"Stagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the work of a second to stagger through the opening made by the explosion and gain the fresh air, which they inhaled in great mouthfuls. Then began the dash for ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... and vulgar and all-surfeiting it is, loading the air around it with its sickening imitation of sweetness, so that even the bees stagger as they pass through it and disdain to stop and shovel, for the mere asking, its musky and ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... made of tough fiber and the extreme shock that would leave some men stunned and prostrate only made him stagger a little. His revolver was spitting an intermittent stream of fire and it continued this after a second slug through his lungs had forced him to his knees. He sank down fighting and got his third fatal wound ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... dawned bleakly, literally blown piecemeal from out darkness as bleak, the Happy Family rose shiveringly and with sombre disapproval of whatever met their blood-shot eyes; dressed hurriedly in the chill of flapping tent and went out to stagger drunkenly over to where Patsy, in the mess-tent, was trying vainly to keep the biscuits from becoming dust-sprinkled, and sundry pans and tins from taking jingling little excursions on their own account. Over the brow of the next ridge straggled the cavvy, tails and manes whipping in the gale, ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... 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 our station, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... tongues of flame forth from the ruins burst. No water! God! what shall we do to slake their quenchless thirst? The shocks have broken all the mains! "Use wine!" the people cry. The red flames laugh like drunken fiends; they stagger as to die, Then up again in fury spring, on high their crimson draperies fling; From block to block they leap and swing, and smoke clouds ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... frying pan in his hands and looked through the window after the departing marshal, and saw him stagger, stumble forward, then jerk out his guns and begin firing. Hard firing now burst out in front and Jackson, cursing angrily, dropped the pan and reached for his rifle—to drop it also and sink down, struck by the bullet which drilled through the window. Johnny let out a yell of rage, grabbed his ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... Hardships! Do you know what it is to lead the Grand March, surrounded by 800 Assegai-Throwers, Harpooners and Cannibal Queens, who are pointing you out as the Wife of the Malefactor who is about to the Tried in the Federal Courts! Did you ever Stagger around all Evening with $100,000 worth of Tiffany Merchandise fastened on to you—expecting every Minute to be hit in the Coiffure by some Raffles? Did you ever, during a Formal Dinner, hear the Door Bell tinkle and ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... it. Mr. Parker had just received a letter by special delivery, and seemed considerably puzzled over it. No, I don't know what it was about. Of a sudden I saw him start in his chair, rise up unsteadily, clap his hand on the back of his head, stagger across ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... back Plato-ward—to the Moslems: through Avicenna, who Aristotelianized, to Averroes, who Platonized it again; and from him to Europe; where Bacon presently gave it another twist to out-Aristotle Aristotle (as someone said) to stagger the Stagirite—and passed it on as the scientific method of today. According to Coleridge, every man is by nature either a Platonist or an Aristotelian; and there is ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... day, when the howling of the blizzard died down a bit, Tom made West go down with him to the creek and get wood. It must have been a terrible hour. They'd come back so done up, so frozen, they could hardly stagger in with their jags of pine for the fire. I never heard the man complain—not once. He stood up to it the way Tom Sayers ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... superhuman strength. His face took on the awful look of desperation, that comes to men when death seems near at hand. His lithe body struggled to be free of my grasp. He tried to trip me and just then the engine rounded a sharp curve causing him to stagger. The side door of the coach was open. For a moment he vainly tried to catch hold of something, and then, with a shriek upon his lips, fell from ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... Parliament-man, in a serious discourse before such persons as we and my Lord Bruncker, and Sir John Minnes, should quote Hudibras, as being the book I doubt he hath read most. They I doubt will stand hard for high security, and Cocke would have had me bound with him for his appearing, but I did stagger at it, besides Seymour do stop the doing it at all till he has been with the Duke of Albemarle. So there will be another demurre. It growing late, and I having something to do at home, took my leave alone, leaving Cocke ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... for some place where Colonel Stockell can't find him, but they are none of them mad at me about it. Of course, a load of sympathy can be as heavy to bear as one of disgrace; and when you have both the two to stagger under, you may wobble some in your conduct, as I have done these last two days. First, though my reason is convinced about Father, there is something in me that just won't believe it, and that keeps making me hope, ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... 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 toward the hidden richness and dwelt there, studying the tracks, ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... is a brute who will drink as long as he can stand, and some time after it. Brooks is rather shy of it, but he will drink enough to stagger him, for he is pretty weak-headed. We have only to manage these fellows, and there's the end of it. They keep ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... him with a sufficiency of men. The fighting in the main town was now practically at an end; and as Dick ran hither and thither, seeking the commander, the streets were thick with wandering soldiers, some laden with more booty than they could well stagger under, others shouting drunk. None of them, when questioned, had the least notion of the duke's whereabouts; and, at last, it was by sheer good fortune that Dick found him, where he sat in the saddle, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which had continued uninterruptedly for several days, had hammered itself so indelibly upon my nerves, that it continued to re-echo for a long time in my brain; just as the motion of the ship which took me to London had made me stagger for some time afterwards. Accompanied by this terrible music, I threw my parting greeting to the towers of the city that lay behind me, and said to myself with a smile, that if, seven years ago, my ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... adorn your person; maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits; for if you once lapse into poetry and philosophy you will want an eye to show you, a hand to guide you, a bosom to love—and will stagger into your grave old before your time, unloved and unlovely.' 'A spider,' he adds, 'the meanest creature that crawls or lives, has its mate or fellow, but a scholar has no mate or fellow.' Mrs. Hazlitt, Miss Sarah Walker, and several other ladies, thought Hazlitt surly and cared nothing for his treatise ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... be kept concentrated to fight the enemy's cavalry. Heretofore, the commander of the Cavalry Corps had been, virtually, but an adjunct at army headquarters—a sort of chief of cavalry—and my proposition seemed to stagger General Meade not a little. I knew that it would be difficult to overcome the recognized custom of using the cavalry for the protection of trains and the establishment of cordons around the infantry corps, ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... blow he intended to deliver fell short, and before he could recover the young captain came at him with a crack in the ear, followed by another on the cheek, and these caused Brassy to stagger into a corner where he held fast to ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... last: For thou hadst lived till every thing that cheers In thee had yielded to the weight of years; Extreme old age had wasted thee away, 15 And left thee but a glimmering of the day; Thy ears were deaf, and feeble were thy knees,— I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze, Too weak to stand against its sportive breath, And ready for the gentlest stroke of death. 20 It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed; Both man and woman wept when thou wert dead; Not only for a thousand ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... of the boys coming along the road was Stanley. He was not so easy to recognize, for his face was bruised and swollen, and a thin streak of scarlet came from a cut near the right eye. He seemed to stagger along the road rather than walk, and, what was most strange, Newall had one arm through his, ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... And whether the European society as a whole is to drift towards the Turkish ideal or towards the English ideal will depend upon whether it is animated mainly by the Pacifist or mainly by the Bellicist doctrine; if the former, it will stagger blindly like the Turk along the path to barbarism; if the latter, it will take a ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... a good lad. This news of yours will stagger him, for he is betrothed to Mistress Fitzwalter, daughter of him who hath ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... At last, when the fiddler was nearly dead, the little wretch left off, and shoved the poor fellow out of the iron gate which he had entered in such good spirits a few hours before. The fresh air revived him a little, and in a short time he was able to stagger with aching limbs back to the inn where his companions were staying. It was night when he reached the place, and the other two musicians were fast asleep. The next morning they were much astonished at finding the fiddler in bed beside them, and overwhelmed him ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... Appearances thereof; and so was arrived here. Properly it is the secret of all unhappy men and unhappy nations. Had they known Nature's right truth, Nature's right truth would have made them free. They have become enchanted; stagger spell-bound, reeling on the brink of huge peril, because they were not wise enough. They have forgotten the right Inner True, and taken up with the Outer Sham-true. They answer the Sphinx's question wrong. Foolish men cannot answer ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... that moment Maren Le Moyne, straining every muscle of her young body to save the man she loved, looked swiftly back, having left the defile to stagger, stumbling, southward to where Mowbray's men waited ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... left 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 ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... defense of these eleven Southern States with their five million white population and four million blacks was a task to stagger the imagination of the greatest statesman of any age. This vast territory would present an open front on land of more than a thousand miles without a single natural barrier. Its sea coast presented three thousand ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... after Etta's train rolled out of the Union Station. The difference between strong natures and weak is not that the strong are free from cowardice and faint-heartedness, from doubt and foreboding, from love and affection, but that they do not stay down when they are crushed down, stagger up and on. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... held on till life was gone. Nothing should have shaken him off. In fancy he could see himself swaying, writhing, reeling, battered about by those heavy fists, but always with his hands on the thick neck, squeezing out its life. He could feel, absolutely feel, the last reel and stagger of that great bulk crashing down, dragging him with it, till it lay upturned, still. He covered his eyes with his hands. . . . Thank God! The ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... seemed filled with the rush of something. The house quivered and vibrated, and they heard the thrumming of a mighty note of sound. The windows rattled. Two panes crashed; a draught of wind tore in, striking them and making them stagger. The door opposite banged shut, shattering the latch. The white door knob crumbled in fragments to the floor. The room's walls bulged like a gas balloon in the process of sudden inflation. Then came a new sound like the rattle of musketry, ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... too much with the past. We have not time, in our earthly existence, to appreciate what is warm with life, and immediately around us; yet we heap up these old shells, out of which human life has long emerged, casting them off forever. I do not see how future ages are to stagger onward under all this dead weight, with the additions that will be continually ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... powers. Perhaps you have chosen the part which, all things considered, may serve your purpose best; though I think more moderation would be more conciliating. The exterior of innocence will, I grant, stagger the persons who may have the direction of your fate, but it will never be able to prevail against plain and incontrovertible facts. But I have done with you. I see in you a new instance of that abuse which is so generally made of ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... getting on," he growled to himself; and he kept on muttering in a low tone as he tried to stagger to his feet, but for a time his joints seemed to be so stiff that he could only get to his knees, and he had to set the ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... the peace, the happiness, And his own children tall and beautiful, And him, that other, reigning in his place, Lord of his rights and of his children's love,— Then he, tho' Miriam Lane had told him all, Because things seen are mightier than things heard, Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and fear'd To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry, Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, Would shatter all ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... directly in the rear of the storm, and as the air-ship headed across that track of destruction, it gave a drunken stagger, casting down its inmates, from whose parching lips burst ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... Bennet, continuing her story, "was my lord departed, than Mrs. Ellison came to me. She behaved in such a manner, when she became acquainted with what had past, that, though I was at first satisfied of her guilt, she began to stagger my opinion, and at length prevailed upon me entirely to acquit her. She raved like a mad woman against my lord, swore he should not stay a moment in her house, and that she would never speak to him more. In short, had she been the most innocent ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... and he values no swagger; A cleaver's a match any time for a dagger, And a blue sleeve may give such a cuff as may stagger. Which, &c. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... the piteous hope that the house fronts might give her some clue to her bearings, caused the girl to stagger from the centre of the square to the sides. Along one of them she picked her way, moaning for help and having not even a stick to guide her. Slowly, painfully she groped around the Place until unwittingly she approached the railing ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... little help. The particular application of the two systems is dependent not only on the dip but on the method of supporting the excavation and the ore. With rill-stoping, it is possible to cut the breaking benches back horizontally from the winzes (Fig. 25), or to stagger the cuts in such a manner as to take the slices in a descending angle (Figs. 21 ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... stood. And how fearful would be the avalanche; a broken forest of scaffoldings, a hail of stonework, rushing and bounding through the dust and smoke on to the roofs below; whilst the violence of the shock would threaten the whole of Montmartre, which, it seemed likely, must stagger and sink in one ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... me, darlings," she would say, with a slight stagger in grammar, but none in orthodoxy, "have explained ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the stairs; then 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
... heart beat so hard against his little jacket that he could only stagger back to the basket, where Rags and Lady Gay were snuggled together, fast asleep. He anxiously scanned Gay's face; moistened his rag of a handkerchief at the only available source of supply; scrubbed an atrocious dirt spot from the tip of her spirited ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... not difficult for us to conceive that one can thus go back and see again the astral negative of an event that is no more; and retrospective clairvoyance appears to us a wonderful but not an impossible thing. It astonishes but does not stagger our reason. But, when it becomes a question of discovering the same picture in the future, the boldest imagination flounders at the first step. How are we to admit that there exists somewhere a representation or reproduction of that which has not yet existed? Nevertheless, some of the incidents ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... strong, his grip firm as a vise; resistance would have been vain; but Desmond knew better than to resist. He bent to the cruel blows without a wince or a murmur. Only, his face was very pale when, the bully's arm being tired and his breath spent, he was flung away and permitted to stagger to the house. He crawled painfully up the wainscoted staircase and into the dark corridor leading to his bedroom. Halfway down this he paused, felt with his hand along the wall, and, discovering by this means that a door was ajar, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... to carry the pay dirt down to the stream's edge. For the purpose we used the pack-sacks—or alforjas, as the Spaniards call them. Each held about sixty or seventy pounds of dirt. We found this a sweaty and stumbly task—to stagger over the water-smoothed boulders of the wash, out across the shingle to the edge of the stream. There one of us dumped his burden into the cradle; and we proceeded to wash it out. We got the "colour" at once in ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... increased, and the vanishing inches struck panic into our philosophic breasts. Could Tempest but hold out these few yards, we were safe. He would! No! Yes! No, they're all but level another six yards. Then suddenly we saw Tempest fling his hand behind and reel forward with a blind stagger over the tape, and as the simultaneous report proclaimed a dead heat, fall sprawling ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... as the blood of insects, and may also be considered blood in its apprenticeship. By what magic, then, is this raw, imperfectly-formed steward, who seems altogether stationary, enabled to accomplish exploits which would stagger his higher-bred compeers, agile and perfected as they are? Where does he pick up the oxygen necessary for such repeated movements, it being an established fact that no animal can move at all without ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... she has been out of sight these two hours; when last seen she was in chase of something in the south—east quarter, and carrying all the sail she could stagger under." ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... where wise men live at ease Fades from our unregretful eyes, And blind, across uncharted seas, We stagger on our enterprise.' ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... his energies began to revive, and his first impulse, when thought and strength returned, was to rise and stagger down to the rocks, to assist if possible, any of his shipmates who might have been cast ashore. He found only one, who was lying in a state of insensibility on a little strip of sand. The waves had just cast him there, ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... stared wild at Ralph while he was speaking, and seemed to stagger in his saddle; then he let his sallet fall over his face, and, turning his horse about, rode swiftly, he and his two fellows, down the hill and away to the battle of the Burgers. None followed or cried after him; for ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... (and great premium), undeniable situation, and excessive splendour." That he loved it well is shown by the passage in a letter which he addressed to Forster, "in full view of Genoa's perfect bay," when about to commence The Chimes (1844); he says:—"Never did I stagger so upon a threshold before. I seem as if I had plucked myself out of my proper soil when I left Devonshire Terrace, and could take root no more until I return to it. . . . Did I tell you how many fountains we have here? No matter. If they played nectar, they wouldn't please me half so well as ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... aboard the good Urania, homeward bound. Emil saw his friends in tender hands, his men among their mates, and told the story of the wreck before he thought of himself. The savoury odour of the soup, carried by to the cabin for the ladies, reminded him that he was starving, and a sudden stagger betrayed his weakness. He was instantly borne away, to be half killed by kindness, and being fed, clothed, and comforted, was left to rest. Just as the surgeon left the state-room, he asked in his broken voice: 'What day is this? My head is so confused, I've ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... on the plain, they were galled with the artillery from the English ships: the eldest son of Lord Graham was killed: the Irish archers were thrown into disorder; and even the other troops began to stagger; when Lord Grey, perceiving their situation, neglected his orders, left his ground, and at the head of his heavy-armed horse made an attack on the Scottish infantry,'in hopes of gaining all the honor of the victory. On ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... Joe aimed toward the doors and before he knew it, we were out in the hall by the elevators. There were a couple of Ravick's men, with sergeant-at-arms arm bands, and two city cops. One of the latter got in Joe's way. Joe punched him in the face and knocked him back about ten feet in a sliding stagger before he dropped. The other cop grabbed ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... trousers pockets, at his quiet "establishment"—so described on the gold sign. I explained that I wanted some information. He recalled the Browning case very well, and tried hard to smile when I asked for the name of the cemetery and its location, that I might visit the grave. I thought that might stagger him, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... spans thick was the shield, If all be true they tell us, that Brunhild bore in field. Of steel and gold compacted all gorgeously it glow'd. Four chamberlains, that bore it, stagger'd ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... had reached the disagreeable stage, maudlin drunk or pugnacious, anxious to quarrel, but forgetting the cause of dispute. The police, who had looked on with a tolerant eye, began to clear the footpaths, shaking the drowsy into wakefulness, threatening and coaxing the obstinate till they began to stagger homewards. ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... so bad as that—elderly. This will stagger you; but I assure you that until the other day I jogged along thinking of myself as on the whole still one of the juveniles.' He makes a wry face. 'I crossed the bridge, ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... was a pistol-shot, and very near me—not thirty feet away. I turned and saw a man stagger and fall to the pavement. Then the streets began to grow dark with people hurrying toward the scene of the tragedy. I fled in fright; I had had my fill of horrors. The pistol-shot was familiar enough: it punctuated the hours of day and night out yonder. But I had ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... 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 closes ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... "Above all things," writes Chaplin, "I don't want anyone to try to make me out a 'poet'—because I'm not. I don't think much of these esthetic creatures who condescend to stoop to our level that we may have the blessings of culture. We'll manage to make our own—do it in our own way, and stagger through somehow. . . . These are tremendous times, and sooner or later someone will come along big enough to sound the right note, and it will be a rebel note." It is that note which Chaplin has sought to strike, and that ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... the trick of the cord, and leaned away from the captive, so as to keep the thong tensely stretched between his neck and the peak of the saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was of no use with a halter round his windpipe, and he very soon began to tremble and stagger,—blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears as of a thousand battle-trumpets,—at any rate, subdued and helpless. That was enough. Dick loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it like a pet snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... ever a wave tossed up—and how she took off her shoes and stockings and dipped her feet in the cool water, and listened to the bees' drowsy hum from the old tree trunk close by, and watched the busy ant stagger home, under the weight of his well earned morsel—and how she made a bridge of stones over a little streamlet to pluck some crimson lobelias, growing on the other side, and some delicate, bell-shaped flowers, fit only for a fairy's bridal wreath,—and how she wandered till sunset came on, and the ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... there was no more work done that day?' said master to me. I told him I did work. In a more stormy manner he 'peated the question. I then spoke up and said: 'Massa, I don't know what to say.' At once massa plunged his knife into my neck causing me to stagger. Massa was drunk. He then drove me down to the black folk's houses (cabins of the slaves). He then got his gun, called the overseer, and told him to get some ropes. While he was gone I said, 'Massa, now you are going to tie me up and cut me all to pieces for ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... he saw it, Right Royal went strange As one whom Death's finger has touched to a change; He went with a stagger that sickened the soul, As a force stricken ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... corner, a great, fierce gust of wind swept round it, and caught her breath and made her stagger. She thought she was going to fall; indeed, she would have fallen but that one of the tall men who were passing put out his arm and caught her. He was a well dressed man, in a heavy overcoat; he had gloves on. Elizabeth spoke in a faint tone. "I thank you," she began, when the second man ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... anecdotes relating to that learned disciple of Bacchus, Porson. Many a time (says Mr. Timbs), at early morn, did Porson stagger from his old haunt, the "Cider Cellars" in Maiden Lane, where he scarcely ever failed to pass some hours, after spending the evening elsewhere. It is related of him, upon better authority than most of the stories ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... then a troop to a brigade; fifty jaded men and horses to fifteen hundred fresh from camp. What happened further I know not. I saw for a minute or two a great deal of pistol firing and a great deal of sabre clashing; I felt my horse stagger under me, at the moment when I aimed a blow at a gigantic fellow covered all over with helmet and mustache; a pistol exploded close at my ear as I was going down, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... for a little brandy to calm her nerves, went down to Cox's. Mrs. Maroney offered some brandy to the Madam, which she politely declined to take, but this did not in the least abash her, for she gulped down enough to stagger an old toper. Josh. was not at home, and ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... know what to say," he said. "You stagger me. How long are you going to hide behind this youthfulness? When are you going to be old enough to be honest? Men have patience only up to a point. At any rate, you didn't claim youth when Gray asked you to marry ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... chatting of the affair on the previous night, that this birthday binge of his was to be on a scale calculated to stagger humanity, and I must say I have participated in less fruity functions. It was well after four when I got home, and by that time I was about ready to turn in. I can just remember groping for the bed and crawling into it, and it seemed to me that the lemon had scarcely ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... them, by which means he gained some six or eight paces without receiving a blow; but now they fell hard and fast upon him, accompanied with screams and yells of the most diabolical nature; and ere he had gone thirty yards, he began to stagger, when a heavy stroke on the head laid him senseless on the earth. In a moment the renegade, who had kept him company outside, burst through the lines, just in time to ward off the blow of a powerful warrior, aimed at the skull of Younker, which, without ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... universally carry heavy burdens upon their backs from early youth. Some of the Indian women are seen bearing loads of pottery or jars of water upon their shoulders with seeming ease, under which an ordinary Irish laborer would stagger. Comparatively few wheeled vehicles are in use, and these are of the rudest character, the wheel being composed of three pieces of timber, so secured together as to form a circle, but having no spokes or tire, very like the ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... over any other church periodical in Wessex. The Nether Wambleton Parish Magazine in its May number contented itself with asserting that it is the largest religious monthly in North Dampshire, also that its average sale, if tested, would show a circulation calculated to stagger humanity. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... American basis of fact to these idle chapters. In all the paths I meet, daily, girls and boys bearing on their heads large baskets of the fruit, and little children with bags and bundles of the same, as large as they can stagger under; and I understand they are carrying them to the packers, who ship them to New York, or to the depots, where I see them lying in yellow heaps, and where men and women are cutting them up, and removing the peel, which goes to England ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... My inward torments by my outward show: To let her see my weakness were too base; Dissembled quiet sit upon my face: My sorrow to my eyes no passage find, But let it inward sink, and drown my mind. Falsehood shall want its triumph: I begin To stagger, but I'll prop myself within. The specious tower no ruin shall disclose, Till down at once ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... so anxious to fight, take that!" cried Dave, and before the other could recover he landed a second blow on Merwell's chin. This caused the bully to stagger against Hank Snogger, who kept him from ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... a great stagger behind her, and a pitiful moan, and Sir Charles fell heavily, striking his head against the edge of the sofa. She looked round—as she knelt, and saw him, black in the face, rolling his eyeballs fearfully, while ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... said, handing her a lump weighing about a pound. "With the balance in the heap there you can stagger the best-dressed woman you meet at your first ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... are heard more frequently from the houses, and a large proportion of the inhabitants and guests appear on the road in various degrees of intoxication. Some of these vow eternal affection to their friends, or with flaccid gestures and in incoherent tones harangue invisible audiences; others stagger about aimlessly in besotted self-contentment, till they drop down in a state of complete unconsciousness. There they will lie tranquilly till they are picked up by their less intoxicated friends, or more probably till they awake of ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... arms around Jason's neck; and lifting her from the ground, he stepped boldly into the raging and foaming current, and began to stagger away from the shore. As for the peacock, it alighted on the old dame's shoulder. Jason's two spears, one in each hand, kept him from stumbling, and enabled him to feel his way among the hidden rocks; ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he would save himself yet. My heart softened to him, but again the thought of his treasure turned me hard and bitter. I cast my firelock between his legs as he raced past, and he rolled twice over like a shot rabbit. Ere he could stagger to his feet the Sikh was upon him, and buried his knife twice in his side. The man never uttered moan nor moved muscle, but lay were he had fallen. I think myself that he may have broken his neck with the ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... man writes a novel exhibiting the badness of our meat supply. Men become excited. Men take action. Men legislate. The great meat industries stagger under the shock, recover, and go on smiling. Before this meanwhile, and afterwards, the meat went into out kitchens and we ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... steed of lesser might, Backed by Orlando, with such might and main, He made that courser stagger, left and right, And measure next his length upon the plain: Vainly to raise him strove Anglantes' knight, Thrice, nay four times, with rowels and with rein; Balked of his end, he lights upon the field, Draws Balisarda, and ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... push, which sent him tumbling into the gutter, where cursing fiercely he struggled to regain his feet, the frightened girl, without pausing to see his condition, or listening to his calls and threats, fled down the street. When her companion had at last managed to stagger to the sidewalk and could look around by clinging to the fence, she was out of sight. He called two or three times, and then swearing vilely, started in pursuit, reeling from side to side. The frightened girl ran on and on, paying no heed to ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... traitorous tongue; but there is no help in you!" he added, provoked at seeing a certain embarrassment about the youth. "Desert me at this pinch! It is not like his father's son!" and he was sinking back, when at sight of the hunter he stumbled eagerly to his feet, but only to stagger against a tree. ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ape loves to meddle When he finds a man idle, Else is he a-flirting Where his mark is a-courting; When women grow true Come teach me to sue, Then I'll come to thee Pray thee and woo thee. Little boy, pretty knave, make me not stagger, For if you hit me, ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... family:' and this low and familiar expression was often in his mouth, and uttered always with the self-complaisance which an imagined happy thought can be supposed to give the speaker; to wit, 'That a man who has sons brings up chickens for his own table,' [though once I made his comparison stagger with him, by asking him, If the sons, to make it hold, were to have their necks wrung off?] 'whereas daughters are chickens brought up for tables of other men.' This, accompanied with the equally polite reflection, 'That, to induce people to take them off their hands, the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... during the years when he is old enough to be cautious about accepting new ideas and young enough to be enthusiastic concerning them after careful consideration, when he is so mature as not to desire to stagger the orthodox by the impudence of his opinions, and sufficiently youthful to be willing to shock the conservative by the audacity of his views. He may then seem jaded because he is not easily moved, but will be quicker to give encouragement to sincere effort, to perceive ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... once again overestimated the capacity of your stomach, why advertise your intemperance in a public place?" He lifted his hand from my shoulder to look at his watch. "It's now ten minutes to three. Do you think you can stagger, or must you be carried, to ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... looking at Bartley for his approval, "and I've always thought that, if I ever got run clean ashore, high and dry, I'd make a stagger to write it out and do something with it. Do ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... 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
... brother, all the insignificance of man, as compared with the magnitude and duration of the universe, need not stagger our faith that the divinest thing in the universe is a heart that has learnt to love God and aspires after Him, and should but increase our wonder and our gratitude that He has been mindful of man and has visited him, in order that He might give ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... His last stagger was—or seemed to be—an attempt to involve us in a war with Germany. I say "seemed to be" because I hesitate to ascribe a project as infamous to him, even when unbalanced by despair. The first ugly despatch he ordered his Goodrich Secretary of State to send, somehow leaked to the newspapers ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... Dickens atmosphere. Those hideous-lovely persons, whose legs and arms are so thin that it is impossible to suppose they ever removed their clothes; do they not strut and leer and ogle and grin and stagger and weep, in the very ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... and, as he spoke, he seemed actually to stagger back a step or two, whilst the paleness of his complexion increased to a hue that was ghastly—"to Birney!—to my blackest and bitterest enemy—to the man who, I suspect, has important family documents of mine in his ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Texan, who argued that the wind had hauled, and being then abeam had given her a list to starboard. This, while not wholly satisfactory to the more experienced, allayed the fears of the women—there were two or three on board beside the widow—who welcomed the respite from the wrench and stagger of the ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... meal, of savoury sausage or succulent fish and mashed potato, and a bun. If you are a lady the bun is indispensable; for if there is one faith implanted firmly in the feminine breast, it is that which accepts the penny bun as a form of nutrition not to be equalled. Thrones totter and fall, dynasties stagger and pass away, but the devotion of Woman to the Penny Bun stands firm amidst the cataclysms of nature and nations. This substantial lunch costs sixpence. On Sundays, you dine sumptuously at home on a chop, or eggs and bacon, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... began their march for the nearest Mohawk town. Each bore his share of the plunder. Even Jogues, though his lacerated hands were in a frightful condition and his body covered with bruises, was forced to stagger on with the rest under a heavy load. He with his fellow-prisoners, and indeed the whole party, were half starved, subsisting chiefly on wild berries. They crossed the upper Hudson, and, in thirteen days after leaving the St. Lawrence, neared the wretched goal of their pilgrimage, a palisaded ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... "tight little island" has attained a world-wide power, and a wealth per capita greater than those of any other country; that her power and wealth, as compared with her home area, are so much greater than those of any other country as to stagger the understanding; that she could not have done what she has done without her navy; that she has never hesitated to use her navy to assist her trade, and yet that she has never used her navy to keep ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... fill the streets; goods are loaded and unloaded; friends who have not met for a year or more welcome each other, others take leave. On one spot curious tents {44} are erected, before which children play; on another drunken men stagger along, or gallop on horseback, so that one is terrified, and fears every ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... to stagger our friend, who evidently prided himself on knowing every family worth knowing. The Marquis de Gallifet, seeing his chance, hurried to tell the story of the d'Albe family, which the crestfallen Baron drank in with open mouth and swallowed ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... what was blown up. All perfectly correct and proper; gives his name and rank, too, and is wearing an R.A.M.C. uniform—rank, Captain. As he passes me on his way to the Sub's dug-out I happens to catch sight of his face, and it give me quite a shock. I was took ill immediate. I manages to stagger to the dug-out, and I mutters hoarsely, 'Sir, I'm sick. I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... it wor well nigh a splitten, And I stagger'd and stagger'd, as weak as a kitten; But the wust of it all wor the dressin' I got From Polly—oh, worn't it main ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... you fire. Shall then that strumpet And bastard breathe quick vengeance in my face, Making my Kingdom reel, my subjects stagger In their obedience, and ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... Of great endeavour. Brave and true As stern Crusader clad in steel, They died afield as it was fit— Made strong with hope, they dared to do Achievement that a host to-day Would stagger at, stand back and reel, Defeated ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... corn (Or the honest commonplaces) of the Philistines whose graces you regard with lofty scorn. And every one will say, As you squirm your wormy way, "If this young man expresses himself in terms that stagger me, What a very singularly smart young man this smart young ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... people pay into the liquor traffic that gives a few cents into the treasury, is costin' the people ten times that dollar in the loss intemperance entails, loss of labor, by the inability of drunken men to do anything but wobble and stagger, loss of wealth by the enormous losses of property and taxation, of alms-houses, mad-houses, jails, police forces, paupers' coffins, and the diggin' of thousands and thousands of graves that are filled yearly by them that reel into 'em." Sez I, "Wouldn't ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... abroad, might now hear this account with exaggerations that would baffle all his confidence: his mother, too, greatly as she esteemed and loved her, might have the matter so represented as to stagger her good opinion;—these were thoughts the most afflicting she could harbour, though their probability was such that to ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... were in themselves sufficient to induce hostilities on the part of the Indians. Charity would incline to the belief that the continuance of the war was rightly attributable to these causes—the other reason assigned for it, supposing the existence of a depravity, so deep and damning, as almost to stagger credulity itself. ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... the passage to the hall, where he fitted me with greatcoat and hat. Then, having trundled me to the front gate, he picked me up—luckily I have always been a small spare man—and deposited me in the car. I am always nervous of anyone but Marigold trying to carry me. They seem to stagger and fumble and bungle. Marigold's arms close round me like an iron clamp and they lift me with the mechanical ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... of dead that lay on the sand, just where they had fallen, I could distinguish mutilated forms writhing in agony, while ever and anon one and another rose convulsively from out the mass, endeavoured to stagger towards the wood, and ere they had taken a few steps, fell and wallowed on the bloody sand. My blood curdled within me as I witnessed this frightful and wanton slaughter; but I had little time to think, for the captain's deep voice ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... moment a hiccough was heard, and a rather fast and rakish-looking chap, named Stagger, spoke up. "How d'ye do, miss," he said politely to Efficiency, with a side glance out of his wicked old eye. "I'm a bit of a knut, and without the slightest trouble I can easily minimize the disadvantage that old reprobate Drift has been frightening you with. ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... up, two guns spoke through the clamor as one gun. The men were not ten feet apart as their guns spoke. Norton felt a bullet rip along his outer arm, the sensation that of a whip-lash cutting deep. He saw del Rio stagger back under the impact of a forty-five-caliber bullet which must have merely grazed him, since it did not knock him off his feet. Del Rio, his lips streaming his curses and hatred, fired again. But his wound had ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... the shot crashed forth, and a moment later the most costly and graceful tower in the world seemed to stagger on its base. Then, as the thousand-pound shell, striking at the twenty-seventh story, exploded deep inside, clouds of yellow smoke poured out through the crumbling walls, and the huge length of twenty-four stories above the jagged wound ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... seemed to foretell a storm, all combined to disturb his fancy and raise strange spectres in his imagination. The shrill hooting of an owl, as it rustled overhead, caused him an unprecedented shock, and the great rush of blood to his head made him stagger and clutch hold of the nearest object for support. He had barely recovered from this alarm when his eyes almost started out of their sockets with fright as he caught sight of a queer shape gliding silently from tree to tree; and shortly afterwards he was ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... consequence is involved in the fundamental principle of Augustine's theory, the good father could not but reel and stagger under it. "Respecting the sins of the other parents," says he, "the progenitors from Adam down to one's own immediate father, it may not improperly be debated, whether the child is implicated in the evil acts and multiplied original faults of all, so that each one is the ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... lane where the wood begins. It runs close to the fence on their left for a hundred yards, and beyond it they see white tents gleaming. They are half-way past the forest, when, sharp and loud, a volley of musketry bursts upon the head of the column; horses stagger, riders reel and fall, but the troop presses forward undismayed. The farther corner of the wood is reached, and Zagonyi beholds the terrible array. Amazed, he involuntarily cheeks his horse. The Rebels are not surprised. There to his left they stand crowning the height, foot and horse ready to ingulf ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... young Norwegian, who had taken this solar-plexus blow with that same stolid apathy that characterized his every action. He wanted to offer sympathy, but he knew not how to reach Thor. He fully understood how terrific the blow was, how it must stagger the big, earnest Freshman, just as he, after ten years of grinding toil, of sacrifice, of grim, unrelenting determination, had conquered obstacles and fought to where he had a clear track ahead. Just as it seemed that fate ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... eye, Crutched on his staff, who trembles tottering by? As wrung from out the shattered heart, one groan Breaks the deep hush alone! Crushed by the iron fate, he seems to gather All life's last strength to stagger to the bier, And hearken—Do these cold lips murmur "Father?" The sharp rain, drizzling through that place of fear, Pierces the bones gnawed fleshless by despair, And the heart's horror ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... were powerless—they knew that the mysterious professor who had disappeared from Moscow fifteen years before and had never since been seen was only waiting his opportunity to strike a blow that would stagger and crush the Empire from end to end—yet of his whereabouts they were ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... above all, when we see sin, sinful sin, a swallowing up a Nation, sinking of a Nation, and bringing its Inhabitants to temporal, spiritual, and eternal ruine, shall we not cry out, and cry, They are drunk, but not with Wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink; they are intoxicated with the deadly poyson of sin, which will, if its malignity be not by wholsom means allayed, bring Soul and Body, and Estate and Countrey, and all, ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... tell me next, that the invention of wine is very much to his credit; though you see for yourself how drunken men stagger about and misbehave themselves; one would think the liquor had made them mad. Look at Icarius, the first to whom he gave the vine: beaten to death with mattocks by his own ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... tremendous. A pile of plates three feet high was sent spinning, a row of salad-bowls was over, and then with a heavy stagger Mr. Lennox went down into a dinner-service, sending the soup-tureen rolling gravely into the ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... when the old love would burst forth with fearful power, and then I wished that I might die. These were my moments of temptation which I struggled to overcome. Sometimes a song, a strain of music, or a ray of moonlight on the floor would bring the past to me so vividly that I would stagger beneath the burden, feeling that it was greater than I could bear. But God was very merciful and sent me work which took up all my time, leaving little leisure for regrets, and driving me away from my own pain to soothe the pain of others. When Katy came to us last summer there was an hour of ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... we again let drive the long gun and carronade; but our friend was too quick for us, for by this time he had once more hauled his wind, and made sail as close to it as he could stagger. We crowded every thing in chase, but he had the heels of us, and in an hour he was once more nearly out of sight in the dark ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the material away from its edge to a place of comparative safety. The peril seemed so imminent that the men in their panic performed prodigious feats of strength—lifting and handling alone huge boxes, which at ordinary times, would stagger two men. A driving, whirling snowstorm added to the gloom, confusion, and terror of the scene, shutting out almost completely those on the ice from the view of those still on the ship. In the midst of the work the cry was raised that the floes were parting, and with ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... and keep thee well from me," cried out Sir Accolon. But King Arthur answered not, and gave him such a buffet on the helm as made him stagger and nigh fall upon the ground. Then Sir Accolon withdrew a little, and came on with Excalibur on high, and smote King Arthur in return with such a mighty stroke as almost felled him; and both being now in hottest wrath, they gave each other grievous and savage blows. But Arthur all the ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... no charm of bat or ball would have drawn him from that pen, since he had seen one of the small pigs stagger about in a strange fashion, and then sink down in a corner. Something ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... be heard whispering to Everychild: "I cannot enter here. The things which are taking place in this room—they stagger me. But you may do so." Whereupon he placed Everychild on the window sill and withdrew ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge |
