"Stagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dulled by his own terrors. He heard the shouts and the ceaseless din of rebellious strife but the only word that he could distinguish was the ominous one of "Death," and whenever this word struck upon his confused mind a violent fit of trembling would seize him and he would stumble and stagger along ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... a blame thing out of this," he complained to Belshazzar. "There are riches to stagger any scientist wasting to-day, and all I've got to show is one oriole. I did hear his first note and see his flash, and so unless we can take time to make up for this on the home road we will have ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... not account for the ten thousand frantic freaks of these people by the peculiar influence of French air and sun? The philosophers are from night to morning drunk, the politicians are drunk, the literary men reel and stagger from one absurdity to another, and how shall we understand their vagaries? Let us suppose, charitably, that Madame Sand had inhaled a more than ordinary quantity of this laughing gas when she wrote for us this precious manuscript of Spiridion. That great destinies are in prospect for the human ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... inside stagger to his feet, drop his gun and throw both hands up to his face—he was starting to rub his eyes as though they had already commenced to feel the terrible effect of the pungent acid that would start the tears ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... exertion, setting it up in place again, not so much with any hope that it would blow us to land, as that it might attract attention aboard some passing ship and lead them to bear down upon and rescue us. This last bit of exertion finished me off, too, and I had not enough strength left even to stagger aft to the cockpit; I simply collapsed on the deck and knew ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... not in cheek. Our seconds in dahlia, not in leek. Our thirds in stagger, not in fall. Our fourths in rampart, not in wall. Our fifths in window, not in pane. Our sixths in tempest, not in rain. The names of two amusing birds Are ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... mighty abrupt. For a minute I can't make out what has happened; but when I sees the mast stagger and go lurchin' overboard, sail and all, I thought it was a case of women ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... a general melee, when the bull and several picadors were in a tangled mass at one side of the ring, I saw one of these horses, terribly wounded, with its life pouring from it, emerge from the conflict and stagger unnoticed to ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... desire for a little brandy to calm her nerves, went down to Cox's. Mrs. Maroney offered some brandy to the Madam, which she politely declined to take, but this did not in the least abash her, for she gulped down enough to stagger an old toper. Josh. was not at home, and ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... fainted; du Bousquier, who saw her stagger, sprang forward and received her in his arms; some one opened the door and allowed him to pass out with his enormous burden. The fiery republican, instructed by Josette, found strength to carry the old maid to her bedroom, ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... death? See fate accomplished! Behold this spear which late the Leir-King brandish'd! My knee grew weak: I stagger'd when it struck me; Yet still I live, and ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... worst old topers of them all. They're just a circus! You never saw the like of the beauties! They come every color you could be naming, and every shape you could be thinking up. They drink and drink until, if I'm driving them away, they stagger as they fly and turn somersaults in the air. If I lave them alone, they cling to the grasses, shivering happy like; and I'm blest, Mother Duncan, if the best of them could be unlocking the front door with ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... charge is sacred; that the sheets he has produced are impossible to replace. High words. Abrupt re-opening of the front door. Struggling humanity projected on to the pavement. Three persons—my scribe in the middle, an emissary on either side—stagger strangely past me. The scribe enters the purple night only under the stony compulsion of ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... made of tough fiber and the extreme shock that would leave some men stunned and prostrate only made him stagger a little. His revolver was spitting an intermittent stream of fire and it continued this after a second slug through his lungs had forced him to his knees. He sank down fighting and got his third fatal wound before the cow-boys carried him ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... and decision. He seemed absorbed in intense meditation. With eyes fixed on the ground, and lips working in thought, he sauntered round the area, apparently unconscious how many of the young gallants of Rome were envying the taste of his dress, and the ease of his fashionable stagger. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... giddiness made Pascal stagger. Here now was this boy, his friend, his pupil, who had introduced himself into his house to rob him of his treasure! He ought to have expected this denouement, yet the sudden news of a possible marriage surprised him, overwhelmed him like an unforeseen catastrophe that had forever ruined ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... surprise and joy which their appearance was certain to cause Percival. His illness and long residence on the island had weakened his physical force. In almost the first time in his life he felt a sensation of faintness, which made him turn pale and stagger, as he recognised the faces of the two persons whom he loved better than any other in the world—his friend and his betrothed. A thought of Brian, too, embittered this his first meeting with Elizabeth. Only ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... in his life Mr. Adiesen was thrown off his balance. Signy, springing up to bind her arms round his neck, caused him to stagger backwards into the hands of Fred and Yaspard, while their appearance and the girl's words upset his mind as much as his body. The joyful bounds and barks of Pirate added to the old gentleman's confusion, and when set on his feet ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... force me to say, sir, you're a fool," Return'd the bragger. Language like this no man can suffer cool: It made the listener stagger; So, thunder-stricken, he at once replied, "The traveler lied Who had the impudence to tell it you;" "Zounds! then d'ye mean to swear before my face That anchovies don't grow like cloves ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... to thyself, and keep thee well from me," cried out Sir Accolon. But King Arthur answered not, and gave him such a buffet on the helm as made him stagger and nigh fall upon the ground. Then Sir Accolon withdrew a little, and came on with Excalibur on high, and smote King Arthur in return with such a mighty stroke as almost felled him; and both being now in hottest wrath, they gave each other grievous and savage blows. But Arthur all the time was ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... carry the position by storm; for, whether moved by the influence of spring, or whether moved by a push from behind, he pressed forward with such desperate resolution that his elbow caused the Commissioner of Taxes to stagger on his feet, and would have caused him to lose his balance altogether but for the supporting row of guests in the rear. Likewise the Postmaster was made to give ground; whereupon he turned and eyed Chichikov ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and, by Jove! there he was, fishing the near side, and wading deep among the reeds! I did not stalk him this time, but set off running down the hillside behind him, as quickly as my basket, with its load of waders and boots, would permit. I was within forty yards of him, when he gave a wild stagger, tried to recover himself, failed, and, this time, disappeared in a perfectly legitimate and accountable manner. The treacherous peaty bottom had given way, and his floating hat, with a splash on the surface, and a few black bubbles, were all that testified to his existence. There was ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... owns a dog. Some of those we saw while passing through Chinese villages were nauseating in their unsightliness, for at least thirty per cent of them were more or less diseased. Barely able to walk, they would stagger across the street or lie in the gutter in indescribable filth. One longed to put them out of their misery with a bullet but, although they seemed to belong to nobody, if one was killed an owner appeared like magic to quarrel over ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... and Mr Lawrie came down, and Nub supplied them also with coffee. The surgeon declared he could stand it no longer, and as he was not required on deck he sat down in the cabin and tried to read; but he had to give it up and stagger off to his berth. Walter at last came below again, saying that his father would not allow him to remain longer on deck; though, like a gallant young sailor, he had wished to share whatever the rest had to endure. In a very few minutes, notwithstanding ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... and to the southward of Ushant before it changed, and then it gradually veered round until it came out strong from the north-west, when away we all went for Madeira, the slowest ships carrying every rag of canvas that they could stagger under, while the faster craft were unwillingly compelled to shorten down in order that all might keep together, while as for ourselves and the Astarte, the utmost that we could show, without running ahead of our station, was ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... of information. He is "full of wise saws and modern" (as well as ancient) "instances." Mr. Southey may not always convince his opponents; but he seldom fails to stagger, never to gall them. In a word, we may describe his style by saying that it has not the body or thickness of port wine, but is like clear sherry with kernels of old authors thrown into it!—He also excels as an historian and ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... it; since each, by endeavouring to expose and confute what they look upon as an absurdity in the other, join in contributing to render the truth of the whole suspected, and not only give a handle to the avowed enemies, of depreciating and ridiculing all the sacred mysteries of religion, but also stagger the faith of a great many well-meaning people, and afford but a too plausible pretence for that sceptism which goes by the name of free-thinking, and is of ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... in the poise of their bodies, the lightness of their eyes, the freshness of their lips and the bloom upon their cheeks. But Oh! it was so sad to see how soon the manly gait would change to the drunkard's stagger. To see eyes once bright with intelligence growing vacant and confused and giving place to the drunkard's leer. In many cases lassitude supplanted vigor, and sickness overmastered health. But the saddest thing was the fearful power that appetite had gained ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... madness. It was the fever. He fell back a step and drew a hand across his forehead. It was damp, clammy with a cold perspiration. He felt a burning pain where he had been struck, and a momentary dizziness made him stagger. Then, with a tremendous effort, he threw himself together and turned to the little girl. As he carried her out through the door into the fresh air Isobel's feverish ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... teeth to aid her to keep her hold of him. He struck at her head, at her arms, at her body, anywhere, so long as he hit her, in his efforts to throw her off. But she held him, and at last, mad with fear, he tried to stagger out of the hut, ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... and nine moons? You must go to one o' them moons, and see Saturn half fillin' the sky, wi' his rings cuttin' the heavens from top to bottom, all coloured wi' crimson and gold—then you begins to stagger at it. That's why I say you can't think o' these things till they've knocked you silly. Now there's Sir Robert Ball—it's knocked him silly, I can tell you. I knowed that when I went to his lecture, by the pictures he showed us, and I sez to myself, 'Bob,' I sez, ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... flame forth from the ruins burst. No water! God! what shall we do to slake their quenchless thirst? The shocks have broken all the mains! "Use wine!" the people cry. The red flames laugh like drunken fiends; they stagger as to die, Then up again in fury spring, on high their crimson draperies fling; From block to block they leap and swing, and smoke ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... where that beastly swell comes from," said Jukes aloud, recovering himself after a stagger. ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... I stagger to my feet. Faint light through the hatch; B's head. I hold out the Andite stick and she turns and shouts; and a panel slides open in the wall so that the ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... above her heart. "Such a relief!" she declared intensely—"you'll never know!" Then she jumped up and wheeled about to the door with petticoats professionally a-swirl. "Well, if I'm goin' to do a stagger in society to-night, it's me to go doll myself up to ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... each other's embrace, stagger to their feet. Corrigan's head was wabbling. He was trying to hold the other to him that he might escape the lashing blows that were driven at his head. The girl saw his hold broken, and as he reeled, catching another blow in the mouth, he swung toward ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... balance, he toppled over and fell with a thud plump on the heads of two Arab sentries at the door. All three came to the ground in a heap, and it was a great relief to the anxious watchers above to see Sir Arthur stagger to ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... a splendid sight to watch the birds sailing in the high winds of Adelie Land. In winds of fifty to seventy miles per hour, when with good crampons one had to stagger warily along the ice-foot, the snow petrels and Antarctic petrels were in their element. Wheeling, swinging, sinking, planing and soaring, they were radiant with life—the wild spirits of the tempest. Even in moderate drift, when through ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the order which had just passed his lips, when Julian noticed that he seemed to pause and stagger for a moment. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... who had been giving me a hurried and anxious explanation of the scene, excited by sudden feeling, rushed forward through the escort, and laying one hand on the royal carriage, with the other waved his hat, and shouted, "Vive le Roi!" In another instant I saw him stagger; a pike was darted into his bosom, and he fell dead under the wheel. Before the confusion of this frightful catastrophe had subsided, a casement was opened immediately above my head, and a woman, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... from him with a violence that made her stagger, and catch at the furniture to save herself ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... startling display of her vexation in the women's place behind the screen, she had leaned on him and fallen fast asleep. Her head was on her son's shoulder when they reached home, and Orion's anxiety for the mother he truly loved was enhanced when he found it difficult to rouse her. He felt her stagger like a drunken creature, and he led her not into the fountain-room but to her bed-chamber, where she only begged to lie down; and hardly had she done so when she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... three weeks of torture, he would fix his eye on a tree ten feet away, up the steep trail. And to himself he would say, "I'll struggle, somehow, as far as that tree, and then die under it." And he would stagger another ten feet, his heart pounding in the unaccustomed altitude, his lungs bursting, his lips parted, his breath coming sobbingly, his eyes starting from his head. Leaping lightly ahead of him, around the bend, was Jessie, always. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... her nature was at this fearful juncture taxed to its greatest tension, and impelled her to concentrate the force of all her remaining energies in urging and coaxing forward the wearied horse, until, finally, he was barely able to reel and stagger along at a slow walk; and when she was about to give up in despair, expecting every instant that the animal would drop down dead under her, the welcome light of day dawned in the eastern horizon, and imparted a more cheerful and encouraging ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Appearances thereof; and so was arrived here. Properly it is the secret of all unhappy men and unhappy nations. Had they known Nature's right truth, Nature's right truth would have made them free. They have become enchanted; stagger spell-bound, reeling on the brink of huge peril, because they were not wise enough. They have forgotten the right Inner True, and taken up with the Outer Sham-true. They answer the Sphinx's question wrong. Foolish men cannot answer it aright! Foolish men ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... have suffered some great loss, and stagger for want of strength to walk alone, thank God for work. Nothing like that for bracing up a feeble heart! I worked restlessly from morning till night, and often encroached on what should have been sleep. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... paces of the cemetery wall, when from behind it rises a battalion of men in the green uniform of the Santee Rangers and pours a withering fire into the ranks. The shock is too great to withstand, and the red-coats stagger away with broken ranks, leaving many dead and wounded on the ground. Lord Percy is the coolest of all. He urges the broken columns forward, and almost alone holds the place until the infantry, a hundred yards behind, come up. Thereupon ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... published to illustrate the brutal expression of men who had taken part in bayonet charges. Lies were spread broadcast by supposedly reputable persons, stating how soldiers had to be maddened with drugs or alcohol before they would go over the top. Much of what was recorded was calculated to stagger the imagination and intimidate the heart. The reason for this was that the supposed eye-witnesses rarely saw what they recorded. They had usually never been within ten miles of the front, for only combatants are allowed in the line. They brought ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... spread its carpet and was taken in prayer. And in Sydney, in Melbourne, in New Zealand, the thing was a fog in the afternoon, that scattered the crowd on race-courses and cricket-fields, and stopped the unloading of shipping and brought men out from their afternoon rest to stagger and litter ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... below, Now mounted up to heaven again, They reel and stagger to and fro, At their wits' end, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... rush increased, and the vanishing inches struck panic into our philosophic breasts. Could Tempest but hold out these few yards, we were safe. He would! No! Yes! No, they're all but level another six yards. Then suddenly we saw Tempest fling his hand behind and reel forward with a blind stagger over the tape, and as the simultaneous report proclaimed a dead heat, fall sprawling and helpless ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... when did it happen Isak, and Ike said about fifteen minits ago and father said we have been here about as long as that and i dident see the scoundrel. how did he look Isak, and Ike said i coodent see him very well George but he was a big man and he had a awfu deep voice and father said did he stagger enny and Ike said i coodent see wether he did or not but i cood tell he was drunk by his voice. so old Swain and old Kize went down behind the school house and off thru the carrige shop yard to see if they ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... too far already. Sworn to secrecy. Honestly, I'm not romancing, Ralph, I'm working on a case that reads like a story book. Some of the strange things going on—they fairly stagger me. I can't say another word just now, but just the minute I can, you just bet I'll tell you all about it, Ralph Fairbanks. Say, you haven't seen two boys around here, have you—two tiny fellows? I ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... You will be more ready to offer up your lives for your country, for it will be better worth dying for; every citizen will be a brother; every ruler a brother; it will be like dying for your own little household. If you would see Rome flourish, she must become more pure. She can stagger along not much longer under this mountain weight of iniquity that presses her into the dust. She needs a new Hercules to cleanse her foul chambers. Christ is he; and if you will invite him, he will come and sweep away these abominations, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... nearly equivalent to them, does Kant state, by contradistinction, the value and the nature of his own procedure. He first, according to his own representation, thought of applying his investigation to the mind itself. Here was a passage which for years (I may say) continued to stagger and confound me. What! he, Kant, in the latter end of the 18th century, about the year 1787—he the first who had investigated the mind! This was not arrogance so much as it was insanity. Had he said—I, first, upon just principles, or with a fortunate result, investigated the human ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... up and down, up and down; certain among them taking a marked interest in the old-fashioned, wheezing locomotives which seem fairly to stagger beneath the long train of antiquated ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... so unexpectedly as to make Jude stagger, and in recovering himself he kicked over the vessel in which the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... may be much to try and perplex. Sense and sight may stagger, and stumble, and fall; we may be able to see no break in the clouds; "deep may be calling to deep," and wave responding to wave, "yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me." If we only "believe" in spite ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... as the creature hobbled past, and sent a bullet through its brain. The wounded man flew forwards out of the high saddle, and fell heavily upon the hard track. His companions in misfortune, looking back, saw him stagger to his feet with a dazed face. At the same instant a Baggara slipped down from his camel with a sword in ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... only fifty yards to cover, but such a fifty yards! His legs seemed of lead, too, while his head was swimming. No sooner had he commenced to stagger back, than the Germans opened fire on him; a hundred bullets whistled by him, while he heard yells of rage coming from the ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... me hard!" shouted Cunningham in an ecstasy of delight, as he smote me a blow between the shoulders that made me stagger. "The catamaran!" he continued. "Of course. Oh, what a lot of fools we were not to have thought of that before! But," suddenly bethinking himself, "if we had, it would have been of no use, for you had her. She ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... discovered that you have the strength and the willingness to carry burdens and burdens will be heaped upon you until you stagger, fainting, under the load. Life has never yet bred a man who could shoulder the weight that the world insists that he take up in his success. And, when the man could not carry all the burdens that the ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... most famous persons in the world, so that, wherever civilized man was to be found, there his name was known as "Monk, who invented that marvellous machine, the aerophone." Lastly, there was no more need for him, as for most of us, to stagger down his road beneath a never lessening burden of daily labour. His work was done; a great conception completed after half a score of years of toil and experiment had crowned it with unquestionable success. Now he ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... around Jason's neck; and, lifting her from the ground, he stepped boldly into the raging and foamy current, and began to stagger away from the shore. As for the peacock, it alighted on the old dame's shoulder. Jason's two spears, one in each hand, kept him from stumbling and enabled him to feel his way among the hidden rocks; although ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... beginning of the war, the Boers, as we have often been reminded, promised to stagger humanity, and during this period of the strife they came strangely near to fulfilling their purpose. They staggered us most of all by letting slip so many opportunities for staggering us indeed. Day after day we marched through a country ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... back of me, lighting up its face, a figure in which I recognized my very self in every form and feature. I might describe the chill of terror that struck to the very marrow of my bones, and wellnigh forced me to stagger backward down the stairs, as I noticed in the face of this confronting figure every indication of all the bad qualities which I know myself to possess, of every evil instinct which by no easy effort I have repressed heretofore, and realized that that thing was, as far ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... flaming torches lighting up painted faces; some laugh, some sing. Among them you see what appear to be women; they are in fact what once were women, with human semblance. They are caressed and insulted; no one knows who they are or what their names. They float and stagger under the flaming torches in an intoxication that thinks of nothing, and over which, it is said, a ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... was his agonized cry, as he saw at the same moment the little figure stagger and fall. Then, forgetting his weakness and lack of physical strength, he dashed out of the house, and in another instant was ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... Men were going about with grave and anxious faces. Often they would look askance at some passerby who might be walking a little feebly or unsteadily, and once Joseph saw a man some fifty paces in advance of him stagger and fall to the ground ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... did not think the end would come so soon. O pale love, take courage. Is death so bitter to thee? We shall go down in each other's arms; our hearts shall beat out their love together, and the last of life we shall know will be our kisses on each other's lips. (AINLE and ARDAN stagger outside. There is a sound of blows and a low cry.) Ainle and Ardan have sunk in the waters! We are alone. Still weeping! My bird, my bird, soon we shall fly together to the bright kingdom in the West, to Hy ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... boiled and whirled against the boat, tossing her about as if she were a cockle-shell. With every turn of her wheel she trembled from stem to stern, and with a full head of steam could only stagger along at the rate of three miles an hour. When night came the captain begged to tie up till morning, for breasting that flood in the dark was sheer madness; but Brown cried out, 'Put her ahead, Gineral Jim,' and Garfield clutched the helm and drove her ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... gives me. Let us pray that He may keep us in His peace. For nothing is more to be feared than those unruly passions which trouble our hearts. When these passions disturb us we are like drunken men, and we stagger from right to left unceasingly, and are like to fall miserably. Sometimes these passions plunge us into a turbulent joy, and he who gives way to such, sullies the air with brutish laughter. Such false joy drags ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... whereupon she followed him meekly, feeling very faint now. She half feared that she might have to clutch at his sleeve, if her footsteps failed her, for she felt that at any moment she might stagger and fall. She gasped again as she looked at the shack they were nearing, but, as she beheld the scenery of the great pool, something in it that was very grand and beautiful appealed to her for an instant. Yet ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... four shots, fired from the trees, caused some of his fur to fly off; and he was seen to stagger, as if about to fall. The hunters raised a shout of triumph, thinking they had been successful; but their satisfaction was short-lived: for, before the echoes of their voices died along the cliff, the bear seemed once more to ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... from the pallid sky the sun descends With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb Uncertain wanders, stained; red fiery streaks Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet Which master to obey; while rising slow, Blank in the leaden-coloured east, the moon Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. Seen through the turbid fluctuating air, The stars obtuse emit a shivering ray; Or frequent seem to shoot, ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... I did the former. It is not your fault if you have not yet made Sir Thomas Rumbold white as driven snow to Me.(494) Nature has providentially given us a powerful antidote to eloquence, or the criminal that has the best advocate would escape. But, when rhetoric. and logic stagger my lords the judges, in steps prejudice, and, without one argument that will make a syllogism, confutes Messrs. Demosthenes, Tully, and Hardinge, and makes their lordships see as clearly as any old woman in England, that belief is a much better rule Of faith ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... kill three men, so I had learned. I had drawn $6,000 that I had in bank, and with that and a few things in a satchel I left the house without any one seeing me. As I passed the library I heard him stagger up and fall heavily on a couch. I took a night train for New Orleans, and from there I sailed to the Bermudas. I finally cast anchor in La Paz. And now what have you to say? Can you open ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... north and south. A cap-full of wind will be a bag-full here, and before night our royals were furled, and the ship was laboring hard under her top-gallant sails. At eight bells our watch went below, leaving her with as much sail as she could stagger under, the water flying over the forecastle at every plunge. It was evidently blowing harder, but then there was not a cloud in the sky, and the sun had ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... been a prodigious accession to the Lake marine during the past season—no less than sixty vessels, whose aggregate tonnage is over 13,000 tons, and at an outlay of 825,000 dollars. Had we not the evidence before us, the assertion would stagger belief. ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me!' Strengthen me, O my Saviour! so that I neither faint nor stagger ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... rough ascent, only to slip, after a few paces, and to stagger. For as soon as she attempted to move, she felt herself not only weak, but oddly faint and giddy. She lurched forward, and to avoid falling instinctively clutched at her companion's outstretched hand. Exactly what passed between the young man and young girl in that hand-clasp—the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... world where wise men live at ease Fades from our unregretful eyes, And blind, across uncharted seas, We stagger on our enterprise.' ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... and knew it feverishly, because night emptied of sleep is to the young a vacuum, in which their minds stagger about, that in a way the nurse was right. If she had not been quite so clever she would never have made her mother cry, as she had done more than once by snapping at her when she had said stupid things. There rushed on her the recollection ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Flat, he contrived to give offence in sundry ways: he was irreligious—an infidel, his neighbours had it—and of a Sabbath would scour his premises or hoe potatoes rather than attend church or chapel. Though not a confirmed drunkard, he had been seen to stagger in the street, and be unable to answer when spoken to. Also, the woman with whom he lived was not generally believed to be his lawful wife. Hence the public fought shy of his nostrums; and it was a standing riddle how he managed to avoid putting up his shutters. More nefarious ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... hall, Part of a throne of fiery flame, wherefrom The snowy skirting of a garment hung, And glimpse of multitudes of multitudes That minister'd around it—if I saw These things distinctly, for my human brain Stagger'd beneath the vision, and thick night Came down upon my ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the shower of lead and flint, We felt the old stage stagger and plunge; Then we heerd the voice and the whip of Ben, As he gethered his critters up again, And ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... demand, and, following me down stairs, entered the carriage. As we drove along, I inquired as to the fate of my valise, my clothes, and my horse; which latter, especially, I described in a way that appeared to stagger him. They were all, he said, in the magistrate's custody, and I should hear more of them, and doubtless recover them, if they were mine, when my claim was decided on. We found the important functionary at supper. I requested a private interview, which was granted, when I presented the letter ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... the leg. At the moment she paid no heed to the pain, which, indeed, she scarcely felt; but when the enemy had been put to flight and the little band returned to the palace, faintness suddenly overtook her, and she could hardly stagger up the staircase to her ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... support this load, and work besides, required the temperament of Louis XIV, the vigor of his body, the extraordinary firmness of his nerves, the strength of his digestion, and the regularity of his habits; his successors who come after him grow weary or stagger under the same load. But they cannot throw it off; an incessant, daily performance is inseparable from their position and it is imposed on them like a heavy, gilded, ceremonial coat. The king is expected to keep the entire aristocracy busy, consequently to make a display of himself, to pay ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... command, and the unhappy wretches dragged themselves to their feet and under their burdens of luggage began to stagger across the lighter and aboard the steamer. It was the funeral procession. At once the wailing started from those behind the rope. It was blood-curdling; it was heart-rending. I never heard such woe, and I hope never to again. Kersdale and ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... somehow you're sick of the highway, with its noise and its easy needs, And you seek the risk of the by-way, and you reck not where it leads. And sometimes it leads to the desert, and the tongue swells out of the mouth, And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking drouth. And sometimes it leads to the mountain, to the light of the lone camp-fire, And you gnaw your belt in the anguish of hunger-goaded desire. And sometimes it leads to the Southland, to the swamp where ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... the next instant Dick Ferris received a crack fairly between the eyes that made him see stars, and caused him to stagger up against the side ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... renunciation; and the first virtue that we who do not wish to be bores must practise is abstemiousness of self. I know it is hard, but I do not mean total abstinence. A man who tried to converse without his I's would make but a blind stagger at it. This short and handsome word (as Colonel Roosevelt might have said) is not to be utterly discarded without danger of such a silence as would transform the experimenter into a Bore Negative of the most negative description. Practically deprived of speech, he would become like a Charlie ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... a close, when all become so intoxicated they can neither tell story nor sing song. Then some stagger to their tents, others dropping over where they sit, and falling ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... and went straggling forward, as uncertain in steps as a blind man, all about him stretching the dull, dead desolation of the plain. Again and again he sank down, pillowing his eyes from the pitiless sun glare; only to stagger upright once more, ever bending lower and ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... and will, not of the head. He had small hope of reaching the hut at the entrance of Dead Man's Gulch or, if he could struggle so far, of finding it in the white swirl that clutched at them. Near and far are words not coined for a blizzard. He might stagger past with safety only a dozen feet from him. He might lie down and die at the very threshold of the door. Or he might wander in an opposite direction and miss the cabin ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... her deck a surprising sensation. It is as if your feet had been caught in an imponderable snare; you feel the balance of your body threatened, and the steady poise of your mind is destroyed at once. This sensation lasts only a second, for even while you stagger something seems to turn over in your head, bringing uppermost the mental exclamation, full of astonishment and dismay, "By Jove! she's on ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... Opposite to him was his wife, a Roman-nosed lady, with an imperious manner, and a Colonel-subduing way of curling her lip. On my left was the funny man. As usual he was of a sea-green colour, and might be expected at any moment to stagger to a porthole and call faintly for the steward. Further down the table sat two young nincompoops, brought on board specially in order that they might fulfil their destiny, and fill out my story, by falling in love with the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... your aged guide! The screws are fixed, and the straps are tied, And he looks sharp out for the shambling stagger, The elbows wobbling, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... charged down upon the archers with loud shouts. The horses, however, were stiff and weary from standing so long in order; the deep and slippery ground, and the weight of their heavily-armed riders caused them to stagger and stumble, and the storm of arrows that smote them as soon as they got into motion added to ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... beneath the cunning of his hand there grew a great symbol of life. He called it Earthbound. An old man is bowed beneath the sorrow of the world. Under the weight of burdens that seemingly they cannot escape, a younger man and his faithful mate stagger with bent forms. Between them is a little child. Instead of a body supple and straight and instinct with freedom and vigor, the child's body yields to the weight of heredity and environment, whose crushing influence press ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... my brother, all the insignificance of man, as compared with the magnitude and duration of the universe, need not stagger our faith that the divinest thing in the universe is a heart that has learnt to love God and aspires after Him, and should but increase our wonder and our gratitude that He has been mindful of man and has visited him, in order that He might give Himself to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... would be hastily awakened by their friends. We would stagger to our feet. The Sisters Trippet, with eyes fixed on the chandelier, would lead us: to the best of our ability we would sing "God save ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... foamed about their feet, to their ankles, to their knees. It made Jean's head swim. It paralyzed her power of thought, leaving her with only the instinct to cling. She had to wait while two more breakers rolled in and broke before she saw a chance to stagger to the next point of safety. It seemed to her that hours passed thus while she and Loll struggled, ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... Richards behind him, and knew it was coming nearer every second. But into the straight they came, and the crowd sprang to its feet with wild yells for Dennis. Twenty yards from home Richards, who had picked up all but two yards of the lead, began to stagger and waver, while Dennis hung to it true and steady, and breasted the tape three yards in advance, winning his "Y" ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... think otherwise. His mode of progression was rather that of an intoxicated snake, or an over-fed turtle on dry land; but he managed to stagger along as far as the foster's muzzle, and swayed there on his little haunches within reach of her warm breath. Instinct guided the pup so far, and left him ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... place any hindrance in the way of one whose mind is all at sea because of its existence. What, O man with a soul, is all the world else to thee? Christianity, whatever be its broad way of pretences, is but in reality a narrow path: be satisfied with the day of small things, stagger not at the inconsistencies, conflicting words, and hateful strifes of those who say they are Christians, but "are not, but are of the synagogue of Satan." Judge truth, neither by her foes nor by her friends but by herself. There was one who ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... disappointed, but not till they had each taken a pint or two of beer at the "Blue Lion" on their way home, uttering many curses on "that there Gobbleall." Captain Carbonel did not hear those same curses, but as he rode home he saw the two men stagger out of the "Blue Lion," refreshed not only by their own pints, but by those of sympathisers. And the sight did not make him sorry for what he had done, knowing well that George Hewlett, Cox the cobbler, and Mrs Holly, the widow with a small shop, ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the captain displayed his infirmity was rather a laughable one. He came up from the cabin about three o'clock in the afternoon so full that he was forced to stagger as he walked. Directly in front of him the young dude, Montgomery Clinton, was pacing the deck, carrying in his hand a rattan cane such as he used on shore. As he overhauled him, Captain Hill, with the instinct of a drunken man, locked arms with the young man, and ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... I do not know that I ought to speak like that of a set of savages who were thirsting for our blood—several of the Indians went down severely wounded, not from my firing, but from that of Morgan, for I saw them stagger and fall three times over after his shots. What happened after my father's I could not see, for we were close together, ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... start, Prescott began to shew signs of peculiar interest in their guide. In spite of her unquestioning readiness to shoulder burdens, Prescott would run to relieve her. Liosha has assured me that Jaffery did the same—and indeed I cannot conceive Jaffery allowing a female companion to stagger along under a load which he could swing onto his huge back and carry like a walnut. To go further—she maintains that the two quarrelled dreadfully over the alleviation of her labours, so much so, that often before they had ended their quarrel, ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... only fifteen," replied Edward, "but I am strong enough, and so are you. I think if I had a fair cut at a man's head I would make him stagger under it, were he as big as a buffalo. As young as I have been to the wars, that I know well; and I recollect my father promising me that I should go with him as ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... just Arguments must be drawn for believing of Mysteries that surpass our Capacities. But when a Man has good Reason to suspect, that he who instructed him in these Mysteries, does not believe them himself, it must stagger and obstruct his Faith, tho' he had no Scruples before, and the Things he had been made to believe, are no Ways clashing with his Reason. It is not difficult for a Protestant Divine to make a Man of Sense see the many Absurdities ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... of the shell and cut to shape roughly. See that the spreaders and sides fit true all over, then put white lead on the joint and nail with 1-3/4 -in. finishing nails as close as possible without weakening the wood. Slightly stagger the nails in the sides, the 1-in. side boards will allow for this, trim off the sides, turn the box over and paint the joints and ends of the spreaders, giving them two or three coats and let ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... the liquor-traffic, that they may give a few cents of it into the Treasury, is costin' the people three times that dollar, in the loss that intemperance entails,— loss of labor, by the inability of drunken men to do any thing but wobble and stagger round; loss of wealth, by all the enormous losses of property and of taxation, of almshouses and madhouses, jails, police forces, paupers' coffins, and the digging of the thousands and thousands of graves that are filled yearly ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... burst from the miserable survivors as they fled to the woods. Amongst the heaps of dead that lay on the sand just where they had fallen, I could distinguish mutilated forms writhing in agony, while ever and anon one and another rose convulsively from out the mass, endeavoured to stagger towards the wood, and ere they had taken a few steps, fell and wallowed on the bloody sand. My blood curdled within me as I witnessed this frightful and wanton slaughter; but I had little time to think, for the captain's deep voice came again over the water towards us: "Pull ashore, lads, and fill ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... off. In fancy he could see himself swaying, writhing, reeling, battered about by those heavy fists, but always with his hands on the thick neck, squeezing out its life. He could feel, absolutely feel, the last reel and stagger of that great bulk crashing down, dragging him with it, till it lay upturned, still. He covered his eyes with his hands. . . . Thank God! The fellow had not ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... creaking, snapping, quivering, like one being beaten to death, his bones cracking, his muscles pulping under heavy blows. We were above water-line there in the cockpit; we could feel her flinch and stagger. On her side there came suddenly a crushing blow, as if some great hammer, swung far in the sky, had come down upon her. I could hear the split and break of heavy timbers; I could see splinters flying over me in a rush of smoke, and the legs of a man go bumping on the beams above. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller |
