"Swan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as her captain predicted, the huge warship lies motionless on the sea—its surface around her smooth as a swan-pond. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... palm of Delos fringed delicately, The young sweet laurel and the olive-tree Grey-leaved and glimmering; O Isle of Leto, Isle of pain and love; The Orbed Water and the spell thereof; Where still the Swan, minstrel of things to be, Doth serve ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... 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 ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Danite travelled on for many hours. The way was not easy. Sometimes where the trees were thin their legs were tangled knee-deep in a plant covered with minute white feathery blossoms, looking like white swan's-down shot through with green light, that carpeted miles of the ground; sometimes the trees had fallen so thickly that they had to clamber from log to log rather than walk; sometimes their way was a bog, and they were in danger of sinking deeper ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... the mountain sleet Ere from the cloud that gave it birth It fell, and caught one stain of earth. The cygnet nobly walks the water; So moved on earth Circassia's daughter, The loveliest bird of Franguestan![91] As rears her crest the ruffled Swan, And spurns the wave with wings of pride, When pass the steps of stranger man Along the banks that bound her tide; 510 Thus rose fair Leila's whiter neck:— Thus armed with beauty would she check Intrusion's glance, till Folly's gaze Shrunk from the charms ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... hatchest, And thou, thou other royal bird, that watchest Lest the white mother wandering feet molest: Shrined are your offspring in a crystal cradle, Brighter than Helen's ere she yet had burst Her shelly prison. They shall be born at first Strong, active, graceful, perfect, swan-like able To tread the land or waters with security. Unlike poor human births, conceived in sin, In grief brought forth, both outwardly and in Confessing weakness, error, and impurity. Did heavenly creatures own succession's ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Kolb will help me to buy the most beautiful, the broadest, and the cheapest. As soon as I have them I'll give them to Imhof the younger to pack off to you. I shall also look after the crane's feathers. I have not been able to find any as yet. But of swan's feathers for writing with there are plenty. How would it do if you stuck them on ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... Budden: 'the coach goes from the Flower-pot, in Bishopsgate-street, every half hour. When the coach stops at the Swan, you'll see, immediately ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... how can I o'er the ocean deep 190 My course accomplish, to that distant shore, As speedily as Thou, O King of glory, Creator of the heavens, dost command? That road thine angel can more easily Traverse from heaven; he knows the watery ways, The salt sea-streams, the wide path of the swan, The battle of the surf against the shore, The terror of the waters, and the tracks Across the boundless land. These foreign men Are not my trusty friends, nor do I know In any wise the counsels of this folk; 200 To me the ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... The place of the poet's passing is believed to have been an ancient dwelling-house adjacent to St. Michael's Church. At that date it was a private residence of the Whiddon family; but during later times it became known as the "Black Swan Inn," or tavern (a black swan being the crest of Sir John Whiddon, Judge of Queen's Bench in the first Mary's reign); while to-day this restored Mansion appears as the hostelry of ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... Probably the Trumpeter Swan, Cygnus buccinator. They were especially found in Sagard's time about Lake Nipissing. "Mais pour des Cignes, qu'ils appellent Horhev, il y en a principalement vers les Epicerinys." Vide Le Grand Voyage av Pays des Hurons par Fr. Gabriel ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... All the field is stained with blood— Blood poured out for Helen's sake; (Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake!) But the shapes of men that pass Are as ghosts within a glass, Woven with whiteness of the swan, Pale, sad memories, gleaming wan From the garment's purple fold Where Troy's tale is twined and told. Well may Helen, as with tender Touch of rosy fingers slender She doth knit the story in Of Troy's sorrow ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... synthesis, to speak as moderns should, are admirable, adorable, fascinating. I should have thought that such a minois could belong only to Paris—the city, by the way, of ugly women, whom art makes charming. However, there it was above the shoulders, high of course—swan-necked women are only found in England—above the shoulders of a Russian marchioness, princess, czarina, or what you will, who called for her cigarettes after dinner, was attended by a little soubrette, named Penelope, and looked for all the world as if she had just ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... "I swan if this ain't a great country, out here! Beats all natur! But I don't feel to hum, fer I was raised right in ther middle of the woods, an' there's too much open land out this way. I don't mean right round here, you understand; but I've seen more'n forty thousan' miles of prairie ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... fitted the party out nobly for the voyage, charging the Polos with friendly messages for the potentates of Europe, including the King of England. They appear to have sailed from the port of Zayton (as the Westerns called T'swan-chau or Chin-cheu in Fo-kien) in the beginning of 1292. It was an ill-starred voyage, involving long detentions on the coast of Sumatra, and in the South of India, to which, however, we are indebted for some of the best chapters ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... in means For every waste of life. At length I spoke, Insulting both my inarticulate soul And her with acted anger: "Lazy wretch, Is it for eyes like yours to watch the sea As though you waited for a homing ship? My father might with reason spend his hours Scanning the far horizon; for his Swan Whose outward lading was full half a vintage Is now months overdue." She turned on me Her languor knit and, through its homespun wrap, Her muscular frame gave hints of rebel will, While those great caves of ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... 