"Swaggering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was supposed to guard. That he was innocent there is no doubt: whatever the man was, he was no thief. The charge against him was a trumped-up one to get him out of the way. He was painfully in evidence—he talked like a windmill, and in his swaggering he had become inconvenient, if not dangerous, to some who were close to political greatness. No one caring for the job of killing him, they locked him up, for the good of himself and society. It probably was the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... had ridden ahead of his. Jason reached town first, and there was a stir in the Honeycutt hotel and store. Half an hour later there was a stir among the Hawns, for little Aaron rode by. A few minutes later Aaron came toward the Hawn store, in the middle of the street, swaggering. Jason happened at that moment to be crossing the same street, and a ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... it be," answered the youth. "I judge my wines by the taste, not by the name." When the wine was brought, he raised his cup with a swaggering laugh. "To the girls you have loved. To the girls I will love." He emptied the cup at a single draught. "There are two times when a long throat is a good throat; when you're wetting it, and when you're cutting it. I'd have another, but I'm—I'm sleepy, Marmaduke. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... admittance was repeated. These domineering, comfortable, respectability-loving Jervaises were the offenders; the sole cause of our present anxiety. We had a bitter grievance against them and they came swaggering and bullying, as if the threat to their silly prestige were the ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... dressed—indeed three of them customers of my own—all belonging to the town; two of them young doctors, one of them a writer's clerk, and the other a grocer. The whole appeared very fierce and fearsome, like turkey-cocks; swaggering about with warlike arms as if they had been the king's dragoons; and priming a pair of pistols, which one of the surgeons, a spirity, outspoken lad, Maister Blister, was ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... Soil Fugitive Law Territory of Refuge TREATMENT DISCUSSED. Corporal Punishment Forfeiture and Testimony System for Ultimate Freedom The Blackest Feature in Slavery VISIONARY DEPUTATION Inveterate Slaveholder Touchy Slaveholder, and Swaggering Bully Clerical Slave Advocate Amiable Planter Recriminator Abolitionist and Intelligent Slaveholder A frightful Question Closing Observations Nebraska—The Christian and ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the channel, food and dressings and tobacco. Knitted things, too; for another winter was coming, and already the frost lay white on the fields in the mornings. The little house took on a new air of prosperity. There were days when it seemed almost swaggering with opulence. ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... possible, painfully thin—scarcely more than mere skin and bones—a living skeleton with a large hooked nose, set in a long, narrow face, a huge mustache turned up at the ends, and flashing, black eyes. His excessively tall, lank figure was so emaciated that it was like a caricature of a man. The swaggering air suitable to his part had become habitual with him, and he walked always with immense strides, head well thrown back, and hand on the pommel of the huge sword he was ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... festered until its vermin brood flooded the streets, and the godly wore themselves driven to shun the light of day. Apollyon had indeed triumphed for a while. A quiet man could not walk the highways without being elbowed into the kennel by swaggering swashbucklers, or accosted by painted hussies. Padders and michers, laced cloaks, jingling spurs, slashed boots, tall plumes, bullies and pimps, oaths and blasphemies—I promise you hell was waxing fat. Even in the solitude of one's coach one was ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... jolly shame it is that we should only carry a beggarly little dirk," said Bob Roberts to himself, as he tried to look sneeringly at the young ensign before him; for the latter came across the deck with rather a swaggering stride, and stood before ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... in the world, a dashing young woman styled the 'Widow.' Further, she had the quick eyes to see that Barbee blushed when an old cattle-man with a roguish eye cleared his throat and made aloud some remark about Mrs. Murray. Yes; Barbee the insolent, the swaggering, the worldly-wise and ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... throbbed in the Englishman's ears with the exultant pulse of youth and mastery set to loud Pagan music. A group of lads from the tea-shop clustered on the pavement and watched the troops go by, staring at a phase of life in which they had no share. The martial trappings, the swaggering joy of life, the comradeship of camp and barracks, the hard discipline of drill yard and fatigue duty, the long sentry watches, the trench digging, forced marches, wounds, cold, hunger, makeshift hospitals, and the blood-wet laurels—these were not for them. Such things ...
— When William Came • Saki
... we sailed for Port Royal, where we arrived safely with our prizes; and, as there was nothing to do on board, I went ashore, and having purchased a laced waistcoat, with some other clothes, at a sale, made a swaggering figure for some days among the taverns, where I ventured to play a little at hazard, and came off with fifty pistoles in my pocket. Meanwhile our captain was promoted to a ship of twenty guns, and the command ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... death, and disputed more skilfully with the sophists, and passed the night in the cold with more endurance, and that when he was bid to arrest Leon[C] of Salamis, he considered it more noble to refuse, and that he walked in a swaggering way in the streets[D]—though as to this fact one may have great doubts if it was true. But we ought to inquire what kind of a soul it was that Socrates possessed, and if he was able to be content with being just towards men and pious towards the gods, neither idly ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... eyes of Jeanne herself, confined as they had been to the offerings of a somewhat hopeless class of serving persons here or there, this swaggering young man, with his broad shoulders, his bulky body, his air of bravado, his easy speech, his ready arm, offered a personality with which she was not too familiar, and which did not lack its appeal. With Gallic caution she made delicate ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... of wealth. Behind him his serving wench, her blue whimple over her head, and one hand thrust forth to bear the lanthorn which threw a golden bar of light along her master's path. Behind them a group of swaggering, half-drunken Yorkshire dalesmen, speaking a dialect which their own southland countrymen could scarce comprehend, their jerkins marked with the pelican, which showed that they had come over in the train of the north-country Stapletons. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Elizabethan translators of the Bible called "Our Sion," and whose mission, according to Milton, had been to sound forth "the first tidings and trumpet of reformation to all Europe," had sunk to the swaggering militarism that found expression ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... attempted to lift my soft beaver hat, the broad rim of which hid Dorothy's face, but to that she made a decided objection, and John continued: "By my soul I believe you are a woman. Your walk"—Dorothy thought she had been swaggering like a veritable swash-buckler—"your voice, the curves of your form, all betray you." Dorothy gathered the cloak ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... infamous, a centre of pistol-shots: and another who, if not yet known to rumour, will fill a column of the Sunday paper when he comes to hang—a burly, thick-set, powerful Chinese desperado, six long bristles upon either lip; redolent of whiskey, playing cards, and pistols; swaggering in the bar with the lowest assumption of the lowest European manners; rapping out blackguard English oaths in his canorous oriental voice; and combining in one person the depravities of two races and two civilizations. For all his ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... faint resemblance to the hold of those symmetrical instruments. Large feet, whose toes were usually turned in, like those of the Indian, were wielded by limbs whose vigor and activity were in keeping with the figure they supported. Imagine, with these peculiarities, a free, bold, rather swaggering gait, a swarthy complexion, and comformable features and tones of voice, and, excepting his costume, you have before your fancy a complete picture of the early ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... of course there were, and are always—those happy beings in whom Nature has implanted a love of slang: who loitered about the horsekeeper's stables, and drove the London coaches—a stage in and out—and might be seen swaggering through the courts in pink of early mornings, and indulged in dice and blind-hookey at nights, and never missed a race or a boxing-match; and rode flat-races, and kept bull-terriers. Worse Snobs even than these were poor miserable wretches who did not like hunting at all, and could not afford ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... when they were inclined to pass a very different opinion on it. The houses looked dilapidated, the inhabitants, black and brown, squalid and dirty, though a few Arabs in picturesque costumes, armed to the teeth, were encountered strolling about with a swaggering air, while odours abominable in the extreme rose from all directions. The party made their way through the crooked, narrow lanes, with plastered houses on each side, in the lower floors of which were Banyans, wearing red turbans, seated in front of their goods, consisting either ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... my cousin Milly I saw a girl who looked younger than her years, plump, but with a slender waist, with light hair, lighter than mine, and very blue eyes, rather round; on the whole very good-looking. She had an odd swaggering walk, a toss of her head, and a saucy and imperious, but rather good-natured and honest countenance. She talked rather loud, with a good ringing voice, and a boisterous laugh ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... made him clearly understand that he had to do with a greater personage than he had expected. There was something imposing in the person of the man who sat before him; for this very reason, however, his pride stood on tiptoe, and he asked in a tone of swaggering dignity, though not so sharply and abruptly as he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... congratulated ourselves on seeing Heidelberg while the University was in session, and we could observe the large fat students in flat blue and pink and green club caps, swaggering about the town accompanied by dogs of almost equal importance. The largest and fattest, I thought, wore white caps, and, though Mr. Jarvis Portheris said that white was the most aristocratic club's colour, they looked remarkably like bakers. The Senator had an object in Heidelberg, ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... us on those far-away autumn days, peopling the russet arcades with folk of an elder world. Many a princess rode by us on her palfrey, many a swaggering gallant ruffled it bravely in velvet and plume adown Uncle Stephen's Walk, many a stately lady, silken clad, walked ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... ninety, between his teeth—strolled indolently, nonchalantly down the front steps, along the cement walk to the street and so toward town. The two old people, left alone in the sudden silence of the house, stared after the swaggering figure until the dim twilight blotted it out. And a sinister something seemed to close its icy grip about the heart of one of them. A vague premonition that she could only feel, not express, made her ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... whom they were due. He invited a few friends to dine the same evening with the terrible colonel, and, of course, he did not forget to send a special messenger to Clementine. Fougas, after speaking to the people, returned to his hosts, swinging himself along with a swaggering air, set himself astride a chair, took hold of the ends of his ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... (applying what the reviewers call his scalpel) is that he cuts into the heart of life; but he makes a very shallow incision if he only reaches as deep as habits and calamities and sins. Deeper than all these lies a man's vision of himself, as swaggering and sentimental as a penny novelette. The literature of candour unearths innumerable weaknesses and elements of lawlessness which is called romance. It perceives superficial habits like murder and dipsomania, but it does not perceive the deepest of sins—the ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... general amenity which exists in the intercourse even of the poorest classes. The only really rude people we saw, were travelling traders, especially those from the capital, who thought to add to their importance by a little swaggering. ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... chill of the Marshal's utter deafness. Three persons gave a little life to the scene: Lisbeth, Celestine, and Wenceslas. Hortense's affection had developed the artist's natural liveliness as a Pole, the somewhat swaggering vivacity and noisy high spirits that characterize these Frenchmen of the North. His frame of mind and the expression of his face showed plainly that he believed in himself, and that poor Hortense, faithful to her mother's training, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... almost daily contact, for my father, being an all too generous man, kept open house. But although she was always sweet-tempered and sometimes merry with the hard-drinking old Peninsular veterans, and the noisy and swaggering subalterns of the ill-famed 102nd Regiment (or New South Wales Corps), she always shuddered and looked pale and ill at ease when she saw among my father's guests the coarse, stern face of the minister, and her dislike of the clergyman was shared by all we children, especially by my ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... sent down to the steamboat wharf, to be added to the baggage already there. The boys followed, Percy swaggering superciliously along after the others, ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... bear with his faults because of his reality. Perhaps our verdict may be best given in the words of Thackeray. "I am angry," he says, "with Jones. Too much of the plum-cake and the rewards of life fall to that boisterous, swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia actually surrenders without a proper sense of decorum; the fond, foolish, palpitating little creature. 'Indeed, Mr. Jones,' she says, 'it rests with you to name the day.' ... And yet many ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... arriving at the room, a large sala in the neighbourhood of the Plaza, we found it filled with hunters, trappers, traders, and teamsters, all swaggering about in their usual mountain rig. Mixed among them were some two or three score of the natives, with an equal number of senoritas, all of whom, by their style of dress, I recognise as poblanas, or persons of the lower class,—the only class, in ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... believe his ears. He was scandalised—"Would she? Yer wouldn't be any good to 'er," he said with unrestrained disgust. Wait was not there to hear him. He was swaggering up the East India Dock Road; saying kindly, "Come along for a treat," pushing glass swing-doors, posing with superb assurance in the gaslight above a mahogany counter.—"D'yer think yer will ever get ashore?" asked Donkin, angrily. Wait came back with a start.—"Ten days," he said, promptly, and ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... quarrelsome and loud, And impatient of control, Boisterous in the market crowd, Boisterous at the wassail-bowl, Everywhere Would drink and swear, Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... them, their squaws and children, with lavish hand the agency dealt out blankets and calicoes, bacon and beef, coffee, flour, and sugar. Such redoubtables as Red Dog, Little Big Man, Prowling Wolf, and Kills Asleep were swaggering about, as were their young men, in plethora of savage adornment and "store clothes." Their squaws and children were warm and fat and garbed in attractive motley. Even their dogs were in better fettle than the social exiles of the Spotted Tail school, now ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... and care for them like children. Look yonder," he pointed across the square to the court-house. It was an old square brick-and-stucco building, sombre and stilted and very dirty. Out of it filed a stream of men—some black and shackled; some white and swaggering and liberal with tobacco-juice; some white and shaven and stiff. "Court's just out," pursued Mr. Caldwell, "and them niggers have just been sent to the gang—young ones, too; educated but good for ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Early reported to General Lee that his cavalry was so badly demoralized that it should be dismounted; and the citizens of the valley, intensely disgusted with the boasting and swaggering that had characterized the arrival of the "Laurel Brigade" in that section, baptized the action (known to us as Tom's Brook) the "Woodstock Races," and never tired of poking fun at General Rosser about his ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... out of darkness against the starlight. Before them sown plains, gulches full of mist, and the tremulous lights on many carts that jogged along, each behind three jingling slow mules. A cock crowed. All at once a voice burst suddenly in swaggering tremolo out of the darkness of the road beneath them, rising, rising, then fading off, then flaring up hotly like a red scarf waved on a windy day, like the swoop of a hawk, like a rocket ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... barren war of the schools came a fact at last, and its bearer was a gorgeous figure of a man-at-arms (who, later, got into trouble by talking too much), who came swaggering down the road from the New Inn, blowing smoke into the air, with his hat on one side, and his breast-piece loose; and declared in that strange clipped London-English of his that he had been on guard at the door of Sir Amyas' room, and had heard him tell Melville the steward and ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... had opened suddenly, and a young fellow came swaggering in with the air of one who is the master. He was a handsome, dashing young man of about the same age and build as McMurdo himself. Under his broad-brimmed black felt hat, which he had not troubled to remove, a handsome face with fierce, domineering eyes ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Burrill, staggering under the additional cargo of drinks imbibed as toasts to the undertaking, and again, as draughts of defiance to the enemy who would dare question his courage, buttoned his coat about him, and, boasting, cursing, and swaggering, reeled out into the night. Out into the night that swallowed him ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... love of practical jokes and a hearty roar of laughter for hearty fun; a self-respecting naturalness, which made them gentlemen in substance if not in all technical details; a pungent contempt for humbug and artifice, though they might not mind a good, swaggering lie upon occasion; a robust sense of honor in all matters which were trusted to their honorable feeling; and, to make an end of this long catalogue, a practical command of language regarded as a means of expressing and communicating the essential core of thoughts, though ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... on the previous evening O'Leary had come to him, and, in swaggering fashion, had demanded twenty pounds as payment for his step-daughter's performance at the masque. Mr. Flight had replied that she had freely promised her services gratuitously for the benefit of the object in view. At this the man had scoffed, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... superiority.] Insolence. — N. insolence; haughtiness &c. adj.; arrogance, airs; overbearance[obs3]; domineering &c. v.; tyranny &c. 739. impertinence; sauciness &c. adj.; flippancy, dicacity|, petulance, procacity[obs3], bluster; swagger, swaggering &c. v.; bounce; terrorism. assumption, presumption; beggar on horseback; usurpation. impudence, assurance, audacity, hardihood, front, face, brass; shamelessness &c. adj.; effrontery, hardened front, face of brass. assumption of infallibility. saucebox &c. (blusterer) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... had cleverly got away on his horse, but a young cock-a-whoop ensign, that belongs to Ninety-Six, and four great Scotchmen with him, all in red coats; they had been out thieving, I warrant, and were now going home again. And who but they! Here they were, swaggering all about my house—and calling for this—and calling for that—as if they owned the fee-simple of every thing on the plantation. And it made my blood rise, Mr. Horse-Shoe, to see them run out in the yard, and catch up my chickens and ducks, and kill as many as they could ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... thou sleep after the deed?" Said Osberne: "Yea, and dreamed never a deal. But I must tell thee I was in my right." Said Elfhild: "What did he to thee that thou must slay him?" Osberne said: "He came swaggering into our house and would take all to him, and put all of us to the road or hold us in thraldom." She said "But tell me, how didst thou slay him? Was he drunk or asleep?" "Nay," said he, "I was champion for my grandsire, and the ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... of their talk, at last, by hearing heavy footsteps on the gravel close at hand. Looking up, they saw a heavy, broad shouldered, dark-complexioned youth of about eighteen years. He had a swaggering way of carrying himself, and undoubtedly considered himself of much importance. His clothing proclaimed him to be a workman. As he caught sight of the two happy looking boys this older and larger youth looked them over with ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... me! What-a-deuce? Only a little fighting sparrow of a royalist!" cried a swaggering colt of a fellow in ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... up and swaggered after him. She had been swaggering all the evening. She acted like a duchess at a slumming party. The ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... with sundry attractive looking works of poetry and belles-lettres, and arranged for them to be sent to Dresden. During this visit I was very much interested in the life of the students. In addition to my impressions of the theatre and of Prague, now came those of the so-called swaggering undergraduate. A great change had taken place in this class. When, as a lad of eight, I had my first glimpse of students, their long hair, their old German costume with the black velvet skull-cap and the shirt collar turned back from the bare neck, had quite taken my fancy. But since that ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... to the hotel; that's what I did when I had taken a good walk about the little town, and admired myself almost homesick looking at fine horses tied to hitching-posts and fine men swaggering about in the abandon of cow-boy costumes. One thing I have learned already, and the discovery shocked me a little at first; the cow-boy considers himself better clay than the farmer—the 'sod-buster' he calls him—and treats him with good-humoured contempt. ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... quarrel if they continued their talk. This they were not particularly inclined to, however, and began a game of cards, leaving him to himself to finish his drink. This he did, quickly tossing down both brandy and coffee the instant they were brought to him, and then striding swaggering from the room and mounting his horse, which waited in the street, and riding clattering off over the stones at a ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... messenger we sent to you could not talk;' and he pointed to the head which lay upon the paving of the stoep — a ghastly sight in the moonlight; 'but I have words to speak if ye have ears to hear. Also I bring presents;' and he pointed to the basket and laughed with an air of swaggering insolence that is perfectly indescribable, and yet which one could not but admire, seeing that he was surrounded ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... bridge from Frankfort to Sachsenhausen, I saw approach me a swaggering figure that seemed familiar, and as he drew nearer I recognized Prince Roland, son of the Emperor, despite the fact that he held his cloak over the lower part of his face, as if, in the gathering ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... coarse palm into a sanctuary and pavilion wherein the dying hand may shelter? Hast thou not taught the loud and boisterous voice the new song of tenderness and pity, whispering like a dove? Within thy school the rude and harsh have learned the nurse's gentle art, and the world's swaggering warriors serve as acolytes before thy shadowy altar. The peasant's cottage owes to thee its transformation to cathedral splendour, the censers gently swinging when thou sayest the soul's great mass, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning. Thou hast ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... of kyas and rondavels, shaped in a half-moon, with a flat space between the houses, where grew a big merula tree. All around was a medley of little fires, with men squatted beside them. Here and there a party had finished their meal, and were swaggering about with a great shouting. The mob into which I had fallen was of this sort, and I saw others within the confines of the camp. But around the merula tree there was a gathering of chiefs, if I could ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... to be hoped for. The mailed fist puts irritating chips upon swaggering shoulders, and the unresentful turning of smitten cheeks is conducive to a thrifty growth of ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... quiet place in the shadow of the Cathedral, which the cawing of the rooks, the echoing footsteps of rare passers, the sound of the Cathedral bell, or the roll of the Cathedral organ, seemed to render more quiet than absolute silence. Swaggering fighting men had had their centuries of ramping and raving about Minor Canon Corner, and beaten serfs had had their centuries of drudging and dying there, and powerful monks had had their centuries of being sometimes useful ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... winter comes at length, With swaggering gait and giant strength, And with his strong arms in a trice Binds up the streams in chains of ice, What need I sigh for pleasures gone, The twilight eve, the rosy dawn? My heart is changed as much as they— 'Tis winter all ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... coast to learn mathematics, surveying, dialling, etc., in which he made a pretty good progress. 'But,' he says, 'I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind. The contraband trade was at this time very successful; scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were as yet new to me, and I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I learnt to look unconcernedly on a large tavern bill and mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went on with a high hand ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... under her hat and her fierce eyes holding back the tears, telling him haughtily that a great cause made one indifferent to discomfort; and he nearly laughed aloud. He looked across the hall at her and just caught her switching her gaze from him to the platform. He felt a curious swaggering triumph at the ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... climbed the ladder, followed by Knowlton. Jose, with a swaggering stare at the wide-shouldered man, who stared straight back without facial change, also went up. Tim came fourth and last, for Pedro stopped beside his countryman, who evidently ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... a moment by some generals, but Sir George White, being anxious apparently to propitiate an enemy whose guns commanded the town, full as it was of helpless women and children, yielded that point, and so the ambulance with its swaggering Boer escort came into town neither blindfolded nor under any military restrictions whatever. Among this mounted escort Ladysmith people recognised several well-known burghers, who were certainly not doctors or otherwise specially qualified for attendance on wounded men. They were free to ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... that swaggering and often handsome fellow clad in red, and with a coloured scarf around his head, who, with shoulders well set back, carries, slung in a broad leather belt, a terra-cotta jar. This is the "sussi," who sells liquorice water, or a beverage made from prunes, and which he hands ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... the first, and perhaps the parent, of the race of men who have made Salt River so renowned in story, were such as to demand a less summary notice. He was stout, bandy-legged, broad-shouldered, and bull-headed, ugly, and villanous of look; yet with an impudent, swaggering, joyous self-esteem traced in every feature and expressed in every action of body, that rather disposed the beholder to laugh than to be displeased at his appearance. An old blanket-coat, or wrap-rascal, once white, but now of the same ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... quarter of an hour ago, proud, and, I may say, swaggering, as he does over his learned friends when he has found a flaw in one of ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... having learnt the lesson that a small tyrant, however grandly he may dress, is not always believed in; for with all his bright colours and gaudy plumes he was no match for the great sober-hued, flap-winged heron, who only laughed at him, and all his grand swaggering; and, as soon as he was gone, settled himself down to his work, and caught fish enough for a good meal, for he felt quite certain that he had as good a right to the fish as the little king, who had had it his own way so long that ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... seemed never to have been near the sea till then. The smell of tar and salt was something new. I saw the most wonderful figureheads, that had all been far over the ocean. I saw, besides, many old sailors, with rings in their ears, and whiskers curled in ringlets, and tarry pigtails, and their swaggering, clumsy sea-walk; and if I had seen as many kings or archbishops I could not have ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ease with gentlemen born. The captains of his own station resented his assumptions of superiority, and while he did not try to win them by an affectation of comradeship, he probably repelled those of better breeding by a swaggering manner. No doubt his want of advancement was partly due to want of influence, which better birth would have given him; but the plain truth is that he had a talent for making himself disagreeable to his associates. Unfortunately he never engaged in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Swaggering as he went and casting knowing glances over his shoulder, he was gone. Great little Irishman, Tommy: always smiling, always there in a pinch, never worried, he was the best friend a man could have. They'd catch ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... here that the two met. Old Magor's face was quiet, if a little haggard; and his eyes looked out from under his shaggy brows piercingly. Dugard's manner was swaggering, and he swore horribly at his gang. Presently he stood at a point alone, working at an obstinate log. He was at the foot of an incline of timber, and he was not aware that Magor had suddenly appeared at the top of that incline. He heard his name called out sharply. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... exulted, some of the bolder of them even swaggering out to the Gringo camp; but Martin drove them back again, saying he would not allow them to bully men who could not retaliate, which was right and fair. Then, afraid to go away and leave the mad cow-punchers so close to town, he ordered them to drive their ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... but possibly connected with a Teutonic word seen in many compounds, as the Low Ger. bullerjaan, meaning "noisy"; the word has also, with less probability, been derived from the Dutch boel, and Ger. Buhle, a lover), originally a fine, swaggering fellow, as in "Bully Bottom" in A Midsummer Night's Dream, later an overbearing ruffian, especially a coward who abuses his strength by ill-treating the weak; more technically a souteneur, a man who lives on the earnings of a prostitute. The term in its early use ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... son-in-law, Hon. John Collier.] I have worked hard for a dignity which will enable me to put down his aristocratic swaggering. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... churches, the hospital, and the picture-gallery of the place. There are no more pictures of Rubens to be seen, and, indeed, in the course of a fortnight, one has had quite enough of the great man and his magnificent, swaggering canvases. What a difference is here with simple Memling and the extraordinary creations of his pencil! The hospital is particularly rich in them; and the legend there is that the painter, who had served Charles the Bold in his war against ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... respect, Carrapatam Bunga bears his sorrows from door to door, confident that his affliction and his damaged foot will command pity wheresoever he wanders. But he is impudent, and a boisterous, swaggering fellow. Hear him as he demands compassion, with his swarthy, fat face upturned to the blazing sun, and with a long ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... two or three years younger; handsome in features; graceful in person; and withal possessing an air of distinction which the other might have possessed also, had it not been considerably diminished by the certain gay and swaggering look which we have already noticed. His dress was not so completely military as that of the first, though there was scarf and sword-knot, and gold-fringed belt and leathern gloves, with wide cuffs, which swallowed up the arms almost ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... her): It's all right. (Crossing to BELSIZE and swaggering desperately, in front of the women) I'm the feller. Anything I'm concerned in, I run all by myself. If there's going to be any putting me on a public platform to answer any questions, I'm going to do it ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... exertion of every kind, than those to whom their own weight must necessarily be burdensome. I respect you, Master Peveril, because I am told you have killed one of those gigantic fellows, who go about swaggering as if their souls were taller than ours, because their noses are nearer to the clouds by a cubit or two. But do not value yourself on this as anything very unusual. I would have you to know it hath been always thus; and that, in the history of all ages, the clean, tight, dapper little ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... all know me, and can have no doubt of my veracity. I will entertain you with the origin of this same swaggering, bouncing Tott. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... ear, that it seemed as if only a miracle of equilibrium could keep it in its place. There was altogether in the countenance and in the carriage and bearing of the man (who seemed from forty to forty-five years of age, and who advanced swaggering and keeping the middle of the road, curling his mustache with one hand, and with the other signing to the carriages to give place), such a character of insolent carelessness, that the cavalier who watched him ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... we will try what we can do. In the first place, you know I makes it a rule never to darken the door of a place wot calls itself an 'otel, for 'otel prices and inn prices are werry different. You young chaps don't consider these things, and as long as you have got a rap in the world you go swaggering about, ordering claret and waxlights, and everything wot's expensive, as though you must spend money because you are in an inn. Now, that's all gammon. If a man haven't got money he can't spend it; and we ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... paper did not make any correction of the story. I called the attention of Badger to the fact, and he replied that that was about all that could be done under the circumstance. The principal, with the face like a badger and always swaggering, is surprisingly, wanting in influence. He has not even as much power as to bring down a country newspaper, which had printed a false story. I was so thoroughly indignant that I declared I would go alone to the office ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... quarrel had recommenced. The result was no different. Charley finally issued out of the teepee beaten, and the little carcasses flew out of the door after him, propelled by a vigorous foot. Charley, swaggering abroad as a man does who has just been worsted at home, sought ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... your very Hun? He is a true reversion to type. Only, whereas among the French he is a thing of the savage past, among the Germans he is a product of the kultured present. And to turn from the field note-book of the German soldier with its swaggering tale of loot, lust, and maudlin cups, its memoranda of stolen toys for Felix and of ravished lingerie for Bertha, all viewed in the rosy light of the writer's egotism as a laudable enterprise, to the plain depositions of the Justice de Paix, ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... chivalrous men! the sacred quest, the doughty deeds, the battery of low churls, the fearsome ride and grewsome perils of the Flower of Simpson's Bar! Alack! she is dainty, this Muse! She will have none of this bucking brute and swaggering, ragged rider, and I must fain follow ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... out, and found the captain and his men forming a picturesque group about the stone steps; and as soon as he appeared, the former swung himself round, and threw his cloak over his shoulder, with a swaggering gesture. ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... to one that he could stand by the fireplace and pitch the said Samuel Dolly out of the open window. To know so strong a man, so fine an animal, was something to boast of. Then, too, if Jasper had a false brilliancy, he had also a false bonhommie: it was true that he was somewhat imperious, swaggering, bullying; but he was also off-hand and jocund; and as you knew him, that sidelong look, that defying gait (look and gait of the man whom the world cuts), wore away. In fact, he had got into a world which did not cut him, and his exterior was ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... brawn, with powdred wig, comes swaggering in, And mighty serjeant ushers in the Chine, What ought a wise man first to think upon? Have I my Tools? if not, I am undone: For 'tis a law concerns both saint and sinner, He that hath no knife must have no dinner. So he falls on; pig, goose, and capon, feel The ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... come down the slope, carrying himself with a swaggering air of braggadocio, but plainly watchful and suspicious. Terry had come out upon the ledge and she too watched him. He came down swiftly and swung up into the saddle of the horse they had ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... of the Mexican Central had that day been three hours late, thus failing to connect with the I. & G.N. on the other side of the river. Passengers for /Los Estados Unidos/ grumblingly sought entertainment in the little swaggering mongrel town of two nations, for, until the morrow, no other train would come to rescue them. Grumblingly, because two days later would begin the great fair and races in San Antone. Consider that at that time San Antone was ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... it not: then it drawes neere the season, Wherein the Spirit held his wont to walke. What does this meane my Lord? Ham. The King doth wake to night, and takes his rouse, Keepes wassels and the swaggering vpspring reeles, And as he dreines his draughts of Renish downe, The kettle Drum and Trumpet thus bray out The ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... see good minced-pie Here standing swaggering on the table; The lofty walls so large and high I'll level down if I be able; For they be furnished with good plums, And spiced well with pepper and salt, Every prune as big as both my thumbs To drive down bravely the juice ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... quite unconscious when Martha handed the potatoes; and she left us wreathed in smiles, and resolved that Mr. Simpson should buy their son Horace a commission instead of taking him into the business. Mr. Simpson did not share her views, and I believe he said some rather nasty things about swaggering, and not having one sixpence to rub against another. And Mrs. Simpson (who was really devoted to Horace and could hardly bear him out of her sight) reflected that it was possible to get shot as well as to grow ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was his usual way, he took complete possession of the house: swaggering all over it;—into the stable to look after his horse; into the kitchen to look after his supper. He had something to say or do with every one; smoked with the Dutchmen; drank with the Germans; slapped the men on the shoulders, tickled the women under the ribs:-never ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... you inquire? Tilly Troffater's. A swaggering, boisterous little body too, is he, and his legs are short and bandy, as you have seen a creeper cockerel's: he has one eye black and one eye blue, and both are glazed and dull as the knobs on earthen ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... have we swaggering here, So near the cradle of the fairy queen? What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor; An actor too ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the brave dance, of the Ojibbeways, there is plenty of swaggering: the dancers seem as if they knew not how to be proud enough of their warlike exploits. The eagle dance, among the Choctaws, is an elegant amusement; and the snow-shoe dance, of the Ojibbeways, is a ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... Vanderscamp, and he had not been heard of for years. At length, one day, a boat was seen pulling for the shore, from a long, black, rakish-looking schooner, that lay at anchor in the bay. The boat's crew seemed worthy of the craft from which they debarked. Never had such a set of noisy, roistering, swaggering varlets landed in peaceful Communipaw. They were outlandish in garb and demeanor, and were headed by a rough, burly, bully ruffian, with fiery whiskers, a copper nose, a scar across his face, and ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... rose with dignity and swaggering towards the Jew with a Frankish elegance which the depth of his potations made unsteady, seized the landlord by the breast of his gaberdine. He lifted an ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... here and there; we are expected to visit the new people in the valley—what say you, Pereo? Who shall we dine to-day?' Or: 'Enquire me of this or that strange caballero—and if we may speak.' Ah, it is but yesterday that Amita would say: 'Lend me thine own horse, Pereo, that I may outstrip this swaggering Americano that clings ever to my side,' ha! ha! Or the grave Dorotea would whisper: 'Convey to this Senor Presumptuous Pomposo that the daughters of Guitierrez do not ride alone with strangers!' Or even the little Liseta would say, he! he! 'Why does the stranger press my foot in his great hand ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte |
