"Swift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... declarations of his love. When one thinks of ordinary occupations, how one envies him, flecking his oak-tree boll with sunlight, tinging with rose the cloud of the morning in which the lark is hid, making the sea's swift fringe of foaming lace outspread itself on the level sands, in which the pebbles gleam forever wet. The landscape painter's memory is inhabited by the fairest visions,—dawn burning on the splintered peaks that ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... minister, Louvois, whose power is said to have been maintained by his surpassing skill in collecting and spreading secret and swift intelligence, had in his pay various classes of unsuspected agents, dancing-masters, fencing-masters, language-masters, milliners, hairdressers and barbers—dentists, he would have added, had he lived to ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... hesitatingly along an untried path, with States so little bound together by rapid means of communication as to be hardly known to one another, and with historic traditions extending over very few years; now intercourse between the States is swift and intimate; the experience of centuries has been crowded into a few generations, and has created an intense, indestructible nationality. Then our jurisdiction did not reach beyond the inconvenient boundaries of the territory ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... turned and began to make her way as quickly as she could through the thickening crowd. Finding this difficult, before Peter could stop her, for she was very swift in her movements, Margaret bore to the right, entering the space immediately in front of the banqueting-hall where the grooms with horses and soldiers were assembled awaiting their lords, for here there was more room to walk. For a few moments Peter and Betty were unable ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... The swift brown stream carried us at full speed. "Captain Merrick" pointed out sundry short cuts, but my brain now refused to admit as truth a word coming from a Mpongwe. We passed some bateaux pecheurs, saw sundry shoals of fish furrowing the water, and after two hours we were bumping on the rocks ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... night on the balustrade. Throwing on her dressing-gown, she sped along the passage, and pushing open the swing-door, beheld Mervyn at the door of his own room, and at the head of the stairs a man, in whom she recognized the discarded footman, raising a pistol. One swift bound—her hand was on the gas-pipe. All was darkness, save a dim stripe from within the open door of her mother's former dressing-room, close to where she stood. She seized the lock, drew it close, and had turned the key before the hand within had time to wrench ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... construction of this splendid highway all visitors were wont to embark for Amalfi;—that is, unless they attempted the expedition by way of the mountain roads leading thither from Castellamare or La Cava. It raises a smile in these days of swift and luxurious travelling to learn from an early Victorian guide-book that "the most elegible mode of going from Sorrento to Amalfi is either to ride or to be carried in a chaise a porteurs to that part of the Colli where begins a rapid descent, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... on the afternoon of the day previous, while three of the stranger's boats were engaged with a shoal of whales, which had led them some four or five miles from the ship; and while they were yet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head of Moby Dick had suddenly loomed up out of the water, not very far to leeward; whereupon, the fourth rigged boat—a reserved one—had been instantly lowered in chase. After a keen sail before the wind, this fourth boat—the swiftest keeled of all—seemed ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... of fever and famine. Out of fifteen hundred men, the half had perished; five hundred were in hospital and the remainder were haggard wretches who could hardly hold their muskets. Such was the warfare in the mountains of the Province of Tittery, and Abd-el-Kader by his swift movements kept the enemy ever on the alert, and often in trouble, from the frontiers of Morocco to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... a swift glance to hide the bowl, standing between me and our host while I hurriedly stuffed it down under the lid ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and caravan laboring across the plains, and the swift mustang flying from post to post, frequently intercepted by the wily savage, were but things of yesterday, though fast becoming legendary. When those slower methods by which correspondence was conveyed at a great expense ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... were seated in the little gig which seemed to fly over the sea under the vigorous strokes of her crew of eight stout men. So swift were her motions, that she reached the side of the schooner only a few minutes later than the Foam's boat, and a considerable time before his own large boat had picked up Mr Mason, who was found in an almost insensible condition, supported ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... and mother and child slept; but alas! the little black hand would sometimes slip down, and the head would droop, and a dream of home and mother would visit the weary one, only to be roughly dispelled by the swift descent of the stinging lash, for the baby had cried out and the mother had been awakened. This is no fictitious tale. That poor neck is even now covered with the scars which sixty years of life have not been able to efface. It may be that she ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... therefore, was an antagonist, and it was his duty to get the better of him. The transformation of sentiment into self-seeking, ordinarily slow, tortuous, and veiled by hypocrisy in better educated people, was swift and direct in the old "bear," who demonstrated the superiority of shrewd ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... on the banks of a broad, swift-flowing river in a valley between the range of mountains through which they had passed and a line of still more formidable and snow-clad peaks. The elephants swam the wide and rushing water, for of all land animals their kind are the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... supreme, as in Umbria and Etruria, which sided with Rome, as also did most of the Latin towns, the Greek towns Neapolis and Rhegium, and most of Campania, where Capua became an important Roman post during the war. [Sidenote: The rebels demand the franchise.] The insurgents, emboldened by the swift spread of the rebellion, sent to demand the franchise as the price of submission. But the old dogged spirit which extremity of danger had ever aroused at Rome was not dead. [Sidenote: Rage of the equites. The law of Varius.] The offer was sternly rejected, and ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... to answer this instantaneously. Her words had confirmed his conjecture, and the situation of all concerned rose in swift images before him. His feeling for those who had been thrust out sanctioned her remorse; he could not try to nullify it, yet his heart was full of pity for her. But as soon as he could he answered—taking ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... soldier. No prophet was he, no word of wisdom ever fell from his lips, no trace of tenderness was in anything that he did; meekness was alien from his character, he was no sage, he was no saint, but decisive, swift, merciless when necessary, full of resource, sharp and hard as his own sword. And yet ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... the narrow road that wound its serpentinous way through the dismal, forbidding depths of the forest: a man who, though weary and footsore, lagged not in his swift, resolute advance. Night was coming on, and with it the no uncertain prospects of storm. Through the foliage that overhung the wretched road, his ever-lifting and apprehensive eye caught sight of the thunder-black, low-lying clouds that swept over the mountain and bore down ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... pope, a mighty god, and not without cause. The movement began in Europe with the Crusades: the only wealth men cared for was that which having wings could lend itself to their enterprise; the wealth, namely, of swift exchanges. To strike blows afar off the king wants nothing but gold. An army of gold, a fiscal army, spreads over all the land. The lord, who has brought back with him his dreams of the East, is always longing for its wonders, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... he would have said that the man was better than he knew. But then,—poor Huff! He passed slowly through the alleys between the great looms. Overhead the ceiling looked like a heavy maze of iron cylinders and black swinging bars and wheels, all in swift, ponderous motion. It was enough to make a brain dizzy with the clanging thunder of the engines, the whizzing spindles of red and yellow, and the hot daylight glaring over all. The looms were watched by women, most of them bold, tawdry girls of fifteen ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... to Leicester Square and its neighbourhood, and there watched their methods of work, following them at a little distance. Dressed in their uniform they mingled with the women who marched the pavements, and now and again, with curiously swift and decisive steps glided up to one of them, whispered a few earnest words into her ear, and proffered a printed ticket. Most of those spoken to walked on stonily as people do when they meet an ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... career the sun arises. Millions of gems seem suspended from the leafless branches. The familiar robin and the bolder sparrow seek the abode of man. Swift fly the balls of snow; the ruddy youth binds on his skates and gracefully flies over ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... testimony of 'the fathers' on the general question of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses. From the first line to the last, from his premises to his conclusion, he travels with a swift, unerring directness which no logician ever excelled, an argument complete and full, without the affectation of learning, and without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details. A single, easy, simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon words, contains ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... dominant self- consciousness, to genuine modesty. He was depressed and moody, because he was bored for want of acquaintance, and missed the adulation and caresses that he received at home as an only child; but Jo's swift imagination painted this as the trait of a reflective and melancholy nature disgusted with the world, and pitied him accordingly; a mild way of misanthropic speech, that is apt to infest young men, added to this delusion; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... said the bearded countess, "still it fits him very well, for he is called Clavileno the Swift, which name is in accordance with his being made of wood, with the peg he has in his forehead, and with the swift pace at which he travels; and so, as far as name goes, he may compare with the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... native. The moment Brisson had uttered his true name he had pronounced his own death warrant. Felini followed him up to the first landing—my rooms were on the second floor—and there placed his sign manual on the unfortunate man, which was the swift downward stroke of a long, narrow, sharp poniard, entering the body below the shoulders, and piercing the heart. The advantage presented by this terrible blow is that the victim sinks instantly in a ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... overwhelmed with awe. To have the answer of his prayers, the agonising of his soul for years, answered in the hour of utter defeat thrilled him with a sense of solemnity he had never felt. The man was not a man. He was the messenger swift and beautiful from the courts of heaven, for whose coming his eyes had long strained and his ears listened. Not a doubt of its truth shadowed his mind. He knew it was true. It was the fulfilment of life. It had been ordained from eternity. He had ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... a calm pond at dawn, reflecting every hastening, passing cloud, she reflected upon her full, gentle, kind face every swift sensation, every thought of the other four. She did not give a single thought to the fact that she, too, was upon trial, that she, too, would be hanged; she was entirely indifferent to it. It was in her house that the bombs and the dynamite had been discovered, and, ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... the character spoken of above, and therefore possibly toward a perpetuation of that peace that is to follow the present season of war. So also is it an open and interesting question whether the drift in that direction, if such is the set of it, can be counted on to prove sufficiently swift and massive, so as not to be overtaken and overborne by the push of agencies that make for dissension ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... wait. Gladys might come at her leisure. She burst impulsively out of the door, throwing on her hat as she went, albeit wincing that she must needs pass Bayne at close quarters as he still lounged in the veranda swing. He looked up at the sound of the swift step and the sudden stir, and for one instant their eyes met—an inscrutable look, fraught with an undivined meaning. For their lives, neither could have translated its deep intendment. She said no word, and he merely lifted ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the old and modern Masters, are capital Portraits of celebrated characters of former and present times; of Mrs. Siddons, of Cicero, M. Angelo, Parmigiano, Fenelon, Raleigh, A. Durer, Erasmus, Cromwell, Ben Jonson, Selden, Swift, Gay, Sterne, Garrick, &c. of Byron, Bonaparte, West, Kenible, young Napoleon, of nearly all the English Royal Family, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... if his childhood came back to him on the flood of feeling unashamed, bent down and kissed him. As he stood erect again he laughed a little, but the muscles of his face were working, and there were tears in his eyes. With a swift movement he had drawn a chair, and the two sat quiet a moment, looking at each other in deep and silent content ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... it bites, since it dips all its food in water: it is a figure of a man who will not take advice, and does nothing but what is soaked in the water of his own will. The heron [*Vulg.: herodionem], commonly called a falcon, signifies those whose "feet are swift to shed blood" (Ps. 13:3). The plover [*Here, again, the Douay translators transcribed from the Vulgate: charadrion; charadrius is the generic name for all plovers.], which is a garrulous bird, signifies the gossip. The hoopoe, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... it was a battle royal! But I lost—I always lose. He is sitting there in triumphant misery, reading Swift. I brought my defeat out here. Now and then I am glad I am ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... have any concern in so dishonorable a negotiation: but he informs us, that the king said, there was one article proposed which so incensed him that as long as he lived he should never forget it. Sir William goes no further; but the editor of his works, the famous Dr. Swift, says, that the French, before they would agree to any payment, required as a preliminary, that the king should engage never to keep above eight thousand regular troops in Great Britain.[*] Charles broke into a passion. "Cod's-fish," said he, (his usual oath,) ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... as the dawn-heaven Was melting to amber and blue, And swift were the wings to our feet given, As we traversed the meadows ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... the barancoon, the stowing away like herrings on board the noisome ship, the suffocation, the deck-sores wrought into the body by the attrition of the bonier parts of the system against the unyielding wood—all these, says Mr. Froude, were more tolerable than the swift doing away with life under an African master! Under such, at all events, the care and comfort suitable to age were strictly provided for, and cheered the advanced years of the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... around the ship, and one night so many fell on deck as to furnish an excellent mess for breakfast. Black dolphins, the greatest enemy of their flying neighbors, tumbled playfully about in the rippling water, and at times encircled the ship in great numbers. Their motion is swift and vigorous,—so much so that it is scarcely possible to strike ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... penal fire, in order to form, for a space, a union with the ancient accomplice of its guilt. I started up in bed, and sat upright, supporting myself on my palms, as I gazed on this horrible spectre. The hag made, as it seemed, a single and swift stride to the bed where I lay, and squatted herself down upon it, in precisely the same attitude which I had assumed in the extremity of horror, advancing her diabolical countenance within half a yard of mine, with a grin ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... judge of the army's sleepiness. These doubters were the older men, who had had experience of England's craft in war. They knew of the ability of some at least of England's generals to match guile against guile, and back up guile with swift, unexpected hammer-strokes. ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... siventh. Th' prisidint was first out iv th' bunker at a quarther past two, his opponent followin' at exactly three sixteen. Th' prisidint was within hailin' distance iv home on his sixteenth shot, while his opponent had played eighteen. But th' pace had been too swift an' it was merely a question iv which wud be th' first to crack. That misfortune fell to th' lot iv th' sicrety iv war. Findin' himsilf in a bad lie, he undhertook to use a brassy in a spirit iv nawthin' ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... maintain that if the poet does not in any case mention a corslet, there was no corslet. Thus in V. 99, an arrow strikes Diomede "hard by the right shoulder, the plate of the corslet." Thirteen lines later (V. 112, 113) "Sthenelus drew the swift shaft right through out of Diomede's shoulder, and the blood darted up through the pliant chiton." We do not know what the word here translated "pliant" [Greek: streptos] means, and Aristarchus seems to have thought it was "a coat of mail, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... his pictures, which Gillott was to have bought. Mueller appears to have become inflated by his great success, and he, in this or some other way, managed to annoy his early friend and patron in a very serious manner. His punishment was swift, severe, and sure. Gillott immediately packed off every Mueller picture he possessed to an auction room in London, with directions that they should be extensively advertised as his property, and sold without the slightest reserve. This step so frightened the Art-world that "Muellers" became a drug ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... out of the house, and strode along the road with firm, swift steps, till, past Jackson's, and past the turning, he came to his own door, and carried Nettie upstairs. He never said a word the whole way. Nettie was too muffled up, and too feeble to speak; so the first word was ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... perilous sailing, but the bite of the salt spray on their cheeks and the swift pace at which they were moving filled the boys with wild exhilaration. They might have been four young Vikings out on a voyage of discovery, as they faced and dared ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... amused. The intruder paused, laughing a low, well-fed, mellow laugh. On the moment she coughed in deprecation. Miss Lady sprang back, as does the wild deer startled in the forest. Her hands went to her cheeks, which burned in swift flame, thence to drop to her bosom, where her heart was beating in a confusion of throbs, struggling with the reversed current of the blood of all her tall ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... should not be taken as specimens of what our literature is, but as indications of what it may one day be. They are not the matured fruits, but the bright promise and blossoming of genius; and thus far they have been an honor to the taste and talent of American writers, and monuments of the swift progress of our artists towards excellence ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... with danger; indeed, the injured husband is sometimes alluded to as Monsieur Danger, but here, as elsewhere, stolen sweets were sweetest, and the risk was taken. Vengeance, however, followed discovery, and swift was the retribution which overtook the troubadour when guilty of faithless conduct. The tragic story of Guillem de Cabestaing, who came from that district of Roussillon which is said to be famous for its red wine and its black sheep, will serve to ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... their gold medal for the discovery of the Victoria N'yanza. One thing seemed at first perplexing—the volume of water in the Kitangule looked as large as that of the Nile; but then the one was a slow river and the other swift, and on this account I could form no adequate ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... expedition. While tracking around a steep point in crossing these rapids the boat which Messrs. Cary and Smith were tracking was overturned, dumping barometer, shotgun, and ax into the river, together with nearly one-half the total amount of provisions. In the swift water of the rapids all these things were irrevocably lost, a very serious loss at this stage in the expedition. On this day so great was the force of the water that only one mile was made, and that ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... like men after a terrific earthquake, who had lost confidence in the stability of everything. It was Anarchy personified:—the men of intellect were doing the work; the men of muscle were giving the orders. The under-rail had come on top. It reminded me of Swift's story of the country where the men were servants to ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... the rest of the world," said Mrs. Markland, resting her hands upon the table by which she sat, and, gazing earnestly into her husband's face, "we had lost our way, and were moving with swift feet in the wrong direction. Suddenly, our kind Father threw up before us an impassable mountain. Then we seemed shut out from the land of promise forever, and were in despair. But he took his weeping, murmuring ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... "Some natures find these swift and tremendous changes harder to bear than others," said the Vicar. "But there is only one way for people like ourselves to take it, Mrs. Bradford. We must be kind, do the next job, ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... lord, it is all quite as the sahib says," the babu admitted graciously, his eyes gleaming with sardonic amusement. "Circumstances conspired to mislead me; but that I was swift to discover. Nor did I lose time in remedying the error, as you ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... wrestling nimble, and in running swift, In shooting steady, and in swimming strong, Well made to strike, to leap, to throw, to lift, And all the sports that ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... "Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day; Earth's joys grow dim, its glories fade away; Change and decay ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... second page, and the song-form already noticed)—the movement is carried to completion. It is very difficult to play, but when well done is effective and serious. The second movement is a very playful scherzo, which is designated as elf-like—as light and swift as possible. The third movement is designated "tenderly, longingly, yet with passion"; the hero is now in love, very much so; his being is stirred to its utmost core; his rhythm is shaken up so that two's and three's intermingle in the most inviting ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... process! I wonder the Athenaeum did not suggest that Mr. Conrad, having written a story, took it to Brooklands to get it run over by a motor-car. Again: "His effects are studiously wrought, although—such is his mastery of literary art—they produce a swift and penetrating impression." Impossible not to recall the weighty judgment of one of Stevenson's characters upon the Athenaeum: "Golly, what ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... or overseers between 1850 and 1860 twenty resulted in legal execution and twenty-six in lynching. Violent crimes against white women were not relatively any more numerous than now; but those that occurred or were attempted received swift punishment; thus of seventeen cases of rape in the ten years last mentioned Negroes were legally executed in five ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... in a swift two days, gave half the time to Venice, But vows that she saw everything, although in awful haste; She's fond of dancing, but she seems to fight shy of lawn-tennis, Because it might endanger the proportions of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... the Straits of Gibraltar on the other. From each of these two points, so remote from each other, the fanatic warriors of the desert were casting longing glances across those narrow passages of water which alone separated them from the single continent that their swift coursers had not yet traversed, or whence the spoil of the unbelievers had not yet been borne to the feet of the Vicar of the Prophet of God. We may expect to see the Saracens at one or both of these points attempt the invasion ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... Sainte-Croix, and by a contrivance of the marquise was installed three months later as servant of the elder brother, who lived with the civil lieutenant. The poison to be used on this occasion was not so swift as the one taken by M. d'Aubray so violent a death happening so soon in the same family might arouse suspicion. Experiments were tried once more, not on animals—for their different organisation might put the poisoner's science in the wrong—but as before upon human subjects; as before, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... brace of logs, the upper surface hewn, and a slight hand-rail formed of a cedar pole. A flimsy structure, one might think, looking down at the dark and rocky depths beneath, through which flowed the mountain stream, swift and strong, but it was doubtless substantial enough for all ordinary usage, and certainly sufficient for the imponderable and elusive travellers who ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... no common ground, of course. Such a poet finds the rigid ethical system of a rationalistic philosophy as uncharacteristic of the actual fluidity of the world as ever Cratylus did. Feeling, but not reason, may be swift enough in its transformations to mirror the world, such a poet believes, and he imitates the actual flux of things, not with a wagging of the thumb, like Cratylus, but with a flutter of the heart. Thus one finds Byron characteristically ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... amount of the precious metals, they showed a little—as high as $3.50 per ton. This was enough. There were bound to be higher grade ores deeper down. The finder filed his necessary "locations," and doubtless aided by copious draughts of "red-eye" saw, in swift imagination, his claim develop into a mine as rich as those that had made the millionaires of Virginia City. Anyhow the rumor spread like a prairie fire, and men came rushing in from Georgetown, Placerville, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... hugely labour still Beneath the burden of ambition's ill Like caryatids heaving up the strain Of mammoth chambers, till they stoop again ... Your face has changed my days to splendid dreams And baubled trumpets, traffics, and triremes; One swift touch of your passion-parted lips Is worth five armies and ten seas ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... pigeons for the sick, and on their return they reported that they had found a stream of fresh water, and had seen several native huts, and an animal as large as a greyhound, of slender form, mouse-coloured, and very swift. The next day Captain Cook himself saw the same animal; it had a long tail, and leaped liked a hare or deer, and the prints of its feet were like those of a goat. For some time afterwards nothing more was seen of the animal, which Mr Banks, the naturalist, ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... Lynn's swift imagination saw themselves borne joyously off to the loved waterfall; she felt the very water of the cool delicious pools on ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... were arrayed in their glory of the night before the ship dropped anchor. Then the muffled tolling of a bell came solemnly across the quiet waters; and then, from every creek along the shore, as far as the eye could reach, the black forms of the fishermen's boats shot out swift and ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... up of the things we do not have. In May, the time of the apple blossoms—just a year from the swift wooing of Margaret—Miss Forsythe received a letter from John Lyon. It was in a mourning envelope. The Earl of Chisholm was dead, and John Lyon was Earl of Chisholm. The information was briefly conveyed, but with an air of profound sorrow. The letter spoke ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... or other managed to escape, the whole of the white population inside the walls of Delhi were murdered under circumstances of the most horrible and revolting cruelty. Had the news of the outbreak of Meerut been sent by a swift mounted messenger, the whole of these hapless people would have had time to leave the town before the arrival of the mutineers. Those in the cantonments outside the city fared somewhat better. Some were killed, but the greater part made their escape; and although many were murdered on ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... and smiled covertly in the direction of the sergeant who had browbeaten him. Others of those somewhat senile guards, who at the sound of their officer's voice had assumed that position of respect demanded of all German soldiers, also cast swift glances in the same direction, and even went so far—seeing that the snappy little officer's back was turned and his attention otherwise engaged—as to grin quite openly, and smirk, as they watched the flaming face of the Sergeant. As for the latter, perspiration was ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... at first. I noted at once the sure touch with which the boy handled my books, the practised hand that turned the pages, the quick examination of title-page and the list of contents, the occasional swift reference to the index, but I did not believe it possible that any one could read so fast as he read when he did condescend for a few moments to give his attention to a few consecutive pages. "Was it a pose?" I thought, yet he was certainly an adept in handling the books. I was ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... Clock goes as swift as the Hours that fly, When together in Bed are my Chloe and I: But when she is gone, I bemoan my hard Fate, It is Millions of Years till she ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... glimpses I used to catch of her at that time, slim-legged and swift, and shrilly sweet of voice as a lark, and as shyly a-flutter at the motion of a hand toward her, or else seated prim as any grown maiden, with grave eyes of attention upon her task of sampler ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... to see that the strings of his moccasins and his beaded garters are well tied, and tightening his sash belt around his leathern shirt, the swift runner would be off like an arrow; making straight for the far away wigwam, where, in age and feebleness, is one of the grandmothers of the tribe, now loved by all; but who would have been put to death ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... directions the earl had given him, for the lock was Italian, with more than one quip and crank and wanton wile about it, succeeded in opening it. He had no difficulty in finding its secret place, nor the packet concealed in it; but just as he laid his hands on it, he was aware of a swift passage along the floor without, past the door of the room, and apparently up the next stair. There was nothing he could distinguish as footsteps, or as the rustle of a dress; it seemed as if he had heard but a disembodied ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... the grasses which begin to stir about the dead bird.] Insect, where the body has fallen, be swift to come and open the earth. The funereal necrophaga are the only grave-diggers who never carry the dead elsewhere, believing that the least sad, and the most fitting tomb, is the very clay whereon one fell into the final sleep. [To the funeral insects, while the NIGHTINGALE begins gently ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... post-haste for Peronne, I spurred by one motive, Mary of Burgundy, Max by another—Yolanda. His heart had grieved for her in castle, in camp, and in din of battle. He had, unknown to me, formed a great and noble resolution; and there was no horse swift enough to keep pace with his desire when we ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... outdoor life, and depending for daily food not so much on the maize they raised as on the fish they caught and the animals they killed, the Indians were most expert woodsmen. They were swift of foot, quick-witted, keen-sighted, and most patient of hunger, fatigue, and cold. White men were amazed at the rapidity with which the Indian followed the most obscure trail over the most difficult ground, at the perfection with which he imitated the bark of the wolf, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... swift changes during this short speech, but now it cleared and a beatific expression shone ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... States in affording protection to remote and rural communities, by means of her national mounted police. "The isolated farmer and his wife slept securely in their sod hovel beyond the frontier, because they knew that a brave and swift corps of vigilant young athletes ... kept sleepless vigil. Life and property were secure ... ." [Footnote: C.R. Henderson, "Rural Police," ANNALS American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1912, p. 228.] ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... the States-General. The Lieutenant-Admiral and Vice-Admirals of Holland and the Vice-Admiral of Zeeland were chosen by the Provincial Estates. The States-General appointed the Commander-in-Chief. Such a system seemed to be devised to prevent any prompt action or swift decision being taken at times of emergency or ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... conversation along at such a swift pace that Molly did not have the chance to say what she had intended. She had always regarded that kind of talk with supreme contempt: praise that tapered into a sting. "It would have been more honest to have given ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... judge, Justice Powell, could be as thoroughly humorous in private life as he was fearless and just upon the bench. Swift describes him as a surpassingly merry old gentleman, laughing heartily at all comic things, and his own droll stories more than aught else. In court he could not always refrain from jocularity. For instance, when he tried Jane Wenham for witch-craft, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Reid, Sylvia's assistant during her mother's absence, chanted a lugubrious ditty, befitting her condition as a widow, while she cleaned tins, and cans, and milking-pails. Perhaps these bustling sounds prevented Sylvia from hearing approaching footsteps coming down the brow with swift advance; at any rate, she started and suddenly stood up as some one entered the open door. It was strange she should be so much startled, for the person who entered had been in her thoughts all during those long pauses. Charley Kinraid and the story of crazy Nancy had been ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... anticipation, are drawn out; the days behind, viewed through the telescope of memory, are crowded together. What a moment looked all the long years of his struggling life—shorter now than even had once seemed the seven years of service for his Rachel, that love had made to fly past on such swift wings! That happy wedded life, how short it looked! A bright light for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... loved it, returning year after year to their nests under the eaves, and from early dawn 'to dewy eve,' all through the warm summer days, flew hither and thither with swift, untiring wing, chasing each other, as it were, or teaching their young to fly. As to the Robins, they hopped in at the open door under the rustic porch, just as if they belonged to the place, and were sure of a welcome, which indeed they were! And that porch—what a cosy corner it was, with seats ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... friends. As for offences against the laws of the land these were conspicuously few. The banks of the St Lawrence, when once the redskin danger was put out of the way, were quite safe for men to live upon. The hand of justice was swift and sure, but its intervention was not very often needed. New France was as law-abiding as New England; her people were quite as submissive to their leaders in both ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... and started back to the catwalk, rain lashing his back. Sudden instinct made him whirl around in time to see something huge and black rushing at him out of the storm. Rain blurred his vision. He had a swift impression of a black figure, shaped like a diamond, coming at him. He threw himself flat on the foredeck. There was a rustling sound overhead, and something clanged off the cabin top's aluminum rail. Rick was ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... to be seen," answered the Little Captain as she handed one of the ancient oars to Mollie. "There is one thing we shall have to remember, Mollie," she said, as they pushed clear of the bank and glided out into the swift water of the river, "and that is to keep far enough this side of the falls to guard against being swept over it. Bear hard on your right hand, Mollie honey. It wouldn't be much fun if we upset here, ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... hour, which was six o'clock. The maid waited breakfast until the toast was cold. Then she went to the door and knocked. No reply. She opened the door, and fell with a scream to the floor. Something soft and swift like wings brushed her face. She could not tell what it was. ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... more thin Constitution of the Larynx, or Wind-pipe, which also make very much to the rendering the Voice, to be either sharp, or flat. That same humming Noise, which many flying Insects make, not so much by the Wings, (for when they are cut off, the humming still remains) as by a most swift and brisk Motion of certain Muscles, hid in the Cavity of their Breasts, seems to have somewhat of an affinity to the Voice; wherefore I desire the Learned to examine, whether those small Muscles, which are proper to the Cartilages of the Wind-pipe, cannot ...
— The Talking Deaf Man - A Method Proposed, Whereby He Who is Born Deaf, May Learn to Speak, 1692 • John Conrade Amman
... conjuncture, every moment of which ought to be employed. The jeweller told him, he thought nothing remained, but that he should immediately take horse, and hasten away towards Anbar, that he might get thither before day. "Take what servants and swift horses you think necessary," continued he, "and suffer ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... than the Dutch, who were obliged to the same proportion more than us." Should be than we.—Swift's Conduct of the Allies. ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... his early arrival was sufficient to prove that the wily sachem had known of the movements of the soldiers for a certain length of time, —perhaps several days,—and this might explain why his march from Cherry Valley had been so steady and swift. ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... great wave, towering above all its brethren. Onward it comes, swift as a race-horse, graceful as a great ship, bearing right down upon us. It strikes 'The Rips,' and is there itself struck by a wave approaching from another direction. The two converge in their advance, and are dashed together—embrace ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... good friend upstairs?" he said to the girl as they drove away from the house. The answer came swift and straight from the heart of the daughter of Eve. "Because you like him!" Amelius changed the subject: he asked if she was still in pain. She shook her head impatiently. Pain or no pain, the uppermost ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... With a swift movement Tory arose suddenly. Apparently she forgot the group of friends close about her. She clasped her hands tightly together, her eyes suddenly looked larger and ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... tumbling, howling wide as the world here. Secret, far-off, invisible to all hearts but thine, there lies a help in them: see how thou wilt get at that. Patiently thou wilt wait till the mad southwester spend itself, saving thyself by dexterous science of defence the while: valiantly, with swift decision, wilt thou strike in, when the favoring east wind, the possible, springs up. Mutiny of men thou wilt sternly repress; weakness, despondency, thou wilt cheerily encourage: thou wilt swallow down complaint, unreason, weariness, weakness of others and thyself;—how ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... Clarence, with a swift remorseful recollection of her confidence yesterday, "is there really anything troubles you? Tell me, dear. ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... her work. She admired Miss Thorley's swift, sure strokes, but she drew a sigh that came from the tips of her shabby shoes as she murmured: "All the same I don't understand just ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... comforts are; most good, most good indeed. Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven, Intends you for his swift ambassador, Where you shall be an everlasting leiger: 60 Therefore your best appointment make with speed; To-morrow ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... Swift to her aid her mother came, "Ah! say," cried she, "in mercy's name, "What means this frantic grief?" "Mother 'tis past—all hopes are fled, "God hath no mercy, William's dead, "My woe ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... swift glance, he found himself estimating the cost of all the treasures that it contained, and the price that was to be paid in order that they might not be threatened. These things represented greed. They had always represented greed. They had been saved out of the wreck that befell the Tresslyn ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... which the bill would finally pass, this being known within doors sooner than without, and especially, than to those who were in distant parts of the Union, the base scramble began. Couriers and relay-horses by land, and swift-sailing pilot-boats by sea, were flying in all directions. Active partners and agents were associated and employed in every State, town, and country neighborhood, and this paper was bought up at five shillings, and even as low as two shillings in the pound, before the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... to Swift's observation to Pope: 'If you would seek the gentry of Ireland, you must look for them on the coal- quay or ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... request to whoever might find it to forward it to the office of the New York Herald. This little bag was fastened to the neck of the albatross, and not to its foot, for these birds are in the habit of resting on the surface of the sea; then liberty was given to this swift courier of the air, and it was not without some emotion that the colonists watched it ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... With sure swift movements, the newcomer removed saddle, pack, and guns, and staked his pony out near the others. This done he ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... but bowed, and then sat down again, quietly determined to wait, for he discovered that there was hostility in the swift glance she flashed ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... swift growing sallow is not so tough and hardy for some uses as the slower, which makes stocks for gard'ners spades; but the other are proper for rakes, pikes, mops, &c. Sallow-coal is the soonest consum'd; but of all others, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... easy thing to do, until you tried to do it yourself. Mr. Bernard looked at himself with the eye of an expert. "Pretty well!" he said;—"not so much fallen off as I expected." Then he set up his bolster in a very knowing sort of way, and delivered two or three blows straight as rulers and swift as winks. "That will do," he said. Then, as if determined to make a certainty of his condition, he took a dynamometer from one of the drawers in his old veneered bureau. First he squeezed it with his two hands. Then ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... was not furiously popular, and the crowds congregated where he was not. His tyranny was based upon his uncanny faculty of anticipating the other man's draw. The citizens were not unaccustomed to seeing swift death result to the slower man from misplaced confidence in his speed of hand—that was in the game—an even break; but to oppose an individual who always knew what you were going to do before you knew it yourself—this was very discouraging. Therefore, ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... to Giacomo's entreaties to stay till at least the signorina was up,—the signorina whom he had saved. Without trusting himself to speak further, he quitted the demesne, and walked with swift strides ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Vicar of Wakefield. There is no evidence that at this time he and Goldsmith were acquainted with one another. Flood had gone to Oxford some time before. The one or two companions whom Burke mentions in his letters are only shadows of names. The mighty Swift died in 1745, but there is nothing of Burke's upon the event. In the same year came the Pretender's invasion, and Burke spoke of those who had taken part in it in the same generous spirit that he always showed to the ...
— Burke • John Morley
... difficulties in Fielding's life has been the date of his first marriage (p. 38). Lawrence gave the year as 1735; and Keightley suggested the spring of that year. This, as Swift would say, is near the mark, though confirmation has been slow in coming. In a letter dated 18th June 1906, Mr. Thomas S. Bush announced in the Bath Chronicle that the desired information was to be ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... swift and terrible, but in an unlooked-for form, was on her even now. Just as she had got over the bridge, and was about to cross a very wide thoroughfare, some lumbering wagons came thundering up. They turned sharp round a corner, and the poor child, weak and giddy from her morning's most unwonted ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... scouts, Wells, McClellan, and Miller, were ranging the woods to bring in some Indians for Wayne to question. They came upon a party of three Indians; Wells shot one, and Miller another, while McClellan, who was very swift of foot, ran down the third. Pursuer and pursued both stuck in the oozy bottom of a stream, and when Wells and Miller came up, they were threatening each other with knife and tomahawk. Miller had been taken captive when a child with one of his brothers; he had escaped, but this ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... having more money to spend at the store. In many cases the poorer members have to sell out, and then the affair becomes simply a joint-stock company of the more fortunate, the race being once more to the swift, the battle to the strong."[860] "The ordinary workman can if he likes become a shareholder in the "co-op." So he may become a shareholder in a railway if he likes; but this does not make the capitalist ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... to Madame B—— for the remark, which is greatly within an observation which I have frequently made, on the evanescent nature of youthful beauty. Madame B——'s calculations of the given progress of decay, were eighteen times more swift than mine. The subject of our conversation, and the busts by which we were surrounded, naturally led us to talk of the french ladies, and they reminded us, though slightly, of their present dress. Madame B——entered ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... alighting upon the balcony railing, sheered off, coquetted among the treetops, came back again, retreated so far that she was merely a white speck against the blue vault, and then, true to her sex, having proved her liberty only to tire of it, with a flight so swift that the eye could scarcely follow her, she came back again and rested upon the farther end of the balcony, where she immediately began to preen herself and to affect an air ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... what it destroys; it desires rest and can find none; nothing can matter greatly to it; its dead are so many that it cannot count them; and being thus worn and dulled with age, and suffocated under the weight of its innumerable memories, it is very slow to be moved, and swift—terribly swift—to forget. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida |
