of Kiel and the revolutionary year 1830 were almost absolutely ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... of the United States will occupy twice the territory they do today. The roster of urban problems with which they must cope is staggering. They involve water supply, cleaning the air, adjusting local tax systems, providing for essential educational, cultural, and social services, and destroying those conditions which ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... said Boca, and she swung the bottle. It shivered against the lamp. With the instant darkness came a streak of red and the close roar of a shot. Pete, with his gun out and going, leapt straight into the foremost deputy. They crashed down. Staggering to his feet, Pete broke for the outer doorway. Behind him the room was a pit of flame and smoke. Boca's pony reared as Pete jerked the reins loose, swept into the saddle, and down the moonlit street. He heard a shot and turned his head. In the patch of moonlight round The Spider's ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... not remember how he descended the stairs and got into the street. He felt neither his hands nor feet. Never in his life had he been so rated by any high official, let alone a strange one. He went staggering on through the snow-storm, which was blowing in the streets, with his mouth wide open; the wind, in St. Petersburg fashion, darted upon him from all quarters, and down every cross-street. In a twinkling it had blown a quinsy into his throat, and he reached home unable ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... returned from the theater Carl sat with him in a room which had calico-like wall-paper, a sunken bed with a comforter out of which oozed a bit of its soiled cotton entrails, a cracked water-pitcher on a staggering wash-stand, and a beautiful new cuspidor of white china hand-painted with pink moss-roses tied ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... of the capes of her cloak over her head and staggering a little, for the schooner, sailing close to the wind, pitched and rolled to some purpose, she made for her usual ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... never goin' to clear up," remarked Hite Holt, the trapper, slipping the well-worn straps from his great shoulders and staggering with ninety pounds of dead weight until he deposited it in the driest corner of the shanty. Then he added with a good-natured smile: "Say, we come quite a ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... road and had time to think, I knew that my half-formed intention was a sort of martyrdom; I was going to renounce myself in a fine welter of tears and then go staggering off into the setting sun to die of my mental wounds. I took careful stock of myself and faced the fact that my half-baked idea was a sort of suicide-wish; walking into any Mekstrom way station now was just asking for capture and a fast trip to their reorientation rooms. The ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... farthest from the open door leading to the kitchen. Cautiously creeping to where lay his trousers—inserting a hand in the deep pocket, which had been put in by Lin by special request—he drew out two long, dark, worm-like objects, holding them at arm's length gagging anew at even the sight of them. Staggering to the cupboard dropping them into a box half filled with similar worm-like objects, he staggered back to bed as quickly as his weakened condition would permit, suppressing another upheaval of his stomach ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... of a second he got the first, and reeled back staggering. The onlookers from the bar came out hastily. Mr. Ricketts, somewhat ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... proceed to Harrison's Bar, and, as I passed thither, the last day's encounters—those of "Malvern Hills"—occurred. The scenes along the way were reiterations of terrors already described,—creaking ambulances, staggering foot soldiers, profane wagoners, skulking officers and privates, officious Provost guards, defiles, pools and steeps packed with teams and cannon, wayside houses beset with begging, gossiping, or malicious soldiers, and wavy fields of wheat and rye thrown open to man and beast. I was ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... and finish the fight, but he recollected that Rosa would be waiting for him and that he must go to her, and so he set out across the fields, staggering through the charred cane stubble. The night was not so black as it had been, and this puzzled him until he saw that the plantation house was ablaze. Flames were belching from its windows, casting abroad a lurid radiance; and ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... men, but animals fell sick and shortly expired, if they had touched things belonging to the diseased or dead. Thus Boccacio himself saw two hogs on the rags of a person who had died of plague, after staggering about for a short time, fall down dead as if they had taken poison. In other places multitudes of dogs, cats, fowls, and other animals, fell victims to the contagion; and it is to be presumed that other epizootes among animals likewise took place, although the ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... issuing from a box of ammunition. In an instant the cry of fire went up, and soldiers and negro roustabouts piled over each other in their scramble for safety. McGee, however, rushed toward the box, picked it up, and was staggering in the direction of the river, some distance away, when Lieutenant Parker, who had heard the warning cry, came to his assistance. Together they carried the smoking box until it was possible to ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... handful of sand fell at my feet, Then I looked up and saw a head peering down into the amphitheatre—the head of Dunnoo, my dog-boy, who attended to my collies. As soon as he had attracted my attention, he held up his hand and showed a rope. I motioned, staggering to and fro the while, that he should throw it down. It was a couple of leather punkah-ropes knotted together, with a loop at one end. I slipped the loop over my head and under my arms; heard Dunnoo urge something forward; ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... the shock that vibrated through Warren. He repeated the words again and again. As if compelled by some resistless power, Warren released Cameron, and, staggering back, stood with uplifted, shaking hands. In his face was ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... in the doorway, a staggering, white-lipped Nikky. He was not too weak to pick the child up, however, and carry him to the head of the stairs. They had moved the body of the concierge, by his order. So he stood there, the boy in his arms, and the students, only an hour before in ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... little sword that hung at his side and shouting "An Arden! an Arden!" he rushed towards the swaying, staggering melee. He reached it just as the leader of the attacking party had hewn his way through the Arden men and taken his first step on the flagged path of the courtyard. The first step was his last. He stopped, a big, burly fellow in a leathern ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... place in maternal love always been hers? As the great gray eyes darkening behind their tears, like deep lakes under coming rain, read and re-read the blurred lines, the frozen mouth trembled, and Beryl kissed the hair, folded it away in the letter, and pinned both close to her heart. Staggering to her feet, she held up the ring, and said in a broken, half ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Well, we surely do so out of obedience to the divine command to comfort God's people; for, next to their having no such extremes in themselves, their next best comfort is to be told that great and eminent saints of God have had the very same besetting sins and staggering extremes as they still have. If the like of Samuel Rutherford was vexed and weakened with such intellectual contradictions and spiritual extremes in his mind, in his heart and in his history, then may we not hope that some ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... chasm between two smooth but almost perpendicular walls, and she had her stern to windward just as the next huge breaker came, lifting the whole vessel aft, shoving her nose under forward, and tossing her to leeward as with a mighty punch in the back. Trembling, staggering, she broke free. The crew, catching their breath from the terror of the moment, looked out after the great green mountain as it passed on. They saw it curve in a somber arch of emerald over the other craft, dismantled, that was drifting helpless before the storm. The ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the church on the hill not far away. He chuckled to himself. The carpet in the chancel and the hassocks at the altar would make a good bed. No fear of Charley's ghost coming inside the church—it wouldn't be that kind of a ghost. As he travelled the intervening space, shrugging his shoulders, staggering serenely, he told himself in confidence that he would leave the church at dawn, go to the tavern, purchase a horse as soon as might be, and get back to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of a lad, a corporal's son, who was stationed to receive and communicate an order, a random shot struck the boy down at her side. She saw that he was dead,—waited for the order, transmitted it, and then carried away the lifeless body of her fellow-sentinel, staggering under the weighty burden, never resting till she had laid him in the shelter of his father's quarters. After the engagement, this story was told through the victorious ranks by the witnesses of her valor, and a medal was awarded the child by acclamation. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... parties, ranging from Lenox to Long Island, including tiresome week ends and duty visits to some very unpretentious but highly intellectual relatives of Mrs. Severn. So Scott remained in solitary possession of Roya-Neh, with its forests, gardens, pastures, lakes and streams, and a staggering payroll and all the multiplicity of problems that such responsibility entails. Which pleased him immensely, except for the departure ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... little too fond of the creature,—who isn't at times? But Tommy had not brains to work off an overnight's surfeit by ten o'clock next morning, and unfortunately, in he wandered the other morning drunk with last night and with a superfoetation of drink taken in since he set out from bed. He came staggering under his double burden, like trees in Java, bearing at once blossom, fruit, and falling fruit, as I have heard you or some other traveller tell, with his face literally as blue as the bluest firmament. Some wretched calico that he had mopped his poor oozy front with, had rendered up its native ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... an old man got staggering to his feet, unwound his blanket, and laid it, with great gentleness, on a young girl who sat hard by propped against a rock. The girl did not seem to be conscious of the act; and the old man, after having looked upon her with the most engaging ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... the least of two evils, and staggering to his feet with an oath, rushed upon John. But in his present condition he was no match for the active little gardener, inspired with just wrath, and thoughts of Bessy; and he then and there received such a sound thrashing as he had not known since he first arrogated the character ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... came into the cave, staggering like a drunken man from loss of blood, and at his heels limped the jackal ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... the tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed sea-water into it.* More turns were taken, so that the line began holding its place. The boat now flew through the boiling water like a shark all fins. Stubb and Tashtego here changed places—stem for stern—a staggering business ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... lost for ever and ever. Before you stands a man who at thirty-five is disillusioned, wearied by fruitless efforts, burning with shame, and mocking at his own weakness. Oh, how my pride rebels against it all! What mad fury chokes me! [He staggers] I am staggering—my strength is failing me. Where is Matthew? Let him ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... them sad, pale, despairing, without arms, staggering, scarce able to sustain themselves, their heads hanging to the right or left, their extremities contracted, setting their feet on the coals, lying down on hot cinders, or falling into the fire, which they sought mechanically, ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... Agni, thinkest in thine heart, to the same object my wishes have gone. Strengthen thou these Maruts, terrible to behold, who have come nearest to thy invocations. Like a bountiful lady, the earth comes towards us, staggering, yet rejoicing; for your onslaught, O Maruts, is vigorous, like a bear, and fearful, like a wild bull. They who by their strength disperse wildly like bulls, impatient of the yoke, they by their marches ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... all their hopes. And their rapture yet increased when, all at once, they noticed that little Gervais also was awaking to life, acquiring decisive strength. As he struggled in his little carriage and his mother removed him from it, behold! he took his flight, and, staggering, made four steps; then hung to his father's legs with his little fists. A cry of ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... was a roar from the crowd. Shan Rhue had struck Ben Tremont a staggering blow. They heard Ben let out a roar like a wounded bull, as he threw the great bulk of his body upon the man who ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... hard which brought him to the realization that he must lessen the force of his advance or perhaps have his life dashed out upon a rocky shore; and presently he was staggering forward, brushing his hair away from his eyes, wondering where he was, and scarcely sensible of anything—his head throbbing, his whole body on the ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... middle of the ploughed-up plain she saw people in black walking slowly and crookedly behind a coffin that went staggering on black legs under a black pall. She tried not ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... he mean? How did he look at her? She could not imagine what he was driving at! Yes, she could! She knew quite well. All the time, while pretending to herself not to understand, she understood. It was staggering, but she perfectly understood. He had looked at her 'like that' on the very first day of their acquaintance, in his office at Turnhill, and again at the house in Lessways Street, and again in the newspaper office, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... and went straight for him. A little man rose in his way. It was Mintz, who had given him the heartening word after the committee meeting. In his blind fury Hal struck him a staggering blow. But the little Jew was plucky. He closed with the younger man, and clinging to him panted out ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... her face, she had kissed him good-night, closed the door, and staggering along the corridor steadying herself as she walked, her hand on the walls, had thrown herself upon her bed in an agony ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... but his men pushed on with the cold steel. The French reeled back in confusion. Pack's infantry had checked the other two columns and down came a whirlwind of British horse on the whole mass, sending them staggering from the crest of the hill, and cutting them down by whole battalions. Ponsonby's brigade of heavy cavalry (the Union Brigade as it was called, from its being made up of the British Royals, the Scots Greys, and the Irish ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... sang-froid was extraordinary. It was while making the observation to herself that her question came out, before she had decided whether or not to utter it. She had no remorse for that, however, since she knew she couldn't have kept herself from asking it in the end. As well expect the man staggering to the outer edge of a precipice not to ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... yet in flames, but already a sheet of fire swept madly across the open space. They could only look at each other, dumb with their own helplessness, and wait. How long this horror of expectation lasted no one knew, but at last, as if from the very mouth of hell, Tom Davis came, staggering and swaying,—his singed coat still rolled about his head, and ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... an hour later, George had left the house, having accepted Mr. Haim's terms without the least argument. In five days he was to be an inmate of No. 8 Alexandra Grove. The episode presented itself to him as a vast, romantic adventure, staggering and enchanting. His luck continued, for the rain-cloud was spent. He got into an Earl's Court bus. The dimly perceived travellers in it seemed all of them in a new sense to be romantic and mysterious.... ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... marvellous sensation, terrible but exquisite. And he had the sensation of other human beings beyond the sea, giving deliberate orders in German for murder, murdering for their lives; and they, too, were like himself, and ate and drank and either laced their boots or had them laced daily. And the staggering apprehension of the miraculous lunacy of ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... wet seaweed and rugged in form are not easy to walk over; a fact which was soon proved by Swankie staggering violently once or twice, and by Spink falling flat on his back. Neither paid attention to his comrade's misfortunes in this way. Each scrambled about actively, searching with care among the crevices of the rocks, and from time to time picking up articles which they thrust into their pockets or ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... was rung, an order given, and presently appeared an eight-year old boy, so excessively Scotch in his costume that he looked like an animated checkerboard; and a little girl, who presented the appearance of a miniature opera-dancer staggering under the ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... staggering to me," said Montague, after a little thought. "I didn't say anything about it, but you know Governor Hannis is an old friend of my father's, and one of the finest ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... Staggering from these blows, she had to undergo an even shrewder stroke yet. Already. in the intelligence department, she had been sadly behind-hand in news, her tableaux-party had been anything but a success, this one little remark of Olga's had shaken her musically, ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... assembly, that he could recognise, in the presiding figure, the attributes of the Harz demon. A cold shuddering assailed him for the first time in his life; but the recollection that he had at a distance dared and even courted the intercourse which was now about to take place, confirmed his staggering courage; and pride supplying what he wanted in resolution, he advanced with tolerable firmness towards the fire, the figures which surrounded it appearing still more wild, fantastical, and supernatural, the more near he approached to the assembly. He ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... herself from the rather warm support of the devoted admirer whom she had tried to play against Ackland, and tried to walk, but after a few uncertain steps fell senseless on the sand, thus for the moment drawing to herself the attention of the increasing throng. Ackland, glad to escape notice, was staggering off to his bath-house when several ladies, more mindful of his part in the affair than the men had been, overtook him with a ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... she was taken with a sudden fit of coughing that she could not stifle with the handkerchief she put to her feverish lips. And then she suddenly grew very faint. The window seemed to recede before her, the floor to sink beneath her feet; and, staggering to the bed, she fell prone upon it with the sandal and handkerchief pressed to her breast. Her face was quite pale, the orbit of her eyes dark; and there was a spot upon her lip, another on her handkerchief, and still another on the white ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... hear, and nearly frightened the Dean and the porter out of their wits by staggering ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... I. 'Fat's the cure,' says the captain, and makes me eat it. 'Lean's the cure,' says the captain, and makes me eat it. 'Steady?' says the captain. 'Sick,' says I. 'Go on deck,' says the captain; 'get rid of the boiled leg of mutton and trimmings and come back to the cabin.' Off I go, staggering—back I come, more dead than alive. 'Deviled kidneys,' says the captain. I shut my eyes, and got 'em down. 'Cure's beginning,' says the captain. 'Mutton-chop and pickles.' I shut my eyes, and got them ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... visit to an end, but she knew that as long as there was whiskey in the decanter he wouldn't dream of going. So she left Radway in the middle of her sentence, walked straight up to Lady Halberton and said, "Good-night," with a staggering abruptness, and before he knew what had happened Lord Halberton was handing ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... response, and just then Delia came staggering in under the weight of a huge brass tray which ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... deeply impressed by this powerful effect of the horror which violently agitated the old woman. Their painful suspense was soon ended by the sight of Philippe's convulsed and purple face, his staggering walk, and the horrible state of his eyes, which were deeply sunken, dull, and yet haggard; he had a strong chill upon ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... scream, he began to run towards the wall, the page staggering after him. Behind them now came the clank and thud of a score of overtaking feet. Soon they were surrounded. The King turned this way and that, desperately seeking a way out of the murderous human ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the real one: an Olive whose cheek never grew pale with toil, whose brow was never crossed by that cloud of heart-weariness which all who labour in an intellectual pursuit must know at times. If so, the mother was saved from many of the pangs which visit those who see their beloved ones staggering under a burden which they themselves have no power either to bear or to ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... lovely old turrets, down from convent walls a group of nuns fluttered tremulously; they were putting the last touches to the reposoir of their own Sacre Coeur. Some were carrying huge gilt crosses, staggering as they walked; others were on tiptoe filling the tall vases; others were on their knees, patting into perfect smoothness the turf laid about the altar steps. There was an old cure among them and a young carpenter whom the cure was directing. Everyone of the nuns had her black ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... call of fire had been given, the workers saw some one staggering through the lower hall. In her arms she carried a bundle wrapped tightly in a bed-quilt. And dangling from her hands was a long string of beads. Her face was burned. There was no hair on her head. She was writhing in agony, but she reached the door, handed the burden to a worker, ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston
... rolling surly yet intimidated eyes over his shoulder, after a staggering recovery from a fall, muttered something in an unintelligible patois, the grovelling, slurring ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... With this he knelt down and began on the boot which belonged to the leg projecting beneath the horse. "Darn it! They're just my size." As he tugged at it, Hoodoo dying and convulsed struck out with his fore legs and caught the unlucky soldier full in the belly. The man gave a wild cry and staggering back fell. ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... woods. As they "came to the town" a negro saw them, and ran to set the bells ringing, to call out the troops. The buccaneers followed him so closely that the town was theirs before the troops could muster. They stayed there forty-eight hours gathering plunder, and then marched back to their ships staggering under a great weight of gold. They shared thirty or forty pounds a man from this raid. Afterwards they harried the coast, east and west, and made many rich captures. Sawkins, it seems, was particularly lucky, for he made a haul of 1000 chests of indigo. Warrants were ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... was well advanced when he moved again. He rose to his feet without any warning, and the change in him was staggering. Now a gaunt, grey-faced man looked out upon the world through eyes which burned with the light of fever. His movements were slow, deliberate. Only his eyes betrayed his condition, telling a tale of a strange new life ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... to the darling project of the captain, but the ways and means. The expedition would require an outfit of many thousand dollars; a staggering obstacle to a soldier, whose capital is seldom any thing more than his sword. Full of that buoyant hope, however, which belongs to the sanguine temperament, he repaired to New-York, the great focus of American enterprise, where there are always funds ready for any scheme, however chimerical ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... this undertaking of mine, I found my faith staggering, weakened with a fear lest I were under a mistake, which slavish fear was increased by an ecclesiastic at our house, who told me it was a rash and ill-advised design. Being a little discouraged, ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... from a four-wheeled cab in Fetter Lane, marched up the court, followed by a weak-kneed wastrel staggering under the weight of a small box. In the doorway of the little shop, young Grindley paused and raised ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... no memory of giving any thought to the matter. My reaction must have been both immediate and automatic. I don't think I even intended to bunt my husband in the short-ribs the way I did, for the impact of my body half twisted him about and sent him staggering back several steps. All I know is that holster and belt came tumbling down as I sprang and caught at the Colt handle. And I was back at the door before I had even shaken the revolver free. I was back just in time to hear my husband say, rather foolishly, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... of wind that knocked the Japanese screen over against the wall, and sent Archie staggering so that he nearly fell over one of the wounded men. Then almost instantaneously came a terrific roar as if a sudden burst of a tropical storm had followed the flash of light which blazed through the lightly built place, the walls of which had rocked, and seemed ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... bystander took her part, and exposed himself to rough usage for doing so. Luckily one of the mob themselves at length suggested the additional experiment of weighing the witch against the church Bible. The friend of humanity caught at this means of escape, supporting the proposal by the staggering argument that the Scripture, being the work of God himself, must outweigh necessarily all the operations or vassals of the devil. The reasoning was received as conclusive, the more readily as it promised a new species of amusement. ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... ought to do and received counter inquiries by way of reply. Sergeants stormed blasphemously at men who had disappeared in search of tea. Staff officers, red tabbed and glorious, tried to preserve an appearance of dignity while their own servants staggering under the weight of kit bags, bumped into them. Hilarious men, going home on leave, shouted sudden snatches of song. A decrepit Frenchman, patient in the performance of duty, blew feeble blasts on a small horn. Thompson, alert and competent, found a compartment. He put me in and then he ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... programmed a crime, the black audacity of which went far beyond that dark-lantern enterprise of Treasury gold upon which London Bill was so patiently employed. The design possessed the simplicity, too, which is a ruling feature of your staggering atrocity. The gold would be going aboard the Zulu Queen on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. With the first blue streaks of dawn on Monday, May thirtieth, say at four o'clock, the Zulu Queen, thinking on escape, must up anchor and go steaming down the Potomac. Now what should ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... by the battle of Gettysburg (July first, second and third), in which the disasters of Chancelorsville and Fredericksburg were fully retrieved, and the rebel army, under Lee, received a blow so staggering in its effects as to result in a loss of prestige, and all hope in the ultimate success of their cause. Prior to this battle the Confederates had warred upon the North aggressively; thenceforward they were compelled to act upon the defensive. During the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... intense perplexity of her face was staggering his impression that this adventurous daughter of his disinherited son was trying by a coup de main to cancel the edict of banishment, and to obtain favour and fortune at ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... at last, torn, bleeding, but undismayed, he struggled free from the undergrowth, and sprang away from that place of horrors, staggering slightly but running strongly still, till the dark line of jungle fell away behind him and he reached the river ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... cheer which was echoed loudly by men and boy, and so cheering they tramped out of the hall in the trail of Mother Satchell, Garlinge staggering under the load of pikes which the lad had officiously foisted on to his shoulder, Clupp laughing vacantly after his manner, and steadfast old Shard waving his red cap and ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... I can." He felt larger and more protective than ever. "Put your arms round my neck," he ordered. She did so and, stooping, he picked her up under the knees and lifted her from the ground. Good heavens, what a weight! He took five staggering steps up the slope, then almost lost his equilibrium, and had to deposit his burden suddenly, with ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... I was for to have my beer a-board before I go, I shou'dn't get top-heavy, as the saying is; for I can carry as much weight in my head as e'er a he that wears a head, without staggering. ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... Bozzy in a devotional attitude; he was all Carlyle calls him. Our sympathies are with his father, who despised him, and with his son, who was ashamed of him. It is indeed strange to think of him staggering, like the drunkard he was, between these two respectable and even stately figures—the Senator of the Court of Justice and the courtly scholar and antiquary. And yet it is to the drunkard humanity is ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... as Abraham; yet your words suggest that you think you are." Then came from Jesus' lips the words, spoken in all probability very quietly, "Your father Abraham exulted that he might see my day, and he saw it, and was glad." It is a tremendous statement, staggering to one who has not yet ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... they saw Nicholas rush staggering down the street, screaming with terror as he went. Then, as all the bravoes had gone, they continued their march, filled with reflections, till they came to the little landing-stage where they had left the boat. It was still there though the boatman ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... a little staggering to the modern civilised conscience; and this particular war possessed the additional unpleasantness of having in it, at first sight, an element of the grotesque. It is not too much to say that it struck the majority of the British public as being of the nature of a very bad joke. For it was as ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... reasons for entering into this war was the desire to capture the little Dutch island of St. Eustatius in the West Indies. An immense trade was carried on there between Holland and the United States, and it was believed that the stoppage of this trade would be a staggering blow to the Americans. It was captured in February, 1781, by Admiral Rodney, private property was seized to the amount of more than twenty million dollars, and the inhabitants were treated ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... the Paramatta had experienced so far, speedily left her. The sky grew overcast, and the wind freshened fast, and the next morning the ship was staggering, under close-reefed canvas, in the teeth of ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... as though the end were come, the mare gave a shrill scream of terror and swerved violently in her stride, with a suddenness that sent her staggering to her knees. She slithered along the turf, then, scrambling to her feet, stood stock still, her head thrust forward, ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... Therefore, seeing Barrymaine's intention, reading his deadly purpose in vicious mouth and dilated nostril, Barnabas loosed one hand, drew back his arm, and smote—swift and hard. Barrymaine uttered a cry that seemed to Barnabas to find an echo far off, flung out his arms and, staggering, fell. ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... after nearly two weeks of steady fighting, with only such rest for the exhausted troops as was absolutely necessary, came the final stage. Ned, Bob, and Jerry, staggering from weariness, took their places ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... the time. There was a faint but audible rustling in the shrubs overgrowing the wall on my left. I made a quick dash forward, tripped against some invisible obstacle stretched across the lane, and went staggering sideways, struggling to preserve my balance. Almost at the same moment two dark forms dropped from the shelter of the shrubs on to the lane by my side. I felt the soft splash of a wet cloth upon my cheeks, an arm round my neck, and the sickening ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his brakes with a wrench that almost tore the insides out of his engine the Senior Surgeon brought the great car to a staggering standstill. ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Repeatedly, ships were attacked on the fringe of the asteroid belt and stripped of armor, food supplies, and valuables. With the secret of the light-key, the vaults of the ships were opened as easily as though there had been no lock at all. The totals had reached staggering amounts and the daring of the Avenger was more pronounced, as Coxine struck repeatedly, farther and farther away from the protection of the asteroid belt. It seemed as though he were taunting the Solar ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... hundred yards of dirt went spraying into the air, with the subsequent struggle in the long hole: fresnos bearing forth what earth was loose and what the plows broke out; the horses, blinded by the glare of snow, staggering forward under curse and lash; the men toiling in a sort of grim fury. A maximum of effort finished one hundred and fifty yards more by eleven o'clock. Carrigan ordered all work to stop until ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... proud Paynim forward came so fierce, And full of wrath, that with his sharp-head speare, Through vainly crossed shield[*] he quite did pierce, And had his staggering steede not shrunke for feare, 310 Through shield and bodie eke he should him beare: Yet so great was the puissance of his push, That from his saddle quite he did him beare: He tombling rudely downe to ground did rush, And from his gored wound a well ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... vast sum from the willing but wincing father, had settled into a remunerative profession. Tom was now keeping himself and repaying the weakened parent. The rest cost more and more every year as their minds and bodies budded and flowered. It was endless, it was staggering, it would not bear thinking about. The long and varied chronicle of it was somehow written on the drawing-room as well as on the faces of the father and mother—on the drawing-room which had the same dignified, childlike, indefatigable, invincible, jolly ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... substances patented by German manufacturing chemists for the purpose of producing synthetic tanning materials is almost staggering. In view of this fact it is doubly pleasing to see that British chemists have found new ways, and are able to produce equally good and more varied synthetic tannins than has hitherto been deemed possible. The originator of these products and his acolytes must at least share ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... did not feel just then well able to enter into a controversy with any one. Indeed, he was growing weaker and weaker, and it seemed more than probable that he would be unable to get back to the camp unless he was carried. Little Lionel had picked up his gun, and was staggering ahead with it over his shoulders. He kept his eyes looking about him as if on the watch for something or other. Presently he cried out in Zulu, "Be on your guard, white chief. See, see! there they come!" ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... Rockley, and a moment later Pender and Jackson did the same. Then Flapp came staggering down the stairs, holding his nose, from which ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... setting them down again, with perhaps a lift of the brows or a suggestive shake of the head; and maddened by my own intolerable position, drawn by a power I felt it impossible to resist, I crept to my feet and took my staggering way down the half-dozen steps of the gallery and thence along by the left-hand wall towards the further doorway, and through it to where these men stood weighing the chances in which my life and honour ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... Staggering like a drunken man, he followed her to the door, and stood looking out after her as she went. Then the night mist seemed to rise all about him, swallowing up everything in ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... they were scaling the wall—floundering, apparently; and no wonder, with such a weight to hoist after them! More thuds; and then the steps of men staggering slowly, painfully away. The steps echoed louder from under the archway, and then died away ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... furs, and the moths never touched a thing. But she said the moths had a high old time all summer. They would get together in squads and go to the barrel and smell at the bung-hole, and lock arms and sashay around the room, staggering just as though there was an election, and about eleven o'clock they would walk up to a red spot in the carpet and take a lunch, just like men ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... protested the scientist. "A person of mediocre attainments who gets the Ph.D. bee in her bonnet has no sense of any sort. I see them daily, men and women,—but women particularly,—stalking about the grounds and in and out of classes, like grotesque ghosts. They're staggering under a mental load too heavy for them, and actually it might be a physical load from its effects. They get lop-sided, I swear they do, and they acquire all sorts of miserable little personal habits that make them both pitiable and ridiculous. For ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... traversed tracts of naked moorland, now plunged again into forest, with no sign of habitation but here and there a cowherd's hut under the trees or a chapel standing apart on some grassy eminence. When night fell the waters grew louder, a stinging wind swept the woods, and the carriage, staggering from rut to rut, seemed every moment about to land them in some invisible ravine. Fear and cold at last benumbed the little boy, and when he woke he was being lifted from his seat and torches were flashing on a high escutcheoned ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... little dross, I guess," observed Captain Layton, who met Ben Tarbox staggering along under as heavy a load as he had ever attempted to carry in his life. "Let us see, let us see thy precious gold-dust," he exclaimed. Ben, letting the sack drop on the ground, produced a handful. The evening sun was shining brightly, ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... Lord Delacour, staggering into the room: he was much intoxicated, and in this condition had just come home, as they were carrying Lady Delacour up stairs: he could not be made to understand the truth, but as soon as he heard Clarence Hervey's voice, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... across the deck with a staggering, uncertain motion, as if the ship were rolling and pitching about. His realistic acting made them all laugh, and when he dropped into a deck chair and, calling the steward, asked faintly for a cup of weak ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... farther end of the street a drunken man who was staggering along, with his head forward his arms and legs limp. He would walk forward rapidly three, six, or ten steps and then stop. When these energetic movements landed him in the middle of the road he stopped ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... man had no idea of standing up to it. Howling with pain, he scrambled toward the door, and fled staggering down the hall. ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... got Polly?" cried Jack, as he dimly saw a figure staggering through the turmoil of wind and ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... away and couldn't get away. From the center of the ring to the ropes he was battered, staggering. He went down, and struggled up. And went ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... before he succeeded in attracting his attention, and then the painter only responded to the wonted signal by an impatient, deprecating flourish of the hand which held the palette. The tea was already simmering on the rickety table in the bow-window, when Oswyn, staggering under his impedimenta, climbed the staircase, and shouldered his way familiarly into ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... at a heaven-sent moment for the tool-manufacturers. They were staggering under the depression of 1907, and many were tottering toward failure. Here came, almost out of the blue sky, a condition that at once taxed their brains, their resource, and their energy, and at the same ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... we have not presented Art to our readers in any other light than that of an ordinary drunkard, seen tipsy and staggering in the streets, or singing as he frequently was, or fighting, or playing cards in the public-houses. Heretofore he was not before the world, and in everybody's eye; but he had now become so common a sight in the town of Ballykeerin, that his ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... pace along a trail that frontiersmen far less skillful than they could have followed. But a silent dread was in the heart of every one of them. As they saw the path of the small feet staggering more and more they feared to behold some ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler |
