"Swan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and pride, all wonderfully amalgamated under a perfectly self-possessed manner, and pervaded by the most undeniable charm. It was no wonder that the poor Baroness was as puzzled as a hen that has hatched a swan. ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... ready. "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" came from the press of Webster & Co. at the end of 1889, a handsome book, elaborately and strikingly illustrated by Dan Beard—a pretentious volume which Mark Twain really considered his last. "It's my swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently," he wrote Howells, though certainly he was young, fifty-four, to ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... enabled to leave the trade to which he had been apprenticed and go to Cambridge. His poems have most of them a strongly devotional cast. Among them are Gondoline, Clifton Grove, and the Christiad, in the last of which, like the swan, he chants his own death-song. His memory has been kept green by Southey's edition of his Remains, and by the beautiful allusion of Byron to his genius and his fate in The English Bards and Scotch ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... even any sunshine there?" The brown eyes glanced wistfully out of the window, beside which the swan bed had been drawn, and gloated in the beautiful April sunlight which was already coaxing the grass into its brilliant ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... full height and flung out his long arms, his face turned to the southern skies. The movement shot panic into the heart of a swan that had drawn nearer with amiably predatory designs. Its consequent abrupt retreat collided it with a stout old lady, who squealed and dropped her bag of peanuts. Jones sat ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... him. The landscape surroundings are especially appropriate, for St. Anthony was fond of out-of-door life. His sermons were often given in the open air, and it is said that he sometimes preached to the fishes. He delighted to point out to his hearers the beauties of nature, the whiteness of the swan, the mutual charity of the storks, and the purity and fragrance of ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... great industry, and great genius; and he has had compliments enough on it to turn his head, if to those qualities he does not add great good sense; a quality which, the longer I live, the more I am persuaded is the true rara avis, and not much oftener met with than a black swan:—the white swan of Pindar cannot vie in rarity at ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... cold but a bright day. From her window she could see the snow-white sails of the Hampshire fishing-boats dipping and rising against the deep blue sea. A single barque rode amongst them, like a swan among ducklings, beating up against the wind for Portsmouth or Southampton. Away on the right was the long line of white foam which marked the Winner Sands. The tide was in and the great mudbanks had disappeared, ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is white, the feathers are thin compared with the swan goose or most aquatick fouls and has but little or no down on the body. the upper part of the head is covered with black feathers short, as far as the back part of the head- the yellow skin unfeathered extends back from the upper beak and opening of the mouth and ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... the still surface I could see signs of life, sometimes mere rings and ripples in the water, sometimes the gleam of a great silver-sided fish in the air, sometimes the arched, slate-colored back of some passing monster. Once upon a yellow sandbank I saw a creature like a huge swan, with a clumsy body and a high, flexible neck, shuffling about upon the margin. Presently it plunged in, and for some time I could see the arched neck and darting head undulating over the water. Then it dived, and I saw it ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... When an inspiration comes to them, what do they do? Instead of taking it out for a long, cool walk, they sit down at once to work it up, but let it work them up instead into an absolutely uncritical enthusiasm in which every splutter of the goose-quill looks to them like part of a swan-song. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... for instance, felt it. There hovers around butlers that peculiar atmosphere which Shakespeare noticed as encircling kings, an atmosphere in which common ethics lose their pertinence. But mine was a rare bird—a black swan among butlers. He was more than a butler: he was a quick and brightly-gifted man. Of the accuracy of his taste, and the unusual scope of his endeavor, you will be able to form some opinion when I assure you he modelled ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... one we had given them yesterday. This left a vacant circle of about six feet diameter, in which the pipe of peace was raised on two forked sticks, about six or eight inches from the ground, and under it the down of the swan was scattered: a large fire, in which they were cooking provisions, stood near, and in the centre about four hundred pounds of excellent buffaloe meat as a present for us. As soon as we were seated, an old man got up, and after approving ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... a rest, occupied himself with the girls: taught them the principle of the standstill, of side-riding, of the "swan," of the "frog." And,—quickly!—the indefatigable Pa went back to Lily, made her begin a trick ten times, twenty times over, so great was his rage at the lost time, the elephants, the Hauptmanns, Roofer. He pulled ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... housemaid, and he now opened them. It was a frosty moonlight night, and the lawn lay white and crisp, marked with fantastic shadows. The others looked grave and pale, Emily was in a thick white shawl and hood, with a swan's down boa over her black dress, a somewhat ghostly figure herself, but we were in far too serious a ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... strange and sweet, For the dim air echoed with elfin calls; And, far away, in the heart of the City, A murmur of laughter and revelry rose,— A sound that was faint as the smile of Pity, And sweet as a swan-song's golden close. ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... went on, "luxury must be had at any price. You must have the insolent opulence and display of an upstart, without being an upstart. You must support worthless women who wear satin slippers lined with swan's-down, like those I saw in your rooms, and keep servants in livery—and you steal! And bankers no longer trust their safe-keys with anybody; and every day honest families are disgraced by the discovery of some ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... graceful treatment of a young girl's imaginings, in her well-known poem, "The Romance of a Swan's Nest." ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... to the water. What did he see? He saw himself in the water. But he was not an ugly duck. He was a white swan. ...
— A Primary Reader - Old-time Stories, Fairy Tales and Myths Retold by Children • E. Louise Smythe
... large lake, which they examined, though not without great labour. It was surrounded by a considerable extent of bog and marshy ground, in which, in the course of their progress, they were frequently plunged up to the waist. On this lake they first observed a black swan, which species, though proverbially rare in other parts of the world, is here by no means uncommon, being found on most of the lakes. This was a very noble bird, larger than the common swan, and equally beautiful in form. On being shot at, ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... the two little girls, in a high, public school voice, "there's lots to see from those swan-boats that youse ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... use of some particular expressions and uncommon words; for instance, moveless, which he applies in a sense, if not new, at least different from, its ordinary one. By 'moveless,' when applied to the swan, he means that sort of motion which is smooth without agitation; it is a very beautiful epithet, but ought to have been cautiously used. The word viewless also is introduced far too often. I regret exceedingly that he did not submit the works to the inspection ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... less skill and talent before God than she had shown before men. In this I showed prudence and foresight, for all day long Thais praised the Lord upon the flute, and the virgins, who were attracted by the sound of this invisible flute, said, 'We hear the nightingale of the heavenly groves, the dying swan of Jesus crucified.' Thus did Thais perform her penance, when, after sixty days, the door which thou hadst sealed opened of itself, and the clay seal was broken without being touched by any human hand. By that sign I knew that the trial thou hadst imposed upon her was at an end, ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... bag in cock has been sixty-three in one day's shooting alone. I have lately taken to punting after ducks, and have been very successful. One gets twenty to thirty a day, and occasionally a swan. I once killed four of the latter with one shot from my punt gun (one of Holland & Holland's). Hares are not very numerous; to get three or four in a day is counted good luck; but one generally picks up one or two during a day's shooting. ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... similar, but less perfect, "coal-sack'' in the northern hemisphere, in the constellation of "The Swan,'' which, strange to say, also contains a well-marked figure of a cross outlined by stars. This gap lies near the top of the cross-shaped figure. It is best seen by averted vision, which brings out the contrast with the Milky Way, ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... things he had SEEN which he put into his verses; and that is why they affect us. It matters little whether the poet draws his images directly from present experience, or indirectly from memory—whether the sight of the slow-sailing swan, that "floats double swan and shadow" be at once transferred to the scene of the poem he is writing, or come back upon him in after years to complete some picture in his mind; enough that the image ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... from the sea. Philae, the Marriage Temple of Osiris and Isis—Venus of Egypt—sinks into the sea of waters poured over her by Khnum, god of the Cataracts. Thus the great enchantress sings her swan-song to touch the heart of the world, her fair head afloat like a sacred lotus on the gleaming water. I think there were few among us who did not fancy they heard that song, as our Nubian men rowed across the sea stored up by ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... street. At the left of the door by which the tourist is admitted, is a portion of the house where the valuable documents of the corporation are stored, while to the right are the rooms formerly used as the "Swan and Maidenhead Inn," now converted into a library and museum. The windows in the upstairs room where the poet was born are fully occupied with the autographs of visitors who have scratched their names there. I was told that the glass is ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he For number or proportion. Mockingly, On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths; A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn; Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate A tapering turret overtops the work. And when his hours are numbered, and the world Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... the golden grains, For the bearded wheat and the fattened swine, For the stalled ox and the fruitful vine, For the tubers large and cotton white, For the kid and the lambkin, frisk and blithe, For the swan which floats near the river-banks,— Lord God of ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... of the mourning of Clymene and the daughters of the Sun and the Naiads for the dead Phaton. Cycnus, king of Liguria, grieves for Phaton until he is transformed into a swan; reminding one of the Central American legend, (which I shall give hereafter,) which states that in that day all men were turned into goslings or geese, a reminiscence, perhaps, of those who saved themselves from the fire by taking refuge in ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... Perrault had in the course of the morning met Billy Blake, and asked him if he meant to bag the swan—if he followed the young lord's party and fired when they did, he would be sure to bring something down. He did not know that the Blakes never let the poor fellow load his old gun with ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... water, expecting nothing but death. But what was this that it saw in the clear water? It beheld its own image—and, lo! it was no longer a clumsy dark-gray bird, ugly and hateful to look at, but —a swan. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... "I swan!" he mused, "I don't know when I've looked at that afore. I remember when I bought that hat, jest as well. Took care of it and brushed it—my! my! I don't know but it's somewheres around now. I thought I was ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Cathedral," she told them, and the children were awed and left her, and went away to play blindman's buff by themselves on the grass by the swan's water. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... Swan's Hotel was one of those nondescript buildings of wood which are not worth more than a three-line paragraph even when they burn down. It was smelly. The kitchen joined the dining-room, and the dining-room the office, which was half a bar-room, with a few boxes of sawdust mathematically ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... behind him Hylas his young squire, who bore his arrows and his bow; and Tiphys, the skilful steersman; and Butes, the fairest of all men; and Castor and Polydeuces the twins, the sons of the magic swan; and Caeneus, the strongest of mortals, whom the Centaurs tried in vain to kill, and overwhelmed him with trunks of pine-trees, but even so he would not die; and thither came Zetes and Calais, the winged sons of the north ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... hurriedly to his astonished companion, "let us be quick in putting the things together and in getting out of this place. It were in vain longer to conceal from you, Tony, that between myself and one of the members of a swan-like aristocracy whom I now hold in my hand, there has been undivulged communication and association. The time might have been when I might have revealed it to you. It never will be more. It is due alike to the oath I have taken, alike to the shattered idol, and ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... death-dealing blow. But, as in a dream one finds without surprise that the precipice, over which one is hanging by an eyebrow, obligingly transforms itself into a bank of violets, so did the dragon which had been whirling us to destruction magically change into a swan-like creature skimming just ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... the revolting thing. He was scarcely a yard distant when the neck of the snake arched like a swan's, and the head was drawn far back to strike. In an instant the stock of his rifle swept over the top of the log with the quickness of lightning. There followed a sharp, cracking noise, like the explosion of a percussion-cap, ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... tribes were not less numerous. Chief among these were eagles and vultures of uncommon size, the wild goose, wild duck, and the majestic swan. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... visit to Leamington Spa, I went by an indirect route to Lichfield, and put up at the Black Swan. Had I known where to find it, I would much rather have established myself at the inn formerly kept by the worthy Mr. Boniface, so famous for his ale in Farquhar's time. The Black Swan is an old-fashioned hotel, its street-front being penetrated by an arched passage, in either ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... beauty in the rose, your glory in the dawn, Your sweetness in the nightingale, your whiteness in the swan. ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu
... Papillotos (the Curl-papers) of Jasmin. The publication of this first volume served to make Jasmin's name popular beyond the town in which they had been composed and published. His friend M. Gaze said of him, that during the year 1825 he had been marrying his razor with the swan's quill; and that his hand of velvet in shaving was even surpassed by his skill ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... by those who know the treasure which they own, stood Harold's two standards of the fighting-man and the dragon of Wessex. And here, close by (for here, for many a century, stood the high altar of Battle Abbey, where monks sang masses for Harold's soul), upon this very spot the Swan-neck found her hero-lover's corpse. "Ah," says many an Englishman—and who will blame him for it—"how grand to have died beneath that standard on that day!" Yes, and how right. And yet how right, likewise, that the Norman's cry of Dexaie!—"God Help!"—and ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... was thus musing, Zeus (disguised as Miss Annie S. Swan's latest work) paid his usual visit. She let her eyes rest on him. Hither and thither she divided her swift mind, and addressed him in winged words. "Zeus, father of gods and men, cloud-compeller, what wouldst thou of me? But first will I say ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... of the swan singing its own funeral hymn!' said the patrician Placidus, looking in maudlin pity from the corpse of the boy to the face of Vetranio, which presented for the moment an involuntary expression of grief ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... star of maidens, A beam without haze, No murkiness saddens, No disk-spot bewrays. The swan-down to feeling, The snow of the gaillin,[134] Thy limbs all excelling, Unite to amaze. The queen, I would name thee, Of maidenly muster; Thy stem is so seemly, So rich is its cluster Of members complete, Adroit at each feat, And thy temper so sweet, Without banning or ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the dark silk cushions of the divan like a swan upon the opalline waters of the lake at sunset. One arm, white and firm as Carrara marble, supported her graceful head, while in her right hand she held an ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... nine, the pig in seventeen, the sheep in twenty-one and the goat in thirty-six. Birds develop still more quickly. The chick only needs, in normal circumstances, three weeks for its full development. The duck needs twenty-five days, the turkey twenty-seven, the peacock thirty-one, the swan forty-two, and the cassowary sixty-five. The smallest bird, the humming-bird, leaves the egg after twelve days. Hence the duration of individual development within the foetal membranes is, in the mammals and birds, clearly related to the absolute size of the body of the animal ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... him was John Arnold, the bookbinder, who displayed a Saracen's head upon his signboard; then came in regular order Julian Walton, the mercer, with a wheelbarrow; Stephen Fronsard, the girdler, with a cardinal's hat; John Silverton, the pelter or furrier, with a star; Peter Swan, the Court broiderer, with cross-keys; John Morstowe, the luminer, or illuminator of books, with a rose; Lionel de Ferre, the French baker, with a vine; Herman Goldsmith, the Court goldsmith, who bore a dolphin; William Alberton, the forcermonger, who kept what we should call a ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... such length that it reached down to her hams; having most amorous coal-black eyes; a sweet and pleasant round face, with lips as red as any cherry; her cheeks of a rose colour, her mouth small; her neck white like a swan, tall and slender of personage; in sum, there was no imperfect place in her. She looked round about her with a rolling hawk's eye, a smiling and wanton countenance, which near hand inflamed the hearts of all the students, but that they persuaded themselves she was a spirit, ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... Fremantle, Western Australia, when, to my amazement, they told me that a pelican carrying a tin disc round its neck, bearing a message in French from a castaway, had been found many years previously by an old boatman on the beach near the mouth of the Swan River. ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... share the good offices of my patron saint, you must wear my badge too, for love of me. See here, this little silver swan, the device of my noble ancestor King Edward the Third, it is now my badge, and you must wear it for my sake. Farewell for the nonce; we shall meet again—I am sure of it—ere we say goodbye to this pleasant city. I would I had a brother like you. But we will meet anon. Farewell, and forget ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... for the volume just received—that with the correspondence. I hope that you restore the swan simile so ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Finish with a little powder, dusting the face very gently, using a swan's-down puff. Put a very little powder on the lines about the eyes, but ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... outspread wings. "Kill me!" said the poor creature, and bent its head down upon the water, expecting nothing but death. But what was this that it saw in the clear water? It beheld its own image; and, lo! it was no longer a clumsy dark-gray bird, ugly and hateful to look at, but a—swan! ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... had the usual coming-of-age presents—silver cigar-case and match-box; a handsome set of brushes, with your initials on the back; a Gladstone bag, also richly initialled; the complete works of Dickens and Thackeray; a Swan fountain-pen mounted in gold; and the heartfelt blessing of your father and mother. But there is still one more present ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... other birds of passage which lay their eggs in particular places, as the swan does in the fields and the swallows under the roof, but they lay anywhere: for, despite their masculine name (turdus) there are female thrushes, just as there are male blackbirds, although they have a purely feminine ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... and said, "Well, I'll be gol darned if you didn't get me. You must have right smart eyes, for I swan I didn't know which one it ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... short neck made the best imitation it could of an offended swan's action. She was very angry. She said she did not like so many ladies, which natural objection Richard met by saying that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... countries that are called Hyperborean, the harpers harping before, the swans' birds fly out of their nests and sing full merrily. Shipmen trow that it tokeneth good if they meet swans in peril of shipwreck. Always the swan is the most merriest bird in divinations. Shipmen desire this bird for he dippeth not down in the waves. When the swan is in love he seeketh the female, and pleaseth her with beclipping of the neck, and draweth her to him- ward; and he ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... near a stable, being in fact the smart shell-jacket, shaped like an Eton coat, sacred to "walking-out" purposes), dark blue overalls with broad white stripe, strapped over half-wellington boots adorned with glittering swan-neck spurs, a pill-box cap with white band and button, perched jauntily on three hairs—also looked what he was, the ideal heavy-cavalry man, the swaggering, swashbuckling trooper, beau sabreur, good all round ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... Fortitude, and Justice. In the lower tier on the canopy are six figures: Saxulf, first Abbot; Cuthwin, first Bishop of Leicester; John de Sais; Benedict; S. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, his hand resting on the head of his tame swan; and John Chambers, last Abbot and first Bishop of Peterborough. In the upper tier are four Bishops: Bishop Dove, the theologian; Bishop Cumberland, the philosopher; Bishop Kennett, the antiquary; ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... field like a frightened swan; and the wheels of its chassis, registering every infinitesimal irregularity in the surface of the ground, magnified them all a hundred-fold. It was like riding in a tumbril driven at top-speed over the Giant's Causeway. Lanyard was shaken violently to the very marrow of his bones; ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... warrant you he is safe enough, and silly enough, and lazy enough to please any one of his idiot flatterers, . . moreover my 'master!"—and he emphasized this word with indescribable bitterness—"hath slept as soundly as a swine, and hath duly bathed with the punctiliousness of a conceited swan, and being suitably combed, perfumed, attired, and throned as becomes his dainty puppetship, is now condescending to partake of vulgar food in the seclusion of his own apartment. Go thither and you shall ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... had a short and inconspicuous life. When this suit was brought, their publishers were Richardson, Lord and Holbrook of Boston. In 1836 Charles J. Hendee published them, and in 1854 they appeared with the name of Jenks, Hickling & Swan of Boston. These several publishers were probably gobbled up by some imaginary ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... the mountain sleet Ere from the cloud that gave it birth It fell, and caught one stain of earth. The cygnet nobly walks the water; So moved on earth Circassia's daughter— The loveliest bird of Franguestan! As rears her crest the ruffled Swan, And spurns the waves with wings of pride, When pass the steps of stranger man Along the banks that bound her tide; Thus rose fair Leila's whiter neck:— Thus arm'd with beauty would she check Intrusion's glance, till Folly's gaze Shrunk from the charms it meant to praise. ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Virginia, Poe returned to Richmond. He went first to the United States Hotel, at the southwest corner of Nineteenth and Main Streets, in the "Bird in Hand" neighborhood where he had looked for the last time on the face of his young mother. He soon removed to the "Swan," because it was near Duncan Lodge, the home of his friends, the MacKenzies, where his sister Rose had found protection. The Swan was a long, two-storied structure with combed roof, tall chimneys at the ends, and a front piazza with a long flight of steps leading ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... made, and Swan River was entered and ascended. During these expeditions the author of the Journaal mentions that the song of the 'Nachtegael' was heard. There are no nightingales in Australia, but the bird to which the writer of the Journaal alludes may have been the Long-billed ...
— Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects • James R. McClymont
... yon swan-travelled lake, By yon calm hill above, I swear had we been drowned that day We had ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Quex steamed farther and farther away, the church on the mountainous hill appeared to change in shape. Notre Dame de la Garde looked no longer like a building made by man, but like a great sacred swan crowned with gold, and nested on a mountain-top. There she sat, with shining head erect on a long neck, seated on her nest, protecting her young, and gazing far across the sea in search of danger. The sun touched her golden crown, and dusky ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... stand hungering. Give me the little hill above the sea, The palm of Delos fringed delicately, The young sweet laurel and the olive-tree Grey-leaved and glimmering; O Isle of Leto, Isle of pain and love; The Orbed Water and the spell thereof; Where still the Swan, minstrel of things to be, Doth serve the ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... said, aloud, in English. "And dance! You feel like a swan when you're dancing with him. Try him, Mary." The gigolo's face, as he bowed before ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... land where the bright diamond sand Flows leisurely down the stream; Where the graceful white swan goes gliding along Like a maid in ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... kind of drink to be had in burgh and land, as ale, beer, wine, muscadel, malvaise, hippocras, and aquavitae; with wheat-bread, main-bread, ginge-bread, beef, mutton, lamb, veal, venison, goose, grice, capon, coney, crane, swan, partridge, plover, duck, drake, brissel-cock, pawnies, black-cock, muir-fowl, and capercailzies;' not forgetting the 'costly bedding, vaiselle, and napry,' and least of all the 'excelling stewards, cunning barters, excellent ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... was specially favoured by them. The "Rotterdam Arms" and the "Two Dutch Skippers," well-known taverns within that precinct, were seldom without the bit of bunting that proclaimed the headquarters of the gang. At Westminster the "White Swan" in King's Street usually bore a similar decoration, as did ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... some extent—at any rate, the ability is— in order to succeed in society; and it's in society men first meet and strike women. And, oh, Uncle Teddy! I'm such a fish out of water in society!—such a dreadful floundering fish! When I see her dancing gracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows like little Jack Mankyn, who 'don't know twelve times,' can dance to her perfect admiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners—and all sorts of men without an idea in their heads have that—while ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... Mr. Quinn had taken them to Belfast to see the launch of a new liner, and Tom Arthurs had invited them all to join the luncheon party when the launch was over. The Vicereine had come from Dublin to cut the ribbon which would release the great ship and send it moving like a swan down the greasy slips into the river; and Tom Arthurs had conducted her through the Yard, telling her of the purpose of this machine and that engine until the poor lady began to be dubious of her capacity to launch the liner. There were other guides, explaining, as Tom Arthurs explained, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... toil. Verily thou makest the bending ash to glide through the water like a swan's wing. Another verse and we bid adieu ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... forest was you could have heard an acorn drop or a bird call from one end of it to the other. The exquisite silence was evidently waiting for the exquisite voice, that presently not so much broke as mingled with it, like a swan swimming ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... poet has translated the plays of SHAKSPEARE into Turkish. The rendering is said to be faithful to the text, and it is assumed that a keen appreciation of Turkey's military necessities alone accounts for his reference to the "Swan of Avon" as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... put it like that, Mr Swan, I'll see what I can do about it. I'll talk to Mrs Horn and if we think we can make a reduction ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... there kindling chiefly material and industrial greatness; passing through Italy again in the late first and in the second century, in the time of the Glavians and the five Good Emperors; then in the third like a swan flying eastward, with one wing, the material one, stretched over Illyria raising up mighty soldiers and administrators there, and the other, the spiritual wing, over Egypt, there fanning (as we shall see) the fires of esotericism ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... con molto espressione. It is a wonderful elegy, a yearning without hope, a swan-song of desire, sadder almost than the frank despair of the Finale of the Pathetique symphony,—pulsing with passion, gorgeous with a hectic glow of expressive beauty, moving too with a noble grace. Though there is a foil of lighter humor, this ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... The Hambledon Men The Open Road The Friendly Town Her Infinite Variety Good Company The Gentlest Art The Second Post A Little of Everything Harvest Home Variety Lane The Best of Lamb The Life of Charles Lamb A Swan and Her Friends London Revisited A Wanderer in Venice A Wanderer in Paris A Wanderer in London A Wanderer in Holland A Wanderer in Florence The British School Highways and Byways in Sussex Anne's Terrible Good Nature The Slowcoach Remember ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... some years ago in the north of England; and as a number of people were collected on the banks of the Tyne, whose waters had risen to an unusual height, a swan was seen swimming across the flood. On its back was a black spot, visible among its white plumage. As the swan came nearer, this was found to be a live rat. No sooner had the swan, after bravely breasting the foaming torrent, reached the shore, than the rat leaped off ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... leader, having overcharged his musket, it burst, throwing him down, and broke three of his ribs and right collar bone. For a short time he was insensible, but remarks: 'I had already done my part, for, during the course of the morning, I had fired five pounds of swan shot from my now disabled piece. Notwithstanding this unfortunate accident, an incessant fire was kept up on both sides, until a parley took place. Life and liberty were then guaranteed to the family, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... played so sweetly upon his lyre that Zeus and all his court were entranced. Then he wandered up and down through the whole length of the Thessalian land; but nowhere could he find a spot in which he was willing to dwell. At length he climbed into his car, and bade his swan team fly with him to the country of the Hyperboreans beyond the far-off northern mountains. Forthwith they obeyed; and through the pure regions of the upper air they bore him, winging their way ever northward. They carried him over many an unknown land, ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... therefore born in the purple of the English squirearchy; but never assuredly did the old tale of the swan hatched with the hen's brood of ducklings receive a more emphatic illustration than in this case. Gifted with the untameable individuality of genius, and bent on piercing to the very truth beneath all shams and fictions woven by society and ancient usage, he was driven ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... public an account of was the son of very honest people who kept a public-house in Clare Market. They were careful in sending him to school, and having taught him there to read and write etc., sufficiently to qualify him for business, then put him apprentice to the Swan Tavern near the Tower. There he served his time carefully and with a good character, nor did his parents omit in instructing him in the grounds of the Christian religion, of which having a tolerable understanding he attained a just knowledge, and preserved a tolerable remembrance ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... narratives of Nennius, and of Giraldus Cambrensis. In them animals have at least as important a part as men.] The close association of man and animal, the fictions so dear to mediaeval poetry of the Knight of the Lion, the Knight of the Falcon, the Knight of the Swan, the vows consecrated by the presence of birds of noble repute, are equally Breton imaginings. Ecclesiastical literature itself presents analogous features; gentleness towards animals informs all the legends of the saints of Brittany and Ireland. One day St. Kevin fell asleep, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... assembly, yet Benvolio, a friend of Romeo, persuaded the young lord to go to this assembly in the disguise of a mask, that he might see his Rosaline, and, seeing her, compare her with some choice beauties of Verona, who (he said) would make him think his swan a crow. Romeo had small faith in Benvolio's words; nevertheless, for the love of Rosaline, he was persuaded to go. For Romeo was a sincere and passionate lover, and one that lost his sleep for love and fled society to be alone, thinking on Rosaline, who disdained him and never requited his ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Shaftesbury Avenue! It was four o'clock on a fine day early in April, and was Fanny the one to spend four o'clock on a fine day indoors? Other girls in that very street sat over ledgers, or drew long threads wearily between silk and gauze; or, festooned with ribbons in Swan and Edgars, rapidly added up pence and farthings on the back of the bill and twisted the yard and three-quarters in tissue paper and asked "Your pleasure?" of ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... the names of the slaves merely employed for the bath in Poppea's palace: the unctores, the fricatores, the alipilarili, the dropacistae, the paratiltriae, the picatrices, the tracatrices, the swan whiteners, and all the rest. —Talk to her about this multitude of slaves whose names are given by Mirabeau in his Erotika Biblion. If she tries to secure the services of all these people you will have the fine times of quietness, not to speak of the personal satisfaction which will redound to ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... or dusky-grey with bright And shining chains about their wrinkled necks; The mailed rhinoceros, that of nothing recks; Dusky-maned lions; spotted leopards fair That through the cane-brake move, unseen as air; The deep-mouthed tiger, dread of the brown man; The eagle, and the peacock, and the swan— —These be the nobles of the birds and beasts. But therewithal, for laughter at their feasts, They brought them the gods' jesters, such as be Quick-chattering apes, that yet in mockery Of anxious men wrinkle their ugly ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... said they would be at the station at five o'clock. And the landlady at the Swan said it would take them half an hour to ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... look at the one for Fanny first, as she is a young lady," observed Captain Vallery, feeling the parcels, and undoing one, he presented Fanny with a box which had a glass top, and inside of it was a white swan with three gaily-coloured fish. ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... barber, laughing, and all the people in his shop fell to laughing also. 'You are a pretty youth, with your swan-like neck and white hands and small nose. No wonder you are rather vain; but look as long as you like ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... note of the music they felt the vessel stir. Orpheus thrummed away briskly and the galley slid at once into the sea, dipping her prow so deeply that the figurehead drank the wave with its marvelous lips, and rising again as buoyant as a swan. The rowers plied their fifty oars, the white foam boiled up before the prow, the water gurgled and bubbled in their wake, while Orpheus continued to play so lively a strain of music that the vessel seemed to dance over the billows by way of keeping time to it. Thus ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... "I swan," he said. "Ef that ain't jest the thing I have been awantin' for the past twenty year. What'll ye sell me the hull ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... exterior side, and three feet or so in diameter; while the interior was constructed of grass and pieces of stick woven together with clay. There was one large egg in the centre of this nest, a little bigger than that of a swan and quite white, with the exception of a band of small bright red spots which encircled ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... wise woman in the household. I'm aware there is a wise woman in every family—but how comes it that Lilias is the authority with us? It always rather puzzles me, Joanna; for when I used to implore Miss Swan to accept her salary, and pay Dominie Macadam his lawful demand of wages for paving the boys' brains in preparation for the High School, they always complimented me with the assurance that you ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray of the meadow fountain. The eye of the trained hawk, the glance of the three-mewed falcon, was not brighter than hers. Her bosom was more snowy than the breast of the white swan, her cheeks were redder than the reddest roses. Who beheld her was filled with her love. Pour white trefoils sprang up wherever she trod. And therefore was she ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... indeed; he was white—white as feather-snow new fallen in the meadow. There are very few birds who have been thought worthy to dress all in beautiful white, for that is the greatest honor which a bird can have. So, like the Swan and the Dove, Master Whitebird—for that is what they called him then—was very proud of his ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... old Wenus!" says John Swan, and pulls out that fair Amazon, battered almost past ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... then the swan-necked prow Sustained me, and once more I scanned The unfenced flood, against my brow Arching ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... of fellowship with them in spite of their grand and beautiful appearance, and, soaring into the air after them, it alighted into the water, and seeing its own reflection, was filled with amazement and wonder to find itself no longer an ugly duckling but—a swan. ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... the Swan," Verisschenzko thought as he observed it all in the last few minutes before midnight. He must go away soon. A messenger had arrived in hot haste from London, motoring beyond the speed limit, and as soon as his servant had packed his things he must return and not wait for the morning. All relations ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... is thine, swan of the Saxons, To draw the secret from the miser Nature; To soften with thy songs the hard And detestable ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... the probable exception of the swan, of which something is said on a later page, the pheasant stands alone among the birds of our woodlands in its personal interest for the historian. It is not, in fact, a British bird, save by acclimatisation, ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... glory of Israel was falling round them into ruin, and their mission, glowing as they were with the ancient spirit, was to rebuke, to warn, to threaten, and to promise. Finding themselves too late to save, and only, like Cassandra, despised and disregarded, their voices rise up singing the swan song of a dying people, now falling away in the wild wailing of despondency over the shameful and desperate present, now swelling in triumphant hope that God will not leave them for ever, and in His own time will take His chosen ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... "Well, I swan to goodness!" exclaimed the lobster fisherman. "There's those two children again, and this time they're marooned 'stead of being adrift! ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... excited and hospitable people and I lectured to an enthusiastic audience. I do not know how it is with professional speakers, but with the amateur the chairman and the audience make the speech. The Rev. Swan Wiers introduced me in an address of eloquence for ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... and then came the report of a gun in response to Harris's flag signal. Bills were paid at once, and the Harrises took carriage down to the landing. As the "Hallena" glided in between the piers, she was as graceful as a swan, or as Leo expressed it, "as ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... laugh and gave rise to some murmurs on the part of the ladies; then, as soon as the latter were quiet, Dioneo began to speak thus, "Sprightly ladies, a black crow amongst a multitude of white doves addeth more beauty than would a snow-white swan, and in like manner among many sages one less wise is not only an augmentation of splendour and goodliness to their maturity, but eke a source of diversion and solace. Wherefore, you ladies being all exceeding discreet and modest, I, who savour somewhat of the scatterbrain, should be ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the Lampyris while they are creeping along, the foot slowly crawling, the tentacles swollen to their full extent. A few disordered movements betray a brief excitement on the part of the mollusc and then everything ceases: the foot no longer slugs; the front-part loses its graceful swan-neck curve; the tentacles become limp and give way under their weight, dangling feebly like a broken ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... jerkin and hose were of sea-green silk, and his shoes of black velvet, the pointed toes fastened to his garters with golden chains. A golden chain hung about his neck, and at his collar was a great carbuncle set in red gold. His lady was dressed in blue velvet, all trimmed with swan's down. So they made a gallant sight as they rode along side by side, and all the people shouted from where they crowded across the space from the gentlefolk; so the Sheriff and his lady came to their place, ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... "I swan, I dunno what all possessed her," said Paw Hoover. "We give her a good home—but Jake here seen her do it, though he was too late to stop ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... Can you tell me whether any Fringillidae or Sylviadae erect their feathers when frightened or enraged? (469/1. See "Expression of the Emotions," page 99.) I want to show that this expression is common to all or most of the families of birds. I know of this only in the fowl, swan, tropic-bird, owl, ruff and reeve, and cuckoo. I fancy that I remember having seen nestling birds erect their feathers greatly when looking into nests, as is said to be the case with young cuckoos. I should much like to know whether nestlings do really thus erect their feathers. I am ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... and on its sands The swan-pairs resting; holy foot-hill lands Of great Himalaya's sacred ranges, where The yaks are seen; and under trees that bear Bark hermit-dresses on their branches high, A doe that on the buck's horn rubs ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... coming in. Sheffield set up a "flying machine on steel springs" to London in 1760: it "slept" the first night at the Black Man's Head Inn, Nottingham; the second at the Angel, Northampton; and arrived at the Swan with Two Necks, Lad-lane, on the evening of the third day. The fare was 1L. l7s., and 14 lbs. of luggage was allowed. But the principal part of the expense of travelling was for living and lodging on the road, not to mention the fees ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... general motif is the stealing of the fairy-woman's clothes. The idea is the same as that found in stories where the fisherman steals the sea-woman's skin canoe as a prelude to making her his wife, or the feather cloak of the swan-maiden is seized by the hunter when he finds her asleep, thus placing the supernatural maiden in his power. Among savages it is quite a common and usual circumstance for the spouses not to mention each ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... young men now mounted the stone bench by the door, which allowed them to look over the ledge at the eastern sea. Presently the craft appeared round the end of the island, pure white, floating like a swan on the water, and making ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... bids me go Where none of mortal creatures but the swan Dabbles, and there 'you would pluck the harp, when the trees Had made a heavy shadow about our door, And talk among the rustling of the reeds, When night hunted the foolish sun away With stillness and pale tapers. No-no-no! ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... which Clemence shortened her preparations for the night, one would have said that she must have been blessed with an unusually sleepy sensation. But when she lay in bed, with her head under her arm, like a swan with his neck under his wing, and almost in the attitude of Correggio's Magdalen, her eyes, which sparkled with a feverish light, betrayed the fact that she had sought the solitude of her bed in order to indulge more freely in ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... louder than all of us; "you are talking of what is believed to exist, and I am talking of what is. Every man feels what you call love toward each pretty woman he sees, and very little toward his wife. That is the origin of the proverb,—and it is a true one,—'Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... by any Horse, Mare or Gelding that hath not won above the Value of L5, the winning Horse to be sold for L10, to carry 10 Stone Weight, if 14 Hands high; if above or under to carry or be allowed Weight for Inches, and to be entered Friday the 5th at the Swan in Coleshill, before Six in the Evening. Also a Plate of less Value to be run for by Asses. The same Day a Gold Ring to be ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... tale in the Gesta Romanorum (ch. 74 of the text translated by Swan) which seems to have been suggested by the Hebrew parable of the Desolate Island, and which has passed into general currency throughout Europe: A dying king bequeaths to his son a golden apple, which he ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... as appears by A Catalogue of the Rarities to be seen at Adam's, at the Royal Swan, in Kingsland-road, leading from Shoreditch Church, 1756. Mr. Adams exhibited, for ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... loud harmonious Mantuan Once charm'd the world; and here's the Uscan swan In his declining years does chime, And challenges the last remains of Time. Ages run on, and soon give o'er, They have their graves as well as we; Time swallows all that's past and more, Yet time is swallow'd in eternity: This is the only profits poets see. There ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... It was during those weeks that he wrote the second Finale to the B. flat major Quartet, Op. 130, little anticipating that this was to be his "Swan song."] ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... true from experience, the principal and vice-principal of the Philomathian Institute will do all in their power to keep their pupils in the paths of wisdom, and pleasantness, and peace, as Shakspeare, the sweet swan of Avon, says. In one word, it will be the object and aim of Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright to qualify the young gentlemen to act nobly their part in this republican monarchy, and the young ladies whose education has been so long neglected—whose minds have so long been evolved in Siberian darkness—and ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... green color, cut after the fashion of a habit, with an incision in front, disclosing a stomacher of fine Spanish lace, set with rows of tiny brilliants. Her gauntlets quickly followed her jerkin, exposing tiny, swan white fingers, sparkling with jewels. And although herself unconscious of the cause, such was the perfection of her beauty, that I stood as if transfixed, gazing upon her in mute admiration, until my emotions melted into confusion. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... swan among a flock of geese," laughed Mildred Roper. "You've all grown really quite silly over Monica. I admire her very much myself, but I don't go and kiss her jacket when it's hanging in the vestibule, or beg her old torn ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... They had never seen the princess go down before. Half the men were under water in a moment, but they had all, one after another, come up to the surface again for breath, when,—tinkle, tinkle, babble and gush, came the princess' laugh over the water from far away. There she was, swimming like a swan. Nor would she come out for king or queen, chancellor or daughter. But though she was obstinate, she seemed more sedate than usual. Perhaps that was because a great pleasure spoils laughing. After this the passion of her life ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... skin your swan, and beat the flesh in a mortar, taking out the strings as you beat it; then take some clear fat bacon, and beat with the swan, and when 'tis of a light flesh colour, there is bacon enough in it; and when ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... used in this Production is supplied by the well-known firm of Messrs. Swan and Edgar, Piccadilly Circus, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... since her father often left her by herself, all day long, yet strange to say! the rudeness of her wild condition ran over her, leaving her soul untouched, like the water running in crystal drops that beautify but do not wet the neck of a royal swan. And one day she was discovered like a treasure in the wood by a band of hermits' daughters, that were roaming at a distance from the hermitage, away in the forest's heart. And those daughters of the sages all fell suddenly ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... portions had rotted away, but enough of the hull remained to show pretty well what its shape must have been, and that it had had a curiously-projecting place that must have curved out like the neck of a bird, the whole vessel having borne a rough resemblance to an elongated duck or swan. ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... carried in the normal way to the top of the Mountain of Gems where he makes acquaintance with Shaykh Nasr, Lord of the Birds: he enters the usual forbidden room; falls in love with the pattern Swan-maiden; wins her by the popular process; loses her and recovers her through the Monk Yaghmus, whose name, like that of King Teghmus, is a burlesque of the Greek; and, finally, when she is killed by a shark, determines to mourn her loss ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... currents off; Ivory trade; its blacks, women. Zanton (Shantung ?). Zanzale, James, or Jacob Baradaeus, Bishop of Edessa. Zapharan, monastery near Baghdad. Zardandan, or "Gold Teeth," a people of W. Yun-nan, identity doubtful; characteristic customs. Zarneke, Fr. Zayton, Zaitun, Zeiton, Cayton, (T'swan-chau, Chwan-chau, or Chinchew of modern charts); the great mediaeval port of China; Khan's revenue from; porcelain; language; etymology; mediaeval notices; identity; Chinchew, a name misapplied; Christian churches at; ships ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... mere had the mist lying on it more dense than elsewhere. The vapor rested on the surface as a fine gossamer veil, not raised above a couple of feet, hardly ruffled by a passing sigh of air. A large bird floated over it on expanded wings, it looked white as a swan in the moonlight, but cast a shadow black as pitch on the vaporous sheet that covered the face of ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... Leezur?' (The gals all made a great deal on me in them days.) 'They ain't nothin' I likes so well,' says I, 'as a mess o' codfish mixed up along o' eggs and thickenin'.' Wal, she flew 'reound 'nd got supper, 'nd we sot deown together—and I swan! ef that 'ar mess o' codfish 't Tryphosy heaped onto my plate wa'n't worse tangled up with bones 'n ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... sea voyages prevented any large importations of stock—so that, though there was a fair rate of increase, the flocks and herds of the settlers had found sufficient pasturage for the first ten years on the banks of the Swan River and its upper valley, the Avon, together with the coast district southward to the Vasse Inlet; but after 1840 the stock-owners began to feel that all prospect of material increase must be relinquished unless additional pastures could ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... Gallery. He painted all kinds of birds and fowls in an inimitable manner; the soft down of the duck, the glossy plumage of the pigeon, the splendor of the peacock, the magnificent spread of an inanimate swan producing a flood of light, and serving as a contrast to all the objects around it, are so attractive that it is impossible to contemplate one of his pictures of these subjects without feeling admiration and delight at the painter's skill ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... nest-places on Himala's breast. Calling in love-notes down their snowy line The bright birds flew, by fond love piloted; And Devadatta, cousin of the Prince, Pointed his bow, and loosed a wilful shaft Which found the wide wing of the foremost swan Broad-spread to glide upon the free blue road, So that it fell, the bitter arrow fixed, Bright scarlet blood-gouts staining the pure plumes. Which seeing, Prince Siddartha took the bird Tenderly up, rested it in his lap Sitting with knees crossed, as Lord Buddha sits And, soothing with ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... was employed, learnt that she had been arrested (you see, the red stitches on her handkerchief, which everyone had supposed were laundry marks, turned out to be plans of Hampton Court Maze and the most direct route to Swan and Selfinsons), and, seizing the rifle, he rushed from the house (it was the night the Russians passed through Aberdeen and ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... one species is really more beautiful than another. That we prefer one to the other, and with very good reason, will be readily granted; but it does not follow from thence that we think it a more beautiful form; for we have no criterion of form by which to determine our judgment. He who says a swan is more beautiful than a dove, means little more than that he has more pleasure in seeing a swan than a dove, either from the stateliness of its motions, or its being a more rare bird; and he who gives the preference to the dove, does it ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... dreamy Indian summer-day, Attunes the soul to tender sadness; We love—but joy not in the ray— It is not summer's fervid gladness, But a melancholy glory, Hovering softly round decay, Like swan that sings her own sad story, Ere she floats in death away. The day declines; what splendid dyes, In fleckered waves of crimson driven, Float o'er the saffron sea that lies Glowing within the western heaven! Oh, it ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... went to look after the tea. She was a slim, pale-faced school-girl, with yellow-brown eyes, and yellow-brown hair, not as yet very attractive in looks, but her mother was convinced that it was only the plainness of the cygnet, and that the swan was only a few years off. Nora, who at seventeen had no illusions, was grateful to her mother for the belief but did not ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... guess it must be this way," Jenkins suggested. "There was a dozen of us usin' the same bit of lookin' glass, an' I swan I ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... your gardens; you shall rear The roc and phoenix, and red jungle-fowl, Whose cry at dawn assembles river storks To join the play of cranes and ibises; Where the wild-swan all day Pursues the glint of idle king-fishers. O Soul come back to watch ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... Bear-garden and the Swan Theatre, for instance, the artist has managed to throw over his minute plate a wonderful air of pleasantness, a light which, though very delicate, is very theatrical. The river and its tiny craft, the little gabled houses of the neighbourhood, with a garden or two dropped in, tell ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... within few years was thoroughly replenished again. But what stand I upon this impertinent discourse? Of such therefore as are bred in our land, we have the crane, the bitter,[1] the wild and tame swan, the bustard, the heron, curlew, snite, wildgoose, wind or doterell, brant, lark, plover (of both sorts), lapwing, teal, widgeon, mallard, sheldrake, shoveller, peewitt, seamew, barnacle, quail (who, only with man, are ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... and that Elizabeth Barrett, Henry Taylor, William Barnes, and others were by this date of mature age. It is difficult to remind ourselves, who have lived in the radiance of that august figure, that some of the most beautiful of Tennyson's lyrics, such as "Mariana" and "The Dying Swan" are now separated from us by as long a period of years as divided them from Dr. Johnson and the author of "Night Thoughts." The reflection is of value only as warning us of the extraordinary length of the epoch we still call "Victorian." ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... he saw many white shapes, with long necks and golden bills, and, without thinking, he looked for the dull grey body and the awkward skinny neck. But no such thing was there. Instead, he beheld beneath him a beautiful white swan! ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... a Goose and a Swan, the one for his table, the other because she was reputed a good singer. One night when the Cook went to kill the Goose he got hold of the Swan instead. Thereupon the Swan, to induce him to spare her life, began to sing; but she saved ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... of the swan formed for many centuries the favourite termination for the handles of simpula, or ladles. The Greeks and Romans adopted it, as they freely did grotesque art in general; and the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibit it in untrammelled ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... opposite to Miss Eve Flouncer, who was one of the strong-minded women. Indeed, I think it is but just to say of her that she was one of the strongest-minded women in the town. In her presence the strength of Mrs Bingley's mind dwindled down to comparative weakness. In form she was swan-like, undulatory, so to speak. Her features were prononce; nose, aquiline; eyes, piercing; hair, black as ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... sands of Pagasai. And first came Heracles the mighty, with his lion's skin and club, and behind him Hylas his young squire, who bore his arrows and his bow; and Tiphys, the skilful steersman; and Butes, the fairest of all men; and Castor and Polydeuces the twins, the sons of the magic swan; and Caineus, the strongest of mortals, whom the Centaurs tried in vain to kill, and overwhelmed him with trunks of pine trees, but even so he would not die; and thither came Zetes and Calais, the winged sons of the north wind; and Peleus, the father of Achilles, whose bride was silver-footed Thetis ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... that fires our northland night, This is the song that made Love fearful, even the heart of love afraid, With the great anguish of its great delight. No swan-song, no far-fluttering half-drawn breath, No word that love of love's sweet nature saith, No dirge that lulls the narrowing lids of death, No healing hymn of peace-prevented strife,— This is ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Alley is now converted into a good-sized street, called Stamford Road, which has a public-house (the Rising Sun) on one side, and a bookseller's shop on the other. Here, for a few years, was a turnpike, which has been recently removed and placed lower down the road, adjoining the Swan Tavern and Brewery, Walham Green, established 1765. [Picture: No. 4, No. 3 Stamford Villas] Houses are being built in all directions opposite several "single and married houses," with small gardens in front ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... escaped a keen-eyed falcon. Soon after him a huntsman came a-riding, And he beckoned to the falcon that had strayed, But the bright-eyed bird thus answered: "In gold cage you could not keep me, On your hand you could not hold me, So now I fly to blue seas far away. There a white swan I will kill, Of sweet swan-flesh have ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... seemed in a general verve for embracing. He is very earnest, very simple, very childlike. I like him. Pen says of him, 'He is not really pretty. He is rather like his own ugly duck, but his mind has developed into a swan.' ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... his way into the house, and see her again, at all hazards. His wild design, however, was fortunately prevented. As he passed the end of the court leading to the ancient inn (for it was ancient even at the time of this history), the Swan-with-two-Necks, in Lad-lane, a young man, as richly attired as himself, and about his own age, who had seen him approaching, suddenly darted from it, and ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Mighty war; such war as e'en For Helen's sake is waged, I ween. Purple is the groundwork: good! All the field is stained with blood— Blood poured out for Helen's sake; (Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake!) But the shapes of men that pass Are as ghosts within a glass, Woven with whiteness of the swan, Pale, sad memories, gleaming wan From the garment's purple fold Where Troy's tale is twined and told. Well may Helen, as with tender Touch of rosy fingers slender She doth knit the story in Of Troy's sorrow and her sin, Feel sharp filaments ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... is a world of true sublimity,—a minute infinite,—an ever fertile garden of poetic images, the roots of which are in the unfathomable and the eternal, as truly as any phenomenon which astonishes and awes the eye. The descriptions of the desolate pools and creeks where the dying swan floated, the hint of the silvery marsh mosses by Mariana's moat, came to me like revelations. I always knew there was something beautiful, wonderful, sublime, in those flowery dykes of Battersea Fields; in the long gravelly sweeps of that ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al |
