"Brandish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are very different; they have only raised discontent among our countrymen, and contempt among our enemies. We have shown that we are strong indeed, but that our force is made ineffectual by our cowardice; that when we threaten most loudly, we perform nothing; that we draw our swords but to brandish them, and only wait an opportunity to sheath them in such a manner, as not plainly to confess that ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... paro. Bracelet cxirkauxmano. Braces sxelko. Bracket tableto. Brackish saleta. Bray fanfaroni. Braggart fanfaronulo. Brain cerbo. Brake (fern) filiko. Brake (for wheels) haltigilo. Bran brano. Branch (of tree) brancxo. Branch (of roads, etc.) disvojo. Brand (fire) brulajxo. Brandish svingi. Brandy brando. Brasier fajrujo. Brass flava kupro. Brave brava. Brave bravulo. Brave kontrauxstari al. Bravery braveco. Bravo! brave! Brawl malpacego. Brawny muskola. Bray (ass) bleki. Bray (to pound) pisti. Brazen bronza. Breach brecxo. Bread pano. Bread ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... they were addressed by a traveler in a cork helmet. But that is in virtue of an equitable and logical principle, derived by them from the high places of the new administration—namely, that the Egypt of to-day belongs far less to the Egyptians than to the noble foreigners who have come to brandish ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... in a hoarse whisper, "what happened, happened justly! Martin is responsible. The whole thing was conducted in the spirit of a pantomime, a great joke. Who are we, the Wolves, to brandish empty firearms, to shrink from ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... so long and obstinate? Why is it that, no matter how much writers like Mr. Grant Allen and Professor Ray Lankester may say about "Mr. Darwin's master-key," nor how many more like hyperboles they brandish, they never put a succinct resume of Mr. Darwin's theory side by side with a similar resume of his grandfather's and Lamarck's? Neither Mr. Darwin himself, not any of those to whose advocacy his reputation is mainly due, have done this. Professor Huxley is the man of all others who foisted ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... Will as a sacred thing, and through all her returning plumpness and rosiness—for she was still a young woman—never forgot the honour she had borne in being a great painter's wife and companion for half-a-dozen years. Perhaps, good as she was, she grew rather to brandish this credit in the faces of the cloth-workers and their wives; to speak a little bigly of the galleries and the Academy, of chiaroscuro and perspective, of which the poor ignoramuses knew nothing: to be obstinate ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... glorified by cooking and good cheer. His drum-sticks will be the drum-sticks of turkeys—his cannon, the popping of corks. In his day, even weavers shall know the taste of geese, and factory-children smack their lips at the gravy of the great sirloin. Join your glasses! brandish your carving-knives! cry welcome to the Prince of Wales! for he comes garnished with all the world's good things. He shall live in the hearts, and (what is more) in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... shanks would not shrink from the application of the red-hot poker. Peter has a notion that but for that red-hot poker the fire would go out; so to humour him we let it remain in the ribs, and occasionally brandish it round our head in moments of enthusiasm when the Crutch looks tame, and the Knout a ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... defended; and hardly enough artillerymen were left to have pulled back, with their united efforts, the spring of one of the pea cannons. The leaders on both sides remained unscathed, and continued to brandish bent lead swords at each other ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... assistance which it affords to our fellow-citizens. We then behold the triumph of eloquence. Have we reason to be alarmed for ourselves, the sword and breast-plate are not a better defence in the heat of battle. It is at once a buckler to cover yourself [b] and a weapon to brandish against your enemy. Armed with this, you may appear with courage before the tribunals of justice, in the senate, and even in the presence of the prince. We lately saw [c] Eprius Marcellus arraigned before the fathers: in that moment, when the minds of the ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... very lime-twigs of his spells, And yet came off: if you have this about you (As I will give you when we go) you may Boldly assault the necromancers hall; Where if he be, with dauntless hardihood, 650 And brandish't blade rush on him, break his glass, And shed the lushious liquor on the ground, But sease his wand, though he and his curst crew Feirce signe of battail make, and menace high, Or like the sons of Vulcan vomit smoak, Yet will they soon ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... initial difficulties of locomotion, and now began to take regular exercise out of doors. It would be too much to say that his gait was particularly elegant; but there really was something triumphal about the way in which he learnt to brandish his leg with every step he took, and the majestic swing with which he brought it round to its place in advance of the other. In fact, he soon found himself stumping along the highroads with wonderful speed and safety; though to clamber over stiles, and work a bicycle one-footed, of course ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... compelled them to drag the plough. The Colchians were amazed; the Greeks shouted for joy. Jason next proceeded to sow the dragon's teeth and plough them in. And soon the crop of armed men sprang up, and, wonderful to relate! no sooner had they reached the surface than they began to brandish their weapons and rush upon Jason. The Greeks trembled for their hero, and even she who had provided him a way of safety and taught him how to use it, Medea herself, grew pale with fear. Jason for a time kept his assailants at bay with his sword and shield, till, finding their numbers ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... and through a loophole knocked over a savage who had paused in the open to brandish a war-ax thickly decorated with either feathers ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... so well, what hindrance to it, What hindrance, tell me, was the child Orestes? Yet scarce had Agamemnon died before Thou did'st cry out for his son's blood; and searched Through all the palace in thy fury. Then The blade thou durst not wield against the father, Then thou didst brandish! Ay, bold wast thou then Against a helpless child!... Unhappy son, what booted it to save thee From thy sire's murderer, since thou hast found Death ere thy time in strange lands far away? Aegisthus, villainous usurper! Thou, Thou ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... winter shock By night, with noises of the northern sea. So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him Three times, and drew him under in the mere. And lightly went the other to the King. Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath: "Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?" And answer made ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... the soul, unseen. Does fiercely brandish a sharp scourge within; Severe decrees may keep our tongues in awe, But to our minds what edicts can give law? Even you yourself to your own breast shall tell Your crimes, and your own conscience ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... language of Britain, coupled with her preparations for war. These led the Boers also to arm, and, as happened with the arming and counter-arming of Prussia and Austria in 1866, when each expected an attack from the other, war inevitably followed. To brandish the sword before a cause for war has been shown not only impairs the prospect of a peaceful settlement, but may give the world ground for believing ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... him? My Lord Cinqwarden, it is painful to have to use personal correction to a boy of your age; but really . . . Siste tandem, carnifex! The butchery is too horrible. The hand drops powerless, appalled at the quantity of birch which it must cut and brandish. I am glad we are not all found out, I say again; and protest, my dear brethren, against ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... frighten the old man, who looked at Pillerault with a startled air. He had counted on meeting Birotteau alone, intending to pose as the sovereign arbiter of his fate,—a legal Jupiter. He meant to frighten him with the thunder-bolt of an accusation, to brandish the axe of a criminal charge over his head, enjoy his fears and his terrors, and then allow himself to be touched and softened, and persuaded at last to restore his victim to a life of perpetual gratitude. Instead of his insect, he had got hold of ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... Alf of Grof, Broddi Thorleifsson, Einar the Rich, and all who are here, excepting only Brand Kolbeinsson, agree, and brandish our weapons in confirmation of our purpose, that we shall not part from one another, and share a common fate, until we shall have brought from life to ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... shape of humanity more hideous and terrific than they appear to a stranger—seen, perhaps, through the livid gleam of a fire, the eyes surrounded by large white circles, in contrast with the black ground, the hair stuck full of pieces of bone and in the hand a grasped club, which they occasionally brandish with the greatest fierceness and agility. Some dances are performed by men only, some by women only, and in others the sexes mingle. In one of them I have seen the men drop on their hands and knees and kiss the earth with the greatest fervor, between the kisses looking up to Heaven. They also ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... Frank had only met with failure; so he was tempted to brandish his successes. He gave a humorous description of his friends—how he had picked them up; how they had supplied him with horses to ride and guns ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... sound your war-horn, Your great Olifant, far-sounding: Charles will hear it and return here.' 'Cowardice were that,' quoth Roland; 'In fair France my fame were tarnished. No, these Pagans all shall perish When I brandish Durendala.' ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... it swings away slowly. Ah, many a league It has trotted 'twixt sturdy-legged Terence and Teague; Stout fellows!—but prone, on a question of fare, To brandish the poles of that old ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... case, if you would prevent a crime you must strike a blow. You have begun by negotiating, you must end by mounting your horse, sabre in hand, like a Parisian gendarme. You must make your horse prance, you must brandish your sabre, you must shout strenuously, and you must endeavor to calm the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... particularly about the beginning of the dry season, when the labour of the harvest is over, and provisions are plentiful. Schemes of vengeance are then meditated. The chief man surveys the number and activity of his vassals, as they brandish their spears at festivals; and elated with his own importance, turns his whole thoughts towards revenging some depredation or insult, which either he or his ancestors may have received ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... Byronic-looking dragoman came round and proposed a barbaric dance to our people. Ali Cocash was his name, and he described this dance as an imitation of a fierce and bloody orgy, such as the Bedouins indulge in after a great victory. They were to shout, grunt and brandish their guns, dirks, pistols and swords, and to behave generally in a very disreputable manner; in fact, Ali gravely intimated that it would be no place for timid ladies. This simply whetted our appetites and we promptly closed with him for the dance for a certain amount of "teep." ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... To brandish high thy sword, With calm assurance, And face the devil's horde With brave endurance, Is meet and well begun, And merits praising. But from the strife to run, When blows thy courage stun, ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... the Phrygian Knight, So ours with rusty steel did smite His Trojan horse, and just as much He mended pace upon the touch; 920 But from his empty stomach groan'd Just as that hollow beast did sound, And angry answer'd from behind, With brandish'd tail and blast of wind. So have I seen, with armed heel, 925 A wight bestride a Common-weal; While still the more he kick'd and spurr'd, The less the sullen ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... and the drum and the dancers would cease as he struck a post with his tomahawk, and in a loud voice recounted his exploits. Then the music and the dance began anew, till another warrior caught the martial fire, and bounded into the circle to brandish his tomahawk ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... necks, and the men generally wear long white feathers stuck upright in their hair. They came off in canoes which will carry a hundred people; when within a stone's throw of the ship, the chief of the party would brandish a battleaxe, calling out: 'Come ashore with us and we will kill you.' They would certainly have eaten them too, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... little follies, but not to their vices. Do not, however, remonstrate or preach against them, for remonstrances do not suit with your age. In French companies in general you will not find much learning, therefore take care not to brandish yours in their faces. People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority. Conceal all your learning carefully, and reserve it for the company of les Gens d'Eglise, or les Gens de Robe; and even then let them rather extort it from you, than find you over-willing to draw ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... afar, And burns to plunge amid the raging war; And mocks at death, and throws his foam around, And in a storm of fury shakes the ground. How does his firm, his rising heart, advance Full on the brandish'd sword, and shaken lance; While his fix'd eyeballs meet the dazzling shield, Gaze, and return the lightning of the field! He sinks the sense of pain in gen'rous pride, Nor feels the shaft that trembles in his side; But neighs to the shrill trumpet's ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... and spectators. The music and the dancers begin. The warriors exert themselves, with great energy. Every muscle is in action: and there is the most perfect concord between the music and their movements. They brandish their weapons, and with such apparent fury, that fatal accidents seem unavoidable. Presently a warrior leaves the circle, and with his tomahawk or casse-tete, strikes the post. The music and dancing cease, and profound silence ensues. He then recounts, ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... sphinx-riddles! Thrice over, at different dates (which shall be given), the first of them this Year, he starts up as in spasm, determined to draw sword, and plunge in; twice he is crushed down again, with sword half drawn; and only the third time (in 1743) does he get sword out, and brandish it in a surprising though useless manner. After which he feels better. But up to that crisis, his case is really tragical,—had idle readers any bowels for him; which they have not! One or two Fractions, snatched from the circumambient ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... this was in the days of his warring—and he laughed on his throne and said, "Oh, little Nation, I will make mincemeat of thee, for I have every kind of weapon that is made, and many officials who do nothing all day but spy on other people and brandish their swords. What have you to oppose to such strength? Little kingdom, you will be but a road ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... impossible for me to compute their number, considering the space of ground they took up. A cavalier, mounted on a large steed, might be about ninety feet high. I have seen this whole body of horse, upon a word of command, draw their swords at once, and brandish them in the air. Imagination can figure nothing so grand, so surprising, and so astonishing! it looked as if ten thousand flashes of lightning were darting at the same time from every quarter ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... march in the vanguard wherever you may go and make you invulnerable to the bullets of the enemy, so that you may return victorious to tread once more this noble soil and kiss the cheek of the weeping mother who bore you!... We, who cannot go to take part in the battles, will hold and brandish the arms of prayer, like Moses who prayed on the mountain, whilst Joshua slew his ferocious enemies in the valley.... God has triumph in His hand and will give it to whom He pleases. He gave it to Spain in Covadonga, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... time the landlords brandish a redoubtable weapon: starvation. Already thousands of acres that might be richly fertile lie idle or are pasture for herds of wild bulls for the arena. The great land-owning families hold estates all over ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... advertising himself. If you analyse it, it's a mean thing to do, for it's no more a virtue to be born American than a fault to be born anything else. I'm proud of my nationality and my income is a source of satisfaction to me, but I don't intend to brandish either of them in ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... trifle too remote to be a potent source of comfort to a quivering mind. Besides, when, in all probability, it was that same law, either in breach or in observance, which had caused the trouble, it seemed a little bit unmerciful to brandish the cause as an instrument ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... thy might? Of portly stature, and determin'd mien? Whose dark eye dwells beneath a brow serene? And forward looks unmov'd to fields of death: And smiling, gently strokes thee in thy wrath? Whose brandish'd falch'on dreaded gleams afar? It is a British soldier, arm'd ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... in fond alarm, Most trembling for her guardian's life, She looks, expecting that his arm Would brandish his ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... and smaller animals; because capable of lifting weights, leaping distances, and surmounting obstacles, of proportion apparently overwhelming. Thus the Formica Herculanea will lift in its mouth, and brandish like a baton, sticks thicker than itself and six times its length, all the while scrambling over crags of about the proportionate height of the Cliffs of Dover, three or four in a minute. There is nothing extraordinary in this, nor any exertion of strength necessarily greater than ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... conquest, and enough of war! Ambition's cloy'd—the heart resumes its rights. When England's king, and England's good, requir'd, This arm not idly the keen falchion brandish'd: Enough—for vaunting misbecomes a soldier. I live, I am return'd—am near Elwina! Seest thou those turrets? Yes, that castle holds her; But wherefore tell thee this? for thou hast seen her. How look'd, ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... we truly saving a man if we bring about that he loves evil somewhat less than he loved it before; for we are helping that man to construct, deep down in his soul, the refuge where—against destiny shall brandish her weapons in vain. This refuge is the monument of consciousness, or, it may be, of love; for love is nothing but consciousness, still vaguely in search of itself; and veritable consciousness nothing but love that at ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... vales, Behind the mountains, or beyond the lake; Instinctively they war where'er they meet: The friendly parley cannot intervene; The unknown tongue does but create alarm: With jealous fears, stern looks, and brandish'd arms, They stand aloof: as birds of distant groves At the strange note prepare for instant War. At first they skirmishing dispute the right Of hunting in the unappropriate waste: But every onset ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... said, "Let there be Bryan," and there was Bryan. Even in these degenerate days there is a hope for the orators when one can make himself a Presidential peril by merely waving the red flag in the cave of the winds and tormenting the circumjacence with a brandish of abundant hands. ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... jar, quake, shiver, totter, brandish, joggle, quaver, shudder, tremble, flap, jolt, quiver, sway, vibrate, fluctuate, jounce, reel, swing, wave, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Jacobite Journal." "The Whirling Coxcomb," cries Lady Fanny enraged, "what had he to do with ridiculing any Party, who had travell'd round the whole Circle of Parties and Ministers, ever since he could brandish a Pen." [3] Her Ladyship adds some further sneers on writers pensioned to amuse people with their nonsense. The other counter pamphlet consists of conversations overheard, all over the town, on the subject ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... the bands of fear, and madly cried, 'You careless jade!'—But scarce the words began, When Betty brandish'd ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... this. Whereupon the peasant sprang from the bed, quickly drew his axe from his belt, and began to brandish it in all directions. I wished to fly, but I could not. The room seemed to be suddenly full of corpses. I stumbled against them; my feet slipped in pools of blood. The terrible peasant called me gently, saying ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... did he become? The present coronation will be the representation of a coronation. It will not be one; we shall see the Marshal Moncey, an actor at that of Napoleon, the Marshal who formerly celebrated the death of the tyrant Louis XVI. in his army, brandish the royal sword at Rheims in his rank as Count of Flanders or Duke of Aquitaine. To whom can this parade really convey any illusion? I should have wished no pomp to-day; the King on horseback, the church bare, adorned only with its ancient arches and ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... the southern front of the stockade, when I glanced forward and saw the level ground between a seething mass of savage forms, so densely wedged together as to block further progress. I could see hundreds of brown sinewy arms uplifted from a sea of faces to brandish weapons of every description, and marked how the Miamis cowered like whipped curs behind the protection of Wells's horse, while close beside him stood Jordan, erect and silent as it on parade, a rifle grasped in his hands, his head bare, a great welt showing redly across ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... smoking of guns, the thundering of drums: I had rather hear the merry hacking of pot-herbs, and see the reeking of a hot capon. If they would use no other bucklers in war but shields of brawn, brandish no swords but sweards of bacon,[202] trail no spears but spare-ribs of pork, and instead of arquebuss pieces discharge artichoke-pies: toss no pikes but boiled pickrels, then Appetitus would rouse up his crest, and bear up ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... word more, by heaven I'll to the senate, And hang ye all, like dogs, in clusters. Why weep your coward swords half out their shells? Why do you not all brandish them like mine? You fear to die, and ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... deform; Altho' Sir Oracle is he, Who is as wise, as wise can be, In one short minute we shall find The wise man gone, a fool behind. Courage, that is all nerve and heart, That dares confront Death's brandish'd dart, That dares to single Fight defy The stoutest Hector of the sky, Whose mettle ne'er was known to slack, Nor wou'd on thunder turn his back; How small a matter may controul, And sooth the fury of his soul! Shou'd this intrepid Mars, his clay Dilute with nerve-relaxing Tea, ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... be," said Don Quixote, "I will not suffer them to touch a thread of thy garment: for if they sported with thee before, it was because I could not get over the wall; but we are now upon even ground, where I can brandish my sword ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... about the priesthood of all believers. Very well, if that principle is a true one—and it is a true one—it has other applications than simply controversial, and is meant for other uses than simply that you should brandish it in the face of sacerdotal claims and priest-ridden churches. 'Ye are all priests,' that is to say, the meaning of the existence of a Christian Church is to raise up a cloud of witnesses, and make every lip vocal with the name of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... its strange song amongst the ruins," says one of us, "what a wonderful acoustic phenomenon!" "Bhuta, bhuta!" whisper the awestruck torch-bearers. They brandish their torches and swiftly spin on one leg, and snap their fingers to chase away ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... yesterday after the lapse of thirty years, and protest he was younger than when he rapped sepulchral silence from his resounding desk. "How are you, Quilibet First?" he said, quite in the ancient way; he seemed once more to brandish the ferrule on ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... in which she had hidden it. The sight of it redoubled the assassins' fury. They stuck her head on a pike, and carried it in triumph to the Palais Royal to display it to D'Orleans, who was feasting with some of the companions of his daily orgies, and then proceeded to the Temple to brandish it before the eyes of ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... could by any means be made to live on the surface of the earth, instead of holes and corners, and feed and run about the streets and fields in the open day, like dogs and sheep, the whole nation would be horror-stricken, and, ultimately, there would not be a man, woman, or child able to brandish a stick, but would have a dog, stick, or gun for their destruction wherever they met with them. And are we to suppose, because they carry on their ravages in the dark, that they are less destructive? ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... him draw his cutlass and brandish it over his head, and a loud shout came across to us in a ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... wet surface of the country after a shower. They were of the bitter, hard, persistent sort, that interferes with sight and respiration, and makes the eyes sore. Even such winds as these have their own merit in proper time and place. It is pleasant to see them brandish great masses of shadow. And what a power they have over the colour of the world! How they ruffle the solid woodlands in their passage, and make them shudder and whiten like a single willow! There is nothing more vertiginous than a wind like this among the woods, with all its sights and noises; ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... well as borne. And such wert thou. Looke how the fathers face Liues in his issue, euen so, the race Of Shakespeares minde, and manners brightly shines In his well torned, and true-filed lines: In each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance, As brandish't at the eyes of Ignorance. Sweet Swan of Auon! what a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appeare, And make those flights vpon the bankes of Thames, That so did take Eliza, and our Iames! But stay, I ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... Arbeau's 'Orchesographie.' 1588.] The derivation of the name is from the French, bransle, a totter, swing, shake, etc., or perhaps from Old French Brandeler, to wag, shake, swing. Skeat thinks the original dance may have been a sword dance, and with this he connects the word Brandish.[20] It was danced, sometimes in a ring, holding hands, ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... with a little box at Richmond or Kew, and a half-score of little picaninnies, that will come and bob curtseys at the garden-gate when their uncle the General rides up on his great charger, with his aide-de-camp's pockets filled with gingerbread for the nephews and nieces. 'Tis for you to brandish the sword of Mars. As for me, I look forward to a quiet life: a quiet little home, a quiet little library full of books, and a little Some one dulce ridentem, dulce loquentem, on t'other side of the fire, as I scribble away at my papers. I am so pleased with this prospect, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... where the greatest danger and labour were indicated. At first they repelled the enemy with missile weapons, and suffered no place to be sufficiently secure for those engaged in the works; afterwards, not only did they brandish their weapons in defence of the walls and tower, but they had courage to make sallies on the posts and works of the enemy; in which tumultuary engagements, scarcely more Saguntines than Carthaginians were slain. But when Hannibal himself, while he too incautiously approached ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... impetuous and demonstrative of the two. He did not rush out, therefore (as Tom was too much inclined to do), the moment he had seized hold of the end of a new idea which he felt to be good for him and what he wanted, and brandish it in the face of all comers, and think himself a traitor to the truth if he wasn't trying to make everybody he met with eat it. Hardy, on the contrary, would test his new idea, and turn it over, and prove it as far as he could, and try to get hold of the whole ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... His twelve best champions start, And in the air sharp striking, They brandish sword and dart. They storm the strand, where by it The weary dragon lay; But Fridthjof, sitting nigh it, Looks ready for ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... a laugh. "I am delighted to hear it! I win my bet. Mademoiselle Noemie has thrown her cap over the mill, as we say. She has left the paternal domicile. She is launched! And M. Nioche is rather cheerful—FOR HIM! Don't brandish your tomahawk at that rate; I have not seen her nor communicated with her since that day at the Louvre. Andromeda has found another Perseus than I. My information is exact; on such matters it always is. I suppose that now you will raise ...
— The American • Henry James
... in this: for first, Mr. Palmer being quarrelled with for not pulling off his hat to my Lord Mayor, and giving cross answers, the halberds began to fly about his ears, and he and his company to brandish their swords. At last being beaten to the ground, and the Lord of Misrule sore wounded, they were fain to yield to the longer and more numerous weapon. My Lord Mayor taking Mr. Palmer by the shoulder, led him to the Compter, and thrust him in at the prison-gate with a kind of indignation; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... collie's attack was scrambling to his feet. So was Link Ferris. Sobered enough to recognize his beloved dog, he also saw the newrisen thief catch up a broken fence rail, brandish it aloft and charge upon the collie, who was still battling merrily ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... a fresh effort, and the boat bounds on, the oars almost lifting her out of the water. The canoes abeam begin to fall astern, but those on the bows are forging dangerously near, while the savages in them, now on their feet, brandish spears and wind their slings above their heads. Their fiendish cries and furious gestures, with their ghastly chalked faces, give them an appearance more demoniac ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... of the spectators as abound in comforts to give alms to those who are more scantily provided with them. It is danced by the young men who stand high in the tribe. These shake their rattles, hold up their pipes and brandish their lances, while they dance; chanting in an odd strain, at the top of their voices, in praise of the Great Spirit, and imploring him to dispose the lookers on to give freely. The dancers are all naked, with the ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... mild-ray'd Pity o'er the tyrant stole; But destiny forbade: with eager zeal (Again pretended for the public weal), Her fierce accusers urg'd her speedy doom; Again dark rage diffus'd its horrid gloom O'er stern Alonzo's brow: swift at the sign, Their swords, unsheath'd, around her brandish'd shine. O foul disgrace, of knighthood lasting stain, By men of arms a helpless ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... giant setting out to slaughter friend and foe. The "distortion," as already pointed out, is the exaggerated description of the mad warrior rage, just as the fear which produced death to those who saw him brandish his weapons, was also produced by Maori warrior methods.[474] Lug, who may be a sun-god, has no such "distortion." The cooling of the hero in three vats, the waters of which boil over, and his emergence from them pinky red in colour, symbolise the sun sinking into the waters and reappearing ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... impose upon him some of the lean kine, and that the tenth of its kind had a way of differing somewhat from the other nine! When, for instance, in the last century, Canon Weston was away in Durham, his curate, at Therfield, on going to Brandish to tithe the ringe-wood, found the woodman over anxious for him to begin counting at a certain spot, where the cutting commenced, but suspecting that the ringes had been cooked a little, the wily curate examined them and found every tenth, from the woodman's way of counting fell upon ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... exactness the motions and the voice of their sly patron the fox. Then a startling yell would be given. Many other warriors would leap into the ring, and with faces upturned toward the starless sky, they would all stamp, and whoop, and brandish their weapons like so ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... nose and lips cut off, were sent forward to our Lord the Pope, for the disgrace and confusion of him (in dedecus et confusionem ejus). I, however, pretended to be Scotch, and putting on the garb of a Scotchman, and taking the gesture of one, walked along; and when anybody mocked at me, I would brandish my staff in the manner of that weapon they call gaveloc,[8] uttering comminatory words after the way of the Scotch. To those that met and questioned me who I was, I made no answer but: Ride, ride Rome; turne Cantwereberei.[9] Thus did I, to conceal myself and my errand, and get safer to Rome ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... scenes of malignant carnage. No Bedouins attacked our terrible rear. And none attacked the front. The new-comers were only a reinforcement of cadaverous Arabs, in shirts and bare legs, sent far ahead of us to brandish rusty guns, and shout and brag, and carry on like lunatics, and thus scare away all bands of marauding Bedouins that might lurk about our path. What a shame it is that armed white Christians must travel under guard of vermin like this as a protection against the prowling ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thou not there find out some better way of trampling? Pump thine invention dry; cannot the universal seed-plot of subtile wiles and stratagems spring up one new method of cutting capers? Is this the top of skill and pride, to shuffle feet and brandish knees thus, and to trip like a doe and skip like a squirrel? And wherein differ thy leapings from the hoppings of a frog, or the bouncings of a goat, or friskings of a dog, or gesticulations of a monkey? And cannot a palsy shake such a loose ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... hills and dales as though she, too, were heartily glad that work had begun. Lauchie McKitterick advertised him at every station along the line, and when the doctor wanted to go anywhere on the train Davy Munn needed only to brandish his mother's sunbonnet from the window of the stable loft, and the Lakeview and Simcoe express stopped just below his back gate. He was soon so busy that Granny Long had to give up her afternoon nap to keep track of his swift movements. There was always something doing in the ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... IN HONOUR OF SROSH. We pay homage to thee, Srosh, the obedient and blessed one, the first of creatures to worship Ahura-Mazda, the Creator. Thou didst also worship the bountiful immortals, and wast the first to brandish the veresma and to sing the Gathas. Thou didst slay the all-destroying demon, and thou protectest the world and its denizens. Thou sleepest not, nor slumberest day or night. Thou teachest men the true ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... next essayed. Did he unscabbard the avenging blade, The long spear brandish and porrect the shield, Havoc the town and devastate the field? His sacred thirst for blood did he allay By halving the unfortunate Mackay? Small were the profit and the joy to him To hew a base-born person, limb from limb. Let vulgar souls to low revenge incline, That of diviner spirits is ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... pitchy flame Might to the crown of turrets climb. So fierce the rattle of war around Was pour'd on his rear by the serpent-foe Hard match'd in deadly encounter. For Jove the over-vaunting tongue Supremely hates. Their full fed stream Of gold, of clatter, and of pride He saw, and smote with brandish'd flame Him, who at summit of his goal Would raise the ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... reached Presburg, and landed in the neighbourhood of the Coronation-hill, an artificial mound, on which the king must stand in his royal robes, and brandish his sword towards the four quarters of the heavens, as a token that he is ready to defend his kingdom against all enemies, from whatever direction they may approach. Not far from this hill is situate the handsome inn called the "Two Green Trees," where the ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... ferocious, th'original stain; It cannot be natural cruelty sure, The reproaches for which from all men we endure; Nor climate nor soil shall henceforth bear the blame, 'Tis custom alone, and that custom our shame: While arm'd at all points men were suffer'd to rove, And brandish the steel in defence of their love; What wonder that conduct or caution should fail, And horrid Lycanthropy's terrors prevail? Now justice resumes her insignia, we find New light breaking in on each nebulous mind; While commission'd from Heaven, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... that they love bloodshed and war. But these few, when they once get weapons into their hands, trample recklessly and mercilessly upon the rest. One ferocious human tiger, with a spear or a bayonet to brandish, will tyrannize as he pleases over a hundred quiet men, who are armed only with shepherds' crooks, and whose only desire is to live in peace with their ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... feeling of unrest seizes us then! What becomes of those phantoms of tranquil pride, the will and prudence? Force itself, that mistress of the world, that sword of man in the combat of life, in vain do we brandish it over our heads in wrath, in vain do we seek to ward off with it a blow which threatens us; an invisible power turns aside the point, and all the impetus of effort, deflected into space, serves ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... exclaimed Tom, in amazement. Then he laughed as he reverted to his father's efforts at correct pronunciation, and continued his story. Suddenly he was startled by seeing his mother snatch a stump of a fire-shovel from the hearth and brandish it ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... transport feel, To see a race[20] heroic wheel, And brandish round the deep-dy'd steel In sturdy blows; While back-recoiling seem'd to reel ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... soon as they fired their pieces, ran out of bowshot to reload. The enemy seldom threw away their arrows, not shooting till they were sure of doing so with effect. Occasionally a single horseman would gallop up and brandish his spear, while he covered himself with his large leathern shield, returning as fast as he went and shouting: "Shields to the wall, you soldiers of the gadado! Why do you not hasten to the wall?" ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... contributions to his "Tales of Terror" and "Tales of Wonder," were of his same raw-head and bloody-bones variety. His imagination rioted in physical horrors. There are demons who gnash with iron fangs and brandish gore-fed scorpions; maidens are carried off by the Winter King, the Water King, the Cloud King, and the Sprite of the Glen; they are poisoned or otherwise done to death, and their wraiths revisit their guilty lovers in their shrouds at ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... banks as evidence of good faith, they offered to build the road for $3,000,000 and 3,000,000 acres less, to pay duty on all supplies imported, and to abandon the monopoly clause, the exemptions from taxation, and the exemption from rate regulation. With this weapon to brandish Blake gave the government proposal no respite, but on a straight party vote the contract was ratified by parliament and received the formal royal assent in ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... look the market over—which they did. To start with, they considered and discussed Brandish, rising young lawyer, and Fulton, rising young dentist. Sally must invite them to dinner. But not right away; there was no hurry, Aleck said. Keep an eye on the pair, and wait; nothing would be lost by going slowly ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... "The brandish'd sword of God before them blaz'd Fierce as a comet: which with torrid heat And vapours, as the Libyan air adust, Begun to parch that temperate clime; whereat In either hand the hast'ning angel caught Our ling'ring parents, and to the eastern ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... dollars—two hundred dollars—three hundred dollars were the gay figures which they bore, and which he flaunted in the air, before he sat down at the table, or rose from it to brandish, and then, flinging his napkin in the chair, walked up ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... sights his piece and selects a fuse of the right time, After firing I see him lean aside and look eagerly off to note the effect; Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging, (the young colonel leads himself this time with brandish'd sword,) I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up, no delay,) I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover low concealing all; Now a strange lull for a few seconds, not ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... be of all sorts, flights, rovers, and butt-shafts. But I can wound with a brandish, and never draw bow for ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... I am fain to praise, and trust that not outside the ring shall I hurl the bronze-tipped javelin I brandish in my hand, but with far throw outdo my rivals ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... criminals, as he himself to the commonality of men. No weapon was employed in putting an end to him: neither gun nor pistol, sword nor knife. Letting go hold of his collar, the Texan grasped him around the ankles, and with a brandish raising him aloft, brought his head down upon the pavement. There was a crash as the breaking of a cocoa-nut shell by a hammer; and when Rock let go, the mass of mis-shapen humanity dropped in a dollop upon the flags, arms and legs limp ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... you your first punishment, now earth will give you the second and the last. Not even Hercules will ever be able to break these fetters. See how I brandish them in the air, like feathers! for I represent the power of millennial despairs. All humanity is concentrated within me. Before I sink into the abyss, I will write upon this stone the epitaph of a world. I will summon the eagle, and it will come; ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... Then all brandish in the air rolls of papyrus, tablets of wood, pieces of leather; and strips of cloth; and pushing ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... spiritual nouriture. Only imagine that I here every day see men, who are mountains of roast beef, and only seem just roughly hewn out into the outlines of human form, like the giant-rock at Pratolino! I shudder when I see them brandish their knives in act to carve, and look on them as savages that devour one another. I should not stare at all more than I do, if yonder alderman at the lower end of the table was to stick his fork into his neighbour's jolly cheek, and cut a brave slice of brown and fat. Why, I'll swear I ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... came in with sturt[19] and strife, His hand was aye upon his knife, He brandish'd like a beir; Boasters, braggers, and barganeris,[20] After him passed into pairis,[21] All bodin in feir of weir.[22] In jackis, scripis, and bonnets of steel, Their legs were chenyiet[23] to the heel, Froward was their ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... pleasure," and I assured him that I had not found it fascinating, and that my experience had cost me eighteen-pence, the cheapness of which he had to admit. I am glad that I added up my expenses, for that eighteen-pence was very useful, it was such a delightfully ridiculous sum to brandish at any one who thought that I was trotting down the road ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... jumped forward with the intent of assailing the person who had flung the inkslab at the very moment that Chin Jung took hold of a long bamboo pole which was near by; but as the space was limited, and the pupils many, how could he very well brandish a long stick? Ming Yen at an early period received a whack, and he shouted wildly, "Don't you fellows yet come to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Annals, paper scum-bewrayed! Fulfil that promise erst my damsel made; Who vowed to Holy Venus and her son, Cupid, should I return to her anon And cease to brandish iamb-lines accurst, 5 The writ selected erst of bards the worst She to the limping Godhead would devote With slowly-burning wood of illest note. This was the vilest which my girl could find With vow facetious to the Gods assigned. 10 Now, O ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... another form of 'from-polled', as if 'wrong-headed'. 'Garboil', a tumult or hubbub, was originally garboyl, and came from old French garbouil (Italian garbuglio). 'Brangle', a brawl, stands for 'brandle' from Old Fr. brandeler, akin to 'brandish'.] ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... is sent by Boyle, Too neatly gilt for me to soil: Delany sends a Silver Standish, When I no more a pen can brandish. Let both around my tomb be placed, As trophies of a muse deceas'd: And let the friendly lines they writ, In praise of long departed wit, Be graved on either side in columns, More to my praise than all my volumes; To burst ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... man rise up with a weapon in his hand, it is an Agerepta. If he brandish it, it is an Avaoirista. If he actually smite a man with malicious aforethought, it is an Aredus. Upon the fifth Aredus he becomes ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... brandish round the deep-dyed steel, In sturdy blows; While, back-recoiling, seem'd to reel ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... pressed in a little; and by their ominous quietness, by the sight of their eyes all turned in on him, their concerted inching closer, Ken sensed the nearness of the charge that would finish him. All this in deep silence, there in the gloomy quarter-light. He could not yell and brandish his fists at them as the trapper by the fire might have done to win a few extra minutes. The only cards he had to play were two shells—and ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... their motions escaped us, and as long as they were disposed to brandish their knives at a distance, we did not choose to carry matters to extremities; but change of tactics was suddenly resorted to on the part of our opponents, that placed ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... its tail as a sword may be conceived to be held out at arm's-length, and then waved round the head, from one side to the opposite. But a sword with a blade one hundred and fifty millions of miles long must be a somewhat awkward weapon to brandish round after this fashion. Its point would have to sweep through a curve stretching out more than six hundred millions of miles; and, even with an allowance of two hours for the accomplishment of the movement, the ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... but you'll have to sail seven years more before you find them. As for you, you might stay here and welcome, and have my daughter; but you must first slay him, for he's a hard master to all of us, and we're all weary of him, and when he's dead I shall be King in his stead; but first try if you can brandish this sword'. ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent |
