"Totter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I totter to my feet: I bend my feeble steps thither, and sink down beneath the welcome shade. I hear a sweet voice calling to me: I see an angel form stretching out a goblet of crystal water to my parching lips; and, as I reach my hand forth to grasp it, ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... as Sheldon remarked, the chop at Berande was white man's chop. With her own hands Joan prepared the sick man's food, and between that and the cheer she brought him, he was able, after two days, to totter feebly out upon the veranda. The situation struck him as strange, and stranger still was the fact that it did not seem strange to the girl at all. She had settled down and taken charge of the household as a matter of course, as if he were her father, ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... false witness. Tell my father that his cruelty is more sure to rob him of his daughter than her seeming transgression. Already I know not what I should believe, the past escapes my memory, my confidence begins to totter. If it is too much to ask for justice, then I beg for mercy. My destiny seeks to try me, but my heart is clear ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... Arbor Croche, he became quite an orator, and consequently he was appointed as the head speaker in the council of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. He continued to hold this office until his frame was beginning to totter with age, his memory became disconnected and inactive, and he therefore gave up his office to his own messenger, whose name was Joseph As-saw-gon, who died during the late rebellion in the United States while Hon. D. C. Leach, of Traverse City, was the Michigan Indian Agent. As-saw-gon ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... especially mortified at the conduct of one Tipperary man, named Burk, who had the audacity to bring the priest to say mass in a house which the latter rented from him. The house has ever since been locked up, the pious Christian, Mr. Shaw Gulvert, preferring to let it rot and totter in ruin, rather than run the risk of having a Catholic tenant, who, like Burk, would be wicked enough to allow the priest ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... garth your fathers built, And the House where sorrow dieth, and all unloosed is guilt? Turn back, turn back, and behold it! lest your feet be over slow When your shields are heavy-burdened with the arrows of the foe; How ye totter, how ye stumble on the rough and corpse-strewn way! And lo, how the eve is eating the afternoon of day! O why are ye abiding till the sun is sunk in night And the forest trees are ruddy with the battle-kindled light? O rest not yet, ye Wolfings, lest void ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... fluctuating between thirty-five and forty grains a day, and when he came to me, he presented a picture of the lowest type of hopeless manhood. He spent practically the whole day in bed and was only able to totter slowly along with a cane. He assured me that life was hell for him. He could not sleep, he could not eat, he could not think, he had made up his mind to commit suicide if I could not help him. I foresaw that it would in the best case demand months of insistent energy ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... to invade Russia in order to keep up the succession of victories. He felt that, to be secure, he must advance; that, the moment he sought repose, his throne would begin to totter; that nothing would sustain the enthusiasm of his countrymen but new triumphs, commensurate with his greatness and fame. Some, however, dissuaded him from the undertaking, not only because it was plainly aggressive and unnecessary, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... me grow old and totter, my body wither and fail, my mind decline. We part now and part forever, our friendship sacred, unsullied, and at its height. Good-by, Balzac, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... from your sport, Sir, do you see this Gent. You that bring Thunders in your mouths, and Earthquakes To shake and totter my designs? can you imagine (You men of poor and common apprehensions) While I admit this man, my Son, this nature That in one look carries more fire, and fierceness, Than all your Masters in their lives; dare I admit him, Admit him thus, even to my side, my bosom, When he is fit to rule, when ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... aristocracy," he went on, looking at Eve as he spoke. "If you totter, you shall have my arm to steady you. If you have reason to complain of the treachery of others, you will find a refuge in our hearts, the love there will never change. And influence and favor and the goodwill of others might fail us if we were two; ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... before he could fire, Ashton-Kirk was seen to leap into the hall like a panther. There was a short, sharp blow, with all the power of the lithe body behind it; Fenton's grasp relaxed and he fell to the floor. The watchers saw Mary totter, and noted Ashton-Kirk catch her in his arms, at the same time gesturing to the nurse to bring a restorative. The nurse had vanished, and Ashton-Kirk was placing the sick girl upon a hall lounge when Nora and Scanlon hurried from the window ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... vision. Here at last was the end of all his struggles and all his dreams; another year, or two years, and the mesa would be devastated utterly; his cows would be hollow-flanked and gaunted; his calves would totter and die, their tender lips pierced with the spiny cactus upon which their hard-mouthed mothers starved; and all that fair land which he knew and loved so well would be lost to him forever. He raised his ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... houses and towns very dangerous to inhabit, and we must not sail too close to them. Some of those minarets yonder totter on their base, and the least of them would crush a vessel like ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... should the torch of the political incendiary ever be applied to the sublime fabric of our system, and those institutions which were laid in our father's struggles and cemented with their blood, should totter and crumble, I, for one, will be found going down with the ship, and waving the glorious flag of our country above the smouldering ruins of that ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... arose, a giant among granite giants. But at the moment he was flying between the double hedge of granite phantoms, these latter, which were no longer supported by the corresponding links, began to roll and totter round our Titan, who looked as if precipitated from heaven amidst rocks which he had just been launching. Porthos felt the very earth beneath his feet becoming jelly-tremulous. He stretched both hands to repulse the falling rocks. A gigantic block was ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sovereign power, wherewith he can compel men by force, or restrain them by threats of the universally feared punishment of death. Such sovereign right he will retain only so long as he can maintain his power of enforcing his will; otherwise he will totter on his throne, and no one who is stronger than he will be bound unwillingly ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... the faltering dusk; And her mother spoke and said: "You are weeping; your footstep is heavy with care— What makes you totter and cling to the stair, And why do you hang your head?" "Oh mother—oh mother—you never can ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... asylum was built upon the moor; it is called 'Betty Lamb's Home for the Young and the Aged.' The old Abbey also was walled in; lawns and flower beds were spread about the broken stones, and where the walls might totter they were supported. The honour of this change too is ascribed to the famous son of Betty Lamb, who had no name but ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... got quite beyond his horizon, and mathematics had become the only necessary language of thought; but one could play with the toys of childhood, including Ming porcelain, salons of painting, operas and theatres, beaux-arts and Gothic architecture, theology and anarchy, in any jumble of time; or totter about with Joe Stickney, talking Greek philosophy or recent poetry, or studying "Louise" at the Opera Comique, or discussing the charm of youth and the Seine with Bay Lodge and his exquisite young wife. Paris remained Parisian ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... neither for perfumes nor ointment. No Kalydors and no Glycerines came within the category of her healthful experience. Alert and graceful, she neither burnt her fingers nor cut her hands, and had need therefore of no soothing salves or sirups; and as she did not totter in scrimped shoes or tight laces, and so did not fall and break her bones, she had no need even of that modern necessity in all well-regulated families, "Prepared Glue." There was no medicine-chest in Colonel Fox's house. Healthy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... last stab at her heart. At this juncture Jose appeared from out the shadows of the garden beyond the patio and hurriedly approached them. She heard him say something in Spanish which she did not understand. Then, all became blurred before her eyes. She felt herself begin to sway and totter—she fainted. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... rags, and his feet are bare on the clods; and he has no hat—but the brim of a hat only, and his long, unkempt gray hair comes through. But all the air is full of warmth and of peace; and, beyond his village church, there is, at last, light indeed. His horses lag in the furrow, and his own limbs totter and fail: but one comes to help him. 'It is a long field,' says Death; 'but we'll get to the end ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... "this boy has made three phrases. If you don't lock him up he will certainly become a poet. He will set your precious world of sanity ablaze with the fire of his mother, the moon. Your palaces will totter, Taylor, and your kingdoms become as ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... him at last, and, as if overcome by fate, began to totter silently back toward her stuffy little inferno of a cottage. It had no lofty portal, no terrific inscription of forfeited hopes—she did not understand wherein she ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... thane-troop thither did turn him: The wise-mooded son of Wonred was powerless To give a return-blow to the age-hoary man, But his head-shielding helmet first hewed he to pieces, That flecked with gore perforce he did totter, 30 Fell to the earth; not fey was he yet then, But up did he spring though an ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... followed by three months of exhaustion. The moment the sick man could "totter" out of his room, he found his way to her whom he had abjured, and who was in Paris calmly awaiting his return to her. She came back with him. He introduced her to his kinsmen. "It was all right," ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... him, the impressions of the moment had effaced those preceding it, and it was almost with surprise that, at the rector's door, he beheld the primo soprano of Pianura totter forth to the litter and offer his knee as a step for the canonesses. The charitable ladies cried out on him for this imprudence, and his pallor still giving evidence of distress, he was bidden to wait on them after supper with ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the worn-out Winter die? Who, peering through the window-pane At nightfall, under sleet and rain Saw the old graybeard totter by? Who listened to his parting sigh, The sobbing of his feeble breath, His whispered colloquy with Death, And when his all of life was done Stood near to bid a last good-bye? Of all his former friends not one Saw ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... abandoning his people in the hour of peril, careless who suffered in defenceless Rome, while he was secure in fortified Ravenna. Such was the man under whom the mightiest of the world's structures was doomed to totter to its fall! Such was the figure destined to close a scene which Time and Glory had united to hallow and adorn! Raised and supported by a superhuman daring, that invested the nauseous horrors of incessant bloodshed with a rude and appalling magnificence, the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... by hunger, 180 And swayed by the wind. Restrained are his movements And slow. After singing "The Hungry One," thirsting They make for the bucket, One after another Like geese in a file. They stagger and totter As people half-famished, A drink will restore them. 190 "Come, let us be joyful!" The deacon is saying. His youngest son, Grisha, Approaches the peasants. "Some vodka?" ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... buttresses, flying-buttresses, that keep the monument up, one thing there is that makes it totter. There is no loud battering from without, but a certain softness in the very foundations, which attacks the crystal with an imperceptible thaw. What thing do I mean? The humble stream of warm tears shed by a whole world, until ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... his despair appear—despite his efforts—upon his face and in the depth of his glance?—and thus made visible did they—even through their compelling intensity—cause that invisible barrier of social prejudices to totter and to break? It were difficult to say. Certain it is that Crystal's whole heart warmed to the stranger as it had never warmed before. She felt that here was a man standing before her now, whose promises would never be mere idle words, whose deeds would speak more loudly than his tongue. She ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... the back will have to bend, Wherever the darkey may go; A few more days, and the trouble all will end, In the field where the sugar-canes grow. A few more days for to tote the weary load,— No matter, 'twill never be light; A few more days till we totter on the road:— Then my old Kentucky ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... the unfortunate Agnes, as she was stooping to recover the dropped knife, came Mistress Winter's hand, with sufficient heaviness to make her grow white and totter ere she could ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... error, and turned the subject; then, returning to it, begged him to see a doctor. This he refused sternly. Finally she had recourse to an article on the revenue in the paper, which soothed him, and she saw the old man totter off to bed with extreme uneasiness, yet not daring even to suggest a night light, so irritable did ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... were sure a pity so fair a maid to slay;" So he revers'd the jav'lin, and turn'd the point away. Yet, with the butt end foremost, so forceful was the throw, That the sore-smitten damsel totter'd to ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... ask not if thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth: Glad hearts! without reproach or blot, Who do thy work, and know it not; Long may the kindly impulse last! But thou, if they should totter, teach ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... to sit up stiff on a woman's arm, or starting for a trial crawl over mother earth; and of them we remark that there is another little Ryan or Quigley; while the former stay sunning themselves so inertly, or totter about so shakily, that we notice at once how much old Sheridan, or the Widow Joyce, has failed since last year. These babies and grandparents often associate a good deal with one another at the stage when the old body is still capable of "keepin' an eye on the child," and the child ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... place. But now you go, and there will be no return. The stars are faded from the sky. The leaves writhe on the greensward. The breezes wail a dirge. The summer rain is pallid like winter snow. And—O bitterest cup of all!—the golden memories of the past have vanished from your heart. I totter down to the grave, while you go on from strength to strength. The Junes that gave you life brought death to me, and you sorrow not. O child of my tender care, look not so coldly on my pain! Breathe one sigh of regret, drop one tear of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that courageous daring which will live in song long after their last remnant shall have passed away. At the time when I first stepped upon these grounds the red man still grasped the sceptre which has since been wrenched from his hand. They saw the throne of their father beginning to totter. Their realm had attracted the cupidity of a race of strangers, and with maddening despair, they grasped their falling power, and daily grew more desperate as they became more endangered. I among the rest had now a view of this exuberant west, ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... ploughing and the sowing, the hoeing and the harvest, comes the miserable end. Strong as the labourer may be, thick-set and capable of immense endurance; by slow degrees that strength must wear away. The limbs totter, the back is bowed, the dimmed sight can no longer guide the plough in a straight furrow, nor the weak hands wield the reaping-hook, Hodge, who, Atlas-like, supported upon his shoulders the agricultural world, comes in his old age under the dominion of his last masters at the ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... left behind. We seemed to be pressing our way against a great curtain, the curtain made by the rich dusk that filled the narrow thoroughfare. Through the darkness the sinuous street and rickety houses wavered in outline, as the bent shapes of the aged totter across dimly-lit interiors. A fisherman's bare legs, lit by some dimly illumined interior; a line of nets in the little yards; here and there a white kerchief or cotton cap, dazzling in whiteness, thrown out against the black ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... fixt My wistful eyes on two fair images, Both crown'd with stars and high among the stars, - The Virgin Mother standing with her child High up on one of those dark minster-fronts - Till she began to totter, and the child Clung to the mother, and sent out a cry Which mixt with little Margaret's, and I woke, And my dream awed me: ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... soon as the bear got out to that part where the limb of the tree was weaker,—"Ha!" says he to us, "now you see me teachee the bear dance:" so he falls a jumping and shaking the bough, at which the bear began to totter, but stood still, and began to look behind him, to see how he should get back; then, indeed, we did laugh heartily. But Friday had not done with him by a great deal; when seeing him stand still, he calls out to him again, as if he had supposed ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... tail. That stiff and vertebrated member, as we find it in those rustic kinsmen we have disowned, would have been useful as a supplement to your royal legs; and whereas my good lord is now fain to totter on two stanchions, were he only a kangaroo, like the monarchs of old, the majesty of Odo would be dignified, by standing firm on ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... For a long time M. d'Escorval had seen the prodigious edifice erected by the genius whom he had made his idol totter as if about ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... rumble and din of groaning wagons on the road below; the hoarse cries of men; the whine and sputter of laboring motors trying to pass in the narrow road—confusion, disorder, chaos; but now they heard nothing. For them the earth stood still. Nations might totter and crash, but their Empire was ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... on credit by false pretences, and sells them for ready money at any price, in order to make up a purse. This name is derived from the German word SCHWINDLIN, to totter, to be ready to fall; these arts being generally practised by persons on the totter, or just ready to break. The term SWINDLER has since been used to ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... Two men of high rank had joined her communion; Henry Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. But Peterborough, who had been an active soldier, courtier, and negotiator, was now broken down by years and infirmities; and those who saw him totter about the galleries of Whitehall, leaning on a stick and swathed up in flannels and plasters, comforted themselves for his defection by remarking that he had not changed his religion till he had outlived his faculties. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... collision of two mighty bulls. And dreadful was the sound that filled the earth, and violent was the wind that blew on all sides. And thick was the shower of fallen meteors [50] and all sides were enveloped in gloom. And the birds began to totter in the skies and large trees began to shake. [51] And loud as the burst of the thunder, the Kurus knew from that sound that it was Arjuna that drew with his hands the string of his best of bows from his car. And Uttara ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... old time, by aid of some Immortal, Raised up the stately fabric, our wealth of long-ago: But I tremble lest it totter down, and ruin porch and portal, And the whirling dust of downfall rise above ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... does it mean? His father remains alive! So, come to his aid—you cannot ask him to do everything alone. You must make an end of me! The old trunk still looks rugged, doesn't it? But it has begun to totter already—it will not cost you much trouble to fell it! You need not reach for the ax. You have a pretty face—I have never praised you, but today I will tell you, so that you may acquire courage and confidence. Your eyes, nose, mouth are surely admired! Become—You understand me?—Or ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... said Maria Vittoria, rebelliously. "Say what you have said to me to her! Speak to her of the ignominy which will befall the King! Tell her how his cause will totter! Why talk of this to me? If she loves the King, your words will persuade her. For on my life they have ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... sudden weight jolted the plank out of its position. For hardly was he safe on the turf again when he heard a sharp cry. Throwing a look behind, he saw his pursuer totter, clutch at the slipping timber, and, still clutching at it, turn ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... difficult to say, for nothing in particular followed upon its exhibition, unless the discharge of another gun from the pursuing ship might be taken as a reply. And this time the shot went home to its mark; for as the observers turned their glasses upon the chase, her mainmast was seen to totter and fall by the board, cut short off by the deck. Luckily the spar did not go over the side, but lay, fore-and-aft, inboard; otherwise the rigging might have fouled the propeller and brought the ship to a standstill. As it was, she continued her flight ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... little trinkets. Now Lila is in the grade above me, and do you know the Judge has taken to walking by the schoolhouse at recess, just to see her, and walking along at noon and at night to get a word with her. He has put up a swing and a teeter-totter board on the girls' playgrounds. This morning I saw him standing, gazing after her, and he was as sad a figure as I ever saw. He caught me looking at him and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... could bear no more—her knees began to totter, the lustre vanished from her eyes, and she fainted in the arms of her attendant. Sir Launcelot, aroused by this circumstance, assisted Dolly in seating her mistress on a couch, where she soon recovered, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... Second, that it is the compulsory feature of militarism which has created a tremendous anti-militarist movement, feared by European Powers far more than anything else. After all, the greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism. The very moment the latter is undermined, capitalism will totter. True, we have no conscription; that is, men are not usually forced to enlist in the army, but we have developed a far more exacting and rigid force—necessity. Is it not a fact that during industrial depressions there is a tremendous increase in the number of enlistments? ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... hesitation on account of his age—angry as she was, Amaryllis feared several times lest the clumsy people should over-turn him, and tried her best to shield him. But he had a knack of keeping on his feet—the sort of knack you learn by skating—and did not totter much more ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... together, the giantesses totter; men tread the path of Hel, and heaven is cloven. The sun darkens, earth in ocean sinks, fall from heaven the bright stars, fire's breath assails the all-nourishing tree, towering fire plays against ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... not so sure he was his own worst enemy. He was bad enough enemy to his own flesh and blood. Ah well, he'll spend no more money, anyhow. No, he went sudden, didn't he? But he was getting very frail, if you noticed. Oh yes, why he fair seemed to totter down to Lumley. Do you reckon as that place pays its way? What, the Endeavour?—they say it does. They say it makes a nice bit. Well, it's mostly pretty full. Ay, it is. Perhaps it won't be now Mr. Houghton's gone. Perhaps not. I wonder if he will leave much. I'm sure he won't. Everything ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... power could be strong enough to heave up solid rocks, and to make the firm ground upon which we tread, and upon which the houses are built, waver to and fro like the restless sea, so that the strongest buildings begin to totter and fall, and the bravest ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... lead the assault,' being now let loose, went like a whirlwind to the breaches, and again the crowded masses swarmed up the face of the ruins, but reaching the crest line they came down like a falling wall; crowd after crowd were seen to mount, to totter and to sink, the deadly French fire was unabated, the smoke floated away, and the crest of the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... the t'other part being disordered at it, lest yet he might seem to do nothing, got hold of the totter'd coat, and as spitefully roar'd, they had robb'd us of it: But our case was in no wise like theirs, and the rabble that came in to the out-cry, ridicul'd, as they were wont, the weaker side, in that the others laid claim to so rich a mantle, and we to a ragged coat, scarce worth ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... patiently endures all this ill-treatment. Only now and then does she tremble with a fleeting horror, and then the palaces heaped upon her totter to their very foundations. Yet are there any among us who understand ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... John, We clamb the hill thegither; And mony a canty day, John, We've had wi' ane anither: Now we maun totter down, John, But hand in hand we'll go; And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the preparation which makes his silver hair pass for golden? Have you ever seen Lord Hotspur get off his horse when he thinks nobody is looking? Taken out of his stirrups, his shiny boots can hardly totter up the steps of Hotspur House. He is a dashing young nobleman still as you see the back of him in Rotten Row; when you behold him on foot, what an old, old fellow! Did you ever form to yourself any idea ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... these articles, one by one, and say to him, 'This is my dead brother's paint,' and so on with all the articles, throwing each of them as far from you as you can. The virtue contained in the things will cause him to totter. Then, to complete his destruction, you must take my head and cast it as far off as you can, crying aloud, 'See, this is my dead brother's head!' He will then fall senseless. While this is taking place the young men will have eaten, and you must call ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... born again. In a day or two the men who act as sponsors to the boys return daubed with mud, and in a half-fainting state like messengers from another world. They bring the good news that the devil has restored the boys to life. The boys themselves appear, but when they return they totter as they walk; they go into the house backwards. If food is given them they upset the plate. They sit dumb and only make signs. The sponsors have to teach them the simplest daily acts as though they were new-born ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... break[obs3], break down; spring a leak, crack, start; shrivel &c. (contract) 195; fade, go off, wither, molder, rot, rankle, decay, go bad; go to decay, fall into decay; " fall into the sear and yellow leaf", rust, crumble, shake; totter, totter to its fall; perish &c. 162; die &c. 360. [Render less good] deteriorate; weaken &c. 160; put back, set back; taint, infect, contaminate, poison, empoison[obs3], envenom, canker, corrupt, exulcerate|, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the king grew old like Lear— His blood waxed chill, his beard grew gray; He changed his sceptre for a staff: And as the thoughtless children laugh To see him totter on his way, He knew his destined ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... him at the manual of arms for about 20 minutes. Large beads of perspiration rolled down his face—he began to totter on his feet—and I gave the command "rest". He had not taken his eyes ...
— Company 'A', corps of engineers, U.S.A., 1846-'48, in the Mexican war • Gustavus Woodson Smith
... totter, he advanced toward the threshold of the pavilion. Diana, on her side, perceiving Francois stagger, sat herself down ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... then surely the theory of Conflation must be utterly unsound. Or if in the opinion of some of my readers my contention goes too far, then at any rate they must admit that it is far from being firm, if it does not actually reel and totter. The opposite theory of omission appears to be much more easy ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... this great basilica always I think as to a ruin, to find without surprise the doors closed and only to be opened after long knocking. The round campanile that towers and seems to totter in its strange dilapidation beside the church is so beautiful that it surprises one at once by its melancholy nobility in the midst of so much meanness and desolation. It is a building of the ninth century, and may well have been used as much as a watch tower ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... state of Franklin began to totter to its fall. In April [Footnote: State Dept. MSS. Franklin Papers, VIII., Benjamin Franklin to His Excellency Governor Sevier, Philadelphia, June 30, 1787.] Sevier, hungering for help or friendly advice, wrote to the gray statesman after whom his state was named. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... jo, John, We clamb the hill thegither; And mony a canty day, John, We've had wi' ane anither. Now we maun totter down, John, But hand in hand we'll go; And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... a horse! Get away with the paper!" this fellow choked; and as Hiram sprang upon him he saw the other rise and totter toward a horse. ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... there was a desperate and most bloody struggle. It was the last lap of the contest. Twelve hours now, I kept telling myself, and the French will be here and we'll have done our task. Alas! how many of us would go back to rest? ... Hardly able to totter, our counter-attacking companies went in again. They had gone far beyond the limits of mortal endurance, but the human spirit can defy all natural laws. The balance trembled, hung, and then dropped the ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... sausages, or a slice of agnello, and enjoy the delicious air that breathes from the mountains. The old cardinals descend from their gilded carriages, and, accompanied by one of their household and followed by their ever-present lackeys in harlequin liveries, totter along on foot with swollen ankles, lifting their broad red hats to the passers-by who salute them, and pausing constantly in their discourse to enforce a phrase or take a pinch of snuff. Files of scholars ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... that it should be burning away for nothing. "He does look very wet," said little Gluck; "I'll just let him in for a quarter of an hour." Round he went to the door, and opened it; and as the little gentleman walked in, through the house came a gust of wind that made the old chimneys totter. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... known the grace Of one dull, stiff, unvaried pace, Terror prevailing over Pride, Was seen to take a larger stride; Worn to the bone, and clothed in rags, See Avarice closer hug his bags; With her own weight unwieldy grown, See Credit totter on her throne; 620 Virtue alone, had she been there, The mighty sound, unmoved, could bear. Up from the gorgeous bed, where Fate Dooms annual fools to sleep in state, To sleep so sound that not one gleam Of Fancy can provoke a dream, Great Dulman[232] ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... and the slander has gone with electric speed on the pinions of the press, to the ends of the earth. Her country lies bleeding at her feet; its institutions totter. But ah! if she can but luxuriate in her ill-gotten gains, but little does she care what becomes of her country. She, truly, has been well paid for her services. She has received a "large fee," and all this was done under the pretense of serving the cause of liberty! Yes, truly, she ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... been seen there. The Venn mist, which rises so suddenly, was there covering everything. There was a wall now where there had been a wide outlook before. A wall not of stone and not of bricks, but much stronger. It did not crack, it did not burst, it did not totter, it did not give way before the hammer wielded by the strongest hand. It shaped itself out of the morasses, powerful and impenetrable, and stretched from the moor up to the clouds—or was it the clouds that had ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... the fatal field which put a stop to the conquest of the world, where the victories of twenty years were blasted, where the great edifice of our fortune began to totter to its foundation? Do you not still figure to yourselves the blood-stained ruins of that town, those deep ravines, and the woods which surround that elevated plain and convert it, as it were, into ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... was on. After exhausting all the terms of abuse usual in the locality, the imagination of both rascals would invent new ones of the most audacious sort, until this capital too was used up, and the two fighting-cocks would totter back to the house, exhausted ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... and no signs up to warn people at the crossings. It's pathetic to see the foot-passengers saving themselves, especially the poor, pretty, high-heeled women, looking this way and that in their fright, and then tottering over as fast as they can totter." ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... imprudent, as he had need at all hours of his best intelligence. Let it not be understood that he was tipsy. He was a man whom wine did not often affect after that fashion. But it made him, who was arrogant before, tower in his arrogance till he was almost sure to totter. It was probably at some moment after dinner that Lord Alfred decided upon buying the cutting whip of which he had spoken. Melmotte went with his wife and daughter to the India Office, and soon left them far in the background with ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... not in human nature to endure all this agony of suspense, all this hope deferred from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, and still be human. The man has, in some sense, become a brute. He now is seen to reel and totter to his cabin, late at night oftentimes. He has at last fallen into the habit of the camp. He can drink, gamble, carouse, as late as ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... 4 Thrones may totter, empires crumble, All their glories cease to be; While she, Christ-like, crowns the humble, And from bondage sets ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... Then, when that clever surgeon, Time, has effaced all scars—and when not only tranquillity is yours but, perhaps, a deeper happiness is in sight, write and tell me so. And the great god Kelly, nodding before his easel, will rouse up from his Olympian revery and totter away to find a sheaf of blessings to bestow upon the finest, truest, and loveliest girl ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... King's voice drowned Norfolk's morning greeting. He veered upon the Duke with such violence that his enormous red bulk seemed about to totter over upon the tall and bent figure. A searing pain had shot up his side, and, as he gripped it, he appeared to be furiously plucking at his dagger. He had imagined Chapuys and Marillac, the Ambassadors, coming upon guards with broken ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... either poor, or cowards be. Prefer them poor. It is the custom still. Desert and fortune never yet were friends; The strife between them never ends. Unhappy they, who in these evil days Are born when all things totter to their fall! But that we must to heaven leave. Be this, above all things, thy care, Thy children still to rear, As those who court not Fortune's smiles, Nor playthings are of idle hope, or fear: And so the future age will call them blessed; For, in ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... time Smellie began to slowly mend, thanks as much, probably, to Daphne's tireless nursing and assiduous care as to the relentless perseverance with which I administered my new medicine; and in little more than a week he was able, with assistance, to totter into the open air and sit for half an hour or so under the shadow of a rough awning of thatch which Daphne and I had with some difficulty contrived to ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... more shall I drink wine from the hand of Ul-Jabal. My knees totter beneath the weight of my lean body. Daggers of lambent fever race through my brain incessant. Some fibrillary twitchings at the right angle of the mouth have ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... of one woman, did he?—and tumbled into a pretty puddle with another as soon as he got here. By George, it's in the bone and it is obliged to come out in the blood. A Gay will go on ogling the sex, I suppose, as long as he is able to totter back from the ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... we feel that mind to being comes Along with body, with body grows and ages. For just as children totter round about With frames infirm and tender, so there follows A weakling wisdom in their minds; and then, Where years have ripened into robust powers, Counsel is also greater, more increased The power of mind; thereafter, where already The body's shattered by master-powers of ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... an old hag, who was just placing on her crooked shoulders her bag of pickings, and who was turning to totter off, "that Betsy Jennings desarves it—was she ever married? tell ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... and there he must stand till twelve or so: his foresight had not calculated this, and the devil had already begun to cheat him. But he would go through with it now; no flinching, though his rabbit back is breaking with fatigue, and his knocked knees totter with exhaustion, and his haggard eyes swim dizzily, and his bad heart is failing him ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... blood upon each other fell In such a raging duel of eclipse As hath not terrified the universe Since that which wept in blood the death of Christ: When the dead walk'd, the waters turn'd to blood, Earth and her cities totter'd, and the world Seem'd shaken to its last paralysis. In such a paroxysm of dissolution That son of mine was born; by that first act Heading the monstrous catalogue of crime, I found fore-written ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... power, the singer looks onward, and whatever may be the future he knows that the divine arm will be outstretched. God will establish Zion; or, as the word might be translated, God will hold it erect, as if with a strong hand grasping some pole or banner-staff that else would totter and fall—He will keep it up, standing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... priests of the King's chapel; but the monks of Saint Denis ran to him with great eagerness, exclaiming that the taper and the gold belonged to them. They threw themselves upon the Bishop, whose chair began to totter, and made his mitre fall from his head. If I had stayed there a moment longer the Bishop, with all the monks, would have fallen upon me. I descended the four steps of the altar in great haste, for I was nimble enough at that time, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... effects in Paris, all of which we do not clearly trace in history. We well know how the Mountain became powerful from that day; that from that day Marat ceased to shun the light, and Danton to curb the licence of his tongue that then, patriotism in France began to totter, and that, from that time, Paris ceased to be a fitting abode for aught that was virtuous, innocent, or high-minded; but the steady march of history cannot stop to let us see the various lights in which the inhabitants of Paris regarded ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the Gotham Trust and the Trust Company of the Republic were now blocks in length; and every hour one heard of runs upon new institutions. There were women wringing their hands and crying in nervous excitement; there were old people, scarcely able to totter; there were people who had risen from sick-beds, and who stood all through the day and night, shivering in the ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... the schooners happened to be just at that moment, the ice-islands were not so large, but quite as high, and consequently were more easily agitated. While the whole panorama was bowing and rocking, pinnacles, arches, walls and all, seeming about to totter from their bases, there came a wave sweeping down the passage that lifted them high in the air, some fifty feet at least, and bore them along like pieces of cork, fully a hundred yards. Other waves succeeded, though of less height and force; when, gradually, the water regained its former and ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the mail-clad host of Greece! I move not you to duty; ye yourselves 335 Move others, and no lesson need from me. Jove, Pallas, and Apollo! were but all Courageous as yourselves, soon Priam's towers Should totter, and his Ilium storm'd and sack'd By our victorious bands, stoop to the dust. 340 He ceased, and still proceeding, next arrived Where stood the Pylian orator, his band Marshalling under all their leaders bold Alastor, Chromius, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... squires of Bath, Fine as the Burmese jewell'd Rath,{2} Pray totter o'er your Bond-street path, A respite ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... court But pens the lazy steer and sheep, 210 Thy turrets rude, and totter'd Keep, Have been the minstrel's loved resort. Oft have I traced, within thy fort, Of mouldering shields the mystic sense, Scutcheons of honour, or pretence, 215 Quarter'd in old armorial sort, Remains ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... those rugged knife-edged ridges was so perilous, that Dale went slowly and cautiously; and when he reached each stopping-place he held on till Saxe had passed down to him. Once the boy seemed to totter as he was passing from one of the rocks to the other, over a patch of snow between them; but the firm strain upon the rope gave him support, and he reached the rock and began to ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... piedfingro. toilet : tualeto. tolerate : toleri. tone : tono. tongs : prenilo. tongue : lango. top : supro, pinto; verto; turbo. torment : turmenti. torrent : torento. tortoise : testudo total : tuto. totter : sxanceligxi. tourist : turisto. towel : visx'ilo, -tuko. tower : turo. town : urbo. trace : postesigno. trade : negoci, komerci; metio, (—"union") sindikato, metia unuigxo. tradition : tradicio. train : vagonaro; eduki, dresi; trenajxo. tram : tramo, ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... at first, but I was just paralyzed with amazement when I saw clean-cut chips flying at every stroke and caught a metallic gleam as his paw swung in the air. I didn't have much time to investigate the matter because the old Grizzly was a boss chopper and my tree began to totter very soon. I had sense enough to see that if I came down with the tree on the upper side the bear would nail me with one jump, and I threw my weight on the other side so as to fall the tree into the ravine. I thought I might have the luck to land without breaking ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... very much, as may be supposed, in their individual capacities. As for Mrs. Hart, she was very quickly put out of the way. The stroke which had prostrated her, at the outset, did not seem to be one from which she could very readily recover. The only thing which she did was to totter to the room early in the morning, so as to find out how the Earl was, and then to totter hack again until the next morning. Mrs. Hart thus was incapable; and Zillah was not very much better. Since her conversation with Hilda there were thoughts in her mind so new, so different from ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... sin? At this thought, Pierre, who was convinced of Bernadette's absolute good faith, who refused to believe that she had been the instrument of a fraud, began to waver, deeply agitated, feeling his belief in truth totter ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... silver, Kirstie, and fetch me my bonnet!" At first Mrs. Johnstone began to totter about the room without aim, but presently fell to choosing this and that of her small possessions and tossing them into the seat of the armchair in a nervous hurry which seemed to gather with her strength. "Quick, lass! Did he see you? . . . ah, but that would not tell him. What like was he?" She ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... flushed, the eyes project, and are somewhat watery, winking is less frequent than is natural; the under lip is protruded—the head inclines a little to one shoulder—the jaw falls—belchings and hiccough take place—the limbs totter—the whole body staggers. The unfortunate subject of this history next falls on his seat—he looks around him with a vacant countenance, and mutters inarticulate sounds to himself—he attempts to rise and walk: in this attempt he falls ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... Mr. Marrapit staggered to the window. "I reel before this sudden assault. For nine years at ruinous cost I have supported you. Must I sell my house? Am I never to be free? Must I totter always through life with you upon my bowed ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... his own age, grey-haired, not very tall, and rather stout. They saw this person go up to Clerambault—it all passed so quickly that they had no time even to cry out. There was a brief exchange of words, an arm raised, a shot!—they saw him totter, and ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... enjoyed it at first. But the strength engendered by excitement soon began to fail. The long weary journey helped to make things worse, and when at last they arrived at the journey's end, and went with Miss Love and Minnie to the lodging, poor Laronde had scarcely strength left to totter to his wife's bedside. This was fortunate, however, for he was the better able ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... You can always win a woman's heart by taking notice of her child. Then she got to letting me carry it about on my shoulder while she took her husband's dinner in to him, if he did not happen to be in the yard. And when the little thing was able to totter it would hold on to my finger, and was always content to stay with me while she was away. So it went on till the child ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... before Gawdy and Clench were born, when owners had acquired the right to sue for the wrongful taking of property in the hands [187] and the rule itself was a dry precedent likely to be followed according to the letter because the spirit had departed. It had begun to totter when the reporter cautioned bailees to accept in such terms as to ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... that did not escape Phil. Phil knew that she could not change her mother's decision. Lois was already preening her wings for flight. Like a migratory bird she was moved by an irresistible call to other lands and other summers. Phil felt the strong columns of her young life totter; but they did not fall, and she knew they would not. It was a sad business, viewed in any light, but life, Phil had realized since Christmas brought her mother back to her, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... atheists, but the vipers which the church has nurtured in her own bosom are rising up to sting her! Her canons are brought into contempt, her tests trampled on, and her dignitaries daily insulted! The hierarchy is in danger! The bishops totter on their bench! We are none of ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the fate of the great European expedition, and when noon arrived the issue was still in suspense, or seemed rather to incline in favour of the Mohammedans. The cause of the Western World appeared to totter on the brink of destruction, and the most valiant among the crusaders allowed themselves to fear that Heaven had deserted ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... desired to know The ways of sin, seductive, The hellish tempter, to our woe, Became a power destructive; He cursed our earth and ruin brought on all, Yea, very nature felt the bane - Its blighted walls now totter to their fall, And soon disorder rules again. This earthly palace then at last, Unroofed, dismantled and decayed, A hideous, barren waste is laid ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... tremendous void when all of a sudden she fainted dead away. Her heart isn't very strong—she isn't athletic as Claire, her older sister, and the other Dunlap girls are—and I suppose the altitude got her. Luckily I was as close to her as I am to you now, and I saw her totter and I threw out my arms—pardon me—like this." He illustrated with movements of his arms. "And luckily I managed to catch her about the waist as she fell forward. I held on and dragged her back out of danger. Otherwise ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... commencement of the attack, I assigned him a post near me, in order to watch him more easily. I saw him totter and then fall apparently mortally wounded, and I was glad to be rid of a traitor and a coward. But I have just turned over and examined all the dead, and Cuchillo is not amongst them. It is therefore urgent that without ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid |
