"Totter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Charlie, still very weak and feeble, was able to totter from his room to that in which Hossein was lying. He himself knew nothing of what had passed after he fell. The conflict had, to him, been little more than a dream. Awakened from sleep by the sound ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... course of thirteen years, she had maintained the public tranquillity, which was only interrupted by the hasty and ill-concerted insurrection in the north; she was still kept in great anxiety, and felt her throne perpetually totter under her. The violent commotions excited in France and the Low Countries, as well as in Scotland, seemed in one view to secure her against any disturbance; but they served, on more reflection, to instruct her in the danger of her situation, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... 'neath my footsteps smiled Now meet my gaze no more. I stand beneath this giant oak! It was an aged tree, Hollowed by time's resistless stroke, When life was green with me. Its lofty head it proudly rears To greet the summer sky, Whilst, bending with the weight of years, I feebly totter by. And hushed are all the thousand songs That filled these branches high: Echo no more for me prolongs The woodland minstrelsy. Silence has gathered round life's hall; My friends are in the clay; I hear no more the footsteps ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... had trained others could not so much as conquer his own cravings. For he laid his hand upon the mantle, and his rash example tempted the rest to join in his enterprise of plunder. Thereupon the recess shook from its lowest foundations, and began suddenly to reel and totter. Straightway the women raised a shriek that the wicked robbers were being endured too long. Then they, who were before supposed to be half-dead or lifeless phantoms, seemed to obey the cries of the women, and, leaping suddenly up from their seats, attacked the strangers with furious ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... generally means they have come to beg. Lincott, remembering how Helling's simple courtesies had impressed him, experienced an actual disappointment. He felt his theories about the seafaring man begin to totter. However, Helling was shown into the consulting-room, and at the sight of him Lincott's disappointment vanished. He did not start up, since manifestations of surprise are amongst those things with which doctors find ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... familiar generalizations are submitted to careful analysis their whole structure begins to totter. In Cleveland about 3,700 boys leave school each year and go to work. They represent various stages of advancement from the 4th grade of the elementary school to the 4th year of the high school. They are scattered through more than 100 school buildings. ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz
... far removed from either father or mother, was kicked, and cuffed, and beaten on the naked head, with a kind of stick between a horse-rod and a cudgel, until his poor face got pale, and he was forced to totter over to a seat in order to prevent himself from fainting or falling ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... courageous daring which will live in song long after their last remnant shall have passed away. At the time when I first stepped upon these grounds the red man still grasped the sceptre which has since been wrenched from his hand. They saw the throne of their fathers beginning to totter. Their realm had attracted the cupidity of a race of strangers, and with maddening despair, they grasped their falling power; and daily grew more desperate as they became more endangered. I among the rest had now a view of this exuberant west, this great valley of ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... compare it with what we shall do to-morrow. There needs but a passing event, a thought that uses, a duty to ourselves that takes definite form, an unexpected responsibility that is suddenly made clear, for the whole organisation of our inward justice to totter and be transformed. Slow as our advance may have been, we still should find it impossible to begin life over again in the midst of many a sorrow whereof we were the involuntary cause, many a discouragement ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... drilled him at the manual of arms for about 20 minutes. Large beads of perspiration rolled down his face—he began to totter on his feet—and I gave the command "rest". He had not taken his ...
— Company 'A', corps of engineers, U.S.A., 1846-'48, in the Mexican war • Gustavus Woodson Smith
... Calabrian Bacchus has a wild-eyed beaute du diable which appeals to one's expansive moods, he already begins to totter, at seven years of age, in sour, decrepit eld. To pounce upon him at the psychological moment, to discover in whose cool and cobwebby cellar he is dreaming out his golden summer of manhood—that is what a foreigner can never, never hope to achieve, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... up at eleven, and walked there after two, and stayed till eight. There was Sir Thomas Mansel, Prior, George Granville, and Mr. Caesar,(3) and we were very merry. My head is still wrong, but I have had no formal fit, only I totter a little. I have left off snuff altogether. I have a noble roll of tobacco for grating, very good. Shall I send it to MD, if she likes that sort? My Lord Keeper and our this day's company are to dine on Saturday with George Granville, and to-morrow ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... darkey may go; A few more days, and the trouble all will end, In the field where the sugar-canes grow. A few more days for to tote the weary load,— No matter, 'twill never be light; A few more days till we totter on the road:— Then my old Kentucky ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... too, the cold shivers chasing one another up and down her back. The boy was coming toward them, coolly puffing a cigar. He did not seem to totter quite so much as before, but he was glad to sink ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... mountains, when the wind howls around the summits, and the thunder with its infinity of reverberations rattles, and bounds from crag to crag throughout the chain, seeming to make the very rocks tremble and totter, then affrighted he hears in the winds the flapping of the wings of that monstrous bird of the mountains whose age is a thousand years; in the lightnings which play over the abyss he sees the glaring eyes and waving ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... fix a certain Stint to your Cups, I allow you never to drink till your Head becomes giddy, and your Feet begin to totter. ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... Ashton-Kirk was seen to leap into the hall like a panther. There was a short, sharp blow, with all the power of the lithe body behind it; Fenton's grasp relaxed and he fell to the floor. The watchers saw Mary totter, and noted Ashton-Kirk catch her in his arms, at the same time gesturing to the nurse to bring a restorative. The nurse had vanished, and Ashton-Kirk was placing the sick girl upon a hall lounge when Nora and Scanlon hurried from the window ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... me awake at night. I'm losing flesh. That man and his poetry haunt me. I'm getting gloomy and morose. Life is beginning to pall upon me. I seem to be under the influence of a perpetual nightmare. I can't stand it much longer, Mr. Grady; my reason will totter upon its throne. Here, only this morning, he sent me a poem entitled "Lines to Hannah." Are you ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... sudden weight jolted the plank out of its position. For hardly was he safe on the turf again when he heard a sharp cry. Throwing a look behind, he saw his pursuer totter, clutch at the slipping timber, and, still clutching at it, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... o'erburdened life; Better the quick release of glorious wounds, Than the eternal taunts of galling tongues; Better the spear-head quivering in the heart, Than daily struggle against fortune's curse; Better, in manhood's muscle and high blood, To leap the gulf, than totter to its edge In poverty, dull pain, and base decay. Once more, I say,—are ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... very wet," said little Gluck; "I'll just let him in for a quarter of an hour." Round he went to the door, and opened it; and as the little gentleman walked in, there came a gust of wind through the house, that made the old chimneys totter. ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... twelve or so: his foresight had not calculated this, and the devil had already begun to cheat him. But he would go through with it now; no flinching, though his rabbit back is breaking with fatigue, and his knocked knees totter with exhaustion, and his haggard eyes swim dizzily, and his bad heart is failing him ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... of doors, triumphant in the result of my labors, while I was admiring the princely air with which little Armand helped baby to totter along the path you know, I saw a carriage coming, and tried to get them out of the way. The children tumbled into a dirty puddle, and lo! my works of art are ruined! We had to take them back and change their things. I took the little ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine. I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm I bear That seal which Rustum to my mother gave, That she might prick it on the babe she bore." He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks, And his knees totter'd, and he smote his hand Against his breast, his heavy mailed hand, That the hard iron corslet clank'd aloud; And to his heart he press'd the other hand, And in a hollow voice he spake, and said:— "Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie! If thou show this, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... This column stands on Union. I know not that it might not keep its position, if the American Union, in the mad conflict of human passions, and in the strife of parties and factions, should be broken up and destroyed. I know not that it would totter and fall to the earth, and mingle its fragments with the fragments of Liberty and the Constitution, when State should be separated from State, and faction and dismemberment obliterate for ever all the hopes ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... started pumping into the ram and cylinder, whose drain-cocks have previously been opened, and air and water issues from them; when the air has escaped they are shut off, and then the great mass of iron and steel begins to tremble and totter and moves upwards and upwards, and on nearing the limit of its journey the top of the accumulator lifts a projecting lever which has a small chain attached to it, the bottom end of the chain is attached to the steam throttle valve, and when the chain is pulled up at the top the steam is shut ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... ground seems to rock; I can barely breathe; my heart is like a bird caught in the hands of a cruel boy: it will not rest. I fear everything. I hear a whisper, 'Delay not an instant!' and it is like a furnace; 'Hasten to him! Speed!' and I seem to totter forward and drop—I think I have lost you—I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pocket knife and a piece of paper from your notebook. If I cut out a rectangular piece of paper from this sheet and mount it on a pivot or shaft at A B, I can rotate it through 180 degrees, just like a child's teeter-totter, so that X will be where Y originally was. That is in two dimensions. Now, simply add one dimension all the way round and you will have what daddy is doing with space. He does it by shoving fifty or a hundred pounds of lead ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... Invincible shuddered and seemed to totter in space, as if something, some mighty force, had struck the ship a terrific blow. The needle swung swiftly backward, reached one mile a second, ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... popular assemblies, courts of justice, magistrates of different orders, must combine to balance each other, while they exercise, sustain, or check the executive power. If any part is struck out, the fabric must totter, or fall; if any member is remiss, the others must encroach. In assemblies constituted by men of different talents, habits, and apprehensions, it were something more than human that could make them agree in every point ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... I am happy that I once more enfold you within the arms of fraternal affection. I know you are going to ask (amiable impatience!) how our parents do,—the venerable pair transmit you their blessing by me—they totter on the verge of a well-spent life, and wish only to see their children settled in the world, to depart ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... told Jaqui all that she said, but she must have used very severe language. She declared he had used her shamefully and wickedly in keeping her asleep for so long, and then wakening her to be the wife of a miserable old man just ready to totter into the grave. But she would not be his wife. She vowed she would have nothing to do with him. He had deserted her; he had treated her cruelly; and the holy father, the Pope, would look upon it in that light, and would ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... garden beyond the patio and hurriedly approached them. She heard him say something in Spanish which she did not understand. Then, all became blurred before her eyes. She felt herself begin to sway and totter—she fainted. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... said Maria Vittoria, rebelliously. "Say what you have said to me to her! Speak to her of the ignominy which will befall the King! Tell her how his cause will totter! Why talk of this to me? If she loves the King, your words will persuade her. For on my life they have nearly ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... could be strong enough to heave up solid rocks, and to make the firm ground upon which we tread, and upon which the houses are built, waver to and fro like the restless sea, so that the strongest buildings begin to totter and fall, and the bravest men run ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... occasions they even publicly expressed their sympathies and approval of this action. For nearly three years they prevented the opening of the Austrian Parliament which would have been to their prejudice. Only after the Russian Revolution, when Austria began to totter and her rulers were apprehensive lest events in Russia should have a repercussion in the Dual Monarchy, did the Czechs decide to speak out and exerted pressure to bring about the opening of the Reichsrat, where they ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... his despair appear—despite his efforts—upon his face and in the depth of his glance?—and thus made visible did they—even through their compelling intensity—cause that invisible barrier of social prejudices to totter and to break? It were difficult to say. Certain it is that Crystal's whole heart warmed to the stranger as it had never warmed before. She felt that here was a man standing before her now, whose promises would never be mere idle words, whose deeds would ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... chopped sausages, or a slice of agnello, and enjoy the delicious air that breathes from the mountains. The old cardinals descend from their gilded carriages, and, accompanied by one of their household and followed by their ever-present lackeys in harlequin liveries, totter along on foot with swollen ankles, lifting their broad red hats to the passers-by who salute them, and pausing constantly in their discourse to enforce a phrase or take a pinch of snuff. Files of scholars from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... as a young duck takes to water. And poor little Andramark found that under the circumstances kindness was the very hardest thing of all to bear. One after another great lumps rushed up his throat, and he began to tremble and totter and struggle with the ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Canal as far as the Palazzo Foscari, and enter the narrower canal, called the Rio di Ca' Foscari, at the side of that palace. Almost immediately after passing the great gateway of the Foscari courtyard, we shall see on our left, in the ruinous and time-stricken walls which totter over the water, the white curve of a circular arch covered with sculpture, and fragments of the bases of small pillars, entangled among festoons of the Erba della Madonna. I have already, in the folio plates which accompanied the first volume, partly illustrated this ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... rain descend. Think not that this is a lie of mine, when I tell you that the disturbance was so violent that no one could tell the tenth part of it: for it seemed as if the whole forest must surely be engulfed. The lady fears for her town, lest it, too, will crumble away; the walls totter, and the tower rocks so that it is on the verge of falling down. The bravest Turk would rather be a captive in Persia than be shut up within those walls. The people are so stricken with terror that they curse all their ancestors, saying: "Confounded be the man who first constructed a house in ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... moose or a buffalo is all right; but when you pitch into a man, no matter how great a scamp he is, you've got to look out. I shall kill someone some day; that's all I'm afraid of. I do hate a sneak!' And Dan brought his fist down on the table with a blow that made the lamp totter and the books skip. ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... captured. Diaz could not resist. He dared not throw the weight of his armies against them, for he must hold the south. And through the south the flame would spread despite. The people would rise. The defenses of city after city would crumple up. State after state would totter down. And at last, from every side, the victorious armies of the Revolution would close in on the City of ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... never thought I should live to say it," said Berry, "but, after what I've gone through this morning, if Planchet were to totter in this afternoon, laden with at once cheap and pretentious goods, I should ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... was an open pocket-knife; on the buck-horn handle were rudely scratched the letters SJ. It was her brother's knife; there could not be a moment's question of it, for she had often both seen and used it. But what was it that sent a chill like the chill of death through every limb, and made her totter faintly against the bank? There was something trickling down the blade as she held it up, and, even in the moonlight, she could see that it was blood. A world of misery swept with a hurricane force into her heart. Had her brother, driven to desperation ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... cannot describe the mad rush," he said. "At first it looked like dust. That must have been the spray. I could see houses going down before it like a child's play blocks set on edge in a row. As it came nearer I could see houses totter for a moment, then rise and the next moment be crushed like egg shells against ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... close by stood one of the men in diver's helmets, holding a bucket of water, from which his late executioner now laved his face. The memory of that dreadful passage returned upon him in a clap; again he saw Huish lying dead, again he seemed to himself to totter on the brink of an unplumbed eternity. With trembling hands he seized hold of the man whom he had come to slay; and his voice broke from him like that of a child among the nightmares of fever: "O! isn't there no mercy? O! what must I do to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man, doubled as if with rheumatism, and close behind him was the frightened face of the woman. An involuntary shudder passed through Nathaniel as he looked at them. They were old—so old that the man's shrivelled hands were like those of a skeleton; his giant frame seemed about to totter into ruin, his eyes were sunken until his face gave the horror of a death mask. Was it possible that these people were the father and mother of Marion—and of Neil? As he stepped to the threshold they timidly ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... groaning in their self-forged chains, bow to the great Moloch of superstition and idolatry, as to "draw tears of blood," as it were, from the eyes of her rapt and devoted listeners, hast ever marked a pale, trembling child of want totter to the door, and ask for the "crumbs that fall" from this humane society's tea-table, and heard the answer, "Begone! this is a benevolent association for the purpose of evangelizing the heathen, not to feed lazy beggars at our ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... up against the tree. Before it could get upon its four legs again, Basil had thrust it in the neck, giving full force to the blow. The blood rushed forth in a thick stream, as the jugular vein had been cut by the keen blade; and the huge brute was seen to totter in its steps, and then fall with a dull heavy sound to the earth. In a few moments the hunter had the satisfaction of perceiving that it was ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... kept mine unshaken in spite of the storm that is raging in my native land? Armed in his simplicity only, he has gone to meet the gusts of temptation; and I have lived to see the Republic, which I believed inviolable as Mother Earth herself, tremble and totter, as one after another of her rotten pillars has fallen away. God grant that we may both, in this day of our peril, be able, as then, to realize ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... air!" Mr. Marrapit staggered to the window. "I reel before this sudden assault. For nine years at ruinous cost I have supported you. Must I sell my house? Am I never to be free? Must I totter always through life with you upon my bowed back? I ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... bear within her own mind the whole horror of the secret, that oppressed it, her reason seemed to totter under the intolerable weight. She often fixed a wild and vacant look on Annette, and, when she spoke, either did not hear her, or answered from the purpose. Long fits of abstraction succeeded; Annette spoke repeatedly, but her voice seemed not to make any impression on the sense ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... bob's-worth of refined entertainment who drifts about saying, 'Yes, madam,' and all that sort of thing? Well, then that's just the thing. Topping! I knew I could rely on you, old bird. I'll get Lucille to ship her round to your address when she arrives. I fancy she's due to totter in somewhere in the next few days. Well, I must ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... snap. A sweat of agony broke out over his body. Holding his enemy helpless the invader worked his way toward the work table. They bumped against it, making the equipment totter perilously. Solinski released his grip, snatched a bottle of distilled ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West
... begin to suspect that I was fast going mad; and I believe I was. If he has followed my story with a human heart, he may excuse me of any extreme weakness, if I did at moments totter on the verge of ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... without mischief done. Again the baffled archer collects his arrows, and again he takes his station. An arrow issues forth, and takes effect on a weak side of Thomas. Symptoms of dissolution appear—the cohesion of the system is loosened—the Schoolmen begin to totter; the Stagyrite trembles; Philosophy rocks to its centre; and, before it can be seen whether time will do anything to heal their wounds, another arrow is planted in the schism of their ontology; the mighty structure heaves—reels—seems ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... shove that sends him forth betimes, to struggle amid a struggling world—may return to himself, and become all that he has ever been. But this seldom happens. He usually keeps his ground just long enough for his own ruin, and is then thrust out, with sinews all unstrung, to totter along the difficult footpath of life as he best may. Conscious of his own infirmity,—that his tempered steel and elasticity are lost,—he forever afterwards looks wistfully about him in quest of support external to himself. His ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... delivered a brilliant panegyric of the dead statesman, and his speech was eloquent and displayed great taste. He was so ill, however, from weakness of heart that he was barely able to totter to his place and to ask the indulgence of the speaker while he rested, before offering his oration. He was too sick for the sad duty imposed upon him, but he preferred to pay this last tribute to his friend. The circumstances were painful, but added a dramatic touch to the scene. ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... he cut short a storm of thanks, "if you'll be good enough to give me just one more glass of champagne, I think I'll totter home." ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... and kissed it before rushing to her father, flinging her arms about him, and helping him away, so weak and semi-paralysed by fright that he could hardly totter from the room, the colonel following to the door, and signing to the ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... unsound condition of the banks with their depreciated and fluctuating currency had created financial chaos. Overproduction of cotton goods on a credit basis, inordinate speculation, reduction of duties on importations, produced the inevitable result, and the commercial world began to totter on its foundations. The final ruin is foreshadowed in the letters of Daniel Anthony. In one to his brother ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... brilliant career. Whatever becomes of correspondents, Punch never resigns and never dies. The baton never falls from his grasp. He sits in his arm-chair, the unshaken Master of the Revels,—though thrones totter, kings abdicate, and revolutions convulse empires. Troubles may disturb his household; but thereby the public does not suffer. He still lives,—immortal in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... feeble strength gave out, the limbs began to totter, and staggering backward she cried: "Somebody ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... spots, leaped across the foot of the cliff; gray smoke rolled up, and there was a roar that rolled in confused echoes across the woods. The front of the rock seemed to totter behind the smoke, great stones splashed in the water, and flying pieces rattled among the trunks. When the vapor began to clear and she wanted to run forward Thirlwell put his hand on ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... at last, and, as if overcome by fate, began to totter silently back toward her stuffy little inferno of a cottage. It had no lofty portal, no terrific inscription of forfeited hopes—she did not understand ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... cheered. At the word given, the broadside was poured in, and, dark as it was, the effects from it were evident. Two of the midship ports of the antagonist were blown into one, and her mainmast was seen to totter, and then to fall over the side. The Aurora then set her courses, which had been hauled up, and shooting ahead, took up a raking position, while the Russian was still hampered with her wreck, and poured in grape and cannister from her upper deck carronades to impede their labours on deck, while ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... glance of stern deprecation, Andrew Fraser saw the girl totter and her head fall upon the bosom of the woman who had "sorrowed of her sorrows" in all the years of the lonely colorless infancy, childhood, and budding womanhood! The old bookworm clung to the papers as if that "documentary evidence" was an absolute guaranty, and he held it ready to proffer ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... Lands," will see that the work of the Syria Mission from 1820 to 1872 has been one of conflict with principalities and powers, and with spiritual wickedness in high and low places, but that at length the hoary fortresses are beginning to totter and fall, and there is a call for a general advance in every department of the work, and in ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... down! See where the sun sets Ere he sets, ere old age Seizeth me in the morass, Ere my toothless jaws mumble, And my useless limbs totter; While drunk with his farewell beam Hurl me,—a fiery sea Foaming still in mine eye,— Hurl me, while dazzled and reeling, Down to the gloomy ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... rehabilitate his memory, and restore to him his reputation as a man of probity, of honour, to which he is entitled. But directly I begin to think about the horrible mystery in which I am involved, my very reason seems to totter—you can understand that, can you not? I don't understand, I don't know, ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... The crews were by this time too well disciplined to become panic-stricken, and, awaiting the word of command, they presently poured in their already-prepared broadside with great effect, for the mainmast of the war-ship was seen to quiver, totter, and finally fall with a rending crash over the side remote from the Good Adventure, throwing the crew of the Spaniard ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Saracinesca, who seemed destined to outlive time. He himself had no children, no relations, no one to bear his name—he had only a beautiful young wife and much wealth, with just enough strength left to affect a gay walk when he was with her, and to totter unsteadily to his couch when he was alone, worn out with the effort of ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... his cheeks; and where does old Blondel get the preparation which makes his silver hair pass for golden? Have you ever seen Lord Hotspur get off his horse when he thinks nobody is looking? Taken out of his stirrups, his shiny boots can hardly totter up the steps of Hotspur House. He is a dashing young nobleman still as you see the back of him in Rotten Row; when you behold him on foot, what an old, old fellow! Did you ever form to yourself any idea of Dick Lacy (Dick has been Dick these sixty years) ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in being received so affectionately by his lovely niece, which was indeed more than he deserved. He simpered and pursed up his lips so that his moustache was all of a totter, and groaned and whined, not with pain, but simply ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... those rugged knife-edged ridges was so perilous, that Dale went slowly and cautiously; and when he reached each stopping-place he held on till Saxe had passed down to him. Once the boy seemed to totter as he was passing from one of the rocks to the other, over a patch of snow between them; but the firm strain upon the rope gave him support, and he reached the rock and began to ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... thread of sympathy that tied My heart to man is sundered, and I go To hold communion with the shades that glide, Wherever forests wave, or waters flow. And when my fluttering heart shall faint and fail, These limbs shall totter to some hollow cave, Where the poor Dreamer's dream shall cease. The gale Shall gather music from the wood and wave, And pour it in my dying ear; the wing Of busy zephyrs to the flowers shall go, And from them all their sweetest odors bring, To soothe, perchance, their fainting lover's ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... Earl Marshal,' the King's voice drowned Norfolk's morning greeting. He veered upon the Duke with such violence that his enormous red bulk seemed about to totter over upon the tall and bent figure. A searing pain had shot up his side, and, as he gripped it, he appeared to be furiously plucking at his dagger. He had imagined Chapuys and Marillac, the Ambassadors, coming upon guards with broken heads and sending to Paris letters over which Francis ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... all this ill-treatment. Only now and then does she tremble with a fleeting horror, and then the palaces heaped upon her totter to their very foundations. Yet are there any among us who understand ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... did his best to save the unfortunate one, but 'e could not swim. You can imagine my sensations? I was in a summer-'ouse, trembling with fright. Thunder, lightning, rain, storm, all round! Suddenly I see Fritz, pale as death, wet through, totter up the path from the lake. 'Where is Sasha?' I shriek out to 'im. And 'e shake 'is 'ead despairingly—Sasha was ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... explored as the fountain of the established teaching in society. "Men have come to speak of the revelation as somewhat long ago given and done, as if God were dead."—"The soul is not preached. The church seems to totter to its fall, almost all life extinct.—The stationariness of religion; the assumption that the age of inspiration is past; that the Bible is closed; the fear of degrading the character of Jesus by representing him as a man; indicate with sufficient clearness ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... friendship between us. You can always win a woman's heart by taking notice of her child. Then she got to letting me carry it about on my shoulder while she took her husband's dinner in to him, if he did not happen to be in the yard. And when the little thing was able to totter it would hold on to my finger, and was always content to stay with me while she was away. So it went on till the child was ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... have plenty. In the mean time, we must get a supply of those eggs we found the other day." He tried, as he spoke, to rise. With some exertion he got on his feet, but felt scarcely able to walk. Taking his stick, however, he managed to totter out of the cave. The fresh air of the early morning somewhat revived him, and, followed by Neptune, he made his way towards the curious mound in which he had found the eggs. He felt very giddy, and could scarcely drag his legs along. ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... you should never spend more than six months in their neighbourhood; in fact, if you want to keep your anthropological ideas quite firm, it is safer to let the blacks remain in inland Australia while you stay a few thousand miles away. Otherwise, your preconceived notions are almost sure to totter to their foundations; and nothing is more annoying than to have elaborately built-up, delightfully logical theories, played ninepins with by an old greybeard of a black, who apparently objects to his beliefs being classified, docketed, and pigeon-holed, ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... way, dear. By constant striving against our failing, and by constant prayer. We cannot succeed by ourselves, we should only meet with certain failure. But if we place our hand in God's hand we know that though we may stumble and totter many times, we cannot ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... hurriedly. If he had gone quietly to work it would have been different; as it was, he cleared the gulf and landed on the other side, but without throwing himself forward sufficiently to recover himself, and Ned uttered a cry of horror as he saw the lad apparently about to totter backward into the ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... said an old hag, who was just placing on her crooked shoulders her bag of pickings, and who was turning to totter off, "that Betsy Jennings desarves it—was she ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... early in the morning; totter down-stairs in a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum of a meal by the glimmer of one lamp in the deserted coffee-room; and find yourself by seven o'clock outside in a belated moonlight and a freezing chill. The mail sleigh takes you up and carries you on, and you reach the top of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... induced to invade Russia in order to keep up the succession of victories. He felt that, to be secure, he must advance; that, the moment he sought repose, his throne would begin to totter; that nothing would sustain the enthusiasm of his countrymen but new triumphs, commensurate with his greatness and fame. Some, however, dissuaded him from the undertaking, not only because it was plainly aggressive and unnecessary, but because it was impolitic. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... from under his mother's body, striding across a grassy place in the jungle. But Umboo was not as good at walking as he had thought. Even though he weighed two hundred pounds his legs were not very strong, and soon he began to totter. ...
— Umboo, the Elephant • Howard R. Garis
... bias whatsoever, the most honest and impartial consideration of which I am capable. The public has a full right to it; and this great city, a main pillar in the commercial interest of Great Britain, must totter on its base by the slightest mistake with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... place has been an eventful one to the nation. South Carolina, driven on by a few infatuated men, has made a bold effort to shake off the bonds of Union and Federal Law, and, to the minds of some in whom you and I repose the utmost confidence, a happy government seems to totter on the brink of dissolution. It is a long story, and the papers will tell you all. God grant that the impending evil may be averted, and that the moral and religious improvement of this government may ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... exquisitely charming terra-cotta busts in glass cases of the children, Louise and Alexandre Brogniart, and 1034, 1035, the original busts in plaster of Mme. Houdon and Sabine Houdon, will also be noted. Like Caffieri, Houdon was an habitue of the Francais, and in his old age would totter to the theatre supported by his servant, to calmly sleep the performance out. A favourite exponent of the suave and languishing style that appealed to the decadent tastes of the age was Antoine Pajou (1730-1809) here represented by 775, a Bacchante, and 772, Maria Leczinska as Charity. Other ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... disappointment, you know," she went on, her kind, mild eyes watering. Genevieve, who had been gazing in some astonishment at the once hot-headed, rebellious girl, sighed sympathetically. Every one knew about the Reverend Mr. Totter's death. ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... that an awful dream For one who single is and snug— With Pussy in the elbow chair, And Tray reposing on the rug?— If I must totter down the hill, 'Tis safest done without a clog— What d'ye think of that, my cat? What d'ye ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... may totter, empires crumble, All their glories cease to be; While she, Christ-like, crowns the humble, And from ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... as though not a single beam had ever been seen there. The Venn mist, which rises so suddenly, was there covering everything. There was a wall now where there had been a wide outlook before. A wall not of stone and not of bricks, but much stronger. It did not crack, it did not burst, it did not totter, it did not give way before the hammer wielded by the strongest hand. It shaped itself out of the morasses, powerful and impenetrable, and stretched from the moor up to the clouds—or was it the clouds that had lowered themselves ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... well they would one day return and embrace all the prejudices which they had combated. And when they did venture to make a stir on a little scandal, or loudly to declare war on some idol of the day,—who was beginning to totter,—they took care never to burn their boats: in case of danger they re-embarked. Whatever then might be the issue of the campaign,—when it was finished it was a long time before war would break out again: the Philistines could sleep ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... putting on of the crown, it should be well fastened, for kings' crowns are oftentimes tottering, and this is a time wherein they totter. There are two things which make kings' crowns to totter, great sins, and great commotions and troubles; take ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... these ancient catacombs, and who, in their age and infirmity, seem waiting here, to be buried themselves, are members of a curious body, called the Royal Hospital, who are the official attendants at funerals. Two of these old spectres totter away, with lighted tapers, to show the caverns of death—as unconcerned as if they were immortal. They were used as burying-places for three hundred years; and, in one part, is a large pit full of skulls and bones, said to be the sad ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... to lead her away, but after she had taken a few steps, I felt her totter; she had grown pale; her eyes were closed. I threw my arm about her, in order to support her and turned her face toward the north; the cold air striking her revived her, and she soon opened her beautiful brown ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... power of women is the most formidable power ever loosed upon earth," he declared one evening. "Thrones totter before it. Captains of industry forget their millions in its presence. Cherchez la femme! This terrible power is possessed by every dark-eyed siren in a Second Avenue boarding house, by every languishing, ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... Now then!" They each grasp a handle of the drawer and pull. "One, two, three—pull! Once more—pull! Now the third time—pull! And out she comes!" The bolt suddenly gives and the drawer drops violently to the floor, scattering its contents in every direction, while the two men totter backward and cling to each other to keep their balance. At the same moment the voices of Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Campbell make themselves heard without in vague cries of astonishment, question, and ...
— Evening Dress - Farce • W. D. Howells
... thus watched she heard a sound behind her. She turned in time to see the door pushed open, and Herman Brudenell—pale, wild, haggard, with matted hair, and blood-shot eyes, and shuddering frame—totter into ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... thou my Son? thou lyest; I never got a Parasite, a Coward. I seeke the Prince or bend in base submission! Ile seeke my grave first. Yf I needes must fall And that the fatall howre is cast of Barnavelt, Just like a strong demolishd Tower ile totter And fright the neighbour Cuntries with my murmour. My ruyns shall reach all: the valiant Soldier, Whose eies are unacquainted but with anger, Shall weep for me because I fedd and noursd him; Princes shall mourne my losse, and this unthanckfull, Forgetful Cuntry, when I sleepe in ashes, Shall ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... who carried it; then, when the regiment had taken flight, he saw him returning with his conquest in his arms. On reaching the marshal he threw the colors at his feet; opening his mouth to speak, instead of words, it was blood that came to his lips. The marshal saw him totter in his saddle, and advanced to support him, but before he had time to do so Albert had fallen; a ball had pierced his breast. The marshal sprung from his horse, but the brave young man lay dead on the standard he had just taken. The Duc d'Orleans arrived the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... weakness. Lord ROBERTS'S was cats. Achilles' was tendons. Mine is toothache (Biographers, please note). When my jaw annoys me I try to propitiate it with libations of whisky, brandy, iodine, horse-blister and patent panaceas I buy from sombreroed magicians in the Strand. If these fail I totter round to the dentist, ring the bell and run away. If the maid catches me before I can escape and turns me into the waiting-room I examine the stuffed birds and photographs of Brighton Pier until she has departed, then slither quietly down the banisters, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... not the full-grown, articulated, thoroughly accomplished periods of the world that we regard with the pity or reverence due to age, so much as those imperfect, unformed, uncertain periods which seem to totter on the verge of non-existence, to shrink from the grasp of our feeble imagination, as they crawl out of, or retire into the womb of time, of which our utmost assurance is to doubt whether they ever were or not.' And then, as usual, he passes to his own experience, and meditates on the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... helpless that all its needs must be supplied by parents, otherwise it would perish. Immediately after birth a colt or calf can walk or run almost as fast as its mother; the chick just out of its shell can run about and peck at its food. The child at one year of age can barely totter around and all of its needs must be looked after by others. Moreover, the infant at birth is practically blind and deaf and the senses of taste and smell and touch just sufficiently developed to enable ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... to his feet. "The last allusion," said he, "is unworthy of a gentleman. Totter, sir, I totter! Though some twenty years older than the gentleman, I can yet stand firm, and am yet able to correct his errors. I could take a view of the gentleman's course, which would show how consistent he has been." Mr. Clay exclaimed, angrily: "Take it, sir, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... dance and swim before the straining eyes! Oh, the meek acceptance of still further suspense! the almost piteous thankfulness that all is not yet lost, that hope is not yet abandoned! Strong men break down and add years to those they have lived. Gentle women sway and totter at last until relief comes ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... she continued, looking towards the dining-room. "They have now reached the topmost point of their enjoyment—the General asleep with a cigar in his mouth, and the Captain absorbing his quantum of cognac. Afterwards he will fill his German pipe, totter off to the billiard-room, and smoke and sleep till tea-time. Come, now, as we have a full hour before us, confess yourself. Why have you not studied for a barrister?" And she fixed her large eyes on me as if she suspected ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... is master and gentleman with his questions, suggestions, seeking in me and acting as midwife to my thought; but all illuminati and professors, all who talk down or cut our meat into morsels, will quickly be counted aunties by the vigorous boys at school. Chairs and pulpits totter to-day with a scholastic dry rot, which is inability to recognize the equality of unsophisticated man to man. There will soon be no more chair or desk; the only eminence will be that of one who can stand with feet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... yesterday's; for Lorry and Dr. Schulze and Madelene and his own awakened mind had lifted him out of the silly current notion that mankind is never going to grow any more, but will wear its present suit of social clothes forever, will always creep and totter and lisp, will never learn to walk and to talk. He was in the habit of passing Estelle's shop twice each day—early in the morning, when she was opening, again when the day's business was over; and he had often fancied he could see in ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... and the battering ram was soon placed in position, while a strong body of archers prevented the defenders showing themselves above the parapet. The wall was of far less strength than that which the Romans had before encountered, and soon began to totter before the blows of the battering ram. The Jews, indeed, were indifferent as to its fall; for they knew that the possession of the inner town was of slight importance to them, and that its fall would not greatly facilitate the attack upon what was the natural line of defense—namely, the ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... shall you hear a step in dead of night; In stillness the long rustle of my robe. So long as stand these walls I cannot leave them. Yet will I go: behold you, that stand by, A mother by her own son thrust away, Cast out—ha, ha!—in my old age, infirm, To totter and mumble in oblivion! ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... dynasties totter and empires crash, the first thing a woman thinks of when bidden to a public gathering is her attire. Iris declared most emphatically that to expect her to go ashore and meet certain military and civic dignitaries while she was wearing a costume originally purchased for ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is hardly a less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... way the ungainly marquee commenced to totter and rock far more threateningly. The wind driving into the interior flapped the roof madly. The herded humanity within feared that the whole of the canvas above them would be blown off to be carried away by the gale. The ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... music now, as the vision changed once more, and I saw a great crowd of men, each in the uniform of an officer of the United States army, clustered around one who seemed to be their chief. But while I looked, I saw one by one totter and fall, and directly I perceived that the epaulette or shoulder-strap on the shoulder of each was a great hideous yellow worm, that gnawed away the shoulder and palsied the arm and ate into the vitals. Every second, one fell and died, making frantic efforts ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... grave, unmeaning, and innocent. Yet the Boy, (see the Power of connubial Simplicity) is so pretty, so genteel, and gay-spirited, that we have made him, and design'd him, our own, ever since he could totter, and waddle. The wanton Rogue is half Air: and every Motion he acts by has a Spring, like Pamela's when she threw down the Card-table. All this Quickness, however, is temper'd by a good-natur'd Modesty: so that the wildest of his Flights are thought rather diverting ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... proudly scorn The wealth of Amalthea's horn; Nor should I ask to call the throne Of the Tartessian prince my own;[1] To totter through his train of years, The victim of declining fears. One little hour of joy to me ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... much, as may be supposed, in their individual capacities. As for Mrs. Hart, she was very quickly put out of the way. The stroke which had prostrated her, at the outset, did not seem to be one from which she could very readily recover. The only thing which she did was to totter to the room early in the morning, so as to find out how the Earl was, and then to totter hack again until the next morning. Mrs. Hart thus was incapable; and Zillah was not very much better. Since her conversation with Hilda there were ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... as it were cold tea, gives a crushing touch of disreputability to the whole affair. Add to this the fact that but half the party have seats, and that the others have to sway and totter about the car in that sudden contact with all varieties of fellow-men, to which we are accustomed in the cars, and you must allow that these poor merrymakers have reasons enough to rejoice when this part of their day's pleasure is over. They are so ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... has but thrown away the stump of a cigarette or a match not entirely extinguished near some inflammable material, and it is from no other cause than that that before long the walls of the tallest buildings totter and sway and fall, and the night is turned to a hell of burning flame. Not yet to her had come the wholesale burning, there was not yet involved in it all her nature; but something had caught fire at those few words of Lord Lindfield's; the heat and ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... prelate intended to have given them to his assistants, the priests of the King's chapel; but the monks of Saint Denis ran to him with great eagerness, exclaiming that the taper and the gold belonged to them. They threw themselves upon the Bishop, whose chair began to totter, and made his mitre fall from his head. If I had stayed there a moment longer the Bishop, with all the monks, would have fallen upon me. I descended the four steps of the altar in great haste, for I was nimble ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... As fits give vigour, just when they destroy. Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand, Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand. Consistent in our follies and our sins, Here honest Nature ends as she begins. Old politicians chew on wisdom past, And totter on in business to the last; As weak, as earnest, and as gravely out, As sober Lanesb'row dancing in the gout. Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace Has made the father of a nameless race, Shoved from the wall perhaps, or rudely pressed By ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... looks too closely. The hill that loses itself among the rocks on the sea-shore is capped and patched with just such refuse as this, but how happily the rust-colour of dying things is broken by the grey of the loose stone walls—"hedges," they call them in Cornwall—that seem to totter up the hill like old men! The mist of rain that leaves each individual plant bedraggled seems to make the red and green and grey pattern of the patched hill only more beautiful and mysterious. The truth is, winter speaks with two voices even in these early days. She ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... sunrise found him still staggering forward almost at a dog trot. The northern border mesas of the Basin were now only a short distance ahead. But already his swollen tongue was beginning to blacken in his mouth. When at last he came to the foot of the lower mesa he could barely totter. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... passed before, by stamping his feet and rubbing his legs he restored circulation sufficiently to totter across the room. Then he seized a brand and thrust it into the thatch of the house, having first put on his helmet and placed his sword and pistols in his belt. His hands were too crippled and powerless to enable him to fasten ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... the Gotham Trust and the Trust Company of the Republic were now blocks in length; and every hour one heard of runs upon new institutions. There were women wringing their hands and crying in nervous excitement; there were old people, scarcely able to totter; there were people who had risen from sick-beds, and who stood all through the day and night, shivering in the keen ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... earnestly, "this boy has made three phrases. If you don't lock him up he will certainly become a poet. He will set your precious world of sanity ablaze with the fire of his mother, the moon. Your palaces will totter, Taylor, and your kingdoms become as dust. I have ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... had begun to totter. She let herself sink upon the sofa, and re-read the letter that ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... touch the monument of a thousand ages crumbles to dust; at whose embrace empires totter to ruin, and at whose breath cities rise and sink like bursting bubbles in a pool, rolled on his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... been brought along, and Dale used one while Peleg Snuggers wielded the other. Soon the cedar commenced to totter. ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... hither and thither, holding up his eyelids with his hands, and scarcely able to totter along, while his snowy beard now fell to his knees, but found nothing except a dilapidated old chest, which he opened. It seemed empty, but as he raised the lid a voice from the bottom said: "Welcome, if you had kept me waiting much longer, I too ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... 3 Let idols totter to the ground, And their own worshippers confound; But Judah shout, but Zion sing, And earth confess her ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... raised his arms high in air. They lift their heads right back and away out of reach of blows, and make hand play through hand, inviting attack; the one nimbler of foot and confident in his youth, the other mighty in mass of limb, but his knees totter tremulous and slow, and sick panting shakes his vast frame. Many a mutual blow they deliver in vain, many an one they redouble on chest and side, sounding hollow and loud: hands play fast about ear and temple, and jawbones clash under ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... horizon, and mathematics had become the only necessary language of thought; but one could play with the toys of childhood, including Ming porcelain, salons of painting, operas and theatres, beaux-arts and Gothic architecture, theology and anarchy, in any jumble of time; or totter about with Joe Stickney, talking Greek philosophy or recent poetry, or studying "Louise" at the Opera Comique, or discussing the charm of youth and the Seine with Bay Lodge and his exquisite young wife. Paris remained Parisian in spite of change, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... telegraph wire to one side of the ladder, passed it loosely around the tree, and fastened it to the other side. Then, as the ladder was gradually raised, the wire slipped along up the tree, and when the ladder was in position it could not fall, although it might shake and totter a little. However, strong arms at the bottom held it pretty steady, and Harry was enabled to nail on his insulators with comparative ease, and in ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... Earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. But Peterborough, who had been an active soldier, courtier, and negotiator, was now broken down by years and infirmities; and those who saw him totter about the galleries of Whitehall, leaning on a stick and swathed up in flannels and plasters, comforted themselves for his defection by remarking that he had not changed his religion till he had outlived his faculties. [226] Salisbury ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ha!—why that flash of delight and terror?—that sudden suffusion of red over thy face and neck—and even now, that paleness like death! Thy heart, thy heart—why does it throb, and why do thy knees totter? Alas! it is even so; the Endymion of thy dreams, as beautiful as even thou thyself in thy purple dawn of womanhood,—he from whom thou now shrinkest, yet whom thou dreadest not to meet, is approaching, and bears in his beauty the charm that ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton |
