"Stumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He made 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 ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes. In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest night the ship's black hull still houses an illumination. See with what ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the drivers were compelled to make a wide detour to bring them in again. Once or twice, the ropes slipped, and my chair came to the ground; fortunately, it had not to fall far; or a donkey would stumble and fall, but no serious accident occurred; and though one of the party, being behind, and unable to procure assistance in righting the carriage, was obliged to walk a mile or two, we were all speedily in proper trim again. Towards evening, the easy motion ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... Migwan plunged into the darker of the two paths. It was hard breaking through. Small scrub pines closed over the path, their branches intertwined, so that more than once she had to use her hatchet. Roots and vines tangled her feet and made her stumble. Then she wedged her foot in between two stumps and could not get it out. She pulled and twisted and finally grasped hold of the stem of a small tree and braced herself firmly while she endeavored to free herself. With a ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... his other stumble, and it's taught him a lesson, I reckon," laughed Frank, always ready to offer excuses for others' failings, but ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... 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, ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... line, knots on the kind of fly which is locally recommended, and steps into the water. Oh, how cold it is! I begin casting at the top of the stream, and step from a big boulder into a hole. Stagger, stumble, violent bob forwards, recovery, trip up, and here one is in a sitting position in the bed of the stream. However, the high india-rubber breeks have kept the water out, except about a pailful, which gradually illustrates ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... contented with their lot—because ignorant of any other. They are resentful of all innovations—because they are narrow-minded and full of deep ruts; they are guiltless of one clever thought; they sometimes stumble into somewhat of a clever action, but humbly deprecate the move, unconscious of having done a clever thing. Such men used to float about me in shoals of delicious stupidity. I was such a new creature! I was so ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... part of his army stand the shock of the Romans. Yet, though there seemed no reasonable hope of flight, where all paths were so difficult, and where there were deep marshes and steep rocks, which looked as if they were ready to receive those who should stumble, the fugitives, nevertheless, crowding and pressing together. In the narrow passages, destroyed even one another in their terror of the swords and blows of the enemy. Cato (as it plainly appears) was never oversparing of his own praises, and seldom shunned boasting of any exploit; which quality, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... looked round upon Turks, 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 ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... tale often repeated in the history of Spanish enterprise. A few, more lucky than the rest, stumble on some unexpected prize, and hundreds, attracted by their success, press forward in the same path. But the rich spoil which lay on the surface has been already swept away by the first comers, and those who follow are to win their treasure ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... frankly. "Why, look you, Loskiel, even in the wilderness somehow I always have contrived to discover a sweetheart of some sort or other—yes, even in the Iroquois country, cleared or bush, somehow or other, sooner or later, I stumble on some pretty maid who flutters up in the very wilderness like a partridge from ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... to be sure. That's the question. How do they look now? On the very first morning of my going out, what do I do? Stumble on a family I know, who are constantly assisting of us in all sorts of ways, from that time to this! That won't do, you know; that ain't what I'd a right to expect. If I had stumbled on a serpent and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... new courage into Tilda, she scarcely knew why, and henceforth she followed more confidently. With a stumble or two, but no serious mishap, they groped their way down the coombe, and coming to the ledge, saw the beach spread at their feet in the moonlight and out on the water the dark boat heaving gently, a little beyond the edge of the waves' ripple. The ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Gus Carline stumble into her cabin, and with angry defiance she had acted with the intention of doing to him what she had done to Prebol—but she had missed deliberately when she shot. When she recalled the matter, she saw that ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... proud historians of the crusades slide and stumble over this humiliating step. Yet, since the heroes knelt to salute the emperor, as he sat motionless on his throne, it is clear that they must have kissed either his feet or knees. It is only singular, that Anna should not have amply supplied the silence or ambiguity ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... set her nerves on edge, and she was ready to collapse with the strain of the day. Yet another hour remained before the afternoon session would draw to a close. How was she ever to hear the stupid geography recitation, or listen to the halting, singsong voices stumble through pages of a Reader too old ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the Western Pacifist settlement will come from several quarters, including the Pacifist quarters. Some of the best disposed parties will stumble over the old delusion of disarmament. They think it is the gun that matters. They are wrong: the gun matters very much when war breaks out; but what makes both war and the gun is the man behind them. ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... turn within those paths by which I might stumble in the dark," replied Weng, striving to ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... as he got near him, "I have taken the liberty to ride close beside you, lest, as the night is dark, your horse might stumble." ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... 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 extricated, and then he had to ride back to his own village on the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... in mercy will guide, so by the same he will uphold our goings in his paths. We are weak, wherefore though the path we go in were never so plain, yet we are apt to stumble and fall. But 'when I said my foot slippeth, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up' (Psa 94:18). Wherefore we should always turn our hope into prayer, and say, Lord, 'hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not' (Psa 17:5). Be not moved; let ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... where it was, which was in front of the door of the Sacristy, before the steps of the altar, it would neither be seemly for the service of the altar, because it was in the way thereof, nor for his dignity, by reason that they might stumble against it; ... moreover it was fallen somewhat to decay, and set badly upon the stone lions which supported it; and there were other knights placed above him. Whereupon the Abbot, Prior, Monks, and Convent, ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... give ear, be not proud, For the Lord hath spoken! Give glory to the Lord your God Before it grows dark, And before your feet stumble— On the mountains of dusk. While ye look for light, He turns it to gloom And sets it ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... plunged furiously down the slope. He straightened himself in his seat with both hands on the reins, and Agatha held her breath when she felt the light vehicle tilt as the wheels on one side sank deep in a rut. Then something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble and plunge. The other beast flung its head up, Hawtrey shouted something, and there was a great smashing and snapping of undergrowth and fallen branches as they drove in among the birches. Then the team stopped, and Hawtrey, who sprang down, floundered noisily ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... she said, "and has promised not to run into any one, or tip me over. I feel half afraid of him, as he does stumble some." ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... Rabbit! Away jumped the Monkey! Away leaped the Jack who lived in a Box. At the far end of the toy counter the Bold Tin Soldier and his men had placed some sofa cushions from the upholstery department. That was in case either of the three might stumble ...
— The Story of a Lamb on Wheels • Laura Lee Hope
... our tree and swept past us with a force impossible to realise. No living thing was spared. Snakes, lizards—ay, even the biggest kangaroos—succumbed after an ineffectual struggle. The rats actually ate those of their fellows who seemed to hesitate or stumble. The curious thing was that the great army never seemed to stand still. It appeared to me that each rat simply took a bite at whatever prey came his way, and then passed on with ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... think this little mountain retreat is without equal," replied Harry, with enthusiasm. "The only wonder is, how did you ever stumble into ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... hacks leading a third with an empty saddle on its back—a lady's or "side-saddle", if one could have distinguished the horns. They may have struck a soft track or level, or rounded the buttress of the hill higher up, but before they had time to reach or round the foot of the spur, blurs, whispers, stumble and clatter of hoofs, jingle of bridle rings, and the occasional clank together of stirrup irons, seemed shut off as suddenly and completely as though a great sound-proof door had swung ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... find some clothes," he muttered. "And I may stumble onto what made the green light. Darn lucky I've been so far, anyhow. Larsen and the others—but I shan't think of them. Wonder who was flashing the signals from the island. And did ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... art and science. Many others are impressed by the fact of the irresistible advance of the Social Democracy. So it is that friendship for labor becomes popular among the cultured classes, until there is scarcely a parlor in which one does not stumble over one or ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... they never see the stones that lie under their noses? It is because their eyes are always fixed upon the mountains between this world and the next. But the poor Hottentot, who looks at the ground to be sure that he does not stumble, ah! he sees the stones. Now, Baas, did you not hear that man in a night shirt with his head shaved say that those goats were food for One who dwelt ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... everything, with a man like that? And yet it might come to fighting, for within a little time he knew that this was the heir who had been the intangible shadow of his grandmother's life and of his own; and that Martin might stumble any day upon the proof that was lacking. And then death set a term to Martin's hopes, and Lord Blandamer ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... wife; for if she had allowed them to talk of her secret fancies, then each drop of blood would have persuaded her to go the same road on which that other girl had twice, in the darkness of the night, stumbled over the body of the sleeping woman, and that stumble would have killed her soul. She crushed and buried the feeling, and gave her hand to a man whom she respected, to whom she owed gratitude, and whose ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... red wine through the helmet barred," as though he had been one of the famous knights of Branksome Tower. It was soon apparent that the man in brass was intoxicated. He became obstreperous; he began to reel and stumble, accoutred as he was, to the hazard of his own bones and to the great dismay of bystanders. It was felt that his fall might entail disaster upon many. Attempts were made to remove him, when he assumed a pugilistic attitude, and resolutely declined to quit the hall. Nor was it possible to enlist against ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... bacteriologist, is very characteristic of Russian civilisation, which is a strange conglomeration of products belonging to very different periods. The enquirer who undertakes the study of it will sometimes be scarcely less surprised than would be the naturalist who should unexpectedly stumble upon antediluvian megatheria grazing tranquilly in the same field with prize Southdowns. He will discover the most primitive institutions side by side with the latest products of French doctrinairism, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... I heard Quick! Quick! Quick! as plainly, at least, as I ever heard a word from the phonograph. I stood watching the dial one day,—it was near one o'clock,—and a strange attraction held me fastened to the spot. Presently something appeared to trip or stumble inside of the infernal mechanism. I waited for the sound I knew was to follow. How nervous I got! It seemed to me that it would never strike. At last the minute-hand reached the highest point of the dial. Then there was a little stir among the works, as there is in a congregation ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... state, For thou thy sun enjoyest, but I want mine. I live in irksome night, O cruel fate! My sun will never rise, nor ever shine. Thus blind of light, mine eyes misguide my feet, And baleful darkness makes me still afraid; Men mock me when I stumble in the street, And wonder how my young sight so decayed. Yet do I joy in this, even when I fall, That I shall see again ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... But this happeneth very seldom by reason of good orders, and constitutions made for the punishment of them that offend in this kind of deceit, and therefore they seldom offend therein, though now and then they chance to stumble in ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... strange delusion that I was a wonderful child. I don't know why, unless it was because I did n't know anything of life, and I could repeat a little Latin, stumble through a sentence of Greek, and, after having solved a problem seventy-six thousand times to show my wonderful precociousness, could do it again when called upon. Perhaps I'm extravagant. It was n't more than half ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... hearing that he had been seriously hurt by a fall from his horse. In his diary[84] Coke thus describes this accident: "The 3rd of May, 1632, riding in the morning in Stoke, between eight and nine o'clock to take the air, my horse under me had a strange stumble backwards and fell upon me (being above eighty years old) where my head lighted near to sharp stubbles, and the heavy horse upon me." He declares that he suffered "no hurt at all;" but, as a matter of fact, ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... half away turns out to be a miserable little dirty, butty, smutty, stagnant owl-cote when you get into it. What we took for stone is stolidity. It is old, but its age is squalid, not picturesque. We stumble through the alleys that answer for streets, and come to the "Dog and Duck," a dark, dingy ale-room, famous for its fine ale, we are told, or perhaps it was beer: I don't remember. It is not in male nature to go by ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... hide-and-seek than mine and Boldo's had been. For I saw one of the men who cried hatefully to the guard stumble on the slippery ice; and lo! or ever he had time to cry out or gather himself up, the men-at-arms were upon him. I saw the glitter of stabbing steel and heard the sickening sound of blows stricken silently in anger. Then the soldiers took the man up by head ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... 545, happened to stumble upon an anonymous Harmony or Digest of the Gospels [286:1], and began in consequence to investigate the authorship. He found two notices in Eusebius of such Harmonies; one in the Epistle to Carpianus prefixed to the Canons, relating to the work of Ammonius; ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... in her little tent when she came into the camp. She heard Bill Holmes stumble over the end of the chuck-wagon tongue and mutter the customary profanity with which the average man meets an incident of that kind. She whispered a fierce command to the little black dog and stood very still for a minute, listening. She did not hear anything further, either from Bill Holmes ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... how strenuously I strove to do so. I was outcast and forgotten! I had gone through the "vale of misery;" but I could not "use it as a well;" for my pools were empty! Instead of my Creator directing my "going in the way," He had left me to stumble forward blindly, until I had fallen into the Slough of Despond,—the ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... who had charge of the prisoners did not share, or sympathise with, the feelings of the chief who had spared their lives, for they not only forced them to hurry forward as fast as they could go, but gave them occasional pricks with their spear-points when any of them chanced to trip or stumble. One of the warriors in particular—a fiery man—sometimes struck them with the shaft of his spear and otherwise maltreated them. It may be easily understood that men with unbroken spirits and high courage did not submit to this ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... to stumble over a mine with the men all at work. You expected to find a shaft and mules and men on every ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... you parted. Tomkins was rude to the wench Phoebe—Joceline and he had a brawl together, and Tomkins is lying dead in the thicket, not far from Rosamond's Well. It will be necessary that Joceline and I go directly to bury the body; for besides that some one might stumble upon it, and raise an alarm, this fellow Joceline will never be fit for any active purpose till it is under ground. Though as stout as a lion, the under-keeper has his own weak side, and is more afraid of a dead body than a living one. When do you ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the hut of Oberlus partially remain to this day at the head of the clinkered valley. Nor does the stranger, wandering among other of the Enchanted Isles, fail to stumble upon still other solitary abodes, long abandoned to the tortoise and the lizard. Probably few parts of earth have, in modern times, sheltered so many solitaries. The reason is, that these isles are situated in a distant sea, and the vessels which occasionally visit them are mostly all ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... said, "We listened for the breathing of the hounds"; and his legs said, "We ran away with you." Then he asked his tail what it had done, and it said, "Why, I got caught in the bushes or made your leg stumble; that is all I could do." So, as a punishment, the Fox stuck his tail out of his den, and the hounds saw it and caught hold of it, and dragged the Fox out of his den by it and ate him all up. So that was the end of Master Reynard, ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... close down in the rock-hewn chamber, and we are glad enough to stumble up and out again, though we are blinded by ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... says, in the fourth chapter of the said book: "The path of the Just," that is, of the worthy men, "is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day; the way of the wicked is as darkness, and they know not at what they stumble." ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... stern rigour of His judgments. One sole hindrance could have power to shake our good intentions, and that might happen should we feel too keen an interest in your fortunes. Therefore are we armed beforehand against our love, and therefore have we prayed to God beforehand that we stumble not because of you; for in the path of favouritism a pope cannot slip without a fall, and cannot fall without injury and dishonour to the Holy See. Even to the end of our life we shall deplore ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... all parenthetical in the present section, and so I say nothing more about it; and ask you, rather, just to look at the loving reasons which Christ here suggests for His present speech— 'that ye should not be offended,' or stumble. He warns them of the storm before it bursts, lest, when it bursts, it should sweep them away from their moorings. Of course, there could be nothing more productive of intellectual bewilderment, and more likely to lead to doubt as to one's own convictions, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... about this dreadful snow, it won't melt the sooner for it: how do you like this passage that I am going to play to you? It is from a charming Nocturne, by Chopin, and is so difficult that I shall have to play it over fifty times, or else I shall always stumble at this place, and I never shall know the Nocturne to play to any one. Don't you think it is beautiful?—so spiritual and original! I can tell you it will be something to boast of, when I have accomplished ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... the reins is felt on the bit, and the directions are indicated by a turn of the wrist rather than by a pull; the horses are guided and encouraged, and only pulled up when they exceed their intended pace, or in the event of a stumble; for there is a strong though gentle hand ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... struggle of manhood's days When tired feet stumble o'er life's rough ways, And in age's twilight of shadowy gloom, A dream of the rest that is yet ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl
... of the valiant lieutenant's directions, the road was a very difficult one to find. After wandering about in the forest through a number of out-of-the-way paths, we managed at last to stumble on an Arab house or two, where the promise of a supply of powder prevailed with an Arab, and he piloted us down to the caravanserai, where we arrived at about six P.M., wet to the skin, and weary with a most fatiguing day's march. We found ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... visit us; but in this case the gods are departing from their usual practice, for hitherto they have made themselves perfectly clear to us when we have been offering them hecatombs. They come and sit at our feasts just like one of our selves, and if any solitary wayfarer happens to stumble upon some one or other of them, they affect no concealment, for we are as near of kin to the gods as the Cyclopes and the savage ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... by an opportune stumble and a noisy effort to recover himself, at the same instant aiming a stealthy kick at the topmost round of the ladder, and scrambling ostentatiously over the edge of the trap. The ladder went down thirty or ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... in autumn; a wild activity of thoughts, imaginations, feelings, and impulses of motion rises up from within me; a sort of bottom wind, that blows to no point of the compass, comes from I know not whence, but agitates the whole of me; my whole being is filled with waves that roll and stumble, one this way, and one that way, like things that have no common master. I think that my soul must have pre-existed in the body of a chamois chaser. The simple image of the old object has been obliterated, but the feelings, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... horse's ground and his pace for him. "To avoid a falling leaf a horse will put his foot over a precipice. When a horse has made a stumble, or is in difficulties at a fence, you cannot leave him too much at liberty, or be too quiet with him." Don't believe the nonsense people talk about holding a horse ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... found a series of lines, or even a single line, in which the language, though naturally arranged, and according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of prose, there is a numerous class of critics, who, when they stumble upon these prosaisms, as they call them, imagine that they have made a notable discovery, and exult over the Poet as over a man ignorant of his own profession. Now these men would establish a canon of criticism which the Reader will conclude he must utterly reject, if he wishes to be pleased ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... pink and silver as I ran along the paths, And he would stumble after, Bewildered by my laughter. I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes. I would choose To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths, A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover, Till he caught me in the shade, And the buttons ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... him, and, dropping his cane, with his clenched fist he dealt him several fearful blows on forehead and mouth, winding up with a tattoo that sounded like the beating of a drum on the man's skull. A violent push made Roth stumble and ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... rather heavy figure of the young soldier stumble forward, and his veins, too, ran hot. This was to be man to man between them. He yielded before the solid, stumbling figure with bent head. The orderly stooped and put the food on a level-sawn tree-base. The Captain watched the glistening, ...
— The Prussian Officer • D. H. Lawrence
... Across the face of the slope he cut obliquely, working always toward higher ground. His lips were drawn back so that the tobacco-stained teeth showed in a snarl of savage rage. It would go ill with any of the posse if they should stumble on him. He would have no more mercy than a hunted ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... thickness of the wall—has been shifted to one side. No wonder we didn't see any joints or get a hollow sound from this panel any more than from the others. But why didn't we stumble on the mechanism? Maybe you'll ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... torn from thy brow, come and recall thy wandering children. Behold thy flock scattered upon the mountain—these sheep, what have they done! Gather them, gather them, O good shepherd, for their feet stumble ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... and have no Deed of tiny thing to support their existence. After what manner, therefore, do they belong to self; and how are they connected with it? For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... 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 ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... so easy to stumble upon the watch; for they had their secret sleeping-corners, from which they only issued in case of emergency, when they thought the time was come for crying out something, or when the shuffling sound of leather ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... that in little more than an hour her husband would be with her. And suddenly the agony lightened. A giddiness of relief came over her. He was kind: he did not judge her: he knew all, yet he respected her. Augustine was like the bleak, stony moor; she must shut her eyes and stumble on towards the firelight. And as she thought of that nearing brightness, of her husband's eyes, that never judged, never grew hard or fierce or remote from human tolerance, a strange repulsion from her son rose in ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... with a bullet. Then there would have been blood between us, which is worse to cross than whole rivers of wrath and jealousy. So I just watched the wagons until they vanished, and galloped home down the rock-strewn slope, wishing that the horse would stumble ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... man threw him an idle word or two in Cree. Xavier grinned comprehendingly; and Nick and Albert followed him a little way. Xavier came up close behind Garth; and in passing him, made believe to stumble. Some of the water splashed over Garth's legs. Garth swung around, and took in the situation at a glance; Grylls and Albert were grinning in the background. There was a crack as his fist met the half-breed's jaw; and Xavier rolled in the dust. In falling the pail capsized, emptying ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... another inconveniency found in the ceremonies, which is scandal. They hinder our spiritual edification and growth in faith and plerophory, and make us stumble instead of going forward. The best members of the body should be cut off when they offend, much more the superfluous humours, such as the popish ceremonies must be reckoned to be, Matt. v. 29, ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... of the insidious cup. For the unerring word declares, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." "They are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... I will follow the creek, and when you stumble on any thing worth looking at, just give ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... sheer will, regained his mental balance. "I am tired and nervous, or I would never imagine such foolish things," he said. "Of course it is as you say, produced by natural causes, and I will likely laugh at my fears as soon as we stumble on the key to the mystery. And now I am going to insist upon your going back inside, Charley. It won't do for us to have you down with the fever again. For our sakes, as well as your own, you must be ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... miles to camp, and Dick saw, when he passed that way three days before, that the road was blocked with wagons, artillery trains and stable-lines, and to these obstructions were now added sleeping men, who would not be over civil to any one who chanced to stumble against them in the dark. So Dick drew his squad off into the woods out of the way and went into camp; that is to say, he ate the little piece of hard tack he found in his haversack, washed it down with a drink of warm water from his ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... far out of range it is. For the benefit of you two," he added, addressing the brothers, "I will say that when you are riding a trail, and especially a mountain trail, always let your pony have plenty of rein. It's easier for him. He won't be so likely to stumble and fall, and a pony can generally keep a trail better than ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... advantage, and soon subdued every question and answer in it. As much as possible, the doctor was kept aloof on such occasions. His grave questions were not to edification, and often they caused Rose to stumble, and brought down sorely the exultation with which she rolled forth, "They that are effectually called do in this life partake of justification, adoption, sanctification, and the several benefits which in this life do either ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the Women's Sewing Meeting, and, although it does not begin until two o'clock, by one the room is generally full—yes, crowded, so that, in passing around among them, one has to stumble quite often over feet which have no place of retreat. We do not pretend to offer chairs to all. The floor holds as many without chairs as with, even tables and wood-box do not remain empty, but perched on each are the blanketed forms, from many of which the blankets have not fallen, at least ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... is just a dear. It's more fun to hear her tell of how she worried over a boy coming into the family. The whole house is filled from one end to the other with Uncle Cassius' treasures that he's been collecting for years. You're liable to stumble over a stuffed armadillo or a petrified slice of some prehistoric monster anywhere at all. I found a mummy case in the library closet, but there wasn't anything in it at all, and I was awfully disappointed. ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... those not experienced; these I revive in my commentaries. Some things I purposely omit, in the exercise of a wise selection, afraid to write what I guarded against speaking; not grudging—for that were wrong—but fearing for my readers, lest they should stumble by taking them in a wrong sense; and, as the proverb says, we should be found 'reaching a sword to a child.' For it is impossible that what has been written should not escape [become known], although remaining unpublished by me. But being always revolved, using the one only ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... purple sky and the white stars and the great negro's head in front of you with its paws stretched out, and the moonlight turning it into shadows and white lines. I think I stood there so long that I got sort of dizzy. It was just as if I had been the first man to stumble across it, and I felt that I was way back thousands of years and that the ghosts of Caesar and Napoleon and Cleopatra and the rest were in the air. That was worth the entire trip to me. This place promises to be most exciting, the New York artists ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... last the hoof-beats of a horse 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 ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... Halcyones, which exceed in whiteness, I hatch young ones that surpass in blackness. Climb not, my sons: aspiring pride is a vapor that ascendeth high, but soon turneth to smoke; they which stare at the stars stumble upon stones, and such as gaze at the sun (unless they be eagle-eyed) fall blind. Soar not with the hobby,[1] lest you fall with the lark, nor attempt not with Phaeton, lest you drown with Icarus. Fortune, when she wills you to fly, tempers your ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... wide awake now, and stood listening. Sounds there were, indeed, but not one that could be associated with any living thing in the house. She felt her way around the walls to where the candle used to be, but it was gone. There was no furniture to stumble over, and when she came to the side of the wall in the inner room from which the stairway crept up, she mounted it on her hands and knees, trembling, partly with cold, partly with fear at the noise made by the flapping of ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... about your faux commencements, as M. Ballompre would call them, for us to stumble over," ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... block, and himself to his dead friend's offices. Well, so be it. When I can read his purposes I hold him half disarmed. He shall be Constable of England—have the title without its dangerous powers. The higher he go the further the fall when he stumble," and the dagger went down into its sheath with a click. . . "Pardieu, De Lacy! it would seem that you are ever getting into my confidences. But then neither do you ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... Rome, and may thy rest be sweet after war," replied Petronius, extending his hand from between the folds of soft karbas stuff in which he was wrapped. "What's to be heard in Armenia; or since thou wert in Asia, didst thou not stumble ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... hunter leaped from his saddle, the intelligent horse standing still, and the lasso was drawn tighter and tighter until the animal fell on his side. Finally, a rope was tied round the hind legs, and the work was done. It was very exciting, as once in a while a horse would stumble and fall, sometimes throwing his rider; and oftentimes the chase was long, the animal eluding the hunter's grasp just as he thought ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... and down dale, and I must endure; but now that I am dead, those dull thwacks that were scarcely audible in country lanes, have become stirring music in front of the brigade; and for every blow that you lay on my old greatcoat, you will see a comrade stumble ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hard-packed stretch of sand which offered firm footing and no rocks over which one of the fighters might stumble ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... reception of his amiable overtures that he did not attempt to seize me, and, as may be supposed, I did not stop to look whether he was about to follow me. My first aim was to get hold of my rifle. With that in my hand I did not fear him. On I ran. I happily did not stumble this time. I daresay I was as pale as death—I am sure I felt so. Gasping for breath, I at length reached the fire. I hurriedly threw some branches on it to make it blaze up, that I might see if my enemy was approaching, and how to aim at him, and then I seized my rifle and stood with it ready to ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Rosie stumble awkwardly down the stairs, heard her pause at the foot. Next came a moment of silence, of waiting as tense above as below. Then came a burst of Rosie's jolly laughter. She came running up to them, her cheeks like roses, her ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... 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
... to regard such collapses with a compassionate sympathy and a humbled consciousness of our own unfitness to judge and condemn. Whether we create our individuality or only bring it to light—is the question that makes us stumble! But while we move in the midst of uncertainties in this realm, there is another in which we walk in the glare of noonday. We know beyond the peradventure of a doubt that whatever may be the origin of such weakness as that ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... be mine. When this clogged blood has stopped the wheels of life, I'll put my arms around your neck, I'll lay my face against your frozen one, and thus I'll die. When this foul place has crumbled to the sunlight, some relic-hunting lunatic will stumble o'er our bones, and pitiless will weave a tale for eyes more pitiless to read. Back, Stygian ghoul! Death's on me now. I feel his rattle in my throat! My limbs are blocks of ice! My heart has tuned it with the muffled dead-march drum! A jar of crashing worlds is in my ears! A drowsy faintness ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... to-day suffice to-day: For itself to-morrow may Fetch its loss; Aim and stumble, say its say, Watch and pray and bear ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... at once; out of the rickety old back door of the feed store we sped, nearly breaking our necks in our stumble down the uneven steps that led to a weedy yard. There was a gate in the picket fence surrounding the yard, and through this we dashed madly after the swiftly retreating Demetrius, who led us down a narrow lane back of the stores fronting on the ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... or another every week in the year. And yet with all the hard work that men can do, they can not boost the world's supply of bread so as to increase our two weeks' lead on the wolf of famine. The wolf is ever behind us only two weeks away. And if we stumble for ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... see them as they staggered with many a lurch and stumble toward each other once again, for they moved like drunken men, and the scales of their neck-armor and joints were as red as fishes' gills when they raised them They left foul wet footprints behind them on the green grass as they moved forward once ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Quintana's whole gang is in these woods, somewhere, hunting for you, and they might stumble on us here, at any moment." And, to the two men in front: "Lie down flat on your faces. Don't stir; don't speak; or it's you for the sink-hole. ... Lie down, I tell you! That's it. Don't move till I tell ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... 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
... darkness. A Policeman with a bull's-eye prevents my driver's energetic endeavours to drive through the Palace wall. I stumble into the large hall known as the Library. "Here," said I to myself, "is taking place the historic trial of the Bishop of LINCOLN." The weird scene strongly resembles the Dream Trial in The Bells, where the judges, counsel, and all concerned, are in a fog. Will ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... Worth,'—thy memory deserted thee; thy peroration was on the verge of a breakdown; but 'Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit, I as the Latin grammar philosophically expresseth it. Mortals the wisest, not only on two legs but even upon four, occasionally stumble. The greatest general, statesman, sage, is not he who commits no blunder, but he who best repairs a blunder and converts it to success. This was thy merit and distinction! It hath never been mine! I recognize thy superior genius. I place ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... that this is our lucky morning," remarked Garry. "Here we might have been days and days before we ever found the slightest bit of evidence on which to base our search for the band of smugglers, but in less than an hour after the starting of our mission, we stumble upon this very ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... the lead stepped inside the pilot house and down the companion-way. As he reached the cabin below, his chums heard him stumble. Quickly they reached for the ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... said: "I doubt it. Granted, the Converter is not something one would accidentally stumble across, nor automatically deduce from the 'previous state of the art'. I'll admit frankly that I doubt if I would ever have thought of it. But I doubt gravely that it is so unique that it ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... he can overcome all. Chastity is a flower so delicate that it takes but little to make it wither: the heart of man, the opportunity for temptations, the frequency of errors, and the ease with which men stumble, are as tinder and fire, which are kindled, whoever blows. Do not believe that in this regard there is any caution that is too great in the Indias. In the external encounters that may arise with alcaldes or with others, let the cura endeavor to conquer them by ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... houses have trained women to handle this part of their correspondence for they are more apt in the use of feminine expressions. Let a man try to describe some article as "perfectly splendid," or "really sweet" and he will stumble over it before he gets to the end of the sentence. Yet when these same hackneyed phrases are brought in naturally by a woman who "feels just that way" about the garment she is describing, they will take hold of the reader in a way that is beyond the ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... laugh as soft and sure as her own Hugh took Clara into his arms. A few minutes later they went up stairs and twice Hugh stumbled on the stairway. It did not matter. His long awkward body was a thing outside himself. It might stumble and fall many times but the new thing he had found, the thing inside himself that responded to the thing inside the shell that was Clara his wife, did not stumble. It flew like a bird out of darkness into the light. At the moment he thought ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... trembling star of evening, At the tender star of woman; And they heard him murmur softly, "Ah, showain nemeshin, Nosa! Pray, pity me, my father!" '"Listen!" said the elder sister, "He is praying to his father! What a pity that the old man Does not stumble in the pathway, Does not break his neck by falling!" And they laughed till all the forest Rang with their unseemly laughter. 'On their pathway through the woodlands Lay an oak by storms uprooted, Lay the great trunk of an oak-tree Buried half in leaves and mosses, Mouldering, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... he admitted that Anjou had gained little honor by his recent course; and that it would be a mistake on their part to stumble a second time over the same stone. He foresaw, nevertheless, that the Duke—irritated as he was by the loss of so many of his nobles, and by the downfall of all his hopes in the Netherlands—would be likely to inflict great injuries upon their cause. Two powerful ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... 