"Swim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... meaning,—they do not-live in vain,—but they are windfalls. I am convinced that many healthy children are injured morally by being forced to read too much about these little meek sufferers and their spiritual exercises. Here is a boy that loves to run, swim, kick football, turn somersets, make faces, whittle, fish, tear his clothes, coast, skate, fire crackers, blow squash "tooters," cut his name on fences, read about Robinson Crusoe and Sinbad the Sailor, eat the widest-angled slices of pie and untold cakes and candies, crack nuts with ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... some rapids, where the current was very swift and strong. Numbers attempted to swim across the stream, but were swept by the torrent over the falls. Some sprang into canoes and pushed from the shore. They presented but a fair mark for the bullets of the colonists. Wounded and bleeding, ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... daughter of Eliza Pinckney, and so completely exhausted was he that he fell asleep in his chair while she was preparing him a meal. Suddenly she heard the approaching British. She awakened him, told him to follow the path from her kitchen door to the river, swim to an island, and leave her to deceive the soldiers. She then met at the front door the British officer Tarleton, who leisurely searched the house, ate the supper prepared for Marion, and went away with several of the family treasures and heirlooms. On another ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... sho', but it seem like ter me dat plum down ter ole Brer Mink 'uz 'mongs' um. Leas'ways, dey wuz a whole passel un um, en dey whirl in, dey did, en dey buil' de house in less'n no time. Brer Rabbit, he make lak it make he head swim fer ter climb up on de scaffle, en likewise he say it make 'im ketch de palsy fer ter wuk in de sun, but he got 'im a squar', en he stuck a pencil behime he year, en he went 'roun' medjun[9] en markin'—medjun en markin'—en he wuz dat busy ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... but you will please to remember that I did not engage you to serve on board the schooner. Back there you do not go either with or without your consent, my fine fellow, and if you are bent on going to sea on your own account—you've got a pair of good arms and legs—you can swim! Besides," continued the captain, dropping the tone of sarcasm in which this was said, and assuming a more careless and good-natured air, "you were singing something not long since, if I mistake not, about 'farewell to the rolling sea,' which leads me to think you will not object to ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... does we'll have to swim for it," grimly said Bud. "But isn't there some place where you can ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... over the Rhine In a light canoe by the moon's pale shine. The handmaid rows and the Countess speaks: "Seest thou not there where the water breaks Seven corpses swim In the moonlight dim? ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... Giuntotardi, the movement aroused him a little from his customary apathy, and that was all; whereas Ithuel bethought him seriously of leaping into the water and striking out for the land. He could swim a league, he thought; but there was the certainty of being followed by boats and overtaken; a consideration that effectually curbed his impatience. It is not easy to describe the sensation with ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... beaten?" No one answered. At length, in one quarter and another, it began to be rumoured about, "Behold, the Cossack strength is being vainly wasted: there is no war! Behold, our leaders have become as marmots, every one; their eyes swim in fat! Plainly, there is no justice in the world!" The other Cossacks listened at first, and then began themselves to say, "In truth, there is no justice in the world!" Their leaders seemed surprised at these utterances. Finally the Koschevoi stepped ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and the Black Forest brought deep enjoyment to him. His enthusiasm at his first sight of the Rhine was unrestrained, and the morning after our arrival he plunged into its waters for a swim. Professor Cramb, writing of the love of Germans for the Rhine, quotes a letter from Treitschke, in which that fire-eating historian said on the eve of his leaving Bonn: "To-morrow I shall see the Rhine for the last time. The memory of that noble river will keep my heart pure and save me ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... bound to yon town am I; No bridge anear, I sit and sit Until these waters have run dry, So that afoot I get to it." "A living parable behold, My friend!" quoth I. "Upon the brim You, too, will gaze until you're old, But never boldly take a swim!" ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... to the Caesar, [76] and so salutary to the afflicted provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of the Alemanni were slain in the field, without including those who were drowned in the Rhine, or transfixed with darts while they attempted to swim across the river. [77] Chnodomar himself was surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of his brave companions, who had devoted themselves to follow in life or death the fate of their chieftain. Julian received ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... water's edge—at least its front garden does—and we walk among the shrubbery and smoke at twilight; we look afar off at Switzerland and the Alps, and feel an indolent willingness to look no closer; we go down the steps and swim in the lake; we take a shapely little boat and sail abroad among the reflections of the stars; lie on the thwarts and listen to the distant laughter, the singing, the soft melody of flutes and guitars that comes floating ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lavishly provided a smart little craft in which to embark. The money had not come without some bewildered questioning on the part of those supplying it. As old Sharon said, the Whipple chicken coop had hatched a gosling that wanted to swim in strange waters; but it was eventually decided that goslings were meant to swim and would one way or another find a pond. Indeed, Harvey Whipple was prouder of his son by adoption than he cared to have known, and ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... one by the village clock, When he galloped into Lexington. He saw the gilded weathercock Swim in the moonlight as he passed, And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, As if they already stood aghast At the bloody work they ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... have believed in the existence of such a Plot, and that the prisoners tried before them were immolated upon the altar of their own personal popularity. Rather than resist the current of popular feeling, and dare to award justice and uphold the supremacy of impartial law, they chose to swim with the tide, and sacrifice men whom they knew in their hearts to be innocent. It is this that adds tenfold guilt to the brutality of their conduct. We cannot forget that they were dishonest in their very cruelty; that they insulted their victims, browbeat the witnesses, trampled on judicial forms ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... for domes. All signs of woe hath flown with fear, No maidens heave their breasts and weep, All wrecks of Flesh lie on the ground, Removed from shoals where Terror moans. On skulls that some in Death hath left, Croak toads to lizards in a well; In cajons that the Ancient's digged, Swim snakes that hiss at burning oils: And bats and owls that offal cleft, Proclaim their burdens to a dell, Whilst crafts that some strange witch hath rigged, Bring slaves unto this ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... the fish. It said such terrible words that the prince was glad that the princess was in the box with cotton in ears. "You get into the box with the princess," he said to the ama. "I am a good swimmer and I am going to open the door and swim out. The box is made of wood that will float; so, inside of it, you and the princess will float ...
— Tales of Giants from Brazil • Elsie Spicer Eells
... had no idea of the moods of nature; at any rate they never seemed to affect him. To him all water was something to drink or something to swim in, and the earth was good pasture or hard road to ride a horse over. The grasp of no agnostic was more cynical. He inquired if any of Woodford's men had crossed that day, and was answered ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... or two later, when Wally came out of the bath house on the way to swim, he encountered ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... blindfolded had been over-ridden by circumstance. He felt himself to be a puppet of Fate, and he drifted with the tide because he lacked the strength to swim against it. That will-o'-the-wisp sense of security which had cheered him when first he had realized how much he owed to the protective wings of Mr. King had been rudely extinguished upon the very day of its birth; he had learnt that ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... use of the freedom thus abruptly thrust upon them. "The fool in the fable," said Macaulay, when dealing with a somewhat similar question, "declared that no man ought to go into the water until he had learned to swim." Lord Grey's Ministry had apparently much the same idea about the perils of emancipation. Another part of the scheme proposed that fifteen millions should be advanced by the Government as a loan to the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... got to the corner of Tomtegaden and the railway place, the street commenced suddenly to swim around before my eyes; it buzzed vacantly in my head, and I staggered up against the wall of a house. I could simply go no farther, couldn't even straighten myself from the cramped position I was in. As I fell up against it, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... brother was very early initiated in the chace, and, at an age when other boys are creeping like snails unwillingly to school, he could wind the horn, beat the bushes, bound over hedges, and swim rivers. When the huntsman one day broke his leg, he supplied his place with equal abilities, and came home with the scut in his hat, amidst the acclamations of the whole village. I being either delicate or timorous, less desirous of honour, or less capable ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... there be war as surely as the rivers rise in the rains — war to the end. Women love the last blow as well as the last word, and when they fight for love they are pitiless as a wounded buffalo. See thou, Macumazahn, a woman will swim through blood to her desire, and think nought of it. With these eyes have I seen it once, and twice also. Ah, Macumazahn, we shall see this fine place of houses burning yet, and hear the battle cries come ringing up the street. ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... the water," he said at last. "If we can get away and reach the shore, and if there is not a possibility of escape—which I must admit I consider highly improbable—well, we can always swim out as far as we can go, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... reverie, doubt Some spore of episodes Anterior far beyond this body's birth, Dispersed like puffs of dust impalpable, Wind-carried round this globe for centuries, May, breathed with common air, yet swim the blood, And striking root in this or that brain, raise Imaginations unaccountable; One such seems half-implied in all I am, And many ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... not touch his dinner, and Herr and Frau Ellrich's voices, against all the laws of acoustics, seemed to come from the far distance, and several minutes elapsed before the sounds reached his ears, although he sat close to the speakers. The waiters and hotel guests looked odd, and seemed to swim in a kind of rosy twilight. In the sky there seemed to be three times as many stars as usual. When the Ellrichs had withdrawn he went toward midnight alone into the fir woods, and heard unknown birds sing, caught strange ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... read two Christmas books at Birmingham, I should like to get out of that restriction, and have a swim in the broader waters of one of my long books. I have been poring over "Copperfield" (which is my favourite), with the idea of getting a reading out of it, to be called by some such name as "Young ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... came from, the squire has had a pig stolen out of his sty. I was dreadfully afraid when I saw you that you had got the squire's pig. If you have, and they catch you, it will be a bad job for you. The least they will do will be to throw you into the horse-pond. Can you swim?' ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... by time made dim: Seas are sullen in rain and mist. Regret the woes that behind us swim: Sullen's the north and ...
— Songs, Sonnets & Miscellaneous Poems • Thomas Runciman
... Hart's brigade-major, had ridden up the river in search of the Bridle Drift, and, finding a spot where there appeared to be a ford, entered the river on foot, but was soon out of his depth, and was compelled to swim back to the ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... to the conclusion, positively and definitely, that his wife is always to be a hinderance, and never a help to him, in any upward aspiration; that whatever he does that is needful and right and true must be done, not by her influence, but in spite of it; that, if he has to swim against the hard, upward current of the river of life, he must do so with her hanging on his arm, and holding him back, and that he cannot influence and cannot ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a great stir on deck, I sang out to inquire the cause: "A man overboard," was the reply. I made instant preparations to hasten up, in the hope of seeing him rescued. The cutter and gig were down, and the life-buoy out, in an instant, but, poor fellow! he could not swim; and, though he rose near the buoy, he had not strength to seize it; and after struggling for a few moments, now deep in a trough of the sea, now mounted aloft on the summit of the waves, he sank to rise no more. The swell was so tremendous, that the boats with difficulty ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... the pacific Tom, "I'll sink or swim with you. I've followed where you have led this ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... evening, I came home in fine fettle. I and ten of my school-fellows had played truant: we had gone to pick apples in the priest's orchard; and we had pulled the burgomaster's calf into the brook to teach it to swim, but the banks were too high and the beast was drowned. Father, who had heard of these happenings, laid hold of me in a rage and gave me a furious trouncing with a poker, after which, instead of turning me into the road, as his ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... tail of a fox. The night was dark, and a recent fall of rain had so swollen a mountain stream which lay in our road, that when we reached the ford, which was generally passable by foot passengers, Terence was obliged to swim his horse across, and to dismount on the opposite side, in order to assist the animal up a steep clayey bank which had been formed by the torrent undermining and cutting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... stables, had fled from the convent, and reached the ramparts of the town, from which he hoped to leap into the moat and swim across to the opposite bank, where a horse ready saddled was awaiting him. But in his flight he let fall his hat and a pistol. A servant and a halberdier in the Prince's service, seeing these traces, rushed after him. Just as he was in the act of jumping he ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... laughter, but assuming a severe tone, he said: "You lied to me like a Turk, anyway, you miserable Yankee; you told me you could not swim." ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... wife—and then he looked at her, as she stood in her dark, perfect dress, with the great, sable wrap slipping from her shoulders and making a regal background, and her beauty fired his senses and made his eyes swim; and he bent ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... natural and healthy craving of our spirit; an appetite which we have neither will nor power to destroy, and for which all mankind are busily employed in making provision. This is as natural, as for birds to fly, or fishes to swim. For this the scholar and the philosopher, who think it consists in knowledge, pore over their books and their apparatus, light the midnight lamp, and keep frequent vigils, when the world around them is asleep. ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... Do you hear that, gentlemen blockheads, that seldom hear anything but yourselves? Next after the paper-maker, who furnished the sine qua non, takes rank, not the engraver or illustrator (our modern novelist cannot swim without this caricaturing villain as one of his bladders; all higher forms of literature laugh at him), but the binder; for he, by raising books into ornamental furniture, has given even to non-intellectual ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... confinement attending the impressment system. "Their loss in prisoners and deserters has been very considerable; the latter are coming up to Norfolk almost daily, and their naked bodies are frequently fished up on the bay shore, where they must have been drowned in attempting to swim. They all give the same account of the dissatisfaction of their crews, and their detestation of the service they are engaged in."[158] Deserters, however, usually have tales acceptable to those ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... myself. I decided then that I would drown myself in the lake. It seemed the only thing to do. I took my coat off. Then sat down in the mud and took off my boots. Why I did this I don't know. I looked at the water, thought that it would be cold, but that it would soon be over because I couldn't swim. I heard the frogs, looked back at the flickering fires amongst our wagons, then ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... Description. His Wife and the Daughter and the Cigarette-Holder she had picked up in Europe figured in the Gay Life of the Nation's Capital every Night and went to see a Nerve Specialist every Day. The whole Bunch rode gaily on the Top Wave of the Social Swim, with a Terrapin as an Escort and a squad ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... Lamia? What for Lycius? What for the sage, old Apollonius? Upon her aching forehead be there hung The leaves of willow and of adder's tongue; And for the youth, quick, let us strip for him The thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swim Into forgetfulness; and, for the sage, Let spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage War on his temples. Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she ...
— Lamia • John Keats
... are representations of agriculture, sowing, reaping, &c. Wherever there is a voyage, fishes swim above and below, and in the battle there is a border plentiful in ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... his head doubtfully. "You may be right," he said, "but it seems to me that teaching a boy how to fight is going to make him want to. That's the way it goes with other things, Jim. Give a boy lessons in swimming and he wants to swim; ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... swim and the two seemed hardly in the water before they could fully see the burning roundhouse. A moment later, chilled to the bone but with his mind cleared by the sharp plunge, Bucks felt his companion's arm drawing him toward the farther shore where, in the slack water of an elbow of ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... morning after our swim and a hearty breakfast, and proceeded past the outskirts of the town, which we were ...
— Through Canal-Land in a Canadian Canoe • Vincent Hughes
... daily. They are good sculptors, gilders, and carpenters. They make the water craft of these islands, the galleys, pataches, and ships of the Acapulco line. They act as sailors, artillery-men, and divers; for there is scarce an Indian who cannot swim excellently. They are the under-pilots of these seas. They are very expert in making bejuquillos, [335] which are gold chains of a very delicate and exquisite workmanship. They make hats, petates or rugs, and mats, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... jurisdiction, and his power was gone. He swam with all his strength, and his bloated face still looked red as the foam passed by it. The helmsman had resumed his place, and steadied the tiller, keeping her full, while the other men looked over the stern. Secker said: "The old man will have a long swim." ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... sweetness; he was more fervent than herself; he told her of his visions in the night of snow and of his despairing desire and some plausible story of the roses and a thousand other lyric fancies. He judged her to be on the point of yielding—he saw her eyes swim in melting languor, and on her plaintive mouth that nameless contraction which seems like an instinctive dissimulation of the physical desire to kiss; he looked at her hands, so delicate and yet so strong, the hands of an archangel, and saw them trembling like the strings of an ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... take care of my watch, lest it should be damaged by the Precession of the Equinoxes," he would have responded with a brief "All right, Sir," and a quick military gesture, and have put the thing in his pocket. As it was, I simply gave him the watch, and remarked that I was going to take a swim. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... fellow, who was evidently a city person, might not be able to swim, Ralph leaped down from the bridge into the sloop and went to ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... round and round the room just under the cornice, an ever-revolving, ever-floating frieze. He was immensely interested in these decorative hallucinations. His brain seemed to be lifted up, to be iridescent also, to swim round and round ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... you that you would be too modest to say for yourself. I can plead your case, laddie. I can point out in detail all that the old boy will be missing if he gives you the miss-in-baulk. Well, that's settled, then. About eight to-morrow morning, what? I'll be there, my boy. A swim will ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... separated from the stomach by a slight constriction which may be capable of contraction so as to prevent regurgitation. There are few exceptions to this structural and functional simplicity. In fishes (see ICHTHYOLOGY, Anatomy) the swim-bladder is developed as a dorsal outgrowth of the oesophagus and may remain in open connexion with it. In certain Teleosteis (e.g. Liitodeira) it is longer than the length it has to traverse and is thrown into convolutions. In many other fish, particularly Selachiis, a set of processes of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... long dost think, degenerate son of Odin, Unmanly pining for a foolish maiden, And all the weary train of love-sick follies, Will move a bosom that is steeled by virtue? Thou dotest! Dote and weep, in tears swim ever; But by thy father's arm, by Odin's honour, Haste, hide thy tears and thee in shades of alder! Haste to the still, the peace-accustom'd valley, Where lazy herdsmen dance amid the clover. There wet each leaf which soft the west wind kisses, ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... believed. Take one who has never before been mounted. She is led out, her owner springs on her back, and goads her over the sand and rocks of the desert at full speed for sixty miles, without one moment's respite. She is then forced, steaming and panting, into water deep enough for her to swim. If, immediately after this, she will eat as if nothing had occurred, her character is well ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... eldest, watched with me. "I have been considering," said he, "how we could save ourselves. If we only had some cork jackets, or bladders, for mamma and my brothers, you and I don't need them, we could then swim to land." ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... hung to the limb and yelled for assistance, but no one came, and he found he could hold on no longer. He could not swim, and he felt that in dropping from the limb he would certainly meet a watery grave. All his life he had had a horror of water, and now to be drowned in the hated liquid was too hard. He made desperate efforts to climb up, on the limb, but could not do it. His arms were so strained that he thought ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... judges.'"—Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, p. 178. Here the verb address governs the pronoun myself, and is also the antecedent to the preposition to; and the construction would be similar, if the preposition governed the infinitive or a participle: as, "I prepared myself to swim;" or, "I prepared myself for swimming." But, in any of these cases, it is not very accurate to say, "the verb has two regimens;" for the latter term is properly the regimen of the preposition. Cardell, by robbing the prepositions, and supposing ellipses, found two regimens for every verb. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... astonished at. They discovered that the island was about three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide, and that the shore it lay closest to was only separated from it by a narrow channel hardly two hundred yards wide. They took a swim about every hour, so it was close upon the middle of the afternoon when they got back to camp. They were too hungry to stop to fish, but they fared sumptuously upon cold ham, and then threw themselves down in the shade to talk. But the talk soon began ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... us who couldn't swim could float, so none of us was drowned," the Lion answered. "Only being soaked in the water, as I was, made some of the paint come off my tail. I really haven't been the same Lion since," he ...
— The Story of a Lamb on Wheels • Laura Lee Hope
... Milesians. Sestos is in Europe, and was once the principal city of Chersonesus. Since I have seen this strait, I find nothing improbable in the adventure of Leander, or very wonderful in the bridge of boats of Xerxes. 'Tis so narrow, 'tis not surprising a young lover should attempt to swim, or an ambitious king try to pass his army over it. But then, 'tis so subject to storms, 'tis no wonder the lover perished, and the bridge was broken. From hence we had a ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... shown in the heading above—is found in the tropical and temperate regions of the globe, and frequents marshes and shallow lakes. In deep water flamingoes swim, but they prefer to wade, for then they can bend down their necks and rake the bottom with their peculiar-shaped bill in search of food. Flocks of these birds, with their red plumage, when seen from a distance, have been likened by observers ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... see anything to laugh at. He just became so excited that he could hardly float, and then he turned round and started to swim back to the pool as hard as ever ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... out wildly as if to swim—but of what avail was that against the weight of rushing water? I seemed to be rolled over and against broken timber and reeds and stones—and once my hand touched a man, for I felt it grate over the scales of armour—and my ears ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... table-gesture when they did eat; for mitta and ngheres (the two words which Amos useth) signify a bed or a couch wherein a man useth to lay himself down to sleep. And in this sense we find both these words, Psal. vi. 7, "All the night make I my bed (mittathi) to swim: I water my couch (ngharsi) with my tears." The Shunnamite prepared for Elisha a chamber, and therein set for him a bed (mitta), and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick, 2 Kings iv. 10. The stool or ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... begin, swim, strike, stick, sing, sting, fling, ring, wring, spring, swing, drink, sink, shrink, stink, come, run, find, bind, grind, wind, both in the preterit imperfect and participle passive, give won, spun, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... not swim a stroke, and was much hampered by his heavy clothes and boots. At the first plunge he was carried far beneath the surface, but quickly rose again, puffing and blowing like a grampus, and making desperate efforts to ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... was famous for the good milk he got from his cows. The stag loved milk, and gladly accepted the invitation, and when the sun began to get a little low the two started on their walk. On the way they arrived on the banks of a river, and as there were no bridges in those days it was necessary to swim across it. The stag was not fond of swimming, and began to say that he was tired, and thought that after all it was not worth going so far to get milk, and that he would return home. But the puma easily saw through these excuses, and laughed ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... them? To the old mother one is inclined to say, "Ah, good old mother duck, can you not see the world has changed? You cannot bring the water back into the dried-up pond! Mayhap it was better and pleasanter when it was there, but it has gone for ever; and, would you and yours swim again, it must be in other waters." New machinery, ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... parades and ascensions," they retorted, profanely. " You swam voluntarily into water that was too deep for you. Swim out. Get ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... afternoon came, the order was established for a swim in the river as the parting day's rejuvenator. Montmorillon was the only place in France where ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... not? I love it. Not only writing, but being in the swim, making a kind of a name, doing what other people do. I'm not mother, who does but write because she must, and pipes but as the ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... for Thialfe and Raska were used to a hardy life, and so were able to swim with scarcely more weariness than Thor and Loki, and were not long in reaching the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... will pardon me for burdening this beautiful Essay with a commentary which is worse than superfluous for him. For it has proved for many,—I will not say a pons asinorum,—but a very narrow bridge, which it made their heads swim to attempt crossing, and yet they must cross it, or one domain of Emerson's intellect will not ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... than virtues? You shall want him: For know an honest statesman to a prince Is like a cedar planted by a spring; The spring bathes the tree's root, the grateful tree Rewards it with his shadow: you have not done so. I would sooner swim to the Bermoothes on Two politicians' rotten bladders, tied Together with an intelligencer's heart-string, Than depend on so changeable a prince's favour. Fare thee well, Antonio! Since the malice of the world Would needs down with thee, it cannot be said yet That any ill happen'd unto thee, considering ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... and he could feel the gentle rise and fall of her breast, as she breathed. The bodily contact made his head swim. When she raised her head to stare at the sky, a fugitive moonbeam caressed her face and touched her briefly with a wondrous beauty. Her curved, parted lips were almost within reach of his own at such instants; he ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... came to this island with the sargento-mayor, and on his first sight of it was so discontented that for no other reason, he turned his back upon it, and was in so great a hurry to return that he declared that if a vessel were not given him immediately in which to leave, he would swim away. He went away speaking ill of this place, and has caused great annoyance and wrong to these poor soldiers. If a religious who ought to be happy with a hard life, and who ought to seek hardships in which to serve God better, refused those which might ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... she told him as they went. "I had to get up very early while they were asleep. I shall be scolded again. But travelers come who talk of the lakes, and I wanted to see them, and to swim ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... lake of Egeria that it is, hidden from envious and lazy men by forest and rock and mountain. And the children of fifty years old and less pulled off shoes and stockings to wade in it; and we caught in tin mugs little seedling trouts not so long as that word "seedling" is on the page, and saw them swim in the mugs and set them free again; and we ate the lunches with appetites as of Arcadia; and we stumped happily home again, and found, as we went home, all the sketch-books and bait-boxes and neckties which we had lost as we went up. On a day like that you get ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... boyhood. He used to perform a hundred miracles a day, and "it was a miracle, when a day passed without a miracle." The index alone of any one of his numerous biographies is enough to make one's head swim. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... the right creature. The water-boatman (Nautonecta glauca) is a member of the same family, but is no use as food for the fish. He swims on his back, is longer and narrower than are Corixae, which do not swim on their backs, are smaller, broader, and live much more under water than the water-boatman. It is generally advisable to avoid water-beetles, as most of them are more likely to do harm than good, such a number of our water-beetles being carnivorous. They will probably not harm adult fish, ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker
... darkness below. Quietly there floated into their line of vision something white, ethereal—perchance a spirit from another world. It vanished and the blackness was again unbroken. The figure had seemed strangely tall. It appeared to swim along, rather than to walk, draperies as fine as ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... calls for notice, and it is that of early morning exercise. Now, I am quite willing to admit that there are many who derive great benefit from their early morning swim, their matutinal walk, or their tennis before breakfast. But it should be distinctly borne in mind that there are others with whom such early morning exercise does not agree. They get as a result a weary, languid feeling which ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... had entered my antagonist's side. But I was like to pay dearly for it. Uttering a deafening yell of pain and fury, the monster clasped me closer to his foul and loathsome body; his sharp claws, dug deeper into my back, seemed to tear up my flesh: the agony was insupportable—my eyes began to swim, and my senses to leave me. Just then—Crack! crack! Two—four—a dozen musket and pistol shots, followed by such a chorus of yellings and howlings and unearthly laughter! The creature that held me seemed startled—relaxed his grasp slightly. At that moment a dark arm was passed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... while they stood thus in silence, till under Murgh's dreadful gaze Hugh's brain began to swim. He looked about him, seeking some natural thing to feed his eyes. Lo! yonder was that which he might watch, a hare crouching in its form not ten paces distant. See, out of the reeds crept a great red fox. The hare ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... was this spirit of love also triumphant over the land. It was the mating season of all feathered things. In countless nests were the peeps and twitters of new life; mothers of first-born were teaching their children to swim and fly; from end to end of the forest world the little children of the silent places, furred and feathered, clawed and hoofed, were learning the ways of life. Nature's yearly birthday was half-way gone, and the doors of nature's ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... the Prince, and I could hardly stifle a laugh, for Joseph is no higher than my ear. His shoulders slope; his legs are clothespins bound with leather; his eyes swim in tears, as our car's crankhead floats in an oil bath; and his hair is hung round his head like many separate rows of black pins, ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... great laugh. "Harry is in the drink! I never knew he was so fond of water as all that. You've got to swim for it ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... his paper before the Academy, the Duke of Chartres gave the order for an airship to the brothers Robert, who were mechanics in Paris. This ship was shaped like a fish, on the supposition that an airship would swim through the air like a fish through water. The gas-chamber was provided with a double envelope, in order that it might travel for a long distance ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... arm. I could be a little more reckless and very careless if you think it would help. I've never had typhoid or pneumonia. I could go about exposing myself to all sorts of things after a year or two. Flying machines, too, and long distance swimming. I might even try to swim the English Channel. North Pole expeditions, African wild game hunts,—all that sort of thing, Anne. I'll promise to do everything in my power to make life as short as possible, ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... that if we were to put on board a ship the size of the John and Francis, as many clapboards as she could swim under, the value of the cargo would be no less than five hundred pounds, and they would have a ready sale in London, or in ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... it and read the first words, it blew from his hands overboard. Poor little fellow! The agonised look he gave as it fell into the water is far beyond description. He was inclined to spring after it. Had he known how to swim he would not have hesitated a moment. Unfortunately all the boats were on duty, or it might have been recovered. Mr. G., the first lieutenant, effected his exchange, and a fine young man joined as second. I was now positively fixed as first. I was invited to dignity balls without number, and had ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... Florida's fine, you don't know Florida, it's got two coasts and it's hard to tell which is the best. From Indian River right round and up to Cedar Keys there's all sorts of fishing, and you can camp out on the reefs; one cooks one's own food and you can swim all day. There's tarpon and barracuda and sword fish, and nights when there's a moon you could ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... hear what he said," interrupted Jerry peevishly. "He's a big bully. He's hated me ever since I interfered the time he was ducking young Gordon. Gordon couldn't swim, and he was so scared that his face was as white ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... gourds, floating about on the water, inspire the birds with confidence; the hunter then covers his head with a sort of cask made of a gourd, one in which there are little holes for his eyes, like in a mask. He wades into the water up to his chin, for from their infancy they are all accustomed to swim, and do not fear to remain a long time in the water. As the birds find the gourd which conceals the hunter similar to all the others floating about, the man is able to approach the flock. Imitating with his head the movements of the ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... mind. The dashing of the waves, or the great distance of the land or other place of safety, intimidates them, and they are unable to use their powers. But the students of the squadron were gradually and carefully accustomed to the water, so that they could swim a reasonable distance without wearing themselves out, could rest their limbs by floating, and were taught to avail themselves of any expedient to secure their safety. If a boat was stove on the rocks in a surf, or was run down by a vessel, the fact of being in the water did not frighten ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... they were told, and away goes old Hosea for the shore, followed by the other gigs loaded that deep they could hardly swim. Seein' they hadn't left us nothin' but the bare bones we pulled in ourselves shortly after, and my dear life what a sight we did behold! Fellows runnin' about in the fog on the beach, for all the world ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... was almost deserted at this hour, for the parade was in progress. Joe and Helen did not take part in this. Joe came back attired for a swim, and going up the steps by which Benny mounted to the platform on the edge of the tank before he plunged ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... passages, and are thus concealed from them, all the light coming in by refraction through the water. Their actions are thus natural, and they move about with perfect freedom, some of the tanks being of enormous size. Here swim schools of herring, mackerel, and porpoises as they do out at sea, the octopus gyrates his arms, and almost every fish that is known to the waters of that temperature is exhibited in thoroughly natural action. The tanks have been prepared most elaborately. The porpoises and larger ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... Lemmons, lay them in water three dayes, and three nights, to take away their bitternesse, then boyle them in faire water till they be tender, make as much Syrupe for them as will make them swim about the pan, let them not boyle too long therein, for it will make the skins tough; then let them lie all night in the Syrupe, to make them take the Syrupe in the morning, boyle the Syrupe to his thicknesse, and put them in ...
— A Book of Fruits and Flowers • Anonymous
... from one of the long 12's of the Essex. The ship caught fire, and the flames came bursting up the hatchway, and a quantity of powder exploded below. Many of the crew were knocked overboard by shot, and drowned; others leaped into the water, thinking the ship was about to blow up, and tried to swim to the land. Some succeeded; among them was one man who had sixteen or eighteen pieces of iron in his leg, scales from the muzzle of his gun. The frigate had been shattered to pieces above the water-line, although from the smoothness of the sea she was not harmed ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... alternate strips of parchment upon which are written the rights of liberty and justice and strips of blood spilled to vindicate those rights and then—in the corner—a prediction of the blue serene into which every nation may swim which stands for ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... head at the report of the rifle and the whistling of the bullet, for never before had he come in contact with man; but the echoes of the hills awakened his distrust, and leaping forward, with his four legs drawn under his body, he fell at once into deep water, and began to swim towards the foot of the lake. Hurry shouted and dashed forward in chase, and for one or two minutes the water foamed around the pursuer and the pursued. The former was dashing past the point, when Deerslayer appeared on the sand and signed to him ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... monsieur uncle. I think you in bad case, but I am ready to sink or swim with you. So long as the hand of Lorance is in your bestowing I am your faithful servant. I have not hesitated to risk the gallows to serve you. Last March I made my way here, disguised, to tell you of the king's coming change of faith and of St. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... in your speech; bring out words and phrases from every living tongue with which you may happen to be slightly acquainted; boast of "the continent;" mince your gait; wriggle forward upon your toes when you walk; and swim and dip, whenever led into the atrocity of committing a quad-rille. In brief, give yourself unimaginable airs; then protest that your manners, as well as your costume, are of the newest Parisian mode—and it is ten to one but that affectation will be accepted in lieu ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... by his own passion, maddened by her lack of response—blinded by a mist of fire that made his senses swim and his brain reel, and crazed by the throbbing of the pulse that cried out from every vein in his body with the world-old elemental call. Was she going to close the gates of Paradise in his very face and in the very hour ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... thankful that I had no gun with me, and so was not tempted to startle them with rude noises, and send any of them away to languish wounded amongst the reeds. At length, after having indulged in a good swim, I set out to walk ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... cabin, consulting with the military officers as to the best mode of getting the women and children on shore, when it was perceived that one of the seamen had placed himself by the cabin windows, apparently dressed for a swim. Captain Doutty enquired what brought him there: he instantly replied, "We are all alike now." Captain Doutty told him he was mistaken if he thought so, for that whilst two planks of the ship held together, he was determined to keep the command, and ordered him ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... acquainted with birds, let us call them before us by classes, beginning with our sea-birds and those round the bays and on the coast. Some of these not only swim but dive in the salt waters, and to this class of divers belong the grebe, loon, murre, and puffin. They dive at the flash of a gun, and after what seems a long time, come up far away from the spot the hunter aimed at. These birds usually ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... the town with its bustling streets of picturesque humanity. And then those sunsets! The peaks towering behind bathed in crimson, and the intervening hills rising one above the other to the furthermost summits like a giant staircase, rich in a mysterious purple. As we walked back from our evening swim, over the short, springing grass, that scene at sunset never abated its charms one whit. And we were always glad on entering the town that no one wore plain, ugly European clothes but ourselves. The national costumes, so full of colour, ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... he stood bewildered. There was no drawbridge to this eccentric moat; there was, on this side of the rock at least, not so little as a boat; if Lamond ever held intercourse with the adjacent isle of Scotland he must seemingly swim. Very well; the Count de Montaiglon, guilty of many outrages against his ancestry to-day, must swim too if that were called for. And it looked as if that were the only alternative. Vainly he called and whistled; no answer came from the castle, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... summer day. The water of the "old swimming hole," as it was called, was not deep enough to be dangerous, and Mrs. Bobbsey was not afraid to have Bert go there without his father. Bert's father had taught him to swim. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope
... not absolutely amphibious that is so thoroughly at home in the water as the elephant. In a wild state it will swim the largest rivers, and it delights in morasses, where it rolls in the deep mud like a pig or buffalo, and thus coats its hide with a covering of slime, which protects it from the attacks of flies and the worry ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... can not separate you from myself in my own thought. We seem to me to be like old Webster's idea of the Union—'one and indivisible.' And since I can not divide us in any thought, I, John Doe, alias Black Bart, alias the man you once called Harry, have resolved that we shall go undivided, sink or swim, survive or perish. If the world were indeed my oyster, I should open it for us both; but saying both, I should see only you. Isn't ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... used to writin' letters. As this is the first one I ever wrote, I hope you'll excuse the mistakes. I hope you'll write to me again soon. I can't write so good a letter as you; but, I'll do my best, as the man said when he was asked if he could swim over to Brooklyn backwards. Good-by, Frank. Thank you for all your kindness. Direct your next letter ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... through the window, there is no human eye which could have seen the deed. What would he do then? It would of course instantly strike him that he must get rid of the tell-tale garments. He would seize the coat, then, and be in the act of throwing it out, when it would occur to him that it would swim and not sink. He has little time, for he has heard the scuffle downstairs when the wife tried to force her way up, and perhaps he has already heard from his Lascar confederate that the police are hurrying ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... confined to the caudal end, the sarcode having became diffluent, hyaline, and intensely rapid in the protrusion and retraction of its substance, while the nuclear body becomes enormously enlarged. These never appear alone; forms in a like condition are diffused throughout the fluid, and may swim in this state for hours. Meanwhile, the diffluence causes a spreading and flattening of the sarcode and swimming gives place to creeping, while the flagella violently lash. In this condition two forms meet by apparent accident, the protrusions touch, and instant fusion ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... other adventures, showing them in a romantic light; and finally concluded by telling the king he had once entered into a design to take his sacred life by rushing upon him with a carbine from out of the reeds by the Thames side, above Battersea, when he went to swim there; but he was so awed by majesty his heart misgave him, and he not only relented, but persuaded the remainder of his ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... supplicate?—beholdest thou how the Rutulians brave it, and Turnus, borne charioted through the ranks, proudly sweeps down the tide of battle? Bar [22-58]and bulwark no longer shelter the Trojans; nay, within the gates and even on the mounded walls they clash in battle and make the trenches swim with blood. Aeneas is away and ignorant. Wilt thou never then let our leaguer be raised? Again a foe overhangs the walls of infant Troy; and another army, and a second son of Tydeus rises from Aetolian Arpi against the Trojans. Truly I think my wounds are yet to come, and I thy child ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... by money at interest, is sure to sink at last by the weight of it, like a man thrown into the sea with a stone tied about his neck, who though he could swim if he was loose, drowns in spite of ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... and water and water. "Ah! You cannot see the other side of this water, monsieur? Wonderful, monsieur!"—He meditates it, smiling quietly; its wonder, how wonderful it is, no other side, and yet—the sea. In which fish swim. Wonderful. ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... material side of life he had limitations very unusual in an English gentleman. Except for walking, which might almost be called a main occupation with him, he neither practised nor cared for any form of athletic exercise, 'could neither swim nor row nor drive nor skate nor shoot,' nor ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... at a distance, and the more he whistles the more the commotion increases. Ten, twenty, and in half a second hundreds of immense fish come trooping up, and, undeterred by our presence, approach as near as they dare to the surface of the water where he stands; they swim backwards and forwards, and lash the water with their tails. What is the matter? Why! they come to be fed! and such is the ferocious impatience of this aquatic menagerie, that we long to assist in quelling it; and so we dip our hand into the man's basket of frogs, and drop a few right over ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... wed for worse or better, On the faith of Richards' letter. Scarcely was a quarter's payment Due when mourning was their raiment. Richards died. Alas! no cash would Find its way to Captain Dashwood. Dashwood's head began to swim— Not a shilling left to him! "Ha, I'll have it still," cried he; "Justice dwells in Chancery." So the case was straightway taken To the court of V.-C. Bacon. Vainly Dashwood cash expended The executors defended, Claiming that what Richards wrote Was not worth a five-pound note; ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams
... our good ship courts the gale, To swim once more the ocean, The lessening land wakes in my heart A sad but sweet emotion: For, though I love the broad blue sea, My heart's still true to thee, my love, My heart's still true ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... a ford and to cross the river. The colonel of the Polish Uhlans, a handsome old man, flushed and, fumbling in his speech from excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he would be permitted to swim the river with his Uhlans instead of seeking a ford. In evident fear of refusal, like a boy asking for permission to get on a horse, he begged to be allowed to swim across the river before the Emperor's eyes. The aide-de-camp replied that probably ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... very early, he walked across the Park, and had a swim in the Serpentine. The hours of the solid day he spent, for the most part, in study at the British Museum. Then, if he had no engagement, he generally got by train well out of town, and walked in sweet air until nightfall; or, if weather were bad, he ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... her, an inability to realize the evils of her situation, at the same time that she was perfectly aware of them all. This torpor of mind increased, till her eyelids began to grow heavy and the cave and trees to swim before her sight. In a few moments more she would probably have been in dreamless slumber; but, rousing herself by a strong effort, she looked round the narrow limits of the cave in search of objects to ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... but the shots went wide. I decided the river was the safest course, so I headed for that and dived in. I believe I was fortunate in attempting to swim under water; this I did as long as I could hold my breath. When I arose, I allowed myself to float close to the shore along with the current until I had moved far down the river. After that I lost all sight ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... fish in their shapes partake of the sedate character of the people who inhabit the coasts of the seas or rivers in which they swim at least I think so. The salmon, the trout, the cod, and all the other tribes of the finny people, are reputable in their shapes, and altogether respectable—looking creatures. But, within the tropics, Dame Nature plays strange ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... bounds. A multitude of carriages, three cannon, several thousand men and women, and some children, were abandoned on the hostile bank. They were seen wandering in desolate troops on the borders of the river. Some threw themselves into it in order to swim across; others ventured themselves on the pieces of ice which were floating along: some there were also who threw themselves headlong into the flames of the burning bridge, which sunk under them; ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... resumed Colbert, "between us two, you will have, I would wager, an inclination to lead your musketeers into Holland. Can you swim?" And he laughed like a man in a ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... been afraid of disobeying him. Sulpicius Severus relates of St. Martin, that he had an extraordinary control over all animals. Resting himself one day with his disciples, on the bank of a river, he saw a snake swimming over, and he ordered it in the name of the Lord to swim back again, upon which it was seen to return with as much speed as it had come. James, who wrote the life of St. Columban, given by the learned Father Mabillon, after Surius, states that the crows and the bears obeyed him, and that all the beasts of the field came at his ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... equator, or more properly the equatorial zone, or any part of it, lies between the warm or cold temperate forms, whether plants or animals, and their point of destination in the southern hemisphere, they can never migrate thither, any more than the right whale of the arctic seas can swim the equatorial oceans. Nothing is gained by going out of the way to climb mountains, except to hopelessly retard the return of both plants and animals to their native zones. If we have not demonstrated this fact to the reader's ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... her with a gesture of his hand. "I may be one of the first to leave. But I'll not rob any one else of his place in a boat or his space on one of those rafts. I'll swim for it." ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... Austin's horse gave a smothered neigh and disappeared. His master, freeing his feet from the stirrups, began to swim vigorously. ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... was pleasant, I would rouse myself with an effort, and running down to the fringe of rushes that bordered the full-brimmed river, plunge again headlong into the quiet brown water, and dabble and swim till I was once more weary! For innocent animal delight, I know of nothing to match those days—so warm, yet so pure-aired—so clean, so glad. I often think how God must love his little children to have invented for them such delights! For, ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... hours I spent in steady reading; and when I broke off in the middle of the day for a swim and luncheon, I was very much surprised, if not a little alarmed, to find that my dislike for the room had, if anything, grown stronger. Going upstairs to get a book, I experienced the most marked aversion to entering the ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... According to the Dayaks, it will wrest the spear from its attacker and use it on him. They also maintain, as stated elsewhere, that orang-utans, contrary to the generally accepted belief, are able to swim. Mr. B. Brouers, of Bandjermasin, has seen monkeys swim; the red, the gray, and the black are all capable of ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... Canadians and Indians. There was a ford three quarters of a league above the forts;[430] and here they passed over unopposed, the English not having discovered the movement.[431] The only danger was from the river. Some of the men were forced to swim, others waded to the waist, others to the neck; but they all crossed safely, and presently showed themselves at the edge of the woods, yelling and firing their guns, too far for much execution, but not too far ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... that the boat is sometimes overset. But those passengers who are under any apprehension are landed above-bridge, and taken in again, after the boat has passed, just in the same manner as at London Bridge. The boats that go up the river are drawn against the stream by oxen, which swim through one of the arches of this bridge, the driver sitting between the horns of the foremost beast. We set out from Lyons early on Monday morning, and as a robbery had been a few days before committed ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... or fifteen feet upstream, and six or seven feet out from the cliff, stood a huge round boulder. That alone broke the shadowy expanse of the river, which here rushed down with great velocity. Manifestly it was impossible to swim to this boulder. Bob, however, conceived a daring idea. At imminent risk and by dint of frantic scrambling he worked his way along the cliff until he had gained a point opposite the boulder and considerably above it. Then, without hesitation, he sprang as strongly ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... boulders, beautiful resting-places. Here the four girls—the "quartette" as they called themselves—would go and sit and listen to Ellen's stories of the world they had not seen. Or Emily, half-reclining on a slab of stone, would play like a young child with the tadpoles in the water, making them swim about, and she would fall to moralising on the strong and the weak, the brave and the cowardly, as she chased the creatures with her hand. Having rested, they would trudge home again a merry party, save when they met some wandering villager. Then the parson's three daughters ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side." He says he has perceived that to be with those he likes is enough: "To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,—I do not ask any more delight; I swim in it, as in a sea. There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well. All things please the soul, but these please the soul well." Emerson once asked Whitman what it was he found in the society of the common ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, These many summers on a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me; and now has left me, Weary, and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... Ships are my peculiar Care. With greater Ease the bold Rutulian may, With hissing Brands, attempt to burn the Sea, Than singe my sacred Pines. But you my Charge, Loos'd from your crooked Anchors launch at large, Exalted each a Nymph: Forsake the Sand, And swim the Seas, at Cybele's Command. No sooner had the Goddess ceas'd to speak, When lo, th' obedient Ships their Haulsers break; And, strange to tell, like Dolphins in the Main, They plunge their Prows, and dive, and spring again: As many beauteous Maids the Billows sweep, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... African, "Oona no git dem tale stret. I yed dem wey me lif; 'e soun' lak dis: One tam dem bittle bin git bery skace. Da rice crop mek nuttin'; da fish swim low; da bud fly high. Hard times bin come dey-dey. 'E so hard, dem creeturs do git honkry fer true. B'er Rabbit un B'er Wolf dey come pit bote 'e head tergerrer; dey is mek talk how honkry dey is 'way down ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... lot—of books, of art, of science, of politics, and theology—of the world the flesh, and the devil. They actually think for themselves; they have broken loose and jumped over the ring-fence; they have taken to the water, these lovely chicks, and swim like ducklings, to the dismay of those good old cocks and hens, their grandparents! And my love of them is tinged with awe, as was Leech's love of that mighty, beautiful, but most uncertain quadruped, the thoroughbred horse—for, like him, when they are good, they are very, very good, but when ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... in active military operations. It was no quirk, then, but solid reasoning, for the States to regard the subject in the same light. Holland and England were embarked in one boat, and were to sink or swim together. It was waste of time to wrangle so fiercely over pounds and shillings, but the fault was not to be exclusively imputed to the one side or the other. There were bitter recriminations, particularly on the part of Elizabeth, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... season in the still water, in company with the gulls, which do not fail to improve an east wind to visit our meadows, and swim about by twos and threes, pluming themselves, and diving to peck at the root of the lily, and the cranberries which the frost has not loosened. The first flock of geese is seen beating to north, in long harrows and waving lines; the gingle of the song-sparrow salutes us from the shrubs and ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... a curious thing about these little seal pups that though they are going to spend their lives in the water, they don't like the idea of it at all, and have to be forced into the water by their mothers, and taught to swim just as though they ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 26, May 6, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the newspapers: and though he hadn't time to dig a pit after the fashion of the baths in the doctor's garden, still there was plenty of mud along the lower foreshore to give him a nice soft roll; and a plenty of water for a swim, to wash himself clean: and lastly (as he reckoned, having no watch) a plenty of time to do this and be dressed again before the dear creature arrived. So Nandy, with a stomach full of virtue, turned his back on the quay and started to walk down ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... thy foster-father; he is eager to fold thee in his arms; his eyes swim with tears of joy. Hasten to ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... on the bayou yonder, and the boat should upset and float beyond your reach, or be swept away from you by the wind and waves, and you couldn't swim; but just as you are sinking, you find a plank floating near; you catch hold of it, you find it strong and large enough to bear your weight, and you throw yourself upon it and cling to it for life. ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley |
