"Stagger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eager suggestions for her comfort, but the girl was firm in her assertion, that she was now quite well, so that, having no sisters and being ignorant that a healthy young woman does not, any more than a healthy young man, go white and stagger without reason, he yielded, and they walked ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... all the oceans of lies through all the ages that must have been necessary to make this possible! Think of this new particular vintage of lies that has been so industriously pumped out of the press and the pulpit. Doesn't it stagger you?" ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... the end upon remorse. I must falter alone in my self-made course. I must stagger alone with my self-made cross. For I bartered my graces for silks and laces My heart I sold for a pot ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... 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, she had performed the task in dispute. ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... sunset burns, As my soul In desire's golden heat, Though night be not far Shadows creep near With chilling breath and clutching hands To pluck To destroy The flowers of yielding from your heart: Powerless, fear-stricken; I tremble, I stagger, I fall Into oblivion's pit As time creeps Into winter's ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... shotguns, ostensibly intending to go hunting after they had voted, gathered around the polls. An occasional random shot might kick up the dust near an approaching negro. Men actually or apparently the worse for liquor might stagger around, seeking an excuse for a fight. It is not surprising that among the negroes the impression that it was unwise to attempt to ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... that he had not done any wrong, and that though he had not shouted, neither had the great mass of people standing round. This seemed somewhat to stagger the officer. The man was about, indeed, to let Ernst go, when a priest, who had been standing near, stepped forward, and looking the boy earnestly in the face, exclaimed: "Oh! young traitor, I saw thee when I was performing mass at Saint Mary Overy, and the ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... these words, Mousqueton bowed, pale and trembling; his large shoulders shook convulsively; his countenance, impressed by a frightful grief, appeared from between his icy hands, and the spectators saw him stagger, and hesitate, as if, though wishing to leave the hall, he did not know ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... swept, 75 That scarce that long and living wall their dangerous footing kept. Then rose a warning cry behind, a joyous shout before: "The current's strong,—the way is long,—they'll never reach the shore! See, see! they stagger in the midst, they waver in their line! Fire on the madmen! break their ranks, and whelm them in ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... time, winter and summer, to the exploration of rivers and lakes, rock ridges and mountains, and the tundra that lay between, in search of the lost copper mines of the Indians; the mines that lured Hearne into the North in 1771, and which Hearne forgot in the discovery of a fur empire so vast as to stagger belief. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... but his patron interposed, and, having inquired and heard the offense, bellowed with laughter, and condemned the ex-peddler to a fine of half a crown in grog. This softened brutus, and a harmonious debauch succeeded. Like the old Egyptians they debated first sober and then drunk, and to stagger my general notion that the ancients were unwise, candor compels me to own, it was while stammering, maudling, stinking and in every sense drunk that mephistopheles driveled out a scheme so cunning and so new as ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... as yo' han done, an' victory's sure, For th' battle seems very nee won, Be firm i' yo're sufferin', an' dunno give way; They're nowt nobbut ceawards'at run. Yo' know heaw they'n praised us for stondin' so firm, An' shall we neaw stagger an' fo? Nowt o'th soart;—iv we nobbut brace up an' be hard, We can stond a bit longer, ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... had pulled herself together sufficiently to feel brave enough to venture into the hall, Webster's presence of mind and Smith's gregariousness had combined to restore that part of the house to its normal nocturnal condition of emptiness. Webster's stagger had carried him almost up to the green baize door leading to the servants' staircase, and he proceeded to pass through it without checking his momentum, closely followed by Smith who, now convinced that interesting events were in progress which might possibly culminate ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... happening in the streets through which the procession passes. Pest-smitten women rise from their beds to costume themselves,—to mask face already made unrecognizable by the hideous malady,—and stagger out to join the dancers.... They do this in the Rue Longchamps, in the Rue St. Jean-de-Dieu, in the Rue Peysette, in the Rue de Petit Versailles. And in the Rue Ste.