"Stumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... himself obliged to one of two distasteful and perilous alternatives; either to shut the door altogether and set his portmanteau out upon the wayside, a wonder to all beholders; or to leave the door ajar, so that any thievish tramp or holiday schoolboy might stray in and stumble on the grisly secret. To the last, as the least desperate, his mind inclined; but he must first insure himself that he was unobserved. He peered out, and down the long road; it lay dead empty. He went to the corner of the ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and genuine. But the answer and explanation is very simple. The medium (particularly the young medium) may become panic-stricken by the thought that "perhaps this is merely the result of my own imagination or fancy, instead of spirit power," and the result will be that he will begin to halt and stumble, stammer and stutter, instead of allowing the message to flow through him uninterrupted. This is particularly true when the message is of the nature of a test of identity, and where the vocal organs of ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... of occupying and entrenching a position, or of moving over unknown desert guided only by compass. There were times when the dust nearly choked one, or when the lights and shadows made it impossible to ascertain whether one was likely to fall down a slope or stumble on to the side of a hill. Notwithstanding these difficulties, the 28th never once lost its way or failed to reach its objective to time. On one occasion a move was made for some miles along the Suez Road and a bivouac, protected by outposts, established in ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... Prison at Sing Sing, where he had been for years confined for a crime, which he gave me his solemn word of honour he was wholly innocent of. He told me that, after his term had expired, and he went out into the world again, he never could stumble upon any of his old Sing Sing associates without dropping into a public house and talking over old times. And when fortune would go hard with him, and he felt out of sorts, and incensed at matters and things in general, he told me that, at such time, he almost wished he was back again in Sing Sing, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... widespread desire for greater independence and responsibility, backed up by many of the laity, and unless it can be rightly met in some way, it might easily become a serious danger. If people are ever to learn to run alone, they must be given the opportunity of doing so. If some stumble in the attempt, that is only what must be expected at first. Amongst a few failures, there are other instances in which the experiment of leaving the management of affairs to Indians has been all that could be wished. Indian priests have been put in charge ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... way missing the fishing-line, and being closely followed by his more nervous comrade. The latter, less fortunate, caught his foot in the line, stumbled, tightened the line and brought the shot-bag hopping down the stairs. What I heard was the sound of the stumble, followed by the quick thud, thud, of the descending shot-bag, exactly resembling the footfalls of a heavy man running down the stairs barefoot. Then came two revolver shots in quick succession, a shower of plaster, a hoarse cry, ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... observance calls away [from the order]. Consequently, such men coming in time to rule the provinces and to possess the ministries in those islands, the end will be that there will be no religion, observance, or examples in them to invite the Indians, but only scandals by which they will stumble; for, as a foolish people, they embrace what they see rather than ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... other country in the world where so much poor work is done as in America. Half-trained medical students perform bungling operations, and butcher their patients, because they are not willing to take time for thorough preparation. Half-trained lawyers stumble through their cases, and make their clients pay for experience which the law school should have given. Half-trained clergymen bungle away in the pulpit, and disgust their intelligent and cultured ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... 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 the ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... of the fifth day, seeing the old man stumble on the level flagstones of the garden, Hilary finished dressing hastily, and followed. He overtook him walking forward feebly beneath the candelabra of flowering chestnut-trees, with a hail-shower striking white on his high shoulders; and, placing himself ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was not unpleasant. Then the master made me a sign to come to his trencher side; but as I walked on the table, being in great surprise all the time, as the indulgent reader will easily conceive and excuse, I happened to stumble against a crust, and fell flat on my face, but received no hurt. I got up immediately, and observing the good people to be in much concern, I took my hat (which I held under my arm out of good manners,) and waving it over my head, made three huzzas, to show I had got no mischief by ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... sometimes said that this is a state of probation. But that phrase suggests far too cold an idea. God does not set us here as on a knife edge, with abysses on either side ready to swallow us if we stumble, while He stands apart watching for our halting, and unhelpful to our tottering feebleness. He compasses us with His love and its gifts, He draws us to Himself, and desires that we should stand. He offers all the help of His angels to hold us up. 'He will not suffer thy foot to be ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... life—'pluck it out and cast it from thee; for it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell-fire.' Does your eye offend you, my brethren? Does your eye cause you to stumble and fall, as it is in the etymology? The right use of the eye is to keep you from stumbling and falling; but so perverted are the eye and the heart of every sinner that the city watchman has become a partaker with thieves, and our trusted guide and guardian a traitor and a knave. ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... the end of the hour, we were awfully enthusiastic about reading character. The first thing Robbie Belle did was to stumble over ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... they were Christians, denied the possibility of their being so, as they were ignorant of Christ and His commandments, and placed their hope of salvation on outward forms and superstitious observances, which were the invention of Satan, who wished to keep them in darkness that at last they might stumble into the pit which he had dug for them. I said repeatedly that the Pope, whom they revered, was an arch deceiver, and the head minister of Satan here on earth, and that the monks and friars, whose absence they so deplored, and to whom they had been accustomed to confess themselves, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... off in an oblique direction, and then 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 of the chair, and the inclination ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... water in this wilderness and if there is, the best chance of our finding it would be to follow this gorge downward. We have enough food and water left, if we are careful of it, for a couple of days and in that time we might stumble upon a spring or possibly even reach the fertile country which I know lies to the south. When Usanga brought me to the Wamabo country from the coast he took a southerly route along which there was usually water and game in plenty. It was not until we neared our destination that the country became ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... their verdict upon her tears, her hurry, and her charming person; till coming to a stand of coaches, a coachman plied her; was accepted; alighted; opened the coach-door in a hurry, seeing her hurry; and in it she stumbled for haste; and, as the fellow believed, hurt her shin with the stumble.' ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the care and protection of God, yet he feels that his own strength is not sufficient; that he may err and stumble in the path he has chosen. He does not ask that all should be clear, nor that he should see the long course of his life, but ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... among men, and that no arts or offices of kindness ever won their forbearance. We listened to her statements more than half disposed to credit them, yet we adhered to our original determination, nevertheless, of joining the first gypsy camp on which, during the course of our tour, we might stumble. ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... whether these be not most kind and natural? And prudency itself, what more kind and amiable than it, when thou shalt truly consider with thyself, what it is through all the proper objects of thy rational intellectual faculty currently to go on without any fall or stumble? As for the things of the world, their true nature is in a manner so involved with obscurity, that unto many philosophers, and those no mean ones, they seemed altogether incomprehensible, and the Stoics themselves, though they judge ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... thing to do, however, and that was to make a clean breast of it. Somehow, he managed to stumble through his explanation of what had prompted him, and when he had finished he saw that the girl was smiling ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... one of the twigs and strike the horse with it over the crupper, and then let that twig fall; and after that to take another twig, and do in like manner to every one of the horses, as he should overtake them, enjoining the horseman strictly to watch when his own horse should stumble, and to throw down his cap on the spot. All these things did the youth fulfil, giving a blow to every one of the king's horses, and throwing down his cap on the spot where his horse stumbled. And to this spot Taliesin brought his master after his ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... of the main thoroughfare other streets open in wonderful bursts of blue-warm blue of horizon and sea. The steps by which these ways descend towards the bay are black with age, and slightly mossed close to the wall on either side: they have an alarming steepness,—one might easily stumble from the upper into the lower street. Looking towards the water through these openings from the Grande Rue, you will notice that the sea-line cuts across the blue space just at the level of the upper story of the house on the lower street-corner. Sometimes, ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... the time. Do you know that when I am out here, and stumble over the door-way of an old Roman tomb, or find one of those thousand caves in the tufa rock, I often have a curious feeling that from out that tomb or cave will stalk forth in broad daylight some old Roman centurion or senator, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "You can stumble along, working at your trade of farming, and only half knowing it all your life; that's what most farmers do, in fact. They are too lazy to take up the scientific side of ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... and so thought there was no danger of her little ruse being discovered. But when the cable message came saying no money would be sent her, a different complexion was put upon the whole affair, for she did not know but if the police were given plenty of time they might stumble ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... we constantly stumble upon is a lame, totally inadmissible application of certain one-sided systems as of a formal code of laws. But it is never difficult to show the one-sidedness of such systems, and this only requires to be done once to throw discredit for ever on critical judgments ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... him up the Selisberg, for he could not have borne the fatigue of the ascent. In a few days his agony became alarmingly acute. He grew stupid, and had frequent convulsions, his only conscious act being to get up often from his bed (which was in my wife's room, as he was usually under her care) and stumble as far as my writing-table, where he sank down again in exhaustion. The veterinary surgeon said he could do no more, and as the convulsions gradually became terribly acute, I was advised to shorten the poor animal's cruel agony and free him from ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... that the tomb of the blessed Cid, if they left it 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, resolved ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... own who lived at Blois, the hornpipes of Buzansay, for the organ pipes, through the mistake of one word for another, even so, whilst you think to marry a wise, humble, calm, discreet, and honest wife, you shall unhappily stumble upon one witless, proud, loud, obstreperous, bawling, clamorous, and more unpleasant than any Buzansay hornpipe. Consider withal how he flirted you on the nose with the bladder, and gave you a sound thumping blow with his fist upon the ridge of the back. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... as not to trip, or to stumble over the sleeping soldiers, they went on, and Taffy, stopping and looking up beheld before him a great round table. Many warriors were sitting at it. Their splendid gold inlaid armor, glittering ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... Alicia's head against my knee, a light, swift footstep sounded overhead in the attic, followed by a sort of stumble, as if somebody had slipped on one of those ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... 