"Swift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Fouquet himself, in the jesting controversy in the gardens of Saint Mande; once it is touched on by Aramis in the forest of Senart; in the end, it is set before us clearly in one dignified speech of the triumphant Colbert. But in Fouquet, the waster, the lover of good cheer and wit and art, the swift transactor of much business, "l'homme de bruit, l'homme de plaisir, l'homme qui n'est que parceque les autres sont," Dumas saw something of himself and drew the figure the more tenderly. It is to me even touching to see how he insists on Fouquet's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said Ruth, giving her a swift hug, "we can't be sorry that you had to earn your living if we try, for if you hadn't we ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... thought, "what has he gone to face!" I fell on my knees before the ikon and wept for him before the Holy Mother of God, our swift defender and helper. I was half an hour praying in tears, and it was late, about midnight. Suddenly I saw the door open and he came in again. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to cuddle, Such queer little hearts to beat, Such swift round tongues to kiss, Such sprawling, cushiony feet; She could feel in her clasping fingers The touch of the satiny skin, And a cold, wet nose exploring The ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... stupid," she said reprovingly, and with swift instinct attacked the side-issue. "How selfish you are! Just think what I should have felt if that horrid thing had killed you! I'm quite ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... ladder a trip with one of his feet, and laid the only means of descent prostrate on the earth. Then, looking up at the wondering Wilder, he nodded his head familiarly, repeated his adieu, and passed with a swift step from beneath ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... loved it, returning year after year to their nests under the eaves, and from early dawn 'to dewy eve,' all through the warm summer days, flew hither and thither with swift, untiring wing, chasing each other, as it were, or teaching their young to fly. As to the Robins, they hopped in at the open door under the rustic porch, just as if they belonged to the place, and were sure of a welcome, which indeed they were! And that porch—what a cosy corner it ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... already shown, that the manifestations of the shoulder in the street by no means accord with those of people ruled by the fashions of society. There is very little harmony or relation between the exquisite joints of a refined nature, the swift and flexible movements of an elegant organism, and the evolutions clumsily executed by torpid limbs, ankylosed, as it were, by labor at once ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... fingers through its gill before he took the hook from the mouth of the fish. Carrying the trout in one hand and his pole in the other, he waded slowly through the swift water ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... the world has grown full cold to thee, And man—proud pygmy—shrugs all scornfully, And bitter, blinding tears flow gushing forth, Because of thine own sorrows and poor plight, Then turn ye swift to nature's page, And read there passions, immeasurably far Greater than thine own in all their littleness. For nature has her sorrows and her joys, As all the piled-up mountains and low vales Will silently attest—and hang ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... there had been a mutation of a minor strain of staphylococcus somewhere in the Andes. The new mutation thrived and flourished. With the swift transportation of the period, it had spread practically all over the world unnoticed, because it produced no ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... morning light beams on the fern-matted streams, And the water-pools flash in its glow, Down the ridges we fly, with a loud ringing cry— Down the ridges and gullies we go! And the cattle we hunt—they are racing in front, With a roar like the thunder of waves, As the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet Start the echoes away from their caves! As the beat and the beat Of our swift horses' feet Start the echoes ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... office I was responsible for one of these terribly wasteful and profoundly unsatisfactory measures. Instead of relief, what a statesman must seek is prevention of this great evil and strong root of evil; and prevention means a large, though it cannot be a very swift, displacement of the population. But among the many experts with whom I have discussed this dolorous and perplexing subject, I never found one of either political party who did not agree that a removal of the surplus population was only practicable ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... feed the hungry world; the multiplication of manufacturers, supplying everything, nearly, that we need; the uncovering of mines, bringing out the wealth which has actually disturbed the money standards of the world; the transforming of territories into States by a process as swift and magical almost as that by which the turbid mixture of the chemist is crystallized into its delicate and translucent spars; the building of an empire on the Western coast, looking out toward the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... books most frequently recommended are Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, The Arabian Nights, Don Quixote, Boswell's Life of Johnson, White's Natural History of Selborne, Burke's Select Works (Payne), the Essays of Bacon, Addison, ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... growled at him with its ugly head stretched out like a serpent's; while his owner, who was probably not so unkind as we thought him, stood enjoying the fun of it all. Reckoning upon the big boy's assistance, I scrambled out of the water, and sped, like Achilles of the swift foot, for the boat. I jumped in and seized the oars, intending to row across, and get the big boy to throw the clothes of the party into the boat. But I had never handled an oar in my life, and in the middle passage—how ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... not even flight, can screen thee from my vengeance shouldst break thy vow. Take warning by the painter; the poor fool but hesitated, and his doom was swift as it was sure. Take this cowl and friar's garment; I was admitted by the jailer for thy shrift. The lamp will guide thee. Be bold, and fear not. I will remain; to-morrow they will find out their mistake, but I ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... a grand sight to see that ship dashing straight towards the shore at fearful speed; and those who looked on seemed to be impressed with a vague feeling that she had power to spring upon the strand and continue her swift career through the forest, as she had hitherto cleft her passage through the sea. As she approached, the savages shrank back in fear. Suddenly her frame trembled with a mighty shock. A terrible cry was borne to land by the gale, and all her masts went overboard. ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the hawk, knowing that his master liked instant obedience, flew off swift as the wind, determined this time to succeed. He found the glade without trouble, and noted the old oak with its dead gaunt boughs, and then took up his station on an ash, where he watched eagerly for the shadows ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... and rose. As if enough gifts had not yet been bestowed upon the little place at its christening, a playground of forest land, rolling up over grassy slopes, had been given, with a neighbouring river, swift and clear, to sing ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... to the war-stories or to the Provencal sketches are certain vignettes of the capital, swift silhouettes of Paris, glimpsed by an unforgetting eye, the "Last Book," for one, in which an unlovely character is treated with kindly contempt; and for another, the "Book-keeper," the most Dickens-like ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... close on our right, the swift channel, La Percee, running between us and it, and as it lies in the sun looks a very beautiful picture, especially as the prettiest end, the south, is presented to our view. A little further we turn up the hill and come to a grove of rather stunted trees, standing like a double row of soldiers ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... labor, and scanned the beautiful bay, which they had almost wholly to themselves. They passed a collier lagging in the deep channel, and signalling for a pilot to take her up to the town. A yacht, trim and swift, cut across their course; the ladies on board waved a salutation with their ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... No one knew better than he how brilliant a figure she would make in Society as the Marchioness of Westerham, granted always that the Anglo-Saxon would do now as he had ever done, fling the invader back upon his own shores or into the sea which he had crossed: but that swift flash of recognition seen as his car came up behind Auriole's, and the slight but most significant change which had come over the features of both of them as he handed her out of the car, had instantly banished the shadow and made him a happier man than he ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the least idea, and I find it very pleasant not to know. A swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can't see—that's ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... the white waste we tore, up a stiff ascent and down across the moorland again—still westward; and now across the stretches of the moor I could catch the strong scent of the sea upon the wind. Along the level we sped, silent and swift beneath the moon. Here a white house by the roadside glimmered out and was gone; there a mine-chimney shot up against the sky and faded back again. We were going now at a gallop, and from my perch I could see the yellow light of the lamps on the ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and easy thing to do, until you tried to do it yourself.—Mr. Bernard looked at himself with the eye of an expert. "Pretty well!" he said;—"not so much fallen off as I expected." Then he set up his bolster in a very knowing sort of way, and delivered two or three blows straight as rulers and swift as winks. "That will do," he said. Then, as if determined to make a certainty of his condition, he took a dynamometer from one of the drawers in his old veneered bureau. First he squeezed it with his two hands. Then he placed it on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... stood for a moment on the edge of the lawn, watching Andrew's tall figure as he strode across the marsh toward the village. Never once did he look back or hesitate on his swift, vigorous way. Then she sighed a little and turned away toward the house. After all, this was a man, although he was so far removed from the ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... impatiently for these stolen moments, with a secret desire to see her beneath his roof in a domestic setting that gave him a keener sense of intimacy than the swish of waters and wide spaces of sea and sky. But to-day she looked in vain, and Miss Giltinan, seeing the swift look of ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... to feel that the swift engine was bearing him on towards his destination so easily, and that every mile made one less to ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... stagnates, unless it can wear a passage for itself, or find a subterraneous channel through the limestone mountain, and come to light again in a lower valley. Such a reaeppearance we saw near Argos, a broad, swift stream—the Erasmus—rushing from under a mountain with such force as to turn mills; it is believed to come from a kalavothron in the northern part of Arcadia. And not far from thence a fountain of fresh water ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... promiscuous. And, since the large contention less avails Than instances observed, he told them tales—Tales of the shop, the bed, the court, the street, Intimate, elemental, indiscreet: Occasions where Confusion smiting swift Piles jest on jest as ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... A swift lunge was his only answer. I parried it, and thrust, and we fell to work. We had not exchanged half a dozen blows, however, before I saw that I should need all the advantage which my mask and greater caution gave me. I had met my match, and it might be ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... it. Most of my ships are ready for sea. A few days more will suffice to complete them for a cruise, and then will I sail forth to teach these proud men humility. Meanwhile do thou get ready the ships under thy charge, and send Hauskuld in a swift boat with a few chosen men south to Horlingdal fiord. There let him watch the proceedings of the people—particularly of that fellow Erling and his kin—and when he has seen enough let him sail north to give ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Swift observes, when he is giving his reasons why the preacher is elevated always above his hearers, that let the crowd be as great as it will below, there is always room enough overhead. If the French ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... up and loudly clapped his hands, which produced a curious effect—a short, sharp little shriek of terror from the busy multitude, followed by absolute stillness, every rat frozen to stone, which lasted for a second or two; then a swift scuttling away in all directions, vanishing with a rustling sound through the dead ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... way at last with the consciousness of some profound enigma in things, as but a pledge of something further to come. Marius seemed to understand how one might look back upon life here, and its [221] excellent visions, as but the portion of a race-course left behind him by a runner still swift of foot: for a moment he experienced a singular curiosity, almost an ardent desire to enter upon a future, the possibilities ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... was far more than the winning of political independence for his country. Davis united in himself, in a degree which has never been known before or since, the spirit of two great originators in Irish history—the spirit of Swift and the spirit of Berkeley—of Swift, the champion of his country against foreign oppression; of Berkeley, who bade her turn her thoughts inward, who summoned her to cultivate the faculties and use the liberties she already possessed for the development of her resources and the strengthening ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... steps were taking him, Gaspard de Vaux wandered on in the darkness from street to street until he found himself upon London Bridge. He leaned over the parapet and looked down upon the whirling stream below. There was something in the still, swift rush of it that seemed to beckon, to allure him. After all, why not? What was life now that he should prize it? For a ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... in the plain old house, and seemed to make a swift dazzle. Aunt Lois warmed curiously toward her, feeling as if the sun was shining after a spell ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... a skylight, and leaning over one of the officers' long chairs, in which reclined a girl in a white drill coat and skirt—a slip of a girl with a pale skin, dark hair, and rather remarkable eyes. So much I noted as he rose and quickly turned; thereupon I could think of nothing but the swift grimace which preceded ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... community under a king and queen, who hold a court; they are very small, light, swift, elemental; they share in the life of nature; they are fond of dancing and singing; they are invisible and immortal; they prefer night, and midnight is their favourite hour; they fall in love with mortals, steal babies and leave changelings, and ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... itself the product and union of all its vassal streams, an "incarnation" of all the rest, so in its bed it holds all the shells collected from all its tributaries. Different tribes of shells live in different waters. Some love the "full-fed river winding slow," some the swift and crystal chalk-stream. Some only flourish just over the spots where the springs come bubbling up from the inner cisterns of earth, and breathe, as it were, the freshness of these untainted waters; others love the rich, fat mud, others the ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... Cludde hung back; I think that after all he would not have been ill pleased, for old friendship's sake, if Vetch had got away. Vetch had had but a few yards' start, but he was a swift runner, and I doubted much whether any of us could overtake him. We could not bring him down with a shot, for my men, though their muskets were loaded, had not kindled their matches, so that before they could fire he was out ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise, And bid alternate passions fall and rise! While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove Now burns with glory, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... burning the city. The Emperor bade me write his sentence with my own hand. Had I known that it was thou, Tu-sin, believe me I had shown more consideration for thy person. At length I departed for my native land, loaded with wealth, and travelling most comfortably by relays of swift dromedaries. I returned hither, bought our father's cottage, and on its site erected this palace, where I dwell meditating on the problems of chessplayers and the precepts of the sages, and persuaded ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... fat weed that grows on Lethe's bank," the jest for them has all the poignancy of satire: on the very offals, the garbage of wit, they can feed and batten. Happy they who can find in every jester the wit of Sterne or Swift; who else can wade through hundreds of thickly-printed pages to obtain for their reward such witticisms as ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... impossible to answer this instantaneously. Her words had confirmed his conjecture, and the situation of all concerned rose in swift images before him. His feeling for those who had been thrust out sanctioned her remorse; he could not try to nullify it, yet his heart was full of pity for her. But as soon as he could he answered—taking ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the path at so swift a gait that he seemed to fly, and at every small sound he heard, he turned in fear to see whether the Terrible Shark, five stories high and with a train in his ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... a battle-field of hunger and life. This was the second day of famine—all seeds being buried first under ice and now under snow; swift hunger sending the littler ones to this granary, the larger following to prey on them. To-night there would be owls and in the darkness tragedies. In the morning, perhaps, he would find a feather which had floated from a breast. A hundred years ago, he reflected, the wolves ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... mill," he cried, as their hands fell apart. "The Myra sails sundown to-morrow and I need to get a swift look around before then. Say, you folk have kind of taken me on a chance—well, ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... melancholy wail, which for aught I knew might have been a prayer, and then consigned himself to the yellow current. Ranger swam like a boy learning. He seemed to be afraid to get wet. His forefeet were continually pawing the air in front of his nose. When he struck the swift place, he went downstream like a flash, but still kept swimming valiantly. I tried to follow along the sand-bar, but found it impossible. I encouraged him by yelling. He drifted far below, stranded on an island, crossed it, and plunged in again, to make shore almost out ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... miserable invalid though he was, nervous, irritable, and full of hate and spleen, was not beyond the power of the tender passion, and confessed the charms of the lonely Martha Blount, who held the wretched genius among her conquests. Swift, although an ogre at heart, had his chapter of love matters, which never fail to give us the horrors when we bring them to mind, and the episodes of Stella and Vanessa are among the minor tragedies in life's great drama. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... man ever made an ill-figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them. —SWIFT. ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... march up the valley, parallel to the Yakima. About 1 o'clock we saw a large body of Indians on the opposite side of the river, and the general commanding made up his mind to cross and attack them. The stream was cold, deep, and swift, still I succeeded in passing my dragoons over safely, but had hardly got them well on the opposite bank when the Indians swooped down upon us. Dismounting my men, we received the savages with a heavy fire, which ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... to follow it, but lost out," admitted the other, frankly. "It's true, then, this Donohue must have a swift delivery, for I could always follow the ball when McGuffey hurled his best; and seldom lost one that speed-king Hendrix sent along. See how most of those Harmony chaps are looking out of the tail of ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... we raced across the yard, And though I ran as swift and hard As Cousin Will, yet some way he Got to the place ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... together they walked to a tree where a sergeant and some soldiers were arranging a block and rope. Mercer was allowed to continue by the side of his friend, and together they knelt down on the grass and prayed for mercy and forgiveness to Him who is the fountain of all mercy and swift to forgive. The chaplain of one of the regiments had been sent for. He came at length, and the prisoner accepted his ministrations alone, but soon again asked Mercer to ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... destruction of the nations who reject the claims of Jehovah. Peter declares that "there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... in the night. The winds are the great swift carriers. Go with them, dear—and not against. You'll find sleep that ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... for this in the taste of the American public, which I do not propose to neglect. But here too we are in the grip of the "formula," of the idea that there is only one way to construct a short story—a swift succession of climaxes rising precipitously to a giddy eminence. For the formula is rigid, not plastic as life is plastic. It fails to grasp innumerable stories which break the surface of American life day by day and disappear uncaught. Stories of quiet homely life, events significant ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... cried out and threw her arms round Harriet, who seemed ready to run between the two men. No one quite saw how it happened, but Westerfelt suddenly bent near the earth and sprang forward. Wambush's revolver went off over his head, and before he could cock it again, Westerfelt, with a swift sweep of his arm, had sent it spinning through a window-pane ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... all observers. He read to those assembled from a book; and what he read flashed with a brightness that was dazzling. All listened in the most rapt attention, and, by the power of what the gifted one read, soared now, in thought, among the stars, spread their wings among the swift-moving tempest, or descended into the unknown depths of the earth. As for myself, my mind seemed endowed with new faculties, and to rise almost into the ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... Prague at the stake, condemned the doctrines of Wyclif in forty-five articles, declared him a heretic, and ordered his body to be removed from consecrated ground and thrown upon a dunghill. Thirteen years later Clement VIII, hyena-like, ordered his bones to be burned and the ashes thrown into the Swift. Thus his short-sighted enemies thought to stay the tide of ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... greatest number: which he proueth trewe in diuerse other thinges: as in greyhoundes, emonges which fewe // Verie are found, exceding greate, or exceding litle, // good, or exceding swift, or exceding slowe: And therfore/ verie ill I speaking of quick and hard wittes, I ment, the // men, be common number of quicke and hard wittes, // fewest in emonges the which, for the most parte, the hard // number. witte, proueth manie times, the better learned, wiser and ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... and there was not the slightest pose, or desire to improve the situation about his mind. The descriptions, the lightly-touched details, the naturalness and ease of the talk are wholly admirable. He must have been a very swift observer, both of nature and people, because he never gave the least impression of observing anything. I never saw him stop to look at a view, or go into raptures over anything beautiful or picturesque; in society he was either silent and absorbed, or more ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... little creaking above them, and looking up, saw poised upon the edge of the balustrade in the upper hall, impending over the head of William Leadbury and ready to fall, the great barber chair! With a swift leap, she pushed him to the wall, causing him to just escape the chair as it fell with a dreadful crash. But she herself was not so fortunate, for with a wicked tunk the cushioned back of the chair struck her a glancing blow that felled her ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... very swift English horse; but having entangled himself in a hollow way where the ground was deep and miry, he soon had the troopers at his heels, who, supposing him to be some officer of rank, would not be deceived, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... property nor liberty"; and in another place {217} he characteristically bids his angry colleagues to join with him in remembering amidst their triumphs over the "nonsensical" opinions of dead rivals that "we likewise are men: that debemur morti, and, as Swift observed to Burnet, we shall soon be among the dead ourselves." He knows too that "notes are necessary evils" and advises the young reader to begin by ignoring them and letting Shakespeare have his ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... Full of the swift imaginativeness which makes the feminine contribution to life so much a thing of charm and colour, Elise pursued the paths which Youth has for its own—those wonderful streets of fantasy that end with adolescence in Society's ugly fields ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... us to tell Whether Asgrim's shaft flew well; Holmstein hurried swift to flight, Thorstein ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... had entered, but who had not taken the proffered seat, looked at him a moment, and then she came toward him with a swift, impulsive movement, and said: "Why, papa, I don't believe you know me! ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... soul, in that preparation of itself which is the work of God, sends up a flame,—the flame ascends on high, but the fire thereof is the same as that below, nor does the flame cease to be fire because it ascends: so here, in the soul, something so subtile and so swift, seems to issue from it, that ascends to the higher part, and goes thither whither our Lord wills. I cannot go further with the explanation; it seems a flight, and I know of nothing else wherewith to compare it: I know that it cannot be mistaken, for it is most ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... barely get food for himself and the men with him, much less enough for Pizarro and his army. To return against the swift current would be a heavy task. After thinking the matter over, he decided to follow the great river to the sea. But he must first win the soldiers who were with him over to his plan. This he soon succeeded in doing, and they ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw
... art not, loved Harmodius, thou art not surely dead, But to some secluded sanctuary far away art fled; With the swift-footed Achilleus, unmolested there to rest, And to rove with Diomedes through ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... letter did not meet with swift response. It was made on June 2. When Seward passed through New York on his way to Washington on the 8th, a friend of Greeley waited upon him, but he had nothing for the Tribune. Days multiplied into a week, and still nothing came. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... In aeronautics, the swift aeroplane asserted its superiority over the balloon, and where movements were in open country as between Liege and the Aisne, it furnished a new and ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... Yes, if man were only a fragment of matter writhing in vain beneath the hammer of fate; but there is a spirit within him which knows how to smite Achilles on his heel, and Goliath in his forehead. Let him but wrench off a nut, the swift train is overturned, its course stayed. Planetary swirls, obscure masses of human-kind, roll down through the ages lighted by flashes of the liberating Spirit: Buddha, the Sages, Jesus—all breakers of chains! I can see the lightning coming, feel it thrill through ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... thought it their duty, however, to inform the magistrate that another inquiry was going on at the same time as theirs. It was directed by M. Tabaret, who personally scoured the country round about in a cabriolet drawn by a very swift horse. He must have acted with great promptness; for, no matter where they went, he had been there before them. He appeared to have under his orders a dozen men, four of whom at least certainly belonged to the Rue de Jerusalem. All the detectives had met him; and he had spoken ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... reached the borders of Mexico, a swift runner had been dispatched to the nearest post with a message, to be sent forward to the King of Tezcuco, with the tidings of the arrival of a strange white being in the land; and asking for instructions as to what was to be done with him. In the meantime, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... of his country's shame. They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still Consulting England's happiness at home, Secured it by an unforgiving frown If any wronged her. Wolfe, where'er he fought, Put so much of his heart into his act, That his example had a magnet's force, And all were swift to follow whom all loved. Those suns are set. Oh, rise some other such! Or all that we have left is empty talk Of old ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... one volume of your Swift with good Mrs. Johnson at Norwich; and the other with your Mother at Worship's house in Yarmouth. So I trust you are in a fair way ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... each of the two objects of strategy, namely to avoid fighting the enemy on ground of his own choosing, and to compel him to fight under unfavourable conditions, Lord Roberts was extraordinarily successful. There was a light touch, an ingenuity, in his swift and silent strategy which contrasted strongly with the heavy and dull methods which had hitherto controlled the action. While Buller was talking about his tedious railway across the veld, and Milner at Capetown was dismalling the situation ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... we do, even supposing there are no Fung waiting beyond the rise, those inside the town will soon catch us on their swift horses. We must scare them before we bolt, and then those that are left of them may let us alone. Now listen to me. When I give the word, you two take the camels outside and make them kneel about fifty yards away, not nearer, ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... one of those swift, comprehensive glances by which women take in a personality, and said in a tone of regret, "But I ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... rule Lady Sellingworth was swift in deciding what was the social status of a man. She could "place" a man as quickly as any woman. But, honestly, she could not make up her mind about the stranger. Although he was so exceptionally good-looking, ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... pressed forward and, making a swift and dazzling feint, followed it with two brilliant thrusts, either of which would have meant the death of a tyro. The first one Loge parried; the second touched him; but it gave him nothing more than a scratch. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... he passed In safety through their midst, and came at last To where the Arctic laves with icy wave The chill Siberian coast, and there a boat Filled with strong men received him, and they plied Their oars, and like a swift-winged ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... the top rewarded his endeavor, and then a couple of hundred yards of hardly perceptible upward incline produced again the swift ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... points in mighty strange fashion) swung great, gold rings such as mariners do wear; his face was lean and sharp and wide of mouth and lighted by very quick, bright eyes, seeming to take in all things with swift-darting glances. A scar that ran from brow to chin lent to him a certain hangdog air; as to his age, it might have been thirty or forty or sixty, for, though he seemed vigorous and active, with smooth, unwrinkled face, his hair ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... slightest warning, he stuck his tail perpendicular and plunged forward at a clumsy-looking but exceedingly swift gallop. ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... of the preceding night, Stuart had come back from the direction of Ely's Ford, at a swift gallop, burning with ardor at the thought of leading Jackson's great corps into battle. The military ambition of this distinguished commander of Lee's horse was great, and he had often chafed at the jests ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... handy and clever, and swift and tender as any woman, was that horny-handed, snell, peremptory little man. Everything she got he gave her; he seldom slept; and often I saw his small, shrewd eyes out of the darkness, fixed on her. As ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... A swift thought shot into his mind. In that long imprisonment here, and in her own long confinement to her room, did his mother find a balance to be struck? 'I admit that I was accessory to that man's captivity. I have suffered for it in kind. He has decayed in his ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... the fingers could have been heard the length of the field, Whipple glanced deliberately around at the backs, slapped the broad back of the center sharply, seized the snapped ball, and made a swift, straight pass to Joel. Then through the Hillton line went the St. Eustace players, breaking down with vigor born of desperation the blocking of their opponents. With a leap into the air the St. Eustace left-guard bore down straight upon Joel; there was ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... I was at the same spot with a good duck call, and some wooden decoys, over which the skins of wild ducks had been carefully stretched. An hour after dark he came again, attracted, no doubt, by the continued quacking. I had another swift glimpse of what seemed only a shadow; saw it poise and shoot downward before I could find it with my gun sight, striking the decoys with a great splash and clatter. Before he discovered his mistake ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... intently in this Lady's eyes;" the eyes of this Lady are her demonstrations, which look straight into the eyes of the intellect, enamour the Soul, and set it free from the trammels of circumstance. Oh, most sweet and ineffable forms, swift stealers of the human mind, which appear in these demonstrations, that is, in the eyes of Philosophy, when she discourses to her faithful friends! Verily in you is Salvation, whereby he is made blessed who looks at you, and is saved ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... since the discovery of the oil on his hands and clothes. Now, as he was being led from the sitting room, he turned on his cross-questioners and shook with swift laughter. He threw back his head, so that his long, dark hair uncovered his ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... also of collecting all the bows and arrows, and other weapons, of the Indians, and of piling them upon the fire, where they were quickly consumed. Then I threw over my shoulder my buffalo-skin coat, and stood prepared for flight. "Whither shall I fly? How can I escape from my swift-heeled enemies with all this weight of things to carry? Need I fly?" A dreadful thought came into my head. "They intended to kill me. There they lie utterly helpless. A few well-directed blows from one of their own tomahawks which ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... seen in all his born days; and they ceased not[FN83] to stroll about and solace themselves until they waxed aweary, when they entered a mighty grand garden which was nearhand, a place that the heart delighted and the sight belighted; for that its swift-running rills flowed amidst the flowers and the waters jetted from the jaws of lions moulded in yellow brass like unto gold. So they took seat over against a lakelet and rested a little while, and Alaeddin enjoyed himself with joy exceeding and fell to jesting with his uncle ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... hands seized Mr. Winship's, while her small, swift, bird- like eyes looked reproach ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... the afternoon; a fresh wind redolent of pine and resin blew across the lake. Maurice climbed into a boat and pulled away with a strong, swift stroke, enjoying the liberation of his muscles. A quarter of a mile out he let the oars drift and took his bearings. He saw the private gardens of the king and the archbishop, and, convinced that a closer view would afford him entertainment, he caught ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... swift as light from a fixed star, the answer came to me. I arose and hurried—hurried as so many reasoners must, back around my circle. I knew the answer and I hugged it in my breast as I flew, fearing lest some one would stop ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... lost; for the elephant, clumsy as he appears to be, develops great speed of foot when he is excited. An incident was related by one of the nobles to Captain Ringgold as the runner disappeared within the door. A young man who was very swift of foot was closely pursued by the elephant, and had reached the door, when he was seized by the arm, tossed in the air, and came down heavily on the ground. The foot of the infuriate beast was raised to crush his skull, when another man flashed a Bengal ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... negotiation: but he informs us, that the king said, there was one article proposed which so incensed him that as long as he lived he should never forget it. Sir William goes no further; but the editor of his works, the famous Dr. Swift, says, that the French, before they would agree to any payment, required as a preliminary, that the king should engage never to keep above eight thousand regular troops in Great Britain.[*] Charles broke into a passion. "Cod's-fish," said he, (his usual ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... LIGHT-HEELED. Swift in running. A light-heeled wench; one who is apt, by the flying up of her heels, to fall flat on her ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... hopeless sky settled down upon the Neva. But the Northern summer, we knew, is as fickle as the Southern April, and we trusted that Sergius and Herrmann, the saints of Valaam, would smooth for us the rugged waters of Ladoga. At last the barking little bell ceased to snarl at the tardy pilgrims. The swift current swung our bow into the stream, and, as we moved away, the crowd on deck uncovered their heads, not to the bowing friends on the quay, but to the spire of a church which rose to view behind the houses fronting the Neva. Devoutly crossing themselves ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... and life; she led her to seek and feel for the needy, the sick, and the suffering; she nurtured in her the holiest faith in God, and trust in man; yet the maiden thought she breathed all this from the summer evenings, the flowers, the swift labor of her light fingers, and the thousand things which cherished the happiness growing ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... difficulties from date to date. For nearly a month he had tramped over mountains and across river bottoms, waiting for news of an organized force of resistance in Missouri. Begging his way from cabin to cabin, and living on greasy bacon and corn pone, at length he crossed the swift Gasconade (so named by the French settlers because of its brawling ways) where the bridge of the Pacific railroad had been blown up by the Governor's orders. Then he learned that the untiring Lyon had steamed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... clodhopper,—a race whose calves are generally absorbed in the soles of their hobnail shoes. But the Hellenic Institute, with its classical gymnasia, had trained its pupils in all bodily exercises; and though the Will o' the Wisp was swift for a clodhopper, he was no match at running for any youth who has spent his boyhood in the discipline of cricket, prisoner's bar, and hunt-the-hare. I reached him at length, and brought him ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Now swift we bound o'er dewy grass! Rousing the red fox as we pass, And startling linnet, merle, and thrush, As recklessly the boughs we brush. The hunter's horn sings thro' the brakes. And its soft lay apt echo takes; But soon her sweet enamoured tone Shall tell what song ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... language which he wrote and spoke with the utmost facility. One of his first publications was entitled Gerania; a New Discovery of a Little Sort of People, anciently discoursed of, called Pygmies (1675), a whimsical sketch to which Swift's Voyage to Lilliput possibly owes something. Among his other works are a History of that Most Victorious Monarch Edward III. (1688), in which he introduces long and elaborate speeches into the narrative; editions of Euripides (1694) and of Homer (1711), also one of Anacreon ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... did it brought him under the just accusation of being guilty of every kind of rascality known to politics. When next our paths would cross each other, it would very likely be on some errand of mercy, to which his feet were always swift. I recall the distress of a dear and gentle lady at whose table I once took his part. She could not believe that there was any good in him; what he did must be done for effect. Some time after that she wrote, asking me to look after ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... here put down its ears lashed out—and indulged in a bound which would have unseated many a London rider. A young Amazon, followed hard by some two or three young gentlemen and their grooms, shot by, swift and reckless as a hero at Balaclava. But With equal suddenness, as she caught sight of Darrell—whose hand and voice had already soothed the excited nerves of his steed—the Amazon wheeled round and gained his side. Throwing up her ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... varied by subsequent study and reflection." In the seventh he was to treat of the other principal dramatists of the Elizabethan period, Ben Jonson, Massinger, and Beaumont and Fletcher; in the eighth of the life and all the works of Cervantes; in the ninth of Rabelais, Swift, and Sterne, with a dissertation "on the nature and constituents of genuine humour, and on the distinctions of humorous from the witty, the fanciful, the droll, the odd, etc." Donne, Dante, and Milton formed the subject of the tenth; the Arabian Nights Entertainment, and the romantic ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... called an "unlucky" (that is, a "mischievous") kind; and if the author had not been constantly longing to make somebody or many bodies uncomfortable,[352] to damage and defile shrines, to exhibit a misanthropy more really misanthropic, because less passionate and tragical, than Swift's, and, in fact, as his patron, persecutor, and counterpart, Frederick the Jonathan-Wildly Great, most justly observed of him, to "play monkey-tricks," albeit monkey-tricks of immense talent, if not actually ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... all adjourned to the 'Sunbeam,' where we found many other friends already arrived or arriving. We had only just time to look round before the sun set, and the short twilight was succeeded by the swift tropical darkness. All too soon good-bye had to be said; the anchor was raised, and we were actually drifting slowly along under our head canvas before our friends took their departure. It was a lovely evening, with a light fair ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... with honey—while, grown big with grain, The bulging sacks receive the golden rain. Again I tread the valley, sweet with hay, And hear the bob-white calling far away, Or wood-dove cooing in the elder-brake; Or see the sassafras bushes madly shake As swift, a rufous instant, in the glen The red-fox leaps and gallops to his den; Or, standing in the violet-colored gloam, Hear roadways sound with holiday riding home From church, or fair, or bounteous barbecue, Which the whole country to some ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... swift glance seaward, and at the same instant one or two voices on the ridge above called alarm. Under the western cliff his eye detected a line of dark shadows stealing ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... energy with which he worked at Brook Farm. No one else seems to have done so much hard labor there. He was better fitted for this than many of his colleagues, having a strong, full-chested frame, and is said in his youth to have been a very swift runner and skater; but nothing indicates better the latent force that was in this quiet and usually inactive man. Many of the Brook Farm adventurers were not physically equal to a solid day's work, but this was a contingency which nobody ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... threw to one and another, some swift, white balls. They were really white pop-corn balls, but at first ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... the canoes had all been leaded and the farewells to the kind M. Desplaines and his family said. After a swift final inspection Frank pronounced everything ship-shape and even Doctor Wiseman who had been fussing about as Billy said "like a hen with one chicken—and that a lame duck," over his tin cases and poisonous looking bottles, announced that he was ready ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... more than eminently fitted to save her from the edge of the precipice towards which she had found her so blindly stumbling. It was just such a moment as when one sees one's dearest friend walking blindly to the verge of an abyss and knows that too sudden a cry, too swift a movement to save them, may plunge their reckless body for ever into eternity. In this moment, Janet kept her wits. With infinite care, with infinite tenderness, never weakening to the importunate demands that were made of her, giving up her work, giving up ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... of Tassoni, took lessons from his caricature of Saturn, the old diseased senator traveling in a sedan chair to the celestial parliament, with a clyster-pipe in front of him and his seat upon a close stool. Moliere and Swift, votaries of Cloacina, were anticipated in the climax of Count Culagna's attempt to poison his wife, and in the invention of the enchanted ass so formidable by Parthian discharges on its adversary. Over these births of Tassoni's genius the Maccaronic Muse of Folengo ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... swift you start To super-stature of heroic deeds So brave, so silent beats your bleeding heart That ours, e'en in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a fair and swift hand, and is competently versed in the four first rules of arithmetic, in the Rule of Three, (which is sometimes called the Golden Rule,) and in Practice. We mention these things that we may leave no room for cavillers to say that anything essential hath been omitted in our definition; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and Chesty accompanied Professor Oswald by way of the railroad to a point nearest the ranch, where a vehicle would be awaiting them. He had been greatly interested in hearing how one of the bottles that he had thrown into the swift current of the Colorado had been eventually picked up in far distant Mohave City; and thus his note came into the hands of ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... Montgeron, arriving just in advance of the Duchess's carriage, for which the Swiss was watching at the threshold of the open Porte cochere. He drew himself up; the brougham entered the gate at a swift pace, described a circle, and halted under the marquee at the main entrance. The General sprang lightly to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... instance, the truly unctuous native Christian may ask a dollar for two fowls, but he will also lease out his wife for a similar amount. Time was, in the Ellices, when the undue complaisance of a married woman meant a sudden and inartistic compression of the jugular, or a swift blow from the heavy, ebony-wood club of the wronged man. Nowadays, since the smug-faced native teacher hath shown them the Right Way, such domestic troubles are condoned by—a dollar. That is, if it be a genuine ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... officials, scarcely any being at their posts, in such wise that he made his way to the Prefect's sanctum unannounced. There he found M. Pietri engaged with a confidential acolyte in destroying a large number of compromising papers, emptying boxes and pigeon-holes in swift succession, and piling their contents on an already huge fire, which was stirred incessantly in order that it might burn more swiftly. Pietri only paused in his task in order to write an order for Sala's release, and I have always understood that this was the ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... morning I observed him to pause, as if listening. The cause of this became apparent at about one in the afternoon, when I, too, heard the sound of running water: and an hour later we halted on the edge of a broad valley, with a swift stream running through it, black between banks of snow, and on the near bank a few huts and a crowd of ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... pronounced words were instantly followed by a pistol-shot which wounded Hassan in the thigh. Swift as lightning, a second killed the keeper of the wardrobe, and the guards, firing at the same time, brought down several officers. Terrified, the Osmanlis forsook the pavilion. Ali, perceiving blood ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... herself to this man, not from an impulse of gratitude or because she liked him better than any one else, but because of a feeling, new, mysterious, which gave him a sort of divine right in her. Something in the expression of his eyes had been more potent than his words; something subtle, swift as an electric spark had passed from him to her, awakening a faint, strange tumult in the heart she thought so utterly crushed. A few moments before, she could have promised resolutely to be his wife; she could have permitted his embrace with unresponsive apathy. Now she felt a sudden ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe |