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 ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... be, whether by the same collection of a more dense body then the other, or at least, of the denser part of the other, there might not be imagin'd a reason of the apparition of some new fix'd Stars, as those in the Swan, Cassiope's Charr, ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... denied. But yet the spirit and the majesty of ancient Rome were never so well expressed as by Corneille. Nor has any other French dramatic writer, in the general character of his works, shown such a masculine strength and greatness of thought. Racine is the swan described by ancient poets, which rises to the clouds on downy wings and sings a sweet but a gentle and plaintive note. Corneille is the eagle, which soars to the skies on bold and sounding pinions, and fears not to perch on the ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... scenes in the Doctor's life—drawn him sliding on Christ Church meadows, sliding in these worn and clouted shoes of his, and with that figure which even the exercise of skating could not have made "swan-like," to quote the young lady in "Pickwick"? Johnson was "sconced" in the sum of twopence for cutting lecture; and it is rather curious that the amount of the fine was the same four hundred years earlier, when Master Stoke, of Catte ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... with the company on the first floor, unless they were wanted downstairs and there was nobody on the first floor. The salon de Jupiter, where the tradesmen used to meet, was papered in blue, and embellished with a large drawing representing Leda and the swan. The room was reached by a winding staircase, through a narrow door opening on the street, and above this door a lantern inclosed in wire, such as one still sees in some towns, at the foot of the shrine of some saint, burned all ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... "the enlightened few would recognise that it had an esoteric meaning." {0g} Then, it seems, "the world"—the "multitude"—regarded the actor as the author. Only "the enlightened few" were aware that when Ben SAID "Shakespeare," and "Swan of Avon," ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... she explained, in her turn: pizzicati, mazurka, frog, swan, back-wheel, the waltz for the twirls, the march for the exit. And Lily withdrew with a half-curtsey and a pretty smile. Next, she put out her things in her dressing-room, on the table, before the looking-glass: brushes, pencils, grease-paints, strings of pearls for her hair. She hung ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... surpassing beauty,—Isola Madre and Isola dei Pescatori look but a stone's throw from us across the shining water, and beyond a girdle of snow mountains seems to encircle the lake, our beloved Monte Rosa, white as a swan's breast, dominating them all. Despite the distracting beauty of the outlook from our cafe, on the terrace of a very indifferent looking hostel, we enjoyed our luncheon of Italian dishes, crowned by an omelette aux confitures of such superlative excellence that ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... Trial' is the title of a short and pleasingly-written story by Miss Annie S. Swan, who has so deservedly won for herself a high place in public esteem as a ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... board to dinner, they informed me that the people continued to behave in the same inconsistent manner as in the morning; but more especially one man, whom Mr Edgcumbe was obliged to fire at, and believed he had struck with a swan shot. After that the others behaved with more discretion; and as soon as our people embarked they all retired. While we were sitting at dinner an old man came on board, looked into many parts of the ship, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray of the meadow fountain. The eye of the trained hawk, the glance of the three-mewed falcon, was not brighter than hers. Her bosom was more snowy than the breast of the white swan, her cheeks were redder than the reddest roses. Who beheld her was filled with her love. Pour white trefoils sprang up wherever she trod. And therefore was she ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... swan-drawn chariot, had not yet reached Cyprus, when she heard coming up through mid air the groans of her beloved, and turned her white-winged coursers back to earth. As she drew near and saw from on high his lifeless body bathed ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... A BEAUTIFUL 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 ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... his face, as it hadde ben anoint. He was a lord ful fat and in good point. His eyen stepe, and rolling in his hed, That stemed as a forneis of a led. His botes souple, his hors in gret estat, Now certainly he was a fayre prelat. He was not pale as a forpined gost. A fat swan loved he best of any rost. His palfrey was as broune as ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... indeed a beautiful island for them. It bore grapes and nuts, and they called it their garden. In a cave there, a kind spirit dwelt, who blessed the land of the Indians. The spirit had white wings, like a swan. But in 1816 the United States built Fort Armstrong right on top of the cave, and the good spirit flew away, never to come back. The guns of ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... "Waal, I swan!" he ejaculated. "Here I am wastin' time on this cantankerous old pirate when I ought ter be hustlin' around ter get ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... on the Hon. J. G. Swan, Hawaiian Consul, author of "The Northwest Coast; or, Three Years' Residence in Washington Territory." Find him delightful, and delightfully situated in a perfect museum of Indian relics; himself full of the liveliest recollections of Indian life, and quite ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... still 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 ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... a swan, then! Be anything you like. But come on, let's make for the dining-room. We'll probably find Jim there, but don't make any noise, or everybody upstairs will think we're ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... faces, and declared that it was a dodge of his to join Jenny's party in the schoolroom, instead of the solemn dinner; but they were obliged to submit; and it was not till twenty minutes later, that in glided something white, with blue cashmere and swan's-down over it, moving, as usual, with ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wise Saint Hugh of Lincoln Was a bishop wi' crosier tall, A wild swan flew from the marshes Over the cloister wall, Crooked its neck to be fondled— Giles, that was vain of his wit, Said, "Here is a half-made Bishop!" —But the Saint never smiled a bit! "My swan will fight for his lord," quo' he, "And remember what he has heard. He flies to my gatepost ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... the feathers are thin compared with the swan goose or most aquatick fouls and has but little or no down on the body. the upper part of the head is covered with black feathers short, as far as the back part of the head- the yellow skin unfeathered extends back from the upper beak and opening of the mouth and comes ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... cable yarn; the other articles of less importance, and in smaller quantities, were coarse linen, feathers for beds, tar, linen yarn, beet, rhubarb, Persian silk, cork, bacon, cordage, skins of squirrels, and cats; bees' wax, hogs' birstles, mice and goats' skins, swan and geese ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... her opportunity would glide forward with a dozen slow turns of the screws, not agitating the water beyond a light ripple at the bows. The bay at the moment was quiet as a mill-pond, and it needed little imagination to prompt recognition of the identity of dignified movement with that of a swan making its leisurely way by means equally unseen; no turbulent display of energy, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... schoolmaster of my acquaintance told me once, that he had been in company with a gentleman whom he looked upon to be the greatest paragrammatist among the moderns. Upon inquiry, I found my learned friend had dined that day with Mr. Swan, the famous punster; and desiring him to give me some account of Mr. Swan's conversation, he told me that he generally talked in the Paranomasia, that he sometimes gave in to the Ploce, but that in his humble opinion he shone most in ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... 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 soft swell ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... been early cultivated I would doubtless have excelled. I cared not much about the piano, but there was inspiration in the very sight of a harp. In imagination I was Corinna, improvising the impassioned strains of Italy, or a Sappho, breathing out my soul, like the dying swan, in strains of thrilling melody. Edith was a St. Cecilia. Had my hand swept the chords, the hearts of mortals would have vibrated at the touch; she touched the divine string, and "called ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... of "The Rights of the Colonies," afterwards published (1764) by order of the Legislature. He took the broad ground, "that the colonists, black and white, born here, are free-born British subjects and entitled to all the essential rights of such."[361] In 1766 Nathaniel Appleton and James Swan distinguished themselves in their defence of the doctrines of "liberty for all." It became the general topic of discussion in private and public, and country lyceums and college societies took it up as a subject of forensic disputation.[362] ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... 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 ...
— Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects • James R. McClymont
... left the little clearing in the wood where their interview had taken place, a thicket stirred and a girl stole from it, looking intently at their retreating forms. The Swan, they had named her; but, with a flush in her dusky cheeks, her brows dark, her eyes glittering, she more recalled the vulture—for she, too, loved the Shield; and she had now seen and heard that her love was hopeless. That ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... 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
... about HIS health, so she swung over on a new tack and tried her own. She said so much smoke in the house was drivin' her into consumption, and she worked up a cough that was a reg'lar graveyard quickstep. I heard her practicin' it once, and, I swan, there was harps and ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan. That, fluting a wild carol, ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the meer ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... 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 A ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... this there must be a proper boat. Any person going there at present ought not to land if the surf is high, without Captain Davies' large sail-boat, which is as safe as a tug, and rides the sea like a swan. Send him word to send his largest boat at the best hour for landing. The Captain is a native merchant, ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... it like that, Mr Swan, I'll see what I can do about it. I'll talk to Mrs Horn and if we think we can make a reduction ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... hitherto uninitiated visitor over his grounds, and making him in some degree aware of the incomparable advantages possessed by the inhabitants of the White House in the matter of red-streaked apples, russets, northern greens (excellent for baking), swan-egg pears, and early vegetables, to say nothing of flowering 'srubs,' pink hawthorns, lavender bushes more than ever Mrs. Jerome could use, and, in short, a superabundance of everything that a person retired ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... the West, and like pale blood Expanded to the upper crimson cloud. Love, that had robbed us of immortal things, This little moment mercifully gave, Where I have seen across the twilight wave The swan sail with her young ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... into the lake; but no sooner had it touched the waters than it was changed into a beautiful, milk-white swan. And Enda could hardly believe his eyes, as he saw it sailing across the lake, until it was lost in the ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... St. Katherine's by the Tower was specially favoured by them. The "Rotterdam Arms" and the "Two Dutch Skippers," well-known taverns within that precinct, were seldom without the bit of bunting that proclaimed the headquarters of the gang. At Westminster the "White Swan" in King's Street usually bore a similar decoration, as did ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... 18.—The knight of the swan, from the frontispiece of the metrical romance: "The Knight of the Swanne. Here beginneth the history of ye noble Helyas knyght of the swanne, newly translated out of frensshe," London, Copland, 1550 ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... Ferry Farm over yonder"—the whip was waved vaguely in the air—"and he wore long trousers till he got to be a man. Young folks didn't use to show their legs in those days, suh, jes' gentlemen. That place we're comin' to is Swan Tavern, and if it could talk it could tell things that big men said, that it could. This heah house is where Mis' Mary, the mother of Marse George Washington, used to live when she got too old to boss the farm. Some society owns it what was originated to preserve our Virginia iniquities, and ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... to thee His aid refuse Who clothes the swan in dazzling white, Who robes in green the parrot bright, The peacocks decks in ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... 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 cup of ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... credit at the cabman's eating-house, but began to think it was drawing to a close; how Dijon lent me a corner of his studio, where I tried to model ornaments, figures for clocks, Time with the scythe, Leda and the swan, musketeers for candlesticks, and other kickshaws, which had never (up to that day) been ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of hawking or taking of wild fowl throughout England for a season, whereby the land within few years was thoroughly replenished again. But what stand I upon this impertinent discourse? Of such therefore as are bred in our land, we have the crane, the bitter,[1] the wild and tame swan, the bustard, the heron, curlew, snite, wildgoose, wind or doterell, brant, lark, plover (of both sorts), lapwing, teal, widgeon, mallard, sheldrake, shoveller, peewitt, seamew, barnacle, quail (who, only with man, are subject to the falling sickness), the knot, the ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... men were under water in a moment; but they had all, one after another, come up to the surface again for breath, when—tinkle, tinkle, babble and gush! came the princess's laugh over the water from far away. There she was, swimming like a swan. Nor would she come out for king or queen, chancellor or daughter. But though she was obstinate, she seemed more sedate than usual. Perhaps that was because a great pleasure spoils laughing. After this, the passion of her life was to ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... a parting trope: It is not alone the royal eagle who may despise the croaking of the raven; the swan, too, is proud and takes no note of it. Nothing concerns him except to keep clean the sheen of his white pinions. He thinks only of nestling against Leda's bosom without hurting her, and of breathing forth into song everything that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... 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 idol ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... enter on the Thames as swans and leave it at Temple Gardens as noble damsels; but to those who are grown familiar with his imaginary world such a transformation seems as natural as in the old legend of the Knight of the Swan. ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... 