"Swift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... afternoon I was busy with my writing, but from time to time there penetrated through the closed doors of my study sounds of swift-moving feet and gay laughter. The old house seemed infected with youth. Contact with it was sweet. Some of my dreams were coming true. I found myself repeating a long-forgotten poem as I took up another stupid report. I even ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... the other to throw out the water. After having long sustained the violence of the raging waves, by managing their little boat very dexterously, they suffer themselves to be carried away with the impetuous torrent as swift as an arrow. The affrighted spectator imagines they are going to be swallowed up in the precipice down which they fall; when the Nile, restored to its natural course, discovers them again, at a considerable distance, on its smooth and calm waters. This is Seneca's account, which is confirmed by ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... men exchanged swift glances. The bewildered air of a moment before had passed from Richard; the dullness had faded out of his eyes, leaving them the clear, alert expression they ordinarily wore. He was self-possessed, but the effort his self-possession cost him was obvious. There was ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... SWIFT. 'Tis my Country keeps me walking! why who can lie still? I don't believe there are many Ghosts now, that have any share of Understanding, or any regard for Ireland, that are to be found in their Graves at Midnight. For my part I can no more keep in my Den ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... the stairway with skirts drawn close about them, in swift silence, and Hetty held her breath as she flitted past the door. There was a faint swish of draperies as Flora Schuyler followed her, but the murmur of voices drowned it; and in another minute Hetty had opened a door at the back of the building. Then, she gasped ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... incidents in the life and work of the Prince. The day for helping literature had perhaps gone when he came upon the scene and newspapers were then supposed to do for budding genius what royalty and aristocracy did for Johnson, Goldsmith, Swift or Pope. It is a curious fact of later-day democracy that, with the obvious exception of Kipling, most of the greater lights in literature—Browning, Rossetti, Tennyson, Mathew Arnold or Swinburne—were ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... spectators better fitted to appreciate it." In the minor theatres various plays on the events of the day were given. The performance at the opera was magnificent; the Moniteur described it with its usual lyrical enthusiasm: "This picked band of braves, who, in their swift conquests, in their distant marches, have seen such, diverse climates, visited so many shores, and in so few months have seen the springs and the mouths of so many rivers, know also the banks of the Tiber; hence in the scenery they at ones recognized Rome; in the triumphal march, in the eager throng, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... she, "too sensibly felt the decay of my mental faculties, which I consider as the certain indication of that dreaded calamity which I anticipate with such terror. A strange idea has long haunted my mind, that Swift's dreadful fate will be mine. It is not ordinary insanity I so much apprehend, ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... Sorrows! Let Thy grief Purchase for us our relief; Lord of Mercy! Bow Thine ear, Slow to anger, swift to hear; By the Cross's royal road Lead us to the throne of God, There for aye to sing ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various
... hanging from the sky; it is quivering; it is about to fall! The sword of God upon the earth, swift and sudden! Did I not tell you, years ago, that I had beheld the vision and heard the voice? And behold, it is fulfilled! Is there not a king with his army at your gates? Does not the earth shake with the tread of horses and the wheels of swift cannon? Is there not ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the various Centennial Odes composed ten years later, Lowell found an instrument exactly suited to his temperament and his technique. Loose in structure, copious in diction, swarming with imagery, these Odes gave ample scope for Lowell's swift gush of patriotic fervor, for the afflatus of the improviser, steadied by reverence for America's historic past. To a generation beginning to lose its taste for commemorative oratory, the Odes gave—and still give—the thrill of patriotic eloquence which Everett and Webster had communicated ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... dry grass, and seated themselves on a bit of the fallen masonry. The reaches of the placid river lay before them, and the hum of the alert cricket was in their ears. Now and then a bird flew surreptitiously from one bush to another, with the stealthy, swift motion of flight in autumn, so different from the heedless, fluttering, hither-and-yon vagaries of the spring and early summer. The time for frivolity is over; the flashes of wings have a purpose now; the possibility ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... water, always endeavoring to break away the rocky bonds which have harnessed it, rushes roaring as a huge, tongue-shaped, tumbling mass between its confines of rock and reef. Breaking into swift back-wash and swirls in the bay below, it lashes back in a white fury at its obstacles. Fortunately for the junk traffic, it improves rapidly with the advent of the early spring freshets, and at mid-level entirely disappears. The rapid is at its worst ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... The women had been at the grave but for a few moments. But they lived more in these than in years of quiet. Time is very elastic, and five minutes or five seconds may change a life. These few moments changed a world. Haste, winged by fear which had no torment, and by joy which found relief in swift movement, sent them running, forgetful of conventional proprieties, towards the awakening city. Probably Mary Magdalene had left them, as soon as they saw the open grave, and had hurried back alone to tell the tidings. And now the crowning ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the larks had gathered, and were soaring up into the evening sky, singing with all their hearts, as if rejoicing that in a few minutes the soul of their brother Francis would be free to soar up with them, and away beyond even the reach of their swift wings, to the beautiful garden ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... horse and rider came into view he deliberately turned in the opposite direction. At the gate the rider drew rein and swung lithely to the ground. Many young admirers gathered quickly about the hitching-post, but the girl was too swift for them. With a friendly nod and smile she tossed her reins to a bashful youngster, and tripped up the path to ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... springing back towards the magazine. Again he disappeared, and, as before, re-issued from the hole with the second keg on his shoulder. Suddenly a phantom seemed to glide from the bushes, and fell him to the earth. He dropped without even a cry, and so swift was the act that his friends had not time to move a finger to prevent it. Tom, however, discharged both barrels of his gun at the spot where the phantom seemed to disappear, and Tolly Trevor discharged a horse pistol in the same direction. ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... for the cleaning of a few hulls and the effecting of minor repairs to one or two of the vessels. Other destroyers remained here, of course, while a fringe of submarine-chasers and swift, armed yachts converted into government patrol-vessels were guarding our coast the day after the President signed the war resolution. But more than a year and a half was to elapse before our waters were again ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... little murmured cry she released herself, and flitted away into the engulfing darkness. The echoes of her swift descent came whispering up the stairs; in the distance a door was shut. The emptiness of the unfinished house seemed symbolic of the ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... demoiselle who looked out upon the little scene so indifferently as regarded individuals, and yet with such eager interest as a whole. No one was bold enough, however, to make a second effort. Necessity at times gives birth to a swift capacity. Fresh from her simple country life, Phyllis found herself still able with effortless serenity to confound the most hardened boulevarders who paused to ogle her. Her eyes and lips expressed with ease the most convincing and absolute indifference to their approaches. A man may ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... away, when suddenly he heard a warning cry. He looked up and saw the mass of metal descending, though the baggage man had not given the word. It was a swift upward glance, and as swiftly he swerved aside. Then he felt a sharp but heavy pain on his shoulder, and fell. He was conscious of a number of voices shouting, of vague forms hurrying towards him, then ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... was that Scylla snatched from the hollow ship six of my comrades who were best in skill and strength. Turning my eyes toward my swift ship to seek my men, I saw their feet and hands already in the air as they were carried up. They screamed aloud and called my name for the last time, in agony of heart. As when a fisher, on a jutting rock, with long rod throws a bait to lure the little fishes, casting into ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... his mother. His father was summoned, and the first swift thought that came to him, as he stood over the lifeless boy, was: "Willie will never pray again ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... shivered miserably, as the cold wind cut through him like a knife. For a moment he stood motionless, gazing over the stone parapet into the dark river beyond, and as he gazed a thought came into his mind. Why not end it all—here and now? He had nothing to live for. One swift plunge, and—— ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... without hesitation straight toward the north. All four were accomplished trailers and the flitting figures were soundless as they made their swift march through the forest. In a half hour they reached the crest of a rather high hill and Black Rifle, stopping, pointed with a long forefinger toward a ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-winged angels, that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I were free! O, that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wing! Alas! betwixt me and you, the turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. O that I could also ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... smiled and shrugged and went our way, Blind to the swift approaching blow: His every word proves true to-day, But no man hears, "I told ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... head of little Ann was pressed against her mother's breast. The food, the heat, were lulling her weary senses into oblivion again. Lynda gave a swift thought of gratitude for the momentary respite as she watched the small, dark face ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... that Jacob Nash should swim out and row the boat up to the house. He was a strong swimmer, and though the water was icy cold it was thought the swift current would soon enable him to reach the skiff which lay only a few rods below the house. Accordingly, he struck boldly out, and in a moment had reached the boat, when he suddenly threw up his hands and sank, the current whirling him out of sight in an instant, amid the shrieks ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... he espied a man walking briskly along the road ahead of him. To be perfectly accurate, he was walking in the middle of the road and his back was toward the swift-moving, ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the hill," he thought. "It's quickest and there must be some kind of a refuge below." With long, swift glides he reached the knob which had hidden Miriam's sled from view as she bore down on Anne the night of the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... time capable of thinking for himself, and now bewildered by the death of the general he knew to be faithful to him, and by his doubts as to the fidelity of the others, fell into the snare. He at once issued orders for the troops to retire within their intrenchments; and then, mounting a swift camel, and accompanied by two thousand horsemen, he left the field, and rode off ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... the guide. He pointed out a party which, like themselves, was holding the direction of the Col. There was a solitary individual mounted on a mule, and a single pedestrian, without any guide, or other traveller, in their company. Their movements were swift, and they had not been more than a minute in view, before they disappeared behind an angle of the crags which nearly closed the valley on the side of the convent, and which was the precise spot already mentioned as being so dangerous in the season ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... show. They was in the water, and he just floated 'em down the river. They was one man got away. I saw 'im later, and he told me about it. The way he got away, he says he was a good swimmer and he just fell off his horse in the water and the swift water took 'im down and he just kep' his nose out of the water and got away that way. They was fo'teen in that ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... captors had roused themselves with the coming of day, and sent the canoes forward at a rapid rate for about an hour, until they ran their long narrow vessels in upon the beach and landed, making their prisoners do the same, close by the mouth of a swift rocky stream, whose bright waters came tumbling down ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... sharp order, "Step in here, Reuben, until I hear Philip's story." This Phil tells straight-forwardly,—how he was passing through the orchard with a pocketful of apples, which a neighbor's boy had given, and how Reuben came upon him with swift accusation, and then the fight. "But he hurt me more than I hurt him," says Phil, wiping his nose, which showed a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... the incursion of SWIFT MACNEILL. Came up smiling; handing himself round, as it were, for inspection, as sample of kind of persecution of Protestants that would follow in Ulster on enactment of Home-Rule Bill. "I'm a Protestant, Mr. SPEAKER," he shouted, beaming on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... watter, & passed it by God's providence, that have made us that passage free; ffor if we had come there the day before we could not possibly passe (by the report of the ffrench), by reason that underneath the water was mighty swift, the river was frozen and covered with ice, and could not have turned back, for the streame could bring us against our will under the ice. It was our lott to come after the ice was melted. The french inquire who is there ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... pursuit, which show that if he did not try to conquer some part of the land which he knew to be his by the will of God, it was not for want of ability, but because he 'believed God,' and could wait. We all know how he armed his slaves, and made a swift march to the northern extremity of the land, and then, by a nocturnal surprise, came down upon the marauders and scattered them like chaff, before his onset, and recovered Lot and all ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... fancied when I topped the sphere And on its candour left a coarse impression, Or in the bed of some revolting mere Mislaid three virgin globes in swift succession, That I was learning how to grip The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... been bridged by modern swift means of communication and transportation, every locality has opportunities for success that are peculiar to it alone. Conversely every locality is handicapped in certain ways. Therefore in your prospecting for success study the conditions in your especial field. As a salesman ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... grew as the night hours flew, He forgot how the time sped away; Till swift overhead he heard the Queen's tread As she sprang out of bed, when he hurriedly said They might finish the tune the next day. Every fiddler he had a fine fiddle, And a very fine fiddle had he: Oh, 't was not fair such a concert rare Should be ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... The peaceful agencies of commerce are more fully revealing the necessary unity of all our communities, and the increasing intercourse of our people is promoting mutual respect. We shall find unalloyed pleasure in the revelation which our next census will make of the swift development of the great resources of some of the States. Each State will bring its generous contribution to the great aggregate of the nation's increase. And when the harvests from the fields, the cattle ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... class of fiction, of which eminent examples will occur to all. Then the whole spawn of so-called unmoral romances, which imagine a world where the sins of sense are unvisited by the penalties following, swift or slow, but inexorably sure, in the real world, are deadly poison: these do kill. The, novels that merely tickle our prejudices and lull our judgment, or that coddle our sensibilities or pamper our gross appetite for the marvellous, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... thrilling yards. Some of my anatomy and more of my rags I left behind me. But it was too exciting then to think of hurts. I managed to protect at least my rifle. Copple was charging into the thicket below. I followed him into the dark gorge, where huge boulders lay, and a swift brook ran, and leaves two feet deep carpeted the shady canyon bed. It was gloomy down into the lower part. I saw where bear had turned over the ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... perpetual green, Verdure attractive to the ravish'd sight, } Perennial joys, and ever new delight, } Charming at noon, more charming still at night. } Fair pools where fish in forms pellucid play; Smooth lies the lawn, swift glide the hours away. No mean dependence here on summer skies, This spot rough winter's roughest blast defies. Yet here the government is curs'd with change, Knaves openly on either party range, Assault their monarch, and avow the deed, While honour fails, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... ray so pure and bright A buoyant form, Will bear thee through the darkest night Away from harm; Swift as the rainbow's graceful flight Out of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... knowledge and sentiment and religion of the age in which he lived, and of the ages which followed it: developing itself in correspondence with their development. For Lucretius had limed the wings of his swift spirit in the dregs of the sensible world; and Virgil, with a modesty that ill became his genius, had affected the fame of an imitator, even whilst he created anew all that he copied; and none among the flock of mock-birds, though their ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... greatest alarm, but chance saved her, for with the death of Alexander VI., Cesare and his dream came to nothing. Venice acted at once, for indeed even in her decline she was the most splendid force in Italy. She induced by a most swift and masterly stroke the leading cities of the Romagna to place themselves under her protection. It was a great stroke, the last blow of a great and desperate man; that it failed does not make it ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... his book, looked at it, and tossed it aside; took The Virginia Federalist from the table, and for perhaps sixty seconds appeared absorbed in its contents, then with a loud "Pshaw!" threw it down, and rising walked to a bookcase. "I am reading Swift," he said, and brought a calf-bound volume to the window. "There was a man who knew hatred and the risus sardonicus! Listen to ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... hundredth part of a second has not happened during the past thousand years. This then is testimony, that a velocity of nineteen miles a second for a thousand years has produced no effect upon the earth's motion that is noticeable. Nineteen miles a second is not a very swift astronomical motion, for comets have been known to have a velocity of 400 miles a second when in the neighbourhood of the sun, and yet they have not seemed to suffer any retardation, for their orbits have not been shortened. Some years ago a comet was noticed to have its periodic ...
— The Machinery of the Universe - Mechanical Conceptions of Physical Phenomena • Amos Emerson Dolbear
... I stood on the banks, watching the boats gliding down on the swift current, and listening to the songs of the fishermen, which came from far away up ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... every wind unfurled The flag that bears the Maple-Wreath; Thy swift keels furrow round the world Its ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... rapidly, the soul, in that preparation of itself which is the work of God, sends up a flame,—the flame ascends on high, but the fire thereof is the same as that below, nor does the flame cease to be fire because it ascends: so here, in the soul, something so subtile and so swift, seems to issue from it, that ascends to the higher part, and goes thither whither our Lord wills. I cannot go further with the explanation; it seems a flight, and I know of nothing else wherewith to compare it: I know that it cannot be mistaken, ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... spoke aloud. Now and again one man would matter uneasily to another; there would be a swift, muttered response, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... jewel of my heart— Thou object of my hopeless passion, Though Fate decrees that we must part, I'll leave thee in some novel fashion! I will not do as others do When cheated of prospective bridal, And quit the Bridge of Waterloo With header swift and suicidal. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... grandmothers made cloth a hundred years ago. The "harnesses" move part of the warp now up, now down, and the shuttle carries the weft from side to side to be driven home by the reeds to the woven cloth. Our grandmothers did all the work with swift movements of hands and feet. The modern weaver has her loom harnessed to the electric dynamo and moves her fingers only to keep the threads in order. If she wishes to weave a pattern in the cloth, no longer does she pick up threads of warp now here, now there, according ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... horsehair easy-chair and slipped on to the floor. Pamela calmly closed her ring, stooped over him, withdrew the key from his pocket, crossed the room and the dingy little hall with swift footsteps, and, without waiting for the lift, fled down the stone steps. Before she reached the bottom, she heard the shrill ringing of the lift bell, the angry shouting of the woman. Pamela, however, strolled quietly out and took her place ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to come from," was the swift and contemptuous rejoinder, "and a damn' poor one to stay in. They've got raw material here that's all right—like us—but you've got to take it away to finish it up. As for the hard fight you talk about, Paul, that's what I'm ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... further evidence of what his contemporaries expected of "Poor Sterling." "A loose, careless looking, thin figure," says Carlyle, "in careless dim costume, sat, in a lounging posture, carelessly and copiously talking. I was struck with the kindly but restless swift-glancing eyes, which looked as if the spirits were all out coursing like a pack of merry eager beagles, beating every bush.... A smile, half of kindly impatience, half of real mirth, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... nature was too full of impulse, too feeling, and too serious, to bend itself to all the precision, form, and delay of written poetry. She was Poetry without a lyre—true as the heart, simple as the untutored thought, dreamy as night, brilliant as day, swift as lightning, boundless as space! No rules of harmony could have bounded the infinite music of her mind; her very voice was a perpetual melody, that no cadence of verse could have equalled. Had I lived long with ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of 1848-49 news began to come that there was gold in California, but not generally believed till it came through a U.S. officer, and then, as the people were used to mines and mining, a regular gold fever spread as if by swift contagion. Mr. Bennett was aroused and sold his farm, and I felt a change in my Oregon desires and had dreams at might of digging up the yellow dust. Nothing would cure us then but a trip, and that was ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... With sure swift movements, the newcomer removed saddle, pack, and guns, and staked his pony out near the others. This done ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the pages of the histories, searching only for a single item, one clue to the swift evolution from barbarism to peaceful co-operation. After an hour he was in the middle of that critical period when the Council despaired of its inability to cope with the ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... the door and closed it after him. A moment later he was plunging down the steps, disdaining the elevator, which, however fast it may have been, could not have been swift enough for him in his present mood. The police! They would be clanging up to the building in a jiffy, and then what? To the ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... only attire; rings through the nose and ears, and feathers of birds, particularly the bird of paradise, were their ornaments; but their language was wholly unintelligible. Amine felt grateful for life; she sat under the shade of the trees, and watched the swift peroquas as they skimmed the blue sea which was expanded before her; but her thoughts were elsewhere—they were ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... swift and thorough measures, as he thought, to crush his new rival. He called the priests into his counsel and demanded to know where the Christ should be born. Too often has the priest been subject to the beck and call of the king. Bad men will use the ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... woman gave him a swift glance, and then seeing Graeme hand him his ticket, she turned her back, and began to fish in some mysterious recess in her garments, and after a long exploration brought out a small bag containing ...
— Mam' Lyddy's Recognition - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... of grinding, likewise, Mr. Burns had reached some definite conclusions. The French and English lap and wall mills, the English steel mills, and the Swift mills were all used in the United States. Troemner's, the Enterprise, and others—to be mentioned later in chronological order—were extending their use in a retail way; but Jabez Burns confined his attention to a practicable ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Economic overview: The swift collapse of the Yugoslav federation in 1991 has been followed by highly destructive warfare, the destabilization of republic boundaries, and the breakup of important interrepublic trade flows. Serbia and Montenegro faces major economic problems; output has ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... danger had come too near to be avoided before I perceived it, but at all events my loud shriek of warning was too late to save the pretty crouching head from the flourish of the pack-horse's glancing heels. Swift indeed was the blow; for scarcely ten seconds could have passed between my first glimpse of poor Kitty's bright black eye looking out, with such mortal terror in its expression, from beneath the yellow tuft of grass, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... Orton Beg, who was then in her thirty-fifth year, the expression of her face was so different that they were really less alike than they had been when Evadne was four years younger. Evadne's disposition, it must be remembered, was essentially swift to act. She would, as a human being, have her periods of strong feeling, but that was merely a physical condition in no way affecting her character; and the only healthy minded happy state for her was the one in which thought instantly translated ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... better!" broke in Archie. "The surest progress is made by the man who has learned his deficiencies. You remember the hare and the tortoise. I have read somewhere that the race is not always to the swift. You must treat your fellow men and women as if you had just arrived on this earth from the planet Mars. You must dig through the strata of conventionality to the virgin soil beneath. The great human ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... well-educated English gentleman. Moreover, I was at the time afflicted with a nervous dejection, which the occasional exhilaration produced by his anecdotes and college tales often materially dissipated, though, for the most part, they were more after the manner and matter of Swift than of Addison. ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... bay in which the Chameleon lay at anchor was not very far from the residence of Blue Beard. When the escort arrived there the horizon was tinged with the first rays of the rising sun. The Chameleon was a brigantine, light and swift as a kingfisher, riding gracefully on the waves, at her mooring. Not far from the Chameleon was seen one of the coast guards who traversed in his rounds the only point ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... knowledge and literature are expected from them in society. From the literary lady of the present day something more is expected than that she should know how to spell and to write better than Swift's celebrated Stella, whom he reproves for writing villian and daenger:—perhaps this very Stella was an object of envy in her own day to those who were her inferiors in literature. No man wishes his wife to be obviously ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... the charges of violence and cruelty, which he brought against all antiquity as well as against modern times, much in the fashion of Swift or the older Mark Twain, Flaubert nursed four grave causes of indignation, made four major charges of folly against modern "Christian" civilization. In religion, we have substituted for Justice the doctrine of Grace. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... spoken of above, and therefore possibly toward a perpetuation of that peace that is to follow the present season of war. So also is it an open and interesting question whether the drift in that direction, if such is the set of it, can be counted on to prove sufficiently swift and massive, so as not to be overtaken and overborne by the push of agencies that make for dissension and ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... himself. How small in comparison seemed the mob of his enemies! I never admired him more than at that moment. He was superb, sublime. They had wound their meshes about him, and the lion had burst them. One swift, daring stroke had frustrated all their plans. He who was to be quietly suppressed by resolutions of the House had cut the knot of their policy asunder, made himself the hero of the hour, and fixed the nation's ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... Ossaroo were good swimmers, but Karl could not swim a stroke; and it was entirely on his account that they stayed to search for a ford. The other two would have dashed in at once, regardless of the swift current. What was to be done with Karl? In such a rapid running river it was as much as the best swimmer could do to carry himself across; therefore not one of the others could assist Karl. How then, ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... fellow. There is nothing that he so delights in as a swift, strong stream. You can hardly get him to leave one when once he is within the influence of its fascinations. To throw in stones and sticks seems to afford him rapture. Tonight, as we were on our way back to the hotel, seeing a lot of driftwood caught by the torrent side below the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... in decision and swift in enterprise, and adaptable to sudden emergency, he ran back out with great presence of mind and shouted to the boy, "Come on, son! Get a move on you. Mr. Wade says it's all right and for you to take me as fast as you can. Let's be off before ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... hundred and fifty in width. It has a lake and river system of its own. At the northern extremity of the basin is the noted Lake Titicaca, which is given by some as the traditional place of origin of the Incas. This lake finds an outlet in the River Desaguadero, which flows in a broad and swift stream in a southerly direction, where it empties into ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... derived from adjectives, sometimes by adding the termination ness; as, "White, whiteness; swift, swiftness;" sometimes by adding th or t, and making a small change in some of the letters; as, ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... far, Defoe remarked that he thought he had given them a fair start, and handed over the story to Dean Swift, who, after premising that he feared he would find himself as much at sea as Master Cyprian Overbeck Wells, continued ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... upon the combatants. The defendant was a lusty young fellow apparently about my own age, of extraordinary agility and no mean skill with the sword. He was giving a good account of himself against the four assailants who hemmed him against the wall, his point flashing here and there with swift irregularity to daunt their valiancy. At the moment when I appeared to create a diversion one of the four had flung himself down and forward to cling about the knees of their victim with intent to knife him at close ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... which had lasted for decades. Cavagnari and his people had been slaughtered in the Balla Hissar, and their bones were still mingled with the smouldering ruins of the Residency. Wise men discerned that the destruction of the fortress followed by a homeward march as swift yet as measured as had been the march of invasion, could not but have made a deep and lasting impression on the Afghans; while the complications, humiliations, and expense of the long futile occupation would have been obviated. Other counsels prevailed. To discover, ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... words. In the silence the impression that came to Gerald was as if one threw reconnoitring pebbles into a well, expecting a swift response of shallowness, and heard instead, after a wondering pause, the hollow reverberations of sombre, undreamed-of depths. Franklin's eyes were on him and Helen's eyes were on him, and he knew that in both ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... had been a stampede of officials, scarcely any being at their posts, in such wise that he made his way to the Prefect's sanctum unannounced. There he found M. Pietri engaged with a confidential acolyte in destroying a large number of compromising papers, emptying boxes and pigeon-holes in swift succession, and piling their contents on an already huge fire, which was stirred incessantly in order that it might burn more swiftly. Pietri only paused in his task in order to write an order for Sala's release, and I have ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... skies—swift vengeance all With eager voice demand. When impious hands With Caesar's blood th' immortal fame of Rome, Rag'd to extinguish—all the world aghast, With horror shook, and trembled through its frame. Nor was thy subjects' loyalty to thee More sweet, Augustus, than ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... a woman turn on that "loveliest eyes" gag about an actor I always feel that a swift slap from a wet dish-rag would look well ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... all retired and shady spots Where prosper dim forget-me-nots; By meadows where at afternoon The growing maidens troop in June To loose their girdles on the grass. Ah! speedier than before the glass The backward toilet goes; and swift As swallows quiver, robe and shift And the rough country stockings lie Around each young divinity. When, following the recondite brook, Sudden upon this scene I look, And light with unfamiliar face On chaste Diana's bathing-place, ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... violent crime were submitted to the Congress last June with strong emphasis on protecting the innocent victims of crime. To keep a convicted criminal from committing more crimes, we must put him in prison so he cannot harm more law-abiding citizens. To be effective, this punishment must be swift ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... daughter of Mrs. B—— heard the noise of the robbers as they left the house and gave the alarm. Two watchmen, who were in the immediate vicinity, gave chase, and one of the robbers, who gave his name as George Lathrop, not so swift of foot as the others, was overtaken and carried to the police station, where he waived an examination, gave the required bail of twelve thousand dollars, and is now at large. There were two other participators in the crime who outran the watchmen. Lathrop was observed to throw away something in ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... in full flower and filling the hot air with their perfume. There, in a small open grassy space I had dismounted to watch a hawk, in hopes of finding its nest concealed somewhere among the thistles close by. And presently two persons came at a swift gallop by the narrow path through the thistles, and bursting out into that small open spot I saw that it was Cipriana, in a white dress, on a big bay horse, and her lover, who was leading the way. Catching sight of ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... in, Sary—to get breakfast out of your way," returned Mrs. Brewster, sending a swift ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... in the howling storm, 40 As in the calm that stills the aspen grove. Be bold, meek Woman! but be wisely bold! Fly, ostrich-like, firm land beneath thy feet, Yet hurried onward by thy wings of fancy Swift as the whirlwind, singing in their quills. 45 Look round thee! look within thee! think and feel! What nobler meed, Matilda! canst thou win, Than tears of gladness in a BOUGHTON'S[376:1] eyes, And ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Swift as the wind he has run to your side, Eager and happy to show you his pride; Bounding aloft, then ahead as your guide ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... the girl wrote a pretty hand, and very swift and free; and affixed her points or stops with so much judgment (her years considered), that I began to have an high opinion of her understanding. Some observations likewise upon several of the passages were so just and solid, that I could not help ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... good, for sparks from half-burned trees were showered upon our heads as we carefully picked our way through stumps that were black and charred and still aglow. On we went, as swift as possible, the soles of our shoes getting warmer and warmer each moment, until we feared that our feet would blister and burn with the exposure. At length, however, we saw the spot where we had left the team, and with a wild shout of exultation we rushed for ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... we resumed our march up the valley, parallel to the Yakima. About 1 o'clock we saw a large body of Indians on the opposite side of the river, and the general commanding made up his mind to cross and attack them. The stream was cold, deep, and swift, still I succeeded in passing my dragoons over safely, but had hardly got them well on the opposite bank when the Indians swooped down upon us. Dismounting my men, we received the savages with a heavy fire, which brought ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... instantaneously seized with spasms in every muscle, nerve and tendon. His head was thrown backward and forward, and from side to side, with inconceivable rapidity. So swift was the motion that the features could no more be discerned than the spokes of a wheel can be seen when revolving with the greatest velocity.... All were impressed with a conviction that there was something supernatural in ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... next time that dub throws the gaff into me I'll know he has a reason for it. Hereafter, every time he bats an eye in my direction it's me for a swift get-back, I'll tell ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... to swift communication by steam, but especially to the electric telegraph, modern credit is a very different thing from what it was fifty years ago. Now, a shock on the Bourse at Vienna is felt the same day at Paris, London, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... breeze fanned her cheeks, tossing about her golden curls in wanton sport. It was so pleasant to sit there in the dreamy silence watching the white fleecy clouds, the birds, and the flowers, it was little wonder the swift-winged moments flew heedlessly by. Slowly the white lids drooped over the light-blue eyes, the long, golden lashes lay against the rosy cheeks, the ripe lips parted in a smile—all unheeded were the fluted laces—Daisy ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... brown hair and a pale face, half ran, half walked, along the road that wound from the south to the town of Sligo. Many called him Cumhal, the son of Cormac, and many called him the Swift, Wild Horse; and he was a gleeman, and he wore a short parti-coloured doublet, and had pointed shoes, and a bulging wallet. Also he was of the blood of the Ernaans, and his birth-place was the Field of Gold; but his eating and sleeping places where the four provinces of Eri, and ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... presently old man Ayers, who runs the paper, waddles in with another item to be set. The compositors set down their sticks with a jerk and say, "Oh, my land!" and the foreman goes and puts the item on the case with that air of patient resignation which is a little more irritating than a swift kick; and then Chet Frazier, if he's hanging around, which ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... heard described A GALE OF WIND AT SEA and it wonder and admiration. The wind, blowing furiously, whistled wildly among the rigging; the waves of alarming size and threatening appearance, came rushing in swift succession towards us, as if eager to overwhelm our puny bark, which nevertheless floated unharmed, now riding on the crest of a wave, and anon plunging into a deep and angry-looking gulf, taking no water on deck, excepting from ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... for him!" So, in a counsel of perfection, speak the wise who have not been deprived of home life, civil liberty, and what not for a dismal length of two, three, and perhaps four years. No! Demobilisation should be as swift as possible, and risks be run to make it swift. The soldier-workman who goes back to civil life within two or three months after peace is signed goes back with a glow still in his heart. But he who returns with a rankling sense of unmerited, ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... "Reformer" flourished in sixteen hundred and something, and was known in our annals as "the old Admiral," though in history he had other titles. He was long in command of fleets of swift vessels, well armed and manned, and did great service in hurrying up merchantmen. Vessels which he followed and kept his eagle eye on, always made good fair time across the ocean. But if a ship still loitered in spite of all he could do, his indignation would grow till he could contain himself ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