-Marthe there are three young girls sick with the disease, who hear the blowing of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... removed in order to be threshed on the upland part of the holding, they are carried away at either end of a pole on a man's shoulder or are piled up on the back of an ox, cow or pony. The height of the pile under which some animals stagger up from the paddies gives one a vivid conception of "the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... the snow came down, until at last the whole air seemed full of it, and it was with difficulty that they could stagger forward. Where the path led across open places the wind swept away the snow as fast as it fell, but in the hollows the track was already covered; and feeling the difficulty of facing the blinding gale, Cuthbert now understood the urgency with which his host had insisted upon the danger of losing ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven; they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble; they reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... no sound, but at brief intervals a shiver ran through his frame. His head sank into his hands, and he looked and felt like one utterly crushed by a fate from which there was no escape. His ever-recurring thought was, "I have but one life, and it's lost, worse than lost. Why should I stagger on beneath the burden of an intolerable existence, which will only grow heavier as the forces of ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... reply; whereupon Mrs. Warren opened the door a few inches, and Agnes squeezed in, immediately locking the door behind her. She whispered something into Mrs. Warren's ear, which caused that good woman to turn deadly white and stagger against the wall. ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... this told upon its character and appearance was shown in the remnants of whitewash on the high wall, scaling off in discolored patches; in the stagger of the tall fence opposite, drooping like a drunkard between two policemen of posts; and in the unkempt, bulging rear of the third wall,—the front house,—stuffed with rags ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... with his shield well advanced, and his sword, which a man might have shaved with, in his strong right-hand, watching for an opening. He made a cut; Kavanagh turned it with his bayonet and re-posted. The thrust was parried by the shield, but the force of it made the Arab stagger back. ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... she pitched forward and lay still, huddled on the stairs. Then Paul heard a second shot rap out from behind his back, and saw Michael stagger on the landing. The man reeled for a couple of paces ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... various other phenomena. It is also called aural or auditory vertigo. The salient symptom is vertigo, and this varies somewhat in degree according to the portions of the ear affected. If the disease is in the labyrinth, the patient is supposed to stagger to one side, and the vertigo is paroxysmal, varying to such a degree as to cause simple reeling, or falling as if shot. Gray reports the history of a patient with this sensational record: He had been a peasant in Ireland, and one day ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... companion turned about. He had a muffler loose about his neck and chin. I thought he seemed shy and irresolute, and the tall man gave him a great jolt with his elbow, which made him stagger, and I fancied a little angry, for he said, as it seemed, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... delivered to the people of Jerusalem a summary of his previous oracles. He told them that the cup of the Lord's wrath was given into his hand; Judah and other nations, especially Egypt, must drink it and so stagger to ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... to her almost with emotion—with a half-abashed look, full of fondness and admiration. But at this question he drew back a little, with a sort of stagger, and burst into a wild fit of laughter. When he came to himself wiping his eyes, he was, there could be no doubt, ashamed of himself. "I beg you ten thousand pardons," he cried. "Lucy, my darling! Yes, yes—I suppose she is a ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... sprinkled with. And yet in my sleep I thought my own throat was being cut, and felt some pain in my neck, and fancied that my very heart was being plucked out. Even now I am quite faint; my knees tremble; I stagger as I go, and feel in want of some food to hearten ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... sniffin' round the bloomin' locus' trees; And the clover in the pastur is a big day fer the bees, And they been a-swiggin' honey, above board and on the sly, Tel they stutter in theyr buzzin' and stagger as they fly. The flicker on the fence-rail 'pears to jest spit on his wings And roll up his feathers, by the sassy way he sings; And the hoss-fly is a-whettin'-up his forelegs fer biz, And the off-mare is a-switchin' all of her ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... Quigley's corner, and Pete rushed Jim, forcing him back among the men. Again they clinched, but Jim broke away, and Quigley followed, almost blind, and scarcely able to stagger. Done put him off with the left, and drove in a right-hand blow that took Pete on the point of the chin, sending him to earth, helpless and ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... and started westward, his shoulders hunched upward and his chin lowered with the evident desire to prevent recognition. Simmy called out to him. The other quickened his steps. He slouched but did not stagger, a circumstance which caused Simmy a sharp twinge of uneasiness. He was not intoxicated. Simmy's good sense told him that he would be more dangerous sober than drunk, but he did not falter. At the second shout, young Tresslyn stopped. His hands were thrust deep into ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... tell me next, that the invention of wine is very much to his credit; though you see for yourself how drunken men stagger about and misbehave themselves; one would think the liquor had made them mad. Look at Icarius, the first to whom he gave the vine: beaten to death with mattocks ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... 