"Swan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Nettie. Glad to see yeh-glad to see yeh! Mrs. Mcllvaine, come right in! Take a seat. Make yerself to home, do! And Mrs. Peavey! Wal, I never! This must be a surprise party. Well, I swan! How many more o' ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... HANSA, swan. The HANSA is represented in scriptural lore as the vehicle of Brahma, Supreme Spirit; as the symbol of discrimination, the white HANSA swan is thought of as able to separate the true SOMA nectar from a mixture of milk and water. HAM-SA (pronounced ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... bottle with me. Lady Lyndon was a haughty woman, and I hate pride; and I promise you that in both instances I overcame this vice in her. On the third day of our journey I had her to light my pipematch with her own hands, and made her deliver it to me with tears in her eyes; and at the 'Swan Inn' at Exeter I had so completely subdued her, that she asked me humbly whether I would not wish the landlady as well as the host to step up to dinner with us. To this I should have had no objection, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mutton from fold; Brawn from the oak-wood, and hare from the wold; Wild-goose from fen, and tame from the lea; And plumed dish from the heronry— With choicest apples 'twas featly rimmed, And stood next the flagons with malmsey brimmed,— Near the knightly swan, begirt with quinces, Which the gossips said was a dish for princes,— Though his place was never to stand before The garnished head of the ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... some caper sauce and some other things for luncheon, and how he called for a bottle of wine, and how he went to the theatre in the evening! In short, he did himself thoroughly well. Next, he saw in the street a young English lady, as graceful as a swan, and set off after her on his wooden leg. 'But no,' he thought to himself. 'To the devil with that sort of thing just now! I will wait until I have drawn my pension. For the present I have spent enough.' (And I may tell you that by now he had got through fully half his money.) Two ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... heart on floating supper nights to belong to that illustrious company and go gliding up and down the river like a swan instead of chugging around in the launch, sitting cramped up to make room for the supper supplies that covered the floor on the trip out, and baskets of used forks and spoons and cups on the trip back. It was not a brilliant company that went in the launch. Jacob, Dr. ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... sport last long? Pray, give us a good swift bird, for I am very tired. Is it a heron or a swan?" ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ancient forest the magnolias burn the perfect alban lucence of their lamps; white are their ivory cups like priestly linen, and fragrant with the tang of foreign citrons. An esoteric, mirrored swan slides by like Cleopatra's barge, while drums of color beaten by a maniac blend with old tints of Leonardo's dreams, colors that God might see if his own lightning blasted ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... account of the Life of Peter Burman,'[*] I believe chiefly taken from a foreign publication; as, indeed, he could not himself know much about Burman; 'Additions to his Life of Baretier;'[*] 'The Life of Sydenham,'[*] afterwards prefixed to Dr. Swan's edition of his works; 'Proposals for Printing Bibliotheca Harleiana, or a Catalogue of the Library of the Earl of Oxford[445].'[*] His account of that celebrated collection of books, in which he displays the importance to literature ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... have always found precedent for action in the words of the immortal Swan of Avon. What does Will say? ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... his noble, chivalrous people, whom lack of space has made me slight here, though I count them with my own. I should like to hear the epic of United Italy, of proud and freedom-loving Hungary, the swan-song of unhappy Poland, chanted to young America again and again, to help us all understand that we are kin in the things that really count, and help us pull together as we must if we are to make the most of our ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... precautions manifest in the Oriental luxury of the Roman dames? Give her the names of the slaves merely employed for the bath in Poppea's palace: the unctores, the fricatores, the alipilarili, the dropacistae, the paratiltriae, the picatrices, the tracatrices, the swan whiteners, and all the rest. —Talk to her about this multitude of slaves whose names are given by Mirabeau in his Erotika Biblion. If she tries to secure the services of all these people you will have the fine times of quietness, not to speak of the personal satisfaction which will redound ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... birds, such as the swan and the goose, whose legs are short, nevertheless have a very long neck, it is because these birds in swimming on the surface of the water have the habit of plunging their head down as far as they ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... stood in the bow, straight and strong and young, and as Judy watched in a half-dream, she remembered an opera she had seen once upon a time; where a knight in silver armor had come on the back of a silver swan to the lady he loved. She had hoped, mistily, that when she was old enough for such things, that Love might come to her like that—over the sea in silver armor, and sail away with her in a silver boat to the end of ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... my forehead, and tell me how you would love my wife? We used to talk of her, and describe her. She was to be tall; her eyes were to be dark, and their long fringing lashes were to sweep her cheek; her throat was to be white and graceful as a swan's; genius was to give light to her eyes, and eloquence to her words; and you, sister, you, on my marriage-day, were to have placed the blossoms of orange flower in the dark hair of my bride. You remember it, don't you? Well, my bride is fair, very fair; but not like the bride we had imagined—or ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... only three," she answered, and taking a piece of swan's-down, a lock of golden hair, and a pair of silver-tinsel tights from her portmanteau she handed them over ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... to the ground, as it she were sinking under the conscious load of her own attractions; then launches into a flood of fine language and compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon waving water; and, to complete her impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit, that she will not give her lover leave to praise it. Silent assenting bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is admitted to, which, at last, he is removed ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... dark silk cushions of the divan like a swan upon the opalline waters of the lake at sunset. One arm, white and firm as Carrara marble, supported her graceful head, while in her right hand she ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... and swiftly flowing rivers, dense growths of tropical vegetation full of snakes, his only food being the flesh of monkeys. Such was the man who now took part in a privateering cruise under Captain Swan, bound ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... the usual glass prisms and globes, revolved slowly or swayed from side to side. Huge oil paintings with shaded top and foot-lights occupied all vacant spaces in the walls. They were "valued" at from ten to thirty thousand dollars apiece, and that fact was advertised. "Leda and the Swan," "The Birth of Venus," "The Rape of the Sabines," "Cupid and Psyche" were some of the classic themes treated as having taken place in a warm climate. "Susannah and the Elders" and "Salome Dancing" gave the Biblical ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... have seen a swan Swim where a glory on the water shone: There ends of willow branches ride, Quivering in the flowing tide, By ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... "why should I sit there? I am like to thee, am I not?" "Yea," said the Lady, "as the swan is like to the loon." "Yea, my Lady," said Agatha, "which is the swan and which the loon? Well, well, fear not; I shall set Joyce in thy seat by my Lord's leave; she is tall and fair, and forsooth somewhat like to thee." ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... other, distort or prevent grace. Nature, that furnishes samples of all qualities, and on the scale of gradation exhibits all possible shades, affords us types that are more apposite than words. The eagle is sublime, the lion majestic, the swan graceful, the monkey pert, the bear ridiculously awkward. I mention these as more expressive and comprehensive than I could make definitions of my meaning; but I will apply the swan only, under whose wings I will shelter an apology for Racine, whose pieces give me an idea of that ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... appearance of these strange birds. They seemed to be of different species, for some had crests on their heads while others had none, and while some were about the size of a goose, others appeared nearly as large as a swan. We also saw a huge albatross soaring above the heads of the penguins. It was followed and surrounded by numerous flocks of sea-gulls. Having approached to within a few yards of the island, which was a low rock, with no other vegetation on it than a few bushes, we lay on our ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... tears in sooth! And yet not wholly so. Exquisite echoes of his own swan-song Forbid mere murmuring mournfulness; the glow Of its great hope illumes us. Sleep, thou strong Full tide, as over the unmeaning bar Fares this unfaltering darer of the deep, Beaconed by a Great Light, the pilot-star Of valiant souls, who keep Through ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... becomes a song, All is right and nothing's wrong! From to-day and ever after Let your tears be tears of laughter - Every sigh that finds a vent Be a sigh of sweet content! When you marry merry maiden, Then the air with love is laden; Every flower is a rose, Every goose becomes a swan, Every kind of trouble goes Where the last year's snows have gone; Sunlight takes the place of shade When you ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Edels, and Endracht Islands were next to be visited, Swan River to be followed as far as possible, and a survey taken of Rottnest Island and the coast near it. From thence the expedition was to proceed to Shark Bay, to determine various points in De Witt Land, and, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie, Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles far and near, Where the humming-bird shimmers, where the neck of the long-lived swan is curving and winding, Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs her near-human laugh, Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden half hid by the high weeds, Where band-neck'd partridges ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... Cunyghame; Edward Austin Abbey; Charles Vernon Boys; Thomas Brock; George Donaldson; Clement Le Neve Foster; John Clarke Hawkshaw; Thomas Graham Jackson; William Henry Maw; Francis Grant Ogilvie; William Quiller Orchardson; Boverton Redwood; Alfred Gordon Salamon; Joseph Wilson Swan; Jethro Justinian Harris; Teall, and ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... Pearmain, golden pippin, golden rennet, royal russet. Black and white bullace, damsons, late figs, almonds, filberts, hazel nuts, walnuts, filberts. Grapes, medlars. Peaches: Old Newington, October. Pears: Bergamot, beurre, Chaumontel, Bon Chretien, swan's-egg. Quinces, services, walnuts. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... with her. There was no help for it. Bivens would allow no one except the doctor in his room, and so he resigned himself to the beauty of the glorious scene. Not a sound broke the stillness save the soft ripple of the water about the bow of the swan-like yacht. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... our company was thus dissolved the mayor was knocked down at the foot of Swan Hill by the Town Wall, gagged and trussed, and laid upon his own doorstep, where he was found by the maidservant in the morning, having wrought himself to the verge of apoplexy by his struggles to ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... young Swan lived by a beautiful lake. All day long he used to sail gracefully over the water, curving his neck to look at his own image, or pluming his white wings; and when he was tired, he would go to his nest in ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... in other exercises,[118] but 'tis over now; our brow is crowned with hair whiter than the swan. We must, however, rekindle a youthful ardour in these remnants of what was, and for myself, I prefer my old age to the curly hair and the finery of all ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... not quite resigned; surely Florence might at least spend the summer in the country. At this, indeed, among her intimates, Mrs. Nightingale almost wept. 'We are ducks,' she said with tears in her eyes, 'who have hatched a wild swan.' But the poor lady was wrong; it was not a swan that they had hatched, it was ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... shield-shaped back, the carved drapery, and the coat-of-arms with the company's motto, are all characteristic features, as are also the Corinthian columns and arched pediments, in the oak decoration of the room. The broken swan-necked pediment, which surmounts the cornice of the room over the chair, is probably a more recent addition, this ornament having come ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... denials. "Him gold. Me savey gold all right. Me live longa California long time," he said, bringing forward a most convincing argument; and, dismissing the subject with one of his Podsnapian waves, he decided that a silver-coloured composition flower-bowl in the form of a swan was solid silver; "Him sing out all a same silver," he said, making it ring with a flick of his finger and thumb, when I differed from him, and knowing Cheon by now, we left it at ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... complains of her bringing him to "death and derision," of her being in a royal rage with her poet. At last he cries out for Pity to become incarnate and vest his lady in her own robe. It may be that he loved his misery; he is always on the point of dying, but, like the swan, he was careful to set it to music first. Selvaggia, in fact, laughed at him (he turned once to call her a Jew for that) egged on as she was by her brother and her own vivacious habit. She had no Nicoletta at Pitecchio, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... snow-houses in the front yard, to their infinite delight;" "After dinner had all the children romping in the haymow;" "Coasted with my boys (Charles and Ernest) for two hours on the bright hill-side behind the Catholic Church;" "After tea, read to the boys the Indian story of The Red Swan." Frequently he accompanied on pleasure excursions his three daughters, the young girls described for us in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... for the best dressmaker they could find. The oldest sister chose a pink silk gown. "I shall wear my red satin cloak trimmed with swan's-down," ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... about them in the middle, it was as white as snow; black-grey eyes in their centre. Cloaks of linen as white as the tunic of a swan around these ties.[FN4] Harps of gold and silver and bronze, with figures of serpents and birds, and hounds of gold and silver: as they moved those strings those figures used to run about the men ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... veil over it, and my heart sank with apprehension as I first caught sight of her. Never, except in death, and already with the coffin enclosing it, have I seen a face so pallid. She walked steadily—she was a woman who always walked well, as a swan swims well, by nature—and the graceful figure passed ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... of gooseberries, because I at the same time ate mackerel with gooseberries as the sauce. The first syllable of the latter word, being that which had coexisted with the image of the bird so called, I may then think of a goose. In the next moment the image of a swan may arise before me, though I had never seen the two birds together. In the first two instances, I am conscious that their co-existence in time was the circumstance, that enabled me to recollect them; and equally conscious am ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... young lord to go to this assembly in the disguise of a mask, that he might see his Rosaline, and seeing her, compare her with some choice beauties of Verona, who (he said) would make him think his swan a crow. Romeo had small faith in Benvolio's words; nevertheless, for the love of Rosaline, he was persuaded to go. For Romeo was a sincere and passionate lover, and one that lost his sleep for love, and fled society to be ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... us a pleasant incident to this purpose: a waterman, belonging to a man of quality, having a squabble with a citizen about his fare, showed his badge, the crest of his master, which happened to be a swan; and thence insisted on better treatment from the citizen. But the other replied carelessly, that he did not trouble his head about that goose. For this offence, he was summoned before the marshal's court; was fined, as having opprobriously ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... heart with Passion soft to glow: Within your soul a voice there lives! It bids you hear the tale of Woe. When sinking low the sufferer wan Beholds no hand outstretch'd to save, 10 Fair, as the bosom of the Swan That rises graceful o'er the wave, I've seen your breast with pity heave, And therefore love I you, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... trail below was in a very dangerous state. They had repeatedly detected Indians prowling at night around their camps; and the large party which had left Bent's Fort a few weeks previous to our own departure had been attacked, and a man named Swan, from Massachusetts, had been killed. His companions had buried the body; but when Magoffin found his grave, which was near a place called the Caches, the Indians had dug up and scalped him, and the wolves had shockingly mangled his remains. As an ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... "Is he not a jewel—an alaja?" And in truth the horse was a noble and gallant creature, in height at least sixteen hands, broad-chested, but of clean and elegant limbs. His neck was superbly arched, and his head towered on high like that of a swan. In colour he was a bright chestnut, save his flowing mane and tail, which were almost black. I expressed my admiration, whereupon the herrador, in high spirits, pressed his heels to the creature's sides, and flinging the bridle on its neck, speeded over the plain with prodigious swiftness, shouting ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... uncontrollable laughter that you will perhaps not recognize at once how every line reveals character, how every situation springs from the foibles of human nature. Indeed in this one-act farce Feydeau, with about as much trouble as Zeus took in transforming his godship into the semblance of a swan, has given you a well-rounded picture of middle-class life in France with its external and internal implications.... And how he understands the buoyant French grue, unselfconscious and undismayed in any situation. ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... cranes, waded majestic; the brilliant porphyry water hen, with scarlet bill and legs, flashed like a sapphire among the emerald green water-sedge. A shallow lake, dotted with wild ducks; here and there a group of wild swan, black with red bills, floating calmly on its bosom. A long stretch of grass as smooth as a bowling-green. A sudden rocky rise, clothed with native cypress (Exocarpus—Oh my botanical readers!), honeysuckle (Banksia), she-oak (Casuarina), and here ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... irrevocable. No perfect or refined form can be expressed except in opaque and lustreless matter. You cannot see the form of a jewel, nor, in any perfection, even of a cameo or bronze. You cannot perfectly see the form of a humming-bird, on account of its burnishing; but you can see the form of a swan perfectly. No noble work in form can ever, therefore, be produced in transparent or lustrous glass or enamel. All noble architecture depends for its majesty on its form: therefore you can never have any noble architecture in transparent ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... that she had been arrested (you see, the red stitches on her handkerchief, which everyone had supposed were laundry marks, turned out to be plans of Hampton Court Maze and the most direct route to Swan and Selfinsons), and, seizing the rifle, he rushed from the house (it was the night the Russians passed through Aberdeen and ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... danced for joy. Margaret found her red merino coat. The collar was trimmed with swan's down, and her red silk hood had an edge of the same. True, some ultra-fashionables had come out in spring attire, but it was rather cool so early in the season. Hanny looked very pretty in her ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Hector, Troilus, Pandarus, and Thersites, skilless Shakspeare had but begun—artful Dryden made an end of them; Cressida, who was false as she was fair, yet left alive to deceive more men, became a paragon of truth, chastity, and suicide; and by an amazing stretch of invention, far beyond the Swan's, was added Andromache. Dryden proudly announces that "the scenes of Pandarus and Cressida, of Troilus and Pandarus, of Andromache with Hector and the Trojans, in the second act, are wholly new; together with that of Nestor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... it, Sir, To-day To a Redbreast Phoebe To the Stork The Storks of Delft The Pheasant The Herons of Elmwood Walter von der Vogelweid The Legend of the Cross-Bill Pretty Birds The Little Bird sits The Living Swan The Stormy Petrel To the Cuckoo Birds at Dawn Evening Songs Little Brown Bird Life's Sign A Bird's Ministry Of Birds Birds in Spring The Canary in his Cage Who stole the Bird's-Nest Who stole the Eggs What the Birds say The Wren's Nest On Another's Sorrow The Shepherd's Home The Wood-Pigeon's ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... behind the enemy's lines with very imperfect results. Its great value as an aid to observation in trench warfare was, however, very apparent, fresh brains were brought to the task, Moore-Brabazon, Campbell and Dr. Swan, and by the end of the year better success was obtained, though positions even then had to be filled in by the observer with red ink. Experiments at home during 1915 led to a great improvement in lenses, and at the beginning of 1916 air photography was universal. At the Battle ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... shape me in your arms, Janet, A dove, bat, and a swan: Cast your green mantle over me, ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... assemblage of fashionable and distinguished personages assembled by invitation at Stafford House to hear and decide upon the merits of a phenomenon in the musical world,—Miss Elizabeth Greenfield, better known in America as the 'Black Swan;' under which sobriquet she is also about to be presented to the British public. This lady is said to possess a voice embracing the extraordinary compass of nearly three octaves; and her performances on this occasion elicited ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... see and feel, the swan and the dove both transcendantly beautiful. As absurd as it would be to institute a comparison between their separate claims to beauty from any abstract rule common to both, without reference to the life and being of the animals ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... saw, or dreamed I saw, her sitting lone, Her neck bent like a swan's, her brown eyes thrown On some sweet poem—his, I think, who sings Oenone, or the hapless Maud: no rings Flashed from the dainty fingers, which held back Her beautiful blonde hair. Ah! would these black Locks of mine own were mingling with it now, And these warm lips were pressed against ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... and placed in position; and, generally, the ship made to look as much like a man-of-war as possible, though she as much resembled the old-fashioned sailing sloop which then still performed duty on our more distant stations as a swan does a goose, her sailing powers far exceeding those of the fastest of them, whilst Williams' metamorphosis of her only had the effect of imparting to her an extremely ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... good spirit which dwelt in a cave in the rocks on which Fort Armstrong now stands. This spirit had often been seen by the Indians, but after the erection of the Fort, alarmed by the noise and intrusion of the white man, it spread its beautiful, swan-like wings, and disappeared. During the year 1817, the Sacs sent out some warriors against the Sioux, and succeeded in killing several of them, but Black Hawk was not of the party. About this time, his eldest son sickened and died, and within a short period afterwards, he lost ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... made the best imitation it could of an offended swan's action. She was very angry. She said she did not like so many ladies, which natural objection Richard met by saying that there was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... swan I'm sorry." He cleared his throat. "Well," he continued in his judicial manner, "the court has got to appoint an agent to repair that road, the agent will present the bill, and the town will have to pay the bill—whatever it is. It's too bad, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... god who shakes the sounding thunder, Asteria as a furtive eagle saw; Mnemosyne as shepherd; Danae gold; Alcmene as a fish; Antiope a goat; Cadmus and his sister a white bull; Leda as swan, and Dolida as dragon; And through the lofty object I become, From subject viler still, a god. A horse was Saturn; And in a calf and dolphin Neptune dwelt; Ibis and shepherd Mercury became; Bacchus a grape; Apollo was a crow; And I by help of love, From an ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... you, that our stolen embraces at home had become too unsatisfactory, and the Count had arranged for a private house to be at our disposal. Of an afternoon I drove out shopping, called at Swan and Edgar's in Regent Street, leaving the carriage at the door, walked upstairs, made some trifling purchase, paid for and left it until I should call in an hour; then descending by another staircase, left by the Piccadilly entrance, ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... and down my break fast-room in the next assize town, in a state of great excitement, when a chaise-and-four drove rapidly up to the hotel, and out tumbled Johnson the constable. His tale was soon told. On the previous evening, the landlady of the Black Swan, a roadside public-house about four miles distant from the scene of the murder, reading the name of Pearce in the report of the trial in the Sunday county paper, sent for Johnston to state that that person had on the fatal evening ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... license,' 'and sang her own songs as a means of subsistence'; by Mrs. Thrale, Dr. Johnson's friend; by Mrs. Hunter, the wife of the great anatomist; by the worthy Mrs. Barbauld; and by the excellent Mrs. Hannah More. Here is Miss Anna Seward, 'called by her admirers "the Swan of Lichfield,"' who was so angry with Dr. Darwin for plagiarising some of her verses; Lady Anne Barnard, whose Auld Robin Gray was described by Sir Walter Scott as 'worth all the dialogues Corydon and Phyllis have together spoken from the days of Theocritus downwards'; Jean Glover, a Scottish ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... Mr. James Drummond in a letter from Swan River, in which two species of Agaric are concerned. They grew on the stumps of trees, and had nothing remarkable in their appearance by day, but by night emitted a most curious light, such as the writer never saw described in any book. One ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... learning like to that of the god Thoth, with wit like a razor's edge, with teeth like pearls, with majesty of bearing like to that of the king himself, with fingers like rosebuds set in pink seashells, with motion like that of an antelope, with grace like that of a swan floating upon water, and—I don't remember ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Had Monsieur not heard of the yellow fever? Madame Gravois even had prepared some concoction which she poured out of a bottle, and which I took with the docility of a child. Monsieur Vigo had called, and there was a note. A note? It was a small note. I glanced stupidly at the seal, recognized the swan of the St. Gre ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Pique-Vinaigre left it was a man of about thirty years of age, with red hair, and a jovial, fat, and rubicund face; his middling stature rendered still more remarkable by his enormous corpulency. This prisoner, so rosy and stout, was wrapped up in a long, warm coat of gray swan's-down, with gaiter trousers of the same material. A kind of hooded cap of red velvet completed the costume of this personage, who wore excellent furred slippers. Although the fashion of wearing trinkets was over, the golden watch-chain sustained a goodly number ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... you from any very melancholy trials!" replied he: "hitherto your young life has glided along as peacefully as a swan over a ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... Angela. For one moment the fierce light shone upon the stately form that gleamed whiter than ivory—white as snow against the dense background of the brushwood, and, as it passed, they heard her sink into the water softly as a swan, and strike out with steady strokes towards the ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... satin curtains, for some reason, were still looped back, and she could see the trim little maid arranging her long dark hair; she wore a silver-white dressing-robe, bordered around with soft white swan's-down and her dainty white satin-slippered feet rested on a crimson ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... wistful gaze in that direction, knowing that although the lieutenant was not at home, his telescope would be pointed seaward, and that even then Mary might be looking at the graceful ship which floated like a swan over the calm water. The Lizard was the last point of land seen, and the "Ione" stood out into the ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... about Irish questions were those of a colonist and a member of the dominant caste. He troubled himself as little about the welfare of the remains of the old Celtic population, as an English farmer on the Swan River troubles himself about the New Hollanders, or a Dutch boor at the Cape about the Caffres. The years which he passed in Ireland, while the Cromwellian system was in full operation, he always described as "years of great satisfaction." Farming, gardening, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was Harold mightily rejoiced, and he believed it to be truth that great good was in store for him; for he had seen pleasant things in the candle a many nights, and the smoke from his fire blew cheerily and lightly to the westward, and a swan had circled over his house that day week, and in his net each day for twice seven days had he drawn from the sea a fish having one golden eye and one silver eye: which things, as all men know, portend full goodly things, or else they portend nothing at all whatsoever. So, being ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... report of a gun in response to Harris's flag signal. Bills were paid at once, and the Harrises took carriage down to the landing. As the "Hallena" glided in between the piers, she was as graceful as a swan, or as Leo expressed it, "as pretty ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... is perfectly at home on the piano, where her executions have attained international celebrity." ... "She possesses a mine of repartee and the qualities which have long rendered illustive her noble family." ... "Her carriage and disposition are swan-like." ... "Her eyes can express pathetic pathos, but flash forth fiery independence when her country's name is traduced." ... "She has a molded arm, and her Juno-like form glides with a rhythmic move in the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... a story," continued the Indian, "and it is true. It did not come into my head. I did not dream it. There was a man-of-the-woods, and he had a squaw and one child, a girl. The parents were very fond of this girl. She was graceful like the swan. Her eyes were large, brown, and beautiful like the eyes of a young deer. She was active and playful like the young rabbit. When she was at home the wigwam was full of light. When she was absent it was dark. The girl ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... nights, during the first half of this month, my dears, the star called Mira, in the constellation Cygnus (or "The Swan"), can be seen in full luster. This is what the owl tells me; and he adds that it is one of those strange stars which vary in brightness. It shines for about a fortnight very brightly indeed; then by degrees it fades away, until, at the end of three months, it cannot be seen. After ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Bunny Boy Scouts of Old Snake Fence Corner," replied the little rabbit. "I can't join your regiment." So he hopped along and by and by he came to a big white swan that was sailing up and ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... warriors perfume themselves as delicately as ladies; and even the food is scented, that the mouth may exhale fragrance. The galleries and halls of the houses are painted full of the loves of Mars and Venus, Leda and the Swan, Jove and Danae, while the devout solace themselves with such sacred subjects as Susannah and the Elders. The flower of chastity seems withered in Mantua. No longer in Lydia nor in Cyprus, but in Mantua, is fixed the realm of pleasure." The Mantuans were a different people in the ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... button your coats about three meals a day and think you have belted in the universe! Go listen to the sea lapping rock and bone to her oblivious mill, and know your hearts shall sleep as sand within her shells! By the dead worlds that drift in yonder void, and long have sung the swan-song of their deities, this too shall pass, and ere it passes flesh shall learn its impotence! Grey stalkers from the past shall clutch the throat of days! All wrongs shall rise and gather their revenge! ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... profession. When you think of the way those poor wretches shove on their rouge—a little silk bag turned inside out with eider-down on it and rouge powder on that, then the whole thing jammed on to the face before a mirror in one of Swan & Edgar's shop windows; any night you can see 'em doing it—and then look at a society woman done up, with a maid in attendance and a mirror lighted up, as if it were an actor's dressing-table—my heavens, you're liable to make ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... white as swan or snow, And have the power to move A world of men to love, Yet when your lawns and silks shall flow, And that white cloud divide Into a doubtful twilight, then, Then will your hidden pride Raise greater fires ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... a small, white, swan-shaped carriage, ornamented with golden designs, and propelled by a galvanic battery in the graceful swan-head, which at my request took the place of the ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... remarkable birds are the eagle, the turkey-buzzard, the hawk, pelican, heron, gull, cormorant, crane, swan, and a great variety of wild ducks and geese. The pigeon, woodcock, and pheasant, are found in the forests ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... is said and done, shall we answer the question as to which is the better lot: heavenly love, soaring on white swan's wings far above all that is common dust, as Ann was wont to sing of it, or earthly joys, bold and free, which we can know only with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of Storm King the evening boat, the "Mary Powell," swept toward them with scarcely more apparent effort than that of a swan. A few moments later their skiff was dancing over the swells, Amy waving her handkerchief, and the good-natured pilot awakening a hundred echoes by ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... travelled by diligence. Sanin had taken a place in the 'bei-wagon'; but the diligence did not start till eleven o'clock in the evening. There was a great deal of time to be got through before then. Fortunately it was lovely weather, and Sanin after dining at a hotel, famous in those days, the White Swan, set off to stroll about the town. He went in to look at Danneker's Ariadne, which he did not much care for, visited the house of Goethe, of whose works he had, however, only read Werter, and that in the French translation. He walked along the ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... De Montalivet, whom he had summoned in the morning by a mounted messenger; and about half-past seven the Empress reappeared, dressed in perfect taste. In spite of the cold, she had had her hair dressed with silver wheat and blue flowers, and wore a white satin polonaise, edged with swan's down, which costume was exceedingly becoming. The Emperor interrupted his work to regard her: "I did not take long at my toilet, did I?" said she, smiling; whereupon his Majesty, without replying, showed her the clock, then rose, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... aggrieved. In the faces of the mill-hands who were gathered about him, he found no solution of the mystery. They looked as astonished as himself, and almost equally hot and ashamed. Presently he ejaculated, "Well, I swan!" Then one of the men who had taken out the "bateau" and picked him up, ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Wenus!" says John Swan, and pulls out that fair Amazon, battered almost past recognition, but a ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... Bases economiques de la constitution sociale, 2nd edition, Paris, 1894. (This work is available in English under the title: "The Economic Foundations of Society." Swan Sonnenschein, London.—Tr.) ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... and the White Swan, usually full at this hour, was almost deserted, but if any doubts as to the identity of the prisoner lingered in his mind they were speedily dissipated by the behaviour of the few customers who crowded to the door to ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... forget to blush at the Venus and Cupid by Titian, at Leda and her Swan, at Jupiter and Io, and others of equally evil intent, ought never to pretend to blush at any thing. Such pictures are a disgrace to the artists that painted, to the age that tolerates, and to the gallery that contains them. They are fit for a bagnio rather ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... were made, and Swan River was entered and ascended. During these expeditions the author of the Journaal mentions that the song of the 'Nachtegael' was heard. There are no nightingales in Australia, but the bird to which the writer of the Journaal alludes ...
— Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects • James R. McClymont
... he sacrificed all to his principles. Yet there can be no question that his ideals will hold good 'till the swan turns black and the crow turns white, till the hills rise up and travel and the deeps rush into the rivers.' That's how Weigall ends up the life he has written of the great reformer. How can you say ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Jason, attended by his promising young lieutenants, Castor and Pollux, embarked on that hardy adventure to Colchis, the brave planks of the good ship Argos he trod, its model a swan to behold. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... them many other characteristic fopperies. At Florence every brother of the "Umidi" assumed the name of something aquatic, or any quality pertaining to humidity. One was called "the Frozen," another "the Damp;" one was "the Pike," another "the Swan:" and Grazzini, the celebrated novelist, is known better by the cognomen of La Lasca, "the Roach," by which he whimsically designates himself among the "Humids." I find among the Insensati, one man of learning taking ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Edinborough to London, or from London to Edinborough, or any place on that road, let them repair to Mr. John Baillie's, at the Coach and Horses, at the head of Cannongate, Edinborough, every other Saturday; or to the Black Swan, in Holborn, every other Monday; at both of which places they may be received in a stage coach, which performs the whole journey in thirteen days, without any stoppage (if God permit), having eighty able ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was his inventive genius which led to his paying a long visit to Lichfield to see Dr. Darwin. There he lingered long in pleasant intimacy with the doctor and his wife, with Mr. Wedgwood, Miss Anna Seward—"the Swan of Lichfield"—and still more, with the eccentric Thomas Day, author of Sandford and Merton, who became his most intimate friend, and who wished to marry his favourite sister Margaret, though she could not make up her mind to accept him, and eventually became the wife of Mr. Ruxton ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... tranquillity, but with the clash and clangour of an irresistible energy set free. Even in the Crucifixion, one leg has been wrenched away from the nail which pierced its foot, and writhes round the knee of the other still left riven to the cross. The loves of Leda and the Swan, of Ixion and Juno, are spasms of voluptuous pain; the sleep of the Night is troubled with fantastic dreams, and the Dawn starts into consciousness with a shudder of prophetic anguish. There is not a hand, a torso, a simple nude, sketched by this extraordinary master, which does not vibrate ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... con molto espressione. It is a wonderful elegy, a yearning without hope, a swan-song of desire, sadder almost than the frank despair of the Finale of the Pathetique symphony,—pulsing with passion, gorgeous with a hectic glow of expressive beauty, moving too with a noble grace. Though there is a foil of lighter humor, ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... the wild-grape glistens On sunny knoll and tree, The slim papaya ripens Its yellow fruit for thee. For thee the duck, on glassy stream, The prairie-fowl shall die; My rifle for thy feast shall bring The wild-swan from the sky. The forest's leaping panther, Fierce, beautiful, and fleet, Shall yield his spotted hide to be ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... crystalline day began to be softly shadowed by twilight. Behind them lay the town, its roofs and spires robed in swan's-down, while on all sides the fallen logs and deep underbrush, the level stubbles and broad irregular hollows, and all the vast sweep of dark evergreen forest, melting away in immeasurable distance, was a dazzling ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... along in the serene way that I remembered to have always thought like a swan in no hurry, and in her hands was a wet box from which rose ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to us, vanilla is a capsular fruit, of the thickness of a swan's quill; straight, cylindrical, but somewhat flattened, truncated at the top, thinned off at the ends, glistening, wrinkled, furrowed lengthwise, flexible, from five to ten inches long, and of a reddish brown color. It contains a pulpy parenchyma, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... and forward, don't you see, to relieve the poor donkey. You, my Giulio, would call a swan fat if the neck were not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... exercise and enjoy all the rights, profits, privileges, and advantages of his appointment of Pen Cutter and Quill Dresser to His Majesty King George IV. In the same circular it is stated that the quill pens supplied were of varying qualities, secured from the swan, raven, goose, turkey, crow, ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... speaks of a sword piercing the bowels of a queen:—none blames him for bad English or breach of modesty. Or, to take still another example, look at Guercino's painting of Cato's death, in the Palazzo Rossa in Genoa. Whoever has read the swan-song which Addison makes Cato sing, will not jeer at the sword half-buried in his abdomen. In our minds this mode of death is associated with instances of noblest deeds and of most touching pathos, so that nothing repugnant, ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... that no one had ever fallen in love with her, 'I could not expect them to do so,' she remarked candidly. 'As a girl I was plain featured, and so shy and awkward that your Uncle Joe used to tell me that I was the only ugly duckling that would never turn into a swan.'" ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Swan's Hotel was one of those nondescript buildings of wood which are not worth more than a three-line paragraph even when they burn down. It was smelly. The kitchen joined the dining-room, and the dining-room the office, which was half a bar-room, ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... was expanding so much in regard to time that you would have been going ahead in regard to the possibility of mountain-chains being created in a fraction of the period required to convert a swan into a goose, or vice versa. Nine feet did the Rimutaka chain of New Zealand gain in height in January, 1855, and a great earthquake has occurred in New Zealand every seven years for half a century nearly. The "Washingtonia" (Californian conifer) ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... indifference and daring, gentleness, hardness and pride, all wonderfully amalgamated under a perfectly self-possessed manner, and pervaded by the most undeniable charm. It was no wonder that the poor Baroness was as puzzled as a hen that has hatched a swan. ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... man thought himself at liberty to corrupt the lines which he did not understand. If we imagine that Varius had been by any of his contemporaries celebrated under the appellation of Musarum ales, "the swan of the Muses," the language of Horace becomes graceful and familiar; and that such a compliment was at least possible, we know from the transformation ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... Readers had a short and inconspicuous life. When this suit was brought, their publishers were Richardson, Lord and Holbrook of Boston. In 1836 Charles J. Hendee published them, and in 1854 they appeared with the name of Jenks, Hickling & Swan of Boston. These several publishers were probably gobbled up by some imaginary ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... but less perfect, "coal-sack'' in the northern hemisphere, in the constellation of "The Swan,'' which, strange to say, also contains a well-marked figure of a cross outlined by stars. This gap lies near the top of the cross-shaped figure. It is best seen by averted vision, which brings out the contrast with the Milky Way, which is quite brilliant around it. It does ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... parts, then the baffled gods were to acknowledge him their superior. Bruma and Vixnu having agreed to this proposal, Rutrem vanished, and hid his head and feet in places a great distance from each other, where he imagined they could not be found. Bruma, in the likeness of a swan, commenced to search for the head, but, finding he could not obtain any trace of it, he resolved to return home. Just, however, as he was going to give up the search, he met the thistle flower, which ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... which, for aught any one knows to the contrary, may be a growth of comparatively modern times, we call to mind the Horatian poetaster, who began his account of the Trojan war with the fable of Leda and the swan. ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... themselves; but a third class ought to be added—the "mot de caractere." The "mot d'auteur" is the distinguishing mark of the Congreve-Sheridan convention. It survives in full vigour—or, shall one say, it sings its swan-song?—in the works of Oscar Wilde. For instance, the scene of the five men in the third act of Lady Windermere's Fan is a veritable running-fire of epigrams wholly unconnected with the situation, and very slightly related, if at all, to the characters of the ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... praise. He would have been the first to praise Rickman, provided that he was the first. Not that Jewdwine ever committed himself. As a critic his surest resource had always lain in understatement. If the swan was a goose, Jewdwine had as good as said so. If the goose proved a swan, Jewdwine had implied as much by his magnificent reserve. But this time the middle course was imposed on him less by conviction than necessity. He had to hold ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... owns that castle, one Giffroun," she said. "He that will fight with him, be it day or night, is bowed down and laid low. For love of his lady, who is wondrous fair, he has proclaimed that he will bestow a gerfalcon, white as a swan, on him who brings a fairer lady. But if she be not so bright and fair as his lady, he must fight this knight Giffroun, who is a mighty warrior. Giffroun slays him, and sets his head on a spear, that it may be seen ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... vain. The mossy fountains Murmur my trouble, And hollow mountains My groans redouble: Every nymph mourns me, Thus while I languish; She only scorns me, Who caused my anguish. No love returning me, but all hope denying; By a dismal cypress lying, Like a swan, so sung he dying,— Kind is death, that ends my pain, But cruel ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... the vast nut forests, the capercailzie was proud upon the moors, where the heath-cock was as jaunty, and the willow grouse and partridge were wise in covert to avoid the hungry snowy owl. Upon the river and lagoons and creeks the swan and wild goose and countless duck made constant clamor, and there were water-rail and snipe along the shallows. There were eggs to be found, and an egg baked in the ashes was a thing most excellent. It was with the waterfowl ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... to thwart the progress of the series, the structure may be made very suggestive of that conflict of forces which we feel to be ever present in actual life. This structure is exhibited, for example, in Hawthorne's little tale of "David Swan." The point of the story is that nothing happens to David; the interest of the story lies in the events that almost happen to him. The young man falls asleep at noon-time under the shade of a clump of maples which cluster around a spring beside the ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing save the waves and I May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine— Dash down yon ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... of a hurry. When an inspiration comes to them, what do they do? Instead of taking it out for a long, cool walk, they sit down at once to work it up, but let it work them up instead into an absolutely uncritical enthusiasm in which every splutter of the goose-quill looks to them like part of a swan-song. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... the number of the primary wing and tail- feathers in wild birds is generally constant, and characterises, not only whole genera, but even whole families. When the tail-feathers are unusually numerous, as for instance in the swan, they are apt to be variable in number; but this does not apply to the several species and genera of the Columbidae, which never (as far as I can hear) have less than twelve or more than sixteen tail-feathers; and these numbers ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... steamers could take up the European, the Indian, and the Chinese mails, and proceed on to Sydney, New South Wales, by Swan River and Hobart ...
— A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam, Between Great Britain and the Eastern and Western Parts of the World • James MacQueen
... down to the water. What did he see? He saw himself in the water. But he was not an ugly duck. He was a white swan. ...
— A Primary Reader - Old-time Stories, Fairy Tales and Myths Retold by Children • E. Louise Smythe
... must be this way," Jenkins suggested. "There was a dozen of us usin' the same bit of lookin' glass, an' I swan I must ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... Disappointed at not finding them, they avenged themselves by climbing on the mangroves and making a dreadful slaughter of the young alcatras, grouped in pairs in their nests. This name is given, in Spanish America, to the brown swan-tailed pelican of Buffon. With the want of foresight peculiar to the great pelagic birds, the alcatra builds his nest where several branches of trees unite together. We counted four or five nests on the same trunk of a mangrove. The young birds defended themselves valiantly with their enormous ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... useful with the ridiculously ornamental. Here were the beautiful banks of a lake and Nature's embellishment of reeds and water plants, which, for a wonder, were left to grow in their native luxuriance, and in the midst a huge pasteboard or wooden swan, and a wooden mermaid of tasteless proportions blowing from a conchshell. In another part was a cottage with puppets the size of life moving by clock-work; a peasant smoking and turning a reel to wind off the thread which his ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... encircled with shrubberies and under-woods, and is finally situated on a narrow road that presently leads, as it would seem, to the end of the known world." So writes the enthusiastic lover of inns, Charles Harper. Or, perhaps, since there is a river to be seen from the inn of the poem the "Swan" at Sandleford Water, where a foot bridge and a water splash on the river Enborne mark the boundaries of Hampshire and Berkshire. Here "You have the place wholly to yourself, or share it only with the ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... discovered by George Smith at the entrance to a hall in the palace of Sennacherib (Fig. 95). It consists of a block of richly carved limestone. Its sculptures are now much worn, but their motives and firm execution may still be admired. Two winged dragons, with long necks folded like that of a swan, face each other, the narrow space between them being occupied by a large two-handled vase. Above these there is a band of carved foliage, the details of which are lost in the shadow cast by a projecting cornice along the top of the lintel.[296] The necklace ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... trees and backed by quaintly built, many-colored brick houses—blue and green and pink, some nodding forward, some leaning back. The front walls were carried up to conceal the roofs; many of the facades tapered into triangles; others had double curves like a swan's neck; some were cut into steps—so that there was great variety, and an effect almost Chinese about the architecture of the queer houses with the cranes projecting over their topmost windows. There was nothing to be called beautiful, but it was all impressive and interesting, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... added a little: "Take thou heed; from thee hath issued a bird of harm, in choler a wild screech-owl, in tongue a tuneful swan." ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... which by no contradiction could be brought to hold another course, alleging they could not make the ship to work better, nor to lie otherways. The evening was fair and pleasant, yet not without token of storm to ensue, and most part of this Wednesday night, like the swan that singeth before her death, they in the Admiral, or Delight, continued in sounding of trumpets, with drums and fifes; also winding the cornets and hautboys, and in the end of their jollity, left with the battle and ringing of doleful knells. Towards the evening also we ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... our civil guard at the entrance to a side street which was, we hinted, rather narrow for automobiles, and, not waiting for his grateful adieux, we darted on, asking a bootblack the way to the best hotel. At the "Sign of the Swan" we paused just long enough to give the Gloria water, and to find out that a motor-car had stopped for a few moments about two hours ago. There were ladies inside, but they had not got out. A gentleman, covered with dust, had ordered sherry and biscuits, which he and the chauffeur ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... party thought they saw both an emu and a black swan amongst the bushes on the banks of the river. In some parts of the north coast we have certainly noticed marks on the sand like the impressions of an emu's foot, but as we have never seen the bird it is probable that we have mistaken them for the ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... almost out of view, it flickered up again for awhile, but soon after it died out, so as to be entirely invisible. Whether a powerful telescope would still have shown it is uncertain, but it seems extremely probable. It may be, indeed, that this new star in the Swan is the same which has made its appearance within the last few weeks; but on this point the ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... Might, idly musing, thus discourse to it:— "Daughter of Summer, who dost linger here. Decking the thistly turf, and arid hill, Unseen—let the majestic Dahlia Glitter, an Empress, in her blazonry Of beauty; let the stately Lily shine, As snow-white as the breast of the proud Swan, Sailing upon the blue lake silently, That lifts her tall neck higher, as she views The shadow in the stream! Such ladies bright May reign unrivall'd, in their proud parterres! Thou would'st not live with them; but if a voice, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... preaching. On this the High Sheriff, Edmund Wylde, of Houghton Conquest, spoke kindly to the poor woman, and encouraged her to make a fresh application to the judges before they left the town. So she made her way, "with abashed face and trembling heart," to the large chamber at the Old Swan Inn at the Bridge Foot, where the two judges were receiving a large number of the justices of the peace and other gentry of the county. Addressing Sir Matthew Hale she said, "My lord, I make bold to come again to your ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... Queen Helen is already provided with a husband!" Jurgen was displeased, but saw no reason for despair. Then Jurgen inquired as to the Queen's husband, and learned that Achilles, the son of Peleus, was now wedded to Helen, the Swan's daughter, and that these two ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... that worse may, must hold the candle; but my master is not so wise, as God might have made him. He is gone to seek a hare in a hen's nest, a needle in a bottle of hay, which is as seldom seen as a black swan: he is gone to seek my young mistress; and I think she is better lost than found, for whosoever hath her, hath but a wet eel by the tail. But they may do, as they list; the law is in their own hands; but, and they would be rul'd by me, they should ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... comfortably buried instead of happily married,—and perhaps it is just as well. Even a French novelist must make some little mock concession to the orthodox belief that the wage of sin is death. So Trilby sinks into the grave with a song like the dying swan, and Little Billee follows suit—upsets the entire Christian religion by dying very peaceably as an Atheist, without so much as a shudder on the brink of that outer darkness where there's supposed ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... growth of which I am watching daily. Of course I do not intend to undeceive her until the feeling grows too strong for her. By and by she will be enveloped in a flame which neither will, nor consciousness of duty, nor the modesty of the woman white as a swan, will be able to keep under control. Constantly the thought dwells with me that since I love her most, mine is the higher right. What can there be more logical or more true? The unwritten code of ethics of all people, of whatever faith, says that the mutual belonging ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... curious-looking place, being a large oval chamber forty feet long, the walls were faced with marble, and a dado painted in Egyptian style ran round the room. Half way between the middle of the room and the end stood a fountain of curious design. It consisted of the bronze figure of a swan with wings outspread. From its bill the water issued and fell into a circular basin. Facing this fountain, twenty feet away, stood the idol, with its little altar in front of it. I went up and examined it with intense interest. The pedestal on which it rested was about three feet high—the ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... Conflagration of the world. Petition of Earth to Jupiter, and death of Phaeton by thunder. Grief of Clymene, and of his sisters. Change of the latter to poplars, and their tears to amber. Transformation of Cycnus to a swan. Mourning of Phoebus. Jupiter's descent to earth; and amour with Calistho. Birth of Arcas, and transformation of Calistho to a bear; and afterwards with Arcas to a constellation. Story of Coronis. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... perambulated the streets, the sound of music attracted Jemmy Green's attention, and our party turned into a long, crowded and brilliantly lighted bazaar, just as the last notes of a barrel-organ at the far end faded away, and a young woman in a hat and feathers, with a swan's-down muff and tippet, was handed by a very smart young man in dirty white Berlin gloves, and an equally soiled white waistcoat, into a sort of orchestra above where, after the plaudits of the company had ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... the carack's head was laid so as to cut the path of the San Antonio circling round them slowly like a wounded swan, and the boarders made ready their swords and knives, for here archery would not avail them, Castell gave some orders to the captain. He bade him, if they were cut down or taken, to put about and run for Seville, and there deliver over the ship and her cargo to his partners and correspondents, praying ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... laid down, and sixty students from the university of Grypswald, and forty boys from the town-school, sung the burial psalms from their books; while, at intervals, the priests chanted the appointed portions of the liturgy; after which all the bells of the town began to toll, and the swan song was raised, "Now in joy I pass from earth." Whereupon the nobles lifted up the bier again, and the procession moved forwards. And could my gracious Prince have looked out through the little window ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... minutes more it will be noon, and we can get out of this into the shade for an hour," said Joe Swan, a huge muscular laborer, as he pushed the nose of the steel ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith |
