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Swifter   Listen
noun
Swifter  n.  (Naut.)
(a)
A rope used to retain the bars of the capstan in their sockets while men are turning it.
(b)
A rope used to encircle a boat longitudinally, to strengthen and defend her sides.
(c)
The forward shroud of a lower mast.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Swifter" Quotes from Famous Books



... horse went frisking along this is what he thought. "I am pleased with myself. I am sleek, I am swift—swifter than the ox. What would ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell

... strong, spreading oaks, and high-towering heroic beeches—wrestling with the gale. Her ear had caught the full roar of the forest lower down; the swift rushing of clouds, the moon, to the eye, hasting swifter still, had crossed her vision. She turned from sight and sound—touched, if not rapt; ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... and annihilate it. It is a common-sense procedure, for then there is opportunity to gather one's force together again, to take a second breath, and to repeat with the other half of the enemy force the same manoeuvre. The Germans are no wiser, no swifter, no better, indeed, than are our own or the French peoples. If they are superior in any sort of way it is certainly only in their craft and cunning, in their methodical and painstaking attention to detail, and ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... stands the large pear-tree, a quarter of a mile from this. I shall run by the left, round past the fir-ground; thou canst try it by the right, over the fields; so we do not meet till we get up, and then we shall see which of us is the swifter." ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... stir the blood With a warmer glow and a swifter flood,— A name like the sound of a trumpet, clear, And silver-sweet, and iron-strong, That calls three million men to their feet, Ready to march, and steady to meet The foes who threaten that name with wrong,— A name that rings like a battle-song. ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... man takes no more weight than his horses can draw. Our journey would be swifter, if we started with less each morning. We can not hasten God's purposes. Growth is slow; feverish action is disease. The throbbing pulse is beating away our vital forces, not adding to life, and yet how many do we behold, who, working in this unhealthy manner, ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... being brought about not suddenly, but slowly and gradually, seeing that the process of amendment and correction will take place imperceptibly in the individual instances, during the lapse of countless and unmeasured ages, some outstripping others, and tending by a swifter course towards perfection, while others, again, follow close at hand, and some, again, a ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... the original word again the place from which I think it unjustly excluded. This generosity, (says Enobarbus) swells my heart, so that it will quickly break, if thought break it not, a swifter mean. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... medium standard, but like extremes," they both go on (as has actually occurred with tumbler-pigeons) choosing and breeding from birds with longer and longer beaks, or with shorter and shorter beaks. Again, we may suppose that at an early period one man preferred swifter horses; another stronger and more bulky horses. The early differences would be very slight; in the course of time, from the continued selection of swifter horses by some breeders, and of stronger ones by others, the differences would become greater, and would ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... swifter and deeper in that direction. This is the best place to get across. There is nothing to be done but to carry you over, and that, with your permission, ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... I ought to have had some consideration too," said the swallow. "I should imagine no one can be swifter in soaring and flight than I am; and how far I have ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... are the sea-horses of the deep, And we race through the waters blue, Faster than wind and swifter than tide We ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory

... FAWN once said to his Mother, "You are larger than a dog, and swifter, and more used to running, and you have your horns as a defense; why, then, O Mother! do the hounds frighten you so?" She smiled, and said: "I know full well, my son, that all you say is true. I have the advantages you mention, but when I hear even the bark of a single dog ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... waved his hand and set out on his journey, and the wind was not swifter than the brown horse—no, not even the March wind which raced it, and could not catch it. But the horse never stopped nor looked behind, till in the dark of the night he reached the castle of the ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... stride. Nor is it to be imagined that we are anywhere near the limit of speed. Already the Lucania's record is threatened by the Oceanic; and the Oceanic, if she fulfils her promises, will only spur on some still swifter Titan to the emprise.[A] Then, again, it is hard to believe that the difficulties are insuperable which as yet prevent us from utilising, as a point of arrival and departure, that almost mid-Atlantic outpost of the younger world, Newfoundland—or at ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... fainter and died away, and again all was silence and impenetrable night, while I battled with the strong suction of the unseen current, which was growing swifter and swifter, and felt my strength begin to ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... 'tis for which I sound, And heroes with immortal triumphs crown'd; Fame built on solid virtue swifter flies, Than morning light can spread the eastern skies: The gath'ring air returns the doubling sound; And loud repeating thunders force it round; Echoes return from caverns of the deep, Old Chaos dreams on't in eternal sleep: Time hands it forward to its latest urn, From whence it ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe

... hills, which round a limpid bay Reflected, bask in the clear wave! The javelin and its buffalo prey, The laughter and the joyous stave! The tent, the manger! these describe A hunting and a fishing tribe Free as the air—their arrows fly Swifter than lightning through the sky! By them is breathed the purest air, Where'er their wanderings may chance! Children and maidens young and fair, And warriors circling in the dance! Upon the beach, around the fire, Now quenched by wind, now burning higher, Like spirits which our dreams inspire ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... that I was not with my army at Goldsboro', when I again assured him that General Schofield was fully competent to command in my absence; that I was going to start back that very day, and that Admiral Porter had kindly provided for me the steamer Bat, which he said was much swifter than my own vessel, the Russia. During this interview I inquired of the President if he was all ready for the end of the war. What was to be done with the rebel armies when defeated? And what should be done with the political leaders, such as Jeff. Davis, etc.? Should we allow ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... her brow,— A swifter blush succeeds; It burns her cheek; it kindles now Beneath ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... for praise. They are the leading athletes in the gymnasium of the arts; and the crowd of the circus cannot take its eyes away from them, while the Venetian walks or rests with the simplicity of a wild animal; is scarcely noticed in his occasionally swifter motion; when he springs, it is to please himself; and so calmly, that no one thinks of estimating the ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... to win, Thjalfi, you must run faster, though I must own no man has ever come here who was swifter of foot." ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various

... simpler and swifter mode of writing is felt by all who have much writing to do—by newspaper men, by legal gentlemen, by clergymen, by students in taking class lectures and making notes of many things valuable for future "refreshment," authors and scientific men ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... seeking one last, desperate chance for life. Instantly he turned half around, crouched for a spring, and, seemingly by one single leap, went nearly past the rock-pile, so that it partly covered his retreat. Quick as his movements were, they were not swifter than those of the men whose duty was to ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell

... lead an' leavin' at least Bland or Alloway dead behind you. I'm figgerin', of course, thet when they come home an' find out you're visitin' Kate frequent they'll jest naturally look fer results. Chess don't like you, fer no reason except you're swift on the draw—mebbe swifter 'n him. Thet's the hell of this gun-play business. No one can ever tell who's the swifter of two gunmen till they meet. Thet fact holds a fascination mebbe you'll learn some day. Bland would treat you civil onless there was reason not to, an' then I don't believe he'd invite ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... Perhaps there may be something good in your words." "Illustrious Arabs," continued Shidoub, "you know what happened in consequence of the match between Dahir and Ghabra: I assure you on my life that I will outstrip both of them in running, even were they swifter than the wind. But listen to the condition I offer; if I am the winner, I am to take the hundred camels which are at stake; but if I am beaten, I am to forfeit fifty." Upon this one of the Sheiks of Fazarah exclaimed, "What ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous

... watched his advance with considerable curiosity. He was tall and upright in bearing, but as he came nearer he was seen to be a man of great age, with a countenance on which sorrow and suffering had left their indelible traces. There were furrows on that face which tears had hollowed out for their swifter flowing, and the high intellectual brow bore lines and wrinkles of anxiety and pain, which were the soul's pen-marks of a tragic history. He was attired in simple fisherman's garb of rough blue homespun, and when he was within a few paces of the King, he raised his cap from his ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... feline would have done, she took the line of least resistance. If there had been plenty of carrion in the jungle, Nahara might never have hunted men. But the kites and the jackals looked after the carrion; and they were much swifter and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... queerly, appraising him anew. He took Woods's blows when he must and felt the pain go stabbing through his body; but he stood up and struck back and forced the fight steadily, crowding his adversary relentlessly, seeming always to strike swifter and harder. ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... toward him softly with hands outstretched in the darkness, and presently her fingers touched his face. They travelled downward till they found the ropes which bound him. For a moment she fumbled at the knots before she remembered a swifter way. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... between the war-galley and the round-ship of commerce, a type with three masts and propelled at least primarily by sails, with a length about three times its beam and thus shorter and more seaworthy than the galley, but longer, lower and swifter than the clumsy round-ship. To this new type the names galleass and galleon were bath given, but in English and later usage galleass came to be applied to war vessels combining oar and sail, and galleon to either war or trading vessels of medium ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... You will be at more comfort in the carriage without me. Moreover, it will travel the lighter and the swifter, and speed ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... personality, to pierce behind the surface, to establish a definite relation. Yet in the matter of relations with others, women are often, I believe, less sentimental, and even less tender-hearted than men, and they have a far swifter and truer intuition of character. Though the two sexes can never really understand each other's point of view, because no imagination can cross the gulf of fundamental difference, yet I am certain that women ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the roll of the drum deafened the ears of the people, utterly drowning the imperious tones of the selectman, and growing louder and swifter from moment to moment, as the long unused wrists of the ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... is alive with witches: the white witch rides Swifter than smoke on the starlit wind. In the clear darkness, while the moon hides, They come like dreams, like something remembered . . Let us hurry! beloved; take my hand, Forget these things that trouble your eyes, Forget, forget! Our flesh is changed, Lighter than smoke we wreathe ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken

... it o'er the world, the swifter did she run through her fair fortunes. Each war, each year, gave thee new peoples to rule thee did the sun behold advancing towards either pole; little remained to conquer of the Eastern world; so that for thee, and thee alone, night and day and ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... mocking wenches are as keen As is the razor's edge invisible, Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen, Above the sense of sense; so sensible Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings, Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things. ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... sage. Slone realized, from the stinging of the sweet wind in his face, that Nagger was being pulled along at a tremendous pace. The faithful black could never have made the wind cut so. Lower the wild stallion stretched and swifter he ran, till it seemed to Slone that death ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... realized Steve stood gazing down into the burnt-out fireplace, until another thought, swifter even than the impulse that had lifted him across the threshold and thrust him into speech which, already, he would have given much to recall, whirled him around again. There was a light in the near end of the storehouse building ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... question now of which would reach the luckless man first, the boat or the shark. The boat was nearer and the men were rowing like demons, but the shark was swifter, coming on like ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... her captain and crew, who were all regretful at the loss of their vessel, if they would put to sea again in a vessel built by himself, as like the Pall Mall Budget as might be, but, if anything, swifter, more trim, with later improvements to make the passage easier and more entertaining to all ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... all other floods as is the sea Vouru-kasha, so much above all other utterances in greatness, goodness, and fairness is this Law, this fiend-destroying Law of Zarathustra. As much as a great stream flows swifter than a slender rivulet, so much above all other utterances in greatness, goodness, and fairness is this Law, this fiend-destroying Law of Zarathustra. As high as the great tree stands above the small plants it overshadows, so high above all other utterances in greatness, goodness, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... little Indian girl, who had hitherto lain quite concealed in the tangled grass, started up like a rabbit from its lair and dashed into the thicket. Swiftly though the child ran, however, one of the young men of the party was swifter. He sprang off in pursuit, and in a few moments brought ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... in the spring (The Hidden Flower); or, while wandering by his beloved river Usk, he meditates near the deep pool of a waterfall on its mystical significance as it seems to linger beneath the banks and then to shoot onward in swifter course, and he sees in it an image of life beyond the grave. The seed growing secretly in the earth suggests to him the growth of the soul in the darkness of physical matter; and in Affliction he points out that all nature ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon

... hand I saw new sorrow, new torments, and new scourgers, with which the first pit [1] was replete. At its bottom were the sinners naked. This side the middle they came facing us; on the farther side with us, but with swifter pace. As the Romans, because of the great host in the year of Jubilee,[2] have taken means upon the bridge for the passage of the people, who on one side all have their front toward the Castle,[3] and go to Saint Peter's, and on ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... loadstone and the amber? It is but as yesterday that the forces of vapour have become to men genii more powerful than those conjured up by Aladdin; that light, at a touch, springs forth from invisible air; that thought finds a messenger swifter than the wings of the fabled Afrite. As, thus musing, my hand closed over the wand, I felt a wild thrill through my frame. I recoiled; I was alarmed lest (according to the plain common-sense theory of Julius Faber) I might be preparing my imagination ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... numbers, in such a fashion that each hunter should sweep his own range of the forest, in order that neither moose, deer, nor bear, might have reasonable chance of escape. Being of large frame and it may be of swifter foot than common, the young Captain saw fit to command Reuben Ring to flank one end of the line, and a man, who is nothing short of him in either speed, or strength, to do the same duty on the other. ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... did matter itself; and as life is manifested by movement, the sources of life must needs seem to be placed in those luminous and eternal bodies, and above all in the Heaven in which they revolve, and which whirls them along with itself in that rapid course that is swifter than all other movement. And fire and heat have so great an analogy with life, that cold, like absence of movement, seemed the distinctive characteristic of death. Accordingly, the vital fire that blazes ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... operations. Many times it is true a policy which had starved the navy of France left no other course open to her seamen, and had they in their inferiority attempted the offensive, the end must have been swifter if not more certain. In criticising the maritime history of France we must be careful to distinguish policy from strategy. It was not always the defensive strategy that was bad, but the policy that condemned her admirals to negative operations. Seeing that she was a continental Power with ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett

... the more sure that he would find her in the morning, with the dew on her feet and the dawn on her forehead. He was convinced that it was that sweet mystic mouth of hers which would one day tell him the secret of the world. And long before the morning she would pick up her skirts and be off again, swifter than ever, ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... skates as of old some young Viking skated, all his being bubbling in a lofty glee, with blue eyes answering this icy brilliance as they dazzle back from the tawny countenance, with every muscle rippling grace and vigor to meet the proud volition, lithely cutting the air, swifter than the swallow's wing in its arrowy precision, careless as the floating flake in effortless motion, skimming along the lucid sheathing that answers his ringing heel with a tune of its own, and swaying in his almost aerial medium, lightly, easily, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... was swifter but more nerve wracking than the upward climb had been. By the time he reached the green shale, Enoch was trembling from muscle and nerve strain. It was purple dusk now, by the river, with the castellated tops of butte and mountain molten gold in the evening sun. When ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... appetite, and passion, hovers Black Care. It flits above their sleepless eyes in the panelled ceiling of the darkened palace, it sits behind them on the courser as they rush into battle, it dogs them as they are at the pleasures of the bronze-trimmed yacht. It pursues them everywhere, swifter than the deer, swifter than the wind that drives before it the storm-cloud. Not even those who are most happy are entirely so. No lot is wholly blest. Perfect happiness is unattainable. Tithonus, with the gift of ever-lasting life, wasted ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman

... followed his example, and emulated his valour. Bohemond, returning from the camp, which he had delivered from its oppressors, encountered a troop of fugitives. Instantly advancing among them, he exclaimed, 'Whither fly you, O Christian soldiers?—Do you not see that the enemies' horses, swifter than your own, will not fail soon to reach you? Follow me—I will show you a surer mode of safety than flight.' With these words he threw himself followed by his own men and the rallied fugitives, into the midst of the Saracens, and striking down all who attempted to resist them, made ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... undiminished speed, when we felt the earth trembling behind us, and soon afterwards the distant bellowing mixed up with the roaring and sharper cries of other animals, were borne down unto our ears. The atmosphere grew oppressive and heavy, while the flames, swifter than the wind, appeared raging upon the horizon. The fleeter game of all kinds now shot past us like arrows; deer were bounding over the ground, in company with wolves and panthers; droves of elks and antelopes passed swifter than a dream; then a solitary ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, And have come to an end without hope;[204] Remember, I pray, that my life is wind, That mine eye shall see good ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... manoeuvres, those who pursue are hampered by their numbers. In the little regiment that pounded at his heels it is probable that there were many faster runners than George. On the other hand, there were many slower, and in the early stages of the chase these impeded their swifter brethren. At the end of the first half-minute, therefore, George, not sparing himself, had drawn well ahead, and for the first time ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... be seen in their native woods, where they dwell in genteel independence, enjoying their entailed estates and living on their own cocoa nuts. There will be found the Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall when yielding the Palm to some aspiring rival is swifter than that of the Roman Empire; the Barberry Ape, so called from feeding exclusively on Barberries; the Chimpanzee—an African corruption of Jump-and-see, the name given to the animal by his first European discoverers in compliment to his alertness; the Baboon, a melancholy brute ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various

... transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other, devouring each, other; forms like nought ever beheld by the naked eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary command against all evil beings. Sometimes I felt myself touched, but not by them; invisible hands touched me. Once I felt the clutch as of cold, soft fingers ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... into a swifter course. Then all at once she skidded clear of the track, slanted upward, breasted the air. Her searchlight blazed. All along her flanks, fire-jets spangled the night. Cries echoed from ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... they exercised piracy, under the command of Sigefert, a Northumbrian. This freebooter, well acquainted with Alfred's naval preparations, had framed vessels of a new construction, higher, and longer, and swifter than those of the English; but the king soon discovered his superior skill, by building vessels still higher, and longer, and swifter than those of the Northumbrians; and falling upon them while they were exercising their ravages in the west, he took twenty of ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... cities of Judah?" (2 Sam. ii. 1). He will do nothing in this crisis of his fortunes, when all which had been so long a hope seemed to be rapidly becoming a fact, until his Shepherd shall lead him. Rapid and impetuous as he was by nature, schooled to swift decisions, followed by still swifter action, knowing that a blow struck at once, while all was chaos and despair at home, might set him on the throne, he holds nature and policy and the impatience of his people in check to hear what God will say. So fully did ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... together to form a straight line, and then below two right angles take their course together, the flow and ebb will happen now in one river and now in the other above their confluence, and principally if the outlet for their united volume is no swifter than when they were separate. Here occur 4 ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... offer the rites of hospitality, as on their last visit to the land. For the white men were no longer regarded as good beings that had come from heaven, but as ruthless destroyers, who, invulnerable to the assaults of the Indians, were borne along on the backs of fierce animals, swifter than the wind, with weapons in their hands, that scattered fire and desolation as they went. Such were the stories now circulated of the invaders, which, preceding them everywhere on their march, closed the hearts, if not the doors, of the natives ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... until they turned into the level county road and then swifter that they might come into Hill's Corners before it was midnight. When at last the twinkling lights of Dead Man's Alley winked at them Comstock struck a match and looked ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... passed ten feet or more above his head. It rose, and climbed steeply, and passed again above the now buzzing, agitated hangars, and climbed above the hills behind the flying field as some men went running and others moved by swifter means toward the shaken, nerve-racked Ribiera, on whose lips were ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... his horse to greater effort and the animal responded nobly. For a moment he kept pace with Hal's swifter mount. ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes

... on a high mound; belike he is the keeper of a garden or of a cucumber- plot, and in whatso wise water will not be lacking in his neighborhood;" presently adding, "I will go to him and fetch thee some." But Al-Rashid said, "My mule is swifter than thy mule; so do thou abide here, on account of the troops, whilst I go myself to him and get of this person [FN219] drink and return." So saying, he urged his she-mule, which started off like racing wind or railing-water and, in the twinkling of an eye, made the mound, where he found the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... of extermination, the animal sped nimbly along the ledge of a cliff, becoming visible from the ravine below, a tawny streak against the gray rock. Swift though he was, a jet of red light flashing out in the dusk was yet swifter. The echoing crags clamored with the report of a rifle. The tawny streak was suddenly still. Three boys appeared in the depths of ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)

... show on some holyday—he like a ship that every morning had been dashing through a new world of waves—often close-reefed or under bare poles—but oftener affronting the heavens with a whiter and swifter cloud than any hoisted by the combined fleets in the sky. And now, with canvas unrent, and masts unsprung, returned to the very buoy she left. Somewhat faded, indeed, in her apparelling—but her hull sound as ever—not a speck of dry rot in her timbers—her keel unscathed by ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... says an Arab author, "had to cross the Chott one day; it was composed of a thousand baggage camels. Unfortunately one of the beasts strayed from the path, and all the others followed it. Nothing in the world could be swifter than the manner in which the crust yielded and engulphed them; then it became like what it was before, as if the thousand baggage camels had never existed." Yet it is traversed in several directions, and if you strain your eyes from these heights you can detect certain dusky lines ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... hold back when he overheard the words of the men who said: "There goes Gawain, who is no weakling either on foot or ahorse. He is a man whom no one will attack." When Cliges hears these words, he rushes toward him in mid-field; they both advance and come together with a swifter leap than that of the stag who hears the sound of the dogs as they come baying after him. The lances are thrust at the shields, and the blows produce such havoc that the lances split, crack and break clear down to the butt-end, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... with him was called, because of her swiftness, Aella, or Bride of the Wind; but she found in Hercules a swifter opponent, was forced to yield and was in her swift flight overtaken by him and vanquished. A second fell at the first attack; then Prothoe, the third, who had come off victor in seven duels, also fell. Hercules laid low eight others, among them ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... bounsing at his Caue Ile keepe That if pale death seaz'd on the eyes of sleepe Ile rowse him up; that when he shall me heare He make his locks stand vp on end with feare. Be silent, aire, whilst Iris in her pride Swifter than thought vpon the windes doth ride. What Somnus! what Somnus, Somnus! (Strikes. Pauses a little) What, wilt thou not awake? art thou still so fast? Nay then, yfaith, Ile haue another cast. What, Somnus! Somnus! ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... "The sugar-cane;" and he said, "Tell me of many things." Asked she, "What are they?" and he said, "What is sweeter than honey; what is sharper than the sword; what is swifter than poison; what is the delight of a moment and what the contentment of three days; what is the pleasantest of days; what is the joy of a week; what is that debt the worst debtor denieth not; what is the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... broad, flat-lying sheets of clay and fine sand left by the overflow at time of flood, and traversed here and there by long, narrow strips of coarse, cross-bedded sands and gravels thrown down by the swifter currents of the shifting channels. Occasional beds of muck mark the sites of shallow lakelets or fresh-water swamps. The various strata also contain some remains of the countless myriads of animals and plants which live upon the surface ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... to "surpass himself," but he must not do it once for all or he would rob the critics of their most cherished phrase. He reminds me of the constructors of our Atlantic "greyhounds," each longer by a yard or two than the last, each swifter by a fraction of a knot, each with a few more tons displacement, all pronounced to be the final word in scientific invention, yet all reserving something for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various

... The shore of the lake was very far off, and they would soon be in the range of the rifles on the falua. He thought of returning to the Pasig. His banca was swifter than the falua. But fate was against him! Another boat was coming up the Pasig, and they could see the helmets and shining bayonets ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... drawbridge, fell back in a swoon on the carpet of the hall. The shepherd boy raised her in his arms and fled for the hills. Along the road was the wild stampede of the people, all straining for the hills, pouring in a mad rush from the valley and the town. Behind them were the still madder, swifter, more terrible waters, coming in sudden thuds, in furious drives, eddying and sculping and rearing in an orgy or remorseless and heartrending destruction. Down before that roaring avalanche went walls and trees and buildings. The shepherd ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... alternately in front of one ship and behind the next ship in the outer circles, the serpentine movement gradually becoming more and more rapid; and most wonderful changes of colour were produced by the passage of the vessels past those lighted with lamps of another colour. Swifter and swifter became the speed until it seemed utterly impossible that these intricate movements could go on without resulting in a series of collisions and disasters. Yet, with all this bewildering whirling, twisting, and intertwining, the ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... sometimes written on parchment with a reed [78] dipped in ink, [79] but far more frequently on waxen tablets with the stilus. Wax was preferred to other material, as admitting a swifter hand and an easier erasure. When Cicero wrote, his ideas came so fast that his handwriting became illegible. His brother more than once complains of this defect. We hear of his writing three letters to Atticus in one day. Familiar missives like these were penned at ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... the rose-pink robe had flown, Borne by swifter feet than ours, On to Wonder-Wander town, Through the wood of monstrous flowers; Mailed in monstrous gold and blue Dragon-flies like peacocks fled; Butterflies like carpets, too, Softly ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... by this or that writer, I scarcely know by whom, that, in proportion as we grow old, and our time becomes short, the swifter does it pass, until at last, as we approach the borders of the grave, it assumes all the speed and impetuosity of a river about to precipitate itself into an abyss; this is doubtless the case, provided we can carry to the grave those pleasant thoughts ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... Cordula von Montfort's admirers. Yet he soon became unable to control his anger and impatience. Yielding to a hasty impulse, he left the chain, but as he approached the stranger the latter gave his swaying seat a swifter motion and, without vouchsafing him either greeting or introductory remark, said carelessly, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue, Nor swifter greyhound follow, Whose feet ne'er tainted morning dew, ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... But swifter than Ahmet's plunge was thought and memory.... Of a day at Nagasaki ... of a little brown smiling Japanese and a burly square-head sailorman.... Of the Japanese's courteous explanation in smiling Pidgin.... With luck and timing he could do it.... Fast, but not too fast, and steady.... ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... whirlpools, whether there might be ahead o' him some great underground passage where the river had cut its way and the boat might be carried in there and never get out. Then too when they started on a swift current no one could tell when the water got rougher and swifter whether they were goin' head on for some great, roarin' cataract. Yes, sir, it was a very ticklish trip that Major Powell took, and what made it still worse for him was the fact that he had only ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay

... delicate, trembling sapphire shape like a fairy lady. With a quiet smile she blocked his path and doomed him and Jimmie. Johnson shrieked, and then ducked in the manner of his race in fights. He aimed to pass under the left guard of the sapphire lady. But she was swifter than eagles, and her talons caught in him as he plunged past her. Bowing his head as if his neck had been struck, Johnson lurched forward, twisting this way and that way. He fell on his back. The still form in the ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane

... by virtue of our repulsive rays alone would give our enemies their best chance to overtake us, since our propellers would be idle and in rising we would be outclassed by many of our pursuers. The swifter craft are seldom equipped with large buoyancy tanks, since the added bulk of them tends to reduce ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... written to tell me about him. Now, did you know the pain and agony this has given me, you had not been so remiss. If you could come here on Wednesday for one night, I have a few people and a supper. You could come by the Mail in two hours, much swifter than even in your swift carriage; and I have one million of things to say and ask also. Do tell me how that dear Radical Hob is, and pray remember me to him. I really hope you will be here at dinner or supper on Wednesday. Your ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... anything of which he had as yet deemed himself capable. When a man of good position, of whom much is expected, takes to evil courses, his progress is apt to resemble that of a well-bred woman who has started on the downward path,—the pace is all the swifter because of the distance which must be traversed to reach the bottom. Delamere had made rapid headway; having hitherto played with sin, his servant had now become his master, and held him ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... concrete form do not depend too much on the "moment of inspiration." It is not my intention to ridicule this most valuable incentive to artistic work. I believe in it thoroughly when it is genuine, and I would advise you to take all advantage of it. Dash off your story as swiftly as you will—the swifter the better, for if it runs easily from your pen it stands a better chance of being spontaneous. But we are not all of us gifted with the ability to work in this manner, nor will all themes permit ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett

... stone foundations were laid in the firm, rocky soil to support the machinery, when it arrived. A game in which Houston hurried from the forests to the mill and back again, now riding the log sheds as a matter of swifter locomotion, instead of for the thrill, as he once had done. Another month went by, to bring with it the bill of lading which told that the saws, the beltings, the planers and edgers and trimmers, and the half hundred other items of machinery were at last on their ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... a shadow that is cast, Swifter than eagles' wings my years fly fast, And I remember not my gladness past, Either by day or yet ...
— Hebrew Literature

... of the mother towards her child was swift as the falcon's swoop. But swifter still was the hand of ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... VIII Swifter than thought the friendly wind forth bore The sliding boat upon the rolling wave, With curded foam and froth the billows hoar About the cable murmur roar and rave; At last they came where all his watery store ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... the eastern provinces, and had followed the left bank of the river. All his means had gone in the purchase of this horse, which, swifter far than any pirogue on the Amazon, had brought him ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... Leaps off before a foaming track. He flings a yell of triumph back, And grimly smiles as on he flies To hear their disappointed cries; Yet lest they may too soon pursue, He urges on the flight anew. He plies the paddle with a will, They skim the waves,—but swifter still A vengeful arrow cleaves the air, To sink between his shoulders bare. The shock is cruel, and the blade Falls from his hand; his powers all fade Like thought, and plunging on his face, Deathlike he lies. Now to his ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... may not be able to withstand, but, on the other hand, the German could not run away from the Zmudzian, neither could he catch him; they are very swift, swifter than those ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... swifter! Esmeralda began to feel weaker, thought of Theodore, and of some other things of which she never told even him, said a little prayer, but all the time remembered her master's injunctions, and kept her place firmly, waiting for the final, and, as ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne

... naked eye, beautiful with village spires, mansion houses, and white shining farms; the Galloway hills, gloomy and far-tumbling, bounded the forward view, while to the left rose Criffel, cloud-capped and majestic; then the white sands of Solway, with tides swifter than horsemen; and finally the eye rested joyfully upon the hills of Cumberland, and noticed with glee the blue curling smoke from its villages on the southern ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... God, that blowest in the mind, Blow, blow and wake the gentle spring in me; Blow, swifter blow, a strong warm summer wind, Till all the flowers with eyes come out to see; Blow till the fruit hangs red on every tree, And our high-soaring song-larks meet thy dove— High the imperfect soars, descends the ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... your hair; inhale the wind largely; lucky are all men with dome-like foreheads; luckless those with pippin-heads; loud lungs are a blessing; a lion is no lion that can not roar.' Says Aldina, 'There are those looking on, who know themselves to be swifter of foot than the racers, but are confounded with the ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... thy happy flight, With swifter motion haste to purer light, Where Bacon waits with Newton and with Boyle To hail thy genius, and applaud thy toil; Where intuition breaks through time and space, And mocks experiment's successive race; Sees tardy Science toil at Nature's laws, And wonders how ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... of my friends with eager blaze of song, swifter than high-bred steed or winged ship will send everywhere these tidings, so be it that my hand is blessed at all in labouring in the choice garden of the Graces; for they give all pleasant ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar

... trapper, when the other had delivered his reasons; "it is very rational, for what man cannot move with his strength he must circumvent with his wits. It is reason that makes him stronger than the buffaloe, and swifter than the moose. Now stay you here, and keep yourselves close. My life and my traps are but of little value, when the welfare of so many human souls are concerned; and, moreover, I may say that I know the windings of Indian cunning. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... this people do escape being destroyed for ever, yea, how with hearts broken, and loins broken, many of them with much difficulty get to the gates of heaven! it will be easily concluded, that her enemies are swifter than eagles, stronger than lions; and that they often overtake her between ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... ships might cross the seas in such security (privateering not being admissible) that merchandise would be as safe in the English ship as in the neutral." The fault in all this reasoning is that a ship of inferior speed is certain to meet with a swifter antagonist, and therefore become a capture. Our experience with the Confederate cruisers was that the efforts of a very large navy may be eluded and defied for years, without regard to the sailing ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... appeared again in company with a young man of mean and slouching attire. For some five or six exchanges they conversed together with an animated air; then the fellow shouldered again into the tap; and the young lady, with something swifter than a walk, retraced her steps towards Challoner. He saw her coming, a miracle of grace; her ankle, as she hurried, flashing from her dress; her movements eloquent of speed and youth; and though he still entertained ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... matchless craft, Poised in air, then slipping wave-ward, Mounting again like an arrow-shaft, Circling, swaying, wheeling, dipping, All with never a flap of wing, Keeping pace with my flying ship here, Give me a key to my wondering! Gales but serve thee for swifter flying, Foam crested waves with thy wings thou dost sweep, Wonderful dun-colored, down-covered body, Living thy life on the face ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various

... agreed. "It's swifter, and if we have any luck at all, it's a pretty good contraption to get away in after we have gained our information. Now about clothes. Shall we keep on ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes

... become of his Captain and other fellow?" shewed that within half an hour after our departure, the Spaniards had overgotten them, and took his Captain and other fellow: he only escaped by flight, having cast away all his carriage, and among the rest one box of jewels, that he might fly the swifter from the pursuers: but his fellow took it up and burdened himself so sore, that he could make no speed; as easily as he might otherwise, if he would have cast down his pillage, and laid aside his covetous mind. As for ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols

... back his beard does wear? Who 'neath his chin his nose does bear? What's more black than the blackest sloe? And what is swifter than a roe? Look out, look ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow

... thought that there was no one like him in the world, till, by-and-by, it came to their ears that there dwelt among the mountains a Lapp, Andras Baive by name, who was said by his friends to be even stronger and swifter than the bailiff. Of course not a creature in Vadso believed that, and declared that if it made the mountaineers happier to talk such ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... murmured again, half breathlessly, as I drew her with swifter and more voluptuous motion into the vortex of the dancers. "You tried to be cold, but I knew I could make you love me—yes, love me passionately—and I was right." Then with an outburst of triumphant vanity she added, "I believe you would die ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... gentlewoman, [5261]a patient of his, whom by this means he found to be much enamoured, and with whom: he named many persons, but at the last when his name came whom he suspected, [5262]"her pulse began to vary and to beat swifter, and so by often feeling her pulse, he perceived what the matter was." Apollonius Argonaut. lib. 4. poetically setting down the meeting of Jason and Medea, makes them both to blush at one another's sight, and at the first they ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... hard work went on. The men, whitened by the indoor life of the winter, were beginning to take on a bronze tan. Muscles hardened and become more springy. Running legs improved. The pitchers were sending in swifter balls, Joe included. The fungo batters were sending up better flies. The ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... equally prophetic. With the years the choices become more rational and loving. Time mellows all men somewhat, and forces a little wisdom into the hardest heads. Even slight growth prophesies that which shall be swifter ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford

... mystery would inevitably be cleared up, and soon, because Captain Nemo gave orders to increase speed; at once the engine stepped up its drive power, setting the propeller in swifter rotation. ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... what my duty bade me tell you in the conditions of to-day: beware of indirect and alarmist impressions, beware of those who spread them. Trust in the valour of our armies and the fidelity of their leaders. ... Let not Europe say: 'The Pole is swift to enthusiasm, swifter to discouragement.' Rather let the nations say: 'The Poles are valiant in resolution, unterrified in ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... begun. The closely-draped windows wide open are flung; The notes of the piccolo, joyous and light, Like bubbles burst forth on the warm summer night. Round about go the dancers; in circles they fly; Trip, trip, go their feet as their skirts eddy by; And swifter and lighter, but somewhat too plain, Whisks the fair circumvolving Miss Addie ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte

... animals yield to the Horse; While my spirit I feel, and my figure I view In the brook, I'm inclined to believe it is true; But still, mighty Jupiter, still, by your aid, In my form might some further improvements be made. To run is my duty, and swifter and stronger I surely should go, were my legs to be longer: And as man always places a seat on my back, I should have been made with a saddle or sack; It had saved him much trouble, on journies departing, And I had been ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various

... can discern the internal structure of an animal body and if there be anything morbid or defective therein detect and explain it.... He can go from point to point without passing through intermediate space. He passes from Belfast [Maine] to Washington or from the earth to the moon ... swifter than light, by a ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... to spring out into the swirling water. Blake was still swifter in his movements. He caught the fugitive by the arm and dragged ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... God, that blowest in the mind, Blow, blow and wake the gentle spring in me; Blow, swifter blow, a strong, warm summer wind, Till all the flowers with eyes come out to see; Blow till the fruit hangs red on every tree, And our high-soaring song-larks meet thy dove— High the imperfect soars, descends the ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... had been the turning-point, for from a slow falling back the pace grew swifter, the waving and tossing lights burned more brightly, and those who fired sent ragged volley after volley in amongst the now clearly seen chasseurs; while the Spaniards, forgetful now of the commands they had received, kept ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... had not interposed, if the Gods had not been on her side, she must have fallen a victim to savage fury and brutal lust. But, in the crisis of her fate, she gradually sunk away before the astonished eyes of Modred. That beauteous frame was now no more, and she started from before him, swifter than the winds, a timid and listening hare. Still, still the hunter pursued; he suspended not the velocity of his course. The speed of Modred was like the roe upon the mountains; every moment he gained upon the daughter of Cadwallo. But now the object of his pursuit vanished from his ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions. There we imitate and practise to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your muskets or any engine that you have; and to make them and multiply them more easily and with small force, by wheels and other means, and to make them stronger and more violent than yours ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... the dear boy lying upstairs had friends everywhere, and older neighbors thought of him even more anxiously and tenderly than his mates. It was not fever, but some swifter trouble, for when Saturday night came, Ed had gone home to a longer and more peaceful Sabbath than any he had ever known ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... pampooties seems to make the dancing on this island lighter and swifter than anything I have seen on the mainland, and the simplicity of the men enables them to throw a naive extravagance into their steps that is impossible in places where the people ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge

... for a long minute with the open door in his hand. The bitter wind swept in with its icy chill, but a deadlier chill of fear came swifter, and seemed to freeze the beating of hearts. Sweyn stepped back to snatch ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman

... battle, When a score of miles away, He has come to the feast and banquet, By the iron horse to-day. Its pace is not much swifter Than the pace of that famous steed Which bore him down to the contest And saved the ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... was his flight, the working of his brain was even swifter, and very soon, without slackening his speed, he was swerving round again towards the open. He could see the moonlight gleaming through the trees, and he made a dash for it, utterly reckless, since caution ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... Are we any swifter scholars than these first ones were? Have we absorbed into our own thinking this truth so thoroughly and constantly, and wrought it out in our lives so completely, that we do not need to be reminded of it any more? Shall we not be wise if we faithfully ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... till the actual experience, how dangerous it was. We passed without trouble far above the scene of our first fight,—the Battle of the Hundred Pines, as my officers had baptized it; and ever, as we ascended, the banks grew steeper, the current swifter, the channel more tortuous and more incumbered with projecting branches and drifting wood. No piloting less skilful than that of Corporal Sutton and his mate, James Bezzard, could have carried us through, I thought; and no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... swifter still. Fort Missoula, at the east end of the trail, had been notified. Captain C. C. Rawn of the Seventh Infantry hastily fortified the pass down, with fifty regulars and one hundred volunteers. Chief Joseph side-stepped him also, left him waiting, ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin



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