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, gave her his hand, and was about to ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... a cylindrical body and a short tail, has four flappers or paddles to act like oars. Its body is entirely covered with a thick armour of scales, and its neck, as flexible as a swan's, rises thirty ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... like a dirge, with many a dying fall, was the vehicle in which the tender expressions of the poet were conveyed to our ears; and I was reproached by my companions for having injudiciously praised the verses of the Swan of Bearn: certainly heard in mutilated fragments, and sung by such a musician—"La Hauet sus las Mountagnes" and "La Plus Charmante Anesquette," were not ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... not come to the Swan before supper; then he reported that the doctor had said Rose was on the verge of a nervous collapse. He had overworked at school, but the immediate trouble was the high, thin air, which the doctor said he must ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... mocks him thus in victory: "How was thy hope so grown Of 'scaping from my hand, O fool?" 560 Therewith he plucks him down From where he hung, and space of wall tears downward with the man. As when it chanceth that a hare or snowy-bodied swan Jove's shield-bearer hath borne aloft in snatching hooked feet; Or lamb, whose mother seeketh him with most abundant bleat, Some wolf of Mars from fold hath caught. Goes up great cry around: They set on, and the ditches filled with o'erturned ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... looks perfectly regal, For it's warm, and I know I feel dry,— I am confident that I feel dry. We have come past the emeu and eagle, And watched the gay monkey on high; Let us drink to the emeu and eagle, To the swan and the monkey on high,— To the eagle and monkey on high; For this bar-keeper will not inveigle, Bully boy with the vitreous eye,— He surely would never inveigle, Sweet youth with the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... 1521 Erasmus stayed here as the guest of his friend, the canon Pierre Wichmann. The house was built in 1515 under the sign of the Swan. It is now a museum in which are preserved numerous relics of ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... spake, the angelic caravan, Arriving like a rush of mighty wind, Cleaving the fields of space, as doth the swan Some silver stream (say Ganges, Nile, or Inde, Or Thames, or Tweed), and midst them an old man With an old soul, and both extremely blind, Halted before the gate, and, in his shroud, Seated their fellow-traveller ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Burton played like that before, for as the music swelled and pealed through the place, his heart was singing its swan song. In a moment of manhood beyond his moral stature he had drawn back arms that were hungry for her—and he now knew, too late, that there was no one else who counted. But the organ was not so repressive, and as she ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... any other man's goose, as far as he could see as yet; but that he should like some very strong evidence before he allowed himself to express an opinion that the young bird partook, in any degree, of the qualities of a swan. From which it may be gathered that Dr. Finn was ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... Antonino had been shooting with and which had been removed from the drawing-room, where the guest for a day had too many opportunities to be alone with it. To cover his inspection, she suggested that Rebecca should afford the company a final pleasure, a kind of swan's song, and went and opened the cottage-piano for her. The Jewess did not refuse the invitation and began Gounod's "Medje" in a voice which Von Sendlingen had room to admit had improved in tone and volumn, and would make her as worthy ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... under the shadow of some stately tree; the horse, with his arching neck and prancing movements; the fond dog; the gentle sheep; the peacock, with its plumes of blue, and green, and gold; the majestic snow-white swan; the little linnet; the robin-redbreast; and that most beautiful, tiny creature, the humming-bird; the gay butterfly; the bee. It is impossible to go over the names of even what we know by sight, of the good creatures of God, who on that sixth day of the creation came about ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... I'm branded as a felon. I'm hunted about the streets of London. He will accept you.'" He drew a vivid picture of the number of friends he had when he rowed for Dogget's Coat and Badge. He met with an accident midway; "and when I got to the Swan at Chelsea," he said, "I had no friends left. I was a losing man. Christ will never treat you like that. He has never let me want in the nine years since I have been converted." After a prayer the assembly broke up, only those being requested ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... to be comparative, otherwise they are worthless. As Mr. Hartland calls Daramulun "an eternal Creator with a game leg" who "died," he may call Zeus an "eternal father, who swallowed his wife, lay with his mother and sister, made love as a swan, and died, nay, was buried, in Crete". I do not think that Mr. Hartland would call Zeus "a ghost-god" (my own phrase), or think that he was scoring a point against me, if I spoke of the sacred and ethical characteristics of the Zeus adored ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... the present time. It was alive with constant travel and traffic: the country towns and inns swarmed with life and gaiety. The ponderous waggon, with its bells and plodding team; the light post-coach that achieved the journey from the "White Hart," Salisbury, to the "Swan with Two Necks," London, in two days; the strings of pack-horses that had not yet left the road; my lord's gilt post-chaise and six, with the outriders galloping on ahead; the country squire's great coach and heavy ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... its scattered glimmering lights lay in peaceful dreams. Just as a black swan draws her young under her, so the mighty Cathedral rested in the midst of the low houses, which seemed to creep, like ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... the Life and Transactions of John Swan and Eliz Jeffries, ... and Miss Mary Blandy. London: Printed and sold by T. Bailey opposite the Pewter-Pot-Inn in Leadenhall Street. ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... Tartar songs, said to be of great antiquity, relates the adventures of "Swan's Wing," a beautiful daughter of a native chief. Her brother had been overpowered by a magician and carried to the spirit laird. According to the tradition the horse he rode came to Swan's Wing and told her what had occurred. The young girl ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... such spectacles, was startled! The plate before him showed the Princess's face in all its beautiful contour, but only dimly veiling a ghastly death's-head below. There was the whole bony structure of the head and the eyeless sockets; even the graceful, swan-like neck showed the articulated vertebral column that supported it in all its hideous reality. The beautiful shoulders were there, dimly as in a dream—but beneath was the empty clavicle, the knotty joint, the hollow sternum, and the ribs of a ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... 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, leaving the coast at North West Cape, to go to Timor, in the Moluccas, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... my lone; my clerk's away with the breeds at the Swan Lake," he said. "Where are ye ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... took precious good care not to. You've done the same thing before. Never to my dying day shall I forget the figure you cut outside Swan and Edgar's last ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... recent description (1869) of the modern houses of the Makah Indians of Cape Flattery, Washington Territory, by Mr. James G. Swan, the old usage which led to joint-tenement houses still asserts itself. Speaking of the manner of building these houses in detail, he remarks that "they are designed to accommodate several families, and are of various dimensions; some of them being sixty feet long by thirty wide, and from ten ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... should want a rock there. Then on one side Narcissus, gazing at himself in the clear pool, with poor Echo withering away in the grove behind! King Cygnus, in the very act of being metamorphosed into a swan, on the other! It would be so apropos, you know; a swan, and a canal, and king Cygnus! And then at the further end Daphne, with her arms and legs sprouting into branches, and her hair ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... a pleasurable excitement, it has its dangers, in the daydream where wishes are fulfilled without effort. Power, glory, beauty and admiration are obtained; the ugly Duckling becomes the Swan, Cinderella becomes the Princess, Jack kills the Giant and is honored by all men; the girl becomes the beauty and heroine of romance; the boy becomes the Hero, taking over power, wealth and beauty as his due. The world of ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... sweet alphabetical miscellany of drugs, herbs, minerals, and groceries commonly used in manufacturing our best Old Bourbon whisky, Swan gin, Madeira wine, pale ale, London brown stout, Heidsieck, Clicquot, Lafitte, and other nice drinks; names the chief ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... extraordinary success." This was, of course, our old friend "Boots at the Swan," which Frank Robson, later, made his own. As Boz had nothing to do with it, there could be no objection. Barnaby Rudge, however, was the piece of resistance. On another occasion, January, 1840, came Mr. J. Russell, ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... think the less of me; the dimples, impressed by Comedy's light fingers on my fair cheeks, will command respect. Or I can let my eyes fall and my heart freeze under my snowy brows. I can pose as a Madonna with melancholy, swan-like neck, and the painters' virgins will be nowhere; my place in heaven would be far above them. A man would be forced to chant when he spoke ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... English battlefield it has never shone. And unless this ring attest the authority of my message it must be unsaid," and drawing from his finger a broad gold band, in which was set a great flat emerald with a swan exquisitely cut on its face, he ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... to delight in exploring the bush, and when they meet, as they often do, with sweet spots, on which Nature has secretly lavished her choicest gifts, most thoroughly do they enjoy, most devotedly do they admire, their beauty. In travelling some miles to the northward of Perth, a town on the Swan River, Captain Grey fell in with a charming scene, which he thus describes: "Our" station, "this night, had a beauty about it, which would have made any one, possessed with the least enthusiasm, fall in love with a bush life. We were sitting ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... of North America (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) hides himself on a rock by the edge of a stream and awaits the passing of a swan. This eagle is brave and strong, but the palmiped is vigorous, and though inferior in the air, he has an advantage on the water, and may escape death by plunging. The eagle knows this advantage, so he compels the swan to remain in the air by attacking him from below and repeatedly ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... Scilla Shoal. Damme, I thought he'd do it. Listen to him," for another wail reached them from the disconsolate warship. "He's fixed there as though, he was glued to it. He'll have to jettison all his bunker an' a gun or two afore he gets off. They tell me Cigno means 'swan.' I wonder wot's the I-talian for 'goose.' Go an' tell Tagg. Tell him to tumble up quick, if on'y for the ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... short night slips, The white swan's long neck drips, I pray thee kiss my lips, Gold wings across ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... eleven winters, between the years 1824 and 1835, in the state of North Carolina, mostly in the vicinity of Wilmington; and four out of the eleven on the estate of Mr. John Swan, five or six miles from that place. There were on his plantation about seventy slaves, male and female: some were married, and others lived together as man and wife, without even a mock ceremony. With their owners generally, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... consider the source," Eklund protested. "This award will make the prize for medicine a laughingstock. No doctor will ever accept another. If we go through with this, we might as well forget about the medical award from now on. This will be its swan song. It hits too close to home. Too many people have been saying similar things about our profession and its trend toward specialization. And to have the Nobel Prize confirm them would alienate every doctor in the world. We simply can't ...
— A Prize for Edie • Jesse Franklin Bone
... instinct quickened and sharpened tenfold by much practice, her fingers instantly closed upon it, but, not a muscle belonging to any other part of her betrayed the intrusion of a foreign body: I do not believe her heart gave one beat the more to the next minute. She passed graceful on, her swan's-neck shining; and Leopold hastened out to one of the windows of the ball-room, there to feast his eyes upon her loveliness. But when he caught sight of her whirling in the waltz with the officer of dragoons whose name he had heard coupled with hers, and saw her flash on him the light and ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... rather too broad—under the waving light-brown hair, the nose short and indeterminate; cheeks still round from youth, almost waxen-pale, and faintly hollowed under the eyes. It was her lips, dainty yet loving, and above all her grey eyes, big and dreamily alive, which made her a swan. He could not imagine ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in a pavilion dancing in strange company, to raucous music. Later the four of them rode on a merry-go-round, with Marie-Louise on a dolphin and Eve on a swan, with the two men mounted on twin dragons. They ate chowder and broiled lobster in a restaurant high in a fantastic tower. They swept up painted Alpine slopes in reckless cars, they drifted through dark tunnels in gorgeous gondolas. Eve took ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... drollery, indeed,—of boyish fun,—and, above all, of a warm-hearted, unquestioning sympathy for everything alive, man or beast, that he called "virtuous," like the "virtuous deer" and the "affectionate swan": and all this you could see plainly in the man's countenance, whether at play ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... difference is consequent to specific diversity; and though, in some cases, it may [follow from the diversity of species], yet, in others, it may be found within the same species; thus "white" and "black" are consequent to the specific diversity of crow and swan, and yet this difference is found within the one ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... a horseman did me overtake, Who knew me, and would fain have given me coin, I said, my bonds did me from coin enjoin, I thanked and prayed him to put up his chink, And willingly I wished it drowned in drink. Away rode he, but like an honest man, I found at Hockley standing at the Swan, A formal tapster, with a jug and glass, Who did arrest me: I most willing was To try the action, and straight put in bail, My fees were paid before, with sixpence ale, To quit this kindness, I most willing am, The man that paid ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... call the Mantuan swan, perhaps because he was not born in that city, he considered one of the most terrible pedants ever produced by antiquity. Des Esseintes was exasperated by his immaculate and bedizened shepherds, his Orpheus whom he compares to a weeping nightingale, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... farther end of this superb vestibule, you will find the door of the parlour, into which I will conduct you, and where I will introduce you to Mrs. Unwin, unless we should meet her before, and where we will be as happy as the day is long. Order yourself, my Cousin, to the Swan at Newport, and there you shall find me ready ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... a lover's genuine prayer: Let the world adore your charms, Swan-like neck, or snowy arms, Rosy smile, or dazzling glance, Making all our bosoms dance; For your purse alone I care, Exquisite Miss Millionaire! Ringlets blackest of the black, Ivory shoulders, Grecian ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Eleanore waited as usual until they had all gone, for she did not like to mix with them. Just then Benjamin Dorn came wabbling in: "The Chief would like to speak to Fraeulein Jordan," he said, and bent his long neck like a swan. Eleanore was surprised: what on earth could Herr Diruf want with her? Possibly it had ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... trembling with nervousness, with cold sweat on his forehead, feeling hot and cold all over by turns. He described this himself afterwards. He regarded this speech as his chef-d'oeuvre, the chef-d'oeuvre of his whole life, as his swan-song. He died, it is true, nine months later of rapid consumption, so that he had the right, as it turned out, to compare himself to a swan singing his last song. He had put his whole heart and all the brain ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... that old fellow," said Mr. Maxwell, abruptly, "who had a beautiful swan that came every day for fifteen years, to bury its head in his bosom and feed from his hand, and would go near no ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... 