"Swarm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nothing against our terrible quarter staves. Presently a thought struck me. A large earthen jar full of drinking water, in its heavy frame of wood stood upon the edge of the poop. Seeing an opportunity, I crept up to the jar and rolled it down upon the swarm of assailants. Its fall caused a shriller shriek to rise above the ordinary din, for heads, limbs and bodies were sorely bruised by the weight, scratched by the broken potsherds, and wetted by the sudden discharge. [118] The Maghrabis ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... on the loot they garnered. As yet, mankind had not been able to discover whether they did indeed swarm from any home world. Perhaps they lived eternally on board their plate ships with no permanent base, forced into a wandering life by the destruction of the planet on which they had originally been spawned. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... peace and enjoy that, in a manner highly to be envied. But the condition—that they should be let alone—is now no longer possible. More than a hundred years ago, and following closely on the heels of Cook, an irregular invasion of adventurers began to swarm about the isles of the Pacific. The seven sleepers of Polynesia stand, still but half aroused, in the midst of the century of competition. And the island races, comparable to a shopful of crockery launched upon the stream of time, now fall to make their desperate voyage among pots ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yonder, taking to ourselves a huge expanse of virgin land, which will become a province. We have already founded a village which in a hundred years will be a great town. In the colonies no race is more fruitful than the French, though it seems to become barren on its own ancient soil. Thus we shall swarm and swarm, and fill the world! So come then, come then, all of you; since here you are set too closely, since you lack air in your little fields and your overheated, pestilence-breeding towns. There is room for everybody yonder; there are new lands, there is open air that none has breathed, ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... eye fell on an object lying on the rock beside him; he thought it moved. It was a small dog, apparently in the last agony of death from thirst. Its tongue was out, its jaws dry, its limbs extended lifelessly, and a swarm of black ants were crawling about its lips and throat. Its eye moved to the bottle which Hans held in his hand. He raised it, drank, spurned the animal with his foot, and passed on. And he did not know how it was, but he thought that a strange shadow ...
— The King of the Golden River - A Short Fairy Tale • John Ruskin.
... conclave &c. (council) 696; posse, posse comitatus[Lat]; Noah's ark. miscellany, collectanea[obs3]; museum, menagerie &c. (store) 636; museology[obs3]. crowd, throng, group,; flood, rush, deluge; rabble, mob, press, crush, cohue[obs3], horde, body, tribe; crew, gang, knot, squad, band, party; swarm, shoal, school, covey, flock, herd, drove; atajo[obs3]; bunch, drive, force, mulada [obs3][U.S.]; remuda[obs3]; roundup [U.S.]; array, bevy, galaxy; corps, company, troop, troupe, task force; army, regiment &c. (combatants) 726; host &c. (multitude) 102; populousness. clan, brotherhood, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... rushed like a monster o'er cottage and farm, Striking their inmates with sudden alarm; And they ran out like bees in a midsummer swarm. There were dames with their kerchiefs tied over their caps, To see if their poultry were free from mishaps; The turkeys they gobbled, the geese screamed aloud, And the hens crept to roost in a terrified crowd; There was raising of ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... I was a student; and when the examination was over, the thousand ideas and thoughts, by which I was pursued on the way to my teacher, flew like a swarm of bees out into the world, and, indeed, into my first work, "A Journey on Foot to Amack;" a peculiar, humorous book, but one which fully exhibited my own individual character at that time, my disposition to sport with everything, ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... even before the time of Posidonius, consequently before 650; detached portions of them in Caesar's time roamed about in Carinthia (B. G. i. 5), and came thence to the Helvetii and into western Gaul; another swarm found new settlements on the Plattensee, where it was annihilated by the Getae; but the district—the "Boian desert," as it was called—preserved the name of this the most harassed of all the Celtic peoples (III. VII. Colonizing of The Region ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... management of a case. I believe though, I'd rather have had the middle-aged one to start with. She'd be more likely to tend to her business, and not have her head turned by the attentions of the good-looking young officers who swarm around her. Mind, I'll not allow ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... fifty yards away and threw a shower of dirt over us. There was a precipitate flop, a falling backwards and forwards and all became messed up in an intricate jumble of flesh, equipment, clothing and rifles in the bottom of the trench. A swarm of "bees" buzzed overhead, a few dropped into the trench and Pryor who gripped one with his hand swore under his breath. ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... and settles on an unsightly forest-tree somewhere, and all that love her follow: the long-neglected herb becomes busy with music and sweetness, and the flashing of silver wings, till into some gum-tree cone the farmer gathers the swarm, and it ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... seats away, surrounded by a swarm of men in evening dress, sat a grey-haired woman, watching the fight with interest through a gold-rimmed lorgnette. Her eyes twinkled as heavy blows were delivered, and when one of the men began to bleed copiously from the nose, she uttered an exclamation of delight. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... walls of the Hotel Dieu, and farther off the tall tower of the newly-restored Cathedral, the belfry of the Recollets, and the roofs of the ancient College of the Jesuits. An avenue of old oaks and maples shaded the walk, and in the branches of the trees a swarm of birds fluttered and sang, as if in rivalry with the gay French talk and laughter of the group of officers, who waited the return of the Governor from the bastion where he stood, showing the glories of Quebec to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... pictures see. Some maidens say, if through the nation, Bundling should quite go out of fashion, Courtship would lose its sweets; and they Could have no fun till wedding day. It shant be so, they rage and storm, And country girls in clusters swarm, And fly and buz, like angry bees, And vow they'll bundle when they please. Some mothers too, will plead their cause, And give their daughters great applause, And tell them, 'tis no sin nor shame, For we, your mothers, did the same; We hope the ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... warm Hours, the swarm Of the thievish bees, that flies Evermore from bloom to bloom For perfume, ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... swarm of civilians who had enlisted. Every class and every type was to be seen. We found out the R.A.M.C. depot and reported. A man sat at an old soapbox with a lot of papers, and we had to file past him. This was in the middle of a field with row ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... ointment made from a kind of penny- royal herb and powdered charcoal. Talking about pests, in some parts the ants were even more terrible than the mosquitoes, and I have known one variety—a reddish-brown monster, an inch long—to swarm over and actually kill children by stinging them. Another pest was the leech. It was rather dangerous to bathe in some of the lagoons on account of the leeches that infested the waters. Often in crossing a swamp I would feel a slight tickling sensation about the legs, and on looking down would find ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... with a whole swarm of ladies in waterproof cloaks, huddled together like chickens in a coop. There were generals, too, with gold epaulets on their shoulders: one that I'd heard of in the war, General McDowell, and some others, that lighted ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... exercise'; which caused me to be clapped down to some new labour, there and then. As to any recreation with other children of my age, I had very little of that; for the gloomy theology of the Murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers (though there WAS a child once set in the midst of the Disciples), and held that they contaminated ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... contributed prizes to thousands of the scholars; and let no one omit to call to mind what these children were, whence they came, and whither they were going without this merciful intervention. They would have been added to the perilous swarm of the wild, the lawless, the wretched, and the ignorant, instead of being, as by God's blessing they are, decent and comfortable, earning an honest livelihood, and adorning the community to which ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... swarm of visitors," Betty said. "I know the minute I get on that stage I'll forget every one of my lines," she added, as she looked critically at herself in the glass. She was playing the part of Shylock, and her long beard and gray wig disguised ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... regalia by ten o'clock in the morning. Through some awful error on the part of the Chicago costumer, Philo Gubb's regalia had not arrived in time for the first day of the Carnival, so he had absented himself rather than let the crooks and thieves who were supposed to swarm the grounds have an opportunity to become acquainted with his appearance and thus be put on their guard against the ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... wait till they have ten million vermin overrunning their country—we shall see how long they will be sentimental. Think of it! A burrowing swarm creeping and crawling everywhere, ugh! They ruin our peasantry with their loans and their drink shops, ruin our army with their revolutionary propaganda, ruin our professional classes by snatching all the prizes and professorships, ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... partridge shooting; for a pheasant is here a kind of rara avis in terris, and as little likely to be met with as the very black swan itself; but then it's a fine country for woodcocks, whilst the bottoms almost swarm with snipes; all of which the squire has promised to show me in the course of the day, and for days to come, if I feel so inclined; for he won't hear a word of our leaving for at least ten days, or a week at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... exclaimed Mrs Greenways crossly. But on Molly the news had a different effect. It was counted lucky to be present at the housing of a new swarm. She at once left her occupation, seized a saucepan and an iron spoon, and regardless of her mistress rushed out into the garden, making a hideous clatter as she went. "There now, look at that!" said Mrs Greenways with a heated face. "She's off ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... where to get it. If he could only borrow it from someone—but then he could offer no security. A sense of his own helplessness came on him as he saw this golden tide flowing past his door, and yet was unable to take advantage of it. Five hundred pounds! The sum kept buzzing in his head like a swarm of bees, and he threw himself down again in his chair to try and think ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... in their wagons or following in their train small black dogs of temper unparalleled for ugliness. It is impossible to approach a Tsigane tent or wagon without encountering a swarm of these diminutive creatures, whose rage is not only amusing, but sometimes rather appalling to contemplate. Driving rapidly by a camp one morning in a farmer's cart drawn by two stout horses adorned with jingling bells, I was followed by a pack of these dark-skinned ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... dim motion, against the blue Dark sky of night, the wandering glitter, the swarm Of questing brilliant things:—you joy, you true Spirit of careless joy: ah, how I warm My poor and perished soul ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... anything rush down by you," said Kenneth, in a hollow whisper, "don't be afraid; it's only an old ghost. They swarm here." ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... of consequence. There were two or three little fires born of the holiday celebration, but Guilford Duncan managed to suppress them without difficulty. Later in the night the swarm of cotton thieves—mainly boys and girls—invaded the levee, with bags conveniently slung over their shoulders. As there were practically no policemen in the town, and as his beat was a large one, young Duncan for a ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... quoth the prince, "was that of the full moon, her hair like a swarm of bees hanging from the blossoms of the acacia, the corners of her eyes touched her ears, her lips were sweet with lunar ambrosia, her waist was that of a lion, and her walk the walk of a king goose. [FN53] As a garment, she was white; as ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... gay rug the turbaned Turk who keeps it sits cross-legged and smokes his pipe and makes his bargains, whilst down the narrow street (which in many instances is arched overhead with stone) there struggle, and swarm, and scream, and fight, black slaves, obstinate camels, primitive-looking chariots full of Turkish ladies, people of all colours in all costumes, and from every part of ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... had with you as copious a choice of dreams as clustered on the elm-trees where the Sibyl led Aeneas, this, in preference to the whole swarm of them, is the ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... the battlemented walls Swarm with skilled bowmen, archers—from them falls A cloud of winged missiles on their foes, Who swift reply with shouts and twanging bows; And now amidst the raining death appears The scaling ladder, lined with glistening spears, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... 'twill be rough to-night, As they fasten the hatches down, The south is black, and the bar is white, And the drifting smoke is brown. The gold has gone from the western haze, The sea-birds circle and swarm — But we shall have plenty of sunny days, And ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... King's axe got rotten with it, and at a certain last blow gave way and bent like a pulpy stock. He helped himself to a beheaded Mameluke's scimitar, and did his affair with that. Once, twice, thrice, and four times they furrowed that swarm of men; nothing broke their line. Richard himself was only cut in the feet, where he trod on mailed bodies or broken swords; the others (being themselves in mail) were without scathe. They held the square until the Count of Champagne came up with knights ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... threats, and that she knew she should succeed, for an astrologer had told her that everything she did between this Wednesday and Friday should prosper—she had the prediction in her pocket. By this time we had coasted along the moat till we came to the Loire, where a whole swarm of boatmen, honest fellows in red caps and striped shirts, came up, shouting, 'Vive Monsieur!' 'Vive Mademoiselle!' and declaring that it was a shame to lock her out ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... roar like that of a waterfall; I look again ... the battery has disappeared ... but the smoke rises and I see a long line of men come out of the far-off woods and burst upon the guns. The men of the battery flee, and the rebels swarm among the ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... shouts of the victorious expedition caused the entire population of the village to turn out and swarm down to the small strip of beach which constituted the landing-place; so when Dick and Phil were lifted out of the canoes they beheld a crowd of some four or five hundred Indians, men, women, and children, crowded together to gaze upon ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... remained nearly a year. The Duke of Cumberland was succeeded at Edinburgh by his brother-in-law, the Prince of Hesse, who had landed at Leith with five thousand infantry and five hundred huzzars in the pay of England. These were stationed in the capital, ready to swarm into the country to ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... it will be found a truth one day that one reason that this day doth so swarm with wanton professors, is, because they have not begun at sound conviction for, nor gone to God at first with sincere confession of sin. And one cause of that has been, for that they did never seriously fall in with, nor yet in heart sink under, either the certainty ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... opportunity," I answered, and steering the boat closer in to the shore I observed that there were thousands and tens of thousands of the creatures hanging by their claws to the boughs in a most curious manner as thick as a swarm of bees. With a boat-hook we pulled off two or three, which falling inboard were picked up. They showed, however, no fear, nor did they make any attempt to escape, but licked our hands and appeared perfectly at ease. The head was like that of a miniature ...
— The Mate of the Lily - Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book • W. H. G. Kingston
... northernmost of the four large islands of Japan, is about as large as Ireland; is traversed from N. to S. by rugged mountains, several of them active volcanoes; is rich in minerals, and particularly coal; its rivers swarm with salmon, but the climate is severe, and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... walk. At first, curiosity made me indiscreet, and they stung me several times, but afterwards, we were so well acquainted, that let me approach as near as I would, they never molested me, though the hives were full and the bees ready to swarm. At these times I have been surrounded, having them on my hands and face without apprehending any danger. All animals are distrustful of man, and with reason, but when once assured he does not mean to injure them, their confidence becomes so great ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... tongue. So, on a frosty day in late autumn, when all is lifeless and dumb in the bleached grey grass, on the bare forest edge, if the sun but come out for an instant from the fog and turn one steady glance on the frozen earth, at once the gnats swarm up on all sides; they sport in the warm rays, bustle, flutter up and down, circle round one another... The sun is hidden—the gnats fall in a feeble shower, and there is the end of ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... after they had dressed, Russell and he began to amuse themselves on the sea-shore. The little translucent pools left on the sands by the ebbing tide always swarm with life, and the two boys found great fun in hunting audacious little crabs, or catching the shrimps that shuffled about in the shallow water. At last Eric picked up a piece of wood which he found lying on the beach, and said, "What do you say to coming crabfishing, Edwin? this bit of stick ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... the crew was of high average. They would not be playing such a game unless they were a reckless lot. At any moment they might take it into their heads to swarm over Cunningham and obliterate him. Then what? If the episode of the morning had not convinced Jane, what would? The man Flint had dropped his mask; the others were content to wear theirs yet awhile. Torture ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... ocean-steamer, long, low, and black, with a tri-color flag at the stern, slowly and puffily tugged by a little pilot-boat. The decks literally swarm with figures in all sorts of outlandish garb,—gray and blue stuffs, long shaggy ulsters, Scotch caps and plaids, gay kerchiefs on the women's heads and necks. Some lounge, smoking or gibbering, over the taffrail, other groups sit picturesquely on their large rude boxes, but most of them are suggestively ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... irritating than the bites of flies, partly because the barbed sting is left in the wound and partly because of the quantity and quality of the venom. When a swarm attacks an animal ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... had actually directed his eyes to the side where the whisperers sat. Lux, bending over his book, kept quiet at last. Finally the longed-for hour came and in a few minutes the whole swarm was outside. With a great deal of noise, but in a quick and pretty orderly fashion they now formed a procession, which began to move in the direction of Apollonie's little house. Here a halt was made. Kurt, climbing to the top of a heap of logs, which ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... very naked. They bring loads of provisions to sell, through the rain, and are eager traders for beads. Plantains, cassava, and maize, are the chief food. The first rains had now begun, and the white ants took the hint to swarm and colonize. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... one thing, seeing and feeling this boat, with all its light and life, speeding, twinkling on and on through the night like a swarm of stars, the thought came—and I was wishing I ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... flute and piano, and which I think enough of to let go forward as Op. 1. Dost thou remember one morning last summer, Charley and I were walking in the upper part of the yard, before breakfast, and saw a swarm of gnats, of whose strange evolutions we did relate to thee a marvelous tale? I have put the grave oaks, the quiet shade, the sudden sunlight, the fantastic, contrariwise, and ever-shifting midge movements, the sweet hills ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... keep our watch in vain. Zounds! not a soul Will pass, and do obeisance to the cap. But yesterday the place swarm'd like a fair; Now the old green looks like a desert, quite, Since yonder scarecrow hung upon ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... seraph had come on earth and presented itself thus before a throng of human beings, there might have happened some such miracle as was wrought when the swarm of Martians beheld the strange beauty of this radiant daughter ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... thee, O Lord, Across the mid-sea of the night! I lift my voice and cry with might: If thou keep silent, soon a horde Of imps again will swarm aboard, And I shall be in sorry plight If no voice come from thee, my Lord, Across the mid-sea ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... And Cibber was enthroned, and Settle read. Sing, drooping Muse, the cause of thy decline; Why reign no more the once-triumphant Nine? Alas! new charms the wavering many gain, And rival sheets the reader's eye detain; A daily swarm, that banish every Muse, Come flying forth, and mortals call them NEWS: For these, unread, the noblest volumes lie; For these, in sheets unsoil'd, the Muses die; Unbought, unblest, the virgin copies wait In vain for fame, and sink, unseen, to fate. Since, then, the Town ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... Jeff asked Mildred. Cousin Ann had joined them on the front porch, where the family awaited the summons to dinner. "Mildred and Nan are having a swarm of guests," he explained to ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... ball-playing boys. Does not the gratuitous ingenuity of the young bipeds indicate a far higher degree of intelligence? Does it argue against the quality of that intelligence that any novel phenomenon—a funnel-shaped cloud, the appearance of a swarm of bats or unknown birds—would divert the ball-players from their immediate purpose? Monkeys alone share this gift of gratuitous curiosity. A strange object, a piece of red cloth fluttering in the grass, may excite the interest of a watch-dog ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... dimensions, seeming to grow literally out of the rock itself, earth surfaces being conspicuous by their absence. It is uninhabited by human beings, nor could any traces of animals be discovered, but seabirds swarm over every part of the island, and about four hundred wood pigeons were shot by the explorers while they remained there. No fruits or vegetable matter fit for consumption could, however, be found, nor the existence of any supply of fresh water, and ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Court, and more particularly attached to her person, a very pretty child, only daughter of the Marquis de Villette, and sister, consequently, of the Comte and of the Chevalier de Villette, whom I have previously mentioned. This swarm of nephews, cousins, and nieces garnished the armchairs and sofas of her chamber. They served as comrades and playfellows to the legitimate princes and as pages of honour to my daughter; and when the carriage of the Marquise came into the country for her drives, the whole of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Italian scholars would think it a thousand years till they could give up their chairs to you. Yes, yes; it is chiefly religious scruple, and partly also the authority of a great classic,—Juvenal, is it not? He, I gather, had his bile as much stirred by the swarm of Greeks as our Messer Angelo, who is fond of quoting some passage ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... thin shrieks rose about them. They started half-heartedly to run, pretending fury. A swarm of determined boyhood rushed over them and flung them kicking, ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... successive hordes, who were ancestors of our Celts, Hellenes, Slavs, Teutons and Scandinavians. Sanskrit was the Aryans' mother-tongue, and it forms the basis of nearly every European language. A later swarm turned the western flank of the Himalayas, and descended on Upper India. Their rigid discipline, resulting from vigorous group-selection, gave the invaders an easy victory over the negroid hunters and fishermen who peopled India. All races of Aryan ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... understanding. Round about this group, were smaller sketches, miniatures of pure fancy. It seemed as if the artist had sought relief in painting these from the pressure of his chief design. Here, for instance, Day and Night were chasing one another through the rings of Saturn; there a swarm of silver stars was settling down through the darkness to ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... nor do what these poor-devil-poets do, but use words of good omen, for a great swarm of goddesses is ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... some bow and a number of arrows resembling snakes of virulent poison, and looking like an embodiment of fire, came quickly down on the breast of Himavat. And the handsome god of gods was accompanied by Uma in the guise of a Kirata woman, and also by a swarm of merry spirits of various forms and attire, and by thousands of women in the form and attire of Kiratas. And, O king, that region suddenly blazed up in beauty, in consequence of the arrival of the god of gods in such company. And soon ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... great bands of muddy water, exactly like that of a swollen river; and again, a degree south of Valparaiso, when fifty miles from the land, the same appearance was still more extensive. Some of the water placed in a glass was of a pale reddish tint; and, examined under a microscope, was seen to swarm with minute animalcula darting about, and often exploding. Their shape is oval, and contracted in the middle by a ring of vibrating curved ciliae. It was, however, very difficult to examine them with care, for almost ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... nearest. Such a struggle was too unequal to last long; but despair redoubled the Colossus's strength, and the combat was for a moment terrible. The unfortunate man did not fall at once. For some seconds, almost buried amid a swarm of furious assailants, one saw now his mighty arm rise and fall like a sledge hammer, beating upon skulls and faces, and now his enormous head, livid and bloody, drawn back by some of the combatants hanging to his tangled hair. Here ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... should cloak all with a profession of religion. If it was a transgression of old for a man to wear a woman's apparel, surely it is a transgression now for a sinner to wear a Christian profession for a cloak. Wolves in sheep's clothing swarm in England this day; wolves both as to doctrine and as to practice too. Some men make a profession, I doubt, on purpose that they may twist themselves into a trade; and thence into an estate; yea, and if need be, into an estate knavishly, by the ruins ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... had happened. He caught another glimpse of the Taube rushing away like a huge carnivorous bird that had already seized its prey, and then he ran swiftly down the street. The bomb had burst in a swarm of fugitives and a woman was killed. Several people were wounded, and a panic had threatened, but the soldiers had restored order already and ambulances soon took ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Swarm the men to the rigging, and swiftly Shine clouds of white canvas, and clank The links of the anchor's great cable, Creaks, ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... It is hardly possible to protect provisions from the attacks of the baraten and ants. The latter, in fact, often appear in long trains of immeasureable length, pursuing their course over every obstacle which stands in the way. During my stay in the country at Herr Geiger's, I beheld a swarm of this description traverse a portion of the house. It was really most interesting to see what a regular line they formed; nothing could make them deviate from the direction they had first determined on. Madame Geiger told me that she was one night awoke by a horrible itching; ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... provision was made. The river about the city, above and below, was well protected by a flotilla of gun-boats improvised from the swarm of steamers which lay at the wharves. A storm of shot and shell, such as they had not dreamed of, would have played upon their advancing columns, while our regiments, pouring down from the fortifications, would have fallen upon their rear. The shrewd leaders of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... antiquity, having been bequeathed from sire to son) which men perpetrate six working-days in the week, and after, lacker up their faces with a look of sleek humility for the Sunday pew—consider all this locust swarm of knaveries annihilated by the purifying spirit of Christianity, and then look upon London breathing and living, for one day only, by the sweet, sustaining truth of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... thee not. An enemy is indeed at hand. I see it through the heavy air; I hear it through the silence: the Ghostly One,—the Destroyer, the PESTILENCE! Ah, seest thou how the leaves swarm with insects, only by an effort visible to the eye. They follow the breath of the plague!" As he spoke, a bird fell from the boughs at Viola's feet; it fluttered, it writhed an ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing to following a naked lunatic, when the fit of escaping is upon him! After a few minutes, however, I could see that he did not take note of anything around him, and so ventured to draw nearer to him, the more so as my men had now crossed ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... told not his father or his mother what he had done. And he went down and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well. And after a while he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. And he took it into his hands, and went on, eating as he went, and he came to his father and mother, and gave unto them, and they did eat: but he told them not that he had taken the honey out of the body of the ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... the vermin with which their nests often swarm, and which kill the young before they are fledged. In a state of nature this probably never happens; at least I have never seen or heard of it happening to nests placed in trees or under rocks. It is the curse of civilization ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... 'at Lem sells, I allow," observed Walky Dexter. "No wonder it settled them boys. It's got a 'kick' to it wuss'n Josephus had that time the swarm of bees lit ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... certain king seized upon all the corn in his country, and stored it away in a strong gran-a-ry. But a swarm of locusts came over the land and saw where the grain had been put. After search-ing for many days they found on the east side of the gran-a-ry a crev-ice that was just large enough for one locust to pass through at a time. So one locust went in and carried ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... conversation we are always using that phrase, and seldom or never noticing how large a significance it bears. It stands for a curious and interesting fact, to wit: that sleeping or waking, dreaming or talking, the thoughts which swarm through our heads are almost constantly, almost continuously, accompanied by a like swarm of reminders of incidents and episodes of our past. A man can never know what a large traffic this commerce of association ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... God (ngai); certainly there are children among the Akikuyu who pass for children of God. It is said that once, when the inhabitants of Cayeli in Buru—an East Indian island—were threatened with destruction by a swarm of crocodiles, they ascribed the misfortune to a passion which the prince of the crocodiles had conceived for a certain girl. Accordingly, they compelled the damsel's father to dress her in bridal array and deliver her over to the clutches ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... heads had disappeared. One bold greaser stepped out into the road and sent his Minie-ball singing several yards above us, then darted back quickly, before any of us could have him. We waited a moment to see others, but they seemed to be satisfied;—and we were satisfied,—with prospect of a swarm bursting out on us from the town; so, sinking spurs into our weary animals, we made good pace back to the camp,—not without an alarm that a troop of well-mounted lancers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... A swarm of ideas flared up in Lyamshin's crafty mind like a shower of fireworks. It all suddenly took a different colour, though still ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... weather is glorious. Day after day, after a sharp and frosty dawn, the sun swings up into a cloudless sky; and the hundred thousand troops that swarm like ants upon, the undulating plains of Hampshire can march, sit, lie, or sleep on hard, sun-baked earth. A wet autumn would have thrown our training back months. The men, as yet, possess nothing but the fatigue uniforms they stand up in, so ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... to them!" declared Jim. "I wouldn't be put upon and called baby and a mollycoddle and have that Perkins crowding me off the line and losing marks. I'd give him such a right-hander his head would hum like a swarm of bees." ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... tiny knot. These were actually tie-strings of living ants, their legs stretched almost to the breaking-point, their bodies the inconspicuous knots or nodes. Even at rest and at home, the army ants are always prepared, for every quiescent individual in the swarm was standing as erect as possible, with jaws widespread and ready, whether the great curved mahogany scimitars of the soldiers, or the little black daggers of the smaller workers. And with no eyelids to close, and eyes which were themselves a mockery, ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... the study would be to learn whether the motion of the reported UFO's was random or ordered. Random motion is an unordered, helter-skelter motion very similar to a swarm of gnats or flies milling around. There is no apparent pattern or purpose to their flight paths. But take, for example, swallows flying around a chimney—they wheel, dart, and dip, but if you watch them closely, they have a definite pattern in their movements—an ordered motion. ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... to play many rhyming games at that time; and Hugh at the age of eight wrote a poem about a swarm of gnats dancing in ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... from those on the banks of the Tiber. The intimacy of the nautch-girls with the gods, which is generally accepted, cleanses them from every sin and makes them in every one's eyes irreproachable and infallible. A nautcha cannot sin, in spite of the crowd of the "celestial musicians" who swarm in every pagoda, in the form of baby-vestals and their little brothers. No virtuous Roman matron was ever so respected as the pretty little nautcha. This great reverence for the happy "brides of the gods" is especially striking in the purely native towns of Central India, where the population ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... solitude, till, far from track of men, Thought following thought, and step by step led on, He entered now the bordering Desert wild, And, with dark shades and rocks environed round, His holy meditations thus pursued:— "O what a multitude of thoughts at once Awakened in me swarm, while I consider What from within I feel myself, and hear What from without comes often to my ears, Ill sorting with my present state compared! 200 When I was yet a child, no childish play To me was pleasing; all my mind ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... way he seemed to hear at his heels a little dog yelping, and then a swarm of gnats buzzing round his head, and altogether was so perplexed and bewildered, that when he got into his mother's cottage he escaped into bed, and pulled the blanket over his ears to shut out ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... the farm, of which Lord Hothfield is owner, is kind enough to go over the hop-garden with us, and describe all the details. When the hops are ripe (i. e. when the seeds are hard) and ready to be gathered, the pickers swarm on the ground, and a man divides the "bine" at the bottom of the "pole" by means of a bill-hook—not cutting it too close for fear of bleeding—leaving the root to sprout next year, and then draws out the pole, to which is attached the ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... be a long, outstretched finger, seems to fold back into itself, knuckle-fashion, and presently is but a part of the oddly foreshortened shoreline, distinguishable only by the black dot of watchers clustered under a battery of lights, like a swarm of hiving bees. Out in midstream the tugs, which have been convoying the ship, let go of her and scuttle off, one in this direction and one in that, like a brace of teal ducks getting out of a ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... from London, bringing pickers from the slums. It was labelled "Strawberry Gatherers Only," and its cargo was lively, not to say noisy. There were elderly men, younger ones unfit for military service, women with bawling babies, girls shouting popular songs, and a swarm of turbulent children. Whole families had apparently set forth to spend a few weeks helping at the fruit harvest, combining a holiday in the country with profit to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... and broken my harpoon. They had also been scratching out some of the holes, of which the upper part of the sandy beach was full; from one they filled a hat with turtles eggs, and from another took a swarm of young ones, not broader than a crown piece, which I found crawling in every part of the boat. It was then past sunset, and numbers of turtle were collected, waiting only for our departure to take the beach; ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... to take a farewell embrace of your dear mother," said Mr. Seagrave; "but, no; it will be weakness just now. Here they come, William, in a swarm. Well, God bless you, my boy; we shall all, I trust, ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... [censure for] irregular government was removed from them; but for this purpose a conference was first summoned by the archbishop. It included the bishop of Sinopolis, the superiors and masters of the religious orders—and with them crowded in all the swarm of doctors and masters of Santo Tomas, to the no little annoyance of the bishop and the religious orders. In this conference the question was asked whether the members of the cabildo were worthy of being absolved ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... Matanzas in an unclean swarm; streets and plazas were congested with them, for no attempt was made to confine them to their quarters. Morning brought them streaming down from the suburban slopes where they lived, evening sent them winding ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... blankets to muffle the oars, other making new grummets. The ship's company were as busy as bees, bustling and buzzing about the decks, and reminding you of the agitation which takes place in a hive previous to a swarm. At last, Osbaldistone came on deck, and ordered the boats' crews to be piped away, and prepare for service. He was to have the command of the expedition in the launch—I had charge of the first cutter—O'Farrell of the second, and Swinburne had the charge ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... buried in Egypt for several reasons. He knew that the soil of Egypt would once swarm with vermin, and it revolted him to think of his corpse exposed to such uncleanness. He feared, moreover, that his descendants might say, "Were Egypt not a holy land, our father Jacob had never permitted himself to be buried there," and they might encourage themselves with this argument ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... grisly's ordinary diet. At most times the big bear is a grubber in the ground, an eater of insects, roots, nuts, and berries. Its dangerous fore-claws are normally used to overturn stones and knock rotten logs to pieces, that it may lap up the small tribes of darkness which swarm under the one and in the other. It digs up the camas roots, wild onions, and an occasional luckless woodchuck or gopher. If food is very plenty bears are lazy, but commonly they are obliged to be very industrious, it being no light task to gather enough ants, beetles, crickets, ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... about me that an honest fellow can't pray in my company?" cried the earl. "I will pray myself, in spite of the whole swarm of them, big and little!—O God, save me! I don't want to be damned. I will be good if thou wilt make me. I don't care about it myself, but thou canst do as thou pleasest. It would be a fine thing if a rascal like me were to escape the devil through ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... with sights. Nothing has any fascination for us, now, but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We have been there every day, and have not grown tired of it; but we are weary of every thing else. The sights are too many. They swarm about you at every step; no single foot of ground in all Jerusalem or within its neighborhood seems to be without a stirring and important history of its own. It is a very relief to steal a walk of a hundred yards without a guide along to talk unceasingly about every ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and spirits swarm about the world in every shape from mischievous or helpful fairies to R[a]hu, whose head still swallows the sun, causing eclipses (I. 19. 9), there are a few that are especially conspicuous. Chief of the good spirits, attendants of Indra, are the Siddhas[36] 'saints,' ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... and no man with him. As thus the king stood forth all eyes were upon him, And soon he was enmeshed by men and horses, And by the enemy's chariots: two thousand five hundred. The foe behind hemmed him in and enclosed him. Dense the array of the contemptible Cheta, Dense the swarm of warriors out of Arad, Dense the Mysian host, the Pisidian legions. Every chariot carried three bold warriors, All his foes, and all ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Countless other criticisms swarm toward my pen, but I have no heart to express them,—it is too sorry an occupation. A word about Spencer's conception of "Force," however, insists on being added; for although it is one of his most essential, it is one of his ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... slaves would be beaten to death, thrown into sink holes, and left for the buzzards to swarm and feast on ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Howard, Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, and other noted captains, were ready to receive them. With their fast-sailing cruisers they sailed around the unwieldy Spanish warships, firing four shots to the enemy's one, and "harassing them as a swarm of wasps worry a bear." Several of the Spanish vessels were captured and one blown up. At last the commander sailed for Calais to repair damages and take a fresh start. The English followed. When night came on, Drake ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... about that strong man—but I've never come across any signs of him, you know. I don't believe in one strong man appearing out of so many little men. All men are pretty big in an age, or in a movement, which produces a really big man. And Labour is a great swarm of hopelessly little men. ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... he sat, one on each side of the table, in the little sitting-room. The heat was insupportable and all three doors and the window were propped open, in the feeble hope of creating a draught. The lamp had attracted a swarm of flying things: giant moths beat their wings against the globe, or fell singed and sizzling down the chimney; winged-ants alighted with a click upon the table; blowflies and mosquitoes kept ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... door into the general office, where the clerks looked like a swarm of bees around a honeycomb (if I may liken affairs of Government ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... where his den was, and killing as he went. He had tasted too much; his feet grew heavier than they had ever been before. He thought angrily that he would have to sleep another whole day. And to sleep a whole day, while the wilderness was just beginning to swarm with life, filled Kagax with ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... on August 22nd, a great jabbering outside the ship, as though a colony of monkeys had encountered another babel, announced that we were at Malta. Boats by the hundred swarm around us, and never was seen such a gesticulating, swearing crowd, as their occupants, nor such pushing and hauling, such splashing and wrangling, and even fighting to maintain their stations alongside. One's ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... caught his horse, and galloped after them. The battle fever seemed to be in the atmosphere. The afternoon heat was rendered more oppressive by a murky vapour rising from the valley. Below, it was difficult to see anything save the swarm of Turks creeping steadily on across the plain. Above their heads screamed the shells which were to pave the way for their advance. Brand hastened ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... side of thirty, dressed in loose-fitting tweed coat and corduroys. A row of bee-hives stood along his side of the party wall, and he had taken the farthest one, which was empty, off its stand, and was rubbing it on the inside with a handful of elder-flower buds, by way of preparation for a new swarm. Even from my bed-room window I remarked, as he turned his head occasionally, that he was singularly handsome. His movements were those of a lazy man in a hurry, though there seemed no reason for hurry in his task. But when it was done, and the hive replaced, his behaviour ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... vain among them all for a soldier choking behind his foolish stock, or a soldier lamed by his ill- fitting shoes, or a soldier deprived of the use of his limbs by straps and buttons, or a soldier elaborately forced to be self-helpless in all the small affairs of life. A swarm of brisk, bright, active, bustling, handy, odd, skirmishing fellows, able to turn cleverly at anything, from a siege to soup, from great guns to needles and thread, from the broadsword exercise to slicing an onion, from making war to making omelets, was ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... hide himself. He hurriedly took a handful of feathers from his bosom, and blew them from him with a few magic words, and lo! they became an armed host of warriors,—thousands of them, both on foot and on horseback.[44] They rushed upon the son of Kalev like a swarm of gnats or bees; but he laid about him with his club as if he was threshing, and beat them down, horse and man together, on all sides, like drops of hail or rain. The fight was hardly begun when it was over, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... outer sentinels of the Brissago fleet, which was soaring unobtrusively over the lower end of the lake of Garda, sighted and hailed a strange aeroplane that was flying westward, and, failing to get a satisfactory reply, set its wireless apparatus talking and gave chase. A swarm of consorts appeared very promptly over the westward mountains, and before the unknown aeroplane had sighted Como, it had a dozen eager attendants closing in upon it. Its driver seems to have hesitated, dropped down among the mountains, and then turned southward ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... heard my father tell how in the heat of that year a great red comet burned in the sky, even as that we now see, my friend. God forbid that this portends blood. But in the coming spring the French conscripts filled our sacred land like a swarm of locusts, devouring as they went. And at their head, with the pomp of Darius, rode that destroyer of nations and homes, Napoleon. What was Germany then? Ashes. But the red embers were beneath, fanned by Father Jahn. Napoleon ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... such that the Breton king made him Archbishop of Leon, giving him special care and control of the city bearing his name. We are told how the Saint found wild bees swarming in a hollow tree, and, gathering the swarm, set them in a hive and taught the people how to get honey. He also found a wild sow with her litter and tamed them. The descendants of this progeny remained at Leon for many generations, and were regarded as royal beasts. Both of these stories are, ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... observed sunning themselves at the entrance. The busy workers are never so busy but that they can spend a fraction of a second for the purpose of caressing their diminutive playmates. On one occasion, a swarm was about to take place in one of my formicaries. The young princes and princesses had emerged and had congregated about the entrance; they seemed loath to take wing and fly away on their honeymoon jaunt out into the unknown world. The workers were gently ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... utterance had been drowned in the chorus of acclamation. Now Borrow complained that he had had the honour of being rancorously abused by every unmanly scoundrel, every sycophantic lacquey, and every political and religious renegade in the kingdom. His fury was that of an angry bull tormented by a swarm of gnats. His worst passions were aroused; his most violent prejudices confirmed. His literary zeal, never extremely alert, was ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... south of Vera Cruz. If Ned himself had been aware of it, he might have changed his plans and ridden right in among his own friends. As it was, however, in less than three minutes he had cantered in among a swarm of angry Mexicans and glittering spear-points. Their state of discipline was witnessed to by the fact that the captain in nominal command of them had some difficulty in obtaining from them permission to ask his own questions of this newcomer. ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... worshipp'd snouts oracular; Prophets to whose blind stare The heavens the glory of God do not declare, Skill'd in such question nice As why one conjures toads who fails with lice, And hatching snakes from sticks in such a swarm As quite to surfeit Aaron's bigger worm; A nation which has got A lie in her right hand, And knows it not; With Pharaohs to her mind, each drifting as a log Which way the foul stream flows, More harden'd ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... appointed by the King had come, there was such a host of knights and princes under the glass hill that they seemed to swarm, and everyone who could walk or even creep was there too, to see who won the King's daughter. Cinderlad's two brothers were there too, but they would not hear of letting him go with them, for he was so dirty and black with sleeping and grubbing among ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... Spring, we were moving towards Niagara and home. We alighted in a pleasant wood towards the middle of the day, dined on a fallen tree, and leaving our best fragments with a cottager, and our worst with the pigs (who swarm in this part of the country like grains of sand on the sea-shore, to the great comfort of our commissariat in Canada), we ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... peasant I believe in this village, man or woman, who would sell you a swarm of bees. To be guilty of selling bees is a grievous omen indeed, than which nothing can be more dreadful. To barter bees is quite a different matter. If you want a hive, you may easily obtain it in lieu of a small pig, or some other equivalent. There may seem little difference in the eyes ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... he said, half-aloud, "that was Monsieur's reason for coming to Azay-le-Roi! And she won't have him! All women are fools, and these great ladies seem to be the biggest fools of all. She will not find his equal among the white-livered aristocrats who swarm around her. I wish I could revenge Monsieur for this," he said, savagely, and jumping on his horse he rode ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... girl's grief, and another cheer from the factory echoed it. Then came another sound, the great steam-whistle of Lloyd's; then the whistles of the other neighboring factories responded, and people began to swarm out of them, and the windows to fill with eager faces. Jim Tenny grasped Eva's arm with a grasp like a vise. "Come this way," said he, sharply. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... country justices, most of them of the lowest size, for estate, quality, or understanding. However, this puts me in mind of a passage told me by a great man, though I know not whether it be anywhere recorded. That a complaint was made to the king and council in Sweden, of a prodigious swarm of Scots, who, under the condition of pedlars, infested that kingdom to such a degree, as, if not suddenly prevented, might in time prove dangerous to the state, by joining with any discontented party. Meanwhile the Scots, by their agents, placed a good sum of money to engage the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... Oropians, [1167]Cadmonites, Hermonians, Ophitae, and wherever they settled there will be always found some reference to their antient history, and religion. As they were particularly styled Ophitae, or Hivites, many places whither they came, were said to swarm with [1168]serpents. Rhodes was under this predicament, and had the name of Ophiusa: which name was given on account of the Hivites, who there settled, and of the serpent-worship, which they introduced. But the common notion was, that ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... not one in a thousand is. Take the island, however, as it is, with its few imperfections, and where are we to find such another? What a delicious retreat! an emperor could not bestow such a one as Innisfallen; with a cottage, a few cows, and a swarm of poultry, is it possible that happiness should refuse to be ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... that, although they may gain successes at first, it always ends in the harrying of their lands, and the burning of their castles and villages. They have been quiet for some years. But they are always like a swarm of bees. They will work, quietly enough, till they take offence at something; then they will pour out in a fury, attacking all they come across, and caring nothing about death, so that they can but prick an enemy with their stings. Maybe it ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... one day, Said old Fox, "pray don't send them away, For a hungrier swarm Would work me more harm; I had rather the ...
— The Baby's Own Aesop • Aesop and Walter Crane
... air, to my surprise, there was Long Ghost, fanning himself wildly with an old paddle. He had just made a noiseless escape from a swarm which had attacked his own end ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... any rate the papers were not going to be so silly as to believe in fairy stories. At first there were only a few, but in a week or two the country was simply running alive with dragons of all sizes, and in the air you could sometimes see them as thick as a swarm of bees. They all looked alike except as to size. They were green with scales, and they had four legs and a long tail and great wings like bats' wings, only the wings were a pale, half-transparent yellow, ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... did not drag you out. They swarm in millions, and the bigger fish, too, are always ready to attack ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... What good was all the universe? Suddenly he sprang forward. "To see her again, to see her once more!" He began to run. He knew not where he was, or whither he went, but instinct conducted him with unerring certainty; he went straight to the Nile. A swarm of sails covered the upper waters of the river. He sprang on board a barque manned by Nubians, and lying in the forepart of the boat, his eyes devouring space, he ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... fancied in his sleep that he was steering a ship, and that the rudder was forced from him: that he was dragged by his wife Octavia into a prodigiously dark place; and was at one time covered over with a vast swarm of winged ants, and at another, surrounded by the national images which were set up near Pompey's theatre, and hindered from advancing farther; that a Spanish jennet he was fond of, had his hinder parts so changed, as to resemble those of an ape; and having his head only left ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Marco's account the report of the Mongols, which was brought by the spies of Mahomed, Sultan of Khwarizm, when invasion was first menaced by Chinghiz: "The army of Chinghiz is countless, as a swarm of ants or locusts. Their warriors are matchless in lion-like valour, in obedience, and endurance. They take no rest, and flight or retreat is unknown to them. On their expeditions they are accompanied by oxen, sheep, camels, and horses, and sweet ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... that bring conflicts and slaughterings to the weary people of Earth. Spiritual peace radiated from the enormous face under the silvery hair, peace with an undertone of sadness, as if the giant knew of the sorrows of the swarm of dwarfs beneath ...
— A Scientist Rises • Desmond Winter Hall
... seen her only that morning while going down the harbor with another fare; and before we were much more than past Bedloe's Island—having pulled well over to get out of the channel and the danger of being run down by one of the swarm of passing craft—they made my mind quite easy by actually pointing her out to me. But almost in the same moment I was startled again by one of them saying to me: "I don't believe you've much time to spare, captain. There's a lighter just shoved off from her, and she's ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... was one radical difference between the children of antiquity and those of the Renaissance. Though children were introduced on to classical sarcophagi and so forth, it is impossible to say that it was for the sake of their youth. There are genii in plenty; and in the imps which swarm over the emblematic figure of the Nile in the Vatican the sculptor shows no love or respect for childhood. There is no child on the Parthenon frieze, excepting a Cupid, who has really no claim to be reckoned as such. Donatello could not have made a relief 150 yards long without introducing ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... a swarm of bees outside, Fly hither, my little cattle, In blest peace, in God's protection, Come home safe and sound. Sit down, sit down, bee, ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... till winter hardens in the cold grey sky, Wait till leaves are fallen and the brooks all freeze, Then above the gardens where the dead flowers lie, Swarm the merry millions of the wild ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... he said; "don't you see that the guard have prevailed. Besides, the pirate crew are in their boats—almost at the vessel. See, they swarm up the side." ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... said Robert, his colour rising. 'We want a place for disposing of the destitute children that swarm in this district.' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their cabin, their backs propped comfortably against a log, watching the sun sink behind a distant sky-line all notched with purple mountains upon which snow still lingered. Beside them a smudge dribbled a wisp of smoke sufficient to ward off a pestilential swarm of mosquitoes and black flies. In the clear, thin air of that altitude the occasional voices of what bird and animal life was abroad in the wild broke into the evening hush with astonishing distinctness—a ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... road a swarm of girls. They wear graceful organdie gowns, and large ricestraw hats trimmed with bows and streamers. Some carry baskets, which they drop, and all ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... remembered that an order had been issued for her transportation to Saghalien, and now once arrested she must be lost to me for ever. This thought filled me with fierce anxiety. She was in Petersburg, that city where police spies swarm, and where every fresh arrival is noted and his antecedents inquired into. No attempt had been made to disguise who she was, therefore before long the police would undoubtedly come and arrest her as ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... their youth, their former colleagues, even those indebted to them. People affect to know them no longer. With what bitterness do they comment on the creed of money:—With gold one may have what he will; without it, impossible to have anything! They become pariahs, lepers, whom everyone shuns. Flies swarm round cadavers, men round gold. Take away the gold, nobody is there. Oh, it has caused tears to flow, this creed of gain! bitter tears, tears of blood, even from those very eyes which ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner |