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 ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... when Jimmy left; and the fat butler had already finished the bottle of port and gone to sleep, with the result that only at the third ringing of the bell did he awaken and stumble upstairs to the front door. Jimmy was feeling more than ever disappointed at the attitude of his own people, more than ever ready to disregard both their wishes and their advice. After all, Ethel Grimmer had far more brains and sympathy than May; ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... have more than one hundred heads of cabbage. I have experimented and found a kind of squash that can be raised here, and that the ripe ones keep well and make good pies; also that the young tender ones make splendid pickles, quite equal to cucumbers. I was glad to stumble on to that, because pickles are hard to manufacture when you have nothing to work with. Now I have plenty. They told me when I came that I could not even raise common beans, but I tried and succeeded. And also I raised lots of green tomatoes, and, as we like them preserved, I made ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... walk, as if not to disturb the fair burden he bore, for she, overcome with fatigue and excitement, was quietly sleeping with her head on my shoulder. Toby picked his way like a dancing-master, and though the road was rough, never once did he stumble; he still bore himself gallantly for the old House of Fairlee. Ah! Toby, that road was miles too short for your master. Willingly would he have ridden thus, aye, until his hair had turned as white as snow on his brows, until the hand that guided the reins ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... fear and trembling; let Him be your only dread, and He shall be to you for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and many among them shall stumble against that stone, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and perish. Hide my words, and cover my law ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... I took a stroll by myself through the town of Compiegne. Coming home, when crossing the bridge below the Palace, I met the Emperor arm-in-arm with Walewski. Not ten minutes afterwards, whom should I stumble upon but the ruffian who had seized the Emperor's bridle? The same red comforter was round his neck, the same wild look was in his face. I turned after he had passed, and at the same moment he turned ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... topmost round at once, and if we get there at all there must be something in us worthy of the upper rounds. Can we ask Him to be our guide who noticed the falling of a sparrow to the ground? Do so; then we will not choose the wrong path, we will not stumble in our darkest hours. We will not think solely of our slavery, of our closing hour, or how we will spend the evening, but will put our mind on our duties and resolve that they shall have the best that is in us; and by and by we ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... is indeed in several parts only fourteen or fifteen inches broad; and the ridge of the mountain, along which the road runs, is covered with a short slippery turf. The slopes on each side are steep, and the traveller, should he stumble, might slide down to the depth of seven or eight hundred feet. Nevertheless, the flanks of the mountain are steep declivities rather than precipices; and the mules of this country are so sure-footed that they inspire the greatest confidence. Their habits are identical ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. 28 Besides those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is caused to stumble, and I burn not? 30 If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed for evermore knoweth that I lie not. 32 In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... he had not taken a dozen steps when a rolling stone caused him to stumble, and the rider narrowly missed taking a header over his ears. Saladin quickly recovered himself, but at the moment of doing so the youth was startled by a whistle from the other shore, instantly answered by a similar call from the bank ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... in scarlet.... The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall justle one against another in the broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings. He shall recount his worthies: they shall stumble in their walk; they shall make haste to the wall thereof, and the defence shall be prepared. The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... hunt, and thought, doubtless, that it was by an act of his own royal pleasure that the horse of his murdered victim was prepared for his kingly sport. But Heaven had other views; and before the sun was high, a stumble of that very animal over an obstacle so inconsiderable as a mole-hillock, cost the haughty rider his life and his usurped crown, Do you think an inclination of the rein could have avoided that trifling impediment? I tell you, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... reproof was unkindly given; but false pride has in it no gentleness, no regard for another's feelings. Ah me! this is one more lesson of the many I have to learn; but let me bear up with a brave heart. There is one who knows my path, and who will see that nothing therein need cause my feet to stumble. From this moment I will think of all here as strangers. I will faithfully do what I have engaged to do, and expect therefor only the compensation agreed upon when I came. Have I a right ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... on, now, with the canoe upon their shoulders, and hugging close to the mountain wall. Slowly, avoiding every stone and stick that might cause one of them to stumble, they passed along the perilously narrow ledge, and did not rest again until they had come in safety to the broader trail leading up the mountain. An hour later Mukoki met them on his return for ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... whether it was tiger or not, it would neither be safe for him to raise an alarm, nor start to rush back to the bivouac—though this was not twenty yards from the spot. By making an attempt to retreat, he might draw the animal after him, or stumble upon it—not knowing its direction. It was to ascertain its whereabouts that he had stopped and stood listening. That once known, he might keep his place, or lake to ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... His disciple 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 to powder as ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... Yes; try the door-jamb—much more satisfactory. But look out for your fingers—never get your fingers caught." Then, as they arrived at the street level: "Wait a second; don't hurry. Be sure of your footing; don't stumble and break your neck at the last minute—one poor last little chance, after so many glorious opportunities ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... laid it carefully, piece by piece, in the corner of a sofa, and concealed it with the cover. This was a great relief. I almost began to feel like the injured party—more like a captive than a robber; and I groped my way through the room, with a sort of vague idea that I might perhaps stumble upon some trap-door, or sliding-panel, which would lead into the open air, or, at worst, into a secret chamber, where I should be safe for any given number of years from my persecutors. But there was nothing of the kind in this stern, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... ago, you might have given him a wrinkle in the economising of space and labour. In any case, to find it there in the dim, rich interior of that ancient village church, to view it in a religious or reverent mood, and then by-and-by in the dusty belfry to stumble on other far older memorials of the same family, and finally, coming out into the sunny churchyard, to come upon the same name once more in an inscription which tells you that he died in 1890, aged 88. And you think it a ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... some who insist that they are private secretaries to the dead. Others of us mortals, more reserved, are content to keep such distance as we may from even the shadow of a shade. But there's no getting away from ghosts nowadays, for even if you shut your eyes to them in actual life, you stumble over them in the books you read, you see them on the stage and on the screen, and you hear them on the lecture platform. Even a Lodge in any vast wilderness would have the company of spirits. Man's love for the supernatural, which is one of the most natural things ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... others. We must be willing to sacrifice our liberty, if by its exercise we endanger another's soul. This is the teaching of St. Paul in the words: "It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything whereby thy brother stumbleth"; and "If meat maketh my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for evermore, that I make not my brother ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... which would stay in your mind and kill the memory of the other girl; the image of a poor, ill-treated little creature who should work through to your heart by way of your compassion. I knew you, Peter, I knew you. And then I did a meaner thing still. I pretended to stumble in the dark. I meant you to catch me and hold me, and you ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... that is injurious to the feet if it be allowed to remain in them. We have had bad cases of thrush caused by carelessness in this respect. As regards conformation, it is evident that horses with upright pasterns and heavy shoulders are far more apt to stumble than well-shaped ones, besides being rough and unpleasant to ride. Young horses which are shod for the first time, often stumble a great deal, until they get accustomed to their artificial foot-gear, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... Many times we'd stumble across the fact that after the first report of a UFO being tracked on radar the same identical type of target would be tracked again, many times. But by this time the operator would have learned that they were caused by weather and it ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... observed Cephalus. "If people will go in swimming out-of-doors, it's their own fault if chance wayfarers stumble upon them. To turn a man into a stag and then set his own dogs on him for a thing he couldn't help strikes me as ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... loveliness. I may find a man who has become inoculated with western heresies and believes that a woman with intellect is desirable, even though under weight. I may find a fool, or an aristocrat who has gambled. I may stumble upon good fortune if I put her out among the young men. Yes, I must exhibit her, ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... tell how many were killed in that stretch of prairie between Galveston and Texas City. Years hence men will stumble over human bones on that grassy plain and give burial to some victim of the greatest storm that ever visited American shores. Yet, withal, that the hurricane of 1915 claimed six hundred victims instead of tens of thousands ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... moderated 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. How does it ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... about to encounter a new phase of life. Singular, isn't it, that we never know when we are about to stumble upon ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... such a defence Luther expressed himself in very strong terms: "They," says he, "who would defend the Patriarch in this, wantonly reject the consolation which the Holy Ghost considered to be necessary to the Church—the consolation, namely, that even the greatest saints may, at times, stumble ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... you are a stranger here, so you had better go back to see what Pattmore is doing. You can stumble into his room, as if you had mistaken it for your own. Be quick!" I added, as he started, "for we must keep watch of him every minute until the inquest ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... better not move at all from where you are, Don Martin," advised the Capataz, earnestly. "You might stumble or displace something which would make a noise. The sweeps and the punting poles are lying about. Move not for your life. Por Dios, Don Martin," he went on in a keen but friendly whisper, "I am so desperate that if I didn't know your worship to be ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... summer, which puts forth the fragrant bud and blossom of sin e'er its bitter fruits ripen and turn to ashes on the lips of age. It is the happy transition period, when long legs, and loose joints, and verdant awkwardness, first stumble on the vestibule of manhood. Did you never observe him shaving and scraping his pimpled face till it resembled a featherless goose, reaping nothing but lather, and dirt, and a little intangible fuzz? That is the first symptom of love. Did you never observe him wrestling ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... the Lord philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness. And now it becomes useful to piety, being a kind of preparatory training to those who attain to faith through demonstration. "For thy foot," it is said, "will not stumble" if thou refer what is good, whether belonging to the Greeks or to us, to Providence. For God is the cause of all good things; but of some primarily, as of the Old and the New Testament, and of others by consequence, as philosophy. Perchance, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... through the woods and on the banks of streams in the country, it is not an uncommon thing to stumble against a contrivance resembling in general appearance our next illustration. Throughout New England, the "dead-fall," as this is called, has always been a most popular favorite among trappers, young ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... stumble at such easy Scripture; behold, the meaning is quite clear! They who travel on the so-called King's Highway are continually exaggerating the merits of the way, thereby making it appear greater and broader than it really is. They go so far ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... every practicable precaution against being rebuffed. You want to assure yourself of a welcome. Having gained this chance to start the sale of your capabilities, it is of vital importance not to take the next step in the selling process blindly, lest you stumble. Hence you should size up the other man before you announce your purpose in calling. What you may learn from reading his character correctly will help you to gain admittance into his mind for your ideas. It should ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... in 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 into Bithynia?" ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... loathing for life and its possibilities, as he had just beheld them; moral tumult, pity, remorse, a stinging self-reproach—all these things wrestled within him. What, preach to others, and stumble himself into such mire as this? Talk loudly of love and faith, and make it possible all the time that a fellow human creature should think you capable at a pinch of the worst treason ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... o'clock in the morning I was roused by O'Brien, who at the same time put his hand gently over my mouth. I sat up, and perceived a large fire not far from us. "The Philistines are upon us, Peter," said he; "I have reconnoitred, and they are the gendarmes. I'm fearful of going away, as we may stumble upon some more of them. I've been thinking what's best before I waked you; and it appears to me, that we had better get up the ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... superstition that it was a direct Divine revelation. This may be plausible in cases of the Strathmore, where the intelligence was communicated of the loss of an English ship, but no one can seriously hold it when the only information to be communicated was a stumble on ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... Another Orbajosan was the author of that famous 'Treatise on the Various Styles of Horsemanship' which I showed you yesterday; and, in short, there is not a step I take in the labyrinth of unpublished history that I do not stumble against some illustrious compatriot. It is my purpose to draw all these names out of the unjust obscurity and oblivion in which they have so long lain. How pure a joy, dear Pepe, to restore all their lustre to the glories, epic and literary, of one's native ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... the window, the pulse of summer in the air, and pictured her being won by another man, stronger than himself. His imagination, the keener for the dark background it worked against, spared him no single detail that might send him raging up and down the studio, to stumble over the stove that seemed to be in four places at once. Worst of all, tobacco would not taste in the darkness. The arrogance of the man had disappeared, and in its place were settled despair that Torpenhow knew, and blind passion that Dick confided to his pillow at night. ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... sense that the man who is addressing you, is thinking at the very moment he is speaking. You have the sense of watching the visible working of his inner mind; and you are far more deeply impressed than by the glib facility which does not pause, does not stumble, does not hesitate, because he does not stop to think. Many people, reading so much about Mr. Sexton's oratory, will be under the impression that he is a very rapid and fluent speaker. He is nothing of the kind. He speaks with a great slowness, grave deliberation, and ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... course, impassable for the pony—Lionel had to separate from his companions and ford the river, following up the other side. Fortunately there was not much water in the stream; old Maggie knew her way well enough; and with nothing more than an occasional stumble among the slippery boulders and loose stones they reached the opposite bank in safety. About a mile farther up the return crossing had to be made; but this second ford was shallow and easy; and thenceforward the united party went on together. At ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... agitation if the wind behind him swept and carried away all the traces of his footsteps? He had rightly realised that he ought not to return thither, for the past is simply the cemetery of our illusions, where our feet for ever stumble against tombstones! ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... long life, In her left are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, And all her paths are peaceful. She gives life to those who seek her, They are happy who hold her fast. You shall then go on your way securely, And your foot shall never stumble. When you sit down, you shall not be afraid, When you lie down, your ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... 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 er dinner'll be late. I'd like to ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... part or tail of the sea-monster. It is clear that, being thus, even at low tide, nearly always covered with water, and as the sand when thus covered is much more 'quick' and movable, the southern part of the Goodwins is an exceedingly awkward place to explore. If you made a stumble, as the sands slide under your feet, it might, shall I say, land you into a pit or 'fox-fall,' circular in shape, and very deep. The stumps of forgotten wrecks are also a real danger to the boat which ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... so intently that he forgot his escalator was landing. He came off it with a heel-jarring stumble and bumped into a knot of four men on the tiny triangular hold-still. These four at least sported a new style-wrinkle: ribbed gray shoulder-capes that made them look as if their heads were poking up out of the center of ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... pull of the sand. He knew he was reaching the end of his strength. He went more slowly and each dune seemed a bit higher than the one before. Giant, sand-scoured rocks pushed through the dunes here and he had to stumble around them. At the base of the largest of these monoliths was a straggling clump of knotted vegetation. He passed it by—then stopped as something tried to penetrate his heat-crazed mind. What was it? A difference. Something ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... for instance, of Egdon Heath, at the beginning of the Return of the Native, has a dusky architectural grandeur that is like the Portico of an Egyptian Temple. The same thing may be noted of that sudden apparition of Stonehenge, as Tess and Angel stumble upon it in ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... the pursued. The latter, always anxious, is constrained to look back; and is, therefore, less sure of the ground that lies before. He loses his proper attitude for speed, and is besides in danger of stumbling. So it was with the wild horse. He did not stumble—he was too sure of foot for that—but his head was occasionally thrown to one side, until his large dark eye commanded a view of his enemy behind him. This, of course, to some extent, retarded him. It was only at these moments that Basil could gain upon him; and the proofs ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... "these relaxed and derivative people are living on the strength of the strong. He who is strong must carry with him, as a perpetual burden, a mass of such pensioners, who are scared and shocked at his rude individuality; and if he should trip or stumble, if he should lose his way in the untrodden paths, in seeking new truth and a broader foundation for the lives of men, then a chorus of censure goes up from millions ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... 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 ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... up; the stranger following, with more than one stumble by the way. At the head of the staircase the clerk opened a door and preceded them into a low-roofed panelled room, plainly but solidly furnished, and lighted by a small hanging lamp of silver. A round oak table on six curiously turned legs stood ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... than even I, or other partial friends, can fairly allow to your merit. You stand high,—do not rashly attempt to climb higher, and incur the risk of a fall; for, depend upon it, a favourite will not be permitted even to stumble with impunity." I replied to this affectionate expostulation in the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... I shrank, visibly, from receiving upon my feet the pitcher of water he was carrying. I was in the porch. The beautiful girl who formerly made my affliction so bitter to me was passing at the moment, with her arm drawn affectionately through her father's. She saw the stumble, and sprang forward with a cry of alarm. It looked, certainly, as if my defenceless feet must receive the crash, and I attempted instinctively to withdraw them,—partially succeeding! I saw this at the same time that I heard the sweetest words that ever fell ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... mosaics. It is an interest simple, as who should say, almost to harshness, and leads one's attention along a straight and narrow way. There are older churches in Rome, and churches which, looked at as museums, are more variously and richly informing; but in Rome you stumble at every step on some curious pagan memorial, often beautiful enough to make your thoughts wander far from the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... 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 ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... not violate with modern polish the ingenuous and noble roughness of these truly Constitutional materials. Above all things, I was resolved not to be guilty of tampering, the odious vice of restless and unstable minds. I put my foot in the tracks of our forefathers, where I can neither wander nor stumble. Determining to fix articles of peace, I was resolved not to be wise beyond what was written; I was resolved to use nothing else than the form of sound words, to let others abound in their own sense, and carefully ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... the same clothes, as when she saw him last. He had evidently seen her approaching, and moved quickly to meet her. But in his haste he stumbled slightly; she reflected suddenly that ghosts did not stumble, and a feeling of relief came over her. And it was no assassin of her father that had been prowling around—only this unhappy fugitive. A momentary color came into her cheek; her coolness and hardihood returned; it was with a tinge of sauciness in ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... unanswerable: nobody will breathe so much as a whisper in reply. Since Sprenger heads his handbook for judges by declaring the slightest doubt heretical, the judge stands bound accordingly; he feels that he cannot stumble, that if unhappily he should ever be tempted by an impulse of doubt or humanity, he must begin by condemning himself and delivering his own ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... in the next, there were in her strains of romantic, egotistic ability to which nothing in them corresponded. She could play, she could draw—brilliantly, spontaneously—up to a certain point, when neither Sarah nor Lulu could stumble through a "piece," or produce anything capable of giving the smallest satisfaction to their drawing-master. She could chatter, on occasion, so that a room full of people instinctively listened. And she ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... independent, fellow, Gilbert, but I can't say as I blame you for it. Yes, I'll look round in a few days, and maybe I'll stumble on the right man by the ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... 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 forty feet with a racket, clattering and banging against ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... no fine clothes and masquerade under no smooth speeches in the slums. Often enough it is the very nakedness of the virtues that makes us stumble in our judgment. I have in mind the "difficult case" that confronted some philanthropic friends of mine in a rear tenement on Twelfth Street, in the person of an aged widow, quite seventy I should think, who worked uncomplainingly ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... my coat, esteemed sir,' said the watchman. 'It is dark and you may stumble over the ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... was! If she could only see—so that she would be sure not to stumble! She couldn't go fast now—she would make a noise if she did. Stair after stair she climbed stealthily. Perhaps she was safe now—it had taken her a long time to get up here to the second floor, and there wasn't any sound yet from the ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... the letter he had burned, wishing now that he had answered it, and so, perhaps, have kept her from his door. For she was coming there, nay, possibly had come, since his departure from home, and learning his whereabouts, had followed on to the Academy of Music, leaving her baggage where he should stumble over it on ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... she would," said she, impatiently. "And that is why I don't propose any such idiotic performance. You will merely stumble in the dark and manage your elbow so awkwardly that Mrs. Rockerbilt's coiffure will be entirely disarranged by it. She will scream, of course, and I will instantly restore the light, after which I will attend to the substitution. Now don't ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... of the Great Lakes. The boys run across some Canadian smugglers and stumble on the ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... 