"Swerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recognized the genuine ring of the other, and admired and respected that which was most true and noble. The purity, simplicity and high-minded honor which distinguished the younger, had its effect on the elder, even while he smiled at the inflexibility which would not swerve one hair's breadth from the line of right. The story is often told, how, when this young man's conscience stood bolt upright in the way of what was deemed a desirable arrangement, Stevens one day exclaimed: "It don't do, Pennypacker, to be so d——d honest." Pennypacker stood his ground, and the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Chateau Blassernare, or the man he mistook for him—his dress was not what he usually wore, but the witness swore that he could not be mistaken as to his identity. He said his face looked grave and stern; but though he did not smile, it was the same face he knew so well. Nothing would make him swerve from that. If that were he, it was the last time he was seen. He has never been heard of since. Nothing could be heard of him in the neighborhood of Rouen. There has been no evidence of his death; and there is no sign ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... reduce his speed to take to the brush. The car beneath him flung clean off the ground as he swung to climb out of the grooves. It landed with all four wheels a-spin, but only struck on two. A sudden swerve, far out of the course, and the monster righted abruptly. Another sharp turn, and away it went again, crushing the brush and flinging up the sand in a track of its own that paralleled the road, but rougher though ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... a little sigh, and apply himself harder than ever to his task. When he had an unpleasant thing to do he never allowed temptation to swerve him. And, after all, it was pretty snug and comfortable there in his den, Hugh told himself; besides, that was a long walk home for a tired fellow to take, even in ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... orchard, where Herbert ran to catch it—but he was not quick enough. At the moment the ball left the racket Gammire abandoned his prayers: his eyes, like a careful fielder's, calculating and estimating, followed the swerve of the ball in the breeze, and when it fell he was on the correct spot. He ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... fairy— Flew she down to Ealing. "GEORGIE, stop it! Pray you, drop it; Hark to my appealing: To this foolish Papal rule-ish Twaddle put an ending; This a swerve is From our ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... terse ter'ma gant pearl ear'ly merge per'son al err per'fect yearn mer'chan dise learn mer'cer swerve ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... It should not swerve us From a purpose true and brave; Dearer Freedom's rugged service Than the pastime of the slave; Better is the storm above it than the quiet ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Just before the midyear examinations came a crisis in the growth of their friendship. One afternoon Lila reached the head of the stairs barely in time to make a sudden swerve out of Miss ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... oxen, and their weight sunk the ice so that the water spouted through the air-holes and frightened them. He knew that the beaten track, where the teams had trodden the ice solid, and the accumulated mud had shaded it, had not thawed as fast as the surrounding ice, and that to allow his wagon to swerve a foot, one way or the other, was to risk breaking in. He ran along by the lead yoke, watching them so closely that he did not notice where he was walking, and several times he stepped off, knee-deep in little air-holes; but he took his load safely over. As he went up the bank some ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... cinnamon, "but not so nervous as I was in the singles. But it was the first time that I ever stood up to the twin-screw service which Baron von Stosch uses so cleverly, and once or twice I was beaten by the swerve." But his partner, the famous Basque amateur, Mme. Jaureguiberry, was loud in his praises. "He played like a statesman and a diplomatist," she said. The Grand Duke MICHAEL was also greatly impressed and made a neat mot. "His fore-hand drives," he said, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... desperate barrier of that thought, Mrs. Major groaned aloud as she paced the room, threw up her arms in her despair. The action caused her to swerve; with hideous violence she crashed her stockinged foot against the leg of ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... brook! Little brook! You have such a happy look— Such a very merry manner, as you swerve and curve and crook— And your ripples, one and one, Reach each other's hands and run Like laughing little children ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... through our combining the recollection brought previously into action with the sensation recently produced. And when these, placed along each other, agree, a true opinion is produced; but when they swerve from each other, a false one."[538] The dixa of Plato, therefore answers to the experience, or the empirical knowledge of modern philosophy, which is concerned only with appearances (phenomena), and not with absolute realities, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... repaid the debt by placing their services at the disposal of this wealth: they undertook to open roads for commerce and outlets for industry. But through this very combination the movement imposed on Prussia by her kings, and on Germany by Prussia, was bound to swerve from its course, whilst gathering speed and flinging itself forward. Sooner or later it was bound to escape from all control and become a plunge into ...
— The Meaning of the War - Life & Matter in Conflict • Henri Bergson
... make it with most ease; though perhaps I have as little reason to complain of that hardship as any man, excepting Quarles and Withers. What it adds to sweetness, it takes away from sense; and he who loses the least by it may be called a gainer; it often makes us swerve from an author's meaning. As if a mark he set up for an archer at a great distance, let him aim as exactly as he can, the least wind will take his arrow and ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... desert land 545 Yielding wine and wheat alway, With a fountain near at hand And contemplation far away. Much fish and game in brake and pool Must I have for my own preserve 550 And as for my house it must never swerve From an even temperature, cool In summer and in winter warm. Yes, and a comfortable bed Would not do me any harm, 555 All of it of cedar-wood, A harpsichord hung at its head: So do I find a monk's life good. I would ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... the reins," cried mademoiselle, but the swerve had sent Hugues staggering, and before he had steadied himself or regained his wits Bertrand was tearing madly under the city gates, his reins hanging loose, his neck stretched like ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... a dread of Pierre, and, only the night before, she had determined to make one last great effort to save Aleck, and if he would not be saved—strange that, thinking it all over again, as she watched the figure on horseback coming nearer, her mind should swerve to what she had heard of Sergeant Fones's expected promotion. Then she fell to wondering if anyone had ever given him a real Christmas present; if he had any friends at all; if life meant anything more to him than carrying ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had seen more than one tragic happening, as its almost unparalleled isolation proclaimed. So much Mr. Van Broecklyn had told her; but she was warned to be careful in traversing it and not upon any pretext to swerve aside from the right-hand wall till she came to a huge mantelpiece. This passed, and a sharp corner turned, she ought to see somewhere in the dim spaces before her a streak of vivid light shining through the crack at the bottom of the blocked-up ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... murmuring waters of the Little Big Branch and the voices of nature, to which Emma Dean listened, nodded or shook her head as if she and those voices were holding converse. The laughing teasing of her companions failed to swerve Emma from ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... glide with my peering head, Or swerve at a puff of smoke, Who watcheth my wings on the wind outspread, Here—gone—with an instant stroke? Who toucheth the glory of life I feel As I buffet this great glad gale, Spire and spire to the cloud-world, wheel, Loosen my wings and sail? ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... ignored by all parties. He could discern neither unity of cause nor unity of effort in the confused history of recent struggles in South America; and until orderly government was achieved, with due regard to fundamental civil rights, he would not have the United States swerve in the slightest degree from the path of strict neutrality. Mr. Clay, he observed in his diary, had "mounted his South American great horse... to control ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... quavering neigh of relief. The boys mounted; but although they rode rapidly, with ever increasing impatience, they paused every few moments to listen; there was likely to be a return stampede at any moment. More than once they were obliged to swerve suddenly aside from yawning rifts, and they passed a spring of boiling water, spouting and hissing upward, which had not been there in the morning. They were too frightened to talk; not only the paralysing awe of the earthquake was upon them, but the ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... pledged in the face of the universe, Never to falter and never to swerve; Toil for it!—bleed for it!—if there be need for it, Stretch every sinew and strain ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... matter of bombed depots, and Tam, turning homeward, looked for the machines which would assuredly rise to intercept him. Already the Archies were banging away at him, and a fragment of shell had actually struck his fuselage. But he was not bothering about Archies. He did swerve toward a battery skilfully hidden behind a hayrick and drop two hopeful bombs, but he scarcely troubled to make ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... to be in a canoe stern again; to feel the rush of the water under his knees; to have her glide swiftly on her soundless way down the full-bosomed, sunbathed river; to see her put her nose into the little waves and gently, smoothly push them asunder with never a splash or swerve; to send her along straight and true as an arrow in its flight, and then flip! flip to swing her off a floating log or around an awkward boat lumbering with clumsy oars. That was to be alive again. Oh, the joy of it! Of all things that move to the will of man there is none like the canoe. It ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... rested, without waiting for full day Howard was forced to start them on and to make a wide swerve out of his intended direction to come soon to feed and water. Otherwise the drive would become a tremendous misfortune and loss. His cattle would lose weight rapidly under privation; they would ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... inducement must have been great, from the number of wine-houses on the Rock: but such was the desire of these brave fellows to be avenged for the loss of the Hannibal, that they would not allow any temptation to induce them to swerve from the duty they ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... was not to be. As he watched their eager approach, he saw them stop, look back, swerve and rush around the corner of the house. Some one had directed them elsewhere. He could see the pointing hand, the baleful face. Quimby had realised his own danger in this prospect of Hammersmith's escape, and had intervened to prevent it. It was a murderer's natural ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... Mark even more nervous. The tall water-tank and windmill were right in line. Before the young aviator could swerve the flying machine to escape the vane upon the roof of the tower, and the long arms of the mill, they were ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... hold it as a changeless law, From which no soul can sway or swerve, We have that in us which will draw Whate'er ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... road we groped our way along with infinite care. A shadow would sometimes bear down on the car, and suddenly swerve to one side as a horseman trotted by. A motor lorry would approach within a few feet of us before the driver would see, and stop before we crashed into each other. On the left were troops standing by all along the roadside, and we felt very proud as we realized ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... that portion of a woman's anatomy was superfluous, but he wavered in his belief now. He could stake his professional honour, his hopes of eternity—of—everything—on the absolute purity of this girl; nothing would ever tempt Lady Ethel to swerve ever so little from the path of rectitude and decorum. The cold, proud patrician face spoke for itself, and yet—he was in a brown study when the voice of his prospective mother-in-law brought ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... Hal took no cognizance of the remarks hurled after it; nor did it swerve from its purpose of waddling ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... mine, and so they gradually gained on me once more. I did not shoot an arrow until I could hear the heavy breathings of their horses, which, like mine, were feeling the effects of this fearful race. Then, swinging quickly to my horse's side, I caused him by the pressure of my knee to swerve a little to the left, and then, drawing my bow with all my might, I fired back from under his neck at the horse nearer to me. Fortunately for me, my arrow struck him in the neck, and so cut some of the great swollen veins that he was soon out of the race. The ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... me, nam peccator sum." Sandro the painter was different—no mercy there. He made a snatch at a carbon and raised his other hand with a kind of command—"Holy Virgin! what a line! Stay as you are, I implore you: swerve not one hair's breadth and I have you for ever!" There was conquest ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... by torture for each life beneath her breast May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest. These be purely male diversions—not in these her honour dwells. She the Other Law we live by, is that ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... the woman be induced to swerve from these assertions, notwithstanding repeated interrogations; and the writer was left to the conclusion—which he preferred, rather than place any confidence in the funeral letter—that the nurse's statement was in some mysterious way connected with the visit of Isabel Napier; and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... great retreat; to General Gallieni the undying honour of the rapid perception, the quick decision, which flung General Maunoury, with the 6th Army, on Von Kluck's flank and rear, at the first hint of the German general's swerve to the southeast; to General Maunoury himself, and his splendid troops, the credit of the battle proper, across the broad harvest fields of the Ourcq plateau. But the advance of the British troops ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Robert," I said, "Mr Simpson is a natural base-ball pitcher, he has an acquired swerve at bandy, and he is a lepidopterist of considerable charm. But he can't ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... meet the cynical eyes of Mallow. He took out his cutty and fired it. Otherwise he did not move nor let his gaze swerve. Mallow, towering above him, could scarcely resist the temptation to stir his enemy with the toe of his boot. His hatred for Warrington was not wholly due to his brutal treatment of him. Mallow always took pleasure in dominating those under him by fear. Warrington ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... stings at once into her heart; But a strong effort quelled it, and she gave The next to hatred, vengeance, and the grave. Her face was calmly stern, and but a glare Within her eyes—there was no feature there That told what lashing fiends her inmates were; Within—there was no thought to bid her swerve From her intent—but every strained nerve Was settled and bent up with terrible force, To some deep deed, far, far beyond remorse; No glimpse of mercy's light her purpose crost, Love, nature, pity, in its depths were lost; Or lent an added fury to the ire ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... Adventurer caused her mind to swerve sharply off at a tangent. Where he had piqued and aroused her curiosity before, he now, since last night, seemed more complex a character than ever. It was strange, most strange, the way their lives, his and hers, had become interwoven! She had owed ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... had made her swerve. Some new alarm had come to her. She was about to reach and, as Ab supposed, pass one of the inletting paths entering almost at right angles from the left. She did not pass it. She leaped into it in evident terror and then, breaking out from the wood on the right, came another form and one ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... such and such a spot, and whose field or garden occupied the site of those more recent houses. He can render a reason for all the bends and deviations of the thoroughfare, which, in its flexible and plastic infancy, was made to swerve aside from a straight line, in order to visit every settler's door. The Main Street is still youthful; the coeval man is in his latest age. Soon he will be gone, a patriarch of fourscore, yet ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... required them still to pay custom. Bristol, the second city of the island, echoed the voice of London. But nowhere was the spirit of loyalty stronger than in the two Universities. Oxford declared that she would never swerve from those religious principles which bound her to obey the King without any restrictions or limitations. Cambridge condemned, in severe terms, the violence and treachery of those turbulent men who had maliciously endeavoured to turn the stream of succession ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... also a nice eye for distance. He did not swerve; he simply stiffened every muscle and stopped short. Even as he did so the black horse plunged past; and Jack, lifting his hand, whirled his loop swiftly once to open it, and gave ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... courage. There was only one way in which Ida could save, or attempt to save, the white-faced woman who was drawing towards her at breakneck speed. What she would have to attempt to do would be to ride straight for the oncoming horse, swerve almost as she reached it, and keep side by side with it until she could succeed either in turning it away from that horrible hole, or stop it by throwing it. She did ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... about me, in the sense of wanting to reconstruct the world generally and be a Joan of Arc to my retrenched compatriots. But when some of you talkers get up and express high-flown sentiments of brotherhood and union for the benefit of the public Press one moment, and swerve right down and wink at such sentiments as steamroller the English or the finances or the language question the next, it is time you had a little wholesome plain speaking. Anyhow, who did vote the money for ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... almost ready to swerve toward the third planet and its moon, but first he had a speech to make. It was time to squash all the rumors and doubts ...
— Tulan • Carroll Mather Capps
... can shoot with them all. And if it would please this right honourable gentleman, our guest, to hold out his hat at the distance of a hundred yards, our Halbert shall send shaft, bolt, or bullet through it, (so that right honourable gentleman swerve not, but hold out steady,) and I will forfeit a quarter of barley if he touch but a knot of his ribands. I have seen our old Martin do as much, and so has our right reverend the Sub-Prior, if he be pleased ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... see Christ's chosen saint In triumph wear his Christ-like chain; No fear lest he should swerve or faint; "His life is ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... they were credited, tended to shake public confidence not only in the dealings of the Supreme Council with the smaller countries, but also in the nature of the occult influences that were believed to be occasionally causing its decisions to swerve from the orthodox direction. And these reports were believed by many even in Conference circles. Time and again I was visited by delegates complaining that this or that decision was or would be taken in response to the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... frankly," said Gessler; "and since I have promised thee thy life I will not swerve from my word. But as I have now reason for personal apprehensions from thy malice, I shall closet thee henceforth so safely in the dungeons of Kussnacht, that the light of sun or moon shall never more visit thine eyes; and thy fatal bow shall ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the Fairlands' was not in all respects a happy one, urged her most earnestly not to return there, but without success. Agnes was convinced that there the path of duty lay, at least for the present, and nothing could make her swerve from it. ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... A sudden swerve to the right brought them into a lighted and populous thoroughfare. Italian restaurants, German delicatessen shops, eating places of a dozen other nationalities lined the pavements on both sides of the street, and, in front of these a high-power motor stood, protected ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... over my shoulder I just caught a glimpse of one of them as he dropped back behind the counter. I shouted to Von Ritter, who was racing with me, to look after them, and saw him and a half-dozen others swerve suddenly and sweep into the shop. Porter's men were just behind mine and the noise our boots made pounding on the cobblestones sounded ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... King of France, affirming that they would never take the oath of allegiance to the crown of England, to the prejudice of what they owed to their King, their country, and their religion, and intimating their resolution, in the event of any attempt to make them swerve from their fidelity to France, or to interfere with the exercise of their religion, to leave the country and betake themselves to Cape Breton, then called the Ile Royale. And they there remained until 1755, at which time ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... If it be true that the benign succour afforded by Heaven is at all times equal to the strongest of man's pinions, I shall be glad to learn the nature of the deplorable ascendancy which causes us suddenly to swerve from the path of duty, without the power of offering the least resistance, and without even the slightest visitation ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... the victory. General von Kluck replied that the First Army had wheeled round towards the Oise and would advance on the 31st by Compiegne and Noyon to exploit the success of the Second Army. This was the much-discussed wheeling movement, or swerve, which was discovered by the British from the air. Von Kluck had been ordered by the German Supreme Command on the 28th to continue his march towards the Lower Seine. Now, in response to von Buelow's request, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... the bull swelled and curved, his eyeballs showed glassy. His back humped; like a bowlder hurled down a mountain slope he made his rush, and nothing could swerve him. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... sound came to her abruptly out of the utter stillness but meant nothing to her. She saw a flock of pigeons rise above the roofs of the more distant houses, circle, swerve, and disappear beyond the cottonwoods. She noted that Ignacio was no longer leaning lazily against the wall; he had stiffened, his mouth was a little open, breathless, his attitude that of one listening expectantly, his eyes squinting ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... siction av Finnigin, On the road sup'rintinded by Flannigan, A rail give way on a bit av a curve, An' some kyars went off as they made the swerve. "There's nobody hurted," sez Finnigin, "But repoorts must be made to Flannigan." An' he winked at McGorrigan, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... you see?" With a feeble dash of spirit, Jenny had attempted tactical flight. The sense of it made her feel as she had done, as a little girl, in playing touch; when, with a swerve, she had striven to elude the pursuer. So tense were her nerves on such occasions that she turned what is called "goosey" with the feel of the ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... over the brow of the descent. It got larger as it came down, but it did not run as fast as the toboggan. One could see it rock and swerve, shaking off loose peats, where the ground was broken, and Grace glanced at the steep pitch Kit ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... that you are appealing to me as my sister. Did Washington allow the ties of blood to swerve him from his duty? His own mother was a loyal subject of the King of Great Britain ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... of Alcatraz for the river and safety was a remarkable explosion of energy. Out of the corner of his reddening eye, as he gained swift impetus after his swerve, he saw the cowpony wheel, falter, and then burst across in pursuit to close the gap. He heeled over to the left, and found a mysterious source of energy within him that enabled his speed to be increased, until, at the top of his racing ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... say that in the origin of things, When all creation started into birth, The infant elements received a law From which they swerve not since; that under force Of that controlling ordinance they move, And need not His immediate hand, who first Prescribed their course, to regulate it now. Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God The encumbrance of His own ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... which religious faith alone could inspire, braved all these perils. They resolutely declared that the Bible taught their faith, and their faith only, and that no earthly power could compel them to swerve from the truth. Notwithstanding the perils of exile, torture, and death, they persisted in preaching what they considered the pure Gospel of Christ. In 1533 Calvin was driven from Paris. When one said to him, "Mass must be true, since it is celebrated in all Christendom;" he replied, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... of our false estimates, set up all the higher ideals—a quiet home, vines of our own planting; a few books full of the inspiration of genius; a few friends worthy of being loved; a hundred innocent pleasures that bring no pain or remorse; a devotion to the right that will never swerve; a simple religion empty of all bigotry, full of trust and hope and love—and to such a philosophy, this world will give up all the empty joy ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... your course not alter By golden apples, till victory's won! The sword's sharp clangour, the dart's shrill anger, Swerve not ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... by active friends, once more reared his crest, and seemed disposed for a time to put on the air of injured innocence. The squire, however, with all his benevolence of heart, and his lurking weakness towards the prisoner, was too conscientious to swerve from the strict path of justice. There was abundant concurrent testimony that made the proof of guilt incontrovertible, and Starlight Tom's mittimus ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... customs and usages of the International Settlement. He delighted to walk along the Bund, among crowds of burdened coolies bending and panting under great sacks of rice, and to see them shrink and swerve as he approached, fearing a blow of his stick. When he rode in rickshaws, he habitually cheated the coolie of his proper fare, secure in the knowledge that the Chinese had no redress, could appeal to no one, and must accept a few coppers or none at ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... seemingly straight at the rider of the black horse. One—two—three—four—five—six times! The girl counted. But the first man's hand wabbled, and the rider of the black horse came on like a demon astride a black bolt, a laugh of bitter derision on his lips. The black did not swerve. Straight and true in his headlong flight he struck the other horse. They went down in a smother of dust, the two horses grunting, scrambling and kicking. The girl had seen the rider of the black horse lunge forward at the instant of impact; he had thrown himself ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... tyrannical abuse of it—HE professes to love wisdom, yet in all his establishments for promoting it he sets up false standards of truth; and persecutes, even with religious intolerance, all attempts to swerve from them—HE makes laws, which, in the hands of mercenary lawyers, serve as snares to unwary poverty, but as shields to crafty wealth—HE renders justice unattainable by its costliness; and personal rights uncertain by the intricacy and fickleness of legal decisions—HE ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... danger. I only yelled to the man in Japanese to get to the other side of the road; instead of which he simply backed his kuruma against a wall on the lower side of the curve, with the shafts outwards. At the rate I was going, there wasn't room even to swerve; and the next minute one of the shafts of that kuruma was in my horse's shoulder. The man wasn't hurt at all. When I saw the way my horse was bleeding, I quite lost my temper, and struck the man over the ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... considerations which obliged me to surrender a post of honour which every independent and high-minded English gentleman has at all times prized above the highest rewards in the gift of the crown, "the leadership of the country gentlemen of England," will never influence me to swerve from any endeavours of which my poor abilities and bodily energies are capable in the promotion of the prosperity of all classes in the British empire at home and in the colonies, any more than they can ever make me forget the attachment, the friendship, and the enthusiastic support ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... emperor, deeply touched by the sorrow manifested by the children of Josephine, was not able to repress his tears. He wept with them over their blasted happiness— their betrayed love. But his tears could not make him swerve from his resolution. ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... high degree of civilization than France. But it is my duty, as the future representative of the United States, to be absolutely neutral in everything concerning the present conflict. It cannot be too strongly stated that the United States Government will not swerve from its attitude of strict neutrality. The more impartial we remain, the stronger our position will be, and the better it will be, indeed, for all the belligerents when the time comes for discussing ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... For the complete realization of my project the public's interest was essential. The creation of the vast business structure that I had designed required the participation of the great mass of the people, and I was determined that no subservience to the selfish ends of my associates should swerve me from my plan. I saw the enterprise whole; saw that there was great profit for all concerned, for "Standard Oil," for myself, and for the public; but if the public were not taken care of or were discouraged from participation, then my institution would surely be only another ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... back at once, he might even now have crossed safely. But the fury of his blood was up, the stronger the torrent the fiercer his will, and the fight between passion and power went on. The poor horse was fain to swerve back at last; but he struck him on the head with a carbine, and shouted to ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... their-spiritual experiences and hopes of heaven. But never one who so made obedience to the strict law of right, in all its plain, common-sense interpretations, a matter of common duty. I do not believe that for anything this world could offer her, Mrs. Montgomery would swerve a hair's breadth from justice. I have been in the position to see her tempted; have, myself, been the tempter over and over again during the ten years in which I represented her claims to the Allen estate; but her principles were immovable as the hills. Once, I shall never forget ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... other dietetic abuses. If a child's natural aversion to vice has never been wilfully perverted, the time will come when his welfare may be intrusted to the safe-keeping of his protective instincts. You need not fear that he will swerve from the path of health when his simple habits, sanctioned by nature and inclination, have acquired the additional strength of long practice. When the age of blind deference is past, vice is generally too unattractive to ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... To enter with God peace and alliance, Promising that they would him honour, fear, and serve: All kind of people were bound in those covenants, That from his law they should never swerve; For God ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... seemed to the fugitive that the foremost horses were upon him and their riders' hands were outstretched to tear him from his saddle, the mustang made a sudden swerve and what ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... movements he must make with his levers to influence the control surface of the machine, and to maintain it, say, on a straight path while it runs across the ground. One of the discoveries he will make is that the biplane, if left to itself, shows a tendency to swerve a little to the left—the way the propeller is turning; but this inclination may be corrected, easily, by a movement of ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... band were out on the war-path. A soldier coming in wounded, escaped from the massacre of the post at Devil's Hoof Gap, had reported it. With the large command known to be here camped on Sweetstream Fork, they would not come this way; they would swerve up the Gunpowder River twenty miles away, destroying the settlement and Little Fort Slade, and would sweep on, probably for a general massacre, up the Great Horn as far as Fort Doncaster. He himself, with the regiment, would try to save Fort Slade, but in the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... vacillate, waver, oscillate, whiffle, swerve. Antonyms: continue, persist, adhere, abide, remain, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... no vices, no dissipations; his whole soul was in his business. He was conscious that his only hope of distinction above his fellow-men was in his wealth, and he was resolved that nothing should make him swerve from his endeavor to accumulate a fortune which should make him all powerful in life and remembered in death. He sought no friends, and was reticent as to his career, saying to those who questioned him about it, "Wait till I am dead; my deeds ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... seconded by his particular waiter, after carefully taking his opponent's range and bearings, will suspire and hit him in the eye. The more replete combatant, having the greater equatorial velocity, will probably win, but the tailor can do a good deal towards securing a flat trajectory and freedom from swerve. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... our desire to continue to maintain this disinterested and just policy with China as well as Japan. The correspondence transmitted herewith shows that there is no disposition on the part of this Government to swerve from ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... utter falsehoods, Jacques, for the sake of shielding me, you will lose my approbation. I shall be very angry with you if you do so. You understand; you must not swerve ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... It must be our guiding star to lead us rightly as far as we may go. We can travel rightly that part of the road we now tread on only by shaping it true to the great end that ought to inspire us all. We shall have many temptations to swerve aside, but the power of mind that keeps our position clear and firm will react against every destroying influence. In the first stage of the fight for internal unity, when blind bigotry is furiously insisting that we but plan an insidious ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... was hardly a less personage than Columbus. They had different elements to contend in. But the man whom princely wealth and position, and the temptation to intrigue which there must have been in the then state of the Portuguese court, never induced to swerve from the one purpose which he maintained for forty years, unshaken by popular clamour, however sorely vexed he might be with inward doubts and misgivings; who passed laborious days and watchful nights in devotion to this one purpose, enduring the ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... above the individual, and in such a way as to overshadow him entirely, the stupendous caste system. And it has subordinated his every right and privilege to the whim of this demon caste. Man is its abject slave—cannot swerve one inch from its dictates; and these reach down to the smallest detail of his life. If the vast majority of the members of a caste were high in their morals and strict in their integrity and pure in their beliefs, the aid to a higher life which this system might render ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... a shorter route; but even though sore pressed we kept our main object steadily in view. We looked about on every side for patches of verdure, a sure sign of the neighbourhood of water; but we could see none to tempt us to swerve from our course. ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... revered my Uncle Jos; he was silent and reserved, so as to be a rather awful man; but he sometimes talked openly with me. He was the very type of an upright man, with the clearest judgment. I do not believe that any power on earth could have made him swerve an inch from what he considered the right course. I used to apply to him in my mind the well-known ode of Horace, now forgotten by me, in which the words "nec vultus tyranni, etc.," come in. (Justum et tenacem propositi ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... Nicholas, in a most powerful letter, exhorted the Emperor Michael III to set bounds to the disorders of Photius, warning him that a fearful judgment would await him if the faithful were misled and so many believers caused to swerve from the right path. It was not, however, till the reign of his successor that Photius was banished and the much-tried St. Ignatius restored ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... of shelving turf lay between him and the unfathomed lake. Towards it he fled at an undiminished pace: and Quita, sitting square and steady, with a rushing sound in her ears, foresaw that in less than five minutes her mad hope might be terribly fulfilled. For at the lake's edge the pony must needs swerve sharply, or come to a dead halt: and in either case, at their present rate of speed, she would be flung violently out ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... for a sum of twenty-four livres—roughly, the equivalent of an English guinea—would carry you the seventy and odd miles of the journey in some fourteen hours. Once a week one of the diligences going in each direction would swerve aside from the highroad to call at Gavrillac, to bring and take letters, newspapers, and sometimes passengers. It was usually by this coach that Andre-Louis came and went when the occasion offered. At present, however, he was too much in haste to lose ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini |