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 Delight continued in sounding of drums and trumpets and fifes, also winding the cornets and haughtboys, and in the end of their jollity left with the battell and ringing of ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... think the Thorndale swan very—very much better than a tame goose,' said Charles, 'but the coalition is not so monstrous in his case, since Philip was a friend of his own picking and choosing, and so his father's adoption did not succeed in repelling him. But that Morville should receive this "young man's companion," ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bowed down to the swans, whom she enticed once more with caresses to the borders of the lake. Suddenly she uttered a loud cry, and called to the two gentlemen for help. The great white swan had torn the camelias from the bosom of the princess, and sailed off proudly upon the ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... 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 horses to perform the whole stage—each passenger paying L4 10s. for the whole journey. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in the third again, it is to be hoped, will become an English Rebuilder. Find Mankind where thou wilt, thou findest it in living movement, in progress faster or slower: the Phoenix soars aloft, hovers with outstretched wings, filling Earth with her music; or, as now, she sinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame, that she may soar the higher ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... In his society he saw Pendleton, Carrington, Roane, Fleming, and Lyons, who composed the Court of Appeals at that day, and all of whom I heard him recall in living colors a few months before his death. It was the custom of the judges of the Court of Appeals to put up at the Swan, where they might easily consult with Pendleton, their chief, whose injured limb prevented him for the last thirty years of his life from going abroad. It was at the Swan the judges kept their black ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... his tentative plans for outwitting Mascola as his eye fell on Neilson. There was the man he wanted to see. Swan could swing the Swedes into quitting the dago. All thought of Boris vanished from Blagg's mind as he drew Neilson aside and conferred confidentially with the big Swede in a drunken whisper. When he looked about for the Russian some ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... If you are a poet, and you make good verses, it is likely enough that some queen will stuff your mouth with balass rubies. How poorly our modern means of locomotion compare with those of the Nights. If you take a jinni or a swan-maiden you can go from Cairo to Bokhara in less time than our best expresses could cover a mile. The recent battles between the Russians and the Japanese are mere skirmishes compared with the fight described ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Asia, 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, much less ludicrous, mars our conception of it. So wonderful is ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... the brave little vessel rode at last into the bayou, and anchored hard by her accustomed resting-place, in full view of the hotel, though not near enough to shore to lower her gang-plank.... But she had sung her swan-song. Gathering in from the northeast, the waters of the bay were already marbling over the salines and half across the island; and still the wind increased its ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... 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," said she. ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... exclaimed, as he closed the door behind him, and stepped into the clear spring starlight, hardly broken as yet by the budding branches of the elms and limes. "What a crazy woman that mother is! Her daughter has come home to her a splendid white swan, and she is waddling and quacking about with anxiety and fear lest the little male ducklings that frequent the pond should find her too white ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... reserved for the end of the acts. I remember a performance of "Lohengrin," at the Academy of Music, at which the music was thrice interrupted by some ill-bred admirers of Campanini, who applauded him when he first appeared in sight on the swan-boat; again, when he stepped on shore, and a third time when he came to the front of the stage. Now here was one of the most poetic scenes on the whole operatic stage utterly marred for all refined listeners, merely for the sake of ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... to make his way through a tempest of public wrath—a situation more terrific to him than to others, from his embarrassed walking. I found, however, that I might have spared my anxiety; the subject of commotion was, simply, that Major Sirr, or Major Swan, I forget which, (both being celebrated in those days for their energy, as leaders of the police,) had detected a person in the act of mistaking some other man's pocket handkerchief for his own—a most natural mistake, I should fancy, where people stood crowded together so ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... entrance of the bore may be, this egg is always at the bottom of the acorn, within the cup, at the base of the cotyledonary matter. The cup furnishes a thin film like swan-skin which imbibes the sapid exudations from the stem, the source of nourishment. I have seen a young grub, hatched under my eyes, eat as his first mouthfuls this tender cottony layer, which is moist ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... very agreeable to me, amidst the interest of association created by the world-wide fame of the "Swan of Avon," to record this pleasing tribute to the character of the genius loci at so interesting a period. In a passage on a subsequent page, Mrs. Walker, referring to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... Brahma, the king shone resplendent in their midst. And that evening, at once beautiful and terrible, those Brahmanas having lighted their (sacred) fires, began to chant the Vedas and hold mutual converse. And those foremost of Brahmanas, with swan-sweet voices spent the night, comforting that ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa |
