"Swerving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it surmounted at 40 miles an hour, dashing down the inclines at the speed of an express train, and swerving time after time ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... the mountain ponies, herding together until sickness or accident breaks the ranks, when the hapless sufferer, deserted by his kind, falls an easy prey to the wild dogs of the Tengger ranges. A heap of bleaching bones points to some past tragedy, and terrifies the swerving horses of the native pilgrims. The ascent of the Bromo is negotiated from the eastern side to the lip of the gigantic crater. Slanting precipices of lava, their grey flanks scored with black gullies ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... is a pretty jolly vow of thirteen to a dozen. It is a shame to you, and I wonder much at it, that you do not return unto yourself, and recall your senses from this their wild swerving and straying abroad to that rest and stillness which becomes a virtuous man. This whimsical conceit of yours brings me to the remembrance of a solemn promise made by the shag-haired Argives, who, having ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... symbolizes duty. It seems to have the quality of inexorableness that duty has. When I have something to do that must not be set aside, I feel as if I were going forward in a straight line, bound to arrive somewhere, or go on forever without swerving to the right ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... trade; and the Railroads which should regain or replace it are postponed from year to year, and may never be completed, or at least not until it is utterly too late. Weeds gather around the marble steps of her palaces; her towers are all swerving from their original uprightness, and there is neither energy nor means to arrest their fall. Nobody builds a new edifice within her precincts, and the old ones, though of the most enduring materials and construction, cannot eternally resist the relentless ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... happily concluded, and the day not much beyond its meridian, the three friends again sallied forth in the direction of Bond-street, towards Piccadilly. As usual, the loungers were superabundant, and ridiculous. Paired together, and swerving continually from the direct line, it required some skilful manouvring to pass them. Our friends had surmounted several such impediments, when a new obstruction to their progress presented itself. A party of Exquisites had linked ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... in my direction! With the desperation of a doomed man I strode out to meet him. He rushed furiously on—swerving slightly to avoid my reach, and stretching out his arm to ward off my grasp. I flung myself wildly in his path. There was a heavy thud, and the earth seemed to jump up and strike me. The next moment I was sprawling on my back on the grass. I don't pretend to know how it all happened, but ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... on, leaving him standing, amazed, in the snow. Then she looked back at him over her shoulder. At that arch and lovely look he bounded to her, stammering something, he did not know what himself; but she laughed, glowing and scolding, swerving over to the other side of the path. "David! We are on a public ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... stud, extracted from his shirt front, glistened sportively in the necktie that was now tucked jauntily in at one side of his shirt bosom. He had reached the Blue Dragon, one of Wowzer's usual hang outs, and, swerving from the sidewalk, entered the place. There was wild tumult within—a constant storm of applause, derision, and hilarity that was hurled from the tables around the room at the turkey-trotting, tango-writhing ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... thou witnessest oppression of the poor and the swerving from right and equity in the land, marvel not thereat. For a higher one watcheth over the high, and still higher ones over both.[286] 9. But a gain to the country is ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Morella threw his arms about his neck, and intertwined, black armour mixed with white, they swayed to and fro, while the frightened horse beneath rushed this way and that till, swerving suddenly, together they fell upon the sand, and for a moment ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... next afternoon the Harvester again walked down the embankment of the mourning river and through the ragged woods to the place where the ginseng had been. He went forward, stepping lightly, as men of his race had walked the forest for ages, swerving to avoid boughs, and looking straight ahead. Contrary to his usual custom of coming to heel in a strange wood, Belshazzar suddenly darted around the man and took the path they had followed the previous day. The animal was ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... extent and power remain for ever the same. Has not—to take but one instance—has not the phenomenon of the existence, everywhere among us, of a kind of supreme and wholly spiritual justice, unarmed, unadorned, unequipped, moving slowly but never swerving, stable and changeless in a world where injustice would seem to reign—has this phenomenon not cause and effect as deep, as exhaustless—is it not as astounding, as admirable—as the wisdom of an eternal and omnipresent Judge? Should this Judge be held more convincing ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Ayr passes Alloway Kirk, and crosses the Doon by a modern bridge, without swerving much from a straight line. To reach the old bridge, it appears to have made a bend, shortly after passing the kirk, and then to have turned sharply towards the river. The new bridge is within a minute's walk of the monument; and we went thither, and leaned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... which swerving was burnt up At the importunate orison of Earth, When Jove was so ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... later developments, however, it is a pity we did not investigate Hannah's story; for Aggie, going home from Tish's late one night in Tish's car, had a similar experience, declaring that a small machine had followed them, driven by a heavy-set man with a mustache. She said, too, that Hutchins, swerving sharply, had struck the smaller machine a glancing blow and ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... wind slewed round, and began to blow with undiminished violence from the northeast. Plunging and swerving, and sometimes threatened with a complete somersault, the aero hurried away in its crazy flight, while its unfortunate inmates clung to one another, and held on by any object within reach, in the endeavor to keep from being dashed ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... long in coming. For three months, during which each day seemed like a century, the Abraham Lincoln plowed all the northerly seas of the Pacific, racing after whales sighted, abruptly veering off course, swerving sharply from one tack to another, stopping suddenly, putting on steam and reversing engines in quick succession, at the risk of stripping its gears, and it didn't leave a single point unexplored from the beaches of Japan to the coasts of America. And we found nothing! Nothing except ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... a pretty exhibit of savage daring and devotion. Disdainful of the coming troopers and of the swift fire now blazing at them from the pit, the two mounted warriors lashed their ponies to mad gallop and bore down straight for their imperilled brother, crouching behind the stricken "pinto." Never swerving, never halting, hardly checking speed, but bending low over and behind their chargers' necks, the two young braves swept onward and with wild whoop of triumph, challenge and hatred, gathered up and slung behind the rider of the ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... so it'll be SO," Rebecca Mary thought, with the dull little thud of a weight falling into her heart. Rebecca Mary was a Plummer too, but she did not think of that, unless the un-swerving determination in her stout little heart was ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... The shock of the discovery that Scott's Lewis the Eleventh was inconsistent with the original in Commynes made him resolve that his object thenceforth should be above all things to follow, without swerving, and in stern subordination and surrender, the lead of his authorities. He decided effectually to repress the poet, the patriot, the religious or political partisan, to sustain no cause, to banish himself from his books, and to write nothing that would gratify his own feelings or disclose his private ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... eyes the boatman looked like glowing inhuman things set in flames. Rosendo came to him and placed his straw hat over his face. Hours, interminable and torturing, seemed to pass on leaden wings. Then Juan, deftly swerving his paddle, shot the canoe into a narrow arm, and the garish sunlight was suddenly lost in the densely intertwined branches overhanging ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... But the boy was brave, and I loved his love for Mary Cavendish, and I could think of no one to whom I would so readily trust her, and it seemed to me that perchance I might, by some praising of him, and swerving her thoughts to his track, lead her to think favourably of his suit. But a man makes many a mistake as to women, and one of the most frequent is that the hearts of them are like wax, to be moulded into this and that shape. That morning, when I met Mistress Mary at the breakfast table, ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... and obtaining two fierce young mastiffs, he trained them to fly at the under side of the monster, while he mounted his warhorse, and endeavored to accustom it likewise to attack the strange shape without swerving. ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... truth as to all that the authorities of Bethlehem have any right to know; and do not fear any harm through my subsequent private revelations to you. In these directions of the Lord there is no countenance of the slightest swerving from the truth by Samuel; nor is there an authorized concealment of any fact that those to whom Samuel was sent ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... children March by the parade, Waving their toy flags, Prancing to the bugles— Lusty, unafraid... Shaking little fire sticks At the night— The old blinking night— Swerving out of the way, Wrapped in her darkness like ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... me for these serious reflections. Do, if you will. I had rather you should laugh at me, for continuing in this way of thinking and acting, than triumph over me, as you threaten, on my swerving from purposes I have determined upon with such good reason, and induced ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the clouds drifting westward, threatening every moment to blot out the blue, but the clouds continued to brighten at the edges. 'The beginning of the sunset,' the priest said; and he went out on his lawn and stood watching the swallows in the shining air, their dipping, swerving flight showing against a background of dappled clouds. He had never known so extraordinary a change; and he walked to and fro in the freshened air, thinking that Nora's health might not have withstood the strain of trudging from street ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... forwarded to him under cover of his lawyers in Warchester. If, as she fearfully surmised, her father were engaged in some cruel scheme to the hurt of Jack, her best way with him would be perfect frankness. She had never yet failed in swerving him from his most headstrong impulses when she could talk with him. She must have him now to herself. Her best plan, therefore, would be to write. Yet she hardly knew how to frame the note, reflecting bitterly, as she sat twirling her pen, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... his usual good judgment, Ben drew both triggers, with uncertain aim, and the fox, swerving a little, passed him like a shot. La Salle, springing forward through the narrow belt of woods, saw the frightened animal a score of rods off, making across the fields for the Western Bar. A fence bounded the field ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... men have in them, until their habits have fretted him out, was directing Lord Fleetwood's meditations upon the errors of the general man, as a cover for lateral references to his hitherto erratic career: not much worse than a swerving from the right line, which now seemed the desirable road for him, and had previously seemed so stale, so repulsive. He was, of course, only half-conscious of his pulpitizing; he fancied the serious vein of his thoughts attributable to a tumbled night. Nevertheless, he had the question whether ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... home A blow to his eyebrow, cutting to the bone. Even then with counter-stroke Epeius reached Acamas' temple, and hurled him to the ground. Swift he sprang up, and on his stalwart foe Rushed, smote his head: as he rushed in again, The other, slightly swerving, sent his left Clean to his brow; his right, with all his might Behind it, to his nose. Yet Acamas still Warded and struck with all the manifold shifts Of fighting-craft. But now the Achaeans all Bade ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... captain's wrath had been diverted to the mate. He struck out with his right hand, intending to fell him to the ground, but, the mate swerving, he fell from the force of his abortive blow, and, being under the influence of his morning potations, could ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... his hatchet and gun with a kind of spasmodic regularity. How long he would have continued this would never be known, for the next moment, with a deafening crash, the herd broke through the brush, and, swerving at the right of the lagoon, bore down directly upon them. All further doubt or hesitation on their part was stopped. The farseeing, sagacious Mexican plug with a terrific snort wheeled and fled furiously ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... they fled in towards land, swerving wide to keep away from what was happening there. On their way, they met sledges with hunters setting out; they threw down their gear, and urged the others to return to their own place at once, lest they also should be ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... and wet horse slowed down, satisfied with his wild run, Lucy realized that she was up on the slope only a few miles from home. Suddenly she thought she saw something dark stir behind a sage-bush just ahead. Before she could move a hand at the bridle Sage King leaped with a frantic snort. It was a swerving, nimble, tremendous bound. He went high. Lucy was unseated, but somehow clung on, and came down with him, finding the saddle. And it seemed, while in the air, she saw a long, snaky, whipping loop of rope shoot out and close just where ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... of his pistol hand in the hollow cup of his left palm, his weapon level, swerving as his quarry moved, he presently fired at Golden Beard and got him through the back. And then he shot him again deliberately, through the body, as the giant turned, made a menacing gesture toward him; took ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... to run well. They were well-matched grays, and they came thundering along in a way that was really fine to behold; heads down, necks arched, nostrils wide, reins flying, the wagon behind them banging and swerving—no wonder everybody stood still and, except Mary Ogden, shouted, "Stop 'em!" One young fellow, across the street, stood still only until the runaways were all but close by him. Then he darted out into the street, not ahead of them but behind them. No man ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... very much "above themselves"—a state of self-exaltation which they demonstrated by sundry unbecoming squeaks and gambols as soon as they found themselves fairly started on their journey. Tiny, the youngest and handsomest, would persist in shying, plunging, and swerving against the pole, much to the demoralization of his comrade, Mouse, a stiff-built little fellow with a thick neck, who was ordinarily extremely well-behaved, but apt on occasions like the present to lower his rebellious little ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... for Robin that he was quick and nimble of foot; for the blow that grazed a hair's breadth from his shoulder would have felled an ox. Nevertheless while swerving to avoid this stroke, Robin was poising for his own, and back came ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... followed him as he made off over the broken ground, uncomfortably close to the tired pony's tail. Roosevelt, half-blinded, tried to run in on him again, but his pony stopped, dead beat; and by no spurring could he force him out of a slow trot. Ferris, swerving suddenly and dismounting, fired, but the dim moonlight made accurate aim impossible, and the buffalo, to the utter chagrin of the hunters, lumbered off and vanished into the darkness. Roosevelt followed him for a short space afoot in ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... surround their bodies with a shining nimbus that makes them visible for a long distance. They seem magnified many times. We see them bridge the little gulf between us and the woods, then rise up over the tree-tops with their burdens, swerving neither to the right hand nor to the left. It is almost pathetic to see them labor so, climbing the mountain and unwittingly guiding us to their treasures. When the sun gets down so that his direction corresponds exactly with the course ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... He had not thought of that. In spite of the efforts of the oarsmen the canoe's head was swerving across the stream just as she came abreast of them. A moment later she felt the check ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... the streets where a black-haired, sordid, wicked-headed man, was striking the butt of his whip at the neck of a horse, to urge him round an angle of the pavement; a smocked countryman offered him the loan of his mules: a blacksmith standing by, showed him how to free the wheel, by only swerving the animal to the left: he, taking no notice whatever, went on striking and striking; whilst a woman waiting to cross, with a child in her one hand, and with the other pushing its little head close to her side, looked with ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... in treble curving, Bow of promise, upper lip! Set them free, with gracious swerving; Let the wing-words float and dip. DUMB ART THOU? O Love immortal, More than words thy speech must be; Childless yet the tender portal Of ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... of his beautiful wife. If only she might some day have a romance like theirs! Presently she peered out of the off-window. A brood of Siegfried-dragons prowled about, now going forward a little, now swerving, now pausing; lurid eyes and ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... hastily swerving aside from this too presumptuous greeting. 'Remember my guardians. You will not easily obtain my aunt's consent. Don't you see she ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... he struck the mark given him with the first he fitted to the string. But, if chance had brought the head of the boy before the shaft, no doubt the penalty of the son would have recoiled to the peril of the father, and the swerving of the shaft that struck the boy would have linked them both in common ruin. I am in doubt, then, whether to admire most the courage of the father or the temper of the son, of whom the one by skill in his art avoided being the slayer of his child, while the other by patience ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... The storm, swerving with the capricious mountain winds, suddenly swept their refuge with sheets of water. Randolph Shaw threw the raincoats over his companion and both laughed hysterically ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... would rather have withdrawn into the house. Down went the paddle always on the same side, noiselessly, in front; on darted the canoe; backward stretched the submerged paddle and came out of the water edgewise at full reach behind, with an almost imperceptible swerving motion that kept the slender craft true to its course. No rocking; no rush of water before or behind; only the one constant glassy ripple gliding on either side as silently as a beam of light. Suddenly, without any apparent change of movement in the sinewy wrists, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... at her waist; but Dick kept the engine going full speed and sat at the tiller with his eyes fixed upon the compass. It was not easy to steer by, because the lurching boat was short and the card span in erratic jerks when she began to yaw about, swerving off her course as she rose with ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... the marshes lay— Started the hounds with sudden bay— Aghast the swerving charger slanting Snorted—then stood abrupt and panting— For curling there, in coiled fold, The Unutterable Beast behold! Lazily basking in the sun. Forth sprang the dogs. The fight's begun! But lo! the hounds in cowering ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... his being with an indomitable vigor; and grief and doubtfulness went quite away from him. "Love leads us," he said, "and through the sunlight of the world Love leads us, and through the filth of it Love leads us, but always in the end, if we but follow without swerving, Love leads upward. Yet, O God upon the Cross! Thou that in the article of death didst pardon Dysmas! as what maimed warriors of life, as what bemired travellers in muddied byways, must we presently come ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... we drove, swerving, wobbling, laughing—a May party in leafless winter. Dane, in his efforts to lick the children's faces, tumbled off his perch. We helped him back to his seat amid a chorus of happy screams. The grubby boy was ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... the engine. Hortense stepped in and wrapped herself in a wide cloak. The car followed the narrow, grassy path which led back to the cross-roads and Rossigny was accelerating the speed, when he was suddenly forced to pull up. A shot had rung out from the neighbouring wood, on the right. The car was swerving ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... of that wandering path which leads to the Mine Mountain near Brattleborough, where you climb the high peak at last, and perhaps see the showers come up the Connecticut till they patter on the leaves beneath you, and then, swerving, pass up the black ravine and leave you unwet. Or of those among the White Mountains, gorgeous with great red lilies which presently seem to take flight in a cloud of butterflies that match their tints,—paths where the balsamic air caresses you in light breezes, and masses of alder-berries ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... without any of the feel that the direction is changed. When at last it stopped, the sun came twinkling through the basket-lid. The Royal Cat was lifted into a Rumble-shaker of the old familiar style, and, swerving aside from their past course, very soon the noises of its wheels were grittings and rattlings; a new and horrible sound was added—the barking of Dogs, big and little and dreadfully close. The basket was lifted, and Slum Kitty had ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... addressed: "'Tis ever thus: in vain we sue To woman, and her favour woo. A lover's humble words impel Her wayward spirit to rebel. The love of thee that fills my soul Still keeps my anger in control, As charioteers with bit and rein The swerving of the steed restrain. The love that rules me bids me spare Thy forfeit life, O thou most fair. For this, O Sita, have I borne The keen reproach, the bitter scorn, And the fond love thou boastest yet For that poor ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... indulgent Heav'n. If any neighbour came, he should be free, Us'd with respect, and not uneasy be, In my retreat, or to himself or me. What freedom, prudence, and right reason give, All men may with impunity receive: But the least swerving from their rule's too much; For what's forbidden us, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... arrives When once more he tees and drives. Joy! As soon as he has hit he Sees it toddling down the pretty, Never swerving left or right Till it waddles out of sight, Plodding through a bunker and Braying like a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... crate charging direct would have squashed my skull into jelly, and crushed my body against the side of the hold. A fraction of a second later and it would have been her skull and her body instead of mine; but she just managed to roll practically clear until she got caught by the swerving side of the crate. I hope you'll understand what a heroic thing she did. She faced what seemed to be certain death for me; and it is thanks to Liosha that I'm able to tell you that I'm alive. And she, God bless her, walks about with her ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... French friends in the road, on the "I'm the king of the castle" principle. Another of his favourite tricks was to rush after a car (usually selecting Lean's), and keep with it the whole time, never swerving to another, which was rather clever considering they were so much alike. On the way back to Camp he had a special game he played on the French children playing in the Petit Courgain. He would rush up as if he were going to ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... a failure. That was plain, she said. No more of that. She would now look the future in the face; she would mark her course upon the chart of life, and follow it; follow it without swerving, through rocks and shoals, through storm and calm, to a haven of rest and peace or shipwreck. Let the end be what it might, she would mark her course now —to-day—and ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... So swerving to the left, and taking a course at right angles to their late one, they rode slowly and silently till a bluff rose from the prairie, a short distance ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... is said, "If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome." (St. Matt., vi., 22.) The eye is the intention contemplating the end in view. Whoever has placed a good end before him, and regards it steadily with a well-ordered love, never swerving in his affection from the way that reason would have him love, must needs take towards his end those means, and those only, which are in themselves reasonable and just: as it is written: "Thou shalt follow justly after that which is just." ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... death; but the effect of the sudden and bold attack was to make the herd separate. It was but a mere trifle, for the bison were so packed together that their movements were to a great extent governed by those behind; but still they did deviate a little, those of the front rank swerving in two bodies to right and left, and that saved ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... their terror. Again the cowboy glanced back. No one was in sight. He wondered, for an instant, what had become of Fernando, for he knew it was Fernando's herd. He shortened rein and spurred his pony, making him rear. The sheep plunged ahead, those in front swerving as they came to the canon's brink. The crowding mass behind forced them on. Fadeaway reined up. A great gray wave rolled over the cliff and disappeared into the soundless chasm. A thousand feet below lay the mangled ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... nearer, under reduced speed, they observed somewhat to their left a good-sized collection of dwellings in an opening among the mangroves, evidently a town. Swerving in that direction they were soon circling above the place at an altitude of about five hundred feet, hoping that it might prove to be ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... first it flits; Thence swerving, strikes at old Jaroslawitz; The which, accurst by ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... of the waters. The scow took them nose on, riding gallantly. Again we were tossed like a feather in a whirlwind, pitchforked from wrath to wrath. Once more, swinging, swerving, straining, we pelted on. On pinnacles of terror our hearts poised nakedly. The waters danced a fiery saraband; each wave was a demon lashing at us as we passed; or again they were like fear-maddened horses with whipping manes of flame. We clutched each other ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... swerving off from the track, as soon as he saw himself headed by the great dark horse that carried the strange and dreaded object upon his back. One by one they were passed, until Black Hawk had forged ahead of the whole drove; and his rider now saw nothing before him but the ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... especial commission enabling them to do some things beyond ordinary standing rules, wherein they are not to be imitated: as they had especial illumination and direction, which preserved them from swerving in particular cases from truth and equity; so the tenor of their life did evidence that it was the glory of God, the good of men, the necessity of the case, which moved them to it. And of them also we may observe, that on divers occasions (yea, generally, whenever only their private ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... Swerving suddenly again, Hal, who was in the lead, stopped short, and uttered a cry of pure dismay. The way ahead was blocked. There seemed no way out; and ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... one upon the other, and each one of which has a beginning, a middle, and an end, though they all come to pass in what appears to be an instant of time. Yet at no point do we conceive of any atom as swerving ever such a little to right or left of a determined course, but invest each one of them with so much of the divine attributes as that with it there shall be no ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... ourselves by occasional contact with the solid ground of experiment, and an interesting problem now lies before us awaiting experimental solution. Suppose two hundred men to be scattered equably throughout the length of Pall Mall. By timely swerving now and then, a runner from St. James's Palace to the Athenaeum Club might be able to get through such a crowd without much hinderance. But supposing the men to close up so as to form a dense file crossing Pall Mall ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... courageous champion. When all was made ready the knights struck spurs to their steeds, and loosing the rein upon the horses' necks, hurtled together with raised buckler and lance in rest. They smote together with marvellous fierceness. Whether by reason of the swerving of his destrier, I cannot tell, but Frollo failed of his stroke Arthur, on his side, smote the boss of his adversary's shield so fairly, that he bore him over his horse's buttock, as long as the ash staff held Arthur drew forth his sword, and hastened to Frollo to bring the ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... it was short leg who received the first two balls, beautiful swerving wides, while the next two were well caught and returned by third man. Simpson's range being thus established, he made a determined attack on the over proper with lobs, and managed to wipe off half of it. Encouraged by this, he returned with such success ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... feather, and the rotary movement around the axis of flight imparted by it to the arrow. He uses three strips of feather, which is better than two flat ones for the purpose of keeping the missile steady, but still does not prevent its swerving toward the end of its course, as more than one vexatious incident of his hunting record shows. This usage may help to account for the superiority of the old bowmen to the amateurs of to-day in accuracy at long ranges. The best targets reported on the part of the latter, such as "eleven shots ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... The air-wasp was already swerving, making a spiral glide, coming up astern with obvious intentions. As the two men watched—and as a score of other eyes, from other galleries and ports likewise observed—the lean wasp carried out her driver's plan. With a sudden, plunging swoop, she dived ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... yet feel the obligation to extend to ourselves; and as we think an image of the character and habits, to be a greater honor than one merely representing the face and the person, we will put Lucullus's life amongst our parallels of illustrious men, and without swerving from the truth, will record his actions. The commemoration will be itself a sufficient proof of our grateful feeling, and he himself would not thank us, if in recompense for a service, which consisted in speaking the truth, we should abuse ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... enough thou know'st thy estimate: The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing; My bonds in thee are all determinate. For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? And for that riches where is my deserving? The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, And so my patent back again is swerving. Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes home again, on better judgment making. Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter In sleep ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... with all this vileness, ignorance, rudeness, and impudence, they represent to us, for so they call it, the lives of the apostles. Yet what is more pleasant than that they do all things by rule and, as it were, a kind of mathematics, the least swerving from which were a crime beyond forgiveness—as how many knots their shoes must be tied with, of what color everything is, what distinction of habits, of what stuff made, how many straws broad their girdles and of what fashion, how many bushels wide their ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... giant in his path. Fifty feet away, he was swerving to wind around it when he noticed its dark upper branches a-tremble. He had only this for warning when, with chilling surprise, what appeared to be the entire top of the tree rose, severed itself completely from the rest and soared right ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... and strength, but Fear and black Dismay And Flight upon the Teucrian troops he sends. From right and left they hurry to the fray, And o'er each spirit comes the War-God's sway. But when brave Pandarus saw his brother's fate, And marked the swerving fortune of the day, He set his broad-built shoulders to the gate; The groaning hinges yield, and backward ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... fool! Go back!" yelled the man on horseback. "Go back! I have them!" He was right. Cameron's sudden appearance gave the final and necessary touch to the swerving movement. Across the mouth of the funnel with its yawning deadly cut-bank, and down the side coulee, carrying part of the fence with them, the herd crashed onward, with the black horse hanging on their flank still biting and kicking with ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... right which never existed, my little son. It is not demanded of any man that he be happy, whereas it is manifestly necessary for a gentleman to obey his God, his King, and his own conscience without swerving. If he also find time for happiness, well and good; otherwise, he must be unhappy. But, above all, he must intrepidly play out his allotted part in the good God's scheme of things, and must with due humbleness recognize that the happiness or the unhappiness of any man alive is a trivial consideration ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... wealth, or gaily swerving 5 To pleasure's secret haunts, and some apart Stood strong in pride, self-conscious of deserving, To you I gave my whole weak ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the pail, she heard a sharp clatter of hoofs behind her. A horseman was racing toward the river—toward her—bending low over his pony's mane, riding desperately. She placed the pail down and watched him. Apparently he did not see her, for, swerving suddenly, he made for the crossing without slackening speed. He had almost reached the water's edge when there came a spurt of flame from the door of Doubler's cabin, followed by the sharp whip like ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... be regaining some control over his horse, and the pursuers gained a little as they swept round into the Edgware Road. And here there occurred what seemed to the allies a providential stoppage. Traffic of every kind was swerving to right or left or stopping, for down the long road was coming the unmistakable roar announcing the fire-engine, which in a few seconds went by like a brazen thunderbolt. But quick as it went by, Sunday had bounded ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... and increased his pace, swerving from side to side as he ran, making it difficult for the Germans to aim accurately. Chester did likewise, and soon they were safe once more beneath the protection ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... situation in which he found himself. After his lonely existence he was suddenly in the vortex of the whirlpool. He had promised his life to Sir John Dacre and to his country to be staked upon a hazard, which he thought to be hopeless, and knew to be desperate. He did not think of swerving from this promise, for he felt that he must be true to his order and ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... placid little Ept flows down between its thickets to the Seine, a grassy bank shadows the haunt of the gudgeon, and on this bank sat Colette and Jacqueline and chattered and laughed and watched the swerving of the scarlet quills, while Hastings, his hat over his eyes, his head on a bank of moss, listened to their soft voices and gallantly unhooked the small and indignant gudgeon when a flash of a rod and a half-suppressed scream announced a catch. The ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... I think, of a good dinner speech, Tripping light as a sandpiper over the beach, 30 Swerving this way and that as the wave of the moment Washes out its slight trace with a dash of whim's foam on 't, And leaving on memory's rim just a sense Something graceful had gone by, a live present tense; Not poetry,—no, not quite that, but ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... thankful to take refuge. Then she heard a rare come-and-go. Pancrazio, Ciccio, Giovanni, Maria and a mason all set about the fire-place. Up and down stairs they went, Maria carrying stone and lime on her head, and swerving in Alvina's doorway, with her burden perched aloft, to shout a few unintelligible words. In the intervals of lime-carrying she brought the invalid her soup or her ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... the Forecaster, "you can be one. I know your father well, and I'm sure that he will be guaranty for the instruments. The work of making and recording observations will be yours. Never late, never forgetting, never swerving from your duty, your post at the rain-gauge and the barometer will be as honorable and responsible a post as the soldier's at sentry-post or behind ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... table. "Now that this little business is all settled there's no need for another word. I haven't much opinion of words myself, anyhow. They're apt to set fire to a dry tongue, that's what I say." "What do you mean?" repeated Christopher, without swerving from his steady gaze. Tom Spade glanced in at the open door, and, catching Fletcher's eye, hurriedly retreated. A small boy with a greasy face came in and gathered up the glasses with a clanking noise. "What do you mean, you coward?" demanded Christopher for the third time. He had not moved ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... fields of the Louis Quinze epoch. But in becoming more chaste it did not become less classical. Indeed, so far as severity is a trait of classicality—and it is only an associated not an essential trait of it—painting became more classical. It threw off its extravagances without swerving from the artificial character of its inspiration. Art in general seemed content with substituting the straight line for the curve—a change from Louis Quinze to Louis Seize that is very familiar even to persons ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... now and then lifting a foot high to avoid rock or exposed root, or swerving sharply around obstacles too high to step over. Al very seldom travelled along the beaten trails, though there was nothing to deter him now save an inherent tendency toward secretiveness of his motives, destinations and whereabouts. If the country was open, ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... that which we have abased ourself by writing to thee, and having kissed it and set it on thy head, thou wilt read with profound attention and execute with grateful alacrity the orders it contains, without swerving from the strict letter of them, the breadth of a grain of sesamum. Having hastened to us, as thou art blessed in being bidden, thou shalt wait in our presence, keeping thy distance, thy hands joined, thy mouth closed, thine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... shimmering band Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land. Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curl As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl. Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight, Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light. And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high? The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky! A league and a league of ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... gathered up the reins, cracked his whip, and the big-bodied droschke went swerving round the corner, clattering gutturally on the cobbled ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... helmsman: "Whither to the right? Hug close the cliff, and graze the leftward side. Let others hold the deep." In vain he cried. Menoetes feared the hidden reefs, and bore To seaward. "Whither from thy course so wide? What; swerving still?" the captain shouts once more, "Keep to the shore, I ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... held in before and darted between the two Blues. As the twelve horses were nose to nose the outer Blue pulled sharply inward in a way which appeared certain to pocket Palus and wreck his team and chariot, but even more certain to wreck the swerving Blue. What Palus did I was too far off to see, but the roar of delight from the front rows, which spread north, south and west till it sounded like surf in a tempest, advertised that he had done something ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... began it by observing How reason dictated that men Should rectify the natural swerving, By a reversion, now and then, To the well-heads of knowledge, few And far away, whence rolling grew The life-stream wide whereat we drink, Commingled, as we needs must think, With waters alien to the source; To do which, aimed this eve's discourse; Since, where could be a fitter time ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... judgment. Just as he was about to fire, Maxwell recognised the leading Indian, and shouted to him in the Indian language, "You're a fool, G—— damn you—don't you know me?" The sound of his own language seemed to shock the savage; and, swerving his horse a little, he passed us like an arrow. He wheeled, as I rode out towards him, and gave me his hand, striking his breast and exclaiming "Arapaho!" They proved to be a village of that nation, among whom Maxwell had resided as a trader ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... ever—as a prophetic eye sees it so sure to do—fill the throne of the world, and sit in Caesar's place, may the God who gave it appear for it, that it perish not through the encumbering weight of earthly glory. Through tribulation and persecution it has held on its way without swerving. Prosperity begins ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... avoid a second hole he twisted violently to the right and almost plunged into a third opening. It seemed the ice was rotten from shore to shore. And it was a long way across. Doctor Rolfe danced a zigzag toward the pan ice under the cliffs, spurting forward and retreating and swerving. He did not pause; had he paused he would have dropped through. When he was within two fathoms of the pan ice a foot broke through and tripped him flat on his face. With his weight thus distributed ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... and swung across the open space, swerving enough to one side to avoid the struggling lines, and moving on until they reached the fringe of spectators beyond. There they could no longer be identified, and probably took their places among those who ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... and slightly turned his horse. It had been wiser to break into violent speech, or even to deal the other a blow. As it was, the very restraint of his action was spark to gunpowder. Rand's hand fell to a holster, drew and raised a pistol. Cary saw and flung out his arm, swerving his horse, but too late. There was a flash and a report. The reins dropped from Cary's grasp; he sank forward upon his horse's neck, then, while the terrified animal reared and plunged, fell heavily to earth and lay beside the stream with a ball ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... the Copah stable, with the flash and crash of the pistol-shot to madden it, took the bit between its teeth and bolted—safely through the shallows of the stream crossing and up to the level of the railroad yard beyond, but swerving aside at the first of the car shadows to fling its rider out of the saddle. Ford gathered himself quickly and rolled under a car. His right arm had no feeling in it, whether from the shot or the fall he ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... of an axe from above, a sharp ringing blow, and the jaws came together with a clash which rang from bank to bank. He had missed her! Swerving beneath the blow, his snout had passed beneath her body, and smashed up against the side of the canoe, as the striker, overbalanced, fell headlong overboard ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... of was the kites. The city by day is never without these spies, these sentries. From dawn to dusk the great unresting birds are sailing over it, silent and vigilant. Whenever you look up, there they are, criss-crossing in the sky, swooping and swerving and watching. After a while one begins to be nervous: it is disquieting to be so continually under inspection. Now and then they quarrel and even fight: now and then one will descend with a rush and rise carrying a rat or other delicacy in its claws; ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... Something had struck me violently on the arm. I felt no pain for the moment, only curiously numbed and cold. I wondered why my companion should continue to fire at the rapidly disappearing form of the Pirate, who appeared to me to be swerving from side to side of the road in the most ridiculous fashion. In another moment he was out of sight. I felt extremely sick, and, with something between a groan and a sigh, I sank back ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... young minds, unless they are promptly embodied in act and deed. It will not avail merely to wait as so many do, "until Blucher comes up," but they must struggle on and persevere in the mean time, as Wellington did. The good purpose once formed must be carried out with alacrity and without swerving. In most conditions of life, drudgery and toil are to be cheerfully endured as the best and most wholesome discipline. "In life," said Ary Scheffer, "nothing bears fruit except by labour of mind or body. To strive and still strive—such ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... us all. For one who had never played Rugby football George handled the situation well. He drew the defence with a feint to the left, then, swerving to the right, shot past into the friendly darkness. From behind came the ringing of feet and an ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... if ev'r all motions are co-linked, And from the old ever arise the new In fixed order, and primordial seeds Produce not by their swerving some new start Of motion to sunder the covenants of fate, That cause succeed not cause from everlasting, Whence this free will for creatures o'er the lands, Whence is it wrested from the fates,—this will Whereby we step right forward where desire Leads each ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... come up from the valley,— From the valley!" Once he caught her, Swerving down a sidelong alley, For a moment, by the hand. "Tell me, tell me," he besought her, "Sweetest, I would understand Why so cold thy palm, that slips From me like the shy cold minnow? The wood is warm, and smells of fern, And below the meadows burn. Hard ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... met this attack by rearing, his ears flattened, his teeth bared, his eyes terrible to behold. As the man raced close the stallion struck with lightning hoofs, but the blow failed of its mark—by the breadth of a hair. And the assailant, swerving like a will-o'-the-wisp, darted to the side of the animal and leaped upon its back. At the same instant the wolf left the ground with terribly gaping mouth in a spring for the rider; but Dan flattened himself along the shining ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... butterflies flitted past his hiding place out to the light of the sun. The eagle was soaring strong-winged, swerving and lifting and falling in an insolence of languid power. The silent Pass quivered to the throb of waters. But what was doing with the Ranger? Not a sound came from the upper trail but the tinkle of hidden springs down the rocks. He knew if he uttered a shout, the echo would take up his ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... don't get out of my way I'll show you what I'll do. Slash you across your lying face." Her arm was already uplifted, riding crop in hand. "Let me go!" Her voice was so low that he hardly heard it, but full of a thousand threats. Then, swerving her horse quickly to one side, she jerked the bridle from his slack fingers and was ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow |