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 ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... marble steps were heaped with snow. A great mass of the snow was dislodged by the movement of the door and fell in clouds over Towsley's big hat and fine costume; also the tight shoes upon his feet seemed to make him stumble and stagger sadly; but he was not to be deterred by such trifles as these. The cold breath of the wind was delightful to him, the rush ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... essential part of it, the ruin of the whole, or nearly of the whole, was, at some time or other, a certainty. For that reason I honor and shall forever honor and love you, and those who first caused it to stagger, crack, and gape. Others may finish; the beginners have the glory; and, take what part you please at this hour, (I think you will take the best,) your first services will never be forgotten by a grateful country. Adieu! Present my best regards to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... wrenched from her hand, and a powerful arm caught her and whirled her up, only to hurl her to the ground; Arizona's snarling, panting face bent over her. In the very midst of that fury she felt Arizona stiffen and freeze; the snarling stopped; his nerveless arm fell away, and she was allowed to stagger to her feet. She found him staring at her ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... central boss; loud rang the brass: Then Ajax rais'd a weightier mass of rock And sent it whirling, giving to his arm Unmeasur'd impulse; with a millstone's weight It crush'd the buckler; Hector's knees gave way; Backward he stagger'd, yet upon his shield Sustain'd, till Phoebus rais'd him to his feet. Now had they hand to hand with swords engag'd, Had not the messengers of Gods and men, The heralds, interpos'd; the one for Troy, The other umpire for the brass-clad ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... had conquered, he looked like one sorely sick. He was just able to stagger to a couch that stood by the wall, and there he fell and lay, without breath or motion, like one dead, ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... the bread-fruit tree, following the turtle to see where it deposits its eggs, discovering the spring of water, building the hut—housekeeping, Melisande. . . . Or take Robinson Crusoe. When Man Friday came along and left his footprint in the sand, why did Robinson Crusoe stagger back in amazement? Because he said to himself, like a good housekeeper, "By Jove, I'm on the track of a servant at last." There's romance ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... so many live, that in spite of rags and want, in spite of tenement and gutter, of filth and pain, they limp and stagger and crawl beneath their burdens to the natural end. The wonder is that so few of the miserable are brave enough to die—that so many are terrified by the "something after death"—by the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... concentrated to fight the enemy's cavalry. Heretofore, the commander of the Cavalry Corps had been, virtually, but an adjunct at army headquarters—a sort of chief of cavalry—and my proposition seemed to stagger General Meade not a little. I knew that it would be difficult to overcome the recognized custom of using the cavalry for the protection of trains and the establishment of cordons around the infantry corps, and so far subordinating ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... off with a sound and look of such intense misery as almost to stagger the Doctor himself, by reminding him of Leonard's violent temper, and the cause Henry had to remember his promptness of hand; but that Ethel's pupil, Aubrey's friend, the boy of ingenuous face, could under any provocation strike helpless old age, or, having struck, could ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... straight and true. The next instant there was a deafening stunning crash—a crash like the stroke of a thunder-bolt. There was a dazzling blaze of blinding light, and a myriad sparks danced and flickered and sparkled before his eyes. He felt his horse stagger under him with the recoil, and hardly knowing what he did, he drove his spurs deep into its sides with a shout. At the same moment there resounded in his ears a crashing rattle and clatter, he knew not of ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... very decently volunteered to stagger along with me, and we hopped into a taxi. We sat around at the police-station for a bit on a wooden bench in a sort of ante-room, and presently a policeman appeared, ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... some Scripture text. They were therefore easily justified either to reason or to the eye of faith, but the results of their application were often startling, and it was facts, not theories, that chiefly caused Susannah to stagger. ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... 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
... cities there are many thousand Ransomes, more or less confined in mahogany cages, but John Randall Fulleymore stands for all of them. He was one of those who, in a cold twilight on a Saturday afternoon, stagger from the trampled field, hot-eyed under their wild hair, whose garments are stained from the torn grass and uptrodden earth, with here and there a rent and the white gleam of a shoulder or a thigh; whose vivid, virile ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... energies began to revive, and his first impulse, when thought and strength returned, was to rise and stagger down to the rocks, to assist if possible, any of his shipmates who might have been cast ashore. He found only one, who was lying in a state of insensibility on a little strip of sand. The waves had just cast him there, and another towering billow approached, which ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... had seen a soldier stagger out from the firing-line with half his face shot away and go staggering to the rear without aid. On the way he met a mounted staff officer, and he raised his hand to his hatless, bleeding forehead, in a stern salute and, without a gesture ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... birth need not stagger us. The abundance of historical evidence in its favor should lead to its acceptance. All the manuscripts in all the ancient versions contain the record of it. All the traditions of the early church recognize it. Mention of it is made in the earliest of all the creeds: the Apostles' ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... of this Universe, and followed the transient outer 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. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... critic during the years when he is old enough to be cautious about accepting new ideas and young enough to be enthusiastic concerning them after careful consideration, when he is so mature as not to desire to stagger the orthodox by the impudence of his opinions, and sufficiently youthful to be willing to shock the conservative by the audacity of his views. He may then seem jaded because he is not easily moved, but will be quicker to give encouragement to sincere effort, to perceive talent ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... Cornish miners, out of the throng passing the windows, any day. They are a trifle more filthy; their muscles are not so brawny; they stoop more. When they are drunk, they neither yell, nor shout, nor stagger, but skulk along like beaten hounds. A pure, unmixed blood, I fancy: shows itself in the slight angular bodies and sharply-cut facial lines. It is nearly thirty years since the Wolfes lived here. Their lives were like ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... firing, not at the town, but at the guns on the hill which threatened and wounded her. Then her signal flags ran up again. Before the answer came from the other ships the sea was broken twice close to her. I looked to see her stagger from another blow, heel over, perhaps sink. Her speed increased. In a minute she was rushing towards us, flinging white waves from her great bows. Then she swept round once more. Fire as well as smoke poured from her funnels. She steamed eastwards down the lough. We saw her join the other ships ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... eye-balls,—the cat—the damnable, hated cat. The effect was magical. A wave of the most terrific, the most ungovernable fury surged through me. I struck out blindly, and one of my fists alighting on the would-be murderer's face made him stagger back and drop the knife. In an instant the weapon was mine, and ere he could draw his six-shooter—for the suddenness of the encounter and my blow had considerably dazed him—I had hurled myself upon him, and ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... lines of light, white clouds, unfolding and expanding, rolling over and over, and rising above the tree-tops. Wilder the uproar. Men fall, tossing their arms; some leap into the air, some plunge headlong, falling like logs of wood or lumps of lead. Some reel, stagger, and tumble; others lie down gently as to a night's repose, unheeding the din, commotion, and uproar. They are bleeding, torn, and mangled. Legs, arms, bodies, are crushed. They see nothing. They cannot tell what has happened. The air is full ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... not how far the arch-enemy of mankind may be permitted to afflict bodily our guilty race. I could tell thee such tales of yonder creature as would stagger even the most ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... were either too hot or too cold, and the mosquitoes gave way only when the frost made slumber difficult. In the morning they awoke to the necessity of putting on their wet shoes, and taking the muddy trail, to travel as long as they could stagger forward. ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... could see that if he once passed me and got to the open air he would save himself yet. My heart softened to him, but again the thought of his treasure turned me hard and bitter. I cast my firelock between his legs as he raced past, and he rolled twice over like a shot rabbit. Ere he could stagger to his feet the Sikh was upon him, and buried his knife twice in his side. The man never uttered moan nor moved muscle, but lay were he had fallen. I think myself that he may have broken his neck with the fall. You see, gentlemen, ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a state of collapse, until she gradually recovered so far as to be able to rise, moaning and groaning, and stagger out of the kitchen into the yard. There she was ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... this great king stagger, Reel, and shriek—"unclean, unclean!" Thunderbolt, or flash of dagger? Nay, ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... straightway rend that thin film which was spread over their eyes, and all the earth would stagger beneath the weight of the merciless truth! They had a soul, they should be deprived of it; they had a life, they should lose their life; they had light before their eyes, eternal darkness and horror ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... disbelieving, like the faces of stone images. For a space it was so quiet that it seemed to him they must hear his panting breath and the choking gurgle that was still in Brokaw's throat. The victor! He flung back his shoulders and held up his head, though he had great desire to stagger against one of the bars and rest. He could see the Girl and Hauck—and now the girl was standing alone, looking at him. She had seen him! She had seen him beat that giant beast, and a great pride rose in his breast and ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... ever mortally wounded a head of large game? You hear your bullet thud upon the living flesh, and see the creature throw up its head and stagger for a moment, and then plunge forward with desperate speed, crashing through bush and reeds as though they were meadow-grass. Follow him awhile, and you will find him standing quite still, breathing in great sighs, his back humped and his eye ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... staggering, yet saved alive by that man of the moment Mandeville, until half-way down the shed and the long box-car train they brought up on a pile of ordnance stores and clung like drift in a flood. And at every twist and stagger Anna said in her heart a speech she had been saying over and over ever since the start from Callender House; a poor commonplace speech that must be spoken though she perished for shame of it; that must be darted out just at the right last instant ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... the Virgin at the Cross, which swings backwards and forwards, borne by the confraternita of the parish, with blue capes over their white dresses, and all holding torches. Then follows a huge wooden cross, garlanded with golden ivy-leaves, and also upheld by the confraternita, who stagger under its weight. Next come two crucifixes, covered, as the body of Christ always is during Lent and until Resurrection-Day, with cloth of purple, (the color of passion,) and followed by the frati of the church in black, carrying candles and dolorously ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... happened to do something not altogether to the farmer's mind. It was a matter of no consequence—only cleaning that side of one of the cow-houses first which was usually cleaned last. He gave him a box on the ear that made him stagger, and then ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... fled from the false hunter into the thickets of the wood Perpetua had wandered hither and thither in its familiar deeps, drinking the cup of pain. In one short day she had learned from foul face and from fair face such knowledge of the evil of the world as tortured her brave heart. Nothing could stagger her belief in goodness as the law of life, but she had not dreamed until this day of the strength of its enemies. The bright of face, made in the mould of beauty, stamped with the seal of grace, these could be traitors to ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... breakwater, gave her four bells and the jingle, put his mouth to the tube, and answered, "Yes, Pete, that's right—'twas Bud went. And now it's up to you, son. Keep steam on her, and if the hawser holds and nothing else happens, she oughter stagger home all right." ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... not hurt (for the boy couldn't hit hard) nevertheless believed himself finished. I think he wanted to stagger and fall at full length, but he only succeeded in sitting down. Shout upon shout upon shout! Then we of the squad took David, groggy with his own efforts, rubbed him and fanned him and swabbed him, and finally walked him off ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... Works of the Lord, and his Wonders in the Deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy Wind, which lifteth up the Waters thereof. They mount up to the Heaven, they go down again to the Depths, their Soul is melted because of Trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken Man, and are at their Wits End. Then they cry unto the Lord in their Trouble, and he bringeth them out of their Distresses. He maketh the Storm a Calm, so that the Waves thereof are still. Then they are glad because they be quiet, so he ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... by then, and the warmth of the sun seemed to revive him to a marvellous extent. He got on his feet more by sheer will-power than by any sudden accession of strength. He found that he could stagger along, though his pace was necessarily slow and his course very erratic. Some uncharted sense, instinct perhaps, led him along the track to the creek where he had pitched his camp the previous evening. There was a dim familiarity about the ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... off with it, Jim! Stop him! He's carrying our stuff with him! Head him off! Puncture a tire for him! Give him a shot, Jim!" howled to the thoroughly demoralized Bart, starting to stagger after the retreating automobile himself, with his hands extended, as though he would fain seize hold ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... chicken is; it lived to get fat without acquiring any useless knowledge or desire of life; it became a capon in tender years, and then a pipe was introduced into its mouth and it was fed by machinery until it could hardly walk, until it could only stagger to its bed, and there it lay in happy digestion until the hour came for it to be crammed again. So did it grow up without knowledge or sensation or feeling of life, moving gradually, peacefully towards its predestined end—a delicious repast! What better end, what greater ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... and had given them names out of books—quite romantic names. She called them the Montmorencys when she did not call them the Large Family. The fat, fair baby with the lace cap was Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency; the next baby was Violet Cholmondeley Montmorency; the little boy who could just stagger and who had such round legs was Sydney Cecil Vivian Montmorency; and then came Lilian Evangeline Maud Marion, Rosalind Gladys, Guy Clarence, Veronica ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... you.' And having wrung the price down to the lowest penny, she would pay it in clanking silver and copper from a grimy leather bag she wore hidden in her bosom; then, cramming the goods hastily into the maw of her sack, she would stagger joyously away. The men's garments she would modestly sell to a second-hand shop, but the women's she cleaned and turned and transmogrified and sold in Petticoat Lane of a Sunday morning; scavenger, earth-worm, and alchemist, she was a humble agent in the great economic process by which cast-off ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... earth the foremost of the crew, Then, laughing, pell-mell leapt on other two. The fourth rogue's thrust, Duke Joc'lyn blithely parried Right featly with the quarter-staff he carried. Then 'neath the fellow's guard did nimbly slip And caught him in a cunning wrestler's grip. Now did they reel and stagger to and fro, And on the ling each other strove ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... least mention of those sacred words was sufficient to stagger, hesitated a moment before he replied, and then told her, she had done wrong to enter into such engagements to a villain; but since she had, he could not insist on her breaking them. He said, it was not from a motive of vain curiosity he had inquired, but in order to punish ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... in the shop—a big seven-seated, shiny one, half as long as a Pullman parlor-car, with a top and brass housin's and extra tires strapped on, and a place for a trunk—an outfit that made me look like a street-railway magnate. It set me back a whole lot, but I wanted to stagger dad—and I did. As we rolled up to the door he came out with eyes you could hang ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... War Office, the silly vapourings of the Spaniards, and the insane quarrels of their provincial juntas about precedence and the sharing of English subsidies, the summer of 1808 saw Napoleon's power stagger under terrible blows. Not only did he lose Spain and Portugal and the subsidies which they had meekly paid, but most of the 15,000 Spanish troops which had served him on the shores of the Baltic found means to slip away on British ships and put a backbone ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... has gone, he has gone to the bosom of the earth, And the dead are numerous in the land.... Men are filled with sorrow: they stagger by day in gloom ... In the month of thy year which brings not peace hast thou gone. Thou hast gone on a journey that makes an end ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... storm, all combined to disturb his fancy and raise strange spectres in his imagination. The shrill hooting of an owl, as it rustled overhead, caused him an unprecedented shock, and the great rush of blood to his head made him stagger and clutch hold of the nearest object for support. He had barely recovered from this alarm when his eyes almost started out of their sockets with fright as he caught sight of a queer shape gliding silently from tree to tree; and shortly ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... she has been out of sight these two hours; when last seen she was in chase of something in the south—east quarter, and carrying all the sail she could stagger under." ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... a spirit which no pen can describe. The men "saw red," they were drunk with lust for honorable revenge, from which nothing but death could stop them. Wounds, mortal wounds, were unheeded so long as the man still had strength to stagger on; I have seen a sergeant with a great fragment of common shell through his lungs run forward for several hundred yards vomiting blood, but still encouraging his men, who, truth to tell, were as eager as he. It is impossible ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... so fierce that no one could in any wise make out which was to have the better of it. Erec exerts himself and strives; he brought his sword down upon his enemy's helmet, cleaving it to the inner lining of mail and making him stagger; but he stood firmly and did not fall. Then he attacked Erec in turn, and dealt him such a blow upon the covering of his shield that his strong and precious sword broke when he tried to pull it out. When he saw that his sword was broken, in a spite he threw as far away as he could the part ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... The Offerings of her faithful Votary; And, in return, she gave a Scroll, which bore On its smooth face the trusty name of H——, And other monied Wights, who boast to reign O'er L——'s flow'ry lawns and proud domain: Which when he saw, for WINE he call'd aloud, And stagger'd onward ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... and all-surfeiting it is, loading the air around it with its sickening imitation of sweetness, so that even the bees stagger as they pass through it and disdain to stop and shovel, for the mere asking, its ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... again. This time the porter took us up to a landing, said a few words into a doorway, and left us standing. As he was wandering in our vicinity, Jo tried one of her two talismans: it is the word "PREPOSTEROUS" ejaculated explosively, and is safely calculated to stagger a foreign soul. The other is a well-known dodge. If a person bothers you, look at his boots with a pained expression. He will soon take himself ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... 