"Stumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... understood. Never fear the event." The resolution shown by such words is not born of carelessness; and the man who approaches his work in their spirit will wring success out of many mistakes of calculation—unless indeed he stumble on an enemy of equal determination. The insistence upon keeping the enemy under observation, "keeping company" with them, however superior in numbers, may also be profitably noted. This inspired his whole purpose, four years later, in the pursuit of the French ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... villagers gather in groups and sit on the top of the bank in the growing dusk. We can just see a suggestion of their gay colours and the gleam of their cheroots. G. and I go ashore and stumble along a deep, sandy road; on either side are little and big trees with open cottages behind them, made of neatly woven bamboo matting, lit with oil crusies. We come to a pagoda, and tall white griffins at its entrance staring ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... were also deaf, as I have said, and they were scrofulous; one of them was disfigured by the small pox; they had glimmering eyes, red, like the eyes of ferrets, and scarcely half open; and they did not walk so much as stumble along. There, you have the worst of them. Now, hear something on the other side. What first won my pity was, their affection for each other, united to their constant sadness; secondly, a notion which had crept into my head, probably derived from ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... while all persuasive passages should consist of short sentences followed by striking contrasts. On page 154 in Strauss's book we find a standard example of the didactic and scholarly style—a passage blown out after the genuine Schleiermacher manner, and made to stumble along at a true tortoise pace: "The reason why, in the earlier stages of religion, there appear many instead of this single Whereon, a plurality of gods instead of the one, is explained in this deduction of religion, from the fact that the various forces of nature, ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... open downs of knowing whether the direction pursued is right or wrong, till a boulder (which is a landmark) is perceived. Thence the way is down the slope, the last and limit of the hills there. It is a rough descent, the paths worn by sheep may at any moment cause a stumble. At the foot is a waggon-track beside a low hedge, enclosing the first arable field. The hedge is a guide, but the ruts are deep, and it still needs slow and careful walking. Wee-ah-wee! Up from the dusky surface of the arable field springs a plover, and the notes ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... final decay of the Company, and of the bank, and the extinction of all confidence by the sad discovery that there was no longer any money wherewith to pay the bank notes, they being so prodigiously in excess of the coin. After this, each step had been but a stumble: each operation a very feeble palliation. Days and weeks had been gained, obscurity had been allowed to give more chance, solely from fear of disclosing the true and terrible state of affairs, and the extent of the public ruin. Law could not wash his hands of all this before the world; ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... urged that we set out inland and travel as far as possible before daybreak. "You can't tell about a country like this," he said. "Might be we'd stumble on a temple with a lot of heathen idols full of gold and precious stones to make our everlasting fortunes, or a nigger or two with a bag of rubies tied round ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... this book anywhere and not find richness. To prove that this is true, I will open it at random and copy the page I happen to stumble upon. Here ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the north country. A short-sighted clergyman of what is known as the "old school" was preaching one winter afternoon to a slumberous congregation. Dusk was falling, the church was badly lighted, and his manuscript difficult to decipher. He managed to stumble along until he reached a passage which he rendered as follows: "Enthusiasm, my brethren, enthusiasm in a good cause is an excellent—excellent quality, but unless it is tempered with judgment, it is apt to lead us—apt ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... years had been passed either on shipboard or here in Gorumna Isle. As one chronicler describes her, "She was not tall, but neither was she small of stature, and when she stood on a ship's deck there was no tossing could cause her to stumble. Her hair was not blue, but neither was it black, and her eyes were very deep and bright, violet in color, and set wide in her head. Her nose was neither small nor large, her cheeks were ever red with the ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... everything he had to say, he again went back to his early experience for little vital facts to lend a colour to the fainter pictures of age. In "The Winter's Tale," a shepherd finds the child Perdita, who has been exposed; one would expect him to stumble on the child by chance and express surprise; but this shepherd of Shakespeare begins to talk ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... was wondering if it was down in the so-called pecan orchards. These orchards are really just seedling groves. Immense things. I went down there on my way and they do have it. The first man I met said I think we haven't been getting pecans because of that spittle bug. It did seem funny to stumble on the thing. Mr. Casper was really an apple grower. It took him four years to suffer enough to complain about his ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... pathos, and argue and plead with Paul's logic and eloquence. His nature might be stirred for a moment as a stagnant pool is agitated by the winds of heaven, and, like the pool, he would soon settle back into his old apathy. But if she could be made to show weakness, to stumble and fall, it would confirm him in his belief that goodness, if it really existed, was accidental; that those whose lives were apparently free from stain deserved no credit, because untempted; and that those who fell should be pitied rather than blamed, since they were unfortunate rather ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... be swallowed up, and it will not close. And so it will continue to be, unless the one bold and broad step be taken at the beginning. We shall not manufacture art out of pottery and printed stuffs; we shall not reason out art by our philosophy; we shall not stumble upon art by our experiments, nor create it by our fancies: I do not say that we can even build it out of brick and stone; but there is a chance for us in these, and there is none else; and that chance rests on the bare possibility of obtaining the consent, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... of where the savages rested in fancied security. To prevent the possibility of arousing them by any accidental noise, we had dismounted some distance back, and carefully led our horses by the head, lest a stumble or neigh might discover us to the enemy. It was yet dark when we reached a spot opposite the camp, and standing at our horses' heads, impatiently awaited the dawn. Streaks of light soon began shooting through the eastern sky, but it seemed an eternity before we could see ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... lost their footing and fell over the precipice, and it is the general opinion that they were killed long before they reached the golden palace of the Plumerian Thetis. I was a little alarmed at first, for fear my horse would stumble, in which case I should have shared the fate of the unhappy beeves, but soon forgot all fear in the enchanting display of flowers which each opening in the shrubs displayed to me. Earth's firmament was starred with daphnes, irises, and violets of every hue and size; ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... have been very desirous of a port in the China seas for ages past, but have generally appeared to stumble on the most unhealthy and ill-adapted places possible, such as Balambangan, Pulo Condore, &c.; and even the principal object of Lord Macartney's embassy was the obtaining of a cession of this nature. But ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... should verify this upon the knowledge that is now in use? Are we the richer by one poor invention, by reason of all the learning that hath been these many hundred years? The industry of artificers maketh some small improvement of things invented; and chance sometimes in experimenting maketh us to stumble upon somewhat which is new; but all the disputation of the learned never brought to light one effect of nature before unknown. When things are known and found out, then they can descant upon them, they can knit them into certain causes, they can ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... big road, toe be shore! Now ther's Tom-Jeff, braggin' how he'll be the one to kill the pappy o' Nan's chillern: he's a-ridin' a mighty shore-footed hawss, but hit do look like he'd be skeered the Lord might take him at his word and make that hawss stumble. Hit do, for ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... number of those who frequented the streets of the noble city of Lancia was always of the scantiest, but in the depth of winter, when our story opens, with a bitter north-east wind and drenching rain, one would find it difficult to stumble upon a living soul. Not that all had surrendered themselves into the arms of Morpheus, for Lancia as capital of a province, albeit not one of the most important, had learnt to sit up late. But the people used to resort at an early hour to parties, whence they only sallied forth to supper ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... could be distinctly heard. From the way he rode, the horseman evidently knew the road well. Nearer and nearer he came, while we, raising the rope, stretched it tight. The figure of horse and man loomed up dimly, came close to us; there was a stumble, a low cry of surprise, and the next moment our man lay on the ground, his head ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... brother's wife and child, and two more second cousins are to come; not to our house, but to board next door. There is a troop of artists swarming the tavern; all ladies, some of them very congenial, cultivated, excellent persons. They are all delighted with Dorset, and it is pleasant to stumble on little groups of them at their work. A. has been out sketching with them and succeeds very well. I have given up painting landscapes and taken to flowers. I have just had a visit here in my room from three humming-birds. They are attracted by the flowers... ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... careful as possible, fearing lest he might stumble over some article, and by the noise ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... need of stopping it," said the Vicar-General, continuing his own train of thought aloud, "but how are we to do it? The feeling is a perfect dynamite factory now, and the least stumble on our part will bring an explosion. If we tried to give them the money back—and you know women have a tight grip on money —we shouldn't know where to give it. Positively we're like the family of the poor fellow who had the fit—one doctor said it would kill him to bring ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... turning toward the men. They shook their heads and were silent, gazing curiously at the boy, of whom it was said that he had "bumped off" two T-Bar-T boys in a raid some years ago. Young Pete felt his ground firmer beneath him. The men had ceased laughing. If it had not been for that unfortunate stumble . . . ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... tumult from her heart. She hated Toby, but for his base cruelty alone. She hated Gaga for his inescapable possessiveness and gentle persecution. It was a horror to Sally in her abnormal condition. She began to run up the next flight of stairs, and tripped upon her skirt. The stumble brought some little sense to her. She rose, holding the balustrade. Shot through and through with bitterness as she was, she yet clutched at sanity. When Gaga came abreast of her Sally took his arm; and they completed the ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... would not for the world be anything but gracious to his son's friends, but who cannot for the life of him tell which of the score of youthful faces darting sidelong glances in their direction is the particular one he is meant to be saluting. At last in the press they stumble upon one boy at close quarters, whom Cusack the younger ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... to the healthful condition of the soul. It is important that we seek earnestly to be "cleansed from secret faults." Without this, our progress in excellence will at best be slow. While "the way of the wicked is as darkness, and they stumble at they know not what," it is nevertheless true that "the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... eyes were given us for, if we are not to see with them," returned Aunt Grace, dogmatically. "But no wonder so many stumble and fall, when so few use their eyes. There isn't that man living who does not bear, stamped upon his face, the symbols of his character. And plainly enough are these to be seen in ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... stumble across this while I was snooping," he said, "and as you don't think much of snooping, I am going to ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... At times I would turn and listen; and presently I had half persuaded myself that my pursuer had abandoned the chase, or was a mere creation of my disordered imagination. Then I heard the sound of the sea. I quickened my footsteps almost into a run, and immediately there was a stumble in ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... Beza relied mainly on 1 Pet. II, 7 sq.: "But to them that believe not, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner: and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of scandal, to them who stumble at the word, neither do believe, whereunto also they are set,"(659) i.e., according to Beza, predestined not to believe.(660) But this interpretation is obviously wrong. For we know from Is. VIII, 14(661) and Matth. XXI, 44,(662) that those who fall on this stone are ground ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... these two islands; and as the 'Daylight' had a particularly heavy cargo this trip, and would not be clear for the next two days, we made up our minds to search the islands, and drive the blacks on to Hinchinbrook, so that one of our parties must stumble across them when we swept it. This may seem to the reader unnecessary trouble, but most of our party were conversant with the habits of the blacks and their limited method of reasoning; and we judged it probable that the Herbert ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... most vigilant Anglo-Saxon intelligence off its guard. We have no psychological X-rays by which to pierce the peculiar racial vesture in which the German soul is shrouded, nor are we endowed with the gift of patient observation which might enable us to extract those rays from facts. And so we stumble along, dealing with an imaginary people whom we ourselves have created after our own image and likeness, falling into fatal blunders and ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... then there was a stumble and a sudden cry. I saw him for a moment slipping down the slanted surface of the rock, and when I reached the edge he hung apparently with one foot on a slippery stone, and his left hand clawing wildly at the snow, which yielded under ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... before such a tribunal, the same facilities were not likely to be accorded to anything which bore the name of John Milton, ex-secretary to Oliver, and himself an austere republican. Tomkyns—that was the young chaplain's name—did stumble at a ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... house in the valley, roused herself enough to go out and see what Charlotta was doing. After finding out, she wandered idly about the rambling, old-fashioned place, which was full of nooks and surprises. At every turn you might stumble on some clump or tangle of sweetness, showering elusive fragrance on the air, that you would never have suspected. Nothing in the garden was planted quite where it should be, yet withal it was the most delightful ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... with the canteens to fill, chanced upon a small pool where there was a spread of smooth yellow sand. Knowing well the many weird booby traps one might stumble into on a strange world, the Terran prospected carefully, stirring up the stand with a stick. Sighting not so much as a water insect or a curious fish, he pulled off his boots, rolled up his breeches and waded in. The water was cool and refreshing, though he dared not drink it until the purifier ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... themselves behind the mask dancer as a pleasing background of streaming furs and glistening feathers. The only time they are forbidden to enter the kasgi is when the shaman is performing certain secret rites. They also have secret meetings of their own when all men are banished.[3] I happened to stumble on to one of these one time when they were performing certain rites over a pregnant woman, but being a white man, and therefore unaccountable, I was greeted with a good-natured laugh and ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... it was said, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery:' but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell. And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... jump up and make for me and I make for the door! It was dark, all 'cepting the light from the chimney, and I fumble all up and down the door jamb before I find de latch pin. The old man shorely git me if he hadn't stumble over the eating table and whop his hand right down in de dish of fresh made butter. That make him so mad he jest ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... us?" exclaimed Bob, and as the words were spoken there could be seen amid the dust a lot of woolly animals tearing frantically along the narrow path, throwing the stones from beneath their feet, while now and then one would stumble and roll down the slope as though it had been shot from ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... a hump than a pack, so that there is no getting rid of it without tearing his whole structure to pieces. In my judgment, as he appears to be sufficiently comfortable under the mouldy accretion, he had better stumble on with it as long as he can. He presents a spectacle which is by no means without its charm for a disinterested and ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... one guise for abroad, and another for home; that is, if his religion hangs by in his house as his cloak does, and he be seldom in it, except he be abroad; this young beginners will take notice of, and stumble at. We say, hedges have eyes, and little pitchers have ears;[23] and, indeed, children make a greater inspection into the lives of fathers, masters, &c., than ofttimes they are aware of. And therefore should masters be careful, else they may so destroy ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... People here do not stumble against each other around corners, but see largely and tranquilly from a long way off what they desire, or wish to avoid, and they shape their path accordingly across the waves, and troughs, and tongues, and dips and fans of ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... his muscles began to fail that he could control himself enough to stop and stumble into a darkened spot among the garbage cans, spent and gasping ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... journey heavenwards. You know men that run a race do not use to stare and gaze this way and that; neither do they use to cast up their eyes too high; lest haply, through their too much gazing with their eyes after other things, they in the mean time stumble, and catch a fall. The very same case is this; if thou gaze and stare after every opinion and way that comes into the world, also if thou be prying overmuch in God's secret decrees, or let thy heart too much entertain questions about ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan
... upon the unfailing Arm. I said I will walk on, I fear no harm, The spark divine within my soul will show The upward pathway where my feet should go. But now the heights to which I most aspire Are lost in clouds. I stumble and I tire: Let ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... into our mind when we stumble on a remark by Wodhull the collector in an Acta Apostolorum printed at Oxford in 1715: "In May, 1810, Mr. Leigh, auctioneer, told me that a copy of this edition had lately sold for L20, observing, 'these are the ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... tongueless Sphynx half buried in the yellow sand. The fisheries are gone, the papyrus has withered; for centuries no native prince has been seated on the throne. It is a land of the dead. The dead are everywhere. At every step you stumble over a mummy, the mummy of a dead cat, a dead dog, or a dead and shrivelled Pharaoh. Its greatest asset is its departed glory, and every grain of sand blown from the mighty desert, and every wave of reflected light flung back from the Lybian hills, proclaims the terrific ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... just sense of the connection between it and these said trifling points of conduct, which, perhaps, in any single instance, seem so slightly and so remotely connected with it. But remember it is not always over great impediments that men are liable to stumble most fatally. ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... Here she is!' says the foremost man, and in they all went. I heard them stumble as they stepped down, and one began to blame the others for crowdin' after him when they ought to stopped at the mouth to ketch me if I slipped ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... very careful the litter bearers were as they pushed along the back trail. One would go ahead to lead the way, and so avoid any unusually rough places as much as possible. Every boy looked well to his footing, since any sort of jolt, such as would accompany a stumble, was apt to cause Walter ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... little actual need of guiding your horse, Esmeralda, because long habit has taught him what to do at a music-ride, but you do right to continue to endeavor to make him obey you. Should he stumble; should that man riding before you and struggling to make his horse change his leading foot fail in the attempt, and cause the poor creature to fall; should the rider behind you lose control of her ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... her pace. "I know the path well, but it was thoughtless of me to walk so fast. I forgot you did not know it, and if you were to stumble you might hurt your arm terribly. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... shopkeeper; and therefore, though I would not discourage any young beginner, yet it is highly beneficial to alarm them, and to let them know that they must expect a storm of scandal and reproach upon the least slip they make: if they but stumble, fame will throw them down; it is true, if they recover, she will set them up as fast; but malice generally runs before, and bears down all with it; and there are ten tradesmen who fall under the weight of slander and an ill tongue, to one that ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... meaning of all this?" he was asking himself. "Two hours ago, Fandor telephones me that he must see me on a matter of the utmost urgency ... he telephones me that he cannot go out, that he is waiting for me.... And now, not only is he not here, but I stumble on an agent from the Second Bureau.... I encounter a Vagualame disguised, who runs as if all the devils of hell were after him ... who makes off with extraordinary agility, whose presence of mind in burking pursuit is marvellous!... ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... been devoting to Old Age Pensions, National Health Insurance, or Land Valuation. He would have been amazed by a display of intimate knowledge such as no British quidnunc could have mustered if he had happened to stumble across these intricacies of international competition, and the conversation would always have terminated in the same unanswered but inconscionable challenge to the future: 'When will the oppressed majority of our race escape the Turkish ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... another place, the axe has cleared away a confused intricacy of fallen trees and clustered boughs, which had been tossed together by a hurricane. So now the little children, just beginning to run alone, may trip along the path, and not often stumble over an impediment, unless they stray from it to gather wood-berries beneath the trees. And, besides the feet of grown people and children, there are the cloven hoofs of a small herd of cows, who seek their subsistence from the native grasses, and help to ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that. But we won't smash it yet awhile. I'm going to look up the subject of secret drawers—perhaps I'll stumble upon something that will ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... be found in the basket. The basket was placed at the apex of a triangle formed by three fine threads tied to three small sticks, so placed that any one approaching from the roads on either side had to stumble over the threads and receive the full effects of the deadly "Soonium" as the natives call it. On inquiry I learnt that it was usual to prepare such a "Soonium" when one lay sick unto death; as throwing it on another was the only means of rescuing the sick one, and woe to the unfortunate ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... would ever get through alive. It was almost pitch dark now, and the snow grew deeper every moment. We were chilled to the heart. I thought how nice it would be to lie down and rest; but I remembered hearing that that was fatal, and I endeavoured to stumble on with the others. It was wonderful how the girls kept up, even Cecily. It occurred to me to be thankful that Sara ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... had to pass just in front of Green's desk, and the lad raised himself a little, put out a leg to cause a stumble, and whispered: ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... that first stumble, a strange dream. We should beware of the nature of the reveries that fasten on us. Reverie has in it the mystery and subtlety of an odour. It is to thought what perfume is to the tuberose. It is at times the exudation of a ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... delightful letter. Oh! why don't you squeeze yourself sometimes into that funny little house opposite Miss Bailey's, and let me take a cup of tea off the cushions, or some other place where the books would allow it to be put? And why don't you allow me to stumble over my German? And why doesn't Rex, Esq. (for Rex is too familiar even for a Bishop) correct my musical efforts? How terrible this word past is! The past is at all events real, but the future is so shadowy, and ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... A stumble of the horse threw him, and as he lay on the ground, unable to move, one of the servants of the company came up and broke the lance across Don Quixote's ribs. It was not until a countryman came by that the Don was ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... clowns, Indians, the tinselled, sequined, beaded, ragged flutter of the room, then from the coloured and composite clothing of a footballer, clown or jockey grinned the round face and owlish eyes of little Duval, who flew to her at once to whisper compliments and stumble on the swelling fortress of her white skirt. She realised dimly from him that her dress was as beautiful as she had hoped it might be, but what was the use of its beauty if Julien should be missing? And, looking over Duval's head, she tried to ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... hasn't, you will get better. If you use that argument you may as well not walk home from this tabernacle. If God has said you'll get home, you'll get home—you'll fly through the air; if you have been elected to go home. I have an idea that the Lord Jesus saw how men were going to stumble over this doctrine, so after He had been thirty or forty years in heaven, He came down and spoke to John. One Lord's day in Patmos, He said to him, "Write these things to the churches." John kept on writing. His pen ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... mirthlessly. "So I am to get in front of it, and lead it in the right direction? Fine ... as long as I don't stumble over something. If I do, it'll go over me like a ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... positions, no man with better skill in that branch of business; pushing out parties on the Troppau road; and patiently waiting till this dangerous Enemy, with such endless shifts in him, come in sight perhaps of his last cartridge, or perhaps make some stumble on the way towards that consummation. Daun is aware of Friedrich's surprising qualities. Bos against Leo, Daun feels these procedures to be altogether feline (FELIS-LEONINE); such stealthy glidings about, deceptive motions, appearances; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... the excitement and labour of the next few days the heat was forgotten, and the interest of the discovery amongst the old ruins was quite sufficient to keep all on the qui vive for any fresh object upon which they might stumble. ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... the counter-revolution have the bourgeois state generally on their side and enjoy the backing of the bourgeois establishment, its organizations and its facilities. Since their object is defense, they have no constructive program. Instead they stumble, fumble and bungle as their system flounders into ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... fluid was run from the melting furnace into a large ladle with one or two cross handles and levers, worked by a dozen or fifteen men. The ladle contained many tons of molten iron, and was transferred by a crane to the moulds. To do this required the greatest caution and steadiness. If a stumble took place, and the ladle was in the slightest degree upset, there was a splash of hot metal on the floor, which, in the recoil, flew against the men's clothes, set them on fire, or occasioned frightful scalds ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... of the plateau, and before returning to the gorge he thought it best to venture upon a little exploration of his own. Possibly he might stumble upon some narrower pass, one unfit for horses, which would afford him a chance of getting out of the mountains without the great risk of meeting his ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... the brash grew thinner, and jest as I was in hopes I might stumble on the bar tree, what shed I see afore me but the face o' a rocky bluff, that riz a consid'able height over the crik bottom. I begun to fear that the varmint had a cave, and so, cuss him! he had—a great black gulley in the rocks ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... Jesus stands alone in refusing to despair of the greater part of mankind. Contempt was in his eyes the unpardonable sin (Matt. 5:22). How swift and decisive is his anger with those who make others stumble! (Luke 17:2). The parable of the lost sheep reveals what he held to be God's feeling for the hopeless man; and, as we have seen, his constant aim is to lead men to "think like God." The lost soul matters to God. He sums up his own work in the world in much the same language as he ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... rather feminine than masculine. Of course I must have been deceived; nobody was near me: my imagination had played me a trick, or else there was more truth than poetry in the tradition that Halloween is the carnival-time of disembodied spirits. It did not occur to me at the time that a stumble is held by the superstitious Irish to be an evil omen, and had I remembered it it would only have been to laugh at it. At all events, I was physically none the worse for my fall, and I resumed my ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... the steps, slow-hewn in flintiest rock, States climb to power by; slippery those with gold Down which they stumble to eternal mock: No chafferer's hand shall long the sceptre hold, Who, given a Fate to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... flexibly, you may safely conjecture that when he comes to be ridden he will have flexible legs, since the quality of suppleness invariably increases with age. (15) Supple knees are highly esteemed and with good reason, rendering as they do the horse less liable to stumble or break down from fatigue than those of ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... screams and masculine shouts now sounded from various directions. Thinking that I had done all the good in my power, I concluded to get out of this confusion; but either the doorway by which we entered had suddenly walled itself up, or else I had lost my reckoning; for, stumble where I would, feel about as I would, I could not find it. I did, indeed, come to an opening in the wall, but there was no staircase the other side of it, and it simply introduced me to another invisible apartment. I had no chance to reflect upon the matter and decide of my own free will whether ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... thickness like that fog, nor to the sense So palpable and gross. Ent'ring its shade, Mine eye endured not with unclosed lids; Which marking, near me drew the faithful guide, Offering me his shoulder for a stay. As the blind man behind his leader walks, Lest he should err, or stumble unawares On what might harm him, or perhaps destroy, I journey'd through that bitter air and foul, Still list'ning to my escort's warning voice, "Look that from me thou part not." Straight I heard Voices, and ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... queer little stumble and her hands fluttering out she went towards him blinded by ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... thou shalt continue therein? Thou hast no promise from God's mouth for that, nor is grace or strength ministered to mankind by the covenant that thou art under. So that still thou standest bound to thy good behaviour, and in the day that thou dost give the first, though never so little a trip, or stumble in thy obedience, thou forfeitest thine interest in paradise, and in justice, as to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the bed was the one whom, to my cost, I had suffered myself to stumble on the night before, there could, of course, not be the faintest doubt. And yet, directly I saw him, I recognised that some astonishing alteration had taken place in his appearance. To begin with, he seemed younger,—the decrepitude of age had given place to ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... flowery altars of youth. Like most customs in which we are nurtured, it had seemed natural and pleasant enough until she had watched the hollows deepen in her mother's temples and the tireless knotted hands stumble at their work. Then a pang had seized her and she had pleaded earnestly to ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... and the Hussars would have been in among the guns and made a notable capture. There was just time enough for a man to breathe twice, when the order came to fire. The Hussars were at less than a hundred yards' range. As the shrapnel burst, the front squadrons seemed to stumble and fall. The ranks were so near that the change from living human beings into mangled pieces of flesh and rags could clearly be seen. More than one veteran gunner felt squeamish at the sight. But the rear squadrons, though ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... church funerals; They do not carry the coffin for the reason that, being unaccustomed to bearing such a burden, one of them might possibly stumble, or at least give an impression of uncertainty or awkwardness that might detract from the solemnity of the occasion. The sexton's assistants are trained for this service, so as to prevent in so far as is humanly possible a ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... left the table. Not that, in their hearts, either greatly questioned their ultimate triumph; but they were allowing for the element of error so apt to set at naught human calculations. Calendar himself had already been proved fallible. Within the bounds of possibility, their turn to stumble ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... cry, Joe rushed upon the would-be assassin, causing him to stumble and fall, while the gentleman in front turned ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the present generation must meet the cravings of the young spirit with the bread of life, or they will gorge themselves with poison. Telling them that they ought not to be hungry, will not stop their hunger; shutting our eyes to facts, will only make us stumble over them the sooner; hiding our eyes in the sand, like the hunted ostrich, will not hide us from the iron necessity of circumstances, or from the Almighty will of Him, who is saying in these days to society, in language unmistakable: "Educate, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... of place. Open the door suddenly, and Mathew Mizzle is almost knocked down. Throw out a bucket of water at night, and Mathew Mizzle is there to receive its contents. Pass a stick through the key-hole, and it's Mizzle's eye that suffers the detriment. You stumble over him in dark entries—you find him lying perdu in the closet. Go where you will, there is Mizzle, if it be in the wrong place for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... could, and then taking my short Staff in my Pocket, I went t'other Night abroad, to see what Discoveries I could make: And as I went along the Strand, I met with a young Woman by the New Exchange, who pretending to stumble, catch'd hold of my Coat, to save her self from falling, and begg'd my Pardon for her Rudeness: I soon understood her meaning, and looking upon her to be one of those Cattle I was in quest of, I ask'd her whither she was going? She told me ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... surprise he found the man had his back to them, and was retiring; but as he watched, Ramsden made an angry gesticulation, turned sharply and came on again, but seemed to catch his foot against a projecting piece of rock, stumble and fall forward, his cutlass flying two or three yards on before him with a loud ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... are not related to what we call good and bad. They simply are. The law of gravity will illustrate the point. It operates with no consideration whatever for character or motives. It holds all people, good and bad alike, firmly upon the earth while it whirls through space. If a saint and a fiend stumble over a precipice, it will hurl them both to the bottom with perfect impartiality. If the fiend, who may just have murdered a victim, is more cautious than the saint and avoids the precipice, the law has not favored him. He has merely reaped the reward of his alertness in spite of his bad morals. ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... tickets, and turned us forth into a gray, foggy morning to seek the food and shelter adapted to our purses and tastes. Every one, of course, emerged from seclusion only at the ultimate moment; and, far from holding any lengthy conversation with Miss Falconer, I was lucky to stumble upon her in the vestibule, help her descend, find a taxi for her at the exit, and see her smile back at me where I stood hatless ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... he, "an obstacle against which all stupid people stumble; it is the act of reasoning under ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... spectacle of able, and we doubt not conscientious writers engaging in attempting the impossible,—painful and humiliating." He says, "they evidently do not breathe freely over their work; but shuffle and stumble over their difficulties in a piteous manner." (p. 250.) He asserts dogmatically that "the interpretation proposed by Buckland to be given to the Mosaic description, will not bear a moment's serious discussion:" (p. 230:) while Hugh Miller ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... try to follow; I have lighted my little candle, help me to keep it burning! I shall stumble often in the darkness, I know, for it was all so clear when I could walk by my darling mother's light, which was like the sun, so bright, so pure, so strong! Help me to keep the little candle steady, so that it may throw its beams farther and ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... father came they would be married. If he delayed—well, she would stumble on alone. The baby was her cross. She must carry it ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... behind him—ah! that was quite different. The other forest-people would all know he was coming, for then they would be able to get Tommy's scent. And some day, if he were so foolish as to go about with the wind at his back, some day he might stumble right onto a wildcat, or a dog, or a man, or some other ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... on which I soon lost my way in a drizzling rain. The single telegraph wire came to my rescue, jumping lightly from moss-grown stick to tall slender tree-trunk across vast chasms down into and out of which I had to slip and slide and stumble pantingly upward in pursuit. Before dark I was delighted to fall upon a trail again, though not with its condition, for it was generally perpendicular and always thick with loose stones. A band of arrieros ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... upstairs, while the hired girl in her fright had fled to the garret, so the boys had to stumble around until Shep found a match and lit the lamp. Whopper and Snap carried Giant into the sitting-room and placed him on a sofa. As they did this the small youth opened his eyes and ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... to stumble over nothing; occasionally to fall. In this was added effort, but more particularly added annoyance. They had continually to watch their footsteps. The walking was no longer involuntary, but they had definitely to think of each movement necessary to the step, and this gave them a further ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... to allow any foolish passion to interfere with your equanimity in chambers or your attendance on 'Change; you are so strong that you don't want any sympathy. We don't give you any, then; we keep ours for the humble and weak, that struggle and stumble and get up again, and so march with the rest of mortals. What need have you of a hand who never fall? Your serene virtue is never shaded by passion, or ruffled by temptation, or darkened by remorse; compassion would be impertinence for ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... good Homer not only nod, but snore. Thus does Teufelsdroeckh, wandering in regions where he had little business, confound the old authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new, spurious, imaginary Historian of the Brittische Journalistik; and so stumble on perhaps the most egregious ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... ever to be falling, yet to rise again and stumble forward with eyes turned to heaven—this was the best which would ever come of man. It was accepted in its imperfection by the infinite grace of God, who pities mortal weakness, and accepts the intention for the deed—who, when there ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... almost doubting their own eyes, the six saw the end. They saw a dark hand of a sudden clench, shoot out like a brown light. They heard an impact, and a second later the thud of a great body as it met the floor. They saw the latter lift, stumble clumsily to its feet, heard a muffled, choking oath. Then for a second time, the last, that clenched fist shot out, struck true. That ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... off again; but as she went the fog grew thicker and thicker, and Terry soon became aware that it was freezing hard. The pony began to stumble, and several times he nearly fell, for Terry found it hard to hold him up with her little frost-bitten fingers. She worked bravely, but felt that the road was indeed downhill, and all the more difficult in its present state of slipperiness. Still there was no house in sight, and so thick ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... a century and a half ago, this house has ever been above reproach. You will tacitly allow her to slip away; and, once away, I will set matters right for her. But nothing must transpire which could stumble or scandalise the other members of the Community. The peculiar circumstances which the Knight made known to me—always, of course, without making any mention of the name of Seraphine—can hardly have occurred in any other case. It is not likely, for instance, that our worthy Sub-Prioress was ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... agone? I could not mistake her eye. She surely knows more than I thought, or she would not fix her eye into mine as she did. Could there be anything in that dhrame about Dalton an' my coffin? Hut! that's nonsense. Many a dhrame I had that went for nothin'. The only thing she could stumble on is the Box, an' I don't think she would be likely to find that out, unless she went to throw down the house; but, anyhow, it's no harm to thry." He immediately mounted the old table, and, stretching up, searched the crevice in the wall where it had been, ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... it had to the minister. A darkness, which the obscurity of the night faintly typified, closed round him, pierced by one ray only, and from this he tried to turn his face. It was the gleam that lights up every labyrinth where our feet wander and stumble, but it is not always easy to know it from those false lights of feeble-hearted pity, of mock-sacrifice, of sick conscience, which dance before us to betray to ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... "You'll stumble." He did not wait for her assent, and for that and for the strength of his hold she liked him, and, as she ran, and her blood quickened, she liked him better. She did not understand herself, for she had imagined horror at his nearness, but not horror pierced ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... of course," replied the stranger. "For instance, this 'notion,' as you call it, will never do. It isn't the thing at all; but see here, Judge, examine this hub. There's a 'notion' in that worth something. I tell you what it is, any boy who can stumble on such an idea, even by accident, has got good ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... inwardly. "By Jove, Elizabeth, think of that boy, coming out of nothing, everything poured into his hands—and now within ten days of his goal! Rather exciting, isn't it? Suppose he should stumble at the very threshold ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... here onelie stumble, and perchance faull in teaching, to the marring and mayning of the Scholer in learning, whan it is a matter, of moch readyng, of great learning, and tried iudgement, to make ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham |
