"Swarm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... purple tints and cast rosy and golden spots over the dark cold water. Foma gazed in that direction at this play of the sunbeams, watched how they quivered as they were transposed over the placid and vast expanse of waters, and catching fragments of conversation, he pictured to himself the words as a swarm of dark butterflies, busily fluttering in the air. Sasha, her head resting on his shoulder, was softly whispering into his ear something at which he blushed and was confused, for he felt that she was kindling ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... ship sank slowly toward Sthor. A swarm of smaller craft had flown up at its approach to meet it. A gaily-colored small ship marked the official greeting-ship. Gresth had withheld his news purposely. Now suddenly he began broadcasting it from the powerful transmitter ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... not a nature to count the risk when duty, however delayed, called. Every German sniper within range sent shot upon shot after the flying figure. The enemy's trenches took up the hunt and fairly blazed with rifle and machine gun fire. The bullets hummed in Throckmorton's ears like a swarm of savage hornets. They snarled and bit at the turf about his feet like a ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... day I botanized in the neighbourhood, with but poor success. An oblique-leaved fig climbs the other trees, and generally strangles them: two epiphytal Orchideae also occur on the latter, Vanda Roxburghii and an Oberonia. Dodders (Cuscuta) of two species, and Cassytha, swarm over and conceal the bushes with ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... swarm of hungry Roaches was satisfied, and, according to Neale's report, the dinner went off very well indeed, save that his mother feared she would have to grease and roll Patrick Sarsfield before the fire to keep him from ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... tell yet." She stepped aside as Douglas came out of the tent, followed by a swarm of performers. He knelt on the soft grass and rested Polly's head upon his knee. The others pressed about them. It seemed to Douglas that he waited hours; then her white lids quivered and opened and the colour crept back ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... enterprise in the commercial field. The Y. M. C. A. swelled to the proportions of a Standard Oil Company, a United States Steel Corporation. Its huge buildings began to rise in every city; it developed a swarm of specialists in new and fantastic moral and social sciences; it enlisted the same gargantuan talent which managed the railroads, the big banks and the larger national industries. And beside it rose the Young People's Society of ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... mechanical material proceeded, "the grim and significant spectacle was the sight of detachments of infantry moving forward in field-fighting equipment, until finally the dugouts were hives of khaki ready to swarm out ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... living isolated show the first tendencies toward personal property; for example, the nest where they hoard their provisions, while others, such as the ants, bees, wasps, etc., have the sentiment of collective property well developed. For instance, a swarm of ants regards plants with grubs as its property, and defends them ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... he hears the winter storm, And while the drafts about him swarm, He eats the coal ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... again, where such uncanny fancies never troubled them. When the toad and lizard, snakes and other loathsome things, crawled around their swampy bed, they cared nothing; but the dead silence of a cloudless night, brooding over a swarm of their fellow-beings, brought with it a feeling they could not account for or understand; and therefore it was with a sense of great relief they found themselves at the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... victory over both the Independents and the general swarm of sectaries which an age of unparalleled religious excitement had produced. It is difficult to conceive of the intensity of the passions which inflamed all parties of religious disputants. But if the Puritan contest developed fanatical zeal, it also brought out the highest qualities ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... keep our watch in vain. Zounds! not a soul Will pass, and do obeisance to the cap. But yesterday the place swarm'd like a fair; Now the old green looks like a desert, quite, Since yonder ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... in none but such as pleased him. One of the ablest of Canadian governors, La Galissoniere, seeing the feebleness of the colony compared with the vastness of its claims, advised the King to send ten thousand peasants to occupy the valley of the Ohio, and hold back the British swarm that was just then pushing its advance-guard over the Alleghanies. It needed no effort of the King to people his waste domain, not with ten thousand peasants, but with twenty times ten thousand Frenchmen of every station,—the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... been more subservient and respectful and would have known that it was her business to brush hair, and button boots, and pick things up and lay them away. She was, however, only an untrained Yorkshire rustic who had been brought up in a moorland cottage with a swarm of little brothers and sisters who had never dreamed of doing anything but waiting on themselves and on the younger ones who were either babies in arms or just learning to totter about ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Mohammedan fleet in this battle, anchored his main force of more than a hundred ships in the mouth of the channel between the island of Diu and the mainland, designing to fall back before the Portuguese attack towards the island, where he could secure the aid of shore batteries and a swarm of 300 or more foists and other small craft in the harbor. Almeida had only 19 ships and 1300 men, but against his vigorous attack the flimsy vessels of the east were of little value. The battle was fought at close quarters in the old Mediterranean style, with saber, cutlass, ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... not be dropped by the offshoot; idioms which those have overlived, and have stored up in the unhonoured lumber-room of the past, will still be in use and currency among the smaller and separated section which has gone forth; and thus it will come to pass that what seems and in fact is the newer swarm, will have many older words, and very often an archaic air and old-world fashion both about the words they use, their way of pronouncing, their order and manner of combining them. Thus after the Conquest we know that our insular French ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... thyself quiet, and let none of those people see thee; they swarm so at Rome and at the Vatican, that thou wouldst not be safe, even at my side, if they were to perceive that thou didst observe them. The murdered man whom they flung into the water is Francisco Borgia, Duke of Candia; his murderer is his brother, and ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... the ground. There was a panicky "Chee! Chee!" from behind him, and Murgatroyd came dashing to swarm up his body and cling apprehensively ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... voice, Arising, follow'd; and the throng began. As from the hollow rock bees stream abroad, 105 And in succession endless seek the fields, Now clustering, and now scattered far and near, In spring-time, among all the new-blown flowers, So they to council swarm'd, troop after troop, Grecians of every tribe, from camp and fleet 110 Assembling orderly o'er all the plain Beside the shore of Ocean. In the midst A kindling rumor, messenger of Jove, Impell'd them, and they went. Loud was the din Of ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... others confront us with the same riddle: they move, yet do not eat. At any period of the nursery stage, even in the heart of winter, on the bleak days of January, I tear the pockets of the one and the tabernacle of the other, expecting to find the swarm of youngsters lying in a state of complete inertia, numbed by the cold and by lack of food. Well, the result is quite different. The instant their cells are broken open, the anchorites run out and flee in every direction as nimbly as at the best moments of their ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... devoting himself, cried out unthinkingly, "Why not manage then in the Polish fashion? You come now and eat up me, and then we will go on round the circle." No sooner said than done. Luciana willed that it should be so. The next day they all packed up and the swarm alighted on a new property. There indeed they found room enough, but few conveniences and no preparations to receive them. Out of this arose many contretemps, which entirely enchanted Luciana; their life became ever wilder and wilder. Huge hunting-parties were set on foot in the deep snow, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... opposite each other, to prevent hair-pulling—making faces did not cause much disturbance—and Jake and Hannah sat at either end, gazing at the array with much the same air as that with which a pair of good-tempered, puzzled hens might regard a swarm of ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... that fall, was facing the end of the war and the consequent departure of the swarm of young Englishmen who had made their headquarters there during the past two years. Accordingly, it resolved to make the most of the short time remaining to it; and the early weeks of the year saw the little ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... fortune to surmount the hardships of the first years of cultivation, the inconveniencies gradually decrease in proportion to their improvements. The merchants being favoured with credit from Britain, are enabled to extend it to the swarm of labourers in the country. The planters having established their characters for honesty and industry, obtain hands to assist them in the harder tasks of clearing and cultivation. Their wealth consists in the increase ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... friends swarm in my thought as I dream of those days. The white marbles in Memorial Chapel solemnly bear the names of Harvard's Civil War soldiers and tell how they died. There was one of whom I might say much, an elder companion, a wise and pleasant ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... Bridle his fortune, and his will to die, With his sharpe sword sought to set ope the gate, By which his soule might from his bodie flie, Had not his freends perforce preseru'd his state, And lockt him in his Cabbin safe to lie, Whilst others swarm'd where haplesse Grinuile lay, By cryes recalling life, late ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... Sunday morning in June that a swarm of bees issued from a hive in a cottage garden near Okebourne church. The queen at first took up her position in an elm tree just outside the churchyard, where a large cluster of bees quickly depended ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... geographical distribution of many alpine forms; but it is chiefly among the Invertebrata that we find this collateral testimony to the influence of the glacial period. In this respect we may note that two small crustaceans, Diaptomus bacillifer and D. denticornis, swarm in the ice-cold waters of the highest alpine tarns throughout the entire chain; and the former of these is also a characteristic inhabitant of pools formed from melting snow in the extreme north. Among the remaining divisions of Invertebrata ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... cut me on the head and face. I attempted to run away, but they all rushed upon me, and, laying hold of every part that afforded a grasp, held me tight. Crowding about me like bees, they shouted an insect-swarm of exasperating speeches up into my face, among which the most frequently recurring were—"You shan't have her; you shan't have her; he! he! he! She's for a better man; how he'll kiss ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... was desperation. The earth was desperate because it foresaw destruction unless it could first destroy its enemy. Mars was desperate because nature was gradually depriving it of the means of supporting life, and its teeming population was compelled to swarm like the inmates of an overcrowded hive of bees, and find new homes elsewhere. In this respect the situation on Mars, as we were well aware, resembled what had already been known upon the earth, where the older nations overflowing with population had sought new lands in ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... individuals grow from seeds only, in other cases they also grow from tubers; that by certain plants layers are sent out, take root, and develop new individuals; and that many plants can be reproduced from cuttings. Further, in the mould that quickly covers stale food, and the infusoria that soon swarm in water exposed to air and light, he sees a mode of generation which, seeming inexplicable, he is apt to consider "spontaneous." The reader of popular science thinks the modes of reproduction still more ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... repose, Where Greenland odours feast the stranger's nose— "Scouts, porters, shoe-blacks, whatsoe'er your trade, All, all, attend, your master's fist to aid!" They heard his voice, and, trembling at the sound, The half-breech'd legions swarm'd like moths around; But, ah! the half-breech'd legions, call'd in vain, Dismay'd and useless, fill'd the cumber'd plain; And while for servile aid the Doctor calls, [41]By P——t subverted, prone to earth ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... come back again," said young Harden piously, "else shall we soon be turned into a pack of old wives. The changes that have come to Harden be more than I can stand, Willie. Not so many years past we were aye as busy as a swarm of bees. When we had a mind, and had nought else to do, we leaped on our horses and headed towards Cumberland. There were ever some kine to be driven, or a house or two to be burned, or some poor widow to be avenged, or some prisoner to be released. ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... and early summer, all of the yellow pine and fir country in this section is subjected to a plague of tabano flies, which are about the size of large horse-flies. These flies swarm in great numbers and attack stock and game so viciously that, as a consequence, the animals are frequently much reduced in flesh. The Apaches take advantage of this plague to set fire to the forest and lie ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... after firing a few shots my gun jammed. In vain I tried to remedy the trouble. While still bothering with my gun the other "five Americans" were on me. As I could not fire, I preferred to retreat, and the whole swarm were after me. I tried to speed up my departure by tilting my machine to the left and letting it drop. A few hundred meters, and I righted it. But they still followed. I repeated the manoeuver and flew home, little pleased ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... first love. We may take it for certain that she did not then, nor at any time, love Considine. It is impossible that she should have thought of him in the character of a lover, though I have little doubt but that she would have preferred him to any of the swarm of Joyces whom Biddy ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... A swarm of minute insects that had been hovering all day round the battlements were now swept away by the freshness of a rising breeze. The two owls in the chamber beneath Donatello's uttered their soft melancholy cry,—which, with national avoidance of harsh ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... coastwise and local traffic. The complaints of merchants, so far as they are known, relate mainly to this kind of work in the West Indies and home waters, while accounts of serious captures by large privateers on the high seas are comparatively rare. The actual damage done by the swarm of small vessels may not have been great, but its moral effects were very serious. It was impossible for the strongest Governments to ignore them, and the consequence was a chronic disturbance of the larger ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... A swarm of boats surrounded the ship as soon as her anchor was down, and everybody was in a hurry to get on shore. As soon as our friends could obtain a boat, their baggage was passed over the side and they followed it. The boat was managed by ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Nora. "There'll be two people to decide that point." She was in a blind fury now, and, before Kitty could say another word, began to swarm up the tree. She managed to catch the branch where Kitty had planted herself, and in another instant would have caught hold of the little girl's dress; but Kitty and Boris could both climb like monkeys, ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... tourists, and such as love to steal away from the maelstroom of an overgrown metropolis, to glide into scenes of "calm contemplation and poetic ease;" although much of the journey lies through avenues of bricks and mortar, and trim roads that swarm with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... The strength of all these surrounding leagues with their swarm does not flow through his wrist, as it does through mine. He is more powerless than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... what-not, shall have what description is necessary as the story proceeds; but, so far as paying rent was concerned, we might equally well have pitched our tents on any one of a hundred others that clustered about us as thickly as a swarm of bees. ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... were in trine. Thy brother-angels at thy birth Strung each his lyre, and tun'd it high, That all the people of the sky Might know a poetess was born on earth; And then, if ever, mortal ears Had heard the music of the spheres. And if no clust'ring swarm of bees On thy sweet mouth distill'd their golden dew, 'Twas that such vulgar miracles Heaven had not leisure to renew: For all the blest fraternity of love Solemniz'd there thy birth, and kept thy ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... fortune shows: The wood, my love, is full of woes. Hunger afflicts him evermore: The nights are black, the wild winds roar; And there are dangers worse than those: The wood, my love, is full of woes. There creeping things in every form Infest the earth, the serpents swarm, And each proud eye with fury glows: The wood, my love, is full of woes. The snakes that by the rives hide In sinuous course like rivers glide, And line the path with deadly foes: The wood, my love, is full of woes. Scorpions, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... a woman ageless because she is famous. She is surrounded by a swarm of lovers and possesses a great many beautiful things. She has more than one Ming jar in the library at her country place; yards upon yards of point de Venise in her top bureau-drawer. She is able to employ ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... effect was magical. Men once more turned back to a noble but despised industry. Peace and plenty supplanted war and poverty. "The Benedictines," says Guizot, "have been the great clearers of land in Europe. A colony, a little swarm of monks, settled in places nearly uncultivated, often in the midst of a pagan population—in Germany, for example, or in Brittany; there, at once missionaries and laborers, they accomplish their double service, through ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... feel that he could not move under their weight, when they set up a hideous screaming, and scattered like a cloud. Lina was among them, snapping and striking with her paws, while her tail knocked them over and over. But they flew up, gathered, and descended on her in a swarm, perching upon every part of her body, so that he could see only a huge misshapen mass, which seemed to go rolling away into the darkness. He got up and tried to follow, but could see nothing, and after wandering ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... felt, thought and acted as they, and this history would never have been written. He would have grown up to man's estate in the factory and have been merged an indistinguishable unit in the drab mass of cloth-capped humans who, at certain hours of the day, flood the streets of Bludston, and swarm on the roofs of clanging and shrieking tramcars, and on Saturday afternoons gather in clotted greyness on the football ground. He might have been sober and industrious-the proletariat of Bludston is not entirely composed of Buttons-but he would have taken the colour of his environment, ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... frequently of considerable size. They are usually surrounded by a belt of cultivated ground, where dourra, sesamum, and culinary vegetables thrive abundantly. The flocks that swarm over the pastures often include some thousands of sheep, though they are never killed by the natives for purposes of food. At first Miss Tinne easily purchased several, but as soon as the natives discovered that she slaughtered them for provision, they refused ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... the milk. It seemed impossible to keep meat sweet. Jimmy lost interest in the gathering of firewood and the carrying of water; and as a result, the waterbutts first shrank, then leaked, and finally lay down, a medley of planks and iron hoops. A swarm of grasshoppers passed through the homestead, and to use Sam's explicit English: "Vegetable bin finissem all about"; and by the time fresh seeds were springing the Wet returned with renewed vigour, and flooded out the garden. Then stores began to fail, including soap and ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... time until his death, he appears as an able civil administrator, and a vehement opponent of lax manners. In the year of his censorship (184 B.C.) Plautus died. The tremendous vigour with which he wielded the powers of this post stirred up a swarm of enemies. His tongue became more bitter than ever. Plutarch gives his portrait in ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... little houses called hives. They have a queen; and if she is stolen, or dies, they will not go on working without her. Only one queen can live in each house; when a new queen is about to come out of her cell, the old queen gathers her followers and they swarm. ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... at present are chiefly due, I think, to the swarm of vagrants thrown upon society by the disbanding of the rebel armies and the emancipation of the slaves at a season of the year when it is difficult for those ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... collars, combined with loud laughter. Every moment Beautiful Sara was becoming more amazed by this convulsive merriment of her husband, and she was oppressed with nameless fears as she gazed on the buzzing swarm of gaily glittering guests who were comfortably enjoying themselves here and there, nibbling the thin Passover cakes, drinking wine, gossiping, or joyfully ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... as if nature had engaged to make an expression of the iniquity of the place. Suddenly death came upon Lizon. A pit was dug near his tavern and he was placed in a coffin, but as the box was lowered it was felt to grow lighter, while there poured from it a swarm of fat and filthy snakes. The fog that overspread the earth that morning seemed to blow by in human forms, the grave rolled like a wave after it had been covered, and after darkness fell a blue will-o'-the-wisp ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... barking of Skye terriers. We have added a nursery wing already to one side of the house, and have balanced it on the other by a vinery, built after the model of those which adorn the mansion of my senior. The Misses Balderby have taken what they call a 'great fancy' to my wife, and they swarm over our drawing-room carpets in blue or pink flounces very often, on what they call 'social evenings for a little music.' I find that a little music is only a synonym with the Misses Balderby for a ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... that the bees will not settle unless under the influence of this peculiar music; and the constable, holding faithfully to the popular belief, rushed down his garden, "tanging" as though his life depended upon it, in the hopes that the soothing sound would induce the swarm to settle at once on ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... other officers being away, he was detained at Avoncester, and meantime Bessie Keith took all hearts by storm with her gay good humour and eager sympathy. By the end of the first morning she had been to the stable with a swarm of boys, patted, and learnt the names of all the ponies; she was on the warmest terms with the young spaniel, that, to the Curtises' vexation, one of the officers had given Conrade, and which was always getting into the way; she had won Alison by telling her of Mr. Clare's ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the blackened statues, as I passed under their blank gaze, along the unending bridge, with their ancient garments and their saintly crowns, seemed to me the real inhabitants and owners of this place, while the busy, trivial men and women, hurrying to and fro, were a swarm of ephemeral visitants infesting it for a day. It is such grim, stony beings as these, I thought, who are the fathers of ancient faded children, in those tanned time-fretted dwellings that crowd the steep before me; who pay their court in the worn and crumbling pomp of the palace which stretches ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... they had to hold fast to the iron posts supporting the ceiling. After their eyes had grown accustomed to the twilight always reigning in the steerage, they saw a swarm of human beings rolling on the floor, groaning, whimpering, wailing, shrieking. The weather did not permit of the opening of the port-holes, and the exhalations of about twenty Russian-Jewish families, with bag and baggage and babies, polluted the air to such an ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... stretch of ivory on which shone three words, each beginning with a V; images of gods disturbed, the Rhine, the Rhone, the captive Ocean in massive gold; the glitter of three thousand crowns offered to the dictator by the army and allies of Rome. Then came the standards of the republic, a swarm of eagles, the size of pigeons, in polished silver upheld by lances which ensigns bore, preceding the six hundred senators who marched in a body, their togas bordered with red, while to the din of incessant ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... window panes Quite cautiously she peeps. "Oh, dear! how good it looks!" she cries, As she the honey sees; "I must, I will, indeed, have some; It cannot hurt the bees." And then a hive she gently lifts,— Oh, foolish, foolish child,— Down, down it falls—out swarm the bees Buzzing with fury wild. With fright she shrieks, and tries to run, But ah! 'tis all in vain; Upon her light the angry bees, And make her writhe ...
— Slovenly Betsy • Heinrich Hoffman
... that he was guilty.... Temptations come sometimes in swarms, like bees, and running away does no good, and fighting only exasperates them. The only help must come from Him who understands and can control the whole swarm. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... troubled the swarm of pretenders no further. The flame of the candle endangered the visitors; they threw themselves into it stupidly and singed themselves slightly. On the morrow we could resume our study of them, and make certain carefully ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... the "nectareous juice of immortal life." His conceits are sometimes yet less valuable. In the "Last Day" he hopes to illustrate the reassembly of the atoms that compose the human body at the "Trump of Doom" by the collection of bees into a swarm at the tinkling of a pan. The Prophet says of Tyre that "her merchants are princes." Young says of ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... Canon Hotel where the bears swarm—swarm like flies over the garbage. A remarkable sight. It was a very dark night—so dark, in fact, that I hesitated to go to my teepee, which was placed apart that I might not be disturbed by the others. I must have my rest, as ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... described. The upper part of the Park, towards the Royal Observatory, is very steep, and down this boys and girls, men and women, have a roll. Such scenes as are here to be witnessed we cannot match. Nothing can exceed the doings that occur. All the public houses swarm, and in no spot have I ever seen so many places for drinking as are here. The working-men of London, and apprentices, with wires and sweethearts, all turn out Easter Monday. It seems as though all the horses, carts, chaises, and hackney coaches of the city were on the road. We saw several ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... I might have known it by the whispering, shuffling, coughing, buzzing through all the notes of the gamut. It was a true swarm of bees, leaving the old hive. Gottlieb has lighted fresh candles for me, and placed a bottle of Burgundy on the piano-forte. I can play no more, I am perfectly exhausted. My glorious old friend here on the music-stand is to blame for that. Again he has borne me away through the air, as Mephistopheles ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... affected by such wholly accidental occurrences as these were. One of them was this: a wolf came into their camp, from one of the forests near, and after wounding several men, made his escape again. The other was more trifling still. A swarm of bees flew into the encampment, and lighted upon a tree just over Scipio's tent. This was considered, for some reason or other, a sign that some calamity was going to befall them, and the men were accordingly intimidated and ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... roam everywhere over the mossy plains and through the grassy valleys; wild sheep and a species of ibex are not unfrequently found in the mountains; and millions upon millions of ducks, geese, and swans, in almost endless variety, swarm about every river and little marshy lake throughout the country. These aquatic fowls are captured in great multitudes while moulting by organised "drives" of fifty or seventy-five men in canoes, who chase the birds in one great flock up some narrow stream, at the end of which a huge net is ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... distilling a few words, for ever desiring—(a cry starts to the left, another to the right. Wheels strike divergently. Omnibuses conglomerate in conflict)—for ever desiring—(the clock asseverates with twelve distinct strokes that it is midday; light sheds gold scales; children swarm)—for ever desiring truth. Red is the dome; coins hang on the trees; smoke trails from the chimneys; bark, shout, cry "Iron ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... swarmed the thicker the farther he went south. And now, as the two started down the hill, he could see in the dusty road that ran through the old battlefield Southern interest and sympathy taking visible shape. For a hundred miles around, the human swarm had risen from the earth and was moving toward him on wagon, bicycle, horseback, foot; in omnibus, carriage, cart; in barges on wheels, with projecting additions, and other land-craft beyond classification or description. And ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... was abstracted and thoughtful all that day, and performed no miracles except certain provisions for Winch, and the miracle of completing his day's work with punctual perfection in spite of all the bee-swarm of thoughts that hummed through his mind. And the extraordinary abstraction and meekness of his manner was remarked by several people, and made a matter for jesting. For the most part he was ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... principal agents concerned in the production of the beautiful phenomena of phosphorescence. The minute species—mere gelatinous specks—swarm at times by countless myriads in the waters of the ocean, and make its surface glow with 'vitalised fire.' The waves, as they curl and break, sparkle and flash forth light, and the track of the moving ship is marked by a lustrous line. 'In ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... support themselves throughout the week. During the remainder of the time, the sober and industrious man employs himself in building a house; but I am sorry to say that the generality repair to the vast number of public houses that swarm on every side, and get drunk. This is evident from the annual revenue derived from rum, which in 1839 was 190,000 pounds, amounting to more than seven gallons for every ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... Little short of a miracle would prevent his capture if he stayed there much longer. In the morning, discovery would be certain. He must escape that night, if at all. But how could he make his way through that swarm of enemies? ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... shuffle my feet, lest he should awake and spring at me, I took a jump backwards, that would have done honour to a gymnastic master, and thus darted outside the door of the room. With a thick stick, I then returned and settled his worship. Some parts of South Africa swarm with snakes; none are free from them. I have known three men killed by them in one harvest on a farm in Oliphant's Hoek. There is an immense variety of them, the deadliest being the puff-adder, a thick and comparatively short snake. Its bite will kill occasionally within an ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... finally, those of the Kaiser and of his military cabinet. At best it meant a tussle with the pater. But golden youth does not long indulge in such gloomy reflections. That is its privilege. Thus, then, after exchanging melancholy views, the younger swarm broke and fled into the garden or ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... he had fairly time to run over to the other side of the vessel and take a look for himself, a quick rattle of oars was heard as a boat grated against the brig's side, and, before you could think, a swarm of fellows started up like so many shadows above the rail. In five seconds they had jumped on the deck, Ben fell like a bullock from a blow from the butt-end of a pistol, the helm was jammed hard down, the lee braces let fly, and, as the old ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... followed by a quick trip to the grounds in one of the ancient hacks that seem to swarm in Hampton. If the starting field had been a scene of confusion the day before, it was a veritable chaos now. Smoke and the fumes of gasolene hung like a pall above it. Through the bluish cloud could be seen dim figures hurrying with cans of fuel ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... of many species germinate quickly simply in water, and a drop suspended in the form of the ordinary drop-culture on a cover-glass affords ample opportunity. In the course of time, usually not more than two or three days, the swarm spores cease their activity, lose their cilia, and come to rest, exhibiting at most nothing more than the slow amoeboid movement already referred to. In the course of two or three days more, in favorable cases, the little spores begin to ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... last days when, amid a swarm of disasters, he approved himself like Samson, and earned for himself the loftiest epitaph in the ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... became aware of a curious humming sound in the air. The cause was soon apparent and the mystery that had puzzled them was solved when they reached the beast. The carcase was covered with bees while close above it hummed a swarm of others watching for an exposed place ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... us from casting reasons before those who would but trample them under foot. It is rather for the sake of those who read such literature, imprudently perhaps, but with no sympathy, and yet find their imagination perplexed and puzzled with a swarm of minute sophistries and difficulties, collectively bewildering, though contemptible singly, that we think it well to form some estimate of the philosophical value ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... work, or play, without an inward groan for some way—righteous way—by which our land might be clean rid of them. But here, in my silly disguise, confronting this unmixed young African so manifestly superior to millions of our human swarm white or black, my unsympathetic generalizations were clear put to shame. The customary challenge, "Who' d'you belong to?" failed on my lips, and while those soft eyes passed over me from bonnet to mitts I gave ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... try," said Daphne. "We want them to swarm awfully, and they might actually swarm ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... and none I suppose, where the activities of the present, in view of it, are more offensive. It is all undermined with the railways that bring the day's meat-provision to London for distribution throughout the city, and the streets that centre upon it swarm with butchers' wagons laden with every kind and color of carnage, prevalently the pallor of calves' heads, which seem so to abound in England that it is wonderful any calves have them on still. The wholesale market covers I know not what acreage, and if you ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... the best climber among us, having been compelled, when living with the Indians, to swarm up the highest trees to cut cocoa-nuts for them. We all carried long sheath-knives in our belts, which were useful for a variety of purposes. Putting down his gun, Harry was quickly at the top of the tree, and, using his knife, threw down ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... seriousness, partly by the enchantment of song. But the poem will never be read through except by students of English literature. It is a whole; its members are well-fitted; it is full of beauties—in parts they swarm like fire-flies; and yet it is not a good poem. It is like a well-shaped house, built of mud, and stuck full of precious stones. I do not care, in my limited space, to quote from it. Never was there a more incongruous ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... have warmed the heart to see the little ones rush to Grandfather Harling, clinging round him like a swarm of bees and clamoring for a story. And a story they got—and not only one but two, three, for Grandfather was a rare story-teller and a great lover of children. Meantime the elders gossiped together, their chief topic ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... preoccupied with the events taking place on the Nile, was for a moment in doubt whether this incursion was merely a passing raid or the opening of a serious war, but the reports of his scouts soon left no doubt as to the gravity of the danger: "The Elamite, like a swarm of grasshoppers, covers the fields, he covers Accad; against Babylon he has pitched his camp and drawn out his lines." The city was too strong to be taken by storm. The Assyrians hastened to relieve it, and threatened to cut off the retreat of the aggressors: the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... attacks not only the potato-vines but also the honey locusts, and especially the Windsor bean. In particular years it has been known, in conjunction with the rose-bug, (Macrodactylus subspinosus, Linn.,) to swarm upon every apple-tree in some orchards in Illinois, not only eating the foliage, but ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... heard. It was as if all the ghosts in Hades had suddenly piped up at their shrillest and ghostliest. This was followed by a splutter of musketry, and this again by loud yells. Looking round I saw a swarm of strange figures sweep into the yard, half women as to their dress, for they wore little petticoats that barely reached their knees, but matchless fighting men as to their behaviour. On they came, with the pace of hounds, the courage ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... buzz around a herdsman's homestead in the time of spring when the pails are drenched with milk, even so did the Achaeans swarm on to the plain to charge the Trojans ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... is glorious. Day after day, after a sharp and frosty dawn, the sun swings up into a cloudless sky; and the hundred thousand troops that swarm like ants upon, the undulating plains of Hampshire can march, sit, lie, or sleep on hard, sun-baked earth. A wet autumn would have thrown our training back months. The men, as yet, possess nothing but the fatigue uniforms they stand up in, so it is ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... feel and think May in the silent sloth of Lethe sink, But my love not! Hark, the wild swarm is at the walls! I hear! Gird on my sword—Belov'd one, dry the tear— Lethe for love ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... care. Apaches beyond doubt, a dozen, and coming this way, and these, too, have a couple of horses. Can they have overpowered his men, ambushed and murdered them, then secured their mounts? Is the whole Chiricahua tribe, reinforced by a swarm from the Sierra Blanca, concentrating on him now? The silence about him is ominous. Not an Indian has shown along the range for half an hour, and now these fellows to the east are close to the copse. In less than twenty minutes there will be five times his puny force around him. Is there ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... sunshine heating the pavement, in winter some icy snow-laden wind rushing down the lonely streets. The population of Grenelle is said to be the worst of Paris, both the most vicious and the most wretched. The neighborhood of the Ecole Militaire attracts thither a swarm of worthless women, who bring in their train all the scum of the populace. In contrast to all this the gay bourgeois district of Passy rises up across the Seine; while the rich aristocratic quarters ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... week as a finish, and poor Tom did hope that we might get through without any further trouble. We met at Ballinamona, and we drew Blake's coverts without a word. We killed our fox too and then went away to Pulhaddin gorse. I'll be blest if all the county weren't there. I never saw the boys swarm about a place so thick. Pulhaddin is the best gorse in the county. Of course it was no use drawing it; but as we were going away on the road to Loughrea the crowd was so thick that there was no riding among them. Ever so many horsemen got into ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... possibly have happened to him. He is bearing it in a very manly way, but I fancy he has felt it deeply, poor fellow. He's never been in Boston since, and I don't believe he'd come here if he'd any idea how many Boston people there were in the hotel—we swarm! It would be very ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... swarm toward my pen, but I have no heart to express them,—it is too sorry an occupation. A word about Spencer's conception of "Force," however, insists on being added; for although it is one of his most essential, it is one ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... indignation.... It was all a dream, the dream of a prosperous comfortable man who had never come to the cutting edge of life. Everywhere cunning, everywhere small feuds and hatreds, distrusts, dishonesties, timidities, feebleness of purpose, dwarfish imaginations, swarm over the great and simple issues.... It is a war now like any other of the mobbing, many-aimed cataclysms that have shattered empires and devastated the world; it is a war without point, a war that has lost its soul, it has become mere incoherent fighting and destruction, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... into the Ravine which was beginning to overflow. He was adamant. He had only a few rounds of H.E. and he would not spend them, feeling sure his 18 prs. with their shrapnel were masters of the field. At 6 a.m. out came the Turks, not in lines, but just like a swarm of bees. Our fellows never saw the like and began to wonder whenever they were going to stop, and what on earth could stop them! Thousands of Turks in a bunch, so the boys say, swarmed out of their trenches and the Gully Ravine. Well, ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... backs propped comfortably against a log, watching the sun sink behind a distant sky-line all notched with purple mountains upon which snow still lingered. Beside them a smudge dribbled a wisp of smoke sufficient to ward off a pestilential swarm of mosquitoes and black flies. In the clear, thin air of that altitude the occasional voices of what bird and animal life was abroad in the wild broke into the evening hush with astonishing distinctness—a lone goose winged above in wide circles, uttering his ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... offspring of these mystic unions appears to be fathered on God (ngai); certainly there are children among the Akikuyu who pass for children of God. It is said that once, when the inhabitants of Cayeli in Buru—an East Indian island—were threatened with destruction by a swarm of crocodiles, they ascribed the misfortune to a passion which the prince of the crocodiles had conceived for a certain girl. Accordingly, they compelled the damsel's father to dress her in bridal array and deliver her over to the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... practicable, the constructor modifies his current artificially, banking it inward with large stones, so as to form a sort of sluice in which passing fish will be more completely at his mercy. At the season of their periodic ascent, salmon swarm in all the rivers of our Pacific coast; the Columbia and Willamette are alive with them for a long distance above the cascades of the one and the Oregon-City fall of the other. The fisherman stands, nearly or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... in the congregation, to which the human mind is everlastingly prone, caused discontent: Individuals began to sting each other, which in 1745, produced a swarm. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... surrendering their common courtship was characteristic of their common hatred. Somewhere about the beginning of this century a certain Miss Jenny Rusker, of Castle Barfield, was surrounded by quite a swarm of lovers. She was pretty, she was well-to-do, for her time and station, she was accomplished—playing the harp (execrably), working samplers in silk and wool with great diligence and exactitude, ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... less affable in Panay and Negros, and evince an almost incredible avarice. They are excessively fond of ornament, and at feasts they appear adorned with an amount of gaudy French jewellery which, compared with their means, cost them a lot of money to purchase from the swarm of Jew pedlars who, before the Revolution of ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... 'here swarm with military, and indeed the profession of arms seems to have too much sway in the Prussian dominions. The subalterns and young men of the Prussian Army are said to have republican sentiments, and they, in ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... brother, both frightfully ugly and ragged urchins, pursued us all over the city, incessantly whining 'Signore Padrone!' It was only on the threshold of the inn that I ventured to give them a few coppers, for I knew well that any public beneficence would raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us. Sitting later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw the same blind boy taken by his brother to play. The game consists, in the little creature throwing his arms about the trunk of a big tree, and running round ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... Island, only three miles south of Vera Cruz. If Ned himself had been aware of it, he might have changed his plans and ridden right in among his own friends. As it was, however, in less than three minutes he had cantered in among a swarm of angry Mexicans and glittering spear-points. Their state of discipline was witnessed to by the fact that the captain in nominal command of them had some difficulty in obtaining from them permission to ask his own questions of this newcomer. When ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... of bees, as I've heard say, Said to their Queen one sultry day, "Please your Majesty's high position, The hive is full and the weather is warm, We rather think, with a due submission, The time has come when we ought to swarm." Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. Up spake their Queen and thus spake she - "This is a matter that rests with me, Who dares opinions thus to form? I'LL tell you when it is time to swarm!" Buzz, buzz, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... off in the morning reight early, With ther basket o' jock on ther arm; The bell is ting-tonging, ting-tonging, As they enter the mill in a swarm. ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... he knew he had the troopers of the New York State Constabulary to deal with, and in addition every game warden and fire warden in the State Forests, a swarm of plain clothes men from the Metropolis, and the rural constabulary of every town along the ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... a neighbouring beehive had swarmed, and the new colony, pitching on the window-sill, was making its way into the room when the horrified nurse shut down the sash. If that well-meaning woman had only abstained from her ill-timed interference, the swarm might have settled on my lips, and I should have been endowed with that mellifluous eloquence which, in this country, leads far more surely than worth, capacity, or honest work, to the highest places in Church and State. But the opportunity was lost, and I have been ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... season the sun does not set till 10.30, and rises again at 3 A.M. There is no darkness, midnight being almost as light as midday. During the hot months all kinds of insects pester the inhabitants. The horseflies and mosquitoes swarm in such numbers that the rigors of winter are considered preferable to the warmth ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 41, August 19, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... to be useful, I grow too much interested for my own peace. Confined almost entirely to the society of children, I am anxiously solicitous for their future welfare, and mortified beyond measure, when counteracted in my endeavours to improve them.—I feel all a mother's fears for the swarm of little ones which surround me, and observe disorders, without having power to apply the proper remedies. How can I be reconciled to life, when it is always a painful warfare, and when I am deprived ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... plush and silk stockings, white or flesh-coloured; and the barristers with their wigs, and the javelin men and silver trumpets. Every spring, too, the Royal Rangers Militia came up for training. Suddenly one morning, in the height of the bird-nesting season, the street would swarm with countrymen tramping up to the barracks on the hill, and back, with bundles of clothes and unblackened boots dangling. For the next six weeks the town would be full of bugle calls, and brazen music, and companies marching and parading in suits of invisible green, and clanking officers in black, ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... following thought, and step by step led on, He entered now the bordering Desert wild, And, with dark shades and rocks environed round, His holy meditations thus pursued:— "O what a multitude of thoughts at once Awakened in me swarm, while I consider What from within I feel myself, and hear What from without comes often to my ears, Ill sorting with my present state compared! 200 When I was yet a child, no childish play To me was pleasing; all my mind was set Serious to learn and know, and thence to ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... Thursday, March 9th.—Prophets swarm in both Houses of Parliament, but the House of Lords is unique in possessing one who confines himself to subjects which he has at his fingers' ends and whose prophecies have a habit of coming true. What Lord MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU does not know of the petrol ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... emotions that touched my breast were those of mingled pity and veneration. But how soon were all my feelings changed! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees, than were the lips of this holy man! It was a day of the administration of the sacrament; and his subject was, of course, the passion of our Saviour. I have heard the subject handled a thousand times; I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose that in the wild woods ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... conquered Poland, where they swarm, and the whole substance of which they extract. Formerly their religion, at present the sense of a reprobation too long universal, have made them the enemies of mankind; of old they attacked with arms, at present by cunning. This race is abhorred by the Russians, perhaps on account of its ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... of Wanguana who attempted to trade in Gani and Chopi, but were killed by the natives. I now assured Rumanika that in two or three years he would have a greater trade with Egypt than he ever could have with Zanzibar; for when I opened the road, all those men he heard of would swarm up here to visit him. He, however, only laughed at my folly in proposing to go to a place of which all I heard was merely that every stranger who went there was killed. He began to show a disinclination to allow my going there, and though from the most friendly intention, this view was ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... thatched roofs, are common. The inside walls are plastered with cow-dung, clay and finely chopped straw. None of the houses have chimneys, and smoke soon colours the interior a dark brown. Generally the houses are filthy and ill ventilated and swarm with vermin. Drainage and sanitary arrangements do not exist. The caves of the highlands are often used as dwellings. The most remarkable buildings in Abyssinia are certain churches hewn out of the solid rock. The chief native industries are ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to hamper my studio work until the Exhibition was actually opened. Of course I had to make hurried engagements at any price, and consequently bad ones for me. Every householder is aware that should he change his abode he is surrounded in his new home by a swarm of local tradespeople and others anxious to get something out of him. Well, my experience upon entering the world of "business," hitherto strange to me, was precisely the same. All sorts of parasites try to fasten themselves on ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... the north of England. In these straits the British invited help from the Angles and Saxons, who soon engaged the northern tribesmen and defeated them. The feebleness of the Britons having become well known among the continental peoples, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes began to steadily swarm across the North Sea in powerful, armed bands. Having for a time assisted the Britons they began to seek excuses for quarrels, and gradually the Britons with brief periods of success were beaten and dispossessed of their lands until they were driven into the western parts of the island. ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... implements than you begin with, and will understand how yonder slight youth has learned to handle his two heavy clubs in complex curves that seem to you inexplicable, tracing in the air a device as swift and tangled as that woven by a swarm of gossamer flies above a brook, in the sultry stillness of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... to meet a procession of schoolgirls on the Sunday's dead march, called a walk, round the park, could hardly go by without dropping to a hum in its chatter, and the shot of incurious half-eyes the petticoated creatures—all so much of a swarm unless you stare at them like lanterns. The boys cast glance because it relieved their heaviness; things were lumpish and gloomy that day of the week. The girls, who sped their peep of inquisition before the moment of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... like an immense swarm of black bees settled on a honey-pot. The leaders, who flew there first, are at the top, gorged and distended. Round, beneath and on them crawl thousands of others thirsting to feed on the sweet, liquid gold. The pot is covered with them, layer on ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... Kathleen, and rushed to the door, He leaped on his horse, and he swung her before; And they all were so bothered that not a man stirred Till the galloping hoofs on the pavement were heard. Then up they all started, like bees in a swarm, And they riz a great shout, like the burst of a storm; And they ran, and they jumped, and they shouted galore; But Phadrig or Kathleen they ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... for my horse dashed after his fellows and passed through the bushes, so that the winged scorpions were left behind. Presently I lifted my head and looked cautiously toward the wasp's-nest. It was in a bank twenty feet away, and the angry swarm was hovering over it, like smoke from a vent hole. They were too angry, and I was too near, to run any risks, so I sank down again and waited. In one or two minutes I peered once more, getting a sight under a small log lying eight or ten feet away. And as I gazed waspward my eye also ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... During four months or thereabouts, they would lead the lives of farmers and of sportsmen; but no sooner would their haymaking and their corn harvest have been accomplished, than they would be compelled again, like a swarm of bees, to retire to their semi-troglodyte existence in the cells of ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... Dome, But land as level as the sea, a sandy road That twists through myrtle thickets Where the black boys lead. Far down a moss-draped avenue of oaks There is a flash of torches, and the lights Go flitting past the bottle panes; A cracked plantation bell dull-clangs; The beagles bay, Black faces swarm, with ivory eyeballs glazed— Court dwarfs that served thick chocolate, on their knees In damasked, perfumed rooms at grand Versailles, Were all the blacks ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... Then people began to think it would be a good thing to obtain such beautiful and tasteful articles for one's friends. A system of 'salvage' was thus introduced, which it is said even eminent and distinguished men in the army winked at. Soldiers bargained for them with the Jews and hucksters who swarm at Versailles; officers thought of the adornment of their own houses; and such things as could be easily packed, such as engravings and oil-paintings, were in danger of being cut out of their frames and rolled up for home consumption." Herr Freytag then points out that these articles ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere |
