"Swerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to behold the strange girl with the flour on her face and the green baseball bats in her ears smiling up into the face of Mark Carter, who was driving. Billy nearly fell off his wheel and under the car, but recovered his balance in time to swerve out of the way without apparently having been observed by either Mark or the lady, and shot like a streak down the road. Beyond the church he drew a wide curve and turned in at the graveyard, casting a quick furtive eye toward the parsonage, where he was glad not to discover ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... allowed the muzzle of his automatic to swerve. In that moment the palm of the legless man's right hand pressed upon the button, and the square of the floor upon which Wilmot stood dropped like the trap of a gallows, and he fell through the opening ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... fair test," Mr. Heatherbloom replied anyhow. His thoughts were keyed to a straining-point; his glance would swerve; he strove his best to control it. She was there—there—Shrouds and stays seemed to sing the words. He would have sworn he caught the flash of ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... In vain the action was accelerated, while the acting stood still. From the beginning, John had taken his stand,—had wound himself up to an even tenor of stately declamation, from which no exigence of dialogue or person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of his rising with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was preposterous; for from the onset he had planted himself, as upon a terrace, on an eminence vastly above the audience, and he kept that sublime level ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... exhort us to that which be could not perform himself. But such exhortations did not stand with the wisdom of an apostle. Wherefore there is a certain meaning in this exhortation, from the which if we swerve, we shall both wrong the apostle ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... nearly threw Key from the top, but a moment later it was still more difficult to keep his seat in the headlong fury of their progress. Again and again the lash descended upon the maddened horses, until the whole coach seemed to leap, bound, and swerve with every stroke. Cries of protest and even distress began to come from the interior, but the driver heeded it not. A window was suddenly let down; the voice of the professional man saying, "What's the matter? We're not followed. You are imperiling our lives by this speed," was answered ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... and I have found among them many whom nothing on earth could make to swerve from the truth; do what you please, you could never frighten or bribe them into a deliberate falsehood. The second are those who will not hesitate to tell a lie when they have a motive for it, and are not restrained by an oath. In taking an oath they are afraid of two things, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... brook! Little brook! You have such a happy look— Such a very merry manner, as you swerve and curve and crook— And your ripples, one and one, Reach each other's hands and run Like laughing ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... related of Confucius that he at one time desired a governmental position, thinking that through its occupancy he might the better disseminate the ancient doctrines of rectitude and virtue. Offers of individual advantage could not swerve him from his well-grounded principles of honor. On one occasion one of the rulers of the country proposed to confer upon him a city and its revenues, but Confucius replied: "A superior man will only receive reward for services which he has rendered. I have given ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... Socrates, or a horse, or fire, or whatever thing there may be of such a kind. Now this is called opinion, through our combining the recollection brought previously into action with the sensation recently produced. And when these, placed along each other, agree, a true opinion is produced; but when they swerve from each other, a false one."[538] The dixa of Plato, therefore answers to the experience, or the empirical knowledge of modern philosophy, which is concerned only with appearances (phenomena), and not with absolute realities, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... swerve of his pole, which bare gave Godefroy time to take the cue, and our prow went scouring across the scud of whipping currents where two rivers and an ocean-tide met. The seething waves lashed to foam with the long, low moan of the world-devouring serpent which, legend says, is ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... village of Cressage enabled the car to get within fifty yards of the motor-cyclist. Hawke drew a revolver from his pocket. The chauffeur noticed the action out of the corner of his eye. Purposely he toyed with the sensitive steering-wheel, causing the car to swerve erratically. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... in Paris, London, and elsewhere, which, wherever they were credited, tended to shake public confidence not only in the dealings of the Supreme Council with the smaller countries, but also in the nature of the occult influences that were believed to be occasionally causing its decisions to swerve from the orthodox direction. And these reports were believed by many even in Conference circles. Time and again I was visited by delegates complaining that this or that decision was or would be taken in response to the promptings not of ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... commission had arrived just in time. "Had I not received it soon enough to produce it then," said Alexander, "the Queen would have broken off the negotiations. So I ordered Richardot, who is quite aware of your Majesty's secret intentions, from which we shall not swerve one jot, to show it privately to Croft, and afterwards to Dr. Dale, but without allowing a copy of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in great sacrifices with plentiful presents (to the Brahmanas), thou shalt, O son of Pandu, acquire great fame. There is a saying, O tiger among men and best of the Kurus! Listen to it, for by acting according to it, O king, thou shalt not swerve from virtue. Those men only, O Yudhishthira, whose practices resemble those of robbers, cause a king by their counsels to take to a career of war and victory.[70] That king who, guided by considerations of place and time and moved by an understanding dependent on the scriptures, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... had warmly espoused the Reformation, and had placed quotations from the gospels and epistles of the Apostles beneath each picture, containing pressing warnings not to swerve from the written word, or listen to false prophets and perverters of the truth. When the town presented these pictures to the Roman Catholic Elector Maximilian I., of Bavaria, in 1627, they cut off these inscriptions, and affixed them to the copies they had made for themselves by Vischer, ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... and reputation are concerned in supporting with dignity the character you now bear. Let no motive, therefore, make you swerve from your duty, violate your vows or betray your trust; but be true and faithful, and imitate the example of that celebrated artist whom you have this evening represented. Thus you will render yourself deserving of the honor which we have conferred, and merit the confidence ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... ignominiously when put to the hard test of action. Yet he is not an impostor. His enthusiasm is contagious because it is sincere, and his eloquence is convincing because devotion to his ideals is an absorbing passion with him. He would die for them, and, what is more rare, he would not swerve a hair's-breadth from them for any worldly advantage, or for fear of any hardship. Only this passion and this enthusiasm spring with him entirely from the head. The heart, the deep emotional power of human love and pity, lay dormant in him. Humanity, ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... of the temporal Bot of the spirital also. The dede proeveth it is so, And hath do many day er this, Thurgh venym which that medled is In holy cherche of erthly thing: For Crist himself makth knowleching 860 That noman may togedre serve God and the world, bot if he swerve Froward that on and stonde unstable; And Cristes word may noght be fable. The thing so open is at ije, It nedeth noght to specefie Or speke oght more in this matiere; Bot in this wise a man mai lere Hou that the world is gon aboute, ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... sad catalogue of grievances, and Wilford made it sadder by brooding over and magnifying it until he reached a point from which he would not swerve. ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... great family, performs his necessary portion of the general labour—who executes the unavoidable task assigned to him. All bodies act according to laws, inherent in their peculiar essence, without the capability to swerve, even for a single instant, from those according to which Nature herself acts. This is the central power, to which all other powers, essences, and energies, are submitted: she regulates the motions of beings, by the necessity ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... virtuous, or enthusiastically heroic; in which many people do extremely wrong, and none sublimely right. But as there are heights of which the achievement is unattempted, there are abysses to which fall is barred; neither accident nor temptation will make any of the principal personages swerve from an adopted resolution, or violate an accepted principle of honor; people are expected as a matter of course to speak with propriety on occasion, and to wait with patience when they are bid: those who do wrong, admit it; those who ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Monday's concert Chopin had chosen in preference those of his works which swerve more from the classical forms. He played neither concerto, nor sonata, nor fantasia, nor variations, but preludes, studies, nocturnes, and mazurkas. Addressing himself to a society rather than to a public, he could show himself with impunity as he is, an ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... people do in such a matter?—This is the doubt that is now perplexing all men. Here is the lord of men sprung from the god of virtue, holding fast to a righteous path, strictly truthful and of a liberal heart. This son of Pritha would give up his kingdom and his pleasure but would not swerve from the righteous path, in order to thrive. How is it that Bhishma and Kripa and the Brahmana Drona and the aged king, the senior member of the house, are living happily, after having banished the sons ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... we sped like a bolt from an arblast. No monster lifted its neck; all knew the hoofs that thundered over their heads! We rushed up the hills, we shot down their farther slopes; from the rocky chasms of the river-bed he did not swerve; he held on over them his fierce, terrible gallop. The moon, half-way up the heaven, gazed with a solemn trouble in her pale countenance. Rejoicing in the power of my steed and in the pride of my life, I sat like a ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... staff,—and calling to mind whose dwelling stood at such and such a spot, and whose field or garden occupied the site of those more recent houses. He can render a reason for all the bends and deviations of the thoroughfare, which, in its flexible and plastic infancy, was made to swerve aside from a straight line, in order to visit every settler's door. The Main Street is still youthful; the coeval man is in his latest age. Soon he will be gone, a patriarch of fourscore, yet shall retain a sort of infantine life in our local history, ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hack-but, falconet and saker, he can shoot with them all. And if it would please this right honourable gentleman, our guest, to hold out his hat at the distance of a hundred yards, our Halbert shall send shaft, bolt, or bullet through it, (so that right honourable gentleman swerve not, but hold out steady,) and I will forfeit a quarter of barley if he touch but a knot of his ribands. I have seen our old Martin do as much, and so has our right reverend the Sub-Prior, if he be pleased to ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... laid her plans, and took a resolve not to swerve from them. She allotted a certain portion of her time for her various studies, and a certain portion for doing anything Miss Ainley might direct her to do. The remainder was to be spent in exercise; not a moment was to be left for the indulgence ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... sound!" he murmured, "Pleasant is the voice that calls me!" On the outskirts of the forest, 'Twixt the shadow and the sunshine, Herds of fallow deer were feeding, But they saw not Hiawatha; To his bow he whispered, "Fail not!" To his arrow whispered, "Swerve not!" Sent it singing on its errand, To the red heart of the roebuck; Threw the deer across his shoulder And ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... not, for otherwise Grey would never have reached us alive. We cried to him to swerve, and the sound of our voices brought up that last flicker of hope which waits till the end in every man. He seemed actually to gain a yard, and now he was near enough for us to see his white face and staring eyes. Then he stumbled, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... declare Bridegroom, swerve not; a slippery (135) Love calls lightly, but yet refrain. Hymen, O Hymenaeus, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... fascinated Dorothy even while she resisted it. She liked the feeling of her own power to resist, to keep her head, to beat up against the rush of the whirlwind, to wheel round and round outside it, and swerve away ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... exclamation of horror and a call to Julius, dashed in an instant towards her. The light girlish figure, however, glided safely over the place of danger. Jeffreys had just time to swerve and let her pass, and next moment he was struggling heavily twenty yards beyond in ten feet of ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... should not swerve us From a purpose true and brave; Dearer Freedom's rugged service Than the pastime of the slave; Better is the storm above it than the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... wall, moat included, turrets and all, if he would only have shown her the way. The huntsman and Frank had taken the wall. The horsey man's bit of blood, knowing his own powers to an inch, had declined,—not roughly, with a sudden stop and a jerk, but with a swerve to the left which the horsey man at once understood. What the brute lacked in jumping he could make up in pace, and the horsey man was along the wall and over a broken bank at the head of it, with the loss of not more than a minute. Lucinda's horse, following the ill ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the fugitives crossing the river below the cataract and again they were lost to sight. And now the pursuers came into view—shouting Kor-ul-lul warriors, fierce and implacable. Forty, perhaps fifty of them. She waited breathless; but they did not swerve from the trail and passed her, unguessing that an enemy she lay hid within a ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with him into the cabin something more than the splendid strength of his body, a thing that reached out in the interval of silence between them, warning Carrigan that all the law in the world would not swerve the chief of the Boulains from what was already in his mind. For a moment the thought passed from David that fate had placed him up against the hazard of enmity with St. Pierre. His vision centered in the ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... arms towards the offing; and the brown figures stooping on the tiny beaches, the brown figures of men, women, and children grubbing in the sand in search of turtles' eggs, would rise up, crooked elbow aloft and hand over the eyes, to watch this monthly apparition glide straight on, swerve off—and go by. Their ears caught the panting of that ship; their eyes followed her till she passed between the two capes of the mainland going at full speed as though she hoped to make her way unchecked into the very ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... "Go straight ahead. Swerve neither to the right nor left. Be sure you have no weapons, and stop at once when the guard cries 'Halt!' and you will get through all right. But, above all, be sure to stand stock still immediately at the ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... lord hath sent you this note; and by me this further charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. 100 Good morrow; for, as I take it, ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... do command, command with decision and consistency. If the case is one which really cannot be otherwise dealt with, then issue your fiat, and having issued it, never afterwards swerve from it. Consider well what you are going to do; weigh all the consequences; think whether you have adequate firmness of purpose; and then, if you finally make the law, enforce obedience at whatever cost. Let your penalties be like the penalties inflicted ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... lay right in the path. Brick spied it at such close quarters that he had no time to swerve aside. He pitched roughly over the gunwale and fell inside. The next instant Pendergast was kneeling on him, and ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... with boldness which religious faith alone could inspire, braved all these perils. They resolutely declared that the Bible taught their faith, and their faith only, and that no earthly power could compel them to swerve from the truth. Notwithstanding the perils of exile, torture, and death, they persisted in preaching what they considered the pure Gospel of Christ. In 1533 Calvin was driven from Paris. When one said to him, "Mass must ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... command, he gently inclines his body to the left, leads his disposable force rapidly upwards in that direction, where, having surprised the post against which they were dispatched, he recovers his swerve, and they retrace with equal precision and rapidity their course from the wings to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... lead truck and led the way. They neared the bar where Sheila was working, and Bruce Gordon swore. She was running toward the center of the street, frantically trying to flag him down, and he barely managed to swerve around ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... trotter with slim legs, just such a horse as a cocotte would care to own, recovered from its swerve and resumed its proper place with dancing steps, graceful pawings executed on the same spot without advancing. Jansoulet let fall his portfolio, and as though he had dropped with it all his gravity, his prestige as a public man, he made a terrible spring, and dashed to the bit of ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... falter, your course not alter By golden apples, till victory's won! The sword's sharp clangour, the dart's shrill anger, Swerve not the hero ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... dangerous if their flight is carefully watched, as they swerve to the left, and their landing-place can thus be fairly accurately judged. Two varieties, however—the windupwerfer and the hoppitwerfer—swerve to the right. The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... thought that this was the dreariest evening aspect of the sea he had ever seen. He was glad when the other occupants of the poop left it at the sound of the bell. The captain first, with a sudden swerve in his walk towards the companion, and not even looking once towards his wife and his wife's father. Those two got up and moved towards the companion, the old gent very erect, his thin locks stirring gently about the nape of his neck, and carrying the rugs over his arm. The ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... ordinary cant about duty and all the rest of it. We may sympathise with you—personally, I admire the attitude you have taken, though perhaps I shouldn't say it—but our own feelings do not matter the toss of a button. Nothing you can do or say will swerve us from what we judge to be the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... many to permit any such performance, but the wall was not impenetrable. Like an arrow from the bow sped the animal, and, seeing the point toward which he was aiming, the Apaches endeavored to close the gap. The equine fugitive did not swerve in the least, and it looked as if he was plunging to his ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... a suddenness that caused the animal he rode to swerve. Recovering her composure as suddenly, she slightly inclined her head and turning from him, proceeded ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... faculties must be concentrated on opening the attack, since an air duel is often decided in the first few seconds at close quarters. What happens during these few seconds may depend on a trifle, such as the position of the gun-mounting, an untried drum of ammunition, a slight swerve, or firing a second too soon or too late. An airman should regard his body as part of the machine when there is a prospect of a fight, and his brain, which commands the machine, must be instinctive with insight into what the enemy ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... to the levers and wheels controlling the motor, and, by turning on a little more power on one side of the projectile, caused it to swerve to one side. A few minutes later ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... very sensitive over the matter of bombed depots, and Tam, turning homeward, looked for the machines which would assuredly rise to intercept him. Already the Archies were banging away at him, and a fragment of shell had actually struck his fuselage. But he was not bothering about Archies. He did swerve toward a battery skilfully hidden behind a hayrick and drop two hopeful bombs, but he scarcely troubled to make an inspection ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... may have been melted into something of its former affection. But if so, it was only for a moment, nor did she ever allow the weakness to be seen. Her path had been taken, and nothing now could make her swerve from it. Before her enraptured fancy gleamed the state and rank belonging to a patrician's wife; and as she wove her toils with all the resources of her cunning, the prize seemed to approach her nearer and nearer. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... with happiness Went Mary, feeling not the air that laid Honours of gentle dew upon her head; Nor that the sun now loved with golden stare The marvellous behaviour of her hair, Bending with finer swerve from off her brow Than water which relents before a prow; Till in the shrinking darkness many a gleam Of ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... The rough-rider's hand 27 Fixing the hands 28 Use of both bridles at once 30 Shortening the reins when held one in each hand, system of taught, and of untaught horsemen 30 Use of the whip 34 Horses swerve and turn only to the left 34 Fault in "the great untaught," two-handed, ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... from eight to thirty feet in length, depending upon the size of the team, so arranged that not more than two dogs are abreast, the "leader" having, of course, the longest trace of the pack. This long bridle and the long traces are made necessary by the rough country. They permit the animals to swerve well to one side clear of the komatik when coasting down a hillside. In the length of bridle and trace there is also a wide variation in different sections, those used in the south being very much shorter than those in the north. ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... patriots by the way in which you have on several occasions behaved towards those who have fallen into your power. I, with the sentiments I entertain, can only wish that you served a better cause, at the same time that I would not seek to induce you, as an officer bearing his Majesty's commission, to swerve from the ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... two days at the huts of Vudubele, the last kraal that you passed on your way here this afternoon, and all were mad drunk. They galloped down the valley, Lukwazi leading on a stout little grey stallion. He was beating his horse and yelling, and one blow made the horse swerve out of the path. There was an old ant-bear hole hidden in the grass, into which the horse trod, and falling, rolled over on its rider. Lukwazi lay quite ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... The Whigs may continue inveterate, and by consequence frustrate his Majesty's good intentions towards me; the Tories may continue to rail at me, on the credit of such enemies as I have described to you in the course of this relation: neither the one nor the other shall make me swerve out of the path which I have traced ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... my garden boy. It is a capital exercise; the steering occupies one's thoughts almost as well as a game. One can't think much of business while going seven or eight miles an hour with the probability that any considerable swerve will ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... it, the work of hands unknown of: statelier, afar and near, Rise around it the heights that bound our landward gaze from the seaboard here; Downs that swerve and aspire, in curve and change of heights ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... as if set by a compass; but the longer limb of the V would curve and swerve sinuously from time to time as the weaker or less experienced members of the flock wavered in their alignment. Flat, low-lying forests, and lonely meres, and rough, isolated farms sped past below ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... this world, had, with the milk of their mothers and nurses, sucked in the sweetness, humanity, and mildness of his government, to which they were all of them so nourished and habituated, that there was nothing surer than that they would sooner abandon their lives than swerve from this singular and primitive obedience naturally due to their prince, whithersoever they should ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the comforts of civilised life and the hospitality of his host—not to mention the attractions of the plump little daughters—sternly resolved not to swerve an inch, from the path of what he believed to be his duty. He entertained a strong suspicion that these McLeods had penetrated into the wilderness to the neighbourhood of the Cliff Fort, not so much for the purpose of cutting timber, ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... probable, then, that before Custer could reach the creek valley the Indians had made sufficient demonstrations to cause him to swerve from where he would otherwise, and naturally, strike it, and work farther back toward the second line of bluffs, even perhaps as far back as Captain Godfrey gives the trail. The only thing to militate ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... the banks of the Potomac in mid-July, 1798, saw ahead of him on the road an old-fashioned chaise, its driver urging forward his slow horse with the whip, until a sharp cut made the beast swerve, and the chaise toppled over the bank, throwing out the driver and the young lady who was with him. The traveler—it was John Bernard, an actor and a man of culture and accomplishments, spurred forward to the rescue. As he did so he saw ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... of the Pony Rider Boys, the forked stick in the hands of the fat boy was performing some strange antics. Breathing hard, he would force it up until it was nearly upright, when all at once the point of the triangle would suddenly swerve downward, bending the rod almost to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... quietly stole along under the stars until the old road to Smyrna intersected his path; but he did not swerve from his course until he reached the Cayster. Following its sinuous banks, disturbing the wild-fowl as he went, and treading on a carpeting of sweet-scented night-flowers, he soon reached the bend of the river ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... will no longer have any power, nor can you have any interest about her. She shall then choose—if she will come with me, I will take her, and nothing shall prevent me; and in so doing I do you no injustice, nor do I swerve in ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... and, what with the shock of the lecturer's narrow escape and the spectacle of the intruder standing on the table and working away with a niblick, the afternoon's session had to be classed as a complete frost. Mr. Devine's determination, from which no argument could swerve him, to deliver the rest of his lecture in the coal-cellar gave the meeting a jolt from which it ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... the brightness of delight, in so much, that his soul yearned within him, and his cheeks were wetted with fast-flowing tears. Nevertheless, he overcame this thaw of his fortitude, and went forward in the strength of the Lord, determined to swerve not in his duty to the Earl of Glencairn, nor in his holier fealty to a far greater Master. But the softness that he felt in his nature made him gird himself with a firm purpose to ride through the town without stopping. Scarcely, however, had he entered the port, when his ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... this many times; and if his heart goes out to the Man whom he is thus beholding, if he can say with all his soul, This is my Lord; here is the supreme object of my affection; Him will I love with all my strength; from Him I will never, if I can help it, let my heart swerve; no other do I know more worthy to be loved; no other will I keep more steadily before my eyes; no other will I more earnestly desire to imitate; no other shall be my example, my trust, my strength, my Saviour; if a man can say this, it ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... frowning walls. I verily believe, had she put herself at their head then and there, that nothing could have withstood the elan of their attack; but the Maid received her orders from a source we knew not of, and fleshly pride never tempted her to swerve from the appointed path. She smiled at the enthusiasm of the men, but she shook ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... deceiver, a fanatic, a schismatic, a traitor. He was pursued by malicious rumors to blacken his name, and by armed men to shed his blood. Yet he continued steadfastly on his way. Winter storms and summer rains could not abate his ardor. Neither the advice of friends, nor the wrath of foes, could swerve him, no, not one moment, nor one hairbreath. His spirit was on fire while his body was emaciated. A thousand arrows were flying around this dove, some of them drinking its blood, ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... moved so swiftly that Jonathan knew it was Wetzel. In another instant a chorus of yelps resounded from the foliage, and three savages burst through the thicket almost at right angles with the fleeing borderman, running to intercept him. The borderman did not swerve from his course; but came on straight toward the dead tree, with the wonderful fleetness that so ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... man's knowledge, not in wisdom, lies The lack that makes for sorrow. Nay, we scan And know the right—for wit hath many a man— But will not to the last end strive and serve. For some grow too soon weary, and some swerve To other paths, setting before the Right The diverse far-off image of Delight: And many are delights beneath the sun! Long hours of converse; and to sit alone Musing—a deadly happiness!—and Shame: ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... form of State-provision; but, on the whole, believing that some distinct State-maintenance of the Clergy, whether by tithes or otherwise, was "the root of visible profession." he adjured the Parliament not to swerve from that. He expounded also his principle of comprehending Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and all earnest Evangelical men amicably in the Established Church, with small concern about their differences from each, other, and expressed his especial ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... nor the proportions of the boat pleased him any more. The prow was too big, and the whole cut of the boat all the way down the gunwale had something of a twist and a bend and a swerve about it, so that it looked like the halves of two different boats put together, and the half in front didn't fit in with the half behind. As he was about to look into the matter still further (and he felt the cold sweat bursting out of the roots ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... carriage could be passed was absurd. Side by side the huge machines, scarlet, green, alive with shining brass, tore along with the roar of express trains between the ditch and the bank. The slightest swerve at such speed meant death. The chatter of the careless girls dwindled, the faces of the rival drivers grew pale ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... in the surge of the running herd, the rolling backs, low heads and lolling tongues, shaggy frontlets and gleaming eyes all about him, he dropped the reins on Pronto's neck and began his own work carefully, riding close and holding low, always ready for the sudden swerve of the horse away from the shot to avoid the usual rush of the buffalo when struck. Since he took few chances, his shot rarely failed. In a mile or so, using pains, he had exhausted all but two shots, one in each weapon, and of ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... speed again. Car in front just visible through haze of dust. Hear distant crash. Confound the man, he's run into a dray! Just time to swerve to the right, and miss wreck of his car by an inch. Clumsy fellow, blocking my road in that way. At last clear space before me. Go up with a rush. Wind whistles past my ears. Glorious! What's that? Run over an old woman? Very ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... listen to this Scheme any more than to the other. Nor do I suppose you would be satisfied with the foolish Obelisk's Inscription, which warns Kings not to exceed their just Prerogative, nor Subjects [to swerve from] their lawful Obedience, etc., but does not say that it stands on the very spot where the Ashes of the Dead ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... sorry to say I can't," replied Hempel. He would willingly have conjured up a dozen brothers to comfort Polly; but he could not swerve from ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... perceived to have two motions besides: one from west to east, which carries it round the heavens in 29.53 days, and another from north to south. The west to east motion is steady and continuous, but, owing to the Sun's attractive force, the Moon is made to swerve from its path, giving rise to irregularities of its motion called PERTURBATIONS. The most important of these is the annual equation, discovered by Tycho Brahe—a yearly effect produced by the Sun's disturbing influence as the Earth approaches or recedes from him in her orbit; ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... the machine had been revealed to him in his recent transit, and he was silently determining to surpass himself. Precariously balanced, he descended the Square again, frowning hard, his teeth set, and actually managed to swerve into King Street. Constance, in the parlour, saw an incomprehensible winged thing fly past the window. The cousins Povey sounded an alarm and protest and ran in pursuit; for the gradient of King Street is, in the strict sense, steep. Half-way down King Street Dick was travelling at twenty miles ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... not swerve by a hair's breadth from what he considered his duty, even for party ends. "I would rather be right than be President," he said, and men knew that ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... right of kinship to the Princes dead, I claim and hold the throne and sovereignty. Yet 'tis no easy matter to discern The temper of a man, his mind and will, Till he be proved by exercise of power; And in my case, if one who reigns supreme Swerve from the highest policy, tongue-tied By fear of consequence, that man I hold, And ever held, the basest of the base. And I contemn the man who sets his friend Before his country. For myself, I call To witness Zeus, whose eyes are everywhere, If I perceive some mischievous ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... were still headed straight for the hole, the Boy had gathered himself for a clear jump to the right, but the sled's sudden swerve to the left broke his angle sharply. He was flung forward on the new impetus, spun over the smooth surface, swept across the verge and under the cloud, clutching wildly at the ragged edge of ice ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... all the ingratitude which I have reaped—by all the wrongs which I have sustained—by my imprisonment, my stripes, my chains, I will wrestle down my feelings of rebellious humanity! I will not be the fool I have been, to swerve from my principles whenever there was an appeal, forsooth, to my feelings; as if I, towards whom none show sympathy, ought to have sympathy with any one. Let Destiny drive forth her scythed car through the overwhelmed and trembling mass of humanity! Shall I be ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... dissipations; his whole soul was in his business. He was conscious that his only hope of distinction above his fellow-men was in his wealth, and he was resolved that nothing should make him swerve from his endeavor to accumulate a fortune which should make him all powerful in life and remembered in death. He sought no friends, and was reticent as to his career, saying to those who questioned him about it, "Wait till I am dead; my deeds ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... being intoxicated; though the inducement must have been great, from the number of wine-houses on the Rock: but such was the desire of these brave fellows to be avenged for the loss of the Hannibal, that they would not allow any temptation to induce them to swerve from the duty they ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton being of the number. The mission, however, was without success; for the ancient capital, although the most foreign in speech and custom of all places in British North America, remained steadfast under the temptation to swerve from her allegiance. Franklin, indeed, added nothing to his reputation by his general relations with the settlements on the St. Lawrence. For twenty-four years he had held the position of Deputy-Postmaster General for ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... broken up—by a herd of whales who chased us. I and my sister, Clippa (she was my favorite sister) had a very narrow escape for our lives. As a rule, whales are not very hard to get away from if you are good at dodging—if you've only got a quick swerve. But this one that came after Clippa and myself was a very mean whale, Every time he lost us under a stone or something he'd come back and hunt and hunt till he routed us out into the open again. I never saw such ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... wildly charging down the mountain trail, threatening to run quite over me in their mad career. Pulling my six-shooter, I fire a couple of shots in the air to attract their attention, when they rapidly swerve to the left, and go tearing frantically over the rolling hills on their wild flight to the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... me to the contrary; and it is to be feared lest the plough of holy church, which two strong oxen of equal force, and both like earnest to contend unto that which is good (that is, the king and the archbishop), ought to draw, should thereby now swerve from the right furrow, by matching of an old sheep with a wild, untamed bull. I am that old sheep, who, if I might be quiet, could peradventure shew myself not altogether ungrateful to some, by feeding them with the milk of the Word of God, and covering ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some one of your own size; don't pommel ME! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but YE have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... society; and compromise is a purely mechanical affair, based on the principle of the Parallelogram of Forces. Sometimes disturbing forces exert their influence upon the action of Public Opinion, causing the system to swerve from its original course, and precipitating society into a course of conduct inconsistent with its former behaviour; and it is the duty of the Governing Body to eliminate as far as possible such ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... firme selfe never swerve; Teares fat the griefe that they should sterve; Iron decrees of destinie Are ner'e wipe't ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... and a woman clinging desperately to the upturned side. The wind was now whistling around him, and at times threatening to rip away the patched sail. The water was rough, and the angry white-caps were dashing their cold spray over his clothes. But not for an instant did he swerve from his course until quite near the wreck. Then letting go the sheet-line he permitted the boat to fall away a little to the left. In this manner he was able to swing gradually in a half-circle, and by the time ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... then took the witness in hand, but shrewd and able as they were they utterly failed to make her swerve even a hair's breadth from her evidence. She returned to her place beside Mme. de Rancogne, confident that she had done her duty and uttered not a single syllable that ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... accomplishment considered necessary for the ladies of a harem. But I adhered to my resolution; every method to induce me to speak was tried in vain; even blows, torture from pinching, and other means were resorted to, but would not induce me to swerve from my resolution; at last they concluded that I was either born dumb, or had become so from fright at the time that the attack and slaughter of my family took place. I was eighteen months in the harem of Osman Ali, and ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat |
