"Swirl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eyes of each and found his way out with the astonishing certainty of movement that made so many forget his infirmity. Possibly he was not desirous of encountering Draycott's embarrassed gratitude again, for in less than a minute they heard the swirl of his ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... quarrel and even fight: now and then one will descend with a rush and rise carrying a rat or other delicacy in its claws; but these interruptions of the pattern are only momentary. For the rest of the time they swirl and circle and never cease to watch. Bombay also has its predatory crows, who are so bold that it is unsafe to leave any bright article on the veranda table. Spectacles, for example, set up a longing in their ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... A feeling of sympathy for the oppressed and the helpless also reached beyond man to animals. Burns wrote touching lines about a mouse whose nest was, one cold November day, destroyed by his plow. When the wild eddying swirl of the snow beat around his cot, his heart went out to the poor ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... men, sweating, scared, and tremulous, swung a clumsy scow upon the sand at our feet. It was no child's play to cross that stream. Together with one of "The Little Dutchmen," and a representation from "The Mule Outfit," I stepped into the boat and it was swung off into the savage swirl of gray water. We failed of landing the first time. I did not wonder at the ferryman's nervousness, as I felt the heave and rush of the ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... they toiled, until the gray mists hung low over the mountain tops, until the shadows lengthened and twilight fell. The engines ceased their chugging, the coughing swirl of the dirty water as it came from the drift, far below, stopped. Slowly two weary men jogged down the rutty road to the narrow, winding highway which led through Kentucky Gulch and into town. But they were happy with a new realization: that they were actively at work, ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... the car out into the storm. As the door was opened in came a swirl of white flakes, and Trouble tried to catch them by sticking out ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... hurriedly. In not very carefully chosen phrasing the orchestra was to represent the ocean, and, as far as might be, the ship upon it. A forcible, pathetically yearning and aspiring theme was the only comprehensible idea amid the swirl of enveloping sound. When the whole had been repeated, there was a sudden jump to a different theme in extreme pianissimo, accompanied by the swelling vibrations of the first violins, which was intended to represent a Fata Morgana. I ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... What burning eloquence of poesy she made to blaze! What moments of pathos she lived! What moods of holy self-abnegation and of exalted power she brought to many a sympathetic soul! Standing by her grave, on which the myrtle grows dense and dark, and over which the small birds swirl and twitter in the breezy silence, remembrance of the busy scenes of brilliant life wherein she used to move—the pictured stage, the crowded theatre, the wild plaudits of a delighted multitude—came strongly on the mind, and asked, in perplexity and sadness, what was the good of it ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... the frenzied Alcalde, who rushed toward Rosendo. The old man swung his enormous machete with a swirl that, had it met the official, would have clean decapitated him. But, fortunately, one of the priest's supporters threw out his foot, and the corpulent Alcalde fell heavily over it and bit the dust. Jose threw himself upon Rosendo. The old ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Sundown able to make his errand known, and appreciated. A group of riders swung in in a swirl of dust, dismounted, and, as if by magic, the yard was empty ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... hand to the grass-encircled goal of the maiden's hopes and ball, its gloomy depths appeared to move, swirl round, rise up, as a small green snake uncoiled in haste and darted beneath Dam's approaching upturned hand, and swiftly ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... of the world was wrapped up in the gospel she preached. Many of the audience were caught in the swirl as she spoke. Love and amity, the common cause of healthier homes and happier people and a stronger Empire, the righting of all wrongs, and the strengthening of all right—all this was wrapped up in ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... wouldn't be so unlikely, considering the errand he come on! But I'm not sure—I had just that moment's look at him through a swirl of smoke." ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... happens, the Chester crowds kept pretty much together. They could be picked out as a rule by the swirl of waving school colors, for every Chester girl and boy who had journeyed to Marshall to see their team win the game, made sure to ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... the boat, he suffered a bodily depression that caused him to be careless of everything save an obligation to wiggle one finger. There was cold sea- water swashing to and fro in the boat, and he lay in it. His head, pillowed on a thwart, was within an inch of the swirl of a wave crest, and sometimes a particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and drenched him once more. But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain that if the boat had capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... glance, and he saw the results of that glance in her face and the down-dropping of her eyes to the dainty point of one boot. He saw her beautiful mouth close suddenly tight and her thin nostrils quiver disdainfully when a swirl of black smoke, heavy with cinders, came in with an entering passenger through the front door of the car. Two half-drunken men were laughing boisterously near that door and even her ears seemed trying ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... of them to run away and leave her alone to manage as best she could. Mona looked about her helplessly, her heart sinking right down, down. The tide at that point had a way of creeping up gently, stealthily, and then, with one big swirl would rush right in and around the group of rocks on which she stood. If the wind was high and the sea at all rough, as likely as not it would sweep right over the rocks and back again with such force that ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... What work you are in the midst of! What a life! What a purpose! While I—I am lying here like an old slipper thrown up oil the sea-beach. Oh, the pity oft, the pity oft! It must be glorious to be in the rush and swirl of all this splendid effort, whatever comes of it! One's soul is thrilled, one's heart expands! As for me, the garden of my mind is withering, and I am consuming the seed ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... head turning away from him, the swirl of her cloak as she ascended the steps, the flash of her tapering boot heel. He then stood looking round him through his ironical, weary mask, one hand on the back of a chair, however, as if without that support his quaking legs might let ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... her. "What did you want with it?" she said, with a sudden frown. "I'm straight, I am. There's my bus! Night! night!—So long!" And with a half-sarcastic wave of her tiny hand, she left him, and was soon engulfed in the swirl ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the day steal up the bay, where the enemy lies in wait, To run your ship to the harbor's lip and sink her across the strait:— But better the golden evening when the ships round heads for home, And the long gray miles slip swiftly past in a swirl of seething foam, And the people wait at the haven's gate to greet the men who win! Thank God for peace! Thank God for peace, when the great ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... in on him, a terrible agony of fear. In four hours his air would be gone and then he would die! His body would swirl and eddy through this great cosmic ocean. It would never be found. It would remain here, embalmed by the cold of space, until the last clap ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... brings to us, in the gift of life in Him, stability which will check the vacillations of our own hearts. We go up and down, we yield when pressure is brought to bear against us, we are carried off our feet often by the sudden swirl of the stream, and the fitful blast of the wind. But His grace comes in, and will make us able to stand against all assaults. Our poor natures, necessarily changeable, and sinfully vacillating and weak, will be uniform, in the measure in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... wherein if ships enter they come not out. And the whirlpool beginning to draw the ship towards itself, blessed Columba cast part of the earth of Saint Kiaranus into the sea. Most wondrous to relate, immediately the storm of the air, the movement of the waves, and the swirl of the whirlpool all ceased, till the ship had long escaped from it. Then Saint Columba, giving thanks to God, said to his followers, "Ye see, brethren, how much favour hath the earth of most ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... sound of the overmountain migration of which I spoke above was of the stealthy step of the hunter, yet back of that for a century was the scarcely audible plash of the paddle and the answering swirl of the water. But as in overmountain migration the noisy wheel soon followed the foot, so in the other the noiseless sail ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... ecstasy of jubilation, such rapturous rapidity of flight, that we who strain our eyes from below feel we are in the darkness of the grave which Mary left. A kind of controlling rhythm for the composition is gained by placing Gabriel, Madonna, and Christ at three points in the swirl of angels. Nevertheless, composition—the presiding, all-controlling intellect—is just what makes itself felt by absence; and Correggio's special qualities of light and color have now so far vanished from the cupola of the Duomo that ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... gettin' on—no tellin' how soon they may find you're gone." Once more the big Yankee bowed his back to the task in hand and a silence fell, broken only by the faint sound of the muffled oars and the swirl of water along the sides. Not even the thrill of the escape could keep the two tired boys awake, and it was nearly an hour later that they were roused by voices calling at no great distance. A tall black mass on which showed a single moving light rose out of the gloom ahead. ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... an anxious minute, swinging their lanterns far out over the current. Suddenly Glen thrust the lantern he held into Apple's hand and made a quick jump into the swirl of waters. He was up in a moment with a ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... not any more at all shall we drift up the carven hall to dance before the King. He that now watches the magic of his prophets will behold no more the wonder of the dance, and among ancient parchments, strange and wise, he shall forget the swirl of drapery when we swing together through the Dance of ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... glancing back, Saw the Bedouins' wild attack, And heard the sharp Martini crack. But as he gazed, already The fierce fanatic Arab band Was closing in on every hand, Until one tawny swirl of sand, ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dangerous about the ledge. It was nearly three feet wide, and had an easy downward trend. Yet you heard the hungry roar of the surf below, and try as you would not to, caught glimpses of the white swirl of it. I moved cautiously, keeping close to the face of the cliff. Crusoe, to my annoyance, sprang down upon the ledge after me. I had a feeling that he must certainly trip me as I picked my ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... infliction, for I have always loved the picture, and think it is far more like me than any other. Mr. Sargent first of all thought that he would paint me at the moment when Lady Macbeth comes out of the castle to welcome Duncan. He liked the swirl of the dress, and the torches and the women bowing down on either side. He used to make me walk up and down his studio until I nearly dropped in my heavy dress, saying suddenly as I got the swirl:—"That's it, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... A swirl of red fury swept to the beach comber's brain. Wordless, face distorted, he flung himself at ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... with a flowing tide occasionally (though not invariably) creates a gentle swirl in Brammo Bay, a swirl so placid as to be imperceptible in default of such indices as driftwood. Under such a condition Neptune makes playthings which possibly in some future age may puzzle men who happen to ponder seriously on first causes. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... that, with incessant whirl, Rolled onward ever on their ponderous way: Gigantic marvels, deafening in their play, And swift, industrious, never-ending swirl. ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... whaler. Imagine their feelings—alone in an open boat without food, twenty-five miles from the nearest land, and that land the enemy's fortress, with nothing but fog and foes around them. Suddenly a swirl alongside and up, if you please, pops his Britannic Majesty's submarine E-4, opens his conning tower, takes them all on board, shuts up again, dives, and brings them home, ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... she was in the throes of an indecision, whose ending, one way or the other, must be so tremendous, now that she was in the very swirl, she let no sign at all escape her; the Colonel and even his wife were deceived into thinking that after all no great harm had been done. It was grateful to them to think so, because of that stewardship at Monte Carlo, of which they could not render too ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... him up against the chandelier three or four times, and shy across and drive Potts' head through the oil portrait of Slugg's father over the mantel-piece. After bumping him against Slugg's ancestor it would swirl Potts around among the crockery on the wash-stand and dance him up and down in an exciting manner over the stove, until finally the molar "gave," and as Potts landed with his foot through the pier-glass and his elbow on a pink poodle worked in a green rug, ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... "By Jove!" whispered at the level of the water. The phosphorescence flashed in the swirl of the water all about his limbs, his other ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... hocks, with well bent stifles. THE FEET should be oval in shape, soles well padded, and the toes arched and close together. The hind feet less arched, the hocks well let down and powerful. THE BRUSH should be moderately long carried low when the dog is quiet, with a slight upward "swirl" at the end, and may be gaily carried when the dog is excited, but not over the back. THE COAT should be very dense, the outer coat harsh to the touch, the inner or under coat soft, furry, and very close, so close as almost to hide ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... the monster—while she made perfunctory and unconvincing motions to fit herself for the street. Of course she neither washed nor madeup, but she peered in the glass argumentatively, pulled her jacket down decisively, threw her shoulders back to raise it askew again and gave the swirl ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Instead, he pounced upon a big yellow-throated beast weighing a pound and a half, and known colloquially as a "sockdolliger" or a "joogger-room." There followed a scuffling rush, a grunt, a startled yowl, and a swirl of water; then Omar Ben came up coughing, minus his frog, but plus an overcoat of ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple
... above, where lay a score of other anxious boats, Kit and his companions went ahead on foot to investigate. They crept to the brink and gazed down at the swirl of water. Sprague drew ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... golden specks so that not one should be lost. At last, of the pan of dirt nothing remained but his golden herd. He counted it, and then, after all his labor, sent it flying out of the pan with one final swirl of water. ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... face turned downwards towards the swirl of water that leaped by them. He was quite plainly prepared ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... swifter now; The eddies circle about my bow. Swirl, swirl! How the ripples curl In many ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... graceful, remember; death by drowning is generally ugly—stiff, stark, hideous, eyeless, fish-gnawed a week after the event. But what does it matter? You've painted a great picture. That sea, with the circular swirl, as each wave goes back into the belly of the next, is well done; and those lumps of spume fluttering above watermark—that was finely noted. Easy to write down in print, but difficult as the fiend to paint. And the picture is full of wind too. Your troubles are amply ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... elsewhere for a single moment—either at another boat, or at a fish "rising to itself," or at the sky, or at something else. When the eyes were turned to the point from which they should not have been diverted, they were just in time to see the water swirl, and the hand gave a futile strike at what had disappeared a second before. Perhaps we should have said at the beginning of this chapter to place implicit faith in the flies with which you are fishing. Nothing is more ridiculous than whipping ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... you Majesty, that Colonel Toll, One of Field-Marshal Price Kutuzof's staff, In the retreating swirl of overthrow, Found Alexander seated on a stone, Beneath a leafless roadside apple-tree, Out here by Goding on the Holitsch way; His coal-black uniform and snowy plume Unmarked, his face disconsolate, his grey eyes ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Pityusae to go from one island to another by different routes, according to the direction of the winds. While the sea rages on one side of the archipelago, on the other it may be still and safe, lying heavy like oil. In the straits the waves may swirl high in furious whirlpools, but with a mere turn of the wheel, a slight shifting of her course, the vessel may glide into the shelter of an island where she will ride in tranquil waters, paradisiacal, limpid, affording views of strange vegetation, where ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and a swirl of spray from the breakers on the rocks came in with my host, who set a great armful of drift wood on the floor, closed it, ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... was a bad one. The bronco was carried down into a swirl of deep, angry water. So swift was the undertow that Powder River was dragged from beneath its rider. Bob caught at the mane of the horse and clung desperately to it with one hand. A second or two, and this was ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... disquiet are to be dealt with. The future is dim, after all our straining to see into its depths. The future is threatening, after all our efforts to prepare for its coming storms. A rolling vapour veils it all; here and there a mountain peak seems to stand out; but in a moment another swirl of the fog hides it from us. We know so little, and what we do know is so sad, that the ignorance of what may be, and the certainty of what must be, equally disturb us with hopes which melt into fears, and forebodings which consolidate into certainties. We are ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was no sign of an island, but presently, through the gathering darkness, there loomed up a black mass in the swirl of white waters. ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... was in company with monseigneur and those who came to the villa; at times he sought or was sought by others that he knew in Rome, fared into carnival with them. Much more rarely he dipped into the swirl alone. ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... the rolling of the ship; she burned to do it all as she knew it, no matter how the sea behaved, and in another moment she struck into it again. This time the sea behaved perfectly, and the dance ended with just the swoop and swirl she had meant it to have at first. The spectators went generously wild over her; they cheered and clapped her, and crowded upon her to tell how lovely it was; but she escaped from them, and ran back to the place where she had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... still light outside, but the sky hung full of snow; above, a grey fleece and, lower, a swirl of great white flakes, which fell down slowly swarming one on ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... itself and gradually run away. The tinkle tinkle tank tank of drops sounded from his own eaves. Down the far-off river, sluggish reaches of ice drifted. Then in a night the blue disappeared from the stream. It became a menacing gray, and even from his distance Thorpe could catch the swirl of its rising waters. A day or two later dark masses drifted or shot across the field of his vision, and twice he thought he distinguished men standing upright and bold on single logs as ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... of the stuff and the onward swirl of his verse we see that this man stood for truth and justice as against hypocrisy and oppression. Folly and freedom are better far than smugness and persecution. Byron stood for the rights of the individual, for the right of free speech ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... felt disappointed and dreadfully alone. Her sober-minded room-mate was bobbing like a pigeon before Professor Grind, enthusiastically telling him "how much inspiration she got from his courses;" Katherine Graham was lost in a swirl of upper class-men. The Freshman had half turned toward the dressing-room when out of the press came Jack Smith, big, wholesome-looking, still smiling with some memory of his latest conversation. Why did Hannah stop? It was certainly bold,—doubtless it was ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... of a song, and will have to be grabbed by eager hands and pulled back. Twenty-four seconds later the piano will begin "The Return of the Reindeer" with a powerful accent on the first note of each bar, and Flora Rochester, Lillian McNulty, Gertrude Hamingham and Martha Wrist will swirl on, dressed in white, and advance heavily into the footlights, ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... him to stone. Somebody sure had welshed! He had once been in a side show at Coney Island where the room simulated the motion of an ocean steamer. The courtroom began to do the same—slanting this way and that and spinning obliquely round and round. Through the swirl of its gyrations he could see old Tutt's vulture eyes, growing bigger, fiercer, more sinister every instant. It was all up with him! It was an execution, and the crowd down below were thirsting for his blood, waiting ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... despite his horse-bowed legs, walked over to the bunk-house for flash-mirror and gun, came back to his already caught-up and saddled horse, turned stirrup and set foot in it, caught hold of mane and horn, beat the quick swirl of his pony sidewise with the fling of leg over cantle and went streaming off for the Bald Butte in a cloud of dust. Sandy called to Buck Perches, oldest of his riders, whose exposed skin matched the leather ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... of the engines we sprang and quivered like a living thing. One great yellow lantern in our bows threw a long, flickering funnel of light in front of us. Right ahead a dark blur upon the water showed where the Aurora lay, and the swirl of white foam behind her spoke of the pace at which she was going. We flashed past barges, steamers, merchant-vessels, in and out, behind this one and round the other. Voices hailed us out of the darkness, ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... now reached the mill-race and had seated themselves on the high embankment where they could watch the water swirl swiftly beneath them. The mill was not grinding to-day and its neighborhood seemed quite deserted. Here the old Colonel and his granddaughter sat dreamily for a long time, conversing casually on various subjects or allowing themselves to drift into ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... night. The sun shone hot at midday and there were hard frosts at night; but the rest in this sort of travel was wonderfully refreshing after four months of toil across prairie and {75} mountain. But on the afternoon of the 5th of September the rafts began to bounce and swirl. The banks raced to the rear, and before the crews realized it, a noise as of breaking seas filled the air, and the Scarborough was riding her first rapid. Luckily, the water was deep and the rocks well submerged. The Scarborough ran the rapid without mishap and the other rafts followed. ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... the two men. He knew the driving force which was sending him to the mountains was not only an impulse, but almost an inspirational thing born of necessity. Each step that he took, with his head and heart in a swirl of intoxicating madness, was an effort behind which he was putting a sheer weight of physical will. He wanted to go back. The urge was upon him to surrender utterly to the weakness of forgetting that Mary Standish was a wife. He had almost fallen a victim to his selfishness and passion ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... had taken was on the sixth floor, and from the one narrow window she could look across the yellow swirl of Tiber towards Monte Mario. She had set up her household gods. The plaster bust of Dante, and her books, on the rickety wooden table by her bedside, and, such as it was, ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... occur inside each episode, the textures sparkling with wit, information, and insight. Verne regards the sea from many angles: in the domain of marine biology, he gives us thumbnail sketches of fish, seashells, coral, sometimes in great catalogs that swirl past like musical cascades; in the realm of geology, he studies volcanoes literally inside and out; in the world of commerce, he celebrates the high-energy entrepreneurs who lay the Atlantic Cable or dig ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... but held the three fingers out for a full minute. Finally he dropped them and bent to pick up the case instruments. Again the little swirl in the air, and the instruments vanished. In their place lay three of the blue gems. My mouth twitched in the first amusement I had felt since we entered this uncanny place. Evidently bargaining with the Silent Ones was not a great deal different than bargaining ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... when all the canoes were ranged side by side, their gracefully curved bows came in line; dip, swirl, thud; dip, swirl, thud, sounded all the paddles together. The time was faultless. Then it was that the picturesque brigade appeared in wild perfection. Nearing a portage, spontaneously a race began for the best landing ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... beneath the water, a light that lets the red hues overcome the others—a wild rush of crowded waters rotating as they go, shrill voices calling. This next bend upwards dazzles the eyes, for every inclined surface and striving parallel, every swirl, and bubble, and eddy, and rush around a rock chances to reflect the sunlight. Not one long pathway of quiet sheen, such as stretches across a rippled lake, each wavelet throwing back its ray in just proportion, but a hundred separate mirrors vibrating, each inclined at a different angle, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... the way, and almost every time he cast his fly there was a swirl, the end of the slender rod bent, there was a minute of excitement, and then upon the bank lay a beautiful speckled trout. On, on, on they went over the cool, green leaves and bright red berries of the partridge vine, and past raspberries wherever ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... was a slip of soil, a helpless clutch at fern and heather, a cry of terror, and he was alone on the headland. The black swirl was ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... summer landed at the village, which was a couple of miles from the point where the boys were. The shore off from where they sat was full of hidden rocks and sand bars running out under the froth and swirl of the waves, against which no ship could run without having her bottom ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... to the corner of the station, but all he could see of either was through a swirl of dust as the motor car in which they were riding flew ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... to seek. The tyrant river that she loved, had received her, had taken her life, and then had borne her on its swirl of waters straight for that little creek where, once before, it had tossed a human prey upon ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and swirl of recent events he must have omitted to see that the clasp that fastened the bag was properly closed; for the bag, as it jumped on to the window-sill, gaped at him like a yawning face. And inside it there ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... she had but just fallen asleep when she was rudely awakened by the jar and grind of the Rosemary's wheels on snow-covered rails. Drawing the curtain, she found that a new day was come, gray and misty white in the gusty swirl ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... a quaintly round dress of lightish-brown mohair, which would not fall into graceful folds. So there she sat in the little library, knitting Titanically; and I sat alone with her, learning to round Hatteras at the heel in a swirl of contradictory impressions. I felt that she ought to have been dressed in soft dark silks, with a large, half-idle ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... vista of a gorge-like street so choked with a seeming thundercloud that you feel sure a storm is just about to burst upon the city, until you look up at the zenith and find it smiling and serene. Again and again a sudden swirl of smoke across the street (like that which swept across Fifth-avenue when the Windsor Hotel burst into flames) has led me to prick up my ears for a cry of "Fire!" But Chicago is not so easily alarmed. ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... shoulder to shoulder, but those behind, eager to strike also, pressed us so recklessly that we hurled them back. To me it was all confusion, uproar, deadly fighting. I could think of nothing to right or left, only of the struggling devils in my front. Faces, forms, came and vanished in the swirl of smoke, brown gun-barrels whirled before me, flashes of fire burned my eyes, strange features, bearded, malignant, glared at me. I leaped straight at them, striking fiercely. Once I saw Grant, and aimed a blow at him. Then he was ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... whole mile or so of the line disappeared as the fire burned down into lower ground; and then with a swirl of flame and smoke, the smoke luminous in the glare, it moved magnificently up into sight, rolling like a breaker of fire bursting on a reef of land, buried the hillside in flame, and then whirled on over the top, its streamers flapping against the horizon, snapping ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... to the steady drum-beat of the engines, the broad swirl of water, churned into foam by the great propellers at the stern, marked their path as far back as the eye could reach. The weather was fitful, and the sky cleared somewhat toward sunset, but its light was cold, and threatening clouds hung close ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... a swirl of the yellow water which hid a sandbar, and, with a sigh, gave the quartermaster a course which cleared it. "Guess I don't like ructions myself," he said. "Hullo, what's up now? There are two of the passenger boys getting pushed ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... number along shore and near the craft itself. The gloom was lit up by flashes of guns, and the air was rent by the shouts of the combatants, for the white men could make as much noise as their enemies in the swirl and frenzy of personal encounter and ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... and its swirl in the pot slower, Hattie could keep the twist out of her face only by biting her tongue. She did, and a little arch of sweat ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... and warm on the window-ledge of Mr. Poddle's room, about to enter, to distribute cheer, to speak its unfailing promises. The sash was lifted high; a gentle wind, clean and blue, blowing from the sea, over the roofs and the river, came sportively in, with a joyous little rush and swirl—but of a sudden failed: hushed, as though by unexpected encounter with ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... do about it? What do we propose to do with more than two millions for whom Christ died, American citizens, in the very heart of our Nation, around whom the currents of commerce and industry swirl every day? Shall the greatest tidal wave of all time pass them by, and they not feel it for a moment? More than all, shall the great gospel of God, which is life, and hope, and peace, and home, for us, be nothing ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... the eye could reach, faces were seen anxiously looking towards Liverpool. Suddenly a strange roar was heard from the crowd, not a cheer of triumph, but a prolonged wail, beginning at the furthest point of travelling along the swarming banks like the incoming swirl of a breaker as it ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... who had anything to do with flying saucers, the summer of 1952 was just one big swirl of UFO reports, hurried trips, midnight telephone calls, reports to the Pentagon, press interviews, and very ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... and screaming with pain as we landed on the smoking turf of the other side. I gulped a great breath of the fresh air into my suffocating lungs, tore the buckskin covering from my broncho's head and we raced on in a swirl of smoke, always following the dust which revealed the tracks of the retreating Sioux. There was a whiff of singed hair, as if one of the horses had been burnt, and Little Fellow gave a shout. Looking back I saw his horse sinking ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... and in floods of grateful tears, the rescuer bent over the side of the wharf once more, intent on saving the gallant ship from her fate; but at this moment came a strong swirl of tide, the log swung round once more and floated off, and the rescuer fell "all along" into the water. This was nothing unusual, and he came puffing and panting up the slippery logs, and sat down again, shaking himself like a Newfoundland puppy. ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... a theatrical hand above her heart. "Such a relief!" she declared intensely—"you'll never know!" Then she jumped up and wheeled about to the door with petticoats professionally a-swirl. "Well, if I'm goin' to do a stagger in society to-night, it's me to go doll myself up to ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... At a point near the middle of the river a great mass of drift-logs and sand had long ago formed a barrier which split the stream so that one current came heavily shoreward on the side next the town and swashed with its muddy foam, making a swirl and eddy just below where ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... spoke there was a thundering crash on the deck above them, and a rush of water told that a big comber had come aboard, nearly burying the small craft in a swirl of green water. ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... There was a rush and swirl, as the effervescent Muscovite burst his way through the throng and rushed to where Cuthbert sat. He stood for a moment eyeing him excitedly, then, stooping swiftly, kissed him on both cheeks before Cuthbert could get his guard up. "My dear young man, I saw you ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... in it somewhere a fearful vitality. The swiftness of its movements when seizing prey is most astonishing; a swirl of water, the sweep of a powerful tail, and the unfortunate victim has disappeared. For this reason it is especially dangerous to approach the actual edge of any of the great rivers, unless the water is so shallow that the crocodile could not possibly approach under cover, as is ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver—glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spellbound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... cartridge his men had made so good practice with them and their rifles that the third junk was already in a sinking condition. Even as he looked she disappeared like her consorts to the bottom, in a swirl of broken water, dotted with the forms ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... us went to the rapid to fish, but it was too cold for either fly or bait, and we soon gave it up. I slipped off a rock in the lower swirl of the rapid, and went into the river over head and ears. Pete, who was with me, gave audible expression to his amusement at my discomfiture as I crawled out of the water like a half drowned rat; but I could see no occasion for his hilarity and ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... demanded. The galloping began again, gently at first, then faster and faster in obedience to her wishes, until she seemed only a swirl of white dress and blue ribbon and flying brown curls. But this time the giddy going up and down was in tame silence. There was no accompanying song to make the game lively. Mrs. Triplett had more to say, and Mr. Darcy was too deeply interested ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... pillar," which was dimly visible from our deck; but we rowed in vain along the tall and rusty sea-walls. No whaler could attack the huge rollers that raised their monstrous backs, plunged over with a furious roar, and bespread the beach with a swirl of foam. At last, seeing a fine surf-boat, artistically raised at stern and bow, and manned by Cabindas, the Kruboys of the coast, made fast to a ship belonging to Messrs. Tobin of Liverpool, we boarded ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... few paces. He went and stood by the engine-room telegraph. The engines throbbed merrily, but the steamer was still asleep. There was no sound but the thud of the piston-rods and the whispering swirl of the water lashed by the ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... hardly worth while. Jack took a towel from the willow bush upon which it was hanging, went down to the river, stripped, and from a rock ten feet above a deep pool dived straight as an arrow into the black water. The swirl of the current swept him into the shallower stream below. He waded ashore, beautiful in his supple slimness as an Apollo, climbed the rock a second time, and again knew the delightful shock of a dive into icy water ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... you such a sense of sustained inclosure as those long passages projected over street and stream to establish a sort of inviolate transition between the two palaces of art. We passed along the gallery in which those precious drawings by eminent hands hang chaste and gray above the swirl and murmur of the yellow Arno, and reached the ducal saloons of the Pitti. Ducal as they are, it must be confessed that they are imperfect as show-rooms, and that, with their deep-set windows and their massive mouldings, it is rather a broken light ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... mind, but it is highly confusing to an American who gets into the swirl of traffic at a crossing—and every London crossing is a swirl of traffic most of the time—and looks left when he should look right, and looks right when he should be looking left until the very best he can expect, if he survive at all, ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... surface of the road is loose, and scoured by winter rains, and on a windy day the dust comes swirling down it like a miniature sandstorm. I have, indeed, seen even a car obliged to draw up to let the blinding red swirl go by; and from Lynton, on the opposite side of the valley, the whole headland has been blurred and obliterated by the dust, as if it were ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... sides of the cavern, or on a rock, or being sucked down in the raging waters, or perhaps asphyxiated by want of air. All of these and many other modes of death presented themselves to my imagination as I lay at the bottom of the canoe, listening to the swirl of the hurrying waters which ran whither we knew not. One only other sound could I hear, and that was Alphonse's intermittent howl of terror coming from the centre of the canoe, and even that seemed faint and unnatural. Indeed, the whole thing ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... rents and scars, full of dust, were now singing torrents and broad pools fetlock deep. Prosper let his good beast go his own gait, which was a sober trot, and ever and again as he heard the ripple of running water and the swirl and suck of the eddies in it, he judged that he must soon or late touch the Wan river, whereon stood the Abbey and his bed. What to do with the girl when he got there? That puzzled him. "A well-ordered abbey," ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... noo, Mistress Stewart, good woman, this is a sair predeecament for ye to be in. I would jist counsel ye to be candid. Doubtless yer mind is a' in a swirl. Ye kenna what way to turn. Maybe ye are like the Psalmist and say: "I lookit this way and that, and there was no man to peety me, or to have compassion upon my fatherless children." But, see now, ye would be wrong; and, if ye ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... quiet, something dropped with a light plash upon the surface of the pool and, looking up, he beheld the flutter of bright wings as a butterfly struggled with the strange element into which it had so suddenly dropped. The next moment there was a swirl of water as a vigorous young trout rose to the surface, and the ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... almost fell from the boat, for there was a great swirl in the water where his minnow was spinning along, a broad tail came out and hit the water with a tremendous splash, and he struck but did not hook the fish, which, however, he ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... poised himself upright on his haunches, with his listless fore-paws suspended in the air, and it occurred to Dundas that he was probably unfamiliar with the presence of human beings, and had never heard the crack of a gun. A great swirl of swallows came soaring out of the big kitchen chimneys and circled in the sky, darting down again and again upward. Through an open passage was a glimpse of a quadrangle, with its weed-grown spaces and litter of yellow leaves. A tawny streak, a red fox, sped through it as Dundas looked. ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... takes his bow of arrows and goes his way and comes to the riverside and turns his face south, and goes slowly along the very edge of the water; and the water itself drew his eyes down to gaze on the dark green deeps and fierce downlong swirl of the stream, with its sharp clean lines as if they were carven in steel, and the curling and upheaval and sudden changing of the talking eddies: so that he scarce might see the familiar greensward of the ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... tips of the red maples budding in the school campus. He was far away from Colversham and its round of duties. In imagination he moved with a gay, eager crowd through the gateway leading into the great city ball ground. He could hear the game called; watch the first swirl of the ball as it curved from the pitcher's hand; catch the sharp click of the bat against it; and join in the roar of applause as the swift-footed ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... mile. Twice the grass choked the wheel and twice with desperate haste it was cleared by Ned. The boat had gone many yards beyond the place where Molly had seen the animal when there was a great swirl in the water beside the craft, followed by other swirls, which grew less and less as they led in a straight line up a broad tideway that opened into the upper end of the bay. A moment later another series of swirls was seen and followed, after ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... This is your 'flutter.' I like the way you face it. If you were a son instead of a daughter, I should see I might have confidence in you. I could not confide to Wall Street what I will tell you—which is that in the midst of the drive and swirl and tumult of my life here, I like what you see in the thing, I like your idea of the lord of the land, who should love the land and the souls born on it, and be the friend and strength of them and give the best and get it back ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... slowly and surely into a state of panic. At Broadway the swirl of the dinner-bound was already tightening. Lights began to pop out in the tall, narrow office and loft buildings of the ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... of the earth seemed strange to me after nearly a week spent at sea, and as I sprang from the launch on to the rough rocks, aided by Santoris, I was for a moment faint and giddy. The dark mountain summits seemed to swirl round me,—and the glittering water, shining like steel, had the weird effect of a great mirror in which a fluttering vision of something undefined and undeclared rose and passed like a breath. I recovered myself with an effort and stood still, trying to control the foolish throbbing of my heart, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... and leaned to watch the water swirl and gurgle through the "trunk," sucking the long weeds with it, and thickening with its tumult the clear current of the stream, the sound of voices and the bleating of sheep came up from below. He had not the farming instincts in his ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... character in the mode of going to the ferry. It is almost impossible not to be in a hurry, such is the swirl of the tide in which you find yourself. In my three years of almost daily transit I never ceased to revere the moral superiority of the admirable few who day after day could proceed with leisurely step and serene brow ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... room in swarms, stately and gorgeous, dazzling with diamonds; flowers on their heads and breasts, in their hair, scattered over their dresses or lying in garlands at their feet. Light quiverings of the body, voluptuous movements, made the laces and gauzes and silks swirl about their graceful figures. Sparkling glances here and there eclipsed the lights and the blaze of the diamonds, and fanned the flame of hearts already burning too brightly. I detected also significant nods of the head for lovers and repellent attitudes for husbands. The exclamation ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... for a bad cayuse and the swirl and swish of the flying noose, And the cowboy's yell as he roped a steer, but nothing of this fell on his ear. Not even a wide-brimmed hat he spied, but derbies flourished on every side, And the spurs and the "chaps" and the flannel shirts, the high-heeled boots and the guns and the ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... mud, dirt, smoke, and shrieking splinters, and, either from the shock of the explosion or in an attempt to escape it, throwing the man off his balance on the ledge of the firing-step to sprawl full length in the mud. In the swirl of noise and smoke and flying earth Rawbon just glimpsed the plunging fall of a man's body, and felt a curious sickly feeling at the pit of his stomach. He was relieved beyond words to see the figure rise to his knees and stagger to his feet, dripping mud and filth, and swearing at the pitch ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... darling Eva!" was my prayer. A pure, unconscious depth of earnestness Was in her eyes, so indescribable You might as well the color of the air Seek to daguerreotype, or to impress A stain upon the river, whose first swell Would swirl it to the deep. A calm, sweet soul, Where Love's celestial saints and ministers Did hold the earthly under such control Virtue sprung up like daisies from the sod. Oh, for one hour's sweet excellence like hers! ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... stumbled over Amber—stumbled and swore in good English. The Virginian sat up, crying out as weakly as a child: "Labertouche!" A voice said: "Thank God!" He felt strong hands lift him to his feet. He clung to him who had helped him, swaying like a drunkard, wits a-swirl in the brain thus roughly ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... their blandishments and remained a widower, devoting his entire care to the one child he had brought with him as an infant from the Highland hills, and to whom he gave a brilliant but desultory and uncommon education. Life seemed to swirl round him in a glittering ring of gold of which he made himself the centre,—and when he died suddenly "from overstrain" as the doctors said, people were almost frightened to name the vast fortune his daughter ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... bit before her, and then he came again and brushed her slowly, gently, to one side, with an irresistible strength. She had to meet his eyes now—there was no help for it—and she saw there that swirl of yellow light—that insatiable hunger. And she knew, fully and bitterly, that she had failed. With the wolf-dog, indeed, she had conquered, but the man escaped her. If time had been granted her she would have won, she ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... blowing gray and high and cold. At sea 'twas breaking in a geyser of white water on the Resurrection Rock; and ashore, in the meagre shelter of Meeting House Hill, the church-bell clanged fearsomely in a swirl of descending wind: the gloaming of a wild day, indeed! The Shining Light came lurching through the frothy sea with the wind astern: a flash of white in the mist, vanishing among the careering waves, doughtily reappearing—growing the while ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... hand rested upon his forehead. He was confronted with a mystery which baffled him, a mystery whose sinister possibilities were slowly framing themselves in his mind. While he stood there he was suddenly conscious of the sound of the opening gate, brisk footsteps up the tiled way, the soft swirl of a woman's skirt. The latch was raised, the door opened and closed. The newcomer stood upon the threshold, gazing ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... German campaign at this time, so far as they can be determined from the official orders and from the manner in which the respective movements were carried out, were three-fold. The first of these movements was the order given to General von Kluck to swirl his forces to the southeast of Paris, swerving away from the capital in an attempt to cut the communications between it and the Fifth French Army under General d'Esperey. This plan evidently involved a feint attack upon the Sixth ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... the seaman absolutely dry, and I was of course enveloped in foam and blackness two seconds later by a following wave. Twice the day before this had happened, but this time for a moment I thought, 'Where will my head strike?' as I was like a feather in a breeze in that swirl. When I banked it was about 15 feet above, and, very scratched and winded, I clung on with my nails and scrambled up higher. The next wave, a bigger one, nearly had me, but I was just too high to be sucked back. Atkinson ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... and Sergius and his companions threw themselves upon their kneeling chargers. Then they rode out and down the bank, behind the consul who, with head hanging upon his breast, had turned his rein the moment he had given the word. What if the dust did swirl up in blinding sheets from the south? Before them lay the Roman battle, horse and foot—such an army as the city had never sent forth. What if its masses were somewhat cramped? its front narrow? its general an amateur? They were to fight at last, and how should a mongrel horde of barbarians, ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... head but both Halloran and the rabbi were hidden by the swirl of gray figures that swept around ...
— Criminal Negligence • Jesse Francis McComas
... Scoville moaning and sighing in the extremity of physical pain. Starting up, she saw it was broad day. She passed her hand confusedly over her brow and tried to recall what had occurred, to understand the sounds which had suggested her dream. Then in a flash, the strange swirl of events in which she was involved presented itself and she knew she had wakened to other experiences beyond even her imagination. The groans of wounded men brought pitiful tears to her eyes and steadied her nerves by ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... round and round, stared into the swirl of the tea, and remained silent. Mr. Clacton, meanwhile, framed a question which, after a moment's ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... bawsent face [pleasant, white-marked] Aye gat him friends in ilka place, [every] His breast was white, his tousie back [shaggy] Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black: His gawsie tail, wi' upward curl, [joyous] Hung o'er his hurdles wi' a swirl. [buttocks] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... of his backward heels; the shake and swirl of his bridle-hand; the flog of his arm in time with the horse's ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant |