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, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... amidst the brushwood the dog leaped after him, and, in a few strides, was at his quarters. The chase was not of very long duration, for Ernest's bullet had touched some vital spot; and, within a hundred yards of where he had been struck, the wapiti dropped on his knees, made a faint attempt to stagger again to his feet, and an equally unsuccessful effort to gore Wolf, who wisely kept without his reach; and then, with a convulsive tremor running over all his vast frame, fell over on his ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... things," writes Chaplin, "I don't want anyone to try to make me out a 'poet'—because I'm not. I don't think much of these esthetic creatures who condescend to stoop to our level that we may have the blessings of culture. We'll manage to make our own—do it in our own way, and stagger through somehow. . . . These are tremendous times, and sooner or later someone will come along big enough to sound the right note, and it will be a rebel note." It is that note which Chaplin has sought to strike, and that he has succeeded will be the verdict of anyone ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... the settlers when at work at their crops, seize their wives and children, load them with packs of plunder from their own homes, and drive them before them into the wilderness. When no longer able to stagger under their burdens, they were murdered, and their scalps torn off, and exhibited to their masters, and for such trophies bounties were paid. The French government in Paris paid bounties for the scalps of women ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... over-careful of his personal appearance, he was a man of so marked a character that he would have attracted attention in almost any assemblage. Cautious, careful of consequences, and watchful of danger, he was at the same time bold, fearless, and ever ready to undertake enterprises which would stagger men of fewer mental resources. So exactly was he fitted to the time and the circumstances in which he was placed, that the conclusion is irresistible that he was a providential man, especially appointed to his work by a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... toward the door. The twisting and writhing appeared to increase. The air was oppressive. I seemed to be saying to myself, will it never, never stop? I wrenched the lock; the door of the room swung back against my shoulder. Just then the building seemed to breathe, stagger and right itself. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... The difference between strong natures and weak is not that the strong are free from cowardice and faint-heartedness, from doubt and foreboding, from love and affection, but that they do not stay down when they are crushed down, stagger up and on. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... 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 ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... her fingers, Olga uttered la cry of baffled rage of despair, and struck the girl a heavy blow in the face that made her stagger; but almost frantic with terror Regina improved the opportunity afforded by the withdrawal of one of the large hands, to tighten her own grasp, and in the renewed struggle succeeded in wrenching away the vial. The next instant, she hurled it against the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... one room his dame you never saw, Where reigned by custom old a Salic law; Here coatless lolled he on his throne of oak, And every tongue paused midway if he spoke. Due mirth he loved, yet was his sway severe; No blear-eyed driveller got his stagger here; 390 "Measure was happiness; who wanted more, Must buy his ruin at the Deacon's store;" None but his lodgers after ten could stay, Nor after nine on eves of Sabbath-day. He had his favorites and his pensioners, The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... wellnigh exhausted, labored after him, and finally rolled stiffly to terra firma at the station, their wretched livery mounts, with dripping, quivering flanks and drooping heads, stood straddling close at hand, too utterly used up to stagger away. ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... my eyes at once. All round me were little ripples, combing over with a sharp, bristling sound and slightly phosphorescent. The HISPANIOLA herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss a little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, I made sure she also was wheeling to ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Yet, in spite of all this, her soul was strong; and that soul, by its indomitable purpose, roused up once more the shattered forces of the body. A week passed away, but at the end of that week she arose to stagger forward. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... she cries fiercely, giving him another shake. 'Come up here; come closer. Here! Stand back, you,' pushing Charley from her with a force that makes him stagger. 'Now then,' she furiously demands, 'did you ever cry after me when I went away ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... moment Maren Le Moyne, straining every muscle of her young body to save the man she loved, looked swiftly back, having left the defile to stagger, stumbling, southward to where Mowbray's men waited ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... she isn't. She—she needn't have come at all. Mr. Courtlandt told her and told Captain Forrest that it should make no difference; but she is self-willed and obstinate, and nothing would do but she must quit his roof forever and come to be a burden on her brother, who has quite enough to stagger under already." ("Hum!" thought Bayard at this juncture, "how little she realizes the truth of that assertion!") "Mr. Courtlandt had been devoted to her from her childhood, had lavished everything on her, had educated her, sent her abroad, ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... Beau" counted, "One—two—three"—Edgar gently inflated his lungs, expanding his chest to its fullest extent, and then, at the moment of receiving the blow, exhaled the air. He did not stagger or flinch, though his antagonist struck straight from the shoulder, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... discourse before such persons as we and my Lord Bruncker, and Sir John Minnes, should quote Hudibras, as being the book I doubt he hath read most. They I doubt will stand hard for high security, and Cocke would have had me bound with him for his appearing, but I did stagger at it, besides Seymour do stop the doing it at all till he has been with the Duke of Albemarle. So there will be another demurre. It growing late, and I having something to do at home, took my ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... had always found a bed at his sister's, no matter at what hour of day or night he chose to stagger in; but the large family combined efforts to prevent the contretemps of a meeting between him and Ruth. Their promise to her mother was too sacred for trifling, and they loved the girl too well to risk being deprived of her society. Destiny, or chance, was too strong for them. It was on a bright, ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... had not time to ascertain, for the door suddenly opened, and Vantrasson appeared on the threshold. He was scarcely sober when he left the shop, but now he was fairly drunk; his heavy shamble had become a stagger. "Oh, you wretch, you brigand!" howled his ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... after that summer when you were abroad, you'll understand, too. Everybody knows everybody else's business. It is the main occupation of a certain set, and the per-capita output of gossip is a record that would stagger the census bureau. Still, you can't get away from the note, Craig. There it is, in Dixon's own handwriting, even if he does deny it: 'This will cure your headache. Dr. Dixon.' That's a damning piece ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... possessed, for the boats could not be pulled up till they had been emptied. The blubber-stove was quickly alight and the cook began to prepare a hot drink. We were labouring at the boats when I noticed Rickenson turn white and stagger in the surf. I pulled him out of reach of the water and sent him up to the stove, which had been placed in the shelter of some rocks. McIlroy went to him and found that his heart had been temporarily unequal to the strain placed upon it. He was in a bad way and needed prompt medical attention. ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... little dinner; and I own, Led by a wish with style to stamp the fete, Palmed off, as though a butler of our own, A skilled Greengrocer we had in "to wait."— I thought he seemed to sway beneath the fish— And stagger with a half familiar smile, When, lo! he fell, remarking blandly, "Thish All comes of tryin' to do the thing in shtyle!" I thundered, "Leave the room!" He saw my fix, And but retorted, "'Ere, you ain't a Duke! I'm not a-goin' without my three-and-six!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... And yet, passing that schooner at two miles, one knew, somehow, that no hand was on her wheel. Sometimes I can imagine a vessel, stricken like that, moving over the empty spaces of the sea, carrying it off quite well were it not for that indefinable suggestion of a stagger; and I can think of all those ocean gods, in whom no landsman will ever believe, looking at one another and tapping their foreheads with just the shadow ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... his information astonishing. Pleasant as he was, even as an antagonist, he would occasionally lose his temper and use very emphatic language. I was once sitting next to him when I heard him stagger his neighbor, a young lady, by bursting out with, "But, madam, I do not accept your major premise!" Poor thing, she evidently was not accustomed to such language, and not acquainted with that terrible term. She collapsed, evidently quite at ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... is hard to see the truth clearly, looking back through the mists of nearly a hundred years. In the strange story of that famous battle, only one fact stands out clear beyond all dispute, and that is so incredible as to stagger belief. It appears at first utterly past belief that the white army, marching against the red army with the open purpose of attacking it on the next day, should have lain down almost at the feet of the desperate foe, and ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... people repent of their sins. Elijah himself was fed by ravens in a miraculous manner, and later by a poor widow who had only just enough in her larder to furnish one meal for herself and her son. Here are a series of complications enough to stagger the faith of the strongest believer in the supernatural. But the poor widow meets him at the gates of the city as directed by the Lord, improvises bread and water, takes him to her home and for two years treats him with all the kindness and the attention ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... opportunity of future aggrandizement. The seed planted by John Smith still grows. The voice of John Smith still lives. That voice has been swelled into the mighty chorus of 60,000,000 Americans singing the song of United States. We look forward to a future whose possibilities stagger all conjecture, to a common ruler of John Smith's ancient dominions; to a common destiny, such as he mapped out for us. And with devout and heartfelt gratitude to him, a reunited land proclaims, "Whom God hath joined together, let no ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various |
