"Swoop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rope around the seat, the other around my body, and—jumped in. I did not sink. Far from it. I was never more stimulated to swim in my life. My ten or fifteen feet dive took me into colder water than I had ever experienced before and I felt as if suddenly, and at one fell swoop, I were flayed alive. Gasping for breath I made for the boat, climbed in, and in the delicious glow that came with the reaction decided that it was quite as important to feel of the temperature of lake water before you leaped, as it ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... his wings, against a sky so dark that it must symbolise the obscure discourse of those who write in prose. You are left quite doubtful whether he will strike the rocky terrace in the foreground with his slender, silver hooves, or will swoop down into the valley below, or will soar to heaven and out of sight. You are left by the painter in a pleasant uncertainty, but Hippocrene may break out anywhere, and of the vivacious courser himself all that we can be sure of is that we are certain to see him alighting ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... had demanded her whole heart confidence, for he had been forced to veil from her his hopes of winning a fortune by one fell swoop upon the ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... spot, and as the dove ascended, a hawk suddenly rose from the copse and pursued the dove; and the dove was terrified, and soared circling high above the crowd, when lo, the hawk, poising itself one moment on its wings, swooped with a sudden swoop, and, abandoning its prey, alighted on the plumed head ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... while the gale blew with renewed violence, and the night wore slowly on. Several times there came a lull, and he began to hope the worst had passed; when once again the wind would swoop down, as though loth to give up its riotous ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... right about the bird. Ere long, it was seen returning, and soon, on motionless, expanded wings, it hovered over the rocky point. Then it caught sight of the floating bait. With a majestic swoop, it dived, caught it up, and next moment was flouncing wildly about, hooked by the tongue, while Bob Massey hauled in the line. He had provided himself with a stick, and when the huge bird came within reach ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... yard. Their shapes, so familiar to him, were already disordered. The sleet must have been falling for hours to have weighed them down this way and that. A peculiarity of the night was the wind, which increased constantly, but with fitful violence, giving no warning of its high swoop, seizure, and wrench. ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... to be any ships in for a few days, which means, of course, nothing to unload. That's the time; there's plenty of men almost starving then. They have no trade to go to, or can get no work at it, and they swoop down to the docks for work, when they had much ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... in love. You want to whoosh off in a nice little love whoosh and love yourself. Don't deny it. I know you do. You want passion to sweep you off on wings of fire till you surpass yourself, and like the swooping eagle swoop right into the sun. I know you, ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... The seaplane must swoop sufficiently close to the water to release the torpedo and let it drop without damage. And this must be done from a sufficient distance to safeguard the seaplane from the vessel's guns. The superior speed and mobility of the seaplane gives it a great ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... bit of civilization in the shape of the splendid iron poles of the Indo-European Telegraph Company. Half a dozen times this afternoon I become the imaginary enemy of a couple of cavalrymen travelling in the same direction as myself; they swoop down upon me from the rear at a charging gallop, valiantly whooping and brandishing their Martini-Henrys; when they arrive within a few yards of my rear wheel they swerve off on either side and rein their fiery chargers up, allowing ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... of the Highway, as it was called, enabled him to be of occasional service to the police, hence he was on the most cordial terms of friendship with them. He could swoop plain-clothes men through intricacies which flashed with the flames of crime, without exciting the slightest suspicion of the object he had in view. He could talk, swear, and drink in accurate harmony with his acquaintances, and was looked upon with favour by a circle of ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... the deep-piled dais, Wrought in hallowed looms of Sais, O'er the impetuous torrent's swoop, Stands the sacrificial group! ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... had drifted no man knew. The sun had not been visible for a week, nor the stars, and the captain had been unable to take observations in order to determine his position. At any moment a cruiser might swoop down and hale the crew away to Siberia. The fate of other poaching seal-hunters was too well known to the men of the Mary Thomas, and there was cause for ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... only followed by four men. But this even, added to half a belt from the pom-pom, was sufficient for the Boers: they ran to their horses, which were grazing by the kraal, mounted, and galloped over the rise, without firing a shot. As vultures swoop down upon carrion, so the Mount Nelsons, as soon as it was seen that the rise was clear of the enemy, swarmed down to the looting of the farm. The brigade-major's face was a study when he and the Mount Nelsons' captain met in the verandah. All that he said would not add to the artistic sense ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... we rate the brotherhood, what per cent we will take. My neighbor at table in my London boarding-house meant that, though he put it in a way all his own. He was a benevolent enough crank, but no friend of preaching. Being a crank, he condemned preachers with one fell swoop:— ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... the British were silent for want of ammunition. Under these circumstances Sir Hugh Gough ordered the almost exhausted cavalry to threaten both flanks of the enemy at once, while the whole infantry prepared to advance. With the swoop of a whirlwind the gallant 3rd Dragoons and other cavalry regiments rushed on their foes. The Sikhs saw them coming, while the British bayonets gleamed in front. Their courage gave way; abandoning their guns, they fled from the field, retreating precipitately ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the moon showed but a living brightness imprisoned, like the eyes and life of a bird, between those swift sweeps of darkness. This great uncanny spirit, brooding malevolent over the high leagues of moon-wan grass, seemed waiting to swoop, and pluck up in its talons, and devour, all that intruded on the wild loneness of these far-up plains of freedom. Barbara almost expected to hear coming from it the lost whistle of the buzzard hawks. And her dream came back to her. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... remembered, had also had a correspondence. He had answered Miss Roper's letter, and had since that been living in fear of two things; in a lesser fear of some terrible rejoinder from Amelia, and in a greater fear of a more terrible visit from his lady-love. Were she to swoop down in very truth upon his Guestwick home, and declare herself to his mother and sister as his affianced bride, what mode of escape would then be left for him? But this she had not yet done, nor had she even ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... foemen pouring, Or swoop of eagle from the sky, Or as the rush through ocean roaring When myriads from ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... commented. "Here it is wrong!" And, grabbing up a slice of chalk, he made a deft swoop toward the material. Suddenly his arm stayed in mid air and he laid down the chalk with a muscular effort. "I think I take this home," he ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... it; and Nicky-Nan, by his earlier reception of notices to quit, had not bettered any chance of resisting. Still—had Nicky-Nan known it—Mr Pamphlett, like many another bank manager, had been caught and thrown in a heap by the sudden swoop of War. Over the telephone wires he had been in agitated converse all day with his superiors, who had at length managed to explain to him the working of the ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... until he was within a few feet. Then it flew out wildly, with a sound like that made by the wings of a mother bird who leaves her nest at the last moment. But it was caught at last. With one skilful, triumphant swoop Schlorge had it. ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... him without remorse if he had not been so useful to them. Their favourite plan was to hang about the neighbourhood of some small isolated settlement, keeping a watch on it, and, when most of the male inhabitants were absent, to swoop down on it and work their will. Now, shortly after one of these raids it happened that a woman they had carried off, becoming a burden to them, was flung into a river to the alligators; but when being dragged down to the waterside ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... army went on board the transports. For seven days the troops lay cooped up on the vessels awaiting orders to sail, a rumor having gained circulation that certain Spanish gunboats were hovering around in Cuban waters awaiting to swoop down upon the crowded transports. While the Army of Invasion was sweltering in the ships lying at anchor off Port Tampa, a small body of American marines made a landing at Guantanamo, and on June 12th fought the first battle between Americans and Spaniards on Cuban soil. In this first battle ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... he reflected, in despair, the laggard raiders might swoop down upon them, and the choice of roles offered to him was to seem to them a moonshiner, or to the moonshiners an informer. The first was far the safer, for the clutches of the law were indeed feeble as contrasted with the popular fury that would pursue him unwearied for years ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... in the Lepidoptera, which probably stand nearly or quite as high in the scale as these insects, having sufficient mental capacity to admire bright colours. They certainly discover flowers by colour. The Humming-bird Sphinx may often be seen to swoop down from a distance on a bunch of flowers in the midst of green foliage; and I have been assured by two persons abroad, that these moths repeatedly visit flowers painted on the walls of a room, and vainly endeavour to insert their proboscis into them. Fritz Muller informs me that several ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... hard to catch Danny Meadow Mouse. Reddy's sharp eyes had seen Redtail the minute he left the tree in pursuit of Danny, and he had known by the way Redtail flew that he saw something he wanted to catch. He had watched Redtail swoop down and had heard his scream of rage when he missed Danny because Danny had dodged into the old tomato can. He had seen Redtail strike and strike again at something on the ground, and finally fly off in disgust ...
— The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... matter of this kind in preference to the authority of the whole united press of India? ['Oh! oh!'] Well, I dare say that hon. Members who cry 'Oh!' have not read the newspapers of India upon the subject. Some of them uphold it because they say that at one fell swoop it has done that which it took us twenty years to do in other districts of India, and destroys every man who could influence the people against the British Government. Others say that it is a Proclamation of such a character ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... Oxford, it flows silently onwards with scarcely a dimple on its unruffled surface. Over its still waters the gnats rise and fall in their ceaseless dance. The swift-winged dragon-flies, blue, green, and red, swoop upon them like so many falcons on their prey; or, in the earlier year, the mayflies flutter above the stream, leaving their shed skins, like ghostly images of themselves, sticking on every ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... with Mr. Kotze had made a stand against the President in this matter, was also obliged to relinquish his judgeship. Thus it will be seen that at one swoop Mr. Kruger disposed of three reputable intermediaries whom he had used to great advantage at one time or another. 'Something for nothing,' for Mr. Kruger! Whether Mr. Kotze acted in haste or whether Sir Henry ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... earth (as fame reports) With obsequies that use and wont ordain, So gracing him among the dead below. But Polyneices, a dishonored corse, (So by report the royal edict runs) No man may bury him or make lament— Must leave him tombless and unwept, a feast For kites to scent afar and swoop upon. Such is the edict (if report speak true) Of Creon, our most noble Creon, aimed At thee and me, aye me too; and anon He will be here to promulgate, for such As have not heard, his mandate; ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... lower, just skimming the tops of strange trees, the most horrible vegetable forms that I have ever beheld. And then, without warning, we were seized and pushed overboard, while the vessel, making a broad swoop, quickly disappeared. Henry alone uttered a loud cry as ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... in readiness for the cruise, the Osprey ran through the inlet on the morning of the third day out from Newbern, and spread her wings to swoop down upon the first unsuspecting merchantman which happened to be holding along the coast inside of Diamond Shoals. Now the crosstrees were manned for the first time, a small pull taken at the sheets fore and aft, and with a ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... it!" the little boy cried. With his hat he made a swoop for the butterfly, and then suddenly he and Flossie, who was close behind him, tumbled down through a hole in the ground, which seemed quickly to open at their very feet, between two clumps ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope
... of the "spade," or the use to which it is put. Hence this pair of words does not furnish an example of Inclusion. But as "dig" is frequently appropriated to "spade"—as we have often thought of those words together—this is a case of strong Concurrence. The term "swoop" is almost exclusively applied to "eagle." A certain action or movement of the eagle is termed swooping. But "eagle" does not mean "swoop," nor does "swoop" mean "eagle." We always think of "eagle" when we think of "swoop," but we do not often think of "swoop" ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... use an axe with his hands, and yet have idiotic fancies all the time bubbling and seething in his head. The power to hold in check the vagaries of imagination may be gone. From all sides they come creeping out in swarms, they swoop down on him like birds of prey—as if in revenge for having been driven away so often before—they cry: here we are! He stood once more as an apprentice in the mechanical works, riveting the plates of a gigantic boiler with a compressed-air tube—cling, clang! The wailing ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... eagles carry things off to their nests, and I suppose this one thought that Kernel Cob and Sweetclover were babies, and would be nice for Mrs. Eagle to play with. So, with the two dolls in his claws, he rose up from the ground with a great swoop. ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... will not as a class stand up to those of the Allies. They are not nimble in the air. Such champions as they have produced have been men of one trick; one of their great men, Immelmann—he was put down by an English boy a month or so ago—had a sort of hawk's swoop. He would go very high and then come down at his utmost pace at his antagonist, firing his machine gun at him as he came. If he missed in this hysterical lunge, he went on down.... This does not strike the Allied ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... Doris agreed. "Let's see it." She gave the wire at the small end the slightest of twists. "There, it ought to swoop." ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... into the water before him from high in the air. The water spouted up, causing an osprey to swoop down, ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... spoke that odd spark of ferocity dilated in his eyes, and seizing the largest of his modeling tools, he obliterated at one swoop the whole exquisite face. Poor Gertrude turned ashy white, and a ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... were getting to be worse and worse, and as Shirley glanced over at the yacht,—still hovering on the weather quarter of the Dunkery, ready at any time to swoop down and hail her if there should be occasion,—he trembled for the fate of his friends. To be sure these two pirate vessels—for sure the Dunkery Beacon now belonged to that class—were nothing but merchantmen. There was no cannon on this steamer, and as the other ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... romance, and the spell of the great, simple, and primitive emotions; he had sat down to eat with buccaneers; he had seen the fierce, quick leap of unleashed passions, and had felt death swoop close at his nape and pass like a swift spurt of cold air. City life, his old life, had no charm for him now. Wilbur honestly believed that he was changed to his heart's core. He thought that, like Moran, he was henceforth to be a sailor of the sea, a rover, and he saw the rest of his ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... race whom it is never desirable to have either for friends or enemies, ranging up and down the country, if ever they found anything, plundered it in a moment, like rapacious hawks who, if from on high they behold any prey, carry it off with rapid swoop, or, if they fail in their attempt, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... us calling from the tree-tops, See us swoop upon your flock; Yield us wool to make our nests warm In the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... luminous figure of an owl gleamed out. That was not the worst, either. I heard that savage, "chacking" noise which brown owls make when they are perched. This great gleaming owl, five times greater than any earthly owl, was making that chacking noise, as though it would soon spread its wings, to swoop on some such wretched mouse as myself. I could see its eyes roll. I thought I saw the feathers stiffen on its breast. Then, as the sweat rolled down my face, both the horrible things vanished as suddenly as they ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... Terror sublime! Swoop o'er the Land to-day— So the mist of wrong and crime, The breath of our Evil Time Be swept, as ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... like flying at his throat, as though all the truth lived in that man and he hoped to get it from him at one swoop, to ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... half-ports, like so many little cascades, and spouting up through her scupper-holes, resembling the blowing of young whales. It was the whiffling energy of the tornado that alone saved her. As if disappointed in not destroying its intended victim at one swoop, the tornado "let up" in its pressure, like a dexterous wrestler, making a fresh and desperate effort to overturn the vessel, by a slight variation in its course. That change saved the Swash. She righted, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... too, by a wise and practical use of the forests that are left, to so husband them as to take regular harvests from them as the farmer regularly harvests his fields or selects the fatlings from his flocks. He does not gather in all these at one fell swoop, taking the fat and the lean and the young and the old, as the fisherman gathers all into his nets, and as the lumberman has felled the woods, but he selects those that are ripe and carefully rears the rest until they are ready. Had the timber been culled in this way from the forests year by year ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... d'Exposition, which is hung about with a couple of hundred pictures presented by his admiring painter guests from time to time. The viands are bountiful and splendidly garnished and the consommations au premier choix. Then there are the occupants of "les petits menages" to swoop down on your table for crumbs,—pigeons only,—and in cages a score or more of canary-birds, and, as a sort of contrast, dogs and cats and fowls ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... swoop On the air, or loop Through the trees, and then go soaring, O: To group with a troop On the gusty poop While the wind behind is roaring, O: I skim and swim By a cloud's red rim And up to the azure flooring, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden[143]. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell, or concave swoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornament, and while they called in the distant view between their graceful stems, removed and extended the perspective by delusive comparison."—On ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... less shrill now as the speed began to drop down—down—to forty miles an hour. There was a clang of a bell, and immediately he was aware of a sense of faint sickness as the car dropped in a glorious swoop, and he staggered a little as he grasped his rugs together. When he looked again the motion seemed to have ceased; he could see towers ahead, a line of house-roofs, and beneath he caught a glimpse ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... tracking we came up with the beasts. There were four of them altogether, and right wild and vicious-looking brutes they were. They marched close together in a band, and never parted company. The moment I and my men tried to separate and head them off, the leader would swoop down upon us with open mouth, and the result of this appalling apparition was that my black assistants fled precipitately. Alone I followed the camels for several days in the hope of being able ultimately to drive them into some ravine, where I thought I might possibly bring them into a state ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... wherever there was shade, and waited, uneasy lest the quick-tongued Ailleen should again swoop down upon them with anger which they knew was just, and yet unable to do otherwise than wait, if only to see whether Slaughter would come, and what he would do when ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... enemies, as under cover of darkness they snatch nervous mouthfuls of grain in the fields,—and hence their gray colour and their large, watchful eyes; but on the other hand, the baby owls in their hollow tree would starve if the parents were never able to swoop down in the darkness and surprise a mouse now and then,—hence the gray plumage and great eyes of ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... arrival in New York she felt almost easy in her mind. New York, with its shoving, jostling, hurrying crowds; a giant fowl-run, full of human fowls scurrying to and fro; clucking, ever on the look-out for some desired morsel, and ever ready to swoop down and snatch it from its temporary possessor, had numbed her. But now she felt a slackening of the strain. New York might be too much for her, but she ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... had occupied alone, he turned and offered his hand to assist the widow to alight, but she nervously poised herself on the edge of the vehicle and seemed to be afraid to venture. The wind fluttered her scanty draperies, causing her to appear like a bird of prey about to swoop down upon the unprotected man. "I'm afraid to jump so ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... which prowl about at night seeking their food were heard, and the cat feared one of them might find her and kill her. A mother tiger perhaps would snatch her, and take her to her hungry cubs, hidden away in the deep forest, or a bird of prey might swoop down on her and grip her in his terrible claws. Again and again she entreated the mouse to be quick, promising that, if only he would set her at liberty, she would never, never, never forget it or do any harm ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... slowly descending one of the numerous richly-wooded, though rugged, paths which traverse the lower slopes of the Andes, they encountered a party of horsemen from the Pampas. They were well-armed, and from their looks might have been another troop of banditti, coming like human vultures from afar to swoop down on the carcass ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... his round, smooth head, to look down upon it from the gallery, resembled a nice new billiard ball, but as he warmed up and became more thoroughly stirred, his intellectual dome changed to a delicate pink. Then, when he rose to the full height of his eloquent flight, and prepared to swoop down upon his adversaries and carry them into camp, it is said that his smooth intellectual rink was as red as the flush of rosy dawn on the 5th day ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... a full-front, close-up view of the "thing what set." He saw a wicked nose with a feeler about twice as high as he was. He saw great, terrible, outspread wings and a long slim body. It looked poised, ready to come at him and snatch him with one frightful swoop, as he had seen prairie hawks snatch little birds ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... And eagles struggle with the buffeting north That balances the heavy meteor-stone;— Felt too, I was not fearful, nor alone, But lapp'd and lull'd along the dangerous sky. Soon, as it seem'd, we left our journeying high, And straightway into frightful eddies swoop'd; Such as ay muster where grey time has scoop'd Huge dens and caverns in a mountain's side: 650 There hollow sounds arous'd me, and I sigh'd To faint once more by looking on my bliss— I was distracted; madly did I ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... and their contented faces, and you say, 'Now, these are good, simple folk, who will never hurt any one.' But all the time they are thinking and watching and planning. 'Here is Egypt weak,' they cry. 'Allons!' and down they swoop like a gull upon a crust. 'You have no right there,' says the world. 'Come out of it!' But England has already begun to tidy everything, just like the good Miss Adams when she forces her way into the house of an Arab. 'Come out,' says the world. 'Certainly,' says England; 'just ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and the meat, falling upon the diamonds, they become attached to it. Now, among these mountains live a number of white eagles, who hunt the serpents, and when they see the meat at the foot of the precipices they swoop down and carry it away. At the moment the men who have been following the eagles' movements see them alight to eat the meat, they raise fearful cries, the meat is dropped and the eagles take to flight, and thus the men have no difficulty in taking the diamonds that are attached ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... highest type of the few magazines that lay a greater stress on the brains of the hero than on his good looks. But, for the sake of one of your ardent readers, let that hero use his brains to get himself out of whatever he has gotten into. Don't let a space ship swoop down from above to rescue him. That type of story reminds me a lot of the one where Jonah was rescued from the deep by the timely arrival of the friendly whale. By the way, there's a suggestion for a reprint. I will admit that it would be just about as new to me as some of the others that have been ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... merely "being in a counting-house and looking about you," as Pip's means of paying his debts are lightened and made easy by his method of simply adding them up with a margin. "The time comes," says Herbert, "when you see your opening. And you go in, and you swoop upon it, and you make your capital, and then there you are! When you have once made your capital you have nothing to do but employ it." In like manner Pip tells us "Suppose your debts to be one hundred and sixty four pounds four and two-pence, I would say, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... impossible to make out the diverse branching of it in any maps I can lay hand on: but we may remember easily, and usefully, that it is all north of the Maine,—that it rests on the Drachenfels at one end, and tosses itself away to the morning light with a concave swoop, up to the Hartz, (Brocken summit, 3700 feet above sea, nothing higher): with one notable interval for ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... scaffolding, and round the corner of the station. The carriages, posts, people, everything that was to be seen was covered with snow on one side, and was getting more and more thickly covered. For a moment there would come a lull in the storm, but then it would swoop down again with such onslaughts that it seemed impossible to stand against it. Meanwhile men ran to and fro, talking merrily together, their steps crackling on the platform as they continually opened and closed the big doors. The bent shadow ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... lest he should be seized with giddiness. So that, Sancho, it will not do for us to uncover ourselves, for he who has us in charge will be responsible for us; and perhaps we are gaining an altitude and mounting up to enable us to descend at one swoop on the Kingdom of Kandy, as the saker or falcon does on the heron, so as to seize it however high it may soar; and though it seems to us not half an hour since we left the garden, believe me we must have travelled ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... country, but not green. It's all brown, just a mess of earth. It's pitted with holes just like sand after a hailstorm. In the distance you can see real lovely trees, but nothing grows where the strafing is. Overhead the martins flicker and swoop, and starlings sail by in circling clouds, while the colossal noises ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... afternoon I went into another church, and in prayer the minister began to pray "for all classes and conditions of men among us." I was glad to see, as I thought, charity beginning at home. But the next sentence took in our whole land; and the next was a downright swoop upon slavery; so that I regarded his previous petitions merely as spiral movements toward the South. If the good man's petitions had been heard, woe to him and to the North, and to the slaves, to ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... Ingelow was mistaken, for here in his "fair field" appeared the most formidable rival he could possibly have had—a rival who seemed likely to eclipse himself and Oleander and Sardonyx at one fell swoop. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... lights begin to leap along the lines, Leap up and hang and swoop and sputter out; A bullet hits a wiring-post and whines; I wish to Heaven that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... and he could dream himself into it. It was an enchanted world of green shadows and silent movement; countless yellow caterpillars hung there, dangling to and fro, each on its slender thread; chaffinches and yellow-hammers swung themselves impetuously from bough to bough, and at every swoop snapped up a caterpillar; but these never became any fewer. Without a pause they rolled themselves down from the twigs, and hung there, so enticingly yellow, swinging to and fro in the gentle breath of the summer day, and waited to ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Queretaro and made it his head-quarters. Juarez had meanwhile advanced to Zacatecas and fixed his residence there with his government about him. But the president and cabinet came very near being taken captive at one fell swoop, for Miramon suddenly advanced and captured Zacatecas by surprise, Juarez and his government ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... the boats are lowered; sail is immediately set, and, like swift huge-winged birds, they swoop down upon the prey. Driving right upon the back of the nearest monster, two harpoons are plunged into his body up to the "hitches." [Footnote: Hitches: a knot or noose that can be readily undone.] The sheet [Footnote: ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... insufferably warm, but the nights were glorious. Talbot and I liked to sleep on the deck; and generally camped down up near the bitts. The old ship rolled frightfully, for she was light in freight in order to accommodate so many passengers; and the dark blue sea appeared to swoop up and down beneath the ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... had got down from London, what the landlady termed a "lot of fine fresh matter," and was now about to strike a decisive blow at the small-pox, by vaccinating all the babies he could lay his hands on at "one fell swoop." The surgical ceremonies were expected to begin in ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... white-winged sea-birds swoop upon the darksome wave, Clouds of darts and glistening lances drank the red blood ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... suddenly twisted back. Kendricks snatched the key from his hand and thrust it in the lock. Some one struck him a violent blow on the head. He reeled, but was still able to turn the key. They came then with a howl from all parts of the room. Julien felt a storm of blows. Falkenberg, with one swoop of his long arm, ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... mystify them, the more they will fear us," said the doctor. "I am going to make a swift downward swoop now, as if we would crash through the midst of them. Then perhaps they will let us alone till ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... flexible and his good shoulders had a military squareness of build. He had also a nice square face, and a warmly blue eye and knew all the latest steps and curves and unexpected swirls. Robin was an ozier wand and there was no swoop or dart or sudden sway and change she was not alert at. The swing and lure of the music, the swift movement, the fluttering of airy draperies as slim sister nymphs flew past her, set her pulses beating with sweet young joy. ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... spectator in the arena, and watched through the smoke and crimson light of battle the faces of those who fought,—the fierce delight of one, the black hate of another, red wounds, and the swift black swoop of Death. His heart sang its high song of triumph which his lips would fain have echoed, of thanksgiving in the clean strength of his manhood, in the power of his arm, which could uphold his own before all men. He stooped to catch a sword ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... it the bolt fell. A well-known mining weekly, which I here poetically veil under the title of the Red Dog "Jay Hawk," was first to swoop down upon the tuneful and unsuspecting quarry. At this century-end of fastidious and complaisant criticism, it may be interesting to recall the direct style of the Californian "sixties." "The hogwash ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... together with all materials for its construction. Not only had an army of workmen to be fed, but a body of troops to guard them; for Abu Hamed, at the other end of the line, for which they were making, was occupied by a large body of Dervishes; who might, at any moment, swoop ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... Half mad with famine, and they took me up, And made a slave of me,—of me, a prince! All was fulfilled at last. I fled from them, In rags and sorrow. Nothing but my heart, Like a strong swimmer, bore me up against The howling sea of my adversity. At length o'er Sana, in the act to swoop, I stood like a young eagle on a crag. The traveller passed me with suspicious fear: I asked for nothing; I was not a thief. The lean dogs snuffed around me: my lank bones, Fed on the berries and the crusted pools, Were a scant morsel. Once, a brown-skinned ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... 'poops,' the distant crash of bombs, and all the mingled echoes of a battlefield. At one time German howitzers, firing at longest range, chimed a faint chorus high above our heads; anon a hissing swoop would plant a shell close to our whereabouts. Lights rose and sank, flickering. Red and green rockets, as if to ornament the tragedy of war, were dancing in the sky. Occasionally a gust of foul wind, striking the face, could make one fancy ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... and resolution to save Quebec and the colony. They will not listen—they will not hear. They are flying like chaff before the wind. They are leaving everything behind in their mad haste to be gone! And the Indians will swoop down directly the camp is empty, and take everything. Oh, it is a disgrace, a disgrace! Not even to take a night to think it over. If the English did but know, and sent out a few hundred soldiers upon them, they might cut the whole army to pieces ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... through the left arm, and the next moment was cut down upon his own deck by a sweeping blow from Hennessy's cutlass. Then, followed by Arguello's curses, the Irish captain went back to his brig and set sail for Callao, leaving Martinas to get the better of his wound and swoop down upon the natives of ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... have been when she heard that Prince Muishkin, the last of his and her line, had arrived in beggar's guise, a wretched idiot, a recipient of charity—all of which details the general gave out for greater effect! He was anxious to steal her interest at the first swoop, so as to distract her thoughts from ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... escape,) and throwing himself between three poised lances and the person of Dr. Lamar, one of the surgeons, who would have been most inevitably torn to atoms, Dave raised himself in his saddle, and with a yell, and one fell swoop, the heroic fellow "chopped down" a lancer, clean and clear to his saddle! Two lancers pierced Dave's body, and he ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... so that men who came to pay their appointed toll sometimes squandered much of their money in useless tribute. Karl is said to have freed them afterwards from the burden of this tax. After Gotrik had crossed Friesland, and Karl had now come back from Rome, Gotrik determined to swoop down upon the further districts of Germany, but was treacherously attacked by one of his own servants, and perished at home by the sword of a traitor. When Karl heard this, he leapt up overjoyed, declaring that nothing more delightful ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... dead Mouse, a Hawk came sailing over the pond. Seeing the body of the Mouse floating on the water, the Hawk swooped down, seized the Mouse and carried it off, with the Frog dangling from its leg. Thus at one swoop he had caught both meat ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... arrived in this astonishingly perfect old town early in the afternoon, coming by way of Capel Curig (whence we saw Snowdon crowned with a double rainbow), sweet Bettws-y-coed, or "station in the wood," and so down the river valley in a bird swoop, to noble Conway, with its castle that was once a famous Welsh fortress. Now, in piping days of peace, its towers and turrets still dominate bridge and river, and the great pile is as fine, in its way, as Carcassone. Don't you remember, ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... follower were hovering near the poor old woman. The fact that Ted was contentedly munching a red apple told that he had already made his hawk-like descent on the stand of the market woman, and was now seeking to distract her attention so that his companion might also swoop down to seize a prize, when they would go off, laughing uproarously, as though they ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... dreamed that a beautiful wild hawk with feathers of gold came and perched upon her wrist. It grew so tame that she took it with her to the hunt. Upward it soared when loosed toward the bright blue sky. Then the dream-maiden saw two mighty eagles swoop down upon her petted hawk and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... waving of the whirring, snowy wings, Cooled the hot air, diffusing mystic calm. Again I shuddered as I marked the glare Which shot from the fell Raven's fiendish eye, The while he measured where his pall-like swoop Might seize the Dove as Death had seized Lenore: 'Lenore!' he shrieked, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... anticipation of the displeasure awaiting her, the elder maiden of the two strove to "cut across lots" when she came near the south-eastern corner, whereat, facing north, stood the big house of the commanding officer; but Mrs. Miller was too experienced a hand, and bore down upon the pair in sudden swoop from her piazza to the front gate, and they had to stop ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... feathers or drifted snow; it moved and shifted under him, took shape; it was a chair—no, a carriage. And there were reins in his hand—white reins. And a horse? No—a swan with wide, white wings. He grasped the reins and guided the strange steed to a low swoop that should bring him near the flare of torches in the street, outside the great front door. And as the swan laid its long neck low in downward flight he saw his cousins in a carriage like his own rise into the sky and sail away towards the south. Quite without meaning to do it he pulled on the ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... life-and-death struggle between Britain and Germany. The involvement of other nations is merely accidental. It is ourselves whom Germany is making this huge effort to crush, and but for one small circumstance she would have come within a measurable prospect of success. To swoop down on France through Belgium, to crush her in three weeks, to seize her fleet, and with the combined fleets of France and Germany to attack ours—that was the proposition, and who can say that it might not have succeeded? The small circumstance ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... a Rajput rides, with a swoop and a swinging sabre and a silent, tight-lipped vow that he would prove himself. Green though he was yet, he knew that the troop had found for him—had rounded up for him—had made him his opportunity; so he took it, right under their eyes, straight in the teeth of the stoutest ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... while Mr. Benbridge and other patriotic citizens of Lafayette were engaged in organizing a number of noble and brave-hearted gentlemen into a company of soldiers to give battle to the bloodthirsty red man who is about to swoop down upon us, with tommyhawk and knife and rifle, to ravage our lands and pillage our women—er—I mean pillage our lands and—er—so forth. As I was saying, your honour, we talked it over and seeing as how we have all enlisted in Mr. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... further, how sure and swift was the retribution which followed a mistake committed within his sphere of action! What opportunity did Jackson miss? His penetration was unerring; and when, after he had marked his prey, did he ever hesitate to swoop? "What seemed reckless audacity," it has been well said by one of the greatest of Southern soldiers, "was the essence of prudence. His eye had caught at a glance the entire situation, and his genius, with marvellous celerity ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... fell swoop! As for Primrose, the worthy Halfpenny is quite enough for her, and Lily is well out of it; but Fly is a little shrimp, overdone all round, and I don't like the notion ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... barrenness of Spirit, and to be My own Soul's sepulchre, for I have ceased To justify my deeds unto myself— The last infirmity of evil. Aye, Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, 30 [An Eagle passes. Whose happy flight is highest into heaven, Well may'st thou swoop so near me—I should be Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine Yet pierces downward, onward, or above, With a pervading vision.—Beautiful! How ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... is there—life reigns yonder; we hear it on the notes that swell onward like the tones of the church organ, which seize us like sounds from the elf-hill, like the songs of Ossian, like the rushing swoop of the wandering spirits' wings. What harmony! That harmony speaks to our hearts, and lifts up our souls! It is the Bird of Popular ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... column prick with their bayonets the struggling horses. The hesitation is fatal; for Wellington, who, with eager glance, watches from an eminence beside the high road the advancing column, sees the accident. An order is given; and with one fell swoop, the heavy cavalry brigade pour down. Picton's Division deploys into line; the bayonets glance above the ridge; and with a shout that tells above the battle, on they come, the fighting Fifth. One volley is exchanged; but the bayonet is now brought to the charge, and the French division retreat ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... to him that the Devil never allowed a moment's rest to those who were ill-advised enough to fall into his clutches. Trespolo was in one of his good moods of repentance, when the prince, after gazing on the young girl with the fierce eagerness of a vulture about to swoop upon its prey, turned to speak to his intimate adviser. The poor servant understood his master's abominable design, and not wishing to share the guilt of a sacrilegious conversation, opened his eyes very ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... waters! Bend to your oars for the wood-tangled shore; We're off and afloat with earth's loveliest daughters, Worth all the argosies wave ever bore. Pull away gallantly—pull away valiantly— Pull with a swoop, boys; and pull for the shore: Merrily, merrily, bend to ...
— Poems • George P. Morris |
