"Swerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about her morning work. Her education was that of the soldier, who must know himself no more, whom no personal pain must swerve from the slightest minutiae of duty. So she was there, at her usual hour, dressed with the same cool neatness, her brown hair parted in satin bands, and only the colorless cheek and lip differing from the Mary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... entwined with strange-looking and beautiful orchids. The cool, refreshing, musical sound of running water came up from the depths of the glen, although the stream itself was not visible from where I stood, while the subdued roar of a distant waterfall strongly tempted me to swerve from my path and follow the upward course of the glen. I surrendered myself to the temptation, rather erroneously arguing that every foot of rise must necessarily take me so much nearer the summit of the peak, whereas I eventually found that I had diverged almost at right angles to my ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... lightning and sharp peals of thunder, come wildly charging down the mountain trail, threatening to run quite over me in their mad career. Pulling my six-shooter, I fire a couple of shots in the air to attract their attention, when they rapidly swerve to the left, and go tearing frantically over the rolling hills on their wild flight to ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... were put in, and off we went, with a jerk and a jolt, and many injunctions to stick to the road. This was easier said than done; for when we came to the camp-fires of the lumberers whom I had seen at work yesterday, the glare frightened our horses, and caused them to swerve off the road, and dash into the bush by the side. This happened more than once; but even on the road itself the jerks and jolts were so bad that we were forced to go slowly, so that we only reached Albany at half-past eight instead of at six o'clock, and found everybody ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... sledge slip over the brow of the descent. It got larger as it came down, but it did not run as fast as the toboggan. One could see it rock and swerve, shaking off loose peats, where the ground was broken, and Grace glanced at the steep pitch Kit had come ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... was one of those prominent points, which in politics as well as in war are decisive, with which every thing is connected, and from which nothing ought to have made him swerve. But whether it was that Napoleon reckoned too much on the ascendancy of his genius, or the strength of his army, and the weakness of Alexander; or that, considering what he left behind him, he felt it too dangerous to carry on so distant a war slowly and methodically; or ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... ordinary cant about duty and all the rest of it. We may sympathise with you—personally, I admire the attitude you have taken, though perhaps I shouldn't say it—but our own feelings do not matter the toss of a button. Nothing you can do or say will swerve us from what we judge to be ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... exasperated greatly the haughty aristocracy. He was also inflexible in his determination to confer office only upon those who were worthy of the trust. No solicitations or views of self-interest could induce him to swerve from this resolve. Intemperance he especially abominated, and frowned upon the degrading vice alike in prince or peasant. He conferred an inestimable favor upon Russia by causing a compilation, for the use of his subjects, of a body ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... did not swerve again from that point ahead. In one respect she was a savage; that was the extraordinary stolidity she could assume. For all the attention she gave him he might have been the ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... faithless, faithful only he Among innumerable false, unmov'd, Unshaken, unseduc'd, unterrified; His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal. Nor number, nor example with him wrought To swerve from truth, or change his ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... make you obedient to her in your address and manners. She will force upon you rules for your intercourse with others. She will point out to you her amusements, and make you follow them. She will place you under her cruel laws of honour, from which she will disown you, if you swerve. Now I beseech you, tell me, which you think you would prefer, the discipline of the goddess Fashion, or that of the good old mistress, which you may have wished to leave? The one kindly points out to you, and invites and warns you to avoid, every dangerous ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... before the midyear examinations came a crisis in the growth of their friendship. One afternoon Lila reached the head of the stairs barely in time to make a sudden swerve out of Miss Merriam's ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... little valley, the hills echoing back its roar. The white road leaped up at them, gulping them in. A red steer, astray from some pasture, crossed the road far ahead of them, and Marion closed her eyes as the machine, with a sickening swerve, missed it by inches. The next instant she was pointing to the group of buildings squatting under the hill; and then she was out of the automobile, and running to Farrish at the door of the barn. His face ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... but neither loosed his ball. Then Dick ran right in, and Chippy threw straight at him. The Wolves raised a howl of joy when their patrol-leader made a clever swerve and dodged the flying ball. Then Dick let fly in turn, as Chippy sprang away to the right. But no sooner did the latter's quick eye detect that the ball had left Dick's hand than he dropped flat on his face, and the ball ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... cried she. "Verily, thou hast imposed the discussion upon thyself; and thou hast spoken and hast not stinted and hast adduced these arguments, in support of thy contention. But now is the truth made manifest;[FN188] so swerve thou not from the path thereof; and if thou be not content with a summary of proof, I will set it out to thee in detail. God on thee, where is the boy beside the girl and who shall liken the kid to the wild cow? The girl ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... the hard gravel, away in the distance. They speedily grow nearer. A horse is galloping, galloping towards me along the broad carriage drive. Nearer, nearer and nearer it comes! Who is it? WHAT is it? A deadly nausea seizes me, I swerve, totter, reel, and am only prevented from falling by the timely interference of a pine. The concussion with its leviathan trunk clears my senses. All my faculties become wonderfully and painfully alert. I would give my very soul if it were not so—if I could but fall asleep ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... to think that any cart or carriage could be passed was absurd. Side by side the huge machines, scarlet, green, alive with shining brass, tore along with the roar of express trains between the ditch and the bank. The slightest swerve at such speed meant death. The chatter of the careless girls dwindled, the faces of the rival drivers grew ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... two Belgian officers and the swart face of the Arab chief, Hassan. He could see the men with rifles, aiming, as it seemed, straight at him, and then he ducked his head as he saw the smoke once more belch from the seven-pounder. At the same moment he was nearly capsized by the sudden swerve of the Okapi, as she almost turned on her keel. The shot struck the water so close that the spray drenched them. Compton looked round and ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... painful task, that was forced upon him, yet he went through it nobly. At every word the difficulties grew upon him. At every word the temptation, to swerve from the truth, increased. At every word the dread of losing her, the agony of apprehension, the dull cold sense of despair, waxed heavier, and more stunning. The longer he spoke, the more certain he felt that by his own words he was destroying his ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... this unusual sight, felt an impulse to slow, to swerve, to test the apparition in some way; but second thought convinced him it must be deception of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... me pen, ink, and paper; I will write to her. O! but what shall I write In mine excuse?[366] why, no excuse can serve For him that swears, and from his oath doth swerve. Or shall I say my marriage was enforc'd? 'Twas bad in them; not well in me to yield: Wretched they two, whose marriage was compell'd. I'll only write that which my grief hath bred: Forgive me, Clare, for I am married: 'Tis soon set down, but not so ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... are born without fear. The secret of the machine had been revealed to him in his recent transit, and he was silently determining to surpass himself. Precariously balanced, he descended the Square again, frowning hard, his teeth set, and actually managed to swerve into King Street. Constance, in the parlour, saw an incomprehensible winged thing fly past the window. The cousins Povey sounded an alarm and protest and ran in pursuit; for the gradient of King Street is, in the strict ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... very great respect for their kinsman's memory. The lads and their mother were staunch Jacobites, though having every respect for his present Majesty; but right was right, and nothing could make their hearts swerve from their allegiance to the descendants ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that, as his concerns lay upon the Continent, his purpose was to leave England without delay. The usurer professed himself sorry that it was not in his power to oblige him; and, in order to prevent any further importunity, assured them, he had laid it down as a maxim, from which he would never swerve, to avoid all dealings with people whom, if need should be, he could not sue by the laws ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... the face of the universe, Never to falter and never to swerve; Toil for it!—bleed for it!—if there be need for it, Stretch every sinew and strain ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... the witness swore that he could not be mistaken as to his identity. He said his face looked grave and stern; but though he did not smile, it was the same face he knew so well. Nothing would make him swerve from that. If that were he, it was the last time he was seen. He has never been heard of since. Nothing could be heard of him in the neighborhood of Rouen. There has been no evidence of his death; and there is no sign that ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... sublimely right. But as there are heights of which the achievement is unattempted, there are abysses to which fall is barred; neither accident nor temptation will make any of the principal personages swerve from an adopted resolution, or violate an accepted principle of honour; people are expected as a matter of course to speak with propriety on occasion, and to wait with patience when they are bid: those who do wrong, admit it; ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... division northward, Thonen and his division southward, and both in front of the gully, under cover of the slabs, answered with such a smart fire, that the military who were now fully within range, did unmistakably appear to me to swerve from their ground: anyhow the command "forward" from Sergeant Harris was put a stop to. Here a lad was really courageous with his bugle. He took up boldly his stand to the left of the gully and in front: the red-coats 'fell in' in their ranks to the right of this lad. The wounded on the ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... little child along the road that leads to God, and that docile child eagerly watching the guardian hand, and steadily treading the path to which it pointed,—the sure and blessed path of holiness, from which throughout life's long journey, she was never even once to swerve. ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... may you be! If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, When time is old and hath forgot itself, When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy, And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up, And mighty states characterless are grated To dusty nothing—yet let memory From false to false, among false maids in love, ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... being intoxicated; though the inducement must have been great, from the number of wine-houses on the Rock: but such was the desire of these brave fellows to be avenged for the loss of the Hannibal, that they would not allow any temptation to induce them to swerve from the duty they had ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... Cairo and the Citadel, they begin by proving how unintelligent want of education can make one of the most intelligent of beasts. They trip over every pebble, and are almost useless on rough and broken ground; they start and swerve at a man, a tree, a rock, a distant view or a glimpse of the sea; they will not leave one another, and they indulge their pet dislikes: this shies at a camel, that kicks at a dog. Presently Tamaddun, as the Arabs say, "urbanity," or, more literally, being ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... lay right in the path. Brick spied it at such close quarters that he had no time to swerve aside. He pitched roughly over the gunwale and fell inside. The next instant Pendergast was kneeling on him, and shaking him ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... it had become powerful enough to work a change in that very nature, made him what he had never been before—a Christian; conscious of his own weakness; anxious to keep to the strict line of duty; fearful to swerve from the conscientious discharge of the strange task that had been forced upon him; and reliant on a stronger hand than his own to point the way which he was to go. Perhaps he uttered his first earnest prayer that night, seated by his lonely fireside, thinking ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... became aware of a sudden swerve in the course of the submarine. The helmsman had, doubtless, noted the "water-mark," as Tom termed it, and as an automobilist on land might swing at the cross-roads, the steersman was changing ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... that she had aimed short. But the loud, sudden report made Brenda swerve. All the dogs stopped and slunk together circling, their haunches lowered. Wreck squatted, threw up his head, and howled. Sheila spoke to them, clear and loud, her young voice ringing out into ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... to deceive me, nor swerve from the paths of truth. For if thou reply unto my questions with sincerity, I will loosen thy bonds and give thee treasures; but if thou deceive me, thou shalt languish till death in ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... well in all you write, And swerve not from it in your loftiest flight. The smoothest verse and the exactest sense Displease if uncouth language give offense; A barbarous phrase no reader can approve; Nor bombast, noise, or affectation love. In short, without pure language, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... to her abruptly out of the utter stillness but meant nothing to her. She saw a flock of pigeons rise above the roofs of the more distant houses, circle, swerve, and disappear beyond the cottonwoods. She noted that Ignacio was no longer leaning lazily against the wall; he had stiffened, his mouth was a little open, breathless, his attitude that of one listening expectantly, his ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... would preserve His eyes in perfect sight, drinking to swerve; But he reply'd, 'tis better that I shu'd Loose the, then keep them for ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... wine-dark deep steer his swift ship buffeted by winds; by cunning hath charioteer the better of charioteer. For whoso trusting in his horses and car alone wheeleth heedlessly and wide at either end, his horses swerve on the course, and he keepeth them not in hand. But whoso is of crafty mind, though he drive worse horses, he ever keeping his eye upon the post turneth closely by it, neither is unaware how far at first to force his horses by the ox-hide reins, but holdeth ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... Court am I; Whose every word I find a Well of Wisdom, And hasten to imbibe it in my Soul. But clear unto thy clearest Eye it is, That Choice is not within Oneself—To Do, Not in The Will, but in The Power, to Do. From that which I originally am How shall I swerve? or how put forth a Sign Beyond the Power that ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... consequence frustrate his Majesty's good intentions towards me; the Tories may continue to rail at me, on the credit of such enemies as I have described to you in the course of this relation: neither the one nor the other shall make me swerve out of the path which ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... and serve; (For service is love's complement) But it was never God's intent, Your spirit from its path should swerve, To gain another's point of view. As well might Jupiter, or Mars Go seeking help from other stars, Instead of sweeping ON, as you. Look to the Great Eternal Cause And not to any man, for light. Look in; and learn the wrong, and right, From your own soul's ...
— New Thought Pastels • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... with a closer attention than any driver should give to his companion. The result was a violent swerve to the far side of the road, barely ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... encampment. Smoke could actually be seen rising, evidently from villages not far ahead. Clearchus hesitated to advance upon the enemy, knowing that the troops were tired and hungry; and indeed it was already late. On the other hand he had no mind either to swerve from his route—guarding against any appearance of flight. Accordingly he 16 marched straight as an arrow, and with sunset entered the nearest villages with his vanguard ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... coming in wounded, escaped from the massacre of the post at Devil's Hoof Gap, had reported it. With the large command known to be here camped on Sweetstream Fork, they would not come this way; they would swerve up the Gunpowder River twenty miles away, destroying the settlement and Little Fort Slade, and would sweep on, probably for a general massacre, up the Great Horn as far as Fort Doncaster. He himself, with the regiment, would try to save Fort Slade, but in the meantime Captain ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... thinning to a yellow veil when they halted short. They clustered a moment, then parted like beads, and went wide asunder on the plain. They veered singly over the level, merged in twos and threes, apparently racing, shrank together like elastic, and broke ranks again to swerve over the stretching waste. From this visioned pantomime presently came a sound, a tiny shot. The figures were too far for discerning which fired it. It evidently did no harm, and was repeated at once. A ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... came a swerve to the left, and the tree grated along the edge of the rock. Before Sam could recover his breath, down it went over the first line of rapids. Here it stuck fast for a moment, then turned over and went on, throwing Sam on ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... notice the little mound of dirt near which Roger was standing, considered nothing but the act of driving full speed at the man who taunted him. Twice he rode at his agile enemy, twice Roger struck at the horse to make him swerve; and at the third charge the animal's foreleg went into the posthole round which Roger had maneuvered, and the rider shot like a sprawling puppet from the saddle onto the ground. He was up in an instant, bewildered but unharmed, and as his ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... it seemed to the fugitive that the foremost horses were upon him and their riders' hands were outstretched to tear him from his saddle, the mustang made a sudden swerve and what ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... and against England." The second time was when he signed the treaty of 1795 with Great Britain, which produced a popular outburst from one end of the country to the other. In neither case did Washington swerve an iota from what he thought right, writing, "these are unpleasant things, but they must be met with firmness." Eventually the people always came back to their leader, and Jefferson sighed over the fact that "such is the popularity of the President that the people will support him in ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... the propriety or necessity of his orders,—orders given with full knowledge of the situation,—but proceeded to thwart them in a manner savoring of contempt. Lee was Washington's Bernadotte. Neither urging, remonstrance, nor entreaty could swerve him one iota from the course he had mapped out for himself. Conceiving that he held the key to the very unpromising situation in his own hands, he had determined to make the gambler's ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... task and the special conditions of the problem in front of you and the Admiral. All we ask from you is complete confidence and the exact truth. We are not babes and we can digest strong meat. Do not think that we ever want anything unpleasant concealed from us, nor do we want you ever to swerve one hair's breadth from your own exact judgment in putting the case before us, certainly never on the pleasant side; if you ever swerve pray do so on the unpleasant side.... If you ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... of myriads of the finest wires, each one by itself so fine, so frail, it would barely hold a child's kite in the wind: by hundreds, hundreds of thousands of such, twisted, re-twisted together, are made the mighty cables, which do not any more swerve from their place in the air, under the weight and jar of the ceaseless traffic and tread of two cities, than the solid earth swerves under the same ceaseless weight and jar. ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... managed to swerve round without falling. But for an instant she could not, she dared not, raise her eyes. Clear on the frosty air came sounds that made her blood turn cold. She felt as if her heart would suffocate her. A brief blindness blotted ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... was pale as death. She had been praying all the afternoon that the bitterness of this cup might not be pressed to her lips. She now saw that the issue was joined. She had vowed that not even her love for the man dearest to her should swerve her from her course. The abyss was under her feet, and she longed to draw back. She heard the voice of duty in the tones of Mrs. Frankland saying: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... distinguished by what we venture to call a very rare characteristic, in the sense in which we understand it,—an intense love of truth, which ever stimulated him to search after it as the chief part of his being's aim and end, and which never permitted him to swerve a hair's breath from it in practice. This made him a nonconformist, a separatist, an exile, an independent; a growing Christian, a profound theologian, an able controversialist; a student at Leyden University, although he had ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... led or driven into war on the false theory that they were to be benefited somehow—they knew not how. They are essentially tired of the war, and would slink back home if they could. These are the real tiers etat of the South, and are hardly worthy a thought; for they swerve to and fro according to events which they do not comprehend or attempt to shape. When the time for reconstruction comes, they will want the old political system of caucuses, Legislatures, etc., to amuse them ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... by the 'Lion of the North,' Gustavus Adolphus, her father. She loves the smell of powder and brave men; but I would not serve her, because she is a Huguenot, and I have fixed principles, from which I never swerve. 'Par exemple', I swear to you by Saint Jacques to guide Monsieur through the passes of the Pyrenees to Oleron as surely as through these woods, and to defend him against the Devil, if need be, as well ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was a little in advance, keeping close to the wood, looking apparently into it in search of game, for he was as good a shot on horseback as on foot. Presently I saw his horse swerve on one side. With whip and spur he brought the animal again up to the wood. Just then there was a fearful roar. The horse again started on one side, the suddenness of his movement almost unseating his rider, whose cap was knocked off. The next moment a huge lion, breaking ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... exactions of the Directory, checked the headlong enthusiasm that otherwise would have embroiled us in the terrible wars of that period. In his almost more than human wisdom, Washington had selected a course of strict neutrality, from which public enthusiasm, nor fear of loss of public favor could swerve him. His course was wise and proper for the still weak confederacy; and every day was productive of events which showed the wisdom of this decision. Neither Great Britain nor France, however, was gratified by this neutrality. Each ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... that the farther apart the wheels are set the more one drags against the other, not only at the turns, where anyone can see the outer wheel drag on the inner, but at every swerve of the team on the straightaway. All such dragging reduces speed and tires the team with pulling which ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... and of the state I was in,—and all with great clearness: God would, in virtue of the Sacrament of Confession, give him more light concerning me; for those fathers were very experienced men in matters of spirituality. Further, I was not to swerve in a single point from the counsels of that father; for I was in great danger, if I had ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... way to will is to will—and the very first time you are tempted to break a worthy resolution—and you will be, you may be certain of that—make your fight then and there. You cannot afford to lose that fight. You must win it—don't swerve for an instant, but keep that resolution if it kills you. It will not, but you must fight just as though life depended on the victory; and indeed your personality may actually ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... shorely don't,' says Jack. 'If his hoss holds, an' he don't swerve none from the direction he's p'inting out in when he fades from view, he's goin' to be over in the San Simon country by to-morrow mornin' when we eats our grub; an' that's half way to the Borax desert. If you yearns for ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... when the Americans finally returned to the quay, close to which the Arabella was moored. As they neared the place a great military automobile came tearing along, scattering pedestrians right and left, made a sudden swerve, caught a man who was not agile enough to escape and sent him spinning along the dock until he fell ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... what has been told and retold many times by all inspired ones, of whatever creed and race; namely, think and act always from the inner Self, cheerfully taking the consequences of your choice. Let not the opinions of the illusory world of the senses balk and thwart you. Let not the "worldly-wise" swerve you from your ideal and your faith in the final goal of your earthly pilgrimage—the attainment of spiritual consciousness in your present personality; this is the meaning of immortality in the flesh Doubt ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... not, Reader, thou shouldst swerve From thy good purposes, because thou hearest How God ordaineth that the debt ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... a swerve skid; but as there was plenty of room for eccentricities, nothing happened except that the car tried to climb ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... other accomplishment considered necessary for the ladies of a harem. But I adhered to my resolution; every method to induce me to speak was tried in vain; even blows, torture from pinching, and other means were resorted to, but would not induce me to swerve from my resolution; at last they concluded that I was either born dumb, or had become so from fright at the time that the attack and slaughter of my family took place. I was eighteen months in the harem of Osman Ali, and never spoke ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... of his hero. How he hated Semyonov! How he lost no single opportunity of trying to bring Nikitin forward in public, of proving to the world who was the greater of the two men! Something very single-hearted shone through the colour of his loyalty; nothing, I was convinced, could swerve him from his fidelity. That, at least, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... within a spring of his prey, and it seemed hopeless to expect to save poor Roshan Khan from his clutches. Just at this moment, however, the terrified youth caught sight of the brute over his left shoulder, and providentially made a quick swerve to the right. As the lion turned to follow him, he came broadside on to me, and just as he had Roshan Khan within striking distance and was about to seize him, he dropped in the middle of what would otherwise assuredly ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... Which built His world of music, those three laws:— First, how the speed of planets round the sun Bears a proportion, beautifully precise As music, to their silver distances; Next, that although they seem to swerve aside From those plain circles of old Copernicus Their paths were not less rhythmical and exact, But followed always that most exquisite curve In its most perfect form, the pure ellipse; Third, that although their speed from point to ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... we will only choose our jobs in directions in which they travel, they will undertake them with the greatest pleasure. It is a peremptory rule with them, that they never go out of their road. We are dapper little busybodies, and run this way and that way superserviceably; but they swerve never from their fore-ordained paths,—neither the sun, nor the moon, nor a bubble of air, nor a mote ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... and all those who knew him affirm that he was merciful and affable; but in matters touching the honor of God and the immunities and rights of His Church he was transformed into a spirited lion, nor did he ever swerve from his course or accept any [personal] advantage. And it seems that God approved his apostolic zeal and the justness of his cause, by coming to its defense with the exemplary punishments which He inflicted on the enemies of the holy archbishop; so that, before the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... bridge, passing over Rensselaer Island and seeing ahead of us the handsome new freight houses of the D. & H.R.R., and to right and left the boats of the Hudson River Steamship lines lying against the wharves. Once over the bridge the tracks swerve to the right, and soon ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... neither unity of cause nor unity of effort in the confused history of recent struggles in South America; and until orderly government was achieved, with due regard to fundamental civil rights, he would not have the United States swerve in the slightest degree from the path of strict neutrality. Mr. Clay, he observed in his diary, had "mounted his South American great horse... to ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... journal; but on October 3, they thought they saw among the weeds something like fruits. By the 6th, Pinzon began to urge a southwesterly course, in order to find the islands, which the signs seemed to indicate in that direction. Still the Admiral would not swerve from his purpose, and kept his course westerly. On Sunday the Nina fired a bombard and hoisted a flag as a signal that she saw land, but it proved a delusion. Observing towards evening a flock of birds flying to the southwest, the Admiral yielded ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... rolling backs, low heads and lolling tongues, shaggy frontlets and gleaming eyes all about him, he dropped the reins on Pronto's neck and began his own work carefully, riding close and holding low, always ready for the sudden swerve of the horse away from the shot to avoid the usual rush of the buffalo when struck. Since he took few chances, his shot rarely failed. In a mile or so, using pains, he had exhausted all but two shots, one in each weapon, and of course no man could load the old cap-and-ball revolver while ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... tears, like an uninstructed bowler, so to speak, who thinks to attain the jack, by delivering his bowl straight forward upon it, being ignorant that there is a concealed bias within the spheroid, which will make it, in all probability, swerve away, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... destined sooner or later to share; there was a certain roughness, very like crudeness, which he indulged before his thought and phrase mellowed to one music in his later work. I tacitly agreed rather with the doctor, though I did not swerve from my allegiance to Lowell, and if I had spoken I should have sided with him: I would have given that or any other proof of my devotion. Fields casually mentioned that he thought "The Dandelion" was the most popularly liked ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... peace of his country, and so of the rest. And, which is yet worse, let every one but dive into his own bosom, and he will find his private wishes spring and his secret hopes grow up at another's expense. Upon which consideration it comes into my head, that nature does not in this swerve from her general polity; for physicians hold, that the birth, nourishment, and increase of every thing is the dissolution and corruption ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Anthonys. This latter group is to me particularly trying. They revel in descriptions of desirous damsels with burning eyes who crave companionship, but when an artfully devised encounter throws one of these passionate persons across the path of the man behind the pen, does he falter or swerve or make a misstep? Never. Right there is where the blood of the Galahads tells. Supremely he rises above temptation! Gracefully he sidesteps! ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... this awful crisis, I should be the first. Can Your Majesty pardon my presumption in differing from your royal counsel? The King, Queen, and every member of the Royal Family of France, both from the ties of blood and policy of States, demand our united efforts in their defence. I cannot swerve from my determination of never quitting them, especially at a moment when they are abandoned by every one of their former attendants, except myself. In happier days Your Majesty may command my obedience; but, in the present instance, and given up as is the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... reduce his speed to take to the brush. The car beneath him flung clean off the ground as he swung to climb out of the grooves. It landed with all four wheels a-spin, but only struck on two. A sudden swerve, far out of the course, and the monster righted abruptly. Another sharp turn, and away it went again, crushing the brush and flinging up the sand in a track of its own that paralleled the road, but rougher though free ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... home, laid her plans, and took a resolve not to swerve from them. She allotted a certain portion of her time for her various studies, and a certain portion for doing anything Miss Ainley might direct her to do. The remainder was to be spent in exercise; not a moment was to be left for the indulgence ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... siction av Finnigin, On the road sup'rintinded by Flannigan, A rail give way on a bit av a curve, An' some kyars went off as they made the swerve. "There's nobody hurted," sez Finnigin, "But repoorts must be made to Flannigan." An' he winked at McGorrigan, As married ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... over the grave of a dear friend, my sorrow for the bereavement must be mingled with another grief—that he threw away such a life in so miserable a cause! Why, as he was true to the Northern character in all things else, did he swerve from his Northern principles in this final scene?" ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... to believe it's a tough yarn," said Kinnison. "It's true enough to the character of Washington. He never let his feelings swerve him from the strict line of duty. But all that stuff about the Indian girl is somebody's invention, or the most extraordinary thing of the kind I've heard tell of. I don't doubt your friend's veracity, ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... too, though in a modified degree, the action is the same, and in a swell without wind the oscillations are jerky and short, for they are not softened by the sails then merely hanging. But if a boat is staunch and strong, and the deck is tight, and she has plenty of keel, so as not to swerve round right and left, but to preserve a general average direction towards the wind, then she may lie-to in a very stiff gale and high sea with a wonderfully gentle motion. Her head then is slightly off the sea, and there is but little rolling. The ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... certainly a most persevering race of beings, and you deserve to be at the top of the class; for, if you determine to accomplish anything, I believe not even Mr. Stanley's knock at the door, or, what would be more to you, Dora Leslie's loving kiss, would make you swerve from your purpose. Ah well! You are quite welcome to the work; and if you are not tired, I know I am, and these very important articles may remain unpacked for the trouble I shall take. I wonder you are so particular about ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... assuring liberty and equality to all, and not a peace which would leave our fetters unbroken. We regret that the Pope omitted to mention the Czechs in his peace offer although he mentioned the Poles. But we shall obtain our right without alien support. The Czechs will never swerve from their demand for an independent Slovak State with all the attributes of sovereignty. The Czechs are convinced that the question of Bohemia is too great to be solved in Vienna. It must be decided ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... safe for practical efficiency, when in presence of a brother's suffering this tender emotion begins to flutter about the heart. As the heart itself is deceitful, so also in turn are each of its affections; even those that in name and nature are good may swerve aside after they have sprung, and degenerate into selfishness. Probably both the priest and the Levite experienced some compassion as they looked on the pale and bleeding victim of lawless violence; perhaps they went away pleased with themselves on ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... glint came into the grizzly's eyes, her teeth clashed together in quick, sharp strokes, like the chattering of a chilled bather, and she lunged forward and upward to meet the charge. If the man saw her at all, it was too late to swerve from his course or swing his staff forward for a weapon. His right ski passed under the bear's foreleg and he flew headlong over her, hurtled through the air and crashed through the snow crust a dozen yards beyond her. One of the skis was broken and torn from his foot, and even if his leg had ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... a check upon her tongue and they dined together almost in complete silence. Pettifer was methodically getting his own point of view quite clearly established in his mind, so that whatever he did or advised he might be certain not to swerve from it afterwards. He weighed his inclinations and his hopes, and when the servants had left the dining-room and he had lit his cigar he put his ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... take up in some detail the influences brought to bear upon us which tend to make us swerve from the straight and narrow path. I invite your attention first of all to the Press Agent, that indispensable adjunct of all projects that have something to gain or to fear from publicity. I have seen the claim ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... fidelity, not only to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The former, while as a work of art it must rigidly subject itself to laws and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart, has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances to a great extent of the author's own choosing or creation. If he think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... is safe. Run quickly, return slowly, hold your head high, and gabble as loud as you can, and you'll preserve the respect of the Goose Green to a peaceful old age. Why should you struggle and get hurt, if you can lower your head and swerve, and not lose a feather?! Why in the world should any one spoil the pleasure of life, or risk his skin, if he can ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... altar vows, I believe they will not make me swerve from equity. I shall exact neither service nor affection from my spouse. The value of these, and, indeed, not only the value, but the very existence, of the latter depends upon its spontaneity. A promise to love tends rather to loosen than ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... William was beside her, whispered words of tenderness and hope were murmured in her ear, and how could she break the spell? how could she speak of the gathering storm? The commands of a stern father were upon her, and she knew his indomitable spirit would never swerve one ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... vain the action was accelerated, while the acting stood still. From the beginning, John had taken his stand; had wound himself up to an even tenor of stately declamation, from which no exigence of dialogue or person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of his rising with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was preposterous; for from the onset he had planted himself, as upon a terrace, on an eminence vastly above ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... to have a job cutting down our velocity; we're traveling pretty fast, relative to that sun," Arcot told the others. Their velocity was so great that the sun didn't seem to swerve them greatly as they rushed nearer. Arcot began to use the molecular drive to brake ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... of such a kind. Now this is called opinion, through our combining the recollection brought previously into action with the sensation recently produced. And when these, placed along each other, agree, a true opinion is produced; but when they swerve from each other, a false one."[538] The dixa of Plato, therefore answers to the experience, or the empirical knowledge of modern philosophy, which is concerned only with appearances (phenomena), and not with absolute realities, and can not be elevated to the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... a high trotter with slim legs, just such a horse as a cocotte would care to own, recovered from its swerve and resumed its proper place with dancing steps, graceful pawings executed on the same spot without advancing. Jansoulet let fall his portfolio, and as though he had dropped with it all his gravity, his prestige as a public ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... part alone my wish fulfil; Nor though you do it, do it with ill-will; Nor with a forced compliance half refuse; And acting duty, all the merit lose. To strict obedience add a willing grace, And let your soul be painted in your face; No reasons given, and no pretences sought, To swerve in deed or ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... yelled to the man in Japanese to get to the other side of the road; instead of which he simply backed his kuruma against a wall on the lower side of the curve, with the shafts outwards. At the rate I was going, there wasn't room even to swerve; and the next minute one of the shafts of that kuruma was in my horse's shoulder. The man wasn't hurt at all. When I saw the way my horse was bleeding, I quite lost my temper, and struck the man over the head with the butt of my whip. He looked right into my face ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... dramatic art corresponding to the conception now entertained of Christianity, according to which it was regarded as a teaching of life, had yet been found. Hence, dramatic art, having no foundation, came in all Christian countries to swerve farther and farther from its proper use and object, and, instead of serving God, it took to serving the crowd (by crowd, I mean, not simply the masses of common people, but the majority of immoral or unmoral men, indifferent to the higher problems of human life). ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... the states-general, as of old constructed, was defective in many points; in none so glaringly as in that condition which required unanimity in questions of peace or war, and in the provision, from which they had no power to swerve, that all the taxes should be uniform. Both these stipulations were, of sheer necessity, continually disregarded; so that the government could be carried on at all only by repeated violations of the constitution. In order to excuse measures dictated ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... observe the rules as written, but often made changes in them and incidentally a number of clauses naturally appeared in some one's favor or to some one's hurt, he moved that they should at the very start announce the principles they would use, and not swerve from them at all. In fine, the Romans took such good care about that time to have no bribery, that in addition to punishing those convicted they furthermore honored the accusers. For instance, when Marcus Cotta dismissed the quaestor Publius Oppius because of bribery and suspicion of conspiracy, ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... Death by torture for each life beneath her breast May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest. These be purely male diversions—not in these her honour dwells. She the Other Law we live by, is that ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... those Gardens where my Doom was saving up to lay in wait for me, and I scorn to deny that Bella's sister Ada was one of the party. But as to anything serous in that quarter, oh Tilly the ole time I was contrasting you with her and thinking how truly superior, and never did I swerve not what could be termed a swerve for a instant. I did dance arf a walz with her—but why? Because she asked me to it and as a Gentleman I was bound to oblige! And that was afterwards too, when I had put that ring on which is the sauce ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... turning homeward, looked for the machines which would assuredly rise to intercept him. Already the Archies were banging away at him, and a fragment of shell had actually struck his fuselage. But he was not bothering about Archies. He did swerve toward a battery skilfully hidden behind a hayrick and drop two hopeful bombs, but he scarcely troubled to make ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... logical snare by feasting off both bundles. Will my caterpillars show a little of his mother wit? Will they, after many attempts, be able to break the equilibrium of their closed circuit, which keeps them on a road without a turning? Will they make up their minds to swerve to this side or that, which is the only method of reaching their bundle of hay, the green branch yonder, quite near, ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... Highest, and never count the cost: And I swear, that whatso great-one shall show the day and the deed, I shall ask not why nor wherefore, but the sword's desire shall speed: And I swear to seek no quarrel, nor to swerve aside for aught, Though the right and the left be blooming, and the straight way wend to nought: And I swear to abide and hearken the prayer of any thrall, Though the war-torch be on the threshold and the foemen's feet in ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... Universe, the message of Heaven through him, which he could not suppress, but was inspired and compelled to utter in this world by such methods as he had. There for him lay the first commandment; this is what it would have been the unforgivable sin to swerve from and desert: the treason of treasons for him, it were there; compared with which all other ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... for this unfaltering sternness of life. There was no futile hesitation between doom and pity. Therefore, he could submit and have faith. If each man by his crying could swerve the slow, sheer universe, what a doom of guilt he might gain. If Life could swerve from its orbit for pity, what terror of vacillation; and who would wish to bear the responsibility ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... a sad catalogue of grievances, and Wilford made it sadder by brooding over and magnifying it until he reached a point from which he would not swerve. ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... Perhaps no man ever possessed these requisites in greater perfection than John Mitchell. Were but his figure less Tartarish and more gaunt, he would be the very 'Talus' of Spenser. Neither frown nor favour, in the course of fifteen years, have ever made him swerve from the fair performance of his duty, though the lairds with whom he has to deal have omitted no means of making him enter into their views, and to do things or leave them undone, as might suit their humour or ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... though he had his castle-building to engage his mind, could not be quite easy in that desolate place. He was far more curious, in every swerve of the carriage, and every cry of the postilions, than he had been since he quitted London. The valet on the box evidently quaked. The Courier in the rumble was not altogether comfortable in his mind. As often as Mr Dorrit let down the glass and looked back at him (which was very often), ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... shelving turf lay between him and the unfathomed lake. Towards it he fled at an undiminished pace: and Quita, sitting square and steady, with a rushing sound in her ears, foresaw that in less than five minutes her mad hope might be terribly fulfilled. For at the lake's edge the pony must needs swerve sharply, or come to a dead halt: and in either case, at their present rate of speed, she would be flung ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... will there quicken within our soul the sense of the infinite, which is of the life-blood of virtue. What is an act of virtue that we should expect such mighty reward? It is within ourselves that reward must be found, for the law of gravitation will not swerve. They only who know not what goodness is are ever clamouring for the wage of goodness. Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is of itself always an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... do? Rapidly he turned over in his mind the various courses open to him. Should he try to stun Arima with a blow, and then reach forward and take the steering-wheel before the car could swerve into the ditch? ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... got close enough to be blistered when stun-pistol bolts hit them. Others toppled from their saddles at distances ranging from one hundred yards to twenty. A good dozen, however, saw what was happening in time to swerve their mounts and hightail it away. But there were eighteen luridly-tinted heaps of garments on the ground inside the landing grid. Two or three of them squirmed and swore. Hoddan had partly missed, on them. He heard the chemical weapon booming thunderously. Now that victory was won, ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... John to their pilot. "Swerve out from under these devils as fast as you can! If another stone comes down ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... case of refusal, to lay waste the country with fire and sword. After waiting a day at Philippopoli, he marched on to Adrianople, where he was met by his messengers returning with the emperor's refusal. Godfrey, the bravest and most determined of the leaders of the Crusade, was not a man to swerve from his word, and the country was given up to pillage. Alexius here committed another blunder. No sooner did he learn from dire experience that the Crusader was not an utterer of idle threats, than he consented to the release of the prisoner. As he had been unjust in the first ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Although she was still weighed down by the terrible financial struggle of The Revolution, the storm of opposition which it had aroused was passing away and the old friends and many new ones were flocking around the intrepid standard bearer, whom neither fear nor favor could induce to swerve from the straight line marked out by her own convictions and conscience. Miss Anthony would soon complete a half-century, and her friends resolved to commemorate it in a worthy manner. Handsomely engraved cards were sent ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... which Alexander, in consideration of benefits received, agreed to cooeperate with Napoleon in that continental system which seemed vital to the safety of France. Napoleon was well aware of the immense pressure which was brought to bear upon the mind of the Russian tzar to induce him to swerve from his agreement. Hence the conference at Erfurth. During the deliberations at Erfurth it appears that Alexander consented that Napoleon should place the crown of Spain upon the brow of his brother Joseph, in consideration ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... lads toward the bow of the drifting boat were desperately engaged in trying to swerve the cruiser more and more behind the island, ere they got so far that they would lose the benefits of the half-way calm condition existing in the ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... England. We had almost reached the end of it, when it entered the head of a stray puppy dog to pause in the act of crossing and sit down in the middle and hunt for fleas. To spare the abominable mongrel, Marigold made a sudden swerve. Of course the car skidded. It skidded all over the place, as if it were drunk, and, aided by Marigold, described a series of ghastly half-circles. At last he performed various convulsive feats of jugglery, with the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... its own individuality. This power of freedom in motion should be worked for after once approaching the natural equilibrium. If you rest on your left leg, it pushes your left hip a little farther out, which causes your body to swerve slightly to the right,—and, to keep the balance true, the head again tips to the left a little. Now rise slowly and freely from that to standing on both feet, with body and head erect; then drop on the right foot with the body to left, and head to right. Here again, as in the motions with ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... the vision seemed to swerve, 'T was but the flickering shine That gave new grace, a lovelier curve, To ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... car made a swerve, mounted the sidewalk and dashed upon her. It seemed that nothing could save her, and she stood fascinated ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... he murmured, "Pleasant is the voice that calls me!" On the outskirts of the forest, 'Twixt the shadow and the sunshine, Herds of fallow deer were feeding, But they saw not Hiawatha; To his bow he whispered, "Fail not!" To his arrow whispered, "Swerve not!" Sent it singing on its errand, To the red heart of the roebuck; Threw the deer across his shoulder ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... that the horse bends inward, must the body lean in that direction. If a horse shy at any object, and either turn completely and suddenly round, or run on one side only, the body should, if possible, keep time with his movements, and adapt itself so as to turn or swerve with him; otherwise, the balance will be lost, and the rider be in danger of falling, on the side from which the animal starts. In no case, let it be remembered, should the rider endeavour to assist herself in preserving her balance, by ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... held stiff no curve could be imparted to the flight of the ball in the air, but with the increase of pace came the possibility of doing this by a movement of the wrist as the ball left the hand, the twist thus given causing the ball, by the pressure on the air, to swerve to one side or the other, or downwards, according to the position of the hand and fingers as the ball is let go. The commonest of these swerving deliveries, and the first one invented, is the out-curve, the ball coming straight towards the batsman until almost within ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... was now convinced that I was on that wild land where two months ago I had watched the goldfinches disporting themselves in the evening sun. But so as not to turn back to the south, I struck out at an angle of only about sixty degrees to my former direction. I tried not to swerve, which involved rough going, and I had many a stumble. Thus I walked for another half hour ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... Germans, and had driven them from the Cote de Talou and the Cote du Poivre. We have followed their movements later, when, abandoning the drive in a southerly direction over the slopes of the Cote du Poivre, the German war lords caused their armies to swerve to the east to face the fort of Douaumont and to march towards it. Let us anticipate their movements by a little, and say that, having captured the fort—a mere empty and cracked vessel—they found themselves still faced by the French, who had retired ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... the social relations of the age; a remark indeed predicable of most works of fiction, written by authors contemporary with the events they describe, and more especially so of that popular minstrelsy, which, emanating from a simple, uncorrupted class, is less likely to swerve from truth, than more ostentatious works of art. The long cohabitation of the Saracens with the Christians, (full evidence of which is afforded by Capmany, (Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iv. Apend. no. 11,) who quotes a document from the public ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... have been quite unsphered since I have been here, in various ways, and have discovered how good every man's business is and how wide his horizon. There is a shabby Americanism which prowls proselyting through Europe, defying its spirit or its beauty or its difference to swerve it from what it calls its patriotism. Because America is contented and tolerably peaceful with a Republic, it prophesies that Europe shall see no happy days until all kings are prostrated; and belches that peculiar ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... to swerve away from them, closer to the river. Blue pulled ahead a little, swerving also, and as Billy Louise tightened the reins, he slowed and circled them craftily until they huddled on the steep bank, uncertain which way to go. Billy Louise pulled Blue down to a walk ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... criterion of true courage. There was only one way in which Ida could save, or attempt to save, the white-faced woman who was drawing towards her at breakneck speed. What she would have to attempt to do would be to ride straight for the oncoming horse, swerve almost as she reached it, and keep side by side with it until she could succeed either in turning it away from that horrible hole, or stop it by throwing it. She did not ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... We must swerve for a moment and cut across lots, that we may touch every one of the big structural elements of plot and relate them with logical closeness to the playlet, summing them all up in the end and tying them closely into—what I hope may be—a helpful ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... wander o'er The rock-built mountain, and the winding shore; No apt ideas could the pigmy mite, Or embryon emmet to the touch excite; But as each mass the solar ray reflects, The eye's clear glass the transient beams collects; Bends to their focal point the rays that swerve, And paints the living image on the nerve. So in some village-barn, or festive hall The spheric lens illumes the whiten'd wall; 140 O'er the bright field successive figures fleet, And motley shadows dance along the sheet.— Symbol of solid ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... still headed straight for the hole, the Boy had gathered himself for a clear jump to the right, but the sled's sudden swerve to the left broke his angle sharply. He was flung forward on the new impetus, spun over the smooth surface, swept across the verge and under the cloud, clutching wildly at the ragged edge of ice as he ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... public confidence not only in the dealings of the Supreme Council with the smaller countries, but also in the nature of the occult influences that were believed to be occasionally causing its decisions to swerve from the orthodox direction. And these reports were believed by many even in Conference circles. Time and again I was visited by delegates complaining that this or that decision was or would be taken in response to the promptings not of land-grabbing governments, but of wealthy capitalists or ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... endowment and position, but rising rapidly into importance of late years; beginning to reap the fruits of long patience, and to see an ever wider field open round him. He was what in party language is called a 'Reformer,' from his earliest youth; and never swerved from that faith, nor could swerve. His luminous sincere intellect laid bare to him in all its abject incoherency the thing that was untrue, which thenceforth became for him a thing that was not tenable, that it was perilous and scandalous to attempt maintaining. Twenty years in the dreary, weltering lake ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... which you rise from under the heel of oppression, with fortitude increased under sufferings, with assurance growing stronger as the darkness grows deeper [cheers], still, it is not one or all these qualities combined that can lead her to swerve from her dignity as an independent State to the mere worship of man. [Applause.] No! But it is because she views you as the advocate and representative of certain great principles which constitute her own vitality as a State;—because she views you as the representative of human rights and ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... result is invariably the same. How is this? No one can tell. What are the obstacles? It is difficult to say. Perhaps, we meet with a friend who detains us; perhaps, a recollection that our memory has called, induces us to swerve from the path—the blind man that sung under our window may have something to do with it—perhaps, it was merely ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... my garden boy. It is a capital exercise; the steering occupies one's thoughts almost as well as a game. One can't think much of business while going seven or eight miles an hour with the probability that any considerable swerve will lead to ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... inevitable to all thought which demands new thought-machinery. Science needs time to reconstruct its instruments, to follow a revolution in space; a certain lag is inevitable; the most active mind cannot instantly swerve from its path; but such revolutions are portentous, and the fall or rise of half-a-dozen empires interested a student of history less than the rise of the "Grammar of Science," the more pressingly because, under ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... was this: The laws against the Huguenots were very stringent, and were in force, as, indeed, they are yet. The Countess de Montresor was a Huguenot, and nothing could make her swerve from her faith. The first blow was levelled at her, for in this way they knew that they could inflict a deeper wound upon her husband. She was to be arrested, subjected to the mockery of French justice, and condemned to the terrible punishment which the laws inflicted ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... his particular waiter, after carefully taking his opponent's range and bearings, will suspire and hit him in the eye. The more replete combatant, having the greater equatorial velocity, will probably win, but the tailor can do a good deal towards securing a flat trajectory and freedom from swerve. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... of his light troops, and relaxing a little from his erect attitude of command, he gently inclines his body to the left, leads his disposable force rapidly upwards in that direction, where, having surprised the post against which they were dispatched, he recovers his swerve, and they retrace with equal precision and rapidity their course from the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... in Jadar, little dreaming O'er what this night the raven's screaming. The far-descended Erling's life Too soon has fallen; but, in the strife He met the luck they well deserve Who from their faith and fealty swerve." ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... the noise of the explosion differed little from the thunderous blows of the sea. But the stopping of the engines awoke him instantly. He felt the ship lurch away from her course, and saw the quick swerve of the compass indicator over his head. As he ran down the gangway leading from the bridge he heard the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... bullies—Take some one of your own size; don't pommel ME! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but YE have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the Revolution. I do not wish to say that nothing can be done to ameliorate this lamentable position; but I feel that, in a state of society so diseased, we require time and management, not to lose in a day the labour and fruit of many years. To know how to proceed, and never to swerve from that path, to make a step towards the desired end whenever it can be made, and never to incur the necessity of retreat,—this course appears to me to be one of the necessities of the time in which I have arrived at power, and one of the ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Dale burst into the saloon, suddenly to check his impetus, to swerve aside toward the bar and halt. The door had not ceased swinging when again it was propelled inward, this time to admit ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... he knew that he must not move while the men on him were firing; they must do the fighting. But when the tiger had apparently beaten all the men and was actually leaping on him, the elephant had a new duty to do: he must swerve aside. So the elephant swerved aside just as the tiger was alighting on the ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... dissipations; his whole soul was in his business. He was conscious that his only hope of distinction above his fellow-men was in his wealth, and he was resolved that nothing should make him swerve from his endeavor to accumulate a fortune which should make him all powerful in life and remembered in death. He sought no friends, and was reticent as to his career, saying to those who questioned him about it, "Wait till I am dead; my deeds will ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... of arms, having won wealth by pursuing the methods prescribed for the military caste, you have celebrated all the time-honoured sacrificial rites. You take no delight in sensual pleasures; you do not act, O lord of men, from motives of enjoyment, nor do you swerve from virtue from greed of riches; it is for this, you have been named the Virtuous King, O son of Pritha! Having won kingdoms and riches and means of enjoyment, your best delight has been charity and truth and practice of austerities, O King, and faith ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... as though he shrugged from the blast of a bad wind. I believe that, on the whole, Janet was pleased. I will wager that, left to herself, she would have been drawn into an answer, if not an argument. Nothing would have made her resolution swerve, I admit. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sloping one and he ramped down it very enjoyably to himself, with all the weight of his sixteen hands and a half concentrated in his head, when suddenly a tall grassy bank confronted him, with, as he perceived with horror, a ditch in front of it. He tried to swerve, but there seemed something irrevocable about the way in which the bank faced him, and if his method of "changing feet" was not strictly conventional, he achieved the main point and found all four safely under him when he landed, which was as much—if not more than as much—as either ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross |
