"Swerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the soundness of his political intellect than the fact that this upgrowth of wealth around him never made Walpole swerve from a rigid economy, from a steady reduction of the debt, or a diminution of fiscal duties. Even before the death of George the First the public burdens were reduced by twenty millions. It was indeed in economy alone that his best work could be done. In finance as in other fields ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... We must swerve for a moment and cut across lots, that we may touch every one of the big structural elements of plot and relate them with logical closeness to the playlet, summing them all up in the end and tying them closely into—what I hope may be—a helpful definition, ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... they have rendered themselves obnoxious. But all this will not avail to make them strong, or render their tenure of office secure and permanent. They are not popular, all parties distrust them, none believe that they have any fixed principles from which no considerations would induce them to swerve, and the unfortunate circumstances under which they so improperly took office again in March last, and their apparent wavering between antagonist principles, and readiness to yield to pressure when they ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... and in the rain, you swerve round some corner into the straight, by Grant Park, in full sight of one of the most dazzling spectacles that Chicago or any other city can offer—Michigan Avenue on a wet evening. Each of the thousands ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... fell: His life fled; clanged his armour o'er the corpse. With laughter of triumph stalwart Molus' son A second arrow sped, with strong desire To smite Polites, ill-starred Priam's son: But with a swift side-swerve did he escape The death, nor did the arrow touch his flesh. As when a shipman, as his bark flies on O'er sea-gulfs, spies amid the rushing tide A rock, and to escape it swiftly puts The helm about, and turns aside the ship Even as he listeth, that a little strength Averts ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... the most precious burden that Barney Custer might ever expect to carry. Under these circumstances his speed was greatly reduced from what he would have wished, but at that he was forced to accept grave risks. The road might end abruptly at the brink of a ravine—it might swerve perilously close to a stone quarry—or plunge headlong into a pond or river. Barney shuddered at the possibilities; but nothing of the sort happened. The street ran straight out of the town into a country ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... strength serve, And through all and each Of the veils I reach To her soul and never swerve, Knitting an ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... of snow, and threw it at the steeds, making them swerve more than ever towards the side of the hill. Then one of the animals slipped and stumbled. This caused them both to slow up, and Bert, seeing this, left his sled, rolling off, and letting ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope
... such slight value and worth that sometimes I think I am considering matters too deeply—that if I simply fling it in the scales the balance will scarcely be altered—the splendid, even tenor of your career will scarcely swerve a shade. ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... thought all was over, but, thrusting my hands down, they touched something, and the snatch I gave made the woman's shoulder roll up above the surface, then her face appeared, and, knowing the imminent danger, I tried to swerve aside to avoid the clutch of the ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... landing upon our shores in the disguise of promoters of peace and industry, a revolution of the disaffected among ourselves would be attempted. Many were the dissuasions resorted to for the purpose of checking the zeal of the committee, and causing the court to swerve from its patronage of so bold a measure! The court, the government, the committee, and the leading men in the mercantile interests of the metropolis and the provinces, pursued the even tenor of their way, amused at the folly of so many persons in a condition of life to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... spake the Seraph Abdiel, faithful found Among the faithless, faithful only he; Among innumerable false, unmov'd, Unshaken, unseduc'd, unterrify'd; His Loyalty he kept, his Love, his Zeal: Nor Number, nor Example with him wrought To swerve from truth, or change his constant Mind, Though single. From amidst them forth he pass'd, Long way through [hostile] Scorn, which he sustain'd Superior, nor of Violence fear'd ought; And, with retorted Scorn, his Back he turn'd On those proud ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... wall, moat included, turrets and all, if he would only have shown her the way. The huntsman and Frank had taken the wall. The horsey man's bit of blood, knowing his own powers to an inch, had declined,—not roughly, with a sudden stop and a jerk, but with a swerve to the left which the horsey man at once understood. What the brute lacked in jumping he could make up in pace, and the horsey man was along the wall and over a broken bank at the head of it, with the loss of not more than a minute. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... again. Car in front just visible through haze of dust. Hear distant crash. Confound the man, he's run into a dray! Just time to swerve to the right, and miss wreck of his car by an inch. Clumsy fellow, blocking my road in that way. At last clear space before me. Go up with a rush. Wind whistles past my ears. Glorious! What's that? Run over an old woman? Very annoying. Almost upset my car. Awkward for next chap. Body right across ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... nor swerve from the paths of truth. For if thou reply unto my questions with sincerity, I will loosen thy bonds and give thee treasures; but if thou deceive me, thou shalt languish ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... sledge, but the pursuer would only find before him fathomless morasses. Only one leader had the courage to pursue Pugasceff even into this land—this was Michelson. Just as the Siberian wolf who has tasted the blood of the wild boar does not swerve from the track, but pursues him even amongst reeds and morasses, so the daring leader chased his opponent from plain to plain. He never had more than 1,000 men, cavalry, artillery, and gunners, all told. Every one had to carry provisions for two weeks and 100 cartridges. The cavalry had ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... whenever party spirit ran high, these ardent politicians on their promotion were lucid, clear-sighted, and perspicacious. They kept up a vigorous detective system throughout the kingdom; they did the work of spies, and urged the nation along a path of obedience, from which it had no business to swerve. ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... venture to call a very rare characteristic, in the sense in which we understand it,—an intense love of truth, which ever stimulated him to search after it as the chief part of his being's aim and end, and which never permitted him to swerve a hair's breath from it in practice. This made him a nonconformist, a separatist, an exile, an independent; a growing Christian, a profound theologian, an able controversialist; a student at Leyden University, although he had previously graduated and held a fellowship ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Hernando in executive capacity, Almagro in generosity, Balboa in gallantry, and De Soto in courtesy. On the other hand, he was inferior to none of them in bravery and resolution, and he made up for his lack of other qualities by a terrible and unexampled persistency. Nothing could swerve him from his determination. He had a faculty of rising to each successive crisis which confronted him, wresting victory from the most adverse circumstances in a way worthy of the highest admiration. He was not so cruel as Pedrarias, but he was {108} ruthless enough and his fame is ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... muffled by another volley; on the echoes of which the little man saw the nose of a car poke diagonally out of the garage door, pause, swerve a trifle to the right, and ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... raise my head when I was swept off my seat and hurled to the ground by a large branch. Peterkin's attention was drawn to me, and his ox, as if aware of the fact, seized the opportunity to swerve violently to one side, thereby throwing its rider off. Both animals gave a bellow, as of triumph, erected their tails, and ran away. They were soon recaptured, however, by our negroes; and mounting once more, ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... the bobbing lights in silence as they moved nearer; saw the red-lights blur and fade into green as the vessels changed direction and headed shoreward; noted one twinkling light running far in advance of its fellows; saw it swerve and double again into red and green. That meant that the Fuor d'Italia was bearing down upon them. Directing Bronson to intercept the ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... did not cause her to swerve a hair's breadth from her manner of work or life. She refused all social invitations, and worked away after her own method as industriously as ever. When a picture was completed, she set her price on it ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... her mind and she will not swerve from the duty that lies nearest her. She meets Hubert Tracy with a calm composure and a steady light in her soft expressive eyes and when she had listened to his ardent declaration of love calmly replied:—"Hubert Tracy I will be your wife but only on these conditions—you will save my father ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... talents of the advocate of the other side. We are naturally disposed to favor the weak and opprest, and a conscientious judge hears an orator willingly whom he presumes not to be capable of making him swerve from his fixt purpose of doing justice. Hence the care of the ancients for concealing ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... of that Cornelian ink Which gave Agricola dateless length of days, To celebrate him fitly, neither swerve To phrase unkempt, nor pass discretion's brink, With him so statue-like in sad reserve, So diffident to claim, so forward to deserve! 200 Nor need I shun due influence of his fame Who, mortal among ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... of the War itself swerve him from the belief that in serving his State, he was doing his highest duty. After it was over and he had gone into the retirement of work in Washington College, we find him writing ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... to the hard test of action. Yet he is not an impostor. His enthusiasm is contagious because it is sincere, and his eloquence is convincing because devotion to his ideals is an absorbing passion with him. He would die for them, and, what is more rare, he would not swerve a hair's-breadth from them for any worldly advantage, or for fear of any hardship. Only this passion and this enthusiasm spring with him entirely from the head. The heart, the deep emotional power of human love and pity, lay dormant in him. Humanity, which he would serve ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... his face to glance at mine with a fatuous smile; but I would not look at him. I kept my eyes straight in front. Then a swerve of the carriage swung his body away from me, and he subsided into the corner. The intoxication was ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... still. Being well trained, he knew that he must not move while the men on him were firing; they must do the fighting. But when the tiger had apparently beaten all the men and was actually leaping on him, the elephant had a new duty to do: he must swerve aside. So the elephant swerved aside just as the tiger was alighting on the box ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... stooping on the tiny beaches, the brown figures of men, women, and children grubbing in the sand in search of turtles' eggs, would rise up, crooked elbow aloft and hand over the eyes, to watch this monthly apparition glide straight on, swerve off—and go by. Their ears caught the panting of that ship; their eyes followed her till she passed between the two capes of the mainland going at full speed as though she hoped to make her way unchecked into the very bosom of ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... side. The wind was now whistling around him, and at times threatening to rip away the patched sail. The water was rough, and the angry white-caps were dashing their cold spray over his clothes. But not for an instant did he swerve from his course until quite near the wreck. Then letting go the sheet-line he permitted the boat to fall away a little to the left. In this manner he was able to swing gradually in a half-circle, and by the time he was up again to the teeth of the wind the Scud was lying ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... out unconsciously. He did not even notice it himself in time to prepare, and the next instant the thief flung himself upon him and jammed his head against the iron rod that guided the rudder, with such a force that the rudder stayed in its place and the boat flew along the ice without a swerve. ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... made by Buckingham. His career was executed with all the consummate address for which the favourite was remarkable, and it appeared certain that he would carry off the prize; but in lowering his lance he did not make sufficient allowance for the wind, and this caused it slightly to swerve, and though he touched the ring, he did not bear it away. The course, however, was considered a good one by the judges, and much applauded; but the Marquis was ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... swerve from the attack, and swoop aloft—dropping his next to last projectile as he did so—when the whirling shape zoomed past, swung round and once more charged. He saw, vaguely, two men sat in it. One ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... dying injunction. He remained true to the charge which he had taken upon himself, that of redeeming his father's memory from reproach. This, at times subjected him to the imputation of meanness, but for this he cared little. He would not swerve from the line of duty which ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... the smoking remnants could hardly have caused more consternation among the man hunters than the Snipe's naming of Abe Hawk. But however Doubleday's jaw set at the unwelcome surprise he was not the one to swerve in the face of any personal danger, and those with him were not men to bolt whatever adventure they embarked in. However, it was remarked by the Snipe that those least acquainted with Abe were least disturbed by the news of his almost certain presence in the cabin ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... by something stronger than any part of themselves. Over them stood the Company, and to its commands all other things gave way. No matter how rebellious might be Dick Herron's heart, how ruffled the surface of his daily manner, Bolton knew perfectly well he would never for a single instant swerve in his loyalty to the main object of the expedition. Serene in this consciousness, the old woodsman dwelt in a certain sweet and gentle rumination of his own. Among the finer instincts of his being many ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... ignorance and inexperience of the newly enfranchised citizens. Honorable and upright, Luzerne preserved his integrity among the corruptions of political life. Men respected him too much to attempt to swerve him from duty for personal advantage. No bribes ever polluted his hands, nor fraud, nor political chicanery ever ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... ahead at full speed for a few hundred yards, as if to chase an adversary; then they would swerve aside, the slaves on one side rowing, while those on the other backed, so as to make a rapid turn. Then she lay for a minute or two immovable, and then backed water, or turned to avoid the attack of an imaginary foe. ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... These roads remain, and are evidences of the great engineering skill which their makers possessed. They liked their roads well drained, and raised high above the marshes; they liked them to go straight ahead, like their victorious legions, and never swerve to right or left for any obstacle. They cut through the hills, and filled up the valleys; and there were plenty of idle Britons about, who could be forced to do the work. They called their roads ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... may be of such a kind. Now this is called opinion, through our combining the recollection brought previously into action with the sensation recently produced. And when these, placed along each other, agree, a true opinion is produced; but when they swerve from each other, a false one."[538] The dixa of Plato, therefore answers to the experience, or the empirical knowledge of modern philosophy, which is concerned only with appearances (phenomena), and not with absolute realities, and can not be elevated to the dignity of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... the other side of the road; instead of which he simply backed his kuruma against a wall on the lower side of the curve, with the shafts outwards. At the rate I was going, there wasn't room even to swerve; and the next minute one of the shafts of that kuruma was in my horse's shoulder. The man wasn't hurt at all. When I saw the way my horse was bleeding, I quite lost my temper, and struck the man over the head with the butt of my whip. He looked right into my face and smiled, and then bowed. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... the gallant service he has rendered thee. And for me no choice is left. The delusion, in which Egmont ventures here to-day, cannot a second time deliver him into my hands! Hark! (Ferdinand and Silva enter hastily.) Obey my orders! I swerve not from my purpose. I shall detain Egmont here as best I may, till you bring me tidings from Silva. Then remain at hand. Thee, too, fate has robbed of the proud honour of arresting with thine own hand the king's ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... vicious and knowing, and plunged in a rage, but could do nothing with the man, and bolted again, and away in a straight blind line over the meadow, when the rider leaned forward to his trick. The horse veered in a jagged swerve, rolled over and over with its twisted impetus, and up on its feet and on without a stop, the man still seated and upright in the saddle. How we cheered to see it! But the figure now tilted strangely, and something awful and nameless ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... We cross the river by a suspension bridge, passing over Rensselaer Island and seeing ahead of us the handsome new freight houses of the D. & H.R.R., and to right and left the boats of the Hudson River Steamship lines lying against the wharves. Once over the bridge the tracks swerve to the right, and soon lead into the ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... sake of dogmatic opinions. True, he held to his order that the Bible should be promulgated in the English tongue, for his revolt from the hierarchy, and demand of obedience from all estates, rested on God's written word: nor did he allow himself to swerve from the legally enacted suppression of the monasteries; but he abandoned further innovations, and an altered tendency displayed itself in all his proclamations. Even during the troubles he called on the bishops to observe the usual ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... her, but offers no retort; he stands moveless as a stachoo. Thar's a flash an' a crash an' a cloud of bloo smoke; the aroused bronco makes a standin' jump of twenty foot. The Caldwell beauty keeps her saddle, an' with never a swerve or curve goes whirlin' away up the brown, burnt August trail, Bloojacket lays thar on his face; an' thar's a bullet as squar' between the eyes as you-all could set your finger-tip. Which he's dead—dead without a motion, while the poker ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... of his early fault, the woman he loved, the poet's crown, his father's blessing! But here he stood at his post waiting an inglorious death, which he felt would meet him ere the night was over. He would not swerve from duty, death might seek him ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... throbbed violently, and a film came over his eyes. Only for a moment, however; in the next his sight cleared, and he saw the furious animal, frightened by a sudden plunge made by the horse tied to the tree, swerve suddenly from the road, and dash at the swollen, tumbling river. The horse plunged in a little below the bridge. The rider was thrown out of the saddle head foremost. His head struck with a dull thud against the rugged trunk of an ash which ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... oases, mirages, caravans and camels; to drop bombs perhaps on Syrian fortresses; to estimate the numbers of Turkish columns on the march, to reckon their strength in artillery; to take desperate risks; to swerve and dart amid clouds of bursting shrapnel. How much more gloriously exciting such a life than that of men baking slowly in the monotony of ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... your heart become softened by tender condolences at this stage. Your mind has been set; don't swerve." ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... corresponding to the conception now entertained of Christianity, according to which it was regarded as a teaching of life, had yet been found. Hence, dramatic art, having no foundation, came in all Christian countries to swerve farther and farther from its proper use and object, and, instead of serving God, it took to serving the crowd (by crowd, I mean, not simply the masses of common people, but the majority of immoral or unmoral men, indifferent ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... must be Wholly to your Lordship's candor. Not that—in a common case— When a bully caught at cheating thrusts a pistol in one's face, I should underrate, believe me, such a trial to the nerve! 'Tis no joke, at one-and-twenty, for a youth to stand nor swerve. Fear I naturally look for—unless, of all men alive, I am forced to make exception when I come to Robert Clive. Since at Arcot, Plassy, elsewhere, he and death—the whole world knows— Came to somewhat closer quarters." Quarters? Had we come to blows, Clive and I, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... fonder, in fair sooth, Than sighs could fathom, or contentment reach: And coverlids gold-tinted like the peach, Or ripe October's faded marigolds, Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds— Not hiding up an Apollonian curve 400 Of neck and shoulder, nor the tenting swerve Of knee from knee, nor ankles pointing light; But rather, giving them to the filled sight Officiously. Sideway his face repos'd On one white arm, and tenderly unclos'd, By tenderest pressure, a faint damask mouth To slumbery pout; just as the morning south Disparts a dew-lipp'd rose. ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... me over to the house, I could manage all right. What a beastly nuisance! It wasn't your fault a bit. Only you tackled me when I was just trying to swerve, and my ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... Majesty's good intentions towards me; the Tories may continue to rail at me, on the credit of such enemies as I have described to you in the course of this relation: neither the one nor the other shall make me swerve out of the path which I have traced ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... dive into his own bosom, and he will find his private wishes spring and his secret hopes grow up at another's expense. Upon which consideration it comes into my head, that nature does not in this swerve from her general polity; for physicians hold, that the birth, nourishment, and increase of every thing is the dissolution ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... he acknowledged, but did not swerve from what he had to do. "Orderly," he commanded, "report to Lieutenant Harris at the stables and have him hunt the woods and swamp for hidden horses. Hurry! We must leave in half ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... and good road lay clear before him, and he meant to break the law as to speed limit by traveling at the fastest rate compatible with his own safety and that of other road-users. It was no disgrace to the Mercury car, therefore, when a dull report and a sudden effort of the steering-wheel to swerve to the right betokened the collapse of an inner tube on the off side. From the motorist's point of view it was difficult to understand the cause of the mishap. The whole four tires were new so recently as the previous Monday, and Medenham was far too deeply absorbed ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... and hissing tongue; The weed whose tangled fibres tell Of some inviolate deep-sea dell; The faultless, secret-chambered shell, Whose sound is an epitome Of all the utterance of the sea; Great, basking, twinkling wastes of brine; Far clouds of gulls that wheel and swerve In unanimity divine, With undulation serpentine, And wondrous, consentaneous curve, Flashing in sudden silver sheen, Then melting on the sky-line keen; The world-forgotten coves that seem Lapt in some magic old sea-dream, Where, shivering off the milk-white foam, Lost airs wander, ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... the attack, since an air duel is often decided in the first few seconds at close quarters. What happens during these few seconds may depend on a trifle, such as the position of the gun-mounting, an untried drum of ammunition, a slight swerve, or firing a second too soon or too late. An airman should regard his body as part of the machine when there is a prospect of a fight, and his brain, which commands the machine, must be instinctive with insight into what the ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... stable too fast, the sagacious Pendennis saving himself from going through a partition by a swerve which splintered a shaft of the runabout and almost threw the driver to the floor. George swore, and then swore again at the fat old darkey, Tom, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... still held off; an occasional thunderstorm would trail over the ranges, but none came to the saddle. Sometimes it was as though an invisible hand held them back; I had more than once seen a rain cloud heading straight for the saddle, only to swerve to right or left, and pass sometimes within a few hundred yards ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... action. He but stays to think what may be his safest course, as the surest and swiftest. His repeated repulses, while making more cautious, have done nought to daunt, or drive him from his original purpose. Recalling his latest interview with Helen Armstrong, and what he then said, he dares not swerve from it. To go back leaving it undone, were a humiliation no lover would like to confess to ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... herself and her husband. But she was young and timid; there could be no doubt of the result, or that from the first she would elect to bear her lot in silence. The very perfections of her character forbade her to venture to swerve from her duties, or to attempt to inquire into the cause of her sufferings, for to put an end to them would have been to venture on delicate ground, and Julie's girlish modesty shrank from ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... unexpectedly surrounded by active friends, once more reared his crest, and seemed disposed for a time to put on the air of injured innocence. The squire, however, with all his benevolence of heart, and his lurking weakness towards the prisoner, was too conscientious to swerve from the strict path of justice. There was abundant concurrent testimony that made the proof of guilt incontrovertible, and Starlight Tom's ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... altar vows, I believe they will not make me swerve from equity. I shall exact neither service nor affection from my spouse. The value of these, and, indeed, not only the value, but the very existence, of the latter depends upon its spontaneity. A promise to love tends rather to ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... the porch, saw them coming, the boy striding resolutely ahead, the little girl behind, and the faces of both deadly serious—the one with purpose and the other with blind trust. They did not call to the boy, for they saw him swerve across the road toward the gate. He did not lift his head until he reached the gate, and he did not wait for Mavis. He had no need, for she had hurried to his side when he halted at the steps of ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... laid her plans, and took a resolve not to swerve from them. She allotted a certain portion of her time for her various studies, and a certain portion for doing anything Miss Ainley might direct her to do. The remainder was to be spent in exercise; not a moment was to be left for the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... think and act always from the inner Self, cheerfully taking the consequences of your choice. Let not the opinions of the illusory world of the senses balk and thwart you. Let not the "worldly-wise" swerve you from your ideal and your faith in the final goal of your earthly pilgrimage—the attainment of spiritual consciousness in your present personality; this is the meaning of immortality in ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... and a little tuft of white hair floated slowly to the judge's feet in the moonlight. The judge did not swerve; he still stood erect and motionless, like a statue, with his pistol-arm hanging straight down at his side. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... released himself from the strait-jacket, and with the speed of a panther had ascended the stairs. He saw the monster crashing through the last remaining barrier, and without hesitation he fired at the thing as he closed in. His one thought was to delay it or make it swerve in its course momentarily, with the hope that by some chance Eva might have time to escape. Could he only accomplish this, he thought his mission successful, regardless of the outcome as far as ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... done; My poor lads are reaping, Busy every one. Curates mind the parish, Sweepers mind the Court, We'll away to Snowdon For our ten days' sport, Fish the August evening Till the eve is past, Whoop like boys at pounders Fairly played and grassed. When they cease to dimple, Lunge, and swerve, and leap, Then up over Siabod Choose our nest, and sleep. Up a thousand feet, Tom, Round the lion's head, Find soft stones to leeward And make up our bed. Bat our bread and bacon, Smoke the pipe of peace, And, ere we be drowsy, Give our boots a grease. Homer's heroes did ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... musket kicked against me I felt—I could not see—the rest of the hogs swerve in a common panic and break for the gateway. Their squealing took up the roar of the report and protracted it. They ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... never shall know better. I never can swerve or change, if I live to be a hundred and fifty. You think me presumptuous, no doubt, from what you are brought up to. And you are so young that to seek to bind you, even if you loved me, would be an unmanly thing. But now you are old enough, and you know your own mind surely well enough, just ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... the course. The old racer no sooner finds himself on the familiar track than he is off with the speed of flames, and our young friend, being powerless to check him, with his feet out of the stirrups and hanging on to the back of the saddle for dear life, is carried a mile or so before a sudden swerve at the exit rail deposits ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... heart; But a strong effort quelled it, and she gave The next to hatred, vengeance, and the grave. Her face was calmly stern, and but a glare Within her eyes—there was no feature there That told what lashing fiends her inmates were; Within—there was no thought to bid her swerve From her intent—but every strained nerve Was settled and bent up with terrible force, To some deep deed, far, far beyond remorse; No glimpse of mercy's light her purpose crost, Love, nature, pity, in its depths were lost; Or lent an added fury to the ire That ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... sent the men to him. The next day, as the regiment was passing through a thick wood, and Ronald was riding with Captain Campbell behind his troop, which happened to be in the rear in the regiment, two shots were fired from among the trees. The first struck Ronald's horse in the neck, causing him to swerve sharply round, a movement which saved his rider's life, for the second shot, which was fired almost instantly after the first, grazed his body and passed between ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... and reputation are concerned in supporting with dignity the character you now bear. Let no motive, therefore, make you swerve from your duty, violate your vows or betray your trust; but be true and faithful, and imitate the example of that celebrated artist whom you have this evening represented. Thus you will render yourself deserving of the honor which we have conferred, and merit the confidence ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... that, when the guides of the church do institute any ceremonies as necessary for edification, yet ecclesia liberum habet judicium approbandi aut reprobandi eas.(157) Nay, the canon law,(158) prohibiting to depart or swerve from the rules and discipline of the Roman church, yet excepteth discretionem justitiae and so permitteth to do otherwise than the church prescribeth, if it be done cum discretione justitiae. The schoolmen also give liberty to a private man, of proving the statutes of the ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... spoken of as one whose character is above all reproach, that I may say to myself: 'Thank God, I helped to make him what he is.' This is all that I want, Ned; and your future life will be your best acknowledgment, or will prove your heartless ingratitude. Let neither success nor failure tempt you to swerve from what your own heart tells you to be right and fair. Turn out as your schemes may, never forget to keep your motives pure; and believe me, that come what will, you'll find an easy conscience a great comforter in the hour of trial. Your father was one of my oldest friends; a noble upright man ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... number. The mission, however, was without success; for the ancient capital, although the most foreign in speech and custom of all places in British North America, remained steadfast under the temptation to swerve from her allegiance. Franklin, indeed, added nothing to his reputation by his general relations with the settlements on the St. Lawrence. For twenty-four years he had held the position of Deputy-Postmaster ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the witness swore that he could not be mistaken as to his identity. He said his face looked grave and stern; but though he did not smile, it was the same face he knew so well. Nothing would make him swerve from that. If that were he, it was the last time he was seen. He has never been heard of since. Nothing could be heard of him in the neighborhood of Rouen. There has been no evidence of his death; and there is no sign that he ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... judg'd; Such is the fate unhappy women find, And such the curse entail'd upon our kind, That man, the lawless libertine, may rove, Free and unquestion'd through the wilds of love; While woman,—sense and nature's easy fool, If poor, weak, woman swerve from virtue's rule; If, strongly charm'd, she leave the thorny way, And in the softer paths of pleasure stray; Ruin ensues, reproach and endless shame, And one false step entirely damns her fame; In vain, with tears the loss she may deplore, } In vain, look back on what she was before; } She ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... it was to him to be in a canoe stern again; to feel the rush of the water under his knees; to have her glide swiftly on her soundless way down the full-bosomed, sunbathed river; to see her put her nose into the little waves and gently, smoothly push them asunder with never a splash or swerve; to send her along straight and true as an arrow in its flight, and then flip! flip to swing her off a floating log or around an awkward boat lumbering with clumsy oars. That was to be alive again. ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... slay thee!'—In consequence of this curse, Hiranyakasipu was slain by Vishnu in the form of a man-lion. Viswarupa, having adopted the side of his maternal relations, employed himself in severe austerities for aggrandising them. Impelled by the desire of causing him to swerve from his vows, Indra despatched to him many beautiful Apsaras. Beholding those celestial nymphs of transcendent beauty, the heart of Viswarupa became agitated. Within a very short time he became exceedingly attached ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... tremendous rate, and the correspondent, half-running, swung in behind with the evident intention of taking the pace. Corliss, still in the dark, lifted his head and watched them go; but when he saw the pocket-miner swerve abruptly to the right and take the trail up Adams Creek, the light dawned upon him and he ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... do? Rapidly he turned over in his mind the various courses open to him. Should he try to stun Arima with a blow, and then reach forward and take the steering-wheel before the car could swerve into the ditch? ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... enough, Natalie," said he. "I promise you distinctly that nothing shall cause me to swerve from my allegiance to the Society; I will give absolute and implicit obedience, and the best of such work as I can do. But they must not ask ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... city I can't tell to this day, for Jim never once slackened speed. He sat there with jaws set, pumping gas and still more gas into the little car. Thrice I saw death loom up ahead of us, as vehicles approached from side-streets, but with a swerve and a sickening skid, we missed them somehow. Once a street-car and a wagon seemed completely to block the road ahead, but Jim steered for the slender opening and when I opened my eyes we had skinned through, ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... thy firme selfe never swerve; Teares fat the griefe that they should sterve; Iron decrees of destinie Are ner'e wipe't out ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... hour. First we went to the hen-house, and in ten minutes had placed ten dripping victims in the French gendarme captain's car. Then George and I went in pursuit of a turkey for the Skipper. It was an elusive bird with a perfectly Poultonian swerve, but with a bagful of curses, a bleeding hand, and a large stick, I did it ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... Reader, thou shouldst swerve From thy good purposes, because thou hearest How God ordaineth that ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... the reins, and away we rattled, the hound bounding by the side of the carriage, and sometimes making playful snaps at the horses' heads, causing the animals to swerve from the middle of the road, much to Murden's disgust and ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a hair. There was now and then some sublime heart, willing to die for an intellectual conviction. Had it not been for such men, we would be savages to-night. Had it not been for a few brave, heroic souls in every age, we would have been cannibals, ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... devil, if there is a devil who seeks to swerve us from what we deem our noblest purposes, came to Grant Adams disguised in an offer of a considerable sum of money to Grant for a year's work in the lecture field. The letter bearing the offer explained that by going out and preaching ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... to be jealous of the Priest's insinuation, and very abruptly declared, that if ever I should renounce my religion, he would break off all connection and correspondence with me; for it was his opinion, that no honest man would swerve from his principles in which he was bred, whether Turkish, Protestant, or Roman. The father, affronted at this declaration, with great vehemence began a long discourse, setting forth the danger of obstinacy, and ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... spare threats," I retorted, gathering courage from rising anger, "as I care nothing for your good will, nor shall I swerve an inch in the hope of escaping your savage vengeance. Madame de Noyan is so far above you in every attribute of unsullied womanhood that no words of yours can ever besmirch her reputation; while, as to myself, I remain so certain of my own rectitude ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... matter. He could have been disloyal and escaped the lions, but he chose rather to be loyal and take the full consequences, whatever they might be. God wants you and me to dare to be Daniels too. He does not want us to swerve an inch from the truth in order to evade any sort of trial. If we are true, and as a result of that trueness a great trial like being thrown into a den of lions comes upon us, and every earthly hope seems shut off, ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... some of these things off pretty easy, toward the last; but I did not swerve from my line of duty. I went through all the courses, quietly and deliberately. It was a dinner in my honor, and I did all the honor I ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... said our Hoste tho,* *then "Now such a wife I pray God keep me fro'. Lo, suche sleightes and subtilities In women be; for aye as busy as bees Are they us silly men for to deceive, And from the soothe* will they ever weive,** *truth **swerve, depart As this Merchante's tale it proveth well. But natheless, as true as any steel, I have a wife, though that she poore be; But of her tongue a labbing* shrew is she; *chattering And yet* she hath a heap of vices mo'. *moreover Thereof *no force;* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... enthusiastically heroic; in which many people do extremely wrong, and none sublimely right. But as there are heights of which the achievement is unattempted, there are abysses to which fall is barred; neither accident nor temptation will make any of the principal personages swerve from an adopted resolution, or violate an accepted principle of honour; people are expected as a matter of course to speak with propriety on occasion, and to wait with patience when they are bid: those who do wrong, admit it; ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... presence of a brother's suffering this tender emotion begins to flutter about the heart. As the heart itself is deceitful, so also in turn are each of its affections; even those that in name and nature are good may swerve aside after they have sprung, and degenerate into selfishness. Probably both the priest and the Levite experienced some compassion as they looked on the pale and bleeding victim of lawless violence; perhaps ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... horse and threw his rifle sharply to his face. His antagonist made no attempt to swerve, but instead spurred forward sharply. The brown horse sprang breast to breast with the cream-colored mustang. The two men were within arm's length. At this minute there rang out two reports, almost at the same instant. The horses ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... to thy vesper "service"— Dulcet exhilaration! glorious tea!— I deem my happiest. Howsoe'er I swerve, as To mind or morals, elsewhere, over thee I am a perfect creature, quite impervious To care, or tribulation, or ennui— In fact, I do agnize to thee an utter Devotion even ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... your course not alter By golden apples, till victory's won! The sword's sharp clangour, the dart's shrill anger, Swerve not the hero ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... only matched by the magnificent balance which subsisted between his mental and his moral powers. "George had always been a good son," his mother said. Nature had endowed him with intense passions and ambitions, but neither could blind him or swerve him one hair from the line of rectitude as he saw it. And he made painful and unremitting effort to see it and see it correctly. He was approachable, but repelled familiarity, and whoever attempted this was met with a perfectly withering look. He rarely laughed, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... of Paris. Even now, looking back on those days, I sometimes wonder why they made that sudden swerve to the south-east, missing their great objective. It was for Paris that they had fought their way westwards and southwards through an incessant battlefield from Mons and Charleroi to St. Quentin and Amiens, and down to Creil and Compiegne, flinging away human life ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... themselves would prefer some other form of State-provision; but, on the whole, believing that some distinct State-maintenance of the Clergy, whether by tithes or otherwise, was "the root of visible profession." he adjured the Parliament not to swerve from that. He expounded also his principle of comprehending Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and all earnest Evangelical men amicably in the Established Church, with small concern about their differences from each, other, and expressed his especial ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... don't want to use the ordinary cant about duty and all the rest of it. We may sympathise with you—personally, I admire the attitude you have taken, though perhaps I shouldn't say it—but our own feelings do not matter the toss of a button. Nothing you can do or say will swerve us from what we judge to be the interests ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... the question: How would he employ his Messianic power? By what means would he obtain leadership? In the desert his mind was concentrated on these problems. This story displays the temptations of a leader, and sums up his settlement on three points: first, he realized that he must not swerve aside for personal gratification, but must serve the will of God only; second, he must not debase his power by playing for popularity by means of spectacular, miraculous display; third, he must not win his leadership by methods that would mortgage him to ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... have allowed themselves in this fiery ordeal to swerve from their duty to their State, through the temptation of personal gain, let me say that they will be branded and dishonored, despised at home and abroad; that they will be political pariahs forever, unless they reconsider their votes while yet there is time. They have been clay, moulded ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... arrived just in time. "Had I not received it soon enough to produce it then," said Alexander, "the Queen would have broken off the negotiations. So I ordered Richardot, who is quite aware of your Majesty's secret intentions, from which we shall not swerve one jot, to show it privately to Croft, and afterwards to Dr. Dale, but without allowing a copy of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... explorers which history can offer in all ages a perseverance more dogged in the face of abounding difficulties. Phoenix-like, he rose time after time from the ashes of adversity. Neither fatigue nor famine, disappointment nor even disaster, availed to swerve him from his purpose. To him, more than to any one else of his time, the French could justly attribute their early hold upon the great regions of the West. Other explorers and voyageurs of his generation there were in plenty, and their service was not ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... broken-winded tootle on a coach-horn and the black-and- scarlet drag of the local garrison trundles into view. The unsophisticated gun-horses in the lead shy violently at the flapping canvas of an orange-stall and swerve to the left into a roulette-booth presided over by a vociferous ancient in a tattered overcoat and blue spectacles. The gamblers scatter like flushed partridges and the ancient bites the turf beneath his upturned board amid a shower of silver coins. The leaders, scared by the animated table, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... in the air; but seeing at a glance over his shoulder that Rodier was left behind, he put the helm over and warped the planes to a perilous degree. The aeroplane was fifty or sixty yards from the starting place when Smith's action caused it to swerve like a wounded bird; then it recovered itself, and turning in a narrow circle swept back towards the confused knot of men on the beach. Smith planed down straight upon them, intending to land and rush ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... that noble squadron break into red ruin before the rain of arrows beating upon the faces and breasts of the horses? The front rank crashed down, and the others piled themselves upon the top of them, unable to check their speed, or to swerve aside from the terrible wall of their shattered comrades which had so suddenly sprung up before them. Fifteen feet high was that blood-spurting mound of screaming, kicking horses and writhing, struggling men. Here and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Herbert ran to catch it—but he was not quick enough. At the moment the ball left the racket Gammire abandoned his prayers: his eyes, like a careful fielder's, calculating and estimating, followed the swerve of the ball in the breeze, and when it fell he was on the correct spot. He ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... associations and the old affections—to the road and the cedars and the Hall as to the men and women whose blood she bore and whose likeness she carried. She loved one and all with a fidelity that did not swerve. Riding home along the open road that led to the cedars, she marked each friendly object in its turn—on one side the persimmon tree where the fruit ripened—on the other the blackened wreck of the giant oak, towering ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... had warmly espoused the Reformation, and had placed quotations from the gospels and epistles of the Apostles beneath each picture, containing pressing warnings not to swerve from the written word, or listen to false prophets and perverters of the truth. When the town presented these pictures to the Roman Catholic Elector Maximilian I., of Bavaria, in 1627, they cut off these inscriptions, and affixed them to the copies they had made for themselves by Vischer, and ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... necessary for the ladies of a harem. But I adhered to my resolution; every method to induce me to speak was tried in vain; even blows, torture from pinching, and other means were resorted to, but would not induce me to swerve from my resolution; at last they concluded that I was either born dumb, or had become so from fright at the time that the attack and slaughter of my family took place. I was eighteen months in the harem of Osman Ali, and never spoke ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... Walsingham, swearing to despatch him that instant, if he would not tell them where they were. 'Murder me, and you will be hanged; persist in your mutiny, you'll be drowned,' said Walsingham. 'You'll never make me swerve from my duty—and you know it—you have my answer.' The enraged sailors seized him in their arms, and carried him by force upon deck, where the sight of the danger, and the cries of 'Throw him overboard!—over with him!' only seemed to fortify ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... evil who are evidently under the control of Satan had in vain tried ordinary means of temptation with the patriarch. Probably reporting their want of success to some of the principalities and powers of evil, these likewise had essayed their diabolical arts, but had not succeeded in leading Job to swerve from his integrity. Last of all, the great arch-enemy himself had found all his own efforts ineffectual to harass and lead astray GOD'S beloved servant. He found a hedge around him, and about his servants, and about his house, and about all that ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... deeds of the Highest, and never count the cost: And I swear, that whatso great-one shall show the day and the deed, I shall ask not why nor wherefore, but the sword's desire shall speed: And I swear to seek no quarrel, nor to swerve aside for aught, Though the right and the left be blooming, and the straight way wend to nought: And I swear to abide and hearken the prayer of any thrall, Though the war-torch be on the threshold and the foemen's feet in the hall: And I swear to sit on my throne in the guise ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... other than the murmuring waters of the Little Big Branch and the voices of nature, to which Emma Dean listened, nodded or shook her head as if she and those voices were holding converse. The laughing teasing of her companions failed to swerve Emma from her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... highest office in the gift of the people, he was patient, patriotic, and wise. We forget the exceeding difficulties with which he had to contend, and the virulence of his enemies. What if he was personally vain, pompous, irritable, jealous, stubborn, and fond of power? These traits did not swerve him from the path of duty and honor, nor dim the lustre of his patriotism, nor make him blind to the great interests of the country as he understood them,—the country whose independence and organized national life he did so much to secure. All cavils are wasted, and worse ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... burst into the saloon, suddenly to check his impetus, to swerve aside toward the bar and halt. The door had not ceased swinging when again it was propelled inward, this time to admit Helen Rayner, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... odorous oils declare Bridegroom, swerve not; a slippery (135) Love calls lightly, but yet refrain. Hymen, O Hymenaeus, O Hymen, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... from the blast of a bad wind. I believe that, on the whole, Janet was pleased. I will wager that, left to herself, she would have been drawn into an answer, if not an argument. Nothing would have made her resolution swerve, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... so much, that his soul yearned within him, and his cheeks were wetted with fast-flowing tears. Nevertheless, he overcame this thaw of his fortitude, and went forward in the strength of the Lord, determined to swerve not in his duty to the Earl of Glencairn, nor in his holier fealty to a far greater Master. But the softness that he felt in his nature made him gird himself with a firm purpose to ride through the town without stopping. ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... and stampeded by the vivid lightning and sharp peals of thunder, come wildly charging down the mountain trail, threatening to run quite over me in their mad career. Pulling my six-shooter, I fire a couple of shots in the air to attract their attention, when they rapidly swerve to the left, and go tearing frantically over the rolling hills on their wild flight ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... down it very enjoyably to himself, with all the weight of his sixteen hands and a half concentrated in his head, when suddenly a tall grassy bank confronted him, with, as he perceived with horror, a ditch in front of it. He tried to swerve, but there seemed something irrevocable about the way in which the bank faced him, and if his method of "changing feet" was not strictly conventional, he achieved the main point and found all four safely under him when he landed, which was as much—if not more than ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... and gracious in the wind. These warm Trade Winds, at least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from their mark, however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain where to go at last. And by the eternal Poles! these same Trades that so directly blow my good ship on; these Trades, or something like them—something so unchangeable, and full as strong, blow my ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... experience which he has here. Nevertheless, if such a letter should go, your Majesty would consider it suspicious; because it would be signed by some who would wish to see him undone, only because they do not dare to do otherwise; for he treats them like negro slaves when they swerve a point from his desires. About eight days ago he had called to his house all the honorable people, even to the master-of-camp and all the captains; and when they were before him, standing bareheaded, he treated them worse than he would his cobbler, speaking in these ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... valley, and managed to swerve round without falling. But for an instant she could not, she dared not, raise her eyes. Clear on the frosty air came sounds that made her blood turn cold. She felt as if her heart would suffocate her. A brief blindness blotted ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... more nervous. The tall water-tank and windmill were right in line. Before the young aviator could swerve the flying machine to escape the vane upon the roof of the tower, and the long arms of the mill, they were right ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... duty to a woman who was on the point of being shamefully deceived, also duty to the man whose hospitality he had enjoyed. To remain silent would be cowardly—of that he became absolutely certain, and once Bobby had made up his mind what duty was no power on earth could make him swerve ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... and unjust, Thy just and perfect purpose serve: The needle, howsoe'er it swerve, Still warranting the ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... first touch, is mostly between islands, and in continuous shelter. Sometimes the narrows are not wider than the Thames at Oxford; then you steam out into what seems to be a land-locked expanse of water, with precipitous mountain rocks ahead. By and by you swerve to right or left, and a totally different picture is presented. And so it is, hour after hour, and day after day. For many a league north of Bergen the mountains and island rocks are bare of vegetation—gloomy masses of grey and brown that frown ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... us physically is necessary to our development spiritually. Day after day we can be built up into stronger spiritual beings. We can become more like God, possessing a firmer Christian character and having an integrity that will not swerve for a life nor a world from the path of virtue. Constant progress is constant peace and happiness. It is the ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... glad the hearts of the father and of his daughter of the sounding spear. Now Reverence, Forethought's child, putteth valour and the joy of battle into the hearts of men; yet withal there cometh upon them bafflingly the cloud of forgetfulness and maketh the mind to swerve from the straight path of action. For they though they had brands burning yet kindled not the seed of flame, but with fireless rites they made a grove on the hill of the citadel. For them Zeus brought a yellow cloud into the sky and ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... river below the cataract and again they were lost to sight. And now the pursuers came into view—shouting Kor-ul-lul warriors, fierce and implacable. Forty, perhaps fifty of them. She waited breathless; but they did not swerve from the trail and passed her, unguessing that an enemy she lay hid within a few yards ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... before the midyear examinations came a crisis in the growth of their friendship. One afternoon Lila reached the head of the stairs barely in time to make a sudden swerve out of Miss Merriam's ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... are sent to Purgatory, but never again; otherwise they would still retain something private, which has no place there. Being established in charity, they can never deviate therefrom by any defect, and have no will or desire save the pure will of pure love, and can swerve from it in nothing. They can neither commit sin nor merit by refraining ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... vestige of healthy colour had come back to her cheeks or lips, her features had a set look of steadfast resolution, and her eyes looked straight before her, like the eyes of a person who has one special purpose in view, and will not swerve or falter until that purpose has been ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... one of the Arabs answered; "but even without that we could find our way, and do so even on the darkest night. The horses know the way as well as we do. When they have once journeyed over a track they never forget it, and even did they swerve a little it would not matter, for they can smell water miles away, and would always, if ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... attention. There is unquestionably a great native variety among individuals in the type of their attention. Some of us are naturally scatterbrained, and others follow easily a train of connected thoughts without temptation to swerve aside to other subjects. This seems to depend on a difference between individuals in the type of their field of consciousness. In some persons this is highly focalized and concentrated, and the focal ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... good horse and has done us good service," said Nealie, in a rather breathless fashion, as a sudden swerve on the part of Rocky sent her flying against the doctor, and then, as she settled back into her own corner and clutched at the side of the cart to keep from being tossed out, she went on in an anxious tone: "I wonder what Mr. Wallis will say ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... in him. All the principles and notions of good and evil were exactly drawn in it. He had a natural discerning of them, and a natural inclination to all good, and aversion from all evil, as there is a kind of law imposed by God upon other creatures, which they constantly keep and do not swerve from, even his decree and commandment, to the obedience of which they are composed and framed. The sea hath a law and command to flow and ebb, and it is that command that breaks its proud waves on the sand, when they ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... within a spring of his prey, and it seemed hopeless to expect to save poor Roshan Khan from his clutches. Just at this moment, however, the terrified youth caught sight of the brute over his left shoulder, and providentially made a quick swerve to the right. As the lion turned to follow him, he came broadside on to me, and just as he had Roshan Khan within striking distance and was about to seize him, he dropped in the middle of what would otherwise assuredly have ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... the spearman, who suddenly let his spear fall into the rest, and spurred, and drave on at Ralph all he might. There and then had the tale ended, but Ralph, who was wary, though he were young, and had Falcon well in hand, turned his wrist and made the horse swerve, so that the man-at-arms missed his attaint, but could not draw rein speedily enough to stay his horse; and as he passed by all bowed over his horse's neck, Ralph gat his sword two-handed and rose in his stirrups and smote his mightiest; and the sword caught the foeman on the neck ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... probable and ordinary course of man's experience." A romance, on the other hand, "while, as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart, has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation. If he think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... if he would preserve His eyes in perfect sight, drinking to swerve; But he reply'd, 'tis better that I shu'd Loose the, then keep them for ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... schismatic, a traitor. He was pursued by malicious rumors to blacken his name, and by armed men to shed his blood. Yet he continued steadfastly on his way. Winter storms and summer rains could not abate his ardor. Neither the advice of friends, nor the wrath of foes, could swerve him, no, not one moment, nor one hairbreath. His spirit was on fire while his body was emaciated. A thousand arrows were flying around this dove, some of them drinking its blood, ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... that after many angry remonstrances he threatened to disinherit him if he did not renounce all connection with the reformers. But Maximilian, true to his conscience, would not allow the apprehension of the loss of a crown to induce him to swerve from his faith. Fully expecting to be thus cast off and banished from the kingdom, he wrote to the ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... the most wild, untamed caprice: yet they enjoy almost all the advantages, which a well-regulated authority can procure to the most civilized nations. Born free and independent, they hold in horror the very shadow of despotic power; but they rarely swerve from certain principles and customs, founded upon good-sense, which stand them in the stead of laws, and supplement in some sort to their want of legal authority. All constraint mocks them; but reason alone hold them in a kind of subordination, which, for its being voluntary, does not ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... the sound of the cannon by the 'Lion of the North,' Gustavus Adolphus, her father. She loves the smell of powder and brave men; but I would not serve her, because she is a Huguenot, and I have fixed principles, from which I never swerve. 'Par exemple', I swear to you by Saint Jacques to guide Monsieur through the passes of the Pyrenees to Oleron as surely as through these woods, and to defend him against the Devil, if need be, as well as your papers, which we will bring you back without blot ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a grave harangue Don't others give, said he, the poignant pang; But ev'ry one allow to keep his own, As God and reason oft to man have shown, And recommended fully to observe; You from it surely have not cause to swerve; You cannot plead that you for beauty pine You've one at home who far surpasses mine; No longer give yourself such trouble, pray: You, to my help-mate, too much honour pay; Such marked attentions she can ne'er require Let each of us, alone his own ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... been supposed to be a little misled, endeavours to mend her error; and, never once losing sight of her duty, does all in her power to recover the path she has been rather driven out of than chosen to swerve from. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... with more than human obedience. He knew how to humor its mood. He conserved its power for a hill with unerring accuracy and threw it over the grades with rarely a pause to change his speeds. He could turn the sharp curves with such swift, easy grace that he scarcely caused Mary's body to swerve an inch. He could sense a rough place in the road and glide over ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon |
