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More "Swear" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you for the compliment, Mistress Alice," said Chaloner; "but I think, if necessary, I could ruffle and swear with the best, or rather the worst of them. We passed for troopers very well on ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... Jerry, you can't ever know how glad I am that I met you! If I hadn't, well, I guess I'd have perished on the face of Kettle Mountain. I am plain John Westley, stopping over at Wayside, and I can swear I never before did anything so silly as to faint, only I've just had a rather tough ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... a poor coward, Messer Cosimo," said I, "to use a shadow as a screen. You know that nothing can be proved against me unless Giuliana speaks, and that she dare not for her own sake. There are witnesses who will swear that Gambara went to Fifanti's house that night. There is not one to swear that Gambara did not kill Fifanti ere he came forth again; and it is the popular belief, for his traffic with Giuliana is well-known, ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... walk at early dawn, Ere yet the sun begins to shine; At eve oft, too, the lawn we'll tread, And mark that splendid orb's decline. The fairest, choicest flowers I'll crop, To deck my lovely Mary's hair; And while I live, I vow and swear, She'll be my ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... had a fine morning with you, Mr. Hennessey, and we certainly have learned a lot," Bob said, putting out his hand. "I can't swear, though, that we could make white sugar ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... Harry," broke in Sir Humphrey, "do you think I am come love-making in such fashion, and with Ralph Drake in his cups, though I swear he fastened himself to ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... most sensible fellow, then, that I have yet met with since I have been in this neighbourhood; for everybody else is so convinced about the vampyre, that they are ready to swear ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... delighted," Micky looked puzzled. "But isn't this rather a breaking of rules? It's not so very long ago that you made me swear never to try and find out where you lived. I thought it was all ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... and their families are far higher than Distin's. There: I don't care. I was going to give up all kind of work that dirties one's hands, but now I will not, just out of spite. Dirty work, indeed! I'll swear I never looked half so dirty over my carpentering and turning and scheming as I've seen him look after a game at ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... "do you know that lovers used to meet here, and join their hands over the well, and swear they would marry each other some day? Coquette, if you would only give me your hand now! I will wait any time—I ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... not do anything which would interfere with any of the others doing what they please. For instance—and I assure you I have thought over this matter in all its details—if any of us were inclined to swear or behave disorderly, which I am sure could not be the case, he or she would not do so because he or she would feel that, being responsible to himself or herself, that responsibility would prevent him or her from doing that which would interfere with the pleasure or comfort of ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... France, Either to get the town again or die: And I, as sure as English Henry lives, And as his father here was conqueror, As sure as in this late-betrayed town Great Coeur-de-lion's heart was buried, So sure I swear to get the ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... would be to bind them by this oath to be true to their engagements. The manner of their swearing is this: they set a sheep in the midst of them, and rub it over with butter, the heads of families who are the chief in the nation lay their hands upon the head of the sheep, and swear to observe their promise. This oath (which they never violate) they explain thus: the sheep is the mother of them who swear; the butter betokens the love between the mother and the children, and an oath taken on a mother's head is sacred. Upon the security of this oath, I made them ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... whoever did that was malicious!" he said; "any one would swear, to look at it, that the axle ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... ill thing to swear with a sword in one's hand. That oath gave me strength and cooled ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... "but I could almost swear that I had known Mr. Hanson in the past. It is odd, but quite impossible," and she gave the matter ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "Either thou art a thief, or the great Gustavus himself." "Ay, friend Lars, I am the outlaw Gustavus, son of Eric. Now, wilt thou hand me over to the Danes, or smash my head against the floor, as just now thou seemedest minded?" "I will swear eternal fealty to thee," cried Lars; "and if thou raisest the standard of revolt, I will be ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... regret the step I have to take, but I am a gentleman, and, having given my word, I must keep it. No harm shall come to you, I swear it ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... quoted and criticised by our Lord, in this discourse. That commandment forbids, not chiefly profanity, but perjury; by implication it permits judicial oaths. And Jesus expressly forbids judicial oaths. "Swear not at all." I am aware that this is not the usual interpretation of these words, but I believe that it is the only meaning that the words will bear. Not to insist upon this, however, several other examples ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... not swear, for she will make you break your oath. She is your wife. She will make you forsake me, or—she will do me a fatal mischief. Oh, I shiver whenever she comes near me. Ah, if you had seen her eyes as I saw them through her mask to-night. They were lambent ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... true that I used to swear. When one lives all the time with rough men in the woods or on the rivers one gets the habit. Once I swore a good deal, and the cure, Mr. Tremblay, took me to task because I said before him that I wasn't afraid of the devil. But there is ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... moment leaving her exposed to the fire, but unflinchingly taking every bullet in his own body. So beautiful was his courage that you would not have known he was wounded until he fell dead in his tracks, literally cut to pieces. It was that sight that made me swear never to kill another moose—unless I ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... an oath to observe all these regulations when they enter upon the charge of the books. And the recipients of any book or books shall thereupon swear that they will not use the book or books for any other purpose but that of inspection or study, and that they will not take or permit to be taken it or them beyond the town and suburbs ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... the money then or perish. There was no other way. Besides, what hope had he in fighting a great corporation? He was a poor man, a stranger in this country, with no friends. The company had plenty who were willing to swear it ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... into a gem of living beauty, a creative force which makes all adjuncts secondary, like planets to their central sun. Choose some one course or calling, and master it in all its details, sleep by it, swear by it, work for it, and, if marriage crowns you, it can but add ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... Air, would I might triumph so! But, alas, my hand hath sworn Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn; Vow, alack, for youth unmeet, Youth is apt to pluck a sweet. [Do not call it sin in me That I am forsworn for thee;] Thou for whom Jove would swear Juno but an Ethiope were, And deny himself for Jove, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... men started then as if simultaneously stung and gazed at the young girl who stood silently near them. The man who had sworn began to make agitated apology: "Pardon, miss! 'Pon my soul I clean forgot you was by. 'Deed, and I wouldn't swear like that if I ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... men any too well either," he said. "They're all your grandfather's hirin'. But they're all live an' they all know the game. I won't swear as to how far you can trust any one of 'em; but you'll have to find that out for yourself as we ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... gossip, and the scandal of small colonial circles; where—pleasant predicament for those who really love women's society!—it is scarcely possible to address fair dame, preserving at the same time her reputation and your own, and if seen with her twice, all "camp" will swear it is an "affair;" where, briefly, the march of mind is at a dead halt, and the march of matter is in double quick time to the hospital or sick-quarters. Then the fatal struggle for Name, and the painful necessity of doing the most with the smallest materials for a reputation! In Europe there ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... therefrom.'' This was thought to favour the doctrine of absolute non-resistance, and accordingly the convention parliament enacted the form that has been in use since that time—"I do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty . . .'' ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... allies to treat for peace. But the Genoese were stimulated by long hatred, and intoxicated by this unexpected opportunity of revenge. Doria, calling the ambassadors into council, thus addressed them: "Ye shall obtain no peace from us, I swear to you, nor from the lord of Padua, till first we have put a curb in the mouths of those wild horses that stand upon the place of St. Mark. When they are bridled you shall have enough of peace. Take back with you your Genoese captives, for I am coming within ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... they think. Do not hope therefore to soften me by flattery. You have daughters, you say; well, I am willing to pardon you if one of your daughters will come, of her own choice, to die in your place. Do not argue with me—go! And swear that if your daughters refuse to die in your place you will come back again in ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... and Simon a swearing like troopers when they come and find all their labour lost, and that they must do all their work over again.' 'And do you think there is anything so agreeable in giving people trouble, and hearing them swear,' replied another voice, 'that you can wish to do it? For my part. I think it is so wicked a thing, that I hate to hear anybody guilty of it, much less would I be the cause of making them commit so great a sin; and as for giving them all their trouble over again, so far ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... I tell you; here have I a sprained foot, and my wind broken for a month at least. Why were you not quicker? If you had been sharper we should have had the gentleman, I'll swear!" ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... the fuse what did you waste precious seconds looking for? If I wasn't too scared to notice anything clearly I'd swear you found something and ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Hector exult crying, "Patroklos, thou didst swear that thou wouldst sack our sacred City and that thou wouldst take from our people their day of freedom. Now thou hast fallen and our City need not ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... men have always served me faithfully; I have sworn to consecrate this night to them; we drink and feast together until Aurora leads the dawn.' Seizing the hands of those nearest to him, he resumes: 'Companions, for this sacrifice swear to pursue, to hunt to death, as I shall command, the vile mob of rebels and traitors ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... came the steady answer; "to save his life I will be—your—your wife. No, wait! On these conditions. That he is set free and shown a way to safety—that I follow him in secret—and see that he is safe—and that you tell him that I am dead. Swear that to me before your gods and I will keep my promise; swear that you will tell him that ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... said that I was to blame for being under the scaffold." Thereupon he banged his fist on the table and began to swear, without ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... it belongs to your character, and therefore, to remove all diffidence from you, I swear by Styx I will do no manner of harm, either to you or your friends, for anything which you say, however offensive it may be to my love or my pride, but will send you away from my island with all marks of my friendship. Tell me now, truly, what pleasures you hope to enjoy in ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... to swear, Serena. I never swore at you before in my life. I didn't mean to this time. It just seemed to come out all of itself. Please forgive me, won't ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... give me up. I know I've been a blackguard, but I swear that's all over now. I've drawn a line right through it. I oughtn't to have let myself love you. But I couldn't help it. I couldn't, dear. You won't give me up, will you? If you'd only take me in hand, you could make what you liked of me. I'd do anything for you. Any mortal ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... be the Doge himself, Signore, for anything I know of your countenance; but I could swear at the altar you ought to be of the Senate for your sagacity! If this lady will not be burdened with many effects, and there is yet time, I might humor the tastes of the Dalmatians with certain of the articles that come from the countries ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that by the expression of his countenance. I think when a fellow has made up his mind to swear his looks give notice of what is coming. The rest of us must be on the alert and pick him off before the words get out of his mouth. And yet I am sorry to say," added Budge gravely rising to his feet, "that there is one serious drawback to ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... flows from our own sweet will, however sudden and strong, it instantly moulds itself in a novel delight, with all its familiar and domestic habits. Why, we have not been in 99 Moray Place for a week—nay, not for two days and nights—till you might swear we had been all our life a Cit, we look so like a Native. The rustic air of the Lodge has entirely left us, and all our movements are metropolitan. You see before you a Gentleman of the Old School, who knows that the eyes of the town are upon him when he seeks the open air, and who preserves, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... Topham," answered Dangerfield; "it is right to keep a man's gifts in use; and were I altogether to renounce oaths in my private discourse, how should I know how to use one when I needed it? But you hear me use none of your Papist abjurations. I swear not by the mass, or before George, or by anything that belongs to idolatry; but such downright oaths as may serve a poor Protestant gentleman, who would fain ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... gleams of the now brightly burning fire, looked awe-stricken, as if he had actually seen what he attested. "It was a'most dark, and I was coming out of my pantry when I seed it. Aye, I did, all black, and shiny, and wet, as if he were jist come out o' the water. I swear it were the nigger ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... fathers in the fire and cloud I miss'd thy face! I might in ev'ry crowd See arms like thine, and men advance, but none So near to lightning mov'd, nor so fell on. Have you observ'd how soon the nimble eye Brings th' object to conceit, and doth so vie Performance with the soul, that you would swear The act and apprehension both lodg'd there? Just so mov'd he: like shot his active hand Drew blood, ere well the foe could understand. But here I ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... and covenant was entered into, which, in 1645, extended its influence to England, being subscribed by thousands of our best citizens, with many of the nobility—'wherein we all subscribe, and each with his own hands lifted up to the Most High God, doe swear'; that being the mode of taking an oath, instead of kissing the cover of a book, as is now practiced. To the cruel and intemperate measures of Laud, and the zeal of Charles, for priestly domination over conscience, may be justly attributed the wars which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... may have brought her the trinket. This would I know. For her right leg just above the ankle was it made. Pass thou behind her as she maketh her way to Nicantor. There are fifteen steps, on one of these shalt thou overtake her. When thou hast done so, lift thou her skirt and—if she be offended, swear that thou didst it unwittingly. If she wear not the anklet, lift thy sword as though thou wouldst open a way for a priest. If it be there, make haste to tell me and a piece of gold shall be thine. I will watch thee from the base-stone ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... the satisfaction of an approving conscience. Mine approves me intensely; but I'll be hanged if I see the satisfaction of it. I feel much more inclined to swear "worse than our armies in Flanders."...So far as my private doings are concerned, I hear very satisfactory news of them. I heard from an old messmate of mine at Haslar the other day that Dr. MacWilliam, F.R.S., one of our deputy-inspectors, had been talking about one of my papers, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... heavenward the gleaming steel, "Ye Gods!" he cried, "supernal and infernal! and ye spirits and powers, shades of the mighty dead! Hear earth, and heaven, and thou Tartarus! by this good steel, by this right hand, in presence of this sacred dead, I swear, I devote Catiline and his hated head to vengeance! By this sword may he perish; may this hair be steeped in his lifeblood; may he know himself, when dying, the victim of my vengeance—may dogs eat his body—and his unburied spirit ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... to a favorable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, inflamed with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth on the throne, and liveth forever and ever, that they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert her cause, which you sustained by your labors, and cemented with your blood! ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... I swear to you, by my hopes of salvation, I will tell you all, for the Abbe Busoni himself only knew a part of my secret; but, I pray you, go away from that plane-tree. The moon is just bursting through the clouds, and there, standing where you do, and wrapped in that cloak that ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tardy knowledge and of concentrated scorn, where Strafford first begs the king to "be good to his children," and then, with a contempt that is almost sublime, implores, "Stay, sir, do not promise, do not swear!" The whole of the second scene in the fifth act is pure genius. The reader, or spectator, knows by this time that all hope is over: that Strafford, though all unaware, is betrayed and undone. It is a subtle dramatic ruse, that of Browning's representing ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... unconscious then, the stretcher bearers must have seen John when they lifted me if he had been there. Nothing was found but his glasses and we concluded another shell had burst somewhere near his body after I was carried in. Stepan, I swear to God ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... that such an inference might be drawn. But, when the affair took this darker aspect, Jaffrey's previous steps had already pledged him to those which remained. So craftily had he arranged the circumstances, that, at Clifford's trial, his cousin hardly found it necessary to swear to anything false, but only to withhold the one decisive explanation, by refraining to state what he had ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the part of its subjects, and must needs force them to comply. The contest began, and when, after a seven years' struggle, peace was declared, those who had sided with the old land found themselves homeless, and rather than swear allegiance to the new regime, abandoned their adopted country and emigrated to the wilds of Canada and the Eastern Provinces. Two results grew out of this contest: the establishment of a new and powerful nationality, and the settlement of a vast country subject to the British Crown, ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... another Marathon out to the stables, with the servants staring at us out of the back windows. I hate to have to tell it, but the sight that met our eyes in the hay-loft was honestly enough to make an archangel swear! ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... "Then I swear you in as a Deputy-Sheriff of the United States, and of this State of Kansas; and I charge you to bring in and deliver at the Sheriff's house, in this county of Elwood, Tom Williams, alive or dead, and—there's your fee, five dollars ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... lord," replied Norton, laughing, "don't you see how badly you reason? I got fifty for the mare; of this I gave your lordship twenty-five—the balance I kept myself. Of course, then, you can fairly say, or swear, if you like, that she brought you in nothing but the fair value. In fact, I kept you completely out of the transaction; but, after all, I only paid myself for the ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... could understand about business, but here was Albert bothering him about money to pay for a warrant, and these men taking all his money, and here was a trial about some lots that he sold to that fat man with curly hair, and he was afraid Albert would swear against him about that and about the county-seat, and so he wanted to get him away. And there was an awful bother about Katy and Westcott at the same time. And I wanted a changeable silk dress, and he couldn't get it for me because all his money was going to the men from Pennsylvania. But—I ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... you into the box, will you swear, that you did not see that letter, nor read it, nor have it read to you, and that you have no knowledge whatever of such a letter having been received by ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... off the assumed stupidity that had veiled the strength of his spirit, and taking up the reeking knife, exclaimed: "By this blood most pure, I swear, and I call you, O gods, to witness my oath, that I shall pursue Lucius Tarquin the Proud, his wicked wife, and all the race, with fire and sword, nor shall I permit them or any other to reign in Rome!" So saying, the knife was handed to each of the ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... in his Archaeologia Graeca, proves that the head was esteemed holy, because it was customary to swear by it, and adore as holy the sneezes that proceeded from it. And Aristotle tells us in express terms that sneezing was accounted a deity: "[Greek: Ton Ptarmon theon hegoumetha]"—Archaeol. Graec. (5th ed.), ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... kings laid siege to the capital, and a fanatical Dominican monk, Jacques Clement, having gained access to the tent of Henri III by forged letters, buried a knife in his bowels. He died in the night, having previously made his attendants swear to recognize the King of Navarre as King of France. His mother had died six months before, ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... captain, who showed some surprise at seeing it; "but I didn't believe it was here. It's not down in the charts. Here we are three hundred and fifty miles southwest of the Straits of Sunda, and the chart makes this place all open water. Well, seein's believin'; and after this I'll swear that there is such a thing as ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... so lonely that the soul of you cried in anguish? Twenty-four hours a day to think in, alone?... Perhaps I did not want to go mad from loneliness. I will tell you this much, because you have been kind. It is true that I do not love Ruth; but I swear to you, before the God of my fathers, that she shall never ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... tolerably contented for nearly four months when he took it into his head to determine on getting the whole of his eldest Brother's Estate. A new will was forged and the Colonel produced it in Court—but nobody would swear to it's being the right will except himself, and he had sworn so much that Nobody beleived him. At that moment I happened to be passing by the door of the Court, and was beckoned in by the Judge who told ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... continued Ham, "is to just swear to all I say. You'll catch on after I get started. Be sure to watch for the chance. I'll tell Fat the scheme, and if I can get Sleepy out of the house for a minute, I'll fix it up with the crowd." They were just about to enter the cabin when somewhere in the night came ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... from the great crowd gathered beneath the balcony. Much overcome, he bowed in silence to the people, and there was an instant hush over all. Then Chancellor Livingston administered the oath. Washington laid his hand upon the Bible, bowed, and said solemnly when the oath was concluded, "I swear, so help me God," and, bending reverently, kissed the book. Livingston stepped forward, and raising his hand cried, "Long live George Washington, President of the United States!" Then the cheers broke forth again, the cannon roared, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... succession, and those against it, the oath of abjuration having been demanded, the freeholders upon one side rose to go away. Upon which a very sanguine gentleman, one of their number, ran to the door to stop them, calling out with much earnestness, 'Stay, stay, my friends, and let us swear the rogues out of it!' BOSWELL. Johnson, writing of the oaths required under the Militia Bill of 1756, says:—'The frequent imposition of oaths has almost ruined the morals of this unhappy nation, and of a nation without morals it is of small importance ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... "'Yea,' said she, 'I swear it by the token of the House wherein I shall wed; by the wings of the Fowl that seeketh the Field ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... "hold y'r horses! Don't git on y'r ear, children! Keep cool, and don't spile y'r shirts. Most likely you're all t' blame. Keep cool an' swear less." ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... folded the slips of paper, placed them in a glass vase, and turning up his gold-laced sleeve drew the slips one by one, unrolled them and read them aloud. Then he straightened his sleeve and called on the priest to swear in ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... greatly struck, by this numerical inaccuracy, he tried to turn their thoughts in another direction by asking the superior if it were true that she knew no Latin. On her replying that she did not know a single word, he held the pyx before her and ordered her to swear by the holy sacrament. She resisted at first, saying loud enough for those ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and he was killed instantly. The men whose names were second, third, and fourth on the list were called out and treated likewise. The fifth man made a dash for liberty and escaped with a slight wound in the leg. All the others were then required to hold up their right hands and swear that they would never bear arms against the white people or give in court any testimony whatsoever regarding the occurrence. They were then marched off two by two and dispersed, but stray shots were fired after them as they went away. In another portion ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... is carried against the court: the Prince, in a green frock, (and I won't swear, but in a Scotch plaid waistcoat,) sat under the park-wall in his chair, and hallooed the voters on to Brentford. The Jacobites are so transported, that they are opening subscriptions for all boroughs ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... useful, which I didn't mind, And much that made me tired; But one result was undesigned; It cost me neither toil nor care: Swiftly and surely, with the ease Of drinking beer or shelling peas, War taught me how to swear. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... "They swear that no one could get to it," replied Jim. "The till is, of course, in the master's desk, and Alison was close to it—she scarcely left that part of the shop—at any rate, only to move a foot or two away, before the customer arrived whom she was to serve. ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... altogether overcome, and soon recovering himself, began to get an idea of the true state of the case. Once more he ordered the crew to go on with their cruel work, but no one would venture aloft to overhaul the whip, and Queerface showed no disposition to help them. The Don began to swear and stamp with rage, calling them all by certain uncomplimentary epithets, in which the Spanish language is so rich. The crew swore and abused him in return. In the midst of the confusion a voice hailed them through ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... damned intelligent jury, (I beg your pardon, but it's a great comfort to swear, sometimes,) that I can't humbug. But I must! I must, to-morrow!" he exclaimed, springing up from the sofa and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... you do. I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you've been doing. It's a hundred years since we've met—it may be another hundred before ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... time to hear what his patron Casaubon can allege in his defence. Instead of answering, he excuses for the most part; and when he cannot, accuses others of the same crimes. He deals with Scaliger as a modest scholar with a master. He compliments him with so much reverence that one would swear he feared him as much at least as he respected him. Scaliger will not allow Persius to have any wit; Casaubon interprets this in the mildest sense, and confesses his author was not good at turning things into a pleasant ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... me, I tell you. I think he is a beast. And, of course, if you seriously meant what you said about challenging him to a duel—I mean if there is any sense in that sort of thing-I would challenge Coleman. I swear I would. I think he's a great bluffer, anyhow. Shouldn't wonder if he would back ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... evidence (except one statement, the most important of all) is to the effect that no cotton was burning until after the Federal troops entered the city. Many Southerners in their testimony before the British and American mixed commission under examination and cross-examination swear to this; and Wade Hampton swears that he was one of the last Confederates to leave the city, and that, when he left, no cotton was afire, and he knew that it was not fired by his men. But this testimony was taken in 1872 and 1873, and may be balanced by the sworn testimony of Sherman, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... her fortune; and who most assuredly would have been adored no single moment longer, had she scarred her fair, tinted cheek with the blackthorn, or started as a heroine with a broken nose like Fielding's cherished Amelia. The Zu-Zu might rage, might sulk, might even swear all sorts of naughty Mabille oaths, most villainously pronounced, at the ascendancy of her haughty, unapproachable patrician rival—she did do all these things—but Bertie would not have been the consummate tactician, the perfect flirt, the skilled and steeled campaigner ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... speak of frays, Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies— How honorable ladies sought my love, Which I denying, they fell sick and died; I could not do withal: then I'll repent, And wish, for all that, that I had not killed them; And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell, That men should swear, I have discontinued school ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... abroad at that hour. When he passed a few cottages from time to time the windows were dark. Then they had just been putting down a lot of loose stones at several parts of the road, which caused Mr. Rosewarne to swear. "I'll bet a sovereign," said he to himself, "that old Job kept them a quarter of an hour before he opened Paddock's Gate. I believe the old fool goes to bed. Well, they've waked him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... shown him a room in his innermost soul, which seems to have stood fine and clean and unoccupied all these years awaiting just such a tender and motherly little woman; or because she has already such power over him that he hardly dares to swear lest she hear it; or for what shall ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... with the green feather ran terrified into the room and attempted to escape through the window. Bastide Grammont dragged her forth and wanted to kill her. Bancal and Colard begged him to spare her, and she had to swear an awful oath which pledged her to silence. A little later, Grammont, whose suspicions were not silenced, examined the bed also. Madeleine pretended to be asleep. He felt her twice, and then said to the mother that she must attend to getting rid of the child, ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... bring Obe the Bear, but they have now slain the great-toothed one. I saw it, I swear! They slew him easily!" He gasped for breath, then gained his feet and gave them eloquent gesture ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... and directed it to the spot. "One, two, three, four. It's the admiral, sir, and the squadron hove-to for the night. One's a line-of-battle ship, I'll swear." I examined the vessels, and agreeing with Swinburne, reported them to Mr Falcon. My watch was then over, and as soon as I was released I ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... fire burned in his eyes, he laid his flute aside, and listened for a time to the joyous shouts; then raising his right hand, he said: "Farewell, mother; you died out of despair for my defeat at Collin, but I swear to you I will revenge your death and my defeat tenfold upon my enemies when I stand before them again in battle array. Hear me, spirit of my mother, and give to your ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... what is worse, carried a whole nation blundering after him. Had you told a Frenchman so, twenty years ago, he would have thrown the dementi in your teeth; or, at least, laughed at you in scornful incredulity. They say of us that we don't know when we are beaten: they go a step further, and swear their defeats are victories. David was a part of the glory of the empire; and one might as well have said then that "Romulus" was a bad picture, as that Toulouse was a lost battle. Old-fashioned people, who believe in the Emperor, believe in the Theatre Francais, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the voice. "One touch of my hand on the lever, and you will be dropped beneath the waters, never to appear again, except dead. One only chance remains for your life, and, blackened with crime though we are, we offer you that chance. If you will swear to leave the State, never to return, we will spare you. ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... not those bells also proclaim the advent of a new resolution? I have not made one for several weeks, and it's about time. I'll swear off." ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... own Wicked Heart, with its sinful thoughts, and vain imaginations, and deep corruptions—for a man's worst foes are often those of his own household. One of these heart-foes will tempt you to tell a lie; another to swear; another to be dishonest; another to be selfish; another to be passionate; another to be unkind. But He that is for you, is greater than they that are against you. Safer than in any earthly ...
— The Cities of Refuge: or, The Name of Jesus - A Sunday book for the young • John Ross Macduff
... sure that the Sisters of Charity are women, my dear Marianne?—In a word, I swear that I asked only one thing, as I lay on that devilish, poisonous dunghill, and that was, to end the matter in the quickest possible way, that I might be no longer thought of, when—don't know why, or, rather, I know very well—in my fever, a certain ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... he said gently, "there is but one way to gain time. You say the negro is innocent. Appearances are against him. The only way to clear him is to produce the real criminal, or prove an alibi. If you, or some other white man of equal standing, could swear that the negro was in your presence last night at any hour when this crime could have taken place, it might be barely possible to prevent the lynching for the present; and when he is tried, which will probably be not later than next week, he will have every opportunity to defend himself, with you ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Hill last winter to see the ostrich-like ghost which is there, and I heard a great sweep as of hounds and horses going past me. Paddy Shea, late herd to Lord Doneraile, also would swear he saw the phantom Lord Doneraile pursuing the chase often. I have heard that James Mullaine also saw him in Wilkinson's Lawn, but have not ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... Caledonia. He has photographs of Maxime. I tried to get them away, without his knowledge, but I didn't succeed. You must not be embroiled further in this terrible affair. The best thing is for you to give the poor fellow up, and I swear to you that, for your sake, and for his—even though I believe him guilty—I will find some means of saving him. The doctor has been promised all sorts of favours if he will state that there is a suspicious case of illness on board; a ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... nice state," said Hollanden, turning to take a critical view of the painter. "What has got into you now? I swear, you are more kinds of ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... came to the cradle-side, as she lay, so small and white; "Maggie," he said, "I have killed this child, and now I am killing you! I swear by heaven, I will give it up!" Yet, like a thief, that night He stole to the shop and worked; his brow all wet with ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... morning, instead of golden sunshine, we awoke to a cloud-hung sky and floods of rain. It was one of those days when everything goes wrong; when with all your heart you wish to swear but instead you must smile and smile and keep on smiling. No one wished to break camp in the icy deluge but there were three marshes between us and the Terelche River which were bad enough in dry weather. ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... kissing it [She pauses, stifled by emotion]. Then I heard Wreford laugh, and say vultures didn't touch live bodies. And there came a voice, from somewhere, calling out: "Oh! God! I'm dying!" And Wreford began to swear at it, and I heard Hubert say: "Don't, Wreford; let the poor fellow be!" But the voice went on and on, moaning and crying out: "I'll lie here all night dying—and then I'll die!" And Wreford dragged himself along ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... any regard for you, why don't you get down on your marrow-bones and plead for a chance to make her happy? If I were in your place, and there was half a chance to win a Lottie Marsden, I would sigh like a dozen furnaces, and swear more oaths than were heard in Flanders, if it would ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... the other was addicted to swearing. The owner of the latter obtained permission for it to associate with the former, in the hope that its bad habits would be corrected; but the opposite result followed, for both learned to swear alike. This aptly illustrates the usual effect of bad company, and no young man, however strong he may imagine himself to be, can afford to be ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... the twelve masts and The Rose In Bloom at the bottom of the ocean, since her owner's niece still continued to look coldly displeased—"that's right, I can swear!" ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... they are ready to pull out one another's throats; and for commodity [349]"to squeeze blood," saith Hierom, "out of their brother's heart," defame, lie, disgrace, backbite, rail, bear false witness, swear, forswear, fight and wrangle, spend their goods, lives, fortunes, friends, undo one another, to enrich an harpy advocate, that preys upon them both, and cries Eia Socrates, Eia Xantippe; or some corrupt judge, that like the [350]kite in Aesop, while the mouse and frog fought, carried ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... courts, 'gainst me inflam'd the minds of all; And to Augustus they so spread the flame, That my glad honours chang'd to bitter woes. My soul, disdainful and disgusted, sought Refuge in death from scorn, and I became, Just as I was, unjust toward myself. By the new roots, which fix this stem, I swear, That never faith I broke to my liege lord, Who merited such honour; and of you, If any to the world indeed return, Clear he from wrong my memory, that lies Yet prostrate under envy's cruel blow." First somewhat pausing, till the mournful words Were ended, then to me ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... riding-whip to punish her; and now began a battle in good earnest. She reared and plunged, and wheeled round and round, and did all she knew to get rid of me; whilst I flogged and jerked, and screamed at her (I didn't swear, because I didn't know how), and vowed in my wicked little heart I would be killed rather than give in. During the tussle we got nearer and nearer to a certain large pond about a hundred yards from the stable gates, at ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... who tuk a mother's care av us always. "Rowl some rocks on thim by way av visitin'-kyards." We hadn't rowled more than twinty bowlders, an' the Paythans was beginnin' to swear tremenjus, whin the little orf'cer bhoy av the Tyrone shqueaks out acrost the valley:—"Fwhat the devil an' all are you doin', shpoilin' the fun for my men? Do ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... all superiors, and major-generals shrunk into pigmy corporals in comparison with him. In every faculty of body, mind, heart, and soul he was built after a large pattern. His virtues were large and his vices were not small. As Lincoln said of Seward, he could swear magnificently. His nature was versatile, and full of contradictions; sometimes exhibiting the tenderest sensibilities and sometimes none at all. Now he would be in the hospital tent bending with streaming eyes over the victims of fever, and kissing the dying ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... must be.' 'Thou hast taught me to trust in Thee; vindicate and warrant my trust by Thy unchangeableness.' So His word, His acts, and His own nature, bind God to bless and help. His faithfulness is the expression of His unchangeableness. 'Because He could swear by no greater, He ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... I've been back here since," he said almost in a whisper, "and, 'pon my word, it gives me the creeps. I swear it isn't fit for a man to live in. I never saw you look ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... drink he does not tell lies. This is his grievance, and he says that them blanketed consuls ought to know. 'They plays into each other's hands, and stops you at the Hatoba'—the policemen do. The visitor who is neither a seaman nor drunk, cannot swear to the truth of this, or indeed anything else. He moves not only among fascinating scenes and a lovely people but, as he is sure to find out before he has been a day ashore, between stormy questions. Three ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... time: he bends his ear, And waits for your request; Come, lest he rouse his wrath and swear "Ye shall not ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... over-squeamish in the case. What! eating stupid sheep a crime? No, never, sire, at any time. It rather was an act of grace, A mark of honour to their race. And as to shepherds, one may swear, The fate your majesty describes, Is recompense less full than fair For such usurpers ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... them coaliers," said old Cap'n Billy. "I don't know as I've heard Jabez swear before—not since he was mate of the Gallatin. He used ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the Arctic Ocean rolled, all right," growled Phineas Roebach. "I can swear to that. I have been here before. Something has certainly happened ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... cowardly little Humbug who's all suavity in society, but who makes his home a hell—who vents upon the hapless heads of wife and children the ill-nature he would like to inflict on his fellow-men, but dares not. I can forgive much in that fellow mortal who would rather make men swear than women weep; who would rather have the hate of the whole he-world than the contempt of his wife —who would rather call anger to the eyes of a king than fear to the ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... tea in the study. We had an awful lot of trouble getting permission. It's hard enough entertaining fathers and grandfathers, but uncles are a step worse; and as for brothers and cousins, they are next to impossible. Julia had to swear that he was her uncle before a notary public and then have the county clerk's certificate attached. (Don't I know a lot of law?) And even then I doubt if we could have had our tea if the Dean had chanced to see how youngish ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... There must be one in whose hands all power is concentrated, and who rules over the country in the emperor's name. You must fill this position, Andreas Hofer. The authorities and the people of Innspruck elect you the emperor's lieutenant. You shall govern the country in his name, and we will all swear to you obedience, ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... should go away from him again. How changed they were! How sad they looked!... No matter! They were together once more: everything was lit up, the infirmary, the school, the gloomy day: they clung to each other, they would never let each other go. Before she had said a word he made her swear that she would not go away again. He had no need to make her swear: no, she would never go away again: they had been too unhappy away from each other: their mother was right: anything was better than being parted. Even poverty, even death, so only ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... not listen,' my friend declared, 'They will only swear at you.' This was not very encouraging, but it was not far from the truth as to the public ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... moon; the Balance lingers behind to weigh the destinies of the heroes who are to contend with the dawn; while Venus, peeping from her tower over Mt. Sanneen, is sending love vibrations to all. I would tell thee more if I knew. But I swear to thee I never read through the hornbook of the heavens. But if I can not name and locate more of the stars, I can tell thee this about them all: they are the embers of certainty eternally glowing in ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... May Margaret, As yet you swear to me, Then where's that proud, cold heart of yours That sent your love to sea? Ah, me! that heart is broken, The proud, cold heart has bled For one light word outspoken, For all the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... Mamelukes, after being for seven years volunteers in the legion of Mirabeau, under the Prince de Conde. It were to be wished that the whole of this favourite corps were composed of returned emigrants. I am sure they would never betray the confidence of Napoleon, but they would also never swear allegiance ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... shelter'd me. My noble sire Fell through his consort's guilt,—she by her son; On him alone the hope of Atreus' race Doth now repose. Oh, with pure heart, pure hand, Let me depart to purify our house. Yes, thou wilt keep thy promise; thou didst swear, That were a safe return provided me, I should be free to go. The hour is come. A king doth never grant like common men, Merely to gain a respite from petition; Nor promise what he hopes will ne'er be claim'd. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... one of the king's sons. Her husband was the high priest Jehoiada, and he secreted his nephew for six years in the precincts of the temple; at the end of that time, he won over the captains of the royal guard, bribed a section of the troops, and caused them to swear fealty to the child as their legitimate sovereign. Athaliah, hastening to discover the cause of the uproar, was assassinated. Mattan, chief priest of Baal, shared her fate; and Jehoiada at once restored to Jahveh the preeminence which the gods of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the Arsenal and we took this native because, after infinite jabbering, he declared he knew it. But instead of taking us about a mile along the quay he landed us in Place Mahomet Ali, miles off. He was a beast this guide, ready to swear he knew everything, a filthy, thick-lipped pimp who offered his good services again when night came. "Sir will have a fine evening to-day," he began, then detailed all the beauties he was to show us, in spite of our violently swearing at him and his ancestors for ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... a good use for three hundred dollars right now," Walter said. "Let me have it and I'll quit Lamb's to work for you. Don't let me have it and I SWEAR I won't!" ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... quickly, "the major is ever preaching morality to the youngsters, but he is a sly fellow in the main. Do you observe how fond he is of the cross roads above this valley? Now, if I were to halt the troops twice in the same place, you would all swear there was ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... advised I am of opinion that the parish in which the child was found is bound to maintain him. If Mr. Doll (a highly respectable person, my own cheesemonger) found the child beyond the boundaries of St. Simon Magus—and he will of course swear that he did—you cannot refuse to take it in. However, I had better ascertain the facts from Mr. Doll and take the opinion of counsel. Meanwhile we must beware not to compromise ourselves by admitting anything, or doing anything equivalent to ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... any person in the world apart from herself: in case of her being already dead before me, the box and all its contents should be burnt without opening or disturbing anything. And lest anyone should plead ignorance of the contents, I swear by the God I worship and by all that is most sacred that no untruth is here asserted. If anyone should contravene my wishes that are just and reasonable in this matter, I charge their conscience therewith in discharging my own in this world and the next, protesting ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... way," said he, at last; "but is it necessarily so? You can testify that you were in Hazelhurst at that time, and legally, that's the same thing as saying that Brassfield was—I guess; and I'll swear to it, too; and if they aren't too searching on cross-examination, we may slide through—but there'll be some ticklish spots. I'll see Mr. Edgington, and find out just how strong a fabric of perjury we've got to go against. We may have to get more witnesses—and ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... leave them half dead. Others would tell of stealing horses, cattle, sheep, and slaves; and when they would be sometimes apprehended, by the aid of their friends, they would break jail. But they could most generally find enough to swear them clear of any kind of villany. They seemed to take great delight in telling of their exploits in robbery. There was a regular combination of them who had determined to resist law, wherever they went, ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... it was super-heated steam and you could see the sinners who were in range fairly sizzle and parboil and shrivel up. There was no give in Doc; no compromises with creditors; no fire sales. He wasn't one of those elders who would let a fellow dance the lancers if he'd swear off on waltzing; or tell him it was all right to play whist in the parlor if he'd give up penny-ante at the Dutchman's; or wink at his smoking if ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... in bed for half an hour and enthusiastically concentrate on this beautiful new scheme of the right tone. You rise, and because you don't achieve a proper elegance of necktie at the first knotting, you frown and swear and clench your teeth! There is a symptom of the wrong attitude towards your environment. You are awake, but your brain isn't. It is in such a symptom that you may judge yourself. And not a trifling symptom either! If you will frown at a necktie, if you will use ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... failure. Of all those present the only individuals he could swear to were his own personal little playmates with whom he had sported in other surroundings. There was Lord Belpher, for instance, eyeing him with a hostility that could hardly be called veiled. There was Lord Marshmoreton at the head of the table, listening glumly ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... galley-slave must die where he is chained. This was a horrible situation for me. The old man shivered with ague the whole day, he swore and gnashed his teeth. He was unbearable with his continual curses on the Blessed Virgin, which he always uttered in Hungarian. Why did he not swear in Spanish? It sounds so fine, and then the rest would have understood; and why should he swear at the Madonna? I could not put up with it—there were plenty of other saints he could have maligned; it is not the thing for an educated man, a gentleman, to speak ill of the ladies. ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... housekeeper entered, accompanied by two boys. The Judge announced to her his determination to take the little Sara, as well as the effects of her deceased father, under his care. At mention of the last word, the woman began to fume and swear, and the Judge was obliged to compel her to silence by severe threats. He then sent one of the boys for the proprietor of the house, and after he had in his presence taken all measures for the security of the effects of the deceased, he took the little Sara in his arms, wrapped her in his cloak, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... nature, and colour; it is in four pieces wrought round, joined together artificially, and clefted as it were in the middle, with a dog's head, the teeth standing outward; it is esteemed by the inhabitants so powerful a relic, that no man dares swear falsely when it is laid before him: it bears the marks of some severe blows, as if made with an iron hammer; for a certain man, as it is said, endeavouring to break the collar for the sake of the gold, experienced the divine vengeance, was deprived of his eyesight, and lingered ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... later he was like a wolf or a fox, and walked about without rest, looking and listening. Soon he said he must leave before daylight when it is dark and stillest. And then he seemed to suspect that I be not true to him. He looked at me so strange that I am frightened. I swear to him that I love him, his own Tonia. Last of all he said I must prove to him I am true. He thinks that even now men are waiting to kill him as he rides from my house. To escape he says he will ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... release you?" he said savagely. "No, I will not! Neither now, nor at any future time. You're mine! Do you understand what that means? It means if you'd one day left to live, it would be my day—one night, mine! And I swear to you if any man takes you from me I'll kill him first and you after. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... that Phoebus Apollo bestowed on him. He of good intent made harangue and spake amid them: "Achilles, dear to Zeus, thou biddest me tell the wrath of Apollo, the king that smiteth afar. Therefore will I speak; but do thou make covenant with me, and swear that verily with all thy heart thou wilt aid me both by word and deed. For of a truth I deem that I shall provoke one that ruleth all the Argives with might, and whom the Achaians obey. For a king is more of might when he is wroth with a meaner man; even though for the one day he swallow his anger, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... And pull'd her to me; O, you spoil my band, You hurt me, sir; pray, let me go, quoth she. I'm glad, quoth I, that you have found your tongue, And still my love I by the finger wrung. I ask'd her if she lov'd me; she said, No. I bad her swear; she straight calls for a book; Nay then, thought I, 'tis time to let her go, I eas'd my knee, and from her cast a look. She leaves me wond'ring at these strange affairs, And like the wind she trips me up the stairs. I left the room below, and up I went, Finding her thrown upon her wanton bed: ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Blast your eyes! I'd kick you out of the army if you'd let me search her; but it's my military duty to swear at you. [To GERTRUDE.] Colonel West has sacrificed his ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... security to the amount of five times the sum; a lesson to those warlike times, that commerce and credit are the links of the society of nations. It had been stipulated in the treaty, that the French captives should swear never to bear arms against the person of their conqueror; but the ungenerous restraint was abolished by Bajazet himself. "I despise," said he to the heir of Burgundy, "thy oaths and thy arms. Thou art young, and mayest be ambitious of effacing the disgrace or misfortune ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... not "swear at the postman" when I saw another letter from you. And I hope you will not "swear" at me when I tell you that I cannot think of leaving home at present, even to have the pleasure of joining you at Harrogate, but I am obliged to you for thinking ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... rough men, from whose contaminating touch society gathers up her silken skirts and passes by upon the other side; unlovely men, rolled-sleeved and open-throated, deep-seamed of face, and richly weather-tanned of arm, who tread roughshod the laws of little right and wrong; who drink red liquor and swear lurid oaths and loud; but who, shoulder to shoulder, redden the gutters of Singapore with their hearts' blood in the snatching of a young girl ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... and more miserable in spirit, I flew up Carl Johann. I began to swear out aloud, troubling myself not a whit as to whether any one heard me or not. Arrived at Parliament House, just near the first trees, I suddenly, by some association of ideas, bethought myself of a young artist I knew, a stripling I had once saved from an assault in the Tivoli, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... plan was well thought out,' said Rachieff, as he smiled in derision at its failure. 'Paul Somaloff, you have broken your oath to the Czar, and I swear you ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... would allow of no cages, no collars, no fetters, but left the creatures free to come and go as they liked, that contented them, and they came; but they didn't go, to any extent, and so they were a marvelous nuisance, and made Jacques d'Arc swear a good deal; but his wife said God gave the child the instinct, and knew what He was doing when He did it, therefore it must have its course; it would be no sound prudence to meddle with His affairs when no invitation ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... crimes; but they sometimes also achieved illustrious deeds, which angels might look down from their exalted abodes and admire. We are not deluded with mockeries. The woman I love, and the man to whom I swear eternal friendship, are as much realities as myself. If I relieve the poor, and assist the progress of genius and virtuous designs struggling with fearful discouragements, I do something upon the success of which I may safely congratulate myself. If I devote my energies to enlighten my ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... on crossed stakes, and poured water into it. I narrowly watched his motions, and listened attentively to his observations, for we had employed an Indian mainly that I might have an opportunity to study his ways. I heard him swear once mildly, during this operation, about his knife being as dull as a hoe,—an accomplishment which he owed to his intercourse with the whites; and he remarked, "We ought to have some tea before we start; we shall be hungry before ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... uglier," he asked Kathleen, "the picture or the original? Fire away, mother, and tell Miss O'Connor every detail of my life. Cut my first tooth when I was seven days old; spoke—or did I swear—at three months, fought my first fight on my first birthday, and I've ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age! What strikes one so forcibly about him is that he didn't somehow quite expect it ever, at any rate, not at all like this. Banghurst is about everywhere, the energetic M.C. of his great little catch, and I swear he will have every one down on his lawn there before he has finished with the engine; he had bagged the prime minister yesterday, and he, bless his heart! didn't look particularly outsize, on the very first occasion. ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... against him could scarcely be avoided. He had struck Capperne down after a violent dispute in which the Australian, accused of sharping, had given him the lie, and Capperne's friends, the only witnesses of the fracas, were prepared, if Capperne died, to swear away Druro's life and liberty. As it was, they moved heaven and earth to have him put under arrest—"in case of accidents"—but their efforts were crowned with neither appreciation nor success, and Druro went about much as usual, careless, ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... another cent! Honest, I haven't!" old Jake cried hysterically. "I swear to God, I ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... for law or mercy either? Is this the way men act by the League? Did we not swear to send no more feud letters, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of censures of the Act.— All who would entertain such hostile thought Would swear that black is white, that night is day. No honest man will join a reckless crew Who'd overthrow their country ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... dragon's? It is the automatic fellow,—Me—Number-Two of our dual personality,—who does these things, who forgets the message Me—Number—One sends down to him from the cerebral convolutions, and substitutes a wrong word for the right one. I suppose Me—Number—Two will "sass back," and swear that "giant's" was the message which came down from headquarters. He is always doing the wrong thing and excusing himself. Who blows out the gas instead of shutting it off? Who puts the key in the desk and fastens it tight ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... own way,' I said, 'but I wouldn't chance her. She's known to a lot of jockey-boys and hangers-on. They could swear to that white patch on ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... be half Injin hisself," came the decided answer. "Thornton didn't swear to no lie when he knew he ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... treated by him with as much tenderness as his own children. He used to say that he could not endure the pain of seeing that she was not free. He was a man of great truthfulness; nobody ever heard him swear or speak ill of any one; his ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... the author of A Midsummer's Dream wrote a number of other plays of considerable merit. This I challenge, the more especially as those who swear by Mr. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE candidly admit that his name is a deterrent rather than an attraction on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... cheerfully to the place where the people were assembled. Upon his entering it, a voice from heaven was heard by many: "Polycarp, be courageous, and act manfully."[9] He was led directly to the tribunal of the proconsul, who exhorted him to respect his own age, to swear by the genius of Caesar, and to say: "Take away the impious," meaning the Christians. The saint turning towards the people in the pit, said, with a stern countenance: "Exterminate the wicked," meaning by this expression either a wish that they might cease to be wicked by ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... Greeks, who are plausible rascals,—with all the Turkish vices, without their courage. However, some are brave, and all are beautiful, very much resembling the busts of Alcibiades;—the women not quite so handsome. I can swear in Turkish; but, except one horrible oath, and "pimp," and "bread," and "water," I have got no great vocabulary in that language. They are extremely polite to strangers of any rank, properly protected; ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... and Aristogeiton. At Athens and Sparta there is an apparent contradiction about them. For at times they are encouraged, and then the lover is allowed to play all sorts of fantastic tricks; he may swear and forswear himself (and 'at lovers' perjuries they say Jove laughs'); he may be a servant, and lie on a mat at the door of his love, without any loss of character; but there are also times when elders look grave and guard their young relations, and personal remarks are made. The truth is ...
— Symposium • Plato
... hope he doesn't give in," retorted Cleopatra, "for I swear by all my auburn locks that that was the very worst bit of injustice ever perpetrated. Mr. Shakespeare confided to me one night, at one of Mrs. Caesar's card-parties, that he regarded that as the biggest joke he ever wrote, and Judge Blackstone observed to Antony that the decision ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... And yet, I swear, it angers me to see How this fool passion gulls deg. men potently; deg.134 Being, in truth, but a diseased unrest, 135 And an unnatural overheat at best. How they are full of languor and distress ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... my Noodle, I am wondrous sick; For, though I love the gentle Huncamunca, Yet at the thought of marriage I grow pale: For, oh!—[1] but swear thou'lt keep it ever secret, I will unfold a tale will make ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... "I swear by all that's holy that you are really my wife. The marriage was a valid one. No law can break it. The banns were published in the village church. All the villagers heard them. Wiggins kept himself shut up so that he knew nothing about it. The clergyman is the vicar of Dalton—the ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, to faithfully support the Constitution of the United States, and of the State of New ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... swear," added Eurie. "I haven't heard an oath this morning, and I have roamed around everywhere. I must say Chautauqua will bear off the palm for getting together a most respectable-looking, well-behaved ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... house, obviously—nay, blatantly—the residence of the principal citizen, whom it had grown to resemble, as is the impish habit of houses; and it sat in the middle of its flat acre of snowy lawn like a rich, fat man enraged and sitting straight up in bed to swear. ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... without belief! Look, gracious lord, they stabbed de Fourcy to death and tried to cast the guilt upon my follower! By God! they stabbed him like an ox, and then they came to you, lord, for vengeance and retribution! Who will swear then, that they did not lie to Jurand before, and now do the same to you, lord?... I know not, I know not where Danusia is but I challenged him, because, even if I were to lose my life, I prefer death to life without my love, without the one who is ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... horses. In one case a subtle variant of this game inspired two small urchins to what was, perhaps, as good an imaginative effort as I have met with in the village. The horse, instead of being frisky, was being slow, so that the driver had to swear at him. And most vindictive and raucous was the infant voice that I heard saying, "Git up, you blasted lazy cart-'orse!" Other animals are sometimes represented. With a realistic grunt, a little boy, beaming all over his face, said to his companion, "Now I'll be your ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... now, show us how very little help and sympathy a wounded conscience can get from its fellows. The conspirators turn upon each other as soon as the detectives are amongst them, and there is always one of them ready to go into the witness-box and swear away the lives of the others to save his own neck. Wolves tear sick ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... music. None the less, since there is come This stroke upon me, I must not be dumb, But speak perforce... And there will I begin Where thou beganst, as though to strip my sin Naked, and I not speak a word! Dost see This sunlight and this earth? I swear to thee There dwelleth not in these one man—deny All that thou wilt!—more pure of sin than I. Two things I know on earth: God's worship first; Next to win friends about me, few, that thirst To hold them clean of all unrighteousness. ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... a series of 7-page articles for the Atlantic at $20 a page; but as they do not pay anybody else as much as that, I do not complain (though at the same time I do swear that I am not content.) However the awful respectability ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Sturtevant sisters, the one a wit, the other a beauty. Heaven was not grudging with gifts to these two. Alice, the wit, had also a hidden kind of beauty which was not to be taken in on first sight, but which, perceived by the painters of that set, made some of them swear that she was the real beauty of the two. Matilda, the beauty, had if not wit a sprightly feminine fancy. Then, too, her gentleness of judgment, her sweetness of intention, and her illogic of loyalty, gave her point of ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... in pieces." "But you would not do anything to him, truly?" "Truly." "Well, if you will give me your promise by St. John not to harm him, I will show you a live man." "Oh! just see! A man here! Yes, yes, mamma, show him to us at once. We swear by St. John! we will not touch a hair of his head." Then their mother opened the chest and made Lionbruno come forth. If you had heard the winds then! They puffed and blowed around him and asked him, first of all, how he had come to that place, where no living soul had ever penetrated. Lionbruno ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... wonder that they brought their last letters to him before they went into the trenches? Is it any wonder that they asked him for a little prayer service one night before they went into the trenches? Is it any wonder that they love him and swear ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... Lively vehemently: "I won't bear it. You might as well tell me that I don't see you this minute. There never was anything in this world that makes me so tearing mad as to be contradicted about something that I perfectly well know. I'd go into any court and swear that I put that money in your purse; and I don't want to hear any more of your insinuations. Do you think I've stolen the money? You've lost it out of the purse—that's all there is about it. This house has no more been entered ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... it. I fairly hate the man. Almost all of the other fellows will stand his abuse, but it riles me, I tell you. I think he is a beast. And, of course, if you seriously meant what you said about challenging him to a duel—I mean if there is any sense in that sort of thing-I would challenge Coleman. I swear I would. I think he's a great bluffer, anyhow. Shouldn't wonder if he would back out. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... seized by ruffians, locked in, and expects to be murdered, which he knows that he cannot stand, for he is timid by nature. In fact, a ruffian puts a pistol to La Motte's breast with one hand, while with the other he drags along a beautiful girl of eighteen. "Swear that you will convey this girl where I may never see her more," exclaims the bully, and La Motte, with the young lady, is taken back to his carriage. "If you return within an hour you will be welcomed with a brace of bullets," is ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... all right; I—I have thought of something else," stammered Saurin. "Don't mind me—I'm knocked over by asking a favour and being refused; that's all. I shall be all right directly. Only swear you will never say a word to anyone about it. I tell you I have thought of a way to silence that villain Slam, and I will go and see him the first chance. It will be all right if you only hold your tongue. And now ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... beams above, the warmth below; The cock, that of his flesh was ever free, Sung merrier than the mermaid in the sea: And so befell, that as he cast his eye Among the coleworts on a butterfly, 580 He saw false Reynard where he lay full low: I need not swear he had no list to crow: But cried cock, cock, and gave a sudden start, As sore dismay'd, and frighted at his heart: For birds and beasts, inform'd by nature, know Kinds opposite to theirs, and fly their foe; So Chanticleer, who never saw a fox, Yet shunn'd him as a sailor shuns ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... all—concluding that "a tinker is his own master, a scholar is not." Poor Slingsby had been driven off the road by the great Flaming Tinman, "Black Jack," whose clan name was Anselo Herne, who, thrusting a Bible into Slingsby's mouth, forced him to swear his Bible oath that he would surrender his beat. Here was a truly picturesque situation after Borrow's own taste, and, no doubt with a joyful heart, he paid Slingsby five pounds ten shillings for his tinker's outfit, bought a wagoner's frock from the landlady, and felt ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... companionship. I stopped behind his chair, but he thought I had passed, and in reply to one of the players answered: "Known him for years; he's set me right many a time. When I broke my right femur 'chasin,' he got me back in the saddle in six weeks. All my people swear by him." ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... pretty night. Drew and Bard went through that gang. It sounds like a nice fairy-story, all right, but I know old fellers who'll swear it's true. They killed three of the men with their guns; they knifed another one, an' they killed Riley with their bare hands. It wasn't no pretty sight to see—the inside of that house. And last of all they got ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... so that she will go beyond the wall of Asgard," said the Giant. "If she goes outside of the wall I shall get the apples from her. Swear by the World-Tree that thou wilt lure Iduna beyond the wall of Asgard. Swear it, Loki, and I shall ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... got so far in the course of his speech, when the faithful Sancho could restrain his admiration for his master no longer. Brimming over with enthusiasm, he burst out: "Is it possible there is any one in the world who will dare to say and swear that this master of mine is a madman? Tell me, gentlemen shepherds, is there a village priest, be he ever so wise or learned, who could say what my master has said; or is there a knight errant, whatever renown he may have as a man ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... propose," began Captain Duquesne, "is that every man in the fort shall swear allegiance to King George the Third and submit to our rule. If this can be done we can assure you that you may live in peace and retain ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... the spies swear that when the doom of destruction fell upon Jericho, she and her father and mother and all her relations-in-law should be saved, and then she let them down from the window of her house, which was very conveniently built upon the town wall, with ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... am speaking, not of the frequency or continuance, but only of the intensity of such pleasures, and this is given them by contrast with the pain or sickness of body which precedes them. Their morbid nature is illustrated by the lesser instances of itching and scratching, respecting which I swear that I cannot tell whether they are a pleasure or a pain. (1) Some of these arise out of a transition from one state of the body to another, as from cold to hot; (2) others are caused by the contrast of an internal pain and an external pleasure in the body: sometimes the feeling of ...
— Philebus • Plato
... various colonies, the dictator carried in constitutional form a law, which he moreover —doubtless in order to secure amnesty to the burgesses for the breach of their military oath—caused every individual member of the community to swear to, and then had it deposited in a temple under the charge and custody of two magistrates specially appointed from the plebs for the purpose, the two "house-masters" (-aediles-). This law placed by the side of the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... in the ground. The animal is the novice and probationer of a more advanced order. The men, though young, having tasted the first drop from the cup of thought, are already dissipated: the maples and ferns are still uncorrupt; yet no doubt, when they come to consciousness, they too will curse and swear. Flowers so strictly belong to youth, that we adult men soon come to feel, that their beautiful generations concern not us: we have had our day; now let the children have theirs. The flowers jilt us, and we are old bachelors with our ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... atchievements; nor his toils Thee, Polydectes, mov'd; who rul'd the isle, The paltry isle, Seriphus; stubborn still, Inexorable hatred thou maintain'st: Endless against him burns thy rage unjust. Nay, from his true deserts, thou would'st detract; And swear'st Medusa's death a fiction form'd. Then Perseus;—"thus if true I speak, or no, "Experience. Close, my friends, your eyes!"—as forth, He held the Gorgon;—bloodless stood the face Of Polydectes, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... upon the evil house of Tarquin. And when her father and her' husband sat silent for grief and fear, Brutus drew the knife wherewith she slew herself from the wound, and held it before him dripping with blood, and cried aloud, "By this blood I swear, calling the Gods to witness, that I will pursue with fire and sword and with all other means of destruction Tarquin the Proud, with his accursed wife and all his race; and that I will suffer no man hereafter ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... your hands and your hearts, while we draw The bright sword of right, on the charter of law;— Here the record was writ by our fathers, and here, To keep, with the sword, that old record, we swear. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... fast enough," said the man with a hoarse chuckle. "Yah! There's no fight in them. They'll chatter and jabber a bit, and their skipper'll swear he'll do all sorts o' things, but you stick to the boat as soon as your lads ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... some words that had not been torn off. He read them with growing amazement. "... aves of Titan. I swear this to be the true and correct place of concealment of ... may he who comes to possess it do much good and penance, for it is drenched in blood and ... Captain ...
— Loot of the Void • Edwin K. Sloat
... not told what became of my brothers and sisters. One rainy day, when we were eight weeks old, Jenkins, followed by two or three of his ragged, dirty children, came into the stable and looked at us. Then he began to swear because we were so ugly, and said if we had been good-looking, he might have sold some of us. Mother watched him anxiously, and fearing some danger to her puppies, ran and jumped in the middle of us, and looked pleadingly ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... day in the mother church in place of the supreme pontiff, and although he was not a bishop, but merely a Cardinal Priest, he used pontifical insignia." A Metropolitan in his oath of loyalty to the Pope was made to swear that he would treat with all honour the Roman legates in their coming and going, and would help them in their needs; and the procuration or maintenance from all countries which they not only visited, but merely passed through, was arbitrarily assessed. Innocent ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... came to the banks in the course of the day's business, and neither teller could swear that he actually remembered giving the money to Mr. Morrell; yet because the checks were signed in his name, and apparently in his handwriting, they both 'thought' it must have been Mr. Morrell ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... called me." "Ho, ho!" said Death, "not by the baptismal font, but by his sins, is every one called in this country; and, with your permission, master Pettifogger, the names of your sins are those which shall stick to you henceforth for ever." "Hey," said the Pettifogger, "I swear by the Devil that I will make you smart for this. Though you are empowered to kill me, you have no authority to bestow nicknames upon me. I will file a complaint against you for defamation, and another for false imprisonment, against ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... it, would become her husband, and that it would be her duty to look after his wine, and his old shoes, and his old hat, and to have her own little possessions doled out to her by his penuriousness. Though she continued to swear to herself that heaven and earth together should never make her become Herr Steinmarc's wife, yet at the same time she continued to bemoan the certainty of her coming fate. If they were both against her—both, with the Lord on their sides—how could she stand ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... "Ah swear to you, Sydney, Ah haven't any idea what he means, but he harps on it, and he sent me a challenge, as Ah suppose you know, or you ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... G. Lord did a work worthy of mention in the formation of the Radical Reform Christian Association, for young men and boys, taking their pledge to neither swear, use tobacco nor drink intoxicating liquors. A friend ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... which they are sworn and received as kings, and on it must be sworn all those that shall come after them; and in case such a horse dies they put another in its place. If any king does not wish to be sworn on horseback, they swear him on an elephant, which they keep and treat with ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... relieved. After a moment's pause, he asked, with evident anxiety, "Will you swear ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... stories in deep, rumbly voices. And nearly always they were stories of the Tiger—"yer gran'pap, leetle missey," they would say. And then, by palms, and pearls, and the fires of blazing mountains, they would swear "He wor a man!" ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... any, great or small, prince or pauper, harm so much as a hair of this fair head, by the great God who wields His Axe over the universe and sits in the highest Halls of Judgment, whose servant I am—I, Gottfried Gottfried, swear that he shall taste the vengeance of the Red Axe and drink to the dregs the cup of agony in ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe, And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.— But room, fairy, ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... The peace of the town is still but partially in the hands of its magistrates, and the riotous student is amenable only to university jurisdiction. Within the memory of living men the chief magistrate of the city on his entrance into office was bound to swear in a humiliating ceremony not to violate the privileges of the great academical body which reigned supreme ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... skulked by Bald Mountain. We were seven. And of the seven I alone was to take the blame. They would swear ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... might perhaps have instituted inquiries into his father's death which would have caused trouble, and which might even, by some wholly unforeseen accident, have revealed the whole truth to Greif himself. No one could tell what witnesses were still alive to swear to the identity of her who had been the wife of both. There must necessarily have been foul play in procuring the false papers upon which she had contracted her second marriage, and she assuredly could not have forged them alone. It was highly probable that some former ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... man, "that's all right. Don't apologize, Boy, whatever you do. D'yer know what I came over hyar fer?" he asked suddenly reaching out a crabbed hand. "Well, I'll tell ye. I've be'n lookin' f'r years f'r a white man that I c'd swear off to. Not one of these pink-gilled preachers but a man that would shake hands with me on the squar' and hold me to it. Now, Boy, I like you—will ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... give sech heavy cakes ez them a start, I tell ye wut. But even ef they caird the day, there would n't be no endurin' To stand upon a platform with sech critters ez Van Buren;— An' his son John, tu, I can't think how thet air chap should dare To speak ez he doos; wy, they say he used to cuss an' swear! I spose he never read the hymn thet tells how down the stairs A feller with long legs wuz throwed thet would n't ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... and criticised by our Lord, in this discourse. That commandment forbids, not chiefly profanity, but perjury; by implication it permits judicial oaths. And Jesus expressly forbids judicial oaths. "Swear not at all." I am aware that this is not the usual interpretation of these words, but I believe that it is the only meaning that the words will bear. Not to insist upon this, however, several other examples are given in the discourse concerning which there can ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... gentles in a horn, We have paste and worms too We can watch both night and morn, Suffer rain and storms too; None do here Use to swear; Oaths do fray Fish away; We sit still, And watch our quill Fishers must ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... but here at least was a little luck. The tub was full and over-flowing; he would not have to cause the agent to swear by swinging round the nozzle and wasting of his water. And something besides sagebrush and sand to look at, too. For upon the tracks stood a train; a train packed very full with men whose faces showed white at the windows,—indoor men, Eastern ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... murder, alarm the neighbourhood, struggle with you, let loose some blood, and swear you came to rob me, if you don't quit my house,' replied Gride, drawing in his head with a frightful ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... ye send after all the knights hither that hold their lands of this castle, and make them to swear to use the customs that were used heretofore ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... only argument[1]. I swear it was only argument. I never lifted a hand. How could I? He was my brother, my elder ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... to it. On the day that the South accepts any compromise whatever, it will have renounced, not the maintenance doubtless, but the propagation of slavery; it will have renounced its rule. Compromises, (there will be such, perhaps, let us swear to nothing; before or after the war, with the entire South, or with a part of it,) compromises will be signed henceforth without any delusion. The South knows, marvellously well, that these compromises will bear little resemblance to those ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... Mason," she cried. "I'll never be mortified again in this way! I don't care what sister says, I am going to work for the honour of the family latch-string. I swear this shall never happen again." Her tragic manner was in such comical contrast to her befeathered appearance that Wilma laughed, for the first time since the return of the manuscript. Then they went down to rekindle the kitchen fire, ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... brother 'n' me all of a heap that we'd be up agin it jest a leetle bit too hard t' stand if we hauled a blind buck into camp; fellers 'd swear that t' get t' kill a buck at all brother 'n' me had t' range th' bush till we struck a blind one; 'n' then they'd probably want us t' go out 'n' see if we couldn't find some sick or crippled 'nough so we could get to ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... "I didn't mean to swear, Serena. I never swore at you before in my life. I didn't mean to this time. It just seemed to come out all of itself. Please forgive ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... somewhat difficult to persuade a judge or a jury that picking a pocket is not a crime. It is far easier to demonstrate that the pocket was not picked at all. This is generally only a question of money. Witnesses can easily be secured to swear either that the lady had no reticule, or that if she had a reticule it contained no purse, or that some person other than the defendant took the purse, or that she herself dropped it, or that even if the prisoner took it he had no ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... almost swear that I was shut up in an old Egyptian mummy"—he glanced at the bed ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... disobedience, and how that she had yet obtained from him the promise that she should be wakened only by a hero who knew no fear. She now teaches Sigurd many wise runes, and tells him of harm to fear through love of her. In spite of all, however, Sigurd does not waver, and they swear an ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... works—I swear I could see the tangle of ropes and slatting canvas—came a voice that rang in my ears for many a day, no matter how the others ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... Dansowich!" said the Proveditore sternly. "Did you not proclaim and swear in the public market-place of the Austrian town of Segna, that you were the friends and allies of Venice? This you would never have dared to do, but with the approval and connivance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... desire, but the feare of that Invisible Power, which they every one Worship as God; and Feare as a Revenger of their perfidy. All therefore that can be done between two men not subject to Civill Power, is to put one another to swear by the God he feareth: Which Swearing or OATH, is a Forme Of Speech, Added To A Promise; By Which He That Promiseth, Signifieth, That Unlesse He Performe, He Renounceth The Mercy Of His God, Or Calleth To Him For Vengeance ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... accompanied by chanted improvisation) are danced on Sundays to the sound of the drum on almost every plantation in the island. The drum, indeed, is an instrument to which the country-folk are so much attached that they swear by it,— Tambou! being the oath uttered upon all ordinary occasions of surprise or vexation. But the instrument is quite as often called ka, because made out of a quarter-barrel, or quart,—in ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... be a powerful rival, he called together a great assembly of his nobles, offered Harold his daughter ADELE in marriage, informed him that he meant on King Edward's death to claim the English crown as his own inheritance, and required Harold then and there to swear to aid him. Harold, being in the Duke's power, took this oath upon the Missal, or Prayer-book. It is a good example of the superstitions of the monks, that this Missal, instead of being placed upon a table, was placed upon ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... the girl. Camille had once taken her out in a cab; she might have been to some man's. So I said I would not give the money unless I saw her virgin cunt first. After a day or two, Camille agreed to it if I would give her ten pounds down, and would swear never to disclose ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... on your wings, even the smallest fly cannot rise on your wings. Eh, musician! Let me have your torn hat and I will throw a penny into it; your lie is worth no more. What are you prating there about God, you rabbit's eyes? Be silent, I am shamed to listen to you. I swear, I am ashamed to listen to you! Don't you believe me? You ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... you into his friendship, you may say or do what you like, he will stand by you, and although his views are as different from yours as black from white, will swear he agrees with every one. If he 's not your friend, he can see no good in anything you do, although you ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... hotly. "I'll swear nothing. I don't want you to believe me. I thought you were a gentleman, ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... two moons is the face of my sweetheart, And as to her neck and her bosom—Mashallah. And unless to my love I am soon reunited Death is my portion—I swear it by Allah.' ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... protested the maid, wiping her eyes on her ridiculously small apron. "I can't be any worse off than I am now with a policeman taking me to the lock-up. I'll tell the gentlemen the truth, I swear I will." ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... blame to them," cried the count, with enthusiasm. "I swear to you, my girl, that if women warriors were like the woodman's daughter, I would cast away all arms except these with ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... which fortunately his companion did not hear, because she was a foreigner, though it was heard perfectly in the next box: for he was at once indignantly bidden to be silent. He withdrew to the back of the box to swear his fill. He could not recover his temper. If he had been just he would have given homage to the elegance of the travesty and the tour de force of nature and art, which made it possible for a woman of sixty to appear in a youth's costume and even to seem beautiful in it—at least ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... you can't spare it, can't you? A gentleman comes and asks you with tack and civility for a temp'y loan of about 'arf nothing, and all you do is to curse and swear at him. Do you know what I call you—you and your thousand quid? A tuppenny millionaire, that's what I call you. Keep your blooming money. That's all I ask. Keep it. Much good you'll get out of it. I know your sort. You'll never have any pleasure of ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... or his jacket on awry, or his boots have a mud speck on them, the poor child had nothing left to do but wander round the hall and lobbies, and see the chambermaids sweep the rooms, and hear the waiters swear at each other, and watch the stages and trunks and passengers come ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... sort of an answer; and he was generally referred to in all points of dispute, especially in matters connected with the service, which he had at his fingers' ends; and, moreover, he was a very religious good man. I never heard him swear, but correct all those who did so in his presence. He had saved some money in the service, the interest of which, with his allowances as boatswain, enabled him to obtain many little comforts, and to be generous to others. Before Ben was shifted over to Anderson's ward, which ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... "Well, I swear," said the sheriff; "if that are gal ain't coming in with a flag of truce. She's pluck, anyhow. You ought to give her three ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... by without making my appeal, nothing but shame and disaster awaited me. Yet how could I hope to lure her down-stairs without noise? I could not, and so, yielding to the impulse of the moment, without any realisation, I here swear, of the effect which my unexpected presence would have on the noble woman overhead, I slipped up the narrow staircase, and catching at that moment the sound of her voice calling out to Batsy, I stepped up to the door I saw ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... no such reason. There is nothing dishonorable, I swear to you—nothing which could implicate you in any way with wrong-doing. No, Paul; my secret is different from that. You could never guess it, nor could I ever compromise you ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... 'I swear it! Let me save for a couple of years, and then get a good month's holiday, or more if possible, and, as Pallas Athene liveth! we shall find ourselves at Marseilles, going aboard some boat of the Messageries. I can't believe yet that this is true. Come, we will have a supper to-night. Come out into ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... Heaven! you are the very man.' 'You see what sort of memory this gentleman has,' said the volunteer pleader; 'he swears to the bonnet whatever features are under it. If you yourself, my Lord, will put it on your head, he will be willing to swear that your Lordship was the party who robbed him between Carsphairn and Dalmellington.' The tenant of Bantoberick was unanimously acquitted; and thus Willie Marshal ingeniously contrived to save an innocent man from danger, without incurring any himself, since Bargally's ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... writing," he said. "I could swear to it myself, and yet I never wrote those checks or signed them. Did you note the ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... him back to camp and give him your last piece of Blighty cake. You introduce your protege—always crawling on his stomach—to the cook; swear to the dog's immaculate conduct; beg a trifle of straw from the transport, and in short see him comfortably settled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... dear fellow—don't I know, don't I understand it all? It's a rotten, cursed life! Ah, Mr. Savva, Mr. Savva—look here. If I were to tell anyone that I am a good man, they'd laugh and say: "What are you lying for, you drunkard?" Kondraty a good man! It sounds like a joke even to myself. And yet I swear to you, by God, I am a good man! I don't know how it happened the way it did, why I am what I am now. I lived and lived, and suddenly! How it came about, what the reason of it ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... get out of my sight, whoever you are. This river's not what it used to be by a good deal. Over-fished and poached, and not looked after, I'll swear." ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... a little swearing may be then allowable: You may swear you love me, it is a lawful oath; but then, you must ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... pittance the Colonel lived tolerably contented for nearly four months when he took it into his head to determine on getting the whole of his eldest Brother's Estate. A new will was forged and the Colonel produced it in Court—but nobody would swear to it's being the right will except himself, and he had sworn so much that Nobody beleived him. At that moment I happened to be passing by the door of the Court, and was beckoned in by the Judge who told the Colonel that I was a Lady ready to witness anything for the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... my Lord,' replied the chemist, in a resigned manner. 'Then there'll be murder before this trial's over; that's all. Swear me, if you please, Sir;' and sworn the chemist was, before the judge ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... the meats consecrated to idols, even when a man or woman is dying of hunger? May one enter into agreements with native camel-drivers and carriers who swear by their gods to keep the bargain? May a lie be told in certain conditions?—say, so as to get among heretics in pretending to be one of themselves, and thus be able to spy on them and denounce them? May adultery be practised with a woman who promises in exchange to point ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... in ghosts, Peter, or we would swear it was a Loup-Garou smelling us through the wall!" He thumbed the tobacco down in his pine, and nodded. "Then—there is South America," he said. "They have everything down there—the biggest rivers in the world, the biggest mountains, and so much room ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... the general's life was in my hand, and I had the right to say to him, 'Life for life! Give me Matiew's and I will give you the general's.' And now there has been one more fruitless attempt to kill Feodor Feodorovitch and it is Natacha's fault—that I swear, because she would not listen to me. And is Natacha implicated in it? O my God" Rouletabille asked this vain question of the Divinity, for he expected no more help ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... the incense be lighted before the high-priest appears or as he does so. Is or is not the Sabbath broken by the killing of the Paschal lamb? Why is it lawful to take tithe of corn and wine and oil, and not of anise, cummin, and peppers? In swearing by the Temple, should one not first swear by the gold on the Temple? and in swearing by the altar, should one or should one not first swear by the sacrifices on it? These things, since he preaches, he must ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... this morning, he was talking with two men whose faces I did not see, for they walked suddenly and hastily away, but who seemed to me to flavour much of the two men we disturbed that evening when they were carrying off Miss Von Duyk. I could not swear to them, for I did not get a fair sight of them before, but they were about the same size and height, and it was clear that they did not wish ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... cab, so I can just stay twenty-five minutes. I've marked the time accurately, but I know the man will swear it's over the half-hour." ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... to him, and her hands clasped his arms and she looked up at him, her eyes darkening and her face growing paler. "Will you swear to keep my secret?" ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... there not one maiden here, Whose homely face and bad complexion Have caused all hopes to disappear Of ever winning man's affection? To such a one, if such there be, I swear by heaven's arch above you, If you will cast your eyes on me, - However plain you be ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... which makes a woolen imitation of an Oriental silken fabric, known as termalama. The agent acknowledged that it was an imitation, and said that the price by the piece was twenty-five cents a yard. In the Moscow Oriental shops the dealers sell it for eight times that price, and swear that it is genuine from the East. A Russian friend of ours had been cheated in this way, and the dealers attempted to cheat us also,—in vain, after our ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... whereupon one fellow answered, "She will not let herself be roasted yet; mind ye that: she will quench the fire!" This, and much filthiness beside, which I may not for very shame write down, we were forced to hear, and it especially cut me to the heart to hear a fellow swear that he would have some of her ashes, seeing he had not been able to get any of the wand; and that naught was better for the fever and the gout than the ashes of a witch. I motioned the Custos to begin ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... selves! For instance: we swear by universal suffrage. Well, sows' ears are an invaluable thing in their place, on the head of the animal; but send them to make your laws, and what happens? Bribery, naturally. The silk purse buys the sow's ear. We swear by Christianity, but ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... thinks he should not have been wounded, but might have punished the assailant. One of the men, he said, could have been easily taken by the national guard, who so glaringly encouraged the escape that he could almost swear the guard was a party concerned. The loss of blood had so exhausted him that he could not pursue the offender himself, whom otherwise he could have taken without ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... all blame, sir; and there are four of them who swear the ship is haunted—that he keeps evil spirits ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... branch of sport and athletics. This particular variety of style is always immensely effective. All the pot—boys of the Metropolis, most of the shady bookmakers, and a considerable proportion of the patrons of sport swear by it, and even the most thoughtful who read it cannot fail to be impressed by its splendour. This style deals in paragraphs. Second Example.—Event to be commented on: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... general arrangement I ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with them. But if they determine about nothing,—which it is wicked to believe, or if we do believe it, let us neither sacrifice nor pray nor swear by them, nor do anything else which we do as if the gods were present and lived with us,—but if however the gods determine about none of the things which concern us, I am able to determine about myself, and I can inquire about that which is useful; and that is useful ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... Columbus to Catlin, from Charlevoix to Carver, from Bonneville to Pallisser the story is ever the same. The traveller is welcomed and made much of; he is free to come and go; the best food is set before him; the lodge is made warm and bright; he is welcome to stay his lifetime if he pleases. "I swear to your majesties," writes Columbus—alas! the red man's greatest enemy—"I swear to your majesties that there is not in the world a better people than these, more affectionate, affable, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... entitled, Solid Refutation of the Groundless Sophistries, Calumnies, and Figments, as also of the Most Corrupt Errors of the "Antidote" and of Other Neopelagian Writers. Flacius charged Hesshusius with misrepresentation, and demanded that he swear whether he really believed to have found the alleged errors in his ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... "I'm as sorry as a man can be. But I swear I did what I did in all honesty. If I'm wrong in this, you need never speak to me again. If I'm wrong, you—you can tell your father to take his advertising away from the Grey-Matter Company. I can't ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... unpractised, if you will,' she said, smiling. 'Well, I did sigh; but not because I regret being your promised one. What I do sometimes regret is that the scheme, which my meetings with you are but a part of, has not been carried out completely. You said, Nicholas, that if I consented to swear to keep faith with you, you would go away and travel, and see nations, and peoples, and cities, and take a professor with you, and study books and art, simultaneously with your study of men and manners; and then come back at the end of two ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... one maiden here, Whose homely face and bad complexion Have caused all hopes to disappear Of ever winning man's affection? To such a one, if such there be, I swear by heaven's arch above you, If you will cast your eyes on me, - However plain you be - ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... sitting-room, with tokens of family occupation lying about. A middle-aged gentleman entered, and told him that, until a certain time had elapsed (which should be indicated to him in a particular way, but of which the length was not then named), he must swear to secrecy as to the means by which he obtained possession of the deeds. This oath was taken; and then the gentleman, not without some emotion, acknowledged himself to be the missing father of the heir. It seems that he had fallen ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... hand, he added, and his voice was aggressive again and quarrelsome in tone: "I don't apologise. I don't explain. I do not even thank you. Why should I, since I simply take it as a temporary accommodation until my play is finished—my great play, which is going—I swear before God it is going—not only to cancel this paltry debt, but a far more important one, the debt I owe to my own genius, and justify me once and forever in the eyes of the ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... however, I swear by a Chesterfield sofa, a large one, on which you can lie at full length, as I am lying now; the most comfortable thing there is on earth, I think, except perhaps a truss of hay, when one has been ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... and, thanks to much aguardiente, my warlike admirer snores peacefully above. Yet I could swear I heard the old Puritan's door creak as I descended! Pshaw! What matters! (Goes to gateway, and tries gate.) Locked! Carramba! I see it now. Under the pretext of reviving the old ceremony, Don Jose has locked the gates, and placed me ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... life. I have sought leadership and have not found it. Oh Father! Send down to men a new Christ, one to get hold of us, a modern Christ with a pipe in his mouth who will swear and knock us about so that we vermin who pretend to be made in Thy image will understand. Let him go into churches and into courthouses, into cities, and into towns like this, shouting, 'Be ashamed! Be ashamed of your cowardly concern over your snivelling ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... oaths and foul living at her word and gathered round the altars on their march. Her shrewd peasant humour helped her to manage the wild soldiery, and her followers laughed over their camp-fires at an old warrior who had been so puzzled by her prohibition of oaths that she suffered him still to swear by his baton. For in the midst of her enthusiasm her good sense never left her. The people crowded round her as she rode along, praying her to work miracles, and bringing crosses and chaplets to be blest by her touch. "Touch them yourself," she said ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... unexpected and undeserved power, obtained by an ignoble, unmanly, and perfidious rebellion, treating their honest fellow-citizens as rebels, because they refused to bind them selves through their conscience, against the dictates of conscience itself, and had declined to swear an active compliance with their own ruin. How could a man of common flesh and blood endure that those who but the other day had skulked unobserved in their antechambers, scornfully insulting men illustrious in their rank, sacred in their function, and venerable in their character, now in decline ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... great, as it dropped on the fender, it certainly was very noisy. The accident was harmless—for, according to honest admeasurement, it evaded my father's foot by a full yard—but, under nervous alarm, he swore, and, as troopers will swear, that it had descended direct upon his afflicted member, and, consequently that he was ruined for life. This was a subsequent explanation—while the unhappy youth was extended on the hearth-rug, protesting innocence, and also declaring that his jaw-bone was ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... dissipated high priests. In this sense the tribute paid by Polybius to the religious character of the Romans is deserved; they had a higher sense of religious obligation than the Greeks; they were more likely than the Greeks, the Phoenicians, or any of their other rivals, to swear and disappoint not, though it were to their own hindrance; and this they owed, as we conceive, not to an effort of speculative intellect, which in an early stage of society would be out of the question, but to some happy conjunction of ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... weeping, lady. Cease from lamentation, and lay up in thy mind the word I give thee. Odysseus is near. He has lost all his companions, and he knows not how to come into this house, whether openly or by stealth. I swear it. By the hearth of Odysseus to which I am come, I swear that Odysseus himself will stand up here before the old moon wanes and the new ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... that could be ferreted out against them was boldly printed in the most unmistakable terms. Trial for libel failed to discover the real proprietors, editor, and writers, and the men who stood their trial as printer, publisher, proprietor, etc., were manifestly mere shams, men who would swear to anything and undergo any amount of imprisonment for the consideration of the smallest coin of the realm. The scandalous details in John Bull attracted the public at once, and by the time it reached its sixth number, the circulation had risen to ten thousand, while the first ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... been a fortress from the earliest times. The fosse and rampart belong to the Roman period. In the vast plain which lies beneath it the Conqueror reviewed his victorious armies, and there also did the English landholders swear fealty to him." ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... I not love her?" and again I could return myself no answer or, rather, for the hundredth time I told myself that I detested her. Yes, I detested her; there were moments (more especially at the close of our talks together) when I would gladly have given half my life to have strangled her! I swear that, had there, at such moments, been a sharp knife ready to my hand, I would have seized that knife with pleasure, and plunged it into her breast. Yet I also swear that if, on the Shlangenberg, she had REALLY said to me, "Leap into that abyss," I should have leapt into it, and with equal ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in this observation, the Rev. Matt. Harrison cites a good example; pronounces it elliptical; and scarcely forbears to condemn it as bad English: "In the following sentence, the relative pronoun is three times omitted:—'Is there a God to swear by, and is there none to believe in, none to trust to?'—Letters and Essays, Anonymous. By, in, and to, as prepositions, stand alone, denuded of the relatives to which they apply. The sentence presents no attractions worthy of imitation. It exhibits a license carried to the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... is another. Deny me what I ask, and to-morrow's sun shall light me to another land; to this I will never return; I will blend my tears with your father's, and I will publish to Europe the double infamy of your mother. I swear it solemnly. Still I stand here, Venetia; prepared, if you will but smile upon me, to be her son, her dutiful son. Nay! her slave like you. She shall not murmur. I will be dutiful; she shall be devoted; we will all be happy,' he ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... themselves. But the pursuit was useless, for he saved himself in the wood after having thrown away his gun & taken in its place his bow & his quiver. This behaviour surprised our allies, the savages, exceedingly, & obliged them to swear, in their manner, vengeance for it, as much against that savage nation as against the English; but not having enough guns for that enterprise, they resolved to wait until my father and uncle had arrived. In the mean time they sent to entreat all the ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... it was well all the cows gave double, for that Lob Lie-by-the-fire drank two gallons of the best cream every day, with curds, porridge, and other dainties to match. But what did that matter, when he had been overheard to swear that luck should not leave Lingborough till Miss Betty owned half ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... a thought. Believe me I never intended to do it—I can't do anything of that kind. But because they always call me "skittle-boy," I thought I ought for once to threaten and swear and strike as they do. But you are right; look, if you like, I'll go this very day to Scheckennarre and tell him that my heart doesn't cherish a single hard thought ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... over me—and will duly serve my master by slaying my adversary, whoever he may be, and thus winning that store of gold pieces which have been laid out as the stake of my life. And then—then I will go home to my kennel and my bones. But this I swear, by the immortal gods! that I will follow this man from house to forum, wherever he may go, until I find a proper chance to strike him down in secret like a dog. You were right. I must not lose my life to kill him, when I can so easily slay him and yet live to slay other ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sense of it, lad," acceded Mr. Meredith, "and I'll do as ye tell me, this instant. But I'll do all that's possible to save ye as well, and if ye but go free, ye shall be not a penny the worse off, that I swear to ye." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the nobility of the Aedui, they had so far surpassed them in power, that they brought over, from the Aedui to themselves, a large portion of their dependants and received from them the sons of their leading men as hostages, and compelled them to swear in their public character that they would enter into no design against them; and held a portion of the neighbouring land, seized on by force, and possessed the sovereignty of the whole of Gaul. Divitiacus urged by this necessity, had ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... rose and rain began to pour down in buckets, with no end of thunder and lightning. Then it got that cold we could hardly sit on our horses for trembling. The sky grew blacker and blacker. The wind began to whistle and cry till I could almost swear I heard some one singing out for help. Nulla Mountain was as black as your hat, and a kind of curious feeling crept over me, I hardly knew why, as if something was going to happen, I ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... that man was Sergeant Weston, and I'll swear to it, but I would not tell any other man than you, for if he escaped death no one is more glad of it than ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... he found himself, and considering whether he should report all that he had heard to M. d'Epernon, when, in the middle of the Rue de la Pierre-au-Real, he ran right against a Jacobin monk. They both began to swear, but, looking ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... Kuauamoa. He knows Davis and Young after they are made prisoners by the natives, and thus learns some English words. On the plains of Alawawai he meets some men going to sell rope to the whites and they ask him to instruct them what to say. He teaches them to swear at the whites. When the white men are about to beat the peddlers, they drop the rope ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... Corner, or St. James's Square; And Happiness has surely fix'd her seat In Palace Yard, Pall Mall, or Downing Street: Are hills, and dales, and valleys half so gay As bright St. James's on a levee day? What fierce ecstatic transports fire my soul, To hear the drivers swear, the coaches roll; The Courtier's compliment, the Ladies' clack, The satins rustle, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Uncle Alec whipped him for it—the only time he ever so punished any of his children. But it was because Cecily cried all night that Dan was filled with saving remorse and repentance. He vowed next day to Cecily that he would never swear again, ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... told you why I came West to see you," she said, spiritedly. "Well, since you still swear allegiance to your girl from the East, you might entertain her a little bit before getting down ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... an inhuman scrimmage—the very worst form of the struggle for existence. It doesn't even mean survival of the intellectually fittest. It develops monstrosities. It defeats its own ends by brutalising the intellect itself. And the worst enemies of women are women. I swear, if I were a woman, I'd rather do without an education than get it at that price. Or I'd educate myself. After all, that's the way of the fittest—the one ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... know," he answered, "nor did I ever hear tell, while he was alive, about his being called a poet; but his fellow-townsmen now decide he was one; nay, if he had but left a few more moneybags, they'd swear he was a god. Anyhow, but for his having been a poet, I would not have cursed poets in general." Whereupon, the malevolent Bruni withdrew, and composed a scorpion-tailed oration, addressed to his friend Poggio, on the suggested theme of "diuturnity in ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... and wanted to swear fellowship with him at once. Grettir said that could not be, "for," he added, "there is truth in the saying that Ale is another man, and such a thing should not be done hastily, so let it remain at what I said; we are both little in ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... and drawn the two ladies to the retired spot where Eustace was seized, gave such a description of the stranger who bribed her to fabricate a tale of distress as exactly tallied with the person of Eustace, but bore no resemblance to Monthault. Another was brought to swear that he had seen Dr. Beaumont's nephew in Oxford since its surrender to the Parliament. His long silence to his family was an inexplicable mystery; but to visit Oxford without throwing himself at his uncle's feet, and imploring pardon, was ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... good as to notice a poor, hungry man. I have not tasted food for three days. I have not a five-kopeck piece for a night's lodging. I swear by God! For five years I was a village schoolmaster and lost my post through the intrigues of the Zemstvo. I was the victim of false witness. I have been out of a place ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... true to their engagements. The manner of their swearing is this: they set a sheep in the midst of them, and rub it over with butter, the heads of families who are the chief in the nation lay their hands upon the head of the sheep, and swear to observe their promise. This oath (which they never violate) they explain thus: the sheep is the mother of them who swear; the butter betokens the love between the mother and the children, and an oath taken on a mother's head is sacred. ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... him, I vow and swear," cried the ruffian, in a piteous tone; for bullies are almost always cravens; "he was lent to me by Johny Groves—some call him another name; but that don't signify.—He lent him to me, to come up here, to stop your gab with ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... the flyer, "you gave me the right dope all right, but I'll swear there isn't a wireless tower within a hundred miles of this place! How ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... the Martyr Charles, One knighted Blackmore, and one pensioned Quarles, Which made old Ben, and sturdy Dennis swear, No Lord's Annointed, ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... his crew, upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital, sore exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, he was certainly rather hard-hearted to say the least. He never used to swear, though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-colored eye intently looking at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch something —a hammer ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... continued to bother them, even in memory. Where had it been? Where had it come from? And those who had stood nearest the cobbler-shop were heard again. They were certain now, dead certain. They could swear! ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... who stood between them all and destruction. He was a protector of her family. He was her champion. She began to mention him in her prayers every night, adding a further petition to the effect that he would become a good man, and that he should not swear so much, and that he should never ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... thoroughly despised and even disliked at the very height of his attachment. The struggles between his sense of weariness and degradation and his unworthy love for this woman half wore him out, and brought on a severe malady, from which he recovered only to swear he would never enter her house again, and to return to it as soon as he could stand on his feet. The beautiful social customs of eighteenth-century Italy authorised and even imposed upon a man who had accepted the position of cavaliere ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... "Franconia."—Last night I left H.M.S. Phaeton and went on board the Franconia. To-day, we have been busy fixing things up. The chance sailors, seen by the Staff, have been using highly coloured expletives about the mines. Sheer bad luck they swear; bad luck that would not happen once in a hundred tries. They had knocked out the Forts, they claim, and one, three-word order, "Full steam ahead," would have cut the Gordian Knot the diplomats ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... will be with us before the blood shall run. We were overjoyed at that, and talked about it far into the night; yet when dawn had come doubt again had hold of us, and I think I was the only Sikh in the regiment ready to swear to his integrity. Once, at least a squadron of us had loved him to the death because we thought him an example of Sikh honor. Now only I and our British officers ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... kingdoms of infernal rule, Of Styx, of[120] Acheron, and the fiery lake Of ever-burning Phlegethon, I swear That I do long to see the monuments And situation of bright-splendent Rome: Come, ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... sake, tell me what you would have me do," said her husband, softened to pity by her extreme distress, "and I swear that in everything possible I will comply ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... and gallantry ever to make a figure as an ecclesiastic, yet his great love for his eldest son—not the view of the archbishopric of Paris, which was then in his family—made him resolve to devote me to the service of the Church. For he was so conscious of his reasons, that I could even swear he would have protested from the very bottom of his heart that he had no other motive than the apprehension of the dangers to which a contrary profession might expose my soul. So true it is that nothing is so subject ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... you to swear that I have asked too much of you and won't meet you halfway, suppose, for friendship's sake, that you pay me seventy-five ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... is true," she answered. "I was afraid I had loved you too much. I was afraid you might be dead. That was why I gave my wedding-ring—for your soul. Look, I will swear it ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... my boy, I’ve been, And wherever people mingle; But ne’er, I swear, have I been where I’ve ...
— Little Engel - a ballad with a series of epigrams from the Persian - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... again. "The light eyes can go back to the Horican, and tell the old chief what has been done, if the dark-haired woman will swear by the Great Spirit of her ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... let us in the first place tie a stone round the neck of this unfortunate animal, and throw his body into the Mare, and then, as we are the only witnesses of this adventure, we swear that we will never divulge it to any one, or make the slightest allusion to it; and, as we are men of honour, you will of course believe us;—the secret shall be kept inviolable. On the other hand, as we are to a certain extent responsible for your health, and ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... of some of these waters. Of one it is said that those who approach it without holding their breath fall dead. People who live near the place swear it is so, and say the water appears to boil on such occasions. From the thermal waters, in some cases 100 feet below the soil, and without means of access except by buckets let down through an opening in the rock, warm vapors issue at early morn, but when ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... about his early boyhood, aptly illustrates this phase of young America's independence. He says: "When I was a boy, ten years of age, I was with my father on board of a man-of-war. I had some qualities that I thought made a man of me. I could swear like an old salt; could drink as stiff a glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn; and could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards; and fond of gaming in any shape. At the close of dinner one day my father turned ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... in the clear light of restored reason; and you swear future lealty to us and to Holy ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... word "nephew," every one paused with a look of surprise, and drawing near the excited man with expressions of interest, agreed to respect his new-found relative, though they insisted I should swear never to disclose the occurrence of which I had been an unwilling witness. I complied with the condition unhesitatingly, and shook hands with every one present except the sentry, of whom I shall have ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... on the Duke of St. James. They did not immediately swear an eternal friendship, but they greeted each other with considerable warmth, talked of old times and old companions, and compared their former sensations with their present. No one could be a more agreeable ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... me?" said Christian desperately. "You must. I swear it is sane truth. Are you blind? Why, even ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... honest!" Desperately the bony hands clung. "You won't be sorry if you take me. I swear ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... assured himself, as he drove in a taxi-cab to his chambers. "That's the worst of it! If I happened to be drowned in the ordinary way they'd swear it was the legend. I suppose, for that reason, I had better not take any risks. Anyhow, I needn't go near the sea until ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... willing to swear that the captain is not in Paris. If he were, he, like all the rest of the nobles, would have been in great danger; and in peril, he would certainly have thought of his old soldier, Bridoul, for he knows he can rely upon ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... at him, but she glanced at the baby and her mouth closed. Little Jacques should never hear her rage nor swear. ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... my countrymen the principles by which I shall be governed in the fulfillment of those duties my first resort will be to that Constitution which I shall swear to the best of my ability to preserve, protect, and defend. That revered instrument enumerates the powers and prescribes the duties of the Executive Magistrate, and in its first words declares the purposes to ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... to bear the weight of his own thoughts, began to move cautiously along the alleyway. A dog attacked him and had to be driven away with stones and a man appeared at the door of one of the houses and began to swear at the dog. George went into a vacant lot and throwing back his head looked up at the sky. He felt unutterably big and re-made by the simple experience through which he had been passing and in a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... you think," sneered Eagen. "But you're in a tight corner, an' we can help you out. Long said to-day, I heard just now, that he'd put every deputy he had an' every man he could swear in as a special on your trail, ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... skilfully fashioned like a great wolf-paw; skins were joined so cunningly that when the wearer loped along a hillside in the chill pale gold of the winter sunset, or skulked among the shadows of summer woods, any one would swear that what he saw was a lurking wolf. The wolf-mask with its long muzzle and furry ears concealed the face, the unshorn beards and hair mingled with the shaggy shoulder-fur of the tunics. A shepherd looking for missing lambs would find only wolf-tracks to ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... the captain in an excited tone; "wasn't you seen, just about the hour of the robbery, going stealthily down the street, by Big Swankie and Davy Spink, both of whom will swear to it." ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... the line, owing to our throwing too far above him, and the other is frightened out of his life by a bit of weed or grass which gets hitched on to the barb of the hook, and lands bang on to his nose. These accidents will happen, so we do not swear, but pass on up stream, and soon a great brown tail appears for a second just above some rushes on the other side. Kneeling down again, we manage, after a few casts—luckily short of our fish—to drop the fly a foot above him. Down it sails, not "cocking" as nicely ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... nothing so heartbreaking as that boy in fevered delirium talking to his mother. His voice is one of peculiar tenderness, penetrating and musical. It goes quivering into your soul, and compels you to listen until you swear it's your brother or sweetheart or sister or mother calling you. You should have seen him the day he fell. God of mercies, the pity and the ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... men in strange clothing would shout orders at you; "Peely wush, okka Hoogs! Peely wush! Okkabab!" and you would discover that peely wush meant hurry up, and that okka was a swear word and that when they said Hoog they meant you. It would be a comic nickname, you know: as we say Chinks for Chinamen. And they'd hustle you Hoogs off the ship, and shove you around on the pier, and examine ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... it—that wasn't his style. He kept her in order, and she had just to mind, which I guess was a good thing for her, and when she wanted it he'd use his hand on her, and make no bones about it. That's the way among that class. They up and give the old woman a friendly clump, just as you or me would swear at the missus, or fling a boot-jack at her. They ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... is conducted with all this state is a horse that the king keeps, on which they are sworn and received as kings, and on it must be sworn all those that shall come after them; and in case such a horse dies they put another in its place. If any king does not wish to be sworn on horseback, they swear him on an elephant, which they keep ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... oaths, and that nothing but their antiquity makes them respectable;—because, he says, the ancients would never stick to an oath or two, but would say, by Jove! or by Bacchus! or by Mars! or by Venus! or by Pallas, according to the sentiment: so that to swear with propriety, says my little major, the oath should be an echo to the sense; and this we call the oath referential, or sentimental swearing—ha! ha! 'tis ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... his right hand he flung it at the soldiers with such a sure aim that the rash leader, struck on the head, fell senseless to the ground. The rest again stood still. "Away with you!" cried Fadrique authoritatively, "or my dagger shall strike the next as surely, and then I swear I will never rest till I have found out your whole gang and appeased my rage." The dagger gleamed in the youth's hand, but yet more fearfully gleamed the fury in his eyes, and the soldiers fled. Then Zelinda bowed gratefully to her preserver, took ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... heavens—and to come thence unscathed. Listen: I who am a 'heaven-herd,' I who know the signs of the weather, tell you that within two days such a tempest as this will break upon us. Then White Man, I and my companions will be ready to meet you on the plain. Take the cross by which you swear and set it up yonder and stand by it, and with you your converts, Nodwengo the prince, and this man whom you have named John, if they dare to go. Over against you, around the symbol of the god by which we swear, will ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... especially those who are in state offices. And this is the reason why I have spoken of these matters. For every one who is guilty of adulteration in the agora tells a falsehood, and deceives, and when he invokes the Gods, according to the customs and cautions of the wardens of the agora, he does but swear without any respect for God or man. Certainly, it is an excellent rule not lightly to defile the names of the Gods, after the fashion of men in general, who care little about piety and purity in their ...
— Laws • Plato
... witnesses,' he said, 'therefore I will never mention the matter to you again. Since you swear to me here in the presence of other people, that you did not kiss me and beg for credit, I make you a present of your debt, but it's a shame,' the publican added, spitting, 'that a man working for such a respectable gospodarz as Slimak, should cheat a poor Jew. Don't ever set ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... Hawkesley," he replied. "You see that craft there? Well, I could almost stake my soul that she and the pirate-brig were built on the same stocks. The two craft are the same size to a ton, I'll swear that; and they are the same model and the same rig to a nicety. It's true I was only able to closely inspect the other craft at night-time, but it was by brilliant moonlight, and I was able to note every detail of her build, rig, and equipment almost as plainly as I now can that ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... Dalmellington?' Bargally replied, in great astonishment, 'By Heaven! you are the very man.' 'You see what sort of memory this gentleman has,' said the volunteer pleader; 'he swears to the bonnet whatever features are under it. If you yourself, my Lord, will put it on your head, he will be willing to swear that your Lordship was the party who robbed him between Carsphairn and Dalmellington.' The tenant of Bantoberick was unanimously acquitted; and thus Willie Marshal ingeniously contrived to save an innocent man from danger, without incurring any himself, since Bargally's evidence must ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Margaret certainly did. "A brute, a devil-fish, what you will! and she—she has saved my life! You saw it, you heard it; another moment, and I should have gone—" she shuddered. "I cannot speak of it. But now, Marguerite, hear me swear!" ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... Lincoln issued his "Amnesty Proclamation" and began the work of reconstruction. He promised, in the first place, that, with certain exceptions, which he mentioned, he would pardon[1] every man who should lay down his arms and swear to support and obey the Constitution, and the Emancipation Proclamation. He promised, in the second place, that whenever, in any state that had attempted secession, voters equal in number to one tenth of those who in 1860 voted for presidential electors, should ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... shirt-sleeves mainly, doubled for the dear life, and in the rear toiled the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it to double yet faster. The cantonment was alive with the men of the 195th hunting for Wee Willie Winkie, and the Colonel finally overtook E Company, far too exhausted to swear, struggling in the pebbles ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... next to mine, bury his head in his hands, and presently, in broken words, blurt out to me all that might be of interest?... '"And I tell you I gave up everything for her—everything." He stared at me with his old hopeless eyes. "She is more than the fiend I have described to you. Yet I swear to you, monsieur, that if I had anything left to give, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... came home to her that this was one of the abominable idolaters, and she had forsworn such for ever. These very arms that had held her so shelteringly had been lifted in supplication to the idols, and the lips, whose kiss she had awaited, would swear to love her, by an image. The pitiless truth, once admitted, smote her cruelly. She covered ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... out o' work when Chris'mus come One time, an' stay away from home, An' 's drunk an' 'buse our Ma, an' swear They ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... fear not! Should some slave our loves behold, Let him look on, and at his liking stare! Hereafter not a whisper shall be told; By all the gods our innocence he'll swear. ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... a fool! You can save her, your goody-goody Penelope. It's the only way. I will leave her alone, except occasionally—I swear I will." ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... river, which it seems absurd to call the Loire. On all sides, Goudet is shut in by mountains; rocky footpaths, practicable at best for donkeys, join it to the outer world of France; and the men and women drink and swear, in their green corner, or look up at the snow-clad peaks in winter from the threshold of their homes, in an isolation, you would think, like that of Homer's Cyclops. But it is not so; the postman reaches Goudet ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Could it have been one of you?" Benjamin replied: "Neither did they counsel theft, nor did I touch the cup." "Take an oath upon it," demanded Joseph, and Benjamin complied with his brother's request: "I swear that I did not touch the cup! As true as my brother Joseph is separated from me; as true as I had nothing to do with the darts that my brethren threw at him; as true as I was not one of those to take off his coat; as true as I had no part in the transaction by which he was given over ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... families with whom they lodge speak with wonder of their sobriety, their decency, and their simple ways, and in their hearts almost despise them because they do not ravish their daughters or pillage their cellars; and neither swear every half-hour to die for their country, nor yell the "Marseillaise." If Paris be saved, it will be thanks to them and to the working men of the capital. But it will be the old sic vos non vobis story; their brave deeds and undemonstrative ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... under the now disappearing sign, and of the past in general. He took no little joy in observing that the iron arm was so firmly fixed in the wall that the workman had much trouble in getting it loose. Under the poor old sign there had been so many infernally good times! When the workman began to swear, the old man smiled; when he pulled and pushed and twisted and knocked, when he began to sweat and almost fell off the ladder, the spectator felt no little satisfaction. Finally he went away, and came back in a quarter of an hour with an iron-saw. Huerlin ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... in the body, Saint, would fain A mansion in the skies obtain. I planned a hundred rites for this, But still was doomed the fruit to miss. Pure are my lips from falsehood's stain, And pure they ever shall remain,— Yea, by a Warrior's faith I swear,— Though I be tried with grief and care. Unnumbered rites to Heaven I paid, With righteous care the sceptre swayed; And holy priest and high-souled guide My modest conduct gratified. But, O thou best of hermits, they Oppose my wish these rites to pay; They one and all refuse consent, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... are accused of despising the idols. Second. They are always praying. Third. They will not swear, but merely affirm. Fourth. Their women are chaste. Fifth. They are of one mind with regard to their religion. Sixth. They observe the Sabbath as ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... Accordingly, brimstone was introduced into the numerous crevices of the forecastle, and the atmosphere rendered insufferable. Frantic with suffocation, his eyes flashing with rage, he brandished savagely a huge case-knife:—"You, Newton! and you Kelly! I swear that, if I am obliged to leave this forecastle, I'll sheath this knife in your breasts, you ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... which he had just heard in the confessional. But Elizabeth shook her head: it was a trick, she said, to hide from her the sorrow which had fallen upon her. Her agony, instead of calming, became more violent; her tears ceased to flow, and were followed by hysterics. The priest then made her swear to keep the secret, and the sanctity of the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... curse him: or, again, that wonderfully significant line, so full of a too tardy knowledge and of concentrated scorn, where Strafford first begs the king to "be good to his children," and then, with a contempt that is almost sublime, implores, "Stay, sir, do not promise, do not swear!" The whole of the second scene in the fifth act is pure genius. The reader, or spectator, knows by this time that all hope is over: that Strafford, though all unaware, is betrayed and undone. It is a subtle dramatic ruse, that of Browning's representing him ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... singing bird, my bonny flower, How dearly could I love thee! To sit with thee one pleasant hour, If thou would'st but approve me! I swear by lilies white and yellow, That flower on deepest water, Would'st thou but make me happy fellow, I'd wed the Shepherd's Daughter! By all that's on the earth or water, I more than ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... about to swear on your honor, and I on my word; and then it will be pretty evident that one of us will have lied. Now here, Montaran, we will do better than that: ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And, Whosoever ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
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