"Stumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to find out and bear in mind the experience of other people, we can make use of it, as a warning and a guide, in much the same way as if it had happened to ourselves. If I have seen a boy try to run across the road in front of an automobile and stumble and get killed, it is not necessary for me to get killed in order to appreciate the danger of the experiment. You may never have seen this happen, but if I have and I tell you about it, you can use the information ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... now was to assure the safety of the prisoners in the other camp, and he made his way across the island hurriedly, lest by accident Sam should happen to stumble across his comrades. ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... you, friends?" said he; "did you never never see a man stumble before? Come, the passage is free; now at length we will quench our thirst in Saumur," and taking his sword in his left hand, he again attempted to make ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... began to stumble through the answer: "'We cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin, or eternal life at the hand—at the hand—of God, by reason ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... mare round, set his heels into her sides and, before anyone could move, the horse and its rider sprang for the window, dashed clear through it on to the roadway and away at a gallop, without so much as a stop or a stumble; leaving a shower of broken glass and splintered wood ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... there was an interruption. Godfrey had been listening at the keyhole, but finding that difficult, had opened the door slightly, but in his interest managed to stumble against it. The door flew open, and he fell forward upon his knees on the carpet ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... would defend the Patriarch in this, wantonly reject the consolation which the Holy Ghost considered to be necessary to the Church—the consolation, namely, that even the greatest saints may, at times, stumble and fall."[1] ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... hinted at in the more celebrated treatises. Conscious of the diffidence with which any one should approach a matter which so many learned men have labored over, he advances the plea of the proverb, that they who study the stars will stumble at stones,—a plea, that much learning and genius may fail, where less would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... left the pave road which runs on to Ypres, and after this the roads were much more difficult to travel. Shell holes were frequent and generally full of water, so that in the dark it was only too easy to stumble into them. 'Shell-hole on the right,' 'Shell-hole on the left,' 'Shell-hole in the middle,' 'Keep to your right' were being passed back continually. Progress was slow of course under these conditions and with the heavy loads that we all carried. But it was ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... the right way, it is no wonder that they stumble and fall. And it is evident from the manner in which ye have managed your testimony, that politics, (as a religious body of men) is not your proper Walk; for however well adapted it might appear to you, it is, nevertheless, a jumble of ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... that, even if he were, no danger would reach him: the gun aimed at him would strike some broken branch, the knife drawn against him would break like a splinter before it struck him, the man who rushed on him would stumble and fall before he could touch that haughty head. He was above all danger, above all fear; he knew neither care nor grief; alas! he did not feel like other men. His head was lifted freely, his eyes were clear and bright when ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... be red-hot rivals in business," he said with an agreeable laugh. "But that needn't prevent, eh? Funny I should stumble on you like this! I ride every night after supper—a man needs a bit of exercise after working all day in the store. I saw the ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... can this Alpine apex of faith have to do with the creatures who call themselves Christians, creeping about in the valleys, hardly knowing that there are mountains above them, save that they take offence at and stumble over the pebbles washed across their path by the glacier streams? I will tell you. We are and remain such creeping Christians, because we look at ourselves and not at Christ; because we gaze at the marks of our own soiled feet, and the trail of our own defiled garments, instead of up at the ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... attention until, suddenly, the report of a pistol was heard, and a short time after I saw a man in mid-air leaping from the President's box to the stage, brandishing in his hand a drawn dagger. His spur caught in the American flag festooned in front of the box, causing him to stumble when he struck the stage, and he fell on his hands and knees. He quickly regained the erect posture and hopped across the stage, flourishing his dagger, clearing the stage before him and dragging the foot of the leg, which was subsequently found to be broken, he disappeared behind the ...
— Lincoln's Last Hours • Charles A. Leale
... reverence, and the intelligence with which you read: and, believe me, it is wiser and holier, by the fire of your own faith to kindle the ashes of expired religions, than to let your soul shiver and stumble among their graves, through the gathering ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Herbert answered drily; 'only mind, whatever you do, for Heaven's sake don't go and stumble and pull ME down on the top of you. It's the clear duty of a good citizen to respect the lives of the other men who are roped together with him on the side of ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... arrangement is, at the best, unsatisfactory, but to abandon the cruise is the only alternative. However, considering I had but a few hours to look about me, I have been more fortunate than might have been expected. I have had the luck to stumble on a young fellow, very highly recommended by the Captain of the Port. He returned just a fortnight ago from a trip to Australia, and having since married a wife, is naturally anxious not to lose this opportunity of going to sea again for a ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... evening, At the tender star of woman; And they heard him murmur softly, "Ah, showain nemeshin, Nosa! Pray, pity me, my father!" '"Listen!" said the elder sister, "He is praying to his father! What a pity that the old man Does not stumble in the pathway, Does not break his neck by falling!" And they laughed till all the forest Rang with their unseemly laughter. 'On their pathway through the woodlands Lay an oak by storms uprooted, Lay the great trunk of an oak-tree Buried half in leaves ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... Walters bitterly. "Who that's got anything to lose is master of himself in this country?" With shoulders sagging and a sort of stumble in his gait, he went toward the door. He paused there to say: "I've served too long, Mr. Roebuck. There's no fight in me. I thought there was, but there ain't. Do the best you can for me." And he took himself ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... almost exclusively to the obscure history of those who suffer and stumble around him, victims of the universal disillusion, men and women "come to live but called to die," that Mr. Hardy dedicates his poetic function. "Lizbie Browne" appeals to us as a typical instance of his rustic pathos, his direct and poignant tenderness, and if we compare it with such ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... upon what was to be done, a hackney coachman, driving softly along, and perceiving us standing by the kennel, came up close to us, and calling, "A coach, master!" by a dexterous management of the reins made his horses stumble in the wet, and bedaub us all over with mud. After which exploit he drove on, applauding himself with a hearty laugh, in which several people joined, to my great mortification; but one, more compassionate than the rest, seeing us strangers, advised me to go into ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... of smoke, he saw officers and men trying to hack away and beat out the burning timbers—saw a reckless carbineer—his own tent-mate—dismount and run out across the planking which was already afire, saw him stumble and roll over as a bullet hit him, get to his knees blindly, trip and fall flat in the smoke. Then Fear bellowed in Berkley's ear; but he had already clapped spurs to his horse, cantering out across the burning planking and straight ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... son's friends, but who cannot for the life of him tell which of the score of youthful faces darting sidelong glances in their direction is the particular one he is meant to be saluting. At last in the press they stumble upon one boy at close quarters, whom Cusack the younger ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... charge of the prisoners did not share, or sympathise with, the feelings of the chief who had spared their lives, for they not only forced them to hurry forward as fast as they could go, but gave them occasional pricks with their spear-points when any of them chanced to trip or stumble. One of the warriors in particular—a fiery man—sometimes struck them with the shaft of his spear and otherwise maltreated them. It may be easily understood that men with unbroken spirits and high courage did not submit to this ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... this room," said Hayden triumphantly, after shaking hands with her, "and I haven't fallen once. If I came here often I should bring an ax, notch the furniture and then clear a path. There goes some one!" as a heavy stumble was heard. "I did ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... she saw them, although she could move them still and even get in and out of bed, or in and out of her bath-chair, without much assistance, so long as she could see her lower limbs. Often she would stumble and fall down, even on a grassy lawn. In the dark she could not control her ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... a failing, it is to be found in an inability to hang together in our play, and an incapacity for comprehending the said fact. Set either instrumentalist by himself, and he will manage to stumble through a tune; but put the whole orchestra together, and the result usually falls short of what should be harmony. The hornist is our feeblest musician. He has not yet succeeded in eliciting more than two ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... position, as a sort of animated encyclopedia, to be consulted at will. And all this, to be able to instruct a half-civilized brood of children, of both sexes, in the rudiments of reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic and geography, with enough of grammar to enable them to stammer and stumble through a simple sentence, and arrive safely at the end without any material ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... immolation of age on the flowery altars of youth. Like most customs in which we are nurtured, it had seemed natural and pleasant enough until she had watched the hollows deepen in her mother's temples and the tireless knotted hands stumble at their work. Then a pang had seized her and she had pleaded earnestly to be permitted ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... sand made him stumble, and in that instant he became aware of the Sphinx towering over him, its great granite Face solemn in the moonlight. His voice died away in an awed whisper. Long, long he gazed into the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... "Thou needst not stumble at such easy Scripture; behold, the meaning is quite clear! They who travel on the so-called King's Highway are continually exaggerating the merits of the way, thereby making it appear greater and broader than it really is. They ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... shall I say?... In my heart I really care for nothing whatever but that you should not stumble—see? Oh, but really you mustn't skip about like that!" he cried, breaking off to scold her for too agile a movement in stepping over a branch that lay in the path. "But when I think about myself, and compare myself ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... of Hermes' smile the grey nets of the spiders' webs had been woven to and fro, across and across, with the lacing of a million threads, as Fate weaves round the limbs and covers the eyes of mortals as they stumble blindly from their birthplace to their grave. All things, the damp and the dust, the frost and the scorch, the newts and the rats, the fret of the flooded waters, and the stealing sure inroad of the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... observes the Greek skandalon may be rendered offense, downfall, or a stumbling against something. For when a body, while moving along a path, meets with an obstacle, it may happen to stumble against it, and be disposed to fall down: such an obstacle ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... and her charming person; till coming to a stand of coaches, a coachman plied her; was accepted; alighted; opened the coach-door in a hurry, seeing her hurry; and in it she stumbled for haste; and, as the fellow believed, hurt her shin with the stumble.' ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... literal and material interpretation of his statements, said one to another: "This is a hard saying; who can hear him?" Or according to our idiom—who can understand him? Jesus asked them squarely if what he had just said caused them to stumble, and in order to be sure that they might not miss his real meaning and therefore teaching, said: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... excepte it be tow great; but a fine ship it is. And seeing our neer freinds ther are so streite lased, we hope to assure her without troubling them any further; and if ye ship fale too small, it fitteth well yt such as stumble at strawes already, may rest them ther a while, least worse blocks come in ye way ere 7. years be ended. If you had beaten this bussines so throuly a month agoe, and write to us as now you doe, we could thus have done much more conveniently. But it is as it is; I hope our freinds they, if they ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... mountains, though it ain't quite come in the lowlands, an' as it's rained a lot in the last week, I reckon you'll find it bad. Mebbe our hosses will go down in the road to thar knees, but I guess they won't sink up to thar bodies. They may stumble an' throw us, but as we'll hit in soft mud it ain't likely to hurt us. It may rain hard, 'cause I see clouds heapin' up thar in the west. An' if it rains the cold may then freeze a skim of ice over the road, on which we could slip an' break our necks, hosses an' all. Then thar are some ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... won their forbearance. We listened to her statements more than half disposed to credit them, yet we adhered to our original determination, nevertheless, of joining the first gypsy camp on which, during the course of our tour, we might stumble. ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... we stumble we hear them shouting; every time we blunder against their limits or stretch out to any ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... whatsoever. You may not believe me. But so it is. I know it by experience to be true. I warn you that you will find it true one day; that all spite, passion, prejudice, suspicion, hard judgments, contempt, self-conceit, blind a man's reason, and heart, and soul, and make him stumble and fall into mistakes, even in worldly matters, just as surely as shutting our eyes makes us stumble in broad daylight. He who gives way to such passions is asleep, while he fancies himself broad awake. His life is a dream; and like a dreamer, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... Alicia's head against my knee, a light, swift footstep sounded overhead in the attic, followed by a sort of stumble, as if somebody had slipped on one of those ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... Trifles (which are Faults in meaner Capacities) and hurry'd on to his Subject with a Freedom of Spirit peculiar to himself. A Racer at New-market or the Downs, which has been fed and drest, and with the nicest Caution prepared for the Course, will stumble perhaps at a little Hillock; while the Wings of Pegasus bear ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... the house, for my own reasons, but told her that it were safer for herself to wait for some stirrup cup chance, as it were. That day I saw that it had come, and I cut a thorn from the nearest bush and was ready. I could not reach the girl to stumble ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... must be second and not first; All cannot be the first of all: Is not this, too, but vanity? I stumble like to fall. ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... brother's wife and child, and two more second cousins are to come; not to our house, but to board next door. There is a troop of artists swarming the tavern; all ladies, some of them very congenial, cultivated, excellent persons. They are all delighted with Dorset, and it is pleasant to stumble on little groups of them at their work. A. has been out sketching with them and succeeds very well. I have given up painting landscapes and taken to flowers. I have just had a visit here in my room from three ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... damson), he animadverted upon the astounding negligence of women. There were Nellie (his wife), his mother, the nurse, the cook, the maid—five of them; and in his mind they had all plotted together—a conspiracy of carelessness—to leave the inexcusable tool in his lobby for him to stumble over. What was the use of accidentally procuring ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... stickler for full-blown loveliness. I may find a man who has become inoculated with western heresies and believes that a woman with intellect is desirable, even though under weight. I may find a fool, or an aristocrat who has gambled. I may stumble upon good fortune if I put her out among the young men. Yes, I ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... me there is an overwhelming probability that such an expedition would be successful. Many people, however, will certainly urge: 'In all currents there are eddies and backwaters; suppose, then, you get into one of these, or perhaps stumble on an unknown land up by the Pole and remain lying fast there, how will you extricate yourselves?' To this I would merely reply, as concerns the backwater, that we must get out of it just as surely as we got into it, and that we shall have provisions for five years. And ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... a blind man who sat by the wayside with a lantern near him. When he was asked what he had a lantern for, as he could not see the light, he said it was that people should not stumble ever him. I believe more people stumble over the inconsistencies of professed Christians than from any other cause. What is doing more harm to the cause of Christ than all the scepticism in the world is this cold, dead formalism, this conformity to the world, ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... their assumed characters, or acknowledge their true ones and brave the worst. They could not venture to speak to consult with each other. Paul thought that the best plan would be to keep silent till compelled to speak. He therefore got as near O'Grady as he could, and, pretending to stumble, put his finger against his friend's lips. O'Grady passed on the signal soon afterwards to Reuben. This matter arranged, they quietly followed their captor—O'Grady doing his best to hum a tune which he had ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... more than a great, gaping grave, on the brink of which we walk with wild courage," said the king, softly. "There is no moment that some one does not stumble at our side and fall into the abyss, and we have the courage to continue in the path until our strength fails and we sink, making room for another. Almost all of those who formerly occupied these rooms have vanished. How long will it be ere ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... What for?" returned the post commander, obviously nettled. "I fancy he'll not thank you for even searching his quarters. You may stumble over his big museum in the dark and smash things. No, let him alone. If he isn't here for dinner, I'll ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... same time fully convinced that in our day there are thousands of youths who are falling into the same errors and perils from sheer vanity and affectation; who admire most what they least understand, and adopt all the obscurities and paradoxes they stumble upon, as a cheap path to a reputation for profundity; who awkwardly imitate the manner and retail the phrases of the writers they study; and, as usual, exaggerate to caricature their least agreeable eccentricities. We should think that some of these ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... we are to begin our investigation in Aristotle's way, and look at the [Greek: phainomena] of the subject, we shall immediately stumble over a maxim which is in everybody's mouth, and which, as it is understood in practice, is true and useful, as it is usually applied in argument, false and misleading. "General truths are more important than particular ones." Often, when in conversation, I have been praising ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... always unfortunate to make a stumble on the threshold; and Mr. Mill's opening paragraph makes two. "The name of God," he says, "is veiled under two extremely abstract phrases, 'the Infinite and the Absolute.'... But it is one of the most unquestionable of all logical maxims, that the meaning of the abstract must ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... talked to many of the cottagers, who all treated him with that good-humour and tolerance which they considered due to his age and feebleness. Young men gave him a ready hand if they saw him inclined to falter or to stumble over rough places in the stony street,—little children ran up to him with the flowers they had gathered on the hills, or the shells they had collected from the drift on the shore—women smiled at him from their open doors and windows—girls called to him the "Good morning!" or "Good-night!"—and ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... those who are the most matter of fact people in the world, signs are very common. It is a bad omen with them to stumble over a threshold, or to step over green or red, or to sneeze while making up ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... horror that haunted him was not failure,—for oddly enough he never seriously distrusted his power, it was disaster. Would God give him the strength to fight his demon? If he were to gain the heights, only to stumble in the sight of all ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you know I am dreadfully troubled now and then with some of my characters, and can't think how to get rid of them. And she'll say, perhaps, Don't shoot your villain this time, you've shot three or four already in the last six weeks; let his mare stumble and throw him and break his neck. Or she'll give me a hint about some new way for my lover to make a declaration. She must have had a good many offers, it's my belief, for she has told me a dozen different ways for me to use in my stories. And whenever I read a story to her, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes. In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest night the ship's ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... shots were absolutely necessary or not it would be hard to say, for just as the boys discharged their various weapons the huge bear was seen to stumble and fall. He gave several convulsive shudders, ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... "will be a credit to us all yet. The sorra one of him but's as manly as anything, and as longheaded as a four-footed baste, so he is! nothing daunts or dashes him, or puts him to an amplush: but he'll look you in the face so stout an' cute, an' never redden or stumble, whether he's right or wrong, that it does one's heart good to see him. Then he has such a laning to it, you see, that the crathur 'ud ground an argument on anything, thin draw it out to a norration an' make it as clear as rock-water, besides ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... to find the door; but at last I did get it, and I groped my way out, and went down as asy as I could. I felt quite sober, and I counted the steps one after another, as I was going down, that I might not stumble ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the door. Mrs. Cranceford had sent a negro boy with an umbrella and a lantern. The night was wild, and the slanting rain hit hard. Before he reached the house the wind puffed out his lantern, leaving him to stumble through the dark. ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... ask again, with Marie Antoinette, why the people who are starving for bread do not eat cake. The fact is that to keep within one's income to-day, either financially or vitally, is an aristocratic luxury that is absolutely denied to the many. Most men—the rich as well as the poor—stumble through life three parts dead. The ruling class, if it had the will and the skill, might awaken itself to fullness of life. But only a comparatively few of the others could, because the world is conducted on a principle which makes it even less possible for them ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... it! And what are the ways to which ye walk? Are they not such ways as will not come to the light, and hate the light, because it reproves them? John iii. 19, 20, xi. 9, 10. Are they not such in which men stumble, though they seem to walk easily and plainly in them? Yet O that everlasting stumble that is at the end of them, when you shall fall out of one darkness of sin and delusion into another extreme, eternal darkness of destruction and damnation! O that fearful dungeon ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... the ascent. In a few days his agony became alarmingly acute. He grew stupid, and had frequent convulsions, his only conscious act being to get up often from his bed (which was in my wife's room, as he was usually under her care) and stumble as far as my writing-table, where he sank down again in exhaustion. The veterinary surgeon said he could do no more, and as the convulsions gradually became terribly acute, I was advised to shorten the poor animal's cruel agony and ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... cravings of the young spirit with the bread of life, or they will gorge themselves with poison. Telling them that they ought not to be hungry, will not stop their hunger; shutting our eyes to facts, will only make us stumble over them the sooner; hiding our eyes in the sand, like the hunted ostrich, will not hide us from the iron necessity of circumstances, or from the Almighty will of Him, who is saying in these days to society, in language unmistakable: "Educate, or fall to pieces! ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... love to represent it. The path is indeed in several parts only fourteen or fifteen inches broad; and the ridge of the mountain, along which the road runs, is covered with a short slippery turf. The slopes on each side are steep, and the traveller, should he stumble, might slide down to the depth of seven or eight hundred feet. Nevertheless, the flanks of the mountain are steep declivities rather than precipices; and the mules of this country are so sure-footed that they inspire the greatest confidence. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... memory, took the veil here a century and a half ago, this house has ever been above reproach. You will tacitly allow her to slip away; and, once away, I will set matters right for her. But nothing must transpire which could stumble or scandalise the other members of the Community. The peculiar circumstances which the Knight made known to me—always, of course, without making any mention of the name of Seraphine—can hardly have occurred in any other ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... disintegration to the end—the end, the apportionment of its parts (of its subtle flesh, its pink and springy bone, its juices and ferments, and all the sensateness that informed it) to the chicken farm, the hide-house, the glue-rendering works, and the bone-meal fertiliser factory. To the last stumble of its stumbling end this dray horse must abide by the mandates of the lesser truth that is the truth of life and that makes ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... the voice, and the tender, trustful feeling that breathed through the prayer awakened in Ranald's heart emotions and longings he had never known before, and he rose from his knees feeling how wicked and how cruel a thing it would be to cause one of these little ones to stumble. ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... ask my old husband would he vote how she told him if she carried him to the polls. He said yes and she carried him. When he got there they told him no colored was allowed to vote in that election. Poor old man, she didn't offer to get him home, but left him to stumble along ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... was clearly not expected, the sham post was very cautiously moved, and an eye no doubt peeped through the aperture: for there was a howl of dismay, and the man was heard to stumble back and burst into the kitchen, here a Babel of voices rose ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... your acquaintance with your aunt is a very brief one, and she is an extraordinary character; hard to understand. You may easily stumble on a prejudice of ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unwillingly I turned one morning into Kauffer's; and I can not now imagine why I did it, for emulation of the Assistant Adjutant-General was really not motive enough, unless it was with an instinct prepared to stumble upon matter germane in an absurd ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... practicable precaution against being rebuffed. You want to assure yourself of a welcome. Having gained this chance to start the sale of your capabilities, it is of vital importance not to take the next step in the selling process blindly, lest you stumble. Hence you should size up the other man before you announce your purpose in calling. What you may learn from reading his character correctly will help you to gain admittance into his mind for your ideas. It should assure ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... craving—not for artistic expression, but for food and drink." But I cannot conscientiously advise any man to turn to writing merely as a means of earning his victual unless he should, by some cheerful casualty, stumble upon a trick of the You-know-me-Alfred sort, what one might call the Attabuoyant style. If all you want is a suggestion as to some honest way of growing rich, the doughnut industry is not yet overcrowded; and people will stand in line to pay twenty-two ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... pink and silver as I ran along the paths, And he would stumble after, Bewildered by my laughter. I should see the sun flashing from his sword hilt and the buckles on his shoes. I would choose To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths, A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover, Till he caught me in the shade, And the buttons of his waistcoat ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... to his work, saying, "The water is rising in the well again!" Though disease had fastened on his lungs, and was spreading there, and though suffering from a distressing cough, he went on lecturing as usual. To add to his troubles, when one day endeavouring to recover himself from a stumble occasioned by his lameness, he overstrained his arm, and broke the bone near the shoulder. But he recovered from his successive accidents and illnesses in the most extraordinary way. The reed ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... blow. It hit harder, as Jerome meant it should, than any verbal rallying. It sent the man back over his own life to the first stumble in it. ...
— Different Girls • Various
... o'clock, I took a stroll by myself through the town of Compiegne. Coming home, when crossing the bridge below the Palace, I met the Emperor arm-in-arm with Walewski. Not ten minutes afterwards, whom should I stumble upon but the ruffian who had seized the Emperor's bridle? The same red comforter was round his neck, the same wild look was in his face. I turned after he had passed, and at the same moment he turned to look ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... seemed that a sort of madness seized upon Anthony. He awoke in the morning so nervous that Gloria could feel him trembling in the bed before he could muster enough vitality to stumble into the pantry for a drink. He was intolerable now except under the influence of liquor, and as he seemed to decay and coarsen under her eyes, Gloria's soul and body shrank away from him; when he stayed out all night, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... round upon Turks, clowns, Indians, the tinselled, sequined, beaded, ragged flutter of the room, then from the coloured and composite clothing of a footballer, clown or jockey grinned the round face and owlish eyes of little Duval, who flew to her at once to whisper compliments and stumble on the swelling fortress of her white skirt. She realised dimly from him that her dress was as beautiful as she had hoped it might be, but what was the use of its beauty if Julien should be missing? And, looking over Duval's head, she tried ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... severely for allowing the king to expose himself and the country to this unnecessary danger; while the meanness of the locality, the fetid air, the darkness of the night, which was wet and tempestuous, and the uncertainty of the event lowered my spirits, and made every splash in the kennel and stumble on the reeking, slippery pavements—matters over which the king grew merry—seem no light troubles ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... other track, the roses Are backed by sharpest thorns; While berries always nourish, And the violet but adorns;— You will stumble into sluices, And what is worse than all, Your self-respect and conscience ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... when I had the misfortune to stumble against your majesty yesterday, a misfortune which I shall deplore to the last day of my life, especially after the dissatisfaction which you exhibited, I remained, sire, motionless with despair, your majesty being at too great a distance to hear my excuses, when I saw something ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... and fall in pieces and make no recruit"—a broad hint to leave. She "would not help him on with his coat"—a cutting blow. She would not let her servant accompany him home with a lantern, but heartlessly permitted her elderly lover to stumble home alone in the dark. She spoke to him of his luckless courtship of Widow Denison (a most unpleasant topic), thus giving a clue to the whole situation, in showing that Madam Winthrop resented his desertion of her in his ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... almost down to the bridge itself, extended trees and shrubbery that afforded excellent hiding places. The only trouble was that both the outlaws and the officers who were trying to apprehend them were likely to seek the same shelter and might in this way stumble across each other before the trap was ready ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... only guess. I can only stumble and grope in the dark. Think! That woman, lovely, sweet, brilliant, could she accept all that you offer her and give nothing in return if she were heart-free? Wouldn't your love for her appeal to her, touch her, force some tenderness in response? Oh, I have watched her. I have ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... to rock with the fearless certainty of a chamois. Her only stumble was caused, she recollected, by an absurd effort to avoid wetting her dress. She laughed nervously when they reached the place. This time Jenks lifted her across ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... prayer the gray-beard uttered "Ukko's fabric is the bandage, Ukko's science is the surgeon, These have served the wounded hero, Wrapped the wounds of the magician. Look upon us, God of mercy, Come and guard us, kind Creator, And protect us from all evil! Guide our feet lest they may stumble, Guard our lives from every danger, From the wicked wilds of Hisi." Wainamoinen, old and truthful, Felt the mighty aid of magic, Felt the help of gracious Ukko, Straightway stronger grew in body, Straightway were the wounds united, Quick the ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... and give ear, be not proud, For the Lord hath spoken! Give glory to the Lord your God Before it grows dark, And before your feet stumble— On the mountains of dusk. While ye look for light, He turns it to gloom And ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... horse could be made out. It was approaching slowly, seeming to stumble now and then. There was an uneasy movement among the cattle, and the boys peered eagerly forward, their hands on the butts of their guns in ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... traditions against public interference in private matters. The unreasoning opposition of medical men to government protection of health, their concentration on cure, and their tardy emphasis on prevention have forced many communities to stumble into the evil practices mentioned in Chapter XVI. Incidentally, the best physicians have learned that the prosperity of their profession increases with every increase in the general standard of living. It is the man in ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... more I renew Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found Long since to be but just one other mound Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew. And once again, and wiser in no wise, I chase your colored phantom on the air, And sob and curse and fall and weep and rise And stumble pitifully on to where, Miserable and lost, with stinging eyes, Once more I ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... her strains of romantic, egotistic ability to which nothing in them corresponded. She could play, she could draw—brilliantly, spontaneously—up to a certain point, when neither Sarah nor Lulu could stumble through a "piece," or produce anything capable of giving the smallest satisfaction to their drawing-master. She could chatter, on occasion, so that a room full of people instinctively listened. And she had read voraciously, especially ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... northward before a hot and oppressive breeze, and the sun was now hidden. The carriage descended at a rapid trot, and once the man got down and silently examined his brakes. The road was a sort of cornice cut on the bare mountain side, and a stumble or the slipping of a brake-block would inevitably send the carriage ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... blessing, though a great trial, Miss, and a great trust; but don't suppose you are destined to exemption from trouble on that account, any more than poor Emmanuel Bryerly. As the sparks fly upwards, Miss Ruthyn! Your cushioned carriage may overturn on the highroad, as I may stumble and fall upon the footpath. There are other troubles than debt and privation. Who can tell how long health may last, or when an accident may happen the brain; what mortifications may await you in ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... expected to stumble over a mine with the men all at work. You expected to find a shaft and mules and men on every side. How ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... constantly passing and repassing between these two islands; and as the 'Daylight' had a particularly heavy cargo this trip, and would not be clear for the next two days, we made up our minds to search the islands, and drive the blacks on to Hinchinbrook, so that one of our parties must stumble across them when we swept it. This may seem to the reader unnecessary trouble, but most of our party were conversant with the habits of the blacks and their limited method of reasoning; and we judged it probable that the Herbert River gins would have at once acquainted the Hinchinbrook ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... A stumble of the horse threw him, and as he lay on the ground, unable to move, one of the servants of the company came up and broke the lance across Don Quixote's ribs. It was not until a countryman came by that the Don was extricated, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... men will be drowsy on the march. The women must cook and scatter popcorn on the verandah every morning; so will the men be agile in their movements. The rooms must be kept very tidy, all boxes being placed near the walls; for if any one were to stumble over them, the absent husbands would fall and be at the mercy of the foe. At every meal a little rice must be left in the pot and put aside; so will the men far away always have something to eat and need never go hungry. On no account may the women sit at the loom till their legs ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... two-thirty, I watch; but nothing occurs; and, finally, I stumble off to bed, where I am ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... of them cared much for this man. He was not a man to make close friends. But death had given him a new dignity among them, and the rough hands lifted him, and bore him to the boat as tenderly as though a jar or a stumble might add to ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... said Ioasaph, "But how, after baptism, shall a man keep himself clear from all sin? For even if there be, as thou sayest, repentance for them that stumble, yet it is attended with toil and trouble, with weeping and mourning; things which, methinks, are not easy for the many to accomplish. But I desired rather to find a way to keep strictly the commandments of God, and not swerve from them, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... down under it, and almost thought that I should give up the ghost. After some time, however, I recovered, and getting up tried to find my way out of the anialwch. Sheer good fortune caused me to stumble upon a path, by following which I came to a lone farm-house, where a good-natured woman gave me certain directions by means of which I at last got out of the hot stony wilderness, for such it was, upon ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... them a conclusion concerning him who did them. One aid he offered to the imprisoned prophet,—a word from the Book of Isaiah (xxxv. 5f., lxi. 1f.),—and added a blessing for such as "should find nothing to stumble at in him." Here Jesus emphasized his works, and allowed his message to speak for itself; but he frankly indicated that he expected people to pass from wonder at his ministry to an opinion about himself. At Caesarea Philippi he showed to his disciples that this opinion about himself ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... hard winter in San Francisco; the rains were heavy, and the mud fearful. I have seen mules stumble in the street, and drown in the liquid mud! Montgomery Street had been filled up with brush and clay, and I always dreaded to ride on horseback along it, because the mud was so deep that a horse's legs ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... that a priest was the very person he was looking for, coolly replaced the old man's hat, which had tumbled off, and bade him accompany him at once on an errand of spiritual counsel to one who was even then lying in extremity. "To think," said the stranger, "that I should stumble upon the very man I was seeking! Body of Bacchus! but this is lucky! Follow me quickly, for there ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... he said. "We had made our last charge down on the head of the enemy's column. It was hot work. Desailles was shot through the head, close by my side and, as we rode off, I felt my horse stumble, and knew that it was hit. Almost at the same moment my sword fell from my hand, my right arm being ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... that whether it was tiger or not, it would neither be safe for him to raise an alarm, nor start to rush back to the bivouac—though this was not twenty yards from the spot. By making an attempt to retreat, he might draw the animal after him, or stumble upon it—not knowing its direction. It was to ascertain its whereabouts that he had stopped and stood listening. That once known, he might keep his place, or lake to ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... was leading her unerringly towards the staircase. They reached it, and began to descend the winding steps. Unorna, holding her leader by one hand, steadied herself with the other against the smooth, curved wall, fearing at every moment lest she should stumble and fall in the total darkness. But Beatrice never faltered. To her the way was as bright as though the noonday sun had ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... thought of a mind, an intention, "for God is perfect in goodness." Words so easily come to obscure what they were meant to reveal; and if we think how the notion of perfect goodness rules and sways such a man's mind, we shall not wonder that he did not stumble at the omnipotency which revolts us, cowed as we are by the presence of evil. The old gentleman dressed like a king;—this was not the part of his ideas about God which occupied Duerer's mind. He accepted it, but did not think about it: it filled what would otherwise have been a blank in his mind ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... jump which no one could have imagined a dog of his size capable of doing, he clutched the Arab chief by the throat as he slashed at me, making him stumble back, thus causing the cut that would otherwise have sliced off my head like a carrot to be wasted ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... of tumbled pine-clad ridges and gullies, on which I soon lost my way in a drizzling rain. The single telegraph wire came to my rescue, jumping lightly from moss-grown stick to tall slender tree-trunk across vast chasms down into and out of which I had to slip and slide and stumble pantingly upward in pursuit. Before dark I was delighted to fall upon a trail again, though not with its condition, for it was generally perpendicular and always thick with loose stones. A band of arrieros cooking their scanty supper under a shelter tent asserted there ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... wild activity of thoughts, imaginations, feelings, and impulses of motion rises up from within me; a sort of bottom wind, that blows to no point of the compass, comes from I know not whence, but agitates the whole of me; my whole being is filled with waves that roll and stumble, one this way, and one that way, like things that have no common master. I think that my soul must have pre-existed in the body of a chamois chaser. The simple image of the old object has been obliterated, but the feelings, and impulsive habits, and incipient ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle |