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 ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... 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 ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... 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 ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... have a warning from the wise man, that when a rich man speaketh every man holdeth his tongue, and, look, what he saith, they extol it to the clouds; but if a poor man speak, they say, What fellow is this? And if he stumble, they will help to overthrow him.[122] Therefore may my words be undervalued and my errors aggravated, if I offer to speak of kings; but not by thee, O my God, because I speak of them as they are in thee, and of thee as thou art in them. Certainly those men prepare a way of ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... baby's 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
... Surrounded on every side by new machines and new tactics, he is as much bewildered as Hannibal would have been at Waterloo, or Themistocles at Trafalgar. His very acuteness deludes him. His very vigor causes him to stumble. The more correct his maxims, when applied to the state of society to which he is accustomed, the more certain they are to lead him astray. This was strikingly the case with Hastings. In India he had a bad hand; but he was master of the game, and he won every stake. In England he held excellent ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... come to their rendezvous feeling particularly safe. A confederate had been posted right on the other side of the estate with instructions to stumble on the alarm-guns set there. These guns were to be set off about a quarter-past one, and the poachers expected that the keepers would be drawn to the sound of the guns, and thus leave them undisturbed at their quiet task of netting the Squire's finest trout-pool. So that when they hit upon ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... him alone, Gibbons; as long as he is forward he can do no harm; but if you see him working his way aft, after it gets dark, it will do him no harm if you manage to stumble against him and give him a clout ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... up and down. Half a dozen times I've almost had my fingers on the tail feathers of fortune: only to stumble into some hidden pit of poverty. And in time—well, time mends all things. Besides, I hardly relished facing Mother Leary. There was the chance too that you no longer needed rescuing. I'm not trying to excuse my breach of ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... raised his hands to his lips, after the wont of the superstitious vulgar, he kissed it.... Then Octavius said: 'It is not the part of a good man, brother Marcus, thus to leave an intimate companion and friend amidst blind popular ignorance, and to suffer him, in such open daylight, to stumble against stones,' etc.... Discoursing after this sort, we traversed the space between Ostia and the sea, and arrived at the open coast. There the gentle surges had smoothed the outermost sands like a pleasure walk, and as the sea, although the winds blow not, is ever ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... great, but the pace was slow, and the low moon would shortly drop behind the spruce fringe of the ridges. Then the burden-bearer would have to stumble forward through confused blackness—so he hastened his steps until his own breath rattled into an exhausted rasp and his own heart hammered with ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... drawn more nigh? Lo, love, our toil-girthed garden of desire, How of its changeless sweetness may we tire, While round about the storm is in the boughs And careless change amid the turmoil ploughs The rugged fields we needs must stumble o'er, Till the grain ripens that ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... a tutelar being watches over, and giveth vitality to his arena—his ring is, he may rely upon it, a fairy one—while that mysterious being dances and prances in it, all will go well; his horses will not stumble, never will his clowns forget a syllable of their antiquated jokes. Oh! let him, then, whilst seriously reflecting upon Simpson and the fate of Vauxhall, give good heed unto the Methuselah, who hath already passed his second ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... smelt the hounds"; his eyes said, "We looked for the shortest way"; his ears 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 ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... of the sand made him stumble, and in that instant he became aware of the Sphinx towering over him, its great granite Face solemn in the moonlight. His voice died away in an awed whisper. Long, long he gazed into ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... women are never allowed to do, Mr. Winnington!" She turned suddenly red, and fronted him. "There's always some man, who claims to manage them and their affairs. We're always in leading-strings—nobody ever admits we're grown up. Why can't we be allowed like men—to stumble along our own way? If we make mistakes, let's pay for them! But let us at some time in our lives—at least—feel ourselves ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... how a fool will stumble on good luck. Why, sir, but for one little accident, the existence of which you could not possibly have known, I might easily have waited for the press-gang, stated the case to them, and had you lugged off to sea in my place. Has it occurred to you, in the course of your negotiations, that the wicked ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... overburdens him has taken root in his being, and has grown to be rather 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 ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... 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 ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... thought, Dr. Johnson might have attacked it. Johnson was very courteous to Lady Margaret Macdonald. 'Madam, (said he,) when I was in the Isle of Sky, I heard of the people running to take the stones off the road, lest Lady Margaret's horse should stumble[1163].' ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... first: Under its power the sea will stretch itself out dead, the white foam on the lip, in its crystal sarcophagus, and the mountains will stagger and reel and stumble, and fall into the valleys never to rise. Under one puff of that last cyclone all the candles of the sky will be blown out. The trumpet! ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... others were getting nearer, for Foster heard them splash through the wet moss and stumble among the rushy grass. They were walking fast, which indicated that they thought themselves some distance behind the fugitives; but stopped when they saw the birches, and then came on again cautiously. Foster could not see them until their blurred figures appeared among the ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... position of the Creed which is called Athanasian, and to enquire what defence may fairly be made, if it is the form against which the Professor really brought this charge. For it must be acknowledged that many thoughtful men do stumble at this Creed. To them it is an offence, because it is often assumed that it is the expression of opinion about those who do not accept the doctrines which ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... love. Our love gives our all to Him. And then takes the greater all of His—no, not from Him, for Him, held in trust, used for Him, while we keep knees and face close to the ground, lest we stumble and slip ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... deviously enough, he may chance upon a few thousand square miles which he may have all to himself. On the other hand, no matter how far and how deviously he may wander, the possibility always remains that he may stumble, not alone upon a deserted cabin, but upon an ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... 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 ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... friends in old scenes, sometimes, when the meeting is as unexpected as delightful. And just so, in my last visit to Oxford, did I stumble upon Horace Leicester. We met in the quadrangle where we had parted some six years back, just as we might if we had supped together the night before; whereas we had been all the time hundreds of miles asunder: and we met as unrestrainedly, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... toward the bed. His curls, escaping from the nightcap covering his head, float on his forehead. His long, loose night-shirt, catching his little feet, increases his impatience, and causes him to stumble at every step. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... unnaturally, in a life and death struggle, with bloodshot eyes, with foaming, gnashing mouths. They attack and kill one another and try to mangle each other. I leap to my feet. I race out into the night and tread on quaking flesh, step on hard heads, and stumble over weapons and helmets. Something is clutching at my feet like hands, so that I race away like a hunted deer with the hounds at his heels—and ever over more bodies—breathless... out of one field into another. Horror is crooning over my head. Horror is ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... heard him stumble as they came down, and his movements were slow and hesitating. "Come in with me," said Isbister, "and try some cigarettes and the blessed gift of ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... 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
... God's own building, from which deploys the ever varying procession of human life. If the temple be intricate in its internal construction, if its architectural fancies impede our passage; if they make us stumble or even fall; his invariable advice is this: "Throw light on the stumbling-blocks; fix your torch above them at such points as the architect approves. But do not burn them away." He considers himself therefore, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the "Prenoms" did not please her. There was her uncle, Mr. Soher, morose and stern. He was one of this class of people who seem to be continually looking upwards, their mind so much occupied in contemplating the upper regions that they continually stumble against the blocks which lie in life's path. He lived, partly on his income, partly on the commission which he secured as agent to a firm of agricultural implement manufacturers, and partly on the money ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... plain to the degree which is called, by unfeeling people, ugliness. They 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 something said in my presence by elder ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... tap at the door. Mrs. Cranceford had sent a negro boy with an umbrella and a lantern. The night was wild, and the slanting rain hit hard. Before he reached the house the wind puffed out his lantern, leaving him to stumble ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... quite as tired of hearing you, I dare say," was the retort. "It seems to me you always stumble when you play to the doctor, and he ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... 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, ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... her snapper and stoyte on her way, [stumble, stagger] Be't to me, be't frae me, e'en let the jad gae: Come ease or come travail, come pleasure or pain, My warst word is—'Welcome, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... accident the boys would certainly have been discovered. Just as the detective came to a position ten or fifteen feet from where they were standing, when he was in a position to see their faces by the rays cast on ahead by the flashlight, he partly turned his ankle in a stumble on the rails, and for a moment the rays of the light were directed downward. He hobbled along, raving and cursing, for a few steps and then ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... faith;" but he does know that having been ejected as a Nonconformist in 1662, he had afterwards gone over to the winning side, and he fears that "such an unstable weathercock spirit as he had manifested would stumble the work and give advantage to the adversary to speak vilifyingly of religion." No excuse can be offered for the coarse violence of Bunyan's language in this book; but it was too much the habit of the time to load a theological opponent with ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... vine, Rides Bacchus, by two champing tigers driven: Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven, Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements, Laughing they roll ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... mature or immature. Steevens is a dangerous guide for such as do not look well about them. His errors are specious: for he was a man of ingenuity: but he was often wantonly mischievous, and delighted to stumble for the mere gratification of dragging unsuspecting innocents into the mire with him. He was, in short, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... leads through a thicket. The horses stumble frequently, for the stones are loose, and the footing consequently uncertain. Crouch has a fall, and ere he can remount the lady is gone. It is useless to hurry after her, and he is proceeding slowly, when Grip, who is a little in advance, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth |
