"Swear" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very lines, and dragging the Teucrians into the deadly battle. I counselled Juturna, I confess it, to succour her hapless brother, and for his life's sake favoured a greater daring; yet not the arrow-shot, not the bending of the bow, I swear by the merciless well-head of the Stygian spring, the single ordained dread of the gods in heaven. And now I retire, and leave the battle in loathing. [819-854]This thing I beseech thee, that is bound by no fatal ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... But first will you swear as on the holy ring that of what you shall do for me no man ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... to be polite. Tut, tut! as dad says when he can't swear before ladies, I shan't make the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... being as expressive as the face to those whose view is thus limited, she could swear to scores of the passers-by in a ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... had been deprived of his chair in the College de France, lost also his post in the Archives upon his refusal, in 1852, to swear allegiance to the Emperor. Near Nantes in his tempest-beaten home, near Genoa in a fold of the Apennines, where he watched the lizards sleep or slide, a great appeasement came upon his spirit. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... could not christen it morbid sensibility; but as she had a childish fashion of tracing things to commonplace causes, whenever she felt her face grow hot easily, or her throat choke up as men's do when they swear, she concluded that her liver was inactive, and her soul was tired of sitting at her Master's feet, like Mary. So she used to take longer walks before breakfast, and cry sharply, incessantly, in her heart, as the man did who was tainted with leprosy, "Lord, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... tree. Don't finger that pistol, you scoundrel, or I will blow your brains out. Be off with you, and thank your stars I did not arrive ten minutes later; for if I had come too late to save this poor fellow's life, I swear to you that I would have hung you like a dog. Who is the head ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... Magna Charta, whereof the first clause is for confirming the inviolable rights of Holy Church; as well as contrary to the oath taken by all our kings at their coronation, where they swear to defend and protect the Church ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... peach he's a Jap, with a scoundrelly white skipper and white mates. They'll all stick together for a five-dollar bill and swear they never was on the beach at all. If they do, how're we goin' to ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... one respect, that no man can be arrested there for a debt merely because another swears it against him; but there must first be the judgement of a court of law ascertaining its justice; and that a seizure of the person, before judgement is obtained, can take place only, if his creditor should swear that he is about to fly from the country, or, as it is technically expressed, is in meditatione fugae: WILKES. 'That, I should think, may be safely sworn of all the Scotch nation.' JOHNSON. (to Mr. Wilkes) 'You must know, Sir, I lately took my friend Boswell and shewed him genuine civilised ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... I heard him swear, Were he to stand for consul, never would he Appear i'the market-place, nor on him put The napless vesture of humility; Nor, showing (as the manner is) his wounds To the people, beg ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... circumstances of the engagement, so that the all-important fact that the engagement exists has no special emphasis in her welter of words. "If thou wert an honest man," she cries, "thyself and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... deny nothing. In this humour, she makes a thousand vows against Philander, to hate him as a man, that had first ruined her honour, and then abandoned her to all the ills that attend ungovern'd youth, and unguarded beauty: she makes Octavio swear as often to be revenged on him for the dishonour of his sister: which being performed, they re-assumed all the satisfaction which had seemed almost destroyed by adverse fate, and for a little space lived in great tranquillity; or if Octavio had sentiments that represented past unhappinesses, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... banners wave aboon the brave Our foemen vainly gather, And swear to claim, by deeds o' fame, Our hills and glens o' heather. For seas shall swell to wild and fell, And crown green Appin fairly, Ere hearts so steel'd to foemen yield The rights ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... urged: "Do thou but follow the priests of Baal that they may have no excuse, and then thou wilt have a share in that glorification of God for which my bullock will be used." The bullock: "So dost thou advise, but I swear I will not move from the spot, unless thou with thine own hands wilt deliver me up." Elijah thereupon led the bullock to the priests of ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... saw, his axe, and his long bolo, the old man went down, only to find everything quiet outside. He began to explore the surroundings of the house to see if he could find the cause of the disturbance, and fell over the rope. With that he began to curse and swear, saying, "May lightning blast the one of ill-omened ancestry who has shaken my house, frightened my family, and broken my bones," and many other harsh things, but he got no answer but a laugh, and the young ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... at the bidding of the gods I go. Only swear that thou wilt say naught to my mother till eleven or twelve days be past, unless, perchance, she should ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... "I'll swear I'll do my best, Jim; I'll work double tides," said I. "It is my fault that you are in this thing, and I'll get you out again or kill myself. But what is that you say? 'If we go ahead?' Have we ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... ha, ha! Love-sick? He, love-sick? 'Tis a goodly jest! The CONfirm'd misogyn a ladies' man! Thou must have eaten of some strange red herb That takes the reason captive. I will swear Savonarola never yet hath seen A woman but he spurn'd her. Hist! ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... And swear will I by the Cloven Hoof And the name of the Manichees, By the hair that riseth despite reproof And the rebel veins that freeze, That at night, when the graves give up their dead And the thunder belloweth overhead, You would not get me under this roof For a lakh of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... "My friend, I swear to thee that Odysseus shall return. In this year, as the old moon wanes and the new is born, he shall return ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... were first to fall in with a British man-of-war; but suppose we met an American, we might be accused of running away with the ship. Rest assured that the boatswain and some of the men would be ready to swear to anything which would ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... people stand up and swear before God to continue to love one another until death do them part. They solemnly stand there and make vows about an emotion over which they have no more control than they have over the keeping of the wind in the south. They have only control, if they have strong wills, over its demonstration. ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... listen. I like promises, I like to place under the guarantee of an oath, under the protection of Heaven, in fact, everything which interests my heart and my affections. Promise me, or rather swear to me, that if in the life we are about to commence, a life which will be full of sacrifice, mystery, anxiety, disappointment, and misunderstanding; swear to me that if we should in any way deceive, or misunderstand each other, or should judge each other unjustly, for that indeed ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... never talks. Why should he talk, whose presence lends a grace To every table where he shows his face? He knows the manual of the silver fork, Can name his claret—if he sees the cork,— Remark that "White-top" was considered fine, But swear the "Juno" is the better wine;— Is not this talking? Ask Quintilian's rules; If they say No, the town has many fools. Pause for a moment,—for our eyes behold The plain unsceptred king, the man of gold, The thrice illustrious threefold millionnaire; Mark his slow-creeping, dead, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... watch: it was nearly eleven; I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to dine, that my head ached and that I was tired. I got up and started back to the hotel. Then a miracle happened; it sounds like fiction but I swear ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... him; and he hated her in return, often threatened to put her out of the house, and sometimes even to kick her out of the window. And whenever a wet day confined him to the house, or the stable, and he grew tired of smoking, he would begin to swear and curse at her for a diddled old mischief-maker, that could never be easy, and was always troubling the house with her ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... not think that I should dare to love you until that day when I overheard that old villain Niepce make his advances. Then, when I perceived my acute jealousy, I knew that I was loving you. Ever since, I have thought only of you. I swear to you that if you will not belong to me, it is already finished for me! Altogether! Never have I seen a woman like you! So strong, so proud, so kind, and so beautiful! You are astonishing, yes, astonishing! No other woman could have drawn ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... they secured 3600 votes, as compared with 3200 for the Radicals, 2800 for the Democrats—both of whom were not only badly organized but very slack—and 605 for the Republicans. However, the Communists refused to swear the requisite oath, and in consequence were not permitted to take office, the Radicals and Democrats forming a union to carry on. It was agreed to have a new election and the other parties, being now awakened, determined that the Communists should not ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... the same neighborhood. The preemptor has to pay about five dollars in the way of fees before he gets through the entire process of securing a title. It is a popular error (much like the opinion that a man cannot swear to what he sees through glass) that improvements of a certain value, say fifty dollars, are required to be made, or that a certain number of acres must be cultivated. All that is required, however, is evidence that the party has built a house ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... undersigned wagon-masters, assistants, teamsters and all other employees of the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell, do hereby sign that we will not swear, drink whisky, play cards or be cruel to dumb beasts in any way, shape ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... mother, 'solid gold every one of 'em, blue blood, every drop in his veins—any one could swear to that without telling. Did you see ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most mystic mood; so that fact and fancy, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... my people to find out how I treat her. Not one of them but has a pin ready. One says that I love her as much as I do you; another that I have her to sleep with me—which would assuredly be a notable sign of affection! They swear that I am taking her to Paris, that I kiss her, am mad about her; that the Abbe is giving her 10,000 livres; that if she had but 20,000 ecus I should marry her to my son. That is the sort of thing; and they carry it so far that we can't help laughing at it. ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... for that. He's a devil, that monkey. He has bitten all the children around here, has killed all my chickens, and raised more hell in this village than the whole population put together. I swear, I believe he just enjoys being mean. Come in and have a snifter after that greeting! Did he ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... ring, How loud the lackeys swear! Black pipe-bowls on the stage they fling, At Brecourt, fuming there! The Porter's stabbed! a Mousquetaire Breaks in with noisy crew - 'Twas all a commonplace affair When these ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... the other cubs?" cried one of the men, with an oath that made me shudder. "I'll swear to it there were three, at least, if ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... can be the harm of it? it means nothing. I was thinking the other night, and I made out that you and Owen are the only two fellows here who don't swear." ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... Ary Scheffer's Gretchen!" murmured Lorimer with a sigh. "What a miserable, pasty, milk-and-watery young person she is beside that magnificent, unconscious beauty! I give in, Phil! I admit your taste. I'm willing to swear that she's a Sun-Angel if you like. Her voice ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... need most. You may think I am a queer Christian, and I sometimes think so myself—hating some people as near as I dare, and calling old Houghton a wretch. Don't I know about his heartache? Who better than I? God knows I would give his son back to him if I could. God knows I can almost swear at him; He knows also that if he were brought into this house wounded I'd nurse him with my feeble hand as I would you, Cousin Hugh, but I would be apt to say when he got well (and here came in her little chirping laugh), ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... will not summon the mayor? What I tell is the truth. In the name of the Holy Virgin, I swear it." ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... bronze Japanese. Small, active and fierce, ever with a cheery grin on their broad faces, they combine the dash of the Pathan with the discipline of the Sikh. They spend all their money on food, and, unhampered by religion, drink, smoke and swear like the British soldier, in whose eyes they find more favour than any other—as he regards them—breed of "niggers." They are pure mercenaries, and, while they welcome the dangers, they dislike the prolongation of ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... with his right hand he flung it at the soldiers with such a sure aim that the rash leader, struck on the head, fell senseless to the ground. The rest again stood still. "Away with you!" cried Fadrique authoritatively, "or my dagger shall strike the next as surely, and then I swear I will never rest till I have found out your whole gang and appeased my rage." The dagger gleamed in the youth's hand, but yet more fearfully gleamed the fury in his eyes, and the soldiers fled. Then Zelinda bowed gratefully to her preserver, took up a roll of palm-leaves which lay at her ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... her head. "When he does not swear, he answers only: 'Buy if you have the money. I have never broken a law of Spain, and I shall not begin in my old age.' He knows well that we have no money to send out of New Spain; but I have conceived a plan, senor. It is for you, not for me, to suggest it. You will never betray that I ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... of enmity to the Whig cause could be arrested under a magistrate's warrant and banished, unless he would swear fealty to the friends of liberty; and the select men of towns could prefer charges of political treachery in town meetings, and the individual accused, if convicted by a jury, could be sent into the enemy's jurisdiction (banished). Massachusetts also designated by name, and generally ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... Simba the King, make you an offer. Yield yourselves and I swear that no spear shall be driven through your hearts and no knife come near your throats. You shall only be taken to my town and there be fed on the best and kept as prisoners, till once more there is peace between the Black ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... perhaps he is too anxious. I, for one, am not anxious—about that. Do you know how I trust you, my dearest of friends? Sometimes I have said to myself, 'I will ask him for a pledge. I will say to him that he must promise, that he must swear to me, that whatever happens as between him and me, nothing, nothing, nothing in all the world will induce him to give up what he has undertaken;' but then again I have said to myself, 'No, I can trust him ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... been mistaken. I thought I knew the agents of yours who killed him. Yet you made me swear—as the price of my brothers' lives—that I was mistaken. Perhaps I was more mistaken than we thought. Perhaps my little Demetrius was not slain at all. Perhaps this ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... With every outward grace, his sight Restored to him, clear and bright As day-dawn; waiting, waiting still For the blind girl that never will Be wife of his. How do I know? You will recall a while ago I told you he and I were friends. In all that friendship comprehends, I was his friend, I swear! why now, Remembering his love, and how His confidence was all my own, I hear, in fancy, the low tone Of his deep voice, so full of pride And passion, yet so pacified With his affliction, that it ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... ever swear at a soldier—not only is this taking a mean, unfair advantage of your position, but it is also undignified, ungentlemanly, and unmilitary. It is even more improper for you to swear at a soldier than it is for a superior to swear ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... to bark. I am very glad you have called; glad that you are too liberal to hold a foolish resentment. And the old folks are gone. 'Od 'zounds, the way things do turn out. The first thing I know I'll swear myself out of the church. It was my pride, sir—but by all the virtues that man has grouped, must we apologize for our pride? Hah, sir! Must I grovel and beg pardon because I honor my own name? I'll see myself blistered first. ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... hilt which is in the form of the cross, on St. Denis, my patron's head, and on my knightly honor, I swear that I will warn the Mazowiecki prince ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... it is the simple truth: this I was at your house sooner than I; and, I swear to you, I was there before I ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... were bad people in the world. In fact, she had seen men who were bad, and once a woman had passed their ranch whose character was said to be questionable. She wore a hard face, and could drink and swear like the men. But that sin should be in this form, with pretty girls and pleasant, wheedling women for agents, she had never dreamed; and this in the great, civilized East! Almost better would it have been to ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... woman's outcry echoed from the dingy walls. She lay on her knees and wrung her hands. "Nicholas, Nicholas, constable, God in heaven, what has he done? I swear he is as innocent as a new-born babe! He never cuts grass in other people's fields, he tears off no branches in the wood—he never climbed the fence to steal the pastor's apples—believe me, believe me, by my eternal salvation, he is a good boy! He always ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... this counsel, to make use of Moses the Hebrew, and take his assistance, the king commanded his daughter to produce him, that he might be the general [22] of their army. Upon which, when she had made him swear he would do him no harm, she delivered him to the king, and supposed his assistance would be of great advantage to them. She withal reproached the priest, who, when they had before admonished the Egyptians ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... "I swear to you I will not on my faith as a Christian. But speak, I entreat you. Your long preface has made me ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... killed in action, we are to get another mount from the enemy. Come and join us, Marcy. Throw your Union sentiments to the winds—you'll have to sooner or later—take sides with the friends of your state, swear allegiance to the flag of the Confederacy and battle for the right. Come and join my company and we'll have some high old times running ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... improving my knowledge of the local idiom; and this knowledge meant an extra hundred pounds to me for interpreter's allowance, as it is called. I thought, too, that it would be a relief after diplomatic dinner parties to be able to swear for an hour or so, big round oaths in the company of a dear beloved one who would not understand me. So my teacher undertook to provide me with a suitable female companion. He did. In fact, he introduced me to his sister; and the suitability was based on the fact that she held the same position under ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... any plan to get away from this?" whispered Richard, eagerly. "All that I have shall be yours: I swear it." ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... a little while, people who are innocent have to suffer because they are unjustly accused. But the law will free them if they have really done no wrong, and, what is more, it will punish those who swear falsely against them. Be patient, and you will find that you and your father made no mistake when you believed that this was the land of the free and the home of those who are ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... expression of the largest number of the people possible. All see how such action will connect with and affect the proclamation of September 22. Of course the men elected should be gentlemen of character, willing to swear support to the Constitution as of old, and known to be above reasonable ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... nightfall, confidently at first though clumsily, at length with the air of a Xerxes casting chains into the flood; but never a bite rewarded him. He gave over the rod in a huff, but began again at dawn, to lay it down after an hour and swear viciously. As he retired Muskingon took the pole; he had watched John's one and only cast and began to imitate it patiently, while the sergeant jeered and the canoe drifted. Towards noon he felt a bite, struck, ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... infant king, had grown up, Lycurgus prepared to go away. Before he left the town, he called all the citizens together, reminded them of all he had done to make them a great people, and ended by asking every man present to swear to obey the laws until ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... in, and locked the door; and I went up to the lantern to see that all was right, and to swear and tear around a little. Here was a two-months'-long embarrassment! Here was all my old trouble back in a new shape! What would my folks—what would the world say? Would they believe the story about the wreck? Must my character suffer? Even ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... And I could swear that that was the truth, for Uncle Ezra had often said to me that if he had had the nugget preached at him from the time he was old enough to remember anything, he would have been as hot after it as Elam ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... swear by Heaven, none other has any claim on me!" cried Dunwoodie, with fervor. "You alone are mistress of my ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Shepley: "We do not particularly want members of Congress from there to enable us to get along with legislation here. What we do want is the conclusive evidence that respectable citizens of Louisiana are willing to be members of Congress, and to swear support to the Constitution, and that other respectable citizens there are willing to vote for them and send them. To send a parcel of Northern men here as representatives, elected, as would be understood (and perhaps really so), at the point ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... for a few days. I'll send down stock to my London broker and have it sold. It will give me hundreds of thousands—twice as much as all the bank issue. Then I'll pay up these devils well, and that d ——d tailor worst of all. I swear I'll send it all down to-day, and have every bit of it sold. If there's going to be a run, I'll be ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... decline, As you or I, may do one day; Reader, think of this, I pray; And I numbly hope you'll drop a tear For my poor Royal Volunteer. He was as brave as brave could be, Nobody was so brave as he; He would have died in Honor's bed, Only he died at home instead. Well may the Royal Regiment swear, They never had such a Volunteer. But whatsoever they may say, Death is a man that will have his way: Tho' he was but an ensign in this world of pain; In the next we hope he'll be a captain. And without meaning to make any reflection on his mentals, He begg'd ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... deem'd on helpless under-graduate foes To purge the bile that in his liver rose. Fierce schemes of vengeance in his bosom swell, Jobations dire, and Impositions fell. And now a cross he'd meditate, and swear[29] Six ells of Virgil should the crime repair.[30] Along the grass with heedless haste he trod,[31] And with unequal footsteps press'd the sod— That hallow'd sod, that consecrated ground, By eclogues, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... were bitter; they were passionately excited, and would often end the talk, which they themselves had begun, With noisy profanity. They seemed to think they had this advantage of me, that they could swear ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... old Christmas, who can describe? What glamour over the prosaic family dinner and carpet dance to see the old year out and the new year in? Say the word, Mad, and before the first full moon of this new year has waned to half a cheese she will shine down upon us, anew, with the old shining. I swear it on the ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... enough of action, and of motion we, Rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard, when the surge was seething free Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills, like gods together, careless ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... VII was not beyond suspicion: the very numeral in his name has its suggestions. Millions of others go the same route.... Ergo, Up, guards, and at 'em! Bring me the pad of blank warrants! Order out the seachlights and scaling-ladders! Swear in four hundred more policemen! Let us chase these hell-hounds out of Christendom, and make the world safe for monogamy, poor working girls, and ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... were going at sixty miles an hour. That speed never slackened till we were just outside Lydmouth, and I was watching at the moment that our pace dropped. I had my head out of the window of my van till we pulled up by the platform. I am prepared to swear to all this if you like. Lord knows how the thing was done, and I don't suppose ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... is wanted, though called wit, is truly judgment. So far Dennis is undoubtedly right: but not content with argument, he will have a little mirth, and triumphs over the first couplet in terms too elegant to be forgotten. "By the way, what rare numbers are here! Would not one swear that this youngster had espoused some antiquated muse, who had sued out a divorce on account of impotence, from some superannuated sinner; and, having been p—d by her former spouse, has got the gout in her decrepit age, which makes her hobble so damnably?" This was the man who would reform ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... from the inquest, but attended the funeral to get a glance at his face. It seemed too strange to be true. The fellow wasn't Cavendish; I'd swear to that, but he did look enough like him to fool anybody who had no suspicions aroused. You see no one so much as questioned his identity—Cavendish had disappeared without a word even to his valet; this fellow, despite the wounds on his face, looking enough ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... shameless tricks of vice which yearly lead thousands down to everlasting death. Often children begin their course of sin while yet cradled in their mother's arms, thus early taught by some vile nurse. Boys that fight and swear, that play upon the streets and disobey their parents, may be wisely shunned as unfit for associates. In many instances, too, boys whose conduct is in other respects wholly faultless sometimes indulge in vice, ignorant of its real ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... lay the victims slain, and the centurions stood around with their swords drawn. The soldier was led up to the altars, rather like a victim, than a performer in the ceremony, and was bound by an oath not to divulge what he should see and hear in that place. He was then compelled to swear, in a dreadful kind of form, containing execrations on his own person, on his family and race, if he did not go to battle, whithersoever the commanders should lead; and, if either he himself fled from the field, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... town sounded so shrill and poor after that, which I considered mine especially. There are rooks flying home to the elms in the Close. I wonder if they are the same that used to be there when I was a girl. They say the rook is a very long-lived bird, and I feel as if I could swear to the way they are cawing. Ay, you may smile, Ellinor, but I understand now those lines of Gray's you used ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... his great secret," said the spirits of the Seven Sisters. "Swear to set us free and we shall tell you ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... shall not," and 'Lina spoke determinedly. "I'll send an answer to this letter myself, this very day. I will not suffer the chance to be thrown away. Hugh may swear a little at first, but he'll ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... you control yourself? Turn over a new leaf. I love her, too. She's more to me than life itself, but her happiness is more than mine. If she loves you, and wants you, make yourself worthy of her. By heaven, I'll help you, if it kills me! You thought I was harsh to-day. I swear to you if you succeed nobody will acknowledge it quicker ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Malcolm McNeill and Joseph Smith. We Malcolm McNeil and Joseph Smith do Solemnly Swear on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God that we will not on any pretence whatsoever take up or bear Arms against the Inhabitants of the United States of America and that we will not disclose or make known any matters within our knowledge now carrying on within the United States ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... James Mitchell's[558] Dictionary of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 1823, 12mo, which, though he was not technically a publisher, was printed for him—a book I should recommend to the collector of works of reference—there is a temperate description of his doctrines, which one may almost swear was one of his conditions previous to undertaking the work. Phillips himself was not only an anti-Newtonian, but carried to a fearful excess the notion that statesmen and Newtonians were in league to deceive the world. He saw this ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... to read women, they say," replied the dame, "and every lady in Quebec would swear that Angelique loves the Seigneur de Repentigny; but I know that, if she can, she will marry the Intendant, whom she has fairly bewitched with her wit and beauty, and you know a clever woman can marry any man she pleases, if she only goes the right ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... droops in the dust, Shall it droop thus forever? No, no! God is just! Take it up! take it up! from the tyrant's foul tread, Let him tear the Green Flag — we will snatch its last shred, And beneath it we'll bleed as our forefathers bled, And we'll vow by the dust in the graves of our dead, And we'll swear by the blood which the Briton has shed, And we'll vow by the wrecks which through Erin he spread, And we'll swear by the thousands who, famished, unfed, Died down in the ditches, wild-howling for bread; And we'll vow by our heroes, ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... have been of a kind to develop strength of character. He was to be one of the historical personages against whom scandalmongers have not been able to unearth a mass of detraction. His close companions during army days testified that they never heard him swear or use gross language of any kind. As Edward Everett in his great eulogy said, from Lafayette's home, his ancestry, his education, his aristocratic marriage, and his ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... business to do for his client all that his client might honestly do for himself. Is not the word in italics frequently omitted? Might any man honestly try to do for himself all that counsel frequently try to do for him? We are often reminded of the two men who stole the leg of mutton; one could swear he had not got it, the other that he had not taken it. The counsel is doing his duty by his client, the client has left the matter to his counsel. Between the unexecuted intention of the client, and the unintended execution of the counsel, there may be a wrong done, and, if ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... were, those semibreves! Could anyone but Palestrina have placed them so nicely? I wondered what girl Palestrina was courting when he conceived them. She must have been blonde, surely, and with narrow flanks.... There are moments when one does not think of girls, are there not, dear reader? And I swear to you that such a moment came to me while Dolmetsch mumbled the last two bars of that Mass. The notes were "do, la, sol, do, fa, do, sol, la," and as he mumbled them I sat upright and stared into space, for it had become suddenly plain ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... sure? Could she go into court and swear that this man and the man she had seen in the bank were one and the same? Yesterday she had thought that she could; but to-day she was equally sure ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... ken—sauf us! what a fearsome night this is! The trees will be all broken. What a noise in the lum! I daresay there's some auld hag of a witch-wife gaun to come rumble doun't. It's no the first time, I'll swear. Hae ye a silver sixpence? Wad ye like that?" he bawled up the chimney. "Ye'll hae heard," said he, "lang ago, that a wee murdered wean was buried—didna ye hear a voice?—was buried below that corner—the hearth-stane there, where ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... affected. They have three different kinds of funerals, according to the star which rules at the time of death. In one the body is buried in a tomb adorned with gilded pyramids. In another the body is burnt and the ashes being mixed with clay are formed into images by which they swear. In the last, which is reckoned the most honourable, the body is exposed to be devoured by certain birds resembling cranes. These three forms are used with such as have spent good lives, but others are cut in pieces and thrown to the dogs. They believe ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... like that," said East. "I should like to have put him in a museum: Christian young gentleman, nineteenth century, highly educated. Stir him up with a long pole, Jack, and hear him swear like a drunken sailor. He'd make a respectable public open its eyes, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... catching hold of her shawl. "If them childer's burnt up widin there, Mr. Wogan 'ill be in a fine way. It's for killin' the whole of us he'll be. And it wasn't me set it afire. Sorra the match was I meddlin' wid, I could swear it. I wasn't out of it any time, gettin' a few ripe berries to pacify them childer, agin they would be wakin' and roarin', and when I come back, there it is all a smother of smoke. Divil a thing else was I doin' on'y mindin' them childer, and not meddlin' wid the matches, and goin' after ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... inspired! Thou beauteous wreath, with melancholy eyes, Possess whatever bliss thou canst devise, Telling me only where my nymph is fled,— Where she doth breathe!" "Bright planet, thou hast said," Return'd the snake, "but seal with oaths, fair God!" "I swear," said Hermes, "by my serpent rod, And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown!" Light flew his earnest words, among the blossoms blown. Then thus again the brilliance feminine: "Too frail of heart! for this lost nymph of thine, Free as the air, invisibly, she strays About these thornless ...
— Lamia • John Keats
... uniform as this, nor do you find spies on the staff of an army. I rode by mistake into the heart of this Prussian corps, and I concealed myself here in the hope of escaping when they are past. I will not hurt you if you do not hurt me, but if you do not swear that you will be silent as to my presence you will never go down ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... an impression upon his heart "Ah, father! (cried the peasant) I never see you but I think of a venerable goat, which I lost at Easter. We were bred up together in the same family. He was the very picture of your reverence—one would swear you were brothers. Poor Baudouin! he died of a fall—rest his soul! I would willingly pay for a couple of masses to pray him out ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... the more I perceived that upon the issue of that struggle depended the fate of the modern world. So completely did the notes of Carnot and a few private letters that had been put before me absorb my attention that I will swear the bugle-calls of those two days (for it was a two-days' struggle) sounded more clearly in my ears than the rumble of the London streets, and, as this died out with the advance of the night and the approach of morning, I was living entirely upon that ridge in Flanders, watching, as a man watches ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... of the Earl of Derwentwater, and that they had seen him march out from Hexham, in Northumberland, at the head of five hundred of Lord Derwentwater's tenantry; they recognized him, as they declared, by a scar on his face; they had been to see him in the Tower, to refresh their memories, and could swear to him, as Charles Radcliffe, brother of the Earl of Derwentwater. After this deposition, Roger Downs, a person who had acted in the capacity of barber to the State prisoners, in 1715, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... regular—and it ain't bosh, Washington, it ain't bosh. They appoint a committee to investigate, and that committee hears evidence three weeks, and all the witnesses on one side swear that the accused took money or stock or something for his vote. Then the accused stands up and testifies that he may have done it, but he was receiving and handling a good deal of money at the time and he doesn't remember this particular circumstance—at least ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... play or drink, that gentleman spoke a sharp word to his neighbour, he and the other would infallibly go out and try to shoot each other the next morning. That gentleman would drive his friend Richmond the black boxer down to Moulsey, and hold his coat, and shout and swear, and hurrah with delight, whilst the black man was beating Dutch Sam the Jew. That gentleman would take a manly pleasure in pulling his own coat off, and thrashing a bargeman in a street row. That gentleman has been in a watchhouse. That gentleman, so exquisitely polite with ladies in a drawing-room, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... moment and returned with a well-filled purse, which he handed to his brother. "There, take the gold; send your messengers in every quarter; go yourself and search. You must either find or create him. I swear to you, if you do not succeed, I will withdraw my protection from you; you will be only a poor student, and must maintain ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... a nice state," said Hollanden, turning to take a critical view of the painter. "What has got into you now? I swear, you are more kinds of ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... and have drowned the boy, but there was no venturing to trust him. When he was gone, I turned to the boy, whom they called Xury, and said to him, "Xury, if you will be faithful to me, I'll make you a great man; but if you will not stroke your face to be true to me" - that is, swear by Mahomet and his father's beard - "I must throw you into the sea too." The boy smiled in my face, and spoke so innocently that I could not distrust him, and swore to be faithful to me, and go all over the ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... minute," he called out. "My boy," he continued, placing a friendly hand on Andy's shoulder, "you have made a good start with us in that Benares matter. Keep on the right side always, and you will succeed. Never swear, quarrel or gamble. Assist our patrons, and be civil and obliging on all occasions. The circus is a grand centre of fraternal good will, properly managed, and the right circus stands for health, happiness, virtue and vigor. Its motto should be courage, ambition and energy, governed by honest ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... gallop. His brother stands at th' dure an' hollers farewell to him. 'Go, Hinnery,' he says. 'Go, me dear brother, to th' land iv perpetchooal sunshine an' knock in nails f'r to hang up th' German armor,' he says. 'Knock in th' nails, an' if ye happen to hit ye'ersilf on th' thumb, swear on'y be th' German Mike an' raymimber ye done it f'r me,' he says. 'I will remain at home an' conthrol th' rest iv th' wurruld with th' assistance iv that German Providence that has been as kind ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... could feel the difference created by the water's powerful density—despite my heavy clothing, copper headpiece, and metal soles, I climbed the most impossibly steep gradients with all the nimbleness, I swear it, of a chamois or a ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... exhaustion upon the field during the "Bloody Night," and had been found by the guard in the morning in an unconscious condition. I heard that there were seventy such cases brought in—all caused by exposure and the rain. I cannot testify to that number, but I can swear to the twenty-five cases because I saw them in the hospital lying in the ward with me. They were then in a terrible plight, not having ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... the men who, at one time or another, listened to him, fascinated, their mouths agape and a tickling down the length of their spines. It was probably only Friday's genius as a narrator which later caused some of his listeners to swear that new lines were grooved in Carse's face and a few flaxen hairs silvered by the minutes he spent watching Eliot Leithgow strapped down on that operating table, close to the beautiful surgeon fingers of ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... press copy taken of it. When I appeared before the commission, I found a deposition attached to that of your father, and asked how they came by that. They answered that it had been sent to them. I requested them to take it off; that I had the deposition in my hand to which alone I would swear; they did so, and my deposition was attached. The next day (I think) I called, and told Mr. Jefferson what had passed, read to him the press copy, and asked him if he recollected having given to me the opinions I had detailed. He answered that ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... to meet that man; but she shall not. She shall not! I swear it! ... That man, I'll take him by the throat. I ought to have done so long ago; but it ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... Sire, in the state I am in! I swear to you again, on my life, which I could renounce without pain, that it is a frightful calumny. I conjure you to summon all my people, and confront them. What? You will judge me without hearing me! I demand ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... answer'd, "ne'er was I. But through all Europe where do those men dwell, To whom their glory is not manifest? The fame, that honours your illustrious house, Proclaims the nobles and proclaims the land; So that he knows it who was never there. I swear to you, so may my upward route Prosper! your honour'd nation not impairs The value of her coffer and her sword. Nature and use give her such privilege, That while the world is twisted from his course By a bad head, she only walks ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... daughter of Perseus, woman that hast borne the noblest of children [and lay up in thy heart the better of the things that are to be]. For by the sweet light that long hath left mine eyes, I swear that many Achaean women, as they card the soft wool about their knees, shall sing at eventide, of Alcmena's name, and thou shalt be honourable among the women of Argos. Such a man, even this thy son, shall mount to the starry firmament, ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... there be two, Know more than honest counsels; whose close breasts, Were they ripp'd up to light, it would be found A poor and idle sin, to which their trunks Had not been made fit organs. These can lie, Flatter, and swear, forswear, deprave, inform, Smile, and betray; make guilty men; then beg The forfeit lives, to get their livings; cut Men's throats with whisperings; sell to gaping suitors The empty smoke, that flies about the palace; Laugh when their patron laughs; sweat when he sweats; Be ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... a mystery, sir," he declared at last. "I swear to you, sir, that nobody could have got in, and yet it is perfectly clear also that neither M. Charles nor Mlle. Therese, nor yet either of the two maids, Marie and ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... explain my self to the Reader, as to let him know that the Letters, C, L, and X, are Cabalistical, and carry more in them than it is proper for the World to be acquainted with. Those who are versed in the Philosophy of Pythagoras, and swear by the Tetrachtys, [4] that is, the Number Four, will know very well that the Number Ten, which is signified by the Letter X, (and which has so much perplexed the Town) has in it many particular Powers; that it is called by Platonick Writers the Complete Number; that One, Two, Three and Four ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... asked me, "Do you tell fortunes, or what?" "My sister," I replied, "I'll tell thee the truth. I do tell fortunes. I keep a house for the purchase of stolen goods. I am largely engaged in making counterfeit money and all kinds of forgery. I am interested in burglary. I lie, swear, cheat, and steal, and get drunk on Sunday. And I do many other things. I am a real Romany witch." This little confession of faith brought down the house. "Bravo! bravo!" they ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... taken aback. Of course he didn't want to go. He thought it made him look foolish in the eyes of the men, and it did. He thought he might get out of it by explaining to Mrs. Steele, and he didn't. Perhaps that lady believed that Injun's morals were swear-proof, or that he didn't have any, for she didn't mention him. And to crown Whitey's annoyance and chagrin, just as he was being led away to the darned old house Injun appeared. And his face was lighted up—for Injun's. ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... is to keep the chapel, library, books, and chains, together with the house built for the use of the keeper, in good repair; and he is, moreover, to find and maintain the vestments and lights required for the chapel. All these duties he is to swear on the Holy Gospels ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... believe Mitch worked on the newspaper more'n a week or ten days, but lots happened; and I went down to see him a good deal to hear Dutchie Bale talk and swear. He swore awful, especially on press day; for the press nearly always broke down just as they started to print. ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... to that brute, but it is not my intention to trouble the town. I have no more idea who this woman is than you have, and I'll swear that Peterkin's vile insinuations with regard to her are false. My brother says he never saw her in his life, and he speaks the truth. She may have been on Peterkin's boat, but I doubt it. She has every appearance ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... the hour; and sunk in slumber now Lies Agamemnon. Shall he nevermore Open his eyes to the fair light? My hand, Once pledge to him of stainless love and faith, Is it to be the minister of his death? Did I swear that? Ay, that; and I must keep My oath. Quick, let me go! My foot, heart, hand— All over I tremble. Oh, what did I promise? Wretch! what do I attempt? How all my courage Hath vanished from me since Aegisthus vanished! I only see the immense ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Ages tried to seal the fountains of truth. Picture a man kneeling before the authorities at Rome and stating: "With a sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies. I swear that for the future I will never say nor assert anything verbally or in writing which may give rise to a {463} similar suspicion against me."[3] Thus he was compelled to recant and deny his theory that the earth ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... proven guilty before this court. They have not yet had fair trial. They have not yet even been heard in their own defense. When I took my oath of office to serve you as alcalde, that oath, the oath you yourselves compelled me to swear, bound me to see that every prisoner brought before me had fair and speedy trial. I meant to keep that oath then; and, by the Eternal Andrew Jackson! I mean to keep it now, if need be with my life. Now, you ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... carrying away the dead. The bride brings no dowry to her husband; she is purchased at a stipulated price, and earnest-money is paid at the betrothal, which usually takes place while the contracting parties are still children. It is customary for young men who are attached to each other to swear eternal brotherhood (compare the Slavonic pobratimstvo); the contract is regarded as sacred, and no instance has been known of its violation. The costume of the Tosks differs from that of the Ghegs; its ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... "Do you swear by Moloch and Astarte to be true to this society, to devote yourself to the destruction of the oppressors of Carthage, to carry out all measures which may be determined upon, even at the certain risk of your life, and to suffer yourself to be torn to pieces by the torture rather ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... on the bed's edge could she reach the gas-bracket to turn the flame higher. This meant pain sharper and more prolonged, yet she managed it, and, with that, clenched her teeth hard to keep down a cry. The child could swear, on occasion, like a trooper; but this was a fancy accomplishment. Just now, when an oath would have come naturally to a man, she felt only a choking in the throat, and swallowed it down with ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... old man. "I swear that you shall have Virginia as your wife, and all my property shall be made over to you if ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Guido, I will go no farther; for if I walk another step I will have no life left to swear by; this ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... couple of fierce nondescript beasts are regarding a number of innocent lambs: "These bloodthirsty wretches," remarks one of the two, "mean to destroy man, woman, and child, I know it to a certainty; for they carry sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion in their looks." "And I'll swear it, Brother Castle," says his companion; "let's dash at them." In the third, a cat watches the movements of some unsuspecting mice: "There's a pretty collection of rogues gathered together," observes Grimalkin; "if there is not a plot among them, burn my tail and whiskers." ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... of my own free will and accord, in the presence of Almighty God, and this Worshipful Lodge of Fellow Craft Masons, dedicated to God, and held forth to the Holy Order of St. John, do hereby and hereon most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear, in addition to my former obligation, that I will not give the degree of a Fellow Craft Mason to any one of an inferior degree, nor to any one being in the known world, except it be to a true and lawful brother, ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... mutual dislike, and, of course, the slavery question came up, as it always does, in one way or another. Anon, I produced my bank post-bill; and Mr. ——— kindly engaged to identify me at the bank, being ready to swear to me, he said, on the strength of my resemblance to my engraved portrait. So we set out for the Bank of England, and, arriving there, were directed to the proper clerk, after much inquiry; but he told us that the bill was not yet due, having been ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... captive walked quickly, anxious to get the thing through. The woman had a scared yet triumphant look in her eyes: she had succeeded in making the police do what they did not want to do; and now for a fortnight, or a month, or for two months—according to what these men might swear to, or the magistrate think—she and a few score of others would find in a criminal cell that temporary goal at which they had aimed; and the press would quiet the public conscience by saying that they had done it ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... any that I know now living. Sir, said Sir Tristram, for the good lordship ye showed me in Ireland, and for my lady your daughter's sake, La Beale Isoud, I will take the battle for you upon this condition that ye shall grant me two things: that one is that ye shall swear to me that ye are in the right, that ye were never consenting to the knight's death; Sir, then said Sir Tristram, when that I have done this battle, if God give me grace that I speed, that ye shall give me a reward, what thing reasonable that I will ask of you. So God me help, said ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... First his eyes rolled about, or rather, I am ashamed to say, his eye, one having been closed by Mr. Warrington's first blow. First, then, his eye rolled about; then he gasped and uttered an inarticulate moan or two, then he began to swear and curse very freely ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... should have six milch-goats, four he-goats, and six kids given them, as well for present subsistence as for a store; and that they should have tools given them for their work in the fields, but they should have none of these tools or provisions unless they would swear solemnly that they would not hurt or injure any of the Spaniards with them, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... with love for Lucy Gerard, and would have laid down my life to kiss her finger-tips. Nearly half a century has passed over my head since the time of which I write, and yet, I swear to you, my old heart glows again, and on my withered cheeks there comes a blush as I call to mind the time when I first met that pure and lovely girl. But from the moment that Marmaduke Heath spoke to me as he did, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... also he was deep-chested and lean-loined, forty-five or thereabout, and had "Texan" written all over his weather-beaten face and costume. At sight of him Steve gave a silent whoop of joy. A white man had come to Noche Buena, a Texan (he was ready to swear), and he wore his big serviceable six-guns low. Also, he carried on his face and in his bearing the look of reckless competence that comes only from death faced in the ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... taking an oath is. 'Tis a horrible testament mind ye, which you say and seal with your blood-stone, and the prophet Matthew tells us that on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder. Now, before all the work-folk here assembled, can you swear to your words as ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... two: The roses in the close were gay, The cherries blackened on the bough. O cherries black and pears so green! Of maidens fair you are the queen. Fruit of black cherry and sweet pear! Of sweethearts you're the queen, I swear. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... who during the six years he spent in the United States prior to 1830 found in Virginia a case of a Negro with whom a planter's daughter had not only fallen in love but had actually seduced him. In North Carolina a white woman drank some of her Negro's blood that she might swear that she had Negro blood in her and marry him. They reared a family. The author quotes also from Reverend Mr. Rankin, who "could refer you to several instances of slaves actually seducing the daughters of their masters! Such seductions sometimes happened even ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... illusion either," he said stoutly to himself the next instant. "I'm prepared to swear that I really did see two figures on horseback, though what, in great ginger cookies, they were doing out in this I don't know. Appears to me though that they must have had to call a halt right around here some place. In that case I'm going to give 'em a hail, an' if they answer it ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... JUL. No, Don Roderigo: swear thou, in the fight That thou wilt meet me, hand to hand, alone, That, if I ever save ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... I can just stay twenty-five minutes. I've marked the time accurately, but I know the man will swear it's ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... is necessary, I will swear that it belongs lawfully to you; but what do you want to sell it for? I should think you would prize it too highly to be willing to ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... favourable to you were attacked. Several people were killed, and others narrowly escaped with their lives. The whole population are up in arms. Loud cries are raised against the English and those who support them. 'Down with the foreign rajah!' is the cry of every one; while they swear that should you return they will destroy you and all your friends. The armed men broke into the prison, and liberated all the prisoners. Among these were Khan Cochut and the slave Bikoo, who did their utmost ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... well-known, as in some strange way gallantry ever is known, to every man who served under him. And well loved was Charles Norie. He had lost an arm fighting on the Indian frontier. There have been many depressing optimists since August 1914 who every Autumn swear the war will end next spring, and every spring know it cannot last beyond next autumn. An answer given by one of our Sergeants was consonant to the serene spirit and resolution that filled the regiment and bid defiance ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... I have sworn faith to your father, and am his man. If I carried you with me, I should give the lie to my troth. Let this covenant be made between us. Should you give me leave to return to my own land I swear to you on my honour as a knight, that I will come again on any day that you shall name. My life is in your hands. Nothing on earth shall keep me from your side, so only that I ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... am but a poor hand myself at reading writing, I would swear that we hold in our hands the discharge of some soldier of Mohammed who is now in the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... shall be taught to ponder the simplicity and deep wisdom of utterances which, in their time, passed, in party heat, as idle words. Men will receive a new impulse of patriotism for his sake, and will guard with zeal the whole country which he loved so well. I swear you, on the altar of his memory, to be more faithful to the country for which he has perished. They will, as they follow his hearse, swear a new hatred to that slavery against which he warred, and which, in vanquishing him, has made him a martyr and a conqueror. I ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... his followers, without any exception, should be admitted to compound for their delinquency; and he protested that, till his conscience were satisfied of the lawfulness of the covenant, he would neither swear to it himself, nor impose it upon others. Such was the state of the negotiation, when the time allotted by the parliament expired;[a] and a prolongation for ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... years old when he went on the Mississippi as a pilot. Just before he started on his tripp Grandma Clemens asked him to promise her on the Bible not to touch intoxicating liquors or swear, and he said "Yes, mother, I will," and he kept that promise seven years when Grandma ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... according to our arrangement, Felix will hand it to me on his way back to the office, and then swear that it was taken from him by some unknown party. You have ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... for them," says Thorhall, "if they get not disgrace from this. Thou shalt go and tell Mord to take witness and swear an oath, that the greater part of the inquest is rightly summoned, and then he shall bring that witness before the court, and then he may set the prosecution on its feet again; but he will have to pay a fine of three marks for every man that he has wrongly summoned; but he ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... sable adjunct, the cook's mate, held their vaporous and dish-washing levee; while forth from the cloudy sanctuary occasionally pealed a burst of obstreporous laughter, that the most unpractised hearer might swear came from the lungs of a negro, without the trouble of invading their premises for further evidence. Upon either of these culinary worthies, to use the somewhat hyperbolical language of sailors, "lampblack ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... know he is yours too; and you, being the elder and having children, are lady above all. He can tell you how little I want: a bath, a slave, a dish of pilau, one jonquil every morning, as usual; nothing more. But he must swear that he has kissed it first. No, he need not swear it; I may always see him ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... let your good works shine before men, so that, perceiving, they may adore your Father, which is in heaven.' ... And regarding our not swearing at all, but ever speaking the truth, He thus taught: 'Ye may not swear at all, but let your yea be yea, and your nay nay, for what is more than these is of ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... be avoided. This lesson was brought home to me when exasperated by the seeming laziness of the coolie cultivators, I would seize a man's hoe and fly at the work, hoe vigorously for perhaps five minutes, swear at the man for his lack of strenuousness, then retire and find myself puffing and blowing and almost in a ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... over snuffing and snivelling and sobbing, and tell me if you want your warm petticoat in the saddle-bag. You'd make a saint for to swear!" More sobs, and one or two disjointed words, were all that came in answer. The sobbing sister, who was the younger of the pair, wore widow's mourning, and was seated in a rocking-chair near the window of a small, but very comfortable parlour. Her complexion was pale and sallow, her person rather ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... experience, and I had a delightful leader, 'Stareek' by name—Russian for 'Old Man,' and he was the most wise old man. We have to use Russian terms with all our dogs. 'Ki Ki' means go to the right, 'Chui' means go to the left, 'Esh to' means lie down—and the remainder are mostly swear words which mean everything else which one has to say to a dog team. Dog driving like this in the orthodox manner is a very different thing to the beastly dog driving we perpetrated in the Discovery days. I got to love all my team and they got to ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... not matter after all! Such a disgrace to the family! Oh, come now, you know, Cora! this is not the way to welcome a fellow home! For any old man to make such a—Oh, I say, Cora! come out of that now! If you don't, I swear I will take my hat and go out to get ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... his lady penitent that there was no impropriety, that it was even necessary for them to have a parley on things that made her blush a few moments before. She is so well convinced that she would swear that there is nothing wrong in confession. Truly this is a fulfilment ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... "I have loved you very tenderly and very truly. I swear to you upon our child that I am wholly innocent. Will you ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford |
