"Brandish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... through the livid gleam of a fire, the eyes surrounded by large white circles, in contrast with the black ground, the hair stuck full of pieces of bone and in the hand a grasped club, which they occasionally brandish with the greatest fierceness and agility. Some dances are performed by men only, some by women only, and in others the sexes mingle. In one of them I have seen the men drop on their hands and knees and kiss the earth with the greatest fervor, between the kisses ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shook By night, with noises of the Northern Sea. So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him Three times, and drew him under in the mere. And lightly went the ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... that we can die but once, and it is a glorious thing to die for a great principle. Give me that rope. I can pull like an ox in my present frame of mind. You run down on the opposite side of the brook, take that big stick wade right in—you are barefooted,—brandish the stick, and, if necessary, do more than brandish. I would go myself, but it is better she should recognize you as her master, and I am in as much danger as you are, anyway. She may try to hook you, of course, but you must keep ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... thou not there find out some better way of trampling? Pump thine invention dry; cannot the universal seed-plot of subtile wiles and stratagems spring up one new method of cutting capers? Is this the top of skill and pride, to shuffle feet and brandish knees thus, and to trip like a doe and skip like a squirrel? And wherein differ thy leapings from the hoppings of a frog, or the bouncings of a goat, or friskings of a dog, or gesticulations of a monkey? And cannot a palsy shake ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... their pieces, The chief-gunner ranges and sights his piece and selects a fuse of the right time, After firing I see him lean aside and look eagerly off to note the effect; Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging, (the young colonel leads himself this time with brandish'd sword,) I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up, no delay,) I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover low concealing all; Now a strange lull for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... and proceed to pass some wire through the pistol-grip. The old man disappears, but he returns with three grave-diggers, who brandish their spades in terrifying manner. "Ha!" I think, "I must fly away." I fly my wings (did I tell you I had wings?) and rise above the church tower. Archie has evidently opened fire, for I hear a near-by wouff. I try to dodge, but it is too late. A shell fragment strikes my nose. Much to ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... half-breeds of Prince Albert, incited by Riel, began to collect fire-arms, and to drill in each others barns, the Indians began to sing and dance, and to brandish their tomahawks. Their way of living during late years has been altogether too slow, too dead-and-alive, too unlike the ways of their ancestors, when once at least in each year, every warrior returned to his lodge with scalp locks dangling at his belt. Les Gros-Ventres ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... the wheels of your conjugal machinery must be set going in sight of every one. In this case, if you would prevent a crime you must strike a blow. You have begun by negotiating, you must end by mounting your horse, sabre in hand, like a Parisian gendarme. You must make your horse prance, you must brandish your sabre, you must shout strenuously, and you must endeavor to calm the revolt without ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... He could not brandish the sword; so the Princess said that he was to take a draught from the flask which hung by its side, and when he had done that ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... works which they had so gallantly defended; and hardly enough artillerymen were left to have pulled back, with their united efforts, the spring of one of the pea cannons. The leaders on both sides remained unscathed, and continued to brandish bent lead swords at each other in ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... such word more, by Heaven, I'll to the senate, And hang ye all, like dogs, in clusters. Why peep your coward swords half out their sheaths? Why do you not all brandish them like mine? You fear to die, and yet dare ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... the bronze tomb of Maxmilian I. and twenty or thirty bronze statues ranged on each side of the nave, representing fierce warrior-chiefs, and gowned prelates, and stately damsels of the middle ages. These are all curious for the costume; the warriors are cased in various kinds of ancient armor, and brandish various ancient weapons, and the robes of the females are flowing and by no means ungraceful. Almost every one of the statues has its hands and fingers in some constrained and awkward position; as if the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... and roly-poly, with a little round mouth and big round eyes, and a curlicue of topknot that he wagged in emphasis as a unicorn might brandish his horn. Mr. Harnden considered that he was a good talker. He was considerably piqued by Britt's apparent failure to get interested, although the banker was making considerable of an effort to return suitable replies when the inventor ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... yerst the Phrygian Knight, So ours with rusty steel did smite His Trojan horse, and just as much He mended pace upon the touch; 920 But from his empty stomach groan'd Just as that hollow beast did sound, And angry answer'd from behind, With brandish'd tail and blast of wind. So have I seen, with armed heel, 925 A wight bestride a Common-weal; While still the more he kick'd and spurr'd, The less the sullen ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... found it fascinating, and that my experience had cost me eighteen-pence, the cheapness of which he had to admit. I am glad that I added up my expenses, for that eighteen-pence was very useful, it was such a delightfully ridiculous sum to brandish at any one who thought that I was trotting down the ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... To brandish high thy sword, With calm assurance, And face the devil's horde With brave endurance, Is meet and well begun, And merits praising. But from the strife to run, When blows thy courage stun, Is ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... you, 510 Lief or loth were he, might lay wyte to stay you Your sorrowful journey, when on the sea row'd ye; Then when the ocean-stream ye with your arms deck'd, Meted the mere-streets, there your hands brandish'd! O'er the Spearman ye glided; the sea with waves welter'd, The surge of the winter. Ye twain in the waves' might For a seven nights swink'd. He outdid thee in swimming, And the more was his might; but him in the ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... his brandish'd plume Brushing his instep, bow'd the all-amorous Earl. And the stout Prince bade him a loud good-night. He moving homeward babbled to his men, How Enid never loved a man but him, Nor cared a broken ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... Fulfil that promise erst my damsel made; Who vowed to Holy Venus and her son, Cupid, should I return to her anon And cease to brandish iamb-lines accurst, 5 The writ selected erst of bards the worst She to the limping Godhead would devote With slowly-burning wood of illest note. This was the vilest which my girl could find With vow facetious to the Gods assigned. 10 Now, O Creation of the ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... with their own heads and their wives and little ones. Yea of a surety I know this in heart and soul; the day shall come for holy Ilios to be laid low, and Priam and the folk of Priam of the good ashen spear; and Zeus the son of Kronos enthroned on high, that dwelleth in the heaven, himself shall brandish over them all his lowring aegis, in indignation at this deceit. Then shall all this not be void; yet shall I have sore sorrow for thee, Menelaos, if thou die and fulfil the lot of life. Yea in utter ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... been acknowledged, it has assailed men who stood by their country when she needed strong arms and bold hearts, and has assailed them when, maimed and disabled in her service, they could no longer brandish a weapon in her defence. It has afflicted the feeble and dependent wife for the imaginary faults of the husband. It has stricken down Innocence in its beauty, Youth in its freshness, Manhood in its vigor, and Age in ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for the disgrace and confusion of him (in dedecus et confusionem ejus). I, however, pretended to be Scotch, and putting on the garb of a Scotchman, and taking the gesture of one, walked along; and when anybody mocked at me, I would brandish my staff in the manner of that weapon they call gaveloc,[8] uttering comminatory words after the way of the Scotch. To those that met and questioned me who I was, I made no answer but: Ride, ride ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... to where the moonbeams meet the tree's shadow, and there lays her along. Then dropping to his knees, he draws out something that glistens. Two months before he stooped over the prostrate form of her lover, holding a photograph before his eyes—her own portrait. In her's he is about to brandish a knife! ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... misunderstanding of Mr. Darwin's "distinctive feature" should have been so long and obstinate? Why is it that, no matter how much writers like Mr. Grant Allen and Professor Ray Lankester may say about "Mr. Darwin's master-key," nor how many more like hyperboles they brandish, they never put a succinct resume of Mr. Darwin's theory side by side with a similar resume of his grandfather's and Lamarck's? Neither Mr. Darwin himself, not any of those to whose advocacy his reputation is mainly due, have done this. Professor Huxley is the man of all others who foisted Mr. ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... bone, and shells at their ears and about their necks, and the men generally wear long white feathers stuck upright in their hair. They came off in canoes which will carry a hundred people; when within a stone's throw of the ship, the chief of the party would brandish a battleaxe, calling out: 'Come ashore with us and we will kill you.' They would certainly have eaten them ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... Greeks shouted for joy. Jason next proceeded to sow the dragon's teeth and plough them in. And soon the crop of armed men sprang up, and, wonderful to relate! no sooner had they reached the surface than they began to brandish their weapons and rush upon Jason. The Greeks trembled for their hero, and even she who had provided him a way of safety and taught him how to use it, Medea herself, grew pale with fear. Jason for ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... [See Note on Arbeau's 'Orchesographie.' 1588.] The derivation of the name is from the French, bransle, a totter, swing, shake, etc., or perhaps from Old French Brandeler, to wag, shake, swing. Skeat thinks the original dance may have been a sword dance, and with this he connects the word Brandish.[20] It was danced, sometimes in a ring, holding hands, and ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... of this!" exclaimed Raed; for they were beginning to brandish their harpoons menacingly, and ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... chains would be given something to eat at the Red Lion; or the yard gates of the King's Arms would be closed, and armed warders would let out their prisoners for a little rest on the way to Botany Bay. But the sailors were the merry folk. They would brandish their bottles and cheer, and sometimes, when the coach swayed, would swing with it as sailors should on a sloping deck; then ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... with a weapon in his hand, it is an Agerepta. If he brandish it, it is an Avaoirista. If he actually smite a man with malicious aforethought, it is an Aredus. Upon the fifth Aredus ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky; And with them scourge the bad revolting stars, That have consented unto ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and fifty dollars—two hundred dollars—three hundred dollars were the gay figures which they bore, and which he flaunted in the air before he sat down at table, or rose from it to brandish, and then, flinging his napkin into his chair, walked up ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was impossible for me to compute their number, considering the space of ground they took up. A cavalier, mounted on a large steed, might be about ninety feet high. I have seen this whole body of horse, upon a word of command, draw their swords at once, and brandish them in the air. Imagination can figure nothing so grand, so surprising, and so astonishing! it looked as if ten thousand flashes of lightning were darting at the same time from ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... pen which I now take and brandish Has long lain useless in my standish. Know, every maid, from her own patten, To her who shines in glossy sattin, That could they now prepare an oglio From best receipt of book in folio, Ever so fine, for all ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... the shore they saw two proas full of natives, who immediately put themselves in a posture of defence. The sailors made signs to them that they wanted provisions, but instead of giving it the Malays began to brandish their cresses or steel daggers. Three of the men jumped on board a proa to beg some Indian corn, and got three or four small ears. The chief seemed quite friendly and agreed to sell captain Woodward two cocoa nuts for a dollar, but as soon as he had ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... the very lime-twigs of his spells, And yet came off: if you have this about you (As I will give you when we go) you may Boldly assault the necromancers hall; Where if he be, with dauntless hardihood, 650 And brandish't blade rush on him, break his glass, And shed the lushious liquor on the ground, But sease his wand, though he and his curst crew Feirce signe of battail make, and menace high, Or like the sons of Vulcan vomit smoak, Yet will they soon retire, if ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton |
