"Staggering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that everybody believed in the valley. He had done what nobody else had done. He had seen Charlie at his work. A desperate feeling of tragedy was tugging at her heart. This great big soul had received the full force of the blow, and somehow she felt that it had been a staggering blow. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... host's well-told tales. "My father was always my dearest," he wrote. This was a high certificate of appreciation, when we remember he had the most devoted of mothers. It hurt the son to the quick to deal his "dearest" a staggering blow, and decline to follow his hereditary profession. Louis had tried to be an engineer. He liked the swinging, smoking seas on which they struggled for a site for sheltering masonry. As in the case ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... little hard after the excitement of those small hours. I will only say that we had agreed that it would be wisest for me to lie like a log among the rest for half an hour, before staggering to my feet and rousing house and police; and that in that half-hour Barney Maguire crashed to the floor, without waking either himself or his companions, though not without bringing my beating heart into the very roof of ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... cream, and the like delicacies dear to the juvenile mind. The two biggest school-boys came forward, one voluble and thick of speech about Horner's tuck-out, and "I assure you, sir, it is nothing-not a taste. Never thought of such-" Just then the other lad, staggering about, had almost lurched over into the deepening channel; but Clement caught him by the collar and held him fast, demanding in a low voice, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with a mighty sword. Together, then, we made at him, two to one, as needs must be, for this was no gentle passage of arms, but open battle. One sweep of his sword I made shift to avoid, but the next lighting on my salade, drove me staggering back for more yards than two or three, and I reeled and fell on my hands. When I rose, Alphonse de Partada was falling beneath a sword-stroke, and I was for running forward again; but lo! the great English knight leaped in the air, and so, turning, fell on his face, his hands grasping at the ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... to sublimate this entirely from burlesque, but its true nature is instanced by the opening lines of the Miles, where the vainglorious Pyrgopolinices, with many a sweep and strut, addresses his attendants, who are probably staggering under the weight ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... mothers—who wage a silent battle in the lonely, broken homes. You give us love and pity—tenderness and tears—a flag of pride that turns defeat to victory. The women of the South," he cried, and Herbert Cary doffed his hat before his wife, "the crutch on which the staggering hope of Dixie leans!" ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... Staggering backward, and easing his bleeding relative to the ground, he turned with a mad cry and dashed at the throat of Professor ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... of the ploughed-up plain she saw people in black walking slowly and crookedly behind a coffin that went staggering on black legs under a black pall. She tried not to ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... Hewitt went staggering back with the baby in her arms, and seated herself on the ground beside the cup of bread and water, which was mixed to the consistence of cream. As she did so the light of her poor candle fell on the baby's face. It was pinched ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... succession of orders stopped further discussion for the time. Ives was sent aboard the schooner to lower sail and report. He came back with a staggering dearth of information. The boats were all there; the ship was intact—as intact as when Billy Edwards had taken charge—but the cheery, lovable ensign and his men had vanished without trace or clue. As to the how or the wherefore they might rack ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to the missing book, for it contained all my notes of the journey. The thought of its being deposited on a rock washed by a rapid stream into which it might easily slip and be carried away kept me in a state of suspense. At last a staggering figure approached; it was Chanden Sing waving the book triumphantly in the air. He had run the distance of many miles down to the river and back so quickly that when he reached me he was utterly exhausted. He handed me ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... supreme effort to bring the struggle to a decisive end neither dealt the other minor injuries. There were no blows—nothing but the straining pull of arms, the sudden weight of bodies, the cunning twisting of legs. They fought swiftly, whirling and staggering from place to place. ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... pace along a trail that frontiersmen far less skillful than they could have followed. But a silent dread was in the heart of every one of them. As they saw the path of the small feet staggering more and more they feared to behold some terrible object beside ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was a staggering blow to Hamilton. The great statesman had achieved success as secretary of the treasury, but as a political manager, his lack of tact, impatience of control, and infirmity of temper, had crippled the organisation. In less than three years the party had lost a United States ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... some brave generosity of spirit, some cheerful fidelity to Beauty. He could not see how, in a world so obviously vast and uncouth beyond computation, they could find a puny, tidy, assumptive, scheduled worship so satisfying. But perhaps, since all Beauty was so staggering, it was better they should cherish it in small formal minims. Perhaps in this whole matter there was some lovely symbolism that he ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... the inflamed chambers of Elizabeth's mind—as if an electric current had been abruptly shut off. She hesitated; she had meant to say more; but there was a staggering vacuity. ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... hollow boom! The odor of burned powder stung her nostrils. Kells's hold on her tightened convulsively, loosened with strange, lessening power. She swayed back free of him, still with tight-shut eyes. A horrible cry escaped him—a cry of mortal agony. It wrenched her. And she looked to see him staggering amazed, stricken, at bay, like a wolf caught in cruel steel jaws. His hands came away from both sides, dripping with blood. They shook till the crimson drops spattered on the wall, on the boughs. Then he seemed to realize and he clutched at her ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... Then I looked up and saw a head peering down into the amphitheatre—the head of Dunnoo, my dog-boy, who attended to my collies. As soon as he had attracted my attention, he held up his hand and showed a rope. I motioned. staggering to and fro for the while, that he should throw it down. It was a couple of leather punkah-ropes knotted together, with a loop at one end. I slipped the loop over my head and under my arms; heard Dunnoo urge something forward; was conscious that I was being dragged, face downward, up the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... over her seemed to sing past her ears. She shook Caleb with the force with which she might have shaken Ephraim. "You'd better get up an' go to bed now, instead of sleepin' in your chair," she said, imperatively; and Caleb obeyed, staggering, half-dazed, across the floor into the bedroom. Deborah was only a few years younger than her husband, but she had retained her youthful vigor in much greater degree. She never felt the drowsiness of ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... recognized my not false errors. My Leader, who could see me do like a man who looses himself from slumber, said, "What ails thee, that thou canst not support thyself? but art come more than a half league veiling thine eyes, and with thy legs staggering like one whom wine or slumber bends." "O sweet Father mine, if thou harkenest to me I will tell thee," said I, "what appeared to me when my legs were thus taken from me." And he, "If thou hadst a hundred ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... Holmes, and we all rushed down the stairs together. We had hardly reached the hall when we heard the baying of a hound, and then a scream of agony, with a horrible worrying sound which it was dreadful to listen to. An elderly man with a red face and shaking limbs came staggering ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... of hunger. I beseech thee, by the living God, not to let me depart without taking pity on me, as pity also hath been shown to thee!" But the beggar man would give me none, saying that he himself had a wife and four children, who were likewise staggering towards death's door under the bitter pangs of hunger; that the famine was sorer far in Bannemin than here, where we still had berries; whether I had not heard that but a few days ago a woman (he told me her name, but horror made me forget it) had ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... He stood up staggering, gained his balance, and walked to the window. The prospect thence seemed to recall him to a consciousness of the actual present, and he looked round ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... tolled, and the Jews, strangers, people-taking-leave-of their families, and blackguard-boys aforesaid, are making a rush for the narrow plank which conducts from the paddle-box of the "Emerald" steamboat unto the quay—you perceive, staggering down Thames Street, those two hackney-coaches, for the arrival of which you have been praying, trembling, hoping, despairing, swearing—sw—, I beg your pardon, I believe the word is not used in polite company—and transpiring, for the last half-hour. Yes, at last, the two coaches draw near, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... standing by the window, bare-shouldered in the dawn. Long before she had finished reading her hand shook with excitement, and her nose looked pinched and drawn about the nostrils. As a matter of fact the woman was being dealt a staggering blow. Until the moment she had not herself realized how strongly she had built upon the outcome of ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... more as doubtful in what they relate to practice; but as most true and certain; forasmuch as the reason was so, which made us determine it. And this was sufficient for that time to free me from all the remorse and repentance which useth to perplex the consciences of those weak and staggering minds, which inconstantly suffer themselves to passe to the practice of those things as good, which they afterwards ...
— A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason - and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences • Rene Descartes
... down, and finds half the village collected on the long sloping point of down below. Sailors wrapped in pilot-cloth, oil-skinned coast-guardsmen, women with their gowns turned over their heads, staggering restlessly up and down, and in and out, while every moment some fresh comer stumbles down the slope, thrusting himself into his clothes as he goes, and asks, "Where's the wreck!" and gets no answer, but a surly advice to "hold his noise," as ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... little, so tense were her nerves, waited until the last struggling roustabouts were staggering on the boat, until the deep whistle sounded, warning of approaching departure. Then she took up her bundle and put herself in the line of roustabouts, between a half-naked negro, black as coal and bearing a small barrel of beer, and a half-naked mulatto bearing ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... cares are of this world; if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear from it. I hate a man that wishes to be a deist; but I fear, every fair, unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a sceptic. It is not that there are any very staggering arguments against the immortality of man; but, like electricity, phlogiston, etc., the subject is so involved in darkness, that we want data to go upon. One thing frightens me much: that we are to live for ever seems too good news to be true. That ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... that morning, leaving puddles of mud and water in the unpaved streets. And at one place there was a mud fight in progress—laughing, staggering men plastering the stuff over the new clothes they had looted. Drew rode around such a party, the stud's prancing and snorting getting him wide room, to tie up at the hitching ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... (boys). He was crying in a maudlin way, "You just take me to a place and I'll drink soft stuff." They entreated him to return at once to the regimental quarters, even begged him, but he cast them aside and went staggering down the road to the line, where he met the grave-faced deputy face to face. The latter looked in the white of his eyes and said: "You can't ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... practically no progress, for the ground was treacherous and ten years under water had left the wood soft and slippery. To be sure the hidden chute lay at the breast of some such drift; but to clear them all out, with his limited equipment and no regular engineer in charge, would run up a staggering account. So Blount began to crosscut, and to sink along the contact, but chiefly to ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... an hour before sunset. He had succeeded in cutting a passage through the ice as far as the cabin-door of his unfortunate schooner, when there was no difficulty in descending into the interior parts of the vessel. The whole party came in staggering under heavy loads. Pretty much as a matter of course, each man brought his own effects. Clothes, tobacco, rum, small-stores, bedding, quadrants, and similar property, was that first attended to. At that moment, little was thought of the skins ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... a pinched, thin cry, as if wrung from him by unbearable suffering, and leaped over the wheel. He struck Leff on the chest, a blow so savage and unexpected that it sent him staggering back into the stream, where, his feet slipping among ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... this time had gotten in under the ropes again, and, grasping his companion about the waist, he held on until he had untwisted the tiger's tail from his companion's arm and released Phil, staggering back with his burden against ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... and the whirl of soft lace. Suddenly loud voices and threats, a shower of cards flung at a man's face, an uplifted arm caught by the host. Then a hall door thrust open and a half-frenzied man with disordered dress staggering out. Then the startled face of a young girl all in white and a cry no one ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... failures, owing, in a great degree, to my reprehensible ignorance of mechanical forces. The first error I made was in applying my apparatus of blocks and pulleys to a rope which was too weak, so that the very first heave I made broke it in two, and sent me staggering against the after-hatch, over which I tripped, and, striking against the main-boom, tumbled down the companion-ladder into the cabin. I was much bruised and somewhat stunned by this untoward accident. However, I considered it fortunate that I was not killed. In my next attempt I made ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... have meant less than nothing. You will find, too, that behind the apparent slackness of every arrangement and every individual are powers of adaptability to facts, elasticity, practical genius, a latent spirit of competition and a determination that are staggering. Before this war began it was the fashion among a number of English to lament the decadence of the race. These very grumblers are now foremost in praising, and quite rightly, the spirit shown in every part of their ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the stables of the Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, in Dresden, and be generously reimbursed for all costs. Accordingly, a few days later, the man to whom the shepherd in Wilsdruf had sold them did actually appear with the horses, thin and staggering, tied to the tailboard of his cart, and led them to the market-place in Dresden. As the bad luck of Sir Wenzel and still more of honest Kohlhaas would have it, however, the man happened to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... tragedy overtook them, full force. Old Beef McCay was in the act of reloading a gun when a treacherous bullet zipped spitefully through an opening between two logs and caught him low in the chest. The impact sent him staggering against the wall, his round, moonlike face ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... old cock, crouching almost till he looked like a tortoise, followed the blundering, staggering, wounded hen. It was the only ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... seen Apporo, my landlady, staggering homeward a few days earlier in a pitiful state of intoxication. Some one had given her a glass of mixed absinthe, vermuth, and rum, and with confidence in the giver she had tossed it down. That is the kind of joke that in other days would have been the deluding ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... down the steps, but before he could reach the huddled figure it gathered itself fearfully together and fled, limping and staggering across the yard, through the gate and around the corner ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... last words of each sentence of a sermon growing faint, like Marathon runners staggering feebly towards the goal, and the final word dropping completely under, that sermon, no matter how beautiful its conception or eloquent its composition, ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... losses were particularly staggering at Locre, where he used battalion after battalion in a vain attempt to hold the village, a key to Mount Rouge. The previous German capture of Mount Kemmel did the enemy little good, for the Allied artillery kept the crest of the hill so smothered with shell fire ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... burst like a shell. The enraged old man wheeled with uplifted staff to give chase to the scampering vagabond; and—he may have tripped, or he may not, but he fell full length. Little White hastened to help him up, but he waved him off with a fierce imprecation and staggering to his feet resumed his way homeward. His lips ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... whirling, twisting, and reeling, we all took a part. Henry, for that was the name of the youth who was so zealous in his aspersions, united awkwardly and derisively in these exercises. Amid so many arms, legs, and bodies, revolving, oscillating, staggering, and tripping, it is not remarkable that a few should be thrown prostrate (not violently, however) upon the floor. One evening, in a boy's meeting at a time of great excitement, when the spirits of some of our companions were reported to be in spiritual spheres, and other departed spirits were ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... lads!" and then made a rush at the helmsman, avoided a blow aimed at him, and retaliated with a thrust which sent the man staggering back against the next corner, checking him for the moment, and giving Dick Bannock time to get over on to ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... the small wiry American, and the huge Horncastle- bred hunter, were wallowing and staggering in the yeasty stream, till they floated into a deep reach, and swam steadily down to a low place in the bank. They crossed the stream, passed the Priory Shrubberies, leapt the gate into the park, and then on and ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... his men, struggling to fight their way in through the little crowd who were rushing for safety. Suddenly Quest backed, jerked the pistol up with his right elbow, and with almost the same movement struck Red Gallagher under the jaw. The man went over with a crash. His mate, who had been staggering about, cursing viciously, fired another wild shot at Quest, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... face to face with the elemental. A fire was made, they knew not how, water drawn they knew not whence, and a kettle boiled. Doyne accustomed to command, directed. The others obeyed. At his suggestion they hastened to the wreck of the car and came staggering back beneath rugs and travelling bags which could supply clean linen and needful things, for amid the poverty of the house they could find nothing fit for human touch or use. Early they saw that the woman's strength was failing, and that she could not ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... was so of the essence as time, in the present Category Military. For when two corporations sued for permission to meet on a military reservation for trial by combat to settle their commercial differences, the sums involved were staggering. Joe Mauser had been correct in saying that the fracas had grown, even in his memory, from skirmishes involving a company or two of men, to full fledged battles with a division or even more on either side, forty thousand men at each ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... Gwynplaine, staggering under the weight of his emotion, looked around him, while the wolf went and lay down silently ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... to follow him in raising a national insurrection against Napoleon. The soldiers answered Schill's eloquent words with shouts of applause; the march was continued westwards, and Schill crossed the Elbe, intending to fall upon the communications of Napoleon's army, already, as he believed, staggering under the blows delivered by the Archduke in the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... A great wave of emotion rose and rose, carrying the past years of misery with it. The knowledge, once, might have saved him, but now it had come too late. By and by he would be able to deal with this staggering truth that had been so suddenly hurled upon him, but not now while Katherine Kendall's daughter knelt ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... tied on to the tails of all the serpents to be found. Instantly the serpents were turned into hoops, and calling his faithful followers, he showed them how to ring them all on their shillelaghs. This done, staggering away with them at their backs, all the serpents, and snakes, and vipers, were carried off to the sea, into which they were thrown and drowned, and from that day to this not one has ever ventured to come back to the shores of Old Ireland, and none ever ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... a staggering blow, under which the most stoical man with the longest purse might well have reeled; but the Marquess met it with a smile of indifference; and when, a few minutes later, he drove off the course, with his friends, in a barouche ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... board, I felt half suffocated. What a night! I'm unable to depict it. Such sufferings are indescribable. The next day I was short-winded. Headaches and staggering fits of dizziness made me reel like a drunk. My companions were experiencing the same symptoms. Some crewmen were at ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... encircled within his sinewy arms with the design of hurling him over the crag on which they stood. The struggle was momentary. Munro, struck to the heart with Macrae's dagger, fell with May's loved name on his lips, while Macrae, staggering over the height in the act of falling, so wounded himself by his own weapon as to render his future life one of helpless ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... however audacious, soon found themselves swallowed up. The city had closed over them like water, and within an hour nearly a third of their whole number had been slain. Very few of the burghers had perished, and fresh numbers were constantly advancing to the attack. The Frenchmen, blinded, staggering, beaten, attempted to retreat. Many threw themselves from the fortifications into the moat. The rest of the survivors struggled through the streets—falling in large numbers at every step-towards the point at which they had so lately ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... needful sometimes to call spades spades, and not to be ashamed to tell men plainly how ugly are the vices which they are not ashamed to commit. No doubt some of the drunken priests and false prophets in Jerusalem thought Isaiah extremely vulgar and indelicate, in talking about staggering teachers and tables swimming in 'vomit.' But he had to speak out. So deep was the corruption that the officials were tipsy even when engaged in their official duties, the prophets reeled while they were seeing visions; the judges could not sit ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... as I told you before, John and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew-house; and when I suddenly call you, come forth, and, without any pause or staggering, take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet-Mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... staggering toward me. "Have you come back to life? Say, Griggs, just think of it! My workshop's blown to smithereens! Every single note I ever made has been destroyed! Isn't ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... swallows' noisy debates—little cries of joy or woe, which make their way to my heart rather than my ears. While Nais struggles to get at me, making the passage from her cradle to my bed on all fours or with staggering steps, Armand climbs up with the agility of a monkey, and has his arms round me. Then the merry couple turn my bed into a playground, where mother lies at their mercy. The baby-girl pulls my hair, and would take to sucking again, while Armand stands guard over my breast, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... body of a young man, almost a lad; his wound was hidden, but the collar of his shirt was dyed crimson with blood. When the men returned for the third time, their gait was so unsteady that it was with difficulty they raised the poor boy's bier, and then went off staggering. At the turning of a street the corpse fell, and I ran up as it was being picked from the ground; one of the drunken men was shedding tears, and maudling ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... in front, then came the king, over whom the natives had thrown some beautiful garlands of ohia and maile (Alyxia olivaeformis), with the governor on one side and the sheriff on the other, the chamberlain and adjutant-general walking behind. Then a native staggering under the weight of an enormous Hawaiian flag, the Hilo band, with my friend Upa beating the big drum, and an irregular rabble (i.e. unorganised crowd) of men, women, and children, going at a trot to keep up with the ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... poor working man, laden with his favourite piece of furniture, a glass-fronted press or cupboard, which he had succeeded in rescuing from his burning dwelling, was emerging from one of the lanes, followed by his wife, when, striking his foot against some obstacle in the way, or staggering from the too great weight of his load, he tottered against a projecting corner, and the glazed door was driven in with a crash. There was hopeless misery in the wailing cry of his wife—"Oh, ruin, ruin!—it's lost too!" Nor was his own despairing response less sad:—"Ay, ay, puir lassie, its ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... morning of the fourth day out, a speck was seen rising above the ragged outline of the rolling waves; and each minute it became higher and more distinct. An hour or two later, the Sea Lion was staggering along before a westerly gale, with the Hermit of Cape Horn on her larboard beam distant three leagues. How many trying scenes and bitter moments crowded on the mind of young Roswell Gardiner, as he recalled all that had passed in the ten months which ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... seemed endlessly weary. Prince dared not sit down, but must needs keep staggering up and down the track, praying as he had never prayed in all his life, that God would send a train before Connie should freeze to death. Stooping over her, he chafed her hands and ankles, shaking her roughly, but never ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... replaced that transient gleam of hope, and, staggering back behind the tarpaulin, he once more flung his body prostrate upon ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... through it all he stayed among them because he feared that if he left them and went to Val, some drunken fool might follow him and shock her with his inebriety. He stayed, and he stayed sober. Val was his wife. She trusted him, and she was ignorant of his sins. If he went to her staggering and babbling incoherent foolishness, he knew it would break ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... crooked; and it was considered desirable to shorten and straighten it by cutting off the bends at different places. At the point at which the canal entered Birmingham, it had become "little better than a crooked ditch, with scarcely the appearance of a towing-path, the horses frequently sliding and staggering in the water, the hauling-lines sweeping the gravel into the canal, and the entanglement at the meeting of boats being incessant; whilst at the locks at each end of the short summit at Smethwick crowds of boatmen were always quarrelling, or offering premiums for ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... Abraham; yet your words suggest that you think you are." Then came from Jesus' lips the words, spoken in all probability very quietly, "Your father Abraham exulted that he might see my day, and he saw it, and was glad." It is a tremendous statement, staggering to one who has not yet ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... more groping in the dark, more of that staggering like drunken men, described in ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... struck out smartly with his stick. Its ferrule impinged upon something soft but heavy. Simultaneously he heard a low, frightened cry, the cane was swept aside, a blow landed glancingly on his shoulder, and he was carried fairly off his feet by the weight of a man hurled bodily upon him with staggering force and passion. Reeling, he was borne back and down a step or two, and then,—choking on an oath,—dropped his cane and with one hand caught the balusters, while the other tore ineffectually at wrists of hands that clutched his throat. So, for a space, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... quoth Hereward, cheerfully, and held out a leg. But when the man stooped to put on the fetters, he received a kick which sent him staggering. ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... telling him that I was not to be disturbed, that I should not come down to supper and that I wanted to be let alone—to be let ALONE—until I saw fit to show myself. But these memories are all foggy and mixed with dreams and nightmares. As I say, the next thing that I remember distinctly after staggering from the Colton library is Dorinda's knocking at the ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... reduced to 'play at being Jumbo' with the best possible grace. It was a simple but severe game, consisting in the performer of the principal role—who was Mark himself on this occasion—going down on his hands and knees and staggering about the carpet, while everyone else who could find room climbed on his back and thumped him on the head. At last, in self-defence, he was obliged to get rid of them by intimating that he had gone mad, ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Don't bother me! Look in the barn! Oh what a calamity!" was the answer. "If I get holt of th' rask'l———" and then the farmer rushed off to grab a bucket from a staggering lad, who was advancing with it. Mr. Appleby slipped in the mud, and went down, ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... Flying Cloud—ships known in every port of the world for their speed. He told how a British vessel, her topsails reefed in a gale of wind, would see a white tower of swelling canvas come out of the spray behind her, come booming, staggering, plunging by—a Yankee clipper under royals. Press of sail? No other nation knew what it meant! Our owners took big chances, it was no trade ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... 1915. The rain of shells continued on through April 22, 1915, on the evening of which the British artillery observers reported a strange green vapor moving over the French trenches. The wind was blowing steadily from the northeast. Soon the French troops were staggering back from the front, blinded and choking from the deadly German gas. Many of their comrades had been unable to leave the spot where they were overtaken by the fumes. Those who fled in terror rushed madly across the canal, choking the road to Vlamertinghe. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... It was a great staggering blow from the wind that helped me forward again, and once out in the more open space, the sense of terror diminished strangely. The winds were about and walking, I remember saying to myself, for the winds often move like great presences under the trees. ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... and the expulsion of their breath most laborious. Each time they draw their breath, they utter an articulate cry of "ay-ay," which ends in a sound rising from deep in the chest, but shrill like the note of a fife. After staggering to the pile of ore, they emptied the "carpacho;" in two or three seconds recovering their breath, they wiped the sweat from their brows, and apparently quite fresh descended the mine again at a quick pace. This appears ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... in the room; I felt it was overpowering me. I was thankful to come out, safe and sound, into the open air. People stared at me as I walked along the street, and one man said I was drunk. I was staggering about from one side of the pavement to the other, and it was as much as I could do to take the key back to the agent and get home. I was in bed for a week, suffering from what my doctor called nervous shock ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... lover, who has chid Its long delay, feels every welcome stroke Upon his heart-strings trembling with delight: To fly for refuge from distracting thought To such amusements as ingenious woe Contrives, hard-shifting and without her tools— To read engraven on the muddy walls, In staggering types, his predecessor's tale, A sad memorial, and subjoin his own; To turn purveyor to an overgorged And bloated spider, till the pampered pest Is made familiar, watches his approach, Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend; To wear out time in numbering to and fro The studs ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... strength that I knew must at last prevail, albeit he was but a tender child and I a man in the prime of manhood's strength. But the devil was in him that night. It was not my boy's own hand that struck the blow which forced me to leave my hold, and sent me staggering back against the wall. No, it was but the evil spirit within him; and even as I released him from my embrace, he glided to the door, undid the fastenings, and still calling out that he was coming, that he would be ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... changes to a bright march. Enter the Kitchenmaid and Cooklet. The Kitchenmaid is a short, fat, rosy, brisk little girl. The Cooklet is a lanky, lazy, sentimental-looking girl. The Kitchenmaid carries pasteboard, with pie-disk, rolling-pin, basin of pastry, mince meat, etc., and enters staggering under her burden. The Cooklet carries a small basin with three apples and a knife, and eats apples ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... knowledge of the workings of the government departments at Washington, the war boards, and the other war-work organizations soon convinced him that the Y. M. C. A. was not the only body, asked to set up an organization almost overnight, that was staggering under its load and falling down as often as it ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... key!" he heard Bobby saying, and the next instant his door was flung open, the lights were switched on, and he was staggering blindly toward the couch at the foot of the bed. Then there was a furious ringing of bells, a long wait, followed by the appearance of ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... to England, and then, a month later, his investigation of Henry Bellairs' death, for the purpose of obtaining a plot for a new novel he contemplated, revealed to him a staggering ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... the steed bearing the unfortunate man was started in real earnest; and the foresters sent staggering by after it along ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... he. "Friends left, if my hands are gone. Something about electrometers. Which way are you, Bellows?" He suddenly came staggering towards me. "The damned stuff cuts like butter," he said. He walked straight into the bench and recoiled. "None so buttery that!" ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... life was only a serious spiritual toil, and all human joys a vanity to be spurned; preaching tediously long sermons, and counting the fatigue of the listeners a fitting oblation to spiritual truth; staggering through life with a great burden of theologies on his back, which it was his constant struggle to pack into smaller and smaller compass,—not so much, we fear, for the relief of others as of himself. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... would have been sacrificed had not the combatants been too much intoxicated to fight with vigour. Many of them fell prostrate and helpless on attempting to rise. Others dealt their blows at random, staggering and falling one upon another, until they lay in a heap, shrieking, biting, tearing, and stabbing—a bloody struggling mass, which told more eloquently than tongue can tell, that, deep and low though savage human nature has fallen in sin and misery, there is a depth profounder ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Staggering to his feet, the man sought in the ruined and plundered state-room for further evidence. Almost the first objects that he saw were two hanging pockets made of duck—evidently the work of some seaman—bearing upon them the names of "Helen" ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... least, that was how it sounded. Somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood something went off with a vast explosion, shattering the glass in the window, peeling the plaster from the ceiling, and sending him staggering into the inhospitable arms ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... followed, and was looking down indifferently at the dead. "Come, len' a han' there; this is gittin' too durn hot," he said, stooping to raise the lifeless form. Hosmer was preparing to help him. But there was some one staggering through the crowd; pushing men to right and left. With now a hand upon the breast of both Hosmer and Gregoire, and thrusting them with such force and violence, as to lay them prone amongst the timbers. It was the father. ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... announcement concerning her uncle's death had affected Dorothy so instantaneously as to leave him almost without hope. The blow had reacted on himself with staggering force. He was sickened by the abruptness with which the accusing circumstances had culminated. And yet, despite it all, he loved her more than before—with a fierce, aggressive love that blindly urged him to her future ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... in and seized the stick as he attempted to raise it again. They struggled for possession of it, staggering all over the teepee, falling against the poles, trampling in and out of the embers. Loseis shielded the pan of dough with her body. Bela finally wrenched the stick from Charley and in her turn ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... he seemed to hesitate, and I thought that he was about to rush out upon the platform and seize Ala in order to rescue her from some danger that he foresaw; when, all at once, the multitude rose to its feet, staggering, and began to rush to and fro, colliding with one another, falling, rising again, grappling, struggling, uttering terrible cries—and then I saw the ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... Arthur, was sent staggering, and would have fallen but for his father's hand; and all three, but for their shiny garb, would have been soaked ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... the bitter crack of the rifle and, raising my head, I saw her spring up and then drop down again. Then, staggering a short way up the opposite slope, I saw the slow bulk of the great black bull. He turned and looked back, his head low, his eyes straight ahead. Then slowly he kneeled down, and so died, with ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... is to be made for a man who is staggering under the mental shock of defeat and the physical exertions which Buller had endured. That the Government made such allowance is clear from the fact that he was not instantly recalled. And yet the cold facts are that ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and especially Carroway, too hungry for nice criticism, fell to, by the light of three tallow candles, and were just getting into the heart of it, when the rattle of horseshoes on the pitch-stones shook the long low window, and a little boy came staggering in, with scanty breath, and dazzled eyes, and a long ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... left, escaping a swinging right aimed at his head, and, as the great body passed, drove a short, heavy left punch under the still raised right arm, which shook Ockley severely and, increasing the impetus of his attack, sent him staggering against the balustrade ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... windows of Olive's drawing-room, looking over the water, took in the red sunsets of winter; the long, low bridge that crawled, on its staggering posts, across the Charles; the casual patches of ice and snow; the desolate suburban horizons, peeled and made bald by the rigour of the season; the general hard, cold void of the prospect; the extrusion, at Charlestown, at Cambridge, of a few ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... shapeless lump lying motionless in front, there loomed across the snow-choked gulf through the white riot of the storm a gigantic figure forging, doggedly forward, his great head down to meet the hurricane. And close behind, buffeted and bruised, stiff and staggering, a little dauntless figure holding stubbornly on, clutching with one hand at the gale; and a shrill voice, whirled away on the trumpet tones of the ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... present was not the time to suggest a trip to the High Cliff House. He went out again, to walk along the path and think over what he had just heard. It was interesting, as showing the attitude of one of the contracting parties toward the "engagement," the announcement of which had been such a staggering finish to the "big ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... up and staggering forward, bent on recovering my sack, the leader, who had given up the chase, rode toward me. I must have been a queer and horrid figure. I was literally covered with blood and mud. The blood ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... house was not so far gone as the rest; and when he came staggering forward, a few words sufficed to explain the reason ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... explosion, which seemed to rock the hills as an earthquake would; the illumination waxed to a glare so fierce that I clapped my hands over my eyes to save them. I thought the end of the world had come. I could think of no natural phenomenon that would explain it. My wits were staggering. The deafening explosion trailed off into the rumbling roar that had preceded it; and through this I heard the frightened shouts of my troops as they stumbled from their resting-places and rushed wildly ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... miktar dir, gel!" ("Come along the whole lot of you!") roared the Janissary with all his might, staggering from one side of the lane to the other, and flourishing his naked rapier ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... miss," the man panted. "The doctor and I can settle him!" and staggering to his feet made off to the rescue. As he ran, something clinked and rattled about his boots, and a bunch of keys lay quiet ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... no response, and just then Delia came staggering in under the weight of a huge brass tray which she bore ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... independence less clearly express when he speaks of his deformity. Being but the deformity of a body which he despised, he spoke of himself as "an ethereal existence staggering under the burden of a corpse." In his admirable chapter on Contentment, he very forcibly lays down that topic of consolation which is derived from the sense that "the universe is not made for our individual satisfaction." "Must my leg be lame?" he supposes some querulous objector ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... Is [29] distant three short miles, and in the time Of storm and thaw, when every water-course And unbridged stream, such as you may have noticed 265 Crossing our roads at every hundred steps, Was swoln into a noisy rivulet Would Leonard then, when elder boys remained At home, go staggering through the slippery fords, [30] Bearing his brother on his back. I have [31] seen him, 270 On windy days, in one of those stray brooks, Ay, more than once I have [31] seen him, mid-leg deep, Their two books lying both on a dry stone, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... their sabres; and they, with furious cries of "Giaour, giaourla!" turned back, leaving behind them the dead and wounded. In a moment the whole field was strewn with their corpses and their disabled, who, staggering to their feet, fell back, struck by the balls and grape-shot; whilst the cannon-shot shattered the wood, and the grenades, bursting, completed the destruction. But from the beginning of the action, till the moment when not one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... absorbing interest at all is one who thrives on vagaries. Whatever Belasco has touched since his days of apprenticeship in San Francisco, he has succeeded in imposing upon it what is popularly called "the Belasco atmosphere." Though he had done a staggering amount of work before coming to New York, and though, when he went to the Lyceum Theatre, he and Henry DeMille won reputation by collaborating in "The Wife," "Lord Chumley," "The Charity Ball," and "Men and Women," he was probably first individualized in the minds ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... could have been produced by a cannon-ball. The lamp was out, and the cabin in pitch blackness. I heard Sweers from some corner of the cabin, bawling out my name; but before I could answer, and even whilst I was staggering to my feet, a second convulsion threw me down again; the next instant there was a sensation as of the vessel being hove up into the air, attended by an extraordinary grinding noise, that thrilled through every beam of ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... he strode, though none knew better than he what hardships those six days held for him—days of plunging through fever-laden bogs; staggering in withering heat across open savannas; now scaling the slippery slopes of great mountains; now swimming the chill waters of rushing streams; making his bed where night overtook him, among the softly pattering ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Olie who found me. He came staggering through the snow with extra fuel for the bunk-house, and nearly walked over me. As we found out afterward, I wasn't more than thirty steps away from that bunk-house door. Olie pulled me up out of the snow the same ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer |