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 ever so little a trip, or stumble in thy obedience, thou forfeitest thine interest in paradise (and in justice), ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... fearful that if I followed I should stumble or dislodge some of the lava blocks of ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... sound of warning. She heard nothing, but even before the horse went down she experienced the feeling that the unison of the two leaping animals was broken. She turned her head, and so quickly that she saw Comanche fall. It was not a stumble nor a trip. He fell as though, abruptly, in midleap, he had died or ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... His instruments if He thinks good. But let us beware of private acts of vengeance of our own planning. We must not forget the reverse of the picture—the mercy as well as the anger of God. We must not take things out of His hands into our own, lest we stumble and fall. We have a commandment to love our enemies, and to do good to those ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... heart was cast down. Now the light is given me by which I see the way through the labyrinth! It is our Father's beautiful garden in which we are. I have learned that all is intended for order and beauty, but as children we cannot yet walk so as not to stumble. Natural science has explained a thousand mysteries. Social science—understand the word; not schemes, plans or guessing, but genuine science, as far from guess or scheme as astronomy or chemistry ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... their luster Have our memories, Brighter honors shall we muster, If we borrow his. Bids us forth to Ltzen stumble, Close this straw-thatched cottage humble, Drag our grandsire's ancient seat To the ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... leaving Crown and kingdom; through a stronger Greed than love I Lesbia court,— For a queen is worth my homage. From her trellis I have come, From a sweet and pleasant converse. But, what's this? Each night I stumble On a man here at my doorstep. ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... slowly away from him, a few hundred yards off. At that sight, death entered his heart. He ran after her, calling out.... She did not look around. When he had lessened the distance between them by a half, he saw her suddenly stumble and fall. She did not get up again, but ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... To my palace, and there Hobble up stair by stair But I pray ye take care That you break not your shins by a stumble; ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... ordered the youth who was to ride Elphin's horse to let all the others set off before him, and bade him as he overtook each horse to strike him with a holly twig and throw it down. Then he had him watch where his own horse should stumble and throw down his cap at the place. The race being won, Taliessin brought his master to the spot where the cap lay; and put workmen to dig a hole there. When they had dug deeply enough they found a caldron full of gold, and Taliessin said, "Elphin, this is my payment to thee for having taken ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... John O'Neill, the last of an old North of Ireland family: a half-crippled man, eating out his heart against the fate that held him back from an active part in the war. Together they had managed to stumble on an oil-base for German submarines, concealed on the rocky coast; and, luck and boldness favouring them, to trap a U-boat and her crew. It had been a short and triumphant campaign—skilfully engineered by O'Neill; ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... rode forth, but before long the horse began to limp. He had not limped long before he began to stumble, and he had not stumbled long before he fell down and broke his leg. The merchant had to leave the horse where he fell, and unstrap the bag, take it on his back, and go ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... have power to take it again'; and yet, even in this tremendous instance of self-assertion, He remains the obedient Son, for He goes on to say, 'This commandment have I received of My Father.' If these claims are just, then it is vain to stumble at the miracles which Jesus did in His earthly life. If He could strip it off and resume it, then obviously it was not a life like other men's. The whole phenomenon is supernatural, and we shall not be in the true position to understand ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... yes. That every gravel bar made a better showing; the last trip had taken him above the tree line, and this time he expected to prospect along the glacier at the source of the stream. Sometimes erosions laid veins open, and any hour 'he might stumble on riches.' She smiled again, though her lip trembled, then said it was his limited outfit that troubled her most. He had taken only a light blanket and a small allowance of ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... been, and still am, honest with myself. I haven't done what I ought not and then tried to persuade myself that it was right. I always knew it was wrong, and I did it anyhow. And the hope I have is that, like the man in Browning's poem, I believe I always try to get up again, no matter how often I stumble. I sha'n't give up hope until I am willing to lie still. And I guess, after all—" he lifted his head suddenly—"I haven't missed being ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... found Long since to be but just one other mound Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew. And once again, and wiser in no wise, I chase your colored phantom on the air, And sob and curse and fall and weep and rise And stumble pitifully on to where, Miserable and lost, with stinging eyes, Once more I clasp,—and there is ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... my daughter to kill herself," the older woman charged Farrel. "Kay, you tomboy, do not jump that gate again! Suppose that horse should stumble and throw you." ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... of the pavement is bounded by a little unostentatious rivulet, called by unpoetical people "canal," into which tributaries equally sweet pour from all the neighbouring houses. It is therefore necessary to take great care, lest you should fall into the traitorous depths on the one side, or stumble over the projecting steps on the other. The pavement itself is covered with a row of stone slabs, a foot and a half wide, on which one walks comfortably enough. But then every body contends for the possession of these, to avoid the uneven and pointed stones at the side. This, ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... done hundreds of times, mourning pitifully over him, and ready to receive him patiently, impenitent as he was. She went up stairs to make his bed quite ready for him; and to put out of his way everything that could by any chance hurt him, if he should stumble and fall in his drunken weakness. When she returned to the kitchen, she lighted a candle, and opened the old family Bible, with its large type, which seemed to her a more sacred book than the little one she used daily. But she could not read; the words passed vaguely and without meaning beneath ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... been a smugglers' retreat sure," he murmured to himself. "My, if I should stumble ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... Pharisees and priestly opponents, but to many who had professed belief in Him (John 6:61; compare 16:1). The gospel of Jesus Christ is designated by Peter as "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient" (1 Peter 2:8; compare Paul's words, Romans 9:33). Indeed blessed is he to whom the gospel is welcome, and who finds therein no cause ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... There's a cupboard between his room an' the room back. It has a door both sides. Mebbe ef you was to slip in there you might see him through the latch hole. I ain't usin' that back room fer anythin' but a store-room this spring, so look out you don't stumble over nothin' when you go in fer it's dark as a pocket. You go right 'long in. I reckon you'll find the way. Yes, it's on the right hand side o' the hall. I've got to set here an' finish these potatoes ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... the expensive simplicity characteristic of the most intelligent class of the women of New York and Paris. She walked as if she were accustomed to walking. Mrs. Carnarvon had that slight hesitation, almost stumble, which indicates the woman who usually drives and never walks if she can avoid it. As they paused at the crowded crossing of Forty-second Street he joined them. When Mrs. Carnarvon found that he was "just out for the air" she left them, to go home—in ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... wife! I hope that you slept well, that you were undisturbed, that you will not rise too early, that you will not catch cold, nor stoop too much, nor overstrain yourself, nor scold your servants, nor stumble over the threshold of the adjoining room. Spare yourself all household worries till I come back. May no evil befall you! I shall ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... that I take things to heart that belong to the head alone, while father says that, to his mind, feeling is much more of a need to-day than logic; so what can I do but still stumble along ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... by the look on my face, she turned to Madeleine with these angelic words, 'The happiness of others is the joy of those who cannot themselves be happy,'—and the tone with which she said them brought tears to my eyes. She falls, it is true, but each time that her feet stumble ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... her bidding. So hard did she work, that in a few days she was able to make the horse-shoes. Early one morning she set out for the hill of poison. On her hands and feet she went, but even with the horse-shoes on she had to be very careful not to stumble, lest some poisoned thorns should enter into her flesh, and she should die. But when at last she was over, it was only to hear that her husband was to be married that day to the daughter of ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... upon the landing in time to see the tailor stumble on the stairs and fall head forwards to the bottom, at the feet ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... then that the Duke and his men were startled by hearing you open the front door of the house and stumble through the ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... noise, and glitter, everyone is telling everyone else to make way before him; the Indian merchants beseech you from the open bazaars; their children, swathed in gorgeous silks and hung with jewels and bangles, stumble under your feet, the Sultan's troops assail you with fife and drum, and the black women, wrapped below their bare shoulders in the colors of the butterfly, and with teeth and brows dyed purple, crowd you to the wall. Outside the city there are long and wonderful roads ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... Falcon, strode cheerily over the last of those dark, tiresome miles without a stumble or sign of weariness; but the roan's ears were drooping, and he slouched along heavily on his shoulders long before we saw the lights of Symonds' homestead, where we met a hearty if not a joyful welcome. We had not tasted food for thirteen hours, during which we had scarcely been out of the saddle; ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... "A slight stumble in good diction there, Mr. Forsythe," muttered the listening Denman. "Otherwise, very well ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... august title which is laid here as the vindication of our faith on the one hand, and as the ground of the possibility of the benefits of His death being world-wide on the other—viz. the Son of God—then we shall not stumble at the thought that He died for all, because He died for each. I know that if you only regard Jesus Christ as human I am talking utter nonsense; but I know, too, that if we believe in the divinity of our Lord, there ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... you would have liked to meet at dinner, not for the sake of his conversation, but for the sake of his uniqueness. One remembers how one stood with heart in mouth as he set out with his balancing-pole in his hand on his journey across the rope blindfolded and pretending to stumble every ten yards. A single false step and he would have fallen from the height of a tower to certain death, for there was no net to catch him. Strange that one should have cared whether he fell or not! But ninety-nine ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... babble about this one thing! The box, the box, and nothing but the box! It seemed as if the box were bewitched, and as if the cottage were not big enough to hold it without Pandora's continually stumbling over it and making Epimetheus stumble over it likewise, and bruising all four ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... in the village, he heard rumours of some business about Lensmand Geissler; there had been an inquiry about some moneys he could not account for, and the matter had been reported to his superior. Well, such things did happen; some folk were content to stumble through life anyhow, till they ran up against ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... rise in suffocating clouds. You move your jaws mechanically as if to crush the dust that finds its way into your throat like fire. Then usually a kind of lassitude, of drowsiness, follows. You walk without thinking. You forget where you are walking. You remember only when you stumble. Of course you stumble often. But anyway it is bearable. "The night is ending," you say, "and with it the march. All in all, I am less tired than at the beginning." The night ends, but then comes the most terrible hour of all. You are perishing of thirst and shaking with cold. ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... question, undismayed By muttered threats that some hysteric sense Of wrong or insult will convulse the throne Where wisdom reigns supreme; and if I err, They all must err who have to feel their way As bats that fly at noon; for what are we But creatures of the night, dragged forth by day, Who needs must stumble, and with stammering steps Spell out their paths in ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... trunks, and rocks—and lesser annoyances, such as branches, bushes, and even spider-webs. These things all combine against endurance. The inexperienced does not know how to meet them with a minimum of effort. The tenderfoot is in a constant state of muscular and mental rigidity against a fall or a stumble or a cut across the face from some one of the infinitely numerous woods scourges. This rigidity speedily ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death—the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... North, prime minister, threw out hints that it was useless to continue the war. But George III., summoning his ministers, declared his unchanging resolution never to yield to the rebels, and continued prodding the wavering North to stumble on ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... 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 ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies |
