"Stumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cried the voice by my side. There was positive offence in the tone, and, as I looked my amazement, he continued accusingly, "You always smile. Every time we meet. It must be an annoyance to stumble against me wherever you go. Yet you smile! And to-day you are ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... water then the shipp drewe A man must tell yow tales and find yow ears Haruest ears (of a busy man). When thrift is in the feeld he is in the Towne That he wynnes in y'e hundreth he louseth in the Shyre To stumble at a strawe and leap over a bloc To stoppe two gappes with one bush To doe more than the preest spake of on Sunday To throwe the hatchet after the helve Yow would be ouer the stile before yow come at it. Asinus avis (a foolish conjecture). Herculis Cothurnos aptare infantj ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... "They quite forgot.... They stumble upon jewels worth a month of strike pay—baubles whose loss has stupefied the County, and forget to mention it. And I spent two hours this afternoon in a gas-mask studying the plan of the drains and ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... nature and a wound in patience, the death of hope and the entrance into despair. It is children's awe and fools' amazement, a worm in conscience and a curse to wickedness. In brief, it makes the coward stagger, the liar stammer, the thief stumble, and the traitor start. It is a blot in arms, a blur in honour, the shame of a soldier, and the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... already mounted on one of the coach horses, where she sat demurely and at ease awaiting him. Geoffrey seized the bridle and walked slowly down the bank, taking great care of his own steps lest he should by slipping cause the horse to stumble, and in a few seconds they were slowly picking their way over the rough ice. The horse's hoofs crunched into the snow, and Betty held her breath, and a little thrill went over her as she fancied she heard the ice ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... I hesitated, fearful that if I followed I should stumble or dislodge some of the lava blocks of ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... to be falling, yet to rise again and stumble forward with eyes turned to heaven—this was the best which would ever come of man. It was accepted in its imperfection by the infinite grace of God, who pities mortal weakness, and accepts the intention for the deed—who, when there is a sincere ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... pray that I may not through indifference wander without a purpose, or through discouragement stumble through the darkness. May I be drawn to the light by the vision of hopeful and ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... historians of the crusades slide and stumble over this humiliating step. Yet, since the heroes knelt to salute the emperor, as he sat motionless on his throne, it is clear that they must have kissed either his feet or knees. It is only singular, that Anna should not have amply supplied the silence or ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... let her snapper and stoyte on her way, [stumble, stagger] Be't to me, be't frae me, e'en let the jad gae: Come ease or come travail, come pleasure or pain, My warst ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... roof. Now again she flies aloof, Coasting mountain clouds, and kissed By the evening's amethyst. In wet wood and miry lane Still we pound and pant in vain; Still with earthy foot we chase Waning pinion, fainting face; Still, with grey hair, we stumble on Till - behold! - the vision gone! Where has fleeting beauty led? To the doorway of the dead! qy. omit? [Life is gone, but life was gay: We have come ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... idle. It is all movement, noise, and glitter, everyone is telling everyone else to make way before him; the Indian merchants beseech you from the open bazaars; their children, swathed in gorgeous silks and hung with jewels and bangles, stumble under your feet, the Sultan's troops assail you with fife and drum, and the black women, wrapped below their bare shoulders in the colors of the butterfly, and with teeth and brows dyed purple, crowd you to the wall. Outside the city there are long and wonderful ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... leave him alone, Gibbons; as long as he is forward he can do no harm; but if you see him working his way aft, after it gets dark, it will do him no harm if you manage to stumble against him and give him a clout on ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... square. It was a nasty piece of work, as we were within a few miles of the Boer laager, three hundred strong. There was moonlight, too—it was like a dream, that strange, silent ride, with only the stumble of a horse breaking the regular thud of the hoofs. We surrounded the farm in absolute silence, dismounting some thousand yards away, and fixing bayonets. I told the men I wanted no shots—that would have brought down the commando—but ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... "So I am to get in front of it, and lead it in the right direction? Fine ... as long as I don't stumble over something. If I do, it'll go over me like ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... and elevated beatitude; a simper sat upon his lips, which parted ineffectually with the speech that he endeavored to make. A still lingering consciousness of something to be done, prompted him to rise, however, and stumble toward the landlord, who, while scuffling with the jailer, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Cook's firm friend till the day of his death. Cook had been a short time at school under the instruction of Smothers and Prout, but when he entered the Land Office his education was at most only the ability to stumble along a little in a primary reading-book. He, however, now gave himself in all his leisure moments, early and late, to study. Mr. Wilson remembers his indefatigable application, and affirms that it was ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... therefore 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 poems ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... denied the possibility of their being so, as they were ignorant of Christ and His commandments, and placed their hope of salvation on outward forms and superstitious observances, which were the invention of Satan, who wished to keep them in darkness that at last they might stumble into the pit which he had dug for them. I said repeatedly that the Pope, whom they revered, was an arch deceiver, and the head minister of Satan here on earth, and that the monks and friars, whose absence ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... to drop her, and let her get through the torrent by herself; but Cheiron's words were in his mind, and he said only, 'Patience, mother; the best horse may stumble ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... in the line the machine-gunners were always split up into small sections over the front, their guns of course being very carefully concealed. In consequence, just when I thought I had reached an area which was quite uninhabited, I would stumble on some queer little hole, and, on calling down it to see if there were any men there, the answer would be, "The machine-gun battalion," and I would find myself among friends. At Averdoignt they had one of the best rest billets they ever ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... captain had carried her half the distance between the tent and the boat, in the last of which, a minute more would have deposited his victim, when a severe blow on the back of his head caused Spike to stumble, and he permitted Rose to escape from his grasp, in the effort to save himself from a fall. Turning fiercely toward his assailant, whom he suspected to be one of his boat's crew, he saw Tier standing within a few yards, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... footing and fell over the precipice, and it is the general opinion that they were killed long before they reached the golden palace of the Plumerian Thetis. I was a little alarmed at first, for fear my horse would stumble, in which case I should have shared the fate of the unhappy beeves, but soon forgot all fear in the enchanting display of flowers which each opening in the shrubs displayed to me. Earth's firmament was starred ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... as he found it, and came north to stumble over others, less picturesque but nearer. He squandered two or three months on Paris. From the first he had avoided Paris, and had wanted no French influence in his education. He disapproved of France in the lump. A certain knowledge of the language one must ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... I began to see why he had gone away so meekly, though he knew that a stranger had found him out and was likely to stumble on his treasure: so long as I was in hiding, I had had him at a disadvantage; but now, having gone away quietly without resistance, he was able to await me under cover at the Forbidden River's mouth, and I would be the one who would run most risk when ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... we stumble on difficulties. Religion is personal. Yet is not religion also eminently social? What is more vital to the social order than its beliefs? If we send a man to gaol for stealing trash, what shall we do to him whom, in our conscience and on ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... especially in boy-life. We must have our powers of mental vision quickened and cleared by the magic dew of sad experience—experience which alone can give sympathy worth having, ere we can understand the queer bits of pathos we constantly stumble upon in life, ere we can begin to judge our fellows with the large-hearted charity that alone can illumine the glass through which for so long we see ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... Obed. "Those fellows want scalps and they don't care whether we're Texans or Mexicans. Besides, they may have better horses than the Mexican ponies. But it's a long chase that has no turning, and if our horses don't stumble we'll beat them. Look out for potholes ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... is our lucky morning," remarked Garry. "Here we might have been days and days before we ever found the slightest bit of evidence on which to base our search for the band of smugglers, but in less than an hour after the starting of our mission, we stumble upon this very ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... is safety. Misfortune seems to have dogged my steps; but in this pause of my life—in this state of calmness—I can see that misfortune is my good; for, not until my feet were turning into ways that lead to death, did I stumble and fall." ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... way in which the young people of this generation pair off determines the fate of the nation; all the other affairs of the State are subsidiary to that. And we leave it to flushed and blundering youth to stumble on its own significance, with nothing to guide in but shocked looks and sentimental twaddle and ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... strong hand and I try to shake myself, and I stumble curiously, although lying down. A clamor booms in my temples and then thunders like the guns in my ears; it overflows ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... upon the owner of the voice that was at once so fresh and young, so coolly determined and vaguely defiant. And as he looked at her there was much speculation in his grave eyes. Odd that he should stumble upon her the first thing. ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... remained scarcely a minute below, and respectfully wishing the occupants of the cabin a good evening, they took their leave. The elder went first, and as the second followed, he appeared to stumble at the door. As he did so, he let a folded paper fall from his hand, and, at the same instant, he gave a hurried glance at Ada over his shoulder. Before she had time to tell him of his loss, he had sprung up the companion-ladder. The strangers were quickly ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... he came towards her, limping a little. She felt that if she moved she must surely stumble and fall. The beating of her heart thundered in her ears and for a moment the river, and the steep sides of the coombe, and the figure of Peter Mallory himself all seemed to grow dim and vague as though ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... main lode above?' And she answered yes. That every gravel bar made a better showing; the last trip had taken him above the tree line, and this time he expected to prospect along the glacier at the source of the stream. Sometimes erosions laid veins open, and any hour 'he might stumble on riches.' She smiled again, though her lip trembled, then said it was his limited outfit that troubled her most. He had taken only a light blanket and a small allowance of ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... was the yell or not, the horse recovered from the slight stumble: and no harm befel ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... blue-warm blue of horizon and sea. The steps by which these ways descend towards the bay are black with age, and slightly mossed close to the wall on either side: they have an alarming steepness,—one might easily stumble from the upper into the lower street. Looking towards the water through these openings from the Grande Rue, you will notice that the sea-line cuts across the blue space just at the level of the upper story of the house on the lower street-corner. Sometimes, a hundred feet ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... now leads through a thicket. The horses stumble frequently, for the stones are loose, and the footing consequently uncertain. Crouch has a fall, and ere he can remount the lady is gone. It is useless to hurry after her, and he is proceeding slowly, when Grip, who is a little in advance, growls fiercely, and looks back at his master, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... hands with delight, and wafted the Moon with its frosty gauze covering up through the smoke-hole of the room and it became fixed as the Stars, to give light through the hours of darkness, that the earth need not stumble and fall upon ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... on, favorable odds. contingency, dependence (uncertainty) 475; situation (circumstance) 8. statistics, theory of Probabilities, theory of Chances; bookmaking; assurance; speculation, gaming &c 621. V. chance, hap, turn up; fall to one's lot; be one's fate &c 601; stumble on light upon; take one's chance &c 621. Adj. casual, fortuitous, accidental, adventitious, causeless, incidental, contingent, uncaused, undetermined, indeterminate; random, statistical; possible &c 470; unintentional ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... which is my present? You had better point it out, lest I should stumble upon it and learn the ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... "You'll stumble." He did not wait for her assent, and for that and for the strength of his hold she liked him, and, as she ran, and her blood quickened, she liked him better. She did not understand herself, for she ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... and there he saw Master Phoby Geen come slamming out of the empty Folly and post down the slope at a swinging pace towards Cawse Ogo. "And a pretty rage he's carrying with him I'll wager," said the doctor to himself. "The Lord send he doesn't stumble upon Dan'l, or I may have to hurt him, which I don't want, and lose the fun of this. I wouldn't miss it ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... talking when Miss Salisbury brought back Lily by the hand, red-eyed and still sniffling, to stumble over her pleas for pardon. And then, the storm having abated, there were instant preparations for departure set in motion. And Mr. Kimball and his associates helped them into their vehicles, Miss Clemcy's beautiful old lace showing ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... 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 three hundred ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... cloysters or colleges, will freely wade, by their writings, in the deepest mysteries of monarchy and politick government. Whereupon it cannot otherwise fall out but that when men go out of their element and meddle with things above their capacity, themselves shall not only go astray and stumble in darkness, but will mislead also divers others with themselves into many mistakings and errors; the proof whereof we have lately had by a book written by Dr. ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... men we were helping out of the train were seriously hurt. I had to choose between my one badly wounded man, whom we hadn't found, and about a dozen who could stumble somehow into safety. But my two stretcher-bearers were wavering badly, and it was all I could do to keep them ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... tired and hungry. They drag and stumble along in a most tiresome manner. There is moonlight, that ought to add poetry to the scenery—but in Persia there is no poetry about anything. There are a great many caravans on the road—they all travel at night to save the animals from the great heat of ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to me, and if you stumble, the naiads will rise out of their depths, and "hold up their pearled wrists" to save ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... in the present section, and so I say nothing more about it; and ask you, rather, just to look at the loving reasons which Christ here suggests for His present speech— 'that ye should not be offended,' or stumble. He warns them of the storm before it bursts, lest, when it bursts, it should sweep them away from their moorings. Of course, there could be nothing more productive of intellectual bewilderment, and more likely to lead to doubt ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... at the man who reared the logs. Still, if one wanders from the trail far enough and deviously enough, he may chance upon a few thousand square miles which he may have all to himself. On the other hand, no matter how far and how deviously he may wander, the possibility always remains that he may stumble, not alone upon a deserted cabin, but upon ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... always addressed in that manner. She will answer the hungry customer with, 'Yah ochen sojalaylu, shto unaus nyet yestnik prepasov siechas' (a simple home cure for lockjaw), meaning, "I am very sorry, but we are right out of food today.' He will try several other places, and if he is lucky he is apt to stumble across a place where he can get something to eat, but when he looks at the bill of fare and learns that it cost him about $7.50 for a sandwich and a cup of coffee, he beats it ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... token. The Doctor liked to discuss Kenyon with his wife from the standpoint of ancestry. He took a sort of fiendish delight—if one may imagine a fiend with a seraphic face and dancing blue eyes and a mouth that loved to pucker in a pensive whistle—in Mrs. Nesbit's never failing stumble over the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... pity on him, and gave him the coffin. The prince had it borne away by his servants. They happened to stumble over a bush, and the shock forced the bit of poisoned apple which Snowdrop had tasted out of her throat. Immediately she opened her eyes, raised the coffin-lid, and sat up alive once more. "Oh, heaven!" cried she, ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... only dread, and He shall be to you for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and many among them shall stumble against that stone, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and perish. Hide my words, and cover my law ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... walking stealthily, like the stealthiest of the wild kindred themselves. The trail being well-worn, though long deserted by man, his feet kept it without difficulty; but he held the paddle out before him lest he should stumble over a windfall. Presently he took note of the fact that the trail was marvellously smooth for one that had been so long deserted, and with a little creeping of the skin, which was not in any sense fear but rather ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... arguments side by side: on this side lay success; the greatest office ever held by a Negro in America—greater than Douglass or Bruce or Lynch had held—a landmark, a living example and inspiration. A man owed the world success; there were plenty who could fail and stumble and give multiple excuses. Should he be one? He viewed the other side. What must he pay for success? Aye, face it boldly—what? Mechanically he searched for his mail and undid the latest number of the Colored American. He was sure ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... etc., or, as it runs in English: "Good morning, my darling wife! I hope that you slept well, that you were undisturbed, that you will not rise too early, that you will not catch cold, nor stoop too much, nor overstrain yourself, nor scold your servants, nor stumble over the threshold of the adjoining room. Spare yourself all household worries till I come back. May no evil befall you! I shall be ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... journey of life, as we travel along To the mystical goal that is hidden from sight, You may stumble at times into Roadways of Wrong, Not seeing the sign-board that points to the right. Through caverns of sorrow your feet may be led, Where the noon of the day will like midnight appear. But no matter whither you wander or tread, Keep out ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... for me?" asked the young inventor, as he took up his curious weapon, and followed Ned out into the yard. It was so dark that they had fairly to stumble along. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... I the weary night Are taking a walk for his delight, I drowsily stumble o'er stool and chair And clasp the babe with grim despair, For he's got the colic And paregoric Don't seem to ease my ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... her in. The custom of lifting the bride over the threshold, probably to avert an ill-omened stumble, has prevailed among the most diverse races. For the anointing of the doorposts Brand quotes Langley's translation of Polydore Vergil: "The bryde anoynted the poostes of the doores with swynes' grease, because ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... to you, Guru," she said without a stumble, "a great friend of mine. This is Mr Pillson, Guru; Guru, Mr Pillson. The Guru is coming to tiffin with me, Georgie. Cannot I ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... stacks. The negroes call to each other, laugh with spontaneous, childlike humor. The wharf officers, the brokers, pass with intense faces. It is hot. Sweat drips from black faces and from white. Whips crack. Mules trot and stumble over the loose and resounding boards. Heavy wheels rumble. And the life of gambling, drinking, pleasure, crawls about the French quarter, along Canal Street, on Royal Street. The bell in the Cathedral rings. ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... 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 ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... was resolved to convince you that everything which a man DETERMINES to do, may be done. I had some information respecting the rascals, though it was but slight, and on these grounds I proceeded. I happened by mere accident to stumble upon a gondolier, whose appearance excited my curiosity. I fell into discourse with him. I was soon convinced that he was not ignorant of the lurking-place of the bravoes, and by means of some gold and many fair speeches, I at length brought him to confess that though not regularly belonging ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... timorousness, (for so he calls the first appearance of a tender conscience,) he calls them fools and blockheads, and by no means will employ them in much, or speak to their commendations before others. For my part, I am of opinion, that he has, by his wicked life, caused many to stumble and fall; and will be, if God prevent not, ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... of sniffing the lad decided that smoke lay off obliquely to the right of him. Having decided upon this he started in the direction named, but proceeded with much more caution than before as he did not wish to stumble upon strangers until he had first determined whether they ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... hot and close down in the rock-hewn chamber, and we are glad enough to stumble up and out again, though we are blinded by the ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... childish origin, beginning in a casual superstition or local accident. 'These people,' says Captain Palmer of the Fiji,' are very conservative. A chief was one day going over a mountain-path followed by a long string of his people, when he happened to stumble and fall; all the rest of the people immediately did the same except one man, who was set upon by the rest to know whether he considered himself better than the chief.' What can be worse than a life regulated by that sort of obedience, and that sort of imitation? This is, of course, a bad specimen, ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... might not have walked over backwards, or got off his mule on either side. One of the bad passes, called las Animas (the souls), I had crossed, and did not find out till a day afterwards, that it was one of the awful dangers. No doubt there are many parts in which, if the mule should stumble, the rider would be hurled down a great precipice; but of this there is little chance. I dare say, in the spring, the "laderas," or roads, which each year are formed anew across the piles of fallen detritus, are very bad; but from what I saw, I suspect the real danger is nothing. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... 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 actions, are in me, and the old ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... had the good fortune to stumble on a trail that was evidently used by Indians or other dwellers in the wilderness, probably by men portaging the length of bad water down the river. It was a rough enough path, yet it made his task immeasurably easier. ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... reality. She liked Susan; in her intelligence and physical charm were the possibilities of getting far up in the world; it seemed a pity that she was thus handicapped. Still, perhaps Susan would stumble upon some worth while man who, attempting to possess her without marriage and failing, would pay the heavy price. There was always that chance—a small chance, smaller even than finding by loose living a worth ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... difficult bar approached. And she felt inclined to cry with thankfulness everytime the child went smoothly past. But then just as surely as her nervous tension released itself, and she began to comfort herself that the concluding page could not fail to go well, a stumble, a slip, a despairing cry from the piano stool, and the whole ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... sheer will, regained his mental balance. "I am tired and nervous, or I would never imagine such foolish things," he said. "Of course it is as you say, produced by natural causes, and I will likely laugh at my fears as soon as we stumble on the key to the mystery. And now I am going to insist upon your going back inside, Charley. It won't do for us to have you down with the fever again. For our sakes, as well as your own, you must ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... on Him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe He is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the Word, being disobedient" (1 Pet. 2, 4-8). Here Peter in the plainest and strongest terms declares Christ to be the rock on which the Church is built. The scribes and Pharisees rejected Him, as had been foretold, ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... reflected from its surface are pitilessly flashed into the dark places of the earth, which have been wrapped around by the old-time dim religious light, since first the world began. The people in whose eyes these rays beat so mercilessly, reel and stumble blindly on in their march through life, taking wrong turnings at every step, and going woefully astray. Let us hope that succeeding generations will become used to the new conditions, and will fight their way ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... soft of voice: "Not all men stumble when a Nation falls; There are that stand upright. God gives thee this: They that are faithful to thy Faith, that walk Thy way, and keep thy covenant with God, And daily sing thy hymn, when comes the Judge With Sign ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... desperate pass he tried to shout, but found, as the spent runner usually does, that he was almost voiceless. A feeble call was all he could manage, and on the contrary wind and noise of the storm, this was quite inadequate. He could only stumble on, borne up by his indomitable will. He was weakening ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... mad about it," she continued. "He thought Mr. Courtney was an ordinary sort of person, anyway. I didn't. I just thought him dull, and I suppose he couldn't help that. Mommer wanted to go over to England last summer. She thought we might stumble on him over there. But popper wouldn't let her do it. He sent us to Alaska instead." She paused, and gave a smiling bow to an acquaintance. "Doesn't Mrs. Peck look sweet tonight?" She designated the society editress of the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... know I did what was best for them in advising them as I did. These same girls will be topnotchers in other fields of stage dancing, and I would rather direct their pathway to sure success than to let them wander into byways where their feet might stumble. So first of all, the candidate for ballet dancing must have my approval, she must be qualified according to my high standards, and when I say "Yes," and the student enters faithfully upon the work as I lay it out, she is going ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... The miracle of the transformation of monsters by love is being accomplished. Hell is being gilded. The vulture is being metamorphosed into a bluebird. Horror ends in the pastoral. You think you are at Vouglans's and Parent-Duchatelet's; you are at Longus's. Another step and you will stumble into Berquin's. Strange indeed is it to encounter Daphnis and Chloe in ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... nothing that he could do sat silent beside him smoking tranquilly, while, with the flung-up snow whirling about them, the team went floundering down almost precipitous gully or rutted declivity, where a stumble would have hurled them all into the tops of the pines below. Nor had a cry escaped the girl who sat behind them, gripping the side of the bouncing vehicle, when once a horse went down, and on another occasion the wagon left the trail and drove into a hemlock. ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... was sitting with Alicia's head against my knee, a light, swift footstep sounded overhead in the attic, followed by a sort of stumble, as if somebody had slipped on one of those unexpected steps. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... old, low, and irregular level, with a rugged floor full of holes with water in them, and with projections in the roof that rendered frequent stooping necessary. The difficulty of one's progress in such places is that, while you are looking out for your head, you stumble into the holes, and when the holes claim attention you run your head against the roof; but, thanks to the miner's ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... man speaketh, every man holdeth his tongue, and, look, what he saith, they extol it to the clouds: but if the poor man speak, they say, What fellow is this? and if he stumble, they will help ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... we retire is swept continually with fire. I climb up to the ridge. Now nothing further matters. Only not to fall alive in the hands of those over there! To die! I stumble over a ridge in the field. A few moments of unconsciousness. Then again the tacktack-tacktack of the machine guns. God, our Lord, Thou art our refuge forever and aye! I pray Thee, I pray Thee, let me die an honest soldier's death. And not suffer long. Now, dear Lord, please; now! If ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... advertisement for a private secretary? How then should he have gained a footing in this house? Well, here he was, and speculation was of no value, save in a congratulatory sense. The fly in the amber was the presence of the young American; Fitzgerald, shrewd and clever, might stumble upon something. Well, ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... their descent of the hill. Meyer did not speak again; all his attention seemed to be concentrated upon finding a safe path on which the horses would not stumble. Nor did Benita speak; she was too utterly exhausted—so exhausted, indeed, that she could no longer control her mind and imagination. These seemed to loose themselves from her and to acquire new powers, notably that of entering into the secret thoughts of the man at ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... country, that her lips were observed to be always in motion, and that there was not a switch about her house which her neighbours did not believe had carried her several hundreds of miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found sticks or straws that lay in the figure of a cross before her. If she made any mistake at church, and cried Amen in a wrong place, they never failed to conclude that she was saying her prayers backwards. ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... this luck," he congratulated himself, "it will go hard with me if I do not either stumble on the youngling himself, or someone who can ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... details now: how his arm had hung limp; how he had been to a good deal of awkward trouble to keep his left arm always toward her; how white he had been when he passed her on his way out; how he had seemed to stumble when he stepped into ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... proved. Your whole strength will barely suffice for the defence of the sacred cause you represent; for its defence against the fierce and crafty enemies who at this hour perchance are arching their backs and purring like cats, but who are lurking in the jungle, awaiting the moment when you will stumble if you should ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... inwardly. "By Jove, Elizabeth, think of that boy, coming out of nothing, everything poured into his hands—and now within ten days of his goal! Rather exciting, isn't it? Suppose he should stumble at the very threshold of ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... the struggle.... What? ... No, I do not know why; I have told you all I know. There is nothing more, Mr. Carruthers—except that I should advise you to work as quickly as possible, as otherwise some one may stumble on the crime before you ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... rest of the bunch. You come along with me, now, and get your supper. After that you may return if you want to. Big-foot, you and Curley stay here until the Pinto gets back. Better keep busy. You may stumble upon something ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... shoulders of a slave. He was a thin delicate youth with evidences of fatal consumption upon him. He had become faint from over-exertion, and one of the drivers had applied the whip by way of stimulus. The effect on the poor youth was to cause him to stumble, and instead of making him lift better, made him rest his weight on the stone, thus overbalancing it, and bringing it down. In falling the block caught the ankle of the youth, who fell with a piercing shriek to the ground, where he lay ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... forward, the more is everything turned terribly inside out, full of putrefaction, cataclysmic. We walk on a surface of shell fragments, and the foot trips on them at every step. We go among them as if they were snares, and stumble in the medley of broken weapons or bits of kitchen utensils, of water-bottles, fire-buckets, sewing-machines, among the bundles of electrical wiring, the French and German accouterments all mutilated and encrusted ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... Afraid she might stumble on to a bear and be sadly frightened, I called on her to wait for me. But she discovered a blaze on a sycamore beyond the cane and hurried forward. Half-way through the cane she slipped on a wet root ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... a creature of circumstance, that Norman, Scandinavian, Goth, or Icelander, deserves no sort of credit for it. All history shows that it vanishes before the temptations of any Vinland which the frozen barbarians stumble upon. None the less does it give them vigor of muscle, and power to endure hardship, which, in the end, tells, over the accomplishments of the most warlike Romans, Greeks, Persians, or other Southrons. "Fight us, if you like," said Ariovistus ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... saw, when he passed that way three days before, that the road was blocked with wagons, artillery trains and stable-lines, and to these obstructions were now added sleeping men, who would not be over civil to any one who chanced to stumble against them in the dark. So Dick drew his squad off into the woods out of the way and went into camp; that is to say, he ate the little piece of hard tack he found in his haversack, washed it down with a drink of warm water from his canteen, ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... 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 sets it ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... unnaturally, in a life and death struggle, with bloodshot eyes, with foaming, gnashing mouths. They attack and kill one another and try to mangle each other. I leap to my feet. I race out into the night and tread on quaking flesh, step on hard heads, and stumble over weapons and helmets. Something is clutching at my feet like hands, so that I race away like a hunted deer with the hounds at his heels—and ever over more bodies—breathless... out of one field into another. Horror is crooning over my head. Horror is crooning beneath ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... ever, she hobbled slowly over to the stove and laid the shoes on the big shelf above it, spreading them out to the rising heat. She had barely arranged them when there was again the sound of approaching footsteps. These feet, however, did not stumble. They were heavy and certain. Mrs. Brenner snatched at the shoes, gathered them up, and turned to run. But one of the lacings caught on a nail on the shelf. She jerked desperately at the nail, and the jerking loosened her hold of both the shoes. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Those who stumble at the prodigality and licence of his style, and the unchartered daring of his imagination, will find a most curious and brilliant discussion of the whole subject in his Essay on Shelley, which may be summed up in the injunction that "in poetry, as in the Kingdom of God, we should ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... succeed in killing Jacob, therefore be thou mindful of avenging me upon his descendants." "But how, alas!" said Amalek, "Shall I be able to compete with Israel?" Esau made answer: "Look well, and as soon as thou seest Israel stumble, leap upon them." Amalek looked upon this legacy as the guiding star of his actions. When Israel trespassed, saying with little faith, "Is the Lord among us, or not?" Amalek instantly appeared. Hardly had Israel been tempted ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... James said afterwards, 'like my old mare Betsy, a step and a stumble, a nod and a flop, and home in the Lord's own time—that's ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb |
