"Staggers" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (Multiceps multiceps, or C[oe]nurus cerebralis), which are occasionally found in the brain of cattle and cause gid, "turnsick," or "staggers," deserve mention, as they are rather common among sheep in the Northwest. As already alluded to, these worms are the intermediate stage of a tapeworm found in dogs, and their life history and the means ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... towards the east, goes. "It's there—no, I've passed it. It's not there. I don't know where it is—or where it was. Ah, misery, misery!" He wrings his hands in despair and staggers in the middle of the medley of plaster and bricks. Then, bewildered by this encumbered plain of lost landmarks, he looks questioningly about in the air, like a thoughtless child, like a madman. He is looking for the intimacy of the bedrooms scattered ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... us at a time when we are confronted with a problem which almost staggers the imagination and when we are offered an opportunity such as no ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... The boy staggers into his mother's arms, and that night falls into a fever, in which he raves of his horse and the places he will see, while Jacob sits by his side, too sore in heart for words, and he never leaves the cot for food or sleep till the fever is burned out. Just before he ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... encephalitis and of its membranes cerebral-meningitis, but as both conditions usually occur together, and since it is practically impossible to distinguish one from the other by the symptoms shown by the diseased animal, they may as well be considered together here as varieties of the same disease. Staggers, coma, frenzy, etc., are terms that are sometimes applied to this disease in its different ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... "What staggers me," said Maud, looking after him, "is the effect his name had on Goldstein, who has little respect or consideration for anyone. Who do you suppose ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... the line, now clutch Your spit, Sir Scullion—slow your zeal! At the envoi's end, I touch. (He declaims solemnly): Envoi. Prince, pray Heaven for your soul's weal! I move a pace—lo, such! and such! Cut over—feint! (Thrusting): What ho! You reel? (The viscount staggers. Cyrano salutes): At the envoi's end, ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... sea. Suddenly the shepherd strikes in with a lively tune: "Isolda is at hand," cries Kurvenal. "Hasten to bring her," shouts Tristan, and Kurvenal does so. Tristan, left to himself, goes mad for sheer joy, staggers off his couch, tears his bandages off so that his wound bleeds afresh, and Isolda rushes in just in time to catch him in her arms, where he dies murmuring "Isolda." She laments over his body and sinks down beside it. Another alarm is given; Kurvenal barricades the gate; Mark, Melot and the ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... He staggers to the oaken table, seizes his sword, draws it from the sheath; the handle turns in his trembling hands, the blade falls to the ground; again he grasps it, while great tears rain down from his haggard eyes. The attendants cluster round him, kneel before ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... year my luck turned against me, and every horse I would back would get the staggers on the course, or would fail to rise at the leaps. All the strength of fortune went from me at that time, it is into himself it flowed and ran. The dead spit and image of myself he is. Stop with me here through the winter season and through the summer season! You to be in the house ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... know What sickness you are incident unto; Let them but feel your pulse, and they will tell You quickly whether you are sick or well. Have you the staggers? They can help you there; Or if the falling-sickness, or do fear A lethargy, a fever, or the gout, God blessing of their skill, you need not doubt A cure, for long experience has made These officers the masters of their trade.[9] Their physic works by purge and vomit too, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 'It staggers me with pain and grief, I can't believe it's true, That we should have a puddin'-thief Or ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... standing there stupid, dazed, dumbfounded, too bewildered for his mind to act or thoughts to come to him; he suddenly bursts into a roar of Titanic, overwhelming laughter. He laughs, and laughs, staggers to the sofa, falls on it, rocks and roars till the tears roll down his cheeks. He sways from side to side, unable to control himself—his laughter is so colossal that the infection catches the others; theirs ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... have been designed by Victor Hugo; it's in his style. Scene, Norway—midnight. Mysterious maiden steals out of a cave and glides away in a boat over the water; man, the hero, goes into cave, finds a stone coffin, says—'Qu'est-ce que c'est? Dieu! C'est la mort!' Spectacle affreux! Staggers back perspiring; meets mad dwarf with torch; mad dwarf talks a good deal—mad people always do,—then yells and runs away. Man comes out of cave and—and—goes home to astonish his friends; one of them won't ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Tory as ever stood upon shoe-leather, is certainly not a vampire nor bloodsucker. He does not feed on the public; a great many of the public feed upon him; and, therefore, his practical experience a little staggers and perplexes Lenny Fairfield as to the gospel accuracy of his theoretical dogmas. Masters, parsons, and land-owners! having at the risk of all popularity, just given a coup de patte to certain sages extremely the fashion at present, I am not going to let you off without an admonitory flea ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... almost as great as that of the drama of fifty years earlier, but with none of its excuse of inexperience and of redeeming purple patches. The characters are at once uninteresting and unpleasant; the measure hobbles and staggers; the dialogue varies between passages of dull declamation and passages of almost duller repartee. Perhaps, though the prose names of the time are greater than those of its dramatists, or, excluding Milton's, of its poets, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... through the man against the rail, and he lifts his eyes up cringin', like he expected to be hit with a club. Mr. Robert takes one look, and it almost staggers him. Next he reaches out, gets a firm grip on the gent's collar, and drags him out into a better light, twistin' the whiskered face up for ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... staggers to his cabin to rest a swimming head. But he doesn't go to sleep till he has summoned his steward, and instructed him to call him early in the morning—call him early—call him early, for he's to be Queen ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... instance, one developed a chronic habit of running centripetally round a constantly diminishing circle, fainting on arriving at the geometrical centre. My distressed aunt called in Nibletts to prescribe. There was only one word for it—that awful word "staggers." There was only one cure for it—death. Should he wring ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... in a menacing posture, John staggers towards him and falls at his feet, Margaret standing ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Go into that hall of revelry, where ungodly mirth staggers and blasphemes. Listen to the senseless gabble, see the last trace of intelligence dashed out from faces made in God's ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... meaning in them that is only too plain; and then the tight, passionate clasp, when, strained to her bosom, relief came at last. Adele lies there unconscious of the time, until the night dews warn her away; she staggers through the gate. Where next? She fancies they must know it all at the Elderkins',—that she has no right there. Is she not an estray upon the world? Shall she not—as well first as last—wander forth, homeless as she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... ago, when he came to the church in the last-named capacity, the congregation was wretchedly thin—awfully scarce, and just on the borders of invisibility. It has since improved a little; but working up a forsaken place into real activity is a difficult task, which at times staggers the ablest of men. Mr. Brown is a scholar, and a thoroughly upright man. He believes not in fighting down other people's creeds; never rails against religious antagonists; has a natural dislike to platform bigotry and pulpit wrathfulness; is generously inclined; will give but ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... to rock. He reels from the porch, He runs and stumbles to reach the road. He yells and curses and tears his hair. He staggers and falls and rises and runs. And Widow La Rue With the eyes of Clytemnestra Stands at the window and watches him Running ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... gradually comes back to sanity and health. The artificialities and affectations of polite society are not to be thrown off in a day's time. Hardly had he arrived at Mauchline before he penned a letter to Clarinda, that simply staggers the reader with the shameless and heartless way in which it speaks of Jean Armour. 'I am dissatisfied with her—I cannot endure her! I, while my heart smote me for the profanity, tried to compare her with my ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... local but thorough-going lightning storm. I abandoned my gun and stood sideways, thus decreasing the possible area of danger. Had the exercises continued much longer I would have had a spell of something, probably the blind staggers. ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... drunken man walk? Let us see why he staggers. When a man takes a certain amount of alcohol his small brain and spinal cord become partly paralyzed, so that they cannot do their duty well; and so, when he tries to walk he reels and stumbles along, often falling down, and sometimes hurting ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... of life we are occasionally perplexed by some chance question that for the moment staggers us. I quite pitied a young lady in a branch post-office when a gentleman entered and deposited a crown on the counter with this request: "Please give me some twopenny stamps, six times as many penny stamps, and ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... productions of a Great Genius are generally the most remarkable for wildness and inequality. A sublime imagination is always reaching at something great and astonishing. Sometimes it seizeth the object of its pursuit, and at others, like a person dizzy with the heighth of his station, it staggers and falls headlong. When the mind of such a person ripens, and his judgment arrives at its full maturity, we have reason to expect that the strain of his competition will be more confident and masterly; but his imagination, cramped ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... and his companions flit about, ridiculing, mocking, and laughing at him; eventually prodding and pinching him until, shivering, with aching joints, he staggers away. The revelry then continues, the song of the lovers becoming more and more prominent until, somewhat broadened out, it asserts itself triumphantly above all, Ariel and his companions flitting ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... certainly when deprived of vision. The dancer is much disturbed at first by the shock caused by the removal of its eyes, or in case they are covered, by the presence of the unusual obstruction. It soon recovers sufficiently to become active, but it staggers, swerves often from side to side, and frequently falls over. It moves clumsily and more slowly than usual. Later these early indications of blindness may wholly disappear, and only a slightly impaired ability to avoid ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... will," cried my uncle; "soldiers cheer up directly. I say, Frank, the Doctor gave you a splendid character, but it wasn't wanted. Your popularity staggers me." ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... And he never staggers nor seems in danger of being rolled away. On the contrary, such a surplus of surety of balance has he that time and again he lent his surplus to me. I begin to have more respect, not for the sea, but for the men of the sea, and not for the sweepings of seamen that ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... dreamers through their dreams surmise II The thinkers light their lamps in rows III I pass my days in ghostly presences IV Each mote that staggers down the sun V He is a priest VI Through hissing snow, through rain, through many hundred Mays VII Gods dine on prayer and sacred song VIII A smile will turn away green eyes IX Two Kings there were, one Good, one Bad ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... that bull who breaks loose at the moment In which he has received the mortal blow, Who cannot walk, but staggers ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... once more, and of the deep love which has called him back from the gates of the tomb. His impatience to see Ysolde soon gets the better of his weakness, however, and he struggles to rise from his couch, although the exertion causes his wounds to bleed afresh. Painfully he staggers half across the stage to meet Ysolde, who appears only in time to hear his last passionate utterance of her beloved name, and to catch his dying form in her arms. She does not realise that he has breathed his last, however, and gently tries to woo him back ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... the hope of relieving his brother drove him to enter the gate he had been accustomed to see open before him in glad hospitality. He finds the lights burning in the house above and below, and encouraged by the welcome they seem to hold out, he staggers up the path, ignorant of the tragedy which was at that very moment being enacted behind those lighted windows. But half-way toward the house he stops, the courage which has brought him so far suddenly fails, and in one of ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... to say," I returned, for he was evidently waiting for me to add something more to what I had stated. "It rather staggers me to hear that my name-well, you have not heard of me, of course, but there have been a great many distinguished men of the same name: Sydney Smith, for instance, and—and several others." It mortified ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... springs like a racer, sweeps through a gash in the rock; Buts at the boulder-ribbed bottom, staggers and rears at the shock; Leaps like a terrified monster, writhes in its fury and pain; Then with the crash of a demon ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... God, the heedless wretch, Who staggers to a dreadful grave; Thy arm of love around him stretch, And show that thou ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... man springs aside. The bull squeals; he staggers; he is down. Behind the ear. I say it. There the bullet went in. There will be much meat." The old man took snuff, and cast a proud look around as if he alone had ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... Nature! here 175 In this interminable wilderness Of worlds, at whose involved immensity Even soaring fancy staggers, Here is thy fitting temple. Yet not the lightest leaf 180 That quivers to the passing breeze Is less instinct with thee,— Yet not the meanest worm. That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead, Less shares thy eternal breath. 185 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the rendezvous of expiring illusions, the gathering place of the anonymities which utilize man, beasts and plants. See how this curious dwarf staggers like a bewildered stranger in its shadow. He is an outcast. He is useless. He is no longer necessary. Life which made a pretense of him, enters its tabernacle and closes the doors on him. Here is the great secret. ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... jactitation^, quassation^; shuffling &c v.; twitter, flicker, flutter. turbulence, perturbation; commotion, turmoil, disquiet; tumult, tumultuation^; hubbub, rout, bustle, fuss, racket, subsultus^, staggers, megrims, epilepsy, fits; carphology^, chorea, floccillation^, the jerks, St. Vitus's dance, tilmus^. spasm, throe, throb, palpitation, convulsion. disturbance, chaos &c (disorder) 59; restlessness &c (changeableness) 149. ferment, fermentation; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dress Bright shoots of everlastingness. O! how I long to travel back And tread again that ancient track! That I might once more reach that plain, Where first I left my glorious train.— But Ah! my soul with too much stay Is drunk; and staggers in the way. Some men a forward motion love, But I backward steps would move; And when this dust falls to the urn In that ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... creetur, sir,' said the elder Mr. Weller to me in the afternoon, 'has bolted. Him as had no wice, and was so free from temper that a infant might ha' drove him, has been took at last with that 'ere unawoidable fit o' staggers as we all must come to, and gone off his feed for ever! I see him,' said the old gentleman, with a moisture in his eye, which could not be mistaken, - 'I see him gettin', every journey, more and more groggy; I says to Samivel, "My boy! ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... man still sits, often smacking his dry lips without the least consciousness. After some minutes he makes an attempt to rise. They help him up, and he staggers against the ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... general account of one of the two (to use Master Potts's description,) "agents for the devil in those parts," as the party responsible for these unclaimed dividends of mortality. Did a cow go mad, or was a horse unaccountably afflicted with the staggers, the same solution was always at hand to clear negligence and save the trouble of inquiry; and so far from modestly disclaiming these atrocities, the only struggle on the parts of Mothers Demdike and Chattox would be which should first ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... the evil genius that is pursuing him? or is there nothing for him now but to run? He has run all night, but he is no farther ahead than when he stood at the police-court door. On the contrary, it is running him down fast, and as he staggers forward into the darkest hour of that cruel night, it treads on his heels and begins ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... who is just beginning to try his Ear in Pindaric, may be compared to a new Scater; He totters strangely at first, and staggers backward and forward; Every Stick, or frozen Stone in his Way, is a Rub that he falls at. But when many repeated Trials have embolden'd him to strike out, and taught the true Poize of Motion, he throws forward his Body with a dextrous Velocity, and becoming ravish'd with the masterly Sweep of his ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... south, striking a tinder from time to time to look at my pocket compass. And then in an instant—I feel the pang once more as my memory brings back the moment—my horse, without a sob or staggers fell stone-dead ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that guard These waters, greater grown than any since We left the shores of England. We were first, My men, to battle in between the bergs And floes to these wide waves. This gulf is mine; I name it! and that flying sail is mine! And there, hull-down below that flying sail, The ship that staggers home is mine, mine, mine! My ship Discoverie! The sullen dogs Of mutineers, the bitches' whelps that snatched Their food and bit the hand that nourished them, Have stolen her. You ingrate Henry Greene, ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... imaginations will not be driven from the heart where they have once nested. They haunt a man's business, visit him in dreams, and vampire-like, fan the slumbers of the victim whom they will destroy. In some feverish hour, vibrating between conscience and avarice, the man staggers to a compromise. To satisfy his conscience he refuses to steal; and to gratify his avarice, he borrows the funds;—not openly—not of owners—not of men: but of ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher
... "how he simply couldn't understand anybody's being interested in Davenport? Because Davenport was a poor man, who never went in for making money. Men of the Bagley sort are always puzzled when anybody doesn't jump at the chance of having their friendship. It staggers their intelligence to see impecunious Davenports—and Larchers—preferred ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... at the end of your second edition? That will be preserving their infamy, which else would perish where it was born; and perhaps would deter others from similar forgeries. If any rational opponent staggers you on any opinion of yours, I would retract it; and that would be a second triumph. I am, perhaps, too impertinent and forward with advice: it is at best a proof of zeal; and you are under no obligation to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... to Newcastle's English walls, Hail, Herman! and thy matchless stud!" Joost staggers up the bank and falls, And dying to his master crawls. Yields up his long solicitude, And spills his veins ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... it. 'Cream,' he said mournfully, 'doesna agree wi' me. The last time I had cream—ma aunt had got it in for her cat that had the staggers—I lay in agony for three days an' three nichts an' several 'oors into the bargain. Ma aunt feared I was ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... disappeared. As a cadet always claims the first number or two with the young lady whom he has "dragged" hither, "staggers" have to wait ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... Edward's charger staggers: He leaps at once to ground, And ere the beast falls bleeding Another horse is found. His right arm falls—'tis wounded; He waves on high his left; In vain he leads the movement, The ranks in twain are cleft. The men in scarlet waver Before the men in brown, And fly in utter ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... matter would acknowledge both its necessity and its beauty. Then Thorny would observe that it might be all very well in the saddle, but it made a man waddle like a duck when afoot; whereat Ben would retort that for his part he would rather waddle like a duck than tumble about like a horse with the staggers. He had his opponent there, for poor Thorny did look very like a weak-kneed colt when he tried to walk; but he would never own it, and came down upon Ben with crushing allusions to centaurs, or the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... reached that father's ears and inmost heart. He puts down Minette and staggers, blinded by his grief, to the sofa. All withdrew but his wife. He is on his knees before his poor penitent daughter. Her arms are round his neck, and she strives to rise but cannot. Oh! the depth, agony, remorse of that long, silent, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... philosophy of Christianity that is diffused through many works, some of them still untranslated and all quite without coordination, save St. Thomas Aquinas alone, the magnitude of whose product staggers the human mind and in its profuseness defeats its own ends. We need no more histories of philosophy, but we need an epitome of Christian philosophy, not for students ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... shall divide our public lands between contending factions? What shall be done with our navy and all the various items of the nation's property? What shall be done when the post-office stops its steady movement to divide its efforts among contending parties? What shall be done when public credit staggers, when commerce furls her slackened sail, when property all over the nation changes its owners and relations? What shall be done with our canals and railways, now the bands of love to bind us, then the causes of contention and jealousy? What umpire will appear to settle all these questions of ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... right,—kneeling forward, at that, with his tail stickin' straight up so's it wouldn't be in the way of his heels. It's all Jack Wales's fault. He simply would put that blamed sun-dial of his right in the middle of this plot,—and these doggoned gravel-walks running every which way give me the blind-staggers. Why, A. A., you got more gravel walks here than they've got in Central Park. And all these scrubby hedges, stone walls, fountains, flower-beds, cedar freaks,—my God, Perce, I'd hate to come home a little squiffed if I lived in that house ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... The young man staggers. He now turns to where he should expect to find strength. Under the pulpit next Sunday is a mind where the mists of doubt are gathering and darkening. He looks up to the "Light of the World" to have ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... sir!" says Mr. Walker, "go and get the cheque cashed, and be quick about it. Send your man in a cab, and here's a half-crown to pay for it." The confident air somewhat staggers the bailiff, who asked him whether he would like any refreshment while his man was absent getting the amount of the cheque, and treated his prisoner with great civility during the time ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to ask what tidings. Winter is the first to throw himself from his steaming horse, and followed by Percy, the two Wrights and Robert Keyes, staggers into the room. They are covered with mud and streaming with perspiration. Their hats and swords were left behind—evidently lost in the wild ride from London. Breathless they stand, for a moment unable to ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... and part in Australia, to interlink them in the most complicated way in all genealogical and topographical relations, demands a structural genius like that of Eugene Sue; and though Mr. Kingsley grapples stoutly with the load, he staggers under it. His descriptions of scenery are as vivid as his brother's, and he exhibits far less arrogance and no theology. There are in the book single scenes of great power, and there has never, perhaps, been a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... of the great experiences of their lives to have dined with Belloc in a small Paris Restaurant (Aux Vendanges de Bourgogne) and then to have walked with him the streets of that glorious city while he discoursed of its past. Imagination staggers before the picture of a Belloc in his full youth and vigour in a group fitted to strike from him his brightest fire at a moment big with issues ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... friend, but is really jealous. They stay together at a country house with a veranda, and exciting things happen. Leila is supposed to be an orphan, and Dolores patronises her because she is poor. An English officer comes to call, and staggers back at sight of Leila. (He is really her father.) Dolores makes mischief, and persuades him to leave her all his money. They go to the lawyers, and Leila goes out for a sail in a boat to cheer her spirits. While she is sailing, the volcano blows up and everyone is ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of the King. He is a genuine poet whose genius was warped by the spirit of the age, stunted by the inherent difficulties besetting the Roman writer of epic, overweighted by his admiration of his two great predecessors, Ovid and Vergil. He is obscure, he is full of echoes, he staggers beneath a burden of useless learning, he overcrowds his canvas and strives in vain to put the breath of life into bones long dry; in addition, his epic suffers from the lack of the reviser's hand. And yet, in spite of all, his characters are sometimes ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... comes, watch how this man carries Katherine off. That's one great test. See if he backs her up onto a bench; see if he guides her premeditated fall to the precise center of equilibrium of his shoulders; see if he staggers painfully off with his knees tottering, almost flapping beneath him. By heavens, I have seen Skinner abduct a one hundred and sixty pound Katherine with as little effort as if she had been a wicker ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... He said "anything you like, monsieur." Ship's doctor's probably well-paid. Probably not. Better hurry before I put my lunch. Awe-inspiring stink, because it's in the bow. Little member of the crew immersing his guess-what in a can of some liquid or other, groaning from time to time, staggers when the boat tilts. "Merci bien, Monsieur!" That was the proper thing. Now for the—never can reach it—here's the premiere classe one—any port in a storm.... Feel better now. Narrowly missed American officer ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... God, I see it now, and my sick brain Staggers and swoons! How often over me Flashes this breathlessness of sudden sight In which I see the universe unrolled Before me like a scroll and read thereon Chaos and Doom, where helpless planets whirl Dizzily round and round and round and round, ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... not gainless is the loss; A glorious sunbeam gilds thy sternest frown, And while his country staggers neath the Cross, He rises ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... chaos of his mind there is no obstacle to their coalescing into any shapes they please, it must be confessed that the eloquence of the Scotch is encumbered with an excess of knowledge, that it cannot get on for a crowd of difficulties, that it staggers under a load of topics, that it is so environed in the forms of logic and rhetoric as to be equally precluded from originality or absurdity, from beauty or deformity:—the plea of humanity is lost by going through the process of law, the firm and manly ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... of 'matrimonial crimes where the woman is not felled by the actual fist, though she staggers and sinks under the blows quite as cruel and effectual, where with old wounds still unhealed, she strives to hide under a smiling face to ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... fling to the winds every principle of his art. It is the last word of British sailing tactics, and surely nothing in their whole history, not even in the worst days of the old Fighting Instructions, so staggers us with its lack of ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... the third afternoon of their cruise, or their "flop" as Roy called it, for they had flopped along rather than cruised, and the Good Turn's course would have indicated, as he remarked, a fit of the blind staggers. They had paused to fish and to bathe; they had thrown together a makeshift aquaplane from the pieces of an old float which they had found, and had ridden gayly upon it; and their course had been so leisurely and rambling that they had not yet reached Poughkeepsie, ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... of the present war to the nations engaged in the struggle is estimated at not less than $54,000,000 a day—a sum which fairly staggers the imagination. This enormous cost of the armies in the field gives a decided advantage to the nation best supplied with the "sinews of war" and may contribute to a shortening of hostilities. War is indeed a terrible drain upon ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... blood-stream—changes sickening in effect and soon resulting in delirium. Nothing definite; no gravity; no "bottom," no "top"; merely a vacuum, comprehended by the human mind through an all-enveloping nausea, and seen in confused spectral labyrinths as the whole cold panorama of icy stars staggers and swirls and the universe goes mad. Such a trip was enough to churn the resistance of the hardiest traveler, but for Hawk Carse, Friday and Eliot Leithgow there was more. On Ku Sui's asteroid they had gone through hours of mental and ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... the night passes away. At last, brutalized by the accursed thing, he staggers along with rage, and, shivering with cold, he makes his appearance. Not a murmur is heard from her lips. On the contrary, she meets him with a smile—she caresses him with tender arms, with all the gentleness and softness of her sex. Here, then, is seen her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the adjoining barracks playing retreat at the moment of decision. All at once the matador seizes the favorable instant. He poises his sword as the bull rushes upon him. The point enters just between the left shoulder and the spine; the long blade glides in up to the hilt. The bull reels and staggers and dies. Sometimes the matador severs the vertebrae. The effect is like magic. He lays the point of his sword between the bull's horns, as lightly as a lady who touches her cavalier with her fan, and he falls dead as ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... pursed, for she and the caretaker had been sandpapering each other's temperaments with a few words. "Be thankful she thought to boil a potato. No greens. And I had to ask for a bit bread. And the reason's not far to seek. She's had a drop again. It staggers me how your father, who's so particular with the rest of us, stands such a body ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... not, pray! I'll tell the King about you and he won't be very long. One of his footmen will come along presently for news of you. Madhav's impudence staggers me. If the King hears of this, that'll take some of his nonsense ...
— The Post Office • Rabindranath Tagore
... TRISTAN, delirious with excitement, staggers wildly towards her. They meet in the centre of the stage; she receives him in her arms, where he ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner
... the roaring waters Their headlong gallop check? The steed draws back in terror— She leans upon his neck To watch the flowing darkness; The bank is high and steep; One pause—he staggers forward, And plunges in ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... staggers over and looks at her closely for a moment. Then he catches her by the throat, hurls her to the ground, and begins to kick her savagely. He laughs as he kicks her, for at heart he is not a bad-natured man. She ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... afternoon, you gave Master Galileo a rap on the head with your telescope, and told him to get out of the way?" "Yes, I do," says the old gentleman. "Then," says the waiting- maid, "I say he's the man, and the prophecy is fulfilled." The old gentleman staggers at this, as if somebody had hit him a blow on the chest, and cries, "He! why he's a boy!" Upon that, gentlemen, the Salamander cries out that he'll be twenty-one next Lady-day; and complains that his father has always been so busy with ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens
... the surging crowd between him and the doorway of the ladies' waiting room, but Miss Fenwick he cannot see. Will he ever reach that room? Has anything happened to her? A great fear contracts his heart, he fancies he fairly staggers as he enters the door. In an instant he is suffused with a great joy. By the window, awaiting his approach, stands Fern Fenwick, the perfect picture of cool, contented loveliness. She extends her hand and greets him with a firm clasp ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... heights and lyric vigor unsurpassed. In his three volumes of poetry, by the side of numerous worthless pieces, we meet many gems of style and thought. The distressed cry of humanity against the wretchedness under which it staggers, the sorrowful protest man makes against the lack of compassion he encounters in his fellow, his obstinate refusal to understand the implacable cruelty of nature when she snatches his dearest from him, and his impotence in the presence of death—these are the subjects that have inspired ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... wings on such a night as this; And while the traveler hugs her fluttering cloak, And staggers o'er the weary waste alone, Beneath a pitiless heaven, they flap his face, And wheel above, or hunt his fainting soul, As, with relentless greed, a vulture throng, With their lank shadows mock the glazing eyes Of ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... combat between Roland and his enemies in the Petit Roi de Galice, the hero staggers and Froila leaps forward to ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... its truth," said Colson. "But I wouldn't ask any of you to believe it, if there's anything in it staggers you." ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... the same notion. He's sit up half the night argifyin' with me that the earth was spinnin' 'round like a dog after its tail. I uster ask him how it was we didn't tumble off when we was danglin', head downward, in the dark, an' that uster to give him the blind staggers every time. He was a terror for argifyin', though, that chap; an' one night he got me to give in that it was mebby round like a cheese and us livin' on the flat top. It was in Sawed-Off Wilmott's cheese factory he was shootin' off that time. Well, I went ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... light yellow glove from his pocket: "Oh!" He staggers away from the grating and stays himself against the wall, the mistaken glove dangling limply from ...
— The Elevator • William D. Howells
... blood dripping down from each torn, bleeding limb, Slowly over the timbers her dark way she feels; Her fingers grow numb and her head seems to swim; Her strength is fast failing—she staggers! she reels! She falls—Ah! the danger is over at last, Her feet touch the earth, and the long ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... written of him for the ostensible purpose of vindicating the Puritans and making him appear as the Spoliator and Antichrist whose thirst for blood, so that he might attain glory, was an inexhaustible craze in him. To them he is the Ogre that staggers the power of belief, and yet he defies the whole world to prove that he ever declared war or committed a single crime during the whole carnival of warfare that ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... start, put his hand on the horse's neck. On a sudden, for no apparent reason, it began to tremble. The trembling passed through the body and down its limbs till it shook from head to foot as though it had the staggers. The coachman jumped off his box and held the wretched creature's head. Margaret and Susie got out. It was a horribly painful sight. The horse seemed not to suffer from actual pain, but from an extraordinary fear. Though she knew not why, ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... when all sorts is bringing me their food and clothing (he swaggers to the door, tightening his belt), the way they'd set their eyes upon a gallant orphan cleft his father with one blow to the breeches belt. (He opens door, then staggers back.) Saints of glory! Holy angels from the throne ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... catastrophy which has spread such awful havoc through the teeming valley of the Conemaugh almost surpasses belief and fairly staggers imagination. Without yet measuring its dire extent, enough is known to rank it as the greatest calamity of the natural elements which this country has ever witnessed. Nothing in our history short of the deadly blight of battle has approached this frightful cataclysm, and no battle, though ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... that most suiteth with our sense of feeling. The coming sinner feels the workings of sin, of all manner of sin and wretchedness in his flesh; he also feels the wrath and judgment of God due to sin, and ofttimes staggers under it. Now, says Unbelief, you may see you have no grace; for that which works in you is corruption. You may also perceive that God doth not love you, because the sense of his wrath abides upon you. Therefore, how can you bear the face to come to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... answered Harry truthfully. "Come on, Boy, let's us get out of 'ere. I 'll be getting the blind staggers if I ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... much in general upon our opinion's incertainty, and the possibility of erring makes him not venture on what is true. He cannot drive into his fancy the circumscription of religion into our corner, and yet, the absurdity of Popery staggers him again. He could like the Protestant better were it not for the puritan, and the papist but for the Jesuit. He thinks we are more rational, and likes the life of the other. He thinks so many wise men would not believe but on good ground, and so many honest men cannot ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... their day, and now people talk sugar. Hawaii thrills to the news of a cent up or a cent down in the American market. All the interests of the kingdom are threatened by this one, which, because it is grievously depressed and staggers under a heavy import duty in the American market, is now clamorous in some quarters for "annexation," and in others for a "reciprocity treaty," which last means the cession of the Pearl River lagoon on Oahu, with its adjacent shores, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... our altered attitude towards America. Mr. Ford, the impassioned pacifist, sailing to Europe in his ark of peace, staggered our amazement. Mr. Ford, still the impassioned pacifist, whose aeroplane engines will help to bomb the Hun's conscience into wakefulness, staggers our amazement but commands our admiration. We do not attempt to understand or reconcile his two extremes of conduct, but as fighters we appreciate the courage of soul that made him "about turn" to search for his ideal in a painful direction when the old friendly direction ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... the fiend, behold a sight of gladness! Behold the rival theatre! I've set O. P. at her, {38} Who, like a bull-dog bold, Growls and fastens on his hold. The many-headed rabble roar in madness; Thy rival staggers: come and spy her Deep in the mud as thou art in the mire. So saying, in his arms he caught the beaming one, And crossing Russell Street, He placed him on his feet 'Neath Covent Garden dome. Sudden a sound, As of the bricklayers of Babel, rose: Horns, rattles, drums, tin trumpets, ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... there an early calf Staggers about with weakling frame; It is a sight that makes me laugh; I feel so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... between us and God. That is the force of the context here. The Psalmist has just been saying, 'O Thou that hearest prayer! unto Thee shall all flesh come.' And then he bethinks himself how flesh compassed with infirmities can come. And he staggers back bewildered. There can be no question but that the plain dictate of common sense is, 'We know that God heareth not sinners.' My evil not only lies like a great black weight of guilt and of habit on my consciousness and on my activity, but it actually stands like a frowning cliff, barring ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... me," she gasps "if—" she staggers back against the half-closed door, her fingers clenched and pressed to her temples, throbbing with intense excitement. All the thoughts that crowd to her brain are offsprings of that improbable "if," each moment growing ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... in the most lonely part of the snow-swept moor, a figure springs out of the ditch and covers the coachman with a pistol. Alarms and confusions. "Oh, sir," says the heroine, "spare my aunt and I will give you all my jewels." The convict, for such it is, staggers back. "Lucy!" he cries. "Harold!" she gasps. The aunt says nothing, for she has swooned. At this point the story stops to explain how Harold came to be in knickerbockers. He had either been falsely accused or else he had been a solicitor. ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... her now at the end of that procession across the booming rollers on the east sky. See her the last of all, the end of the procession. On the back of her neck a bundle. Sometimes the bundle gets bigger. The woman staggers. Her legs get bigger and stronger. She picks herself up and goes along shaking her head. She is the same as the others. She is a shadow and she was made as a mistake. Early, early in the beginnings of the world she was ...
— Rootabaga Stories • Carl Sandburg
... a group of people who were in his schemes with him. They are holding a council of war in the directors' room. Suddenly Parker rises, staggers toward the window, falls, and is dead before a doctor can get to him. Every effort is made to keep the thing quiet. It is given out that he committed suicide. The papers don't seem to accept the suicide theory, however. Neither do we. The coroner, who is working with us, has kept his mouth ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... plastered with mud and ooze, Barnabas staggers up to his feet, is aware in a dazed manner that horses are galloping down upon him, thundering past and well-nigh over him; is conscious also that "The Terror" is scrambling up and, even as he gets upon his legs, has caught the reins, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... in silence, full of the gloomiest thoughts. Suddenly Paramore enters, pale and in the utmost disorder, with the British Medical Journal in his clenched hand. They rise in alarm. He tries to speak, but chokes, clutches at his throat, and staggers. Cuthbertson quickly takes his chair and places it behind Paramore, who sinks into it as they crowd about him, Craven at his right shoulder, Cuthbertson on his left, ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... premonition that she had done so prepared him in moments of reflection to hear the truth. He fought against the concept every time it flashed before him, but with weakening strength, as the outclassed fighter staggers groggily to the ropes. What match was he, what adversary I, for Cupid, lacking the inspiration the god gave to his faithful adherents? If you ask me why I am so familiar with Mr. Tescheron's fears and numerous other matters recorded here, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Jacoby and Yellow Top. The term Ragwort, or Ragweed, is a corruption of Ragewort, as expressing its supposed stimulating effects on the sexual organs. For the same reason the pommes d'amour (Love Apples, or Tomatoes) are sometimes caned Rage apples. The Ragwort was formerly thought to cure the staggers in horses, and was hence named Stagger wort, or because, says Dr. Prior, it was applied to heal freshly cut young bulls, known as Seggs, or Staggs. So also it was called St. James's wort, either because that great warrior and saint was the patron of horses, or because it blossoms on his day, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... he expected to follow him, and the reduction of his life, as he puts it bitterly, "to an anecdote—a thing to be told stories about." And in the end that is the fate he will meet. Time and a wife that he wronged have broken him. As he staggers off at the end of the play, a stricken man and older than his forty-five years, this ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... has been called the petit mal, have continued for some months, a change begins to take place, which does not fail to excite attention and to cause alarm. If seated, the child's head drops forward for a moment, and strikes against the table; if standing, it becomes for an instant dizzy, and staggers, or even falls, and then there is twitching of one limb, or of the muscles of the face, and then the complete fit of epilepsy, ushered in sometimes, but not always, by a momentary cry, and then the convulsive twitching of one limb, followed ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... pregnant, is scrubbing the floor. Seized with giddiness, she staggers to her feet and leans against the wall, staring before her with ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... that, viewing the spectacle from above, you get the illusion of being in a stationary airship, anchored up among the clouds; imagine these mountain peaks—hundreds upon hundreds of them—rising one behind the other, stretching away in endless, serried rank until the eye swims and the mind staggers at the task of trying to count them; imagine them splashed and splattered over with all the earthly colors you ever saw and a lot of unearthly colors you never saw before; imagine them carved and fretted and scrolled into all shapes—tabernacles, ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... mentioned by G. H. Lewes (History of Philosophy), could grasp the idea of substance without attribute as presented by Berkeley. The real Gipsy could talk about apples all day, but the sudden demand for the unconnected word, staggers him—at least, until he has had some practice in this, to him, new process. And it is so with other races. Professor Max Muller once told me in conversation, as nearly as I can recollect, that the Mohawk Indian language is extremely rich in declension, every noun having some sixteen or ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... said, "how slowly she goes. She could not climb trees for opossums—she is too old and weak; look how she staggers." ...
— Australian Legendary Tales - Folklore of the Noongahburrahs as told to the Piccaninnies • K. Langloh Parker
... the same.... [Puts her hair straight] I've lost all my hairpins.... [She is very tired, and even staggers as she walks.] ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... sun, half his pilgrimage is done, And he staggers for a moment, hurries on, reels backward, swerves In a rain of scattered feathers as he falls ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... better in the post office, folks not makin' it so much of a hangout. Regyarded commercial, it's a setback to the Red Light. Some gent comes trackin' up intent on drinks, an' feelin' gala. After one glance at Monte up thar it's all off. That reveller's changed his mind, an' staggers out into the open ag'in without a word. The joint is daily knocked for about the price of a stack of bloos, as the direct result of that work of art. Which I'd as soon have a gila ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... completely formed. The face now becomes flushed, the eyes project, and are somewhat watery, winking is less frequent than is natural; the under lip is protruded—the head inclines a little to one shoulder—the jaw falls—belchings and hiccough take place—the limbs totter—the whole body staggers. The unfortunate subject of this history next falls on his seat—he looks around him with a vacant countenance, and mutters inarticulate sounds to himself—he attempts to rise and walk: in this attempt he falls upon his side, from which he gradually turns upon his back: he now closes his ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... vile and pernicious vice. The drunkard, deprived of the sense and reason given us by God, profanes the donations of the divinity: he debases himself to the condition of brutes; unable even to guide his steps, he staggers and falls as if he were epileptic; he hurts and even risks killing himself; his debility in this state exposes him to the ridicule and contempt of every person that sees him; he makes in his drunkenness, prejudicial and ruinous bargains, ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... beginning that I gave above, The Man, whom I left sitting at the cabaret table, above, rises unsteadily —it is the recognised way of rising in a cabaret—and, settling the reckoning with the waiter, staggers into the street. For myself I never do a reckoning with the waiter. I just pay the bill as he adds it, and take ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock |
